University of Virginia Library

25.
CHAPTER XXV.

"I HAD to go twenty-five versts by carriage
and eight hours by train. By carriage it was a
very pleasant journey. The coolness of autumn
was accompanied by a brilliant sun. You know
the weather when the wheels imprint themselves
upon the dirty road. The road was level, and
the light strong, and the air strengthening. The

tarantass
was comfortable. As I looked at the
horses, the fields, and the people whom we
passed, I forgot where I was going. Sometimes
it seemed to me that I was travelling without an
object,—simply promenading,—and that I
should go on thus to the end of the world. And
I was happy when I so forgot myself. But
when I remembered where I was going, I said
to myself: 'I shall see later. Don't think about
it.'

"When half way, an incident happened to dis-
tract me still further. The
tarantass, though

new, broke down, and had to be repaired. The
delays in looking for a
télègue, the repairs, the
payment, the tea in the inn, the conversation
with the
dvornik, all served to amuse me. To-
ward nightfall all was ready, and I started off
again. By night the journey was still pleasanter
than by day. The moon in its first quarter, a
slight frost, the road still in good condition, the
horses, the sprightly coachman, all served to put
me in good spirits. I scarcely thought of what
awaited me, and was gay perhaps because of
the very thing that awaited me, and because I
was about to say farewell to the joys of life.

"But this tranquil state, the power of con-
quering my pre-occupation, all ended with the
carriage drive. Scarcely had I entered the cars,
when the other thing began. Those eight hours
on the rail were so terrible to me that I shall
never forget them in my life. Was it because
on entering the car I had a vivid imagination of
having already arrived, or because the railway
acts upon people in such an exciting fashion?

At any rate, after boarding the train I could no
longer control my imagination, which inces-
santly, with extraordinary vivacity, drew pic-

tures before my eyes, each more cynical than its
predecessor, which kindled my jealousy. And
always the same things about what was hap-
pening at home during my absence. I burned
with indignation, with rage, and with a peculiar
feeling which steeped me in humiliation, as I
contemplated these pictures. And I could not
tear myself out of this condition. I could not
help looking at them, I could not efface them,
I could not keep from evoking them.

"The more I looked at these imaginary pict-
ures, the more I believed in their reality, forget-
ting that they had no serious foundation. The
vivacity of these images seemed to prove to me
that my imaginations were a reality. One
would have said that a demon, against my will,
was inventing and breathing into me the most
terrible fictions. A conversation which dated
a long time back, with the brother of Trouk-
hatchevsky, I remembered at that moment, in
a sort of ecstasy, and it tore my heart as I con-
nected it with the musician and my wife. Yes,
it was very long ago. The brother of Trouk-
hatchevsky, answering my questions as to
whether he frequented disreputable houses, said

that a respectable man does not go where he
may contract a disease, in a low and unclean
spot, when one can find an honest woman. And
here he, his brother, the musician, had found
the honest woman. 'It is true that she is no
longer in her early youth. She has lost a tooth
on one side, and her face is slightly bloated,'
thought I for Troukhatchevsky. 'But what is
to be done? One must profit by what one has.'

"'Yes, he is bound to take her for his mis-
tress,' said I to myself again; 'and besides, she
is not dangerous.'

"'No, it is not possible' I rejoined in fright.
'Nothing, nothing of the kind has happened,
and there is no reason to suppose there has.

Did she not tell me that the very idea that I
could be jealous of her because of him was hu-
miliating to her?' 'Yes, but she lied,' I cried,
and all began over again.

"There were only two travellers in my com-
partment: an old woman with her husband,
neither of them very talkative; and even they
got out at one of the stations, leaving me all
alone. I was like a beast in a cage. Now I
jumped up and approached the window, now I

began to walk back and forth, staggering as if
I hoped to make the train go faster by my ef-
forts, and the car with its seats and its windows
trembled continually, as ours does now."

And Posdnicheff rose abruptly, took a few
steps, and sat down again.

"Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid of railway car-
riages. Fear seizes me. I sat down again, and
I said to myself: 'I must think of something
else. For instance, of the inn keeper at whose
house I took tea.' And then, in my imagination
arose the
dvornik
, with his long beard, and his
grandson, a little fellow of the same age as my
little Basile. My little Basile! My little Basile!

He will see the musician kiss his mother! What
thoughts will pass through his poor soul! But
what does that matter to her! She loves.

"And again it all began, the circle of the same
thoughts. I suffered so much that at last I did
not know what to do with myself, and an idea
passed through my head that pleased me much,
—to get out upon the rails, throw myself under
the cars, and thus finish everything. One thing
prevented me from doing so. It was pity! It
was pity for myself, evoking at the same time a

hatred for her, for him, but not so much for
him. Toward him I felt a strange sentiment of
my humiliation and his victory, but toward her
a terrible hatred.

"'But I cannot kill myself and leave her free.

She must suffer, she must understand at least
that I have suffered,' said I to myself.

"At a station I saw people drinking at the
lunch counter, and directly I went to swallow a
glass of Vodka. Beside me stood a Jew, drink-
ing also. He began to talk to me, and I, in
order not to be left alone in my compartment,
went with him into his third-class, dirty, full of
smoke, and covered with peelings and sunflower
seeds. There I sat down beside the Jew, and,
as it seemed, he told many anecdotes.

"First I listened to him, but I did not under-
stand what he said. He noticed it, and exacted
my attention to his person. Then I rose and en-
tered my own compartment.

"'I must consider,' said I to myself, 'whether
what I think is true, whether there is any reason
to torment myself.' I sat down, wishing to re-
flect quietly; but directly, instead of the peace-
ful reflections, the same thing began again. In-
stead of the reasoning, the pictures.

"'How many times have I tormented myself
in this way,' I thought (I recalled previous and
similar fits of jealousy), 'and then seen it end in
nothing at all? It is the same now. Perhaps,
yes, surely, I shall find her quietly sleeping. She
will awaken, she will be glad, and in her words
and looks I shall see that nothing has happened,
that all this is vain. Ah, if it would only so turn
out!' 'But no, that has happened too often!

Now the end has come,' a voice said to me.

"And again it all began. Ah, what torture!

It is not to a hospital filled with syphilitic
patients that I would take a young man to de-
prive him of the desire for women, but into my
soul, to show him the demon which tore it. The
frightful part was that I recognized in myself
an indisputable right to the body of my wife, as
if her body were entirely mine. And at the
same time I felt that I could not possess this
body, that it was not mine, that she could do
with it as she liked, and that she liked to do with
it as I did not like. And I was powerless against
him and against her. He, like the Vanka of the
song, would sing, before mounting the gallows,
how he would kiss her sweet lips, etc., and he
would even have the best of it before death.

With her it was still worse. If she
had not done
it
, she had the desire, she wished to do it, and
I knew that she did. That was worse yet. It
would be better if she had already done it, to
relieve me of my uncertainty.

"In short, I could not say what I desired. I
desired that she might not want what she
must

want. It was complete madness.