University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

"YES, jealousy, that is another of the secrets
of marriage known to all and concealed by all.

Besides the general cause of the mutual hatred
of husbands and wives resulting from complicity
in the pollution of a human being, and also from

other causes, the inexhaustible source of marital
wounds is jealousy. But by tacit consent it is
determined to conceal them from all, and we
conceal them. Knowing them, each one sup-
poses in himself that it is an unfortunate pecu-
liarity, and not a common destiny. So it was
with me, and it had to be so. There cannot fail
to be jealousy between husbands and wives
who live immorally. If they cannot sacrifice
their pleasures for the welfare of their child,
they conclude therefrom, and truly, that they
will not sacrifice their pleasures for, I will not
say happiness and tranquillity (since one may sin
in secret), but even for the sake of conscience.

Each one knows very well that neither admits
any high moral reasons for not betraying the
other, since in their mutual relations they fail in
the requirements of morality, and from that
time distrust and watch each other.

"Oh, what a frightful feeling of jealousy! I
do not speak of that real jealousy which has
foundations (it is tormenting, but it promises an
issue), but of that unconscious jealousy which
inevitably accompanies every immoral marriage,
and which, having no cause, has no end. This

jealousy is frightful. Frightful, that is the
word.

"And this is it. A young man speaks to my
wife. He looks at her with a smile, and, as it
seems to me, he surveys her body. How does
he dare to think of her, to think of the possibility
of a romance with her? And how can she, see-
ing this, tolerate him? Not only does she toler-
ate him, but she seems pleased. I even see that
she puts herself to trouble on his account. And
in my soul there rises such a hatred for her that
each of her words, each gesture, disgusts me.

She notices it, she knows not what to do, and
how assume an air of indifferent animation?

Ah! I suffer! That makes her gay, she is con-
tent. And my hatred increases tenfold, but I do
not dare to give it free force, because at the
bottom of my soul I know that there are no real
reasons for it, and I remain in my seat, feigning
indifference, and exaggerating my attention and
courtesy to
him
.

"Then I get angry with myself. I desire to
leave the room, to leave them alone, and I do,
in fact, go out; but scarcely am I outside when I
am invaded by a fear of what is taking place

within my absence. I go in again, inventing
some pretext. Or sometimes I do not go in; I
remain near the door, and listen. How can she
humiliate herself and humiliate me by placing
me in this cowardly situation of suspicion and
espionage? Oh, abomination! Oh, the wicked
animal! And he too, what does he think of
you? But he is like all men. He is what I was
before my marriage. It gives him pleasure.

He even smiles when he looks at me, as much
as to say: 'What have you to do with this? It
is my turn now.'

"This feeling is horrible. Its burn is unen-
durable. To entertain this feeling toward any
one, to once suspect a man of lusting after my
wife, was enough to spoil this man forever in
my eyes, as if he had been sprinkled with vitriol.

Let me once become jealous of a being, and
nevermore could I re-establish with him simple
human relations, and my eyes flashed when I
looked at him.

"As for my wife, so many times had I en-
veloped her with this moral vitriol, with this
jealous hatred, that she was degraded thereby.

In the periods of this causeless hatred I grad-

ually uncrowned her. I covered her with shame
in my imagination.

"I invented impossible knaveries. I suspected,

I am ashamed to say, that she, this queen of
'The Thousand and One Nights,' deceived me
with my serf, under my very eyes, and laughing
at me. Thus, with each new access of jealousy
(I speak always of causeless jealousy), I en-
tered into the furrow dug formerly by my filthy
suspicions, and I continually deepened it. She
did the same thing. If I have reasons to be
jealous, she who knew my past had a thousand
times more. And she was more ill-natured in
her jealousy than I. And the sufferings that I
felt from her jealousy were different, and like-
wise very painful.

"The situation may be described thus. We
are living more or less tranquilly. I am even
gay and contented. Suddenly we start a conver-
sation on some most commonplace subject, and
directly she finds herself disagreeing with me
upon matters concerning which we have been
generally in accord. And furthermore I see that,
without any necessity therefor, she is becoming
irritated. I think that she has a nervous attack,

or else that the subject of conversation is really
disagreeable to her. We talk of something else,
and that begins again. Again she torments me,
and becomes irritated. I am astonished and
look for a reason. Why? For what? She
keeps silence, answers me with monosyllables,
evidently making allusions to something. I
begin to divine that the reason of all this is that
I have taken a few walks in the garden with her
cousin, to whom I did not give even a thought.

I begin to divine, but I cannot say so. If I say
so, I confirm her suspicions. I interrogate her,

I question her. She does not answer, but she
sees that I understand, and that confirms her
suspicions.

"'What is the matter with you?' I ask.

"'Nothing, I am as well as usual,' she an-
swers.

"And at the same time, like a crazy woman,
she gives utterance to the silliest remarks, to
the most inexplicable explosions of spite.

"Sometimes I am patient, but at other times
I break out with anger. Then her own irritation
is launched forth in a flood of insults, in charges
of imaginary crimes and all carried to the

highest degree by sobs, tears, and retreats
through the house to the most improbable spots.

I go to look for her. I am ashamed before peo-
ple, before the children, but there is nothing to
be done. She is in a condition where I feel that
she is ready for anything. I run, and finally find
her. Nights of torture follow, in which both of
us, with exhausted nerves, appease each other,
after the most cruel words and accusations.

"Yes, jealousy, causeless jealousy, is the con-
dition of our debauched conjugal life. And
throughout my marriage never did I cease to
feel it and to suffer from it. There were two
periods in which I suffered most intensely. The
first time was after the birth of our first child,
when the doctors had forbidden my wife to
nurse it. I was particularly jealous, in the first
place, because my wife felt that restlessness pe-
culiar to animal matter when the regular course
of life is interrupted without occasion. But
especially was I jealous because, having seen
with what facility she had thrown off her moral
duties as a mother, I concluded rightly, though
unconsciously, that she would throw off as easily
her conjugal duties, feeling all the surer of this

because she was in perfect health, as was shown
by the fact that, in spite of the prohibition of
the dear doctors, she nursed her following chil-
dren, and even very well."

"I see that you have no love for the doctors,"
said I, having noticed Posdnicheff's extraordina-
rily spiteful expression of face and tone of voice
whenever he spoke of them.

"It is not a question of loving them or of not
loving them. They have ruined my life, as they
have ruined the lives of thousands of beings
before me, and I cannot help connecting the con-
sequence with the cause. I conceive that they
desire, like the lawyers and the rest, to make
money. I would willingly have given them half
of my income—and any one would have done it
in my place, understanding what they do—if
they had consented not to meddle in my conjugal
life, and to keep themselves at a distance. I
have compiled no statistics, but I know scores of
cases—in reality, they are innumerable—where
they have killed, now a child in its mother's
womb, asserting positively that the mother could
not give birth to it (when the mother could give
birth to it very well), now mothers, under the

pretext of a so-called operation. No one has
counted these murders, just as no one counted
the murders of the Inquisition, because it was
supposed that they were committed for the bene-
fit of humanity. Innumerable are the crimes of
the doctors! But all these crimes are nothing
compared with the materialistic demoralization
which they introduce into the world through
women. I say nothing of the fact that, if it were
to follow their advice,—thanks to the microbe
which they see everywhere,—humanity, instead
of tending to union, would proceed straight to
complete disunion. Everybody, according to
their doctrine, should isolate himself, and never
remove from his mouth a syringe filled with
phenic acid (moreover, they have found out now
that it does no good). But I would pass over all
these things. The supreme poison is the perver-
sion of people, especially of women. One can
no longer say now: 'You live badly, live better.'

One can no longer say it either to himself or to
others, for, if you live badly (say the doctors),
the cause is in the nervous system or in some-
thing similar, and it is necessary to go to con-
sult them, and they will prescribe for you thirty-

five copecks' worth of remedies to be bought at
the drug-store, and you must swallow them.

Your condition grows worse? Again to the
doctors, and more remedies! An excellent busi-
ness!

"But to return to our subject. I was saying
that my wife nursed her children well, that the
nursing and the gestation of the children, and
the children in general, quieted my tortures of
jealousy, but that, on the other hand, they pro-
voked torments of a different sort.