University of Virginia Library

19.
CHAPTER XIX.

POSDNICHEFF'S face had become transformed;
his eyes were pitiable; their expression seemed

strange, like that of another being than himself;
his moustache and beard turned up toward the
top of his face; his nose was diminished, and his
mouth enlarged, immense, frightful.

"Yes," he resumed "she had grown stouter
since ceasing to conceive, and her anxieties about
her children began to disappear. Not even to
disappear. One would have said that she was
waking from a long intoxication, that on coming
to herself she had perceived the entire universe
with its joys, a whole world in which she had not
learned to live, and which she did not under-
stand.

"'If only this world shall not vanish! When
time is past, when old age comes, one cannot
recover it.' Thus, I believe, she thought, or
rather felt. Moreover, she could neither think
nor feel otherwise. She had been brought up in
this idea that there is in the world but one thing
worthy of attention,—love. In marrying, she
had known something of this love, but very far
from everything that she had understood as
promised her, everything that she expected.

How many disillusions! How much suffering!

And an unexpected torture,—the children! This

torture had told upon her, and then, thanks to
the obliging doctor, she had learned that it is
possible to avoid having children. That had
made her glad. She had tried, and she was now
revived for the only thing that she knew,—for
love. But love with a husband polluted by jeal-
ousy and ill-nature was no longer her ideal.

She began to think of some other tenderness;
at least, that is what I thought. She looked
about her as if expecting some event or some
being. I noticed it, and I could not help being
anxious.

"Always, now, it happened that, in talking
with me through a third party (that is, in talking
with others, but with the intention that I should
hear), she boldly expressed,—not thinking that
an hour before she had said the opposite,—half
joking, half seriously, this idea that maternal
anxieties are a delusion; that it is not worth
while to sacrifice one's life to children. When
one is young, it is necessary to enjoy life. So
she occupied herself less with the children, not
with the same intensity as formerly, and paid
more and more attention to herself, to her face,
—although she concealed it,—to her pleasures,

and even to her perfection from the worldly
point of view. She began to devote herself
passionately to the piano, which had formerly
stood forgotten in the corner. There, at the
piano, began the adventure.

"The
man
appeared."

Posdnicheff seemed embarrassed, and twice
again there escaped him that nasal sound of
which I spoke above. I thought that it gave
him pain to refer to the
man
, and to remember
him. He made an effort, as if to break down
the obstacle that embarrassed him, and continued
with determination.

"He was a bad man in my eyes, and not be-
cause he has played such an important
rôle
in my
life, but because he was really such. For the
rest, from the fact that he was bad, we must con-
clude that he was irresponsible. He was a mu-
sician, a violinist. Not a professional musician,
but half man of the world, half artist. His
father, a country proprietor, was a neighbor of
my father's. The father had become ruined, and
the children, three boys, were all sent away. Our
man, the youngest, was sent to his godmother at
Paris. There they placed him in the Conserva-

tory, for he showed a taste for music. He came
out a violinist, and played in concerts."

On the point of speaking evil of the other,
Posdnicheff checked himself, stopped, and said
suddenly:

"In truth, I know not how he lived. I only
know that that year he came to Russia, and came
to see me. Moist eyes of almond shape, smil-
ing red lips, a little moustache well waxed, hair
brushed in the latest fashion, a vulgarly pretty
face,—what the women call 'not bad,'—feebly
built physically, but with no deformity; with hips
as broad as a woman's; correct, and insinuating
himself into the familiarity of people as far as
possible, but having that keen sense that quickly
detects a false step and retires in reason,—a
man, in short, observant of the external rules of
dignity, with that special Parisianism that is re-
vealed in buttoned boots, a gaudy cravat, and
that something which foreigners pick up in
Paris, and which, in its peculiarity and novelty,
always has an influence on our women. In his
manners an external and artificial gayety, a way,
you know, of referring to everything by hints,
by unfinished fragments, as if everything that

one says you knew already, recalled it, and could
supply the omissions. Well, he, with his music,
was the cause of all.

"At the trial the affair was so represented that
everything seemed attributable to jealousy. It is
false,—that is, not quite false, but there was
something else. The verdict was rendered that
I was a deceived husband, that I had killed in
defence of my sullied honor (that is the way
they put it in their language), and thus I was
acquitted. I tried to explain the affair from my
own point of view, but they concluded that I
simply wanted to rehabilitate the memory of my
wife. Her relations with the musician, whatever
they may have been, are now of no importance
to me or to her. The important part is what I
have told you. The whole tragedy was due to
the fact that this man came into our house at a
time when an immense abyss had already been
dug between us, that frightful tension of mutual
hatred, in which the slightest motive sufficed to
precipitate the crisis. Our quarrels in the last
days were something terrible, and the more as-
tonishing because they were followed by a brutal
passion extremely strained. If it had not been

he, some other would have come. If the pretext
had not been jealousy, I should have discovered
another. I insist upon this point,—that all hus-
bands who live the married life that I lived must
either resort to outside debauchery, or separate
from their wives, or kill themselves, or kill their
wives as I did. If there is any one in my case
to whom this does not happen, he is a very rare
exception, for, before ending as I ended, I was
several times on the point of suicide, and my
wife made several attempts to poison herself.