University of Virginia Library

23.
CHAPTER XXIII.

"I THINK that it is superfluous to say that I
was very vain. If one has no vanity in this life
of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living.

So for that Sunday I had busied myself in taste-

fully arranging things for the dinner and the
musical
soirée
. I had purchased myself numer-
ous things for the dinner, and had chosen the
guests. Toward six o'clock they arrived, and
after them Troukhatchevsky, in his dress-coat,
with diamond shirt-studs, in bad taste. He bore
himself with ease. To all questions he respond-
ed promptly, with a smile of contentment and
understanding, and that peculiar expression
which was intended to mean: 'All that you may
do and say will be exactly what I expected.'

Everything about him that was not correct I
now noticed with especial pleasure, for it all
tended to tranquillize me, and prove to me that
to my wife he stood in such a degree of in-
feriority that, as she had told me, she could not
stoop to his level. Less because of my wife's
assurances than because of the atrocious suffer-
ings which I felt in jealousy, I no longer al-
lowed myself to be jealous.

"In spite of that, I was not at ease with the
musician or with her during dinner-time and the
time that elapsed before the beginning of the
music. Involuntarily I followed each of their
gestures and looks. The dinner, like all dinners,

was tiresome and conventional. Not long after-
ward the music began. He went to get his
violin; my wife advanced to the piano, and
rummaged among the scores. Oh, how well I
remember all the details of that evening! I
remember how he brought the violin, how he
opened the box, took off the serge embroidered
by a lady's hand, and began to tune the instru-
ment. I can still see my wife sit down, with a
false air of indifference, under which it was
plain that she hid a great timidity, a timidity that
was especially due to her comparative lack of
musical knowledge. She sat down with that
false air in front of the piano, and then began
the usual preliminaries,—the
pizzicati
of the vio-
lin and the arrangement of the scores. I re-
member then how they looked at each other, and
cast a glance at their auditors who were taking
their seats. They said a few words to each
other, and the music began. They played
Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata.' Do you know
the first
presto?
Do you know it? Ah!" . . .

Posdnicheff heaved a sigh, and was silent for
a long time.

"A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the

presto!
And a terrible thing is music in gen-
eral. What is it ? Why does it do what it does?

They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity!

A lie! It acts, it acts frightfully (I speak for
myself), but not in an ennobling way. It acts
neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but
in an irritating way. How shall I say it? Music
makes me forget my real situation. It trans-
ports me into a state which is not my own. Un-
der the influence of music I really seem to feel
what I do not feel, to understand what I do not
understand, to have powers which I cannot have.

Music seems to me to act like yawning or laugh-
ter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when
I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I
laugh when I hear others laugh. And music
transports me immediately into the condition of
soul in which he who wrote the music found
himself at that time. I become confounded with
his soul, and with him I pass from one condition
to another. But why that? I know nothing
about it? But he who wrote Beethoven's 'Kreut-
zer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a
certain condition. That condition led him to
certain actions, and for that reason to him had a

meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And
that is why music provokes an excitement which
it does not bring to a conclusion. For instance,
a military march is played; the soldier passes
to the sound of this march, and the music is fin-
ished. A dance is played; I have finished danc-
ing, and the music is finished. A mass is sung;

I receive the sacrament, and again the music is
finished. But any other music provokes an ex-
citement, and this excitement is not accompanied
by the thing that needs properly to be done, and
that is why music is so dangerous, and some-
times acts so frightfully.

"In China music is under the control of the
State, and that is the way it ought to be. Is it
admissible that the first comer should hypnotize
one or more persons, and then do with them as
he likes? And especially that the hypnotizer
should be the first immoral individual who
happens to come along? It is a frightful power
in the hands of any one, no matter whom. For
instance, should they be allowed to play this
'Kreutzer Sonata,' the first
presto,
—and there
are many like it,—in parlors, among ladies wear-
ing low necked dresses, or in concerts, then

finish the piece, receive the applause, and then
begin another piece? These things should be
played under certain circumstances, only in cases
where it is necessary to incite certain actions
corresponding to the music. But to incite an
energy of feeling which corresponds to neither
the time nor the place, and is expended in noth-
ing, cannot fail to act dangerously. On me in
particular this piece acted in a frightful manner.

One would have said that new sentiments, new
virtualities, of which I was formerly ignorant,
had developed in me. 'Ah, yes, that's it! Not
at all as I lived and thought before! This is the
right way to live!'

"Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that
music. What was this new thing that I thus
learned? That I did not realize, but the con-
sciousness of this indefinite state filled me with
joy. In that state there was no room for jeal-
ousy. The same faces, and among them
he
and
my wife, I saw in a different light. This music
transported me into an unknown world, where
there was no room for jealousy. Jealousy and
the feelings that provoke it seemed to me trivial-
ities, nor worth thinking of.

"After the
presto
followed the
andante
, not
very new, with commonplace variations, and the
feeble
finale
. Then they played more, at the
request of the guests,—first an elegy by Ernst,
and then various other pieces. They were all
very well, but did not produce upon me a tenth
part of the impression that the opening piece
did. I felt light and gay throughout the even-
ing. As for my wife, never had I seen her as
she was that night. Those brilliant eyes, that
severity and majestic expression while she was
playing, and then that utter languor, that weak,
pitiable, and happy smile after she had finished,
—I saw them all and attached no importance to
them, believing that she felt as I did, that to her,
as to me, new sentiments had been revealed, as
through a fog. During almost the whole even-
ing I was not jealous.

"Two days later I was to start for the assem-
bly of the Zemstvo, and for that reason, on tak-
ing leave of me and carrying all his scores with
him, Troukhatchevsky asked me when I should
return. I inferred from that that he believed it
impossible to come to my house during my ab-
sence, and that was agreeable to me. Now I

was not to return before his departure from the
city. So we bade each other a definite farewell.

For the first time I shook his hand with pleas-
ure, and thanked him for the satisfaction that
he had given me. He likewise took leave of my
wife, and their parting seemed to me very nat-
ural and proper. All went marvellously. My
wife and I retired, well satisfied with the even-
ing. We talked of our impressions in a general
way, and we were nearer together and more
friendly than we had been for a long time.