University of Virginia Library

26.
CHAPTER XXVI.

"AT the station before the last, when the con-
ductor came to take the tickets, I took my bag-
gage and went out on the car platform, and the
consciousness that the climax was near at hand
only added to my agitation. I was cold, my jaw
trembled so that my teeth chattered. Mechani-
cally I left the station with the crowd, I took a

tchik
, and I started. I looked at the few people
passing in the streets and at the
dvorniks
. I
read the signs, without thinking of anything.

After going half a verst my feet began to feel
cold, and I remembered that in the car I had
taken off my woollen socks, and had put them in

my travelling bag. Where had I put the bag?

Was it with me? Yes, and the basket?

"I bethought myself that I had totally for-
gotten my baggage. I took out my check, and
then decided it was not worth while to return. I
continued on my way. In spite of all my efforts
to remember, I cannot at this moment make out
why I was in such a hurry. I know only that
I was conscious that a serious and menacing
event was approaching in my life. It was a case
of real auto-suggestion. Was it so serious be-
cause I thought it so? Or had I a presenti-
ment? I do not know. Perhaps, too, after
what has happened, all previous events have
taken on a lugubrious tint in my memory.

"I arrived at the steps. It was an hour past
midnight. A few
isvotchiks
were before the
door, awaiting customers, attracted by the
lighted windows (the lighted windows were
those of our parlor and reception room). With-
out trying to account for this late illumination,
I went up the steps, always with the same ex-
pectation of something terrible, and I rang. The
servant, a good, industrious, and very stupid
being, named Gregor, opened the door. The

first thing that leaped to my eyes in the hall, on
the hat-stand, among other garments, was an
overcoat. I ought to have been astonished, but
I was not astonished. I expected it. 'That's it!'

I said to myself.

"When I had asked Gregor who was there,
and he had named Troukhatchevsky, I inquired
whether there were other visitors. He an-
swered: 'Nobody.' I remember the air with
which he said that, with a tone that was intend-
ed to give me pleasure, and dissipate my doubts.
'That's it! that's it!' I had the air of saying to
myself. 'And the children?'

"'Thank God, they are very well. They
went to sleep long ago.'

"I scarcely breathed, and I could not keep
my jaw from trembling. Then it was not as I
thought. I had often before returned home
with the thought that a misfortune had awaited
me, but had been mistaken, and everything was
going on as usual. But now things were not
going on as usual. All that I had imagined, all
that I believed to be chimeras, all really existed.

Here was the truth.

"I was on the point of sobbing, but straight-

way the demon whispered in my ear: 'Weep
and be sentimental, and they will separate
quietly, and there will be no proofs, and all
your life you will doubt and suffer.' And pity for
myself vanished, and there remained only the
bestial need of some adroit, cunning, and ener-
getic action. I became a beast, an intelligent
beast.

"'No, no,' said I to Gregor, who was about to
announce my arrival. 'Do this, take a carriage,
and go at once for my baggage. Here is the
check. Start.'

"He went along the hall to get his overcoat.

Fearing lest he might frighten them, I accom-
panied him to his little room, and waited for
him to put on his things. In the dining-room
could be heard the sound of conversation and
the rattling of knives and plates. They were
eating. They had not heard the ring. 'Now if
they only do not go out,' I thought.

"Gregor put on his fur-collared coat and went
out. I closed the door after him. I felt anxious
when I was alone, thinking that directly I
should have to act. How? I did not yet know.

I knew only that all was ended, that there could

be no doubt of
his
innocence, and that in an in-
stant my relations with her were going to be
terminated. Before, I had still doubts. I said
to myself: 'Perhaps this is not true. Perhaps
I am mistaken.' Now all doubt had disap-
peared. All was decided irrevocably. Secretly,
all alone with him, at night! It is a violation
of all duties! Or, worse yet, she may make a
show of that audacity, of that insolence in
crime, which, by its excess, tends to prove inno-
cence. All is clear. No doubt. I feared but
one thing,—that they might run in different di-
rections, that they might invent some new lie,
and thus deprive me of material proof, and of
the sorrowful joy of punishing, yes, of execut-
ing them.

"And to surprise them more quickly, I started
on tiptoe for the dining-room, not through the
parlor, but through the hall and the children's
rooms. In the first room slept the little boy.

In the second, the old nurse moved in her bed,
and seemed on the point of waking, and I won-
dered what she would think when she knew all.

And pity for myself gave me such a pang that I
could not keep the tears back. Not to wake the

children, I ran lightly through the hall into my
study. I dropped upon the sofa, and sobbed.
'I, an honest man, I, the son of my parents,
who all my life long have dreamed of family
happiness, I who have never betrayed! . . .

And here my five children, and she embrac-
ing a musician because he has red lips! No,
she is not a woman! She is a bitch, a dirty
bitch! Beside the chamber of the children,
whom she had pretended to love all her life!

And then to think of what she wrote me! And
how do I know? Perhaps it has always been
thus. Perhaps all these children, supposed to
be mine, are the children of my servants. And
if I had arrived to-morrow, she would have
come to meet me with her
coiffure
, with her

corsage
, her indolent and graceful movements
(and I see her attractive and ignoble features),
and this jealous animal would have remained
forever in my heart, tearing it. What will the
old nurse say? And Gregor? And the poor
little Lise? She already understands things.

And this impudence, this falsehood, this bestial
sensuality, that I know so well,' I said to myself.

"I tried to rise. I could not. My heart was

beating so violently that I could not hold myself
upon my legs. 'Yes, I shall die of a rush of
blood. She will kill me. That is what she
wants. What is it to her to kill? But that
would be too agreeable to him, and I will not
allow him to have this pleasure. Yes, here I
am, and there they are. They are laughing,
they. . . . Yes, in spite of the fact that she is
no longer in her early youth, he has not dis-
dained her. At any rate, she is by no means
ugly, and above all, not dangerous to his dear
health, to him. Why did I not stifle her then?'
said I to myself, as I remembered that other
scene of the previous week, when I drove her
from my study, and broke the furniture.

"And I recalled the state in which I was then.

Not only did I recall it, but I again entered into
the same bestial state. And suddenly there
came to me a desire to act, and all reasoning,
except such as was necessary to action, vanished
from my brain, and I was in the condition of a
beast, and of a man under the influence of phy-
sical excitement pending a danger, who acts
imperturbably, without haste, and yet without
losing a minute, pursuing a definite object.

"The first thing that I did was to take off my
boots, and now, having only stockings on, I ad-
vanced toward the wall, over the sofa, where
firearms and daggers were hanging, and I took
down a curved Damascus blade, which I had
never used, and which was very sharp. I took
it from its sheath. I remember that the sheath
fell upon the sofa, and that I said to myself:
'I must look for it later; it must not be lost.'

"Then I took off my overcoat, which I had
kept on all the time, and with wolf-like tread
started for
the room. I do not remember how I
proceeded, whether I ran or went slowly,
through what chambers I passed, how I ap-
proached the dining-room, how I opened the
door, how I entered. I remember nothing about
it.