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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KREUTZER SONATA ***
cover
The Kreutzer Sonata
and Other Stories
by Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Benj. R. Tucker
Contents
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
THE KREUTZER SONATA.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LESSON OF “THE KREUTZER SONATA.”
IVAN THE FOOL.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
A LOST OPPORTUNITY.
“POLIKUSHKA.”
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CANDLE.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
On comparing with the original Russian some English translations of
Count Tolstoy’s works, published both in this country and in England, I
concluded that they were far from being accurate. The majority of them
were retranslations from the French, and I found that the respective
transitions through which they had passed tended to obliterate many of
the beauties of the Russian language and of the peculiar
characteristics of Russian life. A satisfactory translation can be made
only by one who understands the language and _spirit_ of the Russian
people. As Tolstoy’s writings contain so many idioms it is not an easy
task to render them into intelligible English, and the one who
successfully accomplishes this must be a native of Russia, commanding
the English and Russian languages with equal fluency.
The story of “Ivan the Fool” portrays Tolstoy’s communistic ideas,
involving the abolition of military forces, middlemen, despotism, and
money. Instead of these he would establish on earth a kingdom in which
each and every person would become a worker and producer. The author
describes the various struggles through which three brothers passed,
beset as they were by devils large and small, until they reached the
ideal state of existence which he believes to be the only happy one
attainable in this world.
On reading this little story one is surprised that the Russian censor
passed it, as it is devoted to a narration of ideas quite at variance
with the present policy of the government of that country.
“A Lost Opportunity” is a singularly true picture of peasant life,
which evinces a deep study of the subject on the part of the writer.
Tolstoy has drawn many of the peculiar customs of the Russian peasant
in a masterly manner, and I doubt if he has given a more comprehensive
description of this feature of Russian life in any of his other works.
In this story also he has presented many traits which are common to
human nature throughout the world, and this gives an added interest to
the book. The language is simple and picturesque, and the characters
are drawn with remarkable fidelity to nature. The moral of this tale
points out how the hero Ivan might have avoided the terrible
consequences of a quarrel with his neighbor (which grew out of nothing)
if he had lived in accordance with the scriptural injunction to forgive
his brother’s sins and seek not for revenge.
The story of “Polikushka” is a very graphic description of the life led
by a servant of the court household of a certain nobleman, in which the
author portrays the different conditions and surroundings enjoyed by
these servants from those of the ordinary or common peasants. It is a
true and powerful reproduction of an element in Russian life but little
written about heretofore. Like the other stories of this great writer,
“Polikushka” has a moral to which we all might profitably give heed. He
illustrates the awful consequences of intemperance, and concludes that
only kind treatment can reform the victims of alcohol.
For much valuable assistance in the work of these translations, I am
deeply indebted to the bright English scholarship of my devoted wife.
THE KREUTZER SONATA.
CHAPTER I.
Travellers left and entered our car at every stopping of the train.
Three persons, however, remained, bound, like myself, for the farthest
station: a lady neither young nor pretty, smoking cigarettes, with a
thin face, a cap on her head, and wearing a semi-masculine outer
garment; then her companion, a very loquacious gentleman of about forty
years, with baggage entirely new and arranged in an orderly manner;
then a gentleman who held himself entirely aloof, short in stature,
very nervous, of uncertain age, with bright eyes, not pronounced in
color, but extremely attractive,—eyes that darted with rapidity from
one object to another.
This gentleman, during almost all the journey thus far, had entered
into conversation with no fellow-traveller, as if he carefully avoided
all acquaintance. When spoken to, he answered curtly and decisively,
and began to look out of the car window obstinately.
Yet it seemed to me that the solitude weighed upon him. He seemed to
perceive that I understood this, and when our eyes met, as happened
frequently, since we were sitting almost opposite each other, he turned
away his head, and avoided conversation with me as much as with the
others. At nightfall, during a stop at a large station, the gentleman
with the fine baggage—a lawyer, as I have since learned—got out with
his companion to drink some tea at the restaurant. During their absence
several new travellers entered the car, among whom was a tall old man,
shaven and wrinkled, evidently a merchant, wearing a large
heavily-lined cloak and a big cap. This merchant sat down opposite the
empty seats of the lawyer and his companion, and straightway entered
into conversation with a young man who seemed like an employee in some
commercial house, and who had likewise just boarded the train. At first
the clerk had remarked that the seat opposite was occupied, and the old
man had answered that he should get out at the first station. Thus
their conversation started.
I was sitting not far from these two travellers, and, as the train was
not in motion, I could catch bits of their conversation when others
were not talking.
They talked first of the prices of goods and the condition of business;
they referred to a person whom they both knew; then they plunged into
the fair at Nijni Novgorod. The clerk boasted of knowing people who
were leading a gay life there, but the old man did not allow him to
continue, and, interrupting him, began to describe the festivities of
the previous year at Kounavino, in which he had taken part. He was
evidently proud of these recollections, and, probably thinking that
this would detract nothing from the gravity which his face and manners
expressed, he related with pride how, when drunk, he had fired, at
Kounavino, such a broadside that he could describe it only in the
other’s ear.
The clerk began to laugh noisily. The old man laughed too, showing two
long yellow teeth. Their conversation not interesting me, I left the
car to stretch my legs. At the door I met the lawyer and his lady.
“You have no more time,” the lawyer said to me. “The second bell is
about to ring.”
Indeed I had scarcely reached the rear of the train when the bell
sounded. As I entered the car again, the lawyer was talking with his
companion in an animated fashion. The merchant, sitting opposite them,
was taciturn.
“And then she squarely declared to her husband,” said the lawyer with a
smile, as I passed by them, “that she neither could nor would live with
him, because” . . .
And he continued, but I did not hear the rest of the sentence, my
attention being distracted by the passing of the conductor and a new
traveller. When silence was restored, I again heard the lawyer’s voice.
The conversation had passed from a special case to general
considerations.
“And afterward comes discord, financial difficulties, disputes between
the two parties, and the couple separate. In the good old days that
seldom happened. Is it not so?” asked the lawyer of the two merchants,
evidently trying to drag them into the conversation.
Just then the train started, and the old man, without answering, took
off his cap, and crossed himself three times while muttering a prayer.
When he had finished, he clapped his cap far down on his head, and
said:
“Yes, sir, that happened in former times also, but not as often. In the
present day it is bound to happen more frequently. People have become
too learned.”
The lawyer made some reply to the old man, but the train, ever
increasing its speed, made such a clatter upon the rails that I could
no longer hear distinctly. As I was interested in what the old man was
saying, I drew nearer. My neighbor, the nervous gentleman, was
evidently interested also, and, without changing his seat, he lent an
ear.
“But what harm is there in education?” asked the lady, with a smile
that was scarcely perceptible. “Would it be better to marry as in the
old days, when the bride and bridegroom did not even see each other
before marriage?” she continued, answering, as is the habit of our
ladies, not the words that her interlocutor had spoken, but the words
she believed he was going to speak. “Women did not know whether they
would love or would be loved, and they were married to the first comer,
and suffered all their lives. Then you think it was better so?” she
continued, evidently addressing the lawyer and myself, and not at all
the old man.
“People have become too learned,” repeated the last, looking at the
lady with contempt, and leaving her question unanswered.
“I should be curious to know how you explain the correlation between
education and conjugal differences,” said the lawyer, with a slight
smile.
The merchant wanted to make some reply, but the lady interrupted him.
“No, those days are past.”
The lawyer cut short her words:—
“Let him express his thought.”
“Because there is no more fear,” replied the old man.
“But how will you marry people who do not love each other? Only animals
can be coupled at the will of a proprietor. But people have
inclinations, attachments,” the lady hastened to say, casting a glance
at the lawyer, at me, and even at the clerk, who, standing up and
leaning his elbow on the back of a seat, was listening to the
conversation with a smile.
“You are wrong to say that, madam,” said the old man. “The animals are
beasts, but man has received the law.”
“But, nevertheless, how is one to live with a man when there is no
love?” said the lady, evidently excited by the general sympathy and
attention.
“Formerly no such distinctions were made,” said the old man, gravely.
“Only now have they become a part of our habits. As soon as the least
thing happens, the wife says: ‘I release you. I am going to leave your
house.’ Even among the moujiks this fashion has become acclimated.
‘There,’ she says, ‘here are your shirts and drawers. I am going off
with Vanka. His hair is curlier than yours.’ Just go talk with them.
And yet the first rule for the wife should be fear.”
The clerk looked at the lawyer, the lady, and myself, evidently
repressing a smile, and all ready to deride or approve the merchant’s
words, according to the attitude of the others.
“What fear?” said the lady.
“This fear,—the wife must fear her husband; that is what fear.”
“Oh, that, my little father, that is ended.”
“No, madam, that cannot end. As she, Eve, the woman, was taken from
man’s ribs, so she will remain unto the end of the world,” said the old
man, shaking his head so triumphantly and so severely that the clerk,
deciding that the victory was on his side, burst into a loud laugh.
“Yes, you men think so,” replied the lady, without surrendering, and
turning toward us. “You have given yourself liberty. As for woman, you
wish to keep her in the seraglio. To you, everything is permissible. Is
it not so?”
“Oh, man,—that’s another affair.”
“Then, according to you, to man everything is permissible?”
“No one gives him this permission; only, if the man behaves badly
outside, the family is not increased thereby; but the woman, the wife,
is a fragile vessel,” continued the merchant, severely.
His tone of authority evidently subjugated his hearers. Even the lady
felt crushed, but she did not surrender.
“Yes, but you will admit, I think, that woman is a human being, and has
feelings like her husband. What should she do if she does not love her
husband?”
“If she does not love him!” repeated the old man, stormily, and
knitting his brows; “why, she will be made to love him.”
This unexpected argument pleased the clerk, and he uttered a murmur of
approbation.
“Oh, no, she will not be forced,” said the lady. “Where there is no
love, one cannot be obliged to love in spite of herself.”
“And if the wife deceives her husband, what is to be done?” said the
lawyer.
“That should not happen,” said the old man. “He must have his eyes
about him.”
“And if it does happen, all the same? You will admit that it does
happen?”
“It happens among the upper classes, not among us,” answered the old
man. “And if any husband is found who is such a fool as not to rule his
wife, he will not have robbed her. But no scandal, nevertheless. Love
or not, but do not disturb the household. Every husband can govern his
wife. He has the necessary power. It is only the imbecile who does not
succeed in doing so.”
Everybody was silent. The clerk moved, advanced, and, not wishing to
lag behind the others in the conversation, began with his eternal
smile:
“Yes, in the house of our employer, a scandal has arisen, and it is
very difficult to view the matter clearly. The wife loved to amuse
herself, and began to go astray. He is a capable and serious man.
First, it was with the book-keeper. The husband tried to bring her back
to reason through kindness. She did not change her conduct. She plunged
into all sorts of beastliness. She began to steal his money. He beat
her, but she grew worse and worse. To an unbaptized, to a pagan, to a
Jew (saving your permission), she went in succession for her caresses.
What could the employer do? He has dropped her entirely, and now he
lives as a bachelor. As for her, she is dragging in the depths.”
“He is an imbecile,” said the old man. “If from the first he had not
allowed her to go in her own fashion, and had kept a firm hand upon
her, she would be living honestly, no danger. Liberty must be taken
away from the beginning. Do not trust yourself to your horse upon the
highway. Do not trust yourself to your wife at home.”
At that moment the conductor passed, asking for the tickets for the
next station. The old man gave up his.
“Yes, the feminine sex must be dominated in season, else all will
perish.”
“And you yourselves, at Kounavino, did you not lead a gay life with the
pretty girls?” asked the lawyer with a smile.
“Oh, that’s another matter,” said the merchant, severely. “Good-by,” he
added, rising. He wrapped himself in his cloak, lifted his cap, and,
taking his bag, left the car.
CHAPTER II.
Scarcely had the old man gone when a general conversation began.
“There’s a little Old Testament father for you,” said the clerk.
“He is a Domostroy,”[*] said the lady. “What savage ideas about a woman
and marriage!”
[*] The Domostroy is a matrimonial code of the days of Ivan the
Terrible.
“Yes, gentlemen,” said the lawyer, “we are still a long way from the
European ideas upon marriage. First, the rights of woman, then free
marriage, then divorce, as a question not yet solved.” . . .
“The main thing, and the thing which such people as he do not
understand,” rejoined the lady, “is that only love consecrates
marriage, and that the real marriage is that which is consecrated by
love.”
The clerk listened and smiled, with the air of one accustomed to store
in his memory all intelligent conversation that he hears, in order to
make use of it afterwards.
“But what is this love that consecrates marriage?” said, suddenly, the
voice of the nervous and taciturn gentleman, who, unnoticed by us, had
approached.
He was standing with his hand on the seat, and evidently agitated. His
face was red, a vein in his forehead was swollen, and the muscles of
his cheeks quivered.
“What is this love that consecrates marriage?” he repeated.
“What love?” said the lady. “The ordinary love of husband and wife.”
“And how, then, can ordinary love consecrate marriage?” continued the
nervous gentleman, still excited, and with a displeased air. He seemed
to wish to say something disagreeable to the lady. She felt it, and
began to grow agitated.
“How? Why, very simply,” said she.
The nervous gentleman seized the word as it left her lips.
“No, not simply.”
“Madam says,” interceded the lawyer indicating his companion, “that
marriage should be first the result of an attachment, of a love, if you
will, and that, when love exists, and in that case only, marriage
represents something sacred. But every marriage which is not based on a
natural attachment, on love, has in it nothing that is morally
obligatory. Is not that the idea that you intended to convey?” he asked
the lady.
The lady, with a nod of her head, expressed her approval of this
translation of her thoughts.
“Then,” resumed the lawyer, continuing his remarks.
But the nervous gentleman, evidently scarcely able to contain himself,
without allowing the lawyer to finish, asked:
“Yes, sir. But what are we to understand by this love that alone
consecrates marriage?”
“Everybody knows what love is,” said the lady.
“But I don’t know, and I should like to know how you define it.”
“How? It is very simple,” said the lady.
And she seemed thoughtful, and then said:
“Love . . . love . . . is a preference for one man or one woman to the
exclusion of all others. . . .”
“A preference for how long? . . . For a month, two days, or half an
hour?” said the nervous gentleman, with special irritation.
“No, permit me, you evidently are not talking of the same thing.”
“Yes, I am talking absolutely of the same thing. Of the preference for
one man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. But I ask: a
preference for how long?”
“For how long? For a long time, for a life-time sometimes.”
“But that happens only in novels. In life, never. In life this
preference for one to the exclusion of all others lasts in rare cases
several years, oftener several months, or even weeks, days, hours. . .
”
“Oh, sir. Oh, no, no, permit me,” said all three of us at the same
time.
The clerk himself uttered a monosyllable of disapproval.
“Yes, I know,” he said, shouting louder than all of us; “you are
talking of what is believed to exist, and I am talking of what is.
Every man feels what you call love toward each pretty woman he sees,
and very little toward his wife. That is the origin of the proverb,—and
it is a true one,—‘Another’s wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter
wormwood.’”
“Ah, but what you say is terrible! There certainly exists among human
beings this feeling which is called love, and which lasts, not for
months and years, but for life.”
“No, that does not exist. Even if it should be admitted that Menelaus
had preferred Helen all his life, Helen would have preferred Paris; and
so it has been, is, and will be eternally. And it cannot be otherwise,
just as it cannot happen that, in a load of chick-peas, two peas marked
with a special sign should fall side by side. Further, this is not only
an improbability, but it is certain that a feeling of satiety will come
to Helen or to Menelaus. The whole difference is that to one it comes
sooner, to the other later. It is only in stupid novels that it is
written that ‘they loved each other all their lives.’ And none but
children can believe it. To talk of loving a man or woman for life is
like saying that a candle can burn forever.”
“But you are talking of physical love. Do you not admit a love based
upon a conformity of ideals, on a spiritual affinity?”
“Why not? But in that case it is not necessary to procreate together
(excuse my brutality). The point is that this conformity of ideals is
not met among old people, but among young and pretty persons,” said he,
and he began to laugh disagreeably.
“Yes, I affirm that love, real love, does not consecrate marriage, as
we are in the habit of believing, but that, on the contrary, it ruins
it.”
“Permit me,” said the lawyer. “The facts contradict your words. We see
that marriage exists, that all humanity—at least the larger
portion—lives conjugally, and that many husbands and wives honestly end
a long life together.”
The nervous gentleman smiled ill-naturedly.
“And what then? You say that marriage is based upon love, and when I
give voice to a doubt as to the existence of any other love than
sensual love, you prove to me the existence of love by marriage. But in
our day marriage is only a violence and falsehood.”
“No, pardon me,” said the lawyer. “I say only that marriages have
existed and do exist.”
“But how and why do they exist? They have existed, and they do exist,
for people who have seen, and do see, in marriage something
sacramental, a sacrament that is binding before God. For such people
marriages exist, but to us they are only hypocrisy and violence. We
feel it, and, to clear ourselves, we preach free love; but, really, to
preach free love is only a call backward to the promiscuity of the
sexes (excuse me, he said to the lady), the haphazard sin of certain
_raskolniks_. The old foundation is shattered; we must build a new one,
but we must not preach debauchery.”
He grew so warm that all became silent, looking at him in astonishment.
“And yet the transition state is terrible. People feel that haphazard
sin is inadmissible. It is necessary in some way or other to regulate
the sexual relations; but there exists no other foundation than the old
one, in which nobody longer believes? People marry in the old fashion,
without believing in what they do, and the result is falsehood,
violence. When it is falsehood alone, it is easily endured. The husband
and wife simply deceive the world by professing to live monogamically.
If they really are polygamous and polyandrous, it is bad, but
acceptable. But when, as often happens, the husband and the wife have
taken upon themselves the obligation to live together all their lives
(they themselves do not know why), and from the second month have
already a desire to separate, but continue to live together just the
same, then comes that infernal existence in which they resort to drink,
in which they fire revolvers, in which they assassinate each other, in
which they poison each other.”
All were silent, but we felt ill at ease.
“Yes, these critical episodes happen in marital life. For instance,
there is the Posdnicheff affair,” said the lawyer, wishing to stop the
conversation on this embarrassing and too exciting ground. “Have you
read how he killed his wife through jealousy?”
The lady said that she had not read it. The nervous gentleman said
nothing, and changed color.
“I see that you have divined who I am,” said he, suddenly, after a
pause.
“No, I have not had that pleasure.”
“It is no great pleasure. I am Posdnicheff.”
New silence. He blushed, then turned pale again.
“What matters it, however?” said he. “Excuse me, I do not wish to
embarrass you.”
And he resumed his old seat.
CHAPTER III.
I resumed mine, also. The lawyer and the lady whispered together. I was
sitting beside Posdnicheff, and I maintained silence. I desired to talk
to him, but I did not know how to begin, and thus an hour passed until
we reached the next station.
There the lawyer and the lady went out, as well as the clerk. We were
left alone, Posdnicheff and I.
“They say it, and they lie, or they do not understand,” said
Posdnicheff.
“Of what are you talking?”
“Why, still the same thing.”
He leaned his elbows upon his knees, and pressed his hands against his
temples.
“Love, marriage, family,—all lies, lies, lies.”
He rose, lowered the lamp-shade, lay down with his elbows on the
cushion, and closed his eyes. He remained thus for a minute.
“Is it disagreeable to you to remain with me, now that you know who I
am?”
“Oh, no.”
“You have no desire to sleep?”
“Not at all.”
“Then do you want me to tell you the story of my life?”
Just then the conductor passed. He followed him with an ill-natured
look, and did not begin until he had gone again. Then during all the
rest of the story he did not stop once. Even the new travellers as they
entered did not stop him.
His face, while he was talking, changed several times so completely
that it bore positively no resemblance to itself as it had appeared
just before. His eyes, his mouth, his moustache, and even his beard,
all were new. Each time it was a beautiful and touching physiognomy,
and these transformations were produced suddenly in the penumbra; and
for five minutes it was the same face, that could not be compared to
that of five minutes before. And then, I know not how, it changed
again, and became unrecognizable.
CHAPTER IV.
“Well, I am going then to tell you my life, and my whole frightful
history,—yes, frightful. And the story itself is more frightful than
the outcome.”
He became silent for a moment, passed his hands over his eyes, and
began:—
“To be understood clearly, the whole must be told from the beginning.
It must be told how and why I married, and what I was before my
marriage. First, I will tell you who I am. The son of a rich gentleman
of the steppes, an old marshal of the nobility, I was a University
pupil, a graduate of the law school. I married in my thirtieth year.
But before talking to you of my marriage, I must tell you how I lived
formerly, and what ideas I had of conjugal life. I led the life of so
many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And
like the majority, while leading the life of a _débauché_, I was
convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality.
“The idea that I had of my morality arose from the fact that in my
family there was no knowledge of those special debaucheries, so common
in the surroundings of land-owners, and also from the fact that my
father and my mother did not deceive each other. In consequence of
this, I had built from childhood a dream of high and poetical conjugal
life. My wife was to be perfection itself, our mutual love was to be
incomparable, the purity of our conjugal life stainless. I thought
thus, and all the time I marvelled at the nobility of my projects.
“At the same time, I passed ten years of my adult life without hurrying
toward marriage, and I led what I called the well-regulated and
reasonable life of a bachelor. I was proud of it before my friends, and
before all men of my age who abandoned themselves to all sorts of
special refinements. I was not a seducer, I had no unnatural tastes, I
did not make debauchery the principal object of my life; but I found
pleasure within the limits of society’s rules, and innocently believed
myself a profoundly moral being. The women with whom I had relations
did not belong to me alone, and I asked of them nothing but the
pleasure of the moment.
“In all this I saw nothing abnormal. On the contrary, from the fact
that I did not engage my heart, but paid in cash, I supposed that I was
honest. I avoided those women who, by attaching themselves to me, or
presenting me with a child, could bind my future. Moreover, perhaps
there may have been children or attachments; but I so arranged matters
that I could not become aware of them.
“And living thus, I considered myself a perfectly honest man. I did not
understand that debauchery does not consist simply in physical acts,
that no matter what physical ignominy does not yet constitute
debauchery, and that real debauchery consists in freedom from the moral
bonds toward a woman with whom one enters into carnal relations, and I
regarded _this freedom_ as a merit. I remember that I once tortured
myself exceedingly for having forgotten to pay a woman who probably had
given herself to me through love. I only became tranquil again when,
having sent her the money, I had thus shown her that I did not consider
myself as in any way bound to her. Oh, do not shake your head as if you
were in agreement with me (he cried suddenly with vehemence). I know
these tricks. All of you, and you especially, if you are not a rare
exception, have the same ideas that I had then. If you are in agreement
with me, it is now only. Formerly you did not think so. No more did I;
and, if I had been told what I have just told you, that which has
happened would not have happened. However, it is all the same. Excuse
me (he continued): the truth is that it is frightful, frightful,
frightful, this abyss of errors and debaucheries in which we live face
to face with the real question of the rights of woman.” . . .
“What do you mean by the ‘real’ question of the rights of woman?”
“The question of the nature of this special being, organized otherwise
than man, and how this being and man ought to view the wife. . . .”
CHAPTER V.
“Yes: for ten years I lived the most revolting existence, while
dreaming of the noblest love, and even in the name of that love. Yes, I
want to tell you how I killed my wife, and for that I must tell you how
I debauched myself. I killed her before I knew her.
“I killed _the_ wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and
then it was that I killed _my_ wife. Yes, sir: it is only after having
suffered, after having tortured myself, that I have come to understand
the root of things, that I have come to understand my crimes. Thus you
will see where and how began the drama that has led me to misfortune.
“It is necessary to go back to my sixteenth year, when I was still at
school, and my elder brother a first-year student. I had not yet known
women but, like all the unfortunate children of our society, I was
already no longer innocent. I was tortured, as you were, I am sure, and
as are tortured ninety-nine one-hundredths of our boys. I lived in a
frightful dread, I prayed to God, and I prostrated myself.
“I was already perverted in imagination, but the last steps remained to
be taken. I could still escape, when a friend of my brother, a very gay
student, one of those who are called good fellows,—that is, the
greatest of scamps,—and who had taught us to drink and play cards, took
advantage of a night of intoxication to drag us THERE. We started. My
brother, as innocent as I, fell that night, and I, a mere lad of
sixteen, polluted myself and helped to pollute a sister-woman, without
understanding what I did. Never had I heard from my elders that what I
thus did was bad. It is true that there are the ten commandments of the
Bible; but the commandments are made only to be recited before the
priests at examinations, and even then are not as exacting as the
commandments in regard to the use of _ut_ in conditional propositions.
“Thus, from my elders, whose opinion I esteemed, I had never heard that
this was reprehensible. On the contrary, I had heard people whom I
respected say that it was good. I had heard that my struggles and my
sufferings would be appeased after this act. I had heard it and read
it. I had heard from my elders that it was excellent for the health,
and my friends have always seemed to believe that it contained I know
not what merit and valor. So nothing is seen in it but what is
praiseworthy. As for the danger of disease, it is a foreseen danger.
Does not the government guard against it? And even science corrupts
us.”
“How so, science?” I asked.
“Why, the doctors, the pontiffs of science. Who pervert young people by
laying down such rules of hygiene? Who pervert women by devising and
teaching them ways by which not to have children?
“Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were
spent in curing debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to
exist, whereas now all efforts are employed, not in extirpating
debauchery, but in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of the
consequences. Besides, it is not a question of that. It is a question
of this frightful thing that has happened to me, as it happens to
nine-tenths, if not more, not only of the men of our society, but of
all societies, even peasants,—this frightful thing that I had fallen,
and not because I was subjected to the natural seduction of a certain
woman. No, no woman seduced me. I fell because the surroundings in
which I found myself saw in this degrading thing only a legitimate
function, useful to the health; because others saw in it simply a
natural amusement, not only excusable, but even innocent in a young
man. I did not understand that it was a fall, and I began to give
myself to those pleasures (partly from desire and partly from
necessity) which I was led to believe were characteristic of my age,
just as I had begun to drink and smoke.
“And yet there was in this first fall something peculiar and touching.
I remember that straightway I was filled with such a profound sadness
that I had a desire to weep, to weep over the loss forever of my
relations with woman. Yes, my relations with woman were lost forever.
Pure relations with women, from that time forward, I could no longer
have. I had become what is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary
is a physical condition like the condition of a victim of the morphine
habit, of a drunkard, and of a smoker.
“Just as the victim of the morphine habit, the drunkard, the smoker, is
no longer a normal man, so the man who has known several women for his
pleasure is no longer normal? He is abnormal forever. He is a
voluptuary. Just as the drunkard and the victim of the morphine habit
may be recognized by their face and manner, so we may recognize a
voluptuary. He may repress himself and struggle, but nevermore will he
enjoy simple, pure, and fraternal relations toward woman. By his way of
glancing at a young woman one may at once recognize a voluptuary; and I
became a voluptuary, and I have remained one.”
CHAPTER VI.
“Yes, so it is; and that went farther and farther with all sorts of
variations. My God! when I remember all my cowardly acts and bad deeds,
I am frightened. And I remember that ‘me’ who, during that period, was
still the butt of his comrades’ ridicule on account of his innocence.
“And when I hear people talk of the gilded youth, of the officers, of
the Parisians, and all these gentlemen, and myself, living wild lives
at the age of thirty, and who have on our consciences hundreds of
crimes toward women, terrible and varied, when we enter a parlor or a
ball-room, washed, shaven, and perfumed, with very white linen, in
dress coats or in uniform, as emblems of purity, oh, the disgust! There
will surely come a time, an epoch, when all these lives and all this
cowardice will be unveiled!
“So, nevertheless, I lived, until the age of thirty, without abandoning
for a minute my intention of marrying, and building an elevated
conjugal life; and with this in view I watched all young girls who
might suit me. I was buried in rottenness, and at the same time I
looked for virgins, whose purity was worthy of me! Many of them were
rejected: they did not seem to me pure enough!
“Finally I found one that I considered on a level with myself. She was
one of two daughters of a landed proprietor of Penza, formerly very
rich and since ruined. To tell the truth, without false modesty, they
pursued me and finally captured me. The mother (the father was away)
laid all sorts of traps, and one of these, a trip in a boat, decided my
future.
“I made up my mind at the end of the aforesaid trip one night, by
moonlight, on our way home, while I was sitting beside her. I admired
her slender body, whose charming shape was moulded by a jersey, and her
curling hair, and I suddenly concluded that _this was she_. It seemed
to me on that beautiful evening that she understood all that I thought
and felt, and I thought and felt the most elevating things.
“Really, it was only the jersey that was so becoming to her, and her
curly hair, and also the fact that I had spent the day beside her, and
that I desired a more intimate relation.
“I returned home enthusiastic, and I persuaded myself that she realized
the highest perfection, and that for that reason she was worthy to be
my wife, and the next day I made to her a proposal of marriage.
“No, say what you will, we live in such an abyss of falsehood, that,
unless some event strikes us a blow on the head, as in my case, we
cannot awaken. What confusion! Out of the thousands of men who marry,
not only among us, but also among the people, scarcely will you find a
single one who has not previously married at least ten times. (It is
true that there now exist, at least so I have heard, pure young people
who feel and know that this is not a joke, but a serious matter. May
God come to their aid! But in my time there was not to be found one
such in a thousand.)
“And all know it, and pretend not to know it. In all the novels are
described down to the smallest details the feelings of the characters,
the lakes and brambles around which they walk; but, when it comes to
describing their _great_ love, not a word is breathed of what _He_, the
interesting character, has previously done, not a word about his
frequenting of disreputable houses, or his association with
nursery-maids, cooks, and the wives of others.
“And if anything is said of these things, such _improper_ novels are
not allowed in the hands of young girls. All men have the air of
believing, in presence of maidens, that these corrupt pleasures, in
which _everybody_ takes part, do not exist, or exist only to a very
small extent. They pretend it so carefully that they succeed in
convincing themselves of it. As for the poor young girls, they believe
it quite seriously, just as my poor wife believed it.
“I remember that, being already engaged, I showed her my ‘memoirs,’
from which she could learn more or less of my past, and especially my
last _liaison_ which she might perhaps have discovered through the
gossip of some third party. It was for this last reason, for that
matter, that I felt the necessity of communicating these memoirs to
her. I can still see her fright, her despair, her bewilderment, when
she had learned and understood it. She was on the point of breaking the
engagement. What a lucky thing it would have been for both of us!”
Posdnicheff was silent for a moment, and then resumed:—
“After all, no! It is better that things happened as they did, better!”
he cried. “It was a good thing for me. Besides, it makes no difference.
I was saying that in these cases it is the poor young girls who are
deceived. As for the mothers, the mothers especially, informed by their
husbands, they know all, and, while pretending to believe in the purity
of the young man, they act as if they did not believe in it.
“They know what bait must be held out to people for themselves and
their daughters. We men sin through ignorance, and a determination not
to learn. As for the women, they know very well that the noblest and
most poetic love, as we call it, depends, not on moral qualities, but
on the physical intimacy, and also on the manner of doing the hair, and
the color and shape.
“Ask an experienced coquette, who has undertaken to seduce a man, which
she would prefer,—to be convicted, in presence of the man whom she is
engaged in conquering, of falsehood, perversity, cruelty, or to appear
before him in an ill-fitting dress, or a dress of an unbecoming color.
She will prefer the first alternative. She knows very well that we
simply lie when we talk of our elevated sentiments, that we seek only
the possession of her body, and that because of that we will forgive
her every sort of baseness, but will not forgive her a costume of an
ugly shade, without taste or fit.
“And these things she knows by reason, where as the maiden knows them
only by instinct, like the animal. Hence these abominable jerseys,
these artificial humps on the back, these bare shoulders, arms, and
throats.
“Women, especially those who have passed through the school of
marriage, know very well that conversations upon elevated subjects are
only conversations, and that man seeks and desires the body and all
that ornaments the body. Consequently, they act accordingly? If we
reject conventional explanations, and view the life of our upper and
lower classes as it is, with all its shamelessness, it is only a vast
perversity. You do not share this opinion? Permit me, I am going to
prove it to you (said he, interrupting me).
“You say that the women of our society live for a different interest
from that which actuates fallen women. And I say no, and I am going to
prove it to you. If beings differ from one another according to the
purpose of their life, according to their _inner life_, this will
necessarily be reflected also in their _outer life_, and their exterior
will be very different. Well, then, compare the wretched, the despised,
with the women of the highest society: the same dresses, the same
fashions, the same perfumeries, the same passion for jewelry, for
brilliant and very expensive articles, the same amusements, dances,
music, and songs. The former attract by all possible means; so do the
latter. No difference, none whatever!
“Yes, and I, too, was captivated by jerseys, bustles, and curly hair.”
CHAPTER VII.
“And it was very easy to capture me, since I was brought up under
artificial conditions, like cucumbers in a hothouse. Our too abundant
nourishment, together with complete physical idleness, is nothing but
systematic excitement of the imagination. The men of our society are
fed and kept like reproductive stallions. It is sufficient to close the
valve,—that is, for a young man to live a quiet life for some time,—to
produce as an immediate result a restlessness, which, becoming
exaggerated by reflection through the prism of our unnatural life,
provokes the illusion of love.
“All our idyls and marriage, all, are the result for the most part of
our eating. Does that astonish you? For my part, I am astonished that
we do not see it. Not far from my estate this spring some moujiks were
working on a railway embankment. You know what a peasant’s food
is,—bread, _kvass_,[*] onions. With this frugal nourishment he lives,
he is alert, he makes light work in the fields. But on the railway this
bill of fare becomes _cacha_ and a pound of meat. Only he restores this
meat by sixteen hours of labor pushing loads weighing twelve hundred
pounds.
[*] _Kvass_, a sort of cider.
“And we, who eat two pounds of meat and game, we who absorb all sorts
of heating drinks and food, how do we expend it? In sensual excesses.
If the valve is open, all goes well; but close it, as I had closed it
temporarily before my marriage, and immediately there will result an
excitement which, deformed by novels, verses, music, by our idle and
luxurious life, will give a love of the finest water. I, too, fell in
love, as everybody does, and there were transports, emotions, poesy;
but really all this passion was prepared by mamma and the dressmakers.
If there had been no trips in boats, no well-fitted garments, etc., if
my wife had worn some shapeless blouse, and I had seen her thus at her
home, I should not have been seduced.”
CHAPTER VIII.
“And note, also, this falsehood, of which all are guilty; the way in
which marriages are made. What could there be more natural? The young
girl is marriageable, she should marry. What simpler, provided the
young person is not a monster, and men can be found with a desire to
marry? Well, no, here begins a new hypocrisy.
“Formerly, when the maiden arrived at a favorable age, her marriage was
arranged by her parents. That was done, that is done still, throughout
humanity, among the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Mussulmans, and among our
common people also. Things are so managed in at least ninety-nine per
cent. of the families of the entire human race.
“Only we riotous livers have imagined that this way was bad, and have
invented another. And this other,—what is it? It is this. The young
girls are seated, and the gentlemen walk up and down before them, as in
a bazaar, and make their choice. The maidens wait and think, but do not
dare to say: ‘Take me, young man, me and not her. Look at these
shoulders and the rest.’ We males walk up and down, and estimate the
merchandise, and then we discourse upon the rights of woman, upon the
liberty that she acquires, I know not how, in the theatrical halls.”
“But what is to be done?” said I to him. “Shall the woman make the
advances?”
“I do not know. But, if it is a question of equality, let the equality
be complete. Though it has been found that to contract marriages
through the agency of match-makers is humiliating, it is nevertheless a
thousand times preferable to our system. There the rights and the
chances are equal; here the woman is a slave, exhibited in the market.
But as she cannot bend to her condition, or make advances herself,
there begins that other and more abominable lie which is sometimes
called _going into society_, sometimes _amusing one’s self_, and which
is really nothing but the hunt for a husband.
“But say to a mother or to her daughter that they are engaged only in a
hunt for a husband. God! What an offence! Yet they can do nothing else,
and have nothing else to do; and the terrible feature of it all is to
see sometimes very young, poor, and innocent maidens haunted solely by
such ideas. If only, I repeat, it were done frankly; but it is always
accompanied with lies and babble of this sort:—
“‘Ah, the descent of species! How interesting it is!’
“‘Oh, Lily is much interested in painting.’
“‘Shall you go to the Exposition? How charming it is!’
“‘And the troika, and the plays, and the symphony. Ah, how adorable!’
“‘My Lise is passionately fond of music.’
“‘And you, why do you not share these convictions?’
“And through all this verbiage, all have but one single idea: ‘Take me,
take my Lise. No, me! Only try!’”
CHAPTER IX.
“Do you know,” suddenly continued Posdnicheff, “that this power of
women from which the world suffers arises solely from what I have just
spoken of?”
“What do you mean by the power of women?” I said. “Everybody, on the
contrary, complains that women have not sufficient rights, that they
are in subjection.”
“That’s it; that’s it exactly,” said he, vivaciously. “That is just
what I mean, and that is the explanation of this extraordinary
phenomenon, that on the one hand woman is reduced to the lowest degree
of humiliation and on the other hand she reigns over everything. See
the Jews: with their power of money, they avenge their subjection, just
as the women do. ‘Ah! you wish us to be only merchants? All right;
remaining merchants, we will get possession of you,’ say the Jews. ‘Ah!
you wish us to be only objects of sensuality? All right; by the aid of
sensuality we will bend you beneath our yoke,’ say the women.
“The absence of the rights of woman does not consist in the fact that
she has not the right to vote, or the right to sit on the bench, but in
the fact that in her affectional relations she is not the equal of man,
she has not the right to abstain, to choose instead of being chosen.
You say that that would be abnormal. Very well! But then do not let man
enjoy these rights, while his companion is deprived of them, and finds
herself obliged to make use of the coquetry by which she governs, so
that the result is that man chooses ‘formally,’ whereas really it is
woman who chooses. As soon as she is in possession of her means, she
abuses them, and acquires a terrible supremacy.”
“But where do you see this exceptional power?”
“Where? Why, everywhere, in everything. Go see the stores in the large
cities. There are millions there, millions. It is impossible to
estimate the enormous quantity of labor that is expended there. In
nine-tenths of these stores is there anything whatever for the use of
men? All the luxury of life is demanded and sustained by woman. Count
the factories; the greater part of them are engaged in making feminine
ornaments. Millions of men, generations of slaves, die toiling like
convicts simply to satisfy the whims of our companions.
“Women, like queens, keep nine-tenths of the human race as prisoners of
war, or as prisoners at hard labor. And all this because they have been
humiliated, because they have been deprived of rights equal to those
which men enjoy. They take revenge for our sensuality; they catch us in
their nets.
“Yes, the whole thing is there. Women have made of themselves such a
weapon to act upon the senses that a young man, and even an old man,
cannot remain tranquil in their presence. Watch a popular festival, or
our receptions or ball-rooms. Woman well knows her influence there. You
will see it in her triumphant smiles.
“As soon as a young man advances toward a woman, directly he falls
under the influence of this opium, and loses his head. Long ago I felt
ill at ease when I saw a woman too well adorned,—whether a woman of the
people with her red neckerchief and her looped skirt, or a woman of our
own society in her ball-room dress. But now it simply terrifies me. I
see in it a danger to men, something contrary to the laws; and I feel a
desire to call a policeman, to appeal for defence from some quarter, to
demand that this dangerous object be removed.
“And this is not a joke, by any means. I am convinced, I am sure, that
the time will come—and perhaps it is not far distant—when the world
will understand this, and will be astonished that a society could exist
in which actions as harmful as those which appeal to sensuality by
adorning the body as our companions do were allowed. As well set traps
along our public streets, or worse than that.”
CHAPTER X.
“That, then, was the way in which I was captured. I was in love, as it
is called; not only did _she_ appear to me a perfect being, but I
considered myself a white blackbird. It is a commonplace fact that
there is no one so low in the world that he cannot find some one viler
than himself, and consequently puff with pride and self-contentment. I
was in that situation. I did not marry for money. Interest was foreign
to the affair, unlike the marriages of most of my acquaintances, who
married either for money or for relations. First, I was rich, she was
poor. Second, I was especially proud of the fact that, while others
married with an intention of continuing their polygamic life as
bachelors, it was my firm intention to live monogamically after my
engagement and the wedding, and my pride swelled immeasurably.
“Yes, I was a wretch, convinced that I was an angel. The period of my
engagement did not last long. I cannot remember those days without
shame. What an abomination!
“It is generally agreed that love is a moral sentiment, a community of
thought rather than of sense. If that is the case, this community of
thought ought to find expression in words and conversation. Nothing of
the sort. It was extremely difficult for us to talk with each other.
What a toil of Sisyphus was our conversation! Scarcely had we thought
of something to say, and said it, when we had to resume our silence and
try to discover new subjects. Literally, we did not know what to say to
each other. All that we could think of concerning the life that was
before us and our home was said.
“And then what? If we had been animals, we should have known that we
had not to talk. But here, on the contrary, it was necessary to talk,
and there were no resources! For that which occupied our minds was not
a thing to be expressed in words.
“And then that silly custom of eating bon-bons, that brutal gluttony
for sweetmeats, those abominable preparations for the wedding, those
discussions with mamma upon the apartments, upon the sleeping-rooms,
upon the bedding, upon the morning-gowns, upon the wrappers, the linen,
the costumes! Understand that if people married according to the old
fashion, as this old man said just now, then these eiderdown coverlets
and this bedding would all be sacred details; but with us, out of ten
married people there is scarcely to be found one who, I do not say
believes in sacraments (whether he believes or not is a matter of
indifference to us), but believes in what he promises. Out of a hundred
men, there is scarcely one who has not married before, and out of fifty
scarcely one who has not made up his mind to deceive his wife.
“The great majority look upon this journey to the church as a condition
necessary to the possession of a certain woman. Think then of the
supreme significance which material details must take on. Is it not a
sort of sale, in which a maiden is given over to a _débauché_, the sale
being surrounded with the most agreeable details?”
CHAPTER XI.
“All marry in this way. And I did like the rest. If the young people
who dream of the honeymoon only knew what a disillusion it is, and
always a disillusion! I really do not know why all think it necessary
to conceal it.
“One day I was walking among the shows in Paris, when, attracted by a
sign, I entered an establishment to see a bearded woman and a
water-dog. The woman was a man in disguise, and the dog was an ordinary
dog, covered with a sealskin, and swimming in a bath. It was not in the
least interesting, but the Barnum accompanied me to the exit very
courteously, and, in addressing the people who were coming in, made an
appeal to my testimony. ‘Ask the gentleman if it is not worth seeing!
Come in, come in! It only costs a franc!’ And in my confusion I did not
dare to answer that there was nothing curious to be seen, and it was
upon my false shame that the Barnum must have counted.
“It must be the same with the persons who have passed through the
abominations of the honeymoon. They do not dare to undeceive their
neighbor. And I did the same.
“The felicities of the honeymoon do not exist. On the contrary, it is a
period of uneasiness, of shame, of pity, and, above all, of _ennui_,—of
ferocious _ennui_. It is something like the feeling of a youth when he
is beginning to smoke. He desires to vomit; he drivels, and swallows
his drivel, pretending to enjoy this little amusement. The vice of
marriage . . .”
“What! _Vice?_” I said. “But you are talking of one of the most natural
things.”
“Natural!” said he. “Natural! No, I consider on the contrary that it is
against nature, and it is I, a perverted man, who have reached this
conviction. What would it be, then, if I had not known corruption? To a
young girl, to every unperverted young girl, it is an act extremely
unnatural, just as it is to children. My sister married, when very
young, a man twice her own age, and who was utterly corrupt. I remember
how astonished we were the night of her wedding, when, pale and covered
with tears, she fled from her husband, her whole body trembling, saying
that for nothing in the world would she tell what he wanted of her.
“You say natural? It is natural to eat; that is a pleasant, agreeable
function, which no one is ashamed to perform from the time of his
birth. No, it is not natural. A pure young girl wants one
thing,—children. Children, yes, not a lover.” . . .
“But,” said I, with astonishment, “how would the human race continue?”
“But what is the use of its continuing?” he rejoined, vehemently.
“What! What is the use? But then we should not exist.”
“And why is it necessary that we should exist?”
“Why, to live, to be sure.”
“And why live? The Schopenhauers, the Hartmanns, and all the Buddhists,
say that the greatest happiness is Nirvana, Non-Life; and they are
right in this sense,—that human happiness is coincident with the
annihilation of ‘Self.’ Only they do not express themselves well. They
say that Humanity should annihilate itself to avoid its sufferings,
that its object should be to destroy itself. Now the object of Humanity
cannot be to avoid sufferings by annihilation, since suffering is the
result of activity. The object of activity cannot consist in
suppressing its consequences. The object of Man, as of Humanity, is
happiness, and, to attain it, Humanity has a law which it must carry
out. This law consists in the union of beings. This union is thwarted
by the passions. And that is why, if the passions disappear, the union
will be accomplished. Humanity then will have carried out the law, and
will have no further reason to exist.”
“And before Humanity carries out the law?”
“In the meantime it will have the sign of the unfulfilled law, and the
existence of physical love. As long as this love shall exist, and
because of it, generations will be born, one of which will finally
fulfil the law. When at last the law shall be fulfilled, the Human Race
will be annihilated. At least it is impossible for us to conceive of
Life in the perfect union of people.”
CHAPTER XII.
“Strange theory!” cried I.
“Strange in what? According to all the doctrines of the Church, the
world will have an end. Science teaches the same fatal conclusions.
Why, then, is it strange that the same thing should result from moral
Doctrine? ‘Let those who can, contain,’ said Christ. And I take this
passage literally, as it is written. That morality may exist between
people in their worldly relations, they must make complete chastity
their object. In tending toward this end, man humiliates himself. When
he shall reach the last degree of humiliation, we shall have moral
marriage.
“But if man, as in our society, tends only toward physical love, though
he may clothe it with pretexts and the false forms of marriage, he will
have only permissible debauchery, he will know only the same immoral
life in which I fell and caused my wife to fall, a life which we call
the honest life of the family. Think what a perversion of ideas must
arise when the happiest situation of man, liberty, chastity, is looked
upon as something wretched and ridiculous. The highest ideal, the best
situation of woman, to be pure, to be a vestal, a virgin, excites fear
and laughter in our society. How many, how many young girls sacrifice
their purity to this Moloch of opinion by marrying rascals that they
may not remain virgins,—that is, superiors! Through fear of finding
themselves in that ideal state, they ruin themselves.
“But I did not understand formerly, I did not understand that the words
of the Gospel, that ‘he who looks upon a woman to lust after her has
already committed adultery,’ do not apply to the wives of others, but
notably and especially to our own wives. I did not understand this, and
I thought that the honeymoon and all of my acts during that period were
virtuous, and that to satisfy one’s desires with his wife is an
eminently chaste thing. Know, then, that I consider these departures,
these isolations, which young married couples arrange with the
permission of their parents, as nothing else than a license to engage
in debauchery.
“I saw, then, in this nothing bad or shameful, and, hoping for great
joys, I began to live the honeymoon. And very certainly none of these
joys followed. But I had faith, and was determined to have them, cost
what they might. But the more I tried to secure them, the less I
succeeded. All this time I felt anxious, ashamed, and weary. Soon I
began to suffer. I believe that on the third or fourth day I found my
wife sad and asked her the reason. I began to embrace her, which in my
opinion was all that she could desire. She put me away with her hand,
and began to weep.
“At what? She could not tell me. She was filled with sorrow, with
anguish. Probably her tortured nerves had suggested to her the truth
about the baseness of our relations, but she found no words in which to
say it. I began to question her; she answered that she missed her
absent mother. It seemed to me that she was not telling the truth. I
sought to console her by maintaining silence in regard to her parents.
I did not imagine that she felt herself simply overwhelmed, and that
her parents had nothing to do with her sorrow. She did not listen to
me, and I accused her of caprice. I began to laugh at her gently. She
dried her tears, and began to reproach me, in hard and wounding terms,
for my selfishness and cruelty.
“I looked at her. Her whole face expressed hatred, and hatred of me. I
cannot describe to you the fright which this sight gave me. ‘How?
What?’ thought I, ‘love is the unity of souls, and here she hates me?
Me? Why? But it is impossible! It is no longer she!’
“I tried to calm her. I came in conflict with an immovable and cold
hostility, so that, having no time to reflect, I was seized with keen
irritation. We exchanged disagreeable remarks. The impression of this
first quarrel was terrible. I say quarrel, but the term is inexact. It
was the sudden discovery of the abyss that had been dug between us.
Love was exhausted with the satisfaction of sensuality. We stood face
to face in our true light, like two egoists trying to procure the
greatest possible enjoyment, like two individuals trying to mutually
exploit each other.
“So what I called our quarrel was our actual situation as it appeared
after the satisfaction of sensual desire. I did not realize that this
cold hostility was our normal state, and that this first quarrel would
soon be drowned under a new flood of the intensest sensuality. I
thought that we had disputed with each other, and had become
reconciled, and that it would not happen again. But in this same
honeymoon there came a period of satiety, in which we ceased to be
necessary to each other, and a new quarrel broke out.
“It became evident that the first was not a matter of chance. ‘It was
inevitable,’ I thought. This second quarrel stupefied me the more,
because it was based on an extremely unjust cause. It was something
like a question of money,—and never had I haggled on that score; it was
even impossible that I should do so in relation to her. I only remember
that, in answer to some remark that I made, she insinuated that it was
my intention to rule her by means of money, and that it was upon money
that I based my sole right over her. In short, something
extraordinarily stupid and base, which was neither in my character nor
in hers.
“I was beside myself. I accused her of indelicacy. She made the same
accusation against me, and the dispute broke out. In her words, in the
expression of her face, of her eyes, I noticed again the hatred that
had so astonished me before. With a brother, friends, my father, I had
occasionally quarrelled, but never had there been between us this
fierce spite. Some time passed. Our mutual hatred was again concealed
beneath an access of sensual desire, and I again consoled myself with
the reflection that these scenes were reparable faults.
“But when they were repeated a third and a fourth time, I understood
that they were not simply faults, but a fatality that must happen
again. I was no longer frightened, I was simply astonished that I
should be precisely the one to live so uncomfortably with my wife, and
that the same thing did not happen in other households. I did not know
that in all households the same sudden changes take place, but that
all, like myself, imagine that it is a misfortune exclusively reserved
for themselves alone, which they carefully conceal as shameful, not
only to others, but to themselves, like a bad disease.
“That was what happened to me. Begun in the early days, it continued
and increased with characteristics of fury that were ever more
pronounced. At the bottom of my soul, from the first weeks, I felt that
I was in a trap, that I had what I did not expect, and that marriage is
not a joy, but a painful trial. Like everybody else, I refused to
confess it (I should not have confessed it even now but for the
outcome). Now I am astonished to think that I did not see my real
situation. It was so easy to perceive it, in view of those quarrels,
begun for reasons so trivial that afterwards one could not recall them.
“Just as it often happens among gay young people that, in the absence
of jokes, they laugh at their own laughter, so we found no reasons for
our hatred, and we hated each other because hatred was naturally
boiling up in us. More extraordinary still was the absence of causes
for reconciliation.
“Sometimes words, explanations, or even tears, but sometimes, I
remember, after insulting words, there tacitly followed embraces and
declarations. Abomination! Why is it that I did not then perceive this
baseness?”
CHAPTER XIII.
“All of us, men and women, are brought up in these aberrations of
feeling that we call love. I from childhood had prepared myself for
this thing, and I loved, and I loved during all my youth, and I was
joyous in loving. It had been put into my head that it was the noblest
and highest occupation in the world. But when this expected feeling
came at last, and I, a man, abandoned myself to it, the lie was pierced
through and through. Theoretically a lofty love is conceivable;
practically it is an ignoble and degrading thing, which it is equally
disgusting to talk about and to remember. It is not in vain that nature
has made ceremonies, but people pretend that the ignoble and the
shameful is beautiful and lofty.
“I will tell you brutally and briefly what were the first signs of my
love. I abandoned myself to beastly excesses, not only not ashamed of
them, but proud of them, giving no thought to the intellectual life of
my wife. And not only did I not think of her intellectual life, I did
not even consider her physical life.
“I was astonished at the origin of our hostility, and yet how clear it
was! This hostility is nothing but a protest of human nature against
the beast that enslaves it. It could not be otherwise. This hatred was
the hatred of accomplices in a crime. Was it not a crime that, this
poor woman having become pregnant in the first month, our _liaison_
should have continued just the same?
“You imagine that I am wandering from my story. Not at all. I am always
giving you an account of the events that led to the murder of my wife.
The imbeciles! They think that I killed my wife on the 5th of October.
It was long before that that I immolated her, just as they all kill
now. Understand well that in our society there is an idea shared by all
that woman procures man pleasure (and _vice versa_, probably, but I
know nothing of that, I only know my own case). _Wein, Weiber und
Gesang_. So say the poets in their verses: Wine, women, and song!
“If it were only that! Take all the poetry, the painting, the
sculpture, beginning with Pouschkine’s ‘Little Feet,’ with ‘Venus and
Phryne,’ and you will see that woman is only a means of enjoyment. That
is what she is at Trouba,[*] at Gratchevka, and in a court ball-room.
And think of this diabolical trick: if she were a thing without moral
value, it might be said that woman is a fine morsel; but, in the first
place, these knights assure us that they adore woman (they adore her
and look upon her, however, as a means of enjoyment), then all assure
us that they esteem woman. Some give up their seats to her, pick up her
handkerchief; others recognize in her a right to fill all offices,
participate in government, etc., but, in spite of all that, the
essential point remains the same. She is, she remains, an object of
sensual desire, and she knows it. It is slavery, for slavery is nothing
else than the utilization of the labor of some for the enjoyment of
others. That slavery may not exist people must refuse to enjoy the
labor of others, and look upon it as a shameful act and as a sin.
[*] A suburb of Moscow.
“Actually, this is what happens. They abolish the external form, they
suppress the formal sales of slaves, and then they imagine and assure
others that slavery is abolished. They are unwilling to see that it
still exists, since people, as before, like to profit by the labor of
others, and think it good and just. This being given, there will always
be found beings stronger or more cunning than others to profit thereby.
The same thing happens in the emancipation of woman. At bottom feminine
servitude consists entirely in her assimilation with a means of
pleasure. They excite woman, they give her all sorts of rights equal to
those of men, but they continue to look upon her as an object of
sensual desire, and thus they bring her up from infancy and in public
opinion.
“She is always the humiliated and corrupt serf, and man remains always
the debauched Master. Yes, to abolish slavery, public opinion must
admit that it is shameful to exploit one’s neighbor, and, to make woman
free, public opinion must admit that it is shameful to consider woman
as an instrument of pleasure.
“The emancipation of woman is not to be effected in the public courts
or in the chamber of deputies, but in the sleeping chamber.
Prostitution is to be combated, not in the houses of ill-fame, but in
the family. They free woman in the public courts and in the chamber of
deputies, but she remains an instrument. Teach her, as she is taught
among us, to look upon herself as such, and she will always remain an
inferior being. Either, with the aid of the rascally doctors, she will
try to prevent conception, and descend, not to the level of an animal,
but to the level of a thing; or she will be what she is in the great
majority of cases,—sick, hysterical, wretched, without hope of
spiritual progress.” . . .
“But why that?” I asked.
“Oh! the most astonishing thing is that no one is willing to see this
thing, evident as it is, which the doctors must understand, but which
they take good care not to do. Man does not wish to know the law of
nature,—children. But children are born and become an embarrassment.
Then man devises means of avoiding this embarrassment. We have not yet
reached the low level of Europe, nor Paris, nor the ‘system of two
children,’ nor Mahomet. We have discovered nothing, because we have
given it no thought. We feel that there is something bad in the two
first means; but we wish to preserve the family, and our view of woman
is still worse.
“With us woman must be at the same time mistress and nurse, and her
strength is not sufficient. That is why we have hysteria, nervous
attacks, and, among the peasants, witchcraft. Note that among the young
girls of the peasantry this state of things does not exist, but only
among the wives, and the wives who live with their husbands. The reason
is clear, and this is the cause of the intellectual and moral decline
of woman, and of her abasement.
“If they would only reflect what a grand work for the wife is the
period of gestation! In her is forming the being who continues us, and
this holy work is thwarted and rendered painful . . . by what? It is
frightful to think of it! And after that they talk of the liberties and
the rights of woman! It is like the cannibals fattening their prisoners
in order to devour them, and assuring these unfortunates at the same
time that their rights and their liberties are guarded!”
All this was new to me, and astonished me very much.
“But if this is so,” said I, “it follows that one may love his wife
only once every two years; and as man” . . .
“And as man has need of her, you are going to say. At least, so the
priests of science assure us. I would force these priests to fulfil the
function of these women, who, in their opinion, are necessary to man. I
wonder what song they would sing then. Assure man that he needs brandy,
tobacco, opium, and he will believe those poisons necessary. It follows
that God did not know how to arrange matters properly, since, without
asking the opinions of the priests, he has combined things as they are.
Man needs, so they have decided, to satisfy his sensual desire, and
here this function is disturbed by the birth and the nursing of
children.
“What, then, is to be done? Why, apply to the priests; they will
arrange everything, and they have really discovered a way. When, then,
will these rascals with their lies be uncrowned! It is high time. We
have had enough of them. People go mad, and shoot each other with
revolvers, and always because of that! And how could it be otherwise?
“One would say that the animals know that descent continues their race,
and that they follow a certain law in regard thereto. Only man does not
know this, and is unwilling to know it. He cares only to have as much
sensual enjoyment as possible. The king of nature,—man! In the name of
his love he kills half the human race. Of woman, who ought to be his
aid in the movement of humanity toward liberty, he makes, in the name
of his pleasures, not an aid, but an enemy. Who is it that everywhere
puts a check upon the progressive movement of humanity? Woman. Why is
it so?
“For the reason that I have given, and for that reason only.”
CHAPTER XIV.
“Yes, much worse than the animal is man when he does not live as a man.
Thus was I. The horrible part is that I believed, inasmuch as I did not
allow myself to be seduced by other women that I was leading an honest
family life, that I was a very moral being, and that if we had
quarrels, the fault was in my wife, and in her character.
“But it is evident that the fault was not in her. She was like
everybody else, like the majority. She was brought up according to the
principles exacted by the situation of our society,—that is, as all the
young girls of our wealthy classes, without exception, are brought up,
and as they cannot fail to be brought up. How many times we hear or
read of reflections upon the abnormal condition of women, and upon what
they ought to be. But these are only vain words. The education of women
results from the real and not imaginary view which the world entertains
of women’s vocation. According to this view, the condition of women
consists in procuring pleasure and it is to that end that her education
is directed. From her infancy she is taught only those things that are
calculated to increase her charm. Every young girl is accustomed to
think only of that.
“As the serfs were brought up solely to please their masters, so woman
is brought up to attract men. It cannot be otherwise. But you will say,
perhaps, that that applies only to young girls who are badly brought
up, but that there is another education, an education that is serious,
in the schools, an education in the dead languages, an education in the
institutions of midwifery, an education in medical courses, and in
other courses. It is false.
“Every sort of feminine education has for its sole object the
attraction of men.
“Some attract by music or curly hair, others by science or by civic
virtue. The object is the same, and cannot be otherwise (since no other
object exists),—to seduce man in order to possess him. Imagine courses
of instruction for women and feminine science without men,—that is,
learned women, and men not _knowing_ them as learned. Oh, no! No
education, no instruction can change woman as long as her highest ideal
shall be marriage and not virginity, freedom from sensuality. Until
that time she will remain a serf. One need only imagine, forgetting the
universality of the case, the conditions in which our young girls are
brought up, to avoid astonishment at the debauchery of the women of our
upper classes. It is the opposite that would cause astonishment.
“Follow my reasoning. From infancy garments, ornaments, cleanliness,
grace, dances, music, reading of poetry, novels, singing, the theatre,
the concert, for use within and without, according as women listen, or
practice themselves. With that, complete physical idleness, an
excessive care of the body, a vast consumption of sweetmeats; and God
knows how the poor maidens suffer from their own sensuality, excited by
all these things. Nine out of ten are tortured intolerably during the
first period of maturity, and afterward provided they do not marry at
the age of twenty. That is what we are unwilling to see, but those who
have eyes see it all the same. And even the majority of these
unfortunate creatures are so excited by a hidden sensuality (and it is
lucky if it is hidden) that they are fit for nothing. They become
animated only in the presence of men. Their whole life is spent in
preparations for coquetry, or in coquetry itself. In the presence of
men they become too animated; they begin to live by sensual energy. But
the moment the man goes away, the life stops.
“And that, not in the presence of a certain man, but in the presence of
any man, provided he is not utterly hideous. You will say that this is
an exception. No, it is a rule. Only in some it is made very evident,
in others less so. But no one lives by her own life; they are all
dependent upon man. They cannot be otherwise, since to them the
attraction of the greatest number of men is the ideal of life (young
girls and married women), and it is for this reason that they have no
feeling stronger than that of the animal need of every female who tries
to attract the largest number of males in order to increase the
opportunities for choice. So it is in the life of young girls, and so
it continues during marriage. In the life of young girls it is
necessary in order to selection, and in marriage it is necessary in
order to rule the husband. Only one thing suppresses or interrupts
these tendencies for a time,—namely, children,—and then only when the
woman is not a monster,—that is, when she nurses her own children. Here
again the doctor interferes.
“With my wife, who desired to nurse her own children, and who did nurse
six of them, it happened that the first child was sickly. The doctors,
who cynically undressed her and felt of her everywhere, and whom I had
to thank and pay for these acts,—these dear doctors decided that she
ought not to nurse her child, and she was temporarily deprived of the
only remedy for coquetry. A nurse finished the nursing of this
first-born,—that is to say, we profited by the poverty and ignorance of
a woman to steal her from her own little one in favor of ours, and for
that purpose we dressed her in a _kakoschnik_ trimmed with gold lace.
Nevertheless, that is not the question; but there was again awakened in
my wife that coquetry which had been sleeping during the nursing
period. Thanks to that, she reawakened in me the torments of jealousy
which I had formerly known, though in a much slighter degree.”
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
supposes in himself that it is an unfortunate peculiarity, 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, seeing this, tolerate him? Not only does she tolerate 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 content. 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 unendurable. 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 enveloped her with this moral
vitriol, with this jealous hatred, that she was degraded thereby. In
the periods of this causeless hatred I gradually 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 entered 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 likewise
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
conversation 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 answers.
“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 people, 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 condition 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
peculiar 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
children, and even very well.”
“I see that you have no love for the doctors,” said I, having noticed
Posdnicheff’s extraordinarily 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 consequence 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
benefit 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 perversion 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 something similar,
and it is necessary to go to consult 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 business!
“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 provoked torments of a different sort.”
CHAPTER XVI.
“The children came rapidly, one after another, and there happened what
happens in our society with children and doctors. Yes, children,
maternal love, it is a painful thing. Children, to a woman of our
society, are not a joy, a pride, nor a fulfilment of her vocation, but
a cause of fear, anxiety, and interminable suffering, torture. Women
say it, they think it, and they feel it too. Children to them are
really a torture, not because they do not wish to give birth to them,
nurse them, and care for them (women with a strong maternal
instinct—and such was my wife—are ready to do that), but because the
children may fall sick and die. They do not wish to give birth to them,
and then not love them; and when they love, they do not wish to feel
fear for the child’s health and life. That is why they do not wish to
nurse them. ‘If I nurse it,’ they say, ‘I shall become too fond of it.’
One would think that they preferred india-rubber children, which could
neither be sick nor die, and could always be repaired. What an
entanglement in the brains of these poor women! Why such abominations
to avoid pregnancy, and to avoid the love of the little ones?
“Love, the most joyous condition of the soul, is represented as a
danger. And why? Because, when a man does not live as a man, he is
worse than a beast. A woman cannot look upon a child otherwise than as
a pleasure. It is true that it is painful to give birth to it, but what
little hands! . . . Oh, the little hands! Oh, the little feet! Oh, its
smile! Oh, its little body! Oh, its prattle! Oh, its hiccough! In a
word, it is a feeling of animal, sensual maternity. But as for any idea
as to the mysterious significance of the appearance of a new human
being to replace us, there is scarcely a sign of it.
“Nothing of it appears in all that is said and done. No one has any
faith now in a baptism of the child, and yet that was nothing but a
reminder of the human significance of the newborn babe.
“They have rejected all that, but they have not replaced it, and there
remain only the dresses, the laces, the little hands, the little feet,
and whatever exists in the animal. But the animal has neither
imagination, nor foresight, nor reason, nor a doctor.
“No! not even a doctor! The chicken droops its head, overwhelmed, or
the calf dies; the hen clucks and the cow lows for a time, and then
these beasts continue to live, forgetting what has happened.
“With us, if the child falls sick, what is to be done, how to care for
it, what doctor to call, where to go? If it dies, there will be no more
little hands or little feet, and then what is the use of the sufferings
endured? The cow does not ask all that, and this is why children are a
source of misery. The cow has no imagination, and for that reason
cannot think how it might have saved the child if it had done this or
that, and its grief, founded in its physical being, lasts but a very
short time. It is only a condition, and not that sorrow which becomes
exaggerated to the point of despair, thanks to idleness and satiety.
The cow has not that reasoning faculty which would enable it to ask the
why. Why endure all these tortures? What was the use of so much love,
if the little ones were to die? The cow has no logic which tells it to
have no more children, and, if any come accidentally, to neither love
nor nurse them, that it may not suffer. But our wives reason, and
reason in this way, and that is why I said that, when a man does not
live as a man, he is beneath the animal.”
“But then, how is it necessary to act, in your opinion, in order to
treat children humanly?” I asked.
“How? Why, love them humanly.”
“Well, do not mothers love their children?”
“They do not love them humanly, or very seldom do, and that is why they
do not love them even as dogs. Mark this, a hen, a goose, a wolf, will
always remain to woman inaccessible ideals of animal love. It is a rare
thing for a woman to throw herself, at the peril of her life, upon an
elephant to snatch her child away, whereas a hen or a sparrow will not
fail to fly at a dog and sacrifice itself utterly for its children.
Observe this, also. Woman has the power to limit her physical love for
her children, which an animal cannot do. Does that mean that, because
of this, woman is inferior to the animal? No. She is superior (and even
to say superior is unjust, she is not superior, she is different), but
she has other duties, human duties. She can restrain herself in the
matter of animal love, and transfer her love to the soul of the child.
That is what woman’s _rôle_ should be, and that is precisely what we do
not see in our society. We read of the heroic acts of mothers who
sacrifice their children in the name of a superior idea, and these
things seem to us like tales of the ancient world, which do not concern
us. And yet I believe that, if the mother has not some ideal, in the
name of which she can sacrifice the animal feeling, and if this force
finds no employment, she will transfer it to chimerical attempts to
physically preserve her child, aided in this task by the doctor, and
she will suffer as she does suffer.
“So it was with my wife. Whether there was one child or five, the
feeling remained the same. In fact, it was a little better when there
had been five. Life was always poisoned with fear for the children, not
only from their real or imaginary diseases, but even by their simple
presence. For my part, at least, throughout my conjugal life, all my
interests and all my happiness depended upon the health of my children,
their condition, their studies. Children, it is needless to say, are a
serious consideration; but all ought to live, and in our days parents
can no longer live. Regular life does not exist for them. The whole
life of the family hangs by a hair. What a terrible thing it is to
suddenly receive the news that little Basile is vomiting, or that Lise
has a cramp in the stomach! Immediately you abandon everything, you
forget everything, everything becomes nothing. The essential thing is
the doctor, the enema, the temperature. You cannot begin a conversation
but little Pierre comes running in with an anxious air to ask if he may
eat an apple, or what jacket he shall put on, or else it is the servant
who enters with a screaming baby.
“Regular, steady family life does not exist. Where you live, and
consequently what you do, depends upon the health of the little ones,
the health of the little ones depends upon nobody, and, thanks to the
doctors, who pretend to aid health, your entire life is disturbed. It
is a perpetual peril. Scarcely do we believe ourselves out of it when a
new danger comes: more attempts to save. Always the situation of
sailors on a foundering vessel. Sometimes it seemed to me that this was
done on purpose, that my wife feigned anxiety in order to conquer me,
since that solved the question so simply for her benefit. It seemed to
me that all that she did at those times was done for its effect upon
me, but now I see that she herself, my wife, suffered and was tortured
on account of the little ones, their health, and their diseases.
“A torture to both of us, but to her the children were also a means of
forgetting herself, like an intoxication. I often noticed, when she was
very sad, that she was relieved, when a child fell sick, at being able
to take refuge in this intoxication. It was involuntary intoxication,
because as yet there was nothing else. On every side we heard that Mrs.
So-and-so had lost children, that Dr. So-and-so had saved the child of
Mrs. So-and-so, and that in a certain family all had moved from the
house in which they were living, and thereby saved the little ones. And
the doctors, with a serious air, confirmed this, sustaining my wife in
her opinions. She was not prone to fear, but the doctor dropped some
word, like corruption of the blood, scarlatina, or else—heaven help
us—diphtheria, and off she went.
“It was impossible for it to be otherwise. Women in the old days had
the belief that ‘God has given, God has taken away,’ that the soul of
the little angel is going to heaven, and that it is better to die
innocent than to die in sin. If the women of to-day had something like
this faith, they could endure more peacefully the sickness of their
children. But of all that there does not remain even a trace. And yet
it is necessary to believe in something; consequently they stupidly
believe in medicine, and not even in medicine, but in the doctor. One
believes in X, another in Z, and, like all believers, they do not see
the idiocy of their beliefs. They believe _quia absurdum_, because, in
reality, if they did not believe in a stupid way, they would see the
vanity of all that these brigands prescribe for them. Scarlatina is a
contagious disease; so, when one lives in a large city, half the family
has to move away from its residence (we did it twice), and yet every
man in the city is a centre through which pass innumerable diameters,
carrying threads of all sorts of contagions. There is no obstacle: the
baker, the tailor, the coachman, the laundresses.
“And I would undertake, for every man who moves on account of
contagion, to find in his new dwelling-place another contagion similar,
if not the same.
“But that is not all. Every one knows rich people who, after a case of
diphtheria, destroy everything in their residences, and then fall sick
in houses newly built and furnished. Every one knows, likewise, numbers
of men who come in contact with sick people and do not get infected.
Our anxieties are due to the people who circulate tall stories. One
woman says that she has an excellent doctor. ‘Pardon me,’ answers the
other, ‘he killed such a one,’ or such a one. And _vice versa_. Bring
her another, who knows no more, who learned from the same books, who
treats according to the same formulas, but who goes about in a
carriage, and asks a hundred roubles a visit, and she will have faith
in him.
“It all lies in the fact that our women are savages. They have no
belief in God, but some of them believe in the evil eye, and the others
in doctors who charge high fees. If they had faith they would know that
scarlatina, diphtheria, etc., are not so terrible, since they cannot
disturb that which man can and should love,—the soul. There can result
from them only that which none of us can avoid,—disease and death.
Without faith in God, they love only physically, and all their energy
is concentrated upon the preservation of life, which cannot be
preserved, and which the doctors promise the fools of both sexes to
save. And from that time there is nothing to be done; the doctors must
be summoned.
“Thus the presence of the children not only did not improve our
relations as husband and wife, but, on the contrary, disunited us. The
children became an additional cause of dispute, and the larger they
grew, the more they became an instrument of struggle.
“One would have said that we used them as weapons with which to combat
each other. Each of us had his favorite. I made use of little Basile
(the eldest), she of Lise. Further, when the children reached an age
where their characters began to be defined, they became allies, which
we drew each in his or her own direction. They suffered horribly from
this, the poor things, but we, in our perpetual hubbub, were not
clear-headed enough to think of them. The little girl was devoted to
me, but the eldest boy, who resembled my wife, his favorite, often
inspired me with dislike.”
CHAPTER XVII.
“We lived at first in the country, then in the city, and, if the final
misfortune had not happened, I should have lived thus until my old age
and should then have believed that I had had a good life,—not too good,
but, on the other hand, not bad,—an existence such as other people
lead. I should not have understood the abyss of misfortune and ignoble
falsehood in which I floundered about, feeling that something was not
right. I felt, in the first place, that I, a man, who, according to my
ideas, ought to be the master, wore the petticoats, and that I could
not get rid of them. The principal cause of my subjection was the
children. I should have liked to free myself, but I could not. Bringing
up the children, and resting upon them, my wife ruled. I did not then
realize that she could not help ruling, especially because, in
marrying, she was morally superior to me, as every young girl is
incomparably superior to the man, since she is incomparably purer.
Strange thing! The ordinary wife in our society is a very commonplace
person or worse, selfish, gossiping, whimsical, whereas the ordinary
young girl, until the age of twenty, is a charming being, ready for
everything that is beautiful and lofty. Why is this so? Evidently
because husbands pervert them, and lower them to their own level.
“In truth, if boys and girls are born equal, the little girls find
themselves in a better situation. In the first place, the young girl is
not subjected to the perverting conditions to which we are subjected.
She has neither cigarettes, nor wine, nor cards, nor comrades, nor
public houses, nor public functions. And then the chief thing is that
she is physically pure, and that is why, in marrying, she is superior
to her husband. She is superior to man as a young girl, and when she
becomes a wife in our society, where there is no need to work in order
to live, she becomes superior, also, by the gravity of the acts of
generation, birth, and nursing.
“Woman, in bringing a child into the world, and giving it her bosom,
sees clearly that her affair is more serious than the affair of man,
who sits in the Zemstvo, in the court. She knows that in these
functions the main thing is money, and money can be made in different
ways, and for that very reason money is not inevitably necessary, like
nursing a child. Consequently woman is necessarily superior to man, and
must rule. But man, in our society, not only does not recognize this,
but, on the contrary, always looks upon her from the height of his
grandeur, despising what she does.
“Thus my wife despised me for my work at the Zemstvo, because she gave
birth to children and nursed them. I, in turn, thought that woman’s
labor was most contemptible, which one might and should laugh at.
“Apart from the other motives, we were also separated by a mutual
contempt. Our relations grew ever more hostile, and we arrived at that
period when, not only did dissent provoke hostility, but hostility
provoked dissent. Whatever she might say, I was sure in advance to hold
a contrary opinion; and she the same. Toward the fourth year of our
marriage it was tacitly decided between us that no intellectual
community was possible, and we made no further attempts at it. As to
the simplest objects, we each held obstinately to our own opinions.
With strangers we talked upon the most varied and most intimate
matters, but not with each other. Sometimes, in listening to my wife
talk with others in my presence, I said to myself: ‘What a woman!
Everything that she says is a lie!’ And I was astonished that the
person with whom she was conversing did not see that she was lying.
When we were together; we were condemned to silence, or to
conversations which, I am sure, might have been carried on by animals.
“‘What time is it? It is bed-time. What is there for dinner to-day?
Where shall we go? What is there in the newspaper? The doctor must be
sent for, Lise has a sore throat.’
“Unless we kept within the extremely narrow limits of such
conversation, irritation was sure to ensue. The presence of a third
person relieved us, for through an intermediary we could still
communicate. She probably believed that she was always right. As for
me, in my own eyes, I was a saint beside her.
“The periods of what we call love arrived as often as formerly. They
were more brutal, without refinement, without ornament; but they were
short, and generally followed by periods of irritation without cause,
irritation fed by the most trivial pretexts. We had spats about the
coffee, the table-cloth, the carriage, games of cards,—trifles, in
short, which could not be of the least importance to either of us. As
for me, a terrible execration was continually boiling up within me. I
watched her pour the tea, swing her foot, lift her spoon to her mouth,
and blow upon hot liquids or sip them, and I detested her as if these
had been so many crimes.
“I did not notice that these periods of irritation depended very
regularly upon the periods of love. Each of the latter was followed by
one of the former. A period of intense love was followed by a long
period of anger; a period of mild love induced a mild irritation. We
did not understand that this love and this hatred were two opposite
faces of the same animal feeling. To live thus would be terrible, if
one understood the philosophy of it. But we did not perceive this, we
did not analyze it. It is at once the torture and the relief of man
that, when he lives irregularly, he can cherish illusions as to the
miseries of his situation. So did we. She tried to forget herself in
sudden and absorbing occupations, in household duties, the care of the
furniture, her dress and that of her children, in the education of the
latter, and in looking after their health. These were occupations that
did not arise from any immediate necessity, but she accomplished them
as if her life and that of her children depended on whether the pastry
was allowed to burn, whether a curtain was hanging properly, whether a
dress was a success, whether a lesson was well learned, or whether a
medicine was swallowed.
“I saw clearly that to her all this was, more than anything else, a
means of forgetting, an intoxication, just as hunting, card-playing,
and my functions at the Zemstvo served the same purpose for me. It is
true that in addition I had an intoxication literally
speaking,—tobacco, which I smoked in large quantities, and wine, upon
which I did not get drunk, but of which I took too much. Vodka before
meals, and during meals two glasses of wine, so that a perpetual mist
concealed the turmoil of existence.
“These new theories of hypnotism, of mental maladies, of hysteria are
not simple stupidities, but dangerous or evil stupidities. Charcot, I
am sure, would have said that my wife was hysterical, and of me he
would have said that I was an abnormal being, and he would have wanted
to treat me. But in us there was nothing requiring treatment. All this
mental malady was the simple result of the fact that we were living
immorally. Thanks to this immoral life, we suffered, and, to stifle our
sufferings, we tried abnormal means, which the doctors call the
‘symptoms’ of a mental malady,—_hysteria_.
“There was no occasion in all this to apply for treatment to Charcot or
to anybody else. Neither suggestion nor bromide would have been
effective in working our cure. The needful thing was an examination of
the origin of the evil. It is as when one is sitting on a nail; if you
see the nail, you see that which is irregular in your life, and you
avoid it. Then the pain stops, without any necessity of stifling it.
Our pain arose from the irregularity of our life, and also my jealousy,
my irritability, and the necessity of keeping myself in a state of
perpetual semi-intoxication by hunting, card-playing, and, above all,
the use of wine and tobacco. It was because of this irregularity that
my wife so passionately pursued her occupations. The sudden changes of
her disposition, from extreme sadness to extreme gayety, and her
babble, arose from the need of forgetting herself, of forgetting her
life, in the continual intoxication of varied and very brief
occupations.
“Thus we lived in a perpetual fog, in which we did not distinguish our
condition. We were like two galley-slaves fastened to the same ball,
cursing each other, poisoning each other’s existence, and trying to
shake each other off. I was still unaware that ninety-nine families out
of every hundred live in the same hell, and that it cannot be
otherwise. I had not learned this fact from others or from myself. The
coincidences that are met in regular, and even in irregular life, are
surprising. At the very period when the life of parents becomes
impossible, it becomes indispensable that they go to the city to live,
in order to educate their children. That is what we did.”
Posdnicheff became silent, and twice there escaped him, in the
half-darkness, sighs, which at that moment seemed to me like suppressed
sobs. Then he continued.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“So we lived in the city. In the city the wretched feel less sad. One
can live there a hundred years without being noticed, and be dead a
long time before anybody will notice it. People have no time to inquire
into your life. All are absorbed. Business, social relations, art, the
health of children, their education. And there are visits that must be
received and made; it is necessary to see this one, it is necessary to
hear that one or the other one. In the city there are always one, two,
or three celebrities that it is indispensable that one should visit.
“Now one must care for himself, or care for such or such a little one,
now it is the professor, the private tutor, the governesses, . . . and
life is absolutely empty. In this activity we were less conscious of
the sufferings of our cohabitation. Moreover, in the first of it, we
had a superb occupation,—the arrangement of the new dwelling, and then,
too, the moving from the city to the country, and from the country to
the city.
“Thus we spent a winter. The following winter an incident happened to
us which passed unnoticed, but which was the fundamental cause of all
that happened later. My wife was suffering, and the rascals (the
doctors) would not permit her to conceive a child, and taught her how
to avoid it. I was profoundly disgusted. I struggled vainly against it,
but she insisted frivolously and obstinately, and I surrendered. The
last justification of our life as wretches was thereby suppressed, and
life became baser than ever.
“The peasant and the workingman need children, and hence their conjugal
relations have a justification. But we, when we have a few children,
have no need of any more. They make a superfluous confusion of expenses
and joint heirs, and are an embarrassment. Consequently we have no
excuses for our existence as wretches, but we are so deeply degraded
that we do not see the necessity of a justification. The majority of
people in contemporary society give themselves up to this debauchery
without the slightest remorse. We have no conscience left, except, so
to speak, the conscience of public opinion and of the criminal code.
But in this matter neither of these consciences is struck. There is not
a being in society who blushes at it. Each one practices it,—X, Y, Z,
etc. What is the use of multiplying beggars, and depriving ourselves of
the joys of social life? There is no necessity of having conscience
before the criminal code, or of fearing it: low girls, soldiers’ wives
who throw their children into ponds or wells, these certainly must be
put in prison. But with us the suppression is effected opportunely and
properly.
“Thus we passed two years more. The method prescribed by the rascals
had evidently succeeded. My wife had grown stouter and handsomer. It
was the beauty of the end of summer. She felt it, and paid much
attention to her person. She had acquired that provoking beauty that
stirs men. She was in all the brilliancy of the wife of thirty years,
who conceives no children, eats heartily, and is excited. The very
sight of her was enough to frighten one. She was like a spirited
carriage-horse that has long been idle, and suddenly finds itself
without a bridle. As for my wife, she had no bridle, as for that
matter, ninety-nine hundredths of our women have none.”
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 understand.
“‘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 jealousy 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 because 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 conclude that he was
irresponsible. He was a musician, 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 Conservatory, 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, smiling 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
revealed 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 astonishing 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 husbands 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.”
CHAPTER XX.
“In order that you may understand me, I must tell you how this
happened. We were living along, and all seemed well. Suddenly we began
to talk of the children’s education. I do not remember what words
either of us uttered, but a discussion began, reproaches, leaps from
one subject to another. ‘Yes, I know it. It has been so for a long
time.’ . . . ‘You said that.’ . . . ‘No, I did not say that.’ . . .
‘Then I lie?’ etc.
“And I felt that the frightful crisis was approaching when I should
desire to kill her or else myself. I knew that it was approaching; I
was afraid of it as of fire; I wanted to restrain myself. But rage took
possession of my whole being. My wife found herself in the same
condition, perhaps worse. She knew that she intentionally distorted
each of my words, and each of her words was saturated with venom. All
that was dear to me she disparaged and profaned. The farther the
quarrel went, the more furious it became. I cried, ‘Be silent,’ or
something like that.
“She bounded out of the room and ran toward the children. I tried to
hold her back to finish my insults. I grasped her by the arm, and hurt
her. She cried: ‘Children, your father is beating me.’ I cried: ‘Don’t
lie.’ She continued to utter falsehoods for the simple purpose of
irritating me further. ‘Ah, it is not the first time,’ or something of
that sort. The children rushed toward her and tried to quiet her. I
said: ‘Don’t sham.’ She said: ‘You look upon everything as a sham. You
would kill a person and say he was shamming. Now I understand you. That
is what you want to do.’ ‘Oh, if you were only dead!’ I cried.
“I remember how that terrible phrase frightened me. Never had I thought
that I could utter words so brutal, so frightful, and I was stupefied
at what had just escaped my lips. I fled into my private apartment. I
sat down and began to smoke. I heard her go into the hall and prepare
to go out. I asked her: ‘Where are you going? She did not answer.
‘Well, may the devil take you!’ said I to myself, going back into my
private room, where I lay down again and began smoking afresh.
Thousands of plans of vengeance, of ways of getting rid of her, and how
to arrange this, and act as if nothing had happened,—all this passed
through my head. I thought of these things, and I smoked, and smoked,
and smoked. I thought of running away, of making my escape, of going to
America. I went so far as to dream how beautiful it would be, after
getting rid of her, to love another woman, entirely different from her.
I should be rid of her if she should die or if I should get a divorce,
and I tried to think how that could be managed. I saw that I was
getting confused, but, in order not to see that I was not thinking
rightly, I kept on smoking.
“And the life of the house went on as usual. The children’s teacher
came and asked: ‘Where is Madame? When will she return?’
“The servants asked if they should serve the tea. I entered the
dining-room. The children, Lise, the eldest girl, looked at me with
fright, as if to question me, and she did not come. The whole evening
passed, and still she did not come. Two sentiments kept succeeding each
other in my soul,—hatred of her, since she tortured myself and the
children by her absence, but would finally return just the same, and
fear lest she might return and make some attempt upon herself. But
where should I look for her? At her sister’s? It seemed so stupid to go
to ask where one’s wife is. Moreover, may God forbid, I hoped, that she
should be at her sister’s! If she wishes to torment any one, let her
torment herself first. And suppose she were not at her sister’s.
“Suppose she were to do, or had already done, something.
“Eleven o’clock, midnight, one o’clock. . . . I did not sleep. I did
not go to my chamber. It is stupid to lie stretched out all alone, and
to wait. But in my study I did not rest. I tried to busy myself, to
write letters, to read. Impossible! I was alone, tortured, wicked, and
I listened. Toward daylight I went to sleep. I awoke. She had not
returned. Everything in the house went on as usual, and all looked at
me in astonishment, questioningly. The children’s eyes were full of
reproach for me.
“And always the same feeling of anxiety about her, and of hatred
because of this anxiety.
“Toward eleven o’clock in the morning came her sister, her
ambassadress. Then began the usual phrases: ‘She is in a terrible
state. What is the matter?’ ‘Why, nothing has happened.’ I spoke of her
asperity of character, and I added that I had done nothing, and that I
would not take the first step. If she wants a divorce, so much the
better! My sister-in-law would not listen to this idea, and went away
without having gained anything. I was obstinate, and I said boldly and
determinedly, in talking to her, that I would not take the first step.
Immediately she had gone I went into the other room, and saw the
children in a frightened and pitiful state, and there I found myself
already inclined to take this first step. But I was bound by my word.
Again I walked up and down, always smoking. At breakfast I drank brandy
and wine, and I reached the point which I unconsciously desired, the
point where I no longer saw the stupidity and baseness of my situation.
“Toward three o’clock she came. I thought that she was appeased, or
admitted her defeat. I began to tell her that I was provoked by her
reproaches. She answered me, with the same severe and terribly downcast
face, that she had not come for explanations, but to take the children,
that we could not live together. I answered that it was not my fault,
that she had put me beside myself. She looked at me with a severe and
solemn air, and said: ‘Say no more. You will repent it.’ I said that I
could not tolerate comedies. Then she cried out something that I did
not understand, and rushed toward her room. The key turned in the lock,
and she shut herself up. I pushed at the door. There was no response.
Furious, I went away.
“A half hour later Lise came running all in tears. ‘What! Has anything
happened? We cannot hear Mamma!’ We went toward my wife’s room. I
pushed the door with all my might. The bolt was scarcely drawn, and the
door opened. In a skirt, with high boots, my wife lay awkwardly on the
bed. On the table an empty opium phial. We restored her to life. Tears
and then reconciliation! Not reconciliation; internally each kept the
hatred for the other, but it was absolutely necessary for the moment to
end the scene in some way, and life began again as before. These
scenes, and even worse, came now once a week, now every month, now
every day. And invariably the same incidents. Once I was absolutely
resolved to fly, but through some inconceivable weakness I remained.
“Such were the circumstances in which we were living when the _man_
came. The man was bad, it is true. But what! No worse than we were.”
CHAPTER XXI.
“When we moved to Moscow, this gentleman—his name was
Troukhatchevsky—came to my house. It was in the morning. I received
him. In former times we had been very familiar. He tried, by various
advances, to re-establish the familiarity, but I was determined to keep
him at a distance, and soon he gave it up. He displeased me extremely.
At the first glance I saw that he was a filthy _débauché_. I was
jealous of him, even before he had seen my wife. But, strange thing!
some occult fatal power kept me from repulsing him and sending him
away, and, on the contrary, induced me to suffer this approach. What
could have been simpler than to talk with him a few minutes, and then
dismiss him coldly without introducing him to my wife? But no, as if on
purpose, I turned the conversation upon his skill as a violinist, and
he answered that, contrary to what I had heard, he now played the
violin more than formerly. He remembered that I used to play. I
answered that I had abandoned music, but that my wife played very well.
“Singular thing! Why, in the important events of our life, in those in
which a man’s fate is decided,—as mine was decided in that moment,—why
in these events is there neither a past nor a future? My relations with
Troukhatchevsky the first day, at the first hour, were such as they
might still have been after all that has happened. I was conscious that
some frightful misfortune must result from the presence of this man,
and, in spite of that, I could not help being amiable to him. I
introduced him to my wife. She was pleased with him. In the beginning,
I suppose, because of the pleasure of the violin playing, which she
adored. She had even hired for that purpose a violinist from the
theatre. But when she cast a glance at me, she understood my feelings,
and concealed her impression. Then began the mutual trickery and
deceit. I smiled agreeably, pretending that all this pleased me
extremely. He, looking at my wife, as all _débauchés_ look at beautiful
women, with an air of being interested solely in the subject of
conversation,—that is, in that which did not interest him at all.
“She tried to seem indifferent. But my expression, my jealous or false
smile, which she knew so well, and the voluptuous glances of the
musician, evidently excited her. I saw that, after the first interview,
her eyes were already glittering, glittering strangely, and that,
thanks to my jealousy, between him and her had been immediately
established that sort of electric current which is provoked by an
identity of expression in the smile and in the eyes.
“We talked, at the first interview, of music, of Paris, and of all
sorts of trivialities. He rose to go. Pressing his hat against his
swaying hip, he stood erect, looking now at her and now at me, as if
waiting to see what she would do. I remember that minute, precisely
because it was in my power not to invite him. I need not have invited
him, and then nothing would have happened. But I cast a glance first at
him, then at her. ‘Don’t flatter yourself that I can be jealous of
you,’ I thought, addressing myself to her mentally, and I invited the
other to bring his violin that very evening, and to play with my wife.
She raised her eyes toward me with astonishment, and her face turned
purple, as if she were seized with a sudden fear. She began to excuse
herself, saying that she did not play well enough. This refusal only
excited me the more. I remember the strange feeling with which I looked
at his neck, his white neck, in contrast with his black hair, separated
by a parting, when, with his skipping gait, like that of a bird, he
left my house. I could not help confessing to myself that this man’s
presence caused me suffering. ‘It is in my power,’ thought I, ‘to so
arrange things that I shall never see him again. But can it be that I,
_I_, fear him? No, I do not fear him. It would be too humiliating!’
“And there in the hall, knowing that my wife heard me, I insisted that
he should come that very evening with his violin. He promised me, and
went away. In the evening he arrived with his violin, and they played
together. But for a long time things did not go well; we had not the
necessary music, and that which we had my wife could not play at sight.
I amused myself with their difficulties. I aided them, I made
proposals, and they finally executed a few pieces,—songs without words,
and a little sonata by Mozart. He played in a marvellous manner. He had
what is called the energetic and tender tone. As for difficulties,
there were none for him. Scarcely had he begun to play, when his face
changed. He became serious, and much more sympathetic. He was, it is
needless to say, much stronger than my wife. He helped her, he advised
her simply and naturally, and at the same time played his game with
courtesy. My wife seemed interested only in the music. She was very
simple and agreeable. Throughout the evening I feigned, not only for
the others, but for myself, an interest solely in the music. Really, I
was continually tortured by jealousy. From the first minute that the
musician’s eyes met those of my wife, I saw that he did not regard her
as a disagreeable woman, with whom on occasion it would be unpleasant
to enter into intimate relations.
“If I had been pure, I should not have dreamed of what he might think
of her. But I looked at women, and that is why I understood him and was
in torture. I was in torture, especially because I was sure that toward
me she had no other feeling than of perpetual irritation, sometimes
interrupted by the customary sensuality, and that this man,—thanks to
his external elegance and his novelty, and, above all, thanks to his
unquestionably remarkable talent, thanks to the attraction exercised
under the influence of music, thanks to the impression that music
produces upon nervous natures,—this man would not only please, but
would inevitably, and without difficulty, subjugate and conquer her,
and do with her as he liked.
“I could not help seeing this. I could not help suffering, or keep from
being jealous. And I was jealous, and I suffered, and in spite of that,
and perhaps even because of that, an unknown force, in spite of my
will, impelled me to be not only polite, but more than polite, amiable.
I cannot say whether I did it for my wife, or to show him that I did
not fear _him_, or to deceive myself; but from my first relations with
him I could not be at my ease. I was obliged, that I might not give way
to a desire to kill him immediately, to ‘caress’ him. I filled his
glass at the table, I grew enthusiastic over his playing, I talked to
him with an extremely amiable smile, and I invited him to dinner the
following Sunday, and to play again. I told him that I would invite
some of my acquaintances, lovers of his art, to hear him.
“Two or three days later I was entering my house, in conversation with
a friend, when in the hall I suddenly felt something as heavy as a
stone weighing on my heart, and I could not account for it. And it was
this, it was this: in passing through the hall, I had noticed something
which reminded me of _him_. Not until I reached my study did I realize
what it was, and I returned to the hall to verify my conjecture. Yes, I
was not mistaken. It was his overcoat (everything that belonged to him,
I, without realizing it, had observed with extraordinary attention). I
questioned the servant. That was it. He had come. “I passed near the
parlor, through my children’s study-room. Lise, my daughter, was
sitting before a book, and the old nurse, with my youngest child, was
beside the table, turning the cover of something or other. In the
parlor I heard a slow _arpeggio_, and his voice, deadened, and a denial
from her. She said: ‘No, no! There is something else!’ And it seemed to
me that some one was purposely deadening the words by the aid of the
piano.
“My God! How my heart leaped! What were my imaginations! When I
remember the beast that lived in me at that moment, I am seized with
fright. My heart was first compressed, then stopped, and then began to
beat like a hammer. The principal feeling, as in every bad feeling, was
pity for myself. ‘Before the children, before the old nurse,’ thought
I, ‘she dishonors me. I will go away. I can endure it no longer. God
knows what I should do if. . . . But I must go in.’
“The old nurse raised her eyes to mine, as if she understood, and
advised me to keep a sharp watch. ‘I must go in,’ I said to myself,
and, without knowing what I did, I opened the door. He was sitting at
the piano and making _arpeggios_ with his long, white, curved fingers.
She was standing in the angle of the grand piano, before the open
score. She saw or heard me first, and raised her eyes to mine. Was she
stunned, was she pretending not to be frightened, or was she really not
frightened at all? In any case, she did not tremble, she did not stir.
She blushed, but only a little later.
“‘How glad I am that you have come! We have not decided what we will
play Sunday,’ said she, in a tone that she would not have had if she
had been alone with me.
“This tone, and the way in which she said ‘we’ in speaking of herself
and of him, revolted me. I saluted him silently. He shook hands with me
directly, with a smile that seemed to me full of mockery. He explained
to me that he had brought some scores, in order to prepare for the
Sunday concert, and that they were not in accord as to the piece to
choose,—whether difficult, classic things, notably a sonata by
Beethoven, or lighter pieces.
“And as he spoke, he looked at me. It was all so natural, so simple,
that there was absolutely nothing to be said against it. And at the
same time I saw, I was sure, that it was false, that they were in a
conspiracy to deceive me.
“One of the most torturing situations for the jealous (and in our
social life everybody is jealous) are those social conditions which
allow a very great and dangerous intimacy between a man and a woman
under certain pretexts. One must make himself the laughing stock of
everybody, if he desires to prevent associations in the ball-room, the
intimacy of doctors with their patients, the familiarity of art
occupations, and especially of music. In order that people may occupy
themselves together with the noblest art, music, a certain intimacy is
necessary, in which there is nothing blameworthy. Only a jealous fool
of a husband can have anything to say against it. A husband should not
have such thoughts, and especially should not thrust his nose into
these affairs, or prevent them. And yet, everybody knows that precisely
in these occupations, especially in music, many adulteries originate in
our society.
“I had evidently embarrassed them, because for some time I was unable
to say anything. I was like a bottle suddenly turned upside down, from
which the water does not run because it is too full. I wanted to insult
the man, and to drive him away, but I could do nothing of the kind. On
the contrary, I felt that I was disturbing them, and that it was my
fault. I made a presence of approving everything, this time also,
thanks to that strange feeling that forced me to treat him the more
amiably in proportion as his presence was more painful to me. I said
that I trusted to his taste, and I advised my wife to do the same. He
remained just as long as it was necessary in order to efface the
unpleasant impression of my abrupt entrance with a frightened face. He
went away with an air of satisfaction at the conclusions arrived at. As
for me, I was perfectly sure that, in comparison with that which
preoccupied them, the question of music was indifferent to them. I
accompanied him with especial courtesy to the hall (how can one help
accompanying a man who has come to disturb your tranquillity and ruin
the happiness of the entire family?), and I shook his white, soft hand
with fervent amiability.”
CHAPTER XXII.
“All that day I did not speak to my wife. I could not. Her proximity
excited such hatred that I feared myself. At the table she asked me, in
presence of the children, when I was to start upon a journey. I was to
go the following week to an assembly of the Zemstvo, in a neighboring
locality. I named the date. She asked me if I would need anything for
the journey. I did not answer. I sat silent at the table, and silently
I retired to my study. In those last days she never entered my study,
especially at that hour. Suddenly I heard her steps, her walk, and then
a terribly base idea entered my head that, like the wife of Uri, she
wished to conceal a fault already committed, and that it was for this
reason that she came to see me at this unseasonable hour. ‘Is it
possible,’ thought I, ‘that she is coming to see me?’ On hearing her
step as it approached: ‘If it is to see me that she is coming, then I
am right.’
“An inexpressible hatred invaded my soul. The steps drew nearer, and
nearer, and nearer yet. Would she pass by and go on to the other room?
No, the hinges creaked, and at the door her tall, graceful, languid
figure appeared. In her face, in her eyes, a timidity, an insinuating
expression, which she tried to hide, but which I saw, and of which I
understood the meaning. I came near suffocating, such were my efforts
to hold my breath, and, continuing to look at her, I took my cigarette,
and lighted it.
“‘What does this mean? One comes to talk with you, and you go to
smoking.’
“And she sat down beside me on the sofa, resting against my shoulder. I
recoiled, that I might not touch her.
“‘I see that you are displeased with what I wish to play on Sunday,’
said she.
“‘I am not at all displeased,’ said I.
“‘Can I not see?’
“‘Well, I congratulate you on your clairvoyance. Only to you every
baseness is agreeable, and I abhor it.’
“‘If you are going to swear like a trooper, I am going away.’
“‘Then go away. Only know that, if the honor of the family is nothing
to you, to me it is dear. As for you, the devil take you!’
“‘What! What is the matter?’
“‘Go away, in the name of God.’
“But she did not go away. Was she pretending not to understand, or did
she really not understand what I meant? But she was offended and became
angry.
“‘You have become absolutely impossible,’ she began, or some such
phrase as that regarding my character, trying, as usual, to give me as
much pain as possible. ‘After what you have done to my sister (she
referred to an incident with her sister, in which, beside myself, I had
uttered brutalities; she knew that that tortured me, and tried to touch
me in that tender spot) nothing will astonish me.’
“‘Yes, offended, humiliated, and dishonored, and after that to hold me
still responsible,’ thought I, and suddenly a rage, such a hatred
invaded me as I do not remember to have ever felt before. For the first
time I desired to express this hatred physically. I leaped upon her,
but at the same moment I understood my condition, and I asked myself
whether it would be well for me to abandon myself to my fury. And I
answered myself that it would be well, that it would frighten her, and,
instead of resisting, I lashed and spurred myself on, and was glad to
feel my anger boiling more and more fiercely.
“‘Go away, or I will kill you!’ I cried, purposely, with a frightful
voice, and I grasped her by the arm. She did not go away. Then I
twisted her arm, and pushed her away violently.
“‘What is the matter with you? Come to your senses!’ she shrieked.
“‘Go away,’ roared I, louder than ever, rolling my eyes wildly. ‘It
takes you to put me in such a fury. I do not answer for myself! Go
away!’
“In abandoning myself to my anger, I became steeped in it, and I wanted
to commit some violent act to show the force of my fury. I felt a
terrible desire to beat her, to kill her, but I realized that that
could not be, and I restrained myself. I drew back from her, rushed to
the table, grasped the paper-weight, and threw it on the floor by her
side. I took care to aim a little to one side, and, before she
disappeared (I did it so that she could see it), I grasped a
candlestick, which I also hurled, and then took down the barometer,
continuing to shout:
“‘Go away! I do not answer for myself!’
“She disappeared, and I immediately ceased my demonstrations. An hour
later the old servant came to me and said that my wife was in a fit of
hysterics. I went to see her. She sobbed and laughed, incapable of
expressing anything, her whole body in a tremble. She was not shamming,
she was really sick. We sent for the doctor, and all night long I cared
for her. Toward daylight she grew calmer, and we became reconciled
under the influence of that feeling which we called ‘love.’ The next
morning, when, after the reconciliation, I confessed to her that I was
jealous of Troukhatchevsky, she was not at all embarrassed, and began
to laugh in the most natural way, so strange did the possibility of
being led astray by such a man appear to her.
“‘With such a man can an honest woman entertain any feeling beyond the
pleasure of enjoying music with him? But if you like, I am ready to
never see him again, even on Sunday, although everybody has been
invited. Write him that I am indisposed, and that will end the matter.
Only one thing annoys me,—that any one could have thought him
dangerous. I am too proud not to detest such thoughts.’
“And she did not lie. She believed what she said. She hoped by her
words to provoke in herself a contempt for him, and thereby to defend
herself. But she did not succeed. Everything was directed against her,
especially that abominable music. So ended the quarrel, and on Sunday
our guests came, and Troukhatchevsky and my wife again played
together.”
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 tastefully arranging
things for the dinner and the musical _soirée_. I had purchased myself
numerous 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 responded 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 inferiority 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 sufferings which I felt
in jealousy, I no longer allowed 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
afterward 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 instrument. 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 violin and the arrangement of the scores. I remember 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 general. 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
transports me into a state which is not my own. Under 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 laughter; 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 ‘Kreutzer 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 finished. A dance
is played; I have finished dancing, 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 excitement, and this excitement is not
accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is
why music is so dangerous, and sometimes 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 wearing 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 nothing, 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
consciousness of this indefinite state filled me with joy. In that
state there was no room for jealousy. 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 trivialities, 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 evening. 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 evening I was not jealous.
“Two days later I was to start for the assembly of the Zemstvo, and for
that reason, on taking 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
absence, 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 pleasure, 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 natural and proper. All went
marvellously. My wife and I retired, well satisfied with the evening.
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.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
“Two days later I started for the assembly, having bid farewell to my
wife in an excellent and tranquil state of mind. In the district there
was always much to be done. It was a world and a life apart. During two
days I spent ten hours at the sessions. The evening of the second day,
on returning to my district lodgings, I found a letter from my wife,
telling me of the children, of their uncle, of the servants, and, among
other things, as if it were perfectly natural, that Troukhatchevsky had
been at the house, and had brought her the promised scores. He had also
proposed that they play again, but she had refused.
“For my part, I did not remember at all that he had promised any score.
It had seemed to me on Sunday evening that he took a definite leave,
and for this reason the news gave me a disagreeable surprise. I read
the letter again. There was something tender and timid about it. It
produced an extremely painful impression upon me. My heart swelled, and
the mad beast of jealousy began to roar in his lair, and seemed to want
to leap upon his prey. But I was afraid of this beast, and I imposed
silence upon it.
“What an abominable sentiment is jealousy! ‘What could be more natural
than what she has written?’ said I to myself. I went to bed, thinking
myself tranquil again. I thought of the business that remained to be
done, and I went to sleep without thinking of her.
“During these assemblies of the Zemstvo I always slept badly in my
strange quarters. That night I went to sleep directly, but, as
sometimes happens, a sort of sudden shock awoke me. I thought
immediately of her, of my physical love for her, of Troukhatchevsky,
and that between them everything had happened. And a feeling of rage
compressed my heart, and I tried to quiet myself.
“‘How stupid!’ said I to myself; ‘there is no reason, none at all. And
why humiliate ourselves, herself and myself, and especially myself, by
supposing such horrors? This mercenary violinist, known as a bad
man,—shall I think of him in connection with a respectable woman, the
mother of a family, _my_ wife? How silly!’ But on the other hand, I
said to myself: ‘Why should it not happen?’
“Why? Was it not the same simple and intelligible feeling in the name
of which I married, in the name of which I was living with her, the
only thing I wanted of her, and that which, consequently, others
desired, this musician among the rest? He was not married, was in good
health (I remember how his teeth ground the gristle of the cutlets, and
how eagerly he emptied the glass of wine with his red lips), was
careful of his person, well fed, and not only without principles, but
evidently with the principle that one should take advantage of the
pleasure that offers itself. There was a bond between them, music,—the
most refined form of sensual voluptuousness. What was there to restrain
them? Nothing. Everything, on the contrary, attracted them. And she,
she had been and had remained a mystery. I did not know her. I knew her
only as an animal, and an animal nothing can or should restrain. And
now I remember their faces on Sunday evening, when, after the ‘Kreutzer
Sonata,’ they played a passionate piece, written I know not by whom,
but a piece passionate to the point of obscenity.
“‘How could I have gone away?’ said I to myself, as I recalled their
faces. ‘Was it not clear that between them everything was done that
evening? Was it not clear that between them not only there were no more
obstacles, but that both—especially she—felt a certain shame after what
had happened at the piano? How weakly, pitiably, happily she smiled, as
she wiped the perspiration from her reddened face! They already avoided
each other’s eyes, and only at the supper, when she poured some water
for him, did they look at each other and smile imperceptibly.’
“Now I remember with fright that look and that scarcely perceptible
smile. ‘Yes, everything has happened,’ a voice said to me, and directly
another said the opposite. ‘Are you mad? It is impossible!’ said the
second voice.
“It was too painful to me to remain thus stretched in the darkness. I
struck a match, and the little yellow-papered room frightened me. I
lighted a cigarette, and, as always happens, when one turns in a circle
of inextricable contradiction, I began to smoke. I smoked cigarette
after cigarette to dull my senses, that I might not see my
contradictions. All night I did not sleep, and at five o’clock, when it
was not yet light, I decided that I could stand this strain no longer,
and that I would leave directly. There was a train at eight o’clock. I
awakened the keeper who was acting as my servant, and sent him to look
for horses. To the assembly of Zemstvo I sent a message that I was
called back to Moscow by pressing business, and that I begged them to
substitute for me a member of the Committee. At eight o’clock I got
into a _tarantass_ and started off.”
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 distract 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.
Toward 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 conquering my preoccupation, 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 incessantly, with extraordinary vivacity, drew
pictures before my eyes, each more cynical than its predecessor, which
kindled my jealousy. And always the same things about what was
happening 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 pictures, the more I believed in
their reality, forgetting 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
Troukhatchevsky, I remembered at that moment, in a sort of ecstasy, and
it tore my heart as I connected it with the musician and my wife. Yes,
it was very long ago. The brother of Troukhatchevsky, 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 mistress,’ 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 humiliating to her?’ ‘Yes, but she lied,’ I cried,
and all began over again.
“There were only two travellers in my compartment: 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 efforts, 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 carriages. 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, drinking
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 understand what he said. He
noticed it, and exacted my attention to his person. Then I rose and
entered 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
reflect quietly; but directly, instead of the peaceful reflections, the
same thing began again. Instead 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
deprive 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.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
“At the station before the last, when the conductor came to take the
tickets, I took my baggage 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.
Mechanically 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 forgotten 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 because
I thought it so? Or had I a presentiment? 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). Without trying to account for this late illumination,
I went up the steps, always with the same expectation 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
answered: ‘Nobody.’ I remember the air with which he said that, with a
tone that was intended 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 straightway 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 energetic 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 accompanied 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
instant 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 disappeared. 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
innocence. All is clear. No doubt. I feared but one thing,—that they
might run in different directions, that they might invent some new lie,
and thus deprive me of material proof, and of the sorrowful joy of
punishing, yes, of executing 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 wondered 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
embracing 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 disdained 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 physical 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 advanced 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 approached the dining-room, how I opened the door, how I
entered. I remember nothing about it.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
“I remember only the expression of their faces when I opened the door.
I remember that, because it awakened in me a feeling of sorrowful joy.
It was an expression of terror, such as I desired. Never shall I forget
that desperate and sudden fright that appeared on their faces when they
saw me. He, I believe, was at the table, and, when he saw or heard me,
he started, jumped to his feet, and retreated to the sideboard. Fear
was the only sentiment that could be read with certainty in his face.
In hers, too, fear was to be read, but accompanied by other
impressions. And yet, if her face had expressed only fear, perhaps that
which happened would not have happened. But in the expression of her
face there was at the first moment—at least, I thought I saw it—a
feeling of _ennui_, of discontent, at this disturbance of her love and
happiness. One would have said that her sole desire was not to be
disturbed _in the moment of her happiness_. But these expressions
appeared upon their faces only for a moment. Terror almost immediately
gave place to interrogation. Would they lie or not? If yes, they must
begin. If not, something else was going to happen. But what?
“He gave her a questioning glance. On her face the expression of
anguish and _ennui_ changed, it seemed to me, when she looked at him,
into an expression of anxiety for _him_. For a moment I stood in the
doorway, holding the dagger hidden behind my back. Suddenly he smiled,
and in a voice that was indifferent almost to the point of ridicule, he
said:
“‘We were having some music.’
“‘I did not expect—,’ she began at the same time, chiming in with the
tone of the other.
“But neither he nor she finished their remarks. The same rage that I
had felt the previous week took possession of me. I felt the need of
giving free course to my violence and ‘the joy of wrath.’
“No, they did not finish. That other thing was going to begin, of which
he was afraid, and was going to annihilate what they wanted to say. I
threw myself upon her, still hiding the dagger, that he might not
prevent me from striking where I desired, in her bosom, under the
breast. At that moment he saw . . . and, what I did not expect on his
part, he quickly seized my hand, and cried:
“‘Come to your senses! What are you doing? Help! Help!’
“I tore my hands from his grasp, and leaped upon him. I must have been
very terrible, for he turned as white as a sheet, to his lips. His eyes
scintillated singularly, and—again what I did not expect of him—he
scrambled under the piano, toward the other room. I tried to follow
him, but a very heavy weight fell upon my left arm. It was she.
“I made an effort to clear myself. She clung more heavily than ever,
refusing to let go. This unexpected obstacle, this burden, and this
repugnant touch only irritated me the more. I perceived that I was
completely mad, that I must be frightful, and I was glad of it. With a
sudden impulse, and with all my strength, I dealt her, with my left
elbow, a blow squarely in the face.
“She uttered a cry and let go my arm. I wanted to follow the other, but
I felt that it would be ridiculous to pursue in my stockings the lover
of my wife, and I did not wish to be grotesque, I wished to be
terrible. In spite of my extreme rage, I was all the time conscious of
the impression that I was making upon others, and even this impression
partially guided me.
“I turned toward her. She had fallen on the long easy chair, and,
covering her face at the spot where I had struck her, she looked at me.
Her features exhibited fear and hatred toward me, her enemy, such as
the rat exhibits when one lifts the rat-trap. At least, I saw nothing
in her but that fear and hatred, the fear and hatred which love for
another had provoked. Perhaps I still should have restrained myself,
and should not have gone to the last extremity, if she had maintained
silence. But suddenly she began to speak; she grasped my hand that held
the dagger.
“‘Come to your senses! What are you doing? What is the matter with you?
Nothing has happened, nothing, nothing! I swear it to you!’
“I might have delayed longer, but these last words, from which I
inferred the contrary of what they affirmed,—that is, that _everything_
had happened,—these words called for a reply. And the reply must
correspond to the condition into which I had lashed myself, and which
was increasing and must continue to increase. Rage has its laws.
“‘Do not lie, wretch. Do not lie!’ I roared.
“With my left hand I seized her hands. She disengaged herself. Then,
without dropping my dagger, I seized her by the throat, forced her to
the floor, and began to strangle her. With her two hands she clutched
mine, tearing them from her throat, stifling. Then I struck her a blow
with the dagger, in the left side, between the lower ribs.
“When people say that they do not remember what they do in a fit of
fury, they talk nonsense. It is false. I remember everything.
“I did not lose my consciousness for a single moment. The more I lashed
myself to fury, the clearer my mind became, and I could not help seeing
what I did. I cannot say that I knew in advance what I would do, but at
the moment when I acted, and it seems to me even a little before, I
knew what I was doing, as if to make it possible to repent, and to be
able to say later that I could have stopped.
“I knew that I struck the blow between the ribs, and that the dagger
entered.
“At the second when I did it, I knew that I was performing a horrible
act, such as I had never performed,—an act that would have frightful
consequences. My thought was as quick as lightning, and the deed
followed immediately. The act, to my inner sense, had an extraordinary
clearness. I perceived the resistance of the corset and then something
else, and then the sinking of the knife into a soft substance. She
clutched at the dagger with her hands, and cut herself with it, but
could not restrain the blow.
“Long afterward, in prison when the moral revolution had been effected
within me, I thought of that minute, I remembered it as far as I could,
and I co-ordinated all the sudden changes. I remembered the terrible
consciousness which I felt,—that I was killing a wife, _my_ wife.
“I well remember the horror of that consciousness and I know vaguely
that, having plunged in the dagger, I drew it out again immediately,
wishing to repair and arrest my action. She straightened up and cried:
“‘Nurse, he has killed me!’
“The old nurse, who had heard the noise, was standing in the doorway. I
was still erect, waiting, and not believing myself in what had
happened. But at that moment, from under her corset, the blood gushed
forth. Then only did I understand that all reparation was impossible,
and promptly I decided that it was not even necessary, that all had
happened in accordance with my wish, and that I had fulfilled my
desire. I waited until she fell, and until the nurse, exclaiming, ‘Oh,
my God!’ ran to her; then only I threw away the dagger and went out of
the room.
“‘I must not be agitated. I must be conscious of what I am doing,’ I
said to myself, looking neither at her nor at the old nurse. The latter
cried and called the maid. I passed through the hall, and, after having
sent the maid, started for my study.
“‘What shall I do now?’ I asked myself.
“And immediately I understood what I should do. Directly after entering
the study, I went straight to the wall, took down the revolver, and
examined it attentively. It was loaded. Then I placed it on the table.
Next I picked up the sheath of the dagger, which had dropped down
behind the sofa, and then I sat down. I remained thus for a long time.
I thought of nothing, I did not try to remember anything. I heard a
stifled noise of steps, a movement of objects and of tapestries, then
the arrival of a person, and then the arrival of another person. Then I
saw Gregor bring into my room the baggage from the railway; as if any
one needed it!
“‘Have you heard what has happened?’ I asked him. ‘Have you told the
_dvornik_ to inform the police?’
“He made no answer, and went out. I rose, closed the door, took the
cigarettes and the matches, and began to smoke. I had not finished one
cigarette, when a drowsy feeling came over me and sent me into a deep
sleep. I surely slept two hours. I remember having dreamed that I was
on good terms with her, that after a quarrel we were in the act of
making up, that something prevented us, but that we were friends all
the same.
“A knock at the door awoke me.
“‘It is the police,’ thought I, as I opened my eyes. ‘I have killed, I
believe. But perhaps it is _she;_ perhaps nothing has happened.’
“Another knock. I did not answer. I was solving the question: ‘Has it
happened or not? Yes, it has happened.’
“I remembered the resistance of the corset, and then. . . . ‘Yes, it
has happened. Yes, it has happened. Yes, now I must execute myself,’
said I to myself.
“I said it, but I knew well that I should not kill myself.
Nevertheless, I rose and took the revolver, but, strange thing, I
remembered that formerly I had very often had suicidal ideas, that that
very night, on the cars, it had seemed to me easy, especially easy
because I thought how it would stupefy her. Now I not only could not
kill myself, but I could not even think of it.
“‘Why do it?’ I asked myself, without answering.
“Another knock at the door.
“‘Yes, but I must first know who is knocking. I have time enough.’
“I put the revolver back on the table, and hid it under my newspaper. I
went to the door and drew back the bolt.
“It was my wife’s sister,—a good and stupid widow.
“‘Basile, what does this mean?’ said she, and her tears, always ready,
began to flow.
“‘What do you want?’ I asked roughly.
“I saw clearly that there was no necessity of being rough with her, but
I could not speak in any other tone.
“‘Basile, she is dying. Ivan Fedorowitch says so.’
“Ivan Fedorowitch was the doctor, _her_ doctor, her counsellor.
“‘Is he here?’ I inquired.
“And all my hatred of her arose anew.
“Well, what?
“‘Basile, go to her! Ah! how terrible it is!’ said she.
“‘Go to her?’ I asked myself; and immediately I made answer to myself
that I ought to go, that probably that was the thing that is usually
done when a husband like myself kills his wife, that it was absolutely
necessary that I should go and see her.
“‘If that is the proper thing, I must go,’ I repeated to myself. ‘Yes,
if it is necessary, I shall still have time,’ said I to myself,
thinking of my intention of blowing my brains out.
“And I followed my sister-in-law. ‘Now there are going to be phrases
and grimaces, but I will not yield,’ I declared to myself.
“‘Wait,’ said I to my sister-in-law, ‘it is stupid to be without boots.
Let me at least put on my slippers.’”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
“Strange thing! Again, when I had left my study, and was passing
through the familiar rooms, again the hope came to me that nothing had
happened. But the odor of the drugs, iodoform and phenic acid, brought
me back to a sense of reality.
“‘No, everything has happened.’
“In passing through the hall, beside the children’s chamber, I saw
little Lise. She was looking at me, with eyes that were full of fear. I
even thought that all the children were looking at me. As I approached
the door of our sleeping-room, a servant opened it from within, and
came out. The first thing that I noticed was _her_ light gray dress
upon a chair, all dark with blood. On our common bed she was stretched,
with knees drawn up.
“She lay very high, upon pillows, with her chemise half open. Linen had
been placed upon the wound. A heavy smell of iodoform filled the room.
Before, and more than anything else, I was astonished at her face,
which was swollen and bruised under the eyes and over a part of the
nose. This was the result of the blow that I had struck her with my
elbow, when she had tried to hold me back. Of beauty there was no trace
left. I saw something hideous in her. I stopped upon the threshold.
“‘Approach, approach her,’ said her sister.
“‘Yes, probably she repents,’ thought I; ‘shall I forgive her? Yes, she
is dying, I must forgive her,’ I added, trying to be generous.
“I approached the bedside. With difficulty she raised her eyes, one of
which was swollen, and uttered these words haltingly:
“‘You have accomplished what you desired. You have killed me.’
“And in her face, through the physical sufferings, in spite of the
approach of death, was expressed the same old hatred, so familiar to
me.
“‘The children . . . I will not give them to you . . . all the same. .
. She (her sister) shall take them.’ . . .
“But of that which I considered essential, of her fault, of her
treason, one would have said that she did not think it necessary to say
even a word.
“‘Yes, revel in what you have done.’
“And she sobbed.
“At the door stood her sister with the children.
“‘Yes, see what you have done!’
“I cast a glance at the children, and then at her bruised and swollen
face, and for the first time I forgot myself (my rights, my pride), and
for the first time I saw in her a human being, a sister.
“And all that which a moment before had been so offensive to me now
seemed to me so petty,—all this jealousy,—and, on the contrary, what I
had done seemed to me so important that I felt like bending over,
approaching my face to her hand, and saying:
“‘Forgive me!’
“But I did not dare. She was silent, with eyelids lowered, evidently
having no strength to speak further. Then her deformed face began to
tremble and shrivel, and she feebly pushed me back.
“‘Why has all this happened? Why?’
“‘Forgive me,’ said I.
“‘Yes, if you had not killed me,’ she cried suddenly, and her eyes
shone feverishly. ‘Forgiveness—that is nothing. . . . If I only do not
die! Ah, you have accomplished what you desired! I hate you!’
“Then she grew delirious. She was frightened, and cried:
“‘Fire, I do not fear . . . but strike them all . . . He has gone. . .
He has gone.’ . . .
“The delirium continued. She no longer recognized the children, not
even little Lise, who had approached. Toward noon she died. As for me,
I was arrested before her death, at eight o’clock in the morning. They
took me to the police station, and then to prison, and there, during
eleven months, awaiting the verdict, I reflected upon myself, and upon
my past, and I understood it. Yes, I began to understand from the third
day. The third day they took me to the house.” . . .
Posdnicheff seemed to wish to add something, but, no longer having the
strength to repress his sobs, he stopped. After a few minutes, having
recovered his calmness, he resumed:
“I began to understand only when I saw her in the coffin.” . . .
He uttered a sob, and then immediately continued, with haste:
“Then only, when I saw her dead face, did I understand all that I had
done. I understood that it was I, I, who had killed her. I understood
that I was the cause of the fact that she, who had been a moving,
living, palpitating being, had now become motionless and cold, and that
there was no way of repairing this thing. He who has not lived through
that cannot understand it.”
We remained silent a long time. Posdnicheff sobbed and trembled before
me. His face had become delicate and long, and his mouth had grown
larger.
“Yes,” said he suddenly, “if I had known what I now know, I should
never have married her, never, not for anything.”
Again we remained silent for a long time.
“Yes, that is what I have done, that is my experience, We must
understand the real meaning of the words of the Gospel,—Matthew, v.
28,—‘that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery’; and these words relate to the wife, to the sister, and not
only to the wife of another, but especially to one’s own wife.”
THE END.
LESSON OF “THE KREUTZER SONATA.”
I have received, and still continue to receive, numbers of letters from
persons who are perfect strangers to me, asking me to state in plain
and simple language my own views on the subject handled in the story
entitled “The Kreutzer Sonata.” With this request I shall now endeavor
to comply.
My views on the question may be succinctly stated as follows: Without
entering into details, it will be generally admitted that I am accurate
in saying that many people condone in young men a course of conduct
with regard to the other sex which is incompatible with strict
morality, and that this dissoluteness is pardoned generally. Both
parents and the government, in consequence of this view, may be said to
wink at profligacy, and even in the last resource to encourage its
practice. I am of opinion that this is not right.
It is not possible that the health of one class should necessitate the
ruin of another, and, in consequence, it is our first duty to turn a
deaf ear to such an essential immoral doctrine, no matter how strongly
society may have established or law protected it. Moreover, it needs to
be fully recognized that men are rightly to be held responsible for the
consequences of their own acts, and that these are no longer to be
visited on the woman alone. It follows from this that it is the duty of
men who do not wish to lead a life of infamy to practice such
continence in respect to all woman as they would were the female
society in which they move made up exclusively of their own mothers and
sisters.
A more rational mode of life should be adopted which would include
abstinence from all alcoholic drinks, from excess in eating and from
flesh meat, on the one hand, and recourse to physical labor on the
other. I am not speaking of gymnastics, or of any of those occupations
which may be fitly described as playing at work; I mean the genuine
toil that fatigues. No one need go far in search of proofs that this
kind of abstemious living is not merely possible, but far less hurtful
to health than excess. Hundreds of instances are known to every one.
This is my first contention.
In the second place, I think that of late years, through various
reasons which I need not enter, but among which the above-mentioned
laxity of opinion in society and the frequent idealization of the
subject in current literature and painting may be mentioned, conjugal
infidelity has become more common and is considered less reprehensible.
I am of opinion that this is not right. The origin of the evil is
twofold. It is due, in the first place, to a natural instinct, and, in
the second, to the elevation of this instinct to a place to which it
does not rightly belong. This being so, the evil can only be remedied
by effecting a change in the views now in vogue about “falling in love”
and all that this term implies, by educating men and women at home
through family influence and example, and abroad by means of healthy
public opinion, to practice that abstinence which morality and
Christianity alike enjoin. This is my second contention.
In the third place I am of opinion that another consequence of the
false light in which “falling in love,” and what it leads to, are
viewed in our society, is that the birth of children has lost its
pristine significance, and that modern marriages are conceived less and
less from the point of view of the family. I am of opinion that this is
not right. This is my third contention.
In the fourth place, I am of opinion that the children (who in our
society are considered an obstacle to enjoyment—an unlucky accident, as
it were) are educated not with a view to the problem which they will be
one day called on to face and to solve, but solely with an eye to the
pleasure which they may be made to yield to their parents. The
consequence is, that the children of human beings are brought up for
all the world like the young of animals, the chief care of their
parents being not to train them to such work as is worthy of men and
women, but to increase their weight, or add a cubit to their stature,
to make them spruce, sleek, well-fed, and comely. They rig them out in
all manner of fantastic costumes, wash them, over-feed them, and refuse
to make them work. If the children of the lower orders differ in this
last respect from those of the well-to-do classes, the difference is
merely formal; they work from sheer necessity, and not because their
parents recognize work as a duty. And in over-fed children, as in
over-fed animals, sensuality is engendered unnaturally early.
Fashionable dress to-day, the course of reading, plays, music, dances,
luscious food, all the elements of our modern life, in a word, from the
pictures on the little boxes of sweetmeats up to the novel, the tale,
and the poem, contribute to fan this sensuality into a strong,
consuming flame, with the result that sexual vices and diseases have
come to be the normal conditions of the period of tender youth, and
often continue into the riper age of full-blown manhood. And I am of
opinion that this is not right.
It is high time it ceased. The children of human beings should not be
brought up as if they were animals; and we should set up as the object
and strive to maintain as the result of our labors something better and
nobler than a well-dressed body. This is my fourth contention.
In the fifth place, I am of opinion that, owing to the exaggerated and
erroneous significance attributed by our society to love and to the
idealized states that accompany and succeed it, the best energies of
our men and women are drawn forth and exhausted during the most
promising period of life; those of the men in the work of looking for,
choosing, and winning the most desirable objects of love, for which
purpose lying and fraud are held to be quite excusable; those of the
women and girls in alluring men and decoying them into liaisons or
marriage by the most questionable means conceivable, as an instance of
which the present fashions in evening dress may be cited. I am of
opinion that this is not right.
The truth is, that the whole affair has been exalted by poets and
romancers to an undue importance, and that love in its various
developments is not a fitting object to consume the best energies of
men. People set it before them and strive after it, because their view
of life is as vulgar and brutish as is that other conception frequently
met with in the lower stages of development, which sees in luscious and
abundant food an end worthy of man’s best efforts. Now, this is not
right and should not be done. And, in order to avoid doing it, it is
only needful to realize the fact that whatever truly deserves to be
held up as a worthy object of man’s striving and working, whether it be
the service of humanity, of one’s country, of science, of art, not to
speak of the service of God, is far above and beyond the sphere of
personal enjoyment. Hence, it follows that not only to form a liaison,
but even to contract marriage, is, from a Christian point of view, not
a progress, but a fall. Love, and all the states that accompany and
follow it, however we may try in prose and verse to prove the contrary,
never do and never can facilitate the attainment of an aim worthy of
men, but always make it more difficult. This is my fifth contention.
How about the human race? If we admit that celibacy is better and
nobler than marriage, evidently the human race will come to an end.
But, if the logical conclusion of the argument is that the human race
will become extinct, the whole reasoning is wrong.
To that I reply that the argument is not mine; I did not invent it.
That it is incumbent on mankind so to strive, and that celibacy is
preferable to marriage, are truths revealed by Christ 1,900 years ago,
set forth in our catechisms, and professed by us as followers of
Christ.
Chastity and celibacy, it is urged, cannot constitute the ideal of
humanity, because chastity would annihilate the race which strove to
realize it, and humanity cannot set up as its ideal its own
annihilation. It may be pointed out in reply that only that is a true
ideal, which, being unattainable, admits of infinite gradation in
degrees of proximity. Such is the Christian ideal of the founding of
God’s kingdom, the union of all living creatures by the bonds of love.
The conception of its attainment is incompatible with the conception of
the movement of life. What kind of life could subsist if all living
creatures were joined together by the bonds of love? None. Our
conception of life is inseparably bound up with the conception of a
continual striving after an unattainable ideal.
But even if we suppose the Christian ideal of perfect chastity
realized, what then? We should merely find ourselves face to face on
the one hand with the familiar teaching of religion, one of whose
dogmas is that the world will have an end; and on the other of
so-called science, which informs us that the sun is gradually losing
its heat, the result of which will in time be the extinction of the
human race.
Now there is not and cannot be such an institution as Christian
marriage, just as there cannot be such a thing as a Christian liturgy
(Matt. vi. 5-12; John iv. 21), nor Christian teachers, nor church
fathers (Matt. xxiii. 8-10), nor Christian armies, Christian law
courts, nor Christian States. This is what was always taught and
believed by true Christians of the first and following centuries. A
Christian’s ideal is not marriage, but love for God and for his
neighbor. Consequently in the eyes of a Christian relations in marriage
not only do not constitute a lawful, right, and happy state, as our
society and our churches maintain, but, on the contrary, are always a
fall.
Such a thing as Christian marriage never was and never could be. Christ
did not marry, nor did he establish marriage; neither did his disciples
marry. But if Christian marriage cannot exist, there is such a thing as
a Christian view of marriage. And this is how it may be formulated: A
Christian (and by this term I understand not those who call themselves
Christians merely because they were baptized and still receive the
sacrament once a year, but those whose lives are shaped and regulated
by the teachings of Christ), I say, cannot view the marriage relation
otherwise than as a deviation from the doctrine of Christ,—as a sin.
This is clearly laid down in Matt. v. 28, and the ceremony called
Christian marriage does not alter its character one jot. A Christian
will never, therefore, desire marriage, but will always avoid it.
If the light of truth dawns upon a Christian when he is already
married, or if, being a Christian, from weakness he enters into marital
relations with the ceremonies of the church, or without them, he has no
other alternative than to abide with his wife (and the wife with her
husband, if it is she who is a Christian) and to aspire together with
her to free themselves of their sin. This is the Christian view of
marriage; and there cannot be any other for a man who honestly
endeavors to shape his life in accordance with the teachings of Christ.
To very many persons the thoughts I have uttered here and in “The
Kreutzer Sonata” will seem strange, vague, even contradictory. They
certainly do contradict, not each other, but the whole tenor of our
lives, and involuntarily a doubt arises, “on which side is truth,—on
the side of the thoughts which seem true and well-founded, or on the
side of the lives of others and myself?” I, too, was weighed down by
that same doubt when writing “The Kreutzer Sonata.” I had not the
faintest presentiment that the train of thought I had started would
lead me whither it did. I was terrified by my own conclusion, and I was
at first disposed to reject it, but it was impossible not to hearken to
the voice of my reason and my conscience. And so, strange though they
may appear to many, opposed as they undoubtedly are to the trend and
tenor of our lives, and incompatible though they may prove with what I
have heretofore thought and uttered, I have no choice but to accept
them. “But man is weak,” people will object. “His task should be
regulated by his strength.”
This is tantamount to saying, “My hand is weak. I cannot draw a
straight line,—that is, a line which will be the shortest line between
two given points,—and so, in order to make it more easy for myself, I,
intending to draw a straight, will choose for my model a crooked line.”
The weaker my hand, the greater the need that my model should be
perfect.
_Leo Tolstoy._
IVAN THE FOOL.
CHAPTER I.
In a certain kingdom there lived a rich peasant, who had three
sons—Simeon (a soldier), Tarras-Briukhan (fat man), and Ivan (a
fool)—and one daughter, Milania, born dumb. Simeon went to war, to
serve the Czar; Tarras went to a city and became a merchant; and Ivan,
with his sister, remained at home to work on the farm.
For his valiant service in the army, Simeon received an estate with
high rank, and married a noble’s daughter. Besides his large pay, he
was in receipt of a handsome income from his estate; yet he was unable
to make ends meet. What the husband saved, the wife wasted in
extravagance. One day Simeon went to the estate to collect his income,
when the steward informed him that there was no income, saying:
“We have neither horses, cows, fishing-nets, nor implements; it is
necessary first to buy everything, and then to look for income.”
Simeon thereupon went to his father and said:
“You are rich, _batiushka_ [little father], but you have given nothing
to me. Give me one-third of what you possess as my share, and I will
transfer it to my estate.”
The old man replied: “You did not help to bring prosperity to our
household. For what reason, then, should you now demand the third part
of everything? It would be unjust to Ivan and his sister.”
“Yes,” said Simeon; “but he is a fool, and she was born dumb. What need
have they of anything?”
“See what Ivan will say.”
Ivan’s reply was: “Well, let him take his share.”
Simeon took the portion allotted to him, and went again to serve in the
army.
Tarras also met with success. He became rich and married a merchant’s
daughter, but even this failed to satisfy his desires, and he also went
to his father and said, “Give me my share.”
The old man, however, refused to comply with his request, saying: “You
had no hand in the accumulation of our property, and what our household
contains is the result of Ivan’s hard work. It would be unjust,” he
repeated, “to Ivan and his sister.”
Tarras replied: “But he does not need it. He is a fool, and cannot
marry, for no one will have him; and sister does not require anything,
for she was born dumb.” Turning then to Ivan he continued: “Give me
half the grain you have, and I will not touch the implements or
fishing-nets; and from the cattle I will take only the dark mare, as
she is not fit to plow.”
Ivan laughed and said: “Well, I will go and arrange matters so that
Tarras may have his share,” whereupon Tarras took the brown mare with
the grain to town, leaving Ivan with one old horse to work on as before
and support his father, mother, and sister.
CHAPTER II.
It was disappointing to the _Stary Tchert_ (Old Devil) that the
brothers did not quarrel over the division of the property, and that
they separated peacefully; and he cried out, calling his three small
devils (_Tchertionki_).
“See here,” said he, “there are living three brothers—Simeon the
soldier, Tarras-Briukhan, and Ivan the Fool. It is necessary that they
should quarrel. Now they live peacefully, and enjoy each other’s
hospitality. The Fool spoiled all my plans. Now you three go and work
with them in such a manner that they will be ready to tear each other’s
eyes out. Can you do this?”
“We can,” they replied.
“How will you accomplish it?”
“In this way: We will first ruin them to such an extent that they will
have nothing to eat, and we will then gather them together in one place
where we are sure that they will fight.”
“Very well; I see you understand your business. Go, and do not return
to me until you have created a feud between the three brothers—or I
will skin you alive.”
The three small devils went to a swamp to consult as to the best means
of accomplishing their mission. They disputed for a long time—each one
wanting the easiest part of the work—and not being able to agree,
concluded to draw lots; by which it was decided that the one who was
first finished had to come and help the others. This agreement being
entered into, they appointed a time when they were again to meet in the
swamp—to find out who was through and who needed assistance.
The time having arrived, the young devils met in the swamp as agreed,
when each related his experience. The first, who went to Simeon, said:
“I have succeeded in my undertaking, and to-morrow Simeon returns to
his father.”
His comrades, eager for particulars, inquired how he had done it.
“Well,” he began, “the first thing I did was to blow some courage into
his veins, and, on the strength of it, Simeon went to the Czar and
offered to conquer the whole world for him. The Emperor made him
commander-in-chief of the forces, and sent him with an army to fight
the Viceroy of India. Having started on their mission of conquest, they
were unaware that I, following in their wake, had wet all their powder.
I also went to the Indian ruler and showed him how I could create
numberless soldiers from straw.
“Simeon’s army, seeing that they were surrounded by such a vast number
of Indian warriors of my creation, became frightened, and Simeon
commanded to fire from cannons and rifles, which of course they were
unable to do. The soldiers, discouraged, retreated in great disorder.
Thus Simeon brought upon himself the terrible disgrace of defeat. His
estate was confiscated, and to-morrow he is to be executed. All that
remains for me to do, therefore,” concluded the young devil, “is to
release him to-morrow morning. Now, then, who wants my assistance?”
The second small devil (from Tarras) then related his story.
“I do not need any help,” he began. “My business is also all right. My
work with Tarras will be finished in one week. In the first place I
made him grow thin. He afterward became so covetous that he wanted to
possess everything he saw, and he spent all the money he had in the
purchase of immense quantities of goods. When his capital was gone he
still continued to buy with borrowed money, and has become involved in
such difficulties that he cannot free himself. At the end of one week
the date for the payment of his notes will have expired, and, his goods
being seized upon, he will become a bankrupt; and he also will return
to his father.”
At the conclusion of this narrative they inquired of the third devil
how things had fared between him and Ivan.
“Well,” said he, “my report is not so encouraging. The first thing I
did was to spit into his jug of _quass_ [a sour drink made from rye],
which made him sick at his stomach. He afterward went to plow his
summer-fallow, but I made the soil so hard that the plow could scarcely
penetrate it. I thought the Fool would not succeed, but he started to
work nevertheless. Moaning with pain, he still continued to labor. I
broke one plow, but he replaced it with another, fixing it securely,
and resumed work. Going beneath the surface of the ground I took hold
of the plowshares, but did not succeed in stopping Ivan. He pressed so
hard, and the colter was so sharp, that my hands were cut; and despite
my utmost efforts, he went over all but a small portion of the field.”
He concluded with: “Come, brothers, and help me, for if we do not
conquer him our whole enterprise will be a failure. If the Fool is
permitted successfully to conduct his farming, they will have no need,
for he will support his brothers.”
CHAPTER III.
Ivan having succeeded in plowing all but a small portion of his land,
he returned the next day to finish it. The pain in his stomach
continued, but he felt that he must go on with his work. He tried to
start his plow, but it would not move; it seemed to have struck a hard
root. It was the small devil in the ground who had wound his feet
around the plowshares and held them.
“This is strange,” thought Ivan. “There were never any roots here
before, and this is surely one.”
Ivan put his hand in the ground, and, feeling something soft, grasped
and pulled it out. It was like a root in appearance, but seemed to
possess life. Holding it up he saw that it was a little devil.
Disgusted, he exclaimed, “See the nasty thing,” and he proceeded to
strike it a blow, intending to kill it, when the young devil cried out:
“Do not kill me, and I will grant your every wish.”
“What can you do for me?”
“Tell me what it is you most wish for,” the little devil replied.
Ivan, peasant-fashion, scratched the back of his head as he thought,
and finally he said:
“I am dreadfully sick at my stomach. Can you cure me?”
“I can,” the little devil said.
“Then do so.”
The little devil bent toward the earth and began searching for roots,
and when he found them he gave them to Ivan, saying: “If you will
swallow some of these you will be immediately cured of whatsoever
disease you are afflicted with.”
Ivan did as directed, and obtained instant relief.
“I beg of you to let me go now,” the little devil pleaded; “I will pass
into the earth, never to return.”
“Very well; you may go, and God bless you;” and as Ivan pronounced the
name of God, the small devil disappeared into the earth like a flash,
and only a slight opening in the ground remained.
Ivan placed in his hat what roots he had left, and proceeded to plow.
Soon finishing his work, he turned his plow over and returned home.
When he reached the house he found his brother Simeon and his wife
seated at the supper-table. His estate had been confiscated, and he
himself had barely escaped execution by making his way out of prison,
and having nothing to live upon had come back to his father for
support.
Turning to Ivan he said: “I came to ask you to care for us until I can
find something to do.”
“Very well,” Ivan replied; “you may remain with us.”
Just as Ivan was about to sit down to the table Simeon’s wife made a
wry face, indicating that she did not like the smell of Ivan’s
sheep-skin coat; and turning to her husband she said, “I shall not sit
at the table with a moujik [peasant] who smells like that.”
Simeon the soldier turned to his brother and said: “My lady objects to
the smell of your clothes. You may eat in the porch.”
Ivan said: “Very well, it is all the same to me. I will soon have to go
and feed my horse any way.”
Ivan took some bread in one hand, and his _kaftan_ (coat) in the other,
and left the room.
CHAPTER IV.
The small devil finished with Simeon that night, and according to
agreement went to the assistance of his comrade who had charge of Ivan,
that he might help to conquer the Fool. He went to the field and
searched everywhere, but could find nothing but the hole through which
the small devil had disappeared.
“Well, this is strange,” he said; “something must have happened to my
companion, and I will have to take his place and continue the work he
began. The Fool is through with his plowing, so I must look about me
for some other means of compassing his destruction. I must overflow his
meadow and prevent him from cutting the grass.”
The little devil accordingly overflowed the meadow with muddy water,
and, when Ivan went at dawn next morning with his scythe set and
sharpened and tried to mow the grass, he found that it resisted all his
efforts and would not yield to the implement as usual.
Many times Ivan tried to cut the grass, but always without success. At
last, becoming weary of the effort, he decided to return home and have
his scythe again sharpened, and also to procure a quantity of bread,
saying: “I will come back here and will not leave until I have mown all
the meadow, even if it should take a whole week.”
Hearing this, the little devil became thoughtful, saying: “That Ivan is
a _koolak_ [hard case], and I must think of some other way of
conquering him.”
Ivan soon returned with his sharpened scythe and started to mow.
The small devil hid himself in the grass, and as the point of the
scythe came down he buried it in the earth and made it almost
impossible for Ivan to move the implement. He, however, succeeded in
mowing all but one small spot in the swamp, where again the small devil
hid himself, saying: “Even if he should cut my hands I will prevent him
from accomplishing his work.”
When Ivan came to the swamp he found that the grass was not very thick.
Still, the scythe would not work, which made him so angry that he
worked with all his might, and one blow more powerful than the others
cut off a portion of the small devil’s tail, who had hidden himself
there.
Despite the little devil’s efforts he succeeded in finishing his work,
when he returned home and ordered his sister to gather up the grass
while he went to another field to cut rye. But the devil preceded him
there, and fixed the rye in such a manner that it was almost impossible
for Ivan to cut it; however, after continuous hard labor he succeeded,
and when he was through with the rye he said to himself: “Now I will
start to mow oats.”
On hearing this, the little devil thought to himself: “I could not
prevent him from mowing the rye, but I will surely stop him from mowing
the oats when the morning comes.”
Early next day, when the devil came to the field, he found that the
oats had been already mowed. Ivan did it during the night, so as to
avoid the loss that might have resulted from the grain being too ripe
and dry. Seeing that Ivan again had escaped him, the little devil
became greatly enraged, saying:
“He cut me all over and made me tired, that fool. I did not meet such
misfortune even on the battle-field. He does not even sleep;” and the
devil began to swear. “I cannot follow him,” he continued. “I will go
now to the heaps and make everything rotten.”
Accordingly he went to a heap of the new-mown grain and began his
fiendish work. After wetting it he built a fire and warmed himself, and
soon was fast asleep.
Ivan harnessed his horse, and, with his sister, went to bring the rye
home from the field.
After lifting a couple of sheaves from the first heap his pitchfork
came into contact with the little devil’s back, which caused the latter
to howl with pain and to jump around in every direction. Ivan
exclaimed:
“See here! What nastiness! You again here?”
“I am another one!” said the little devil. “That was my brother. I am
the one who was sent to your brother Simeon.”
“Well,” said Ivan, “it matters not who you are. I will fix you all the
same.”
As Ivan was about to strike the first blow the devil pleaded: “Let me
go and I will do you no more harm. I will do whatever you wish.”
“What can you do for me?” asked Ivan.
“I can make soldiers from almost anything.”
“And what will they be good for?”
“Oh, they will do everything for you!”
“Can they sing?”
“They can.”
“Well, make them.”
“Take a bunch of straw and scatter it on the ground, and see if each
straw will not turn into a soldier.”
Ivan shook the straws on the ground, and, as he expected, each straw
turned into a soldier, and they began marching with a band at their
head.
“_Ishty_ [look you], that was well done! How it will delight the
village maidens!” he exclaimed.
The small devil now said: “Let me go; you do not need me any longer.”
But Ivan said: “No, I will not let you go just yet. You have converted
the straw into soldiers, and now I want you to turn them again into
straw, as I cannot afford to lose it, but I want it with the grain on.”
The devil replied: “Say: ‘So many soldiers, so much straw.’”
Ivan did as directed, and got back his rye with the straw.
The small devil again begged for his release.
Ivan, taking him from the pitchfork, said: “With God’s blessing you may
depart”; and, as before at the mention of God’s name, the little devil
was hurled into the earth like a flash, and nothing was left but the
hole to show where he had gone.
Soon afterward Ivan returned home, to find his brother Tarras and his
wife there. Tarras-Briukhan could not pay his debts, and was forced to
flee from his creditors and seek refuge under his father’s roof. Seeing
Ivan, he said: “Well, Ivan, may we remain here until I start in some
new business?”
Ivan replied as he had before to Simeon: “Yes, you are perfectly
welcome to remain here as long as it suits you.”
With that announcement he removed his coat and seated himself at the
supper-table with the others. But Tarras-Briukhan’s wife objected to
the smell of his clothes, saying: “I cannot eat with a fool; neither
can I stand the smell.”
Then Tarras-Briukhan said: “Ivan, from your clothes there comes a bad
smell; go and eat by yourself in the porch.”
“Very well,” said Ivan; and he took some bread and went out as ordered,
saying, “It is time for me to feed my mare.”
CHAPTER V.
The small devil who had charge of Tarras finished with him that night,
and according to agreement proceeded to the assistance of the other two
to help them conquer Ivan. Arriving at the plowed field he looked
around for his comrades, but found only the hole through which one had
disappeared; and on going to the meadow he discovered the severed tail
of the other, and in the rye-field he found yet another hole.
“Well,” he thought, “it is quite clear that my comrades have met with
some great misfortune, and that I will have to take their places and
arrange the feud between the brothers.”
The small devil then went in search of Ivan. But he, having finished
with the field, was nowhere to be found. He had gone to the forest to
cut logs to build homes for his brothers, as they found it inconvenient
for so many to live under the same roof.
The small devil at last discovered his whereabouts, and going to the
forest climbed into the branches of the trees and began to interfere
with Ivan’s work. Ivan cut down a tree, which failed, however, to fall
to the ground, becoming entangled in the branches of other trees; yet
he succeeded in getting it down after a hard struggle. In chopping down
the next tree he met with the same difficulties, and also with the
third. Ivan had supposed he could cut down fifty trees in a day, but he
succeeded in chopping but ten before darkness put an end to his labors
for a time. He was now exhausted, and, perspiring profusely, he sat
down alone in the woods to rest. He soon after resumed his work,
cutting down one more tree; but the effort gave him a pain in his back,
and he was obliged to rest again. Seeing this, the small devil was full
of joy.
“Well,” he thought, “now he is exhausted and will stop work, and I will
rest also.” He then seated himself on some branches and rejoiced.
Ivan again arose, however, and, taking his axe, gave the tree a
terrific blow from the opposite side, which felled it instantly to the
ground, carrying the little devil with it; and Ivan, proceeding to cut
the branches, found the devil alive. Very much astonished, Ivan
exclaimed:
“Look you! Such nastiness! Are you again here?”
“I am another one,” replied the devil. “I was with your brother
Tarras.”
“Well,” said Ivan, “that makes no difference; I will fix you.” And he
was about to strike him a blow with the axe when the devil pleaded:
“Do not kill me, and whatever you wish you shall have.”
Ivan asked, “What can you do?”
“I can make for you all the money you wish.”
Ivan then told the devil he might proceed, whereupon the latter began
to explain to him how he might become rich.
“Take,” said he to Ivan, “the leaves of this oak tree and rub them in
your hands, and the gold will fall to the ground.”
Ivan did as he was directed, and immediately the gold began to drop
about his feet; and he remarked:
“This will be a fine trick to amuse the village boys with.”
“Can I now take my departure?” asked the devil, to which Ivan replied,
“With God’s blessing you may go.”
At the mention of the name of God, the devil disappeared into the
earth.
CHAPTER VI.
The brothers, having finished their houses, moved into them and lived
apart from their father and brother. Ivan, when he had completed his
plowing, made a great feast, to which he invited his brothers, telling
them that he had plenty of beer for them to drink. The brothers,
however, declined Ivan’s hospitality, saying, “We have seen the beer
moujiks drink, and want none of it.”
Ivan then gathered around him all the peasants in the village and with
them drank beer until he became intoxicated, when he joined the
_Khorovody_ (a street gathering of the village boys and girls, who sing
songs), and told them they must sing his praises, saying that in return
he would show them such sights as they had never before seen in their
lives. The little girls laughed and began to sing songs praising Ivan,
and when they had finished they said: “Very well; now give us what you
said you would.”
Ivan replied, “I will soon show you,” and, taking an empty bag in his
hand, he started for the woods. The little girls laughed as they said,
“What a fool he is!” and resuming their play they forgot all about him.
Some time after Ivan suddenly appeared among them carrying in his hand
the bag, which was now filled.
“Shall I divide this with you?” he said.
“Yes; divide!” they sang in chorus.
So Ivan put his hand into the bag and drew it out full of gold coins,
which he scattered among them.
“Batiushka,” they cried as they ran to gather up the precious pieces.
The moujiks then appeared on the scene and began to fight among
themselves for the possession of the yellow objects. In the mêlée one
old woman was nearly crushed to death.
Ivan laughed and was greatly amused at the sight of so many persons
quarrelling over a few pieces of gold.
“Oh! you duratchki” (little fools), he said, “why did you almost crush
the life out of the old grandmother? Be more gentle. I have plenty
more, and I will give them to you;” whereupon he began throwing about
more of the coins.
The people gathered around him, and Ivan continued throwing until he
emptied his bag. They clamored for more, but Ivan replied: “The gold is
all gone. Another time I will give you more. Now we will resume our
singing and dancing.”
The little children sang, but Ivan said to them, “Your songs are no
good.”
The children said, “Then show us how to sing better.”
To this Ivan replied, “I will show you people who can sing better than
you.” With that remark Ivan went to the barn and, securing a bundle of
straw, did as the little devil had directed him; and presently a
regiment of soldiers appeared in the village street, and he ordered
them to sing and dance.
The people were astonished and could not understand how Ivan had
produced the strangers.
The soldiers sang for some time, to the great delight of the villagers;
and when Ivan commanded them to stop they instantly ceased.
Ivan then ordered them off to the barn, telling the astonished and
mystified moujiks that they must not follow him. Reaching the barn, he
turned the soldiers again into straw and went home to sleep off the
effects of his debauch.
CHAPTER VII.
The next morning Ivan’s exploits were the talk of the village, and news
of the wonderful things he had done reached the ears of his brother
Simeon, who immediately went to Ivan to learn all about it.
“Explain to me,” he said; “from whence did you bring the soldiers, and
where did you take them?”
“And what do you wish to know for?” asked Ivan.
“Why, with soldiers we can do almost anything we wish—whole kingdoms
can be conquered,” replied Simeon.
This information greatly surprised Ivan, who said: “Well, why did you
not tell me about this before? I can make as many as you want.”
Ivan then took his brother to the barn, but he said: “While I am
willing to create the soldiers, you must take them away from here; for
if it should become necessary to feed them, all the food in the village
would last them only one day.”
Simeon promised to do as Ivan wished, whereupon Ivan proceeded to
convert the straw into soldiers. Out of one bundle of straw he made an
entire regiment; in fact, so many soldiers appeared as if by magic that
there was not a vacant spot in the field.
Turning to Simeon Ivan said, “Well, is there a sufficient number?”
Beaming with joy, Simeon replied: “Enough! enough! Thank you, Ivan!”
“Glad you are satisfied,” said Ivan, “and if you wish more I will make
them for you. I have plenty of straw now.”
Simeon divided his soldiers into battalions and regiments, and after
having drilled them he went forth to fight and to conquer.
Simeon had just gotten safely out of the village with his soldiers when
Tarras, the other brother, appeared before Ivan—he also having heard of
the previous day’s performance and wanting to learn the secret of his
power. He sought Ivan, saying: “Tell me the secret of your supply of
gold, for if I had plenty of money I could with its assistance gather
in all the wealth in the world.”
Ivan was greatly surprised on hearing this statement, and said: “You
might have told me this before, for I can obtain for you as much money
as you wish.”
Tarras was delighted, and he said, “You might get me about three
bushels.”
“Well,” said Ivan, “we will go to the woods, or, better still, we will
harness the horse, as we could not possibly carry so much money
ourselves.”
The brothers went to the woods and Ivan proceeded to gather the oak
leaves, which he rubbed between his hands, the dust falling to the
ground and turning into gold pieces as quickly as it fell.
When quite a pile had accumulated Ivan turned to Tarras and asked if he
had rubbed enough leaves into money, whereupon Tarras replied: “Thank
you, Ivan; that will be sufficient for this time.”
Ivan then said: “If you wish more, come to me and I will rub as much as
you want, for there are plenty of leaves.”
Tarras, with his _tarantas_ (wagon) filled with gold, rode away to the
city to engage in trade and increase his wealth; and thus both brothers
went their way, Simeon to fight and Tarras to trade.
Simeon’s soldiers conquered a kingdom for him and Tarras-Briukhan made
plenty of money.
Some time afterward the two brothers met and confessed to each other
the source from whence sprang their prosperity, but they were not yet
satisfied.
Simeon said: “I have conquered a kingdom and enjoy a very pleasant
life, but I have not sufficient money to procure food for my soldiers;”
while Tarras confessed that he was the possessor of enormous wealth,
but the care of it caused him much uneasiness.
“Let us go again to our brother,” said Simeon; “I will order him to
make more soldiers and will give them to you, and you may then tell him
that he must make more money so that we can buy food for them.”
They went again to Ivan, and Simeon said: “I have not sufficient
soldiers; I want you to make me at least two divisions more.” But Ivan
shook his head as he said: “I will not create soldiers for nothing; you
must pay me for doing it.”
“Well, but you promised,” said Simeon.
“I know I did,” replied Ivan; “but I have changed my mind since that
time.”
“But, fool, why will you not do as you promised?”
“For the reason that your soldiers kill men, and I will not make any
more for such a cruel purpose.” With this reply Ivan remained stubborn
and would not create any more soldiers.
Tarras-Briukhan next approached Ivan and ordered him to make more
money; but, as in the case of Tarras, Ivan only shook his head, as he
said: “I will not make you any money unless you pay me for doing it. I
cannot work without pay.”
Tarras then reminded him of his promise.
“I know I promised,” replied Ivan; “but still I must refuse to do as
you wish.”
“But why, fool, will you not fulfill your promise?” asked Tarras.
“For the reason that your gold was the means of depriving Mikhailovna
of her cow.”
“But how did that happen?” inquired Tarras.
“It happened in this way,” said Ivan. “Mikhailovna always kept a cow,
and her children had plenty of milk to drink; but some time ago one of
her boys came to me to beg for some milk, and I asked, ‘Where is your
cow?’ when he replied, ‘A clerk of Tarras-Briukhan came to our home and
offered three gold pieces for her. Our mother could not resist the
temptation, and now we have no milk to drink. I gave you the gold
pieces for your pleasure, and you put them to such poor use that I will
not give you any more.’”
The brothers, on hearing this, took their departure to discuss as to
the best plan to pursue in regard to a settlement of their troubles.
Simeon said: “Let us arrange it in this way: I will give you the half
of my kingdom, and soldiers to keep guard over your wealth; and you
give me money to feed the soldiers in my half of the kingdom.”
To this arrangement Tarras agreed, and both the brothers became rulers
and very happy.
CHAPTER VIII.
Ivan remained on the farm and worked to support his father, mother, and
dumb sister. Once it happened that the old dog, which had grown up on
the farm, was taken sick, when Ivan thought he was dying, and, taking
pity on the animal, placed some bread in his hat and carried it to him.
It happened that when he turned out the bread the root which the little
devil had given him fell out also. The old dog swallowed it with the
bread and was almost instantly cured, when he jumped up and began to
wag his tail as an expression of joy. Ivan’s father and mother, seeing
the dog cured so quickly, asked by what means he had performed such a
miracle.
Ivan replied: “I had some roots which would cure any disease, and the
dog swallowed one of them.”
It happened about that time that the Czar’s daughter became ill, and
her father had it announced in every city, town, and village that
whosoever would cure her would be richly rewarded; and if the lucky
person should prove to be a single man he would give her in marriage to
him.
This announcement, of course, appeared in Ivan’s village.
Ivan’s father and mother called him and said: “If you have any of those
wonderful roots, go and cure the Czar’s daughter. You will be much
happier for having performed such a kind act—indeed, you will be made
happy for all your after life.”
“Very well,” said Ivan; and he immediately made ready for the journey.
As he reached the porch on his way out he saw a poor woman standing
directly in his path and holding a broken arm. The woman accosted him,
saying:
“I was told that you could cure me, and will you not please do so, as I
am powerless to do anything for myself?”
Ivan replied: “Very well, my poor woman; I will relieve you if I can.”
He produced a root which he handed to the poor woman and told her to
swallow it.
She did as Ivan told her and was instantly cured, and went away
rejoicing that she had recovered the use of her arm.
Ivan’s father and mother came out to wish him good luck on his journey,
and to them he told the story of the poor woman, saying that he had
given her his last root. On hearing this his parents were much
distressed, as they now believed him to be without the means of curing
the Czar’s daughter, and began to scold him.
“You had pity for a beggar and gave no thought to the Czar’s daughter,”
they said.
“I have pity for the Czar’s daughter also,” replied Ivan, after which
he harnessed his horse to his wagon and took his seat ready for his
departure; whereupon his parents said: “Where are you going, you
fool—to cure the Czar’s daughter, and without anything to do it with?”
“Very well,” replied Ivan, as he drove away.
In due time he arrived at the palace, and the moment he appeared on the
balcony the Czar’s daughter was cured. The Czar was overjoyed and
ordered Ivan to be brought into his presence. He dressed him in the
richest robes and addressed him as his son-in-law. Ivan was married to
the Czarevna, and, the Czar dying soon after, Ivan became ruler. Thus
the three brothers became rulers in different kingdoms.
CHAPTER IX.
The brothers lived and reigned. Simeon, the eldest brother, with his
straw soldiers took captive the genuine soldiers and trained all alike.
He was feared by every one.
Tarras-Briukhan, the other brother, did not squander the gold he
obtained from Ivan, but instead greatly increased his wealth, and at
the same time lived well. He kept his money in large trunks, and, while
having more than he knew what to do with, still continued to collect
money from his subjects. The people had to work for the money to pay
the taxes which Tarras levied on them, and life was made burdensome to
them.
Ivan the Fool did not enjoy his wealth and power to the same extent as
did his brothers. As soon as his father-in-law, the late Czar, was
buried, he discarded the Imperial robes which had fallen to him and
told his wife to put them away, as he had no further use for them.
Having cast aside the insignia of his rank, he once more donned his
peasant garb and started to work as of old.
“I felt lonesome,” he said, “and began to grow enormously stout, and
yet I had no appetite, and neither could I sleep.”
Ivan sent for his father, mother, and dumb sister, and brought them to
live with him, and they worked with him at whatever he chose to do.
The people soon learned that Ivan was a fool. His wife one day said to
him, “The people say you are a fool, Ivan.”
“Well, let them think so if they wish,” he replied.
His wife pondered this reply for some time, and at last decided that if
Ivan was a fool she also was one, and that it would be useless to go
contrary to her husband, thinking affectionately of the old proverb
that “where the needle goes there goes the thread also.” She therefore
cast aside her magnificent robes, and, putting them into the trunk with
Ivan’s, dressed herself in cheap clothing and joined her dumb
sister-in-law, with the intention of learning to work. She succeeded so
well that she soon became a great help to Ivan.
Seeing that Ivan was a fool, all the wise men left the kingdom and only
the fools remained. They had no money, their wealth consisting only of
the products of their labor. But they lived peacefully together,
supported themselves in comfort, and had plenty to spare for the needy
and afflicted.
CHAPTER X.
The old devil grew tired of waiting for the good news which he expected
the little devils to bring him. He waited in vain to hear of the ruin
of the brothers, so he went in search of the emissaries which he had
sent to perform that work for him. After looking around for some time,
and seeing nothing but the three holes in the ground, he decided that
they had not succeeded in their work and that he would have to do it
himself.
The old devil next went in search of the brothers, but he could learn
nothing of their whereabouts. After some time he found them in their
different kingdoms, contented and happy. This greatly incensed the old
devil, and he said, “I will now have to accomplish their mission
myself.”
He first visited Simeon the soldier, and appeared before him as a
_voyevoda_ (general), saying: “You, Simeon, are a great warrior, and I
also have had considerable experience in warfare, and am desirous of
serving you.”
Simeon questioned the disguised devil, and seeing that he was an
intelligent man took him into his service.
The new General taught Simeon how to strengthen his army until it
became very powerful. New implements of warfare were introduced.
Cannons capable of throwing one hundred balls a minute were also
constructed, and these, it was expected, would be of deadly effect in
battle.
Simeon, on the advice of his new General, ordered all young men above a
certain age to report for drill. On the same advice Simeon established
gun-shops, where immense numbers of cannons and rifles were made.
The next move of the new General was to have Simeon declare war against
the neighboring kingdom. This he did, and with his immense army marched
into the adjoining territory, which he pillaged and burned, destroying
more than half the enemy’s soldiers. This so frightened the ruler of
that country that he willingly gave up half of his kingdom to save the
other half.
Simeon, overjoyed at his success, declared his intention of marching
into Indian territory and subduing the Viceroy of that country.
But Simeon’s intentions reached the ears of the Indian ruler, who
prepared to do battle with him. In addition to having secured all the
latest implements of warfare, he added still others of his own
invention. He ordered all boys over fourteen and all single women to be
drafted into the army, until its proportions became much larger than
Simeon’s. His cannons and rifles were of the same pattern as Simeon’s,
and he invented a flying-machine from which bombs could be thrown into
the enemy’s camp.
Simeon went forth to conquer the Viceroy with full confidence in his
own powers to succeed. This time luck forsook him, and instead of being
the conqueror he was himself conquered.
The Indian ruler had so arranged his army that Simeon could not even
get within shooting distance, while the bombs from the flying-machine
carried destruction and terror in their path, completely routing his
army, so that Simeon was left alone.
The Viceroy took possession of his kingdom and Simeon had to fly for
his life.
Having finished with Simeon, the old devil next approached Tarras. He
appeared before him disguised as one of the merchants of his kingdom,
and established factories and began to make money. The “merchant” paid
the highest price for everything he purchased, and the people ran after
him to sell their goods. Through this “merchant” they were enabled to
make plenty of money, paying up all their arrears of taxes as well as
the others when they came due.
Tarras was overjoyed at this condition of affairs and said: “Thanks to
this merchant, now I will have more money than before, and life will be
much pleasanter for me.”
He wished to erect new buildings, and advertised for workmen, offering
the highest prices for all kinds of labor. Tarras thought the people
would be as anxious to work as formerly, but instead he was much
surprised to learn that they were working for the “merchant.” Thinking
to induce them to leave the “merchant,” he increased his offers, but
the former, equal to the emergency, also raised the wages of his
workmen. Tarras, having plenty of money, increased the offers still
more; but the “merchant” raised them still higher and got the better of
him. Thus, defeated at every point, Tarras was compelled to abandon the
idea of building.
Tarras next announced that he intended laying out gardens and erecting
fountains, and the work was to be commenced in the fall, but no one
came to offer his services, and again he was obliged to forego his
intentions. Winter set in, and Tarras wanted some sable fur with which
to line his great-coat, and he sent his man to procure it for him; but
the servant returned without it, saying: “There are no sables to be
had. The ‘merchant’ has bought them all, paying a very high price for
them.”
Tarras needed horses and sent a messenger to purchase them, but he
returned with the same story as on former occasions—that none were to
be found, the “merchant” having bought them all to carry water for an
artificial pond he was constructing. Tarras was at last compelled to
suspend business, as he could not find any one willing to work for him.
They had all gone over to the “merchant’s” side. The only dealings the
people had with Tarras were when they went to pay their taxes. His
money accumulated so fast that he could not find a place to put it, and
his life became miserable. He abandoned all idea of entering upon the
new venture, and only thought of how to exist peaceably. This he found
it difficult to do, for, turn which way he would, fresh obstacles
confronted him. Even his cooks, coachmen, and all his other servants
forsook him and joined the “merchant.” With all his wealth he had
nothing to eat, and when he went to market he found the “merchant” had
been there before him and had bought up all the provisions. Still, the
people continued to bring him money.
Tarras at last became so indignant that he ordered the “merchant” out
of his kingdom. He left, but settled just outside the boundary line,
and continued his business with the same result as before, and Tarras
was frequently forced to go without food for days. It was rumored that
the “merchant” wanted to buy even Tarras himself. On hearing this the
latter became very much alarmed and could not decide as to the best
course to pursue.
About this time his brother Simeon arrived in the kingdom, and said:
“Help me, for I have been defeated and ruined by the Indian Viceroy.”
Tarras replied: “How can I help you, when I have had no food myself for
two days?”
CHAPTER XI.
The old devil, having finished with the second brother, went to Ivan
the Fool. This time he disguised himself as a General, the same as in
the case of Simeon, and, appearing before Ivan, said: “Get an army
together. It is disgraceful for the ruler of a kingdom to be without an
army. You call your people to assemble, and I will form them into a
fine large army.”
Ivan took the supposed General’s advice, and said: “Well, you may form
my people into an army, but you must also teach them to sing the songs
I like.”
The old devil then went through Ivan’s kingdom to secure recruits for
the army, saying: “Come, shave your heads [the heads of recruits are
always shaved in Russia] and I will give each of you a red hat and
plenty of vodka” (whiskey).
At this the fools only laughed, and said: “We can have all the vodka we
want, for we distill it ourselves; and of hats, our little girls make
all we want, of any color we please, and with handsome fringes.”
Thus was the devil foiled in securing recruits for his army; so he
returned to Ivan and said: “Your fools will not volunteer to be
soldiers. It will therefore be necessary to force them.”
“Very well,” replied Ivan, “you may use force if you want to.”
The old devil then announced that all the fools must become soldiers,
and those who refused, Ivan would punish with death.
The fools went to the General; and said: “You tell us that Ivan will
punish with death all those who refuse to become soldiers, but you have
omitted to state what will be done with us soldiers. We have been told
that we are only to be killed.”
“Yes, that is true,” was the reply.
The fools on hearing this became stubborn and refused to go.
“Better kill us now if we cannot avoid death, but we will not become
soldiers,” they declared.
“Oh! you fools,” said the old devil, “soldiers may and may not be
killed; but if you disobey Ivan’s orders you will find certain death at
his hands.”
The fools remained absorbed in thought for some time and finally went
to Ivan to question him in regard to the matter.
On arriving at his house they said: “A General came to us with an order
from you that we were all to become soldiers, and if we refused you
were to punish us with death. Is it true?”
Ivan began to laugh heartily on hearing this, and said: “Well, how I
alone can punish you with death is something I cannot understand. If I
was not a fool myself I would be able to explain it to you, but as it
is I cannot.”
“Well, then, we will not go,” they said.
“Very well,” replied Ivan, “you need not become soldiers unless you
wish to.”
The old devil, seeing his schemes about to prove failures, went to the
ruler of Tarakania and became his friend, saying: “Let us go and
conquer Ivan’s kingdom. He has no money, but he has plenty of cattle,
provisions, and various other things that would be useful to us.”
The Tarakanian ruler gathered his large army together, and equipping it
with cannons and rifles, crossed the boundary line into Ivan’s kingdom.
The people went to Ivan and said: “The ruler of Tarakania is here with
a large army to fight us.”
“Let them come,” replied Ivan.
The Tarakanian ruler, after crossing the line into Ivan’s kingdom,
looked in vain for soldiers to fight against; and waiting some time and
none appearing, he sent his own warriors to attack the villages.
They soon reached the first village, which they began to plunder.
The fools of both sexes looked calmly on, offering not the least
resistance when their cattle and provisions were being taken from them.
On the contrary, they invited the soldiers to come and live with them,
saying: “If you, dear friends, find it is difficult to earn a living in
your own land, come and live with us, where everything is plentiful.”
The soldiers decided to remain, finding the people happy and
prosperous, with enough surplus food to supply many of their neighbors.
They were surprised at the cordial greetings which they everywhere
received, and, returning to the ruler of Tarakania, they said: “We
cannot fight with these people—take us to another place. We would much
prefer the dangers of actual warfare to this unsoldierly method of
subduing the village.”
The Tarakanian ruler, becoming enraged, ordered the soldiers to destroy
the whole kingdom, plunder the villages, burn the houses and
provisions, and slaughter the cattle.
“Should you disobey my orders,” said he, “I will have every one of you
executed.”
The soldiers, becoming frightened, started to do as they were ordered,
but the fools wept bitterly, offering no resistance, men, women, and
children all joining in the general lamentation.
“Why do you treat us so cruelly?” they cried to the invading soldiers.
“Why do you wish to destroy everything we have? If you have more need
of these things than we have, why not take them with you and leave us
in peace?”
The soldiers, becoming saddened with remorse, refused further to pursue
their path of destruction—the entire army scattering in many
directions.
CHAPTER XII.
The old devil, failing to ruin Ivan’s kingdom with soldiers,
transformed himself into a nobleman, dressed exquisitely, and became
one of Ivan’s subjects, with the intention of compassing the downfall
of his kingdom—as he had done with that of Tarras.
The “nobleman” said to Ivan: “I desire to teach you wisdom and to
render you other service. I will build you a palace and factories.”
“Very well,” said Ivan; “you may live with us.”
The next day the “nobleman” appeared on the Square with a sack of gold
in his hand and a plan for building a house, saying to the people: “You
are living like pigs, and I am going to teach you how to live decently.
You are to build a house for me according to this plan. I will
superintend the work myself, and will pay you for your services in
gold,” showing them at the same time the contents of his sack.
The fools were amused. They had never before seen any money. Their
business was conducted entirely by exchange of farm products or by
hiring themselves out to work by the day in return for whatever they
most needed. They therefore glanced at the gold pieces with amazement,
and said, “What nice toys they would be to play with!” In return for
the gold they gave their services and brought the “nobleman” the
produce of their farms.
The old devil was overjoyed as he thought, “Now my enterprise is on a
fair road and I will be able to ruin the Fool—as I did his brothers.”
The fools obtained sufficient gold to distribute among the entire
community, the women and young girls of the village wearing much of it
as ornaments, while to the children they gave some pieces to play with
on the streets.
When they had secured all they wanted they stopped working and the
“nobleman” did not get his house more than half finished. He had
neither provisions nor cattle for the year, and ordered the people to
bring him both. He directed them also to go on with the building of the
palace and factories. He promised to pay them liberally in gold for
everything they did. No one responded to his call—only once in awhile a
little boy or girl would call to exchange eggs for his gold.
Thus was the “nobleman” deserted, and, having nothing to eat, he went
to the village to procure some provisions for his dinner. He went to
one house and offered gold in return for a chicken, but was refused,
the owner saying: “We have enough of that already and do not want any
more.”
He next went to a fish-woman to buy some herring, when she, too,
refused to accept his gold in return for fish, saying: “I do not wish
it, my dear man; I have no children to whom I can give it to play with.
I have three pieces which I keep as curiosities only.”
He then went to a peasant to buy bread, but he also refused to accept
the gold. “I have no use for it,” said he, “unless you wish to give it
for Christ’s sake; then it will be a different matter, and I will tell
my _baba_ [old woman] to cut a piece of bread for you.”
The old devil was so angry that he ran away from the peasant, spitting
and cursing as he went.
Not only did the offer to accept in the name of Christ anger him, but
the very mention of the name was like the thrust of a knife in his
throat.
The old devil did not succeed in getting any bread, and in his efforts
to secure other articles of food he met with the same failure. The
people had all the gold they wanted and what pieces they had they
regarded as curiosities. They said to the old devil: “If you bring us
something else in exchange for food, or come to ask for Christ’s sake,
we will give you all you want.”
But the old devil had nothing but gold, and was too lazy to work; and
being unable to accept anything for Christ’s sake, he was greatly
enraged.
“What else do you want?” he said. “I will give you gold with which you
can buy everything you want, and you need labor no longer.”
But the fools would not accept his gold, nor listen to him. Thus the
old devil was obliged to go to sleep hungry.
Tidings of this condition of affairs soon reached the ears of Ivan. The
people went to him and said: “What shall we do? This nobleman appeared
among us; he is well dressed; he wishes to eat and drink of the best,
but is unwilling to work, and does not beg for food for Christ’s sake.
He only offers every one gold pieces. At first we gave him everything
he wanted, taking the gold pieces in exchange just as curiosities; but
now we have enough of them and refuse to accept any more from him. What
shall we do with him? he may die of hunger!”
Ivan heard all they had to say, and told them to employ him as a
shepherd, taking turns in doing so.
The old devil saw no other way out of the difficulty and was obliged to
submit.
It soon came the old devil’s turn to go to Ivan’s house. He went there
to dinner and found Ivan’s dumb sister preparing the meal. She was
often cheated by the lazy people, who while they did not work, yet ate
up all the gruel. But she learned to know the lazy people from the
condition of their hands. Those with great welts on their hands she
invited first to the table, and those having smooth white hands had to
take what was left.
The old devil took a seat at the table, but the dumb girl, taking his
hands, looked at them, and seeing them white and clean, and with long
nails, swore at him and put him from the table.
Ivan’s wife said to the old devil: “You must excuse my sister-in-law;
she will not allow any one to sit at the table whose hands have not
been hardened by toil, so you will have to wait until the dinner is
over and then you can have what is left. With it you must be
satisfied.”
The old devil was very much offended that he was made to eat with
“pigs,” as he expressed it, and complained to Ivan, saying: “The
foolish law you have in your kingdom, that all persons must work, is
surely the invention of fools. People who work for a living are not
always forced to labor with their hands. Do you think wise men labor
so?”
Ivan replied: “Well, what do fools know about it? We all work with our
hands.”
“And for that reason you are fools,” replied the devil. “I can teach
you how to use your brains, and you will find such labor more
beneficial.”
Ivan was surprised at hearing this, and said: “Well, it is perhaps not
without good reason that we are called fools.”
“It is not so easy to work with the brain,” the old devil said. “You
will not give me anything to eat because my hands have not the
appearance of being toil-hardened, but you must understand that it is
much harder to do brain-work, and sometimes the head feels like
bursting with the effort it is forced to make.”
“Then why do you not select some light work that you can perform with
your hands?” Ivan asked.
The devil said: “I torment myself with brain-work because I have pity
for you fools, for, if I did not torture myself, people like you would
remain fools for all eternity. I have exercised my brain a great deal
during my life, and now I am able to teach you.”
Ivan was greatly surprised and said: “Very well; teach us, so that when
our hands are tired we can use our heads to replace them.”
The devil promised to instruct the people, and Ivan announced the fact
throughout his kingdom.
The devil was willing to teach all those who came to him how to use the
head instead of the hands, so as to produce more with the former than
with the latter.
In Ivan’s kingdom there was a high tower, which was reached by a long,
narrow ladder leading up to the balcony, and Ivan told the old devil
that from the top of the tower every one could see him.
So the old devil went up to the balcony and addressed the people.
The fools came in great crowds to hear what the old devil had to say,
thinking that he really meant to tell them how to work with the head.
But the old devil only told them in words what to do, and did not give
them any practical instruction. He said that men working only with
their hands could not make a living. The fools did not understand what
he said to them and looked at him in amazement, and then departed for
their daily work.
The old devil addressed them for two days from the balcony, and at the
end of that time, feeling hungry, he asked the people to bring him some
bread. But they only laughed at him and told him if he could work
better with his head than with his hands he could also find bread for
himself. He addressed the people for yet another day, and they went to
hear him from curiosity, but soon left him to return to their work.
Ivan asked, “Well, did the nobleman work with his head?”
“Not yet,” they said; “so far he has only talked.”
One day, while the old devil was standing on the balcony, he became
weak, and, falling down, hurt his head against a pole.
Seeing this, one of the fools ran to Ivan’s wife and said, “The
gentleman has at last commenced to work with his head.”
She ran to the field to tell Ivan, who was much surprised, and said,
“Let us go and see him.”
He turned his horses’ heads in the direction of the tower, where the
old devil remained weak from hunger and was still suspended from the
pole, with his body swaying back and forth and his head striking the
lower part of the pole each time it came in contact with it. While Ivan
was looking, the old devil started down the steps head-first—as they
supposed, to count them.
“Well,” said Ivan, “he told the truth after all—that sometimes from
this kind of work the head bursts. This is far worse than welts on the
hands.”
The old devil fell to the ground head-foremost. Ivan approached him,
but at that instant the ground opened and the devil disappeared,
leaving only a hole to show where he had gone.
Ivan scratched his head and said: “See here; such nastiness! This is
yet another devil. He looks like the father of the little ones.”
Ivan still lives, and people flock to his kingdom. His brothers come to
him and he feeds them.
To every one who comes to him and says, “Give us food,” he replies:
“Very well; you are welcome. We have plenty of everything.”
There is only one unchangeable custom observed in Ivan’s kingdom: The
man with toil-hardened hands is always given a seat at the table, while
the possessor of soft white hands must be contented with what is left.
A LOST OPPORTUNITY.
“Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” . . . . “So likewise
shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts
forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”—ST. MATTHEW
xviii., 21-35.
In a certain village there lived a peasant by the name of Ivan
Scherbakoff. He was prosperous, strong, and vigorous, and was
considered the hardest worker in the whole village. He had three sons,
who supported themselves by their own labor. The eldest was married,
the second about to be married, and the youngest took care of the
horses and occasionally attended to the plowing.
The peasant’s wife, Ivanovna, was intelligent and industrious, while
her daughter-in-law was a simple, quiet soul, but a hard worker.
There was only one idle person in the household, and that was Ivan’s
father, a very old man who for seven years had suffered from asthma,
and who spent the greater part of his time lying on the brick oven.
Ivan had plenty of everything—three horses, with one colt, a cow with
calf, and fifteen sheep. The women made the men’s clothes, and in
addition to performing all the necessary household labor, also worked
in the field; while the men’s industry was confined altogether to the
farm.
What was left of the previous year’s supply of provisions was ample for
their needs, and they sold a quantity of oats sufficient to pay their
taxes and other expenses.
Thus life went smoothly for Ivan.
The peasant’s next-door neighbor was a son of Gordey Ivanoff, called
“Gavryl the Lame.” It once happened that Ivan had a quarrel with him;
but while old man Gordey was yet alive, and Ivan’s father was the head
of the household, the two peasants lived as good neighbors should. If
the women of one house required the use of a sieve or pail, they
borrowed it from the inmates of the other house. The same condition of
affairs existed between the men. They lived more like one family, the
one dividing his possessions with the other, and perfect harmony
reigned between the two families.
If a stray calf or cow invaded the garden of one of the farmers, the
other willingly drove it away, saying: “Be careful, neighbor, that your
stock does not again stray into my garden; we should put a fence up.”
In the same way they had no secrets from each other. The doors of their
houses and barns had neither bolts nor locks, so sure were they of each
other’s honesty. Not a shadow of suspicion darkened their daily
intercourse.
Thus lived the old people.
In time the younger members of the two households started farming. It
soon became apparent that they would not get along as peacefully as the
old people had done, for they began quarrelling without the slightest
provocation.
A hen belonging to Ivan’s daughter-in-law commenced laying eggs, which
the young woman collected each morning, intending to keep them for the
Easter holidays. She made daily visits to the barn, where, under an old
wagon, she was sure to find the precious egg.
One day the children frightened the hen and she flew over their
neighbor’s fence and laid her egg in their garden.
Ivan’s daughter-in-law heard the hen cackling, but said: “I am very
busy just at present, for this is the eve of a holy day, and I must
clean and arrange this room. I will go for the egg later on.”
When evening came, and she had finished her task, she went to the barn,
and as usual looked under the old wagon, expecting to find an egg. But,
alas! no egg was visible in the accustomed place.
Greatly disappointed, she returned to the house and inquired of her
mother-in-law and the other members of the family if they had taken it.
“No,” they said, “we know nothing of it.”
Taraska, the youngest brother-in-law, coming in soon after, she also
inquired of him if he knew anything about the missing egg. “Yes,” he
replied; “your pretty, crested hen laid her egg in our neighbors’
garden, and after she had finished cackling she flew back again over
the fence.”
The young woman, greatly surprised on hearing this, turned and looked
long and seriously at the hen, which was sitting with closed eyes
beside the rooster in the chimney-corner. She asked the hen where it
laid the egg. At the sound of her voice it simply opened and closed its
eyes, but could make no answer.
She then went to the neighbors’ house, where she was met by an old
woman, who said: “What do you want, young woman?”
Ivan’s daughter-in-law replied: “You see, _babushka_ [grandmother], my
hen flew into your yard this morning. Did she not lay an egg there?”
“We did not see any,” the old woman replied; “we have our own hens—God
be praised!—and they have been laying for this long time. We hunt only
for the eggs our own hens lay, and have no use for the eggs other
people’s hens lay. Another thing I want to tell you, young woman: we do
not go into other people’s yards to look for eggs.”
Now this speech greatly angered the young woman, and she replied in the
same spirit in which she had been spoken to, only using much stronger
language and speaking at greater length.
The neighbor replied in the same angry manner, and finally the women
began to abuse each other and call vile names. It happened that old
Ivan’s wife, on her way to the well for water, heard the dispute, and
joined the others, taking her daughter-in-law’s part.
Gavryl’s housekeeper, hearing the noise, could not resist the
temptation to join the rest and to make her voice heard. As soon as she
appeared on the scene, she, too, began to abuse her neighbor, reminding
her of many disagreeable things which had happened (and many which had
not happened) between them. She became so infuriated during her
denunciations that she lost all control of herself, and ran around like
some mad creature.
Then all the women began to shout at the same time, each trying to say
two words to another’s one, and using the vilest language in the
quarreller’s vocabulary.
“You are such and such,” shouted one of the women. “You are a thief, a
_schlukha_ [a mean, dirty, low creature]; your father-in-law is even
now starving, and you have no shame. You beggar, you borrowed my sieve
and broke it. You made a large hole in it, and did not buy me another.”
“You have our scale-beam,” cried another woman, “and must give it back
to me;” whereupon she seized the scale-beam and tried to remove it from
the shoulders of Ivan’s wife.
In the mêlée which followed they upset the pails of water. They tore
the covering from each other’s head, and a general fight ensued.
Gavryl’s wife had by this time joined in the fracas, and he, crossing
the field and seeing the trouble, came to her rescue.
Ivan and his son, seeing that their womenfolk were being badly used,
jumped into the midst of the fray, and a fearful fight followed.
Ivan was the most powerful peasant in all the country round, and it did
not take him long to disperse the crowd, for they flew in all
directions. During the progress of the fight Ivan tore out a large
quantity of Gavryl’s beard.
By this time a large crowd of peasants had collected, and it was with
the greatest difficulty that they persuaded the two families to stop
quarrelling.
This was the beginning.
Gavryl took the portion of his beard which Ivan had torn out, and,
wrapping it in a paper, went to the _volostnoye_ (moujiks’ court) and
entered a complaint against Ivan.
Holding up the hair, he said, “I did not grow this for that bear Ivan
to tear out!”
Gavryl’s wife went round among the neighbors, telling them that they
must not repeat what she told them, but that she and her husband were
going to get the best of Ivan, and that he was to be sent to Siberia.
And so the quarrelling went on.
The poor old grandfather, sick with asthma and lying on the brick oven
all the time, tried from the first to dissuade them from quarrelling,
and begged of them to live in peace; but they would not listen to his
good advice. He said to them: “You children are making a great fuss and
much trouble about nothing. I beg of you to stop and think of what a
little thing has caused all this trouble. It has arisen from only one
egg. If our neighbors’ children picked it up, it is all right. God
bless them! One egg is of but little value, and without it God will
supply sufficient for all our needs.”
Ivan’s daughter-in-law here interposed and said, “But they called us
vile names.”
The old grandfather again spoke, saying: “Well, even if they _did_ call
you bad names, it would have been better to return good for evil, and
by your example show them how to speak better. Such conduct on your
part would have been best for all concerned.” He continued: “Well, you
had a fight, you wicked people. Such things sometimes happen, but it
would be better if you went afterward and asked forgiveness and buried
your grievances out of sight. Scatter them to the four winds of heaven,
for if you do not do so it will be the worse for you in the end.”
The younger members of the family, still obstinate, refused to profit
by the old man’s advice, and declared he was not right, and that he
only liked to grumble in his old-fashioned way.
Ivan refused to go to his neighbor, as the grandfather wished, saying:
“I did not tear out Gavryl’s beard. He did it himself, and his son tore
my shirt and trousers into shreds.”
Ivan entered suit against Gavryl. He first went to the village justice,
and not getting satisfaction from him he carried his case to the
village court.
While the neighbors were wrangling over the affair, each suing the
other, it happened that a perch-bolt from Gavryl’s wagon was lost; and
the women of Gavryl’s household accused Ivan’s son of stealing it.
They said: “We saw him in the night-time pass by our window, on his way
to where the wagon was standing.” “And my _kumushka_ [sponsor],” said
one of them, “told me that Ivan’s son had offered it for sale at the
_kabak_ [tavern].”
This accusation caused them again to go into court for a settlement of
their grievances.
While the heads of the families were trying to have their troubles
settled in court, their home quarrels were constant, and frequently
resulted in hand-to-hand encounters. Even the little children followed
the example of their elders and quarrelled incessantly.
The women, when they met on the riverbank to do the family washing,
instead of attending to their work passed the time in abusing each
other, and not infrequently they came to blows.
At first the male members of the families were content with accusing
each other of various crimes, such as stealing and like meannesses. But
the trouble in this mild form did not last long.
They soon resorted to other measures. They began to appropriate one
another’s things without asking permission, while various articles
disappeared from both houses and could not be found. This was done out
of revenge.
This example being set by the men, the women and children also
followed, and life soon became a burden to all who took part in the
strife.
Ivan Scherbakoff and “Gavryl the Lame” at last laid their trouble
before the _mir_ (village meeting), in addition to having been in court
and calling on the justice of the peace. Both of the latter had grown
tired of them and their incessant wrangling. One time Gavryl would
succeed in having Ivan fined, and if he was not able to pay it he would
be locked up in the cold dreary prison for days. Then it would be
Ivan’s turn to get Gavryl punished in like manner, and the greater the
injury the one could do the other the more delight he took in it.
The success of either in having the other punished only served to
increase their rage against each other, until they were like mad dogs
in their warfare.
If anything went wrong with one of them he immediately accused his
adversary of conspiring to ruin him, and sought revenge without
stopping to inquire into the rights of the case.
When the peasants went into court, and had each other fined and
imprisoned, it did not soften their hearts in the least. They would
only taunt one another on such occasions, saying: “Never mind; I will
repay you for all this.”
This state of affairs lasted for six years.
Ivan’s father, the sick old man, constantly repeated his good advice.
He would try to arouse their conscience by saying: “What are you doing,
my children? Can you not throw off all these troubles, pay more
attention to your business, and suppress your anger against your
neighbors? There is no use in your continuing to live in this way, for
the more enraged you become against each other the worse it is for
you.”
Again was the wise advice of the old man rejected.
At the beginning of the seventh year of the existence of the feud it
happened that a daughter-in-law of Ivan’s was present at a marriage. At
the wedding feast she openly accused Gavryl of stealing a horse. Gavryl
was intoxicated at the time and was in no mood to stand the insult, so
in retaliation he struck the woman a terrific blow, which confined her
to her bed for more than a week. The woman being in delicate health,
the worst results were feared.
Ivan, glad of a fresh opportunity to harass his neighbor, lodged a
formal complaint before the district-attorney, hoping to rid himself
forever of Gavryl by having him sent to Siberia.
On examining the complaint the district-attorney would not consider it,
as by that time the injured woman was walking about and as well as
ever.
Thus again Ivan was disappointed in obtaining his revenge, and, not
being satisfied with the district-attorney’s decision, had the case
transferred to the court, where he used all possible means to push his
suit. To secure the favor of the _starshina_ (village mayor) he made
him a present of half a gallon of sweet vodka; and to the mayor’s
_pisar_ (secretary) also he gave presents. By this means he succeeded
in securing a verdict against Gavryl. The sentence was that Gavryl was
to receive twenty lashes on his bare back, and the punishment was to be
administered in the yard which surrounded the court-house.
When Ivan heard the sentence read he looked triumphantly at Gavryl to
see what effect it would produce on him. Gavryl turned very white on
hearing that he was to be treated with such indignity, and turning his
back on the assembly left the room without uttering a word.
Ivan followed him out, and as he reached his horse he heard Gavryl
saying: “Very well; my spine will burn from the lashes, but something
will burn with greater fierceness in Ivan’s household before long.”
Ivan, on hearing these words, instantly returned to the court, and
going up to the judges said: “Oh! just judges, he threatens to burn my
house and all it contains.”
A messenger was immediately sent in search of Gavryl, who was soon
found and again brought into the presence of the judges.
“Is it true,” they asked, “that you said you would burn Ivan’s house
and all it contained?”
Gavryl replied: “I did not say anything of the kind. You may give me as
many lashes as you please—that is, if you have the power to do so. It
seems to me that I alone have to suffer for the truth, while he,”
pointing to Ivan, “is allowed to do and say what he pleases.” Gavryl
wished to say something more, but his lips trembled, and the words
refused to come; so in silence he turned his face toward the wall.
The sight of so much suffering moved even the judges to pity, and,
becoming alarmed at Gavryl’s continued silence, they said, “He may do
both his neighbor and himself some frightful injury.”
“See here, my brothers,” said one feeble old judge, looking at Ivan and
Gavryl as he spoke, “I think you had better try to arrange this matter
peaceably. You, brother Gavryl, did wrong to strike a woman who was in
delicate health. It was a lucky thing for you that God had mercy on you
and that the woman did not die, for if she had I know not what dire
misfortune might have overtaken you! It will not do either of you any
good to go on living as you are at present. Go, Gavryl, and make
friends with Ivan; I am sure he will forgive you, and we will set aside
the verdict just given.”
The secretary on hearing this said: “It is impossible to do this on the
present case. According to Article 117 this matter has gone too far to
be settled peaceably now, as the verdict has been rendered and must be
enforced.”
But the judges would not listen to the secretary, saying to him: “You
talk altogether too much. You must remember that the first thing is to
fulfill God’s command to ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ and all will
be well with you.”
Thus with kind words the judges tried to reconcile the two peasants.
Their words fell on stony ground, however, for Gavryl would not listen
to them.
“I am fifty years old,” said Gavryl, “and have a son married, and never
from my birth has the lash been applied to my back; but now this bear
Ivan has secured a verdict against me which condemns me to receive
twenty lashes, and I am forced to bow to this decision and suffer the
shame of a public beating. Well, he will have cause to remember this.”
At this Gavryl’s voice trembled and he stopped speaking, and turning
his back on the judges took his departure.
It was about ten versts’ distance from the court to the homes of the
neighbors, and this Ivan travelled late. The women had already gone out
for the cattle. He unharnessed his horse and put everything in its
place, and then went into the _izba_ (room), but found no one there.
The men had not yet returned from their work in the field and the women
had gone to look for the cattle, so that all about the place was quiet.
Going into the room, Ivan seated himself on a wooden bench and soon
became lost in thought. He remembered how, when Gavryl first heard the
sentence which had been passed upon him, he grew very pale, and turned
his face to the wall, all the while remaining silent.
Ivan’s heart ached when he thought of the disgrace which he had been
the means of bringing upon Gavryl, and he wondered how he would feel if
the same sentence had been passed upon him. His thoughts were
interrupted by the coughing of his father, who was lying on the oven.
The old man, on seeing Ivan, came down off the oven, and slowly
approaching his son seated himself on the bench beside him, looking at
him as though ashamed. He continued to cough as he leaned on the table
and said, “Well, did they sentence him?”
“Yes, they sentenced him to receive twenty lashes,” replied Ivan.
On hearing this the old man sorrowfully shook his head, and said: “This
is very bad, Ivan, and what is the meaning of it all? It is indeed very
bad, but not so bad for Gavryl as for yourself. Well, suppose his
sentence _is_ carried out, and he gets the twenty lashes, what will it
benefit you?”
“He will not again strike a woman,” Ivan replied.
“What is it he will not do? He does not do anything worse than what you
are constantly doing!”
This conversation enraged Ivan, and he shouted: “Well, what did he do?
He beat a woman nearly to death, and even now he threatens to burn my
house! Must I bow to him for all this?”
The old man sighed deeply as he said: “You, Ivan, are strong and free
to go wherever you please, while I have been lying for years on the
oven. You think that you know everything and that I do not know
anything. No! you are still a child, and as such you cannot see that a
kind of madness controls your actions and blinds your sight. The sins
of others are ever before you, while you resolutely keep your own
behind your back. I know that what Gavryl did was wrong, but if he
alone should do wrong there would be no evil in the world. Do you think
that all the evil in the world is the work of one man alone? No! it
requires two persons to work much evil in the world. You see only the
bad in Gavryl’s character, but you are blind to the evil that is in
your own nature. If he alone were bad and you good, then there would be
no wrong.”
The old man, after a pause, continued: “Who tore Gavryl’s beard? Who
destroyed his heaps of rye? Who dragged him into court?—and yet you try
to put all the blame on his shoulders. You are behaving very badly
yourself, and for that reason you are wrong. I did not act in such a
manner, and certainly I never taught you to do so. I lived in peace
with Gavryl’s father all the time we were neighbors. We were always the
best of friends. If he was without flour his wife would come to me and
say, ‘_Diadia Frol_ [Grandfather], we need flour.’ I would then say:
‘My good woman, go to the warehouse and take as much as you want.’ If
he had no one to care for his horses I would say, ‘Go, _Ivanushka_
[diminutive of Ivan], and help him to care for them.’ If I required
anything I would go to him and say, ‘Grandfather Gordey, I need this or
that,’ and he would always reply, ‘Take just whatever you want.’ By
this means we passed an easy and peaceful life. But what is your life
compared with it? As the soldiers fought at Plevna, so are you and
Gavryl fighting all the time, only that your battles are far more
disgraceful than that fought at Plevna.”
The old man went on: “And you call this living! and what a sin it all
is! You are a peasant, and the head of the house; therefore, the
responsibility of the trouble rests with you. What an example you set
your wife and children by constantly quarrelling with your neighbor!
Only a short time since your little boy, Taraska, was cursing his aunt
Arina, and his mother only laughed at it, saying, ‘What a bright child
he is!’ Is that right? You are to blame for all this. You should think
of the salvation of your soul. Is that the way to do it? You say one
unkind word to me and I will reply with two. You will give me one slap
in the face, and I will retaliate with two slaps. No, my son; Christ
did not teach us foolish people to act in such a way. If any one should
say an unkind word to you it is better not to answer at all; but if you
_do_ reply do it kindly, and his conscience will accuse him, and he
will regret his unkindness to you. This is the way Christ taught us to
live. He tells us that if a person smite us on the one cheek we should
offer unto him the other. That is Christ’s command to us, and we should
follow it. You should therefore subdue your pride. Am I not right?”
Ivan remained silent, but his father’s words had sunk deep into his
heart.
The old man coughed and continued: “Do you think Christ thought us
wicked? Did he not die that we might be saved? Now you think only of
this earthly life. Are you better or worse for thinking alone of it?
Are you better or worse for having begun that Plevna battle? Think of
your expense at court and the time lost in going back and forth, and
what have you gained? Your sons have reached manhood, and are able now
to work for you. You are therefore at liberty to enjoy life and be
happy. With the assistance of your children you could reach a high
state of prosperity. But now your property instead of increasing is
gradually growing less, and why? It is the result of your pride. When
it becomes necessary for you and your boys to go to the field to work,
your enemy instead summons you to appear at court or before some kind
of judicial person. If you do not plow at the proper time and sow at
the proper time mother earth will not yield up her products, and you
and your children will be left destitute. Why did your oats fail this
year? When did you sow them? Were you not quarrelling with your
neighbor instead of attending to your work? You have just now returned
from the town, where you have been the means of having your neighbor
humiliated. You have succeeded in getting him sentenced, but in the end
the punishment will fall on your own shoulders. Oh! my child, it would
be better for you to attend to your work on the farm and train your
boys to become good farmers and honest men. If any one offend you
forgive him for Christ’s sake, and then prosperity will smile on your
work and a light and happy feeling will fill your heart.”
Ivan still remained silent.
The old father in a pleading voice continued: “Take an old man’s
advice. Go and harness your horse, drive back to the court, and
withdraw all these complaints against your neighbor. To-morrow go to
him, offer to make peace in Christ’s name, and invite him to your
house. It will be a holy day (the birth of the Virgin Mary). Get out
the samovar and have some vodka, and over both forgive and forget each
other’s sins, promising not to transgress in the future, and advise
your women and children to do the same.”
Ivan heaved a deep sigh but felt easier in his heart, as he thought:
“The old man speaks the truth;” yet he was in doubt as to how he would
put his father’s advice into practice.
The old man, surmising his uncertainty, said to Ivan: “Go, Ivanushka;
do not delay. Extinguish the fire in the beginning, before it grows
large, for then it may be impossible.”
Ivan’s father wished to say more to him, but was prevented by the
arrival of the women, who came into the room chattering like so many
magpies. They had already heard of Gavryl’s sentence, and of how he
threatened to set fire to Ivan’s house. They found out all about it,
and in telling it to their neighbors added their own versions of the
story, with the usual exaggeration. Meeting in the pasture-ground, they
proceeded to quarrel with Gavryl’s women. They related how the latter’s
daughter-in-law had threatened to secure the influence of the manager
of a certain noble’s estate in behalf of his friend Gavryl; also that
the school-teacher was writing a petition to the Czar himself against
Ivan, explaining in detail his theft of the perchbolt and partial
destruction of Gavryl’s garden—declaring that half of Ivan’s land was
to be given to them.
Ivan listened calmly to their stories, but his anger was soon aroused
once more, when he abandoned his intention of making peace with Gavryl.
As Ivan was always busy about the household, he did not stop to speak
to the wrangling women, but immediately left the room, directing his
steps toward the barn. Before getting through with his work the sun had
set and the boys had returned from their plowing. Ivan met them and
asked about their work, helping them to put things in order and leaving
the broken horse-collar aside to be repaired. He intended to perform
some other duties, but it became too dark and he was obliged to leave
them till the next day. He fed the cattle, however, and opened the gate
that Taraska might take his horses to pasture for the night, after
which he closed it again and went into the house for his supper.
By this time he had forgotten all about Gavryl and what his father had
said to him. Yet, just as he touched the door-knob, he heard sounds of
quarrelling proceeding from his neighbor’s house.
“What do I want with that devil?” shouted Gavryl to some one. “He
deserves to be killed!”
Ivan stopped and listened for a moment, when he shook his head
threateningly and entered the room. When he came in, the apartment was
already lighted. His daughter-in-law was working with her loom, while
the old woman was preparing the supper. The eldest son was twining
strings for his _lapti_ (peasant’s shoes made of strips of bark from
the linden-tree). The other son was sitting by the table reading a
book. The room presented a pleasant appearance, everything being in
order and the inmates apparently gay and happy—the only dark shadow
being that cast over the household by Ivan’s trouble with his neighbor.
Ivan came in very cross, and, angrily throwing aside a cat which lay
sleeping on the bench, cursed the women for having misplaced a pail. He
looked very sad and serious, and, seating himself in a corner of the
room, proceeded to repair the horse-collar. He could not forget Gavryl,
however—the threatening words he had used in the court-room and those
which Ivan had just heard.
Presently Taraska came in, and after having his supper, put on his
sheepskin coat, and, taking some bread with him, returned to watch over
his horses for the night. His eldest brother wished to accompany him,
but Ivan himself arose and went with him as far as the porch. The night
was dark and cloudy and a strong wind was blowing, which produced a
peculiar whistling sound that was most unpleasant to the ear. Ivan
helped his son to mount his horse, which, followed by a colt, started
off on a gallop.
Ivan stood for a few moments looking around him and listening to the
clatter of the horse’s hoofs as Taraska rode down the village street.
He heard him meet other boys on horseback, who rode quite as well as
Taraska, and soon all were lost in the darkness.
Ivan remained standing by the gate in a gloomy mood, as he was unable
to banish from his mind the harassing thoughts of Gavryl, which the
latter’s menacing words had inspired: “Something will burn with greater
fierceness in Ivan’s household before long.”
“He is so desperate,” thought Ivan, “that he may set fire to my house
regardless of the danger to his own. At present everything is dry, and
as the wind is so high he may sneak from the back of his own building,
start a fire, and get away unseen by any of us.
“He may burn and steal without being found out, and thus go unpunished.
I wish I could catch him.”
This thought so worried Ivan that he decided not to return to his
house, but went out and stood on the street-corner.
“I guess,” thought Ivan to himself, “I will take a walk around the
premises and examine everything carefully, for who knows what he may be
tempted to do?”
Ivan moved very cautiously round to the back of his buildings, not
making the slightest noise, and scarcely daring to breathe. Just as he
reached a corner of the house he looked toward the fence, and it seemed
to him that he saw something moving, and that it was slowly creeping
toward the corner of the house opposite to where he was standing. He
stepped back quickly and hid himself in the shadow of the building.
Ivan stood and listened, but all was quiet. Not a sound could be heard
but the moaning of the wind through the branches of the trees, and the
rustling of the leaves as it caught them up and whirled them in all
directions. So dense was the darkness that it was at first impossible
for Ivan to see more than a few feet beyond where he stood.
After a time, however, his sight becoming accustomed to the gloom, he
was enabled to see for a considerable distance. The plow and his other
farming implements stood just where he had placed them. He could see
also the opposite corner of the house.
He looked in every direction, but no one was in sight, and he thought
to himself that his imagination must have played him some trick,
leading him to believe that some one was moving when there really was
no one there.
Still, Ivan was not satisfied, and decided to make a further
examination of the premises. As on the previous occasion, he moved so
very cautiously that he could not hear even the sound of his own
footsteps. He had taken the precaution to remove his shoes, that he
might step the more noiselessly. When he reached the corner of the barn
it again seemed to him that he saw something moving, this time near the
plow; but it quickly disappeared. By this time Ivan’s heart was beating
very fast, and he was standing in a listening attitude when a sudden
flash of light illumined the spot, and he could distinctly see the
figure of a man seated on his haunches with his back turned toward him,
and in the act of lighting a bunch of straw which he held in his hand!
Ivan’s heart began to beat yet faster, and he became terribly excited,
walking up and down with rapid strides, but without making a noise.
Ivan said: “Well, now, he cannot get away, for he will be caught in the
very act.”
Ivan had taken a few more steps when suddenly a bright light flamed up,
but not in the same spot in which he had seen the figure of the man
sitting. Gavryl had lighted the straw, and running to the barn held it
under the edge of the roof, which began to burn fiercely; and by the
light of the fire he could distinctly see his neighbor standing.
As an eagle springs at a skylark, so sprang Ivan at Gavryl, saying: “I
will tear you into pieces! You shall not get away from me this time!”
But “Gavryl the Lame,” hearing footsteps, wrenched himself free from
Ivan’s grasp and ran like a hare past the buildings.
Ivan, now terribly excited, shouted, “You shall not escape me!” and
started in pursuit; but just as he reached him and was about to grasp
the collar of his coat, Gavryl succeeded in jumping to one side, and
Ivan’s coat became entangled in something and he was thrown violently
to the ground. Jumping quickly to his feet he shouted, “_Karaool!
derji!_” (watch! catch!)
While Ivan was regaining his feet Gavryl succeeded in reaching his
house, but Ivan followed so quickly that he caught up with him before
he could enter. Just as he was about to grasp him he was struck on the
head with some hard substance. He had been hit on the temple as with a
stone. The blow was struck by Gavryl, who had picked up an oaken stave,
and with it gave Ivan a terrible blow on the head.
Ivan was stunned, and bright sparks danced before his eyes, while he
swayed from side to side like a drunken man, until finally all became
dark and he sank to the ground unconscious.
When he recovered his senses, Gavryl was nowhere to be seen, but all
around him was as light as day. Strange sounds proceeded from the
direction of his house, and turning his face that way he saw that his
barns were on fire. The rear parts of both were already destroyed, and
the flames were leaping toward the front. Fire, smoke, and bits of
burning straw were being rapidly whirled by the high wind over to where
his house stood, and he expected every moment to see it burst into
flames.
“What is this, brother?” Ivan cried out, as he beat his thighs with his
hands. “I should have stopped to snatch the bunch of burning straw,
and, throwing it on the ground, should have extinguished it with my
feet!”
Ivan tried to cry out and arouse his people, but his lips refused to
utter a word. He next tried to run, but he could not move his feet, and
his legs seemed to twist themselves around each other. After several
attempts he succeeded in taking one or two steps, when he again began
to stagger and gasp for breath. It was some moments before he made
another attempt to move, but after considerable exertion he finally
reached the barn, the rear of which was by this time entirely consumed;
and the corner of his house had already caught fire. Dense volumes of
smoke began to pour out of the room, which made it difficult to
approach.
A crowd of peasants had by this time gathered, but they found it
impossible to save their homes, so they carried everything which they
could to a place of safety. The cattle they drove into neighboring
pastures and left some one to care for them.
The wind carried the sparks from Ivan’s house to Gavryl’s, and it, too,
took fire and was consumed. The wind continued to increase with great
fury, and the flames spread to both sides of the street, until in a
very short time more than half the village was burned.
The members of Ivan’s household had great difficulty in getting out of
the burning building, but the neighbors rescued the old man and carried
him to a place of safety, while the women escaped in only their
night-clothes. Everything was burned, including the cattle and all the
farm implements. The women lost their trunks, which were filled with
quantities of clothing, the accumulation of years. The storehouse and
all the provisions perished in the flames, not even the chickens being
saved.
Gavryl, however, more fortunate than Ivan, saved his cattle and a few
other things.
The village was burning all night.
Ivan stood near his home, gazing sadly at the burning building, and he
kept constantly repeating to himself: “I should have taken away the
bunch of burning straw, and have stamped out the fire with my feet.”
But when he saw his home fall in a smouldering heap, in spite of the
terrible heat he sprang into the midst of it and carried out a charred
log. The women seeing him, and fearing that he would lose his life,
called to him to come back, but he would not pay any attention to them
and went a second time to get a log. Still weak from the terrible blow
which Gavryl had given him, he was overcome by the heat, and fell into
the midst of the burning mass. Fortunately, his eldest son saw him
fall, and rushing into the fire succeeded in getting hold of him and
carrying him out of it. Ivan’s hair, beard, and clothing were burned
entirely off. His hands were also frightfully injured, but he seemed
indifferent to pain.
“Grief drove him crazy,” the people said.
The fire was growing less, but Ivan still stood where he could see it,
and kept repeating to himself, “I should have taken,” etc.
The morning after the fire the _starosta_ (village elder) sent his son
to Ivan to tell him that the old man, his father, was dying, and wanted
to see him to bid him good-bye.
In his grief Ivan had forgotten all about his father, and could not
understand what was being said to him. In a dazed way he asked: “What
father? Whom does he want?”
The elder’s son again repeated his father’s message to Ivan. “Your aged
parent is at our house dying, and he wants to see you and bid you
good-bye. Won’t you go now, uncle Ivan?” the boy said.
Finally Ivan understood, and followed the elder’s son.
When Ivan’s father was carried from the oven, he was slightly injured
by a big bunch of burning straw falling on him just as he reached the
street. To insure his safety he was removed to the elder’s house, which
stood a considerable distance from his late home, and where it was not
likely that the fire would reach it.
When Ivan arrived at the elder’s home he found only the latter’s wife
and children, who were all seated on the brick oven. The old man was
lying on a bench holding a lighted candle in his hand (a Russian custom
when a person is dying). Hearing a noise, he turned his face toward the
door, and when he saw it was his son he tried to move. He motioned for
Ivan to come nearer, and when he did so he whispered in a trembling
voice: “Well, Ivanushka, did I not tell you before what would be the
result of this sad affair? Who set the village on fire?”
“He, he, _batiushka_ [little father]; he did it. I caught him. He
placed the bunch of burning straw to the barn in my presence. Instead
of running after him, I should have snatched the bunch of burning straw
and throwing it on the ground have stamped it out with my feet; and
then there would have been no fire.”
“Ivan,” said the old man, “death is fast approaching me, and remember
that you also will have to die. Who did this dreadful thing? Whose is
the sin?”
Ivan gazed at the noble face of his dying father and was silent. His
heart was too full for utterance.
“In the presence of God,” the old man continued, “whose is the sin?”
It was only now that the truth began to dawn upon Ivan’s mind, and that
he realized how foolish he had acted. He sobbed bitterly, and fell on
his knees before his father, and, crying like a child, said:
“My dear father, forgive me, for Christ’s sake, for I am guilty before
God and before you!”
The old man transferred the lighted candle from his right hand to the
left, and, raising the former to his forehead, tried to make the sign
of the cross, but owing to weakness was unable to do so.
“Glory to Thee, O Lord! Glory to Thee!” he exclaimed; and turning his
dim eyes toward his son, he said: “See here, Ivanushka! Ivanushka, my
dear son!”
“What, my dear father?” Ivan asked.
“What are you going to do,” replied the old man, “now that you have no
home?”
Ivan cried and said: “I do not know how we shall live now.”
The old man closed his eyes and made a movement with his lips, as if
gathering his feeble strength for a final effort. Slowly opening his
eyes, he whispered:
“Should you live according to God’s commands you will be happy and
prosperous again.”
The old man was now silent for awhile and then, smiling sadly, he
continued:
“See here, Ivanushka, keep silent concerning this trouble, and do not
tell who set the village on fire. Forgive one sin of your neighbor’s,
and God will forgive two of yours.”
Grasping the candle with both hands, Ivan’s father heaved a deep sigh,
and, stretching himself out on his back, yielded up the ghost.
Ivan for once accepted his father’s advice. He did not betray Gavryl,
and no one ever learned the origin of the fire.
Ivan’s heart became more kindly disposed toward his old enemy, feeling
that much of the fault in connection with this sad affair rested with
himself.
Gavryl was greatly surprised that Ivan did not denounce him before all
the villagers, and at first he stood in much fear of him, but he soon
afterward overcame this feeling.
The two peasants ceased to quarrel, and their families followed their
example. While they were building new houses, both families lived
beneath the same roof, and when they moved into their respective homes,
Ivan and Gavryl lived on as good terms as their fathers had done before
them.
Ivan remembered his dying father’s command, and took deeply to heart
the evident warning of God that _a fire should be extinguished in the
beginning_. If any one wronged him he did not seek revenge, but instead
made every effort to settle the matter peaceably. If any one spoke to
him unkindly, he did not answer in the same way, but replied softly,
and tried to persuade the person not to speak evil. He taught the women
and children of his household to do the same.
Ivan Scherbakoff was now a reformed man.
He lived well and peacefully, and again became prosperous.
Let us, therefore, have peace, live in brotherly love and kindness, and
we will be happy.
“POLIKUSHKA;”
or, _The Lot of a Wicked Court Servant_.
CHAPTER I.
Polikey was a court man—one of the staff of servants belonging to the
court household of a _boyarinia_ (lady of the nobility).
He held a very insignificant position on the estate, and lived in a
rather poor, small house with his wife and children.
The house was built by the deceased nobleman whose widow he still
continued to serve, and may be described as follows: The four walls
surrounding the one _izba_ (room) were built of stone, and the interior
was ten yards square. A Russian stove stood in the centre, around which
was a free passage. Each corner was fenced off as a separate inclosure
to the extent of several feet, and the one nearest to the door (the
smallest of all) was known as “Polikey’s corner.” Elsewhere in the room
stood the bed (with quilt, sheet, and cotton pillows), the cradle (with
a baby lying therein), and the three-legged table, on which the meals
were prepared and the family washing was done. At the latter also
Polikey was at work on the preparation of some materials for use in his
profession—that of an amateur veterinary surgeon. A calf, some hens,
the family clothes and household utensils, together with seven persons,
filled the little home to the utmost of its capacity. It would indeed
have been almost impossible for them to move around had it not been for
the convenience of the stove, on which some of them slept at night, and
which served as a table in the day-time.
It seemed hard to realize how so many persons managed to live in such
close quarters.
Polikey’s wife, Akulina, did the washing, spun and wove, bleached her
linen, cooked and baked, and found time also to quarrel and gossip with
her neighbors.
The monthly allowance of food which they received from the noblewoman’s
house was amply sufficient for the whole family, and there was always
enough meal left to make mash for the cow. Their fuel they got free,
and likewise the food for the cattle. In addition they were given a
small piece of land on which to raise vegetables. They had a cow, a
calf, and a number of chickens to care for.
Polikey was employed in the stables to take care of two stallions, and,
when necessary, to bleed the horses and cattle and clean their hoofs.
In his treatment of the animals he used syringes, plasters, and various
other remedies and appliances of his own invention. For these services
he received whatever provisions were required by his family, and a
certain sum of money—all of which would have been sufficient to enable
them to live comfortably and even happily, if their hearts had not been
filled with the shadow of a great sorrow.
This shadow darkened the lives of the entire family.
Polikey, while young, was employed in a horse-breeding establishment in
a neighboring village. The head stableman was a notorious horse-thief,
known far and wide as a great rogue, who, for his many misdeeds, was
finally exiled to Siberia. Under his instruction Polikey underwent a
course of training, and, being but a boy, was easily induced to perform
many evil deeds. He became so expert in the various kinds of wickedness
practiced by his teacher that, though he many times would gladly have
abandoned his evil ways, he could not, owing to the great hold these
early-formed habits had upon him. His father and mother died when he
was but a child, and he had no one to point out to him the paths of
virtue.
In addition to his other numerous shortcomings, Polikey was fond of
strong drink. He also had a habit of appropriating other people’s
property, when the opportunity offered of his doing so without being
seen. Collar-straps, padlocks, perch-bolts, and things even of greater
value belonging to others found their way with remarkable rapidity and
in great quantities to Polikey’s home. He did not, however, keep such
things for his own use, but sold them whenever he could find a
purchaser. His payment consisted chiefly of whiskey, though sometimes
he received cash.
This sort of employment, as his neighbors said, was both light and
profitable; it required neither education nor labor. It had one
drawback, however, which was calculated to reconcile his victims to
their losses: Though he could for a time have all his needs supplied
without expending either labor or money, there was always the
possibility of his methods being discovered; and this result was sure
to be followed by a long term of imprisonment. This impending danger
made life a burden for Polikey and his family.
Such a setback indeed very nearly happened to Polikey early in his
career. He married while still young, and God gave him much happiness.
His wife, who was a shepherd’s daughter, was a strong, intelligent,
hard-working woman. She bore him many children, each of whom was said
to be better than the preceding one.
Polikey still continued to steal, but once was caught with some small
articles belonging to others in his possession. Among them was a pair
of leather reins, the property of another peasant, who beat him
severely and reported him to his mistress.
From that time on Polikey was an object of suspicion, and he was twice
again detected in similar escapades. By this time the people began to
abuse him, and the clerk of the court threatened to recruit him into
the army as a soldier (which is regarded by the peasants as a great
punishment and disgrace). His noble mistress severely reprimanded him;
his wife wept from grief for his downfall, and everything went from bad
to worse.
Polikey, notwithstanding his weakness, was a good-natured sort of man,
but his love of strong drink had so overcome every moral instinct that
at times he was scarcely responsible for his actions. This habit he
vainly endeavored to overcome. It often happened that when he returned
home intoxicated, his wife, losing all patience, roundly cursed him and
cruelly beat him. At times he would cry like a child, and bemoan his
fate, saying: “Unfortunate man that I am, what shall I do? _Let my eyes
burst into pieces_ if I do not forever give up the vile habit! I will
not again touch vodka.”
In spite of all his promises of reform, but a short period (perhaps a
month) would elapse when Polikey would again mysteriously disappear
from his home and be lost for several days on a spree.
“From what source does he get the money he spends so freely?” the
neighbors inquired of each other, as they sadly shook their heads.
One of his most unfortunate exploits in the matter of stealing was in
connection with a clock which belonged to the estate of his mistress.
The clock stood in the private office of the noblewoman, and was so old
as to have outlived its usefulness, and was simply kept as an heirloom.
It so happened that Polikey went into the office one day when no one
was present but himself, and, seeing the old clock, it seemed to
possess a peculiar fascination for him, and he speedily transferred it
to his person. He carried it to a town not far from the village, where
he very readily found a purchaser.
As if purposely to secure his punishment, it happened that the
storekeeper to whom he sold it proved to be a relative of one of the
court servants, and who, when he visited his friend on the next
holiday, related all about his purchase of the clock.
An investigation was immediately instituted, and all the details of
Polikey’s transaction were brought to light and reported to his noble
mistress. He was called into her presence, and, when confronted with
the story of the theft, broke down and confessed all. He fell on his
knees before the noblewoman and plead with her for mercy. The
kind-hearted lady lectured him about God, the salvation of his soul,
and his future life. She talked to him also about the misery and
disgrace he brought upon his family, and altogether so worked upon his
feelings that he cried like a child. In conclusion his kind mistress
said: “I will forgive you this time on the condition that you promise
faithfully to reform, and never again to take what does not belong to
you.”
Polikey, still weeping, replied: “I will never steal again in all my
life, and if I break my promise may the earth open and swallow me up,
and let my body be burned with red-hot irons!”
Polikey returned to his home, and throwing himself on the oven spent
the entire day weeping and repeating the promise made to his mistress.
From that time on he was not again caught stealing, but his life became
extremely sad, for he was regarded with suspicion by every one and
pointed to as a thief.
When the time came round for securing recruits for the army, all the
peasants singled out Polikey as the first to be taken. The
superintendent was especially anxious to get rid of him, and went to
his mistress to induce her to have him sent away. The kind-hearted and
merciful woman, remembering the peasant’s repentance, refused to grant
the superintendent’s request, and told him he must take some other man
in his stead.
CHAPTER II.
One evening Polikey was sitting on his bed beside the table, preparing
some medicine for the cattle, when suddenly the door was thrown wide
open, and Aksiutka, a young girl from the court, rushed in. Almost out
of breath, she said: “My mistress has ordered you, Polikey _Illitch_
[son of Ilia], to come up to the court at once!”
The girl was standing and still breathing heavily from her late
exertion as she continued: “Egor Mikhailovitch, the superintendent, has
been to see our lady about having you drafted into the army, and,
Polikey Illitch, your name was mentioned among others. Our lady has
sent me to tell you to come up to the court immediately.”
As soon as Aksiutka had delivered her message she left the room in the
same abrupt manner in which she had entered.
Akulina, without saying a word, got up and brought her husband’s boots
to him. They were poor, worn-out things which some soldier had given
him, and his wife did not glance at him as she handed them to him.
“Are you going to change your shirt, Illitch?” she asked, at last.
“No,” replied Polikey.
Akulina did not once look at him all the time he was putting on his
boots and preparing to go to the court. Perhaps, after all, it was
better that she did not do so. His face was very pale and his lips
trembled. He slowly combed his hair and was about to depart without
saying a word, when his wife stopped him to arrange the ribbon on his
shirt, and, after toying a little with his coat, she put his hat on for
him and he left the little home.
Polikey’s next-door neighbors were a joiner and his wife. A thin
partition only separated the two families, and each could hear what the
other said and did. Soon after Polikey’s departure a woman was heard to
say: “Well, Polikey Illitch, so your mistress has sent for you!”
The voice was that of the joiner’s wife on the other side of the
partition. Akulina and the woman had quarrelled that morning about some
trifling thing done by one of Polikey’s children, and it afforded her
the greatest pleasure to learn that her neighbor had been summoned into
the presence of his noble mistress. She looked upon such a circumstance
as a bad omen. She continued talking to herself and said: “Perhaps she
wants to send him to the town to make some purchases for her household.
I did not suppose she would select such a faithful man as you are to
perform such a service for her. If it should prove that she _does_ want
to send you to the next town, just buy me a quarter-pound of tea. Will
you, Polikey Illitch?”
Poor Akulina, on hearing the joiner’s wife talking so unkindly of her
husband, could hardly suppress the tears, and, the tirade continuing,
she at last became angry, and wished she could in some way punish her.
Forgetting her neighbor’s unkindness, her thoughts soon turned in
another direction, and glancing at her sleeping children she said to
herself that they might soon be orphans and she herself a soldier’s
widow. This thought greatly distressed her, and burying her face in her
hands she seated herself on the bed, where several of her progeny were
fast asleep. Presently a little voice interrupted her meditations by
crying out, “_Mamushka_ [little mother], you are crushing me,” and the
child pulled her nightdress from under her mother’s arms.
Akulina, with her head still resting on her hands, said: “Perhaps it
would be better if we all should die. I only seem to have brought you
into the world to suffer sorrow and misery.”
Unable longer to control her grief, she burst into violent weeping,
which served to increase the amusement of the joiner’s wife, who had
not forgotten the morning’s squabble, and she laughed loudly at her
neighbor’s woe.
CHAPTER III.
About half an hour had passed when the youngest child began to cry and
Akulina arose to feed it. She had by this time ceased to weep, and
after feeding the infant she again fell into her old position, with her
face buried in her hands. She was very pale, but this only increased
her beauty. After a time she raised her head, and staring at the
burning candle she began to question herself as to why she had married,
and as to the reason that the Czar required so many soldiers.
Presently she heard steps outside, and knew that her husband was
returning. She hurriedly wiped away the last traces of her tears as she
arose to let him pass into the centre of the room.
Polikey made his appearance with a look of triumph on his face, threw
his hat on the bed, and hastily removed his coat; but not a word did he
utter.
Akulina, unable to restrain her impatience, asked, “Well, what did she
want with you?”
“Pshaw!” he replied, “it is very well known that Polikushka is
considered the worst man in the village; but when it comes to business
of importance, who is selected then? Why, Polikushka, of course.”
“What kind of business?” Akulina timidly inquired.
But Polikey was in no hurry to answer her question. He lighted his pipe
with a very imposing air, and spit several times on the floor before he
replied.
Still retaining his pompous manner, he said, “She has ordered me to go
to a certain merchant in the town and collect a considerable sum of
money.”
“You to collect money?” questioned Akulina.
Polikey only shook his head and smiled significantly, saying:
“‘You,’ the mistress said to me, ‘are a man resting under a grave
suspicion—a man who is considered unsafe to trust in any capacity; but
I have faith in you, and will intrust you with this important business
of mine in preference to any one else.’”
Polikey related all this in a loud voice, so that his neighbor might
hear what he had to say.
“‘You promised me to reform,’ my noble mistress said to me, ‘and I will
be the first to show you how much faith I have in your promise. I want
you to ride into town, and, going to the principal merchant there,
collect a sum of money from him and bring it to me.’ I said to my
mistress: ‘Everything you order shall be done. I will only too gladly
obey your slightest wish.’
“Then my mistress said: ‘Do you understand, Polikey, that your future
lot depends upon the faithful performance of this duty I impose upon
you?’ I replied: ‘Yes, I understand everything, and feel that I will
succeed in performing acceptably any task which you may impose upon me.
I have been accused of every kind of evil deed that it is possible to
charge a man with, but I have never done anything seriously wrong
against you, your honor.’ In this way I talked to our mistress until I
succeeded in convincing her that my repentance was sincere, and she
became greatly softened toward me, saying, ‘If you are successful I
will give you the first place at the court.’”
“And how much money are you to collect?” inquired Akulina.
Akulina sadly shook her head as she asked, “When are you to start?”
“She ordered me to leave here to-morrow,” Polikey replied. “‘Take any
horse you please,’ she said. ‘Come to the office, and I will see you
there and wish you God-speed on your journey.’”
“Glory to Thee, O Lord!” said Akulina, as she arose and made the sign
of the cross. “God, I am sure, will bless you, Illitch,” she added, in
a whisper, so that the people on the other side of the partition could
not hear what she said, all the while holding on to his sleeve.
“Illitch,” she cried at last, excitedly, “for God’s sake promise me
that you will not touch a drop of vodka. Take an oath before God, and
kiss the cross, so that I may be sure that you will not break your
promise!”
Polikey replied in most contemptuous tones: “Do you think I will dare
to touch vodka when I shall have such a large sum of money in my care?”
“Akulina, have a clean shirt ready for the morning,” were his parting
words for the night.
So Polikey and his wife went to sleep in a happy frame of mind and full
of bright dreams for the future.
CHAPTER IV.
Very early the next morning, almost before the stars had hidden
themselves from view, there was seen standing before Polikey’s home a
low wagon, the same in which the superintendent himself used to ride;
and harnessed to it was a large-boned, dark-brown mare, called for some
unknown reason by the name of _Baraban_ (drum). Aniutka, Polikey’s
eldest daughter, in spite of the heavy rain and the cold wind which was
blowing, stood outside barefooted and held (not without some fear) the
reins in one hand, while with the other she endeavored to keep her
green and yellow overcoat wound around her body, and also to hold
Polikey’s sheepskin coat.
In the house there were the greatest noise and confusion. The morning
was still so dark that the little daylight there was failed to
penetrate through the broken panes of glass, the window being stuffed
in many places with rags and paper to exclude the cold air.
Akulina ceased from her cooking for a while and helped to get Polikey
ready for the journey. Most of the children were still in bed, very
likely as a protection against the cold, for Akulina had taken away the
big overcoat which usually covered them and had substituted a shawl of
her own. Polikey’s shirt was all ready, nice and clean, but his shoes
badly needed repairing, and this fact caused his devoted wife much
anxiety. She took from her own feet the thick woollen stockings she was
wearing, and gave them to Polikey. She then began to repair his shoes,
patching up the holes so as to protect his feet from dampness.
While this was going on he was sitting on the side of the bed with his
feet dangling over the edge, and trying to turn the sash which confined
his coat at the waist. He was anxious to look as clean as possible, and
he declared his sash looked like a dirty rope.
One of his daughters, enveloped in a sheepskin coat, was sent to a
neighbor’s house to borrow a hat.
Within Polikey’s home the greatest confusion reigned, for the court
servants were constantly arriving with innumerable small orders which
they wished Polikey to execute for them in town. One wanted needles,
another tea, another tobacco, and last came the joiner’s wife, who by
this time had prepared her samovar, and, anxious to make up the quarrel
of the previous day, brought the traveller a cup of tea.
Neighbor Nikita refused the loan of the hat, so the old one had to be
patched up for the occasion. This occupied some time, as there were
many holes in it.
Finally Polikey was all ready, and jumping on the wagon started on his
journey, after first making the sign of the cross.
At the last moment his little boy, Mishka, ran to the door, begging to
be given a short ride; and then his little daughter, Mashka, appeared
on the scene and pleaded that she, too, might have a ride, declaring
that she would be quite warm enough without furs.
Polikey stopped the horse on hearing the children, and Akulina placed
them in the wagon, together with two others belonging to a neighbor—all
anxious to have a short ride.
As Akulina helped the little ones into the wagon she took occasion to
remind Polikey of the solemn promise he had made her not to touch a
drop of vodka during the journey.
Polikey drove the children as far as the blacksmith’s place, where he
let them out of the wagon, telling them they must return home. He then
arranged his clothing, and, setting his hat firmly on his head, started
his horse on a trot.
The two children, Mishka and Mashka, both barefooted, started running
at such a rapid pace that a strange dog from another village, seeing
them flying over the road, dropped his tail between his legs and ran
home squealing.
The weather was very cold, a sharp cutting wind blowing continuously;
but this did not disturb Polikey, whose mind was engrossed with
pleasant thoughts. As he rode through the wintry blasts he kept
repeating to himself: “So I am the man they wanted to send to Siberia,
and whom they threatened to enroll as a soldier—the same man whom every
one abused, and said he was lazy, and who was pointed out as a thief
and given the meanest work on the estate to do! Now I am going to
receive a large sum of money, for which my mistress is sending me
because she trusts me. I am also riding in the same wagon that the
superintendent himself uses when he is riding as a representative of
the court. I have the same harness, leather horse-collar, reins, and
all the other gear.”
Polikey, filled with pride at thought of the mission with which he had
been intrusted, drew himself up with an air of pride, and, fixing his
old hat more firmly on his head, buttoned his coat tightly about him
and urged his horse to greater speed.
“Just to think,” he continued; “I shall have in my possession three
thousand half-rubles [the peasant manner of speaking of money so as to
make it appear a larger sum than it really is], and will carry them in
my bosom. If I wished to I might run away to Odessa instead of taking
the money to my mistress. But no; I will not do that. I will surely
carry the money straight to the one who has been kind enough to trust
me.”
When Polikey reached the first _kabak_ (tavern) he found that from long
habit the mare was naturally turning her head toward it; but he would
not allow her to stop, though money had been given him to purchase both
food and drink. Striking the animal a sharp blow with the whip, he
passed by the tavern. The performance was repeated when he reached the
next kabak, which looked very inviting; but he resolutely set his face
against entering, and passed on.
About noon he arrived at his destination, and getting down from the
wagon approached the gate of the merchant’s house where the servants of
the court always stopped. Opening it he led the mare through, and
(after unharnessing her) fed her. This done, he next entered the house
and had dinner with the merchant’s workingman, and to them he related
what an important mission he had been sent on, making himself very
amusing by the pompous air which he assumed. Dinner over, he carried a
letter to the merchant which the noblewoman had given him to deliver.
The merchant, knowing thoroughly the reputation which Polikey bore,
felt doubtful of trusting him with so much money, and somewhat
anxiously inquired if he really had received orders to carry so many
rubles.
Polikey tried to appear offended at this question, but did not succeed,
and he only smiled.
The merchant, after reading the letter a second time and being
convinced that all was right, gave Polikey the money, which he put in
his bosom for safe-keeping.
On his way to the house he did not once stop at any of the shops he
passed. The clothing establishments possessed no attractions for him,
and after he had safely passed them all he stood for a moment, feeling
very pleased that he had been able to withstand temptation, and then
went on his way.
“I have money enough to buy up everything,” he said; “but I will not do
so.”
The numerous commissions which he had received compelled him to go to
the bazaar. There he bought only what had been ordered, but he could
not resist the temptation to ask the price of a very handsome
sheep-skin coat which attracted his attention. The merchant to whom he
spoke looked at Polikey and smiled, not believing that he had
sufficient money to purchase such an expensive coat. But Polikey,
pointing to his breast, said that he could buy out the whole shop if he
wished to. He thereupon ordered the shop-keeper to take his measure. He
tried the coat on and looked himself over carefully, testing the
quality and blowing upon the hair to see that none of it came out.
Finally, heaving a deep sigh, he took it off.
“The price is too high,” he said. “If you could let me have it for
fifteen rubles—”
But the merchant cut him short by snatching the coat from him and
throwing it angrily to one side.
Polikey left the bazaar and returned to the merchant’s house in high
spirits.
After supper he went out and fed the mare, and prepared everything for
the night. Returning to the house he got up on the stove to rest, and
while there he took out the envelope which contained the money and
looked long and earnestly at it. He could not read, but asked one of
those present to tell him what the writing on the envelope meant. It
was simply the address and the announcement that it contained fifteen
hundred rubles.
The envelope was made of common paper and was sealed with dark-brown
sealing wax. There was one large seal in the centre and four smaller
ones at the corners. Polikey continued to examine it carefully, even
inserting his finger till he touched the crisp notes. He appeared to
take a childish delight in having so much money in his possession.
Having finished his examination, he put the envelope inside the lining
of his old battered hat, and placing both under his head he went to
sleep; but during the night he frequently awoke and always felt to know
if the money was safe. Each time that he found that it was safe he
rejoiced at the thought that he, Polikey, abused and regarded by every
one as a thief, was intrusted with the care of such a large sum of
money, and also that he was about to return with it quite as safely as
the superintendent himself could have done.
CHAPTER V.
Before dawn the next morning Polikey was up, and after harnessing the
mare and looking in his hat to see that the money was all right, he
started on his return journey.
Many times on the way Polikey took off his hat to see that the money
was safe. Once he said to himself, “I think that perhaps it would be
better if I should put it in my bosom.” This would necessitate the
untying of his sash, so he decided to keep it still in his hat, or
until he should have made half the journey, when he would be compelled
to stop to feed his horse and to rest.
He said to himself: “The lining is not sewn in very strongly and the
envelope might fall out, so I think I had better not take off my hat
until I reach home.”
The money was safe—at least, so it seemed to him—and he began to think
how grateful his mistress would be to him, and in his excited
imagination he saw the five rubles he was so sure of receiving.
Once more he examined the hat to see that the money was safe, and
finding everything all right he put on his hat and pulled it well down
over his ears, smiling all the while at his own thoughts.
Akulina had carefully sewed all the holes in the hat, but it burst out
in other places owing to Polikey’s removing it so often.
In the darkness he did not notice the new rents, and tried to push the
envelope further under the lining, and in doing so pushed one corner of
it through the plush.
The sun was getting high in the heavens, and Polikey having slept but
little the previous night and feeling its warm rays fell fast asleep,
after first pressing his hat more firmly on his head. By this action he
forced the envelope still further through the plush, and as he rode
along his head bobbed up and down.
Polikey did not awake till he arrived near his own house, and his first
act was to put his hand to his head to learn if his hat was all right.
Finding that it was in its place, he did not think it necessary to
examine it and see that the money was safe. Touching the mare gently
with the whip she started into a trot, and as he rode along he arranged
in his own mind how much he was to receive. With the air of a man
already holding a high position at the court, he looked around him with
an expression of lofty scorn on his face.
As he neared his house he could see before him the one room which
constituted their humble home, and the joiner’s wife next door carrying
her rolls of linen. He saw also the office of the court and his
mistress’s house, where he hoped he would be able presently to prove
that he was an honest, trustworthy man.
He reasoned with himself that any person can be abused by lying
tongues, but when his mistress would see him she would say: “Well done,
Polikey; you have shown that you can be honest. Here are three—it may
be five—perhaps ten—rubles for you;” and also she would order tea for
him, and might treat him to vodka—who knows?
The latter thought gave him great pleasure, as he was feeling very
cold.
Speaking aloud he said: “What a happy holy-day we can have with ten
rubles! Having so much money, I could pay Nikita the four rubles fifty
kopecks which I owe him, and yet have some left to buy shoes for the
children.”
When near the house Polikey began to arrange his clothes, smoothing
down his fur collar, re-tying his sash, and stroking his hair. To do
the latter he had to take off his hat, and when doing so felt in the
lining for the envelope. Quicker and quicker he ran his hand around the
lining, and not finding the money used both hands, first one and then
the other. But the envelope was not to be found.
Polikey was by this time greatly distressed, and his face was white
with fear as he passed his hand through the crown of his old hat.
Polikey stopped the mare and began a diligent search through the wagon
and its contents. Not finding the precious envelope, he felt in all his
pockets—_but the money could not be found!_
Wildly clutching at his hair, he exclaimed: “_Batiushka!_ What will I
do now? What will become of me?” At the same time he realized that he
was near his neighbors’ house and could be seen by them; so he turned
the mare around, and, pulling his hat down securely upon his head, he
rode quickly back in search of his lost treasure.
CHAPTER VI.
The whole day passed without any one in the village of Pokrovski having
seen anything of Polikey. During the afternoon his mistress inquired
many times as to his whereabouts, and sent Aksiutka frequently to
Akulina, who each time sent back word that Polikey had not yet
returned, saying also that perhaps the merchant had kept him, or that
something had happened to the mare.
His poor wife felt a heavy load upon her heart, and was scarcely able
to do her housework and put everything in order for the next day (which
was to be a holy-day). The children also anxiously awaited their
father’s appearance, and, though for different reasons, could hardly
restrain their impatience. The noblewoman and Akulina were concerned
only in regard to Polikey himself, while the children were interested
most in what he would bring them from the town.
The only news received by the villagers during the day concerning
Polikey was to the effect that neighboring peasants had seen him
running up and down the road and asking every one he met if he or she
had found an envelope.
One of them had seen him also walking by the side of his tired-out
horse. “I thought,” said he, “that the man was drunk, and had not fed
his horse for two days—the animal looked so exhausted.”
Unable to sleep, and with her heart palpitating at every sound, Akulina
lay awake all night vainly awaiting Polikey’s return. When the cock
crowed the third time she was obliged to get up to attend to the fire.
Day was just dawning and the church-bells had begun to ring. Soon all
the children were also up, but there was still no tidings of the
missing husband and father.
In the morning the chill blasts of winter entered their humble home,
and on looking out they saw that the houses, fields, and roads were
thickly covered with snow. The day was clear and cold, as if befitting
the holy-day they were about to celebrate. They were able to see a long
distance from the house, but no one was in sight.
Akulina was busy baking cakes, and had it not been for the joyous
shouts of the children she would not have known that Polikey was coming
up the road, for a few minutes later he came in with a bundle in his
hand and walked quietly to his corner. Akulina noticed that he was very
pale and that his face bore an expression of suffering—as if he would
like to have cried but could not do so. But she did not stop to study
it, but excitedly inquired: “What! Illitch, is everything all right
with you?”
He slowly muttered something, but his wife could not understand what he
said.
“What!” she cried out, “have you been to see our mistress?”
Polikey still sat on the bed in his corner, glaring wildly about him,
and smiling bitterly. He did not reply for a long time, and Akulina
again cried:
“Eh? Illitch! Why don’t you answer me? Why don’t you speak?”
Finally he said: “Akulina, I delivered the money to our mistress; and
oh, how she thanked me!” Then he suddenly looked about him, with an
anxious, startled air, and with a sad smile on his lips. Two things in
the room seemed to engross the most of his attention: the baby in the
cradle, and the rope which was attached to the ladder. Approaching the
cradle, he began with his thin fingers quickly to untie the knot in the
rope by which the two were connected. After untying it he stood for a
few moments looking silently at the baby.
Akulina did not notice this proceeding, and with her cakes on the board
went to place them in a corner.
Polikey quickly hid the rope beneath his coat, and again seated himself
on the bed.
“What is it that troubles you, Illitch?” inquired Akulina. “You are not
yourself.”
“I have not slept,” he answered.
Suddenly a dark shadow crossed the window, and a minute later the girl
Aksiutka quickly entered the room, exclaiming:
“The _boyarinia_ commands you, Polikey Illitch, to come to her this
moment!”
Polikey looked first at Akulina and then at the girl.
“This moment!” he cried. “What more is wanted?”
He spoke the last sentence so softly that Akulina became quieted in her
mind, thinking that perhaps their mistress intended to reward her
husband.
“Say that I will come immediately,” he said.
But Polikey failed to follow the girl, and went instead to another
place.
From the porch of his house there was a ladder reaching to the attic.
Arriving at the foot of the ladder Polikey looked around him, and
seeing no one about, he quickly ascended to the garret.
Meanwhile the girl had reached her mistress’s house.
“What does it mean that Polikey does not come?” said the noblewoman
impatiently. “Where can he be? Why does he not come at once?”
Aksiutka flew again to his house and demanded to see Polikey.
“He went a long time ago,” answered Akulina, and looking around with an
expression of fear on her face, she added, “He may have fallen asleep
somewhere on the way.”
About this time the joiner’s wife, with hair unkempt and clothes
bedraggled, went up to the loft to gather the linen which she had
previously put there to dry. Suddenly a cry of horror was heard, and
the woman, with her eyes closed, and crazed by fear, ran down the
ladder like a cat.
“Illitch,” she cried, “has hanged himself!”
Poor Akulina ran up the ladder before any of the people, who had
gathered from the surrounding houses, could prevent her. With a loud
shriek she fell back as if dead, and would surely have been killed had
not one of the spectators succeeded in catching her in his arms.
Before dark the same day a peasant of the village, while returning from
the town, found the envelope containing Polikey’s money on the
roadside, and soon after delivered it to the _boyarinia_.
THE CANDLE.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil.”—ST. MATTHEW
v. 38, 39.
It was in the time of serfdom—many years before Alexander II.’s
liberation of the sixty million serfs in 1862. In those days the people
were ruled by different kinds of lords. There were not a few who,
remembering God, treated their slaves in a humane manner, and not as
beasts of burden, while there were others who were seldom known to
perform a kind or generous action; but the most barbarous and
tyrannical of all were those former serfs who arose from the dirt and
became princes.
It was this latter class who made life literally a burden to those who
were unfortunate enough to come under their rule. Many of them had
arisen from the ranks of the peasantry to become superintendents of
noblemen’s estates.
The peasants were obliged to work for their master a certain number of
days each week. There was plenty of land and water and the soil was
rich and fertile, while the meadows and forests were sufficient to
supply the needs of both the peasants and their lord.
There was a certain nobleman who had chosen a superintendent from the
peasantry on one of his other estates. No sooner had the power to
govern been vested in this newly-made official than he began to
practice the most outrageous cruelties upon the poor serfs who had been
placed under his control. Although this man had a wife and two married
daughters, and was making so much money that he could have lived
happily without transgressing in any way against either God or man, yet
he was filled with envy and jealousy and deeply sunk in sin.
Michael Simeonovitch began his persecutions by compelling the peasants
to perform more days of service on the estate every week than the laws
obliged them to work. He established a brick-yard, in which he forced
the men and women to do excessive labor, selling the bricks for his own
profit.
On one occasion the overworked serfs sent a delegation to Moscow to
complain of their treatment to their lord, but they obtained no
satisfaction. When the poor peasants returned disconsolate from the
nobleman their superintendent determined to have revenge for their
boldness in going above him for redress, and their life and that of
their fellow-victims became worse than before.
It happened that among the serfs there were some very treacherous
people who would falsely accuse their fellows of wrong-doing and sow
seeds of discord among the peasantry, whereupon Michael would become
greatly enraged, while his poor subjects began to live in fear of their
lives. When the superintendent passed through the village the people
would run and hide themselves as from a wild beast. Seeing thus the
terror which he had struck to the hearts of the moujiks, Michael’s
treatment of them became still more vindictive, so that from over-work
and ill-usage the lot of the poor serfs was indeed a hard one.
There was a time when it was possible for the peasants, when driven to
despair, to devise means whereby they could rid themselves of an
inhuman monster such as Simeonovitch, and so these unfortunate people
began to consider whether something could not be done to relieve _them_
of their intolerable yoke. They would hold little meetings in secret
places to bewail their misery and to confer with one another as to
which would be the best way to act. Now and then the boldest of the
gathering would rise and address his companions in this strain: “How
much longer can we tolerate such a villain to rule over us? Let us make
an end of it at once, for it were better for us to perish than to
suffer. It is surely not a sin to kill such a devil in human form.”
It happened once, before the Easter holidays, that one of these
meetings was held in the woods, where Michael had sent the serfs to
make a clearance for their master. At noon they assembled to eat their
dinner and to hold a consultation. “Why can’t we leave now?” said one.
“Very soon we shall be reduced to nothing. Already we are almost worked
to death—there being no rest, night or day, either for us or our poor
women. If anything should be done in a way not exactly to please him he
will find fault and perhaps flog some of us to death—as was the case
with poor Simeon, whom he killed not long ago. Only recently Anisim was
tortured in irons till he died. We certainly cannot stand this much
longer.” “Yes,” said another, “what is the use of waiting? Let us act
at once. Michael will be here this evening, and will be certain to
abuse us shamefully. Let us, then, thrust him from his horse and with
one blow of an axe give him what he deserves, and thus end our misery.
We can then dig a big hole and bury him like a dog, and no one will
know what became of him. Now let us come to an agreement—to stand
together as one man and not to betray one another.”
The last speaker was Vasili Minayeff, who, if possible, had more cause
to complain of Michael’s cruelty than any of his fellow-serfs. The
superintendent was in the habit of flogging him severely every week,
and he took also Vasili’s wife to serve him as cook.
Accordingly, during the evening that followed this meeting in the woods
Michael arrived on the scene on horseback. He began at once to find
fault with the manner in which the work had been done, and to complain
because some lime-trees had been cut down.
“I told you not to cut down any lime-trees!” shouted the enraged
superintendent. “Who did this thing? Tell me at once, or I shall flog
every one of you!”
On investigation, a peasant named Sidor was pointed out as the guilty
one, and his face was roundly slapped. Michael also severely punished
Vasili, because he had not done sufficient work, after which the master
rode safely home.
In the evening the serfs again assembled, and poor Vasili said: “Oh,
what kind of people _are_ we, anyway? We are only sparrows, and not men
at all! We agree to stand by each other, but as soon as the time for
action comes we all run and hide. Once a lot of sparrows conspired
against a hawk, but no sooner did the bird of prey appear than they
sneaked off in the grass. Selecting one of the choicest sparrows, the
hawk took it away to eat, after which the others came out crying,
‘Twee-twee!’ and found that one was missing. ‘Who is killed?’ they
asked. ‘Vanka! Well, he deserved it.’ You, my friends, are acting in
just the same manner. When Michael attacked Sidor you should have stood
by your promise. Why didn’t you arise, and with one stroke put an end
to him and to our misery?”
The effect of this speech was to make the peasants more firm in their
determination to kill their superintendent. The latter had already
given orders that they should be ready to plough during the Easter
holidays, and to sow the field with oats, whereupon the serfs became
stricken with grief, and gathered in Vasili’s house to hold another
indignation meeting. “If he has really forgotten God,” they said, “and
shall continue to commit such crimes against us, it is truly necessary
that we should kill him. If not, let us perish, for it can make no
difference to us now.”
This despairing programme, however, met with considerable opposition
from a peaceably-inclined man named Peter Mikhayeff. “Brethren,” said
he, “you are contemplating a grievous sin. The taking of human life is
a very serious matter. Of course it is easy to end the mortal existence
of a man, but what will become of the souls of those who commit the
deed? If Michael continues to act toward us unjustly God will surely
punish him. But, my friends, we must have patience.”
This pacific utterance only served to intensify the anger of Vasili.
Said he: “Peter is forever repeating the same old story, ‘It is a sin
to kill any one.’ Certainly it is sinful to murder; but we should
consider the kind of man we are dealing with. We all know it is wrong
to kill a good man, but even God would take away the life of such a dog
as he is. It is our duty, if we have any love for mankind, to shoot a
dog that is mad. It is a sin to let him live. If, therefore, we are to
suffer at all, let it be in the interests of the people—and they will
thank us for it. If we remain quiet any longer a flogging will be our
only reward. You are talking nonsense, Mikhayeff. Why don’t you think
of the sin we shall be committing if we work during the Easter
holidays—for you will refuse to work then yourself?”
“Well, then,” replied Peter, “if they shall send me to plough, I will
go. But I shall not be going of my own free will, and God will know
whose sin it is, and shall punish the offender accordingly. Yet we must
not forget him. Brethren, I am not giving you my own views only. The
law of God is not to return evil for evil; indeed, if you try in this
way to stamp out wickedness it will come upon you all the stronger. It
is not difficult for you to kill the man, but his blood will surely
stain your own soul. You may think you have killed a bad man—that you
have gotten rid of evil—but you will soon find out that the seeds of
still greater wickedness have been planted within you. If you yield to
misfortune it will surely come to you.”
As Peter was not without sympathizers among the peasants, the poor
serfs were consequently divided into two groups: the followers of
Vasili and those who held the views of Mikhayeff.
On Easter Sunday no work was done. Toward the evening an elder came to
the peasants from the nobleman’s court and said: “Our superintendent,
Michael Simeonovitch, orders you to go to-morrow to plough the field
for the oats.” Thus the official went through the village and directed
the men to prepare for work the next day—some by the river and others
by the roadway. The poor people were almost overcome with grief, many
of them shedding tears, but none dared to disobey the orders of their
master.
On the morning of Easter Monday, while the church bells were calling
the inhabitants to religious services, and while every one else was
about to enjoy a holiday, the unfortunate serfs started for the field
to plough. Michael arose rather late and took a walk about the farm.
The domestic servants were through with their work and had dressed
themselves for the day, while Michael’s wife and their widowed daughter
(who was visiting them, as was her custom on holidays) had been to
church and returned. A steaming samovar awaited them, and they began to
drink tea with Michael, who, after lighting his pipe, called the elder
to him.
“Well,” said the superintendent, “have you ordered the moujiks to
plough to-day?”
“Yes, sir, I did,” was the reply.
“Have they all gone to the field?”
“Yes, sir; all of them. I directed them myself where to begin.”
“That is all very well. You gave the orders, but are they ploughing? Go
at once and see, and you may tell them that I shall be there after
dinner. I shall expect to find one and a half acres done for every two
ploughs, and the work must be well done; otherwise they shall be
severely punished, notwithstanding the holiday.”
“I hear, sir, and obey.”
The elder started to go, but Michael called him back. After hesitating
for some time, as if he felt very uneasy, he said:
“By the way, listen to what those scoundrels say about me. Doubtless
some of them will curse me, and I want you to report the exact words. I
know what villains they are. They don’t find work at all pleasant. They
would rather lie down all day and do nothing. They would like to eat
and drink and make merry on holidays, but they forget that if the
ploughing is not done it will soon be too late. So you go and listen to
what is said, and tell it to me in detail. Go at once.”
“I hear, sir, and obey.”
Turning his back and mounting his horse, the elder was soon at the
field where the serfs were hard at work.
It happened that Michael’s wife, a very good-hearted woman, overheard
the conversation which her husband had just been holding with the
elder. Approaching him, she said:
“My good friend, Mishinka [diminutive of Michael], I beg of you to
consider the importance and solemnity of this holy-day. Do not sin, for
Christ’s sake. Let the poor moujiks go home.”
Michael laughed, but made no reply to his wife’s humane request.
Finally he said to her:
“You’ve not been whipped for a very long time, and now you have become
bold enough to interfere in affairs that are not your own.”
“Mishinka,” she persisted, “I have had a frightful dream concerning
you. You had better let the moujiks go.”
“Yes,” said he; “I perceive that you have gained so much flesh of late
that you think you would not feel the whip. Lookout!”
Rudely thrusting his hot pipe against her cheek, Michael chased his
wife from the room, after which he ordered his dinner. After eating a
hearty meal consisting of cabbage-soup, roast pig, meat-cake, pastry
with milk, jelly, sweet cakes, and vodka, he called his woman cook to
him and ordered her to be seated and sing songs, Simeonovitch
accompanying her on the guitar.
While the superintendent was thus enjoying himself to the fullest
satisfaction in the musical society of his cook the elder returned,
and, making a low bow to his superior, proceeded to give the desired
information concerning the serfs.
“Well,” asked Michael, “did they plough?”
“Yes,” replied the elder; “they have accomplished about half the
field.”
“Is there no fault to be found?”
“Not that I could discover. The work seems to be well done. They are
evidently afraid of you.”
“How is the soil?”
“Very good. It appears to be quite soft.”
“Well,” said Simeonovitch, after a pause, “what did they say about me?
Cursed me, I suppose?”
As the elder hesitated somewhat, Michael commanded him to speak and
tell him the whole truth. “Tell me all,” said he; “I want to know their
exact words. If you tell me the truth I shall reward you; but if you
conceal anything from me you will be punished. See here, Catherine,
pour out a glass of vodka to give him courage!”
After drinking to the health of his superior, the elder said to
himself: “It is not my fault if they do not praise him. I shall tell
him the truth.” Then turning suddenly to the superintendent he said:
“They complain, Michael Simeonovitch! They complain bitterly.”
“But what did they say?” demanded Michael. “Tell me!”
“Well, one thing they said was, ‘He does not believe in God.’”
Michael laughed. “Who said that?” he asked.
“It seemed to be their unanimous opinion. ‘He has been overcome by the
Evil One,’ they said.”
“Very good,” laughed the superintendent; “but tell me what each of them
said. What did Vasili say?”
The elder did not wish to betray his people, but he had a certain
grudge against Vasili, and he said:
“He cursed you more than did any of the others.”
“But what did he say?”
“It is awful to repeat it, sir. Vasili said, ‘He shall die like a dog,
having no chance to repent!’”
“Oh, the villain!” exclaimed Michael. “He would kill me if he were not
afraid. All right, Vasili; we shall have an accounting with you. And
Tishka—he called me a dog, I suppose?”
“Well,” said the elder, “they all spoke of you in anything but
complimentary terms; but it is mean in me to repeat what they said.”
“Mean or not you must tell me, I say!”
“Some of them declared that your back should be broken.”
Simeonovitch appeared to enjoy this immensely, for he laughed outright.
“We shall see whose back will be the first to be broken,” said he. “Was
that Tishka’s opinion? While I did not suppose they would say anything
good about me, I did not expect such curses and threats. And Peter
Mikhayeff—was that fool cursing me too?”
“No; he did not curse you at all. He appeared to be the only silent one
among them. Mikhayeff is a very wise moujik, and he surprises me very
much. At his actions all the other peasants seemed amazed.”
“What did he do?”
“He did something remarkable. He was diligently ploughing, and as I
approached him I heard some one singing very sweetly. Looking between
the ploughshares, I observed a bright object shining.”
“Well, what was it? Hurry up!”
“It was a small, five-kopeck wax candle, burning brightly, and the wind
was unable to blow it out. Peter, wearing a new shirt, sang beautiful
hymns as he ploughed, and no matter how he handled the implement the
candle continued to burn. In my presence he fixed the plough, shaking
it violently, but the bright little object between the colters remained
undisturbed.”
“And what did Mikhayeff say?”
“He said nothing—except when, on seeing me, he gave me the holy-day
salutation, after which he went on his way singing and ploughing as
before. I did not say anything to him, but, on approaching the other
moujiks, I found that they were laughing and making sport of their
silent companion. ‘It is a great sin to plough on Easter Monday,’ they
said. ‘You could not get absolution from your sin if you were to pray
all your life.’”
“And did Mikhayeff make no reply?”
“He stood long enough to say: ‘There should be peace on earth and
good-will to men,’ after which he resumed his ploughing and singing,
the candle burning even more brightly than before.”
Simeonovitch had now ceased to ridicule, and, putting aside his guitar,
his head dropped on his breast and he became lost in thought. Presently
he ordered the elder and cook to depart, after which Michael went
behind a screen and threw himself upon the bed. He was sighing and
moaning, as if in great distress, when his wife came in and spoke
kindly to him. He refused to listen to her, exclaiming:
“He has conquered me, and my end is near!”
“Mishinka,” said the woman, “arise and go to the moujiks in the field.
Let them go home, and everything will be all right. Heretofore you have
run far greater risks without any fear, but now you appear to be very
much alarmed.”
“He has conquered me!” he repeated. “I am lost!”
“What do you mean?” demanded his wife, angrily. “If you will go and do
as I tell you there will be no danger. Come, Mishinka,” she added,
tenderly; “I shall have the saddle-horse brought for you at once.”
When the horse arrived the woman persuaded her husband to mount the
animal, and to fulfil her request concerning the serfs. When he reached
the village a woman opened the gate for him to enter, and as he did so
the inhabitants, seeing the brutal superintendent whom everybody
feared, ran to hide themselves in their houses, gardens, and other
secluded places.
At length Michael reached the other gate, which he found closed also,
and, being unable to open it himself while seated on his horse, he
called loudly for assistance. As no one responded to his shouts he
dismounted and opened the gate, but as he was about to remount, and had
one foot in the stirrup, the horse became frightened at some pigs and
sprang suddenly to one side. The superintendent fell across the fence
and a very sharp picket pierced his stomach, when Michael fell
unconscious to the ground.
Toward the evening, when the serfs arrived at the village gate, their
horses refused to enter. On looking around, the peasants discovered the
dead body of their superintendent lying face downward in a pool of
blood, where he had fallen from the fence. Peter Mikhayeff alone had
sufficient courage to dismount and approach the prostrate form, his
companions riding around the village and entering by way of the back
yards. Peter closed the dead man’s eyes, after which he put the body in
a wagon and took it home.
When the nobleman learned of the fatal accident which had befallen his
superintendent, and of the brutal treatment which he had meted out to
those under him, he freed the serfs, exacting a small rent for the use
of his land and the other agricultural opportunities.
And thus the peasants clearly understood that the power of God is
manifested not in evil, but in goodness.
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