The Devil
by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
1889
Distributed by The Tolstoy Library
But I say unto you , that every one that looketh on a woman to lust
after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out,
and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of
thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into
hell.
And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast
it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of
thymembers should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell.
Matthew v. 28, 29, 30
I
A brilliant career lay before Eugene Iretnev. He had everything
necessary to attain it: an admirable education at home, high
honours when he graduated in law at Petersburg University, and
connexions in the highest society through his recently deceased
father; he had also already begun service in one of the Ministries
under the protection of the minister. Moreover he had a fortune;
even a large one, though insecure. His father had lived abroad and
in Petersburg, allowing his sons, Eugene and Andrew (who was older
than Eugene and in the Horse Guards), six thousand rubles a year
each, while he himself and his wife spent a great deal. He only
used to visit his estate for a couple of months in summer and did
not concern himself with its direction, entrusting it all to an
unscrupulous manager who also failed to attend to it, but in whom
he had complete confidence.
After the father's death, when the brothers began to divide the
property, so many debts were discovered that their lawyer even
advised them to refuse the inheritance and retain only an estate
left them by their grandmother, which was valued at a hundred
thousand rubles. But a neighbouring landed-proprietor who had done
business with old Irtenev, that is to say, who had promissory notes
from him and had come to Petersburg on that account, said that in
spite of the debts they could straighten out affairs so as to
retain a large fortune (it would only be necessary to sell the
forest and some outlying land, retaining the rich Semenov estate
with four thousand desyatins of black earth, the sugar factory, and
two hundred desyatins of water-meadows) if one devoted oneself to
the management of the estate, settled there, and farmed it wisely
and economically.
And so, having visited the estate in spring (his father had
died in Lent), Eugene looked into everything, resolved to retire
from the Civil Service, settle in the country with his mother, and
undertake the management with the object of preserving the main
estate. He arranged with his brother, with whom he was very
friendly, that he would pay him either four thousand rubles a year,
or a lump sum of eighty thousand, for which Andrew would hand over
to him his share of his inheritance.
So he arranged matters and, having settled down with his
mother in the big house, began managing the estate eagerly, yet
cautiously.
It is generally supposed the Conservatives are usually old
people, and that those in favour of change are the young. That is
not quite correct. Usually Conservatives are young people: those
who want to live but who do not think about how to live, and have
not time to think, and therefore take as a model for themselves a
way of life that they have seen.
Thus it was with Eugene. Having settled in the village, his aim
and ideal was to restore the form of life that had existed, not in
his father's time -- his father had been a bad manager -- but in
his grandfather's. And now he tried to resurrect the general
spirit of his grandfather's life -- in the house, the garden, and
in the estate management -- of course with changes suited to the
times -- everything on a large scale -- good order, method, and
everybody satisfied. But to do this entailed much work. It was
necessary to meet the demands of the creditors and the banks, and
for that purpose to sell some land and arrange renewals of credit.
It was also necessary to get money to carry on (partly by farming
out land, and partly by hiring labour) the immense operations on
the Semenov estate, with its four hundred desyatins of ploughland
and its sugar factory, and to deal with the garden so that it
should not seem to be neglected or in decay.
There was much work to do, but Eugene had plenty of strength -
physical and mental. He was twenty-six, of medium height, strongly
built, with muscles developed by gymnastics. He was fullblooded
and his whole neck was very red, his teeth and lips were bright,
and his hair soft and curly though not thick. His only physical
defect was short-sightedness, which he had himself developed by
using spectacles, so that he could not now do without a pince-nez,
which had already formed a line on the bridge of his nose.
Such was his physically. For his spiritual portrait it might be
said that the better people knew him the better they liked him. His
mother had always loved him more than anyone else, and now after
her husband's death she concentrated on him not only her whole
affection but her whole life. Nor was it only his mother who so
loved him. All his comrades at the high school and the university
not merely liked him very much, but respected him. He had this
effect on all who met him. It was impossible not to believe what
he said, impossible to suspect any deception or falseness in one
who had such an open, honest face and in particular such eyes.
In general his personality helped him much in his affairs. A
creditor who would have refused another trusted him. The clerk,
the village Elder, or a peasant, who would have played a dirty
trick and cheated someone else, forgot to deceive under the
pleasant impression of intercourse with this kindly, agreeable, and
above all candid man.
It was the end of May. Eugene had somehow managed in town to get
the vacant land freed from the mortgage, so as to sell it to a
merchant, and had borrowed money from that same merchant to
replenish his stock, that is to say, to procure horses, bulls, and
carts, and in particular to begin to build a necessary farm-house.
the matter had been arranged. The timber was being carted, the
carpenters were already at work, and manure for the estate was
being brought on eighty carts, but everything still hung by a
thread.
II
Amid these cares something came about which though unimportant
tormented Eugene at the time. As a young man he had lived as all
healthy young men live, that is, he had had relations with women of
various kinds. He was not a libertine but neither, as he himself
said, was he a monk. He only turned to this, however, in so far as
was necessary for physical health and to have his mind free, as he
used to say. This had begun when he was sixteen and had gone on
satisfactorily -- in the sense that he had never given himself up
to debauchery, never once been infatuated, and had never contracted
a disease. At first he had a seamstress in Petersburg, then she
got spoilt and he made other arrangements, and that side of his
affairs was so well secured that it did not trouble him.
But now he was living in the country for the second month and did
not at all know what he was to do. Compulsory self-restraint was
beginning to have a bad effect on him.
Must he really go to town for that purpose? And where to?
How? That was the only thing that disturbed him; but as he was
convinced that the thing was necessary and that he needed it, it
really became a necessity, and he felt that he was not free and
that his eyes involuntarily followed every young woman.
He did not approve of having relations with a married woman or a
maid in his own village. He knew by report that both his father
and grandfather had been quite different in this matter from other
landowners of that time. At home they had never had any
entanglements with peasant-women, and he had decided that he would
not do so either; but afterwards, feeling himself ever more and
more under compulsion and imagining with horror what might happen
to him in the neighbouring country town, and reflecting on the fact
that the days of serfdom were now over, he decided that it might be
done on the spot. Only it must be done so that no one should know
of it, and not for the sake of debauchery but merely for health's
sake -- as he said to himself. and when he had decided this he
became still more restless. When talking to the village Elder, the
peasants, or the carpenters, he involuntarily brought the
conversation round to women, and when it turned to women he kept it
on that theme. He noticed the women more and more.
III
To settle the matter in his own mind was one thing but to
carry it out was another. To approach a woman himself was
impossible. which one? Where? It must be done through someone
else, but to whom should he speak about it?
He happened to go into a watchman's hut in the forest to get
a drink of water. The watchman had been his father's huntsman, and
Eugene Ivanich chatted with him, and the man began telling some
strange tales of hunting sprees. It occurred to Eugene Ivanich
that it would be convenient to arrange matters in this hut, or in
the wood, only he did not know how to manage it and whether old
Daniel would undertake the arrangement. "Perhaps he will be
horrified at such a proposal and I shall have disgraced myself, but
perhaps he will agree to it quite simply." So he thought while
listening to Daniel's stories. Daniel was telling how once when
they had been stopping at the hut of the sexton's wife in an
outlying field, he had brought a woman for Fedor Zakharich
Pryanishnikov.
"It will be all right," thought Eugene.
"Your father, may the kingdom of heaven be his, did not go in for
nonsense of that kind."
"It won't do," thought Eugene. But to test the matter he
said: "How was it you engaged on such bad things?"
"But what was there bad in it? She was glad, and Fedor Zakharich
was satisfied, very satisfied. I got a ruble. Why, what was he to
do? He too is a lively limb apparently, and drinks wine."
"Yes, I may speak," thought Eugene, and at once proceeded to do so.
"And do you know, Daniel, I don't know how to endure it," -he felt
himself going scarlet.
Daniel smiled.
"I am not a monk -- I have been accustomed to it."
He felt that what he was saying was stupid, but was glad to
see that Daniel approved.
"Why of course, you should have told me long ago. It can all be
arranged," said he: "only tell me which one you want."
"Oh, it is really all the same to me. Of course not an ugly one,
and she must be healthy."
"I understand!" said Daniel briefly. He reflected.
"Ah! There is a tasty morsel," he began. Again Eugene went red.
"A tasty morsel. See here, she was married last autumn." Daniel
whispered -- "and he hasn't been able to do anything. Think what
that is worth to one who wants it!"
Eugene even frowned with shame.
"No, no," he said. "I don't want that at all. I want, on the
contrary (what could the contrary be?), on the contrary I only want
that she should be healthy and that there should be as little fuss
as possible -- a woman whose husband is away in the army or
something of that kind."
"I know. It's Stepanida I must bring you. Her husband is away in
town, just the same as a soldier. and she is a fine woman, and
clean. You will be satisfied. As it is I was saying to her the
other day -- you should go, but she..."
"Well then, when is it to be?"
"Tomorrow if you like. I shall be going to get some tobacco and I
will call in, and at the dinner-hour come here, or to the bath-
house behind the kitchen garden. There will be nobody about.
Besides after dinner everybody takes a nap."
"All right then."
A terrible excitement seized Eugene as he rode home. "what
will happen? What is a peasant woman like? Suppose it turns out
that she is hideous, horrible? No, she is handsome," he told
himself, remembering some he had been noticing. "But what shall I
say? What shall I do?"
He was not himself all that day. Next day at noon he went to the
forester's hut. Daniel stood at the door and silently and
significantly nodded towards the wood. The blood rushed to
Eugene's heart, he was conscious of it and went to the kitchen
garden. No one was there. He went to the bath-house -- there was
no one about, he looked in, came out, and suddenly heard the
crackling of a breaking twig. He looked round -- and she was
standing in the thicket beyond the little ravine. He rushed there
across the ravine. There were nettles in it which he had not
noticed. they stung him and, losing the pince-nez from his nose,
he ran up the slope on the farther side. She stood there, in a
white embroidered apron, a red-brown skirt, and a bright red
kerchief, barefoot, fresh, firm, and handsome, and smiling shyly.
"There is a path leading round -- you should have gone round,"
she said. "I came long ago, ever so long."
He went up to her and, looking her over, touched her.
A quarter of an hour later they separated; he found his pincenez,
called in to see Daniel, and in reply to his question: "Are you
satisfied, master?" gave him a ruble and went home.
He was satisfied. Only at first had he felt ashamed, then it had
passed off. And everything had gone well. The best thing was that
he now felt at ease, tranquil and vigorous. As for her, he had not
even seen her thoroughly. He remembered that she was clean, fresh,
not bad-looking, and simple, without any pretence. "Whose wife is
she?" said he to himself. "Pechnikov's, Daniel said. What
Pechnikov is that? There are two households of that name.
Probably she is old Michael's daughter-in-law. Yes, that must be
it. His son does live in Moscow. I'll ask Daniel about it some
time."
From then onward that previously important drawback to country life
-- enforced self-restraint -- was elimminated. Eugene's freedom of
mind was no longer disturbed and he was able to attend freely to
his affairs.
And the matter Eugene had undertaken was far from easy: before he
had time to stop up one hole a new one would unexpectedly show
itself, and it sometimes seemed to him that he would not be able to
go through with it and that it would end in his having to sell the
estate after all, which would mean that all his efforts would be
wasted and that he had failed to accomplish what he had undertaken.
That prospect disturbed him most of all.
All this time more and more debts of his father's unexpectedly came
to light. It was evident that towards the end of his life he had
borrowed right and left. At the time of the settlement in May,
Eugene had thought he at least knew everything, but in the middle
of the summer he suddenly received a letter from which it appeared
that there was still a debt of twelve thousand rubles to the widow
Esipova. There was no promissory note, but only an ordinary
receipt which his lawyer told him could be disputed. But it did
not enter Eugene's head to refuse to pay a debt of his father's
merely because the document could be challenged. He only wanted to
know for certain whether there had been such a debt.
"Mamma! who is Kaleriya Vladimirovna Esipova?" he asked his mother
when they met as usual for dinner.
"Esipova? she was brought up by your grandfather. Why?"
Eugene told his mother about the letter.
"I wonder she is not ashamed to ask for it. Your father gave her
so much!"
"But do we owe her this?"
"Well now, how shall I put it? It is not a debt. Papa, out of his
unbounded kindness..."
"Yes, but did Papa consider it a debt?"
"I cannot say. I don't know. I only know it is hard enough for
you without that."
Eugene saw that Mary Pavlovna did not know what to say, and
was as it were sounding him.
"I see from what you say that it must be paid," said he. "I will
go to see her tomorrow and have a chat, and see if it cannot be
deferred."
"Ah, how sorry I am for you, but you know that will be best. Tell
her she must wait," said mary Pavlovna, evidently tranquillized and
proud of her son's decision.
Eugene's position was particularly hard because his mother, who was
living with him, did not at all realize his position. She had been
accustomed all her life long to live extravagantly that she could
not even imagine to herself the position her son was in, that is to
say, that today or tomorrow matters might shape themselves so that
they would have nothing left and he would have to sell everything
and live and support his mother on what salary
he could earn, which at the very most would be tow thousand rubles.
She did not understand that they could only save themselves from
that position by cutting down expense in everything, and so she
could not understand why Eugene was so careful about trifles, in
expenditure on gardeners, coachmen, servants -- even on food.
Also, like most widows, she nourished feelings of devotion to the
memory of her departed spouse quite different from those she had
felt for him while he lived, and she did not admit the thought that
anything the departed had done or arranged could be wrong or could
be altered.
Eugene by great efforts managed to keep up the garden and the
conservatory with two gardeners, and the stables with two coachmen.
And Mary Pavlovna naively thought that she was sacrificing herself
for her son and doing all a mother could do, by not complaining of
the food which the old man-cook prepared, of the fact that the
paths in the park were not all swept clean, and that instead of
footmen they had only a boy.
So, too, concerning this new debt, in which Eugene saw an almost
crushing blow to all his undertakings, Mary Pavlovna only saw an
incident displaying Eugene's noble nature. Moreover she did not
feel much anxiety about Eugene's position, because she was
confident that he would make a brilliant marriage which would put
everything right. And he could make a very brilliant marriage: she
knew a dozen families who would be glad to give their daughters
to him. And she wished to arrange the matter as soon as possible.
IV
Eugene himself dreamt of marriage, but no in the same way as his
mother. the idea of using marriage as a means of putting his
affairs in order was repulsive to him. He wished to marry
honourably, for love. He observed the girls whom he met and those
he knew, and compared himself with them, but no decision had yet
been taken. meanwhile, contrary to his expectations, his relations
with Stepanida continued, and even acquired the character of a
settled affair. Eugene was so far from debauchery, it was so hard
for him secretly to do this thing which he felt to be bad, that he
could not arrange these meetings himself and even after the first
one hoped not to see Stepanida again; but it turned out that after
some time the same restlessness (due he believed to that cause)
again overcame him. And his restlessness this time was no longer
impersonal, but suggested just those same bright, black eyes, and
that deep voice, saying, "ever so long," that same scent of
something fresh and strong, and that same full breast lifting the
bib of her apron, and all this in that hazel and maple thicket,
bathed in bright sunlight.
Though he felt ashamed he again approached Daniel. And again a
rendezvous was fixed for midday in the wood. This time Eugene
looked her over more carefully and everything about her seemed
attractive. He tried talking to her and asked about her husband.
He really was Michael's son and lived as a coachman in Moscow.
"Well, then, how is it you..." Eugene wanted to ask how it was
she was untrue to him.
"What about `how is it'?" asked she. Evidently she was clever and
quick-witted.
"Well, how is it you come to me?"
"There now," said she merrily. "I bet he goes on the spree
there. Why shouldn't I?"
Evidently she was putting on an air of sauciness and assurance, and
this seemed charming to Eugene. but all the same he did not
himself fix a rendezvous with her. Even when she proposed that
they should meet without the aid of Daniel, to whom she seemed not
very well disposed, he did not consent. He hoped that this meeting
would be the last. He like her. He thought such intercourse was
necessary for him and that there was nothing bad about it, but in
the depth of his soul there was a stricter judge who did not
approve of it and hoped that this would be the last time, or if he
did not hope that, at any rate did not wish to participate in
arrangements to repeat it another time.
So the whole summer passed, during which they met a dozen times and
always by Daniel's help. It happened once that she could not be
there because her husband had come home, and Daniel proposed
another woman, but Eugene refused with disgust. then the husband
went away and the meetings continued as before, at first through
Daniel, but afterwards he simply fixed the time and she came with
another woman, Prokhovova -- as it would not do for a peasant-woman
to go about alone.
Once at the very time fixed for the rendezvous a family came to
call on Mary Pavlovna, with the very girl she wished Eugene to
marry, and it was impossible for Eugene to get away. as soon as he
could do so, he went out as though to the thrashing floor, and
round by the path to their meeting place in the wood. She was not
there, but at the accustomed spot everything within reach had been
broken -- the black alder, the hazel-twigs, and even a young maple
the thickness of a stake. She had waited, had become excited and
angry, and had skittishly left him a remembrance. He waited and
waited, and then went to Daniel to ask him to call her for
tomorrow. She came and was just as usual.
So the summer passed. The meetings ere always arranged in the
wood, and only once, when it grew towards autumn, in the shed that
stood in her backyard.
It did not enter Eugene's head that these relations of his had any
importance for him. About her he did not even think. He gave her
money and nothing more. At first he did not know and did not think
that the affair was known and that she was envied throughout the
village, or that her relations took money from her and encouraged
her, and that her conception of any sin in the matter had been
quite obliterated by the influence of the money and her family's
approval. It seemed to her that if people envied her, then what
she was doing was good.
"It is simply necessary for my health," thought Eugene. "I grant
it is not right, and though no one says anything, everybody, or
many people, know of it. The woman who comes with her knows. And
once she knows she is sure to have told others. But what's to be
done? I am acting badly," thought Eugene, "but what's one to do?
Anyhow it is not for long.
What chiefly disturbed Eugene was the thought of the husband. At
first for some reason it seemed to him that the husband must be a
poor sort, and this as it were partly justified his conduct. But
he saw the husband and was struck by his appearance: he was a fine
fellow and smartly dressed, in no way a worse man than himself, but
surely better. At their next meeting he told her he had seen her
husband and had been surprised to see that he was such a fine
fellow.
"There's not another man like him in the village," said she
proudly.
This surprised Eugene, and the thought of the husband tormented him
still more after that. He happened to be at Daniel's one day and
Daniel, having begun chatting said to him quite openly:
"And Michael asked me the other day: `Is it true that the
master is living with my wife?' I said I did not know. `Anyway,'
I said, 'better with the master than with a peasant.'"
"Well, and what did he say?"
"He said: `Wait a bit. I'll get to know and I'll give it her all
the same.'"
"Yes, if the husband returned to live here I would give her
up," thought Eugene.
But the husband lived in town and for the present their
intercourse continued.
"When necessary I will break it off, and there will be nothing left
of it," thought he.
And this seemed to him certain, especially as during the whole
summer many different things occupied him very fully: the erection
of the new farm-house, and the harvest and building, and above all
meeting the debts and selling the wasteland. All these were
affairs that completely absorbed him and on which he spent his
thoughts when he lay down and when he got up. All that was real
life. His intercourse -- he did not even call it connection -with
Stepanida he paid no attention to. It is true that when the wish
to see her arose it came with such strength that he could think of
nothing else. But this did not last long. A meeting was arranged,
and he again forgot her for a week or even for a month.
In autumn Eugene often rode to town, and there became friendly
with the Annenskis. They had a daughter who had just finished the
Institute. And then, to Mary Pavlovna's great grief, it happened
that Eugene "cheapened himself," as she expressed it, by falling in
love with Liza Annenskaya and proposing to her.
From that time his relations with Stepanida ceased.
V
It is impossible to explain why Eugene chose Liza Annenskaya, as it
is always impossible to explain why a man chooses this and not that
woman. There were many reasons -- positive and negative.
One reason was that she was not a very rich heiress such as his
mother sought for him, another that she was naive and to be pitied
in her relations with her mother, another that she was not a beauty
who attracted general attention to herself, and yet she was not
bad-looking. But the chief reason was that his acquaintance with
her began at the time when he was ripe for marriage. He fell in
love because he knew that he would marry.
Liza Annenskaya was a t first merely pleasing to Eugene, but when
he decided to make her his wife his feelings for her became much
stronger. He felt that he was in love.
Liza was tall, slender, and long. Everything about her was long;
her face, and her nose (not prominently but downwards), and her
fingers, and her feet. The colour of her face was very delicate,
creamy white and delicately pink; she had long, soft, and curly,
light-brown hair, and beautiful eyes, clear, mild, and confiding.
Those eyes especially struck Eugene, and when he thought of Liza he
always saw those clear, mild, confiding eyes.
Such was she physically; he knew nothing of her spiritually,
but only saw those eyes. And those eyes seemed to tell him all he
needed to know. The meaning of their expression was this: While
still in the Institute, when she was fifteen, Liza used continually
to fall in love with all the attractive men she met and was
animated and happy only when she was in love. After leaving the
Institute she continued to fall in love in just the same way with
all the young men she met, and of course fell in love with Eugene
as soon as she made his acquaintance. It was this being in love
which gave her eyes that particular expression which so captivated
Eugene. already that winter she had been in love with tow young
men at one and the same time, and blushed and became excited not
only when they entered the room but whenever their names were
mentioned. But afterwards, when her mother hinted to her that
Irtenev seemed to have serious intentions, her love for him
increased so that she became almost indifferent to the two previous
attractions, and when Irtenev began to come to their balls and
parties and danced with her more than with others and evidently
only wished to know whether she loved him, her love for him became
painful. She dreamed of him in her sleep and seemed to see him
when she was awake in a dark room, and everyone else vanished from
her mind. But when he proposed and they were formally engaged, and
when they had kissed one another and were a betrothed couple, then
she had no thoughts but of him, no desire but to be with him, to
love him, and to be loved by him. She was also proud of him and
felt emotional about him and herself and her love, and quite melted
and felt faint from love of him.
The more he got to know her the more he loved her. He had not at
all expected to find such love, and it strengthened his own feeling
more.
VI
Towards spring he went to his estate at Semenovskoe to have a look
at it and to give directions about the management, and especially
about the house which was being done up for his wedding.
Mary Pavlovna was dissatisfied with her son's choice, not
only because the match was not as brilliant as it might have been,
but also because she did not like Varvara Alexeevna, his future
mother-in-law. Whether she was good-natured or not she did not
know and could not decide, but that she was not well-bred, not
*comme il faut* -- "not a lady" as Mary Pavlovna said to herself --
she saw from their first acquaintance, and this distressed her;
distressed her because she was accustomed to value breeding and
knew that Eugene was sensitive to it, and she foresaw that he would
suffer much annoyance on this account. But she liked the girl.
Liked her chiefly because Eugene did. One could not help loving
her, and Mary Pavlovna was quite sincerely ready to do so.
Eugene found his mother contented and in good spirits. She was
getting everything straight in the house and preparing to go away
herself as soon as he brought his young wife. Eugene persuaded her
to stay for the time being, and the future remained undecided.
In the evening after tea Mary Pavlovna played patience as
usual. Eugene sat by, helping her. This was the hour of their
most intimate talks. Having finished one game and while preparing
to begin another, she looked up at him and, with a little
hesitation, began thus:
"I wanted to tell you, Jenya -- of course I do not know, but in
general I wanted to suggest to you -- that before your wedding it
is absolutely necessary to have finished with all your bachelor
affairs so that nothing may disturb either you or your wife. God
forbid that it should. You understand me?"
And indeed Eugene at once understood that Mary Pavlovna was
hinting at his relations with Stepanida which had ended in the
previous autumn, and that she attributed much more importance to
those relations than they deserved, as solitary women always do.
Eugene blushed, not from shame so much as from vexation that good-
natured Mary Pavlovna was bothering -- out of affection no doubt,
but still was bothering -- about matters that were not her business
and that she did not and could not understand. He answered that
there was nothing that needed concealment, and that he had always
conducted himself so that there should be nothing to hinder his
marrying.
"Well, dear, that is excellent. Only, Jenya...don't be vexed with
me," said Mary Pavlovna, and broke off in confusion.
Eugene saw that she had not finished and had not said what she
wanted to. And this was confirmed, when a little later she began
to tell him how, in his absence, she had been asked to stand
godmother at ... the Pechnikovs.
Eugene flushed again, not with vexation or shame this time, but
with some strange consciousness of the importance of what was about
to be told him -- an involuntary consciousness quite at variance
with his conclusions. And what he expected happened. Mary
Pavlovna, as if merely by way of conversation, mentioned that this
year only boys were being born -- evidently a sign of a coming war.
Both at the Vasins and the Pechnikovs the young wife had a first
child -- at each house a boy. Mary Pavlovna wanted to say this
casually, but she herself felt ashamed when she saw the colour
mount to her son's face and saw him nervously removing, tapping,
and replacing his pince-nez and hurriedly lighting a cigarette. She
became silent. He too was silent and could not think how to break
that silence. So they both understood that they had understood one
another.
"Yes, the chief thing is that there should be justice and no
favouritism in the village -- as under your grandfather."
"Mamma," said Eugene suddenly, "I know why you are saying this.
You have no need to be disturbed. My future family life is so
sacred to me that I should not infringe it in any case. and as to
what occurred in my bachelor days, that is quite ended. I never
formed any union and on one has any claims on me."
"Well, I am glad," said his mother. "I know how noble your
feelings are."
Eugene accepted his mother's words as a tribute due to him,
and did not reply.
Next day he drove to town thinking of his fiancée and of anything
in the world except of Stepanida. but, as if purposely to remind
him, on approaching the church he met people walking and driving
back from it. He met old Matvey with Simon, some lads and girls,
and then two women, one elderly, the other, who seemed familiar,
smartly dressed and wearing a bright-red kerchief. This
woman was walking lightly and boldly, carrying a child in her arms.
He came up to them, and the elder woman bowed, stopping in the old-
fashioned way, but the young woman with the child only bent her
head, and from under the kerchief gleamed familiar, merry, smiling
eyes.
Yes, this was she, but all that was over and it was no use looking
at her: "and the child may be mine," flashed through his mind.
No, what nonsense! There was her husband, she used to see him.
He did not even consider the matter further, so settled in his
mind was it that it had been necessary for his health -- he had
paid her money and there was no more to be said; there was, there
had been, and there could be, no question of any union between
them. It was not that he stifled the voice of conscience, no -his
conscience simply said nothing to him. And he thought no more
about her after the conversation with his mother and this meeting.
Nor did he meet her again.
Eugene was married in town the week after Easter, and left at once
with his young wife for his country estate. The house had been
arranged as usual for a young couple. Mary Pavlovna wished to
leave, but Eugene begged her to remain, and Liza still more
strongly, and she only moved into a detached wing of the house.
And so a new life began for Eugene.
VII
The first year of his marriage was a hard one for Eugene. It was
hard because affairs he had managed to put off during the time of
his courtship now, after his marriage, all came upon him at once.
To escape from debts was impossible. An outlying part of the
estate was sold and the most pressing obligations met, but others
remained, and he had no money. The estate yielded a good revenue,
but he had had to send payments to his brother and to spend on his
own marriage, so that there was no ready money and the factory
could not carry on and would have to be closed down. The only way
of escape was to use his wife's money; and Liza, having realized
her husband's position, insisted on this herself. Eugene agreed,
but only on condition that he should give her a mortgage on half
his estate, which he did. Of course this was done not for his
wife's sake, who felt offended at it, but to appease his mother-
in-law.
These affairs with various fluctuations of success and failure
helped to poison Eugene's life that first year. Another thing was
his wife's ill-health. That same first year, seven months after
their marriage, a misfortune befell Liza. She was driving out to
meet her husband on his return from town, and the quiet horse
became rather playful and she was frightened and jumped out. Her
jump was comparatively fortunate -- she might have been caught by
the wheel -- but she was pregnant, and that same night the pains
began and she had a miscarriage from which she was long in
recovering. The loss of the expected child and his wife's
illness, together with the disorder in his affairs, and above all
the presence of his mother-in-law, who arrived as soon as Liza
fell ill -- all this together made the year still harder for
Eugene.
But notwithstanding these difficult circumstances, towards the end
of the first year Eugene felt very well. First of all his
cherished hope of restoring his fallen fortune and renewing his
grandfather's way of life in a new form, was approaching
accomplishment, though slowly and with difficulty. There was no
longer any question of having to sell the whole estate to meet the
debts. The chief estate, thought transferred to his wife's name,
was saved, and if only the beet crop succeeded and the price kept
up, by next year his position of want and stress might be replaced
by one of complete prosperity. That was one thing.
Another was that however much he had expected from his wife, he
had never expected to find in her what he actually found. He
found not what he had expected, but something much better.
Raptures of love -- though he tried to produce them -- did not
take place or were very slight, but he discovered something quite
different, namely that he was not merely more cheerful and happier
but that it had become easier to live. He did not know why this
should be so, but it was.
And it was so because immediately after marriage his wife
decided that Eugene Irtenev was superior to anyone else in the
world: wiser, purer, and nobler than they, and that therefore it
was right for everyone to serve him and please him; but that as it
was impossible to make everyone do this, she must do it herself to
the limit of her strength. And she did; directing all her
strength of mind towards learning and guessing what he liked, and
then doing just that thing, whatever it was and however difficult
it might be.
She had the gift which furnishes the chief delight of
intercourse with a loving woman: thanks to her love of her
husband she penetrated into his soul. She knew his every state
and his every shade of feeling -- better it seemed to him than he
himself - and she behaved correspondingly and therefore never hurt
his feelings, but always lessened his distresses and strengthened
his joys. And she understood not only his feelings but also his
joys. Things quite foreign to her -- concerning the farming, the
factory, or the appraisement of others -- she immediately
understood so that she could not merely converse with him, but
could often, as he himself said, be a useful and irreplaceable
counselor. She regarded affairs and people and everything in the
world only though his eyes. She loved her mother, but having seen
that Eugene disliked his mother-in-law's interference in their
life she immediately took her husband's side, and did so with such
decision that he had to restrain her.
Besides all this she had very good taste, much tact, and above all
she had repose. All that she did, she did unnoticed; only the
results of what she did were observable, namely, that always and
in everything there was cleanliness, order, and elegance. Liza
had at once understood in what her husband's ideal of life
consisted, and she tried to attain, and in the arrangement and
order of the house did attain, what he wanted. Children it is
true were lacking, but there was hope of that also. In winter she
went to Petersburg to see a specialist and he assured them that
she was quite well and could have children.
And this desire was accomplished. By the end of the year she was
again pregnant.
The one thing that threatened, not to say poisoned, their
happiness was her jealousy -- a jealousy she restrained and did
not exhibit, but from which she often suffered. Not only might
Eugene not love any other woman -- because there was not a woman
on earth worthy of him (as to whether she herself was worthy or
not she never asked herself), -- but not a single woman might
therefore dare to love him.
VIII
This was how they lived: he rose early, as he always had done,
and went to see to the farm or the factory where work was going
on, or sometimes to the fields. Towards ten o'clock he would come
back for his coffee, which they had on the veranda: Mary
Pavlovna, an uncle who lived with them, and Liza. After a
conversation which was often very animated while they drank their
coffee, they dispersed till dinner-time. At two o'clock they
dined and then went for a walk or a drive. In the evening when he
returned from the office they drank their evening tea and
sometimes he read aloud while she worked, or when there were
guests they had music or conversation. When he went away on
business he wrote to his wife and received letters from her every
day. Sometimes she accompanied him, and then they were
particularly merry. On his name-day and on her guests assembled,
and it pleased him to see how well she managed to arrange things
so that everybody enjoyed coming. He saw and heard that they all
admired her -- the young, agreeable hostess -- and he loved her
still more for this.
All went excellently. She bore her pregnancy easily and,
thought they were afraid, they both began making plans as to how
they would bring the child up. The system of education and the
arrangements were all decided by Eugene, and her only wish was to
carry out his desires obediently. Eugene on his part read up
medical works and intended to bring the child up according to all
the precepts of science. She of course agreed to everything and
made preparations, making warm and also cool "envelopes", and
preparing a cradle. Thus the second year of their marriage
arrived and the second spring.
IX
It was just before Trinity Sunday. Liza was in her fifth month,
and though careful she was still brisk and active. Both his
mother and hers were living in the house, but under the pretext of
watching and safeguarding her only upset her by their tiffs.
Eugene was specially engrossed with a new experiment for the
cultivation of sugar-beet on a large scale.
Just before Trinity Liza decided it was necessary to have a
thorough house-cleaning as it had not been done since Easter, and
she hired two women by the day to help the servants wash the
floors and windows, beat the furniture and the carpets, and put
covers on them. These women came early in the morning, heated
the coppers, and set to work. One of the two was Stepanida, who
had just weaned her baby boy and had begged for the job of washing
the floors through the office-clerk -- whom she now carried on
with. She wanted to have a good look at the new mistress.
Stepanida was living by herself as formerly, her husband being
away, and she was up to tricks as she had formerly been first with
old Daniel (who had once caught her taking some logs of firewood),
afterwards with the master, and now with the young clerk. She was
not concerning herself any longer about her master. "He has a
wife now," she thought. But it would be good to have a look at
the lady and at her establishment: folk said it was well
arranged.
Eugene had not seen her since he had met her with the child.
Having a baby to attend to she had not been going out to work, and
he seldom walked through the village. that morning, on the eve of
Trinity Sunday, he got up at five o'clock and rode to the fallow
land which was to sprinkled with phosphates, and had left the
house before the women were about, and while they were still
engaged lighting the copper fires.
He returned to breakfast merry, contented, and hungry; dismounting
from his mare at the gate and handing her over to the gardener.
Flicking the high grass with his whip and repeating a phrase he
had just uttered, as one often does, he walked towards the house.
The phrase was: "phosphates justify" -- what or to whom, he
neither knew nor reflected.
They were beating a carpet on the grass. The furniture had
been brought out.
"There now! What a house-cleaning Liza has undertaken! ...
Phosphates justify....What a manageress she is! Yes, a
manageress," said he to himself, vividly imagining her in her
white wrapper and with her smiling joyful face, as it nearly
always was when he looked at her. "Yes, I must change my boots,
or else `phosphates justify', that is, smell of manure, and the
manageress in such a condition. Why `in such a condition'?
Because a new little Irtenev is growing there inside her," he
thought. "Yes, phosphates justify," and smiling at his thoughts
he put his hand to the door of his room.
But he had not time to push the door before it opened of itself
and he came face to face with a woman coming towards him carrying
a pail, barefoot and with sleeves turned up high. He
stepped aside to let her pass and she too stepped aside, adjusting
her kerchief with a wet hand.
"Go on, go on, I won't go in, if you ... " began Eugene and
suddenly stopped, recognizing her.
She glanced merrily at him with smiling eyes, and pulling down her
skirt went out at the door.
"What nonsense!...It is impossible," said Eugene to himself,
frowning and waving his hand as though to get rid of a fly,
displeased at having noticed her. He was vexed that he had
noticed her and yet he could not take his eyes from her strong
body, swayed by her agile strides, from her bare feet, or from her
arms and shoulders, and the pleasing folds of her shirt and the
handsome skirt tucked up high above her white calves.
"But why am I looking?" said he to himself, lowering his eyes so
as not to see her. "And anyhow I must go in to get some other
boots." and he turned back to go into his own room, but had not
gone five steps before he again glanced round to have another look
at her without knowing why or wherefore. She was just going round
the corner and also glanced at him.
"Ah, what am I doing!" said he to himself. "She may think...It is
even certain that she already does think..."
He entered his damp room. another woman, an old and skinny
one, was there, and was still washing it. Eugene passed on tiptoe
across the floor, wet with dirty water, to the wall where his
boots stood, and he was about to leave the room when the woman
herself went out.
"This one has gone and the other, Stepanida, will come here
alone," someone within him began to reflect.
"My God, what am I thinking of and what am I doing!" He seized
his boots and ran out with them into the hall, put them on there,
brushed himself, and went out onto the veranda where both the
mammas were already drinking coffee. Liza had evidently been
expecting him and came onto the veranda through another door at
the same time.
"My God! If she, who considers me so honourable, pure, and
innocent -- if she only knew!" -- thought he.
Liza as usual met him with shining face. But today somehow
she seemed to him particularly pale, yellow, long, and weak.
X
During coffee, as often happened, a peculiarly feminine kind of
conversation went on which had no logical sequence but which
evidently was connected in some way for it went on
uninterruptedly. The two old ladies were pin-pricking one another,
and Liza was skillfully manoeuvring between them.
"I am so vexed that we had not finished washing your room before
you got back," she said to her husband. "But I do so want to get
everything arranged."
"Well, did you sleep well after I got up?"
"Yes, I slept well and I fell well."
"How can a woman be well in her condition during this intolerable
heat, when her windows face the sun," said Varvara Alexeevna, her
mother. "And they have no venetian-blinds or awnings. I always
had awnings."
"But you know we are in the shade after ten o'clock," said
Mary Pavlovna.
"That's what causes fever; it comes of dampness," said Varvara
Alexeevna, not noticing that what she was saying did not agree
with what she had just said. "My doctor always says that it is
impossible to diagnose an illness unless one knows the patient.
and he certainly knows, for he is the leading physician and we pay
him a hundred rubles a visit. My late husband did not believe in
doctors, but he did not grudge me anything."
"How can a man grudge anything to a woman when perhaps her
life and the child's depend..."
"Yes, when she has means a wife need not depend on her
husband. A good wife submits to her husband," said
Varvara Alexeevna -- "only Liza is too weak after her
illness."
"Oh no, mamma, I feel quite well. But why have they not
brought you any boiled cream?"
"I don't want any. I can do with raw cream."
"I offered some to Varvara Alexeevna, but she declined," said Mary
Pavlovna, as if justifying herself.
"No, I don't want any today." and as if to terminate an
unpleasant conversation and yield magnanimously, Varvara Alexeevna
turned to Eugene and said: "Well, and have you sprinkled the
phosphates?"
Liza ran to fetch the cream.
"But I don't want it. I don't want it."
"Liza, Liza, go gently," said Mary Pavlovna. "Such rapid
movements do her harm."
"Nothing does harm if one's mind is at peace," said Varvara
Alexeevna as if referring to something, though she knew that there
was nothing her words could refer to.
Liza returned with the cream and Eugene drank his coffee and
listened morosely. He was accustomed to these conversations, but
today he was particularly annoyed by its lack of sense. He wanted
to think over what had happened to him but this chatter disturbed
him. Having finished her coffee Varvara Alexeevna went away in a
bad humour. Liza, Eugene, and Mary Pavlovna stayed behind, and
their conversation was simple and pleasant. But Liza, being
sensitive, at once noticed that something was tormenting Eugene,
and she asked him whether anything unpleasant had happened. He
was not prepared for this question and hesitated a little before
replying that there had been nothing. This reply made Liza think
all the more. That something was tormenting him, and greatly
tormenting, was as evident to her as that a fly had fallen into
the milk, yet he would not speak of it. What could it be?
XI
After breakfast they all dispersed. Eugene as usual went to his
study, but instead of beginning to read or write his letters, he
sat smoking one cigarette after another and thinking. He was
terribly surprised and disturbed by the unexpected recrudescence
within him of the bad feeling from which he had thought himself
free since his marriage. Since then he had not once experienced
that feeling, either for her -- the woman he had known -- or for
any other woman except his wife. He had often felt glad of this
emancipation, and now suddenly a chance meeting, seemingly so
unimportant, revealed to him the fact that he was not free. What
now tormented him was not that he was yielding to that feeling and
desired her -- he did not dream of so doing -- but that the
feeling was awake within him and he had to be on his guard against
it. He had not doubt but that he would suppress it.
He had a letter to answer and a paper to write, and sat down at
his writing table and began to work. Having finished it and quite
forgotten what had disturbed him, he went out to go to the
stables. And again as ill-luck would have it, either by
unfortunate chance or intentionally, as soon as he stepped from
the porch a red skirt and a red kerchief appeared from round the
corner, and she went past him swinging her arms and swaying her
body. She not only went past him, but on passing him ran, as if
playfully, to overtake her fellow-servant.
Again the bright midday, the nettles, the back of Daniel's hut,
and in the shade of the plant-trees her smiling face biting some
leaves, rose in his imagination.
"No, it is impossible to let matters continue so," he said to
himself, and waiting till the women had passed out of sight he
went to the office.
It was just the dinner-hour and he hoped to find the steward still
there, and so it happened. The steward was just waking up from
his after-dinner nap, and stretching himself and yawning was
standing in the office, looking at the herdsman who was telling
him something.
"Vasili Nikolaich!" said Eugene to the steward.
"What is your pleasure?"
"Just finish what you are saying."
"Aren't you going to bring it in?" said Vasili Nikolaich to
the herdsman.
"It's heavy, Vasili Nikolaich."
"What is it?" asked Eugene.
"Why, a cow has calved in the meadow. Well, all right, I'll order
them to harness a horse at once. Tell Nicholas Lysukh to get out
the dray cart." The herdsman went out.
"Do you know," began Eugene, flushing and conscious that he
was doing so, "do you know, Vasili Nikolaich, while I was a
bachelor I went off the track a bit....You may have heard..."
Vasili Nikolaich, evidently sorry for his master, said with
smiling eyes: "Is it about Stepanida?"
"Why, yes. Look here. Please, please do not engage her to help
in the house. You understand, it is very awkward for me..."
"Yes, it must have been Vanya the clerk who arranged it." "Yes,
please...and hadn't the rest of the phosphate better be strewn?"
said Eugene, to hide his confusion.
"Yes, I am just going to see to it."
So the matter ended, and Eugene calmed down, hoping that as he had
lived for a year without seeing her, so things would go on now.
"Besides, Vasili Nikolaich will speak to Ivan the clerk; Ivan will
speak to her, and she will understand that I don't want it," said
Eugene to himself, and he was glad he had forced himself to speak
to Vasili Nikolaich, hard as it had been to do so.
"Yes, it is better, much better, than that feeling of doubt, that
feeling of shame." He shuddered at the mere remembrance of his
sin in thought.
XII
The moral effort he had made to overcome his shame and speak to
Vasili Nikolaich tranquillized Eugene. It seemed to him that the
matter was all over now. Liza at once noticed that he was quite
calm, and even happier than usual. "No doubt he was upset by our
mothers pin-pricking one another. It really is disagreeable,
especially for him who is so sensitive and noble, always to hear
such unfriendly and ill-mannered insinuations," thought she.
The next day was Trinity Sunday. It was a beautiful day, and the
peasant-women, on their way into the woods to plait wreaths, came,
according to custom, to the landowner's home and began to sing and
dance. Mary Pavlovna and Varvara Alexeevna came out onto the
porch in smart clothes, carrying sunshades, and went up to the
ring of singers. With them, in a jacket of Chinese silk, came out
the uncle, a flabby libertine and drunkard, who was living that
summer with Eugene.
As usual there was a bright, many-coloured ring of young women and
girls, the centre of everything, and around these from different
sides like attendant planets that had detached themselves and were
circling round, went girls hand in hand, rustling in their new
print gowns; young lads giggling and running backwards and
forwards after one another; full-grown lads in dark blue or black
coats and caps and with red shirts, who unceasingly spat out
sunflower-seed shells; and the domestic servants or other
outsiders watching the dance-circle from aside. Both the old
ladies went close up to the ring, and Liza accompanied them in a
light blue dress, with light blue ribbons on her head, and with
wide sleeves under which her long white arms and angular elbows
were visible.
Eugene did not wish to come out, but it was ridiculous to
hide, and he too came out onto the porch smoking a cigarette,
bowed to the men and lads, and talked with one of them. The women
meanwhile shouted a dance-song with all their might, snapping
their fingers, clapping their hands, and dancing.
"They are calling for the master," said a youngster coming up to
Eugene's wife, who had not noticed the call. Liza called Eugene
to look at the dance and at one of the women dancers who
particularly pleased her. This was Stepanida. She wore a yellow
skirt, a velveteen sleeveless jacket and a silk kerchief, and was
broad, energetic, ruddy, and merry. No doubt she danced well. He
saw nothing.
"Yes, yes," he said, removing and replacing his pince-nez. "Yes,
yes," he repeated. "So it seems I cannot be rid of her," he
thought.
He did not look at her, fearing her attraction, and just on
that account what his passing glance caught of her seemed to him
especially attractive. Besides this he saw by her sparkling look
that she saw him and saw that he admired her. He stood there as
long as propriety demanded, and seeing that Varvara Alexeevna had
called her "my dear" senselessly and insincerely and was talking
to her, he turned aside and went away.
He went into the house in order not to see her, but on reaching
the upper story he approached the window, without knowing how or
why, and as long as the women remained at the porch he stood there
and looked and looked at her, feasting his eyes on her.
He ran, while there was no one to see him, and then went with
quiet steps onto the veranda and from there, smoking a cigarette,
he passed through the garden as if going for a stroll, and
followed the direction she had taken. He had not gone two steps
along the alley before he noticed behind the trees a velveteen
sleeveless jacket, with a pink and yellow skirt and a red
kerchief. She was going somewhere with another woman. "Where are
they going?"
And suddenly a terrible desire scorched him as though a hand were
seizing his heart. As if by someone else's wish he looked round
and went towards her.
"Eugene Ivanich, Eugene Ivanich! I have come to see your honour,"
said a voice behind him, and Eugene, seeing old Samokhin who was
digging a well for him, roused himself and turning quickly round
went to meet Samokhin. While speaking with him he turned sideways
and saw that she and the woman who was with her went down the
slope, evidently to the well or making an excuse of the well, and
having stopped there a little while ran back to the dancecircle.
XIII
After talking to Samokhin, Eugene returned to the house as
depressed as if he had committed a crime. In the first place she
had understood him, believed that he wanted to see her, and
desired it herself. Secondly that other woman, Anna Prokhorova,
evidently knew of it.
Above all he felt that he was conquered, that he was not master of
his own will but that there was another power moving him, that he
had been saved only by good fortune, and that if not today then
tomorrow or a day later, he would perish all the same.
"Yes, perish," he did not understand it otherwise: to be
unfaithful to his young and loving wife with a peasant woman in
the village, in the sight of everyone -- what was it but to
perish, perish utterly, so that it would be impossible to live?
No, something must be done.
"My God, my God! What am I to do? Can it be that I shall
perish like this?" said he to himself. Is it not possible to do
anything? Yet something must be done. Do not think about her" -
he ordered himself. "Do not think!" and immediately he began
thinking and seeing her before him, and seeing also the shade of
the plane-tree.
He remembered having read of a hermit who, to avoid the temptation
he felt for a woman on whom he had to lay his hand to heal her,
thrust his other hand into a brazier and burnt his fingers. he
called that to mind. "Yes, I am ready to burn my fingers rather
than to perish." He looked round to make sure that there was no
one in the room, lit a candle, and put a finger into the flame.
"There, now think about her," he said to himself ironically. It
hurt him and he withdrew his smoke-stained finger, threw away the
match, and laughed at himself. What nonsense! That was not what
had to be done. But it was necessary to do something, to avoid
seeing her -- either to go away himself or to send her away. yes
-- send her away. Offer her husband mmoney to remove to town or to
another village. People would hear of it and would talk about it.
Well, what of that? At any rate it was better than this danger.
"Yes, that must be done," he said to himself, and at that very
moment he was looking at her without moving his eyes. "Where is
she going?" he suddenly asked himself. She, it seemed to him, had
seen him at the window and now, having glanced at him and taken
another woman by the hand, was going towards the garden swinging
her arm briskly. Without knowing why or wherefore, merely in
accord with what he had been thinking, he went to the office.
Vasili Nikolaich in holiday costume and with oiled hair was
sitting at tea with his wife and a guest who was wearing an
oriental kerchief.
"I want a word with you, Vasili Nikolaich!"
"Please say what you want to. We have finished tea."
"No. I'd rather you came out with me."
"Directly; only let me get my cap. Tanya, put out the samovar,"
said Vasili Nikolaich, stepping outside cheerfully. It seemed to
Eugene that Vasili had been drinking, but what was to be done? It
might be all the better -- he would sympathize with him in his
difficulties the more readily.
"I have come again to speak about that same matter, Vasili
Nikolaich," said Eugene -- "about that woman."
"Well, what of her? I told them not to take her again on any
account."
"No, I have been thinking in general, and this is what I wanted to
take your advice about. Isn't it possible to get them away, to
send the whole family away?"
"Where can they be sent?" said Vasili, disapprovingly and
ironically as it seem to Eugene.
"Well, I thought of giving them money, or even some land in
Koltovski, -- so that she should not be here."
"But how can they be sent away? Where is he to go -- torn up from
his roots? And why should you do it? What harm can she do you?"
"Ah, Vasili Nikolaich, you must understand that it would be
dreadful for my wife to hear of it."
"But who will tell her?"
"How can I live with this dread? The whole thing is vary
painful for me."
"But really, why should you distress yourself? Whoever stirs up
the past -- out with his eye! Who is not a sinner before God and
to blame before the Tsar, as the saying is?"
"All the same it would be better to get rid of them. Can't
you speak to the husband?"
"But it is no use speaking! Eh, Eugene Ivanich, what is the
matter with you? It is all past and forgotten. All sorts of
things happen. Who is there that would now say anything bad of
you? Everybody sees you."
"But all the same go and have a talk with him."
"All right, I will speak to him."
Though he knew that nothing would come of it, this talk somewhat
calmed Eugene. Above all, it made him feel that through excitement
he had been exaggerating the danger.
Had he gone to meet her by appointment? It was impossible He had
simply gone to stroll in the garden and she had happened to run out
at the same time.
XIV
After dinner that very Trinity Sunday Liza while walking from the
garden to the meadow, where her husband wanted to show her the
clover, took a false step and fell when crossing a little ditch.
She fell gently, on her side; but she gave an exclamation, and her
husband saw an expression in her face not only of fear but of pain.
He was about to help her up, but she motioned him away with her
hand.
"No, wait a bit, Eugene," she said, with a weak smile, and
looked up guiltily as it seemed to him. "My foot only gave way
under me."
"There, I always say," remarked Varvara Alexeevna, "can anyone in
her condition possibly jump over ditches?"
"But it is all right, mamma. I shall get up directly." With her
husband's help she did get up, but she immediately turned pale, and
looked frightened.
"Yes, I am not well!" and she whispered something to her
mother.
"Oh, my God, what have you done! I said you ought not to go
there," cried Varvara Alexeevna. "Wait -- I will call the
servants. She must not walk. She must be carried!"
"Don't be afraid, Liza, I will carry you," said Eugene,
putting his left arm round her. "Hold me by the neck. Like that."
And stopping down he put his right arm under her knees and lifted
her. He could never afterwards forget the suffering and yet
beatific expression of her face.
"I am too heavy for you, dear," she said with a smile. "Mamma is
running, tell her!" And she bent towards him and kissed him. She
evidently wanted her mother to see how he was carrying her.
Eugene shouted to Varvara Alexeevna not to hurry, and that he
would carry Liza home. Varvara Alexeevna stopped and began to
shout still louder.
"You will drop her, you'll be sure to drop her. You want to
destroy her. You have no conscience!"
"But I am carrying her excellently."
"I do not want to watch you killing my daughter, and I can't." And
she ran round the bend in the alley.
"Never mind, it will pass," said Liza, smiling.
"Yes, If only it does not have consequences like last time." "No.
I am not speaking of that. That is all right. I mean
mamma. You are tired. Rest a bit."
But though he found it heavy, Eugene carried his burden
proudly and gladly to the house and did not hand her over to the
housemaid and the man-cook whom Varvara Alexeevna had found and
sent to meet them. He carried her to the bedroom and put her on
the bed.
"Now go away," she said, and drawing his hand to her she
kissed it. "Annushka and I will manage all right."
Mary Pavlovna also ran in from her rooms in the wing. They
undressed Liza and laid her on the bed. Eugene sat in the drawing
room with a book in his hand, waiting. Varvara Alexeevna went past
him with such a reproachfully gloomy air that he felt alarmed.
"Well, how is it?" he asked.
"How is it? What's the good of asking? It is probably what you
wanted when you made your wife jump over the ditch."
"Varvara Alexeevna!" he cried. "This is impossible. If you want
to torment people and to poison their life" (he wanted to say,
"then go elsewhere to do it," but restrained himself). "How is it
that it does not hurt you?"
"It is too late now." And shaking her cap in a triumphant
manner she passed out by the door.
The fall had really been a bad one; Liza's foot had twisted
awkwardly and there was danger of her having another miscarriage.
Everyone knew that there was nothing to be done but that she must
just lie quietly, yet all the same they decided to send for a
doctor.
"Dear Nikolay Semenich," wrote Eugene to the doctor, "you have
always been so kind to us that I hope you will not refuse to come
to my wife's assistance. She..." and so on. Having written the
letter he went to the stables to arrange about the horses and the
carriage. Horses had to be got ready to bring the doctor and
others to take him back. When an estate is not run on a large
scale, such things cannot be quickly decided but have to be
considered. Having arranged it all and dispatched the coachman, it
was past nine before he got back to the house. His wife was lying
down, and said that she felt perfectly well and had no pain. But
Varvara Alexeevna was sitting with a lamp screened from Liza by
some sheets of music and knitting a large red coverlet, with a mien
that said that after what had happened peace was impossible, but
that she at any rate would do her duty no matter what anyone else
did.
Eugene noticed this, but, to appear as if he had not done so, tried
to assume a cheerful and tranquil air and told how he had chosen
the horses and how capitally the mare, Kabushka, had galloped as
left trace-horse in the troyka.
"Yes, of course, it is just the time to exercise the horses when
help is needed. Probably the doctor will also be thrown into the
ditch," remarked Varvara Alexeevna, examining her knitting from
under her pince-nez and moving it close up to the lamp.
"But you know we had to send one way or another, and I made
the best arrangement I could."
"Yes, I remember very well how your horses galloped with me under
the arch of the gateway." This was a long-standing fancy of hers,
and Eugene now was injudicious enough to remark that that was not
quite what had happened.
"It is not for nothing that I have always said, and have often
remarked to the prince, that it is hardest of all to live with
people who are untruthful and insincere. I can endure anything
except that."
"Well, if anyone has to suffer more than another, it is
certainly I," said Eugene. "But you..."
"Yes, it is evident."
"What?"
"Nothing, I am only counting my stitches."
Eugene was standing at the time by the bed and Liza was looking at
him, and one of her moist hands outside the coverlet caught his
hand and pressed it. "Bear with her for my sake. You know she
cannot prevent our loving one another," was what her look said.
"I won't do so again. It's nothing," he whispered, and he
kissed her damp, long hand and then her affectionate eyes, which
closed while he kissed them.
"Can it be the same thing over again?" he asked. "How are you
feeling?"
"I am afraid to say for fear of being mistaken, but I feel that he
is alive and will live," said she, glancing at her stomach.
"Ah, it is dreadful, dreadful to think of."
Notwithstanding Liza's insistence that he should go away,
Eugene spent the night with her, hardly closing an eye and ready to
attend on her.
But she passed the night well, and had they not sent for the doctor
she would perhaps have got up.
By dinner-time the doctor arrived and of course said that
though if the symptoms recurred there might be cause for
apprehension, yet actually there were no positive symptoms, but as
there were also no contrary indications one might suppose on the
one hand that -- and on the other hand that... And therefore she
must lie still, and that "though I do not like prescribing, yet all
the same she should take this mixture and should lie quiet."
Besides this, the doctor gave Varvara Alexeevna a lecture on
woman's anatomy, during which Varvara Alexeevna nodded her head
significantly. Having received his fee, as usual into the backmost
part of his palm, the doctor drove away and the patient was left to
lie in bed for a week.
XV
Eugene spent most of his time by his wife's bedside, talking to
her, reading to her, and what was hardest of all, enduring without
murmur Varvara Alexeevna's attacks, and even contriving to turn
these into jokes.
But he could not stay at home all the time. In the first place his
wife sent him away, saying that he would fall ill if he always
remained with her; and secondly the farming was progressing in a
way that demanded his presence at every step. He could not stay at
home, but had to be in the fields, in the wood, in the garden, at
the thrashing-floor; and everywhere he was pursued not merely by
the thought but by the vivid image of Stepanida, and he only
occasionally forgot her. But that would not have mattered, he
could perhaps have mastered his feeling; what was worst of all was
that, whereas he had previously lived for months without seeing
her, he now continually came across her. She evidently understood
that he wished to renew relations with her and tried to come in his
way. Nothing was said either by him or by her, and therefore
neither he nor she went directly to a rendezvous, but only sought
opportunities of meeting.
The most possible place for them to meet was in the forest,
where peasant-women went with sacks to collect grass for their
cows. Eugene knew this and therefore went there every day. Every
day he told himself that he would not go, and every day it ended by
his making his way to the forest and, on hearing the sound of
voices, standing behind the bushes with sinking heart looking to
see if she was there.
Why he wanted to know whether it was she who was there, he did not
know. If it had been she and she had been alone, he would not have
gone to her -- so he believed -- he would have run away; but he
wanted to see her.
Once he met her. As he was entering the forest she came out of it
with two other women, carrying a heavy sack full of grass on her
back. A little earlier he would perhaps have met her in the
forest. Now, with the other women there, she could not go back to
him. But though he realized this impossibility, he stood for a
long time behind a hazel bush, at the risk of attracting the other
women's attention. Of course she did not return, but he stayed
there a long time. and, great heavens, how delightful his
imagination made her appear to him! And this not only once, but
five or six times, and each time more intensely. never had she
seemed so attractive, and never had he been so completely in her
power.
He felt that he had lost control of himself and had become almost
insane. His strictness with himself had not weakened a jog; on the
contrary he saw all the abomination of his desire and even of his
action, for his going to the wood was an action. He knew that he
only need come near her anywhere in the dark, and if possible touch
her, and he would yield to his feelings. He knew that it was only
shame before people, before her, and no doubt before himself that
restrained him. And he knew too that he had sought conditions in
which that shame would not be apparent --
darkness or proximity -- in which it would be stifled by animal
passion. and therefore he knew that he was a wretched criminal,
and despised and hated himself with all his soul. He hated himself
because he still had not surrendered: every day he prayed God to
strengthen him, to save him from perishing; every day he determined
that from today onward he would not take a step to see her, and
would forget her. Every day he devised means of delivering himself
from this enticement, and he made use of those means.
But it was all in vain.
One of the means was continual occupation; another was intense
physical work and fasting; a third was imagining to himself the
shame that would fall upon him when everybody knew of it -- his
wife, his mother-in-law, and the folk around. He did all this and
it seemed to him that he was conquering, but midday came -- the
hour of their former meetings and the hour when he had met her
carrying the grass -- and he went to the forest. Thus five days of
torment passed. He only saw her from a distance, and did not once
encounter her.
XVI
Liza was gradually recovering, she could move about and was
only uneasy at the change that had taken place in her husband,
which she did not understand.
Varvara Alexeevna had gone away for a while, and the only visitor
was Eugene's uncle. Mary Pavlovna was as usual at home.
Eugene was in his semi-insane condition when there came two
days of pouring rain, as often happens after thunder in June. The
rain stopped all work. They even ceased carting manure on account
of the dampness and dirt. The peasants remained at home. The
herdsmen wore themselves out with the cattle, and eventually drove
them home. The cows and sheep wandered about in the pastureland
and ran loose in the grounds. The peasant women, barefoot and
wrapped in shawls, splashing through the mud, rushed about to seek
the runaway cows. Streams flowed everywhere along the paths, all
the leaves and all the grass were saturated with water, and streams
flowed unceasingly from the spouts into the bubbling puddles.
Eugene sat at home with his wife, who was particularly wearisome
that day. She questioned Eugene several times as to the cause of
his discontent, and he replied with vexation that nothing was the
matter. She ceased questioning him but was still distressed.
They were sitting after breakfast in the drawing room. His uncle
for the hundredth time was recounting fabrications about his
society acquaintances. Liza was knitting a jacket and sighed,
complaining of the weather and of a pain in the small of her back.
The uncle advised her to lie down, and asked for vodka for himself.
It was terribly dull for Eugene in the house. Everything was weak
and dull. He read a book and a magazine, but understood nothing of
them.
"I must go out and look at the rasping-machine they brought
yesterday," said he, and got up and went out.
"Take an umbrella with you."
"Oh, no, I have a leather coat. And I am only going as far as the
boiling-room."
He put on his boots and his leather coat and went to the factory;
and he had not gone twenty steps before he met her coming towards
him, with her skirts tucked up high above her white calves. She was
walking, holding down the shawl in which her head and shoulders
were wrapped.
"Where are you going?" said he, not recognizing her the first
instant. When he recognized her it was already too late. She
stopped, smiling, and looked long at him.
"I am looking for a calf. Where are you off to in such
weather?" said she, as if she were seeing him every day.
"Come to the shed," said he suddenly, without knowing how he
said it. It was as if someone else had uttered the words.
She bit her shawl, winked, and ran in the direction which led from
the garden to the shed, and he continued his path, intending to
turn off beyond the lilac-bush and go there too.
"Master," he heard a voice behind him. "The mistress is
calling you, and wants you to come back for a minute."
This was Misha, his man-servant.
"My God! This is the second time you have saved me," thought
Eugene, and immediately turned back. His wife reminded him that he
had promised to take some medicine at the dinner hour to a sick
woman, and he had better take it with him.
While they were getting the medicine some five minutes elapsed, and
then, going away with the medicine, he hesitated to go direct to
the shed lest he should be seen from the house, but as soon as he
was out of sight he promptly turned and made his way to it. He
already saw her in imagination inside the shed smiling gaily. But
she was not there, and there was nothing in the shed to show that
she had been there.
He was already thinking that she had not come, had not heard or
understood his words -- he had muttered them through his nose as if
afraid of her hearing them -- or perhaps she had not wanted to
come. "And why did I imagine that she would rush to me? She has
her own husband; it is only I who am such a wretch as to have a
wife, and a good one, and to run after another." Thus he thought
sitting in the shed, the thatch of which had a leak and dripped
from its straw. "But how delightful it would be if she did come --
alone here in this rain. If only I could embrace her once again,
then let happen what may. But I could tell if she has been here by
her footprints," he reflected. He looked at the trodden ground
near the shed and at the path overgrown by grass, and the fresh
print of bare feet, and even of one that had slipped, was visible.
"Yes, she has been here. Well, now it is settled. Wherever
I may see her I shall go straight to her. I will go to her at
night." He sat for a long time in the shed and left it exhausted
and crushed. He delivered the medicine, returned home, and lay
down in his room to wait for dinner.
XVII
Before dinner Liza came to him and, still wondering what could be
the cause of his discontent, began to say that she was afraid he
did not like the idea of her going to Moscow for her confinement,
and that she had decided that she would remain at home and on no
account go to Moscow. He knew how she feared both her confinement
itself and the risk of not having a healthy child, and therefore he
could not help being touched at seeing how ready she was to
sacrifice everything for his sake. All was so nice, so pleasant,
so clean, in the house; and in his soul it was so dirty,
despicable, and foul. the whole evening Eugene was tormented by
knowing that notwithstanding his sincere repulsion at his own
weakness, notwithstanding his firm intention to break off, -- the
same thing would happen again tomorrow.
"No, this is impossible," he said to himself, walking up and down
in his room. "There must be some remedy for it. My God! What am I
to do?"
Someone knocked at the door as foreigners do. he knew this
must be his uncle. "Come in," he said.
The uncle had come as a self-appointed ambassador from Liza. "Do
you know, I really do notice that there is a change in
you," he said, -- "and Liza -- I understand how it troubles her.
I understand that it must be hard for you to leave all the business
you have so excellently started, but *que veux-tu*? I should
advise you to go away. it will be more satisfactory both for you
and for her. And do you know, I should advise you to go to the
Crimea. The climate is beautiful and there is an excellent
*accoucheur* there, and you would be just in time for the best of
the grape season."
"Uncle," Eugene suddenly exclaimed. "Can you keep a secret? A
secret that is terrible tome, a shameful secret."
"Oh, come -- do you really feel any doubt of me?"
"Uncle, you can help me. Not only help, but save me!" said Eugene.
And the thought of disclosing his secret to his uncle whom he did
not respect, the thought that he should show himself in the worst
light and humiliate himself before him, was pleasant. He felt
himself to be despicable and guilty, and wished to punish himself.
"Speak, my dear fellow, you know how fond I am of you," said the
uncle, evidently well content that there was a secret and that it
was a shameful one, and that it would be communicated to him, and
that he could be of use.
"First of all I must tell you that I am a wretch, a good-for-
nothing, a scoundrel -- a real scoundrel."
"Now what are you saying..." began his uncle, as if he were
offended.
"What! Not a wretch when I -- Liza's husband, Liza's! One has
only to know her purity, her love -- and that I, her husband, want
to be untrue to her with a peasant-woman!"
"What is this? Why do you want to -- you have not bee
unfaithful to her?"
"Yes, at least just the same as being untrue, for it did not depend
on me. I was ready to do so. I was hindered, or else I
should...now. I do not know what I should have done..."
"But please, explain to me..."
"Well, it is like this. When I was a bachelor I was stupid enough
to have relations with a woman here in our village. That is to
say, I used to have meetings with her in the forest, in the
field..."
"Was she pretty?" asked his uncle.
Eugene frowned at this question, but he was in such need of
external help that he made as if he did not hear it, and continued:
"Well, I thought this was just casual and that I should break
it off and have done with it. And I did break it off before my
marriage. For nearly a year I did not see her or think about her."
It seemed strange to Eugene himself to hear the description of his
own condition. "Then suddenly, I don't myself know why -- really
one sometimes believes in witchcraft -- I saw her, and a worm crept
into my heart; and it gnaws. I reproach myself, I understand the
full horror of my action, that is to say, of the act I may commit
any moment, and yet I myself turn to it, and if I have not
committed it, it is only because God preserved me. Yesterday I was
on my way to see her when Liza sent for me."
"What, in the rain?"
"Yes. I am worn out, Uncle, and have decided to confess to you and
to ask your help." "Yes, of course, it's a bad thing on your own
estate. People will get to know. I understand that Liza is weak
and that it is necessary to spare her, but why on your own estate?"
Again Eugene tried not to hear what his uncle was saying, and
hurried on to the core of the matter.
"Yes, save me from myself. That is what I ask of you. Today I was
hindered by chance. But tomorrow or next time no one will hinder
me. And she knows now. Don't leave me alone."
"Yes, all right," said his uncle, -- "but are you really so
much in love?"
"Oh, it is not that at all. It is not that, it is some kind of
power that has seized me and holds me. I do not know what to do.
Perhaps I shall gain strength, and then..."
"Well, it turns out as I suggested," said his uncle. "Let us be
off to the Crimea."
"Yes, yes, let us go, and meanwhile you will be with me and
will talk to me."
XVIII
The fact that Eugene had confided his secret to his uncle, and
still more the sufferings of his conscience and the feeling of
shame he experienced after that rainy day, sobered him. It was
settled that they would start for Yalta in a week's time. During
that week Eugene drove to town to get money for the journey, gave
instructions from the house and from the office concerning the
management of the estate, again became gay and friendly with his
wife, and began to awaken morally.
So without having once seen Stepanida after that rainy day he left
with his wife for the Crimea. There he spent an excellent two
months. He received so many new impressions that it seemed to him
that the past was obliterated from his memory. In the Crimea they
met former acquaintances and became particularly friendly with
them, and they also made new acquaintances. Life in the Crimea was
a continual holiday for Eugene, besides being instructive and
beneficial. They became friendly there with the former Marshal of
the Nobility of their province, a clever and liberal-minded man who
became fond of Eugene and coached him, and attracted him to his
Party.
At the end of August Liza gave birth to a beautiful, healthy
daughter, and her confinement was unexpectedly easy.
In September they returned home, the four of them, including
the baby and its wet-nurse, as Liza was unable to nurse it herself.
Eugene returned home entirely free from the former horrors and
quite a new and happy man. Having gone through all that a husband
goes through when his wife bears a child, he loved her more than
ever. His feeling for the child when he took it in his arms was a
funny, new, very pleasant and, as it were, a tickling feeling.
Another new thing in his life now was that, besides his occupation
with the estate, thanks to his acquaintance with Dumchin (the ex-
Marshal) a new interest occupied his mind, that of the Zemstvo --
partly an ambitious interest, partly a feeling of duty. In
October there was to be a special Assembly, at which he was to be
elected. After arriving home he drove once to town and another
time to Dumchin.
Of the torments of his temptation and struggle he had forgotten
even to think, and could with difficulty recall them to mind. It
seemed to him something like an attack of insanity he had
undergone.
To such an extend did he now feel free from it that he was not
even afraid to make inquiries on the first occasion when he
remained alone with the steward. As he had previously spoken to
him about the matter he was not ashamed to ask.
"Well, and is Sidor Pechnikov still away from home?" he
inquired.
"Yes, he is still in town."
"And his wife?"
"Oh, she is a worthless woman. She is now carrying on with
Zenovi. She has gone quite on the loose."
"Well, that is all right," thought Eugene. "How wonderfully
indifferent to it I am! How I have changed."
XIX
All that Eugene had wished had been realized. He had obtained the
property, the factory was working successfully, the beet-crops
were excellent, and he expected a large income; his wife had borne
a child satisfactorily, his mother-in-law had left, and he had
been unanimously elected to the Zemstvo.
He was returning home from town after the election. He had been
congratulated and had had to return thanks. He had had dinner and
had drunk some five glasses of champagne. Quite new plans of life
now presented themselves to him, and he was thinking about these
as he drove home. It was the Indian summer: an excellent road
and a hot sun. As he approached his home Eugene was thinking of
how, as a result of this election, he would occupy among the
people the position he had always dreamed of; that is to say, one
in which he would be able to serve them not only by production,
which gave employment, but also by direct influence. He imagined
what his own and the other peasants would think of him in three
years' time. "For instance this one," he thought, drifting just
then through the village and glancing at a peasant who with a
peasant woman was crossing the street in front of him carrying a
full water-tub. They stopped to let his carriage pass. The
peasant was old Pechnikov, and the woman was Stepanida. Eugene
looked at her, recognized her, and was glad to feel that he
remained quite tranquil. She was still as good looking as ever,
but this did not touch him at all. He drove home.
"Well, may we congratulate you?" said his uncle.
"Yes, I was elected."
"Capital! We must drink to it!"
Next day Eugene drove about to see to the farming which he had
been neglecting. At the outlying farmstead a new thrashing
machine was at work. While watching it Eugene stepped among the
women, trying not to take notice of them; but try as he would he
once or twice noticed the black eyes and red kerchief of
Stepanida, who was carrying away the straw. Once or twice he
glanced sideways at her and felt that something was happening, but
could not account for it to himself. Only next day, when he again
drove to the thrashing floor and spent two hours there quite
unnecessarily, without ceasing to caress with his eyes the
familiar, handsome figure of the young woman, did he feel that he
was lost, irremediably lost. Again those torments! Again all that
horror and fear, and there was no saving himself.
What he expected happened to him. The evening of the next day,
without knowing how, he found himself at her back yard, by her hay
shed, where in autumn they had once had a meeting. As though
having a stroll, he stopped there lighting a cigarette. A
neighbouring peasant-woman saw him, and as he turned back he heard
her say to someone: "Go, he is waiting for you -- on my dying
word he is standing there. Go, you fool!"
He saw how a woman -- she -- ran to the hay shed; but as a peasant
had met him it was no longer possible for him to turn back, and so
he went home.
XX
When he entered the drawing-room everything seemed strange and
unnatural to him. He had risen that morning vigorous, determined
to fling it all aside, to forget it and not allow himself to think
about it. But without noticing how it occurred he had all the
morning not merely not interested himself in the work, but tried
to avoid it. What had formerly cheered him and been important was
now insignificant. Unconsciously he tried to free himself from
business. It seemed to him that he had to do so in order to think
and to plan. And he freed himself and remained alone. But as
soon as he was alone he began to wander about in the garden and
the forest. And all those spots were besmirched in his
recollection by memories that gripped him. He felt that he was
walking in the garden and pretending to himself that he was
thinking out something, but that really he was not thinking out
anything, but insanely and unreasonably expecting her; expecting
that by some miracle she would be aware that he was expecting her,
and would come here at once and go somewhere where no one would
see them, or would come at night when there would be no moon, and
no one, not even she herself, would see -- on such a night she
would come and he would touch her body....
"There now, talking of breaking off when I wish to," he said
to himself. "Yes, and that is having a clean healthy woman for
one's health sake! No, it seems one can't play with her like
that. I thought I had taken her, but it was she who took me; took
me and does not let me go. Why, I thought I was free, but I was
not free and was deceiving myself when I married. It was all
nonsense -fraud. From the time I had her I experienced a new
feeling, the real feeling of a husband. Yes, I ought to have
lived with her.
"One of two lives is possible for me: that which I began with
Liza: service, estate management, the child, and people's
respect. If that is life, it is necessary that she, Stepanida,
should not be there. She must be sent away, as I said, or
destroyed so that she shall not exist. And the other life -- is
this: For me to take her away from her husband, pay him money,
disregard the shame and disgrace, and live with her. But in that
case it is necessary that Liza should not exist, nor Mimi (the
baby). No, that is not so, the baby does not matter, but it is
necessary that there should be no Liza -- that she should go away
-- that she should know, curse me, andd go away. That she should
know that I have exchanged her for a peasant woman, that I am a
deceiver and a scoundrel! -- No, that is too terrible! It is
impossible. But it might happen," he went on thinking -- "it
might happen that Liza might fall ill and die. Die, and then
everything would be capital.
"Capital! Oh, scoundrel! No, if someone must die it should be
Stepanida. If she were to die, how good it would be.
"Yes, that is how men come to poison or kill their wives or
lovers. Take a revolver and go and call her, and instead of
embracing her, shoot her in the breast and have done with it.
"Really she is -- a devil. Simply a devil. She has possessed
herself of me against my own will.
"Kill? Yes. there are only two ways out: to kill my wife or
her. For it is impossible to live like this. [Translator's
footnote: At this place the alternative ending, printed at the
end of the story, begins. A.M.] It is impossible! I must
consider the matter and look ahead. If things remain as they are
what will happen? I shall again be saying to myself that I do not
wish it and that I will throw her off, but it will be merely
words; in the evening I shall be at her back yard, and she will
know it and will come out. And if people know of it and tell my
wife, or if I tell her myself -- for I can't lie -- I shall not be
able to live so. I cannot! People will know. They will all know -
- Parasha and the blacksmith. Well, iis it possible to live so?
"Impossible! there are only two ways out: to kill my wife, or to
kill her. yes, or else...Ah, yes, there is a third way: to kill
myself," said he softly, and suddenly a shudder ran over his skin.
"Yes, kill myself, then I shall not need to kill them." He became
frightened, for he felt that only that way was possible. He had a
revolver. "Shall I really kill myself? It is something I never
thought of -- how strange it will be..."
He returned to his study and at once opened the cupboard where the
revolver lay, but before he had taken it out of its case his wife
entered the room.
XXI
He threw a newspaper over the revolver.
"Again the same!" said she aghast when she had looked at him.
"What is the same?"
"The same terrible expression that you had before and would not
explain to me. Jenya, dear one, tell me about it. I see that you
are suffering. Tell me and you will feel easier. Whatever it may
be, it will be better than for you to suffer so. Don't I know
that it is nothing bad?"
"You know? While..."
"Tell me, tell me, tell me. I won't let you go."
He smiled a piteous smile.
"Shall I? -- No, it is impossible. And there is nothing to
tell."
Perhaps he might have told her, but at that moment the wetnurse
entered to ask if she should go for a walk. Liza went out to
dress the baby.
"Then you will tell me? I will be back directly."
"Yes, perhaps..."
She never could forget the piteous smile with which he said
this. She went out.
Hurriedly, stealthily like a robber, he seized the revolver and
took it out of its case. It was loaded, yes, but long ago, and
one cartridge was missing.
"Well, how will it be?" He put it to his temple and hesitated a
little, but as soon as he remembered Stepanida -- his decision not
to see her, his struggle, temptation, fall, and renewed struggle -
- he shuddered with horror. "No, thiss is better," and he pulled
the trigger...
When Liza ran into the room -- she had only had time to step down
from the balcony -- he was lying face downwards on the floor:
black, warm blood was gushing from the wound, and his corpse was
twitching.
There was an inquest. No one could understand or explain the
suicide. It never even entered his uncle's head that its cause
could be anything in common with the confession Eugene had made to
him two months previously.
Varvara Alexeevna assured them that she had always foreseen it.
It had been evident from his way of disputing. Neither Liza nor
Mary Pavlovna could at all understand why it had happened, but
still they did not believe what the doctors said, namely, that he
was mentally deranged -- a psychopath. They were quite unable to
accept this, for they knew he was saner than hundreds of their
acquaintances.
And indeed if Eugene Irtenev was mentally deranged everyone is in
the same case; the most mentally deranged people are certainly
those who see in others indications of insanity they do not notice
in themselves.
VARIATION OF THE CONCLUSION TO *THE DEVIL*
"To kill, yes. there are only two ways out: to kill my wife, or
to kill her. For it is impossible to live like this," said he to
himself, and going up to the table he took from it a revolver and,
having examined it -- one cartridge was wanting -- he put it in
his trouser pocket.
"My God! What am I doing?" he suddenly exclaimed, and folding his
hands he began to pray.
"O God, help me and deliver me! Thou knowest that I do not desire
evil, but by myself am powerless. Help me," said he, making the
sign of the cross on his breast before the icon.
"Yes, I can control myself. I will go out, walk about and
think things over."
He went to the entrance-hall, put on his overcoat and went out
onto the porch. Unconsciously his steps took him past the garden
along the field path to the outlying farmstead. There the
thrashing machine was still droning and the cries of the driver
lads were heard. He entered the barn. She was there. He saw her
at once. She was raking up the corn, and on seeing him she ran
briskly and merrily about, with laughing eyes, raking up the
scattered corn with agility. eugene could not help watching her
though he did not wish to do so. He only recollected himself when
she was no longer in sight. The clerk informed him that they were
now finishing thrashing the corn that had been beaten down -- that
was why it was going slower and the output was less. Eugene went
up to the drum, which occasionally gave a knock as sheaves not
evenly fed in passed under it, and he asked the clerk if there
were many such sheaves of beaten-down corn.
"There will be five cartloads of it."
"Then look here..." began Eugene, but he did not finish the
sentence. She had gone close up to the drum and was raking the
corn from under it, and she scorched him with her laughing eyes.
That look spoke of a merry, careless love between them, of the
fact that she knew he wanted her and had come to her shed, and
that she as always was ready to live and be merry with him
regardless of all conditions or consequences. Eugene felt himself
to be in her power but did not wish to yield.
He remembered his prayer and tried to repeat it. He began
saying it to himself, but at once felt that it was useless. A
single thought now engrossed him entirely: how to arrange a
meeting with her so that the others should not notice it.
"If we finish this lot today, are we to start on a fresh stack or
leave it till tomorrow?" asked the clerk.
"Yes, yes," replied Eugene, involuntarily following her to the
heap to which with the other women she was raking the corn.
"But can I really not master myself?" said he to himself. "Have I
really perished? O God! But there is not God. There is only a
devil. And it is she. She has possessed me. But I won't, I
won't! A devil, yes, a devil."
Again he went up to her, drew the revolver from his pocket and
shot her, once, twice, thrice, in the back. She ran a few steps
and fell on the heap of corn.
"My God, my God! What is that?" cried the women.
"No, it was not an accident. I killed her on purpose," cried
Eugene. "Send for the police-officer."
He went home and went to his study and locked himself in,
without speaking to his wife.
"Do not come to me," he cried to her through the door. "You will
know all about it."
An hour later he rang, and bade the man-servant who answered the
bell: "Go and find out whether Stepanida is alive."
The servant already knew all about it, and told him she had
died an hour ago.
"Well, all right. Now leave me alone. When the police
officer or the magistrate comes, let me know."
The police officer and magistrate arrived next morning, and
Eugene, having bidden his wife and baby farewell, was taken to
prison.
He was tried. It was during the early days of trial by jury, and
the verdict was one of temporary insanity, and he was sentenced
only to perform church penance.
He had been kept in prison for nine months and was then
confined in a monastery for one month.
He had begun to drink while still in prison, continued to do so in
the monastery, and returned home an enfeebled, irresponsible
drunkard.
Varvara Alexeevna assured them that she had always predicted this.
it was, she said, evident from the way he disputed. Neither Liza
nor Mary Pavlovna could understand how the affair had happened,
but for all that, they did not believe what the doctors said,
namely, that he was mentally deranged -- a psychopath. They could
not accept that, for the knew that he was saner than hundreds of
their acquaintances.
And indeed, if Eugene Iretnev was mentally deranged when he
committed this crime, then everyone is similarly insane. The most
mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in others
indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves.
(
geocities.com/cmcarpenter28)