Nikitin put out the candle and got into bed. But he felt disinclined to lie down and to sleep. He felt as though his head were immense and empty as a barn, and that new, peculiar thoughts were wandering about in it like tall shadows. He thought that, apart from the soft light of the ikon lamp, that beamed upon their quiet domestic happiness, that apart from this little world in which he and this cat lived so peacefully and happily, there was another world. . . . And he had a passionate, poignant longing to be in that other world, to work himself at some factory or big workshop, to address big audiences, to write, to publish, to raise a stir, to exhaust himself, to suffer. . . . He wanted something that would engross him till he forgot himself, ceased to care for the personal happiness which yielded him only sensations so monotonous. And suddenly there rose vividly before his imagination the figure of Shebaldin with his clean-shaven face, saying to him with horror: 'You haven't even read Lessing! You are quite behind the times! How you have gone to seed!'
Masha woke up and again drank some water. He glanced at her neck, at her plump shoulders and throat, and remembered the word the brigadier-general had used in church -- 'rose.'
'Rose,' he muttered, and laughed.
His laugh was answered by a sleepy growl from Mushka under the bed: 'Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga . . . !'
A heavy anger sank like a cold weight on his heart, and he felt tempted to say something rude to Masha, and even to jump up and hit her; his heart began throbbing.
'So then,' he asked, restraining himself, 'since I went to your house, I was bound in duty to marry you?'
'Of course. You know that very well.'
'That's nice.' And a minute later he repeated: 'That's nice.'
To relieve the throbbing of his heart, and to avoid saying too much, Nikitin went to his study and lay down on the sofa, without a pillow; then he lay on the floor on the carpet.
'What nonsense it is!' he said to reassure himself. 'You are a teacher, you are working in the noblest of callings. . . . What need have you of any other world? What rubbish!'
But almost immediately he told himself with conviction that he was not a real teacher, but simply a government employe, as commonplace and mediocre as the Czech who taught Greek. He had never had a vocation for teaching, he knew nothing of the theory of teaching, and never had been interested in the subject; he did not know how to treat children; he did not understand the significance of what he taught, and perhaps did not teach the right things. Poor Ippolit Ippolititch had been frankly stupid, and all the boys, as well as his colleagues, knew what he was and what to expect from him; but he, Nikitin, like the Czech, knew how to conceal his stupidity and cleverly deceived every one by pretending that, thank God, his teaching was a success. These new ideas frightened Nikitin; he rejected them, called them stupid, and believed that all this was due to his nerves, that he would laugh at himself.
And he did, in fact, by the morning laugh at himself and call himself an old woman; but it was clear to him that his peace of mind was lost, perhaps, for ever, and that in that little two-story house happiness was henceforth impossible for him. He realized that the illusion had evaporated, and that a new life of unrest and clear sight was beginning which was incompatible with peace and personal happiness.
Next day, which was Sunday, he was at the school chapel, and there met his colleagues and the director. It seemed to him that they were entirely preoccupied with concealing their ignorance and discontent with life, and he, too, to conceal his uneasiness, smiled affably and talked of trivialities. Then he went to the station and saw the mail train come in and go out, and it was agreeable to him to be alone and not to have to talk to any one.
At home he found Varya and his father-in-law, who had come to dinner. Varya's eyes were red with crying, and she complained of a headache, while Shelestov ate a great deal, saying that young men nowadays were unreliable, and that there was very little gentlemanly feeling among them.
'It's loutishness!' he said. 'I shall tell him so to his face: 'It's loutishness, sir,' I shall say.'
Nikitin smiled affably and helped Masha to look after their guests, but after dinner he went to his study and shut the door.
The March sun was shining brightly in at the windows and shedding its warm rays on the table. It was only the twentieth of the month, but already the cabmen were driving with wheels, and the starlings were noisy in the garden. It was just the weather in which Masha would come in, put one arm round his neck, tell him the horses were saddled or the chaise was at the door, and ask him what she should put on to keep warm. Spring was beginning as exquisitely as last spring, and it promised the same joys. . . . But Nikitin was thinking that it would be nice to take a holiday and go to Moscow, and stay at his old lodgings there. In the next room they were drinking coffee and talking of Captain Polyansky, while he tried not to listen and wrote in his diary: 'Where am I, my God? I am surrounded by vulgarity and vulgarity. Wearisome, insignificant people, pots of sour cream, jugs of milk, cockroaches, stupid women. . . . There is nothing more terrible, mortifying, and distressing than vulgarity. I must escape from here, I must escape today, or I shall go out of my mind!'
NOTES
title: a more recent translator suggests 'The Russian Master'
Count Nulin: Count Zero, after Pushkin's comic poem
Marie Godefroi: a famous circus bareback rider
Shtchedrin: M. E. Saltykov (1821-1889), satirist and novelist, used the pseudonym Shchedrin
Dostoevsky: Fyodor M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881), the famous novelist
Onyegin and then from Boris Godunov:
Lermontov: Mikhail Y. Lermontov (1814-1841) poet and novelist
The Woman who was a Sinner: a poem by Alexey K. Tolstoy (1817-1875); amateurs recited it so often it became a cliche and Chekhov later used the poem in his play
Lessing: G. E. Lessing's 1769 treatise on drama was a central text in dramatic theory
'not for nothing...hussar': inexact quote from Lermontov
Battle of Kalka: 1223 battle in which the Russians were defeated by a Mongol-Tatar army
capes in Siberia: literally, 'Cape Chukotskys,' located opposite the Bering Straits
