short, it’s true, but bright and joyful— when they knew that for half an hour I belonged not to science, not to my students, but to them alone and no one else. No more the ability to get drunk on a single glass, no more Agasha, no more bream with kasha, no more the noise produced by small dinner scandals, like a fight between the cat and dog under the table or the bandage falling from Katya’s cheek into her plate of soup.
Describing our present-day dinners is as unappetizing as eating them. My wife’s face has an expression of solemnity, an assumed gravity, and her usual worry. She glances uneasily over our plates and says: “I see you don’t like the roast … Tell me: don’t you really?” And I have to answer: “You needn’t worry, my dear, the roast is quite delicious.” And she: “You always stand up for me, Nikolai Stepanych, and never tell the truth. Why, then, has Alexander Adolfovich eaten so little?” and it goes on in the same vein throughout the meal. Liza laughs jerkily and narrows her eyes. I look at the two of them, and only now, at dinner, does it become perfectly clear to me that their inner life escaped my observation long ago. I have the feeling that once upon a time I lived at home with a real family, but now I’m the dinner guest of someone who is not my real wife and am looking at someone who is not the real Liza. An abrupt change has taken place in them both, I missed the long process by which this change came about, and it’s no wonder I don’t understand anything. Why did the change take place? I don’t know. Maybe the whole trouble is that God gave my wife and daughter less strength than He gave me. Since childhood I’ve been accustomed to standing up to external circumstances, and I’ve become rather seasoned; such catastrophes in life as renown, the rank of general, the change from well-being to living beyond one’s means, acquaintance with the nobility, and so on, have barely touched me, and I’ve remained safe and sound; but on my weak, unseasoned wife and Liza it all fell like a big block of snow, and crushed them.
The young ladies and Gnekker are talking about fugues, counterpoint, about singers and pianists, about Bach and Brahms, and my wife, afraid to be suspected of musical ignorance, smiles at them sympathetically and murmurs: “That’s lovely … Really? You don’t say …” Gnekker eats gravely, cracks jokes gravely, and listens condescendingly to the young ladies’ observations. Every once in a while he feels a desire to speak bad French, and then for some reason he finds it necessary to address me as
And I am morose. Obviously I inhibit them all, and they inhibit me. Never before have I been closely acquainted with class antagonism, but now I’m tormented precisely by something of that sort. I try to find only bad features in Gnekker, quickly find them, and am tormented that in the suitor’s place there sits a man not of my circle. His presence affects me badly in yet another respect. Usually, when I’m by myself or in the company of people I like, I never think of my own merits, and if I do begin to think of them, they seem as insignificant to me as if I had become a scientist only yesterday; but in the presence of people like Gnekker, my merits seem like a lofty mountain, its peak disappearing into the clouds, while at its foot, barely visible to the eye, the Gnekkers shift about.
After dinner I go to my study and there light my pipe, the only one of the whole day, a leftover from a long-past bad habit of puffing smoke from morning till night. While I’m smoking, my wife comes in and sits down to talk with me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what the talk will be about.
“I must have a serious talk with you, Nikolai Stepanych,” she begins. “It’s about Liza … Why aren’t you paying attention?”
“Meaning what?”
“You make it seem as if you don’t notice anything, but that’s not good. It’s impossible to be unconcerned … Gnekker has intentions towards Liza … What do you say?”
“That he’s a bad man I cannot say, since I don’t know him, but that I dislike him, I’ve already told you a thousand times.”
“But this is impossible … impossible …”
She gets up and paces in agitation.
“It’s impossible to deal this way with such a serious step …” she says. “When it’s a question of your daughter’s happiness, you must set aside everything personal. I know you dislike him … Very well … If we reject him now, break it all off, what assurance do you have that Liza won’t complain about us for the rest of her life? There aren’t so many suitors nowadays, and it may so happen that no other party comes along … He loves Liza very much, and she apparently likes him … Of course, he has no definite position, but what can we do? God willing, he’ll get himself established somewhere in time. He’s from a good family and he’s rich.”
“How do you know that?”
“He said so. His father has a big house in Kharkov and an estate near Kharkov. In short, Nikolai Stepanych, you absolutely must go to Kharkov.”
“What for?”
“You can make inquiries … You have acquaintances among the professors there, they’ll help you. I’d go myself, but I’m a woman. I can’t …”
“I won’t go to Kharkov,” I say morosely.
My wife gets alarmed, and an expression of tormenting pain appears on her face.
“For God’s sake, Nikolai Stepanych!” she implores me, sobbing. “For God’s sake, relieve me of this burden! I’m suffering!”
It’s becoming painful to look at her.
“Very well, Varya,” I say tenderly. “If you wish, so be it, I’ll go to Kharkov and do whatever you like.”
She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes to her room to cry. I remain alone.
A little later a lamp is brought in. Familiar shadows I’ve long since grown weary of are cast on the walls and floor by the chairs and the lamp shade, and when I look at them, it seems to me that it’s already night and that my cursed insomnia is beginning. I lie down, then get up and pace the room, then lie down again … Usually after dinner, before evening, my nervous agitation reaches its highest pitch. I start weeping for no reason and hide my head under the pillow. In those moments I’m afraid somebody may come in, afraid I may die suddenly; I’m ashamed of my tears, and generally there is something unbearable in my soul. I feel that I can no longer stand the sight of my lamp, the books, the shadows on the floor, or the sound of voices coming from the drawing room. Some invisible and incomprehensible force is roughly pushing me out of the house. I jump up, hastily put on my coat and hat, and cautiously, so that the family won’t notice, go outside. Where to?
The answer to that question has long been sitting in my brain: to Katya.
III
As usual, she’s lying on a Turkish divan or couch and reading something. On seeing me, she raises her head indolently, sits up, and gives me her hand.
