‘‘But here is the question,’’ I went on. ‘‘Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?
‘‘The thief who hung on the cross23 managed to recover the joy of life and a bold, realizable hope, though he probably had no more than an hour left to live. You still have long years ahead of you, and most likely I will not die as soon as it seems. What if, by a miracle, the present should turn out to be a dream, a terrible nightmare, and we should wake up renewed, pure, strong, proud of our truth? . . . Sweet dreams burn me, and I can hardly breathe from excitement. I want terribly to live, I want our life to be holy, high, and solemn, like the heavenly vault. Let us live! The sun does not rise twice a day, and life is not given us twice—hold fast to the remains of your life and save them . . .’’
I did not write a word more. I had many thoughts in my head, but they were all scattered and wouldn’t fit into the lines. Without finishing the letter, I signed it with my rank, name, and family name, and went into the study. It was dark. I felt for the desk and put the letter on it. I must have bumped into the furniture in the darkness and made a noise.
‘‘Who’s there?’’ an alarmed voice came from the drawing room.
And just then the clock on the desk delicately struck one.
XIII
IN THE DARKNESS I spent at least half a minute scratching the door, feeling it over, then slowly opened it and went into the drawing room. Zinaida Fyodorovna was lying on a couch and, propped on her elbow, met me with her eyes. Not daring to start talking, I slowly walked past her, and she followed me with her gaze. I stood in the reception room for a while and again walked past, and she looked at me attentively and with perplexity, even with fear. Finally I stopped and forced myself to speak:
‘‘He won’t come back!’’
She quickly stood up and looked at me, not understanding.
‘‘He won’t come back!’’ I repeated, and my heart began pounding terribly. ‘‘He won’t come back, because he never left Petersburg. He’s living at Pekarsky’s.’’
She understood and believed me—that I could see from her sudden pallor and the way she abruptly crossed her hands on her breast with fear and entreaty. In a moment, her recent past flashed through her memory, she put things together and saw the whole truth with implacable clarity. But at the same time, she remembered that I was a servant, an inferior being... A rascal with tousled hair, with a face red from fever, maybe drunk, in some sort of banal coat, had rudely interfered in her private life, and that offended her. She said to me sternly:
‘‘Nobody’s asking you. Get out of here.’’
‘‘Oh, believe me!’’ I said impulsively, holding my arms out to her. ‘‘I’m not a servant, I’m as much a free person as you are!’’
I gave my name and quickly, quickly, so that she wouldn’t interrupt me or go to her room, explained who I was and why I was living there. This new discovery struck her more strongly than the first one. Earlier, she still had a hope that the servant was lying or mistaken, or had said something stupid, while now, after my confession, she had no doubts left. By the expression of her unhappy eyes and face, which suddenly became unattractive, because it turned old and lost its softness, I saw that it was unbearably painful for her and that nothing good could come of this conversation. Yet I went on impulsively:
‘‘The senator and the inspection were invented to deceive you. In January, just as now, he didn’t go anywhere, but lived at Pekarsky’s, and I saw him every day and participated in the deception. You were a burden, your presence here was hateful, you were laughed at... If you could have heard how he and his friends here scoffed at you and your love, you wouldn’t have stayed here even one minute! Flee this place! Flee!’’
‘‘Well, so what?’’ she said in a trembling voice and passed her hand over her hair. ‘‘Well, so what? Let it be.’’
Her eyes were filled with tears, her lips trembled, and her whole face was strikingly pale and breathed wrath. Orlov’s crude, petty lie made her indignant and seemed despicable and ridiculous to her; she was smiling, and I didn’t like this smile of hers.
‘‘Well, so what?’’ she repeated and again passed her hand over her hair. ‘‘Let it be. He imagines I’d die of humiliation, but I find it . . . funny. He needn’t be hiding.’’ She stepped away from the piano and said, shrugging her shoulders, ‘‘He needn’t . . . It would be simpler to have a talk than to hide and knock about in other people’s apartments. I have eyes, I saw it long ago...and was only waiting for him to come back to have a final talk.’’
Then she sat in the armchair by the table and, lowering her head onto the armrest of the sofa, wept bitterly. Only one candle was burning in a candelabra in the drawing room, and it was dark around the armchair where she sat, but I saw how her head and shoulders shook and her hair, coming undone, covered her neck, face, hands... In her quiet, regular weeping, not hysterical, but ordinary woman’s weeping, one could hear insult, humiliated pride, offense, and something irreparable, hopeless, which it was impossible to set right and to which it was impossible to become accustomed. In my agitated, suffering soul, her weeping found an echo; I forgot about my illness and about everything in the world, paced about the drawing room, and muttered perplexedly:
‘‘What sort of life is this? . . . Oh, it’s impossible to live this way! Impossible! It’s madness, crime, not life!’’
‘‘What humiliation!’’ she said through her tears. ‘‘To live together... to smile at me, and all the while I’m a burden to him, laughable . . . Oh, what humiliation!’’
She raised her head and, looking at me with tearful eyes through her hair, wet with tears, and straightening a strand of hair that kept her from seeing me, asked:
‘‘Did they laugh?’’
‘‘These people made fun of you, and of your love, and of Turgenev, whom you have supposedly read too much of. And if we both die of despair right now, they’ll also make fun of that. They’ll make a funny story out of it and tell it at your panikhida. Why talk about them?’’ I said with impatience. ‘‘We must flee this place. I can’t stay here a minute longer.’’
She started weeping again, and I stepped towards the piano and sat down.
‘‘What are we waiting for?’’ I asked dejectedly. ‘‘It’s past two o’clock.’’
