be better to stand it up on the table against the wall, and to light the lamp before it?”
“No, better as it is,” said mother.
“I dare say you’re right; it might seem making too much fuss. . . .”
I did not understand at the time, but this ikon had long ago been verbally bequeathed by Makar Ivanovitch to Andrey Petrovitch, and mother was preparing to give it to him now.
It was five o’clock in the afternoon; we were still talking when I noticed a sudden quiver in mother’s face; she drew herself up quickly and began listening, while Tatyana Pavlovna, who was speaking at the time, went on talking without noticing anything. I at once turned to the door, and an instant later saw Andrey Petrovitch in the doorway. He had come in by the back stairs, through the kitchen and the passage, and mother was the only one of us who had heard his footsteps. Now I will describe the whole of the insane scene that followed, word by word, and gesture by gesture; it was brief.
To begin with, I did not, at the first glance anyway, observe the slightest change in his face. He was dressed as always, that is almost foppishly; in his hand was a small but expensive nosegay of fresh flowers. He went up and handed it to mother with a smile; she was looking at him with frightened perplexity, but she took the nosegay, and a faint flush at once glowed on her pale cheeks, and there was a gleam of pleasure in her eyes.
“I knew you would take it like that, Sonia,” he said. As we all got up when he came in, he took Liza’s easy- chair, which was on the left of mother, and sat down in it without noticing he was taking her seat. And so he was quite close to the little table on which the ikon was lying.
“Good evening to you all; I felt I must bring you this nosegay on your birthday, Sonia, and so I did not go to the funeral, as I could not come to the grave with a nosegay; and you didn’t expect me at the funeral, I know. The old man certainly won’t be angry at these flowers, for he bequeathed us joy himself, didn’t he? I believe he’s here somewhere in the room.”
Mother looked at him strangely; Tatyana Pavlovna seemed to wince.
“Who’s here in the room?” she asked.
“Makar Ivanovitch. Never mind. You know that the man who is not entirely a believer in these marvels is always more prone to superstition. . . . But I had better tell you about the nosegay: how I succeeded in bringing it I don’t know. Three times on the way I had a longing to throw it in the snow and trample on it.”
Mother shuddered.
“A terrible longing. You must have pity on me and my poor head, Sonia. I longed to, because they are too beautiful. Is there any object in the world more beautiful than a flower? I carried it, with snow and frost all round. Our frost and flowers — such an incongruity! I wasn’t thinking of that though, I simply longed to crush it because it was so lovely. Sonia, though I’m disappearing again now, I shall soon come back, for I believe I shall be afraid. If I am afraid, who will heal me of my terrors, where can I find an angel like Sonia? . . . What is this ikon you’ve got here? Ah, Makar Ivanovitch’s, I remember. It belonged to his family, his ancestors; he would never part from it; I know, I remember he left it to me; I quite remember . . . and I fancy it’s an unorthodox one. Let me have a look at it.”
He took up the ikon, carried it to the light and looked at it intently, but, after holding it a few seconds only, laid it on the table before him. I was astonished, but all his strange speech was uttered so quickly that I had not time to reflect upon it. All I remember is that a sick feeling of dread began to clutch at my heart. Mother’s alarm had passed into perplexity and compassion; she looked on him as some one, above all, to be pitied; it had sometimes happened in the past that he had talked almost as strangely as now. Liza, for some reason, became suddenly very pale, and strangely made a sign to me with a motion of her head towards him. But most frightened of all was Tatyana Pavlovna.
“What’s the matter with you, Andrey Petrovitch darling?” she inquired cautiously.
“I really don’t know, Tatyana Pavlovna dear, what’s the matter with me. Don’t be uneasy, I still remember that you are Tatyana Pavlovna, and that you are dear. But I’ve only come for a minute though; I should like to say something nice to Sonia, and I keep trying to find the right word, though my heart is full of words, which I don’t know how to utter; yes, really, all such strange words somehow. Do you know I feel as though I were split in two”— he looked round at us all with a terribly serious face and with perfectly genuine candour. “Yes, I am really split in two mentally, and I’m horribly afraid of it. It’s just as though one’s second self were standing beside one; one is sensible and rational oneself, but the other self is impelled to do something perfectly senseless, and sometimes very funny; and suddenly you notice that you are longing to do that amusing thing, goodness knows why; that is you want to, as it were, against your will; though you fight against it with all your might, you want to. I once knew a doctor who suddenly began whistling in church, at his father’s funeral. I really was afraid to come to the funeral to-day, because, for some reason, I was possessed by a firm conviction that I should begin to whistle or laugh in church, like that unfortunate doctor, who came to rather a bad end. . . . And I really don’t know why, but I’ve been haunted by the thought of that doctor all day; I am so haunted by him that I can’t shake him off. Do you know, Sonia, here I’ve taken up the ikon again” (he had picked it up and was turning it about in his hand), “and do you know, I have a dreadful longing now, this very second, to smash it against the stove, against this corner. I am sure it would break into two halves — neither more nor less.”
What was most striking was that he said this without the slightest trace of affectation or whimsical caprice; he spoke quite simply, but that made it all the more terrible; and he seemed really frightened of something; I noticed suddenly that his hands were trembling a little.
“Andrey Petrovitch!” cried mother, clasping her hands.
“Let the ikon alone, let it alone, Andrey Petrovitch, let it alone, put it down!” cried Tatyana Pavlovna, jumping up. “Undress sad go to bed. Arkady, run for the doctor!”
“But . . . but what a fuss you’re making,” he said gently, scrutinising us all intently. Then he suddenly put both elbows on the table and leaned his head in his hands.
“I’m scaring you, but I tell you what, my friends, try to comfort me a little, sit down again, and all be calm, if only for a minute! Sonia, I did not come to talk of this at all; I came to tell you something, but it was quite different. Good-bye, Sonia, I’m going off on my wanderings again, as I have left you several times before . . . but, no doubt, I shall come back to you again one day — in that sense you are inevitable. To whom should I come back, when all is over? Believe, Sonia, that I’ve come to you now as to an angel, and not as to an enemy; how could you be an enemy to me, how could you be an enemy! Don’t imagine that I came to break this ikon, for do you know, Sonia, I am still longing to break it all the same. . . .”
When Tatyana Pavlovna had cried out “Let the ikon alone,” she had snatched it out of his hands and was holding it in hers. Suddenly, at his last word, he jumped up impulsively, snatched the ikon in a flash from Tatyana’s hands, and with a ferocious swing smashed it with all his might against the corner of the tiled stove. The ikon was broken into two pieces. . . . He turned to us and his pale face suddenly flushed red, almost purple, and every feature in his face quivered and worked.
“Don’t take it for a symbol, Sonia; it’s not as Makar’s legacy I have broken it, but only to break something . . . and, anyway, I shall come back to you, my last angel! You may take it as a symbol, though; of course it must have been so! . . .”
And with sudden haste he went out of the room, going again through the kitchen (where he had left his fur coat and cap). I won’t attempt to describe what happened to mother: in mortal terror she stood clasping her hands above her, and she suddenly screamed after him:
“Andrey Petrovitch, come back, if only to say good-bye, dear!”
“He’ll come, Sofia, he’ll come! Don’t worry yourself!” Tatyana shrieked, trembling all over in a terrible rage, a really brutal rage. “Why, you heard he promised to come back himself! Let him go and amuse himself for the last time, the fool. He’s getting old — and who’ll nurse him when he’s bedridden except you, his old nurse? Why, he tells you so himself, he’s not ashamed. . . .”
As for us, Liza was in a swoon; I would have run after him, but I rushed to mother. I threw my arms round her and held her tight. Lukerya ran in with a glass of water for Liza, but mother soon came to herself, she sank on the sofa, hid her face in her hands, and began crying.
“But . . . but you’d better run after him,” Tatyana Pavlovna shouted suddenly with all her might, as though she had suddenly waked up. “Go along . . . go along . . . overtake him, don’t leave him for a minute, go along, go along!” She pulled me forcibly away from mother. “Oh, I shall run myself.”
“Arkasha, oh, run after him, make haste!” mother cried suddenly, too.
I ran off, full speed, through the kitchen and through the yard, but there was no sign of him anywhere. In the
