The silence continued, and suddenly at my temple, through my hair, I felt the cold touch of steel. You may ask: did I have any firm hope of salvation? I’ll answer you as before God: I had no hope, except perhaps for one chance in a hundred. Why, then, did I accept death? But I will ask: what did I need life for after that revolver, raised against me by the being I adored? Besides, I knew with all the strength of my being that at that very moment a fight was going on between us, a terrible life-and-death combat, the combat of that same coward of yesterday, driven out by his comrades for cowardice. I knew it, and she knew it, if only she had guessed the truth that I was not asleep.
Maybe this isn’t so, maybe I didn’t think that then, but it had to be so even without thinking, because all I did afterward, in every hour of my life, was think of it.
But again you will ask a question: why did I not save her from evildoing? Oh, I asked myself this question a thousand times afterward—every time that, with a chill in my spine, I recalled that second. But my soul was in dark despair then: I was perishing, I was perishing myself, could I have saved anyone else? And how do you know whether I wanted to save anyone then? Who knows what I might have felt then?
My consciousness, however, was seething; seconds passed, there was dead silence; she was still standing over me—and suddenly I shivered with hope! I quickly opened my eyes. She was no longer in the room. I got up: I was victorious—and she was forever defeated!
I came out to have tea. The samovar was always served in the front room, and she always poured tea. I sat down at the table silently and accepted the glass of tea from her. After about five minutes I glanced at her. She was terribly pale, still paler than yesterday, and was looking at me. And suddenly—and suddenly, seeing that I was looking at her, she smiled palely with her pale lips, a timid question in her eyes. “That means she’s still in doubt and is asking herself: does he know or doesn’t he, did he see or didn’t he?” I looked away indifferently. After tea I locked the shop, went to the market, and bought an iron bed and a screen. Coming home, I ordered the bed put in the big room and partitioned off with the screen. It was a bed for her, but I didn’t say a word to her. Even without words she understood from this bed that I “had seen and knew everything” and that there was no longer any doubt. I left the revolver on the table for the night, as usual. At night she silently lay down on this new bed: the marriage was dissolved, she was “defeated, but not forgiven.” During the night she became delirious, and by morning was in a fever. She lay ill for six weeks.
CHAPTER TWO
I
THE DREAM OF PRIDE
LUKERYA HAS just announced that she’s not going to live with me, and once the lady is buried, she’s quitting. I prayed on my knees for five minutes, and wanted to pray for an hour, but I kept thinking, thinking, and my thoughts are all sick, and my head is sick—what’s the point of praying—nothing but sin! It’s also strange that I don’t want to sleep: in great, in all too great grief, after the first very strong outbursts, one always wants to sleep. They say those condemned to death sleep extremely soundly on their last night. That’s how it should be, it’s according to nature, otherwise one’s strength would fail… I lay down on the sofa, but didn’t fall asleep …
… For the six weeks of her illness then, we looked after her day and night—I, Lukerya, and a trained nurse from the hospital, whom I had hired. I didn’t spare the money, and I even wanted to spend on her. I invited Dr. Schroeder and paid him ten roubles per visit. When she regained consciousness, I tried to keep out of her sight. But, anyhow, what am I describing. When she was on her feet completely, she quietly and silently sat in my room at a special table, which I also bought for her at that time… Yes, it’s true, we were perfectly silent; that is, we started talking later, but—all ordinary things. I, of course, purposely did not become expansive, but I noticed very well that she, too, was as if glad not to say an extra word. I thought this perfectly natural on her part: “She’s too shaken and defeated,” I thought, “and, of course, she must be allowed to forget and get used to it.” In this fashion we kept silent, but every minute I was preparing myself for the future. I thought she was doing the same, and it was terribly entertaining for me to keep guessing: precisely what is she thinking about now?
I’ll say more: oh, of course, no one knows how much I endured, lamenting over her during her illness. But I lamented to myself, and suppressed the groans in my breast even from Lukerya. I couldn’t imagine, couldn’t even suppose, that she might die without having learned everything. But when she was out of danger and her health began to return—this I remember—I quickly and very much calmed down. What’s more, I decided to
You see: in my life there was one terrible external circumstance, which until then, that is, until that very catastrophe with my wife, had weighed on me every day and every hour—namely, the loss of my reputation and this retirement from the regiment. In two words: there had been a tyrannical injustice against me. True, my comrades disliked me for my difficult character—my ridiculous character, perhaps—though it often happens that what is most sublime for you, what is cherished and revered by you, at the same time for some reason makes the crowd of your comrades laugh. Oh, I was never liked, even at school. Never and nowhere was I liked. Lukerya is also unable to like me. The incident with the regiment, though a consequence of the dislike for me, was undoubtedly of an accidental character. I say that because there is nothing more offensive and insufferable than to perish from an accident that might or might not have happened, from an unfortunate conglomeration of circumstances that might have passed over like a cloud. For an intellectual being it is humiliating. The accident was as follows.
During intermission at the theater, I stepped out to the buffet. The hussar A———v, suddenly coming in, began loudly telling two fellow hussars, in the presence of other officers and the public, that Captain Bezumtsev of our regiment had just caused a scandal in the corridor, “and appears to be drunk.” The conversation did not catch on, and the whole thing was a mistake, because Captain Bezumtsev was not drunk, and the scandal was in fact no scandal. The hussars started talking about other things, and that was the end of it, but next day the story penetrated our regiment, and right away they started talking about me being the only one from our regiment who was in the buffet, and when the hussar A———v made an impudent reference to Captain Bezumtsev, I did not go up to A———v and stop him with a rebuke. But why on earth should I? If he had a bone to pick with Bezumtsev, that was their personal affair, and why should I get involved in it? Meanwhile the officers began to say that the affair was not personal, but also concerned the regiment, and since of the officers of our regiment I was the only one there, I had thus proved to all the other officers and the public in the buffet that there could be officers of our regiment who were not so ticklish about honor—their own or that of their regiment. I could not agree with such a finding. I was given to know that I could still mend everything, if even now, late though it was, I should wish to have a formal talk with A———v. I did not wish to do that and, being annoyed, proudly refused. Right after that I handed in my resignation—that’s the whole story. I came out proud, but crushed in spirit. My will and reason collapsed. Just then it also happened that my sister’s husband in Moscow squandered our small fortune, including my share of it—a tiny share, but I was left penniless in the street. I could have taken a private position, but I didn’t: after a splendid uniform, I couldn’t work somewhere in railways. And so—if it’s shame, let it be shame, if it’s disgrace, let it be disgrace, if it’s degradation, let it be degradation, and the worse the better—that’s what I chose. Here follow three years of dark memories and even Vyazemsky’s house. A year and a half ago a rich old woman, my godmother, died in Moscow, unexpectedly leaving me, among others, three thousand in her will. I thought a little
