Stories (33 page)

The Dormition fast
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arrived unnoticed, and soon after it the day of the wedding, which, at the insistence of Yegor Semyonych, was celebrated “with a smash,” that is, with senseless revelry that went on for two days and nights. The eating and drinking ran to about three thousand roubles, but the bad hired music, the loud toasting, and the rushing about of servants made it impossible to appreciate the taste of the expensive wines and the extraordinary delicacies ordered from Moscow.

Once on one of the long winter nights Kovrin was lying in bed reading a French novel. Poor Tanya, who had
headaches in the evenings from being unused to city life, had long been asleep and occasionally in her sleep murmured some incoherent phrases.

The clock struck three. Kovrin put out the candle and lay down; for a long time he lay with closed eyes but could not sleep, because, as it seemed to him, the room was very hot and Tanya was murmuring. At four-thirty he lit the candle again and this time saw the black monk, who was sitting in the armchair near the bed.

“Hello,” said the monk and, after some silence, he asked: “What are you thinking about now?”

“About fame,” replied Kovrin. “In the French novel I’ve just been reading, there is a man, a young scholar, who does foolish things and pines away from a longing for fame. This longing for fame is incomprehensible to me.”

“Because you’re intelligent. You look upon fame with indifference, as upon a plaything that does not interest you.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Celebrity has no charm for you. Is it flattering, or amusing, or instructive to have your name carved on a tombstone and then have time erase the inscription along with the gilding? Fortunately, though, there are too many of you for weak human memory to be able to preserve your names.”

“Agreed,” said Kovrin. “And why remember them? But let’s talk about something else. About happiness, for instance. What is happiness?”

When the clock struck five, he was sitting on his bed, his feet hanging down on the rug, and, addressing the monk, was saying:

“In ancient times one happy man finally became frightened of his happiness—so great it was!—and, to appease the gods, sacrificed his favorite ring to them. You know? I, too, like Polycrates,
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am beginning to worry a little about my happiness. It seems strange to me that I experience nothing but joy from morning till evening. It fills the whole of me and stifles all my other feelings. I don’t know what sadness, sorrow, or boredom is. I’m not asleep now, I have insomnia, but I’m not bored. I say it seriously: I’m beginning to be puzzled.”

“But why?” The monk was amazed. “Is joy a supernatural feeling? Should it not be the normal state of man? The higher man is in his mental and moral development, the freer he is, the greater the pleasure that life affords him. Socrates, Diogenes, and Marcus Aurelius experienced joy, not sorrow. And the Apostle says: ‘Rejoice evermore.’
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Rejoice, then, and be happy.”

“And what if the gods suddenly get angry?” Kovrin joked and laughed. “If they take my comfort from me and make me suffer cold and hunger, it will hardly be to my liking.”

Tanya had awakened meanwhile and was looking at her husband with amazement and horror. He was addressing the armchair, gesticulating and laughing: his eyes shone, and there was something strange in his laughter.

“Andryusha, who are you talking to?” she asked, seizing the arm he had stretched out to the monk. “Andryusha! Who?”

“Eh? Who?” Kovrin was embarrassed. “To him … He’s sitting there,” he said, pointing to the black monk.

“No one is there … no one! Andryusha, you’re ill!”

Tanya embraced her husband and pressed herself to him, as if protecting him from visions, and she covered his eyes with her hand.

“You’re ill!” she began to sob, trembling all over. “Forgive me, my sweet, my dear, but I’ve long noticed that your soul is troubled by something … You’re mentally ill, Andryusha …”

Her trembling communicated itself to him. He glanced once more at the chair, which was now empty, suddenly felt a weakness in his arms and legs, became frightened, and began to dress.

“It’s nothing, Tanya, nothing …” he murmured, trembling. “In fact, I am a bit unwell … it’s time I admitted it.”

“I’ve long noticed it … and papa has noticed it,” she said, trying to hold back her sobs. “You talk to yourself, smile somehow strangely … don’t sleep. Oh, my God, my God, save us!” she said in horror. “But don’t be afraid, Andryusha, don’t be afraid, for God’s sake, don’t be afraid …”

She, too, began to dress. Only now, looking at her, did Kovrin realize all the danger of his situation, realize what the black monk and his conversations with him meant. It was clear to him now that he was mad.

They both got dressed, not knowing why themselves, and went to the drawing room: she first, and he after her. There, already awakened by the sobbing, in a dressing gown and with a candle in his hand, stood Yegor Semyonych, who was visiting them.

“Don’t be afraid, Andryusha,” Tanya was saying, trembling as if in fever, “don’t be afraid … Papa, it will go away … it will all go away …”

Kovrin was too agitated to speak. He wanted to say to his father-in-law,
in a jocular tone: “Congratulate me, I think I’ve lost my mind,” but he only moved his lips and smiled bitterly

At nine o’clock in the morning they put a coat on him, then a fur coat, then wrapped him in a shawl, and drove him in a carriage to the doctor’s. He started treatment.

Summer came again, and the doctor ordered him to go to the country. Kovrin was well by then, had stopped seeing the black monk, and it only remained for him to restore his physical strength. Living with his father-in-law in the country, he drank a lot of milk, worked only two hours a day, did not drink wine and did not smoke.

On the eve of St. Elijah’s day,
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the vigil was served at home. When the subdeacon handed the censer to the priest, the vast old hall began to smell like a cemetery, and Kovrin felt bored. He went out to the garden. Not noticing the luxuriant flowers, he strolled through the garden, sat on a bench for a while, then wandered into the park; coming to the river, he went down and stood lost in thought, gazing at the water. The gloomy pines with their shaggy roots, which had seen him there last year so young, joyful and lively, now did not whisper but stood motionless, mute, as if they did not reco
gnize him. And indeed his head was cropped, his long, beautiful hair was gone, his pace was sluggish, his face, compared to last year, had grown fuller and more pale.

He crossed the planks to the other side. Where there had been rye the previous year, reaped oats now lay in rows. The sun had already set, and a broad red glow blazed on the horizon, forecasting windy weather for the next day. It was still. Peering in the direction where the black monk had first appeared the year before, Kovrin stood for some twenty minutes till the sunset began to fade …

When he returned home, sluggish, dissatisfied, the vigil was over. Yegor Semyonych and Tanya were sitting on the steps of the terrace having tea. They were talking about something, but on seeing Kovrin they suddenly fell silent, and by their faces he concluded that the talk had been about him.

“I think it’s time for your milk,” Tanya said to her husband.

“No, it’s not…” he said, sitting on the lowest step. “Drink it yourself. I don’t want to.”

Tanya exchanged worried glances with her father and said in a guilty voice:

“You’ve noticed yourself that milk is good for you.”

“Yes, very good!” Kovrin grinned. “My congratulations: since Friday I’ve gained another pound.” He clutched his head tightly with his hands and said in anguish: “Why, why did you have me treated? Bromides, inactivity, warm baths, supervision, fainthearted fear over every mouthful, every step—it will all finally drive me to idiocy. I was losing my mind, I had megalomania, but I was gay, lively, and even happy, I was interesting and original. Now I’ve become more solid and reasonable, but as a result I’m just like everybody else: I’m a mediocrity, I’m bored with life … Oh, how cruel you’ve
been to me! I had hallucinations, but did that harm anybody? I ask you, did it harm anybody?”

“God knows what you’re saying!” Yegor Semyonych sighed. “It’s even boring to listen.”

“Don’t listen, then.”

The presence of people, especially of Yegor Semyonych, now irritated Kovrin, and he answered him drily, coldly, and even rudely, and never looked at him otherwise than with mockery and hatred, and Yegor Semyonych felt embarrassed and coughed guiltily, though he did not feel guilty of anything. Not understanding why their sweet, cordial relations had changed so abruptly, Tanya pressed herself to her father and peered anxiously into his eyes; she wanted to understand and could not, and it was only clear to her that their relations were getting worse and worse each day, that her fathe
r had aged very much recently, and her husband had become irritable, capricious, cra
nky, and uninteresting. She could no longer laugh and sing, ate nothing at dinner, did not sleep all night, expecting something terrible, and was so worn out that she once lay in a faint from dinner till evening. During the vigil it had seemed to her that her father wept, and now, as the three of them sat on the terrace, she tried not to think about it.

“How lucky Buddha and Mohammed and Shakespeare were that their kind relations and doctors did not treat them for ecstasy and inspiration!” said Kovrin. “If Mohammed had taken potassium bromide for his nerves, worked only two hours a day, and drunk milk, there would have been as little left after this remarkable man
as after his dog. Doctors and kind relations will finally make it so that mankind will grow dull, mediocrity will be considered genius, and civilization will die out. If you only knew,” Kovrin said with vexation, “how grateful I am to you!”

He felt extremely irritated and, to avoid saying something excessive, quickly got up and went into the house. It was quiet, and the scent of nicotiana and jalap came through the open windows from the garden. Moonlight lay in green patches on the floor and on the grand piano in the vast dark hall. Kovrin recalled the raptures of last summer, when there had been the same smell of jalap and moonlight shining in the windows. To bring back last year’s mood, he went quickly to his study, lit a strong cigar, and told the servant to bring wine. But the cigar was bitter and disgusting in his mouth, and th
e wine did not taste the same as last year. That was what it meant to lose the habit! The cigar and two sips of wine made him dizzy, and his heart started pounding so that he had to take potassium bromide.

Before going to bed, Tanya said to him:

“My father adores you. You’re angry with him for something, and it’s killing him. Look: he’s aging not by the day but by the hour. I beg you, Andryusha, for God’s sake, for the sake of your late father, for the sake of my own peace, be nice to him!”

“I can’t and won’t.”

“But why?” asked Tanya, beginning to tremble all over. “Explain to me, why?”

“Because I find him unsympathetic, that’s all,” Kovrin said carelessly and shrugged his shoulders. “But let’s not talk about him, he’s your father.”

“I can’t, I can’t understand!” said Tanya, pressing her temples and staring at a single point. “Something inconceivable, something terrible is happening in our home. You’ve changed, you’re no longer yourself… You, an intelligent, extraordinary man, become irritated over trifles, get into squabbles … You become upset over such small things that I’m sometimes astonished and can’t believe it’s really you. Well, well, don’t be angry, don’t be angry,” she went on, frightened at her own words and kissing his hands. “You’re intelligent, kind, noble. You’ll be fair to my father. He’s so good!”

“He’s not good, he’s good-natured. Vaudeville uncles like your father, with well-fed, good-natured physiognomies, extremely hospitable and whimsical, used to touch me and make me laugh in
stories and vaudevilles, and in life, but now I find them repulsive. They’re egoists to the marrow of their bones. What I find most repulsive is their well-fed look and that visceral, purely bullish or boarish optimism.”

Tanya sat down on the bed and lay her head on the pillow.

“This is torture,” she said, and it was clear from her voice that she was extremely tired and had difficulty speaking. “Not one peaceful moment since winter … My God, this is terrible! I’m suffering …”

“Yes, of course, I’m Herod and you and your dear papa are Egyptian infants.
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Of course!”

His face seemed ugly and unpleasant to Tanya. Hatred and a mocking expression did not become him. She had noticed even earlier that his face now lacked something, as if, since he cut his hair, his face had also changed. She wanted to say something offensive to him, but she caught herself at once feeling animosity, became frightened, and left the bedroom.

Kovrin was awarded his own chair. The inaugural lecture was scheduled for the second of December, and the announcement was posted in the university corridor. But on the scheduled day he informed the director of studies by telegram that the lecture would not be delivered on account of illness.

He was bleeding from the throat. He had been spitting blood, but about twice a month he bled profusely, and then he became extremely weak and fell into somnolence. The illness did not frighten him very much, because he knew that his late mother had lived for ten years or even longer with the same illness; and the doctors assured him that it was not dangerous and merely advised him not to worry, to lead a regular life, and to talk less.

In January the lecture failed to take place for the same reason, and in February it was too late to begin the course. It had to be postponed until the next year.

He now lived not with Tanya but with another woman, who was two years older than he and looked after him like a child. His state of mind was placid, submissive; he willingly obeyed, and when Varvara Nikolaevna—that was his friend’s name—decided to take
him to the Crimea, he agreed, though he had a presentiment that nothing good would come of this trip.