Chapter Chapter 23 · Chapter XXIII

. Chapter XXIII

“I think that it is superfluous to say that I was very vain. If one has

no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for

living. So for that Sunday I had busied myself in tastefully arranging

things for the dinner and the musical _soirée_. I had purchased myself

numerous things for the dinner, and had chosen the guests. Toward six

o’clock they arrived, and after them Troukhatchevsky, in his

dress-coat, with diamond shirt-studs, in bad taste. He bore himself

with ease. To all questions he responded promptly, with a smile of

contentment and understanding, and that peculiar expression which was

intended to mean: ‘All that you may do and say will be exactly what I

expected.’ Everything about him that was not correct I now noticed with

especial pleasure, for it all tended to tranquillize me, and prove to

me that to my wife he stood in such a degree of inferiority that, as

she had told me, she could not stoop to his level. Less because of my

wife’s assurances than because of the atrocious sufferings which I felt

in jealousy, I no longer allowed myself to be jealous.

“In spite of that, I was not at ease with the musician or with her

during dinner-time and the time that elapsed before the beginning of

the music. Involuntarily I followed each of their gestures and looks.

The dinner, like all dinners, was tiresome and conventional. Not long

afterward the music began. He went to get his violin; my wife advanced

to the piano, and rummaged among the scores. Oh, how well I remember

all the details of that evening! I remember how he brought the violin,

how he opened the box, took off the serge embroidered by a lady’s hand,

and began to tune the instrument. I can still see my wife sit down,

with a false air of indifference, under which it was plain that she hid

a great timidity, a timidity that was especially due to her comparative

lack of musical knowledge. She sat down with that false air in front of

the piano, and then began the usual preliminaries,—the _pizzicati_ of

the violin and the arrangement of the scores. I remember then how they

looked at each other, and cast a glance at their auditors who were

taking their seats. They said a few words to each other, and the music

began. They played Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’ Do you know the first

_presto?_ Do you know it? Ah!” . . .

Posdnicheff heaved a sigh, and was silent for a long time.

“A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the _presto!_ And a

terrible thing is music in general. What is it? Why does it do what it

does? They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity! A lie! It acts, it

acts frightfully (I speak for myself), but not in an ennobling way. It

acts neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but in an irritating

way. How shall I say it? Music makes me forget my real situation. It

transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of

music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do

not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me

to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn

when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear

others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of

soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I

become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition

to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote

Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ knew well why he found himself in a

certain condition. That condition led him to certain actions, and for

that reason to him had a meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And

that is why music provokes an excitement which it does not bring to a

conclusion. For instance, a military march is played; the soldier

passes to the sound of this march, and the music is finished. A dance

is played; I have finished dancing, and the music is finished. A mass

is sung; I receive the sacrament, and again the music is finished. But

any other music provokes an excitement, and this excitement is not

accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is

why music is so dangerous, and sometimes acts so frightfully.

“In China music is under the control of the State, and that is the way

it ought to be. Is it admissible that the first comer should hypnotize

one or more persons, and then do with them as he likes? And especially

that the hypnotizer should be the first immoral individual who happens

to come along? It is a frightful power in the hands of any one, no

matter whom. For instance, should they be allowed to play this

‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ the first _presto_,—and there are many like it,—in

parlors, among ladies wearing low necked dresses, or in concerts, then

finish the piece, receive the applause, and then begin another piece?

These things should be played under certain circumstances, only in

cases where it is necessary to incite certain actions corresponding to

the music. But to incite an energy of feeling which corresponds to

neither the time nor the place, and is expended in nothing, cannot fail

to act dangerously. On me in particular this piece acted in a frightful

manner. One would have said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of

which I was formerly ignorant, had developed in me. ‘Ah, yes, that’s

it! Not at all as I lived and thought before! This is the right way to

live!’

“Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that music. What was this new

thing that I thus learned? That I did not realize, but the

consciousness of this indefinite state filled me with joy. In that

state there was no room for jealousy. The same faces, and among them

_he_ and my wife, I saw in a different light. This music transported me

into an unknown world, where there was no room for jealousy. Jealousy

and the feelings that provoke it seemed to me trivialities, nor worth

thinking of.

“After the _presto_ followed the _andante_, not very new, with

commonplace variations, and the feeble _finale_. Then they played more,

at the request of the guests,—first an elegy by Ernst, and then various

other pieces. They were all very well, but did not produce upon me a

tenth part of the impression that the opening piece did. I felt light

and gay throughout the evening. As for my wife, never had I seen her as

she was that night. Those brilliant eyes, that severity and majestic

expression while she was playing, and then that utter languor, that

weak, pitiable, and happy smile after she had finished,—I saw them all

and attached no importance to them, believing that she felt as I did,

that to her, as to me, new sentiments had been revealed, as through a

fog. During almost the whole evening I was not jealous.

“Two days later I was to start for the assembly of the Zemstvo, and for

that reason, on taking leave of me and carrying all his scores with

him, Troukhatchevsky asked me when I should return. I inferred from

that that he believed it impossible to come to my house during my

absence, and that was agreeable to me. Now I was not to return before

his departure from the city. So we bade each other a definite farewell.

For the first time I shook his hand with pleasure, and thanked him for

the satisfaction that he had given me. He likewise took leave of my

wife, and their parting seemed to me very natural and proper. All went

marvellously. My wife and I retired, well satisfied with the evening.

We talked of our impressions in a general way, and we were nearer

together and more friendly than we had been for a long time.”