Chapter Chapter 26 · Chapter XXVI

. Chapter XXVI

“At the station before the last, when the conductor came to take the

tickets, I took my baggage and went out on the car platform, and the

consciousness that the climax was near at hand only added to my

agitation. I was cold, my jaw trembled so that my teeth chattered.

Mechanically I left the station with the crowd, I took a _tchik_, and I

started. I looked at the few people passing in the streets and at the

_dvorniks_. I read the signs, without thinking of anything. After going

half a verst my feet began to feel cold, and I remembered that in the

car I had taken off my woollen socks, and had put them in my travelling

bag. Where had I put the bag? Was it with me? Yes, and the basket?

“I bethought myself that I had totally forgotten my baggage. I took out

my check, and then decided it was not worth while to return. I

continued on my way. In spite of all my efforts to remember, I cannot

at this moment make out why I was in such a hurry. I know only that I

was conscious that a serious and menacing event was approaching in my

life. It was a case of real auto-suggestion. Was it so serious because

I thought it so? Or had I a presentiment? I do not know. Perhaps, too,

after what has happened, all previous events have taken on a lugubrious

tint in my memory.

“I arrived at the steps. It was an hour past midnight. A few

_isvotchiks_ were before the door, awaiting customers, attracted by the

lighted windows (the lighted windows were those of our parlor and

reception room). Without trying to account for this late illumination,

I went up the steps, always with the same expectation of something

terrible, and I rang. The servant, a good, industrious, and very stupid

being, named Gregor, opened the door. The first thing that leaped to my

eyes in the hall, on the hat-stand, among other garments, was an

overcoat. I ought to have been astonished, but I was not astonished. I

expected it. ‘That’s it!’ I said to myself.

“When I had asked Gregor who was there, and he had named

Troukhatchevsky, I inquired whether there were other visitors. He

answered: ‘Nobody.’ I remember the air with which he said that, with a

tone that was intended to give me pleasure, and dissipate my doubts.

‘That’s it! that’s it!’ I had the air of saying to myself. ‘And the

children?’

“‘Thank God, they are very well. They went to sleep long ago.’

“I scarcely breathed, and I could not keep my jaw from trembling.

“Then it was not as I thought. I had often before returned home with

the thought that a misfortune had awaited me, but had been mistaken,

and everything was going on as usual. But now things were not going on

as usual. All that I had imagined, all that I believed to be chimeras,

all really existed. Here was the truth.

“I was on the point of sobbing, but straightway the demon whispered in

my ear: ‘Weep and be sentimental, and they will separate quietly, and

there will be no proofs, and all your life you will doubt and suffer.’

And pity for myself vanished, and there remained only the bestial need

of some adroit, cunning, and energetic action. I became a beast, an

intelligent beast.

“‘No, no,’ said I to Gregor, who was about to announce my arrival. ‘Do

this, take a carriage, and go at once for my baggage. Here is the

check. Start.’

“He went along the hall to get his overcoat. Fearing lest he might

frighten them, I accompanied him to his little room, and waited for him

to put on his things. In the dining-room could be heard the sound of

conversation and the rattling of knives and plates. They were eating.

They had not heard the ring. ‘Now if they only do not go out,’ I

thought.

“Gregor put on his fur-collared coat and went out. I closed the door

after him. I felt anxious when I was alone, thinking that directly I

should have to act. How? I did not yet know. I knew only that all was

ended, that there could be no doubt of _his_ innocence, and that in an

instant my relations with her were going to be terminated. Before, I

had still doubts. I said to myself: ‘Perhaps this is not true. Perhaps

I am mistaken.’ Now all doubt had disappeared. All was decided

irrevocably. Secretly, all alone with him, at night! It is a violation

of all duties! Or, worse yet, she may make a show of that audacity, of

that insolence in crime, which, by its excess, tends to prove

innocence. All is clear. No doubt. I feared but one thing,—that they

might run in different directions, that they might invent some new lie,

and thus deprive me of material proof, and of the sorrowful joy of

punishing, yes, of executing them.

“And to surprise them more quickly, I started on tiptoe for the

dining-room, not through the parlor, but through the hall and the

children’s rooms. In the first room slept the little boy. In the

second, the old nurse moved in her bed, and seemed on the point of

waking, and I wondered what she would think when she knew all. And pity

for myself gave me such a pang that I could not keep the tears back.

Not to wake the children, I ran lightly through the hall into my study.

I dropped upon the sofa, and sobbed. ‘I, an honest man, I, the son of

my parents, who all my life long have dreamed of family happiness, I

who have never betrayed! . . . And here my five children, and she

embracing a musician because he has red lips! No, she is not a woman!

She is a bitch, a dirty bitch! Beside the chamber of the children, whom

she had pretended to love all her life! And then to think of what she

wrote me! And how do I know? Perhaps it has always been thus. Perhaps

all these children, supposed to be mine, are the children of my

servants. And if I had arrived to-morrow, she would have come to meet

me with her _coiffure_, with her _corsage_, her indolent and graceful

movements (and I see her attractive and ignoble features), and this

jealous animal would have remained forever in my heart, tearing it.

What will the old nurse say? And Gregor? And the poor little Lise? She

already understands things. And this impudence, this falsehood, this

bestial sensuality, that I know so well,’ I said to myself.

“I tried to rise. I could not. My heart was beating so violently that I

could not hold myself upon my legs. ‘Yes, I shall die of a rush of

blood. She will kill me. That is what she wants. What is it to her to

kill? But that would be too agreeable to him, and I will not allow him

to have this pleasure.

“Yes, here I am, and there they are. They are laughing, they. . . .

Yes, in spite of the fact that she is no longer in her early youth, he

has not disdained her. At any rate, she is by no means ugly, and above

all, not dangerous to his dear health, to him. Why did I not stifle her

then?’ said I to myself, as I remembered that other scene of the

previous week, when I drove her from my study, and broke the furniture.

“And I recalled the state in which I was then. Not only did I recall

it, but I again entered into the same bestial state. And suddenly there

came to me a desire to act, and all reasoning, except such as was

necessary to action, vanished from my brain, and I was in the condition

of a beast, and of a man under the influence of physical excitement

pending a danger, who acts imperturbably, without haste, and yet

without losing a minute, pursuing a definite object.

“The first thing that I did was to take off my boots, and now, having

only stockings on, I advanced toward the wall, over the sofa, where

firearms and daggers were hanging, and I took down a curved Damascus

blade, which I had never used, and which was very sharp. I took it from

its sheath. I remember that the sheath fell upon the sofa, and that I

said to myself: ‘I must look for it later; it must not be lost.’

“Then I took off my overcoat, which I had kept on all the time, and

with wolf-like tread started for _the room_. I do not remember how I

proceeded, whether I ran or went slowly, through what chambers I

passed, how I approached the dining-room, how I opened the door, how I

entered. I remember nothing about it.”