Bab Bab 25 · Chapter XXV

. Chapter XXV

“I had to go twenty-five versts by carriage and eight hours by train.

By carriage it was a very pleasant journey. The coolness of autumn was

accompanied by a brilliant sun. You know the weather when the wheels

imprint themselves upon the dirty road. The road was level, and the

light strong, and the air strengthening. The _tarantass_ was

comfortable. As I looked at the horses, the fields, and the people whom

we passed, I forgot where I was going. Sometimes it seemed to me that I

was travelling without an object,—simply promenading,—and that I should

go on thus to the end of the world. And I was happy when I so forgot

myself. But when I remembered where I was going, I said to myself: ‘I

shall see later. Don’t think about it.’

“When half way, an incident happened to distract me still further. The

_tarantass_, though new, broke down, and had to be repaired. The delays

in looking for a _télègue_, the repairs, the payment, the tea in the

inn, the conversation with the _dvornik_, all served to amuse me.

Toward nightfall all was ready, and I started off again. By night the

journey was still pleasanter than by day. The moon in its first

quarter, a slight frost, the road still in good condition, the horses,

the sprightly coachman, all served to put me in good spirits. I

scarcely thought of what awaited me, and was gay perhaps because of the

very thing that awaited me, and because I was about to say farewell to

the joys of life.

“But this tranquil state, the power of conquering my preoccupation, all

ended with the carriage drive. Scarcely had I entered the cars, when

the other thing began. Those eight hours on the rail were so terrible

to me that I shall never forget them in my life. Was it because on

entering the car I had a vivid imagination of having already arrived,

or because the railway acts upon people in such an exciting fashion? At

any rate, after boarding the train I could no longer control my

imagination, which incessantly, with extraordinary vivacity, drew

pictures before my eyes, each more cynical than its predecessor, which

kindled my jealousy. And always the same things about what was

happening at home during my absence. I burned with indignation, with

rage, and with a peculiar feeling which steeped me in humiliation, as I

contemplated these pictures. And I could not tear myself out of this

condition. I could not help looking at them, I could not efface them, I

could not keep from evoking them.

“The more I looked at these imaginary pictures, the more I believed in

their reality, forgetting that they had no serious foundation. The

vivacity of these images seemed to prove to me that my imaginations

were a reality. One would have said that a demon, against my will, was

inventing and breathing into me the most terrible fictions. A

conversation which dated a long time back, with the brother of

Troukhatchevsky, I remembered at that moment, in a sort of ecstasy, and

it tore my heart as I connected it with the musician and my wife. Yes,

it was very long ago. The brother of Troukhatchevsky, answering my

questions as to whether he frequented disreputable houses, said that a

respectable man does not go where he may contract a disease, in a low

and unclean spot, when one can find an honest woman. And here he, his

brother, the musician, had found the honest woman. ‘It is true that she

is no longer in her early youth. She has lost a tooth on one side, and

her face is slightly bloated,’ thought I for Troukhatchevsky. ‘But what

is to be done? One must profit by what one has.’

“‘Yes, he is bound to take her for his mistress,’ said I to myself

again; ‘and besides, she is not dangerous.’

“‘No, it is not possible’ I rejoined in fright. ‘Nothing, nothing of

the kind has happened, and there is no reason to suppose there has. Did

she not tell me that the very idea that I could be jealous of her

because of him was humiliating to her?’ ‘Yes, but she lied,’ I cried,

and all began over again.

“There were only two travellers in my compartment: an old woman with

her husband, neither of them very talkative; and even they got out at

one of the stations, leaving me all alone. I was like a beast in a

cage. Now I jumped up and approached the window, now I began to walk

back and forth, staggering as if I hoped to make the train go faster by

my efforts, and the car with its seats and its windows trembled

continually, as ours does now.”

And Posdnicheff rose abruptly, took a few steps, and sat down again.

“Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid of railway carriages. Fear seizes me. I

sat down again, and I said to myself: ‘I must think of something else.

For instance, of the inn keeper at whose house I took tea.’ And then,

in my imagination arose the _dvornik_, with his long beard, and his

grandson, a little fellow of the same age as my little Basile. My

little Basile! My little Basile! He will see the musician kiss his

mother! What thoughts will pass through his poor soul! But what does

that matter to her! She loves.

“And again it all began, the circle of the same thoughts. I suffered so

much that at last I did not know what to do with myself, and an idea

passed through my head that pleased me much,—to get out upon the rails,

throw myself under the cars, and thus finish everything. One thing

prevented me from doing so. It was pity! It was pity for myself,

evoking at the same time a hatred for her, for him, but not so much for

him. Toward him I felt a strange sentiment of my humiliation and his

victory, but toward her a terrible hatred.

“‘But I cannot kill myself and leave her free. She must suffer, she

must understand at least that I have suffered,’ said I to myself.

“At a station I saw people drinking at the lunch counter, and directly

I went to swallow a glass of vodka. Beside me stood a Jew, drinking

also. He began to talk to me, and I, in order not to be left alone in

my compartment, went with him into his third-class, dirty, full of

smoke, and covered with peelings and sunflower seeds. There I sat down

beside the Jew, and, as it seemed, he told many anecdotes.

“First I listened to him, but I did not understand what he said. He

noticed it, and exacted my attention to his person. Then I rose and

entered my own compartment.

“‘I must consider,’ said I to myself, ‘whether what I think is true,

whether there is any reason to torment myself.’ I sat down, wishing to

reflect quietly; but directly, instead of the peaceful reflections, the

same thing began again. Instead of the reasoning, the pictures.

“‘How many times have I tormented myself in this way,’ I thought (I

recalled previous and similar fits of jealousy), ‘and then seen it end

in nothing at all? It is the same now. Perhaps, yes, surely, I shall

find her quietly sleeping. She will awaken, she will be glad, and in

her words and looks I shall see that nothing has happened, that all

this is vain. Ah, if it would only so turn out!’ ‘But no, that has

happened too often! Now the end has come,’ a voice said to me.

“And again it all began. Ah, what torture! It is not to a hospital

filled with syphilitic patients that I would take a young man to

deprive him of the desire for women, but into my soul, to show him the

demon which tore it. The frightful part was that I recognized in myself

an indisputable right to the body of my wife, as if her body were

entirely mine. And at the same time I felt that I could not possess

this body, that it was not mine, that she could do with it as she

liked, and that she liked to do with it as I did not like. And I was

powerless against him and against her. He, like the Vanka of the song,

would sing, before mounting the gallows, how he would kiss her sweet

lips, etc., and he would even have the best of it before death. With

her it was still worse. If she _had not done it_, she had the desire,

she wished to do it, and I knew that she did. That was worse yet. It

would be better if she had already done it, to relieve me of my

uncertainty.

“In short, I could not say what I desired. I desired that she might not

want what she _must_ want. It was complete madness.”