Chương Chương 19 · Chapter XIX

. Chapter XIX

Posdnicheff’s face had become transformed; his eyes were pitiable;

their expression seemed strange, like that of another being than

himself; his moustache and beard turned up toward the top of his face;

his nose was diminished, and his mouth enlarged, immense, frightful.

“Yes,” he resumed “she had grown stouter since ceasing to conceive, and

her anxieties about her children began to disappear. Not even to

disappear. One would have said that she was waking from a long

intoxication, that on coming to herself she had perceived the entire

universe with its joys, a whole world in which she had not learned to

live, and which she did not understand.

“‘If only this world shall not vanish! When time is past, when old age

comes, one cannot recover it.’ Thus, I believe, she thought, or rather

felt. Moreover, she could neither think nor feel otherwise. She had

been brought up in this idea that there is in the world but one thing

worthy of attention,—love. In marrying, she had known something of this

love, but very far from everything that she had understood as promised

her, everything that she expected. How many disillusions! How much

suffering! And an unexpected torture,—the children! This torture had

told upon her, and then, thanks to the obliging doctor, she had learned

that it is possible to avoid having children. That had made her glad.

She had tried, and she was now revived for the only thing that she

knew,—for love. But love with a husband polluted by jealousy and

ill-nature was no longer her ideal. She began to think of some other

tenderness; at least, that is what I thought. She looked about her as

if expecting some event or some being. I noticed it, and I could not

help being anxious.

“Always, now, it happened that, in talking with me through a third

party (that is, in talking with others, but with the intention that I

should hear), she boldly expressed,—not thinking that an hour before

she had said the opposite,—half joking, half seriously, this idea that

maternal anxieties are a delusion; that it is not worth while to

sacrifice one’s life to children. When one is young, it is necessary to

enjoy life. So she occupied herself less with the children, not with

the same intensity as formerly, and paid more and more attention to

herself, to her face,—although she concealed it,—to her pleasures, and

even to her perfection from the worldly point of view. She began to

devote herself passionately to the piano, which had formerly stood

forgotten in the corner. There, at the piano, began the adventure.

“The _man_ appeared.”

Posdnicheff seemed embarrassed, and twice again there escaped him that

nasal sound of which I spoke above. I thought that it gave him pain to

refer to the _man_, and to remember him. He made an effort, as if to

break down the obstacle that embarrassed him, and continued with

determination.

“He was a bad man in my eyes, and not because he has played such an

important _rôle_ in my life, but because he was really such. For the

rest, from the fact that he was bad, we must conclude that he was

irresponsible. He was a musician, a violinist. Not a professional

musician, but half man of the world, half artist. His father, a country

proprietor, was a neighbor of my father’s. The father had become

ruined, and the children, three boys, were all sent away. Our man, the

youngest, was sent to his godmother at Paris. There they placed him in

the Conservatory, for he showed a taste for music. He came out a

violinist, and played in concerts.”

On the point of speaking evil of the other, Posdnicheff checked

himself, stopped, and said suddenly:

“In truth, I know not how he lived. I only know that that year he came

to Russia, and came to see me. Moist eyes of almond shape, smiling red

lips, a little moustache well waxed, hair brushed in the latest

fashion, a vulgarly pretty face,—what the women call ‘not bad,’—feebly

built physically, but with no deformity; with hips as broad as a

woman’s; correct, and insinuating himself into the familiarity of

people as far as possible, but having that keen sense that quickly

detects a false step and retires in reason,—a man, in short, observant

of the external rules of dignity, with that special Parisianism that is

revealed in buttoned boots, a gaudy cravat, and that something which

foreigners pick up in Paris, and which, in its peculiarity and novelty,

always has an influence on our women. In his manners an external and

artificial gayety, a way, you know, of referring to everything by

hints, by unfinished fragments, as if everything that one says you knew

already, recalled it, and could supply the omissions. Well, he, with

his music, was the cause of all.

“At the trial the affair was so represented that everything seemed

attributable to jealousy. It is false,—that is, not quite false, but

there was something else. The verdict was rendered that I was a

deceived husband, that I had killed in defence of my sullied honor

(that is the way they put it in their language), and thus I was

acquitted. I tried to explain the affair from my own point of view, but

they concluded that I simply wanted to rehabilitate the memory of my

wife. Her relations with the musician, whatever they may have been, are

now of no importance to me or to her. The important part is what I have

told you. The whole tragedy was due to the fact that this man came into

our house at a time when an immense abyss had already been dug between

us, that frightful tension of mutual hatred, in which the slightest

motive sufficed to precipitate the crisis. Our quarrels in the last

days were something terrible, and the more astonishing because they

were followed by a brutal passion extremely strained. If it had not

been he, some other would have come. If the pretext had not been

jealousy, I should have discovered another. I insist upon this

point,—that all husbands who live the married life that I lived must

either resort to outside debauchery, or separate from their wives, or

kill themselves, or kill their wives as I did. If there is any one in

my case to whom this does not happen, he is a very rare exception, for,

before ending as I ended, I was several times on the point of suicide,

and my wife made several attempts to poison herself.”