“Whatever one may say there is much in blood. His mother was a wonderful, a most noble, a most clever woman. It was a delight to look at her good, bright, pure face, like an angel’s. She painted beautifully, she wrote verses, she could speak five foreign languages, she sang. . . . Poor thing, may the heavenly kingdom be hers, she died of consumption.”
The unreal Egor Semenych sighed, and after a pause continued:
“When he was a boy growing up in my house, he had the same angelic, bright and good face. He has the same look, the same movements and the same soft, elegant manner of speaking that his mother had. And his intellect! He always astonished us by his intellect. By the way, it is not for nothing that he is a Master of Arts! . . . No, not for nothing! But wait a little, Ivan Karlych, you’ll see what he’ll be in ten years! He’ll be quite unapproachable!”
But here the real Egor Semenych, checking himself, made a serious face, caught hold of his head and shouted:
“Devils! They’ve dirtied, destroyed, devastated everything! The garden is lost! The garden is ruined!”
Kovrin worked with the same zeal as before, and did not notice the hurly-burly around him. Love only added oil to the fire. After each meeting with Tania he returned to his room happy, enraptured, and with the same passion with which he had just kissed Tania and had told her of his love, he seized a book or set to work at his manuscript. All that the black monk had said about the chosen of God, eternal truth, the brilliant future of the human race, etc., only gave his work a special, an uncommon meaning and filled his soul with pride, and the consciousness of his own eminence. Once or twice a week either in the park or in the house he met the black monk and conversed with him for a long time; but this did not frighten him; on the contrary, it delighted him, as he was firmly convinced that such an apparition only visited the chosen, the eminent people, who had devoted themselves to the service of the idea.
One day the monk appeared during dinner and sat down in the dining-room near the window. Kovrin was delighted, and he very adroitly turned the conversation with Egor Semenych and Tania upon subjects that might interest the monk. The black guest listened and nodded his head affably; Egor Semenych and Tania also listened and smiled gaily, never suspecting that Kovrin was not talking to them, but to his vision.
Unperceived the fast of the Assumption was there, and soon after it the wedding-day arrived. The marriage was celebrated according to Egor Semenych’s persistent desire “with racket,” that is, with senseless festivities that lasted two days. They ate and drank far more than three thousand roubles, but owing to the bad hired band, the shrill toasts, the hurrying to and fro of the lackeys, the noise and the overcrowding, nobody could appreciate the bouquet of the expensive wines nor the taste of the wonderful delicacies that had been ordered from Moscow.
CHAPTER VII Don’t Be Afraid!
IT HAPPENED on one of the long winter nights that Kovrin was lying in bed reading a French novel. Poor little Tania, who was not yet accustomed to live in a town, had a bad headache, as she often had by the evening, and was long since asleep, but from time to time she was uttering disconnected phrases in her sleep.
It had struck three. Kovrin blew out his candle and lay down. He lay long with closed eyes, but could not get to sleep, because (so it seemed to him) it was very hot in the bedroom and Tania was talking in her sleep. At half-past four he again lit the candle, and at that moment he saw the black monk sitting on the arm-chair that stood near the bed.
“How do you do?” the monk said, and after a short pause he asked: “Of what are you thinking now?”
“Of fame,” Kovrin answered. “In the French novel I have just been reading there is a man, a young scientist, who did stupid things, and who pined away from longing for fame. These longings are incomprehensible to me.”
“Because you are wise. You look upon fame with indifference, like a plaything that does not interest you.”
“Yes, that is true.”
“Fame has no attraction for you. What is there flattering, interesting or instructive in the fact that your name will be carved on your gravestone, and then time will efface this inscription together with its gilding? Besides, happily you are too many for man’s weak memory to be able to remember all your names.”
“Naturally,” Kovrin agreed. “Why should they be remembered? But let us speak of something else. For example, of happiness. What is happiness?”
When the clock struck five he was sitting on his bed with his feet resting on the rug and turning to the monk he was saying:
“In ancient times one happy man was at last frightened at his own happiness—it was so great! And in order to propitiate the gods he sacrificed to them his most precious ring. You know that story? Like Polycrates, I am beginning to be alarmed at my own happiness. It appears to me strange that from morning to night I only experience joy; I am filled with joy and it smothers all other feelings. I do not know what sadness, grief or dullness is. Here am I not asleep. I suffer from sleeplessness, but I am not dull. Quite seriously, I’m beginning to be perplexed.”
“Why?” the monk asked in astonishment. “Is joy a superhuman feeling? Ought it not to be the normal condition of man? The higher a man is in his intellectual and moral development, the more free he is, the greater are the pleasures that life offers him. Socrates, Diogenes and Marcus Aurelius knew joy, and not grief. The apostle says: ‘Rejoice always.’ Therefore rejoice and be happy.”
“What if suddenly the gods were angered?” Kovrin said jokingly, and he laughed. “What if they take from me my comfort and make me suffer cold and hunger, it will scarcely be to my taste.”
In the meantime Tania had awaked and looked at her husband with amazement and terror. He was talking, addressing himself to the armchair, gesticulating and laughing; his eyes glistened and there was something strange in his laughter.
“Andryusha, with whom are you talking?” she asked, catching hold of the hand he was stretching out to the monk. “Andryusha, with whom? . . .”
“Eh? With whom?” Kovrin became confused. “With him. There he sits,” he answered, pointing to the black monk.
“There’s nobody here . . . nobody! Andryusha, you’re ill!”
Tania put her arms round her husband and pressed close to him, and as if to protect him from visions she put her hand over his eyes. “You are ill!” She sobbed and her whole body trembled. “Forgive me, darling, my dear one; I have long noticed that your soul is troubled about something. You are mentally ill, Andryusha. . . .”
Her shivering fit was communicated to him. He looked again at the armchair, which was now empty; he suddenly felt a weakness in the arms and legs, he was alarmed and began to dress.
“It’s nothing, Tania, nothing . . .” he mumbled, shivering. “I really feel a little out of sorts . . . it’s time to admit it.”
“I have long noticed it—and papa has noticed it too,” she said, trying to restrain her sobs. “You talk to yourself, you smile in a strange way . . . you don’t sleep. Oh, my God, my God, save us!” she said in terror. “But you must not be afraid, Andryusha, don’t be afraid, for God’s sake, don’t be afraid. . . ”
She also began to dress. Only now, when he looked at her, Kovrin understood all the danger of his position, he understood what the black monk and his talks with him meant. It was now quite clear to him that he was a madman.
They both dressed, without knowing why, and went into the drawing-room. She went first, he followed her. Here Egor Semenych, who was staying with them, was already standing in his dressing-gown with a candle in his hand.