The young ladies and Gnekker are talking about fugues, counterpoint, about singers and pianists, about Bach and Brahms, and my wife, afraid to be suspected of musical ignorance, smiles at them sympathetically and murmurs: “That’s lovely … Really? You don’t say …” Gnekker eats gravely, cracks jokes gravely, and listens condescendingly to the young ladies’ observations. Every once in a while he feels a desire to speak bad French, and then for some reason he finds it necessary to address me as votre excellence.
And I am morose. Obviously I inhibit them all, and they inhibit me. Never before have I been closely acquainted with class antagonism, but now I’m tormented precisely by something of that sort. I try to find only bad features in Gnekker, quickly find them, and am tormented that in the suitor’s place there sits a man not of my circle. His presence affects me badly in yet another respect. Usually, when I’m by myself or in the company of people I like, I never think of my own merits, and if I do begin to think of them, they seem as insignificant to me as if I had become a scientist only yesterday; but in the presence of people like Gnekker, my merits seem like a lofty mountain, its peak disappearing into the clouds, while at its foot, barely visible to the eye, the Gnekkers shift about.
After dinner I go to my study and there light my pipe, the only one of the whole day, a leftover from a long-past bad habit of puffing smoke from morning till night. While I’m smoking, my wife comes in and sits down to talk with me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what the talk will be about.
“I must have a serious talk with you, Nikolai Stepanych,” she begins. “It’s about Liza … Why aren’t you paying attention?”
“Meaning what?”
“You make it seem as if you don’t notice anything, but that’s not good. It’s impossible to be unconcerned … Gnekker has intentions towards Liza … What do you say?”
“That he’s a bad man I cannot say, since I don’t know him, but that I dislike him, I’ve already told you a thousand times.”
“But this is impossible … impossible …”
She gets up and paces in agitation.
“It’s impossible to deal this way with such a serious step …” she says. “When it’s a question of your daughter’s happiness, you must set aside everything personal. I know you dislike him … Very well … If we reject him now, break it all off, what assurance do you have that Liza won’t complain about us for the rest of her life? There aren’t so many suitors nowadays, and it may so happen that no other party comes along … He loves Liza very much, and she apparently likes him … Of course, he has no definite position, but what can we do? God willing, he’ll get himself established somewhere in time. He’s from a good family and he’s rich.”
“How do you know that?”
“He said so. His father has a big house in Kharkov and an estate near Kharkov. In short, Nikolai Stepanych, you absolutely must go to Kharkov.”
“What for?”
“You can make inquiries … You have acquaintances among the professors there, they’ll help you. I’d go myself, but I’m a woman. I can’t …”
“I won’t go to Kharkov,” I say morosely.
My wife gets alarmed, and an expression of tormenting pain appears on her face.
“For God’s sake, Nikolai Stepanych!” she implores me, sobbing. “For God’s sake, relieve me of this burden! I’m suffering!”
It’s becoming painful to look at her.
“Very well, Varya,” I say tenderly. “If you wish, so be it, I’ll go to Kharkov and do whatever you like.”
She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes to her room to cry. I remain alone.
A little later a lamp is brought in. Familiar shadows I’ve long since grown weary of are cast on the walls and floor by the chairs and the lamp shade, and when I look at them, it seems to me that it’s already night and that my cursed insomnia is beginning. I lie down, then get up and pace the room, then lie down again … Usually after dinner, before evening, my nervous agitation reaches its highest pitch. I start weeping for no reason and hide my head under the pillow. In those moments I’m afraid somebody may come in, afraid I may die suddenly; I’m ashamed of my tears, and generally there is something unbearable in my soul. I feel that I can no longer stand the sight of my lamp, the books, the shadows on the floor, or the sound of voices coming from the drawing room. Some invisible and incomprehensible force is roughly pushing me out of the house. I jump up, hastily put on my coat and hat, and cautiously, so that the family won’t notice, go outside. Where to?
The answer to that question has long been sitting in my brain: to Katya.
III
As usual, she’s lying on a Turkish divan or couch and reading something. On seeing me, she raises her head indolently, sits up, and gives me her hand.
“And you’re always lying down,” I say, after pausing briefly to rest. “That’s unhealthy. You ought to find something to do!”
“Eh?”
“I said, you ought to find something to do.”
“What? A woman can only be a menial worker or an actress.”
“Well, then? If you can’t be a worker, be an actress.”
Silence.
“Why don’t you get married?” I say half jokingly.
“There’s nobody to marry. And no reason to.”
“You can’t live like this.”
“Without a husband? A lot it matters! There are men all over, if anybody’s interested.”
“That’s not nice, Katya.”
“What’s not nice?”
“What you just said.”
Noticing that I’m upset, and wishing to smooth over the bad impression, Katya says:
“Come. Over here. Look.”
She leads me to a small, very cozy room and says, pointing to the writing table:
“Look … I’ve made it ready for you. You can work here. Come every day and bring your work. At home they only bother you. Will you work here? Do you want to?”
To avoid upsetting her by saying no, I reply that I will work in her place and that I like the room very much. Then the two of us sit down in this cozy room and begin to talk.
The warmth, the cozy atmosphere, and the presence of a sympathetic person now arouse in me not a feeling of contentment, as before, but a strong urge to complain and grumble. For some reason it seems to me that if I murmur and complain a bit I’ll feel better.
“Things are bad, my dear!” I begin with a sigh. “Very bad …”
“What’s wrong?”
“The thing is this, my friend. The best and most sacred right of kings is the right to show mercy. And I always felt myself a king, because I made boundless use of that right. I never judged, I was tolerant, I willingly forgave everybody right and left. Where others protested and were indignant, I merely advised and persuaded. All my life I tried only to make my company bearable for my family, students, colleagues, and servants. And this attitude of mine towards people, I know, was an education to all those around me. But now I’m no longer a king. Something is going on inside me that is fit only for slaves: spiteful thoughts wander through my head day and night, and feelings such as I’ve never known before are nesting in my soul. I hate and despise, I feel indignant, outraged, afraid. I’ve become excessively severe, demanding, irritable, ungracious, suspicious. Even something that before would have given me an occasion for one more quip and a good-natured laugh, now produces a heavy feeling in me. My logic has also changed in me: before I only despised money, now I harbor a spiteful feeling not for money but for the rich, as if they were to blame; before I hated violence and tyranny, but now I hate the people who use violence, as if they alone were to blame and not all of us, because we’re unable to educate each other. What does it mean? If my new thoughts and feelings proceed from a change of convictions, where could that change have come from? Has the world become worse and I better, or was I blind and indifferent before? And if this change has proceeded from a general decline of physical and mental powers—I’m sick and losing weight every day—then my situation is pathetic: it means that my new thoughts are abnormal, unhealthy, that I should be ashamed of them and consider them worthless …”