She soon penetrated his secret then. Oh, maybe she also flirted with him on purpose. Even the most shining women are mean on such occasions; that is their irrepressible instinct. It ended with an embittered break between them, and it seems he wanted to kill her; he frightened her and maybe would have killed her; “but it all suddenly turned to hatred.” A strange period ensued. He suddenly came up with the strange thought of tormenting himself with discipline, “the same sort that monks exercise. Gradually and by methodical practice, you overcome your will, beginning with the most ridiculous and petty things, and ending by overcoming your will entirely and becoming free.” He added that among monks this is a serious matter, because it has been raised to the level of a science through a thousand years of experience. But the most remarkable thing was that he came up with this idea of “discipline” then, not at all in order to get rid of Katerina Nikolaevna, but in the fullest certainty that he not only did not love her anymore, but even hated her in the highest degree. He believed in his hatred of her to such an extent that he even suddenly thought of falling in love with and marrying her stepdaughter, who had been deceived by the prince, persuaded himself completely of this new love, and got the poor idiot girl to fall in love with him irresistibly, making her completely happy by this love during the last months of her life. Why, instead of her, he didn’t remember then about mama, who was waiting for him all the while in Königsberg, remained unclear to me . . . On the contrary, he suddenly and entirely forgot about mama, didn’t even send her money to live on, so that it was Tatyana Pavlovna who saved her then. Suddenly, however, he went to mama to “ask her permission” to marry that girl, under the pretext that “such a bride isn’t a woman.” Oh, maybe this is all merely the portrait of a “bookish man,” as Katerina Nikolaevna said of him afterwards; however, why is it that these “paper people” (if it’s true that they are paper) are able to suffer in such a real way and reach the point of such tragedies? Though then, that evening, I thought somewhat differently, and was shaken by a certain thought:
“All your development, all your soul came to you through suffering and through your whole life’s struggle—while all her perfection came to her gratis. There’s inequality here . . . Women are outrageous in that,” I said, not at all to ingratiate myself with him, but with fervor and even with indignation.
“Perfection. Her perfection? Why, there’s no perfection in her!” he said suddenly, all but astonished at my words. “She’s a most ordinary woman, she’s even a trashy woman . . . But she’s obliged to have every perfection!”
“Why obliged?”
“Because, having such power, she’s obliged to have every perfection!” he cried spitefully.
“The saddest thing is that you’re so tormented even now!” suddenly escaped me involuntarily.
“Now? Tormented?” he repeated my words again, stopping before me as if in some perplexity. And then suddenly a quiet, long, thoughtful smile lit up his face, and he raised his finger before him as if reflecting. Then, recovering completely, he snatched an unsealed letter from the table and flung it down before me.
“Here, read it! You absolutely must know everything . . . and why did you let me rummage around so much in that old rubbish! . . . I’ve only defiled and embittered my heart! . . .”
I’m unable to express my astonishment. It was a letter from herto him, written that day, received at around five o’clock in the afternoon. I read it almost trembling with excitement. It wasn’t long, but was written so directly and candidly that, as I read it, it was as if I could see her before me and hear her words. Truthfully in the highest degree (and therefore almost touchingly), she confessed to him her fear and then simply entreated him “to leave her in peace.” In conclusion, she informed him that she was now positively going to marry Bjoring. Until that occasion, she had never written to him.
And here is what I understood then from his explanations:
As soon as he read this letter earlier, he suddenly sensed a most unexpected phenomenon in himself: for the first time in those fateful two years, he felt neither the slightest hatred for her nor the slightest shock, similar to the way he had “gone out of his mind” not long ago at the mere rumor about Bjoring. “On the contrary, I sent her a blessing from my whole heart,” he said to me with deep feeling. I listened to these words with delight. It meant that everything there was in him of passion, of torment, had disappeared all at once, of itself, like a dream, like a two-year-long enchantment. Still not believing himself, he rushed to mama—and what then: he came in precisely at the moment when she became free, and the old man who had bequeathed her to him the day before died. These two coincidences shook his soul. A little later he rushed to look for me—and his thinking of me so soon I will never forget.
Nor will I forget the end of that evening. This man became all and suddenly transformed again. We sat late into the night. About how all this “news” affected me, I will tell later, in its place, but now—just a few concluding words about him. Reflecting now, I understand that what charmed me most then was his humility, as it were, before me, his so-truthful sincerity before such a boy as I! “It was all fumes, but blessings on it!” he cried. “Without that blindness I might never have discovered in my heart so wholly and forever my sole queen, my sufferer—your mother!” I make special note of these rapturous words that escaped him uncontrollably, with a view to what followed. But then he conquered and overcame my soul.
I remember, towards the end we became terribly merry. He ordered champagne brought, and we drank to mama and to “the future.” Oh, he was so full of life and so bent on living! But it wasn’t the wine that made us terribly merry; we drank only two glasses each. I don’t know why, but towards the end we laughed almost uncontrollably. We started talking about totally unrelated things; he got to telling jokes, and so did I. Neither our laughter nor our jokes were the least bit spiteful or jeering, we were simply merry. He kept refusing to let me go: “Stay, stay a while longer!” he repeated, and I stayed. He even went out to see me off; it was a lovely evening, there was a slight frost.
“Tell me, have you already sent hera reply?” I suddenly asked quite inadvertently, pressing his hand for the last time at the intersection.
“Not yet, no, and it makes no difference. Come tomorrow, come early . . . And another thing: drop Lambert altogether, and tear up the ‘document,’ and soon. Good-bye!”