Before she went to bed Tanya told him, 'Father adores you. You're cross with him about something and this is killing him. Just look, he's ageing by the hour, not by the day. I beg you, Andrey, for God's sake, for the sake of your late father, for the sake of my peace of mind, please be nice to him!'
'I can't and I won't!'
'But why not?1' Tanya asked, trembling all over. 'Tell me, 36 why not?1'
'^^use I don't like him, that's all,' Kovrin said nonchal- andy, with a shrug of the shoulders. 'But let's not talk about him, he'syour father.'
'I just can't understand, I really can't!' Tanya said, clutch- ing her temples and staring fixedly at something. 'Something incomprehensible and horrible is going on in this house. You've changed, you're not your normal self. A clever, remarkable man like you losing your temper over trifles, getting mixed up in petty squabbles . .. These little things worry you and sometimes I'm simply amazed, I just can't believe it's really you.' Then she continued, frightened of her own words and kissing his hands, 'Now, now, don't be angry, don't be angry. You are a clever man, and a good man. You will be fair to father, he's so kind.'
'He's not kind, only smug. Music-hall clowns like your father, bounteous old cranks, with their well-fed, smug faces, used to touch and amuse me once in stories, farces and in real life. But now I find them repugnant. They're egotists to the marrow. What I find most disgusting is their being so well fed, with that optimism that comes from a full belly. They're just like oxen or wild pigs.'
Tanya sat on the bed and laid her head on the pillow. 'This is sheer torture,' she said and from her voice it was plain that she was utterly exhausted and that she found it hard to speak. 'Not a single moment's peace since winter . .. It's so terrible. Oh God, I feel shocking!'
'Yes, of course I'm the monster and you and your daddy are the sweet innocents. Of course!'
His face seemed ugly and unpleasant to Tanya. Hatred 37
and that mocking expression did not suit him. And she had in fact noticed before that there was something lacking in his face, as if that had changed too since his hair was cut short. She wanted to say something to hurt him, but immediately she became aware of this hostile feeling she grew frightened and left the bedroom.
8
Kovrin was awarded a professorship. His inaugural lecture was fixed for 2 December and a notice announcing it was put up in the university corridor. But on the appointed day he cabled the dean, informing him he was not well enough to lecture.
He had a haemorrhage in the throat. He would spit blood, but twice a month there was considerable loss of blood, which left him extremely weak and drowsy. The illness did not frighten him particularly, since he knew his late mother had lived with exactly the same disease for ten vears or more. And the doctors assured him it was not dangerous, and merely advised him not to get excited, lead a regular life and to talk as little as possible.
In January the lecture was again cancelled for the same reason and in February it was too late to start the course, which had to be postponed until the following year.
He no longer lived with Tanya, but with another woman two years older than he was and who cared for him as though 38 he were a child. His state of mind was calm, submissive. He
eagerly gave in to her and when Barbara (his mistress's name) decided to take him to the Crimea he agreed, although he expected no good to come from the trip.
They reached Sevastopol one evening and rested at a hotel before going on to Yalta the next day. They were both exhausted from the journey. Barbara drank some tea, went to bed and soon fell asleep. But Kovrin did not go to bed. Before he had left horne - an hour before setting off for the station - he had received a letter from Tanya and had decided not to open it. It was now in one of his coat pockets and the thought of it had a disagreeable, unsettling effect on him. In the very depths of his heart he now considered his marriage to Tanya had been a mistake, and was pleased he had finally broken with her. The memory of that woman who had ended up as a walking skeleton and in whom everything seemed to have died - except for those large, clever, staring eyes - this memory aroused only pity in him and annoyance with himself. The writing on the envelope reminded him how unjust and cruel he had been two years ago, how he had taken revenge on others for his spiritual emptiness, his bore- dom, his loneliness, his dissatisfaction with life.
In this respect he remembered how he had once torn his di&ertation and all the articles written during his illness into shreds and thrown them out of the window, the scraps of paper fluttering in the breeze, catching on trees and flowers. In every line he saw strange, utterly unfounded claims, enthusiasm run riot, audacity and megalomania, which had made him feel as if he were reading a description of his own vices. But when the last notebook had been torn up and had 39
flown through the window, he felt for some reason bitterly annoved, he had gone to his wife and told her many unpleasant things. God, how he had tormented her1. Once, when he wanted to hurt his wife, he told her that her father had played a most distasteful role in their romance, having asked him if he would marry her. Pesotsky happened to hear this and rushed into the room speechless from despair; all he could do was stamp his feet and make a strange bellowing noise, as ifhe had lost the power of speech, while Tanya looked at her father, gave a heart-rending shriek and fainted. It was an ugly scene.
All this came to mind at the sight of the familiar handwriting. Kovrin went out onto the balcony. The weather was warm and calm, and he could smell the sea. The magnificent bay reflected the moon and the lights, and its colour was hard to describe. It was a delicate, soft blending of dark-blue and green; inplacesthe water was like blue vitriol, in others the moonlight seemed to have taken on material substance and fiJled the bay instead of water. But what a harmony of colour, what a peaceful, calm and ennobling mood reigned over all!
The windows were most probably open in the room below, be- neath the balcony, as he could hear women's voices and laughter quite distinctly. Someone was having a party, it seemed.
Kovrin forced himself to open the letter, returned to his room and read: 'Father has just died. I owe that to you, as you killed him. Our garden is going to rack and ruin - strangers are running it - that's to say, what poor father feared so much has come about. I owe this to you as well. I hate you with all my heart and hope you'll soon be dead. Oh, 40 how I'm suffering! An unbearable pain is burning inside me.
May you be damned! I took you for an outstanding man, for a genius, I loved you, but you turned out a madman . . .'
Kovrin could not read any more, tore the letter up and threw it away. He was seized by a feeling of anxiety that was very close to terror. Barbara was sleeping behind a screen and he could hear her breathing. From the ground floor came women's voices and laughter, but he felt that besides himself there wasn't a living soul in the whole hotel. He was terrified because the unhappy, broken-hearted Tanya had cursed him in her letter and had wished for his death. He glanced at the door, as if fearing that the unknown force which had wrought such havoc in his life and in the lives of those near and dear over the last two years might come into the room and take possession of him again.