“Why don’t we stop here? We can rest a bit.”
“Fine.”
“Is it far to town?”
“Five miles from that post.”
The driver was staid, precise, and taciturn. He drove at a slow and dull pace. We went on. I fell silent, feeling relieved because I was looking forward to the rest ahead and hoped that there it would all go away. We drove on and on in the darkness, it seemed terribly long to me. We neared the town. The folk were all asleep already. Little houses appeared from the darkness, there was the sound of harness bells and horses’ stamping, especially resonant, as happens near houses. Large white houses came along here and there. And it was all cheerless. I was waiting for the posting station, the samovar, and rest—to lie down. We drove up, finally, to some little house with a hitching post. The house was white, but it looked terribly sad to me. So much so that it even felt eerie. I got out quietly. Sergei briskly, energetically took out all that was needed, running and stamping on the porch. And the sound of his feet drove me to anguish. I went in, there was a little corridor, a sleepy man with a spot on his cheek—that spot seemed terrible to me—showed me to the main room. The room was gloomy. I went in and it felt still more eerie.
“Isn’t there some little room where I could rest?”
“There’s a bedroom. It’s right here.”
A clean, whitewashed, square room. How tormenting it was to me, I remember, that this little room was precisely square. There was one window, with a curtain—red. A table of Karelian birch and a sofa with curved armrests. We went in. Sergei prepared the samovar and made tea. And I took the pillow and lay down on the sofa. I didn’t sleep. I heard Sergei drinking tea and calling to me. It was frightening for me to get up, frightening to drive sleep away and sit in this room. I did not get up and began to doze off. And I must indeed have dozed off, because when I came to myself there was no one in the room and it was dark. Again I was as wide awake as in the cart. I felt there was no possibility of falling asleep. Why have I driven here? Where am I taking myself? What am I running away from? I’m running away from something frightful and cannot do it. I’m always with myself, and it is I who am my own torment. I, here I am, all here. Neither the Penza estate nor any other will add to or take away anything from me. But I, I’m sick of myself, I can’t stand myself, I torment myself. I want to fall asleep, to forget myself, and I can’t. I can’t get away from myself. I went out to the corridor. Sergei was sleeping on a narrow bench, his arm hanging down, but he was sleeping sweetly, and the attendant with the spot was sleeping, too. I had gone out to the corridor hoping to get away from what tormented me. But it came out with me and darkened everything. I felt just as frightened, maybe even more. “What is this foolishness?” I said to myself. “Why am I anguished, what am I afraid of?” “Me,” the voice of death answered inaudibly “I am here.” Chills crept over me. Yes, of death. It will come, it’s here, but it should not be. If I were actually facing death, I could not have experienced what I was experiencing, I would have been afraid then. But now I was not afraid, but I saw and felt that death was coming and at the same time felt that it should not be. My whole being felt the need, the right to live, and at the same time the happening of death. And this inner rending was terrible. I attempted to shake off this terror. I found a copper candlestick with a burned-down candle and lit it. The red flame of the candle and its size, slightly smaller than the candlestick, all said the same thing. There is nothing in life, but there is death, and it should not be. I tried to think about what interested me: my purchase, my wife—not only was there nothing cheerful, but it all became null. Everything was overshadowed by terror at my perishing life. I had to fall asleep. I lay down. But as soon as I lay down, I suddenly jumped up from terror. And anguish, anguish, such spiritual anguish as comes before vomiting, only spiritual. Eerie, frightening, it seems you’re frightened of death, but then you recollect, you think about life, and you’re frightened of your dying life. Somehow life and death merged into one. Something was tearing my soul to pieces and yet could not tear it. Once more I went and looked at the sleeping men, once more I tried to fall asleep, it was all that same terror—red, white, square. Something was being torn, but not coming apart. Tormenting, and a tormenting dryness and spite, not a drop of goodness did I feel in myself, but only a level, calm spite against myself and what had made me. What had made me? God, they say, God. Pray, I recalled. I hadn’t prayed for a long time, some twenty years, and did not believe in anything, though for propriety’s sake I prepared for and took communion once a year. I began to pray. Lord have mercy, Our Father, Hail Mary. I began to invent prayers. I crossed myself and bowed to the ground, looking around, afraid of being seen. It was as if this distracted me, I was distracted by the fear that I might be seen. I lay down. But I had only to lie down and close my eyes for the same feeling of terror to jostle me, to get me up. I couldn’t bear it any more. I woke the attendant, woke Sergei, ordered the horses harnessed, and we drove on. In the open air and in movement, it got better. But I felt that something new had settled on my soul and poisoned my whole former life.
BY NIGHTFALL we reached the place. All day I had struggled with my anguish and overcome it; but there was a frightening residue in my souclass="underline" as if some misfortune had befallen me, and I could only forget it for a time; but it was there in the bottom of my soul, and it possessed me.
We arrived in the evening. The old steward received me well, though not joyfully (he was vexed that the estate was being sold). Clean rooms with soft furniture. A shiny new samovar. Big teacups, honey with the tea. It was all very nice. But my questions to him about the estate were reluctant, as if it was an old, forgotten lesson. It was all cheerless. I slept through the night, however, without anguish. I ascribed that to the fact that I had prayed again in the evening. And then I began to live as before; but the dread of that anguish hung over me ever after. I had to live without pause and, above all, in habitual conditions, like a student who, out of habit, without thinking, repeats the lesson he has learned by heart, so I had to live in order not to fall again into the power of that terrible anguish that had first appeared in Arzamas.
I returned home safely, not having bought the estate, because I didn’t have enough money, and began to live as before, with the only difference that I began to pray and go to church. It seemed to me as before, but I now recall that it was no longer as before. I lived by what had been started before, I went on rolling with the former impetus along tracks that had been laid down before, but I no longer undertook anything new. And I now took less interest in the things started before. It was all dull to me. And I became pious. And my wife noticed it and scolded and nagged me for it. The anguish did not repeat itself at home. But once I went unexpectedly to Moscow. I made ready in the afternoon and left in the evening. There was a case being tried. I arrived in Moscow feeling cheerful. On the way I got into conversation with a Kharkov landowner about farming, banks, where to stay, the theaters. We decided to stay together at the Moscow Inn on Myasnitskaya and go to Faust that same evening. We arrived, I went into the small room. The heavy smell of the corridor was in my nostrils. The porter brought my suitcase. The floor maid lit a candle. The candle flared up, then the flame sank, as always happens. Someone coughed in the next room—probably an old man. The maid left; the porter stood asking if he should undo the straps on my suitcase. The flame revived and threw its light on the blue wallpaper with yellow stripes, a partition, a scratched table, a small sofa, a mirror, a window, and the narrow dimensions of the whole room. And suddenly the Arzamas terror stirred in me. “My God, how am I going to spend the night here,” I thought.