'So I'm aware, you've told me that before.'
First we drive through open country, then through the pine-wood which can be seen from my window. Nature seems as lovely as ever, though the devil whispers that when I'm dead in three or four months' time, none of these pines and firs, these birds and white clouds in the sky, will miss me. Katya likes driving, and is pleased that the day is fine, and I'm sitting beside her. She's in a good mood, and doesn't speak harshly.
'You're a very fine man, Nicholas Stepanovich,' she says. 'You're a rare specimen—no actor could play you. Now, take me, say, or Michael Fyodorovich—even a poor actor could play us. But no one could act you. I envy you too, I envy you terribly. What do I add up to, after all? What indeed?'
She thinks for a minute.
'I'm a negative phenomenon, aren't I?' she asks. 'Well, Nicholas Stepanovich ?'
'Yes,' I reply.
'H'm. Then what am I to do?'
What can I tell her? 'Work', 'Give all you have to the poor', 'Know yourself—these things are easily said, so easily that I don't know how to answer.
When teaching the art of healing, my colleagues on the therapy side advise one to 'individualize each separate case'. Following this advice, one comes to see that the techniques recommended in the manuals as best—and as fully applicable to a textbook case—turn out quite unsuitable in specific instances. Moral ailments arc the same.
But I have to give some answer.
'You have too much spare time, my dear,' I say. 'You should find an occupation. Now, why shouldn't you go on the stage again if that's your real line?'
IT V »
I can t.
'Your tone and manner are those of a victim. I don't like that, my dear. It's your o^n fault. Remember, you began by getting angry with people and the way things were done ? But you did nothing to improve the things or the people. You didn't resist evil, you just caved in—so you're a victim of your o^n weakness, not a battle casualty. Well, you were young and inexperienced then, of course, but now everything may be different. So go ahead, honestly! You'll be working, serving the sacred cause of art '
'Don't be so devious, Nicholas Stepanovich,' Katya breaks in. 'Let's agree once and for all that we can talk about actors, actresses and writers—but we'll leave art out ofit. You're a marvellous, rare person, but you don't know enough about art to be sincere in calling it sacred. You have no feel for art, no ear. You've been so busy all your life, you've had no time to cultivate this feel. And anyway—I don't like this talk about art!' she goes on nervously. 'I dislike it! The thing's been vulgarized enough already, thank you very much!'
'Who vulgarized it?'
'Some by drunkenness, the newspapers by their patronizing attitude, and clever men by their theories.'
'Theories are neither here nor there.'
'Oh yes they are. When someone theorizes, it shows he doesn't understand.'
To prevent unpleasantness, I hurriedly change the subject, and then remain silent for a while. Only when we emerge from the wood and make for Katya's villa do I take up the topic again.
'You still haven't answered me,' I say. 'Why don't you want to go back to the stage?'
'Nicholas Stepanovich, this is really cruel!' she shrieks, suddenly flushing crimson. 'Do you want it spelt out for you? All right then, if that's what you want. I'm no good at it. I have no talent, and—and I have a lot of vanity. So there !'
After making this confession, she turns her face away and gives a powerful tug at the reins to hide the trembling of her hands.
Driving up to her villa, we see Michael Fyodorovich from afar strolling near the gate and impatiently awaiting us.
'There's that Michael Fyodorovich again,' says Katya, annoyed. 'Can't you get rid of him—please! I'm sick of him—he's half dead, confound him !'
Michael Fyodorovich should have gone abroad long ago, but puts off his departure every week. One or two changes have occurred in him of late. He looks pinched, somehow. Wine makes him tipsy, which it never used to, and his black eyebrows are going grey. When our chaise pulls up by the gate, he can't hide his delight and impatience. He fussily helps the two of us do^n, firing rapid quettions, laughing, rubbing his hands. That tender, supplicatory, innocent look which I'd previously noticed only in his eyes—his whole face is now suffused with it. He rejoices—yet feels ashamed of his joy, ashamed of this habit of calling on Katya every evening, and he finds it necessary to motivate his appearance with some obvious absurdity such as: 'I was just passing on an errand and thought I'd look in for a minute.'
We all three go indoors. First we drink tea, after which objects long familiar appear on the table—the two packs of cards, the large piece of cheese, the fruit, the bottle of Crimean champagne. Our topics of conversation are not new, they haven't changed since winter. The university comes in for abuse, as do students, literature and the theatre. Calumny clogs the stifling air, and it is no longer two toads, as in winter, which exhale their poisonous breath, but a whole trio of them. Besides the velvet baritone laugh and the loud guffaw like the sound of a concertina, the serving maid can also hear an unpleasant rattling snigger resembling the chuckle of a stage general in a farce.
v
There arc terrible nights with thunder, lightning, rain and wind— 'sparrow nights', country people call them. There was once such a sparrow night in my personal life.
I wake up after midnight, and suddenly jump out of bed. I'm on the point of dying quite suddenly, I somehow feel. Why this feeling? There's no physical sensation pointing to a sudden end, yet terror clutches at my heart, as if I'd just seen the huge glow of some siiister conflagration.
I quickly strike a light, drink water straight from the carafe, rush to the open window. The night is superb, with a smell of hay and some other very sweet scent. I sec the sharp points of my garden fence, the sleepy, wizened little trees by the window, the road, the dark strip of wood. There's a very bright, peaceful moon in the sky, and not a single cloud. It's quiet, not a leaf moves. I feel as if all these things were looking at me, and listening for me to start dying.
It's an eerie feeling. I close the window and run to my bed. I feel for my pulse. Not finding it in my wrist, I feel for it in my temple, then in my chin, then again in my wrist—and all these places are cold, clammy with sweat. I breathe faster and faster, my body trembles, all my inside is moving, my face and bald pate feel covered with a spiders' web.
What shall I do? Call my family? No, there's no point—I've no idea what my wife and Liza could do if they came in.
I hide my head under the pillow, close my eyes and wait—just wait.
My back's cold, and feels as if it was being sucked inside me, and I sense that death is sure to sneak up quietly from behind.
'Kee-vee, kee-vee!' something suddenly shrieks in the night's stillness, and I don't know where it comes from—my chest or the street.
'Kee-vee, kee-vee!'
God, how appalling! I'd have another drink of water, butI'm scared to open my eyes, afraid to lift my head. This is an unreasoning, animal fear. Why I'm so scared, I haven't the faintest idea—whether because of an urge to live, or because new, as yet unknown, pain is in store for me.
In the room above me someone is groaning or laughing. I listen. Soon afterwards footsteps are heard on the stairs. Someone goes quickly do^n, then back up again. A minute later steps are again heard downstairs. Someone stops near my door and listens.
'Who's there?' I shout.
The door opens, I boldly open my eyes and see my wife—her face pale, her eyes tear-stained.
'Can't you sleep, Nicholas?' she asks.
'What is it?'
'Come and have a look at Liza, for God's sake. There's something wrong with her.'
'All right—I'll be glad to,' I mutter, delighted not to be alone. 'Very well—straight away.'