He kissed both her hands passionately and went on, ‘I’ve just experienced some bright, wonderful, divine moments. But I can’t tell you everything, because you’d call me mad or disbelieve me. Let’s talk about you. Dear, wonderful Tanya! I love you. I’m used to loving you now. Having you near me, meeting you ten times a day has become a spiritual necessity. I don’t know how I will cope when I go home.’
‘Well!’ Tanya laughed. ‘You’ll forget about us in a couple of days. We’re small fry and you’re a great man.’
‘No, let’s be serious!’ he said. ‘I shall take you with me, Tanya. Will you say yes? Will you come with me? Will you be mine?’
‘Well!’ Tanya said and felt like laughing again. But she could not and her face came out in red blotches. Her breath came faster and she quickly went away, not towards the house, but further into the park. ‘I hadn’t given it any thought… I hadn’t thought…’ she said, wringing her hands despairingly.
But Kovrin kept following her, still speaking with that same radiant, rapturous expression on his face, ‘I want a love which will completely transport me, and only you can give me that love, Tanya! I’m happy, so happy!’
Quite stunned, she stooped, shrank and suddenly seemed to have aged ten years. But he found her beautiful and shouted out in delight, ‘How beautiful she is!’
VI
When he heard from Kovrin that not only were they enamoured of each other, but that there was even going to be a wedding, Yegor Semyonych paced up and down for a long time, trying to conceal his excitement. His hands started shaking, his neck swelled up and turned crimson. He ordered his racing droshky to be harnessed and drove off somewhere. When Tanya saw him whipping the horses and pulling his cap almost onto his ears, she realized the kind of mood he was in, locked herself in her room and cried all day long.
The peaches and plums in the hothouses were already ripe. The packing and despatch of this delicate, temperamental cargo required a great deal of care, labour and trouble. Because of the very hot, dry summer, each tree needed watering, which involved a great deal of the gardeners’ time. Swarms of caterpillars appeared, which the gardeners – even Yegor Semyonych and Tanya – squashed with their bare fingers, much to Kovrin’s disgust. Besides this, they had to take orders for fruit and trees for the autumn and conduct an extensive correspondence. And at the most critical time, when no one seemed to have a moment to spare, the harvesting started and this took half the workforce away from the garden. Extremely sunburnt, worn-out and in a dreadful mood, Yegor Semyonych would tear off into the garden, then out into the fields, shouting that they were tearing him to pieces and that he was going to put a bullet in his head.
And now there were rows about the trousseau, to which the Pesotskys attached no little importance. The snipping of scissors, the rattle of sewing-machines, the fumes from the hot-irons, the tantrums of the dressmaker – a nervous, touchy woman – had everyone’s head in a whirl in that household. And as ill luck would have it, guests turned up every day and had to be amused, fed, even put up for the night. But all this toil passed by unnoticed, as though in a mist. Tanya felt as if she had been caught quite unawares by love and happiness, although, from the age of fourteen, she had been somehow sure that Kovrin would marry her, and no one else. She was amazed, bewildered and could not believe what had happened. One moment she would feel such joy that she wanted to fly up into the clouds and offer prayers to God; another time she would suddenly remember that she would have to leave her little nest and part from her father in August; on another occasion the thought would come to her, God knows from where, that she was an insignificant, trivial sort of woman, unworthy of a great man like Kovrin, and she would go to her room, lock the door and cry bitterly for several hours. When they had visitors she would suddenly find Kovrin extremely handsome and think that all the women were in love with him and jealous of her. And her heart would fill with rapturous pride, as if she had conquered the whole world. But he only had to give some young woman a welcoming smile and she would tremble with jealousy, go to her room – and there would be tears again. These new feelings took complete hold of her, she helped her father as though she were a machine and was blind to peaches, caterpillars, workers, oblivious of how swiftly the time was passing.
Almost exactly the same thing was happening to Yegor Semyonych. He worked from morning till night, was always hurrying off somewhere, would boil over and lose his temper, but all this in some kind of magical half-sleep. He seemed to be two different persons at once: one was the real Yegor Semyonych, listening to the head gardener Ivan Karlych’s reports of things going wrong, flaring up and clutching his head in despair; the other was not the real Yegor Semyonych, a half-intoxicated person who would suddenly break off a conversation about business in the middle of a sentence, tap the head gardener on the shoulder and mutter, ‘Whatever you say, good stock matters. His mother was an amazing, noble, brilliant woman. It was a pleasure looking at her kind, bright, pure face, the face of an angel. She was excellent at drawing, wrote poetry, spoke five languages, sang… The poor woman, God rest her soul, died of consumption.’
The unreal Yegor Semyonych would continue after a brief silence, ‘When he was a boy, growing up in my house, he had the same angelic, bright, kind face. And his look, his movements and his conversation were like his mother’s – gentle and refined. And as for his intellect, he always staggered us with his intellect. By the way, he didn’t become an MA for nothing, oh no! But you wait and see, Ivan Karlych, what he’ll be like in ten years’ time! There’ll be no touching him!’
But at this point the real Yegor Semyonych would suddenly take charge, pull a terrifying face, clutch his head and shout, ‘The swines! They’ve polluted, fouled, frozen everything solid! The garden’s ruined! It’s finished!’
But Kovrin kept on working with his former enthusiasm and did not notice all the commotion around him. Love only added fuel to the flames. After every meeting with Tanya he would return to his room feeling happy, exultant and would pick up a book or manuscript with the same passion with which he had just kissed Tanya and declared his love. What the black monk had told him about God’s Chosen, Eternal Truth, humanity’s glittering future and so on lent his work a special, remarkable significance and filled his heart with pride and awareness of his own outstanding qualities. Once or twice a week he met the black monk in the park or in the house, had a talk with him, but it did not frighten him. On the contrary, it delighted him, as he was now firmly convinced that these kinds of visions visited only the select few, only outstanding men who had dedicated themselves to an idea.
One day the monk appeared at dinner time and sat by the window in the dining-room. Kovrin was overjoyed and deftly started a conversation with Yegor Semyonych on a topic that the monk would very likely find interesting. The black visitor listened and nodded his head amiably. Yegor Semyonych and Tanya listened too, cheerfully smiling and without suspecting that Kovrin was speaking not to them, but to his hallucination.
The Fast of the Assumption10 came unnoticed and soon afterwards the wedding day, which, as Yegor Semyonych insisted, was celebrated with ‘a great splash’, that is to say, with senseless festivities that went on for two whole days. They got through three thousand roubles’ worth of food and drink, but with that miserable hired band, the riotous toasts and scurrying servants, the noise and the crush, they did not appreciate the expensive wines, nor the startling delicacies that had been ordered from Moscow.
VII
One long winter’s night Kovrin was reading a French novel in bed. Poor Tanya, who suffered from headaches in the evening as she wasn’t used to town life, had long been asleep and was muttering something incoherent.
Three o’clock struck. Kovrin snuffed the candle and lay down. He remained with eyes closed for a long time, but he could not sleep, possibly because the bedroom was very hot and Tanya was talking in her sleep. At half past four he lit the candle again and this time he saw the black monk sitting in the armchair nea
r the bed.
‘Good evening’, the monk said. After a brief pause he asked, ‘What are you thinking about now?’
‘Fame’, Kovrin answered. ‘I’ve just been reading a French novel about a young scholar who does stupid things and who’s wasting away because of his longing for fame. This longing is something I can’t understand.’
‘That’s because you’re intelligent. You’re indifferent to fame, it’s a toy that doesn’t interest you.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘Fame doesn’t tempt you. What is flattering, or amusing, or edifying in having your name carved on a tombstone only for it to be rubbed off by time, gilding as well? Fortunately there are too many of you for humanity’s weak memory to retain your names.’
‘I understand that’, Kovrin agreed. ‘And why should they be remembered? But let’s talk about something else. Happiness, for example. What is happiness?’
When the clock struck five he was sitting on the bed, his feet dangling over the carpet. He turned to the monk and said, ‘In antiquity, a certain happy man grew scared of his own good fortune in the end, it was so immense. So, to propitiate the Gods, he sacrificed his favourite ring. Do you know that I myself, like Polycrates,11 am getting rather uneasy about my own good fortune? It seems strange that from morning to night I feel only joy, it fills my whole being and stifles all other feelings. As for sorrow, sadness or boredom, I just don’t know what they are. Here I am, unable to sleep, suffering from insomnia, but I’m not bored. Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder what it all means.’
‘But why?’ the monk said in astonishment. ‘Is joy something supernatural? Shouldn’t it be looked on as man’s normal state? The higher man’s intellectual and moral development, the freer he is and the more pleasure life gives him. Socrates,12 Diogenes13 and Marcus Aurelius14 experienced joy, not sadness. And the Apostle says, “Rejoice evermore.”15 So rejoice and be happy.’
‘But supposing the Gods suddenly became angry?’ Kovrin said jokingly and burst out laughing. ‘If they were to take my comforts away and make me freeze and starve I don’t think I would like that.’
Meanwhile Tanya had woken up and she looked at her husband in horror and bewilderment. He was talking to the armchair, laughing and gesticulating. His eyes shone and there was something peculiar in his laughter.
‘Andrey, who are you talking to?’ she asked, clutching the hand he had held out to the monk. ‘Andrey, who is it?’
‘What? Who?’ Kovrin said, taken aback. ‘Well, to him… He’s sitting over there’, he said, pointing at the black monk.
‘There’s no one here… no one! Andrey, you’re ill!’ Tanya embraced her husband and pressed herself against him, as if to protect him from ghosts, and covered his eyes with her hand. ‘You’re ill!’ she sobbed, shaking all over. ‘Forgive me, my dearest, but for some time now I’ve noticed something’s wrong with you. You’re sick in your mind, Andrey…’
Her trembling infected him as well. He looked once more at the armchair, which was empty now and felt a sudden weakness in his arms and legs. This frightened him and he started to dress.
‘It’s nothing, Tanya, nothing’, he muttered, trembling. ‘But to tell the truth, I am a little unwell… it’s time I admitted it.’
‘I noticed it some time ago… and Papa did too’, she said, trying to hold back her sobs. ‘You talk to yourself, you smile so strangely… you’re not sleeping. Oh, good God, good God, save us!’ she said in horror. ‘But don’t be afraid, Andrey dear, don’t be afraid. For God’s sake don’t be afraid…’
She began to dress too. Only now, as he looked at her, did Kovrin fully realize how dangerous his position was, only now did he understand the meaning of the black monk and his talks with him. He was quite convinced now that he was insane.
Both of them got dressed, without understanding why, and went into the ballroom, she first and he following. And there stood Yegor Semyonych (he was staying with them and had been awakened by the sobbing) in his dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand.
‘Don’t be afraid, Andrey’, Tanya said, shaking as though in a fever. ‘Don’t be afraid… Papa, it will pass… it will pass…’
Kovrin could not speak, he was so upset. He wanted to tell his father-in-law, just for a joke, ‘Please congratulate me, I think I’ve gone mad…’, but all he could do was move his lips and smile bitterly.
At nine in the morning they put his greatcoat and furs on, wrapped a shawl round him and took him in a carriage to the doctor’s. He began a course of treatment.
VIII
Summer had come and the doctor ordered him into the country. Kovrin was better now, had stopped seeing the black monk and it only remained for him to get his strength back. Living with his father-in-law in the country, he drank a lot of milk, worked only two hours a day, and did not drink or smoke.
On the eve of Elijah’s Day16 evening service was held in the house. When the lay reader handed the priest the censer, the enormous old ballroom smelt like a graveyard. Kovrin grew bored. He went out into the garden, wandered about without noticing the gorgeous flowers, sat down on a bench, and then strolled through the park. When he reached the river he went down the slope and stood looking thoughtfully at the water. The gloomy pines with their shaggy roots which had seen him here the previous year looking so young, joyful and lively, no longer talked in whispers, but stood motionless and dumb, as though they did not recognize him. And in fact his hair had been cut short, it was no longer beautiful, he walked sluggishly and his face had grown fuller and paler since the previous summer.
He crossed the footbridge to the other side. Where rye had been growing last year were rows of reaped oats. The sun had already set and a broad red glow burned on the horizon, a sign that it would be windy next day. It was quiet. Looking hard in the direction where the black monk had first appeared last year, Kovrin stood for about twenty minutes until the evening glow began to fade.
When he returned to the house, feeling listless and dissatisfied, the service was over. Yegor Semyonych and Tanya were sitting on the terrace steps drinking tea. They were discussing something, but suddenly became silent when they saw Kovrin, and he guessed from their expressions that they had been talking about him.
‘Well, I think it’s time for your milk’, Tanya told her husband.
‘No, it’s not’, he answered, sitting on the lowest step. ‘Drink it yourself, I don’t want any.’
Tanya anxiously exchanged glances with her father and said quietly, ‘But you yourself said the milk does you a lot of good!’
‘Yes, a lot of good!’ Kovrin replied, grinning. ‘I congratulate you – since Friday I’ve put on another pound.’ He firmly clasped his head and said in an anguished voice, ‘Why, why did you try to cure me? All those bromides, idleness, warm baths, supervision, the cowardly fear with every mouthful, every step. All this will finally turn me into a complete idiot. I was going out of my mind, I had megalomania, but I was bright and cheerful, even happy. I was interesting and original. Now I’ve grown more rational and stable, but I’m just like everyone else, a nobody. Life bores me… Oh, how cruelly you’ve treated me! I did have hallucinations, but did they harm anyone? Whom did they harm, that’s what I’d like to know?’
‘God knows what you’re talking about!’ Yegor Semyonych sighed. ‘It’s downright boring listening to you.’
‘Then don’t listen.’
Kovrin found other people’s presence, especially Yegor Semyonych’s, irritating and he would answer him drily, coldly, rudely even; and he could not look at him without a feeling of hatred and mockery, which embarrassed Yegor Semyonych, who would cough guiltily, although he didn’t feel he was in the least to blame. Unable to understand why their friendly, loving relationship had changed so suddenly, Tanya pressed close to her father and looked him anxiously in the eye. She wanted to understand, but she could not, and she could only see that with every day relations were getting worse, that her father had aged considerably recently, whi
le her husband had become irritable, moody, quarrelsome and uninteresting. No longer could she laugh and sing, she ate nothing at mealtimes, and lay awake whole nights expecting something terrible. She went through such torture that once she lay in a faint from lunch until the evening. During the service she thought that her father was crying and now, when the three of them sat on the terrace, she endeavoured not to think about it.
‘How fortunate Buddha, Muhammad or Shakespeare were in not being treated by kind-hearted relatives for ecstasy and inspiration!’ Kovrin said. ‘If Muhammad had taken potassium bromide for his nerves, had worked only two hours a day and drunk milk, then that remarkable man would have left as much to posterity as his dog. In the long run doctors and kind relatives will turn humanity into a lot of morons. Mediocrity will pass for genius and civilization will perish. If only you knew’, Kovrin added with annoyance, ‘how grateful I am to you!’
He was absolutely infuriated and quickly got up and went into the house, in case he said too much. It was quiet and the smell of tobacco flowers and jalap17 drifted in from the garden through the open windows. Green patches of moonlight lay on the floor in the huge dark ballroom and on the grand piano. Kovrin recalled the joys of the previous summer, when there was that same smell of jalap, and the moon had shone through the windows. Trying to recapture that mood he hurried to his study, lit a strong cigar and told a servant to bring him some wine. But the cigar left a bitter, disgusting taste and the wine tasted differently from last year: these were the effects of having given up the habit. The cigar and two mouthfuls of wine made his head go round, he had palpitations, for which he had to take potassium bromide.
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!’