About Love and Other Stories

  ‘Bloodlines account for a lot, you know, whatever you might think. His mother was extraordinary, a most noble, clever woman. It was a pleasure to look at her kind, bright, blameless face; it was just like an angel’s. She drew beautifully, she wrote poetry, she spoke five foreign languages, she sang… And the poor creature died of consumption, may she rest in peace.’

  The unreal Yegor Semyonich would sigh and fall silent for a while, before continuing;

  ‘When he was a boy growing up with me, he also had the same angelic face, all bright and full of goodness. His look, the way he moved and talked, was gentle and refined, just like his mother. And his brain? His brain always astonished us. Well he’s not got his degree for nothing, you know! Absolutely not! And you just see what he is like in ten years’ time, Ivan Karlych! You won’t be able to touch him!’

  But then the real Yegor Semyonich would come to his senses; he would pull a terrifying face, clutch his head and shout:

  ‘The devils! They have ruined everything! They have made a mess of it all, they have fouled everything up! The gardens are ruined! They are lost!’

  Meanwhile, Kovrin worked with his usual zeal and did not notice the commotion. Love just fanned the flames. After each meeting with Tanya he would go to his room, excited and happy, and would take up his book or his manuscript with the same passion with which he had just kissed Tanya and declared his love for her. What the black monk had said about people chosen by God, eternal truth, brilliant future of mankind, and so on, just endowed his work with an unusual, special significance, filling his soul with pride, and a consciousness of his own high calling. Once or twice a week he would meet the monk in the park or in the house and have long conversations with him, but this did not frighten him; on the contrary, it excited him, as he was already firmly convinced that only a few exceptional people who had dedicated themselves to serving an ideal were selected to experience such visions.

  Once the monk appeared during dinner, and he went and sat down by the window in the dining room. Kovrin was delighted, and he skilfully steered a conversation with Yegor Semyonich and Tanya on to a topic that the monk might find interesting; the black-robed guest listened, nodding his head cordially, and Yegor Semyonich and Tanya also listened, with happy smiles, not suspecting that Kovrin was conversing with his hallucination, not with them.

  The period of fasting for the Assumption * arrived, and then soon after that came the day of the wedding which, according to Yegor Semyonich’s fervent wish, went off ‘with a bang’, that is to say, it was celebrated with pointless revelries which went on for two days. The guests consumed about three thousand roubles’ worth of food and drink, but because of the terrible musicians who had been hired, the raucous toasts, the bustle of servants running about the place, the noise and the crush, no one appreciated the fine wines or elegant canapés ordered from Moscow.

  VII

  One long winter night Kovrin was lying in bed reading a French novel. Poor old Tanya, who suffered from headaches in the evening because she was unused to living in the city, had long been asleep and was from time to time uttering meaningless phrases while she dreamt.

  The clock struck three. Kovrin put out the candle and lay down; he lay for a long time with his eyes closed, but he could not fall asleep because Tanya was still talking in her dreams and it felt very hot in their bedroom. At half-past four he lit the candle again, and it was then that he saw the black monk sitting in the armchair by the bed.

  ‘Hello,’ said the monk. After remaining silent for a short while, he asked: ‘What are you thinking about at the moment?’

  ‘About fame,’ answered Kovrin. ‘In the French novel which I have just been reading, there is a man, a young scholar, who does some stupid things, and wears himself out with his longing for fame. I don’t understand that kind of longing.’

  ‘That’s because you are clever. You aren’t bothered by fame; it’s like a toy which does not interest you.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’

  ‘Fame does not attract you. What is desirable or funny or useful in having your name on a gravestone which time will erode, along with the gilt lettering? There are fortunately too many of you for your names to be preserved by the weakness of human memory.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Kovrin in agreement. ‘And what is the point of remembering them anyway? But let’s talk about something else. Happiness, for example. What is happiness?’

  When the clock struck five, he was sitting on the bed with his legs dangling over the carpet and saying to the monk:

  ‘There was one happy person in ancient times who ended up becoming so frightened of his happiness, because it was so intense, that in order to please the gods he brought them his favourite ring as a sacrifice. And do you know something? I’m beginning to worry slightly about my happiness like Polycrates * did. It seems odd that I only ever experience joy from morning to night. It overwhelms me and drowns out any other feelings. I don’t know what sadness, sorrow, or boredom is. Look, I am not sleeping, I’ve got insomnia, but I am not upset. I’m serious you know, I’m beginning to wonder about all this.’

  ‘But why?’ asked the monk in amazement. ‘Is joy a supernatural feeling? Shouldn’t it be man’s normal state? The greater a person’s intellectual and moral development, the greater his freedom, and the greater the pleasure he will derive from life. It was joy that Socrates, Diogenes, and Marcus Aurelius experienced, not sadness. As the Apostle said, “Rejoice evermore. Rejoice and be happy.”’ *

  ‘But what if the gods suddenly become angry?’ joked Kovrin, laughing. ‘If they take away my prosperity and force me to starve and freeze to death, I am not sure that would be quite to my taste.’

  Tanya had meanwhile woken up, and was staring with amazement and horror at her husband. He was talking, making gestures, and laughing as he sat looking towards the armchair; his eyes were shining and there was something strange in his laughter.

  ‘Andryusha, who are you talking to?’ she asked, clutching the arm he had stretched out towards the monk. ‘Who? Andryusha!’

  ‘What? Who am I talking to?’ said Kovrin in confusion. ‘With him… sitting over there,’ he said pointing to the black monk.

  Tanya put her arms around Kovrin, drew him near to her as if to protect him from his visions, and covered his eyes with her hand.

  ‘You’re ill,’ she sobbed, her whole body shaking. ‘Forgive me, my dearest, my love, but I noticed a long time ago that something had unsettled you… You’re mentally ill, Andryusha…’

  Now he started shaking too. He looked again at the armchair, which was now empty, felt a sudden weakness in his arms and legs which scared him, and started getting dressed.

  ‘There’s nothing seriously wrong, Tanya, I promise…,’ he muttered, trembling. ‘I am actually a little unwell though… it’s time I admitted it.’

  ‘I’ve been aware of it for a long time now… and Papa has noticed it too,’ she said, trying to stifle her sobs. ‘You talk to yourself, you smile in a weird way… you don’t sleep. Dear God, please save us!’ she said in horror. ‘Don’t be frightened, Andryusha, just please don’t be frightened…’

  She also started getting dressed. It was only now as he looked at her that Kovrin grasped how dangerous his condition was, and understood what the black monk and the conversations with him meant. It was clear to him now that he was mad.

  Without understanding why, both had got dressed and had gone into the drawing room, Tanya first and Kovrin following. They found Yegor Semyonich, who was staying with them, already standing there in his dressing-gown, candle in hand, having been woken up by all the crying.

  ‘Don’t worry, Andryusha,’ said Tanya, shaking as if she had a fever. ‘Don’t worry… Everything will be fine, Papa, everything will be all right.’

  Kovrin was so agitated that he could not speak. He tried to address his father-in-law in a joking way, and wanted to say ‘You can congratulate me, as I seem to have gone mad,’ but all he could do was
move his lips and smile bitterly.

  At nine o’clock in the morning they dressed him in his jacket and then his fur coat, wrapped him in a shawl, and took him to the doctor in a carriage. He started receiving treatment.

  VIII

  Summer came round again and the doctor ordered a stay in the country. Kovrin had already recovered and had stopped seeing the black monk, and now it was just a matter of building up his strength again. While he was living with his father-in-law in the countryside he drank a lot of milk, worked only two hours a day, and did not drink or smoke.

  They held Vespers in the house on the evening before St Elijah’s Day * at the end of the summer. When the sexton handed the censer over to the priest, the huge old ballroom started smelling just like a cemetery, and Kovrin started to feel depressed. He went out into the garden. He walked round without noticing the gorgeous flowers, sat for a while on a bench, then set off to walk through the park; when he got to the river he walked down the bank and stood there lost in thought, staring at the water. The fir trees with furry roots, which had seemed so young, joyous, and cheerful the previous year, now did not whisper but stood motionless and dumb, as if they did not recognize him. And indeed his head was shaved now; he no longer had his beautiful long hair, his posture was sluggish, and compared to last summer his face had filled out and become much paler.

  He crossed to the other bank on the footbridge. Where there had been rye last year, scythed oats now lay in rows. The sun had already set, and there was a broad red glow blazing on the horizon, presaging windy weather the next day. It was quiet. Kovrin stood for about twenty minutes looking in the direction of the spot where the black monk had first appeared last year, and then the evening light began to fade…

  The service had already finished when he returned home, dissatisfied and listless. Yegor Semyonich and Tanya were sitting on the steps of the terrace drinking tea. They were talking about something, but when they saw Kovrin they immediately fell silent and he concluded from their expressions that their conversation had been about him.

  ‘I think it’s about time you drank some milk,’ said Tanya to her husband.

  ‘No, it’s not about time…’, he answered, sitting down on the bottom step. ‘You drink it. I don’t want any.’

  Tanya exchanged a nervous glance with her father and said in a guilty voice:

  ‘But you’ve said yourself that milk is good for you.’

  ‘Yes, very good for me!’ sneered Kovrin. ‘Well done: I’ve put on another pound since Friday.’ He clasped his head in his hands and said sadly: ‘Why, oh why did you cure me? Bromide preparations, rest, warm baths, observation, a timid fear over every mouthful I swallow, every step I take—it’s eventually going to make me into a complete idiot. Maybe I was going insane, maybe I had delusions of grandeur, but I was good company, I was cheerful, even happy; I was interesting and original. Now I’ve become more down to earth and sensible, but I’m just like everybody else: I am a mediocrity, life is depressing… You’ve been so cruel to me! So what if I had hallucinations–who cared? I am asking you: who cared?’

  ‘God knows what you are on about!’ said Yegor Semyonich with a sigh. ‘It’s depressing just listening to you.’

  ‘Don’t listen then.’

  Other people, especially Yegor Semyonich, now really irritated Kovrin; he answered him abruptly, coldly, and even rudely, and could only look at him with withering hatred; Yegor Semyonich felt awkward and coughed guiltily, although he did not in fact feel guilty in the least. Unable to understand why their affectionate, easygoing relationship had changed so dramatically, Tanya clung to her father and looked with anxiety into Kovrin’s eyes: she wanted to understand, but could not, and all that was clear was that their relationship was deteriorating further every day, that her father had recently aged a great deal, and that her husband had become ill-tempered, capricious, prickly, and uninteresting. She could not sing or laugh any more, she ate nothing for lunch, she did not sleep for whole nights on end, expecting something awful to happen, and she worked herself up into such a state that one day she fainted after lunch and lay unconscious until evening. During Vespers she thought her father was crying, and now she was trying hard not to think about that while the three of them were sitting there on the steps.

  ‘The Buddha, Mohammed, and Shakespeare were fortunate not to have their relatives and doctors cure them of their ecstasy and inspiration!’ said Kovrin. ‘If Mohammed had taken potassium bromide for his nerves, worked only two hours a day, and drunk milk, then he would have left as much to posterity as his dog. Doctors and devoted relatives will eventually make mankind duller, mediocrity will be seen as genius, and civilization will perish. If you only knew how grateful I am to you!’ said Kovrin sarcastically.

  He was feeling extremely irritated, and so he stood up and walked into the house so as not to say anything further. It was quiet, and the sweet scent of tobacco plants and beauty-of-the-night came wafting in through the open windows from the garden. Moonlight lay in green patches on the floor and on the grand piano in the darkened ballroom. Kovrin remembered the delights of the previous summer, when there had also been the scent of beauty-of-the-night and the moonlight had also shone in through the windows. In an attempt to try and resurrect his mood of the previous year, he marched up to his study, lit a strong cigar, and ordered the servant to bring him some wine. But the cigar tasted horrible and bitter in his mouth, and the wine did not have the taste it had the previous year. Talk about growing unaccustomed to things! His head was spinning from the cigar, and two mouthfuls of wine started giving him palpitations, so he had to take some potassium bromide.

  Before bedtime, Tanya told him:

  ‘Father adores you. You are angry with him about something and it’s killing him. Just look at him: he is ageing not so much by the day but by the hour. I beg you Andryusha, for the love of God, for your late father’s sake, for my peace of mind, please be kind to him!’

  ‘I can’t and I won’t.’

  ‘But why?’ Tanya asked, as her whole body began to shake. ‘Just tell me why?’

  ‘Because I don’t like him, and that’s all there is to it,’ said Kovrin casually, shrugging his shoulders. ‘But let’s not talk about him: he’s your father.’

  ‘I just can’t understand it!’ said Tanya, pressing her fingers to her temples and staring blankly ahead. ‘Something incomprehensible and awful is going on in our home. You have changed and become quite unlike yourself… You are an intelligent and unusual person, but you now fly off the handle at the slightest provocation and you interfere in quarrels… You get worked up by such petty things that sometimes I am amazed and can’t believe that it’s really you. Look, don’t be angry, please don’t be angry,’ she continued, kissing his hands, frightened by what she had said. ‘You are good and clever and generous, I know you are. And you will be decent to him, I know. He is such a kind person!’

  ‘He is not kind, he’s just good-natured. Comic old men like your father, with their smug, good-natured physiognomies, effusive hospitality, and little eccentricities used to make me laugh–whether it was in stories, on the stage, or in real life. I found them quite touching too, but now I can’t bear them. They are egotistical in the extreme. What I find most disgusting is their smugness and their sort of gastric optimism, as if they were bulls or pigs.’

  Tanya sat down on the bed and then put her head on the pillow.

  ‘This is torture,’ she said, and you could tell from her voice that she was utterly drained and found it difficult to speak. ‘There hasn’t been one peaceful minute since the winter. My God, this is just awful! It’s so painful…’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, I am like Herod, * and you and your Papa are the Egyptian infants. Of course!’

  Tanya found his face unattractive and unpleasant. Hatred and sarcasm did not suit him. She had actually already noticed that there was something wrong with his face; it was as if it had changed when he had had his head shaved. She was about to say so
mething insulting to him, but immediately became aware of her hostile feelings, was frightened, and left the bedroom.

  IX

  Kovrin was given his own chair. His inaugural lecture was set for the second of December and notice of it was posted in the university corridor. But on the appointed day he informed the student administrator by telegram that he would be unable to read the lecture due to illness.

  There was blood coming from his throat. He had been spitting blood before, but it was now flowing copiously once or twice a month, and when it did so he became incredibly weak and fell into a drowsy state. The illness did not particularly worry him, because he knew that his late mother had lived with exactly the same illness for ten years, even longer; the doctors had assured him it was not dangerous, and had advised him simply not to get overexcited, to lead a healthy life, and talk less.

  The lecture also did not take place in January for the same reason, and in February it was already too late to begin the course. It had to be postponed until the following year.

  He was now no longer living with Tanya but with another woman, who was two years older than him and looked after him as if he was a child. His frame of mind was calm and submissive: he readily acquiesced to her authority, and when Varvara Nikolayevna—as his friend was called—suggested that she take him to the Crimea, he agreed, although he sensed that nothing good would come of the trip.

  They arrived in Sevastopol in the evening, and stayed in a hotel overnight in order to get some rest before travelling on to Yalta * the next day. They were both tired from the journey. Varvara Nikolayevna had a cup of tea, went to bed, and soon fell asleep. But Kovrin stayed up. An hour before setting off for the station, while they were still at home, he had received a letter from Tanya, but he had been unable to bring himself to unseal it, and now it sat in his jacket pocket and the thought of it was making him anxious. If he was honest with himself, he now felt deep down that his marriage to Tanya was a mistake, and was glad he had finally separated from her; his memory of the woman who had eventually turned into a walking skeleton, and in whom everything seemed to have died except those large, intelligent, intensely staring eyes, aroused only his pity and disappointment with himself. The handwriting on the envelope reminded him of how he had been unfair and cruel two years ago, and how he had unburdened all his emotional emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and all his dissatisfaction with life, onto people who were completely innocent. And then he was reminded of how he had torn his dissertation and all the articles he had written during his illness into shreds and thrown them out of the window, and how the scraps of paper had been carried off by the wind and had attached themselves to trees and flowers; in every line he had seen strange, groundless pretension, frivolous passion, impertinence, and delusions of grandeur, and it had had the effect of making him feel he was reading a description of his flaws; but when the last notebook had been torn up and tossed out of the window he had suddenly felt a sense of bitter disappointment, so he had gone to his wife and said all kinds of horrible things to her. Goodness, how he had tormented her! Once, when he wanted to cause her pain, he told her that her father had played an unattractive role in their courtship, as he had asked him to marry her; Yegor Semyonich happened to overhear this and had stormed into the room, but he felt so wretched he could not say a single word, and he had just stood there stamping his foot and mumbling strangely, as if his tongue had been removed. Tanya gave a piercing cry when she saw her father, and promptly fainted. It was disgraceful.