I. A DREAM OF PRIDE

Lukerya just announced that she won’t stay with me and that she’ll leave as soon as the mistress is buried. I prayed on my knees for five minutes, and I had wanted to pray for an hour, but I keep thinking, and thinking, and they’re all such aching thoughts and my head aches - what’s the use of praying - it’s nothing but a sin! It’s also strange that I don’t want to sleep：in great, in such great sorrow, after the first violent outbursts, one always wants to sleep. They say that people who are condemned to death sleep extremely soundly on their last night. As they should, it’s only natural, other-wise they wouldn’t have the strength to endure i ... I lay down on the sofa, but I didn’t fall aslee ...

...For the six weeks of her illness we took care of her day and night-Lukerya and I and a trained nurse from the hos-pital, whom I had hired. I didn’t begrudge the money, and even wanted to spend money on her. I called in Dr Schroeder and paid him ten roubles a visit. Wen she regained con-sciousness, I started to show myself less often. But why am I describing this? Wen she was completely on her feet again, she sat quietly and silently in my room at a special table, which I had also bought for her at the tim ... Yes, it’s true, we were perfectly silent; that is, we began to talk later on, but only about the usual things. Of course, I delib-erately refrained from becoming expansive, but I could see very well that she also was happy not to say a word more than was necessary. This seemed perfectly natural on her part：‘She is too shaken and too defeated,’ I thought, ‘and of course she needs time to forget and get used to things.’And so it was that we were silent, but every minute I was secretly preparing myself for the future. I thought that she was doing the same as well, and it was terribly entertaining for me to guess：Exactly what is she thinking about now?

I’ll say one more thing：Oh, of course, nobody knows what I endured as I grieved over her during her illness. But I kept my grief to myself and kept the grieving in my heart even from Lukerya. I couldn’t imagine, I couldn’t even suppose that she would die without learning everything. Wen she was out of danger and her health started to return, I remem-ber this, I quickly calmed down and very much so. Wat’s more, I decided to postpone our future for as long as possible, and for the present to leave everything as it was now. Yes, then something happened to me that was strange and pecu-liar, I don’t know what else to call it：I had triumphed and this thought alone proved to be quite sufficient for me. And that’s how the whole winter passed. Oh, I was pleased as I had never been before, and that for the whole winter.

You see：in my life there had been one terrible external circumstance, which until then, that is, until the catastrophe with my wife, weighed heavily on me every day and every hour, namely, the loss of my reputation and leaving the regi-ment. To put it in a nutshell：this had been a tyrannical injustice against me. True, my comrades disliked me on account of my difficult and, perhaps, ridiculous character, although it often happens that what you find sublime, what you hold dear and esteem, for some reason at the same time makes a group of your comrades laugh. Oh, I was never liked, even in school. I’ve never been liked anywhere. Even Lukerya cannot like me. The incident in the regiment, though a consequence of this dislike for me, without a doubt bore an accidental character. I mention this because there’s nothing more exasperating and intolerable than to be ruined by an incident that might or might not have happened, by an unfortunate chain of circumstances that might have passed over, like a cloud. It’s humiliating for an educated man. The incident was as follows.

During the intermission at the theatre I went to the bar. Hussar A—v came in suddenly and began talking loudly with two of his fellow hussars in the presence of all the offi-cers and public gathered there about how Bezumtsev, the captain of our regiment, had just caused a scandal in the corridor ‘and he seems to be drunk’. The conversation moved on to other things; besides, there had been a mistake, because Captain Bezumtsev wasn’t drunk, and there hadn’t really been a scandal. The hussars began talking about some-thing else, and that was the end of it, but the next day the story made its way to our regiment, and at once they began saying how I was the only person at the bar from our regi-ment and that when Hussar A—v spoke insolently of Captain Bezumtsev I had not gone over to A—v and put a stop to it by reprimanding him. But why on earth should I have done that? If he had it in for Bezumtsev, then it was their personal affair, and why should I get involved? Meanwhile, the offi-cers began to take the position that the affair was not personal but concerned the regiment, and that since I was the only officer of our regiment present, I had proved by my conduct to all the officers at the bar as well as the public that there might be officers in our regiment who were not overly scrupulous concerning their honour and the regiment’s. I could not agree with this verdict. I was given to understand that I might still set everything right even now, belatedly, if I should wish to demand a formal explanation from A—v. I did not wish to do so and since I was annoyed, I refused with pride. I then at once resigned my commission - and that’s the whole story. I left proud, but with my spirit crushed. My mind and will both foundered. It was just then that my sis-ter’s husband squandered our little fortune and my portion of it, a tiny portion, so I was left on the street without a kopeck. I could have found employment in a private busi-ness, but I didn’t：after wearing my splendid regimental uniform I couldn’t go work on some railroad. And so - if it’s shame, let it be shame, if it’s disgrace, let it be disgrace, if it’s degradation, let it be degradation, and the worse, the better - that’s what I chose. There followed three years of gloomy memories, even of the Vyazemsky House. A year and a half ago a rich old lady, my godmother, died in Moscow and among other bequests unexpectedly left me 3，000 in her will. I gave it some thought and then decided my fate. I set-tled on the pawnshop, with no apologies to anyone：money, then a corner and - a new life far away from my former memories - that was the plan. Nevertheless, my gloomy past and the reputation of my honour, forever ruined, tormented me every hour, every minute. But then I married. By chance or not - I don’t know. But when I brought her into my house, I thought that I was bringing a friend, I greatly needed a friend. But I saw clearly that my friend had to be prepared, given the finishing touches, and even defeated. And could I have explained anything straight off like that to this sixteen-year-old girl with her prejudices? For example, how could I, without the accidental assistance of the terrible catastrophe with the revolver, have convinced her that I wasn’t a coward and that I had been unjustly accused by the regiment of being a coward? But the catastrophe arrived just at the right moment. Having stood up to the revolver, I had avenged all of my gloomy past. And even though nobody knew about it, she knew about it, and that was everything for me, because she was everything to me, all my hopes for the future in my dreams! She was the only person whom I was preparing for myself, and I didn’t need another-and now she knew everything; at least she knew that she had unjustly hurried to join my enemies. This thought delighted me. In her eyes I could no longer be a scoundrel, but merely a peculiar person, and even this thought, after everything that had happened, did not at all displease me：peculiarity is not a vice; on the contrary, it sometimes attracts the fem-inine character. In a word, I deliberately postponed the finale：what had taken place was more than sufficient, for the time being, for my peace of mind and contained more than enough pictures and material for my dreams. That’s the nasty thing about this-I’m a dreamer：I had enough material; as for her, I thought that she would wait .

And so the whole winter passed in some sort of expectation of something. I liked to steal looks at her, when she happened to be sitting at her little table. She would be busy with her needlework, with the linen, and in the evenings she would sometimes read books which she would take from my book-case. The choice of books in the bookcase should also have spoken in my favour. She hardly ever went out. Every day after dinner, before dusk, I would take her for a walk and we would go for our constitutional, but not completely in silence, as before. I precisely tried to make it look as though we weren’t being silent and were speaking harmoniously, but as I’ve already said we both avoided getting carried away talking. I was doing this on purpose, while she, I thought, needed to be ‘given time’. Of course, it’s strange that it did not once occur to me until almost the very end of the winter that though I liked to look at her on the sly, I never once caught her looking at me that whole winter! I thought that it was timidity on her part. Moreover, she had an air about her of such timid meek-ness, such weakness after her illness. No, better to bide one’s time and-‘and she will suddenly come to you on her ow ... ’

That thought delighted me irresistibly. I will add one thing：sometimes it was as if I had deliberately inflamed myself and really brought my heart and mind to the point that I would feel that I had been wronged by her. And so it continued for some time. But my hatred could never ripen and take root in my soul. And I even felt that it was only some sort of game. And even then, although I had dissolved our marriage by buying the bed and screen, never, never could I see her as a criminal. And not because I judged her crime lightly, but because it made sense to forgive her com-pletely, from the very first day, even before I bought the bed. In a word, this was a strange move on my part, for I am morally stern. On the contrary, in my eyes she was so defeated, so humiliated, so crushed that I sometimes felt tormenting pity for her, even though at the same time I sometimes definitely found the idea of her humiliation pleas-ing. The idea of our inequality pleased m ...

That winter it so happened that I deliberately performed several good deeds. I forgave two debts, I gave money to one poor woman without any pledge. And I didn’t tell my wife about this, and I hadn’t done this so that she would find out; but the woman came to thank me herself, she was prac-tically on her knees. And that was how it became known; it seemed to me that she was truly pleased to find out about the woman.

But spring was approaching, it was already the middle of April, the storm windows had been taken down, and the sun began to light up our silent rooms with its bright pencils of light. But scales hung before my eyes and blinded my reason. Fateful, terrible scales! How did it come about that they suddenly fell from my eyes and that I suddenly could see clearly and understand everything! Was it chance, was it that the appointed day had come, was it a ray of sunshine that had kindled the thought and conjecture in my benumbed mind? No, it wasn’t a matter of a thought but rather a nerve began to play up, a nerve that had grown numb began to quiver and came to life and illuminated my entire benumbed soul and my demonic pride. It was as if I had suddenly jumped up from my seat then. And it happened suddenly and unexpectedly. It happened towards evening, at about five o’clock, after dinne ...

II. THE SCALES SUDDENLY FALL

A couple of words first. A month earlier I had noticed a strange pensiveness in her, not just silence, but pensiveness. I had also noticed this suddenly. She was sitting at her work at the time, her head bent over her sewing, and she didn’t see that I was looking at her. And suddenly I was struck by how delicate and thin she had become, that her face was pale, her lips were drained of colour - all this as a whole, taken together with her pensiveness, shocked me all at once in the extreme. I had already heard earlier a little dry cough, particularly at night. I got up at once and set off to ask Schroeder to pay us a visit, without saying anything to her.

Schroeder came the following day. She was very surprised and looked first at Schroeder and then at me.

‘But I’m fine,’ she said with an uncertain smile.

Schroeder didn’t examine her very thoroughly （these med-ical men sometimes are condescendingly off hand）, and merely told me in the other room that it was the remnants of her illness and that come spring it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a trip somewhere to the sea or if that were not possible, then simply to find a place in the country. In a word, he didn’t say anything other than that there was some weakness or something of the sort. Wen Schroeder had gone, she suddenly said to me again, looking at me terribly seriously：

‘I’m really, really fine.’

But after saying this, she then and there suddenly flushed, apparently from shame. Apparently, it was shame. Oh, now I understand：She was ashamed that I was still her husband , that I was taking care of her as if I were still her real hus-band. But I didn’t understand then and ascribed her blush to humility. （The scales!）

And then, a month later, between five and six o’clock, in April, on a bright sunny day I was sitting in the shop and doing the accounts. Suddenly I heard her in our room, at her table, over her work, singing ever so softl ... This new development made a tremendous impression on me, and to this day I don’t understand it. Until then I had almost never heard her sing, except perhaps in the very first days when I brought her into my house and we could still have some fun, target shooting with the revolver. Then her voice was still rather strong, ringing, though a bit off -key, but terribly pleasant and healthy. But now her little song sounded so feeble - oh, not that it was doleful （it was some romance）, but it was as if there was something cracked, broken, in her voice, as if the little voice couldn’t cope, as if the song itself were ailing. She was singing under her breath, and suddenly, after rising, the voice broke - such a poor little voice, it broke so pitifully; she cleared her throat and started singing again, ever so softly, you could barely hear he ...

My agitation may be laughable, but no one will ever understand why I had become so agitated! No, I didn’t feel sorry for her yet; it was still something altogether different. At the beginning, for the first moments at least, I suddenly felt bewilderment and terrible surprise, terrible and strange, painful and almost vindictive：‘She is singing and in my presence! Has she forgotten about me, is that it?’

Completely shaken, I stayed where I was, then I suddenly rose, took my hat and left, without thinking it through, as it were. At least I didn’t know why or where I was going. Lukerya started helping me on with my coat.

‘She sings?’I said to Lukerya unintentionally. She didn’t understand and looked at me, still not understanding; but I really had been incomprehensible.

‘Is this the first time that she’s been singing?’

‘No, she sometimes sings when you’re not here,’ Lukerya replied.

I remember everything. I walked down the stairs, went out into the street and set off for nowhere in particular. I walked as far as the corner and began to stare off into the distance. People passed by me, jostled me, but I didn’t feel it. I hailed a cab and told him to take me to the Police Bridge, I don’t know why. But then I suddenly changed my mind and gave him a twenty-kopeck piece.

‘That’s for your trouble,’ I said, laughing senselessly, but some sort of rapture had suddenly begun to fill my heart.

I turned around and went home, quickening my step. The cracked, poor, broken little note suddenly rang out in my heart again. It took my breath away. The scales were falling, falling from my eyes! If she’d started singing in my presence, then she had forgotten about me - that’s what was clear and terrible. My heart sensed this. But rapture shone in my soul and overcame my fear.

Oh, the irony of fate! You see, there had been nothing else and there could not have been anything else in my soul all winter except this very rapture, but where had I myself been all winter long? Had I been there with my soul? I ran up the stairs in a great hurry, I don’t know whether I walked in timidly or not. I remember only that the entire floor seemed to be rippling and it was as if I were floating down a river. I walked into the room, she was sitting in the same place, sewing, with her head bent, but no longer singing. She threw me a fleeting and incurious glance, but it wasn’t even a glance, merely the usual, indifferent gesture one makes when somebody enters a room.

I walked straight up to her and sat down on a chair right beside her, like a madman. She gave me a quick look, as though she were frightened：I took her by the hand and I don’t remember what I said to her, that is, what I wanted to say, because I couldn’t even speak properly. My voice kept breaking and wouldn’t obey me. And I didn’t know what to say, I just kept gasping for breath.

‘Let’s tal ... you kno ... say something!’ I suddenly babbled something stupid-oh, but was I capable of making sense? She flinched again and recoiled, badly frightened, looking at my face, but suddenly - stern surprise appeared in her eyes. Yes, surprise, and stern . She was looking at me wide-eyed. This sternness, this stern surprise came crashing down on me all at once：‘So you still want love? Love?’that surprise seemed to ask suddenly, although she was silent as well. But I could read it all, all of it. My whole being was shaken and I simply fell to the ground at her feet. Yes, I collapsed at her feet. She quickly jumped up, but I restrained her by taking hold of both her hands with extraordinary force.

And I fully understood my despair, oh, I understood! But would you believe it, rapture was seething in my heart so irrepressibly that I thought I would die. I kissed her feet in ecstasy and happiness. Yes, in happiness, immeasurable and infinite, yet understanding nonetheless all my hopeless despair! I wept, said something, but couldn’t speak. Her fright and surprise suddenly gave way to some anxious thought, some extreme question, and she looked at me strangely, wildly even-she wanted to understand something quickly, and she smiled. She was terribly ashamed that I was kissing her feet, and she kept moving back, but I would at once kiss the spot on the floor where she had been standing. She saw this and suddenly began to laugh from shame （you know how people laugh from shame）. Hysterics weren’t far off, I saw that, her hands quivered - I didn’t give it a thought and kept muttering that I loved her, that I wouldn’t get up, ‘...let me kiss your dres ... I’ll worship you like this for as long as you liv...’ I don’t know, I don’t remember - and suddenly she burst out into sobs and started trembling; a terrible fit of hysteria had set in. I had frightened her.

I carried her over to the bed. Wen the fit had passed, she sat up on the bed and with a terribly distraught look, seized me by the hands and pleaded with me to calm myself：‘Enough, don’t torment yourself, calm yourself!’ and she began to weep again. I didn’t leave her side all that evening. I kept telling her that I’d take her to Boulogne to bathe in the sea, now, right away, in two weeks, that she had such a cracked little voice, I had heard it earlier that day, that I would close the pawnshop, sell it to Dobronravov, that every-thing would begin afresh, and the main thing, to Boulogne, to Boulogne! She listened and was still afraid. She was more and more afraid. But that wasn’t the main thing for me, but rather that I more and more irrepressibly wanted to lie down again at her feet, and once again, to kiss, to kiss the ground on which her feet stood, and to idolize her and - ‘I’ll ask nothing more of you, nothing,’ I kept repeating every min-ute.‘Don’t answer me anything, don’t take any notice of me at all, and only let me look at you from the corner, turn me into your thing, into your little do ... ’ She wept.

‘ But I thought that you were going to leave me like that,’ suddenly burst forth from her involuntarily, so involuntarily that perhaps she didn’t notice at all how she had said it, and yet - oh, it was the most important, her most fateful word and the most comprehensible for me that evening, and it was as if it had slashed my heart like a knife. It explained every-thing to me, everything, but as long as she was there beside me, before my eyes, I went on hoping irrepressibly and was terribly happy. Oh, I wore her out terribly that evening and I understood that, but I kept thinking that I would change everything at once. Finally, towards nightfall, she broke down completely; I persuaded her to go to sleep, and she immediately fell sound asleep. I expected delirium, and there was delirium, but it was very mild. I got up during the night every few minutes, and would quietly go in my slippers to look at her. I wrung my hands over her, as I looked at this sick being lying on that pathetic little cot, the iron bedstead that I had bought for her then for three roubles. I got down on my knees but I didn’t dare kiss her feet while she was sleeping （against her wishes!）. I would start praying to God, and then jump up again. Lukerya watched me closely and kept coming out of the kitchen. I went to her and told her to go to bed and that tomorrow ‘something quite different’would begin.

And I believed that blindly, madly, terribly. Oh, I was surging with rapture, rapture. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow. The main thing, I didn’t believe in any misfortune, despite the symptoms. My powers of understanding had not yet fully returned, even though the scales had fallen, and for a long, long time would not return - oh, not until today, not until this very day! And how, how could my understanding have returned then：you see, she was still alive then, you see, she was right there before me, and I before her. ‘She’ll wake up tomorrow, and I’ll tell her all this, and she’ll see it all.’ That was my reasoning then, clear and simple, hence the rapture! The main thing was this trip to Boulogne. For some reason I thought that Boulogne was everything, that there was something final about Boulogne.‘To Boulogne, to Boulogne!...’ I waited for morning in a state of madness.

III. I UNDERSTAND ALL TOO WELL

But this was only a few days ago, you see, five days, only five days ago, just last Tuesday! No, no, if only there had been a little more time, if only she had waited just a little bit longer and - and I would have dispelled the darkness! And hadn’t she calmed down? The very next day she listened to me with a smile even, despite her confusion. The main thing was that during all this time, all five days, she was either confused or ashame ... She was also afraid, very afraid. I don’t dispute it, I won’t deny it, like some madman：there was fear, but then how could she not be afraid? You see, we’d been strangers to each other for so long, we had grown so far apart from one another, and suddenly all thi ... But I didn’t pay attention to her fear - something new was shin-ing!... Yes, it’s undoubtedly true that I’d made a mistake. And perhaps even many mistakes. And as soon as we woke up the next day, when it was still morning （this was on Wed-nesday）, I suddenly made a mistake right away：I suddenly made her my friend. I was in a hurry, much too much of a hurry, but a confession was necessary, essential - and much more than a confession! I didn’t even conceal that which I had concealed from myself all my life. I told her straight out that I had done nothing all winter long but be certain of her love. I explained to her that the pawnshop had been merely the degradation of my will and mind, my personal idea of self-flagellation and self-exaltation. I explained to her that I had indeed turned coward that time at the bar, and that it was owing to my character, my touchiness：I was struck by the surroundings, I was struck by the bar; I was struck by how I would end up looking in all this and wouldn’t it end up looking stupid? I didn’t turn coward on account of the duel, but because it would end up looking stupi ... And then later I didn’t want to admit it, and tormented everyone, and tormented her for it as well, and then I married her so that I could torment her on account of it. In general, for the most part I spoke as though I were in a fever. She herself took me by the hands and begged me to stop：‘You’re exag-geratin ... you’re tormenting yourself’, and the tears would begin again, and again there’d almost be a fit of hysteria. She kept pleading with me not to say or remember any of this.

I paid little or no attention to her pleas：spring, Boulogne! There was the sun, there was our new sun, that was all I talked about! I locked up the shop, handed over the busi-ness to Dobronravov. I suddenly suggested to her that we give away everything to the poor, except for the initial 3，000 I had received from my godmother, which we would use to travel to Boulogne, and then we’d come back and begin our new working life. And so it was decided, because she didn’t say anythin ... she merely smiled. And I believe she smiled more out of a sense of delicacy, so as not to upset me. Of course, I saw that I was a burden to her, don’t think that I was so stupid or such an egoist that I didn’t see that. I saw everything, everything, right down to the last detail, I saw and knew better than anyone else; my despair was there for all to see!

I told her everything about myself and about her. And about Lukerya. I told her that I had wep ... Oh, I’d change the subject, you see, I was also trying not to remind her of certain things at all. And, you see, she even livened up once or twice, you see, I remember, I remember! Wy do you say that I looked and saw nothing? And if only this had not hap-pened, everything would have been resurrected. You see, it was she who told me the day before yesterday, when the conversation turned to reading and what she had read that winter - you see, it was she who told me and laughed, when she recalled that scene between Gil Blas and the Archbishop of Granada. And what a childish laugh, sweet, just like when she was still my fiancée （an instant! an instant!）; I was so happy! I was terribly struck, however, by the archbishop：you see, that meant she had found enough peace of mind and happiness to laugh at that masterpiece while she sat there that winter. That means that she had already begun to find herself wholly at peace, that she had already begun to be wholly persuaded that I would leave her like that . ‘I thought that you were going to leave me like that ’ - that’s what she had said then on Tuesday! Oh, the thought of a ten-year-old girl! And you see, she believed, believed that everything would in fact remain like that ：she at her table, I at mine, and that’s how it would be for both of us until we were sixty. And suddenly - here I come forward, her husband, and her husband needs love! Oh, the incompre-hensibility, oh, my blindness!

It was also a mistake to look at her with rapture; I should have exercised restraint, because the rapture frightened her. But you see, I did exercise restraint, I didn’t kiss her feet anymore. Not once did I make a show of the fac ... well, that I was her husband - oh, and it didn’t even cross my mind, I only worshipped her! But you see, I couldn’t be completely silent, I couldn’t say nothing at all, you see! I suddenly told her that I enjoyed her conversation and that I considered her incomparably, incomparably more educated and developed than I. Embarrassed, she blushed bright red and said that I was exaggerating. At this point, unable to contain myself, I foolishly told her what rapture I’d felt when I stood behind the door and listened to her duel, a duel of innocence with that beast, and how I had taken pleasure in her intelligence, her sparkling wit, combined with such childlike simple-heartedness. She seemed to shudder all over, murmured again that I was exaggerating, but suddenly her whole face darkened, she covered it with her hands and burst into sob ... Here I was unable to hold myself back：I again fell down before her, I again started to kiss her feet and again it ended in a fit, just as it had on Tuesday. That was yesterday evening, but the next mornin ...

Next morning?! Madman, but that morning was today, just now, only just now!

Listen and consider carefully：you see, when we met just now （this was after yesterday’s attack）, she even struck me with her calmness, that’s how it was! Wile all night long I had been trembling with fear over what had happened yes-terday. But suddenly she comes up to me, stands before me and with her arms folded （just now, just now!）, began by telling me that she’s a criminal, that she knows this, that the crime has tormented her all winter long, and is tormenting her no ... that she values my magnanimity all too muc ... ‘I’ll be your true wife, I’ll respect yo ... ’ Here I jumped up and embraced her like a madman! I kissed her, I kissed her face, her lips, like a husband, for the first time after a long separation. But why did I go out just now, for only two hour ... our foreign passport ... Oh, God! If only I had returned five minutes earlier, just five minutes!...And now there’s this crowd at our gate, these eyes fixed on m ... Oh, Lord!

Lukerya says （oh, I won’t let Lukerya go now for anything, she knows everything, she was here all winter, she’ll tell me everything）, she says that after I left the house and only some twenty minutes before my return-she suddenly went into our room to see the mistress to ask her something, I don’t remember what, and she saw that her icon （the same icon of the Mother of God） had been taken down and was on the table before her, and that her mistress seemed to have been praying before it.‘Wat’s wrong, mistress?’‘Nothing, Luk-erya, you may g ... Wait, Lukerya,’ she walked up to her and kissed her.‘Are you happy, mistress?’ I ask.‘Yes, Luk-erya.’ ‘The master should have come to ask your forgiveness long ag ... Thank God, you’ve made up.’ ‘All right, Luk-erya,’ she says, ‘leave me, Lukerya.’ And she smiled, but so strangely. So strangely that ten minutes later Lukerya sud-denly went back to look in on her：‘She was standing by the wall, right by the window, she had placed her hand on the wall, and laid her head on her hand, she was standing like that and thinking. And she was so lost in thought standing there that she didn’t hear me standing there and watching her from the other room. I saw that she was smiling, as it were, standing, thinking and smiling. I looked at her, turned around ever so quietly and walked out, thinking to myself, only suddenly I hear the window being opened. I at once went to say that“it’s fresh, mistress, you’ll catch cold” - and suddenly I see that she’s climbed up on to the window and is already standing there upright, in the open window, with her back towards me and holding the icon. My heart just sank then and I cried out：“Mistress, mistress!” She heard, made a move as if to turn around towards me, but didn’t, instead she took a step, clutched the icon to her breast-and threw herself out the window!’

I only remember that when I entered the gates she was still warm. The main thing is that they’re all looking at me. at first they were shouting, but then they suddenly fell silent and they all make way for me an ... and she’s lying there with the icon. I remember, though darkly, that I walked over in silence and looked for a long time, and they all gathered round and are saying something to me. Lukerya was there, but I didn’t see her. She says that she spoke with me. I remember only that tradesman：he kept shouting at me ‘only a handful of blood came out of her mouth, a handful, a handful!’ and pointing to the blood on a stone. I think I touched the blood with my finger, smeared some on my finger, looked at my finger （I remember that）, and he kept saying to me：‘A handful, a handful!’

‘And what do you mean“a handful”?’ I wailed, they say, with all my might, I raised my arms and threw myself at hi ...

Oh, it’s absurd, absurd! Incomprehensibility! Improbabil-ity! Impossibility!

IV. ONLY FIVE MINUTES TOO LATE

But is it really? Is it really probable? Can one really say that it was possible? Wy, for what reason did this woman die?

Oh, believe me, I understand; but why she died is still a question. She was frightened of my love, she asked herself seriously whether she should accept it or not, and she couldn’t bear the question and it was better to die. I know, I know, there’s no use in racking my brains over it：she had made too many promises, got frightened that she couldn’t keep them-that’s clear. There are a number of circum-stances here that are quite terrible.

Because why did she die? The question persists, all the same. The question hammers, hammers away in my brain. I would even have left her like that if she had wished to be left like that . She didn’t believe it, that’s what! No, no, I’m lying, that’s not it at all. It was simply because with me it had to be honest：to love meant to love completely, and not like she would have loved the merchant. And since she was too chaste, too pure to agree to a love like a merchant needs, she didn’t want to deceive me. She didn’t want to deceive me with half a love or a quarter of a love under the guise of love. She was much too honest, that’s what it is, gentlemen! I wanted to cultivate breadth of heart then, do you remember? A strange thought.

I’m terribly curious：did she respect me? I don’t know. Did she despise me or not? I don’t think she did. It’s terribly strange：why didn’t it occur to me all winter long that she despised me? I was utterly convinced of the contrary right until the moment when she looked at me then with stern surprise . Precisely, stern . It was then that I understood at once that she despised me. I understood irrevocably and forever! Ah, let her, let her despise me, for her whole life even, but let her live, live! Just now she was still walking, talking. I don’t at all understand how she could throw herself out the window! And how could I have supposed that even five minutes earlier? I summoned Lukerya. I won’t let Lukerya go now for anything, not for anything!

Oh, we could still have come to an understanding. It’s just that we had grown so terribly unused to each other during the winter, but couldn’t we have become accustomed to one another again? Wy, why couldn’t we have come together and begun a new life again? I’m magnanimous, and so is she-that’s the point of connection! Just a few words more, two days, no more, and she would have understood everything.

The main thing, it’s a pity that it all comes down to chance - simple, barbaric inertia, chance. That’s the pity of it! All of five minutes, I was only five minutes late! If I had arrived five minutes earlier - the moment would have passed by, like a cloud, and it would never have occurred to her again. And it would have ended by her understanding every-thing. But now the rooms stand empty again and I’m alone once again. There’s the pendulum ticking, it doesn’t care, it doesn’t feel sorry for anyone. There’s no one - that’s the awful thing!

I pace, I keep pacing. I know, I know, don’t try to put words in my mouth：you think it’s ridiculous that I complain about chance and the five minutes? But it’s obvious, you see. Consider one thing：she didn’t even leave a note saying, ‘Don’t blame anyone for my death’, like everyone does. Could she really not have considered that even Lukerya might get into trouble? They might say, ‘You were alone with her, so you must have pushed her.’In any event, she would have been dragged away, innocent though she was, if four people in the courtyard hadn’t seen from the windows of the wing and the courtyard how she stood there holding the icon and hurled herself down. But, you see, that’s chance as well that people were standing and saw it. No, this was all a moment, just one inexplicable moment. Suddenness and fan-tasy! So what if she was praying before the icon? That doesn’t mean that this was before death. The entire moment lasted, perhaps, all of some ten minutes, the entire decision-precisely when she was standing by the wall, with her head resting on her arm, and smiling. The thought flew into her head, her head started spinning and-and she couldn’t withstand it.

It was a clear misunderstanding, say what you will. She could still have lived with me. But what if it was anaemia? Simply on account of anaemia, the exhaustion of vital energy? She had grown tired during the winter, that’s what it wa ...

I was late!

How very thin she is in the coffin, how sharp her little nose has become! Her eyelashes lie like arrows. And she fell, you see - without smashing or breaking anything! Just this one ‘handful of blood’. A dessertspoon, that is. Internal concus-sion. A strange thought：Wat if it were possible not to bury her? Because if they take her away, the ... Oh, no, it’s almost impossible that she’ll be taken away! Oh, of course, I know that she must be taken away, I’m not a madman and I’m not the least bit delirious; on the contrary, my mind has never been so lucid - but how can it be that again there’ll be no one in the house, again the two rooms, and again I’m alone with the pledges. Delirium, delirium, that’s where the delirium lies! I tormented her - that’s what it was!

Wat are your laws to me now? Wat do I need with your customs, your ways, your life, your government, your faith? Let your judges judge me, let them take me to court, to your public court, and I will say that I acknowledge nothing. The judge will shout：‘Silence, officer!’ And I will cry out to him：‘Wat power do you now possess that I should obey you? Wy has dark inertia shattered that which was dearest of all? Wat need have I now of your laws? I part company with you.’Oh, it’s all the same to me!

Blind, she’s blind! Dead, she doesn’t hear! You don’t know with what paradise I would have surrounded you. The para-dise was in my soul; I would have planted it all round you! Well, you wouldn’t have loved me - so be it, what of it? Everything would have been like that , everything would have stayed like that . You would have talked to me only as a friend - and we would have rejoiced and laughed with joy, as we looked into each other’s eyes. That’s how we would have lived. And if you had fallen in love with somebody else - well, so be it, so be it! You would have walked with him and laughed, while I looked on from the other side of the stree ... Oh, let it be anything, anything, if only she would open her eyes just once! For one moment, just one! If she would look at me as she did just now, when she stood before me and swore to be my faithful wife! Oh, she would have understood it all in one glance!

Inertia! Oh, nature! People are alone on this earth-that’s the problem! ‘Is there a man alive on the field?’ the Russian bogatyr cries out. And I cry out as well, though I am not a bogatyr , and no one answers. They say that the sun gives life to the universe. The sun will rise and - look at it, isn’t it dead? Everything is dead, the dead are everywhere. There are only people, and all around them is silence - that’s the earth.‘People, love one another’ - who said that? Wose commandment is that? The pendulum ticks insensibly, dis-gustingly. It’s two o’clock in the morning. Her little shoes are by the bed, as if they were waiting for he ... No, ser-iously, when they take her away tomorrow, what will become of me?

1876 Kyj5lwF9Wcno0i/yzbvakgBlPBfXRex//MvPSm/5mPy+JB3KLaQ8vlP8pNGIJA3q