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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #67224 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67224)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Devil, by Leo Tolstoy
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The Devil
-
-Author: Leo Tolstoy
-
-Translator: Aylmer Maude
-
-Release Date: January 22, 2022 [eBook #67224]
-Last Updated: August 7, 2023
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by
- Hathi Trust Digital Library.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVIL ***
-
-
-
-
-THE DEVIL
-
-
-BY
-
-
-LEO TOLSTOY
-
-
-
-
-_Translated by_
-
-AYLMER MAUDE
-
-
-
-
-LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
-RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1
-
-
-
-
-First published in 1926.
-
-
-
-
-But I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after
-her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
-
-And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it
-from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
-perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell.
-
-And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it
-from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
-perish, and not thy whole body go into hell.
-
-
- MATTHEW V. 28, 29, 30.
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF RUSSIAN NAMES
-
-_With stress-accents marked to show which syllable should be
-emphasized._
-
-Dómna, a cook in Tolstoy's house.
-Leo Tolstóy, the author.
-Yásnaya Polyána, his estate.
-
-Anna Prókhorova, a peasant woman.
-Ánnushka, a servant.
-Desyatína, a land measure, about 2·7 acres.
-Dúmchin, an ex-Marshal of the Nobility.
-Eugene Ivánich Irténev (Jénya), a landed-proprietor.
-Fëdor Zakhárich Pryánishnikov, a gentleman.
-Iván (Ványa), a clerk.
-Kabúshka, a mare.
-Kalériya Vladímirovna Esípova, a lady.
-Koltóvski, an estate.
-Liza Ánnenskaya, Eugene's wife.
-Mary Pávlovna Irtényeva, Eugene's mother.
-Matvéy, a peasant.
-Misha, a man-servant.
-Nicholas Lysúkh, a servant.
-Nikoláy Semënich, a doctor.
-Parásha, a servant.
-Samókhin, a labourer.
-Semënovskoe, a village.
-Sídor Péchnikov, a peasant.
-Stepanída Péchnikova, Sídor's wife.
-Tánya, a girl.
-Varára Alexéevna Ánnenskaya, Liza's mother.
-Vasíli Nikoláich, a steward.
-Vásin, a peasant.
-Yálta, a town in the Crimea.
-Zémstvo, a Local Government institution.
-Zenóvi, a peasant.
-
- ë is pronounced as _yo_.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-PREFACE
-CHAPTER I
-CHAPTER II
-CHAPTER III
-CHAPTER IV
-CHAPTER V
-CHAPTER VI
-CHAPTER VII
-CHAPTER VIII
-CHAPTER IX
-CHAPTER X
-CHAPTER XI
-CHAPTER XII
-CHAPTER XIII
-CHAPTER XIV
-CHAPTER XV
-CHAPTER XVI
-CHAPTER XVII
-CHAPTER XVIII
-CHAPTER XIX
-CHAPTER XX
-CHAPTER XXI
-VARIATION OF THE CONCLUSION OF _THE DEVIL_
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-Towards the end of 1880, when he was fifty-two, Tolstoy one day
-approached the young tutor who lived in his house at Yasnaya Polyana,
-and in great agitation asked him to do him a service. The tutor, seeing
-Tolstoy so moved, asked what he could possibly do for him. In an unready
-voice Tolstoy replied: "Save me, I am falling!" The tutor, in alarm,
-inquired what was the matter, to which Tolstoy replied: "I am overcome
-by sexual desire and feel a complete lack of power to retrain myself. I
-am in danger of yielding to the temptation. Help me!"
-
-"I am a weak man myself," replied the tutor. "How can I help you?"
-
-"You can, if only you won't refuse!"
-
-"But what must I do to help you?"
-
-"This! Come with me on my daily walks. We will go out together and talk,
-and the temptation will not occur to me."
-
-They set out together, and Tolstoy told the tutor how during his daily
-walks he had encountered Domna, a young woman of twenty-two who had
-recently been engaged as the servants' cook. This Domna was a tall,
-healthy, attractive young woman with a fine figure and beautiful
-complexion, though not otherwise particularly handsome. At first for
-some days he had found it pleasant to watch her. Then he had followed
-her and whittled to her. After that he had walked and talked with her,
-and at last had arranged a rendezvous with her. The spot was in a
-distant alley on the estate; to reach it from the house one had to pass
-the windows of the children's schoolroom. When setting out past those
-windows next day to keep the appointment, he had gone through a terrible
-struggle between the temptation and his conscience. Just then his second
-son had called to him through the window, reminding him of a Greek
-lesson that had been fixed for that day, and this had detained Tolstoy.
-He woke as it were, and was glad to have been saved from keeping the
-appointment. But the temptation still tormented him. He tried the effect
-of prayer, but it did not free him. He suffered but felt powerless and
-as if he might yield at any moment. So as a last resource he resolved to
-try the effect of making a full confession to someone--giving all
-particulars of the strength of the temptation that oppressed him and of
-his own weakness. He wished to feel as thoroughly ashamed of himself as
-possible, and he had decided to ask the tutor to accompany him on his
-daily walk, which usually he took alone. He also arranged that Domna
-should be removed to another place.
-
-After the danger was over Tolstoy seldom referred to the incident unless
-to those who spoke to him of their own sexual difficulties, but on one
-occasion he wrote a full account of it to a friend.
-
-The incident resulted in his writing this story, _The Devil_--the hero
-of which yields to a temptation such as that Tolstoy had encountered. It
-was composed some ten years later, but was not published during
-Tolstoy's lifetime; nor did it appear in the English edition of his
-posthumous works issued by Nelson & Sons. It is now translated into
-English for the first time. Tolstoy had vividly imagined the
-consequences that might have resulted from yielding to the temptation,
-and used that mental experience for his story, employing fictitious
-characters placed in surroundings with which he was familiar and such as
-those amid which the incident had occurred.
-
-The relations of the sexes in Russian society of his day resembled that
-in English society to-day more than in English society of that
-period--when, both in literature and in life, repression and suppression
-of passion was more common. When in _Kreutzer Sonata_ and in _The Devil_
-he expressed the views he held, Tolstoy was consciously opposing the
-current of life around him, and these works also run counter to the
-movement of our own society to-day. That however does not detract from
-the value of the work. The belief that ill-results follow from the
-indulgence of the sexual instincts is not an obsolete eccentricity but a
-belief held by many men in many ages, and it receives sufficient
-confirmation from experience to make it certain that it is a view which
-has to be reckoned with.
-
-The ancient conception of a bitter strife between the flesh and the
-spirit and of woman as the devil's chief agent in achieving man's
-spiritual destruction, is alien to the modern outlook, and to-day it is
-often not understood how and why men ever held such beliefs; but both in
-_The Kreutzer Sonata_ and in this story Tolstoy makes us realize how
-easily and naturally men of a certain temperament may come to those
-convictions. Without adopting that view one is enabled to realize what
-others have felt, and to perceive how probable is a reaction from the
-unrestraint of to-day; as happened after the libertinage of the
-Restoration period.
-
-I do not think there is any other important story of Tolstoy's that has
-not yet been translated. He left several trunks full of manuscripts,
-chiefly early drafts of works that had been published during his
-lifetime or commencements of stories he abandoned; but before his death
-he expressed the opinion that, except some passages in his Diaries,
-there was little or nothing worth publishing among those remains. He was
-indeed a great artist, and his mastery showed itself in knowing what to
-strike out, omit, and withhold. His published writings are voluminous,
-but among them there is little (except perhaps some of the later
-repetitions of his non-resistance doctrine) that we could willingly
-spare. But if the mass of documents which while he lived he had the good
-sense to suppress are now to be published, together with a large amount
-of didactic correspondence, it is likely to injure rather than to
-enhance his literary reputation. There is a disquieting rumour that this
-is to take place, in the form of an edition of his works extending to
-one hundred volumes. Not even that calamity will depose him from the
-place he securely holds as the greatest and most influential of Russian
-writers, but it will be an obstacle rather than a help to those who want
-to become acquainted with the works on which he wished his reputation to
-rest. The present story is an exception. It is so characteristic of him,
-and so closely connected with an event that influenced him, that it
-would be a pity for it not to be known, especially as it is one of the
-few posthumous works he left in a completed state; even in this case we
-do not know which of the two endings he wrote he would have adopted had
-he published it himself.
-
-The foot-notes are by the translator.
-
- AYLMER MAUDE
-
-GREAT BADDOW, CHELMSFORD
-
-_September_ 12, 1925.
-
-
-
-
-THE DEVIL
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-
-A brilliant career lay before Eugene Irtenev. He had all that was
-necessary for this: an admirable education at home, high honours when he
-graduated in law at Petersburg University, connections in the highest
-society through his recently deceased father, and he had himself already
-begun service in one of the Ministries under the protection of the
-Minister. He also had a fortune; even a large one, though insecure. His
-father had lived abroad and in Petersburg, allowing his sons, Eugene,
-and Andrew, the elder who was in the Horse Guards, 6,000 rubles a year
-each, while he himself and his wife spent a great deal. He only used to
-visit his estate for a couple of months in summer and did not concern
-himself with its direction, entrusting it all to an unscrupulous manager
-who also failed to attend to it, but in whom he had complete confidence.
-
-After the father's death, when the brothers began to divide the
-property, there were found to be so many debts that their lawyer even
-advised them to refuse the inheritance and retain only an estate left
-them by their grand-mother, which was valued at 100,000 rubles. But a
-neighbouring landed-proprietor who had done business with old Irtenev,
-that is to say, who had promissory notes from him and had come to
-Petersburg on that account, said that in spite of the debts they could
-straighten out affairs so as to retain a large fortune--it would only be
-necessary to sell the forest and some outlying land, retaining the rich
-Semënov estate with 4,000 desyatinas of black-earth, the sugar-factory,
-and 200 desyatinas of water-meadows--if one devoted oneself to the
-management and, settling on the estate, farmed it wisely and
-economically.
-
-And so, having visited the estate in spring (his father had died in
-Lent), Eugene looked into everything, resolved to retire from the Civil
-Service, settle in the country with his mother, and undertake the
-management, with the object of preserving the main estate. He arranged
-with his brother, with whom he was very friendly, that he would pay him
-4,000 rubles a year, or alternatively would pay him 80,000 in a lump
-sum, while Andrew, on his part, handed over to him his share of the
-inheritance.
-
-So he arranged matters and, having settled down with his mother in the
-big house, ardently and yet cautiously began managing the estate.
-
-It is generally supposed that Conservatives are usually old people, and
-those in favour of change are the young. That is not quite correct. The
-most usual Conservatives are young people: those who want to live but
-who do not think, and have not time to think, about how to live and who
-therefore take as a model for themselves a way of life that they have
-seen.
-
-Thus it was with Eugene. Having settled in the village, his aim and
-ideal was to restore the form of life that had existed, not in his
-father's time--his father had been a bad manager--but in his
-grandfather's. And now in the house, the garden, in the
-estate-management--of course with changes suited to the times--he tried
-to resurrect the general spirit of his grandfather's life--everything on
-a large scale--good order, method, and everybody satisfied; but so to
-arrange things entailed much work. It was necessary to meet the demands
-of the creditors and the banks, and for that purpose to sell some land
-and arrange renewals of credit. It was also necessary to get money to
-carry on (partly by farming out land, and partly by hiring labour) the
-immense operations on the Semënov estate, with its 400 desyatinas of
-ploughland and its sugar-factory, and to deal with the garden so that it
-should not seem to be neglected or in decay.
-
-There was much work to do, but Eugene had plenty of strength--physical
-and mental. He was twenty-six, of medium height, strongly built, with
-muscles developed by gymnastics. He was full-blooded and very red over
-his whole neck, with bright teeth and lips and hair soft and curly,
-though not thick. His only physical defect was shortsightedness, which
-he had himself developed by using spectacles, so that he could not now
-do without a pince-nez, which had already formed a line at the top of
-his nose-ridge.
-
-Such he was physically. For his spiritual portrait it might be said that
-the better anyone knew him the better they liked him. His mother had
-always loved him more than she loved anyone else; and now, after her
-husband's death, she concentrated on him not only her whole affection
-but her whole life. Nor was it only his mother who so loved him. All his
-comrades at the high-school and the university not merely liked him very
-much, but respected him. He had this effect on all who met him. It was
-impossible not to believe what he said, impossible to suspect any
-deception or falseness in one who had such an open, honest face and, in
-particular, such eyes.
-
-In general his personality helped him much in his affairs. A creditor
-who would have refused another, trusted him. The clerk, the village
-Elder, or a peasant, who would have played a dirty trick and cheated
-someone else, forgot to deceive under the pleasant impression of
-intercourse with this kindly, agreeable, and above all candid man.
-
-It was the end of May. Eugene had somehow managed, in town, to get the
-vacant land freed from the mortgage, so as to sell it to a merchant, and
-had borrowed money from that same merchant to replenish his stock, that
-is to say, to procure horses, bulls, carts and, chiefly, to begin to
-build a necessary farm-house. The matter had been arranged. The timber
-was being carted, the carpenters were already at work, and manure for
-the estate was being brought on eighty carts. But everything still hung
-by a thread.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-Amid these cares something came about which, though unimportant,
-tormented Eugene at the time. As a young man he had lived as all healthy
-young men live, that is, he had had relations with women of various
-kinds. He was not a libertine but, as he himself said, neither was he a
-monk. He only turned to this, however, in so far as was necessary for
-physical health and to have his mind free, as he used to say. This had
-begun when he was sixteen and had gone on satisfactorily. Satisfactorily
-in the sense that he did not give himself up to debauchery, was not once
-infatuated, and had never contracted a disease. At first he had a
-seamstress in Petersburg, then she got spoilt and he made other
-arrangements, and that side of his affairs was so well secured that it
-did not trouble him.
-
-But now he was living in the country for the second month and did not at
-all know what he was to do. Compulsory self-restraint was beginning to
-have a bad effect on him.
-
-Must he really go to town for that purpose? And where to? How? That was
-the only thing that disturbed Eugene Ivanich, but as he was convinced
-that the thing was necessary and that he needed it, it really became
-necessary, and he felt that he was not free and that involuntarily his
-eyes followed every young woman.
-
-He did not approve of having relations with a married woman or a maid in
-his own village. He knew by report that both his father and grandfather
-had been quite different in this matter from other land-owners of that
-time. At home they had never had any entanglements with peasant-women,
-and he had decided that he would not do so either; but afterwards,
-feeling himself ever more and more under compulsion, and imagining with
-horror what might happen to him in the neighbouring country town, and
-reflecting on the fact that the days of serfdom were now over, he
-decided that it might be done on the spot. Only it must be done so that
-no one should know of it, and not for the sake of debauchery but merely
-for health's sake--as he said to himself. And when he had decided this
-he became still more restless. When talking to the village Elder, the
-peasants, or the carpenters, he involuntarily brought the conversation
-round to women, and when it turned to women, he kept it on that theme.
-He noticed the women more and more.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-
-To settle the matter in his own mind was one thing, but to carry it out
-was another. To approach a woman himself was impossible. Which one?
-Where? It must be done through someone else, but to whom should he speak
-about it?
-
-He happened to go into a watchman's hut in the forest to get a drink of
-water. The watchman had been his father's huntsman. Eugene Ivanich
-chatted with him, and the watchman began telling some strange tales of
-hunting sprees. It occurred to Eugene Ivanich that it would be
-convenient to arrange matters in this hut, or in the wood. Only he did
-not know how to manage it, and whether old Daniel would undertake the
-arrangement. "Perhaps he will be horrified at such a proposal; and I
-shall have disgraced myself, but perhaps he would agree to it quite
-simply." So he thought while listening to Daniel's stories. Daniel was
-telling how once when they had been stopping at the hut of the sexton's
-wife in an outlying field, he had brought a woman for Fëdor Zakharich
-Pryanishnikov.
-
-"It will be all right," thought Eugene.
-
-"Your father, may the kingdom of heaven be his, did not go in for
-nonsense of that kind."
-
-"It won't do," thought Eugene. But to test the matter he said: "How was
-it you engaged on such bad things?"
-
-"But what is there bad in it? She was glad of it, and Fëdor Zakharich
-was satisfied, very satisfied. I got a ruble. Why, what was he to do? He
-too is a lively limb, apparently, and drinks wine."
-
-"Yes, I may speak," thought Eugene, and at once proceeded to do so.
-
-"And, do you know, Daniel, I don't know how to endure it,"--he felt
-himself going scarlet.
-
-Daniel smiled.
-
-"I am not a monk,--I have been accustomed to it."
-
-He felt that what he was saying was stupid, but was glad to see that
-Daniel approved.
-
-"Why of course, you should have told me long ago. It can all be
-arranged," said he: "Only tell me which one you want."
-
-"Oh, it is really all the same to me. Of course not an ugly one, and she
-must be healthy."
-
-"I understand!" said Daniel briefly. He reflected.
-
-"Ah! There is a tasty morsel," he began. Again Eugene went red. "A tasty
-morsel. See here, she was married last autumn." Daniel whispered,--"and
-he hasn't been able to do anything. Think what that is worth to one who
-wants it!"
-
-Eugene even frowned with shame.
-
-"No, no," he said. "I don't want that at all. I want, on the contrary
-(what could the contrary be?), on the contrary I only want that she
-should be healthy and that there should be as little fuss as possible--a
-woman whose husband is away in the army, or something of that kind."
-
-"I know. It's Stepanida I must bring you. Her husband is away in town,
-just the same as a soldier. And she is a fine woman, and clean. You will
-be satisfied. As it is I was saying to her the other day--you should go,
-but she . . ."
-
-"Well then, when is it to be?"
-
-"To-morrow if you like. I shall be going to get some tobacco and I will
-call in, and at the dinner-hour come here, or to the bath-house behind
-the kitchen garden. There will be nobody about. Besides after dinner
-everybody takes a nap."
-
-"All right, then."
-
-A terrible excitement seized Eugene as he rode home. "What will happen?
-What is a peasant woman like? Suppose it turns out that she is hideous,
-horrible. No, she is handsome," he told himself, remembering some he had
-been noticing. "But what shall I say? What shall I do?"
-
-He was not himself all that day. Next day at noon he went to the
-forester's hut. Daniel stood at the door and silently and significantly
-nodded towards the wood. The blood rushed to Eugene's heart, he was
-conscious of it and went to the kitchen-garden. No one was there. He
-went to the bath-house--there was no one about, he looked in, came out,
-and suddenly heard the crackling of a breaking twig. He looked
-round--and she was standing in the thicket beyond the little ravine. He
-rushed there across the ravine. There were nettles in it which he had
-not noticed. They stung him and, losing the pince-nez from his nose, he
-ran up the slope on the farther side. In a white embroidered apron, in a
-red-brown skirt and a bright red kerchief, barefoot, fresh, firm, and
-handsome, she stood shyly smiling.
-
-"There is a path leading round,--you should have gone round," she said.
-"I came long ago, ever so long."
-
-He went up to her and, looking her over, touched her.
-
-A quarter of an hour later they separated; he found his pince-nez,
-called in to see Daniel, and in reply to his question: "Are you
-satisfied, master?" gave him a ruble and went home.
-
-He was satisfied. Only at first had he felt ashamed, then it had passed
-off. And it had all gone well. The best thing was that he now felt at
-ease, tranquil and vigorous. As for her, he had not even seen her
-thoroughly. He remembered that she was clean, fresh, not bad-looking,
-and simple, without any pretence. "Whose wife is she?" said he to
-himself. "Pechnikov's, Daniel said. What Pechnikov is that? There are
-two households of that name. Probably she is old Michael's
-daughter-in-law. Yes, that must be it. His son does live in Moscow. I'll
-ask Daniel about it some time."
-
-From then onward that previously important drawback to country
-life--enforced self-restraint--was eliminated. Eugene's freedom of mind
-was no longer disturbed and he was able to attend freely to his affairs.
-
-And the matter Eugene had undertaken was far from easy: it sometimes
-seemed to him that he would not be able to go through with it, and that
-it would end in his having to sell the estate after all, so that all his
-efforts would be wasted and it would turn out that he had failed, and
-been unable to accomplish what he had undertaken. That prospect
-disturbed him most of all. Before he had time to stop up one hole a new
-one would unexpectedly show itself.
-
-All this time more and more debts of his father's, which he had not
-expected, came to light. It was evident that his father had latterly
-borrowed right and left. At the time of the settlement in May, Eugene
-had thought he at last knew everything, but suddenly, in the middle of
-the summer, he received a letter from which it appeared that there was
-still a debt of 12,000 rubles to the widow Esipova. There was no
-promissory note, but only an ordinary receipt, which his lawyer told him
-could be disputed. But it did not enter Eugene's head to refuse to pay a
-debt of his father's merely because the document could be challenged. He
-only wanted to know for certain whether there had been such a debt.
-
-"Mamma! Who is Kaleriya Vladimirovna Esipova?" he asked his mother, when
-they met as usual for dinner.
-
-"Esipova? She was brought up by your grandfather. Why?"
-
-Eugene told his mother about the letter.
-
-"I wonder she is not ashamed to ask for it. Your father gave her so
-much!"
-
-"But do we owe her this?"
-
-"Well now, how shall I say? It is not a debt. Papa, out of his unbounded
-kindness . . ."
-
-"Yes, but did Papa consider it a debt?"
-
-"I cannot say. I don't know. I only know it is hard enough for you
-without that."
-
-Eugene saw that Mary Pavlovna did not know what to say, and was as it
-were sounding him.
-
-"I see from what you say, that it must be paid," said the son. "I will
-go to see her to-morrow and have a chat, and see if it cannot be
-deferred."
-
-"Ah, how sorry I am for you, but, you know, that will be best. Tell her
-she must wait," said Mary Pavlovna, evidently tranquillized and proud of
-her son's decision.
-
-Eugene's position was particularly hard because his mother, who was
-living with him, did not at all realize his position. She had been so
-accustomed all her life long to live extravagantly that she could not
-even imagine to herself the position her son was in, that is to say,
-that to-day or to-morrow matters might shape themselves so that they
-would have nothing left, and he would have to sell everything, and live
-and support his mother on what salary he could earn, which at the very
-most would be 2,000 rubles. She did not understand that they could only
-save themselves from that position by cutting down expense in
-everything, and so she could not understand why Eugene was so careful
-about trifles, in expenditure on gardeners, coachmen, servants--even on
-food. Also, like most widows, she nourished feelings of devotion to the
-memory of her departed spouse quite different from those she had felt
-for him while he lived, and she did not admit the thought that what the
-departed had done, or had arranged, could be wrong or could be altered.
-
-Eugene by great efforts managed to keep up the garden and the
-conservatory with two gardeners, and the stables with two coachmen. And
-Mary Pavlovna naïvely thought that she was sacrificing herself for her
-son and doing all a mother could do, by not complaining of the food
-which the old man-cook prepared, of the fact that the paths in the park
-were not all swept clean, and that instead of footmen they had only a
-boy.
-
-So, too, concerning this new debt, in which Eugene saw an almost
-crushing blow to all his undertakings, Mary Pavlovna only saw an
-incident displaying Eugene's noble nature.
-
-Mary Pavlovna moreover did not feel much anxiety about Eugene's
-position, because she was confident that he would make a brilliant
-marriage which would put everything right. And he could make a very
-brilliant marriage: she knew a dozen families who would be glad to give
-their daughters to him. And she wished to arrange the matter as soon as
-possible.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-
-Eugene himself dreamt of marriage, but not in the same way as his
-mother. The idea of using marriage as a means of putting his affairs in
-order was repulsive to him. He wished to marry honourably, for love. He
-observed the girls whom he met and those he knew, and compared himself
-with them, but no decision had yet been taken. Meanwhile contrary to his
-expectations his relations with Stepanida continued, and even acquired
-the character of a settled affair. Eugene was so far from debauchery, it
-was so hard for him secretly to do this thing which he felt to be bad,
-that he could not arrange these meetings himself, and even after the
-first one hoped not to see Stepanida again; but it turned out that after
-some time the same restlessness (due, he believed, to that cause) again
-overcame him. And his restlessness this time was no longer impersonal,
-but suggested just those same bright, black eyes, and that deep voice,
-saying, "ever so long," that same scent of something fresh and strong,
-and that same full bread lifting the bib of her apron, and all this in
-that hazel and maple thicket, bathed in bright sunlight.
-
-Though he felt ashamed, he again approached Daniel. And again a
-rendezvous was fixed for midday, in the wood. This time Eugene looked
-her over more carefully, and everything about her seemed attractive. He
-tried talking to her, and asked about her husband. He really was
-Michael's son, and lived as a coachman in Moscow.
-
-"Well, then, how is it you . . ." Eugene wanted to ask how it was she
-was untrue to him.
-
-"What about 'how is it'?" asked she. Evidently she was clever and
-quick-witted.
-
-"Well, how is it you come to me?"
-
-"There now," said she merrily. "I bet he goes on the spree there. Why
-shouldn't I?"
-
-Evidently she was putting on an air of sauciness and assurance. And this
-seemed charming to Eugene. But all the same he did not himself fix a
-rendezvous with her. Even when she proposed that they should meet
-without the aid of Daniel, to whom she seemed not very well-disposed,
-Eugene did not consent. He hoped that this meeting would be the last. He
-liked her. He thought such intercourse was necessary for him and that
-there was nothing bad about it, but in the depth of his soul there was a
-stricter judge, who did not approve of it and hoped that this would be
-the last time, or if he did not hope that, at any rate did not wish to
-participate in arrangements to repeat it another time.
-
-So the whole summer passed, during which they met a dozen times and
-always by Daniel's help. It happened once that she could not be there
-because her husband had come home, and Daniel proposed another woman,
-but Eugene refused with disgust. Then the husband went away, and the
-meetings continued as before, at first through Daniel, but afterwards he
-simply fixed the time and she came with another woman, Prokhorova--as it
-would not do for a peasant-woman to go about alone.
-
-Once at the very time fixed for the rendezvous a family came to call on
-Mary Pavlovna, with the very girl she wished Eugene to marry, and it was
-impossible for Eugene to get away. As soon as he could do so, he went
-out as though to the thrashing-floor, and round by the path to their
-meeting-place in the wood. She was not there, but at the accustomed spot
-everything within reach of one's hand had been broken--the black alder,
-the hazel-twigs, and even a young maple the thickness of a stake. She
-had waited, had become excited and angry, and had skittishly left him a
-remembrance. He waited, waited, and went to Daniel to ask him to call
-her for to-morrow. She came, and was just as usual.
-
-So the summer passed. The meetings were always arranged in the wood, and
-only once, when it grew towards autumn, in the shed that stood in her
-back-yard.
-
-It did not enter Eugene's head that these relations of his had any
-importance for him. About her he did not even think. He gave her money
-and nothing more. At first he did not know and did not think that the
-affair was known and she was envied throughout the village, or that her
-relations took money from her and encouraged her, and that her
-conception of any sin in the matter had been quite obliterated by the
-influence of the money and her family's approval. It seemed to her that
-if people envied her, then what she was doing was good.
-
-"It is simply necessary for one's health," thought Eugene. "I grant it
-is not right, and though no one says anything, everybody, or many
-people, know of it. The woman who comes with her knows. And once she
-knows, she is sure to have told others. But what's to be done? I am
-acting badly," thought Eugene, "but what's one to do? Anyhow it is not
-for long."
-
-What chiefly disturbed Eugene was the thought of the husband. At first,
-for some reason, it seemed to him that the husband must be a poor sort,
-and this, as it were, partly justified his conduct. But he saw the
-husband and was struck: he was a fine fellow and smartly dressed, in no
-way a worse man, but surely better, than himself. At their next meeting
-he told her he had seen her husband and had been surprised to see that
-he was such a fine fellow.
-
-"There's not such another in the village," said she proudly.
-
-This surprised Eugene. The thought of the husband tormented him still
-more after that. He happened to be at Daniel's one day and Daniel,
-having begun chatting, plainly said to him:
-
-"And Michael, the other day, asked me: 'Is it true that the master is
-living with my wife?' I said I did not know. Anyway, I said, better with
-the master than with a peasant."
-
-"Well, and what did he say?"
-
-"He said,--'Wait a bit. I'll get to know, and I'll give it her all the
-same.'"
-
-"Yes, if the husband returned to live here, I would give her up,"
-thought Eugene.
-
-But the husband lived in town and for the present their intercourse
-continued.
-
-"When necessary, I will break it off, and there will be nothing left of
-it," thought he.
-
-And this seemed to him certain, especially as during the whole summer
-many different things occupied him very fully: the erection of the new
-farm-house, and the harvest, and building, and above all meeting the
-debts and selling the waste land. All these were affairs that completely
-absorbed him and on which he spent his thoughts when he lay down and
-when he rose. All that was, real life. His intercourse--he did not even
-call it connection--with Stepanida was something quite unnoticed. It is
-true that when the wish to see her arose, it came with such strength
-that he could think of nothing else. But this did not last long. A
-meeting was arranged, and he again forgot her for a week or even for a
-month.
-
-In autumn Eugene often rode to town, and there became friendly with the
-Annenskis. They had a daughter who had just finished the Institute.[1]
-And then, to Mary Pavlovna's great grief, it happened that Eugene, as
-she expressed it, "cheapened himself,"--by falling in love with Liza
-Annenskaya and proposing to her.
-
-From that time the relations with Stepanida ceased.
-
-
-[Footnote 1: The Institute was a boarding-school for the daughters of
-the nobility and gentry, in which great attention was paid to the
-manners and accomplishments of the pupils.]
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-
-It is impossible to explain why Eugene chose Liza Annenskaya, as it is
-never possible to explain why a man chooses this and not that woman.
-There were many reasons--positive and negative. One reason was that she
-was not a very rich heiress such as his mother sought for him, another
-that she was naïve and to be pitied in her relations with her mother,
-then there was the fact that she was not a beauty who attracted general
-attention to herself, but yet was not bad looking. The chief reason was
-that his acquaintance with her began at the time when Eugene was ripe
-for marriage. He fell in love because he knew that he would marry.
-
-Liza Annenskaya was at first merely pleasing to Eugene, but when he
-decided to make her his wife, his feelings for her became much stronger.
-He felt that he was in love.
-
-Liza was tall, slender, and long. Everything about her was long; her
-face, and her nose--not prominently but downwards--and her fingers, and
-her feet. The colour of her face was very delicate, yellowish white and
-delicately pink; her hair was long, light brown, soft, curly, and she
-had beautiful, clear, mild, confiding eyes. Those eyes especially struck
-Eugene. And when he thought of Liza he always saw those clear, mild,
-confiding eyes.
-
-Such was she physically; spiritually he knew nothing of her, but only
-saw those eyes. And those eyes seemed to tell him all he needed to know.
-The meaning of those eyes was this:
-
-While still in the Institute, when she was fifteen, Liza used
-continually to fall in love with all attractive men and was animated and
-happy only when she was in love. After leaving the Institute she
-continued to fall in love, in just the same way, with all the young men
-she met, and of course fell in love with Eugene as soon as she made his
-acquaintance. It was this being in love which gave her eyes that
-particular expression which so captivated Eugene. Already that winter
-she had been, at one and the same time, in love with two young men, and
-blushed and became excited not only when they entered the room but
-whenever their names were mentioned. But afterwards, when her mother
-hinted to her that Irtenev seemed to have serious intentions, her love
-for him increased so that she became almost indifferent to the two
-previous attractions, and when Irtenev began to come to their balls and
-parties, and danced with her more than with others and evidently only
-wished to know whether she loved him, her love for him became painful.
-She dreamed of him in her sleep and seemed to see him when she was awake
-in a dark room, and everyone else vanished from her mind. But when he
-proposed and they were formally engaged, and when they had kissed one
-another and were a betrothed couple, then she had no thoughts but of
-him, no desire but to be with him, to love him, and to be loved by him.
-She was also proud of him and felt emotional about him and herself and
-her love, and quite melted and felt faint from love of him.
-
-The more he got to know her the more he loved her. He had not at all
-expected to find such love, and it strengthened his own feeling still
-more.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-
-Towards spring he went to his estate at Semënovskoe to have a look at
-it and to give directions about the management, and especially about the
-house which was being done up for his wedding.
-
-Mary Pavlovna was dissatisfied with her son's choice, not only because
-the match was not as brilliant as it might have been, but also because
-she did not like Varvara Alexeevna, his future mother-in-law. Whether
-she was good-natured or not she did not know and could not decide, but
-that she was not well-bred, not _comme il faut_, "not a lady" as Mary
-Pavlovna said to herself,--she saw from their first acquaintance, and
-this distressed her; distressed her because she was accustomed to value
-breeding and knew that Eugene was sensitive to it, and she foresaw that
-he would suffer much annoyance on this account. But she liked the girl.
-Liked her chiefly because Eugene did. One could not help loving her. And
-Mary Pavlovna was quite sincerely ready to do so.
-
-Eugene found his mother contented and in good spirits. She was getting
-everything straight in the house and preparing to go away herself as
-soon as he brought his young wife. Eugene persuaded her to stay for the
-time being, and the future remained undecided.
-
-In the evening after tea Mary Pavlovna played patience as usual. Eugene
-sat by, helping her. This was the hour of their most intimate talks.
-Having finished one game of patience and while preparing to begin
-another, Mary Pavlovna looked up at Eugene and, with a little
-hesitation, began thus:
-
-"I wanted to tell you, Jenya,--of course I do not know, but in general I
-wanted to suggest to you that before your wedding it is absolutely
-necessary to have finished with all your bachelor affairs, so that
-nothing may disturb either you or your wife. God forbid that it should.
-You understand me?"
-
-And indeed Eugene at once understood that Mary Pavlovna was hinting at
-his relations with Stepanida which had ended in the previous autumn; and
-that she attributed much more importance to those relations than they
-deserved, as single women always do. Eugene blushed, and not from shame
-so much as from vexation that good-natured Mary Pavlovna was
-bothering--out of affection no doubt--but still was bothering about
-matters that were not her business and that she did not and could not
-understand. He answered that he had nothing that needed concealment, and
-that he had always conducted himself so that there should be nothing to
-hinder his marrying.
-
-"Well, dear, that is excellent. Only, Jenya, don't be vexed with me,"
-said Mary Pavlovna, in confusion.
-
-But Eugene saw that she had not finished and had not said what she
-wanted to. So it appeared when a little later she began to tell him of
-how, in his absence, she had been asked to stand godmother at . . . the
-Pechnikovs.
-
-Eugene flushed now, not with vexation or shame, but with some strange
-consciousness of the importance of what was about to be told him--an
-involuntary consciousness quite at variance with his conclusions. And
-what he expected happened. Mary Pavlovna, as if merely by way of
-conversation, mentioned that this year only boys were being
-born,--evidently a sign of a coming war. Both at the Vasins and the
-Pechnikovs the young wife had a first child--at each house a boy. Mary
-Pavlovna wanted to say this casually, but she herself felt ashamed when
-she saw the colour mount to her son's face and saw him nervously
-removing, tapping, and replacing his pince-nez and hurriedly lighting a
-cigarette. She became silent. He too was silent and could not think how
-to break that silence. So they both understood that they had understood
-one another.
-
-"Yes, the chief thing is that there should be justice and no favouritism
-in the village,--as under your grandfather."
-
-"Mamma,"--said Eugene suddenly,--"I know why you are saying this. You
-have no need to be disturbed. My future family-life is so sacred to me
-that I should not infringe it in any case. And as to what occurred in my
-bachelor days, that is quite ended. I never formed any union and no one
-has any claims on me."
-
-"Well, I am glad," said his mother. "I know how noble your feelings
-are."
-
-Eugene accepted his mother's words as a tribute due to him, and did not
-reply.
-
-Next day he drove to town thinking of his fiancée and of anything in
-the world except of Stepanida. But, as if purposely to remind him, on
-approaching the church he met people walking and driving back from it.
-He met old Matvey with Simon, some lads and girls, and then two women,
-one elderly, the other smartly dressed with a bright red kerchief, who
-seemed familiar. The woman was walking lightly, boldly, carrying a child
-in her arms. He came up to them, the elder woman bowed, stopping in the
-old-fashioned way, but the young woman with the child only bent her
-head, and from under the kerchief gleamed familiar, merry, smiling eyes.
-
-Yes, this was she, but all was over and it was no use looking at her:
-"and the child may be mine," flashed through his mind. No, what
-nonsense! There was her husband, she used to see him. He did not even
-consider the matter further, so settled in his mind was it that it had
-been necessary for his health,--he had paid her money and there was no
-more to be said; there was, there had been, and there could be, no
-question of any union between them. It was not that he stifled the voice
-of conscience, no--his conscience simply said nothing to him. And he
-thought no more about her after the conversation with his mother and
-after this meeting. Nor did he meet her again.
-
-Eugene was married in town the week after Easter, and left at once with
-his young wife for his country estate. The house had been arranged as
-usual for a young couple. Mary Pavlovna wished to leave, but Eugene and
-still more strongly Liza begged her to remain, and she only moved into a
-detached wing of the house.
-
-And so a new life began for Eugene.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-
-The first year of his marriage was a hard one for Eugene. It was hard
-because affairs he had managed to put off during the time of his
-courtship now, after his marriage, all came upon him at once.
-
-To escape from debts was impossible. An outlying part of the estate was
-sold and the most pressing obligations met, but others remained, and he
-had no money. The estate yielded a good revenue, but he had had to send
-payments to his brother, and to spend on his own marriage, so that there
-was no ready money and the factory could not carry on and would have to
-be closed down. The only way of escape was to use his wife's money.
-Liza, having realized her husband's position, insisted on this herself.
-Eugene agreed, but only on condition that he should give her a mortgage
-on half his estate; and this he did. Of course it was not for the sake
-of his wife, who felt offended at it, but to appease his mother-in-law.
-
-These affairs, with various fluctuations of success and failure, helped
-to poison Eugene's life that first year. Another thing was his wife's
-ill-health. That same first year, seven months after their marriage, in
-autumn, a misfortune befell Liza. She drove out to meet her husband who
-was returning from town; the quiet horse became rather playful, and she
-was frightened and jumped out. Her jump was comparatively fortunate--she
-might have been caught by the wheel--but she was pregnant, and that same
-night the pains began and she had a miscarriage from which she was long
-in recovering. The loss of the expected child and his wife's illness,
-together with the disorder in his affairs, and above all the presence of
-his mother-in-law, who arrived as soon as Liza fell ill--all this
-together made the year still harder for Eugene.
-
-But notwithstanding these difficult circumstances, towards the end of
-the first year Eugene felt very well. First of all his cherished hope of
-restoring his fallen fortune and renewing his grandfather's way of life
-in a new form, was approaching accomplishment, though slowly and with
-difficulty. There was no longer any question of having to sell the whole
-estate to meet the debts. The chief estate, though transferred to his
-wife's name, was saved, and if only the beet crop succeeded and the
-price kept up, by next year his position of want and stress might be
-replaced by one of complete prosperity. That was one thing.
-
-Another was that however much he had expected from his wife, he had
-never expected to find in her what he actually found. It was not what he
-had expected, but it was much better. Emotion, raptures of love--though
-he tried to produce them--did not take place or were very slight, but
-something quite different appeared, namely, that he was not merely more
-cheerful and happier but that it became easier to live. He did not know
-why this should be so, but it was.
-
-It happened because immediately after the marriage she decided that
-Eugene Irtenev was superior to, wiser, purer, and nobler than, anyone
-else in the world, and therefore it was right for everyone to serve him
-and do what would please him; but as it was impossible to make everyone
-do this, she to the limit of her strength must do it herself. So she
-did; and therefore all her strength of mind was directed towards
-learning and guessing what he liked, and then doing just that, whatever
-it was and however difficult it might be.
-
-She had the gift which furnishes the chief delight of intercourse with a
-loving woman; thanks to her love of her husband she penetrated into his
-soul. She knew--better it seemed to him than he himself--his every
-state, and every shade of his feeling, and she behaved correspondingly,
-and therefore never hurt his feelings, but always lessened his
-distresses and strengthened his joys. And she understood not only his
-feelings but also his joys. Things quite foreign to her--concerning the
-farming, the factory, or the appraisement of others, she immediately
-understood so that she could not merely converse with him, but could
-often, as he himself said, be a useful and irreplaceable counsellor. She
-regarded affairs and people, and everything in the world, only through
-his eyes. She loved her mother, but having seen that Eugene disliked his
-mother-in-law's interference in their life she immediately took her
-husband's side, and did so with such decision that he had to restrain
-her.
-
-Besides all this she had very much taste, tact, and above all,
-peacefulness. All that she did, she did unnoticed; only the results of
-what she did were observable, namely, that always and in everything
-there was cleanliness, order, and elegance. Liza had at once understood
-in what her husband's ideal of life consisted, and she tried to attain,
-and in the arrangement and order of the house did attain, what he
-wanted. Children, it is true, were lacking, but there was hope of this
-also. In winter she went to Petersburg to see a specialist, and he
-assured them that she was quite well and could have children.
-
-And this desire was accomplished. By the end of the year she was again
-pregnant.
-
-The one thing that threatened, not to say poisoned, their happiness was
-her jealousy; a jealousy she restrained and did not exhibit, but from
-which she often suffered. Not only might Eugene not love anyone--because
-there was not a woman on earth worthy of him (as to whether she herself
-was worthy or not, she never asked herself),--but not a single woman
-might, therefore, dare to love him.
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-
-They lived thus: he rose, as he always had done, early, and went to see
-to the farm or the factory, where work was going on, or sometimes to the
-fields. Towards ten o'clock he would come back to his coffee: they had
-it on the verandah, Mary Pavlovna, an uncle who lived with them, and
-Liza. After a conversation which was often very animated while they
-drank their coffee, they dispersed till dinner-time. At two o'clock they
-dined and then went for a walk, or a drive. In the evening when he
-returned from his office they drank their evening tea, and sometimes he
-read aloud while she worked, or when there were guests they had music or
-talked. When he went away on business he wrote to his wife, and received
-letters from her, every day. Sometimes she accompanied him, and then
-they were particularly merry. On his name-day and on hers guests
-assembled, and it was pleasant to him to see how well she managed to
-arrange things so that it was pleasant for everybody. He saw, and heard
-also, that they all admired her, the young, agreeable hostess, and he
-loved her still more for this.
-
-All went excellently. She bore her pregnancy easily, and though they
-were afraid, they both began making plans as to how they would bring the
-child up. The system of education and the arrangements were all decided
-by Eugene, and her only wish was obediently to carry out his desires.
-Eugene on his part read up medical works, and intended to bring the
-child up according to all the precepts of science. She, of course,
-agreed to everything and made preparations, making warm and also cool
-"envelopes,"[2] and preparing a cradle. Thus the second year of their
-marriage arrived, and the second spring.
-
-
-[Footnote 2: An "envelope" was a small mattress with attached
-coverlet, on which babies were carried about.]
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-
-It was just before Trinity Sunday. Liza was in her fifth month, and,
-though careful, she was brisk and active. Both the mothers, his and
-hers, were living in the house, but under pretext of watching and
-safeguarding her only upset her by their tiffs. Eugene was specially
-engrossed with a new experiment for the cultivation of sugar-beet on a
-large scale.
-
-Just before Trinity Liza decided that it was necessary to have a
-thorough house-cleaning, as it had not been done since Easter, and she
-hired two women by the day, to help the servants wash the floors and
-windows, beat the furniture and the carpets, and put covers on them. The
-women came early in the morning, heated the coppers, and set to work.
-One of the two was Stepanida, who had just weaned her baby boy. Through
-the office-clerk--whom she now carried on with--she had begged for the
-job of washing the floors. She wanted to have a good look at the new
-mistress. Stepanida was living by herself, as formerly, her husband
-being away, and she was up to tricks, as she had formerly been first
-with old Daniel (who had once caught her taking some logs of firewood),
-afterwards with the master, and now with the young clerk. She was not
-concerning herself any longer about her master. "He has a wife now," she
-thought. But it would be good to have a look at the lady and at her
-establishment: folk said it was well arranged.
-
-Eugene had not seen her since he had met her with the child. Having a
-baby to attend to she had not been going out to work, and he seldom
-walked through the village. That morning, on the eve of Trinity Sunday,
-Eugene rose at five o'clock and rode to the fallow land which was to be
-sprinkled with phosphates, and he left the house before the women were
-about it, and while they were still engaged lighting the copper fires.
-
-Merry, contented, and hungry, Eugene returned to breakfast. He
-dismounted from his mare at the gate and handed her over to the
-gardener. Flicking the high grass with his whip and repeating, as one
-often does, a phrase he had just uttered, he walked towards the house.
-The phrase he repeated was: "phosphates justify"--what or to whom he
-neither knew nor reflected.
-
-They were beating a carpet on the grass. The furniture had been brought
-out.
-
-"There now! What a house-cleaning Liza has undertaken! . . . Phosphates
-justify. . . . What a manageress she is! A manageress! Yes, a
-manageress," said he to himself, vividly imagining her in her white
-wrapper and with her smiling joyful face, as it nearly always was when
-he looked at her. "Yes, I must change my boots, or else 'phosphates
-justify,' that is, smell of manure, and the manageress is in such a
-condition. Why 'in such a condition'? Because a new little Irtenev is
-growing there inside her," he thought. "Yes, phosphates justify," and
-smiling at his thoughts he put his hand to the door of his room.
-
-But he had not time to push the door before it opened of itself and he
-met, face to face, a woman coming towards him carrying a pail, barefoot,
-and with sleeves turned up high. He stepped aside to let her pass, she
-too stepped aside, adjusting her kerchief with a wet hand.
-
-"Go on, go on, I won't go there, if you . . ." began Eugene and,
-suddenly, recognizing her, stopped.
-
-She glanced merrily at him with smiling eyes, and pulling down her skirt
-went out by the door.
-
-"What nonsense! . . . It is impossible," said Eugene to himself,
-frowning and waving his hand as though to get rid of a fly, displeased
-at having noticed her. He was vexed that he had noticed her and yet he
-could not take his eyes from her strong body, swayed by the agile
-strides of her bare feet, or from her arms, shoulders, and the pleasing
-folds of her shirt and handsome skirt, tucked up high above her white
-calves.
-
-"But why am I looking?" said he to himself, lowering his eyes so as not
-to see her. "But anyhow I must go in to get some other boots." And he
-turned back to go into his own room, but had not gone five steps before,
-without knowing why or wherefore, he again glanced round to have another
-look at her. She was just going round the corner and also glanced at
-him.
-
-"Ah, what am I doing!" said he to himself. "She may think . . . It is
-even certain that she already does think . . ."
-
-He entered his damp room. Another woman, an old and skinny one, was
-there, and was still washing it. Eugene passed on tiptoe across the
-floor wet with dirty water to the wall where his boots stood, and he was
-about to leave the room, when the woman herself went out.
-
-"This one has gone and the other, Stepanida, will come here alone,"
-someone within him began to reflect.
-
-"My God, what am I thinking of and what am I doing!" He seized his boots
-and ran out with them into the hall, put them on there, brushed himself,
-and went out on to the verandah where both the mammas were already
-drinking coffee. Liza had evidently been expecting him and came on to
-the verandah through another door at the same time.
-
-"My God! If she, who considers me so honourable, pure, and innocent,--if
-she only knew!"--thought he.
-
-Liza, as usual, met him with shining face. But to-day somehow she seemed
-to him particularly pale, yellow, long, and weak.
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-
-During coffee, as often happened, a peculiarly feminine kind of
-conversation went on which had no logical sequence, but which evidently
-was connected in some way for it went on uninterruptedly.
-
-The two old ladies were pin-pricking one another, and Liza was skilfully
-manœuvring between them.
-
-"I am so vexed that we had not finished washing your room before you got
-back," she said to her husband. "But I do so want to get everything
-arranged."
-
-"Well, did you sleep well after I got up?"
-
-"Yes, I slept well, and I feel well."
-
-"How can a woman be well in her condition during this intolerable heat,
-when her windows face the sun," said Varvara Alexeevna, her mother. "And
-they have no venetian-blinds or awnings. I always had awnings."
-
-"But you know we are in the shade after ten o'clock," said Mary
-Pavlovna.
-
-"That's what causes fever; it comes of dampness," said Varvara
-Alexeevna, not noticing that what she was saying did not agree with what
-she had just said. "My doctor always says that it is impossible to
-diagnose an illness unless one knows the patient. And he certainly
-knows, for he is the leading physician and we pay him a hundred rubles a
-visit. My late husband did not believe in doctors, but he did not grudge
-me anything."
-
-"How can a man grudge anything to a woman when perhaps her life and the
-child's depend . . ."
-
-"Yes, when she has means, a wife need not depend on her husband. A good
-wife submits to her husband," said Varvara Alexeevna,--"only Liza is too
-weak after her illness."
-
-"Oh no, mamma, I feel quite well. But why have they not brought you any
-boiled cream?"
-
-"I don't want any. I can do with raw cream."
-
-"I offered some to Varvara Alexeevna, but she declined," said Mary
-Pavlovna, as if justifying herself.
-
-"No, I don't want any to-day." And as if to terminate an unpleasant
-conversation and yield magnanimously, Varvara Alexeevna turned to Eugene
-and said: "Well, and have you sprinkled the phosphates?"
-
-Liza ran to fetch the cream.
-
-"But I don't want it. I don't want it."
-
-"Liza, Liza, go gently,"--said Mary Pavlovna. "Such rapid movements do
-her harm."
-
-"Nothing does harm, if one's mind is at peace," said Varvara Alexeevna
-as if referring to something, though she knew that there was nothing
-that her words could refer to.
-
-Liza returned with the cream, Eugene drank his coffee and listened
-morosely. He was accustomed to these conversations, but to-day he was
-particularly annoyed by its lack of sense. He wanted to think over what
-had happened to him, but this chatter disturbed him. Having finished her
-coffee Varvara Alexeevna went away in a bad humour. Liza, Eugene, and
-Mary Pavlovna stayed behind, and their conversation was simple and
-pleasant. But Liza, being sensitive, at once noticed that something was
-tormenting Eugene, and she asked him whether anything unpleasant had
-happened. He was not prepared for this question, and hesitated a little
-before replying that there had been nothing unpleasant. And this reply
-made Liza think all the more; that something was tormenting, and greatly
-tormenting, him was as evident to her as the fact that a fly had fallen
-into the milk, yet he did not speak of it. What could it be?
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-
-After breakfast they all dispersed. Eugene as usual went to his study.
-He did not begin reading or writing his letters, but sat smoking one
-cigarette after another and thinking. He was terribly surprised and
-disturbed by the expected recrudescence within him of the bad feeling
-from which he had thought himself free since his marriage. Since then he
-had not once experienced that feeling, either for her--the woman he had
-known--or for any other woman except his wife. He had often felt glad of
-this emancipation, and now suddenly a chance meeting, seemingly so
-unimportant, revealed to him the fact that he was not free. What now
-tormented him was not that he was yielding to that feeling and desired
-her--he did not dream of so doing--but that the feeling was awake within
-him and he had to be on his guard against it. He had no doubt but that
-he would suppress it.
-
-He had a letter to answer and a paper to write. He sat down at his
-writing-table and began to work. Having finished it and quite forgotten
-what had disturbed him, he went out to go to the stables. And again as
-ill-luck would have it, either by unfortunate chance or intentionally,
-as soon as he stepped from the porch, a red skirt and red kerchief
-appeared from round the corner, and she went past him swinging her arms
-and swaying her body. She not only went past him, but on passing him
-ran, as if playfully, to overtake her fellow-servant.
-
-Again the bright midday, the nettles, the back of Daniel's hut, and in
-the shade of the plane-trees her smiling face biting some leaves, rose
-in his imagination.
-
-"No, it is impossible to let matters continue so," he said to himself,
-and waiting till the women had passed out of sight he went to the
-office.
-
-It was just the dinner-hour and he hoped to find the steward still
-there. So it happened. The steward was just waking up from his
-after-dinner nap. Standing in the office, stretching himself and
-yawning, he was looking at the herdsman who was telling him something.
-
-"Vasili Nikolaich!" said Eugene to the steward.
-
-"What is your pleasure?"
-
-"I want to speak to you."
-
-"What is your pleasure?"
-
-"Just finish what you are saying."
-
-"Aren't you going to bring it in?" said Vasili Nikolaich to the
-herdsman.
-
-"It's heavy, Vasili Nikolaich."
-
-"What is it?" asked Eugene.
-
-"Why, a cow has calved in the meadow. Well, all right, I'll order them
-to harness a horse at once. Tell Nicholas Lysukh to get out the dray
-cart."
-
-The herdsman went out.
-
-"Do you know," began Eugene, flushing and conscious that he was doing
-so, "do you know, Vasili Nikolaich, while I was a bachelor I went off
-the track a bit. . . . You may have heard . . ."
-
-Vasili Nikolaich with smiling eyes and evidently sorry for his master,
-said: "Is it about Stepanida?"
-
-"Why, yes. Look here. Please, please do not engage her to help in the
-house. You understand, it is very awkward for me . . ."
-
-"Yes, it must have been Vanya, the clerk, who arranged it."
-
-"Yes, please. . . . Well, and hadn't the rest of the phosphates better
-be strewn?" said Eugene, to hide his confusion.
-
-"Yes, I am just going to see to it."
-
-So it ended. And Eugene calmed down, hoping that as he had lived for a
-year without seeing her, so things would go on now. "Besides, Vasili
-Nikolaich will speak to Ivan the clerk; Ivan will speak to her, and she
-will understand that I don't want it," said Eugene to himself, and he
-was glad that he had forced himself to speak to Vasili Nikolaich, hard
-as it had been to do so.
-
-"Yes, it is better, better, than that feeling of doubt, that feeling of
-shame." He shuddered at the mere remembrance of his sin in thought.
-
-
-
-
-XII
-
-
-The moral effort he had made to overcome his shame and speak to Vasili
-Nikolaich, tranquillized Eugene. It seemed to him that the matter was
-all over now. Liza at once noticed that he was quite calm, and even
-happier than usual. "No doubt he was upset by our mothers pin-pricking
-one another. It really is disagreeable, especially for him who is so
-sensitive and noble, always to hear such unfriendly and ill-mannered
-insinuations," thought she.
-
-The next day was Trinity Sunday. The weather was beautiful, and the
-peasant-women, according to custom, on their way into the woods to plait
-wreaths, came to the landowner's home and began to sing and dance. Mary
-Pavlovna and Varvara Alexeevna came out on to the porch in smart
-clothes, carrying sunshades, and went up to the ring of singers. With
-them, in a jacket of Chinese silk, came out the uncle, a flabby
-libertine and drunkard, who was living that summer with Eugene.
-
-As usual there was a bright, many-coloured ring of young women and
-girls, the centre of everything, and around these from different sides
-like attendant planets that had detached themselves and were circling
-round, went girls hand in hand, rustling in their new print gowns; young
-lads giggling and running backwards and forwards after one another;
-full-grown lads in dark blue or black coats and caps and with red
-shirts, who unceasingly spat out sunflower-seed shells; and the domestic
-servants or other outsiders watching the dance-circle from aside. Both
-the old ladies went close up to the ring, and Liza accompanied them in a
-light blue dress, with light blue ribbons on her head, and with wide
-sleeves under which her long white arms and angular elbows were visible.
-
-Eugene did not wish to come out, but it was ridiculous to hide, and he
-too came out on to the porch smoking a cigarette, bowed to the men and
-lads, and talked with one of them. The women meanwhile shouted a
-dance-song with all their might, snapping their fingers, clapping their
-hands, and dancing.
-
-"They are calling for the master," said a youngster, coming up to
-Eugene's wife who had not noticed the call. Liza called Eugene to look
-at the dance and at one of the women dancers who particularly pleased
-her. This was Stepanida. She wore a yellow skirt, a velveteen sleeveless
-jacket and a silk kerchief, and was broad, energetic, ruddy, and merry.
-No doubt she danced well. He saw nothing.
-
-"Yes, yes," said he, removing and replacing his pince-nez. "Yes, yes,"
-repeated he. "So it seems I cannot be rid of her," he thought.
-
-He did not look at her as he was afraid of her attraction, and just on
-that account what his passing glance caught of her seemed to him
-especially attractive. Besides this he saw by her sparkling look that
-she saw him and saw that he admired her. He stood there as long as
-propriety demanded, and seeing that Varvara Alexeevna had called her,
-senselessly and insincerely, "my dear," and was talking to her, he
-turned aside and went away.
-
-He went into the house. He retired in order not to see her, but on
-reaching the upper story, without knowing how or why, he approached the
-window, and as long as the women remained at the porch he stood there
-and looked and looked at her, feasting his eyes on her.
-
-He ran, while there was no one to see him, and then went with quiet
-steps on to the verandah, and from there, smoking a cigarette and as if
-going for a stroll, he passed through the garden and followed the
-direction she had taken. He had not gone two steps along the alley
-before he noticed behind the trees a velveteen sleeveless jacket, with a
-pink and yellow skirt and a red kerchief. She was going somewhere with
-another woman. "Where are they going?"
-
-And suddenly a terrible desire scorched him, as though a hand were
-seizing his heart. As if by someone else's wish he looked round and went
-towards her.
-
-"Eugene Ivanich, Eugene Ivanich! I have come to see your honour," said a
-voice behind him, and Eugene, seeing old Samokhin, who was digging a
-well for him, roused himself and, turning quickly round, went to meet
-Samokhin. While speaking with him he turned sideways and saw that she
-and the woman who was with her went down the slope, evidently to the
-well, or making an excuse of the well, and having stopped there a little
-while, ran back to the dance-circle.
-
-
-
-
-XIII
-
-
-After talking to Samokhin, Eugene returned to the house as depressed as
-if he had committed a crime. In the first place she had understood him,
-believed that he wanted to see her, and desired it herself. Secondly,
-that other woman, Anna Prokhorova, evidently knew of it.
-
-Above all, he felt that he was conquered, that he was not master of his
-own will but that there was another power moving him, that he had been
-saved only by good fortune, and that, if not to-day, to-morrow or a day
-later, he would perish all the same.
-
-"Yes, perish," he did not understand it otherwise: to be unfaithful to
-his young and loving wife with a peasant woman in the village, in the
-sight of everyone,--what was it but to perish, perish utterly, so that
-it would be impossible to live? No, something must be done.
-
-"My God, my God! What am I to do? Can it be that I shall perish like
-this?" said he to himself. "Is it not possible to do anything? Yet
-something must be done. Do not think about her"--he ordered himself. "Do
-not think!" and immediately he began thinking and seeing her before him,
-and seeing also the shade of the plane tree.
-
-He remembered having read of a hermit who, to avoid the temptation he
-felt for a woman on whom he had to lay his hand to heal her, thrust his
-other hand into a brazier and burnt his fingers. He called that to mind.
-"Yes, I am ready to burn my fingers rather than to perish." He looked
-round to make sure that there was no one in the room, lit a candle, and
-put a finger into the flame. "There now think about her," he said to
-himself ironically. It hurt him and he withdrew his smoke-stained
-finger, threw away the match, and laughed at himself. What nonsense!
-That was not what had to be done. But it was necessary to do something,
-to avoid seeing her--either to go away himself or to send her away.
-Yes,--send her away. Offer her husband money to remove to town, or to
-another village. People would hear of it and would talk about it. Well,
-what of that? At any rate it was better than this danger. "Yes, that
-must be done," he said to himself; and at the very time he was looking
-at her without moving his eyes. "Where is she going?" he suddenly asked
-himself. She, as it seemed to him, had seen him at the window and now,
-having glanced at him and taken another woman by the hand, was going
-towards the garden swinging her arm briskly. Without knowing why or
-wherefore, merely in accord with what he had been thinking, he went to
-the office.
-
-Vasili Nikolaich in holiday costume and with oiled hair was sitting at
-tea with his wife and a guest who was wearing an oriental kerchief.
-
-"I want a word with you, Vasili Nikolaich!"
-
-"Please say what you want to. We have finished tea."
-
-"No. I'd rather you came out with me."
-
-"Directly; only let me get my cap. Tanya, put out the samovar,"--said
-Vasili Nikolaich, stepping outside cheerfully.
-
-It seemed to Eugene that Vasili had been drinking, but what was to be
-done? It might be all the better--he would sympathize with him in his
-difficulties the more readily.
-
-"I have come again to speak about that same matter, Vasili Nikolaich,"
-said Eugene,--"about that woman."
-
-"Well, what of her? I told them not to take her again on any account."
-
-"No, I have been thinking in general, and this is what I wanted to take
-your advice about. Isn't it possible to get them away, to send the whole
-family away?"
-
-"Where can they be sent?" said Vasili, disapprovingly and ironically as
-it seemed to Eugene.
-
-"Well, I thought of giving them money, or even some land in
-Koltovski,--so that she should not be here."
-
-"But how can they be sent away? Where is he to go--torn up from his
-roots? And why should you do it? What harm can she do you?"
-
-"Ah, Vasili Nikolaich, you must understand that it would be dreadful for
-my wife to hear of it."
-
-"But who will tell her?"
-
-"How can I live with this dread? The whole thing is very painful for
-me."
-
-"But really, why should you distress yourself? Whoever stirs up the
-past--out with his eye! Who is not a sinner before God and to blame
-before the Tsar, as the saying is?"
-
-"All the same it would be better to get rid of them. Can't you speak to
-the husband?"
-
-"But it is no use speaking! Eh, Eugene Ivanich, what is the matter with
-you? It is all past and forgotten. All sorts of things happen. Who is
-there that would now say anything bad of you? Everybody sees you."
-
-"But all the same go and have a talk with him."
-
-"All right, I will speak to him."
-
-Though he knew that nothing would come of it, this talk somewhat calmed
-Eugene. Above all, it made him feel that through excitement he had been
-exaggerating the danger.
-
-Had he gone to meet her by appointment? It was impossible. He had simply
-gone to stroll in the garden and she had happened to run out at the same
-time.
-
-
-
-
-XIV
-
-
-After dinner that very Trinity Sunday Liza while walking from the garden
-to the meadow, where her husband wanted to show her the clover, took a
-false step and fell when crossing a little ditch. She fell gently, on
-her side; but she gave an exclamation, and her husband saw an expression
-in her face not only of fear but of pain. He wished to help her up, but
-she motioned him away with her hand.
-
-"No, wait a bit, Eugene," she said, with a weak smile, and as it seemed
-to him, she looked up guiltily. "My foot only gave way under me."
-
-"There, I always say," remarked Varvara Alexeevna, "can anyone in her
-condition possibly jump over ditches?"
-
-"But no, mamma, it is all right. I shall get up directly." With her
-husband's help she did get up, but immediately turned pale, and her face
-showed fear.
-
-"Yes, I am not well," and she whispered something to her mother.
-
-"Oh, my God, what have you done! I said you ought not to go
-there,"--cried Varvara Alexeevna. "Wait,--I will call the servants. She
-must not walk. She must be carried!"
-
-"Don't be afraid, Liza, I will carry you," said Eugene, putting his left
-arm round her. "Hold me by the neck. Like that." And stooping down he
-put his right arm under her knees and lifted her. He could never
-afterwards forget the suffering and yet beatific expression of her face.
-
-"I am too heavy for you, dear,"--she said with a smile. "Mamma is
-running, tell her!" And she bent towards him and kissed him. She
-evidently wanted her mother to see how he was carrying her.
-
-Eugene shouted to Varvara Alexeevna not to hurry, and that he would
-carry Liza home. Varvara Alexeevna stopped and began to shout still
-louder.
-
-"You will drop her, you'll be sure to drop her. You want to destroy her.
-You have no conscience!"
-
-"But I am carrying her excellently."
-
-"I do not want to watch you killing my daughter, and I can't." And she
-ran round the bend in the alley.
-
-"Never mind, it will pass," said Liza, smiling.
-
-"Yes. If only it does not have consequences like last time."
-
-"No. I am not speaking of that. That is all right. I mean mamma. You are
-tired. Rest a bit."
-
-But though he found it heavy, Eugene carried his burden proudly and
-gladly to the house and did not hand her over to the housemaid and the
-man-cook whom Varvara Alexeevna had found and sent to meet them. He
-carried her to the bedroom and placed her on the bed.
-
-"Now go away," she said and drawing his hand to her she kissed it.
-"Annushka and I will manage all right."
-
-Mary Pavlovna also ran in from her rooms in the wing. They undressed
-Liza and laid her on the bed. Eugene sat in the drawing-room with a book
-in his hand, waiting. Varvara Alexeevna went past him with such a
-reproachfully gloomy air that he felt alarmed.
-
-"Well, how is it?" he asked.
-
-"How? What's the good of asking? It is probably what you wanted when you
-made your wife jump over the ditch."
-
-"Varvara Alexeevna!" he cried. "This is impossible. If you want to
-torment people and to poison their life,"--he wanted to say, "then go
-elsewhere to do it," but he restrained himself. "How is it that it does
-not hurt you?"
-
-"It is too late now." And shaking her cap in a triumphant manner she
-passed out by the door.
-
-The fall had really been a bad one, Liza's foot had twisted awkwardly
-and there was danger of her having another miscarriage. Everyone knew
-that there was nothing to be done, but that she must just lie quietly,
-yet all the same they decided to send for a doctor.
-
-"Dear Nikolay Semënich," wrote Eugene to the doctor, "you have always
-been so kind to us, that I hope you will not refuse to come to my wife's
-assistance. She . . ." and so on. Having written the letter he went to
-the stables to arrange about the horses and the carriage. Horses had to
-be got ready to bring the doctor, and others to take him back. When an
-estate is not run on a large scale, such things cannot be quickly
-decided but have to be considered. Having arranged it all and dispatched
-the coachman, it was past nine before he got back to the house. His wife
-was lying down, and said that she felt perfectly well and had no pain.
-But Varvara Alexeevna was sitting with a lamp screened from Liza by some
-sheets of music and knitting a large red coverlet, with a mien that said
-that after what had happened peace was impossible; but that no matter
-what anyone else did, she at any rate would do her duty.
-
-Eugene noticed this but, to appear as if he had not seen it, he tried to
-assume a cheerful and tranquil air and told how he had chosen the horses
-and how the mare, Kabushka, had galloped capitally as left trace-horse
-in the troika.
-
-"Yes, of course, it is just the time to exercise the horses when help is
-needed. Probably the doctor will also be thrown into the ditch,"
-remarked Varvara Alexeevna, examining her knitting from under her
-pince-nez and moving it close up to the lamp.
-
-"But you know we had to send one way or other, and I made the best
-arrangement I could."
-
-"Yes, I remember very well how your horses galloped with me under the
-gateway arch." This was her long-standing fancy, and Eugene now was
-injudicious enough to remark that was not quite what had happened.
-
-"It is not for nothing that I have always said, and have often remarked
-to the prince, that it is hardest of all to live with people who are
-untruthful and insincere; I can endure anything except that."
-
-"Well, if anyone has to suffer more than another, it is certainly I,"
-said Eugene. "But you . . ."
-
-"Yes, it is evident."
-
-"What?"
-
-"Nothing, I am only counting my stitches."
-
-Eugene was standing at the time by the bed and Liza was looking at him,
-and one of her moist hands outside the coverlet caught his hand and
-pressed it. "Bear with her for my sake. You know she cannot prevent our
-loving one another," was what her look said.
-
-"I won't do so again. It's nothing," whispered he, and he kissed her
-damp, long hand and then her affectionate eyes, which closed while he
-kissed them.
-
-"Can it be the same thing over again?" he asked. "How are you feeling?"
-
-"I am afraid to say, for fear of being mistaken, but I feel that he is
-alive and will live," said she, glancing at her stomach.
-
-"Ah, it is dreadful, dreadful to think of."
-
-Notwithstanding Liza's insistence that he should go away, Eugene spent
-the night with her, hardly closing an eye and ready to attend on her.
-
-But she passed the night well, and had they not sent for the doctor she
-would perhaps have got up.
-
-By dinner-time the doctor arrived and of course said that, though if the
-symptoms recurred there might be cause for apprehension, yet actually
-there were no positive symptoms, but as there were also no contrary
-indications one might suppose on the one hand that--and on the other
-hand that. . . . And therefore she must lie still, and that "though I do
-not like prescribing, yet all the same she should take this mixture and
-should lie quiet." Besides this, the doctor gave Varvara Alexeevna a
-lecture on woman's anatomy, during which Varvara Alexeevna nodded her
-head significantly. Having received his fee, as usual into the backmost
-part of his palm, the doctor drove away and the patient was left to lie
-in bed for a week.
-
-
-
-
-XV
-
-
-Most of his time Eugene spent by his wife's bedside, talking to her,
-reading to her, and what was hardest of all, enduring without murmur
-Varvara Alexeevna's attacks, and even contriving to turn these into
-jokes.
-
-But he could not stay at home. In the first place his wife sent him
-away, saying that he would fall ill if he always remained with her; and,
-secondly, the farming was progressing in a way that demanded his
-presence at every step. He could not stay at home; but was in the
-fields, in the wood, in the garden, at the thrashing-floor; and
-everywhere, not merely the thought but the vivid image of Stepanida
-pursued him, and he only occasionally forgot her. But that would not
-have mattered, he could perhaps have mastered his feeling; but what was
-worst of all was that, whereas he had previously lived for months
-without seeing her, he now continually came across her. She evidently
-understood that he wished to renew relations with her, and tried to come
-in his way. Nothing was said either by him or by her, and therefore
-neither he nor she went directly to a rendezvous, but only sought
-opportunities of meeting.
-
-The place where it was possible for them to meet each other was in the
-forest, where peasant-women went with sacks to collect grass for their
-cows. Eugene knew this and therefore went every day by that wood. Every
-day he told himself that he would not go there, and every day it ended
-by his making his way to the forest and, on hearing the sound of voices,
-standing behind the bushes with sinking heart looking to see if she was
-there.
-
-Why he wanted to know whether it was she who was there, he did not know.
-If it had been she and she had been alone, he would not have gone to
-her--so he believed--he would have run away; but he wanted to see her.
-
-Once he met her. As he was entering the forest she came out of it with
-two other women, carrying a heavy sack, full of grass, on her back. A
-little earlier he would perhaps have met her in the forest. But now,
-with the other women there, she could not go back to him in the forest.
-But though he realized this impossibility, he stood for a long time, at
-the risk of attracting the other women's attention, behind a hazel-bush.
-Of course she did not return, but he stayed there a long time. And,
-great heavens, how delightful his imagination made her appear to him!
-And this not once, but five or six times. And each time more intensely.
-Never had she seemed so attractive, and never had he been so completely
-in her power.
-
-He felt that he had lost control of himself and had become almost
-insane. His strictness with himself was not weakened a jot; on the
-contrary he saw all the abomination of his desire and even of his
-action, for his going to the wood was an action. He knew that he only
-need come near her anywhere in the dark, and if possible touch her, and
-he would yield to his feelings. He knew that it was only shame before
-people, before her, and no doubt before himself also, that restrained
-him. And he knew too that he had sought conditions in which that shame
-would not be apparent--darkness or proximity--in which it would be
-stifled by animal passion. And therefore he knew that he was a wretched
-criminal, and despised and hated himself with all his soul. He hated
-himself because he still had not surrendered: every day he prayed God to
-strengthen him, to save him from perishing; every day he determined that
-from to-day onward he would not take a step to see her, and would forget
-her. Every day he devised means of delivering himself from this
-enticement, and he made use of those means.
-
-But it was all in vain.
-
-One of the means was continual occupation; another was intense physical
-work and fasting; a third was imagining clearly to himself the shame
-that would fall upon him when everybody knew of it--his wife, his
-mother-in-law, and the folk around. He did all this, and it seemed to
-him that he was conquering, but the hour came, midday: the hour of their
-former meetings and the hour when he had met her carrying the grass, and
-he went to the forest. Thus five days of torment passed. He only saw her
-from a distance, but did not once encounter her.
-
-
-
-
-XVI
-
-
-Liza was gradually recovering, she could move about and was only uneasy
-at the change that had taken place in her husband, which she did not
-understand.
-
-Varvara Alexeevna had gone away for a while and the only visitor was
-Eugene's uncle. Mary Pavlovna was as usual at home.
-
-Eugene was in his semi-insane condition when there came two days of
-pouring rain, as often happens after thunder in June. The rain stopped
-all work. They even ceased carting manure, on account of the dampness
-and dirt. The peasants remained at home. The herdsmen wore themselves
-out with the cattle, and eventually drove them home. The cows and sheep
-wandered about in the pastureland and ran loose in the grounds. The
-peasant-women, barefoot and wrapped in shawls, splashing through the mud
-rushed about to seek the runaway cows. Streams flowed everywhere along
-the paths, all the leaves and all the grass were saturated with water,
-and streams flowed unceasingly from the spouts into the bubbling
-puddles.
-
-Eugene sat at home with his wife who was particularly wearisome that
-day. She questioned Eugene several times as to the cause of his
-discontent; and he replied with vexation that nothing was the matter.
-She ceased questioning him, but was still distressed.
-
-They were sitting after breakfast in the drawing-room. His uncle for the
-hundredth time was recounting fabrications about his society
-acquaintances. Liza was knitting a jacket and sighed, complaining of the
-weather and of a pain in the small of her back. The uncle advised her to
-lie down, and asked for vodka for himself. It was terribly dull for
-Eugene in the house. Everything was weak and dull. He read a book and a
-magazine, but understood nothing of them.
-
-"Yes, I must go out and look at the rasping-machine they brought
-yesterday," said he. He got up and went out.
-
-"Take an umbrella with you."
-
-"Oh, no, I have a leather coat. And I am only going as far as the
-boiling-room."
-
-He put on his boots and his leather coat and went to the factory; but he
-had not gone twenty steps before, coming towards him, he met her with
-her skirts tucked up high above her white calves. She was walking,
-holding down the shawl in which her head and shoulders were wrapped.
-
-"Where are you going?" said he, not recognizing her the first instant.
-When he recognized her it was already too late. She stopped, smiling,
-and looked long at him.
-
-"I am looking for a calf. Where are you off to in such weather?" said
-she, as if she were seeing him every day.
-
-"Come to the shed," said he suddenly, without knowing how he said it. It
-was as if someone else had uttered the words.
-
-She bit her shawl, winked, and ran in the direction which led from the
-garden to the shed, but he continued his path, intending to turn off
-beyond the lilac-bush and go there too.
-
-"Master," he heard a voice behind him. "The mistress is calling you, and
-wants you to come back for a minute."
-
-This was Misha, his man-servant.
-
-"My God! This is the second time you have saved me," thought Eugene, and
-immediately turned back. His wife reminded him that he had promised to
-take some medicine at the dinner-hour to a sick woman, and he had better
-take it with him.
-
-While they were getting the medicine some five minutes elapsed, and
-then, going away with the medicine, he hesitated to go direct to the
-shed, lest he should be seen from the house, but as soon as he was out
-of sight he promptly turned and made his way to it. He already saw her
-in imagination, inside the shed, smiling gaily. But she was not there,
-and there was nothing in the shed to show that she had been there.
-
-He was already thinking that she had not come, had not heard or
-understood his words--he had muttered them through his nose as if afraid
-of her hearing them--or perhaps she had not wanted to come. "And why did
-I imagine that she would rush to me? She has her own husband; it is only
-I who am such a wretch as to have a wife, and a good one, and to run
-after another." Thus he thought sitting in the shed, the thatch of which
-had a leak and dripped from its straw. "But how delightful it would be
-if she did come,--alone here in this rain. If only I could embrace her
-once again; then let happen what may. But yes," he recollected, "one
-could tell if she has been here by her footprints." He looked at the
-trodden ground near the shed and at the path overgrown by grass; and the
-fresh print of bare feet, and even of one that had slipped, was visible.
-"Yes, she has been here. Well now it is settled. Wherever I may see her
-I shall go straight to her. I will go to her at night." He sat for a
-long time in the shed, and left it exhausted and crushed. He delivered
-the medicine, returned home, and lay down in his room to wait for
-dinner.
-
-
-
-
-XVII
-
-
-Before dinner Liza came to him and, still wondering what could be the
-cause of his discontent, began to say that she was afraid that he did
-not like the idea of her going to Moscow for her confinement, and that
-she had decided that she would remain at home and would on no account go
-to Moscow. He knew how she feared both her confinement itself and the
-risk of not having a healthy child, and therefore he could not help
-being touched at seeing how ready she was to sacrifice everything for
-his sake. All was so nice, so pleasant, so clean, in the house; and in
-his soul it was so dirty, despicable, and horrid. The whole evening
-Eugene was tormented by knowing that notwithstanding his sincere
-repulsion at his own weakness, notwithstanding his firm intention to
-break off,--the same thing would happen again to-morrow.
-
-"No, this is impossible," he said to himself, walking up and down in his
-room. "There must be some remedy for it. My God! What am I to do?"
-
-Someone knocked at the door as foreigners do. He knew this must be his
-uncle. "Come in," he said.
-
-The uncle had come as a self-appointed ambassador from Liza.
-
-"Do you know, I really do notice that there is a change in you," he
-said,--"and Liza--I understand how it troubles her. I understand that
-it must be hard for you to leave all the business you have so
-excellently started, but _que veux-tu_?[3] I should advise you to go
-away. It will be more satisfactory both for you and for her. And do you
-know, I should advise you to go to the Crimea. The climate is beautiful
-and there is an excellent _accoucheur_ there, and you would be just in
-time for the best of the grape season."
-
-"Uncle," Eugene suddenly exclaimed. "Can you keep a secret? A secret
-that is terrible to me, a shameful secret."
-
-"Oh, come--do you really feel any doubt of me?"
-
-"Uncle, you can help me. Not only help, but save me!" said Eugene. And
-the thought that he would disclose his secret to his uncle whom he did
-not respect, the thought that he would show himself in the worst light
-and humiliate himself before him, was pleasant. He felt himself to be
-despicable and guilty, and wished to punish himself.
-
-"Speak, my dear fellow, you know how fond I am of you," said the uncle,
-evidently well content that there was a secret and that it was a
-shameful one, and that it would be communicated to him, and that he
-could be of use.
-
-"First of all I must tell you that I am a wretch, a good-for-nothing, a
-scoundrel--a real scoundrel."
-
-"Now what are you saying . . ." began his uncle, as if he were offended.
-
-"What! Not a wretch when I,--Liza's husband, Liza's! One has only to
-know her purity, her love--and that I, her husband, want to be untrue to
-her with a peasant-woman!"
-
-"How's that? Why do you want to--you have not been unfaithful to her?"
-
-"Yes, at least just the same as being untrue, for it did not depend on
-me. I was ready to do so. I was hindered, or else I should . . . now. I
-do not know what I should have done . . ."
-
-"But please, explain to me . . ."
-
-"Well, it is like this. When I was a bachelor I was stupid enough to
-have relations with a woman here in our village. That is to say, I used
-to have meetings with her in the forest, in the field . . ."
-
-"Was she pretty?" asked his uncle.
-
-Eugene frowned at this question, but he was in such need of external
-help that he made as if he did not hear it, and continued:
-
-"Well, I thought this was just casual and that I should break it off and
-have done with it. And I did break it off before my marriage. For nearly
-a year I did not see her or think about her." It seemed strange to
-Eugene himself to hear the description of his own condition,--"Then
-suddenly, I don't myself know why,--really one sometimes believes in
-witchcraft--I saw her, and a worm crept into my heart--and it gnaws. I
-reproach myself, I understood the full horror of my action, that is to
-say, of the act I may commit any moment, and yet I myself turned to it,
-and if I have not committed it is only because God preserved me.
-Yesterday I was on my way to see her when Liza sent for me."
-
-"What, in the rain?"
-
-"Yes; I am worn out, Uncle, and have decided to confess to you and to
-ask your help."
-
-"Yes, of course, it's a bad thing on your own estate. People will get to
-know. I understand that Liza is weak and that it is necessary to spare
-her, but why on your own estate?"
-
-Again Eugene tried not to hear what his uncle was saying, and hurried on
-to the core of the matter.
-
-"Yes, save me from myself. That is what I ask of you. To-day I was
-hindered by chance. But to-morrow or next time no one will hinder me.
-And she knows now. Don't leave me alone."
-
-"Yes, all right," said his uncle,--"but are you really so in love?"
-
-"Ah, it is not that at all. It is not that, it is some kind of power
-that has seized me and holds me. I do not know what to do. Perhaps I
-shall gain strength, and then . . ."
-
-"Well, it turns out as I suggested," said his uncle. "Let us be off to
-the Crimea."
-
-"Yes, yes, let us go; and meanwhile you will be with me, and will talk
-to me."
-
-
-[Footnote 3: What will you have?]
-
-
-
-
-XVIII
-
-
-The fact that Eugene had confided his secret to his uncle, but chiefly
-the sufferings of his conscience and the feeling of shame he experienced
-after that rainy day, sobered him. It was settled that they would start
-for Yalta in a week's time. During that week Eugene drove to town to get
-money for the journey, gave instructions from the house and from the
-office concerning the management of the estate, again became gay and
-friendly with his wife, and began to awaken morally.
-
-So without having once seen Stepanida after that rainy day he left with
-his wife for the Crimea. There he spent an excellent two months. He
-received so many new impressions that it seemed to him that the past was
-obliterated from his memory. In the Crimea they met former acquaintances
-and became particularly friendly with them, and they also made new
-acquaintances. Life in the Crimea was a continual holiday for Eugene,
-besides being instructive and beneficial. They became friendly there
-with the former Marshal of the Nobility of their province; a clever and
-Liberal-minded man, who became fond of Eugene and coached him, and
-attracted him to his Party.
-
-At the end of August Liza gave birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter,
-and her confinement was unexpectedly easy.
-
-In September they returned home, the four of them, including the baby
-and its wet-nurse, as Liza was unable to nurse it herself. Eugene
-returned home entirely free from the former horrors and quite a new and
-happy man. Having gone through all that a husband goes through when his
-wife bears a child, he loved his wife more than ever. His feeling for
-the child when he took it in his arms, was a funny, new, very pleasant
-and, as it were, a tickling feeling. Another new thing in his life now
-was that, besides his occupation with the estate, thanks to his
-acquaintance with Dumchin (the ex-Marshal) a new interest occupied his
-mind, that of the Zemstvo--partly an ambitious interest, partly a
-feeling of duty. In October there was to be a special Assembly, at which
-he was to be elected. After arriving home he drove once to town and
-another time to Dumchin.
-
-Of the torments of his temptation and struggle he had forgotten even to
-think, and could with difficulty recall them to mind. It seemed to him
-something like an attack of insanity he had undergone.
-
-To such an extent did he now feel free from it that he was not even
-afraid to make inquiries on the first occasion when he remained alone
-with the steward. As he had previously spoken to him about the matter he
-was not ashamed to ask.
-
-"Well, and is Sidor Pechnikov still away from home?" he inquired.
-
-"Yes, he is still in town."
-
-"And his wife?"
-
-"Oh, she is a worthless woman. She is now carrying on with Zenovi. She
-has quite gone on the loose."
-
-"Well, that is all right," thought Eugene. "How wonderfully indifferent
-to it I am! How I have changed."
-
-
-
-
-XIX
-
-
-All that Eugene had wished had been realized. He had obtained the
-property, the factory was working successfully, the beet-crops were
-excellent, and his expected income would be a large one; his wife had
-borne a child satisfactorily, his mother-in-law had left, and he had
-been unanimously elected to the Zemstvo.
-
-Eugene was returning home from town after the election. He had been
-congratulated and had had to return thanks. He had had dinner and had
-drunk some five glasses of champagne. Quite new plans of life now
-presented themselves to him. He was driving home and thinking about
-these. It was the Indian summer: an excellent road and a hot sun. As he
-approached his home Eugene was thinking of how, as a result of this
-election, he would occupy among the people the position of which he had
-always dreamed; that is to say, one in which he would be able to serve
-them not only by production, which gave employment, but also by direct
-influence. He imagined how in another three years his own and the other
-peasants would think of him. "For instance this one," he thought,
-driving just then through the village and glancing at a peasant who with
-a peasant-woman was crossing the street in front of him carrying a full
-water-tub. They stopped to let his carriage pass. The peasant was old
-Pechnikov, and the woman was Stepanida. Eugene looked at her, recognized
-her, and was glad to feel that he remained quite tranquil. She was still
-as good-looking as ever, but this did not touch him at all. He drove
-home.
-
-"Well, may we congratulate you?" said his uncle.
-
-"Yes, I was elected."
-
-"Capital! We must drink to it!"
-
-Next day Eugene drove about to see to the farming which he had been
-neglecting. At the outlying farmstead a new thrashing machine was at
-work. While watching it Eugene stepped among the women, trying not to
-take notice of them; but try as he would he once or twice noticed the
-black eyes and red kerchief of Stepanida, who was carrying away the
-straw. Once or twice he glanced sideways at her and felt that something
-was happening, but could not account for it to himself. Only next day,
-when he again drove to the thrashing-floor and spent two hours there
-quite unnecessarily, without ceasing to caress with his eyes the
-familiar, handsome figure of the young woman, did he feel that he was
-lost, irremediably lost. Again those torments! Again all that horror and
-fear, and there was no saving himself.
-
-
-What he expected happened to him. The evening of the next day, without
-knowing how, he found himself at her back-yard, by her hay-shed, where
-in autumn they had once had a meeting. As though having a stroll, he
-stopped there lighting a cigarette. A neighbouring peasant-woman saw
-him, and as he turned back he heard her say to someone: "Go, he is
-waiting for you,--on my dying word he is standing there. Go, you fool!"
-
-He saw how a woman--she--ran to the hay-shed; but as a peasant had met
-him, it was no longer possible for him to turn back, and so he went
-home.
-
-
-
-
-XX
-
-
-When he entered the drawing-room everything seemed strange and unnatural
-to him. He had risen that morning vigorous, determined to fling it all
-aside, to forget it and not to allow himself to think about it. But
-without noticing how it occurred he had all the morning not merely not
-interested himself in the work, but tried to avoid it. What had formerly
-been important and had cheered him, was now insignificant. Unconsciously
-he tried to free himself from business. It seemed to him that he had to
-do so in order to think and to plan. And he freed himself and remained
-alone. But as soon as he was alone he began to wander about in the
-garden and the forest. And all those spots were besmirched in his
-recollection by memories that gripped him. He felt that he was walking
-in the garden and pretending to himself that he was thinking out
-something, but that really he was not thinking out anything, but
-insanely and unreasonably expecting her; expecting that by some miracle
-she would be aware that he was expecting her, and would come here at
-once and go somewhere where no one would see them, or would come at
-night when there would be no moon and no one, not even she herself,
-would see,--on such a night she would come and he would touch her
-body. . . .
-
-"There now, talking of breaking off when I wish to," said he to himself.
-"Yes, and that is having a clean healthy woman for one's health's sake!
-No, it seems one can't play with her like that. I thought I had taken
-her, but it was she who took me; took me and does not let me go. Why, I
-thought I was free, but I was not free and was deceiving myself when I
-married. It was all nonsense,--fraud. From the time I had her I
-experienced a new feeling, the real feeling of a husband. Yes, I ought
-to have lived with her.
-
-"One of two lives is possible for me: that which I began with Liza:
-service, estate management, the child, and people's respect. If that is
-life, it is necessary that she, Stepanida, should not be there. She must
-be sent away, as I said, or destroyed so that she shall not exist. And
-the other life--is this. For me to take her away from her husband, pay
-him money, disregard the shame and disgrace, and live with her. But in
-that case it is necessary that Liza should not exist, nor Mimi (the
-baby). No, that is not so, the baby does not matter, but it is necessary
-that there should be no Liza,--that she should go away--that she should
-know, curse me, and go away. That she should know that I have exchanged
-her for a peasant-woman, that I am a deceiver and a scoundrel!--No, that
-is too terrible! It is impossible. But it might happen," he went on
-thinking,--"it might happen that Liza might fall ill and die. Die, and
-then everything would be capital.
-
-"Capital! Oh, scoundrel! No, if someone must die it should be she. If
-she, Stepanida, were to die, how good it would be.
-
-"Yes, that is how men come to poison or kill their wives or lovers. Take
-a revolver and go and call her, and instead of embracing her, shoot her
-in the breast and have done with it.
-
-"Really she is--a devil. Simply a devil. She has possessed herself of me
-against my own will.
-
-"Kill? Yes. There are only two ways out: to kill my wife, or her. For it
-is impossible to live like this.[4] It is impossible. I must consider
-the matter and look ahead. If things remain as they are what will
-happen? I shall again be saying to myself that I do not wish it and that
-I will throw her off, but I shall only say it, and in the evening I
-shall be at her back-yard,--and she will know it and will come out. And
-if people know of it and tell my wife, or if I tell her myself,--for I
-can't lie--I shall not be able to live so. I cannot! People will know.
-They will all know--Parasha and the blacksmith. Well, is it possible to
-live so?"
-
-[Footnote 4: At this place the alternative ending, printed at the end of
-the story, begins.]
-
-"Impossible. There are only two ways out: to kill my wife, or to kill
-her. Yes, or else . . . Ah, yes, there is a third way: to kill myself,"
-said he softly, and suddenly a shudder ran over his skin. "Yes, kill
-myself, then I shall not need to kill them." He became frightened, for
-he felt that only that way was possible. He had a revolver. "Shall I
-really kill myself? It is something I never thought of,--how strange it
-will be . . ."
-
-He returned to his study and at once opened the cupboard where the
-revolver lay, but before he had taken it out of its case, his wife
-entered the room.
-
-
-
-
-XXI
-
-
-He threw a newspaper over the revolver.
-
-"Again the same!" said she aghast when she had looked at him.
-
-"What is the same?"
-
-"The same terrible expression that you had before and would not explain
-to me. Jenya, dear one, tell me about it. I see that you are suffering.
-Tell me and you will feel easier. Whatever it may be, it will be better
-than for you to suffer so. Don't I know that it is nothing bad."
-
-"You know? While . . ."
-
-"Tell me, tell me, tell me. I won't let you go."
-
-He smiled a piteous smile.
-
-"Shall I?--No, it is impossible. And there is nothing to tell."
-
-Perhaps he might have told her, but at that moment the wet-nurse entered
-to ask if she should go for a walk. Liza went out to dress the baby.
-
-"Then you will tell me? I will be back directly."
-
-"Yes, perhaps . . ."
-
-She never could forget the piteous smile with which he said this. She
-went out.
-
-Hurriedly, stealthily like a robber, he seized the revolver and took it
-out of its case. It was loaded, yes, but long ago, and one cartridge was
-missing.
-
-"Well, how will it be?" He put it to his temple and hesitated a little,
-but as soon as he remembered Stepanida,--his decision not to see her,
-his struggle, temptation, fall, and renewed struggle,--he shuddered with
-horror. "No, this is better," and he pulled the trigger . . .
-
-When Liza ran into the room--she had only had time to step down from the
-balcony--he was lying face downwards on the floor: black, warm blood was
-gushing from the wound, and his corpse was twitching.
-
-There was an inquest. No one could understand or explain the suicide. It
-never even entered his uncle's head that its cause could be anything in
-common with the confession Eugene had made to him two months previously.
-
-Varvara Alexeevna assured them that she had always foreseen it. It had
-been evident from his way of disputing. Neither Liza nor Mary Pavlovna
-could at all understand why it had happened, but still they did not
-believe what the doctors said, namely, that he was mentally deranged--a
-psychopath. They were quite unable to accept this, for they knew he was
-saner than hundreds of their acquaintances.
-
-And indeed if Eugene Irtenev was mentally deranged everyone is similarly
-insane; the most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in
-others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves.
-
-
-
-
-VARIATION OF THE CONCLUSION OF
-_THE DEVIL_
-
-
-"To kill, yes. There were only two ways out: to kill his wife, or to
-kill her. For it is impossible to live like this," said he to himself,
-and going up to the table he took from it a revolver which, having
-examined--one cartridge was wanting--he put in his trouser pocket.
-
-"My God! What am I doing?" he suddenly exclaimed, and folding his hands
-he began to pray.
-
-"Oh, God, help me and deliver me. Thou knowest that I do not desire
-evil, but by myself am powerless. Help me," said he, making the sign of
-the cross on his breast before the icon.
-
-"Yes, I can control myself. I will go out, walk about and think things
-over."
-
-He went to the entrance-hall, put on his overcoat and went out on to the
-porch. Unconsciously his steps took him past the garden along the field
-path to the outlying farmstead. There the thrashing machine was still
-droning and the cries of the driver-lads were heard. He entered the
-barn. She was there. He saw her at once. She was raking up the corn, and
-on seeing him she, with laughing eyes, ran briskly and merrily over the
-scattered corn, raking it up with agility. Eugene could not help
-watching her though he did not wish it. He only recollected himself when
-she was no longer in sight. The clerk informed him that they were now
-finishing thrashing the corn that had been beaten down--that was why it
-was going slower and the output was less. Eugene went up to the drum,
-which occasionally gave a knock as sheaves not evenly fed in passed
-under it, and he asked the clerk if there were many such sheaves of
-beaten-down corn.
-
-"There will be five cartloads of it."
-
-"Then look here . . ." began Eugene, but he did not finish the sentence.
-She had gone close up to the drum and was raking the corn from under it,
-and she scorched him with her laughing eyes. That look spoke of a merry
-careless love between them, of the fact that she knew he wanted her and
-had come to her shed, and that she, as always, was ready to live and be
-merry with him regardless of all conditions or consequences. Eugene felt
-himself to be in her power, but did not wish to yield.
-
-He remembered his prayer and tried to repeat it. He began saying it to
-himself, but at once felt that it was useless. A single thought now
-engrossed him entirely: how to arrange a meeting with her so that the
-others should not notice it.
-
-"If we finish this lot to-day, are we to start on a fresh stack or leave
-it till to-morrow?" asked the clerk.
-
-"Yes, yes," replied Eugene, involuntarily following her to the heap to
-which with the other women she was raking the corn.
-
-"But can I really not master myself?" said he to himself. "Have I really
-perished? Oh, God! But there is no God. There is only a devil. And it is
-she. She has possessed me. But I won't, I won't! A devil, yes, a devil."
-
-Again he went up to her, drew the revolver from his pocket and shot her,
-once, twice, thrice, in the back. She ran a few steps and fell on the
-heap of corn.
-
-"Good Lord, oh dear! What is that?" cried the women.
-
-"No, it was not an accident. I killed her on purpose," cried Eugene.
-"Send for the police-officer."
-
-He went home and, without speaking to his wife, went to his study and
-locked himself in.
-
-"Do not come to me," he cried to his wife through the door. "You will
-know all about it."
-
-An hour later he rang, and bade the man-servant who answered the bell:
-"Go and find out whether Stepanida is alive."
-
-The servant already knew all about it, and told him she had died an hour
-ago.
-
-"Well, all right. Now leave me alone,--when the police-officer or the
-magistrate comes, let me know."
-
-The police-officer and magistrate arrived next morning, and Eugene,
-having bidden his wife and the baby farewell, was taken to prison.
-
-He was tried. It was during the early days of trial by jury;[5] and the
-verdict was one of temporary insanity, and he was sentenced only to
-perform church penance.
-
-He had been kept in prison for nine months and was then confined in a
-monastery for one month.
-
-
-[Footnote 5: Trial by jury was introduced in 1864, and at first the
-juries were inclined to be extremely lenient to the prisoners.]
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVIL ***
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-<!DOCTYPE html>
-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
-<head>
- <meta charset="UTF-8">
- <title>
- The Devil | Project Gutenberg
- </title>
- <link rel="icon" href="images/devil_cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
- <style>
-
-body {
- margin-left: 10%;
- margin-right: 10%;
-}
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- h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
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- margin-left: auto;
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-/* Images */
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- margin: auto;
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-}
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-/* Notes */
-
-.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
-
-.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
-
-.fnanchor {
- vertical-align: super;
- font-size: .8em;
- text-decoration:
- none;
-}
-
-/* Poetry */
-.poem {
- margin-left:10%;
- margin-right:10%;
- text-align: left;
-}
-
-.poem br {display: none;}
-
- </style>
- </head>
-<body>
-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Devil, by Leo Tolstoy</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Devil</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Leo Tolstoy</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Aylmer Maude</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 22, 2022 [eBook #67224]<br>
-Last Updated: August 7, 2023</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
- <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.)</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVIL ***</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/devil_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="">
-</div>
-
-
-<h1>THE DEVIL</h1>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<h4>BY</h4>
-
-
-<h2>LEO TOLSTOY</h2>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<h5><i>Translated by</i></h5>
-
-<h3>AYLMER MAUDE</h3>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<h4>LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN &amp; UNWIN LTD.<br>
-RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1</h4>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<h5>First published in 1926.</h5>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<blockquote><p>
-But I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after
-her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it
-from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
-perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it
-from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
-perish, and not thy whole body go into hell.
-</p>
-
-<p style="margin-left: 60%;">MATTHEW V. 28, 29, 30.</p>
-</blockquote>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4>LIST OF RUSSIAN NAMES</h4>
-
-<h5><i>With stress-accents marked to show which syllable should be
-emphasized.</i></h5>
-
-<p class="nind">
-Dómna, a cook in Tolstoy's house.<br>
-Leo Tolstóy, the author.<br>
-Yásnaya Polyána, his estate.<br>
-</p>
-<p class="nind">
-Anna Prókhorova, a peasant woman.<br>
-Ánnushka, a servant.<br>
-Desyatína, a land measure, about 2·7 acres.<br>
-Dúmchin, an ex-Marshal of the Nobility.<br>
-Eugene Ivánich Irténev (Jénya), a landed-proprietor.<br>
-Fëdor Zakhárich Pryánishnikov, a gentleman.<br>
-Iván (Ványa), a clerk.<br>
-Kabúshka, a mare.<br>
-Kalériya Vladímirovna Esípova, a lady.<br>
-Koltóvski, an estate.<br>
-Liza Ánnenskaya, Eugene's wife.<br>
-Mary Pávlovna Irtényeva, Eugene's mother.<br>
-Matvéy, a peasant.<br>
-Misha, a man-servant.<br>
-Nicholas Lysúkh, a servant.<br>
-Nikoláy Semënich, a doctor.<br>
-Parásha, a servant.<br>
-Samókhin, a labourer.<br>
-Semënovskoe, a village.<br>
-Sídor Péchnikov, a peasant.<br>
-Stepanída Péchnikova, Sídor's wife.<br>
-Tánya, a girl.<br>
-Varára Alexéevna Ánnenskaya, Liza's mother.<br>
-Vasíli Nikoláich, a steward.<br>
-Vásin, a peasant.<br>
-Yálta, a town in the Crimea.<br>
-Zémstvo, a Local Government institution.<br>
-Zenóvi, a peasant.<br>
-</p>
-<p style="margin-left: 15%;">
-ë is pronounced as <i>yo</i>.</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4>CONTENTS</h4>
-<p class="nind"><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a><br>
-CHAPTER<br>
-<a href="#I">I</a><br>
-<a href="#II">II</a><br>
-<a href="#III">III</a><br>
-<a href="#IV">IV</a><br>
-<a href="#V">V</a><br>
-<a href="#VI">VI</a><br>
-<a href="#VII">VII</a><br>
-<a href="#VIII">VIII</a><br>
-<a href="#IX">IX</a><br>
-<a href="#X">X</a><br>
-<a href="#XI">XI</a><br>
-<a href="#XII">XII</a><br>
-<a href="#XIII">XIII</a><br>
-<a href="#XIV">XIV</a><br>
-<a href="#XV">XV</a><br>
-<a href="#XVI">XVI</a><br>
-<a href="#XVII">XVII</a><br>
-<a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a><br>
-<a href="#XIX">XIX</a><br>
-<a href="#XX">XX</a><br>
-<a href="#XXI">XXI</a><br>
-<a href="#VARIATION">VARIATION OF THE CONCLUSION OF <i>THE DEVIL</i></a></p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-Towards the end of 1880, when he was fifty-two, Tolstoy one day
-approached the young tutor who lived in his house at Yasnaya Polyana,
-and in great agitation asked him to do him a service. The tutor, seeing
-Tolstoy so moved, asked what he could possibly do for him. In an unready
-voice Tolstoy replied: "Save me, I am falling!" The tutor, in alarm,
-inquired what was the matter, to which Tolstoy replied: "I am overcome by
-sexual desire and feel a complete lack of power to retrain myself. I am
-in danger of yielding to the temptation. Help me!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I am a weak man myself," replied the tutor. "How can I help you?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"You can, if only you won't refuse!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But what must I do to help you?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"This! Come with me on my daily walks. We will go out together and talk,
-and the temptation will not occur to me."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-They set out together, and Tolstoy told the tutor how during his daily
-walks he had encountered Domna, a young woman of twenty-two who had
-recently been engaged as the servants' cook. This Domna was a tall,
-healthy, attractive young woman with a fine figure and beautiful
-complexion, though not otherwise particularly handsome. At first for
-some days he had found it pleasant to watch her. Then he had followed
-her and whittled to her. After that he had walked and talked with her,
-and at last had arranged a rendezvous with her. The spot was in a
-distant alley on the estate; to reach it from the house one had to pass
-the windows of the children's schoolroom. When setting out past those
-windows next day to keep the appointment, he had gone through a terrible
-struggle between the temptation and his conscience. Just then his second
-son had called to him through the window, reminding him of a Greek
-lesson that had been fixed for that day, and this had detained Tolstoy.
-He woke as it were, and was glad to have been saved from keeping the
-appointment. But the temptation still tormented him. He tried the effect
-of prayer, but it did not free him. He suffered but felt powerless and
-as if he might yield at any moment. So as a last resource he resolved to
-try the effect of making a full confession to someone&mdash;giving all
-particulars of the strength of the temptation that oppressed him and of
-his own weakness. He wished to feel as thoroughly ashamed of himself as
-possible, and he had decided to ask the tutor to accompany him on his
-daily walk, which usually he took alone. He also arranged that Domna
-should be removed to another place.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-After the danger was over Tolstoy seldom referred to the incident unless
-to those who spoke to him of their own sexual difficulties, but on one
-occasion he wrote a full account of it to a friend.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The incident resulted in his writing this story, <i>The Devil</i>&mdash;the
-hero of which yields to a temptation such as that Tolstoy had encountered.
-It was composed some ten years later, but was not published during
-Tolstoy's lifetime; nor did it appear in the English edition of his
-posthumous works issued by Nelson &amp; Sons. It is now translated into
-English for the first time. Tolstoy had vividly imagined the
-consequences that might have resulted from yielding to the temptation,
-and used that mental experience for his story, employing fictitious
-characters placed in surroundings with which he was familiar and such as
-those amid which the incident had occurred.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The relations of the sexes in Russian society of his day resembled that
-in English society to-day more than in English society of that
-period&mdash;when, both in literature and in life, repression and
-suppression of passion was more common. When in <i>Kreutzer Sonata</i>
-and in <i>The Devil</i> he expressed the views he held, Tolstoy was
-consciously opposing the current of life around him, and these works
-also run counter to the movement of our own society to-day. That however
-does not detract from the value of the work. The belief that ill-results
-follow from the indulgence of the sexual instincts is not an obsolete
-eccentricity but a belief held by many men in many ages, and it receives
-sufficient confirmation from experience to make it certain that it is a
-view which has to be reckoned with.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The ancient conception of a bitter strife between the flesh and the
-spirit and of woman as the devil's chief agent in achieving man's
-spiritual destruction, is alien to the modern outlook, and to-day it is
-often not understood how and why men ever held such beliefs; but both in
-<i>The Kreutzer Sonata</i> and in this story Tolstoy makes us realize how
-easily and naturally men of a certain temperament may come to those
-convictions. Without adopting that view one is enabled to realize what
-others have felt, and to perceive how probable is a reaction from the
-unrestraint of to-day; as happened after the libertinage of the
-Restoration period.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-I do not think there is any other important story of Tolstoy's that has
-not yet been translated. He left several trunks full of manuscripts,
-chiefly early drafts of works that had been published during his
-lifetime or commencements of stories he abandoned; but before his death
-he expressed the opinion that, except some passages in his Diaries,
-there was little or nothing worth publishing among those remains. He was
-indeed a great artist, and his mastery showed itself in knowing what to
-strike out, omit, and withhold. His published writings are voluminous,
-but among them there is little (except perhaps some of the later
-repetitions of his non-resistance doctrine) that we could willingly
-spare. But if the mass of documents which while he lived he had the good
-sense to suppress are now to be published, together with a large amount
-of didactic correspondence, it is likely to injure rather than to
-enhance his literary reputation. There is a disquieting rumour that this
-is to take place, in the form of an edition of his works extending to
-one hundred volumes. Not even that calamity will depose him from the
-place he securely holds as the greatest and most influential of Russian
-writers, but it will be an obstacle rather than a help to those who want
-to become acquainted with the works on which he wished his reputation to
-rest. The present story is an exception. It is so characteristic of him,
-and so closely connected with an event that influenced him, that it
-would be a pity for it not to be known, especially as it is one of the
-few posthumous works he left in a completed state; even in this case we
-do not know which of the two endings he wrote he would have adopted had
-he published it himself.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The foot-notes are by the translator.
-</p>
-
-<p style="margin-left: 60%;">AYLMER MAUDE</p>
-
-<p>GREAT BADDOW, CHELMSFORD</p>
-
-<p style="margin-left: 5%;"><i>September</i> 12, 1925.</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4>THE DEVIL</h4>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-
-<h4><a id="I"></a>I</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-A brilliant career lay before Eugene Irtenev. He had all that was
-necessary for this: an admirable education at home, high honours when he
-graduated in law at Petersburg University, connections in the highest
-society through his recently deceased father, and he had himself already
-begun service in one of the Ministries under the protection of the
-Minister. He also had a fortune; even a large one, though insecure. His
-father had lived abroad and in Petersburg, allowing his sons, Eugene,
-and Andrew, the elder who was in the Horse Guards, 6,000 rubles a year
-each, while he himself and his wife spent a great deal. He only used to
-visit his estate for a couple of months in summer and did not concern
-himself with its direction, entrusting it all to an unscrupulous manager
-who also failed to attend to it, but in whom he had complete confidence.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-After the father's death, when the brothers began to divide the
-property, there were found to be so many debts that their lawyer even
-advised them to refuse the inheritance and retain only an estate left
-them by their grand-mother, which was valued at 100,000 rubles. But a
-neighbouring landed-proprietor who had done business with old Irtenev,
-that is to say, who had promissory notes from him and had come to
-Petersburg on that account, said that in spite of the debts they could
-straighten out affairs so as to retain a large fortune&mdash;it would only
-be necessary to sell the forest and some outlying land, retaining the rich
-Semënov estate with 4,000 desyatinas of black-earth, the sugar-factory,
-and 200 desyatinas of water-meadows&mdash;if one devoted oneself to the
-management and, settling on the estate, farmed it wisely and
-economically.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And so, having visited the estate in spring (his father had died in
-Lent), Eugene looked into everything, resolved to retire from the Civil
-Service, settle in the country with his mother, and undertake the
-management, with the object of preserving the main estate. He arranged
-with his brother, with whom he was very friendly, that he would pay him
-4,000 rubles a year, or alternatively would pay him 80,000 in a lump
-sum, while Andrew, on his part, handed over to him his share of the
-inheritance.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-So he arranged matters and, having settled down with his mother in the
-big house, ardently and yet cautiously began managing the estate.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-It is generally supposed that Conservatives are usually old people, and
-those in favour of change are the young. That is not quite correct. The
-most usual Conservatives are young people: those who want to live but
-who do not think, and have not time to think, about how to live and who
-therefore take as a model for themselves a way of life that they have
-seen.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Thus it was with Eugene. Having settled in the village, his aim and
-ideal was to restore the form of life that had existed, not in his
-father's time&mdash;his father had been a bad manager&mdash;but in his
-grandfather's. And now in the house, the garden, in the
-estate-management&mdash;of course with changes suited to the
-times&mdash;he tried to resurrect the general spirit of his
-grandfather's life&mdash;everything on a large scale&mdash;good order,
-method, and everybody satisfied; but so to arrange things entailed much
-work. It was necessary to meet the demands of the creditors and the
-banks, and for that purpose to sell some land and arrange renewals of
-credit. It was also necessary to get money to carry on (partly by
-farming out land, and partly by hiring labour) the immense operations on
-the Semënov estate, with its 400 desyatinas of ploughland and its
-sugar-factory, and to deal with the garden so that it should not seem to
-be neglected or in decay.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-There was much work to do, but Eugene had plenty of strength&mdash;physical
-and mental. He was twenty-six, of medium height, strongly built, with
-muscles developed by gymnastics. He was full-blooded and very red over
-his whole neck, with bright teeth and lips and hair soft and curly,
-though not thick. His only physical defect was shortsightedness, which
-he had himself developed by using spectacles, so that he could not now
-do without a pince-nez, which had already formed a line at the top of
-his nose-ridge.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Such he was physically. For his spiritual portrait it might be said that
-the better anyone knew him the better they liked him. His mother had
-always loved him more than she loved anyone else; and now, after her
-husband's death, she concentrated on him not only her whole affection
-but her whole life. Nor was it only his mother who so loved him. All his
-comrades at the high-school and the university not merely liked him very
-much, but respected him. He had this effect on all who met him. It was
-impossible not to believe what he said, impossible to suspect any
-deception or falseness in one who had such an open, honest face and, in
-particular, such eyes.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-In general his personality helped him much in his affairs. A creditor
-who would have refused another, trusted him. The clerk, the village
-Elder, or a peasant, who would have played a dirty trick and cheated
-someone else, forgot to deceive under the pleasant impression of
-intercourse with this kindly, agreeable, and above all candid man.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-It was the end of May. Eugene had somehow managed, in town, to get the
-vacant land freed from the mortgage, so as to sell it to a merchant, and
-had borrowed money from that same merchant to replenish his stock, that
-is to say, to procure horses, bulls, carts and, chiefly, to begin to
-build a necessary farm-house. The matter had been arranged. The timber
-was being carted, the carpenters were already at work, and manure for
-the estate was being brought on eighty carts. But everything still hung
-by a thread.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="II"></a>II</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-Amid these cares something came about which, though unimportant,
-tormented Eugene at the time. As a young man he had lived as all healthy
-young men live, that is, he had had relations with women of various
-kinds. He was not a libertine but, as he himself said, neither was he a
-monk. He only turned to this, however, in so far as was necessary for
-physical health and to have his mind free, as he used to say. This had
-begun when he was sixteen and had gone on satisfactorily. Satisfactorily
-in the sense that he did not give himself up to debauchery, was not once
-infatuated, and had never contracted a disease. At first he had a
-seamstress in Petersburg, then she got spoilt and he made other
-arrangements, and that side of his affairs was so well secured that it
-did not trouble him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But now he was living in the country for the second month and did not at
-all know what he was to do. Compulsory self-restraint was beginning to
-have a bad effect on him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Must he really go to town for that purpose? And where to? How? That was
-the only thing that disturbed Eugene Ivanich, but as he was convinced
-that the thing was necessary and that he needed it, it really became
-necessary, and he felt that he was not free and that involuntarily his
-eyes followed every young woman.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He did not approve of having relations with a married woman or a maid in
-his own village. He knew by report that both his father and grandfather
-had been quite different in this matter from other land-owners of that
-time. At home they had never had any entanglements with peasant-women,
-and he had decided that he would not do so either; but afterwards,
-feeling himself ever more and more under compulsion, and imagining with
-horror what might happen to him in the neighbouring country town, and
-reflecting on the fact that the days of serfdom were now over, he
-decided that it might be done on the spot. Only it must be done so that
-no one should know of it, and not for the sake of debauchery but merely
-for health's sake&mdash;as he said to himself. And when he had decided this
-he became still more restless. When talking to the village Elder, the
-peasants, or the carpenters, he involuntarily brought the conversation
-round to women, and when it turned to women, he kept it on that theme.
-He noticed the women more and more.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="III"></a>III</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-To settle the matter in his own mind was one thing, but to carry it out
-was another. To approach a woman himself was impossible. Which one?
-Where? It must be done through someone else, but to whom should he speak
-about it?
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He happened to go into a watchman's hut in the forest to get a drink of
-water. The watchman had been his father's huntsman. Eugene Ivanich
-chatted with him, and the watchman began telling some strange tales of
-hunting sprees. It occurred to Eugene Ivanich that it would be
-convenient to arrange matters in this hut, or in the wood. Only he did
-not know how to manage it, and whether old Daniel would undertake the
-arrangement. "Perhaps he will be horrified at such a proposal; and I
-shall have disgraced myself, but perhaps he would agree to it quite
-simply." So he thought while listening to Daniel's stories. Daniel was
-telling how once when they had been stopping at the hut of the sexton's
-wife in an outlying field, he had brought a woman for Fëdor Zakharich
-Pryanishnikov.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"It will be all right," thought Eugene.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Your father, may the kingdom of heaven be his, did not go in for
-nonsense of that kind."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"It won't do," thought Eugene. But to test the matter he said: "How was
-it you engaged on such bad things?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But what is there bad in it? She was glad of it, and Fëdor Zakharich
-was satisfied, very satisfied. I got a ruble. Why, what was he to do? He
-too is a lively limb, apparently, and drinks wine."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I may speak," thought Eugene, and at once proceeded to do so.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"And, do you know, Daniel, I don't know how to endure it,"&mdash;he felt
-himself going scarlet.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Daniel smiled.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I am not a monk,&mdash;I have been accustomed to it."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He felt that what he was saying was stupid, but was glad to see that
-Daniel approved.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Why of course, you should have told me long ago. It can all be
-arranged," said he: "Only tell me which one you want."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Oh, it is really all the same to me. Of course not an ugly one, and she
-must be healthy."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I understand!" said Daniel briefly. He reflected.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Ah! There is a tasty morsel," he began. Again Eugene went red. "A tasty
-morsel. See here, she was married last autumn." Daniel
-whispered,&mdash;"and he hasn't been able to do anything. Think what
-that is worth to one who wants it!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene even frowned with shame.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No, no," he said. "I don't want that at all. I want, on the contrary
-(what could the contrary be?), on the contrary I only want that she
-should be healthy and that there should be as little fuss as
-possible&mdash;a woman whose husband is away in the army, or something
-of that kind."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I know. It's Stepanida I must bring you. Her husband is away in town,
-just the same as a soldier. And she is a fine woman, and clean. You will
-be satisfied. As it is I was saying to her the other day&mdash;you should
-go, but she . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well then, when is it to be?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"To-morrow if you like. I shall be going to get some tobacco and I will
-call in, and at the dinner-hour come here, or to the bath-house behind
-the kitchen garden. There will be nobody about. Besides after dinner
-everybody takes a nap."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"All right, then."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-A terrible excitement seized Eugene as he rode home. "What will happen?
-What is a peasant woman like? Suppose it turns out that she is hideous,
-horrible. No, she is handsome," he told himself, remembering some he had
-been noticing. "But what shall I say? What shall I do?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He was not himself all that day. Next day at noon he went to the
-forester's hut. Daniel stood at the door and silently and significantly
-nodded towards the wood. The blood rushed to Eugene's heart, he was
-conscious of it and went to the kitchen-garden. No one was there. He
-went to the bath-house&mdash;there was no one about, he looked in, came
-out, and suddenly heard the crackling of a breaking twig. He looked
-round&mdash;and she was standing in the thicket beyond the little ravine.
-He rushed there across the ravine. There were nettles in it which he had
-not noticed. They stung him and, losing the pince-nez from his nose, he
-ran up the slope on the farther side. In a white embroidered apron, in a
-red-brown skirt and a bright red kerchief, barefoot, fresh, firm, and
-handsome, she stood shyly smiling.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"There is a path leading round,&mdash;you should have gone round," she
-said. "I came long ago, ever so long."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He went up to her and, looking her over, touched her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-A quarter of an hour later they separated; he found his pince-nez,
-called in to see Daniel, and in reply to his question: "Are you
-satisfied, master?" gave him a ruble and went home.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He was satisfied. Only at first had he felt ashamed, then it had passed
-off. And it had all gone well. The best thing was that he now felt at
-ease, tranquil and vigorous. As for her, he had not even seen her
-thoroughly. He remembered that she was clean, fresh, not bad-looking,
-and simple, without any pretence. "Whose wife is she?" said he to
-himself. "Pechnikov's, Daniel said. What Pechnikov is that? There are
-two households of that name. Probably she is old Michael's
-daughter-in-law. Yes, that must be it. His son does live in Moscow. I'll
-ask Daniel about it some time."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-From then onward that previously important drawback to country
-life&mdash;enforced self-restraint&mdash;was eliminated. Eugene's freedom
-of mind was no longer disturbed and he was able to attend freely to his
-affairs.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And the matter Eugene had undertaken was far from easy: it sometimes
-seemed to him that he would not be able to go through with it, and that
-it would end in his having to sell the estate after all, so that all his
-efforts would be wasted and it would turn out that he had failed, and
-been unable to accomplish what he had undertaken. That prospect
-disturbed him most of all. Before he had time to stop up one hole a new
-one would unexpectedly show itself.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-All this time more and more debts of his father's, which he had not
-expected, came to light. It was evident that his father had latterly
-borrowed right and left. At the time of the settlement in May, Eugene
-had thought he at last knew everything, but suddenly, in the middle of
-the summer, he received a letter from which it appeared that there was
-still a debt of 12,000 rubles to the widow Esipova. There was no
-promissory note, but only an ordinary receipt, which his lawyer told him
-could be disputed. But it did not enter Eugene's head to refuse to pay a
-debt of his father's merely because the document could be challenged. He
-only wanted to know for certain whether there had been such a debt.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Mamma! Who is Kaleriya Vladimirovna Esipova?" he asked his mother, when
-they met as usual for dinner.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Esipova? She was brought up by your grandfather. Why?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene told his mother about the letter.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I wonder she is not ashamed to ask for it. Your father gave her so
-much!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But do we owe her this?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well now, how shall I say? It is not a debt. Papa, out of his unbounded
-kindness . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, but did Papa consider it a debt?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I cannot say. I don't know. I only know it is hard enough for you
-without that."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene saw that Mary Pavlovna did not know what to say, and was as it
-were sounding him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I see from what you say, that it must be paid," said the son. "I will
-go to see her to-morrow and have a chat, and see if it cannot be
-deferred."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Ah, how sorry I am for you, but, you know, that will be best. Tell her
-she must wait," said Mary Pavlovna, evidently tranquillized and proud of
-her son's decision.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene's position was particularly hard because his mother, who was
-living with him, did not at all realize his position. She had been so
-accustomed all her life long to live extravagantly that she could not
-even imagine to herself the position her son was in, that is to say,
-that to-day or to-morrow matters might shape themselves so that they
-would have nothing left, and he would have to sell everything, and live
-and support his mother on what salary he could earn, which at the very
-most would be 2,000 rubles. She did not understand that they could only
-save themselves from that position by cutting down expense in
-everything, and so she could not understand why Eugene was so careful about
-trifles, in expenditure on gardeners, coachmen, servants&mdash;even on
-food. Also, like most widows, she nourished feelings of devotion to the
-memory of her departed spouse quite different from those she had felt
-for him while he lived, and she did not admit the thought that what the
-departed had done, or had arranged, could be wrong or could be altered.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene by great efforts managed to keep up the garden and the
-conservatory with two gardeners, and the stables with two coachmen. And
-Mary Pavlovna naïvely thought that she was sacrificing herself for her
-son and doing all a mother could do, by not complaining of the food
-which the old man-cook prepared, of the fact that the paths in the park
-were not all swept clean, and that instead of footmen they had only a
-boy.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-So, too, concerning this new debt, in which Eugene saw an almost
-crushing blow to all his undertakings, Mary Pavlovna only saw an
-incident displaying Eugene's noble nature.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Mary Pavlovna moreover did not feel much anxiety about Eugene's
-position, because she was confident that he would make a brilliant
-marriage which would put everything right. And he could make a very
-brilliant marriage: she knew a dozen families who would be glad to give
-their daughters to him. And she wished to arrange the matter as soon as
-possible.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="IV"></a>IV</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene himself dreamt of marriage, but not in the same way as his
-mother. The idea of using marriage as a means of putting his affairs in
-order was repulsive to him. He wished to marry honourably, for love. He
-observed the girls whom he met and those he knew, and compared himself
-with them, but no decision had yet been taken. Meanwhile contrary to his
-expectations his relations with Stepanida continued, and even acquired
-the character of a settled affair. Eugene was so far from debauchery, it
-was so hard for him secretly to do this thing which he felt to be bad,
-that he could not arrange these meetings himself, and even after the
-first one hoped not to see Stepanida again; but it turned out that after
-some time the same restlessness (due, he believed, to that cause) again
-overcame him. And his restlessness this time was no longer impersonal,
-but suggested just those same bright, black eyes, and that deep voice,
-saying, "ever so long," that same scent of something fresh and strong,
-and that same full bread lifting the bib of her apron, and all this in
-that hazel and maple thicket, bathed in bright sunlight.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Though he felt ashamed, he again approached Daniel. And again a
-rendezvous was fixed for midday, in the wood. This time Eugene looked
-her over more carefully, and everything about her seemed attractive. He
-tried talking to her, and asked about her husband. He really was
-Michael's son, and lived as a coachman in Moscow.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, then, how is it you . . ." Eugene wanted to ask how it was she
-was untrue to him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What about 'how is it'?" asked she. Evidently she was clever and
-quick-witted.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, how is it you come to me?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"There now," said she merrily. "I bet he goes on the spree there. Why
-shouldn't I?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Evidently she was putting on an air of sauciness and assurance. And this
-seemed charming to Eugene. But all the same he did not himself fix a
-rendezvous with her. Even when she proposed that they should meet
-without the aid of Daniel, to whom she seemed not very well-disposed,
-Eugene did not consent. He hoped that this meeting would be the last. He
-liked her. He thought such intercourse was necessary for him and that
-there was nothing bad about it, but in the depth of his soul there was a
-stricter judge, who did not approve of it and hoped that this would be
-the last time, or if he did not hope that, at any rate did not wish to
-participate in arrangements to repeat it another time.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-So the whole summer passed, during which they met a dozen times and
-always by Daniel's help. It happened once that she could not be there
-because her husband had come home, and Daniel proposed another woman,
-but Eugene refused with disgust. Then the husband went away, and the
-meetings continued as before, at first through Daniel, but afterwards he
-simply fixed the time and she came with another woman, Prokhorova&mdash;as
-it would not do for a peasant-woman to go about alone.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Once at the very time fixed for the rendezvous a family came to call on
-Mary Pavlovna, with the very girl she wished Eugene to marry, and it was
-impossible for Eugene to get away. As soon as he could do so, he went
-out as though to the thrashing-floor, and round by the path to their
-meeting-place in the wood. She was not there, but at the accustomed spot
-everything within reach of one's hand had been broken&mdash;the black
-alder, the hazel-twigs, and even a young maple the thickness of a stake.
-She had waited, had become excited and angry, and had skittishly left him a
-remembrance. He waited, waited, and went to Daniel to ask him to call
-her for to-morrow. She came, and was just as usual.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-So the summer passed. The meetings were always arranged in the wood, and
-only once, when it grew towards autumn, in the shed that stood in her
-back-yard.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-It did not enter Eugene's head that these relations of his had any
-importance for him. About her he did not even think. He gave her money
-and nothing more. At first he did not know and did not think that the
-affair was known and she was envied throughout the village, or that her
-relations took money from her and encouraged her, and that her
-conception of any sin in the matter had been quite obliterated by the
-influence of the money and her family's approval. It seemed to her that
-if people envied her, then what she was doing was good.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"It is simply necessary for one's health," thought Eugene. "I grant it
-is not right, and though no one says anything, everybody, or many
-people, know of it. The woman who comes with her knows. And once she
-knows, she is sure to have told others. But what's to be done? I am
-acting badly," thought Eugene, "but what's one to do? Anyhow it is not
-for long."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-What chiefly disturbed Eugene was the thought of the husband. At first,
-for some reason, it seemed to him that the husband must be a poor sort,
-and this, as it were, partly justified his conduct. But he saw the
-husband and was struck: he was a fine fellow and smartly dressed, in no
-way a worse man, but surely better, than himself. At their next meeting
-he told her he had seen her husband and had been surprised to see that
-he was such a fine fellow.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"There's not such another in the village," said she proudly.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-This surprised Eugene. The thought of the husband tormented him still
-more after that. He happened to be at Daniel's one day and Daniel,
-having begun chatting, plainly said to him:
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"And Michael, the other day, asked me: 'Is it true that the master is
-living with my wife?' I said I did not know. Anyway, I said, better with
-the master than with a peasant."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, and what did he say?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"He said,&mdash;'Wait a bit. I'll get to know, and I'll give it her all the
-same.'"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, if the husband returned to live here, I would give her up,"
-thought Eugene.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But the husband lived in town and for the present their intercourse
-continued.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"When necessary, I will break it off, and there will be nothing left of
-it," thought he.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And this seemed to him certain, especially as during the whole summer
-many different things occupied him very fully: the erection of the new
-farm-house, and the harvest, and building, and above all meeting the
-debts and selling the waste land. All these were affairs that completely
-absorbed him and on which he spent his thoughts when he lay down and when
-he rose. All that was, real life. His intercourse&mdash;he did not even
-call it connection&mdash;with Stepanida was something quite unnoticed. It
-is true that when the wish to see her arose, it came with such strength
-that he could think of nothing else. But this did not last long. A
-meeting was arranged, and he again forgot her for a week or even for a
-month.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-In autumn Eugene often rode to town, and there became friendly with the
-Annenskis. They had a daughter who had just finished the Institute.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
-And then, to Mary Pavlovna's great grief, it happened that Eugene, as
-she expressed it, "cheapened himself,"&mdash;by falling in love with Liza
-Annenskaya and proposing to her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-From that time the relations with Stepanida ceased.
-</p>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>The Institute was a boarding-school for the daughters of
-the nobility and gentry, in which great attention was paid to the
-manners and accomplishments of the pupils.</p></div>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="V"></a>V</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-It is impossible to explain why Eugene chose Liza Annenskaya, as it is
-never possible to explain why a man chooses this and not that woman. There
-were many reasons&mdash;positive and negative. One reason was that she
-was not a very rich heiress such as his mother sought for him, another
-that she was naïve and to be pitied in her relations with her mother,
-then there was the fact that she was not a beauty who attracted general
-attention to herself, but yet was not bad looking. The chief reason was
-that his acquaintance with her began at the time when Eugene was ripe
-for marriage. He fell in love because he knew that he would marry.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Liza Annenskaya was at first merely pleasing to Eugene, but when he
-decided to make her his wife, his feelings for her became much stronger.
-He felt that he was in love.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Liza was tall, slender, and long. Everything about her was long; her
-face, and her nose&mdash;not prominently but downwards&mdash;and her
-fingers, and her feet. The colour of her face was very delicate,
-yellowish white and delicately pink; her hair was long, light brown,
-soft, curly, and she had beautiful, clear, mild, confiding eyes. Those
-eyes especially struck Eugene. And when he thought of Liza he always saw
-those clear, mild, confiding eyes.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Such was she physically; spiritually he knew nothing of her, but only
-saw those eyes. And those eyes seemed to tell him all he needed to know.
-The meaning of those eyes was this:
-</p>
-
-<p>
-While still in the Institute, when she was fifteen, Liza used
-continually to fall in love with all attractive men and was animated and
-happy only when she was in love. After leaving the Institute she
-continued to fall in love, in just the same way, with all the young men
-she met, and of course fell in love with Eugene as soon as she made his
-acquaintance. It was this being in love which gave her eyes that
-particular expression which so captivated Eugene. Already that winter
-she had been, at one and the same time, in love with two young men, and
-blushed and became excited not only when they entered the room but
-whenever their names were mentioned. But afterwards, when her mother
-hinted to her that Irtenev seemed to have serious intentions, her love
-for him increased so that she became almost indifferent to the two
-previous attractions, and when Irtenev began to come to their balls and
-parties, and danced with her more than with others and evidently only
-wished to know whether she loved him, her love for him became painful.
-She dreamed of him in her sleep and seemed to see him when she was awake
-in a dark room, and everyone else vanished from her mind. But when he
-proposed and they were formally engaged, and when they had kissed one
-another and were a betrothed couple, then she had no thoughts but of
-him, no desire but to be with him, to love him, and to be loved by him.
-She was also proud of him and felt emotional about him and herself and
-her love, and quite melted and felt faint from love of him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The more he got to know her the more he loved her. He had not at all
-expected to find such love, and it strengthened his own feeling still
-more.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="VI"></a>VI</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-Towards spring he went to his estate at Semënovskoe to have a look at
-it and to give directions about the management, and especially about the
-house which was being done up for his wedding.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Mary Pavlovna was dissatisfied with her son's choice, not only because
-the match was not as brilliant as it might have been, but also because
-she did not like Varvara Alexeevna, his future mother-in-law. Whether
-she was good-natured or not she did not know and could not decide, but
-that she was not well-bred, not <i>comme il faut</i>, "not a lady" as Mary
-Pavlovna said to herself,&mdash;she saw from their first acquaintance, and
-this distressed her; distressed her because she was accustomed to value
-breeding and knew that Eugene was sensitive to it, and she foresaw that
-he would suffer much annoyance on this account. But she liked the girl.
-Liked her chiefly because Eugene did. One could not help loving her. And
-Mary Pavlovna was quite sincerely ready to do so.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene found his mother contented and in good spirits. She was getting
-everything straight in the house and preparing to go away herself as
-soon as he brought his young wife. Eugene persuaded her to stay for the
-time being, and the future remained undecided.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-In the evening after tea Mary Pavlovna played patience as usual. Eugene
-sat by, helping her. This was the hour of their most intimate talks.
-Having finished one game of patience and while preparing to begin
-another, Mary Pavlovna looked up at Eugene and, with a little
-hesitation, began thus:
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I wanted to tell you, Jenya,&mdash;of course I do not know, but in general
-I wanted to suggest to you that before your wedding it is absolutely
-necessary to have finished with all your bachelor affairs, so that
-nothing may disturb either you or your wife. God forbid that it should.
-You understand me?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And indeed Eugene at once understood that Mary Pavlovna was hinting at
-his relations with Stepanida which had ended in the previous autumn; and
-that she attributed much more importance to those relations than they
-deserved, as single women always do. Eugene blushed, and not from shame
-so much as from vexation that good-natured Mary Pavlovna was
-bothering&mdash;out of affection no doubt&mdash;but still was bothering
-about matters that were not her business and that she did not and could not
-understand. He answered that he had nothing that needed concealment, and
-that he had always conducted himself so that there should be nothing to
-hinder his marrying.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, dear, that is excellent. Only, Jenya, don't be vexed with me,"
-said Mary Pavlovna, in confusion.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But Eugene saw that she had not finished and had not said what she
-wanted to. So it appeared when a little later she began to tell him of
-how, in his absence, she had been asked to stand godmother at . . . the
-Pechnikovs.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene flushed now, not with vexation or shame, but with some strange
-consciousness of the importance of what was about to be told him&mdash;an
-involuntary consciousness quite at variance with his conclusions. And
-what he expected happened. Mary Pavlovna, as if merely by way of
-conversation, mentioned that this year only boys were being
-born,&mdash;evidently a sign of a coming war. Both at the Vasins and the
-Pechnikovs the young wife had a first child&mdash;at each house a boy. Mary
-Pavlovna wanted to say this casually, but she herself felt ashamed when
-she saw the colour mount to her son's face and saw him nervously
-removing, tapping, and replacing his pince-nez and hurriedly lighting a
-cigarette. She became silent. He too was silent and could not think how
-to break that silence. So they both understood that they had understood
-one another.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, the chief thing is that there should be justice and no favouritism
-in the village,&mdash;as under your grandfather."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Mamma,"&mdash;said Eugene suddenly,&mdash;"I know why you are saying this.
-You have no need to be disturbed. My future family-life is so sacred to me
-that I should not infringe it in any case. And as to what occurred in my
-bachelor days, that is quite ended. I never formed any union and no one
-has any claims on me."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, I am glad," said his mother. "I know how noble your feelings
-are."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene accepted his mother's words as a tribute due to him, and did not
-reply.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Next day he drove to town thinking of his fiancée and of anything in
-the world except of Stepanida. But, as if purposely to remind him, on
-approaching the church he met people walking and driving back from it.
-He met old Matvey with Simon, some lads and girls, and then two women,
-one elderly, the other smartly dressed with a bright red kerchief, who
-seemed familiar. The woman was walking lightly, boldly, carrying a child
-in her arms. He came up to them, the elder woman bowed, stopping in the
-old-fashioned way, but the young woman with the child only bent her
-head, and from under the kerchief gleamed familiar, merry, smiling eyes.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Yes, this was she, but all was over and it was no use looking at her:
-"and the child may be mine," flashed through his mind. No, what
-nonsense! There was her husband, she used to see him. He did not even
-consider the matter further, so settled in his mind was it that it had
-been necessary for his health,&mdash;he had paid her money and there was no
-more to be said; there was, there had been, and there could be, no
-question of any union between them. It was not that he stifled the voice
-of conscience, no&mdash;his conscience simply said nothing to him. And he
-thought no more about her after the conversation with his mother and
-after this meeting. Nor did he meet her again.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene was married in town the week after Easter, and left at once with
-his young wife for his country estate. The house had been arranged as
-usual for a young couple. Mary Pavlovna wished to leave, but Eugene and
-still more strongly Liza begged her to remain, and she only moved into a
-detached wing of the house.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And so a new life began for Eugene.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="VII"></a>VII</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-The first year of his marriage was a hard one for Eugene. It was hard
-because affairs he had managed to put off during the time of his
-courtship now, after his marriage, all came upon him at once.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-To escape from debts was impossible. An outlying part of the estate was
-sold and the most pressing obligations met, but others remained, and he
-had no money. The estate yielded a good revenue, but he had had to send
-payments to his brother, and to spend on his own marriage, so that there
-was no ready money and the factory could not carry on and would have to
-be closed down. The only way of escape was to use his wife's money.
-Liza, having realized her husband's position, insisted on this herself.
-Eugene agreed, but only on condition that he should give her a mortgage
-on half his estate; and this he did. Of course it was not for the sake
-of his wife, who felt offended at it, but to appease his mother-in-law.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-These affairs, with various fluctuations of success and failure, helped
-to poison Eugene's life that first year. Another thing was his wife's
-ill-health. That same first year, seven months after their marriage, in
-autumn, a misfortune befell Liza. She drove out to meet her husband who
-was returning from town; the quiet horse became rather playful,
-and she was frightened and jumped out. Her jump was comparatively
-fortunate&mdash;she might have been caught by the wheel&mdash;but she
-was pregnant, and that same night the pains began and she had a
-miscarriage from which she was long in recovering. The loss of the
-expected child and his wife's illness, together with the disorder in his
-affairs, and above all the presence of his mother-in-law, who arrived as
-soon as Liza fell ill&mdash;all this together made the year still harder
-for Eugene.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But notwithstanding these difficult circumstances, towards the end of
-the first year Eugene felt very well. First of all his cherished hope of
-restoring his fallen fortune and renewing his grandfather's way of life
-in a new form, was approaching accomplishment, though slowly and with
-difficulty. There was no longer any question of having to sell the whole
-estate to meet the debts. The chief estate, though transferred to his
-wife's name, was saved, and if only the beet crop succeeded and the
-price kept up, by next year his position of want and stress might be
-replaced by one of complete prosperity. That was one thing.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Another was that however much he had expected from his wife, he had
-never expected to find in her what he actually found. It was not
-what he had expected, but it was much better. Emotion, raptures of
-love&mdash;though he tried to produce them&mdash;did not take place or
-were very slight, but something quite different appeared, namely, that
-he was not merely more cheerful and happier but that it became easier to
-live. He did not know why this should be so, but it was.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-It happened because immediately after the marriage she decided that
-Eugene Irtenev was superior to, wiser, purer, and nobler than, anyone
-else in the world, and therefore it was right for everyone to serve him
-and do what would please him; but as it was impossible to make everyone
-do this, she to the limit of her strength must do it herself. So she did;
-and therefore all her strength of mind was directed towards learning and
-guessing what he liked, and then doing just that, whatever it was and
-however difficult it might be.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-She had the gift which furnishes the chief delight of intercourse with a
-loving woman; thanks to her love of her husband she penetrated into his
-soul. She knew&mdash;better it seemed to him than he himself&mdash;his
-every state, and every shade of his feeling, and she behaved
-correspondingly, and therefore never hurt his feelings, but always
-lessened his distresses and strengthened his joys. And she understood
-not only his feelings but also his joys. Things quite foreign to
-her&mdash;concerning the farming, the factory, or the appraisement of
-others, she immediately understood so that she could not merely converse
-with him, but could often, as he himself said, be a useful and
-irreplaceable counsellor. She regarded affairs and people, and
-everything in the world, only through his eyes. She loved her mother,
-but having seen that Eugene disliked his mother-in-law's interference in
-their life she immediately took her husband's side, and did so with such
-decision that he had to restrain her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Besides all this she had very much taste, tact, and above all,
-peacefulness. All that she did, she did unnoticed; only the results of
-what she did were observable, namely, that always and in everything
-there was cleanliness, order, and elegance. Liza had at once understood
-in what her husband's ideal of life consisted, and she tried to attain,
-and in the arrangement and order of the house did attain, what he
-wanted. Children, it is true, were lacking, but there was hope of this
-also. In winter she went to Petersburg to see a specialist, and he
-assured them that she was quite well and could have children.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And this desire was accomplished. By the end of the year she was again
-pregnant.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The one thing that threatened, not to say poisoned, their happiness
-was her jealousy; a jealousy she restrained and did not exhibit,
-but from which she often suffered. Not only might Eugene not love
-anyone&mdash;because there was not a woman on earth worthy of him
-(as to whether she herself was worthy or not, she never asked
-herself),&mdash;but not a single woman might, therefore, dare to love
-him.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="VIII"></a>VIII</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-They lived thus: he rose, as he always had done, early, and went to see
-to the farm or the factory, where work was going on, or sometimes to the
-fields. Towards ten o'clock he would come back to his coffee: they had
-it on the verandah, Mary Pavlovna, an uncle who lived with them, and
-Liza. After a conversation which was often very animated while they
-drank their coffee, they dispersed till dinner-time. At two o'clock they
-dined and then went for a walk, or a drive. In the evening when he
-returned from his office they drank their evening tea, and sometimes he
-read aloud while she worked, or when there were guests they had music or
-talked. When he went away on business he wrote to his wife, and received
-letters from her, every day. Sometimes she accompanied him, and then
-they were particularly merry. On his name-day and on hers guests
-assembled, and it was pleasant to him to see how well she managed to
-arrange things so that it was pleasant for everybody. He saw, and heard
-also, that they all admired her, the young, agreeable hostess, and he
-loved her still more for this.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-All went excellently. She bore her pregnancy easily, and though they
-were afraid, they both began making plans as to how they would bring the
-child up. The system of education and the arrangements were all decided
-by Eugene, and her only wish was obediently to carry out his desires.
-Eugene on his part read up medical works, and intended to bring the
-child up according to all the precepts of science. She, of course,
-agreed to everything and made preparations, making warm and also cool
-"envelopes,"<a name="FNanchor_2_1" id="FNanchor_2_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_1" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and preparing a cradle. Thus the second year of their
-marriage arrived, and the second spring.
-</p>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_2_1" id="Footnote_2_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_1"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>An "envelope" was a small mattress with attached
-coverlet, on which babies were carried about.</p></div>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="IX"></a>IX</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-It was just before Trinity Sunday. Liza was in her fifth month, and,
-though careful, she was brisk and active. Both the mothers, his and
-hers, were living in the house, but under pretext of watching and
-safeguarding her only upset her by their tiffs. Eugene was specially
-engrossed with a new experiment for the cultivation of sugar-beet on a
-large scale.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Just before Trinity Liza decided that it was necessary to have a
-thorough house-cleaning, as it had not been done since Easter, and she
-hired two women by the day, to help the servants wash the floors and
-windows, beat the furniture and the carpets, and put covers on them. The
-women came early in the morning, heated the coppers, and set to work.
-One of the two was Stepanida, who had just weaned her baby boy. Through
-the office-clerk&mdash;whom she now carried on with&mdash;she had begged
-for the job of washing the floors. She wanted to have a good look at the
-new mistress. Stepanida was living by herself, as formerly, her husband
-being away, and she was up to tricks, as she had formerly been first
-with old Daniel (who had once caught her taking some logs of firewood),
-afterwards with the master, and now with the young clerk. She was not
-concerning herself any longer about her master. "He has a wife now," she
-thought. But it would be good to have a look at the lady and at her
-establishment: folk said it was well arranged.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene had not seen her since he had met her with the child. Having a
-baby to attend to she had not been going out to work, and he seldom
-walked through the village. That morning, on the eve of Trinity Sunday,
-Eugene rose at five o'clock and rode to the fallow land which was to be
-sprinkled with phosphates, and he left the house before the women were
-about it, and while they were still engaged lighting the copper fires.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Merry, contented, and hungry, Eugene returned to breakfast. He
-dismounted from his mare at the gate and handed her over to the
-gardener. Flicking the high grass with his whip and repeating, as one
-often does, a phrase he had just uttered, he walked towards the house.
-The phrase he repeated was: "phosphates justify"&mdash;what or to whom he
-neither knew nor reflected.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-They were beating a carpet on the grass. The furniture had been brought
-out.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"There now! What a house-cleaning Liza has undertaken! . . . Phosphates
-justify. . . . What a manageress she is! A manageress! Yes, a
-manageress," said he to himself, vividly imagining her in her white
-wrapper and with her smiling joyful face, as it nearly always was when
-he looked at her. "Yes, I must change my boots, or else 'phosphates
-justify,' that is, smell of manure, and the manageress is in such a
-condition. Why 'in such a condition'? Because a new little Irtenev is
-growing there inside her," he thought. "Yes, phosphates justify," and
-smiling at his thoughts he put his hand to the door of his room.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But he had not time to push the door before it opened of itself and he
-met, face to face, a woman coming towards him carrying a pail, barefoot,
-and with sleeves turned up high. He stepped aside to let her pass, she
-too stepped aside, adjusting her kerchief with a wet hand.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Go on, go on, I won't go there, if you . . ." began Eugene and,
-suddenly, recognizing her, stopped.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-She glanced merrily at him with smiling eyes, and pulling down her skirt
-went out by the door.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What nonsense! . . . It is impossible," said Eugene to himself,
-frowning and waving his hand as though to get rid of a fly, displeased
-at having noticed her. He was vexed that he had noticed her and yet he
-could not take his eyes from her strong body, swayed by the agile
-strides of her bare feet, or from her arms, shoulders, and the pleasing
-folds of her shirt and handsome skirt, tucked up high above her white
-calves.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But why am I looking?" said he to himself, lowering his eyes so as not
-to see her. "But anyhow I must go in to get some other boots." And he
-turned back to go into his own room, but had not gone five steps before,
-without knowing why or wherefore, he again glanced round to have another
-look at her. She was just going round the corner and also glanced at
-him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Ah, what am I doing!" said he to himself. "She may think . . . It is
-even certain that she already does think . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He entered his damp room. Another woman, an old and skinny one, was
-there, and was still washing it. Eugene passed on tiptoe across the
-floor wet with dirty water to the wall where his boots stood, and he was
-about to leave the room, when the woman herself went out.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"This one has gone and the other, Stepanida, will come here alone,"
-someone within him began to reflect.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"My God, what am I thinking of and what am I doing!" He seized his boots
-and ran out with them into the hall, put them on there, brushed himself,
-and went out on to the verandah where both the mammas were already
-drinking coffee. Liza had evidently been expecting him and came on to
-the verandah through another door at the same time.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"My God! If she, who considers me so honourable, pure, and
-innocent,&mdash;if she only knew!"&mdash;thought he.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Liza, as usual, met him with shining face. But to-day somehow she seemed
-to him particularly pale, yellow, long, and weak.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="X"></a>X</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-During coffee, as often happened, a peculiarly feminine kind of
-conversation went on which had no logical sequence, but which evidently
-was connected in some way for it went on uninterruptedly.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The two old ladies were pin-pricking one another, and Liza was skilfully
-manœuvring between them.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I am so vexed that we had not finished washing your room before you got
-back," she said to her husband. "But I do so want to get everything
-arranged."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, did you sleep well after I got up?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I slept well, and I feel well."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"How can a woman be well in her condition during this intolerable heat,
-when her windows face the sun," said Varvara Alexeevna, her mother. "And
-they have no venetian-blinds or awnings. I always had awnings."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But you know we are in the shade after ten o'clock," said Mary
-Pavlovna.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"That's what causes fever; it comes of dampness," said Varvara
-Alexeevna, not noticing that what she was saying did not agree with what
-she had just said. "My doctor always says that it is impossible to
-diagnose an illness unless one knows the patient. And he certainly
-knows, for he is the leading physician and we pay him a hundred rubles a
-visit. My late husband did not believe in doctors, but he did not grudge
-me anything."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"How can a man grudge anything to a woman when perhaps her life and the
-child's depend . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, when she has means, a wife need not depend on her husband. A good
-wife submits to her husband," said Varvara Alexeevna,&mdash;"only Liza is
-too weak after her illness."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Oh no, mamma, I feel quite well. But why have they not brought you any
-boiled cream?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I don't want any. I can do with raw cream."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I offered some to Varvara Alexeevna, but she declined," said Mary
-Pavlovna, as if justifying herself.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No, I don't want any to-day." And as if to terminate an unpleasant
-conversation and yield magnanimously, Varvara Alexeevna turned to Eugene
-and said: "Well, and have you sprinkled the phosphates?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Liza ran to fetch the cream.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But I don't want it. I don't want it."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Liza, Liza, go gently,"&mdash;said Mary Pavlovna. "Such rapid movements do
-her harm."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Nothing does harm, if one's mind is at peace," said Varvara Alexeevna
-as if referring to something, though she knew that there was nothing
-that her words could refer to.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Liza returned with the cream, Eugene drank his coffee and listened
-morosely. He was accustomed to these conversations, but to-day he was
-particularly annoyed by its lack of sense. He wanted to think over what
-had happened to him, but this chatter disturbed him. Having finished her
-coffee Varvara Alexeevna went away in a bad humour. Liza, Eugene, and
-Mary Pavlovna stayed behind, and their conversation was simple and
-pleasant. But Liza, being sensitive, at once noticed that something was
-tormenting Eugene, and she asked him whether anything unpleasant had
-happened. He was not prepared for this question, and hesitated a little
-before replying that there had been nothing unpleasant. And this reply
-made Liza think all the more; that something was tormenting, and greatly
-tormenting, him was as evident to her as the fact that a fly had fallen
-into the milk, yet he did not speak of it. What could it be?
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XI"></a>XI</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-After breakfast they all dispersed. Eugene as usual went to his study.
-He did not begin reading or writing his letters, but sat smoking one
-cigarette after another and thinking. He was terribly surprised and
-disturbed by the expected recrudescence within him of the bad feeling
-from which he had thought himself free since his marriage. Since then he
-had not once experienced that feeling, either for her&mdash;the woman he
-had known&mdash;or for any other woman except his wife. He had often
-felt glad of this emancipation, and now suddenly a chance meeting,
-seemingly so unimportant, revealed to him the fact that he was not free.
-What now tormented him was not that he was yielding to that feeling and
-desired her&mdash;he did not dream of so doing&mdash;but that the
-feeling was awake within him and he had to be on his guard against it.
-He had no doubt but that he would suppress it.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He had a letter to answer and a paper to write. He sat down at his
-writing-table and began to work. Having finished it and quite forgotten
-what had disturbed him, he went out to go to the stables. And again as
-ill-luck would have it, either by unfortunate chance or intentionally,
-as soon as he stepped from the porch, a red skirt and red kerchief
-appeared from round the corner, and she went past him swinging her arms
-and swaying her body. She not only went past him, but on passing him
-ran, as if playfully, to overtake her fellow-servant.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Again the bright midday, the nettles, the back of Daniel's hut, and in
-the shade of the plane-trees her smiling face biting some leaves, rose
-in his imagination.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No, it is impossible to let matters continue so," he said to himself,
-and waiting till the women had passed out of sight he went to the
-office.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-It was just the dinner-hour and he hoped to find the steward still
-there. So it happened. The steward was just waking up from his
-after-dinner nap. Standing in the office, stretching himself and
-yawning, he was looking at the herdsman who was telling him something.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Vasili Nikolaich!" said Eugene to the steward.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What is your pleasure?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I want to speak to you."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What is your pleasure?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Just finish what you are saying."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Aren't you going to bring it in?" said Vasili Nikolaich to the
-herdsman.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"It's heavy, Vasili Nikolaich."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What is it?" asked Eugene.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Why, a cow has calved in the meadow. Well, all right, I'll order them
-to harness a horse at once. Tell Nicholas Lysukh to get out the dray
-cart."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The herdsman went out.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Do you know," began Eugene, flushing and conscious that he was doing
-so, "do you know, Vasili Nikolaich, while I was a bachelor I went off
-the track a bit. . . . You may have heard . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Vasili Nikolaich with smiling eyes and evidently sorry for his master,
-said: "Is it about Stepanida?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Why, yes. Look here. Please, please do not engage her to help in the
-house. You understand, it is very awkward for me . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, it must have been Vanya, the clerk, who arranged it."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, please. . . . Well, and hadn't the rest of the phosphates better
-be strewn?" said Eugene, to hide his confusion.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I am just going to see to it."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-So it ended. And Eugene calmed down, hoping that as he had lived for a
-year without seeing her, so things would go on now. "Besides, Vasili
-Nikolaich will speak to Ivan the clerk; Ivan will speak to her, and she
-will understand that I don't want it," said Eugene to himself, and he was
-glad that he had forced himself to speak to Vasili Nikolaich, hard as it
-had been to do so.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, it is better, better, than that feeling of doubt, that feeling of
-shame." He shuddered at the mere remembrance of his sin in thought.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XII"></a>XII</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-The moral effort he had made to overcome his shame and speak to Vasili
-Nikolaich, tranquillized Eugene. It seemed to him that the matter was
-all over now. Liza at once noticed that he was quite calm, and even
-happier than usual. "No doubt he was upset by our mothers pin-pricking
-one another. It really is disagreeable, especially for him who is so
-sensitive and noble, always to hear such unfriendly and ill-mannered
-insinuations," thought she.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The next day was Trinity Sunday. The weather was beautiful, and the
-peasant-women, according to custom, on their way into the woods to plait
-wreaths, came to the landowner's home and began to sing and dance. Mary
-Pavlovna and Varvara Alexeevna came out on to the porch in smart
-clothes, carrying sunshades, and went up to the ring of singers. With
-them, in a jacket of Chinese silk, came out the uncle, a flabby
-libertine and drunkard, who was living that summer with Eugene.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-As usual there was a bright, many-coloured ring of young women and
-girls, the centre of everything, and around these from different sides
-like attendant planets that had detached themselves and were circling
-round, went girls hand in hand, rustling in their new print gowns; young
-lads giggling and running backwards and forwards after one another;
-full-grown lads in dark blue or black coats and caps and with red
-shirts, who unceasingly spat out sunflower-seed shells; and the domestic
-servants or other outsiders watching the dance-circle from aside. Both
-the old ladies went close up to the ring, and Liza accompanied them in a
-light blue dress, with light blue ribbons on her head, and with wide
-sleeves under which her long white arms and angular elbows were visible.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene did not wish to come out, but it was ridiculous to hide, and he
-too came out on to the porch smoking a cigarette, bowed to the men and
-lads, and talked with one of them. The women meanwhile shouted a
-dance-song with all their might, snapping their fingers, clapping their
-hands, and dancing.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"They are calling for the master," said a youngster, coming up to
-Eugene's wife who had not noticed the call. Liza called Eugene to look
-at the dance and at one of the women dancers who particularly pleased
-her. This was Stepanida. She wore a yellow skirt, a velveteen sleeveless
-jacket and a silk kerchief, and was broad, energetic, ruddy, and merry.
-No doubt she danced well. He saw nothing.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, yes," said he, removing and replacing his pince-nez. "Yes, yes,"
-repeated he. "So it seems I cannot be rid of her," he thought.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He did not look at her as he was afraid of her attraction, and just on
-that account what his passing glance caught of her seemed to him
-especially attractive. Besides this he saw by her sparkling look that
-she saw him and saw that he admired her. He stood there as long as
-propriety demanded, and seeing that Varvara Alexeevna had called her,
-senselessly and insincerely, "my dear," and was talking to her, he
-turned aside and went away.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He went into the house. He retired in order not to see her, but on
-reaching the upper story, without knowing how or why, he approached the
-window, and as long as the women remained at the porch he stood there
-and looked and looked at her, feasting his eyes on her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He ran, while there was no one to see him, and then went with quiet
-steps on to the verandah, and from there, smoking a cigarette and as if
-going for a stroll, he passed through the garden and followed the
-direction she had taken. He had not gone two steps along the alley
-before he noticed behind the trees a velveteen sleeveless jacket, with a
-pink and yellow skirt and a red kerchief. She was going somewhere with
-another woman. "Where are they going?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And suddenly a terrible desire scorched him, as though a hand were
-seizing his heart. As if by someone else's wish he looked round and went
-towards her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Eugene Ivanich, Eugene Ivanich! I have come to see your honour," said a
-voice behind him, and Eugene, seeing old Samokhin, who was digging a
-well for him, roused himself and, turning quickly round, went to meet
-Samokhin. While speaking with him he turned sideways and saw that she
-and the woman who was with her went down the slope, evidently to the
-well, or making an excuse of the well, and having stopped there a little
-while, ran back to the dance-circle.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XIII"></a>XIII</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-After talking to Samokhin, Eugene returned to the house as depressed as
-if he had committed a crime. In the first place she had understood him,
-believed that he wanted to see her, and desired it herself. Secondly,
-that other woman, Anna Prokhorova, evidently knew of it.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Above all, he felt that he was conquered, that he was not master of his
-own will but that there was another power moving him, that he had been
-saved only by good fortune, and that, if not to-day, to-morrow or a day
-later, he would perish all the same.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, perish," he did not understand it otherwise: to be unfaithful to
-his young and loving wife with a peasant woman in the village, in the
-sight of everyone,&mdash;what was it but to perish, perish utterly, so that
-it would be impossible to live? No, something must be done.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"My God, my God! What am I to do? Can it be that I shall perish like
-this?" said he to himself. "Is it not possible to do anything? Yet
-something must be done. Do not think about her"&mdash;he ordered himself.
-"Do not think!" and immediately he began thinking and seeing her before
-him, and seeing also the shade of the plane tree.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He remembered having read of a hermit who, to avoid the temptation he
-felt for a woman on whom he had to lay his hand to heal her, thrust his
-other hand into a brazier and burnt his fingers. He called that to mind.
-"Yes, I am ready to burn my fingers rather than to perish." He looked
-round to make sure that there was no one in the room, lit a candle, and
-put a finger into the flame. "There now think about her," he said to
-himself ironically. It hurt him and he withdrew his smoke-stained
-finger, threw away the match, and laughed at himself. What nonsense!
-That was not what had to be done. But it was necessary to do something,
-to avoid seeing her&mdash;either to go away himself or to send her away.
-Yes,&mdash;send her away. Offer her husband money to remove to town, or to
-another village. People would hear of it and would talk about it. Well,
-what of that? At any rate it was better than this danger. "Yes, that
-must be done," he said to himself; and at the very time he was looking
-at her without moving his eyes. "Where is she going?" he suddenly asked
-himself. She, as it seemed to him, had seen him at the window and now,
-having glanced at him and taken another woman by the hand, was going
-towards the garden swinging her arm briskly. Without knowing why or
-wherefore, merely in accord with what he had been thinking, he went to
-the office.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Vasili Nikolaich in holiday costume and with oiled hair was sitting at
-tea with his wife and a guest who was wearing an oriental kerchief.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I want a word with you, Vasili Nikolaich!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Please say what you want to. We have finished tea."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No. I'd rather you came out with me."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Directly; only let me get my cap. Tanya, put out the samovar,"&mdash;said
-Vasili Nikolaich, stepping outside cheerfully.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-It seemed to Eugene that Vasili had been drinking, but what was to be
-done? It might be all the better&mdash;he would sympathize with him in his
-difficulties the more readily.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I have come again to speak about that same matter, Vasili Nikolaich,"
-said Eugene,&mdash;"about that woman."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, what of her? I told them not to take her again on any account."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No, I have been thinking in general, and this is what I wanted to take
-your advice about. Isn't it possible to get them away, to send the whole
-family away?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Where can they be sent?" said Vasili, disapprovingly and ironically as
-it seemed to Eugene.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, I thought of giving them money, or even some land in
-Koltovski,&mdash;so that she should not be here."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But how can they be sent away? Where is he to go&mdash;torn up from his
-roots? And why should you do it? What harm can she do you?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Ah, Vasili Nikolaich, you must understand that it would be dreadful for
-my wife to hear of it."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But who will tell her?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"How can I live with this dread? The whole thing is very painful for
-me."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But really, why should you distress yourself? Whoever stirs up the
-past&mdash;out with his eye! Who is not a sinner before God and to blame
-before the Tsar, as the saying is?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"All the same it would be better to get rid of them. Can't you speak to
-the husband?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But it is no use speaking! Eh, Eugene Ivanich, what is the matter with
-you? It is all past and forgotten. All sorts of things happen. Who is
-there that would now say anything bad of you? Everybody sees you."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But all the same go and have a talk with him."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"All right, I will speak to him."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Though he knew that nothing would come of it, this talk somewhat calmed
-Eugene. Above all, it made him feel that through excitement he had been
-exaggerating the danger.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Had he gone to meet her by appointment? It was impossible. He had simply
-gone to stroll in the garden and she had happened to run out at the same
-time.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XIV"></a>XIV</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-After dinner that very Trinity Sunday Liza while walking from the garden
-to the meadow, where her husband wanted to show her the clover, took a
-false step and fell when crossing a little ditch. She fell gently, on
-her side; but she gave an exclamation, and her husband saw an expression
-in her face not only of fear but of pain. He wished to help her up, but
-she motioned him away with her hand.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No, wait a bit, Eugene," she said, with a weak smile, and as it seemed
-to him, she looked up guiltily. "My foot only gave way under me."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"There, I always say," remarked Varvara Alexeevna, "can anyone in her
-condition possibly jump over ditches?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But no, mamma, it is all right. I shall get up directly." With her
-husband's help she did get up, but immediately turned pale, and her face
-showed fear.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I am not well," and she whispered something to her mother.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Oh, my God, what have you done! I said you ought not to go
-there,"&mdash;cried Varvara Alexeevna. "Wait,&mdash;I will call the
-servants. She must not walk. She must be carried!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Don't be afraid, Liza, I will carry you," said Eugene, putting his left
-arm round her. "Hold me by the neck. Like that." And stooping down he
-put his right arm under her knees and lifted her. He could never
-afterwards forget the suffering and yet beatific expression of her face.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I am too heavy for you, dear,"&mdash;she said with a smile. "Mamma is
-running, tell her!" And she bent towards him and kissed him. She
-evidently wanted her mother to see how he was carrying her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene shouted to Varvara Alexeevna not to hurry, and that he would
-carry Liza home. Varvara Alexeevna stopped and began to shout still
-louder.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"You will drop her, you'll be sure to drop her. You want to destroy her.
-You have no conscience!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But I am carrying her excellently."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I do not want to watch you killing my daughter, and I can't." And she
-ran round the bend in the alley.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Never mind, it will pass," said Liza, smiling.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes. If only it does not have consequences like last time."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No. I am not speaking of that. That is all right. I mean mamma. You are
-tired. Rest a bit."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But though he found it heavy, Eugene carried his burden proudly and
-gladly to the house and did not hand her over to the housemaid and the
-man-cook whom Varvara Alexeevna had found and sent to meet them. He
-carried her to the bedroom and placed her on the bed.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Now go away," she said and drawing his hand to her she kissed it.
-"Annushka and I will manage all right."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Mary Pavlovna also ran in from her rooms in the wing. They undressed
-Liza and laid her on the bed. Eugene sat in the drawing-room with a book
-in his hand, waiting. Varvara Alexeevna went past him with such a
-reproachfully gloomy air that he felt alarmed.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, how is it?" he asked.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"How? What's the good of asking? It is probably what you wanted when you
-made your wife jump over the ditch."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Varvara Alexeevna!" he cried. "This is impossible. If you want to
-torment people and to poison their life,"&mdash;he wanted to say, "then go
-elsewhere to do it," but he restrained himself. "How is it that it does
-not hurt you?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"It is too late now." And shaking her cap in a triumphant manner she
-passed out by the door.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The fall had really been a bad one, Liza's foot had twisted awkwardly
-and there was danger of her having another miscarriage. Everyone knew
-that there was nothing to be done, but that she must just lie quietly,
-yet all the same they decided to send for a doctor.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Dear Nikolay Semënich," wrote Eugene to the doctor, "you have always
-been so kind to us, that I hope you will not refuse to come to my wife's
-assistance. She . . ." and so on. Having written the letter he went to
-the stables to arrange about the horses and the carriage. Horses had to
-be got ready to bring the doctor, and others to take him back. When an
-estate is not run on a large scale, such things cannot be quickly
-decided but have to be considered. Having arranged it all and dispatched
-the coachman, it was past nine before he got back to the house. His wife
-was lying down, and said that she felt perfectly well and had no pain.
-But Varvara Alexeevna was sitting with a lamp screened from Liza by some
-sheets of music and knitting a large red coverlet, with a mien that said
-that after what had happened peace was impossible; but that no matter
-what anyone else did, she at any rate would do her duty.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene noticed this but, to appear as if he had not seen it, he tried to
-assume a cheerful and tranquil air and told how he had chosen the horses
-and how the mare, Kabushka, had galloped capitally as left trace-horse
-in the troika.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, of course, it is just the time to exercise the horses when help is
-needed. Probably the doctor will also be thrown into the ditch,"
-remarked Varvara Alexeevna, examining her knitting from under her
-pince-nez and moving it close up to the lamp.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But you know we had to send one way or other, and I made the best
-arrangement I could."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I remember very well how your horses galloped with me under the
-gateway arch." This was her long-standing fancy, and Eugene now was
-injudicious enough to remark that was not quite what had happened.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"It is not for nothing that I have always said, and have often remarked
-to the prince, that it is hardest of all to live with people who are
-untruthful and insincere; I can endure anything except that."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, if anyone has to suffer more than another, it is certainly I,"
-said Eugene. "But you . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, it is evident."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Nothing, I am only counting my stitches."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene was standing at the time by the bed and Liza was looking at him,
-and one of her moist hands outside the coverlet caught his hand and
-pressed it. "Bear with her for my sake. You know she cannot prevent our
-loving one another," was what her look said.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I won't do so again. It's nothing," whispered he, and he kissed her
-damp, long hand and then her affectionate eyes, which closed while he
-kissed them.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Can it be the same thing over again?" he asked. "How are you feeling?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I am afraid to say, for fear of being mistaken, but I feel that he is
-alive and will live," said she, glancing at her stomach.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Ah, it is dreadful, dreadful to think of."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Notwithstanding Liza's insistence that he should go away, Eugene spent
-the night with her, hardly closing an eye and ready to attend on her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But she passed the night well, and had they not sent for the doctor she
-would perhaps have got up.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-By dinner-time the doctor arrived and of course said that, though if the
-symptoms recurred there might be cause for apprehension, yet actually
-there were no positive symptoms, but as there were also no contrary
-indications one might suppose on the one hand that&mdash;and on the other
-hand that. . . . And therefore she must lie still, and that "though I do
-not like prescribing, yet all the same she should take this mixture and
-should lie quiet." Besides this, the doctor gave Varvara Alexeevna a
-lecture on woman's anatomy, during which Varvara Alexeevna nodded her
-head significantly. Having received his fee, as usual into the backmost
-part of his palm, the doctor drove away and the patient was left to lie
-in bed for a week.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XV"></a>XV</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-Most of his time Eugene spent by his wife's bedside, talking to her,
-reading to her, and what was hardest of all, enduring without murmur
-Varvara Alexeevna's attacks, and even contriving to turn these into
-jokes.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But he could not stay at home. In the first place his wife sent him
-away, saying that he would fall ill if he always remained with her; and,
-secondly, the farming was progressing in a way that demanded his
-presence at every step. He could not stay at home; but was in the
-fields, in the wood, in the garden, at the thrashing-floor; and
-everywhere, not merely the thought but the vivid image of Stepanida
-pursued him, and he only occasionally forgot her. But that would not
-have mattered, he could perhaps have mastered his feeling; but what was
-worst of all was that, whereas he had previously lived for months
-without seeing her, he now continually came across her. She evidently
-understood that he wished to renew relations with her, and tried to come
-in his way. Nothing was said either by him or by her, and therefore
-neither he nor she went directly to a rendezvous, but only sought
-opportunities of meeting.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The place where it was possible for them to meet each other was in the
-forest, where peasant-women went with sacks to collect grass for their
-cows. Eugene knew this and therefore went every day by that wood. Every
-day he told himself that he would not go there, and every day it ended
-by his making his way to the forest and, on hearing the sound of voices,
-standing behind the bushes with sinking heart looking to see if she was
-there.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Why he wanted to know whether it was she who was there, he did not know.
-If it had been she and she had been alone, he would not have gone to
-her&mdash;so he believed&mdash;he would have run away; but he wanted to
-see her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Once he met her. As he was entering the forest she came out of it with
-two other women, carrying a heavy sack, full of grass, on her back. A
-little earlier he would perhaps have met her in the forest. But now,
-with the other women there, she could not go back to him in the forest.
-But though he realized this impossibility, he stood for a long time, at
-the risk of attracting the other women's attention, behind a hazel-bush.
-Of course she did not return, but he stayed there a long time. And,
-great heavens, how delightful his imagination made her appear to him!
-And this not once, but five or six times. And each time more intensely.
-Never had she seemed so attractive, and never had he been so completely
-in her power.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He felt that he had lost control of himself and had become almost
-insane. His strictness with himself was not weakened a jot; on the
-contrary he saw all the abomination of his desire and even of his
-action, for his going to the wood was an action. He knew that he only
-need come near her anywhere in the dark, and if possible touch her, and
-he would yield to his feelings. He knew that it was only shame before
-people, before her, and no doubt before himself also, that restrained
-him. And he knew too that he had sought conditions in which that shame
-would not be apparent&mdash;darkness or proximity&mdash;in which it would
-be stifled by animal passion. And therefore he knew that he was a wretched
-criminal, and despised and hated himself with all his soul. He hated
-himself because he still had not surrendered: every day he prayed God to
-strengthen him, to save him from perishing; every day he determined that
-from to-day onward he would not take a step to see her, and would forget
-her. Every day he devised means of delivering himself from this
-enticement, and he made use of those means.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-But it was all in vain.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-One of the means was continual occupation; another was intense physical
-work and fasting; a third was imagining clearly to himself the shame
-that would fall upon him when everybody knew of it&mdash;his wife, his
-mother-in-law, and the folk around. He did all this, and it seemed to
-him that he was conquering, but the hour came, midday: the hour of their
-former meetings and the hour when he had met her carrying the grass, and
-he went to the forest. Thus five days of torment passed. He only saw her
-from a distance, but did not once encounter her.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XVI"></a>XVI</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-Liza was gradually recovering, she could move about and was only uneasy
-at the change that had taken place in her husband, which she did not
-understand.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Varvara Alexeevna had gone away for a while and the only visitor was
-Eugene's uncle. Mary Pavlovna was as usual at home.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene was in his semi-insane condition when there came two days of
-pouring rain, as often happens after thunder in June. The rain stopped
-all work. They even ceased carting manure, on account of the dampness
-and dirt. The peasants remained at home. The herdsmen wore themselves
-out with the cattle, and eventually drove them home. The cows and sheep
-wandered about in the pastureland and ran loose in the grounds. The
-peasant-women, barefoot and wrapped in shawls, splashing through the mud
-rushed about to seek the runaway cows. Streams flowed everywhere along
-the paths, all the leaves and all the grass were saturated with water,
-and streams flowed unceasingly from the spouts into the bubbling
-puddles.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene sat at home with his wife who was particularly wearisome that
-day. She questioned Eugene several times as to the cause of his
-discontent; and he replied with vexation that nothing was the matter.
-She ceased questioning him, but was still distressed.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-They were sitting after breakfast in the drawing-room. His uncle for the
-hundredth time was recounting fabrications about his society
-acquaintances. Liza was knitting a jacket and sighed, complaining of the
-weather and of a pain in the small of her back. The uncle advised her to
-lie down, and asked for vodka for himself. It was terribly dull for
-Eugene in the house. Everything was weak and dull. He read a book and a
-magazine, but understood nothing of them.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I must go out and look at the rasping-machine they brought
-yesterday," said he. He got up and went out.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Take an umbrella with you."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Oh, no, I have a leather coat. And I am only going as far as the
-boiling-room."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He put on his boots and his leather coat and went to the factory; but he
-had not gone twenty steps before, coming towards him, he met her with
-her skirts tucked up high above her white calves. She was walking,
-holding down the shawl in which her head and shoulders were wrapped.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Where are you going?" said he, not recognizing her the first instant.
-When he recognized her it was already too late. She stopped, smiling, and
-looked long at him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"I am looking for a calf. Where are you off to in such weather?" said
-she, as if she were seeing him every day.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Come to the shed," said he suddenly, without knowing how he said it. It
-was as if someone else had uttered the words.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-She bit her shawl, winked, and ran in the direction which led from the
-garden to the shed, but he continued his path, intending to turn off
-beyond the lilac-bush and go there too.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Master," he heard a voice behind him. "The mistress is calling you, and
-wants you to come back for a minute."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-This was Misha, his man-servant.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"My God! This is the second time you have saved me," thought Eugene, and
-immediately turned back. His wife reminded him that he had promised to
-take some medicine at the dinner-hour to a sick woman, and he had better
-take it with him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-While they were getting the medicine some five minutes elapsed, and
-then, going away with the medicine, he hesitated to go direct to the
-shed, lest he should be seen from the house, but as soon as he was out
-of sight he promptly turned and made his way to it. He already saw her
-in imagination, inside the shed, smiling gaily. But she was not there,
-and there was nothing in the shed to show that she had been there.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He was already thinking that she had not come, had not heard or
-understood his words&mdash;he had muttered them through his nose as if
-afraid of her hearing them&mdash;or perhaps she had not wanted to come.
-"And why did I imagine that she would rush to me? She has her own
-husband; it is only I who am such a wretch as to have a wife, and a good
-one, and to run after another." Thus he thought sitting in the shed, the
-thatch of which had a leak and dripped from its straw. "But how
-delightful it would be if she did come,&mdash;alone here in this rain.
-If only I could embrace her once again; then let happen what may. But
-yes," he recollected, "one could tell if she has been here by her
-footprints." He looked at the trodden ground near the shed and at the
-path overgrown by grass; and the fresh print of bare feet, and even of
-one that had slipped, was visible. "Yes, she has been here. Well now it
-is settled. Wherever I may see her I shall go straight to her. I will go
-to her at night." He sat for a long time in the shed, and left it
-exhausted and crushed. He delivered the medicine, returned home, and lay
-down in his room to wait for dinner.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XVII"></a>XVII</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-Before dinner Liza came to him and, still wondering what could be the
-cause of his discontent, began to say that she was afraid that he did
-not like the idea of her going to Moscow for her confinement, and that
-she had decided that she would remain at home and would on no account go
-to Moscow. He knew how she feared both her confinement itself and the
-risk of not having a healthy child, and therefore he could not help
-being touched at seeing how ready she was to sacrifice everything for
-his sake. All was so nice, so pleasant, so clean, in the house; and in
-his soul it was so dirty, despicable, and horrid. The whole evening
-Eugene was tormented by knowing that notwithstanding his sincere
-repulsion at his own weakness, notwithstanding his firm intention to
-break off,&mdash;the same thing would happen again to-morrow.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No, this is impossible," he said to himself, walking up and down in his
-room. "There must be some remedy for it. My God! What am I to do?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Someone knocked at the door as foreigners do. He knew this must be his
-uncle. "Come in," he said.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The uncle had come as a self-appointed ambassador from Liza.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Do you know, I really do notice that there is a change in you," he
-said,&mdash;"and Liza&mdash;I understand how it troubles her. I understand
-that it must be hard for you to leave all the business you have so
-excellently started, but <i>que veux-tu</i>?<a name="FNanchor_3_1" id="FNanchor_3_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_1" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> I should advise you to go
-away. It will be more satisfactory both for you and for her. And do you
-know, I should advise you to go to the Crimea. The climate is beautiful
-and there is an excellent <i>accoucheur</i> there, and you would be just in
-time for the best of the grape season."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Uncle," Eugene suddenly exclaimed. "Can you keep a secret? A secret
-that is terrible to me, a shameful secret."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Oh, come&mdash;do you really feel any doubt of me?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Uncle, you can help me. Not only help, but save me!" said Eugene. And
-the thought that he would disclose his secret to his uncle whom he did
-not respect, the thought that he would show himself in the worst light
-and humiliate himself before him, was pleasant. He felt himself to be
-despicable and guilty, and wished to punish himself.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Speak, my dear fellow, you know how fond I am of you," said the uncle,
-evidently well content that there was a secret and that it was a
-shameful one, and that it would be communicated to him, and that he
-could be of use.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"First of all I must tell you that I am a wretch, a good-for-nothing, a
-scoundrel&mdash;a real scoundrel."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Now what are you saying . . ." began his uncle, as if he were offended.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What! Not a wretch when I,&mdash;Liza's husband, Liza's! One has only to
-know her purity, her love&mdash;and that I, her husband, want to be untrue
-to her with a peasant-woman!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"How's that? Why do you want to&mdash;you have not been unfaithful to her?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, at least just the same as being untrue, for it did not depend on
-me. I was ready to do so. I was hindered, or else I should . . . now. I
-do not know what I should have done . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But please, explain to me . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, it is like this. When I was a bachelor I was stupid enough to
-have relations with a woman here in our village. That is to say, I used
-to have meetings with her in the forest, in the field . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Was she pretty?" asked his uncle.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene frowned at this question, but he was in such need of external
-help that he made as if he did not hear it, and continued:
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, I thought this was just casual and that I should break it off and
-have done with it. And I did break it off before my marriage. For nearly
-a year I did not see her or think about her." It seemed strange to
-Eugene himself to hear the description of his own condition,&mdash;"Then
-suddenly, I don't myself know why,&mdash;really one sometimes believes in
-witchcraft&mdash;I saw her, and a worm crept into my heart&mdash;and it
-gnaws. I reproach myself, I understood the full horror of my action, that
-is to say, of the act I may commit any moment, and yet I myself turned to
-it, and if I have not committed it is only because God preserved me.
-Yesterday I was on my way to see her when Liza sent for me."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What, in the rain?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes; I am worn out, Uncle, and have decided to confess to you and to
-ask your help."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, of course, it's a bad thing on your own estate. People will get to
-know. I understand that Liza is weak and that it is necessary to spare
-her, but why on your own estate?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Again Eugene tried not to hear what his uncle was saying, and hurried on
-to the core of the matter.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, save me from myself. That is what I ask of you. To-day I was
-hindered by chance. But to-morrow or next time no one will hinder me.
-And she knows now. Don't leave me alone."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, all right," said his uncle,&mdash;"but are you really so in love?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Ah, it is not that at all. It is not that, it is some kind of power
-that has seized me and holds me. I do not know what to do. Perhaps I
-shall gain strength, and then . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, it turns out as I suggested," said his uncle. "Let us be off to
-the Crimea."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, yes, let us go; and meanwhile you will be with me, and will talk
-to me."
-</p>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_3_1" id="Footnote_3_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_1"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>What will you have?</p></div>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-The fact that Eugene had confided his secret to his uncle, but chiefly
-the sufferings of his conscience and the feeling of shame he experienced
-after that rainy day, sobered him. It was settled that they would start
-for Yalta in a week's time. During that week Eugene drove to town to get
-money for the journey, gave instructions from the house and from the
-office concerning the management of the estate, again became gay and
-friendly with his wife, and began to awaken morally.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-So without having once seen Stepanida after that rainy day he left with
-his wife for the Crimea. There he spent an excellent two months. He
-received so many new impressions that it seemed to him that the past was
-obliterated from his memory. In the Crimea they met former acquaintances
-and became particularly friendly with them, and they also made new
-acquaintances. Life in the Crimea was a continual holiday for Eugene,
-besides being instructive and beneficial. They became friendly there
-with the former Marshal of the Nobility of their province; a clever and
-Liberal-minded man, who became fond of Eugene and coached him, and
-attracted him to his Party.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-At the end of August Liza gave birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter,
-and her confinement was unexpectedly easy.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-In September they returned home, the four of them, including the baby
-and its wet-nurse, as Liza was unable to nurse it herself. Eugene
-returned home entirely free from the former horrors and quite a new and
-happy man. Having gone through all that a husband goes through when his
-wife bears a child, he loved his wife more than ever. His feeling for
-the child when he took it in his arms, was a funny, new, very pleasant
-and, as it were, a tickling feeling. Another new thing in his life now
-was that, besides his occupation with the estate, thanks to his
-acquaintance with Dumchin (the ex-Marshal) a new interest occupied his
-mind, that of the Zemstvo&mdash;partly an ambitious interest, partly a
-feeling of duty. In October there was to be a special Assembly, at which
-he was to be elected. After arriving home he drove once to town and
-another time to Dumchin.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Of the torments of his temptation and struggle he had forgotten even to
-think, and could with difficulty recall them to mind. It seemed to him
-something like an attack of insanity he had undergone.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-To such an extent did he now feel free from it that he was not even
-afraid to make inquiries on the first occasion when he remained alone
-with the steward. As he had previously spoken to him about the matter he
-was not ashamed to ask.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, and is Sidor Pechnikov still away from home?" he inquired.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, he is still in town."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"And his wife?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Oh, she is a worthless woman. She is now carrying on with Zenovi. She
-has quite gone on the loose."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, that is all right," thought Eugene. "How wonderfully indifferent
-to it I am! How I have changed."
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XIX"></a>XIX</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-All that Eugene had wished had been realized. He had obtained the
-property, the factory was working successfully, the beet-crops were
-excellent, and his expected income would be a large one; his wife had
-borne a child satisfactorily, his mother-in-law had left, and he had
-been unanimously elected to the Zemstvo.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Eugene was returning home from town after the election. He had been
-congratulated and had had to return thanks. He had had dinner and had
-drunk some five glasses of champagne. Quite new plans of life now
-presented themselves to him. He was driving home and thinking about
-these. It was the Indian summer: an excellent road and a hot sun. As he
-approached his home Eugene was thinking of how, as a result of this
-election, he would occupy among the people the position of which he had
-always dreamed; that is to say, one in which he would be able to serve
-them not only by production, which gave employment, but also by direct
-influence. He imagined how in another three years his own and the other
-peasants would think of him. "For instance this one," he thought,
-driving just then through the village and glancing at a peasant who with
-a peasant-woman was crossing the street in front of him carrying a full
-water-tub. They stopped to let his carriage pass. The peasant was old
-Pechnikov, and the woman was Stepanida. Eugene looked at her, recognized
-her, and was glad to feel that he remained quite tranquil. She was still
-as good-looking as ever, but this did not touch him at all. He drove
-home.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, may we congratulate you?" said his uncle.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I was elected."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Capital! We must drink to it!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Next day Eugene drove about to see to the farming which he had been
-neglecting. At the outlying farmstead a new thrashing machine was at
-work. While watching it Eugene stepped among the women, trying not to
-take notice of them; but try as he would he once or twice noticed the
-black eyes and red kerchief of Stepanida, who was carrying away the
-straw. Once or twice he glanced sideways at her and felt that something
-was happening, but could not account for it to himself. Only next day,
-when he again drove to the thrashing-floor and spent two hours there
-quite unnecessarily, without ceasing to caress with his eyes the
-familiar, handsome figure of the young woman, did he feel that he was
-lost, irremediably lost. Again those torments! Again all that horror and
-fear, and there was no saving himself.
-</p>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-What he expected happened to him. The evening of the next day, without
-knowing how, he found himself at her back-yard, by her hay-shed, where
-in autumn they had once had a meeting. As though having a stroll, he
-stopped there lighting a cigarette. A neighbouring peasant-woman saw him,
-and as he turned back he heard her say to someone: "Go, he is waiting
-for you,&mdash;on my dying word he is standing there. Go, you fool!"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He saw how a woman&mdash;she&mdash;ran to the hay-shed; but as a peasant
-had met him, it was no longer possible for him to turn back, and so he
-went home.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XX"></a>XX</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-When he entered the drawing-room everything seemed strange and unnatural
-to him. He had risen that morning vigorous, determined to fling it all
-aside, to forget it and not to allow himself to think about it. But
-without noticing how it occurred he had all the morning not merely not
-interested himself in the work, but tried to avoid it. What had formerly
-been important and had cheered him, was now insignificant. Unconsciously
-he tried to free himself from business. It seemed to him that he had to
-do so in order to think and to plan. And he freed himself and remained
-alone. But as soon as he was alone he began to wander about in the
-garden and the forest. And all those spots were besmirched in his
-recollection by memories that gripped him. He felt that he was walking
-in the garden and pretending to himself that he was thinking out
-something, but that really he was not thinking out anything, but
-insanely and unreasonably expecting her; expecting that by some miracle
-she would be aware that he was expecting her, and would come here at
-once and go somewhere where no one would see them, or would come at
-night when there would be no moon and no one, not even she herself,
-would see,&mdash;on such a night she would come and he would touch her
-body. . . .
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"There now, talking of breaking off when I wish to," said he to himself.
-"Yes, and that is having a clean healthy woman for one's health's sake!
-No, it seems one can't play with her like that. I thought I had taken
-her, but it was she who took me; took me and does not let me go. Why, I
-thought I was free, but I was not free and was deceiving myself when I
-married. It was all nonsense,&mdash;fraud. From the time I had her I
-experienced a new feeling, the real feeling of a husband. Yes, I ought
-to have lived with her.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"One of two lives is possible for me: that which I began with Liza:
-service, estate management, the child, and people's respect. If that is
-life, it is necessary that she, Stepanida, should not be there. She must
-be sent away, as I said, or destroyed so that she shall not exist. And
-the other life&mdash;is this. For me to take her away from her husband,
-pay him money, disregard the shame and disgrace, and live with her. But
-in that case it is necessary that Liza should not exist, nor Mimi (the
-baby). No, that is not so, the baby does not matter, but it is necessary
-that there should be no Liza,&mdash;that she should go away&mdash;that
-she should know, curse me, and go away. That she should know that I have
-exchanged her for a peasant-woman, that I am a deceiver and a
-scoundrel!&mdash;No, that is too terrible! It is impossible. But it
-might happen," he went on thinking,&mdash;"it might happen that Liza
-might fall ill and die. Die, and then everything would be capital.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Capital! Oh, scoundrel! No, if someone must die it should be she. If
-she, Stepanida, were to die, how good it would be.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, that is how men come to poison or kill their wives or lovers. Take
-a revolver and go and call her, and instead of embracing her, shoot her
-in the breast and have done with it.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Really she is&mdash;a devil. Simply a devil. She has possessed herself of
-me against my own will.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Kill? Yes. There are only two ways out: to kill my wife, or her. For it
-is impossible to live like this.<a name="FNanchor_4_1" id="FNanchor_4_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_1" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It is impossible. I must consider
-the matter and look ahead. If things remain as they are what will
-happen? I shall again be saying to myself that I do not wish it and that
-I will throw her off, but I shall only say it, and in the evening I shall
-be at her back-yard,&mdash;and she will know it and will come out. And
-if people know of it and tell my wife, or if I tell her myself,&mdash;for I
-can't lie&mdash;I shall not be able to live so. I cannot! People will know.
-They will all know&mdash;Parasha and the blacksmith. Well, is it possible
-to live so?"
-</p>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_4_1" id="Footnote_4_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_1"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>At this place the alternative ending, printed at the end of
-the story, begins.</p></div>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-"Impossible. There are only two ways out: to kill my wife, or to kill
-her. Yes, or else . . . Ah, yes, there is a third way: to kill myself,"
-said he softly, and suddenly a shudder ran over his skin. "Yes, kill
-myself, then I shall not need to kill them." He became frightened, for
-he felt that only that way was possible. He had a revolver. "Shall I
-really kill myself? It is something I never thought of,&mdash;how strange
-it will be . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He returned to his study and at once opened the cupboard where the
-revolver lay, but before he had taken it out of its case, his wife
-entered the room.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="XXI"></a>XXI</h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-He threw a newspaper over the revolver.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Again the same!" said she aghast when she had looked at him.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"What is the same?"
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"The same terrible expression that you had before and would not explain
-to me. Jenya, dear one, tell me about it. I see that you are suffering.
-Tell me and you will feel easier. Whatever it may be, it will be better
-than for you to suffer so. Don't I know that it is nothing bad."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"You know? While . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Tell me, tell me, tell me. I won't let you go."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He smiled a piteous smile.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Shall I?&mdash;No, it is impossible. And there is nothing to tell."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Perhaps he might have told her, but at that moment the wet-nurse entered
-to ask if she should go for a walk. Liza went out to dress the baby.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Then you will tell me? I will be back directly."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, perhaps . . ."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-She never could forget the piteous smile with which he said this. She
-went out.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Hurriedly, stealthily like a robber, he seized the revolver and took it
-out of its case. It was loaded, yes, but long ago, and one cartridge was
-missing.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, how will it be?" He put it to his temple and hesitated a little,
-but as soon as he remembered Stepanida,&mdash;his decision not to see her,
-his struggle, temptation, fall, and renewed struggle,&mdash;he shuddered
-with horror. "No, this is better," and he pulled the trigger . . .
-</p>
-
-<p>
-When Liza ran into the room&mdash;she had only had time to step down from
-the balcony&mdash;he was lying face downwards on the floor: black, warm
-blood was gushing from the wound, and his corpse was twitching.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-There was an inquest. No one could understand or explain the suicide. It
-never even entered his uncle's head that its cause could be anything in
-common with the confession Eugene had made to him two months previously.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Varvara Alexeevna assured them that she had always foreseen it. It had
-been evident from his way of disputing. Neither Liza nor Mary Pavlovna
-could at all understand why it had happened, but still they did not believe
-what the doctors said, namely, that he was mentally deranged&mdash;a
-psychopath. They were quite unable to accept this, for they knew he was
-saner than hundreds of their acquaintances.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-And indeed if Eugene Irtenev was mentally deranged everyone is similarly
-insane; the most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in
-others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves.
-</p>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
-<h4><a id="VARIATION"></a>VARIATION OF THE CONCLUSION OF<br>
-<i>THE DEVIL</i></h4>
-<p><br></p>
-
-<p>
-"To kill, yes. There were only two ways out: to kill his wife, or to
-kill her. For it is impossible to live like this," said he to himself,
-and going up to the table he took from it a revolver which, having
-examined&mdash;one cartridge was wanting&mdash;he put in his trouser
-pocket.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"My God! What am I doing?" he suddenly exclaimed, and folding his hands
-he began to pray.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Oh, God, help me and deliver me. Thou knowest that I do not desire
-evil, but by myself am powerless. Help me," said he, making the sign of
-the cross on his breast before the icon.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, I can control myself. I will go out, walk about and think things
-over."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He went to the entrance-hall, put on his overcoat and went out on to the
-porch. Unconsciously his steps took him past the garden along the field
-path to the outlying farmstead. There the thrashing machine was still
-droning and the cries of the driver-lads were heard. He entered the
-barn. She was there. He saw her at once. She was raking up the corn, and
-on seeing him she, with laughing eyes, ran briskly and merrily over the
-scattered corn, raking it up with agility. Eugene could not help
-watching her though he did not wish it. He only recollected himself when
-she was no longer in sight. The clerk informed him that they were now
-finishing thrashing the corn that had been beaten down&mdash;that was why
-it was going slower and the output was less. Eugene went up to the drum,
-which occasionally gave a knock as sheaves not evenly fed in passed
-under it, and he asked the clerk if there were many such sheaves of
-beaten-down corn.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"There will be five cartloads of it."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Then look here . . ." began Eugene, but he did not finish the sentence.
-She had gone close up to the drum and was raking the corn from under it,
-and she scorched him with her laughing eyes. That look spoke of a merry
-careless love between them, of the fact that she knew he wanted her and
-had come to her shed, and that she, as always, was ready to live and be
-merry with him regardless of all conditions or consequences. Eugene felt
-himself to be in her power, but did not wish to yield.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He remembered his prayer and tried to repeat it. He began saying it to
-himself, but at once felt that it was useless. A single thought now
-engrossed him entirely: how to arrange a meeting with her so that the
-others should not notice it.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"If we finish this lot to-day, are we to start on a fresh stack or leave
-it till to-morrow?" asked the clerk.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Yes, yes," replied Eugene, involuntarily following her to the heap to
-which with the other women she was raking the corn.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"But can I really not master myself?" said he to himself. "Have I really
-perished? Oh, God! But there is no God. There is only a devil. And it is
-she. She has possessed me. But I won't, I won't! A devil, yes, a devil."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-Again he went up to her, drew the revolver from his pocket and shot her,
-once, twice, thrice, in the back. She ran a few steps and fell on the
-heap of corn.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Good Lord, oh dear! What is that?" cried the women.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"No, it was not an accident. I killed her on purpose," cried Eugene.
-"Send for the police-officer."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He went home and, without speaking to his wife, went to his study and
-locked himself in.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Do not come to me," he cried to his wife through the door. "You will
-know all about it."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-An hour later he rang, and bade the man-servant who answered the bell:
-"Go and find out whether Stepanida is alive."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The servant already knew all about it, and told him she had died an hour
-ago.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-"Well, all right. Now leave me alone,&mdash;when the police-officer or the
-magistrate comes, let me know."
-</p>
-
-<p>
-The police-officer and magistrate arrived next morning, and Eugene,
-having bidden his wife and the baby farewell, was taken to prison.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He was tried. It was during the early days of trial by jury;<a name="FNanchor_5_1" id="FNanchor_5_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_1" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and the
-verdict was one of temporary insanity, and he was sentenced only to
-perform church penance.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-He had been kept in prison for nine months and was then confined in a
-monastery for one month.
-</p>
-
-<p><br></p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_5_1" id="Footnote_5_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_1"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>Trial by jury was introduced in 1864, and at first the
-juries were inclined to be extremely lenient to the prisoners.</p></div>
-
-<p><br><br><br></p>
-
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