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Title: The Devil

Author: graf Leo Tolstoy

Translator: Aylmer Maude

Release date: January 22, 2022 [eBook #67224]
                Most recently updated: August 7, 2023

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: George Allen & Unwin Ltd

Credits: 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.]



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