One day the monk appeared at dinner time and sat by the window in the dining-room. Kovrin was overjoyed and deftly started a conversation with Yegor Semyonych on a topic that the monk would very likely find interesting. The black visitor listened and nodded his head amiably. Yegor Semyonych and Tanya listened too, cheerfully smiling and without suspecting that Kovrin was speaking not to them, but to his hallucination.
The Fast of the Assumption came unnoticed and soon afterwards the wedding day, which, as Yegor Semyonych insisted, was celebrated with ‘a great splash’, that is to say, with senseless festivities that went on for two whole days. They got through three thousand roubles’ worth of food and drink, but with that miserable hired band, the riotous toasts and scurrying servants, the noise and the crush, they did not appreciate the expensive wines, nor the startling delicacies that had been ordered from Moscow.
VII
One long winter’s night Kovrin was reading a French novel in bed. Poor Tanya, who suffered from headaches in the evening as she wasn’t used to town life, had long been asleep and was muttering something incoherent.
Three o’clock struck. Kovrin snuffed the candle and lay down. He remained with eyes closed for a long time, but he could not sleep, possibly because the bedroom was very hot and Tanya was talking in her sleep. At half past four he lit the candle again and this time he saw the black monk sitting in the armchair near the bed.
‘Good evening,’ the monk said. After a brief pause he asked, ‘What are you thinking about now?’
‘Fame,’ Kovrin answered. ‘I’ve just been reading a French novel about a young scholar who does stupid things and who’s wasting away because of his longing for fame. This longing is something I can’t understand.’
‘That’s because you’re intelligent. You’re indifferent to fame, it’s a toy that doesn’t interest you.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘Fame doesn’t tempt you. What is flattering, or amusing, or edifying in having your name carved on a tombstone only for it to be rubbed off by time, gilding as well? Fortunately there are too many of you for humanity’s weak memory to retain your names.’
‘I understand that,’ Kovrin agreed. ‘And why should they be remembered? But let’s talk about something else. Happiness, for example. What is happiness?’
When the clock struck five he was sitting on the bed, his feet dangling over the carpet. He turned to the monk and said, ‘In antiquity, a certain happy man grew scared of his own good fortune in the end, it was so immense. So, to propitiate the Gods, he sacrificed his favourite ring. Do you know that I myself, like Polycrates, am getting rather uneasy about my own good fortune? It seems strange that from morning to night I feel only joy, it fills my whole being and stifles all other feelings. As for sorrow, sadness or boredom, I just don’t know what they are. Here I am, unable to sleep, suffering from insomnia, but I’m not bored. Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder what it all means.’
‘But why?’ the monk said in astonishment. ‘Is joy something supernatural? Shouldn’t it be looked on as man’s normal state? The higher man’s intellectual and moral development, the freer he is and the more pleasure life gives him. Socrates, Diogenes and Marcus Aurelius experienced joy, not sadness. And the Apostle says, “Rejoice evermore.” So rejoice and be happy.’
‘But supposing the Gods suddenly became angry?’ Kovrin said jokingly and burst out laughing. ‘If they were to take my comforts away and make me freeze and starve I don’t think I would like that.’
Meanwhile Tanya had woken up and she looked at her husband in horror and bewilderment. He was talking to the armchair, laughing and gesticulating. His eyes shone and there was something peculiar in his laughter.
‘Andrey, who are you talking to?’ she asked, clutching the hand he had held out to the monk. ‘Andrey, who is it?’
‘What? Who?’ Kovrin said, taken aback. ‘Well, to him … He’s sitting over there,’ he said, pointing at the black monk.
‘There’s no one here … no one! Andrey, you’re ill!’ Tanya embraced her husband and pressed herself against him, as if to protect him from ghosts, and covered his eyes with her hand. ‘You’re ill!’ she sobbed, shaking all over. ‘Forgive me, my dearest, but for some time now I’ve noticed something’s wrong with you. You’re sick in your mind, Andrey …’
Her trembling infected him as well. He looked once more at the armchair, which was empty now and felt a sudden weakness in his arms and legs. This frightened him and he started to dress.
‘It’s nothing, Tanya, nothing,’ he muttered, trembling. ‘But to tell the truth, I am a little unwell … it’s time I admitted it.’
‘I noticed it some time ago … and Papa did too,’ she said, trying to hold back her sobs. ‘You talk to yourself, you smile so strangely … you’re not sleeping. Oh, good God, good God, save us!’ she said in horror. ‘But don’t be afraid, Andrey dear, don’t be afraid. For God’s sake don’t be afraid …’
She began to dress too. Only now, as he looked at her, did Kovrin fully realize how dangerous his position was, only now did he understand the meaning of the black monk and his talks with him. He was quite convinced now that he was insane.
Both of them got dressed, without understanding why, and went into the ballroom, she first and he following. And there stood Yegor Semyonych (he was staying with them and had been awakened by the sobbing) in his dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand.
‘Don’t be afraid, Andrey,’ Tanya said, shaking as though in a fever. ‘Don’t be afraid … Papa, it will pass … it will pass …’
Kovrin could not speak, he was so upset. He wanted to tell his father-in-law, just for a joke, ‘Please congratulate me, I think I’ve gone mad …’, but all he could do was move his lips and smile bitterly.
At nine in the morning they put his greatcoat and furs on, wrapped a shawl round him and took him in a carriage to the doctor’s. He began a course of treatment.
VIII
Summer had come and the doctor ordered him into the country. Kovrin was better now, had stopped seeing the black monk and it only remained for him to get his strength back. Living with his father-in-law in the country, he drank a lot of milk, worked only two hours a day, and did not drink or smoke.
On the eve of Elijah’s Day evening service was held in the house. When the lay reader handed the priest the censer, the enormous old ballroom smelt like a graveyard. Kovrin grew bored. He went out into the garden, wandered about without noticing the gorgeous flowers, sat down on a bench, and then strolled through the park. When he reached the river he went down the slope and stood looking thoughtfully at the water. The gloomy pines with their shaggy roots which had seen him here the previous year looking so young, joyful and lively, no longer talked in whispers, but stood motionless and dumb, as though they did not recognize him. And in fact his hair had been cut short, it was no longer beautiful, he walked sluggishly and his face had grown fuller and paler since the previous summer.
He crossed the footbridge to the other side. Where rye had been growing last year were rows of reaped oats. The sun had already set and a broad red glow burned on the horizon, a sign that it would be windy next day. It was quiet. Looking hard in the direction where the black monk had first appeared last year, Kovrin stood for about twenty minutes until the evening glow began to fade.
When he returned to the house, feeling listless and dissatisfied, the service was over. Yegor Semyonych and Tanya were sitting on the terrace steps drinking tea. They were discussing something, but suddenly became silent when they saw Kovrin, and he guessed from their expressions that they had been talking about him.
‘Well, I think it’s time for your milk,’ Tanya told her husband.
‘No, it’s not,’ he answered, sitting on the lowest step. ‘Drink it yourself, I don’t want any.’
Tanya anxiously exchanged glances with her father and said quietly, ‘But you yourself said the milk does you a lot of good!’
‘Yes, a lot of good!’ Kov
rin replied, grinning. ‘I congratulate you – since Friday I’ve put on another pound.’ He firmly clasped his head and said in an anguished voice, ‘Why, why did you try to cure me? All those bromides, idleness, warm baths, supervision, the cowardly fear with every mouthful, every step. All this will finally turn me into a complete idiot. I was going out of my mind, I had megalomania, but I was bright and cheerful, even happy. I was interesting and original. Now I’ve grown more rational and stable, but I’m just like everyone else, a nobody. Life bores me … Oh, how cruelly you’ve treated me! I did have hallucinations, but did they harm anyone? Whom did they harm, that’s what I’d like to know?’
‘God knows what you’re talking about!’ Yegor Semyonych sighed. ‘It’s downright boring listening to you.’
‘Then don’t listen.’
Kovrin found other people’s presence, especially Yegor Semyonych’s, irritating and he would answer him drily, coldly, rudely even; and he could not look at him without a feeling of hatred and mockery, which embarrassed Yegor Semyonych, who would cough guiltily, although he didn’t feel he was in the least to blame. Unable to understand why their friendly, loving relationship had changed so suddenly, Tanya pressed close to her father and looked him anxiously in the eye. She wanted to understand, but she could not, and she could only see that with every day relations were getting worse, that her father had aged considerably recently, while her husband had become irritable, moody, quarrelsome and uninteresting. No longer could she laugh and sing, she ate nothing at mealtimes, and lay awake whole nights expecting something terrible. She went through such torture that once she lay in a faint from lunch until the evening. During the service she thought that her father was crying and now, when the three of them sat on the terrace, she endeavoured not to think about it.
‘How fortunate Buddha, Muhammad or Shakespeare were in not being treated by kind-hearted relatives for ecstasy and inspiration!’ Kovrin said. ‘If Muhammad had taken potassium bromide for his nerves, had worked only two hours a day and drunk milk, then that remarkable man would have left as much to posterity as his dog. In the long run doctors and kind relatives will turn humanity into a lot of morons. Mediocrity will pass for genius and civilization will perish. If only you knew,’ Kovrin added with annoyance, ‘how grateful I am to you!’
He was absolutely infuriated and quickly got up and went into the house, in case he said too much. It was quiet and the smell of tobacco flowers and jalap drifted in from the garden through the open windows. Green patches of moonlight lay on the floor in the huge dark ballroom and on the grand piano. Kovrin recalled the joys of the previous summer, when there was that same smell of jalap, and the moon had shone through the windows. Trying to recapture that mood he hurried to his study, lit a strong cigar and told a servant to bring him some wine. But the cigar left a bitter, disgusting taste and the wine tasted differently from last year: these were the effects of having given up the habit. The cigar and two mouthfuls of wine made his head go round, he had palpitations, for which he had to take potassium bromide.
Before she went to bed Tanya told him, ‘Father adores you. You’re cross with him about something and this is killing him. Just look, he’s ageing by the hour, not by the day. I beg you, Andrey, for God’s sake, for the sake of your late father, for the sake of my peace of mind, please be nice to him!’
‘I can’t and I won’t!’
‘But why not?’ Tanya asked, trembling all over. ‘Tell me, why not?’
‘Because I don’t like him, that’s all,’ Kovrin said nonchalantly, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘But let’s not talk about him, he’s your father.’
‘I just can’t understand, I really can’t!’ Tanya said, clutching her temples and staring fixedly at something. ‘Something incomprehensible and horrible is going on in this house. You’ve changed, you’re not your normal self. A clever, remarkable man like you losing your temper over trifles, getting mixed up in petty squabbles … These little things worry you and sometimes I’m simply amazed, I just can’t believe it’s really you.’ Then she continued, frightened of her own words and kissing his hands, ‘Now, now, don’t be angry, don’t be angry. You are a clever man, and a good man. You will be fair to Father, he’s so kind.’
‘He’s not kind, only smug. Music-hall clowns like your father, bounteous old cranks, with their well-fed, smug faces, used to touch and amuse me once in stories, farces and in real life. But now I find them repugnant. They’re egotists to the marrow. What I find most disgusting is their being so well fed, with that optimism that comes from a full belly. They’re just like oxen or wild pigs.’
Tanya sat on the bed and lay her head on the pillow. ‘This is sheer torture,’ she said and from her voice it was plain that she was utterly exhausted and that she found it hard to speak. ‘Not a single moment’s peace since winter … It’s so terrible. Oh God, I feel shocking!’
‘Yes, of course I’m the monster and you and your Papa are the sweet innocents. Of course!’
His face seemed ugly and unpleasant to Tanya. Hatred and that mocking expression did not suit him. And she had in fact noticed before that there was something lacking in his face, as if that had changed too since his hair was cut short. She wanted to say something to hurt him, but immediately she became aware of this hostile feeling she grew frightened and left the bedroom.
IX
Kovrin was awarded a professorship. His inaugural lecture was fixed for 2 December and a notice announcing it was put up in the university corridor. But on the appointed day he cabled the dean, informing him he was not well enough to lecture.
He had a haemorrhage in the throat. He would spit blood, but twice a month there was considerable loss of blood, which left him extremely weak and drowsy. The illness did not frighten him particularly, since he knew his late mother had lived with exactly the same disease for ten years or more. And the doctors assured him it was not dangerous, and merely advised him not to get excited, to lead a regular life and to talk as little as possible.
In January the lecture was again cancelled for the same reason and in February it was too late to start the course, which had to be postponed until the following year.
He no longer lived with Tanya, but with another woman two years older than he was and who cared for him as though he were a child. His state of mind was calm, submissive. He eagerly gave in to her and when Barbara (his mistress’s name) decided to take him to the Crimea he agreed, although he expected no good to come from the trip.
They reached Sevastopol one evening and rested at a hotel before going on to Yalta the next day. They were both exhausted from the journey. Barbara drank some tea, went to bed and soon fell asleep. But Kovrin did not go to bed. Before he had left home – an hour before setting off for the station – he had received a letter from Tanya and had decided not to open it. It was now in one of his coat pockets and the thought of it had a disagreeable, unsettling effect on him. In the very depths of his heart he now considered his marriage to Tanya had been a mistake, and was pleased he had finally broken with her. The memory of that woman who had ended up as a walking skeleton and in whom everything seemed to have died – except for those large, clever, staring eyes – this memory aroused only pity in him and annoyance with himself. The writing on the envelope reminded him how unjust and cruel he had been two years ago, how he had taken revenge on others for his spiritual emptiness, his boredom, his loneliness, his dissatisfaction with life.
In this respect he remembered how he had once torn his dissertation and all the articles written during his illness into shreds and thrown them out of the window, the scraps of paper fluttering in the breeze, catching on trees and flowers. In every line he saw strange, utterly unfounded claims, enthusiasm run riot, audacity and megalomania, which had made him feel as if he were reading a description of his own vices. But when the last notebook had been torn up and had flown through the window, he felt for some reason bitterly annoyed: he had gone to his wife and told her many unpleasant things. God, how he
had tormented her! Once, when he wanted to hurt his wife, he told her that her father had played a most distasteful role in their romance, having asked him if he would marry her. Yegor Semyonych happened to hear this and rushed into the room speechless with despair; all he could do was stamp his feet and make a strange bellowing noise, as if he had lost the power of speech, while Tanya looked at her father, gave a heart-rending shriek and fainted. It was an ugly scene.
All this came to mind at the sight of the familiar handwriting. Kovrin went out onto the balcony. The weather was warm and calm, and he could smell the sea. The magnificent bay reflected the moon and the lights, and its colour was hard to describe. It was a delicate, soft blending of dark-blue and green; in places the water was like blue vitriol, in others the moonlight seemed to have taken on material substance and filled the bay instead of water. But what a harmony of colour, what a peaceful, calm and ennobling mood reigned over all!
The windows were most probably open in the room below, beneath the balcony, as he could hear women’s voices and laughter quite distinctly. Someone was having a party, it seemed.
Kovrin forced himself to open the letter, returned to his room and read: ‘Father has just died. I owe that to you, as you killed him. Our garden is going to rack and ruin – strangers are running it – that’s to say, what poor father feared so much has come about. I owe this to you as well. I hate you with all my heart and hope you’ll soon be dead. Oh, how I’m suffering! An unbearable pain is burning inside me. May you be damned! I took you for an outstanding man, for a genius, I loved you, but you turned out a madman …’
Kovrin could not read any more, tore the letter up and threw it away. He was seized by a feeling of anxiety that was very close to terror. Barbara was sleeping behind a screen and he could hear her breathing. From the ground floor came women’s voices and laughter, but he felt that besides himself there wasn’t a living soul in the whole hotel. He was terrified because the unhappy, broken-hearted Tanya had cursed him in her letter and had wished for his death. He glanced at the door, as if fearing that the unknown force which had wrought such havoc in his life and in the lives of those near and dear over the last two years might come into the room and take possession of him again.