The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Kreutzer Sonata/Chapter 20
XX.
"Yes, it was even so before it happened.
"We lived in a kind of truce, when there seemed to be no reason for breaking it. Suddenly the conversation touches upon a certain dog, of which I say that it received a medal at the show. She says that it was not a medal, but honourable mention. A discussion ensues. We begin to jump from one subject to another and to hurl accusations at each other: 'Of course, it is always that way.'—'You said—'—'No, I did not say.'—'So I am lying?' You feel that before you know it that terrible quarrel will be on, when you will kill yourself or her. You know that it will begin directly, and you are afraid of it as of fire, and you would like to restrain yourself, but fury takes possession of your whole being. And she, being in the same, but even worse condition, purposely misinterprets every word of mine, and every word of hers is saturated with poison; she stings me in whatever she knows is the most painful spot. The farther it goes the worse it gets. I cry out, 'Shut up!' or something of the kind.
"She jumps out of the room and runs into the nursery. I try to keep her back, in order to finish my sentence to her, and I seize her by the arm. She pretends that I have hurt her, and cries: 'Children, your father is striking me!' I cry out, 'Don't lie!'—'It is not the first time!' she cries, or something of the kind. The children rush to her. She calms them down. I say, 'Don't pretend!' She says: 'For you everything is pretence. You will kill a person, and then you will say that the person pretends. Now I understand you. That is what you want to do!'—'Oh, I wish you were dead!' I cry. I remember how these terrible words frightened me. I had not thought I could say such terrible, coarse words, and I wonder how they could have escaped from me. I cry these terrible words, and I run into my cabinet, and sit down and smoke. I hear her coming out into the antechamber and getting ready to depart. I ask her where she is going, but she does not answer. 'The devil take her,' I say to myself, returning to my cabinet, and I again lie down and smoke. A thousand different plans as to how to take my revenge on her and get rid of her, how to mend it all and make it appear as though nothing had happened, pass through my mind. I meditate over this, and I smoke, and smoke, and smoke. I think of running away from her, of hiding, of going to America. I go so far as to imagine how I shall be rid of her and how nice it will be when I shall unite with another beautiful and entirely fresh woman. I shall get rid of her by her death, or by being divorced from her, and I am planning how to do it. I see that I am getting mixed up and that I am not thinking of what I ought to think about, and in order not to see that I am not thinking of what I ought to think about, I smoke.
"Life at home goes on. The governess comes and asks: 'Where is madam? When will she return?' The lackey asks: 'Shall tea be served?' I come to the dining-room, and the children, especially the eldest, Líza, who can comprehend, look interrogatively and disapprovingly at me. We drink tea in silence. She is not yet back. A whole evening passes, she is not back, and two feelings alternately arise in my soul: anger with her for tormenting me and the children by her absence, which will end by her return, and fear that she will not return and will do something to herself. I should like to go to find her. But where shall I look for her? At her sister's? It would be stupid to go there to ask. Well, if she wants to torment me, let her, too, be tormented. That is what she is waiting for. The next time it will be only worse. What if she is not at her sister's, but is doing or has already done something to herself? Eleven o'clock, twelve. I do not go to the sleeping-room,—it is stupid to lie there alone and wait,—I will lie down here. I want to busy myself with something, to write a letter, to read; but I am not able to do anything. I sit alone in my cabinet, and worry, and am angry, and listen. Three o'clock, four o'clock,—she is not back yet. Toward morning I fall asleep. I awake,—she is not back.
"Everything in the house goes as of old, but all are perplexed, and all look interrogatively and reproachfully at me, assuming that it is all my fault. Within me is the same struggle,—fury because she torments me so, and anxiety on her account.
"At about eleven o'clock in the morning her sister comes as her messenger to me, and there begins the customary: 'She is in a terrible state. What can it be? Nothing has happened?' I speak of the impossibility of her disposition, and say that I have not done anything.
"'It cannot remain as it is,' says her sister.
"'It is all her doing, not mine,' I say. 'I will not make the first step. If we are to separate, well and good!'
"My sister-in-law goes away without having accomplished anything. I said boldly that I would not make the first step; but the moment she is gone and I go out and see the poor, frightened children, I am ready to make the first step. I should like to make it, but I do not know how. Again I walk around, I smoke, I drink brandy and wine at breakfast, and I reach the point which I unconsciously wish: I do not see the stupidity and meanness of my situation.
"About three o'clock she returns. She says nothing to me as she meets me. I imagine that she is pacified, and I begin to tell her how her reproaches provoked me. She says with the same stern and terribly drawn face that she has come not to make explanations, but to take the children away, that we cannot live together. I tell her that it was not my fault, that she made me lose my patience. She looks sternly and solemnly at me, and then says: 'Don't speak another word, or you will regret it!' I say to her that I can't now stand any comedy. She shouts something which I cannot make out and runs to her room. The key rings out after her: she has locked herself in. I push the door,—there is no answer, and I go away in fury. Half an hour later Líza comes to me in tears.—'What, what is the matter?'—'We do not hear mamma.'—We go there. I jerk the door with all my might. The bolt is not well fastened, and both halves of the door come open. I walk up to the bed. She is lying uncomfortably on her bed, in her skirts and high shoes. On the table is an empty opium bottle. We bring her back to her senses. Tears, and, at last, we make up. We do not make up: in the soul of each is the same malice toward the other, with the addition of irritation for the pain inflicted by this quarrel, which one puts to the account of the other. But it has to be ended in some way, and life proceeds as of old.
"It was quarrels of this kind, and even worse quarrels that we had all the time,—once a week, or once a month, and, at times, even every day. And it was all the time the same. Once I went so far as to provide myself with a passport for abroad,—the quarrel had lasted two days. But after that there was again a semblance of an explanation, a patched-up peace,—and I remained.