The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Kreutzer Sonata/Chapter 25
XXV.
The conductor came in, and, noticing that the candle was burning low, put it out, without substituting another for it. Day began to break. Pózdnyshev was silent, drawing deep sighs as long as the conductor was in the car. He continued his story only when the conductor had left, and in the half-dark car could be heard only the rattle of the windows of the moving car and the even snoring of the clerk. In the twilight of the dawn I could not see Pózdnyshev's face at all. I could hear only his ever more agitated and suffering voice.
"I had to travel thirty-five miles in a carriage and eight hours by train. It was nice travelling in the carriage. It was a frosty autumn day with a bright sun,—you know, that period of the year when the ruts are clearly defined on the muddy road. The roads are smooth, the light is bright, the air bracing. It was a pleasure to ride in the tarantás. When it was day and I had started, I felt easier. As I looked at the horses, at the fields, and at the passers-by, I forgot whither I was travelling. At times it seemed to me that I was merely journeying, and that there was nothing of that which had provoked me. It was a relief to me to be able to forget myself thus. Whenever I recalled where I was travelling to, I said to myself: 'There will be time then, but now do not think!'
"In the middle of the road there happened an accident which detained me and still more diverted my attention: the tarantás broke and had to be repaired. This breakdown was of great importance in that it made me arrive at Moscow, not at five o'clock, as I had expected, but at twelve, and at home at one, as I missed the express and had to take the passenger train. The search for a cart, the mending, the settling of bills, the tea at the inn, the talks with the janitor,—all that still more diverted my attention. At evening twilight all was done, and I started once more. In the night it was pleasanter to travel than in daytime. The new moon was up; there was a slight frost; then the beautiful road, the horses, the merry driver,—and I travelled and enjoyed myself, hardly thinking of what awaited me, or maybe I enjoyed it all so much because I knew what was awaiting me and I was bidding farewell to all the joys of life. This calm mood, this ability to suppress my feelings, came to an end with the carriage drive.
"The moment I entered the car, something quite different began for me. This eight-hour journey in the car was something terrible,—I shall not forget it all my life. I do not know whether it was that, seating myself in the car, I vividly presented to myself my arrival, or because the railroad acts in such an exciting manner upon people, but the moment I sat down in the car I could not control my imagination, and it did not cease painting for me with the greatest clearness, one after another, pictures that fanned my jealousy, and what was all the time going on there, while she was false to me. I burned with indignation, rage, and a certain special feeling of gloating over my humiliation, as I contemplated these pictures, and I could not tear myself away from them, could not help looking at them, could not wipe them out, could not help evoking them. More than that. The more I contemplated these imaginary pictures, the more I believed in their reality. The brightness with which these pictures arose before me seemed to serve as a proof that that which I imagined was real. A devil, as it were against my will, concocted and whispered to me the most terrible combinations. I recalled a late conversation with a brother of Trukhachévski, and I with a kind of transport lacerated my heart with this conversation, referring it to Trukhachévski and my wife.
"That had happened long ago, but I recalled it. Trukhachévski's brother, I remembered once, in reply to question whether he frequented certain houses, said that a decent man would not go where he might catch a disease, and it was dirty and nasty to do it, as long as one could find a decent woman. And so he, his brother, had found my wife. 'It is true, she is no longer in her first youth; she has lost one side tooth, and there is a certain puffiness,' I thought for him, 'but what is to be done? I must make use of what I find.—Yes, he is condescending to her in making her his mistress,' I said to myself. 'Besides, there is no danger with her— No, it is impossible!' I said to myself, in terror. 'There is nothing of the kind, nothing! There is not even basis for supposing anything of the kind. Did she not tell me that even the thought of my being jealous of him was humiliating to her? Ah, but she is lying, she is doing nothing but lying!' I called out, and it began once more— There were but two passengers in our car: an old woman and her husband, both very talkative, but they left at a station, and I remained all alone. I was like a beast in a cage: now I jumped up and walked over to the windows; now I staggered and began to walk as though to get ahead of the car; but the car with all its benches and windows kept shaking just like this one—"
Pózdnyshev jumped up, took a few steps, and again sat down.
"Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid of the railway cars,—terror takes possession of me! Yes, they are terrible!" he continued. "I said to myself that I would think of something else, say of the landlord of the inn where I drank the tea. And so before my mental eye arose the janitor with a long beard and his grandson, a child as old as my Vásya. 'My Vásya! He will see the musician kiss his mother. What will take place in his poor soul? What does she care! She loves—' And again the same storm arose in me. 'No, no. I will think of the inspection of the hospital. Yes, how the patient yesterday complained of the doctor. The doctor has a moustache just like Trukhachévski's. With what a brazen face he—both of them—deceived me, when he said that he was leaving.' And again it began. Everything of which I thought was connected with him. I suffered terribly. My chief suffering was in the ignorance, the doubts, the doubleness, the want of knowledge of whether I was to love or hate her. The suffering was a strange feeling: a hatred of the consciousness of my humiliation and his victory, and a terrible hatred for her.
"'I cannot make an end of myself and leave her; she must suffer at least some, in order that she may understand what I have gone through,' I said to myself. I went out at every station to divert myself. In one station I saw people drinking near the counter, and I immediately drank some brandy. Near me was standing a Jew, and he also was drinking. He began to talk, and I, not to be left alone in the car, went with him into a dirty, smoke-filled car of the third class, the floor of which was covered with shells of pumpkin seeds. I sat down at his side, and he kept chatting and telling some kinds of anecdotes. I listened to him, but was unable to understand what he was saying because I was all the time thinking about myself. He noticed it and began to demand my attention; so I got up and went back to my car.
"'I must consider,' I said to myself, 'whether that which I am thinking is true, and whether there is any cause for me to be tormented so.' I sat down, wishing quietly to reflect over it, but immediately, instead of the quiet reflection, it started again: instead of meditation there were pictures and presentations. 'How often have I been tormented thus,' I said to myself (I recalled former similar fits of jealousy) 'and then it all ended in nothing. It may be thus even now, and I am sure I shall find her quietly asleep; she will wake up, will be glad to see me, and from her words and looks I shall feel that nothing has happened, and that all this is nonsense. Oh, how good it would be!'—'No, this has happened too often, and will not be so now,' a certain voice told me, and again it started. That is where the punishment was! Not to a syphilitic hospital would I take a young man in order to cure him of his desire for woman, but into my soul, to look at those devils that were tearing it to pieces! What was terrible was that I arrogated to myself the unquestioned, full right over her body, as though it were my own body, and at the same time felt that I could not rule over this body, that it was not mine, and that she could dispose of it as she wished, and wished to dispose of it differently from what I wanted her to. And I could do nothing to her or to him. He, like Vánka, the steward of the fable, will sing before the gibbet a song of having kissed the sugared lips, and so forth, and his will be the victory. Still less can I do anything with her. If she did not do it, but wished to do it,—and I know that she does want to,—it is even worse. It would be better if she did do it, and I should know,—there would be no uncertainty. I could not tell what it was I wanted. I wanted her not to wish for that which she could not help wishing for. This was complete insanity!