The Devil Read online

  MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING

  145 PLYMOUTH STREET

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 11201

  MHPBOOKS.COM

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE

  PAPERBACK EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  TOLSTOY, LEO, GRAF, 1828–1910

  [DYAVOL. ENGLISH]

  THE DEVIL / BY LEO TOLSTOY; TRANSLATED BY LOUISE AND AYLMER MAUDE

  P. CM.

  eISBN: 978-1-61219-232-1

  I. MAUDE, LOUISE SHANKS, 1855–1939. II. MAUDE, AYLMER, 1858–1938. III. TITLE.

  PG3366.D6 2004

  891.73′3–DC22

  2004008000

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  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

  Other Books in the Series

  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. 28–30

  I

  A brilliant career lay before Yevgeny Irtenev. He had everything necessary to attain it: an admirable education at home, high honours when he graduated in law at Petersburg University, and connexions in the highest society through his recently deceased father; he had also already begun service in one of the Ministries under the protection of the minister. Moreover he had a fortune; even a large one, though insecure. His father had lived abroad and in Petersburg, allowing his sons, Yevgeny and Andrey (who was older than Yevgeny and in the Horse Guards), six thousand 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, so many debts were discovered that their lawyer even advised them to refuse the inheritance and retain only an estate left them by their grandmother, which was valued at a hundred thousand 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 Semyonov estate with four thousand desyatins of black earth, the sugar factory, and two hundred desyatins of water-meadows) if one devoted oneself to the management of the estate, settled there, and farmed it wisely and economically.

  And so, having visited the estate in spring (his father had died in Lent), Yevgeny 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 either four thousand rubles a year, or a lump sum of eighty thousand, for which Andrey would hand over to him his share of his inheritance. So he arranged matters and, having settled down with his mother in the big house, began managing the estate eagerly, yet cautiously.

  It is generally supposed the Conservatives are usually old people, and that those in favour of change are the young. That is not quite correct. Usually Conservatives are young people: those who want to live but who do not think about how to live, and have not time to think, and therefore take as a model for themselves a way of life that they have seen. Thus it was with Yevgeny. 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 he tried to resurrect the general spirit of his grandfather’s life—in the house, the garden, and in the estate management—of course with changes suited to the times—everything on a large scale—good order, method, and everybody satisfied. But to do this 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 Semyonov estate, with its four hundred desyatins 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 Yevgeny had plenty of strength, physical and mental. He was twenty-six, of medium height, strongly built, with muscles developed by gymnastics. He was fullblooded and his whole neck was very red, his teeth and lips were bright, and his hair soft and curly though not thick. His only physical defect was short-sightedness, 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 on the bridge of his nose.

  Such was he physically. For his spiritual portrait it might be said that the better people knew him the better they liked him. His mother had always loved him more than 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. Yevgeny 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, and carts, and in particular 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 Yevgeny 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 neither, as he himself said, 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—in the sense that he had never given himself up to debauchery, never once been 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 t
hat 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 him; but as he was convinced that the thing was necessary and that he needed it, it really became a necessity, and he felt that he was not free and that his eyes involuntarily 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 landowners 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, and Yevgeny Ivanovich chatted with him, and the man began telling some strange tales of hunting sprees. It occurred to Yevgeny Ivanovich 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 Danila would undertake the arrangement. “Perhaps he will be horrified at such a proposal and I shall have disgraced myself, but perhaps he will agree to it quite simply.” So he thought while listening to Danila’s stories. Danila 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 Fyodor Zakharich Pryanichnikov.

  “It will be all right,” thought Yevgeny.

  “Your father, may the kingdom of heaven be his, did not go in for nonsense of that kind.”

  “It won’t do,” thought Yevgeny. But to test the matter he said: “How was it you engaged on such bad things?”

  “But what was there bad in it? She was glad, and Fyodor 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 Yevgeny, and at once proceeded to do so.

  “And do you know, Danila, I don’t know how to endure it.” He felt himself going scarlet.

  Danila 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 Danila 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 Danila briefly. He reflected.

  “Ah! There is a tasty morsel,” he began. Again Yevgeny went red. “A tasty morsel. See here, she was married last autumn.” Danila whispered—“and he hasn’t been able to do anything. Think what that is worth to one who wants it!”

  Yevgeny 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?”

  “Tomorrow 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 Yevgeny 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. Danila stood at the door and silently and significantly nodded towards the wood. The blood rushed to Yevgeny’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. She stood there, in a white embroidered apron, a red-brown skirt, and a bright red kerchief, barefoot, fresh, firm, and handsome, and smiling shyly.

  “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 Danila, 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 everything had 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, Danila said. What Pechnikov is that? There are two households of that name. Probably she is old Mikhalya’s daughter-in-law. Yes, that must be it. His son does live in Moscow. I’ll ask Danila about it some time.”

  From then onward that previously important drawback to country life—enforced self-restraint—was eliminated. Yevgeny’s freedom of mind was no longer disturbed and he was able to attend freely to his affairs.

  And the matter Yevgeny had undertaken was far from easy: before he had time to stop up one hole a new one would unexpectedly show itself, and 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, which would mean that all his efforts would be wasted and that he had failed to accomplish what he had undertaken. That prospect disturbed him most of all.

  All this time more and more debts of his father’s unexpectedly came to light. It was evident that towards the end of his life he had borrowed right and left. At the time of the settlement in May, Yevgeny had thought he at least knew everything, but in the middle of the summer he suddenly received a letter from which it appeared that there was still a debt of twelve thousand rubles to the widow Yesipova. There was no promissory note, but only an ordinary receipt which his lawyer told him could be disputed. But it did not enter Yevgeny’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 Yesipova?” he asked his mother when they met as usual for dinner.

  “Yesipova? She was brought up by your grandfather. Why?”
r />   Yevgeny 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 put it? 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.”

  Yevgeny saw that Marya 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 he. “I will go to see her tomorrow 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 Marya Pavlovna, evidently tranquillized and proud of her son’s decision.

  Yevgeny’s position was particularly hard because his mother, who was living with him, did not at all realize his position. She had been accustomed all her life long to live so extravagantly that she could not even imagine to herself the position her son was in, that is to say, that today or tomorrow 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 two thousand 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 Yevgeny 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 anything the departed had done or arranged could be wrong or could be altered.

  Yevgeny by great efforts managed to keep up the garden and the conservatory with two gardeners, and the stables with two coachmen. And Marya Pavlovna naively 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.