The Devil Page 5

  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 Yevgeny’s uncle. Marya Pavlovna was as usual at home.

  Yevgeny 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. Yevgeny sat at home with his wife, who was particularly wearisome that day. She questioned Yevgeny 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 Yevgeny in the house. Everything was weak and dull. He read a book and a magazine, but understood nothing of them.

  “I must go out and look at the rasping-machine they brought yesterday,” said he, and 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; and he had not gone twenty steps before he met her coming towards him, 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, and 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 Yevgeny, 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 I could tell if she has been here by her footprints,” he reflected. 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 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 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 foul. The whole evening Yevgeny 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 tomorrow.

  “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? 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 midwife there, and you would be just in time for the best of the grape season.”

  “Uncle,” Yevgeny 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 Yevgeny. And the thought of disclosing his secret to his uncle whom he did not respect, the thought that he should 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!”

  “What is this? 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.

  Yevgeny 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 Yevgeny 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 understand the full horror of my action, that is to say, of the act I may commit any moment, and yet I myself turn to it, and if I have not committed it, 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 Yevgeny 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. Today I was hindered by chance. But tomorrow 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 much in love?”

  “Oh, 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.”

  XVIII

  The fact that Yevgeny had confided his secret to his uncle, and still more 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 Yevgeny 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 Yevgeny, 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 Yevgeny 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. Yevgeny 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 her 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 Zinovey. She has gone quite on the loose.”

  “Well, that is all right,” thought Yevgeny. “How wonderfully indifferent to it I am! How I have changed.”

  XIX

  All that Yevgeny had wished had been realized. He had obtained the property, the factory was working successfully, the beet-crops were excellent, and he expected a large income; his wife had borne a child satisfactorily, his mother-in-law had left, and he had been unanimously elected to the zemstvo.

  He 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, and he was thinking about these as he drove home. It was the Indian summer: an excellent road and a hot sun. As he approached his home Yevgeny was thinking of how, as a result of this election, he would occupy among the people the position he had always dreamed of; 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 what his own and the other peasants would think of him in three years’ time. “For instance this one,” he thought, drifting 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. Yevgeny 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 Yevgeny drove about to see to the farming which he had been neglecting. At the outlying farmstead a new threshing machine was at work. While watching it Yevgeny 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 threshing 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 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 cheered him and been important 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 w
as 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,” he said to himself. “Yes, and that is having a clean healthy woman for one’s health 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.