“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 bee 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.
Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene, 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 Eugene 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. Eugene 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 extend 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 Zenovi. She has gone quite on the loose.”
“Well, that is all right,” thought Eugene. “How wonderfully indifferent to it I am! How I have changed.”
XIX
All that Eugene 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 Eugene 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. Eugene 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 Eugene drove about to see to the farming which he had been neglecting. At the outlying farmstead a new thrashing machine was at work. While watching it Eugene 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 thrashing 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
