Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

“ ‘Oh, well, if you are going to scold like a cabman I’ll go away.’

“ ‘Go, but remember that if you don’t value the family honour, I value not you (devil take you) but the honour of the family!’

“ ‘But what is the matter? What?’

“ ‘Go away, for God’s sake be off!’

“Whether she pretended not to understand what it was about or really did not understand, at any rate she took offence, grew angry, and did not go away but stood in the middle of the room.

“ ‘You have really become impossible,’ she began. ‘You have a character that even an angel could not put up with.’ And as usual trying to sting me as painfully as possible, she reminded me of my conduct to my sister (an incident when, being exasperated, I said rude things to my sister); she knew I was distressed about it and she stung me just on that spot. ‘After that, nothing from you will surprise me,’ she said.

“ ‘Yes! Insult me, humiliate me, disgrace me, and then put the blame on me,’ I said to myself, and suddenly I was seized by such terrible rage as I had never before experienced.

“For the first time I wished to give physical expression to that rage. I jumped up and went towards her; but just as I jumped up I remembered becoming conscious of my rage and asking myself: ‘Is it right to give way to this feeling?’ and at once I answered that it was right, that it would frighten her, and instead of restraining my fury, I immediately began inflaming it still further, and was glad it burnt yet more fiercely within me.

“ ‘Be off, or I’ll kill you!’ I shouted, going up to her and seizing her by the arm. I consciously intensified the anger in my voice as I said this. And I suppose I was terrible for she was so frightened that she had not even the strength to go away, but only said: ‘Vásya, what is it? What is the matter with you?’

“ ‘Go!’ I roared louder still. ‘No one but you can drive me to fury. I do not answer for myself!’

“Having given reins to my rage, I revelled in it and wished to do something still more unusual to show the extreme degree of my anger. I felt a terrible desire to beat her, to kill her, but knew that this would not do, and so to give vent to my fury I seized a paperweight from my table, again shouting ‘Go!’ and hurled it to the floor near her. I aimed it very exactly past her. Then she left the room, but stopped at the doorway, and immediately, while she still saw it (I did it so that she might see), I began snatching things from the table⁠—candlesticks and inkstand⁠—and hurling them on the floor still shouting ‘Go! Get out! I don’t answer for myself!’ She went away⁠—and I immediately stopped.

“An hour later the nurse came to tell me that my wife was in hysterics. I went to her; she sobbed, laughed, could not speak, and her whole body was convulsed. She was not pretending, but was really ill.

“Towards morning she grew quiet, and we made peace under the influence of the feeling we called love.

“In the morning when, after our reconciliation, I confessed to her that I was jealous of Trukhachévski, she was not at all confused, but laughed most naturally; so strange did the very possibility of an infatuation for such a man seem to her, she said.

“ ‘Could a decent woman have any other feeling for such a man than the pleasure of his music? Why, if you like I am ready never to see him again⁠ ⁠… not even on Sunday, though everybody has been invited. Write and tell him that I am ill, and there’s an end of it! Only it is unpleasant that anyone, especially he himself, should imagine that he is dangerous. I am too proud to allow anyone to think that of me!’

“And you know, she was not lying, she believed what she was saying; she hoped by those words to evoke in herself contempt for him and so to defend herself from him, but she did not succeed in doing so. Everything was against her, especially that accursed music. So it all ended, and on the Sunday the guests assembled and they again played together.

“I suppose it is hardly necessary to say that I was very vain: if one is not vain there is nothing to live for in our usual way of life. So on that Sunday I arranged the dinner and the musical evening with much care. I bought the provisions myself and invited the guests.

“Towards six the visitors assembled. He came in evening dress with diamond studs that showed bad taste. He behaved in a free and easy manner, answered everything hurriedly with a smile of agreement and understanding, you know, with that peculiar expression which seems to say that all you may do or say is just what he expected. Everything that was not in good taste about him I noticed with particular pleasure, because it ought all to have had the effect of tranquilizing me and showing that he was so far beneath my wife that, as she had said, she could not lower herself to his level. I did not now allow myself to be jealous. In the first place I had worried through that torment and needed rest, and secondly I wanted to believe my wife’s assurances and did believe them. But though I was not jealous I was nevertheless not natural with either of them, and at dinner and during the first half of the evening before the music began I still followed their movements and looks.

“The dinner was, as dinners are, dull and pretentious. The music began pretty early. Oh, how I remember every detail of that evening! I remember how he brought in his violin, unlocked the case, took off the cover