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

had expected it. ‘That’s it!’ I said to myself. When I asked Egór who the visitor was and he named Trukhachévski, I inquired whether there was anyone else. He replied, ‘Nobody, sir.’ I remember that he replied in a tone as if he wanted to cheer me and dissipate my doubts of there being anybody else there. ‘So it is, so it is,’ I seemed to be saying to myself. ‘And the children?’ ‘All well, heaven be praised. In bed, long ago.’

“I could not breathe, and could not check the trembling of my jaw. ‘Yes, so it is not as I thought: I used to expect a misfortune but things used to turn out all right and in the usual way. Now it is not as usual, but is all as I pictured to myself. I thought it was only fancy, but here it is, all real. Here it all is⁠ ⁠… !’

“I almost began to sob, but the devil immediately suggested to me: ‘Cry, be sentimental, and they will get away quietly. You will have no proof and will continue to suffer and doubt all your life.’ And my self-pity immediately vanished, and a strange sense of joy arose in me, that my torture would now be over, that now I could punish her, could get rid of her, and could vent my anger. And I gave vent to it⁠—I became a beast, a cruel and cunning beast.

“ ‘Don’t!’ I said to Egór, who was about to go to the drawing room. “Here is my luggage ticket, take a cab as quick as you can and go and get my luggage. Go!’ He went down the passage to fetch his overcoat. Afraid that he might alarm them, I went as far as his little room and waited while he put on his overcoat. From the drawing room, beyond another room, one could hear voices and the clatter of knives and plates. They were eating and had not heard the bell. ‘If only they don’t come out now,’ thought I. Egór put on his overcoat, which had an astrakhan collar, and went out. I locked the door after him and felt creepy when I knew I was alone and must act at once. How, I did not yet know. I only knew that all was now over, that there could be no doubt as to her guilt, and that I should punish her immediately and end my relations with her.

“Previously I had doubted and had thought: ‘Perhaps after all it’s not true, perhaps I am mistaken.’ But now it was so no longer. It was all irrevocably decided. ‘Without my knowledge she is alone with him at night! That is a complete disregard of everything! Or worse still: It is intentional boldness and impudence in crime, that the boldness may serve as a sign of innocence. All is clear. There is no doubt.’ I only feared one thing⁠—their parting hastily, inventing some fresh lie, and thus depriving me of clear evidence and of the possibility of proving the fact. So as to catch them more quickly I went on tiptoe to the dancing room where they were, not through the drawing room but through the passage and nurseries.

“In the first nursery slept the boys. In the second nursery the nurse moved and was about to wake, and I imagined to myself what she would think when she knew all; and such pity for myself seized me at that thought that I could not restrain my tears, and not to wake the children I ran on tiptoe into the passage and on into my study, where I fell sobbing on the sofa.

“ ‘I, an honest man, I, the son of my parent, I, who have all my life dreamt of the happiness of married life; I, a man who was never unfaithful to her.⁠ ⁠… And now! Five children, and she is embracing a musician because he has red lips!

“ ‘No, she is not a human being. She is a bitch, an abominable bitch! In the next room to her children whom she has all her life pretended to love. And writing to me as she did! Throwing herself so barefacedly on his neck! But what do I know? Perhaps she long ago carried on with the footmen, and so got the children who are considered mine!

“ ‘Tomorrow I should have come back and she would have met me with her fine coiffure, with her elegant waist and her indolent, graceful movements’ (I saw all her attractive, hateful face), ‘and that beast of jealousy would forever have sat in my heart lacerating it. What will the nurse think?⁠ ⁠… And Egór? And poor little Lisa! She already understands something. Ah, that imprudence, those lies! And that animal sensuality which I know so well,’ I said to myself.

“I tried to get up but could not. My heart was beating so that I could not stand on my feet. ‘Yes, I shall die of a stroke. She will kill me. That is just what she wants. What is killing to her? But no, that would be too advantageous for her and I will not give her that pleasure. Yes, here I sit while they eat and laugh and⁠ ⁠… Yes, though she was no longer in her first freshness he did not disdain her. For in spite of that she is not bad looking, and above all she is at any rate not dangerous to his precious health. And why did I not throttle her then?’ I said to myself, recalling the moment when, the week before, I drove her out of my study and hurled things about. I vividly recalled the state I had then been in; I not only recalled it, but again felt the need to strike and destroy that I had felt then. I remember how I wished to act, and how all considerations except those necessary for action went out of my head. I entered into that condition when an animal or a man, under the influence