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

I must go to her. Probably it is always done, when a husband has killed his wife, as I had⁠—he must certainly go to her. ‘If that is what is done, then I must go,’ I said to myself. ‘If necessary I shall always have time,’ I reflected, referring to the shooting of myself, and I went to her. ‘Now we shall have phrases, grimaces, but I will not yield to them,’ I thought. ‘Wait,’ I said to her sister, ‘it is silly without boots, let me at least put on slippers.’ XXVIII

“Wonderful to say, when I left my study and went through the familiar rooms, the hope that nothing had happened again awoke in me; but the smell of that doctor’s nastiness⁠—iodoform and carbolic⁠—took me aback. ‘No, it had happened.’ Going down the passage past the nursery I saw little Lisa. She looked at me with frightened eyes. It even seemed to me that all the five children were there and all looked at me. I approached the door, and the maid opened it from inside for me and passed out. The first thing that caught my eye was her light-grey dress thrown on a chair and all stained black with blood. She was lying on one of the twin beds (on mine because it was easier to get at), with her knees raised. She say in a very sloping position supported by pillows, with her dressing jacket unfastened. Something had been put on the wound. There was a heavy smell of iodoform in the room. What struck me first and most of all was her swollen and bruised face, blue on part of the nose and under the eyes. This was the result of the blow with my elbow when she had tried to hold me back. There was nothing beautiful about her, but something repulsive as it seemed to me. I stopped on the threshold. ‘Go up to her, do,’ said her sister. ‘Yes, no doubt she wants to confess,’ I thought. ‘Shall I forgive her? Yes, she is dying and may be forgiven,’ I thought, trying to be magnanimous. I went up close to her. She raised her eyes to me with difficulty, one of them was black, and with an effort said falteringly:

“ ‘You’ve got your way, killed⁠ ⁠…’ and through the look of suffering and even the nearness of death her face had the old expression of cold animal hatred that I knew so well. ‘I shan’t⁠ ⁠… let you have⁠ ⁠… the children, all the same.⁠ ⁠… She’ (her sister) ‘will take⁠ ⁠…’

“Of what to me was the most important matter, her guilt, her faithlessness, she seemed to consider it beneath her to speak.

“ ‘Yes, look and admire what you have done,’ she said looking towards the door, and she sobbed. In the doorway stood her sister with the children. ‘Yes, see what you have done.’

“I looked at the children and at her bruised and disfigured face, and for the first time I forgot myself, my rights, my pride, and for the first time saw a human being in her. And so insignificant did all that had offended me, all my jealousy, appear, and so important what I had done, that I wished to fall with my face to her hand, and say: ‘Forgive me,’ but dared not do so.

“She lay silent with her eyes closed, evidently too weak to say more. Then her disfigured face trembled and puckered. She pushed me feebly away.

“ ‘Why did it all happen? Why?’

“ ‘Forgive me,’ I said.

“ ‘Forgive! That’s all rubbish!⁠ ⁠… only not to die!⁠ ⁠…’ she cried, raising herself, and her glittering eyes were bent on me. ‘Yes, you have had your way!⁠ ⁠… I hate you! Ah! Ah!’ she cried, evidently already in delirium and frightened at something. ‘Shoot! I’m not afraid!⁠ ⁠… Only kill everyone⁠ ⁠… ! He has gone⁠ ⁠… ! Gone⁠ ⁠… !’

“After that the delirium continued all the time. She did not recognize anyone. She died towards noon that same day. Before that they had taken me to the police station and from there to prison. There, during the eleven months I remained awaiting trial, I examined myself and my past, and understood it. I began to understand it on the third day: on the third day they took me there⁠ ⁠…”

He was going on but, unable to repress his sobs, he stopped. When he recovered himself he continued:

“I only began to understand when I saw her in her coffin⁠ ⁠…”

He gave a sob, but immediately continued hurriedly:

“Only when I saw her dead face did I understand all that I had done. I realized that I, I, had killed her; that it was my doing that she, living, moving, warm, had now become motionless, waxen, and cold, and that this could never, anywhere, or by any means, be remedied. He who has not lived through it cannot understand.⁠ ⁠… Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!⁠ ⁠…” he cried several times and then was silent.

We sat in silence a long while. He kept sobbing and trembling as he sat opposite me without speaking. His face had grown narrow and elongated and his mouth seemed to stretch right across it. “Yes,” he suddenly said. “Had I then known what I know now, everything would have been different. Nothing would have induced me to marry her.⁠ ⁠… I should not have married at all.”

Again we remained silent for a long time.

“Well, forgive me.⁠ ⁠…”286 He turned away from me and lay down on the seat, covering himself up with his plaid. At the station where I had to get out (it was at eight o’clock in the morning) I went up to him to say goodbye. Whether he was asleep or only pretended to be, at any rate he did not move. I touched him with my hand. He uncovered his face, and I could see he had not been asleep.

“Goodbye,” I said, holding out my hand. He gave me his and smiled slightly, but so piteously that I felt ready to weep.

“Yes, forgive me⁠ ⁠…” he said, repeating the same words with which he had