The Black Monk

Andrei Vasilyevitch Kovrin, Magister, had worn himself out, and

unsettled his nerves. He made no effort to undergo regular treatment;

but only incidentally, over a bottle of wine, spoke to his friend the

doctor; and his friend the doctor advised him to spend all the spring

and summer in the country. And in the nick of time came a long letter

from Tánya Pesótsky, asking him to come and stay with her father at

Borisovka. He decided to go.

But first (it was in April) he travelled to his own estate, to his

native Kovrinka, and spent three weeks in solitude; and only when the

fine weather came drove across the country to his former guardian and

second parent, Pesótsky, the celebrated Russian horti-culturist. From

Kovrinka to Borisovka, the home of the Pesótskys, was a distance of

some seventy versts, and in the easy, springed calêche the drive along

the roads, soft in springtime, promised real enjoyment.

The house at Borisovka was, large, faced with a colonnade, and adorned

with figures of lions with the plaster falling off. At the door stood

a servant in livery. The old park, gloomy and severe, laid out in

English fashion, stretched for nearly a verst from the house down to

the river, and ended there in a steep clay bank covered with pines

whose bare roots resembled shaggy paws. Below sparkled a deserted

stream; overhead the snipe circled about with melancholy cries--all, in

short, seemed to invite a visitor to sit down and write a ballad. But

the gardens and orchards, which together with the seed-plots occupied

some eighty acres, inspired very different feelings. Even in the worst

of weather they were bright and joy-inspiring. Such wonderful roses,

lilies, camelias, such tulips, such a host of flowering plants of every

possible kind and colour, from staring white to sooty black,--such a

wealth of blossoms Kovrin had never seen before. The spring was only

beginning, and the greatest rareties were hidden under glass; but

already enough bloomed in the alleys and beds to make up an empire of

delicate shades. And most charming of all was it in the early hours of

morning, when dewdrops glistened on every petal and leaf.

In childhood the decorative part of the garden, called contemptuously

by Pesótsky "the rubbish," had produced on Kovrin a fabulous

impression. What miracles of art, what studied monstrosities, what

monkeries of nature! Espaliers of fruit trees, a pear tree shaped like

a pyramidal poplar, globular oaks and lindens, apple-tree houses,

arches, monograms, candelabra--even the date 1862 in plum trees, to

commemorate the year in which Pesótsky first engaged in the art of

gardening. There were stately, symmetrical trees, with trunks erect

as those of palms, which after examination proved to be gooseberry or

currant trees. But what most of all enlivened the garden and gave it

its joyous tone was the constant movement of Pesótsky's gardeners.

From early morning to late at night, by the trees, by the bushes, in

the alleys, and on the beds swarmed men as busy as ants, with barrows,

spades, and watering-pots.

Kovrin arrived at Borisovka at nine o'clock. He found Tánya and her

father in great alarm. The clear starlight night foretold frost, and

the head gardener, Ivan Karlitch, had gone to town, so that there was

no one who could be relied upon. At supper they spoke only of the

impending frost; and it was decided that Tánya should not go to bed at

all, but should inspect the gardens at one o'clock and see if all were

in order, while Yegor Semiónovitch should rise at three o'clock, or

even earlier.

Kovrin sat with Tánya all the evening, and after midnight accompanied

her to the garden. The air already smelt strongly of burning. In the

great orchard, called "the commercial," which every year brought Yegor

Semiónovitch thousands of roubles profit, there already crept along

the ground the thick, black, sour smoke which was to clothe the young

leaves and save the plants. The trees were marshalled like chessmen in

straight rows--like ranks of soldiers; and this pedantic regularity,

together with the uniformity of height, made the garden seem monotonous

and even tiresome. Kovrin and Tánya walked up and down the alleys,

and watched the fires of dung, straw, and litter; but seldom met the

workmen, who wandered in the smoke like shadows. Only the cherry and

plum trees and a few apple trees were in blossom, but the whole garden

was shrouded in smoke, and it was only when they reached the seed-plots

that Kovrin was able to breathe.

"I remember when I was a child sneezing from the smoke," he said,

shrugging his shoulders, "but to this day I cannot understand how smoke

saves plants from the frost."

"Smoke is a good substitute when there are no clouds," answered Tánya.

"But what do you want the clouds for?"

"In dull and cloudy weather we have no morning frosts."

"Is that so?" said Kovrin.

He laughed and took Tánya by the hand. Her broad, very serious, chilled

face; her thick, black eyebrows; the stiff collar on her jacket which

prevented her from moving her head freely; her dress tucked up out of

the dew; and her whole figure, erect and slight, pleased him.

"Heavens! how she has grown!" he said to himself. "When I was here

last time, five years ago, you were quite a child. You were thin,

long-legged, and untidy, and wore a short dress, and I used to tease

you. What a change in five years!"

"Yes, five years!" sighed Tánya. "A lot of things have happened since

then. Tell me, Andrei, honestly," she said, looking merrily into his

face, "do you feel that you have got out of touch with us? But why do

I ask? You are a man, you live your own interesting life, you.... Some

estrangement is natural. But whether that is so or not, Andrusha, I

want you now to look on us as your own. We have a right to that."

"I do, already, Tánya."

"Your word of honour?"

"My word of honour."

"You were surprised that we had so many of your photographs. But surely

you know how my father adores you, worships you. You are a scholar, and

not an ordinary man; you have built up a brilliant career, and he is

firmly convinced that you turned out a success because he educated you.

I do not interfere with his delusion. Let him believe it!"

Already dawn. The sky paled, and the foliage and clouds of smoke began

to show themselves more clearly. The nightingale sang, and from the

fields came the cry of quails.

"It is time for bed!" said Tánya. "It is cold too." She took Kovrin

by the hand. "Thanks, Andrusha, for coming. We are cursed with most

uninteresting acquaintances, and not many even of them. With us it is

always garden, garden, garden, and nothing else. Trunks, timbers," she

laughed, "pippins, rennets, budding, pruning, grafting.... All our

life goes into the garden, we never even dream of anything but apples

and pears. Of course this is all very good and useful, but sometimes I

cannot help wishing for change. I remember when you used to come and

pay us visits, and when you came home for the holidays, how the whole

house grew fresher and brighter, as if someone had taken the covers off

the furniture; I was then a very little girl, but I understood...."

Tánya spoke for a time, and spoke with feeling. Then suddenly it came

into Kovrin's head that during the summer he might become attached to

this little, weak, talkative being, that he might get carried away,

fall in love--in their position what was more probable and natural?

The thought pleased him, amused him, and as he bent down to the kind,

troubled face, he hummed to himself Pushkin's couplet:

"Oniégin; I will not conceal

That I love Tatyana madly."

By the time they reached the house Yegor Semiónovitch had risen.

Kovrin felt no desire to sleep; he entered into conversation with

the old man, and returned with him to the garden. Yegor Semiónovitch

was tall, broad-shouldered, and fat. He suffered from shortness of

breath, yet walked so quickly that it was difficult to keep up with

him. His expression was always troubled and hurried, and he seemed to

be thinking that if he were a single second late everything would be

destroyed.

"There, brother, is a mystery for you!" he began, stopping to recover

breath. "On the surface of the ground, as you see, there is frost, but

raise the thermometer a couple of yards on your stick, and it is quite

warm.... Why is that?"

"I confess I don't know," said Kovrin, laughing.

"No!... You can't know everything.... The biggest brain cannot

comprehend everything. You are still engaged with your philosophy?"

"Yes, ... I am studying psychology, and philosophy generally."

"And it doesn't bore you?"

"On the contrary, I couldn't live without it."

"Well, God grant ..." began Yegor Semiónovitch, smoothing his big

whiskers thoughtfully. "Well, God grant ... I am very glad for your

sake, brother, very glad...."

Suddenly he began to listen, and making a terrible face, ran off the

path and soon vanished among the trees in a cloud of smoke.

"Who tethered this horse to the tree?" rang out a despairing voice.

"Which of you thieves and murderers dared to tether this horse to the

apple tree? My God, my God! Ruined, ruined, spoiled, destroyed! The

garden is ruined, the garden is destroyed! My God!"

When he returned to Kovrin his face bore an expression of injury and

impotence.

"What on earth can you do with these accursed people?" he asked in a

whining voice, wringing his hands. "Stepka brought a manure cart here

last night and tethered the horse to an apple tree ... tied the reins,

the idiot, so tight, that the bark is rubbed off in three places. What

can you do with men like this? I speak to him and he blinks his eyes

and looks stupid. He ought to be hanged!"

When at last he calmed down, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the

cheek.

"Well, God grant ... God grant!..." he stammered. "I am very, very glad

that you have come. I cannot say how glad. Thanks!"

Then, with the same anxious face, and walking with the same quick step,

he went round the whole garden, showing his former ward the orangery,

the hothouses, the sheds, and two beehives which he described as the

miracle of the century.

As they walked about, the sun rose, lighting up the garden. It grew

hot. When he thought of the long, bright day before him, Kovrin

remembered that it was but the beginning of May, and that he had before

him a whole summer of long, bright, and happy days; and suddenly

through him pulsed the joyous, youthful feeling which he had felt when

as a child he played in this same garden. And in turn, he embraced the

old man and kissed him tenderly. Touched by remembrances, the pair went

into the house and drank tea out of the old china cups, with cream and

rich biscuits; and these trifles again reminded Kovrin of his childhood

and youth. The splendid present and the awakening memories of the past

mingled, and a feeling of intense happiness filled his heart.

He waited until Tánya awoke, and having drunk coffee with her, walked

through the garden, and then went to his room and began to work. He

read attentively, making notes; and only lifted his eyes from his books

when he felt that he must look out of the window or at the fresh roses,

still wet with dew, which stood in vases on his table. It seemed to

hint that every little vein in his body trembled and pulsated with joy.

II

But in the country Kovrin continued to live the same nervous and

untranquil life as he had lived in town. He read much, wrote much,

studied Italian; and when he went for walks, thought all the time of

returning to work. He slept so little that he astonished the household;

if by chance he slept in the daytime for half an hour, he could not

sleep all the following night. Yet after these sleepless nights he felt

active and gay.

He talked much, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Often, nearly

every day, young girls from the neighbouring country-houses drove over

to Borisovka, played the piano with Tánya, and sang. Sometimes the

visitor was a young man, also a neighbour, who played the violin well.

Kovrin listened eagerly to their music and singing, but was exhausted

by it, so exhausted sometimes that his eyes closed involuntarily, and

his head drooped on his shoulder.

One evening after tea he sat upon the balcony, reading. In the

drawing-room Tánya--a soprano, one of her friends--a contralto,

and the young violinist studied the well-known serenade of Braga.

Kovrin listened to the words, but though they were Russian, could not

understand their meaning. At last, laying down his book and listening

attentively, he understood. A girl with a disordered imagination heard

by night in a garden some mysterious sounds, sounds so beautiful and

strange that she was forced to recognise their harmony and holiness,

which to us mortals are incomprehensible, and therefore flew back to

heaven. Kovrin's eyelids drooped. He rose, and in exhaustion walked

up and down the drawing-room, and then up and down the hall. When the

music ceased, he took Tánya by the hand and went out with her to the

balcony.

"All day--since early morning," he began, "my head has been taken up

with a strange legend. I cannot remember whether I read it, or where I

heard it, but the legend is very remarkable and not very coherent. I

may begin by saying that it is not very clear. A thousand years ago a

monk, robed in black, wandered in the wilderness--somewhere in Syria or

Arabia ... Some miles away the fishermen saw another black monk moving

slowly over the surface of the lake. The second monk was a mirage. Now

put out of your mind all the laws of optics, which legend, of course,

does not recognise, and listen. From the first mirage was produced

another mirage, from the second a third, so that the image of the

Black Monk is eternally reflected from one stratum of the atmosphere

to another. At one time it was seen in Africa, then in Spain, then

in India, then in the Far North. At last it issued from the limits

of the earth's atmosphere, but never came across conditions which

would cause it to disappear. Maybe it is seen to-day in Mars or in the

constellation of the Southern Cross. Now the whole point, the very

essence of the legend, lies in the prediction that exactly a thousand

years after the monk went into the wilderness, the mirage will again

be cast into the atmosphere of the earth and show itself to the world

of men. This term of a thousand years, it appears, is now expiring....

According to the legend we must expect the Black Monk to-day or

to-morrow."

"It is a strange story," said Tánya, whom the legend did not please.

"But the most astonishing thing," laughed Kovrin, "is that I cannot

remember how this legend came into my head. Did I read it? Did I hear

it? Or can it be that I dreamed of the Black Monk? I cannot remember.

But the legend interests me. All day long I thought of nothing else."

Releasing Tánya, who returned to her visitors, he went out of the

house, and walked lost in thought beside the flower-beds. Already the

sun was setting. The freshly watered flowers exhaled a damp, irritating

smell. In the house the music had again begun, and from the distance

the violin produced the effect of a human voice. Straining his memory

in an attempt to recall where he had heard the legend, Kovrin walked

slowly across the park, and then, not noticing where he went, to the

river-bank.

By the path which ran down among the uncovered roots to the water's

edge Kovrin descended, frightening the snipe, and disturbing two ducks.

On the dark pine trees glowed the rays of the setting sun, but on

the surface of the river darkness had already fallen. Kovrin crossed

the stream. Before him now lay a broad field covered with young rye.

Neither human dwelling nor human soul was visible in the distance;

and it seemed that the path must lead to the unexplored, enigmatical

region in the west where the sun had already set--where still, vast and

majestic, flamed the afterglow.

"How open it is--how peaceful and free!" thought Kovrin, walking

along the path. "It seems as if all the world is looking at me from a

hiding-place and waiting for me to comprehend it."

A wave passed over the rye, and the light evening breeze blew softly

on his uncovered head. Yet a minute more and the breeze blew again,

this time more strongly, the rye rustled, and from behind came the

dull murmur of the pines. Kovrin stopped in amazement On the horizon,

like a cyclone or waterspout, a great, black pillar rose up from earth

to heaven. Its outlines were undefined; but from the first it might

be seen that it was not standing still, but moving with inconceivable

speed towards Kovrin; and the nearer it came the smaller and smaller

it grew. Involuntarily Kovrin rushed aside and made a path for it. A

monk in black clothing, with grey hair and black eyebrows, crossing

his hands upon his chest, was borne past. His bare feet were above the

ground. Having swept some twenty yards past Kovrin, he looked at him,

nodded his head, and smiled kindly and at the same time slyly. His face

was pale and thin. When he had passed by Kovrin he again began to grow,

flew across the river, struck inaudibly against the clay bank and pine

trees, and, passing through them, vanished like smoke.

"You see," stammered Kovrin, "after all, the legend was true!"

Making no attempt to explain this strange phenomenon; satisfied with

the fact that he had so closely and so plainly seen not only the black

clothing but even the face and eyes of the monk; agitated agreeably, he

returned home.

In the park and in the garden visitors were walking quietly; in the

house the music continued. So he alone had seen the Black Monk. He

felt a strong desire to tell what he had seen to Tánya and Yegor

Semiónovitch, but feared that they would regard it as a hallucination,

and decided to keep his counsel. He laughed loudly, sang, danced a

mazurka, and felt in the best of spirits; and the guests and Tánya

noticed upon his face a peculiar expression of ecstasy and inspiration,

and found him very interesting.

III

When supper was over and the visitors had gone, he went to his own

room, and lay on the sofa. He wished to think of the monk. But in a few

minutes Tánya entered.

"There, Andrusha, you can read father's articles ..." she said. "They

are splendid articles. He writes very well."

"Magnificent!" said Yegor Semiónovitch, coming in after her, with a

forced smile. "Don't listen to her, please!... Or read them only if you

want to go to sleep--they are a splendid soporific."

"In my opinion they are magnificent," said Tánya, deeply convinced.

"Read them, Andrusha, and persuade father to write more often. He could

write a whole treatise on gardening."

Yegor Semiónovitch laughed, blushed, and stammered out the conventional

phrases used by abashed authors. At last he gave in.

"If you must read them, read first these papers of Gauche's, and the

Russian articles," he stammered, picking out the papers with trembling

hands. "Otherwise you won't understand them. Before you read my replies

you must know what I am replying to. But it won't interest you ...

stupid. And it's time for bed."

Tánya went out. Yegor Semiónovitch sat on the end of the sofa and

sighed loudly.

"Akh, brother mine ..." he began after a long silence. As you see, my

dear Magister, I write articles, and exhibit at shows, and get medals

sometimes. ... Pesótsky, they say, has apples as big as your head....

Pesótsky has made a fortune out of his gardens.... In one word:

"'Rich and glorious is Kotchubéi.'"

"But I should like to ask you what is going to be the end of all this?

The gardens--there is no question of that--are splendid, they are

models.... Not gardens at all, in short, but a whole institution of

high political importance, and a step towards a new era in Russian

agriculture and Russian industry.... But for what purpose? What

ultimate object?"

"That question is easily answered."

"I do not mean in that sense. What I want to know is what will happen

with the garden when I die? As things are, it would not last without

me a single month. The secret does not lie in the fact that the garden

is big and the workers many, but in the fact that I love the work--you

understand? I love it, perhaps, more than I love myself. Just look at

me! I work from morning to night. I do everything with my own hands.

All grafting, all pruning, all planting--everything is done by me.

When I am helped I feel jealous, and get irritated to the point of

rudeness. The whole secret is in love, in a sharp master's eye, in a

master's hands, and in the feeling when I drive over to a friend and

sit down for half an hour, that I have left my heart behind me and am

not myself--all the time I am in dread that something has happened to

the garden. Now suppose I die to-morrow, who will replace all this? Who

will do the work? The head gardeners? The workmen? Why the whole burden

of my present worries is that my greatest enemy is not the hare or the

beetle or the frost, but the hands of the stranger."

"But Tánya?" said Kovrin, laughing. "Surely she is not more dangerous

than a hare?... She loves and understands the work."

"Yes, Tánya loves it and understands it. If after my death the garden

should fall to her as mistress, then I could wish for nothing better.

But suppose--which God forbid--she should marry!" Yegor Semiónovitch

whispered and look at Kovrin with frightened eyes. "That's the whole

crux. She might marry, there would be children, and there would be no

time to attend to the garden. That is bad enough. But what I fear most

of all is that she may marry some spendthrift who is always in want of

money, who will lease the garden to tradesmen, and the whole thing will

go to the devil in the first year. In a business like this a woman, is

the scourge of God."

Yegor Semiónovitch sighed and was silent for a few minutes.

"Perhaps you may call it egoism. But I do not want Tánya to marry. I am

afraid! You've seen that fop who comes along with a fiddle and makes a

noise. I know Tánya would never marry him, yet I cannot bear the sight

of him.... In short, brother, I am a character ... and I know it."

Yegor Semiónovitch rose and walked excitedly up and down the room. It

was plain that he had something very serious to say, but could not

bring himself to the point.

"I love you too sincerely not to talk to you frankly," he said,

thrusting his hands into his pockets. "In all delicate questions I

say what I think, and dislike mystification. I tell you plainly,

therefore, that you are the only man whom I should not be afraid of

Tánya marrying. You are a clever man, you have a heart, and you would

not see my life's work ruined. And what is more, I love you as my own

son ... and am proud of you. So if you and Tánya were to end ... in a

sort of romance ... I should be very glad and very happy. I tell you

this straight to your face, without shame, as becomes an honest man."

Kovrin smiled. Yegor Semiónovitch opened the door, and was leaving the

room, but stopped suddenly on the threshold.

"And if you and Tánya had a son, I could make a horti-culturist out of

him," he added. "But that is an idle fancy. Good night!"

Left alone, Kovrin settled himself comfortably, and took up his host's

articles. The first was entitled "Intermediate Culture," the second "A

Few Words in Reply to the Remarks of Mr. Z. about the Treatment of the

Soil of a New Garden," the third "More about Grafting." The others were

similar in scope. But all breathed restlessness and sickly irritation.

Even a paper with the peaceful title of "Russian Apple Trees" exhaled

irritability. Yegor Semiónovitch began with the words "Audi alteram

partem," and ended it with "Sapienti sat"; and between these learned

quotations flowed a whole torrent of acid words directed against "the

learned ignorance of our patent horticulturists who observe nature from

their academic chairs," and against M. Gauche, "whose fame is founded

on the admiration of the profane and dilletanti" And finally Kovrin

came across an uncalled-for and quite insincere expression of regret

that it is no longer legal to flog peasants who are caught stealing

fruit and injuring trees.

"His is good work, wholesome and fascinating," thought Kovrin, "yet in

these pamphlets we have nothing but bad temper and war to the knife.

I suppose it is the same everywhere; in all careers men of ideas are

nervous, and victims of this kind of exalted sensitiveness. I suppose

it must be so."

He thought of Tánya, so delighted with her father's articles, and

then of Yegor Semiónovitch. Tánya, small, pale, and slight, with her

collar-bone showing, with her widely-opened, her dark and clever

eyes, which it seemed were always searching for something. And Yegor

Semiónovitch with his little, hurried steps. He thought again of Tánya,

fond of talking, fond of argument, and always accompanying even the

most insignificant phrases with mimicry and gesticulation. Nervous--she

must be nervous in the highest degree. Again Kovrin began to read,

but he understood nothing, and threw down his books. The agreeable

emotion with which he had danced the mazurka and listened to the music

still held possession of him, and aroused a multitude of thoughts.

It flashed upon him that if this strange, unnatural monk had been

seen by him alone, he must be ill, ill to the point of suffering from

hallucinations. The thought frightened him, but not for long.

He sat on the sofa, and held his head in his hands, curbing the

inexplicable joy which filled his whole being; and then walked up and

down the room for a minute, and returned to his work. But the thoughts

which he read in books no longer satisfied him. He longed for something

vast, infinite, astonishing. Towards morning he undressed and went

unwillingly to bed; he felt that he had better rest. When at last he

heard Yegor Semiónovitch going to his work in the garden, he rang, and

ordered the servant to bring him some wine. He drank several glasses;

his consciousness became dim, and he slept.

IV

Yegor Semiónovitch and Tánya often quarrelled and said disagreeable

things to one another. This morning they had both been irritated, and

Tánya burst out crying and went to her room, coming down neither to

dinner nor to tea At first Yegor Semiónovitch marched about, solemn and

dignified, as if wishing to give everyone to understand that for him

justice and order were the supreme interests of life. But he was unable

to keep this up for long; his spirits fell, and he wandered about the

park and sighed, "Akh, my God!" At dinner he ate nothing, and at last,

tortured by his conscience, he knocked softly at the closed door, and

called timidly:

"Tánya! Tánya!"

Through the door came a Weak voice, tearful but determined:

"Leave me alone!... I implore you."

The misery of father and daughter reacted on the whole household,

even on the labourers in the garden. Kovrin, as usual, was immersed

in his own interesting work, but at last even he felt tired and

uncomfortable. He determined to interfere, and disperse the cloud

before evening. He knocked at Tánya's door, and was admitted.

"Come, come! What a shame!" he began jokingly; and then looked with

surprise at her tear-stained and afflicted face covered with red spots.

"Is it so serious, then? Well, well!"

"But if you knew how he tortured me!" she said, and a flood of

tears gushed out of her big eyes. "He tormented me!" she continued,

wringing her hands. "I never said a word to him.... I only said there

was no need to keep unnecessary labourers, if ... if we can get day

workmen.... You know the men have done nothing for the whole week. I

... I only said this, and he roared at me, and said a lot of things ...

most offensive ... deeply insulting. And all for nothing."

"Never mind!" said Kovrin, straightening her hair. "You have had your

scoldings and your cryings, and that is surely enough. You can't keep

up this for ever ... it is not right ... all the more since you know he

loves you infinitely."

"He has ruined my whole life," sobbed Tánya. "I never hear anything but

insults and affronts. He regards me as superfluous in his own house.

Let him! He will have cause! I shall leave here to-morrow, and study

for a position as telegraphist.... Let him!"

"Come, come. Stop crying, Tánya. It does you no good.... You are both

irritable and impulsive, and both in the wrong. Come, and I will make

peace!"

Kovrin spoke gently and persuasively, but Tánya continued to cry,

twitching her shoulders and wringing her hands as if she had been

overtaken by a real misfortune. Kovrin felt all the sorrier owing to

the smallness of the cause of her sorrow. What a trifle it took to make

this little creature unhappy for a whole day, or, as she had expressed

it, for a whole life! And as he consoled Tánya, it occurred to him

that except this girl and her father there was not one in the world

who loved him as a kinsman; and had it not been for them, he, left

fatherless and motherless in early childhood, must have lived his whole

life without feeling one sincere caress, or tasting ever that simple,

unreasoning love which we feel only for those akin to us by blood. And

he felt that his tired, strained nerves, like magnets, responded to the

nerves of this crying, shuddering girl. He felt, too, that he could

never love a healthy, rosy-cheeked woman; but pale, weak, unhappy Tánya

appealed to him.

He felt pleasure in looking at her hair and her shoulders; and he

pressed her hand, and wiped away her tears.... At last she ceased

crying. But she still continued to complain of her father, and of her

insufferable life at home, imploring Kovrin to try to realise her

position. Then by degrees she began to smile, and to sigh that God had

cursed her with such a wicked temper; and in the end laughed aloud,

called herself a fool, and ran out of the room. A little later Kovrin

went into the garden. Yegor Semiónovitch and Tánya, as if nothing had

happened, We were walking side by side up the alley, eating rye-bread

and salt, we both were very hungry.

V

Pleased with his success as peacemaker, Kovrin went into the park. As

he sat on a bench and mused, he heal'd the rattle of a carnage and a

woman's laugh--visitors evidently again. Shadows fell in the garden,

the sound of a violin, the music of a woman's voice reached him almost

inaudibly; and this reminded him of the Black Monk. Whither, to what

country, to what planet, had that optical absurdity flown? Hardly had

he called to mind the legend and painted in imagination the black

apparition in the rye-field when from behind the pine trees opposite

to him, walked inaudibly--without the faintest rustling--a man of

middle height. His grey head was uncovered, he was dressed in black,

and barefooted like a beggar. On his pallid, corpse-like face stood out

sharply a number of black spots. Nodding his head politely the stranger

or beggar walked noiselessly to the bench and sat down, and Kovrin

recognised the Black Monk. For a minute they looked at one another,

Kovrin with astonishment, but the monk kindly and, as before, with a

sly expression on his face.

"But you are a mirage," said Kovrin. "Why are you here, and why do you

sit in one place? That is not in accordance with the legend."

"It is all the same," replied the monk softly, turning his face towards

Kovrin. "The legend, the mirage, I--all are products of your own

excited imagination. I am a phantom."

"That is to say you don't exist?" asked Kovrin. "Think as you like,"

replied the monk, smiling faintly. "I exist in your imagination, and as

your imagination is a part of Nature, I must exist also in Nature."

"You have a clever, a distinguished face--it seems to me as if in

reality you had lived more than a thousand years," said Kovrin. "I did

not know that my imagination was capable of creating such a phenomenon.

Why do you look at me with such rapture? Are you pleased with me?"

"Yes. For you are one of the few who can justly be named the elected

of God. You serve eternal truth. Your thoughts, your intentions, your

astonishing science, all your life bear the stamp of divinity, a

heavenly impress; they are dedicated to the rational and the beautiful,

and that is, to the Eternal."

"You say, to eternal truth. Then can eternal truth be accessible and

necessary to men if there is no eternal life?"

"There is eternal life," said the monk.

"You believe in the immortality of men."

"Of course. For you, men, there awaits a great and a beautiful future.

And the more the world has of men like you the nearer will this future

be brought. Without you, ministers to the highest principles, living

freely and consciously, humanity would be nothing; developing in the

natural order it must wait the end of its earthly history. But you,

by some thousands of years, hasten it into the kingdom of eternal

truth--and in this is your high service. You embody in yourself the

blessing of God which rested upon the people."

"And what is the object of eternal life?" asked Kovrin.

"The same as all life--enjoyment. True enjoyment is in knowledge,

and eternal life presents innumerable, inexhaustible fountains of

knowledge; it is in this sense it was said: 'In My Father's house are

many mansions....'"

"You cannot conceive what a joy it is to me to listen to you," said

Kovrin, rubbing his hands with delight.

"I am glad."

"Yet I know that when you leave me I shall be tormented by doubt as

to your reality. You are a phantom, a hallucination. But that means

that I am psychically diseased, that I am not in a normal state?"

"What if you are? That need not worry you. You are ill because you

have overstrained your powers, because you have borne your health in

sacrifice to one idea, and the time is near when you will sacrifice not

merely it but your life also. What more could you desire? It is what

all gifted and noble natures aspire to."

"But if I am psychically diseased, how can I trust myself?"

"And how do you know that the men of genius whom all the world trusts

have not also seen visions? Genius, they tell you now, is akin to

insanity. Believe me, the healthy and the normal are but ordinary

men--the herd. Fears as to a nervous age, over-exhaustion and

degeneration can trouble seriously only those whose aims in life lie in

the present--that is the herd."

"The Romans had as their ideal: _mens sana in corpore sano._"

"All that the Greeks and Romans said is not true. Exaltations,

aspirations, excitements, ecstacies--all those things which distinguish

poets, prophets, martyrs to ideas from ordinary men are incompatible

with the animal life, that is, with physical health. I repeat, if you

wish to be healthy and normal go with the herd."

"How strange that you should repeat what I myself have so often

thought!" said Kovrin. "It seems as if you had watched me and listened

to my secret thoughts. But do not talk about me. What do you imply by

the words: eternal truth?"

The monk made no answer. Kovrin looked at him, but could not make out

his face. His features clouded and melted away; his head and arms

disappeared; his body faded into the bench and into the twilight, and

vanished utterly.

"The hallucination has gone," said Kovrin, laughing. "It is a pity."

He returned to the house lively and happy. What the Black Monk had said

to him flattered, not his self-love, but his soul, his whole being. To

be the elected, to minister to eternal truth, to stand in the ranks of

those who hasten by thousands of years the making mankind worthy of

the kingdom of Christ, to deliver humanity from thousands of years of

struggle, sin, and suffering, to give to one idea everything, youth,

strength, health, to die for the general welfare--what an exalted, what

a glorious ideal! And when through his memory flowed his past life, a

life pure and chaste and full of labour, when he remembered what he had

learnt and what he had taught, he concluded that in the words of the

monk there was no exaggeration. Through the park, to meet him, came

Tánya. She was wearing a different dress from that in which he had last

seen her.

"You here?" she cried. "We were looking for you, looking.... But

what has happened?" she asked in surprise, looking into his glowing,

enraptured face, and into his eyes, now full of tears. "How strange you

are, Andrusha!"

"I am satisfied, Tánya," said Kovrin, laying his hand upon her

shoulder. "I am more than satisfied; I am happy! Tánya, dear Tánya, you

are inexpressibly dear to me. Tánya, I am so glad!"

He kissed both her hands warmly, and continued: "I have just lived

through the brightest, most wonderful, most unearthly moments.... But

I cannot tell you all, for you would call me mad, or refuse to believe

me.... Let me speak of you! Tánya, I love you, and have long loved

you. To have you near me, to meet you ten times a day, has become a

necessity for me. I do not know how I shall live without you when I go

home."

"No!" laughed Tánya. "You will forget us all in two days. We are little

people, and you are a great man."

"Let us talk seriously," said he. "I will take you with me, Tánya! Yes?

You will come? You will be mine?"

Tánya cried "What?" and tried to laugh again. But the laugh did not

come, and, instead, red spots stood out on her cheeks. She breathed

quickly, and walked on rapidly into the park.

"I did not think ... I never thought of this ... never thought," she

said, pressing her hands together as if in despair.

But Kovrin hastened after her, and, with the same glowing, enraptured

face, continued to speak.

"I wish for a love which will take possession of me altogether, and

this love only you, Tánya, can give me. I am happy! How happy!"

She was overcome, bent, withered up, and seemed suddenly to have aged

ten years. But Kovrin found her beautiful, and loudly expressed his

ecstacy: "How lovely she is!"

VI

When he learned from Kovrin that not only had a romance resulted, but

that a wedding was to follow, Yegor Semiónovitch walked from corner

to corner, and tried to conceal his agitation. His hands shook, his

neck seemed swollen and purple; he ordered the horses to be put into

his racing droschky, and drove away. Tánya, seeing how he whipped the

horses and how he pushed his cap down over his ears, understood his

mood, locked herself into her room, and cried all day.

In the orangery the peaches and plums were already ripe. The packing

and despatch to Moscow of such a delicate load required much

attention, trouble, and bustle. Owing to the heat of the summer

every tree had to be watered; the process was costly in time and

working-power; and many caterpillars appeared, which the workmen, and

even Yegor Semiónovitch and Tánya, crushed with their fingers, to

the great disgust of Kovrin. The autumn orders for fruit and trees

had to be attended to, and a vast correspondence carried on. And at

the very busiest time, when it seemed no one had a free moment, work

began in the fields and deprived the garden of half its workers. Yegor

Semiónovitch, very sunburnt, very irritated, and very worried, galloped

about, now to the garden, now to the fields; and all the time shouted

that they were tearing him to bits, and that he would put a bullet

through his brain.

On top of all came the bustle over Tánya's trousseau, to which the

Pesótskys attributed infinite significance. With the eternal snipping

of scissors, rattle of sewing-machines, smell of flat-irons, and the

caprices of the nervous and touchy dressmaker, the whole house seemed

to spin round. And, to make matters worse, visitors arrived every day,

and these visitors had to be amused, fed, and lodged for the night.

Yet work and worry passed unnoticed in a mist of joy. Tánya felt as if

love and happiness had suddenly burst upon her, although ever since her

fourteenth year she had been certain that Kovrin would marry nobody

but herself. She was eternally in a state of astonishment, doubt,

and disbelief in herself. At one moment she was seized by such great

joy that she felt she must fly away to the clouds and pray to God;

but a moment later she remembered that when August came she would

have to leave the home of her childhood and forsake her father; and

she was frightened by the thought--God knows whence it came--that she

was trivial, insignificant, and unworthy of a great man like Kovrin.

When such thoughts came she would run up to her room, lock herself in,

and cry bitterly for hours. But when visitors were present, it broke

in upon her that Kovrin was a singularly handsome man, that all the

women loved him and envied her; and in these moments her heart was as

full of rapture and pride as if she had conquered the whole world.

When he dared to smile on any other woman she trembled with jealousy,

went to her room, and again--tears. These new feelings possessed her

altogether; she helped her father mechanically, noticing neither pears

nor caterpillars, nor workmen, nor how swiftly time was passing by.

Yegor Semiónovitch was in much the same state of mind. He still worked

from morning to night, Hew about the gardens, and lost his temper;

but all the while he was wrapped in a magic reverie. In his sturdy

body contended two men, one the real Yegor Semiónovitch, who, when he

listened to the gardener, Ivan Karlovitch's report of some mistake or

disorder, went mad with excitement, and tore his hair; and the other

the unreal Yegor Semiónovitch--a half-intoxicated old man, who broke

off an important conversation in the middle of a word, seized the

gardener by the shoulder, and stammered:

"You may say what you like, but blood is thicker than water. His

mother was an astonishing, a most noble, a most brilliant woman. It

was a pleasure to see her good, pure, open, angel face. She painted

beautifully, wrote poetry, spoke five foreign languages, and sang....

Poor thing, Heaven rest her soul, she died of consumption!"

The unreal Yegor Semiónovitch sighed, and after a moment's silence

continued:

"When he was a boy growing up to manhood in my house he had just such

an angel face, open and good. His looks, his movements, his words were

as gentle and graceful as his mother's. And his intellect It is not

for nothing he has the degree of Magister. But you just wait, Ivan

Karlovitch; you'll see what he'll be in ten years' time. Why, he'll be

out of sight!" But here the real Yegor Semiónovitch remembered himself,

seized his head and roared:

"Devils! Frost-bitten! Ruined, destroyed! The garden is ruined; the

garden is destroyed!" Kovrin worked with all his former ardour, and

hardly noticed the bustle about him. Love only poured oil on the

flames. After every meeting with Tánya, he returned to his rooms in

rapture and happiness, and set to work with his books and manuscripts

with the same passion with which he had kissed her and sworn his love.

What the Black Monk had told him of his election by God, of eternal

truth, and of the glorious future of humanity, gave to all his work a

peculiar, unusual significance. Once or twice every week, either in

the park or in the house, he met the monk, and talked with him for

hours; but this did not frighten, but on the contrary delighted him,

for he was now assured that such apparitions visit only the elect and

exceptional who dedicate themselves to the ministry of ideas.

Assumption passed unobserved. Then came the wedding, celebrated by the

determined wish of Yegor Semiónovitch with what was called _éclat_,

that is, with meaningless festivities which lasted for two days. Three

thousand roubles were consumed in food and drink; but what with the

vile music, the noisy toasts, the fussing servants, the clamour, and

the closeness of the atmosphere, no one appreciated the expensive wines

or the astonishing _hors d'oeuvres_ specially ordered from Moscow.

VII

One of the long winter nights. Kovrin lay in bed, reading a French

novel. Poor Tánya, whose head every evening ached as the result of the

unaccustomed life in town, had long been sleeping, muttering incoherent

phrases in her dreams.

The dock struck three. Kovrin put out the candle and lay down, lay

for a long time with dosed eyes unable to sleep owing to the heat of

the room and Tánya's continued muttering. At half-past four he again

lighted the candle. The Black Monk was sitting in a chair beside his

bed.

"Good night!" said the monk, and then, after a moment's silence, asked,

"What are you thinking of now?"

"Of glory," answered Kovrin. "In a French novel which I have just been

reading, the hero is a young man who does foolish things, and dies from

a passion for glory. To me this passion is inconceivable."

"Because you are too clever. You look indifferently on fame as a toy

which cannot interest you."

"That is true."

"Celebrity has no attractions for you. What flattery, joy, or

instruction can a man draw from the knowledge that his name will be

graven on a monument, when time will efface the inscription sooner or

later? Yes, happily there are too many of you for brief human memory

to remember all your names."

"Of course," said Kovrin. "And why remember them?... But let us talk of

something else. Of happiness, for instance. What is this happiness?"

When the clock struck five he was sitting on the bed with his feet

trailing on the carpet and his head turned to the monk, and saying:

"In ancient times a man became frightened at his happiness, so great it

was, and to placate the gods laid before them in sacrifice his beloved

ring. You have heard? Now I, like Polycrates, am a little frightened

at my own happiness. From morning to night I experience only joy--joy

absorbs me and stifles all other feelings. I do not know the meaning of

grief affliction, or weariness. I speak seriously, I am beginning to

doubt."

"Why?" asked the monk in an astonished tone. "Then you think joy is

a supernatural feeling? You think it is not the normal condition

of things? No! The higher a man has climbed in mental and moral

development the freer he is, the greater satisfaction he draws from

life. Socrates, Diogenes, Marcus Aurelius knew joy and not sorrow. And

the apostle said, 'rejoice exceedingly.' Rejoice and be happy!"

"And suddenly the gods will be angered," said Kovrin jokingly. "But it

would hardly be to my taste if they were to steal my happiness and

force me to shiver and starve."

Tánya awoke, and looked at her husband with amazement and terror. He

spoke, he turned to the chair, he gesticulated, and laughed; his eyes

glittered and his laughter sounded strange.

"Andrusha, whom are you speaking to?" she asked, seizing the hand which

he had stretched out to the monk. "Andrusha, who is it?"

"Who?" answered Kovrin. "Why, the monk!... He is sitting there." He

pointed to the Black Monk.

"There is no one there,... no one, Andrusha; you are ill."

Tánya embraced her husband, and, pressing against him as if to defend

him against the apparition, covered his eyes with her hand.

"You are ill," she sobbed, trembling all over. "Forgive me, darling,

but for a long time I have fancied you were unnerved in some way....

You are ill, ... psychically, Andrusha."

The shudder communicated itself to him. He looked once more at the

chair, now empty, and suddenly felt weakness in his arms and legs. He

began to dress. "It is nothing, Tánya, nothing, ..." he stammered, and

still shuddered. "But I am a little unwell.... It is time to recognise

it."

"I have noticed it for a long time, and father noticed it," she said,

trying to restrain her sobs. "You have been speaking so funnily to

yourself, and smiling so strangely, ... and you do not sleep. O, my

God, my God, save us!" she cried in terror. "But do not be afraid,

Andrusha, do not fear, ... for God's sake do not be afraid...."

She also dressed.... It was only as he looked at her that Kovrin

understood the danger of his position, and realised the meaning of the

Black Monk and of their conversations. It became plain to him that he

was mad.

Both, themselves not knowing why, dressed and went into the hall;

she first, he after her. There they found Yegor Semiónovitch in his

dressing-gown. He was staying with them, and had been awakened by

Tánya's sobs.

"Do not be afraid, Andrusha," said Tánya, trembling as if in fever. "Do

not be afraid ... father, this will pass off ... it will pass off."

Kovrin was so agitated that he could hardly speak. But he tried

to treat the matter as a joke. He turned to his father-in-law and

attempted to say: "Congratulate me ... it seems I have gone out of my

mind." But his lips only moved, and he smiled bitterly.

At nine o'clock they put on his overcoat and a fur cloak, wrapped him

up in a shawl, and drove him to the doctor's. He began a course of

treatment.

VIII

Again summer. By the doctor's orders Kovrin returned to the country.

He had recovered his health, and no longer saw the Black Monk. It only

remained for him to recruit his physical strength. He lived with his

father-in-law, drank much milk, worked only two hours a day, never

touched wine, and gave up smoking.

On the evening of the 19th June, before Elijah's day, a vesper service

was held in the house. When the priest took the censor from the sexton,

and the vast hall began to smell like a church, Kovrin felt tired. He

went into the garden. Taking no notice of the gorgeous blossoms around

him he walked up and down, sat for a while on a bench, and then walked

through the park. He descended the sloping bank to the margin of the

river, and stood still, looking questioningly at the water. The great

pines, with their shaggy roots, which a year before had seen him so

young, so joyous, so active, no longer whispered, but stood silent

and motionless, as if not recognising him.... And, indeed, with his

short-dipped hair, his feeble walk, and his changed face, so heavy and

pale and changed since last year, he would hardly have been recognised

anywhere.

He crossed the stream. In the field, last year covered with rye, lay

rows of reaped oats. The sun had set, and on the horizon flamed a

broad, red afterglow, fore-telling stormy weather. All was quiet; and,

gazing towards the point at which a year before he had first seen the

Black Monk, Kovrin stood twenty minutes watching the crimson fade. When

he returned to the house, tired and unsatisfied, Yegor Semiónovitch and

Tánya were sitting on the steps of the terrace, drinking tea. They were

talking together, and, seeing Kovrin, stopped. But Kovrin knew by their

faces that they had been speaking of him.

"It is time for you to have your milk," said Tánya to her husband.

"No, not yet," he answered, sitting down on the lowest step. "You drink

it. I do not want it." Tánya timidly exchanged glances with her father,

and said in a guilty voice:

"You know very well that the milk does you good."

"Yes, any amount of good," laughed Kovrin. "I congratulate you, I have

gained a pound in weight since last Friday." He pressed his hands to

his head and said in a pained voice: "Why ... why have you cured me?

Bromide mixtures, idleness, warm baths, watching in trivial terror

over every mouthful, every step ... all this in the end will drive me

to idiocy. I had gone out of my mind ... I had the mania of greatness.

... But for all that I was bright, active, and even happy.... I was

interesting and original. Now I have become rational and solid, just

like the rest of the world. I am a mediocrity, and it is tiresome for

me to live.... Oh, how cruelly... how cruelly you have treated me! I

had hallucinations ... but what harm did that cause to anyone? I ask

you what harm?"

"God only knows what you mean!" sighed Yegor Semiónovitch. "It is

stupid even to listen to you."

"Then you need not listen."

The presence of others, especially of Yegor Semiónovitch, now irritated

Kovrin; he answered his father-in-law drily, coldly, even rudely,

and could not look on him without contempt and hatred. And Yegor

Semiónovitch felt confused, and coughed guiltily, although he could not

see how he was in the wrong. Unable to understand the cause of such a

sudden reversal of their former hearty relations, Tánya leaned against

her father, and looked with alarm into his eyes. It was becoming plain

to her that their relations every day grew worse and worse, that her

father had aged greatly, and that her husband had become irritable,

capricious, excitable, and uninteresting. She no longer laughed and

sang, she ate nothing, and whole nights never slept, but lived under

the weight of some impending terror, torturing herself so much that

she lay insensible from dinner-time till evening. When the service was

being held, it had seemed to her that her father was crying; and now as

she sat on the terrace she made an effort not to think of it.

"How happy were Buddha and Mahomet and Shakespeare that their

kind-hearted kinsmen and doctors did not cure them of ecstacy and

inspiration!" said Kovrin. "If Mahomet had taken potassium bromide

for his nerves, worked only two hours a day, and drunk milk, that

astonishing man would have left as little behind him as his dog.

Doctors and kind-hearted relatives only do their best to make humanity

stupid, and the time will come when mediocrity will be considered

genius, and humanity will perish. If you only had some idea," concluded

Kovrin peevishly, "if you only had some idea how grateful I am!" He

felt strong irritation, and to prevent himself saying too much, rose

and went into the house. It was a windless night, and into the window

was borne the smell of tobacco plants and jalap. Through the windows of

the great dark hall, on the floor and on the piano, fell the moonrays.

Kovrin recalled the raptures of the summer before, when the air, as

now, was full of the smell of jalap and the moonrays poured through the

window.... To awaken the mood of last year he went to his room, lighted

a strong cigar, and ordered the servant to bring him wine. But now the

cigar was bitter and distasteful, and the wine had lost its flavour

of the year before. How much it means to get out of practice! From a

single cigar, and two sips of wine, his head went round, and he was

obliged to take bromide of potassium.

Before going to bed Tánya said to him:

"Listen. Father worships you, but you are annoyed with him about

something, and that is killing him. Look at his face; he is growing

old, not by days but by hours! I implore you, Andrusha, for the love of

Christ, for the sake of your own dead father, for the sake of my peace

of mind--be kind to him again!"

"I cannot, and I do not want to."

"But why?" Tánya trembled all over. "Explain to me why!"

"Because I do not like him; that is all," answered Kovrin carelessly,

shrugging his shoulders. "But better not talk of that; he is your

father."

"I cannot, cannot understand," said Tánya. She pressed her hands to

her forehead and fixed her eyes on one point. "Something terrible,

something incomprehensible is going on in this house. You, Ahdrusha,

have changed; you are no longer yourself.... You--a clever, an

exceptional man--get irritated over trifles. ... You are annoyed by

such little things that at any other time you yourself would have

refused to believe it. No ... do not be angry, do not be angry," she

continued, kissing his hands, and frightened by her own words. "You are

clever, good, and noble. You will be just to father. He is so good."

"He is not good, but merely good-humoured. These vaudeville uncles--of

your father's type--with well-fed, easy-going faces, are characters in

their way, and once used to amuse me, whether in novels, in comedies,

or in life. But they are now hateful to me. They are egoists to the

marrow of their bones.... Most disgusting of all is their satiety, and

this stomachic, purely bovine--or swinish--optimism."

Tánya sat on the bed, and laid her head on a pillow. "This is torture!"

she said; and from her voice it was plain that she was utterly weary

and found it hard to speak. "Since last winter not a moment of rest.

... It is terrible, my God! I suffer ..."

"Yes, of course! I am Herod, and you and your papa the massacred

infants. Of course!"

His face seemed to Tánya ugly and disagreeable. The expression of

hatred and contempt did not suit it. She even observed that something

was lacking in his face; ever since his hair had been cut off, it

seemed changed. She felt an almost irresistible desire to say something

insulting, but restrained herself in time, and overcome with terror,

went out of the bedroom.

IX

Kovrin received an independent chair. His inaugural address was fixed

for the 2nd of December, and a notice to that effect was posted in

the corridors of the University. But when the day came a telegram was

received by the University authorities that he could not fulfil the

engagement, owing to illness.

Blood came from his throat. He spat it up, and twice in one month it

flowed in streams. He felt terribly weak, and fell into a somnolent

condition. But this illness did not frighten him, for he knew that his

dead mother had lived with the same complaint more than ten years. His

doctors, too, declared that there was no danger, and advised him merely

not to worry, to lead a regular life, and to talk less.

In January the lecture was postponed for the same reason, and in

February it was too late to begin the course. It was postponed till the

following year.

He no longer lived with Tánya, but with another woman, older than

himself, who looked after him as if he were a child. His temper

was calm and obedient; he submitted willingly, and when Varvara

Nikolaievna--that was her name--made arrangements for taking him to the

Crimea, he consented to go, although he felt that from the change no

good would come.

They reached Sevastopol late one evening, and stopped there to rest,

intending to drive to Yalta on the following day. Both were tired by

the journey. Varvara Nikolaievna drank tea, and went to bed. But Kovrin

remained up. An hour before leaving home for the railway station he had

received a letter from Tánya, which he had not read; and the thought

of this letter caused him unpleasant agitation. In the depths of his

heart he knew that his marriage with Tánya had been a mistake. He was

glad that he was finally parted from her; but the remembrance of this

woman, who towards the last had seemed to turn into a walking, living

mummy, in which all had died except the great, clever eyes, awakened in

him only pity and vexation against himself. The writing on the envelope

reminded him that two years before he had been guilty of cruelty and

injustice, and that he had avenged on people in no way guilty his

spiritual vacuity, his solitude, his disenchantment with life.... He

remembered how he had once torn into fragments his dissertation and

all the articles written by him since the time of his illness, and

thrown them out of the window, how the fragments flew in the wind and

rested on the trees and flowers; in every page he had seen strange and

baseless pretensions, frivolous irritation, and a mania for greatness.

And all this had produced upon him an impression that he had written a

description of his own faults. Yet when the last copybook had been tom

up and thrown out of the window, he felt bitterness and vexation, and

went to his wife and spoke to her cruelly. Heavens, how he had ruined

her life! He remembered how once, wishing to cause her pain, he had

told her that her father had played in their romance an unusual role,

and had even asked him to marry her; and Yegor Semiónovitch, happening

to overhear him, had rushed into the room, so dumb with consternation

that he could not utter a word, but only stamped his feet on one spot

and bellowed strangely as if his tongue had been cut out. And Tánya,

looking at her father, cried out in a heartrending voice, and fell

insensible on the floor. It was hideous.

The memory of all this returned to him at the sight of the well-known

handwriting. He went out on to the balcony. It was warm and calm, and

a salt smell came to him from the sea. The moonlight, and the lights

around, were imaged on the surface of the wonderful bay--a surface

of a hue impossible to name. It was a tender and soft combination of

dark blue and green; in parts the water resembled copperas, and in

parts, instead of water, liquid moonlight filled the bay. And all these

combined in a harmony of hues which exhaled tranquillity and exaltation.

In the lower story of the inn, underneath the balcony, the windows were

evidently open, for women's voices and laughter could plainly be heard.

There must be an entertainment.

Kovrin made an effort over himself, unsealed the letter, and, returning

to his room, began to read:

"My father has just died. For this I am indebted to you, for it was you

who killed him. Our garden is being ruined; it is managed by strangers;

what my poor father so dreaded is taking place. For this also I am

indebted to you. I hate you with all my soul, and wish that you may

perish soon! Oh, how I suffer I My heart bums with an intolerable

pain!... May you be accursed! I took you for an exceptional man, for a

genius; I loved you, and you proved a madman...."

Kovrin could read no more; he tore up the letter and threw the pieces

away.... He was overtaken by restlessness--almost by terror.... On the

other side of the screen, slept Varvara Nikolaievna; he could hear her

breathing. From the story beneath came the women's voices and laughter,

but he felt that in the whole hotel there was not one living soul

except himself. The fact that wretched, overwhelmed Tánya had cursed

him in her letter, and wished him ill, caused him pain; and he looked

fearfully at the door as if fearing to see again that unknown power

which in two years had brought about so much ruin in his own life and

in the lives of all who were dearest to him.

By experience he knew that when the nerves give way the best refuge

lies in work. He used to sit at the table and concentrate his mind

upon some definite thought. He took from his red portfolio a copybook

containing the conspect of a small work of compilation which he

intended to carry out during his stay in the Crimea, if he became tired

of inactivity.... He sat at the table, and worked on this conspect, and

it seemed to him that he was regaining his former peaceful, resigned,

impersonal mood. His conspect led him to speculation on the vanity of

the world. He thought of the great price which life demands for the

most trivial and ordinary benefits which it gives to men. To reach

a chair of philosophy under forty years of age; to be an ordinary

professor; to expound commonplace thoughts--and those thoughts the

thoughts of others--in feeble, tiresome, heavy language; in one

word, to attain the position of a learned mediocrity, he had studied

fifteen years, worked day and night, passed through a severe psychical

disease, survived an unsuccessful marriage--been guilty of many follies

and injustices which it was torture to remember. Kovrin now clearly

realised that he was a mediocrity, and he was willingly reconciled to

it, for he knew that every man must be satisfied with what he is.

The conspect calmed him, but the tom letter lay upon the floor and

hindered the concentration of his thoughts. He rose, picked up the

fragments, and threw them out of the window. But a light wind blew from

the sea, and the papers fluttered back on to the window sill. Again he

was overtaken by restlessness akin to terror, and it seemed to him that

in the whole hotel except himself there was not one living soul.... He

went on to the balcony. The bay, as if alive, stared up at him from its

multitude of light-and dark-blue eyes, its eyes of turquoise and fire,

and beckoned him. It was warm and stifling; how delightful, he thought,

to bathe!

Suddenly beneath the balcony a violin was played, and two women's

voices sang. All this was known to him. The song which they sang told

of a young girl, diseased in imagination, who heard by night in a

garden mysterious sounds, and found in them a harmony and a holiness

incomprehensible to us mortals. ... Kovrin held his breath, his heart

ceased to beat, and the magical, ecstatic rapture which he had long

forgotten trembled in his heart again.

A high, black pillar, like a cyclone or waterspout, appeared on the

opposite coast. It swept with incredible swiftness across the bay

towards the hotel; it became smaller and smaller, and Kovrin stepped

aside to make room for it.... The monk, with uncovered grey head, with

black eyebrows, barefooted, folding his arms upon his chest, swept past

him, and stopped in the middle of the room.

"Why did you not believe me?" he asked in a tone of reproach, looking

caressingly at Kovrin. "If you had believed me when I said you were a

genius, these last two years would not have been passed so sadly and so

barrenly."

Kovrin again believed that he was the elected of God and a genius; he

vividly remembered all his former conversation with the Black Monk,

and wished to reply. But the blood flowed from his throat on to his

chest, and he, not knowing what to do, moved his hands about his chest

till his cuffs were red with the blood. He wished to call Varvara

Nikolaievna, who slept behind the screen, and making an effort to do

so, cried: "Tánya!"

He fell on the floor, and raising his hands, again cried:

"Tánya!"

He cried to Tánya, cried to the great garden with the miraculous

flowers, cried to the park, to the pines with their shaggy roots, to

the rye-field, cried to his marvellous science, to his youth, his

daring, his joy, cried to the life which had been so beautiful. He saw

on the floor before him a great pool of blood, and from weakness could

not utter a single word. But an inexpressible, infinite joy filled his

whole being. Beneath the balcony the serenade was being played, and the

Black Monk whispered to him that he was a genius, and died only because

his feeble, mortal body had lost its balance, and could no longer serve

as the covering of genius.

When Varvara Nikolaievna awoke, and came from behind her screen, Kovrin

was dead. But on his face was frozen an immovable smile of happiness.