The Diary of a Superfluous Man, and Other Stories

We returned by way of the corridor. – "And what room is that yonder?" – I asked, pointing at a broad, white door with a lock.

"That?" – Lukyánitch answered me, in a dull voice. – "That 's nothing."

"How so?"

"Because… 'T is a store-room…" And he started to go into the anteroom.

"A store-room? Cannot I look at it?"…

"What makes you want to do that, master, really?!" – replied Lukyánitch with displeasure. – "What is there for you to look at? Chests, old crockery … 't is a store-room, and nothing more…"

"All the same, show it to me, please, old man," – I said, although I was inwardly ashamed of my indecent persistence. – "I should like, you see … I should like to have just such a house myself at home, in my village …"

I was ashamed: I could not complete the sentence I had begun.

Lukyánitch stood with his grey head bent on his breast, and stared at me askance in a strange sort of way.

"Show it," – I said.

"Well, as you like," – he replied at last, got the key, and reluctantly opened the door.

I glanced into the store-room. There really was nothing noteworthy about it. On the walls hung old portraits with gloomy, almost black countenances, and vicious eyes. The floor was strewn with all sorts of rubbish.

"Well, have you seen all you want?" – asked Lukyánitch, gruffly.

"Yes; thanks!" – I hastily replied.

He slammed to the door. I went out into the anteroom, and from the anteroom into the courtyard.

Lukyánitch escorted me, muttering: "Good-bye, sir!" and went off to his own wing.

"But who was the lady visitor at your house last night?" – I called after him: – "I met her this morning in the grove."

I had hoped to daze him with my sudden question, to evoke a thoughtless answer. But the old man merely laughed dully, and slammed the door behind him when he went in.

I retraced my steps to Glínnoe. I felt awkward, like a boy who has been put to shame.

"No," – I said to myself: – "evidently, I shall not obtain a solution to this puzzle. I 'll give it up! I will think no more of all this."

An hour later, I set out on my homeward drive, enraged and irritated.

A week elapsed. Try as I might to banish from me the memory of the Unknown, of her companion, of my meetings with them, – it kept constantly returning, and besieged me with all the importunate persistence of an after-dinner fly… Lukyánitch, with his mysterious looks and reserved speeches, with his coldly-mournful smile, also recurred incessantly to my memory. The house itself, when I thought of it, – that house itself gazed at me cunningly and stupidly through its half-closed shutters, and seemed to be jeering at me, as though it were saying to me: "And all the same thou shalt not find out anything!" At last I could endure it no longer, and one fine day I drove to Glínnoe, and from Glínnoe set out on foot … whither? The reader can easily divine.

I must confess that, as I approached the mysterious manor, I felt a decidedly violent agitation. The exterior of the house had not undergone the slightest change: the same closed windows, the same melancholy and desolate aspect; only, on the bench, in front of the wing, instead of old Lukyánitch, sat some young house-serf or other, of twenty, in a long nankeen kaftan and a red shirt. He was sitting with his curly head resting on his palm, and dozing, swaying to and fro from time to time, and quivering.

"Good morning, brother!" – I said in a loud voice.

He immediately sprang to his feet and stared at me with widely-opened, panic-stricken eyes.

"Good morning, brother!" – I repeated: – "And where is the old man?"

"What old man?" – said the young fellow, slowly.

"Lukyánitch."

"Ah, Lukyánitch!" – He darted a glance aside. – "Do you want Lukyánitch?"

"Yes, I do. Is he at home?"

"N-no," – enunciated the young fellow, brokenly, – "he, you know … how shall I … tell … you … about … that …"

"Is he ill?"

"No."

"What then?"

"Why, he is n't here at all."

"Why not?"

"Because. Something … unpleasant … happened to him."

"Is he dead?" – I inquired with surprise.

"He strangled himself."

"Strangled himself!" – I exclaimed in affright, and clasped my hands.

We both gazed in each other's eyes in silence.

"How long ago?" – I said at last.

"Why, to-day is the fifth day since. They buried him yesterday."

"But why did he strangle himself?"

"The Lord knows. He was a freeman, on wages; he did not know want, the masters petted him as though he were a relation. For we have such good masters – may God give them health! I simply can't understand what came over him. Evidently, the Evil One entrapped him."

"But how did he do it?"

"Why, so. He took and strangled himself."

"And nothing of the sort had been previously noticed in him?"

"How shall I tell you… There was nothing … particular. He was always a very melancholy man. He used to groan, and groan. 'I 'm so bored,' he would say. Well, and then there was his age. Of late, he really did begin to meditate something. He used to come to us in the village; for I 'm his nephew. – 'Well, Vásya, my lad,' he would say, 'prithee, brother, come and spend the night with me!' – 'What for, uncle?' – 'Why, because I 'm frightened, somehow; 't is tiresome alone.' Well, and so I 'd go to him. He would come out into the courtyard and stare and stare so at the house, and shake and shake his head, and how he would sigh!.. Just before that night, that is to say, the one on which he put an end to his life, he came to us again, and invited me. Well, and so I went. When we reached his wing, he sat for a while on the bench; then he rose, and went out. I wait, and 'he 's rather long in coming back' – says I, and went out into the courtyard, and shouted, 'Uncle! hey, uncle!' My uncle did not call back. Thinks I: 'Whither can he have gone? surely, not into the house?' and I went into the house. Twilight was already drawing on. And as I was passing the store-room, I heard something scratching there, behind the door; so I took and opened the door. Behold, there he sat doubled up under the window.

"'What art thou doing there, uncle?' says I. But he turns round, and how he shouts at me, and his eyes are so keen, so keen, they fairly blaze, like a cat's.

"'What dost thou want? Dost not see – I am shaving myself.' And his voice was so hoarse. My hair suddenly rose upright, and I don't know why I got frightened … evidently, about that time the devils had already assailed him.

"'What, in the dark?' – says I, and my knees fairly shook.

"'Come,' says he, 'it 's all right, begone!'

"I went, and he came out of the store-room and locked the door. So we went back to the wing, and the terror immediately left me.

"'What wast thou doing in the store-room, uncle?' says I. – He was fairly frightened.

"'Hold thy tongue!' says he; 'hold thy tongue!' and he crawled up on the oven-bench.

"'Well,' thinks I to myself, – ''t will be better for me not to speak to him; he surely must be feeling ill to-day.' So I went and lay down on the oven-bench myself, too. And a night-light was burning in a corner. So, I am lying there, and just dozing, you know … when suddenly I hear the door creaking softly … and it opens – so, a little. And my uncle was lying with his back to the door, and, as you may remember, he was always a little hard of hearing. But this time he sprang up suddenly…

"'Who 's calling me, hey? who is it? hast come for me, for me?!' and out he ran into the yard without his hat…

"I thought: 'What 's the matter with him?' and, sinful man that I am, I fell asleep immediately. The next morning I woke up … and Lukyánitch was not there.

"I went out of doors and began to call him – he was nowhere. I asked the watchman:

"'Has n't my uncle come out?' says I.

"'No,' says he, 'I have n't seen him.'…

"'Has n't something happened to him, brother?'… says I…

"'Oï!'… We were both fairly frightened.

"'Come, Feodósyeitch,' says I, 'come on,' says I, – 'let 's see whether he is n't in the house.'

"'Come on,' – says he, 'Vasíly Timofyéitch!' but he himself was as white as clay.

"We entered the house… I was about to pass the store-room, but I glanced and the padlock was hanging open on the hasp, and I pushed the door, but the door was fastened inside… Feodósyeitch immediately ran round, and peeped in at the window.

"'Vasíly Timofyéitch!' he cries; – 'his legs are hanging, his legs …'

"I ran to the window. And they were his legs, Lukyánitch's legs. And he had hanged himself in the middle of the room. – Well, we sent for the judge… They took him down from the rope; the rope was tied with twelve knots."

"Well, what did the court say?"

"What did the court say? Nothing. They pondered and pondered what the cause might be. There was no cause. And so they decided that he must have been out of his mind. His head had been aching of late, he had been complaining very frequently of his head…"

I chatted for about half an hour longer with the young fellow, and went away, at last, completely disconcerted. I must confess that I could not look at that rickety house without a secret, superstitious terror… A month later I quitted my country-seat, and little by little all these horrors, these mysterious encounters, vanished from my mind.

II

Three years passed. The greater part of that time I spent in Petersburg and abroad; and even when I did run down to my place in the country, it was only for a few days at a time, so that I never chanced to be in Glínnoe or in Mikhaílovskoe on a single occasion. Nowhere had I seen my beauty nor the man. One day, toward the end of the third year, in Moscow, I chanced to meet Madame Shlýkoff and her sister, Pelagéya Badáeff – that same Pelagéya whom I, sinful man that I am, had hitherto regarded as a mythical being – at an evening gathering in the house of one of my acquaintances. Neither of the ladies was any longer young, and both possessed pleasing exteriors; their conversation was characterised by wit and mirth: they had travelled a great deal, and travelled with profit; easy gaiety was observable in their manners. But they and my acquaintance had positively nothing in common. I was presented to them. Madame Shlýkoff and I dropped into conversation (her sister was being entertained by a passing geologist). I informed her that I had the pleasure of being her neighbour in *** county.

"Ah! I really do possess a small estate there," – she remarked, – "near Glínnoe."

"Exactly, exactly," – I returned: – "I know your Mikhaílovskoe. Do you ever go thither?"

"I? – Rarely."

"Were you there three years ago?"

"Stay! I think I was. Yes, I was, that is true."

"With your sister, or alone?"

She darted a glance at me.

"With my sister. We spent about a week there. On business, you know. However, we saw no one."

"H'm… I think there are very few neighbours there."

"Yes, very few. I 'm not fond of neighbours."

"Tell me," – I began; – "I believe you had a catastrophe there that same year. Lukyánitch …"

Madame Shlýkoff's eyes immediately filled with tears.

"And did you know him?" – she said with vivacity. – "Such a misfortune! He was a very fine, good old man … and just fancy, without any cause, you know …"

Madame Shlýkoff's sister approached us. She was, in all probability, beginning to be bored by the learned disquisitions of the geologist about the formation of the banks of the Volga.

"Just fancy, Pauline," – began my companion; – "monsieur knew Lukyánitch."

"Really? Poor old man!"

"I hunted more than once in the environs of Mikhaílovskoe at that period, when you were there three years ago," – I remarked.

"I?" – returned Pelagéya, in some astonishment.

"Well, yes, of course!" – hastily interposed her sister; "is it possible that thou dost not recall it?"

And she looked her intently in the eye.

"Akh, yes, yes … that is true!" – replied Pelagéya, suddenly.

"Ehe – he!" I thought: "I don't believe you were in Mikhaílovskoe, my dear."

"Will not you sing us something, Pelagéya Feódorovna?" – suddenly began a tall young man, with a crest of fair hair and turbidly-sweet little eyes.

"Really, I don't know," – said Miss Badáeff.

"And do you sing?" – I exclaimed with vivacity, springing up briskly from my seat. "For heaven's sake … akh, for heaven's sake, do sing us something."

"But what shall I sing to you?"

"Don't you know," – I began, using my utmost endeavours to impart to my face an indifferent and easy expression, – "an Italian song … it begins this way: 'Passa quei colli'?"

"Yes," replied Pelagéya with perfect innocence. "Do you want me to sing that? Very well."

And she seated herself at the piano. I, like Hamlet, riveted my eyes on Madame Shlýkoff. It seemed to me that at the first note she gave a slight start; but she sat quietly to the end. Miss Badáeff sang quite well. The song ended, the customary plaudits resounded. They began to urge her to sing something else; but the two sisters exchanged glances, and a few minutes later they took their departure. As they left the room I overheard the word "importun."

"I deserved it!" I thought – and did not meet them again.

Still another year elapsed. I transferred my residence to Petersburg. Winter arrived; the masquerades began. One day, as I emerged at eleven o'clock at night from the house of a friend, I felt myself in such a gloomy frame of mind that I decided to betake myself to the masquerade in the Assembly of the Nobility.22 For a long time I roamed about among the columns and past the mirrors with a discreetly-fatalistic expression on my countenance – with that expression which, so far as I have observed, makes its appearance in such cases on the faces of the most well-bred persons – why, the Lord only knows. For a long time I roamed about, now and then parrying with a jest the advances of divers shrill dominoes with suspicious lace and soiled gloves, and still more rarely addressing them. For a long time I surrendered my ears to the blare of the trumpets and the whining of the violins; at last, being pretty well bored, I was on the point of going home … and … and remained. I caught sight of a woman in a black domino, leaning against a column, – and no sooner had I caught sight of her than I stopped short, stepped up to her, and … will the reader believe me?.. immediately recognised in her my Unknown. How I recognised her: whether by the glance which she abstractedly cast upon me through the oblong aperture in her mask, or by the wonderful outlines of her shoulders and arms, or by the peculiarly feminine stateliness of her whole form, or, in conclusion, by some secret voice which suddenly spoke in me, – I cannot say … only, recognise her I did. With a quiver in my heart, I walked past her several times. She did not stir; in her attitude there was something so hopelessly sorrowful that, as I gazed at her, I involuntarily recalled two lines of a Spanish romance:

Soy un cuadro de tristeza,Arrimado a la pared.23

I stepped behind the column against which she was leaning, and bending my head down to her very ear, enunciated softly:

"Passa quei colli."…

She began to tremble all over, and turned swiftly round to me. Our eyes met at very short range, and I was able to observe how fright had dilated her pupils. Feebly extending one hand in perplexity, she gazed at me.

"On May 6, 184*, in Sorrento, at ten o'clock in the evening, in della Croce Street," – I said in a deliberate voice, without taking my eyes from her; "afterward, in Russia, in the *** Government, in the hamlet of Mikhaílovskoe, on June 22, 184*."…

I said all this in French. She recoiled a little, scanned me from head to foot with a look of amazement, and whispering, "Venez," swiftly left the room. I followed her.

We walked on in silence. It is beyond my power to express what I felt as I walked side by side with her. It was as though a very beautiful dream had suddenly become reality … as though the statue of Galatea had descended as a living woman from its pedestal in the sight of the swooning Pygmalion… I could not believe it, I could hardly breathe.

We traversed several rooms… At last, in one of them, she paused in front of a small divan near the window, and seated herself. I sat down beside her.

She slowly turned her head toward me, and looked intently at me.

"Do you … do you come from him?" she said.

Her voice was weak and unsteady…

Her question somewhat disconcerted me.

"No … not from him," – I replied haltingly.

"Do you know him?"

"Yes," – I replied, with mysterious solemnity. I wanted to keep up my rôle. – "Yes, I know him."

She looked distrustfully at me, started to say something, and dropped her eyes.

"You were waiting for him in Sorrento," – I went on; – "you met him at Mikhaílovskoe, you rode on horseback with him…"

"How could you …" she began.

"I know … I know all…"

"Your face seems familiar to me, somehow," – she continued: – "but no …"

"No, I am a stranger to you."

"Then what is it that you want?"

"I know that also," – I persisted.

I understood very well that I must take advantage of the excellent beginning to go further, that my repetitions of "I know all, I know," were becoming ridiculous – but my agitation was so great, that unexpected meeting had thrown me into such confusion, I had lost my self-control to such a degree that I positively was unable to say anything else. Moreover, I really knew nothing more. I felt conscious that I was talking nonsense, felt conscious that, from the mysterious, omniscient being which I must at first appear to her to be, I should soon be converted into a sort of grinning fool … but there was no help for it.

"Yes, I know all," – I muttered once more.

She darted a glance at me, rose quickly to her feet, and was on the point of departing.

But this was too cruel. I seized her hand.

"For God's sake," – I began, – "sit down, listen to me…"

She reflected, and seated herself.

"I just told you," – I went on fervently, – "that I knew everything – that is nonsense. I know nothing; I do not know either who you are, or who he is, and if I have been able to surprise you by what I said to you a while ago by the column, you must ascribe that to chance alone, to a strange, incomprehensible chance, which, as though in derision, has brought me in contact with you twice, and almost in identically the same way on both occasions, and has made me the involuntary witness of that which, perhaps, you would like to keep secret…"

And thereupon, without the slightest circumlocution, I related to her everything: my meetings with her in Sorrento, in Russia, my futile inquiries in Mikhaílovskoe, even my conversation in Moscow with Madame Shlýkoff and her sister.

"Now you know everything," – I went on, when I had finished my story. – "I will not undertake to describe to you what an overwhelming impression you made on me: to see you and not to be bewitched by you is impossible. On the other hand, there is no need for me to tell you what the nature of that impression was. Remember under what conditions I beheld you both times… Believe me, I am not fond of indulging in senseless hopes, but you must understand also that inexpressible agitation which has seized upon me to-day, and you must pardon the awkward artifice to which I decided to have recourse in order to attract your attention, if only for a moment …"

She listened to my confused explanations without raising her head.

"What do you want of me?" – she said at last.

"I?.. I want nothing … I am happy as I am… I have too much respect for such secrets."

"Really? But, up to this point, apparently … However," – she went on, – "I will not reproach you. Any man would have done the same in your place. Moreover, chance really has brought us together so persistently … that would seem to give you a certain right to frankness on my part. Listen: I am not one of those uncomprehended and unhappy women who go to masquerades for the sake of chattering to the first man they meet about their sufferings, who require hearts filled with sympathy… I require sympathy from no one; my own heart is dead, and I have come hither in order to bury it definitively."

She raised a handkerchief to her lips.

"I hope" – she went on with a certain amount of effort – "that you do not take my words for the ordinary effusions of a masquerade. You must understand that I am in no mood for that…"

And, in truth, there was something terrible in her voice, despite all the softness of its tones.

"I am a Russian," – she said in Russian; – up to that point she had expressed herself in the French language: – "although I have lived little in Russia… It is not necessary for me to know your name. Anna Feódorovna is an old friend of mine; I really did go to Mikhaílovskoe under the name of her sister… It was impossible at that time for me to meet him openly… And even without that, rumours had begun to circulate … at that time, obstacles still existed – he was not free… Those obstacles have disappeared … but he whose name should become mine, he with whom you saw me, has abandoned me."

She made a gesture with her hand, and paused awhile…

"You really do not know him? You have not met him?"

"Not once."

"He has spent almost all this time abroad. But he is here now… That is my whole history," – she added; – "you see, there is nothing mysterious about it, nothing peculiar."

"And Sorrento?" – I timidly interposed.

"I made his acquaintance in Sorrento," – she answered slowly, becoming pensive.

Both of us held our peace. A strange discomposure took possession of me. I was sitting beside her, beside that woman whose image had so often flitted through my dreams, had so torturingly agitated and irritated me, – I was sitting beside her and felt a cold and a weight at my heart. I knew that nothing would come of that meeting, that between her and me there was a gulf, that when we parted we should part forever. With her head bowed forward and both hands lying in her lap, she sat there indifferent and careless. I know that carelessness of incurable grief, I know that indifference of irrecoverable happiness! The masks strolled past us in couples; the sounds of the "monotonous and senseless" waltz now reverberated dully in the distance, now were wafted by in sharp gusts; the merry ball-music agitated me heavily and mournfully. "Can it be," – I thought, – "that this woman is the same who appeared to me once on a time in the window of that little country house far away, in all the splendour of triumphant beauty?.." And yet, time seemed not to have touched her. The lower part of her face, unconcealed by the lace of her mask, was of almost childish delicacy; but a chill emanated from her, as from a statue… Galatea had returned to her pedestal, and would descend from it no more.

Suddenly she drew herself up, darted a glance into the next room, and rose.

"Give me your arm," – she said to me. "Let us go away quickly, quickly."

We returned to the ball-room. She walked so fast that I could barely keep up with her. She came to a standstill beside one of the columns.

"Let us wait here," – she whispered.

"Are you looking for any one?" – I began…

But she paid no heed to me: her eager gaze was fixed upon the crowd. Languidly and menacingly did her great black eyes look forth from beneath the black velvet.

I turned in the direction of her gaze and understood everything. Along the corridor formed by the row of columns and the wall, he was walking, that man whom I had met with her in the forest. I recognised him instantly: he had hardly changed at all. His golden-brown moustache curled as handsomely as ever, his brown eyes beamed with the same calm and self-confident cheerfulness as of yore. He was walking without haste, and, lightly bending his slender figure, was narrating something to a woman in a domino, whose arm was linked in his. As he came on a level with us, he suddenly raised his head, looked first at me, then at the woman with whom I was standing, and probably recognised her eyes, for his eyebrows quivered slightly, – he screwed up his eyes, and a barely perceptible, but intolerably insolent smile hovered over his lips. He bent down to his companion, and whispered a couple of words in her ear; she immediately glanced round, her blue eyes hastily scanned us both, and with a soft laugh she menaced him with her little hand. He slightly shrugged one shoulder, she nestled up to him coquettishly…