Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, 1892-1895

The Black Monk

I

Andrey Vasilich Kovrin, MA, was exhausted, his nerves were shattered. He did not take any medical treatment but mentioned his condition in passing to a doctor friend over a bottle of wine, and was advised to spend the spring and summer in the country. And as it happened he received just then a long letter from Tanya Pesotskaya, inviting him to come and stay at Borisovka. So he decided he really must get away.

At first – this was in April – he went to his own estate, Kovrinka, where he lived on his own for three weeks. Then after waiting until the roads were passable, he drove off in a carriage to see his former guardian and mentor Pesotsky the horticulturalist, who was famous throughout Russia. It was no more than about fifty miles from Kovrinka to Pesotsky’s place at Borisovka and it was pure joy travelling along the soft road in spring, in a comfortable sprung carriage.

Pesotsky’s house was huge, with columns, peeling plaster lions, and a footman in coat and tails at the entrance. The gloomy, severe, old-fashioned park was strictly laid out in the landscaped English style, stretched almost half a mile from the house to the river, and ended in a precipitous clayey bank where pines grew, their exposed roots resembling shaggy paws. Down below, the water glinted uninvitingly, sandpipers flew past squeaking plaintively, and it was generally the kind of place to make you want to sit down and write a ballad. But near the house itself, in the courtyard and the orchard, which took up about eighty acres, including the nursery beds, it was cheerful and lively, even in bad weather. Nowhere, except at Pesotsky’s, had Kovrin seen such wonderful roses, lilies, camellias, so many different tulips, with colours ranging from white to soot-black, such a profusion of flowers. It was only the beginning of spring and the real splendours of the flowerbeds were still hidden in the hothouses. But the flowers in bloom along the paths – and here and there in the beds – were enough to make you feel that you were in the very kingdom of tender hues as you strolled in the garden, especially early in the morning, when dew sparkled on every petal.

The ornamental section of the garden, which Pesotsky disparagingly called ‘sheer nonsense’, had seemed like a fairyland to Kovrin as a child. The oddities, elaborate monstrosities and travesties of nature that were to be seen here! There were trellised fruit trees, a pear tree shaped like a Lombardy poplar, globe-shaped oaks and limes, an apple tree umbrella, arches, initials, candelabra, and even an ‘1862’ made from plums – this was the year Pesotsky first took up horticulture. Here also were fine, graceful saplings with straight, firm stems like palm trees, and only after a very close look could you tell that they were gooseberries or blackcurrants. But what most of all made the garden a cheerful, lively place was the constant activity. From dawn to dusk gardeners with wheelbarrows, hoes and watering-cans swarmed like ants near the trees and bushes, on the paths and flowerbeds.

Kovrin arrived at the Pesotskys’ after nine in the evening. He found Tanya and her father Yegor Semyonych in a terribly worried state. The clear, starry sky and the thermometer foretold frost towards morning, but the head gardener Ivan Karlych had gone off to town and there was no one left they could rely on.

During supper, they talked only of this morning frost and decided that Tanya would not go to bed, but would go round the orchard after midnight to check if everything was all right, while Yegor Semyonych would get up at three, even earlier perhaps. Kovrin sat with Tanya the whole evening and after midnight went with her into the garden. It was cold and there was a strong smell of burning. In the big orchard, called ‘commercial’ as it brought Yegor Semyonych several thousand roubles profit every year, a dense, black, acrid smoke was spreading over the ground and enveloping the trees, saving all those thousands from the frost. Here the trees were planted like draughts pieces, in straight, even rows, like columns of soldiers. This strict, pedantic regularity, plus the fact that all the trees were exactly the same height, all of them having absolutely identical crowns and trunks, made a monotonous, even boring picture. Kovrin and Tanya walked between the rows, where bonfires of manure, straw and all kind of refuse were smouldering, and every now and then they met workers drifting through the smoke like shadows. Only cherries, plums and certain varieties of apple were in bloom, but the whole orchard was drowning in smoke. Kovrin breathed a deep breath only when they reached the nurseries.

‘When I was a child the smoke used to make me sneeze’, he said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘but I still don’t understand why this smoke saves the plants from frost.’

‘Smoke is a substitute for clouds when the sky is clear…’ Tanya said.

‘But what use are they?’

‘You don’t normally get a frost when it’s dull and overcast.’

‘That’s right!’

He laughed and took her arm. Her broad, very serious face, chill from the cold, with its fine black eyebrows, the raised coat collar which cramped her movements, her whole slim, graceful body, her dress tucked up from the dew – all this moved him deeply.

‘Heavens, how you’ve grown up!’ he said. ‘Last time I left here, five years ago, you were still a child. You were so thin, long-legged, bareheaded, with that short little dress you used to wear. And I teased you and called you a heron… How time changes everything!’

‘Yes, five years!’ Tanya sighed. ‘A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. Tell me, Andrey, in all honesty’, she said in an animated voice, peering into his face, ‘have you grown tired of us? But why am I asking you this? You’re a man, you live your own interesting life, you’re an eminent person… Becoming like strangers to each other is really so natural! Anyway, Andrey, I want you to treat us as your family, we have a right to that.’

‘But I do, Tanya.’

‘Word of honour?’

‘Yes, word of honour.’

‘You were surprised before that we had so many of your photos. You must know Father idolizes you. At times I think he loves you more than me. He’s proud of you. You are a scholar, a remarkable person, you’ve made a dazzling career for yourself and he’s convinced this is because he brought you up. I let him think this, I don’t see why I should stop him.’

Dawn was breaking – this was particularly evident from the clarity with which puffs of smoke and the tree tops were outlined now in the air. Nightingales were singing and the cries of quails came from the fields.

‘But it’s time for bed’, Tanya said. ‘Besides that, it’s cold.’ She took his arm. ‘Thanks for coming, Andrey. Our friends aren’t very interesting, not that we have many. All we have is the garden, garden, garden, nothing else.’ She laughed. ‘First-class, second-class, Oporto,¹ rennets and winter apples, budding, grafting. Our whole life has gone into this garden, I dream of nothing but apple and pear trees. Of course, it’s all very nice and useful, but sometimes I want something else, to break the monotony. I remember the times you came for the holidays, or just for a short visit, how the house became somehow fresher and brighter then, as though the covers had been taken off the chandeliers and furniture. I was a little girl then, but I did understand.’

She spoke for a long time and with great feeling. Suddenly Kovrin was struck by the idea that he might even conceive an affection for this small, fragile, loquacious creature during the course of the summer, become attracted to her and fall in love. In their situation that would be so natural and possible! He was both touched and amused by the thought. He leant down towards that dear, worried face and softly sang:

Onegin, I will not hide it,

I love Tatyana madly…²

Yegor Semyonych was up already when they returned to the house. Kovrin did not feel like sleeping, got into conversation with the old man and went back to the garden with him. Yegor Semyonych was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a large paunch. Although he suffered from short breath, he always walked so fast it was hard keeping up with him. He had an extremely worried look and was always hurrying off somewhere as if all would be lost should he be just one minute late.

‘It’s a peculiar thing, my dear boy’, he began, then paused for breath. ‘As you see, it’s freezing down on the ground, but just you hold a thermometer on a stick about twelve feet above it and you’ll find it’s warm there… Why is it?’

‘I honestly don’t know’, Kovrin said, laughing.

‘Hm… one can’t know everything of course… However capacious your brain is, it won’t accommodate everything. Philosophy’s more your line, isn’t it?’

‘I give lectures on psychology, but my main interest is philosophy.’

‘And you’re not bored?’

‘On the contrary, it’s my life.’

‘Well, God bless you…’ Yegor Semyonych murmured, thoughtfully stroking his grey side-whiskers. ‘God bless you… I’m very pleased for you… very pleased, dear boy.’

But suddenly he pricked up his ears, pulled a horrified face, ran to one side and soon disappeared in the clouds of smoke behind the trees.

‘Who tied a horse to that apple tree?’ the despairing, heart-rending cry rang out. ‘What swine, what scum dared to tie a horse to an apple tree? Good Lord! They’ve ruined, frozen, polluted, mucked everything up! The garden’s ruined! Ruined! Oh, God!’

He went back to Kovrin, looking exhausted, outraged. ‘What can you do with this confounded riff-raff?’ he said tearfully, flinging his arms out helplessly. ‘Last night Stepka was carting manure and tied his horse to the apple tree. He twisted the reins so hellishly tight, damn him, that the bark’s rubbed off. How could he do it? I had words with him, but the idiot just stood gaping. Hanging’s too good for him!’

After he had calmed down he put his arms round Kovrin and kissed him on the check. ‘Well, God bless, God bless…’ he muttered. ‘I’m very pleased you came. I can’t say how glad I am… Thanks.’

Then, at the same rapid pace and with that same worried look, he toured the whole garden, showing his former ward all the conservatories, greenhouses, cold frames, and the two apiaries he called the ‘wonder of the century’.

As they walked along, the sun rose, filling the garden with a bright light. It grew warm. Anticipating a fine, cheerful, long day, Kovrin recalled that in fact it was only the beginning of May and that the whole summer lay ahead – just as bright, cheerful and long, and suddenly there welled up within him that feeling of radiant, joyous youth he had known in his childhood, when he had run around this garden. And he embraced the old man in turn and kissed him tenderly. Both of them, deeply moved, went into the house and drank tea from old-fashioned porcelain cups, with cream and rich pastries. These little things again reminded Kovrin of his childhood and youth. The beautiful present, the freshly awakened impressions of the past, blended together: they had a somewhat inhibiting effect, but none the less gave him a feeling of well-being.

He waited for Tanya to wake up, drank coffee with her, went for a stroll, and then returned to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, took notes, now and again looking up at the open window or the fresh flowers that stood, still moist with dew, in vases on the table, then lowering his eyes on his book again; it seemed every vein in his body was pulsating and throbbing with pleasure.

II

In the country he continued to lead the same nervous, restless life as in town. He read and wrote a great deal, studied Italian, and on his strolls took pleasure in the thought that he would soon be back at work again. Everyone was amazed he slept so little. If he chanced to doze off during the day for half an hour, he could not sleep at all later and would emerge from a night of insomnia vigorous and cheerful, as if nothing was wrong.

He talked a lot, drank wine and smoked expensive cigars. Young ladies who lived nearby called on the Pesotskys almost every day and played the piano and sang with Tanya. Sometimes a young gentleman from the neighbourhood, an excellent violinist, would call. Kovrin would listen so hungrily to the playing and singing it tired him out, and the exhaustion was plainly visible from the way his eyelids seemed to stick together and his head dropped to one side.

One evening, after tea, he was sitting on the balcony reading. At the same time Tanya, who sang soprano, together with one of the young ladies – a contralto – and the young violinist, were practising Braga’s famous Serenade.³ Kovrin listened hard to the words (they were Russian) but could not understand them at all. Finally, after putting his book aside and listening very closely, he did understand: a young girl, with a morbid imagination, was in her garden one night and heard some mysterious sounds, so beautiful and strange, she had to admit that their harmony was something divine, incomprehensible to mere mortals as it soared up again into the heavens whence it came. Kovrin began to feel sleepy. He rose to his feet, wearily walked up and down the drawing-room, then the ballroom. When the singing stopped, he took Tanya by the arm and went out onto the balcony with her.

‘Since early this morning I haven’t been able to get a certain legend out of my mind’, he said. ‘I can’t remember if I read it somewhere or if I heard it, but it’s really quite strange – doesn’t appear to make any sense at all. I should say from the start that it’s not distinguished for its clarity. A thousand years ago a certain monk, dressed in black, was walking across a desert – somewhere in Syria or Arabia… A few miles from where he was walking a fisherman saw another black monk slowly moving across the surface of a lake. This second monk was a mirage. Now forget the laws of optics, which the legend apparently doesn’t acknowledge, and listen to what happened next. The mirage produced another one. This second mirage produced a third, so that the image of the black monk began to be transmitted endlessly from one layer of the atmosphere to the other. He was sighted in Africa, then Spain, India, the far north… He finally left the earth’s atmosphere and now wanders through the whole universe, never meeting the conditions which would make it possible for him to fade away. Perhaps he’ll be seen somewhere on Mars now, or on some star in the Southern Cross. But, my dear, the essence, the real crux of the legend is this: precisely one thousand years after that monk first walked across the desert, the mirage will return to the earth’s atmosphere and appear to people. And it seems these thousand years are almost up. According to the legend, we can expect the black monk any day now.’

‘A strange mirage’, said Tanya, who did not care for the legend.

‘But the most amazing thing is’, Kovrin said, laughing, ‘I just can’t remember what prompted me to think of it. Did I read it somewhere? Did I hear about it? Perhaps the black monk was only a dream? I swear to God, I can’t remember. But I’m intrigued by this legend. I’ve been thinking about it all day.’

Leaving Tanya to her guests, he went out of the house and strolled by the flowerbeds, deep in thought. The sun was setting. The freshly watered flowers gave off a moist, irritating scent. In the house the singing had started again; from the distance the violin sounded like a human voice. Kovrin racked his brains trying to remember where he had read or heard about that legend as he walked unhurriedly towards the park, reaching the river before he knew where he was.

He descended the path that ran down a steep bank, past bare roots, to the water, where he disturbed some sandpipers and frightened two ducks away. Here and there on the gloomy pines gleamed the last rays of the setting sun, but evening had already come over the surface of the river. Kovrin crossed the footbridge to the other side. Before him lay a broad field full of young rye not yet in ear. There was no human habitation, not a living soul out there, and it seemed the path would lead him to that same unknown, mysterious spot where the sun had just set and where the evening glow spread its flames so magnificently over all that wide expanse.

‘So much space, freedom, peace here!’ Kovrin thought as he walked along the path. ‘The whole world seems to be looking at me, has gone silent, and is waiting for me to understand it.’

But just then some ripples spread across the rye and a gentle evening breeze lightly caressed his bare head. A moment later there was another gust, stronger this time, and the rye rustled and he could hear the dull murmur of the pines behind him. Kovrin stood motionless in astonishment. On the horizon a tall black column was rising up into the sky, like a whirlwind or tornado. Its outlines were blurred, but he could see at once that it was not standing still, but moving at terrifying speed straight towards him – and the nearer it came, the smaller and clearer it grew. Kovrin leapt aside into the rye to make way – and he was only just in time… A monk in black vestments, grey-haired and with black eyebrows, his arms across his chest, flashed past; his bare feet did not touch the ground. After he had raced on another six yards he looked round at Kovrin, nodded and gave him a friendly, but artful, smile. What a pale, terribly pale, thin face though! Growing larger again, he flew across the river, struck the clayey bank and the pines without making a sound, passed straight through and disappeared into thin air.

‘So, there it is…’ murmured Kovrin. ‘That shows there’s truth in the legend.’

Without trying to find an explanation for this strange apparition and satisfied that he had managed to get such a close look, not only at the black vestments, but even at the monk’s face and eyes, he went back to the house feeling pleasantly excited.

People were strolling peacefully in the park and garden, the musicians were playing in the house, so only he had seen the monk. He had a strong urge to tell Tanya and Yegor Semyonych about everything, but he realized they would surely think the story crazy and be scared stiff. Better keep quiet about it. He laughed out loud, sang, danced a mazurka; he was in high spirits and everyone – Tanya, her guests – found that he really had a radiant, inspired look about him that evening, that he was most interesting.

III

After supper, when the guests had left, he went to his room and lay on the couch. He wanted to think about the monk, but a moment later in came Tanya.

‘Here, Andrey, read Father’s articles’, she said, handing him a bundle of pamphlets and offprints. ‘They’re wonderful, he’s an excellent writer.’

‘I wouldn’t say that!’ Yegor Semyonych said, forcing a laugh as he followed her into the room; he felt embarrassed. ‘Don’t listen to her, please! Don’t read them! But if you need something to make you sleep, then go ahead. They’re an excellent soporific!’

‘In my opinion they’re magnificent’, Tanya said with great conviction. ‘Read them, Andrey, and persuade Father to write more often. He could write a whole course in horticulture.’

Yegor Semyonych gave a forced laugh, blushed and started speaking in the way shy authors usually do. In the end he gave in. ‘In that case, read Gaucher’s article⁴ first, then these short ones in Russian’, he muttered, turning over the pamphlets with trembling hands. ‘Otherwise you won’t understand a thing. Before you read my objections, you must know what it is I’m objecting to. However, it’s rubbish… boring. What’s more, I think it’s time for bed.’

Tanya went out. Yegor Semyonych sat beside Kovrin on the couch and sighed deeply. ‘Yes, my dear boy’, he began after a short silence. ‘Yes, my dear Master of Arts. Here I am writing articles and exhibiting at shows and winning medals… They say Pesotsky has “apples as big as your head” and that he made his fortune with his orchard. Pesotsky is monarch of all he surveys,⁵ in short. But, you may ask, what’s the point of it all? The garden is really beautiful, a show-garden in fact. It’s not so much a garden as a complete institution, of the greatest importance to the state, a step, so to speak, towards a new era in Russian economics and industry. But what’s the point of it? What’s the use?’

‘It speaks for itself.’

‘That’s not what I mean. I’d like to know, what will happen to the garden when I die? It won’t be kept up to its present standard for more than one month. The secret of my success isn’t that it’s a big garden, with lots of gardeners, but because I love the work – do you follow? Perhaps I love it better than myself. I work from dawn till dusk. The grafting, pruning, planting – I do them all myself. When people start helping me, I get jealous and irritated until I’m downright rude to them. The whole secret is love, and by that I mean the keen eye and head of the master looking after his own place, the feeling that comes over you when you’ve gone visiting for an hour and you just sit still. But your heart’s not there, you’re miles away – afraid something might be going wrong in the garden. And when I die who’ll look after it? Who’ll do the work? The head gardener? The ordinary gardeners? What do you think? So let me tell you, dear boy, the principal enemy in our work isn’t hares, cockchafers or frost, but the man who doesn’t care.’

‘And Tanya?’ laughed Kovrin. ‘She couldn’t possibly do more harm than a hare. She loves the work, she understands it.’

‘Yes, she loves and understands it. If the garden passes into her hands after my death and she takes charge, I could hope for nothing better. But supposing she marries, God forbid?’ Yegor Semyonych whispered and gave Kovrin a frightened look. ‘This is my point! She’ll marry, have children and then she’ll have no time to think about the garden. But my main worry is her marrying some young whipper-snapper who’ll grow greedy, rent the garden out to some market-woman and it’ll all go to rack and ruin within a year! In this kind of business women are like the plague!’

Yegor Semyonych sighed and was silent for a few minutes. ‘Perhaps it’s just egotism, but I’m telling you quite frankly: I don’t want Tanya to marry. I’m afraid! There’s that young fop who comes here scraping his fiddle. I know Tanya won’t marry him, I know that very well, but I just can’t stand the sight of him. On the whole I’m quite a crank, dear boy. I admit it.’ Yegor Semyonych got up and paced the room excitedly; it was plain he wanted to say something very important, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

‘I’m extremely fond of you and I’ll be open with you’, he said at last, stuffing his hands into his pockets. ‘I’m usually quite straightforward when it comes to certain ticklish questions and I’m telling you exactly what I think – I can’t stand these so-called “innermost thoughts”. I’m telling you straight: you’re the only man I wouldn’t mind marrying my daughter. You’re clever, you have feelings and you wouldn’t let my beloved work perish. But the main reason is – I love you like a son… and I’m proud of you. If Tanya and yourself became fond of each other, well then, I’d be very glad, happy even. I’m telling you straight, without frills, as an honest man.’

Kovrin burst out laughing. Yegor Semyonych opened the door to go out and stopped on the threshold. ‘If Tanya gave you a son I’d make a gardener out of him’, he said thoughtfully. ‘However, that’s an idle dream… Good night.’

Left alone, Kovrin settled himself more comfortably on the couch and started on the articles. One bore the title Intermedial Cultivation, another A few Observations on Mr Z’s Remarks on Double-Trenching in New Gardens, and another More about Grafting Dormant Buds; and there were other titles like that. But what a restless, uneven tone, what highly charged, almost pathological fervour! Here was an article with apparently the most inoffensive title and unexceptionable subject – the winter dessert apple. But Yegor Semyonych first weighed in with an audiatur altera pars⁶ and ended with sapienti sat,⁷ interpolating these dicta with a whole torrent of venomous animadversions apropos the ‘learned ignorance of our self-appointed gentlemen-horticulturalists who look down on nature from their Olympian heights’: or Gaucher, ‘whose reputation was made by ignoramuses and dilettantes’. These remarks were followed by the totally irrelevant, forced, sham regret for the fact that it was no longer legal to birch peasants who stole fruit and damaged trees in the process.

‘It’s a fine, pleasant, healthy occupation, but even here it’s passion and warfare’, Kovrin thought. ‘Probably, it’s because intellectuals are neurotic and over-sensitive everywhere, in all walks of life. Perhaps it can’t be avoided.’

He thought of Tanya who liked Yegor Semyonych’s articles so much. She was not tall, was pale and thin, with protruding collarbones; her dark, clever, staring eyes were always peering, seeking something. She walked just like her father, taking short, quick steps. Very talkative, she loved to argue and would accompany the most trivial phrase with highly expressive mimicry and gesticulations. She was probably highly strung.

Kovrin read on, but he understood nothing and gave up. That same, agreeable feeling of excitement he had had when dancing his mazurka and listening to the music made him weary now and stirred a multitude of thoughts. He stood up and started walking round the room, thinking about the black monk. It occurred to him that if he alone had seen that strange, supernatural apparition, then he must be ill and a prey to hallucinations. This thought frightened him, but not for long.

‘In fact I feel fine. I’m not harming anyone. So that means there’s nothing bad in these hallucinations’, he thought and felt fine again.

He sat on the couch and clasped his head to hold in check that incomprehensible feeling of joy which filled his whole being; then he paced up and down again and started to work. But the ideas he found in the book left him unsatisfied. He wanted something gigantic, immense, staggering. Towards dawn he undressed and reluctantly got into bed. After all, he had to sleep!

When he heard Yegor Semyonych’s footsteps receding into the garden, Kovrin rang the bell and told the servant to bring him some wine. After enjoying a few glasses of claret his senses grew dim and he fell asleep.

IV

Yegor Semyonych and Tanya had frequent quarrels and said nasty things to each other. One morning, after a squabble about something, Tanya burst into tears and went to her room. She didn’t appear for lunch, or tea. At first Yegor Semyonych walked around solemnly and pompously, as if he wanted to make it known that he considered justice and order more important than anything else in the world. But he could not keep up the pose for long and lost heart. Sadly he wandered through the park, sighing the whole time, ‘Ah, Good Lord, Good Lord!’ and he did not eat a thing for dinner. Finally, full of guilt and remorse, he knocked on the locked door and called out timidly, ‘Tanya! Tanya?’

A weak voice, drained by tears, but still determined, replied from behind the door, ‘Leave me alone, I beg you.’

The anguish of the master and mistress was reflected all over the house, even in the gardeners. Kovrin was immersed in his interesting work, but in the end he too felt bored and embarrassed. Trying to dispel the prevailing unpleasant atmosphere, he decided to intervene and towards evening knocked at Tanya’s door. She let him in.

‘Come now, you should be ashamed!’ he joked, looking in amazement at Tanya’s tear-stained, mournful face that was covered in red blotches. ‘Surely it’s not as bad as all that? Now, now!’

‘If you only knew how he torments me!’ she said and copious, bitter tears welled from her large eyes. ‘He’s tormented the life out of me’, she went on, wringing her hands. ‘I didn’t say anything to him… nothing at all. I only said we don’t need to keep on extra workers when… when we can engage day-labourers if we want to. You know, our gardeners have been standing idle for a whole week. That’s all I said, but he shouted and said many insulting, deeply offensive things. Why?’

‘Now, that’s enough, enough’, Kovrin said, smoothing her hair. ‘You’ve had your quarrel and a good cry, and that’s enough. You must stop being angry now, it’s not good… especially as he loves you so very much.’

‘He’s ruined my whole life’, Tanya continued, sobbing. ‘All I hear is insults and abuse… He thinks there’s no place for me in this house. Agreed. He’s right. I’ll leave this place tomorrow, get a job as a telegraphist… That’s what I’ll do.’

‘Come now, there’s no need to cry, Tanya. Please don’t, my dear… You’re both quick-tempered, easily upset, and you’re both to blame. Come on, I’ll make peace between you.’

Kovrin spoke with feeling, convincingly, but she kept on crying, her shoulders twitching and her hands clenched as if something really terrible had happened to her. He felt all the more sorry for her because, although her grief was nothing serious, she was suffering deeply. How little it took to make this creature unhappy all day long, for her whole life perhaps! As he comforted Tanya, Kovrin thought that he wouldn’t find two people who loved him so much as Tanya and her father in a month of Sundays. Having lost his father and mother as a small child, but for these two, probably, he would never have known true affection until his dying day. He would never have known that simple, disinterested love that is felt only for those who are very close, for blood relations. And he felt that this weeping, trembling girl’s nerves were reacting to his own half-sick, overwrought nerves like iron to a magnet. He could never have loved a healthy, strong, rosy-cheeked woman, but that pale, weak, unhappy Tanya attracted him.

And he gladly stroked her hair and shoulders, pressed her hands and wiped away the tears… Finally she stopped crying. For a long time she complained about her father and her hard, intolerable life in that house, imploring Kovrin to see things as she did. Then gradually, she began to smile and said sighing that God had given her such a bad character. In the end she laughed out loud, called herself a fool and ran out of the room.

Shortly afterwards, when Kovrin went into the garden, Yegor Semyonych and Tanya were strolling side by side along the path as if nothing had happened. They were both eating rye bread with salt, as they were hungry.

V

Pleased with his success as peacemaker, Kovrin went into the park. As he sat pondering on a bench he heard the clatter of carriages and a woman’s laughter – guests had arrived. As the shadows of evening fell across the garden he heard the vague sounds of a violin, voices singing, which reminded him of the black monk. Where, in what country or on what planet was that optical absurdity wandering now?

Hardly had he recalled that legend, conjuring up the dark spectre he had seen in the rye field, when quite silently, without the slightest rustling, a man of medium height, his grey head uncovered, all in black, barefoot like a beggar, his black eyebrows sharply defined on his deathly white face, slipped out from behind the pine trees just opposite. Nodding his head welcomingly, this beggar or pilgrim silently came over to the bench and Kovrin could see it was the black monk. For a minute they both eyed each other – Kovrin in amazement, the monk in a friendly way, with that same rather crafty look.

‘You’re just a mirage’, Kovrin murmured. ‘Why are you here, sitting still like that? It doesn’t tally with the legend.’

‘Never mind’, the monk answered softly after a brief pause, turning his face towards him. ‘The legend, myself, the mirage are all products of your overheated imagination. I’m an apparition…’

‘That means you don’t exist?’ Kovrin asked.

‘Think what you like’, the monk said with a weak smile. ‘I exist in your imagination, and your imagination is part of nature, so I exist in nature too.’

‘You have a very aged, clever and extremely expressive face, as if you really have lived more than a thousand years’, Kovrin said. ‘I didn’t know my imagination could create such phenomena. But why are you looking at me so rapturously? Do you like me?’

‘Yes. You’re one of the few who are rightly called God’s Chosen. You serve Eternal Truth. Your ideas, intentions, your amazing erudition, your whole life – all bear the divine, heavenly stamp, since they are devoted to the Rational and the Beautiful, that is, to the Eternal.’

‘You mentioned “Eternal Truth”… But is that within men’s reach, do they need it if there’s no such thing as eternal life?’

‘There is eternal life’, the monk said.

‘Do you believe in immortality?’

‘Yes, of course. A great, bright future awaits you human beings. And the more men there are like you on earth, the quicker will this future come about. Without men like you serving the highest principles, living intelligently and freely, humanity would be worthless. In the normal course of events it would have to wait a long time for its life upon earth to come to an end. But you will lead it into the Kingdom of Eternal Truth a few thousand years ahead of time – this is your noble service. You are the embodiment of God’s blessing which has come to dwell among men.’

‘But what is the purpose of eternal life?’ asked Kovrin.

‘Like any other kind of life – pleasure. True pleasure is knowledge, and eternal life will afford innumerable and inexhaustible sources of knowledge: this is the meaning of the saying, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” ’⁸

‘If you only knew how enjoyable it is listening to you!’ Kovrin said, rubbing his hands with pleasure.

‘I’m very pleased.’

‘But I know one thing: when you’ve gone I’ll start worrying whether you really do exist. You’re a phantom, a hallucination. Does that mean I’m mentally ill, insane?’

‘Even if that were so, why let it bother you? You’re ill from overworking, you’ve worn yourself out. I’m trying to say that you’ve sacrificed your health for an idea and it won’t be long before you sacrifice your very life to it. What could be better? All noble spirits blessed with gifts from on high have this as their aim.’

‘If I know that I’m mentally ill, how can I have any faith in myself?’

‘But how do you know that men of genius, in whom the whole world puts its faith, haven’t seen ghosts too? Nowadays scientists say genius is akin to madness. My friend, only the mediocre, the common herd are healthy and normal. Thoughts about an age of neurosis, overwork, degeneracy and so on can seriously worry only those for whom the purpose of life lies in the present – that is, the common herd.’

‘The Romans used to speak of mens sana in corpore sano.’⁹

‘Not all that the Greeks and Romans said is true. Heightened awareness, excitement, ecstasy – everything that distinguishes prophets, poets, martyrs to an idea, from ordinary people is hostile to man’s animal side – I mean, his physical health. I repeat: if you want to be healthy and normal, go and join the herd.’

‘It’s strange the way you repeat things I think of myself very often’, Kovrin said. ‘It’s as though you spied out and eavesdropped on my most secret thoughts. But let’s not talk about me. What do you mean by Eternal Truth?’

The monk did not answer. Kovrin looked at him and could not make out his face – its features had become hazy and indistinct. Then the monk’s head and arms began to disappear. His torso merged with the bench and the twilight shadows, and he vanished completely.

‘The hallucination’s over!’ Kovrin said laughing. ‘A pity!’

He went back to the house happy and cheerful. The monk’s few words had flattered not his pride, but his very soul, his whole being. To be one of the Chosen, to serve Eternal Truth, to stand in the ranks of those who, a thousand years ahead of time, would make men worthy of the Kingdom of God, thereby saving them from several thousand years of needless struggle, sin and suffering, to surrender, to surrender everything – youth, strength, health – to an idea, to be ready to die for the common weal – what a noble, blissful destiny! The memory of his pure, chaste, hardworking past flashed through his mind; he remembered what he had learned, what he had taught others, and he decided that the monk had not been exaggerating.

As he went through the park he met Tanya. She was wearing a different dress now.

‘So you’re here’, she said. ‘We’ve all been looking for you, looking everywhere… But what’s the matter?’ she asked in surprise, studying his radiant, glowing face. ‘How strange you are, Andrey.’

‘I’m contented, Tanya’, Kovrin said as he put his hands on her shoulders. ‘I’m more than contented, I’m happy! Tanya, dear Tanya, you’re such a likeable person! Dear Tanya, I’m so glad, so glad!’

He kissed both her hands passionately and went on, ‘I’ve just experienced some bright, wonderful, divine moments. But I can’t tell you everything, because you’d call me mad or disbelieve me. Let’s talk about you. Dear, wonderful Tanya! I love you. I’m used to loving you now. Having you near me, meeting you ten times a day has become a spiritual necessity. I don’t know how I will cope when I go home.’

‘Well!’ Tanya laughed. ‘You’ll forget about us in a couple of days. We’re small fry and you’re a great man.’

‘No, let’s be serious!’ he said. ‘I shall take you with me, Tanya. Will you say yes? Will you come with me? Will you be mine?’

‘Well!’ Tanya said and felt like laughing again. But she could not and her face came out in red blotches. Her breath came faster and she quickly went away, not towards the house, but further into the park. ‘I hadn’t given it any thought… I hadn’t thought…’ she said, wringing her hands despairingly.

But Kovrin kept following her, still speaking with that same radiant, rapturous expression on his face, ‘I want a love which will completely transport me, and only you can give me that love, Tanya! I’m happy, so happy!’

Quite stunned, she stooped, shrank and suddenly seemed to have aged ten years. But he found her beautiful and shouted out in delight, ‘How beautiful she is!’

VI

When he heard from Kovrin that not only were they enamoured of each other, but that there was even going to be a wedding, Yegor Semyonych paced up and down for a long time, trying to conceal his excitement. His hands started shaking, his neck swelled up and turned crimson. He ordered his racing droshky to be harnessed and drove off somewhere. When Tanya saw him whipping the horses and pulling his cap almost onto his ears, she realized the kind of mood he was in, locked herself in her room and cried all day long.

The peaches and plums in the hothouses were already ripe. The packing and despatch of this delicate, temperamental cargo required a great deal of care, labour and trouble. Because of the very hot, dry summer, each tree needed watering, which involved a great deal of the gardeners’ time. Swarms of caterpillars appeared, which the gardeners – even Yegor Semyonych and Tanya – squashed with their bare fingers, much to Kovrin’s disgust. Besides this, they had to take orders for fruit and trees for the autumn and conduct an extensive correspondence. And at the most critical time, when no one seemed to have a moment to spare, the harvesting started and this took half the workforce away from the garden. Extremely sunburnt, worn-out and in a dreadful mood, Yegor Semyonych would tear off into the garden, then out into the fields, shouting that they were tearing him to pieces and that he was going to put a bullet in his head.

And now there were rows about the trousseau, to which the Pesotskys attached no little importance. The snipping of scissors, the rattle of sewing-machines, the fumes from the hot-irons, the tantrums of the dressmaker – a nervous, touchy woman – had everyone’s head in a whirl in that household. And as ill luck would have it, guests turned up every day and had to be amused, fed, even put up for the night. But all this toil passed by unnoticed, as though in a mist. Tanya felt as if she had been caught quite unawares by love and happiness, although, from the age of fourteen, she had been somehow sure that Kovrin would marry her, and no one else. She was amazed, bewildered and could not believe what had happened. One moment she would feel such joy that she wanted to fly up into the clouds and offer prayers to God; another time she would suddenly remember that she would have to leave her little nest and part from her father in August; on another occasion the thought would come to her, God knows from where, that she was an insignificant, trivial sort of woman, unworthy of a great man like Kovrin, and she would go to her room, lock the door and cry bitterly for several hours. When they had visitors she would suddenly find Kovrin extremely handsome and think that all the women were in love with him and jealous of her. And her heart would fill with rapturous pride, as if she had conquered the whole world. But he only had to give some young woman a welcoming smile and she would tremble with jealousy, go to her room – and there would be tears again. These new feelings took complete hold of her, she helped her father as though she were a machine and was blind to peaches, caterpillars, workers, oblivious of how swiftly the time was passing.

Almost exactly the same thing was happening to Yegor Semyonych. He worked from morning till night, was always hurrying off somewhere, would boil over and lose his temper, but all this in some kind of magical half-sleep. He seemed to be two different persons at once: one was the real Yegor Semyonych, listening to the head gardener Ivan Karlych’s reports of things going wrong, flaring up and clutching his head in despair; the other was not the real Yegor Semyonych, a half-intoxicated person who would suddenly break off a conversation about business in the middle of a sentence, tap the head gardener on the shoulder and mutter, ‘Whatever you say, good stock matters. His mother was an amazing, noble, brilliant woman. It was a pleasure looking at her kind, bright, pure face, the face of an angel. She was excellent at drawing, wrote poetry, spoke five languages, sang… The poor woman, God rest her soul, died of consumption.’

The unreal Yegor Semyonych would continue after a brief silence, ‘When he was a boy, growing up in my house, he had the same angelic, bright, kind face. And his look, his movements and his conversation were like his mother’s – gentle and refined. And as for his intellect, he always staggered us with his intellect. By the way, he didn’t become an MA for nothing, oh no! But you wait and see, Ivan Karlych, what he’ll be like in ten years’ time! There’ll be no touching him!’

But at this point the real Yegor Semyonych would suddenly take charge, pull a terrifying face, clutch his head and shout, ‘The swines! They’ve polluted, fouled, frozen everything solid! The garden’s ruined! It’s finished!’

But Kovrin kept on working with his former enthusiasm and did not notice all the commotion around him. Love only added fuel to the flames. After every meeting with Tanya he would return to his room feeling happy, exultant and would pick up a book or manuscript with the same passion with which he had just kissed Tanya and declared his love. What the black monk had told him about God’s Chosen, Eternal Truth, humanity’s glittering future and so on lent his work a special, remarkable significance and filled his heart with pride and awareness of his own outstanding qualities. Once or twice a week he met the black monk in the park or in the house, had a talk with him, but it did not frighten him. On the contrary, it delighted him, as he was now firmly convinced that these kinds of visions visited only the select few, only outstanding men who had dedicated themselves to an idea.

One day the monk appeared at dinner time and sat by the window in the dining-room. Kovrin was overjoyed and deftly started a conversation with Yegor Semyonych on a topic that the monk would very likely find interesting. The black visitor listened and nodded his head amiably. Yegor Semyonych and Tanya listened too, cheerfully smiling and without suspecting that Kovrin was speaking not to them, but to his hallucination.

The Fast of the Assumption¹⁰ came unnoticed and soon afterwards the wedding day, which, as Yegor Semyonych insisted, was celebrated with ‘a great splash’, that is to say, with senseless festivities that went on for two whole days. They got through three thousand roubles’ worth of food and drink, but with that miserable hired band, the riotous toasts and scurrying servants, the noise and the crush, they did not appreciate the expensive wines, nor the startling delicacies that had been ordered from Moscow.

VII

One long winter’s night Kovrin was reading a French novel in bed. Poor Tanya, who suffered from headaches in the evening as she wasn’t used to town life, had long been asleep and was muttering something incoherent.

Three o’clock struck. Kovrin snuffed the candle and lay down. He remained with eyes closed for a long time, but he could not sleep, possibly because the bedroom was very hot and Tanya was talking in her sleep. At half past four he lit the candle again and this time he saw the black monk sitting in the armchair near the bed.

‘Good evening’, the monk said. After a brief pause he asked, ‘What are you thinking about now?’

‘Fame’, Kovrin answered. ‘I’ve just been reading a French novel about a young scholar who does stupid things and who’s wasting away because of his longing for fame. This longing is something I can’t understand.’

‘That’s because you’re intelligent. You’re indifferent to fame, it’s a toy that doesn’t interest you.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘Fame doesn’t tempt you. What is flattering, or amusing, or edifying in having your name carved on a tombstone only for it to be rubbed off by time, gilding as well? Fortunately there are too many of you for humanity’s weak memory to retain your names.’

‘I understand that’, Kovrin agreed. ‘And why should they be remembered? But let’s talk about something else. Happiness, for example. What is happiness?’

When the clock struck five he was sitting on the bed, his feet dangling over the carpet. He turned to the monk and said, ‘In antiquity, a certain happy man grew scared of his own good fortune in the end, it was so immense. So, to propitiate the Gods, he sacrificed his favourite ring. Do you know that I myself, like Polycrates,¹¹ am getting rather uneasy about my own good fortune? It seems strange that from morning to night I feel only joy, it fills my whole being and stifles all other feelings. As for sorrow, sadness or boredom, I just don’t know what they are. Here I am, unable to sleep, suffering from insomnia, but I’m not bored. Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder what it all means.’

‘But why?’ the monk said in astonishment. ‘Is joy something supernatural? Shouldn’t it be looked on as man’s normal state? The higher man’s intellectual and moral development, the freer he is and the more pleasure life gives him. Socrates,¹² Diogenes¹³ and Marcus Aurelius¹⁴ experienced joy, not sadness. And the Apostle says, “Rejoice evermore.”¹⁵ So rejoice and be happy.’

‘But supposing the Gods suddenly became angry?’ Kovrin said jokingly and burst out laughing. ‘If they were to take my comforts away and make me freeze and starve I don’t think I would like that.’

Meanwhile Tanya had woken up and she looked at her husband in horror and bewilderment. He was talking to the armchair, laughing and gesticulating. His eyes shone and there was something peculiar in his laughter.

‘Andrey, who are you talking to?’ she asked, clutching the hand he had held out to the monk. ‘Andrey, who is it?’

‘What? Who?’ Kovrin said, taken aback. ‘Well, to him… He’s sitting over there’, he said, pointing at the black monk.

‘There’s no one here… no one! Andrey, you’re ill!’ Tanya embraced her husband and pressed herself against him, as if to protect him from ghosts, and covered his eyes with her hand. ‘You’re ill!’ she sobbed, shaking all over. ‘Forgive me, my dearest, but for some time now I’ve noticed something’s wrong with you. You’re sick in your mind, Andrey…’

Her trembling infected him as well. He looked once more at the armchair, which was empty now and felt a sudden weakness in his arms and legs. This frightened him and he started to dress.

‘It’s nothing, Tanya, nothing’, he muttered, trembling. ‘But to tell the truth, I am a little unwell… it’s time I admitted it.’

‘I noticed it some time ago… and Papa did too’, she said, trying to hold back her sobs. ‘You talk to yourself, you smile so strangely… you’re not sleeping. Oh, good God, good God, save us!’ she said in horror. ‘But don’t be afraid, Andrey dear, don’t be afraid. For God’s sake don’t be afraid…’

She began to dress too. Only now, as he looked at her, did Kovrin fully realize how dangerous his position was, only now did he understand the meaning of the black monk and his talks with him. He was quite convinced now that he was insane.

Both of them got dressed, without understanding why, and went into the ballroom, she first and he following. And there stood Yegor Semyonych (he was staying with them and had been awakened by the sobbing) in his dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand.

‘Don’t be afraid, Andrey’, Tanya said, shaking as though in a fever. ‘Don’t be afraid… Papa, it will pass… it will pass…’

Kovrin could not speak, he was so upset. He wanted to tell his father-in-law, just for a joke, ‘Please congratulate me, I think I’ve gone mad…’, but all he could do was move his lips and smile bitterly.

At nine in the morning they put his greatcoat and furs on, wrapped a shawl round him and took him in a carriage to the doctor’s. He began a course of treatment.

VIII

Summer had come and the doctor ordered him into the country. Kovrin was better now, had stopped seeing the black monk and it only remained for him to get his strength back. Living with his father-in-law in the country, he drank a lot of milk, worked only two hours a day, and did not drink or smoke.

On the eve of Elijah’s Day¹⁶ evening service was held in the house. When the lay reader handed the priest the censer, the enormous old ballroom smelt like a graveyard. Kovrin grew bored. He went out into the garden, wandered about without noticing the gorgeous flowers, sat down on a bench, and then strolled through the park. When he reached the river he went down the slope and stood looking thoughtfully at the water. The gloomy pines with their shaggy roots which had seen him here the previous year looking so young, joyful and lively, no longer talked in whispers, but stood motionless and dumb, as though they did not recognize him. And in fact his hair had been cut short, it was no longer beautiful, he walked sluggishly and his face had grown fuller and paler since the previous summer.

He crossed the footbridge to the other side. Where rye had been growing last year were rows of reaped oats. The sun had already set and a broad red glow burned on the horizon, a sign that it would be windy next day. It was quiet. Looking hard in the direction where the black monk had first appeared last year, Kovrin stood for about twenty minutes until the evening glow began to fade.

When he returned to the house, feeling listless and dissatisfied, the service was over. Yegor Semyonych and Tanya were sitting on the terrace steps drinking tea. They were discussing something, but suddenly became silent when they saw Kovrin, and he guessed from their expressions that they had been talking about him.

‘Well, I think it’s time for your milk’, Tanya told her husband.

‘No, it’s not’, he answered, sitting on the lowest step. ‘Drink it yourself, I don’t want any.’

Tanya anxiously exchanged glances with her father and said quietly, ‘But you yourself said the milk does you a lot of good!’

‘Yes, a lot of good!’ Kovrin replied, grinning. ‘I congratulate you – since Friday I’ve put on another pound.’ He firmly clasped his head and said in an anguished voice, ‘Why, why did you try to cure me? All those bromides, idleness, warm baths, supervision, the cowardly fear with every mouthful, every step. All this will finally turn me into a complete idiot. I was going out of my mind, I had megalomania, but I was bright and cheerful, even happy. I was interesting and original. Now I’ve grown more rational and stable, but I’m just like everyone else, a nobody. Life bores me… Oh, how cruelly you’ve treated me! I did have hallucinations, but did they harm anyone? Whom did they harm, that’s what I’d like to know?’

‘God knows what you’re talking about!’ Yegor Semyonych sighed. ‘It’s downright boring listening to you.’

‘Then don’t listen.’

Kovrin found other people’s presence, especially Yegor Semyonych’s, irritating and he would answer him drily, coldly, rudely even; and he could not look at him without a feeling of hatred and mockery, which embarrassed Yegor Semyonych, who would cough guiltily, although he didn’t feel he was in the least to blame. Unable to understand why their friendly, loving relationship had changed so suddenly, Tanya pressed close to her father and looked him anxiously in the eye. She wanted to understand, but she could not, and she could only see that with every day relations were getting worse, that her father had aged considerably recently, while her husband had become irritable, moody, quarrelsome and uninteresting. No longer could she laugh and sing, she ate nothing at mealtimes, and lay awake whole nights expecting something terrible. She went through such torture that once she lay in a faint from lunch until the evening. During the service she thought that her father was crying and now, when the three of them sat on the terrace, she endeavoured not to think about it.

‘How fortunate Buddha, Muhammad or Shakespeare were in not being treated by kind-hearted relatives for ecstasy and inspiration!’ Kovrin said. ‘If Muhammad had taken potassium bromide for his nerves, had worked only two hours a day and drunk milk, then that remarkable man would have left as much to posterity as his dog. In the long run doctors and kind relatives will turn humanity into a lot of morons. Mediocrity will pass for genius and civilization will perish. If only you knew’, Kovrin added with annoyance, ‘how grateful I am to you!’

He was absolutely infuriated and quickly got up and went into the house, in case he said too much. It was quiet and the smell of tobacco flowers and jalap¹⁷ drifted in from the garden through the open windows. Green patches of moonlight lay on the floor in the huge dark ballroom and on the grand piano. Kovrin recalled the joys of the previous summer, when there was that same smell of jalap, and the moon had shone through the windows. Trying to recapture that mood he hurried to his study, lit a strong cigar and told a servant to bring him some wine. But the cigar left a bitter, disgusting taste and the wine tasted differently from last year: these were the effects of having given up the habit. The cigar and two mouthfuls of wine made his head go round, he had palpitations, for which he had to take potassium bromide.

Before she went to bed Tanya told him, ‘Father adores you. You’re cross with him about something and this is killing him. Just look, he’s ageing by the hour, not by the day. I beg you, Andrey, for God’s sake, for the sake of your late father, for the sake of my peace of mind, please be nice to him!’

‘I can’t and I won’t!’

‘But why not?’ Tanya asked, trembling all over. ‘Tell me, why not?’

‘Because I don’t like him, that’s all’, Kovrin said nonchalantly, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘But let’s not talk about him, he’s your father.’

‘I just can’t understand, I really can’t!’ Tanya said, clutching her temples and staring fixedly at something. ‘Something incomprehensible and horrible is going on in this house. You’ve changed, you’re not your normal self. A clever, remarkable man like you losing your temper over trifles, getting mixed up in petty squabbles… These little things worry you and sometimes I’m simply amazed, I just can’t believe it’s really you.’ Then she continued, frightened of her own words and kissing his hands, ‘Now, now, don’t be angry, don’t be angry. You are a clever man, and a good man. You will be fair to Father, he’s so kind.’

‘He’s not kind, only smug. Music-hall clowns like your father, bounteous old cranks, with their well-fed, smug faces, used to touch and amuse me once in stories, farces and in real life. But now I find them repugnant. They’re egotists to the marrow. What I find most disgusting is their being so well fed, with that optimism that comes from a full belly. They’re just like oxen or wild pigs.’

Tanya sat on the bed and lay her head on the pillow. ‘This is sheer torture’, she said and from her voice it was plain that she was utterly exhausted and that she found it hard to speak. ‘Not a single moment’s peace since winter… It’s so terrible. Oh God, I feel shocking!’

‘Yes, of course I’m the monster and you and your Papa are the sweet innocents. Of course!’

His face seemed ugly and unpleasant to Tanya. Hatred and that mocking expression did not suit him. And she had in fact noticed before that there was something lacking in his face, as if that had changed too since his hair was cut short. She wanted to say something to hurt him, but immediately she became aware of this hostile feeling she grew frightened and left the bedroom.

IX

Kovrin was awarded a professorship. His inaugural lecture was fixed for 2 December and a notice announcing it was put up in the university corridor. But on the appointed day he cabled the dean, informing him he was not well enough to lecture.

He had a haemorrhage in the throat. He would spit blood, but twice a month there was considerable loss of blood, which left him extremely weak and drowsy. The illness did not frighten him particularly, since he knew his late mother had lived with exactly the same disease for ten years or more. And the doctors assured him it was not dangerous, and merely advised him not to get excited, to lead a regular life and to talk as little as possible.

In January the lecture was again cancelled for the same reason and in February it was too late to start the course, which had to be postponed until the following year.

He no longer lived with Tanya, but with another woman two years older than he was and who cared for him as though he were a child. His state of mind was calm, submissive. He eagerly gave in to her and when Barbara (his mistress’s name) decided to take him to the Crimea he agreed, although he expected no good to come from the trip.

They reached Sevastopol one evening and rested at a hotel before going on to Yalta the next day. They were both exhausted from the journey. Barbara drank some tea, went to bed and soon fell asleep. But Kovrin did not go to bed. Before he had left home – an hour before setting off for the station – he had received a letter from Tanya and had decided not to open it. It was now in one of his coat pockets and the thought of it had a disagreeable, unsettling effect on him. In the very depths of his heart he now considered his marriage to Tanya had been a mistake, and was pleased he had finally broken with her. The memory of that woman who had ended up as a walking skeleton and in whom everything seemed to have died – except for those large, clever, staring eyes – this memory aroused only pity in him and annoyance with himself. The writing on the envelope reminded him how unjust and cruel he had been two years ago, how he had taken revenge on others for his spiritual emptiness, his boredom, his loneliness, his dissatisfaction with life.

In this respect he remembered how he had once torn his dissertation and all the articles written during his illness into shreds and thrown them out of the window, the scraps of paper fluttering in the breeze, catching on trees and flowers. In every line he saw strange, utterly unfounded claims, enthusiasm run riot, audacity and megalomania, which had made him feel as if he were reading a description of his own vices. But when the last notebook had been torn up and had flown through the window, he felt for some reason bitterly annoyed: he had gone to his wife and told her many unpleasant things. God, how he had tormented her! Once, when he wanted to hurt his wife, he told her that her father had played a most distasteful role in their romance, having asked him if he would marry her. Yegor Semyonych happened to hear this and rushed into the room speechless with despair; all he could do was stamp his feet and make a strange bellowing noise, as if he had lost the power of speech, while Tanya looked at her father, gave a heart-rending shriek and fainted. It was an ugly scene.

All this came to mind at the sight of the familiar handwriting. Kovrin went out onto the balcony. The weather was warm and calm, and he could smell the sea. The magnificent bay reflected the moon and the lights, and its colour was hard to describe. It was a delicate, soft blending of dark blue and green; in places the water was like blue vitriol, in others the moonlight seemed to have taken on material substance and filled the bay instead of water. But what a harmony of colour, what a peaceful, calm and ennobling mood reigned over all!

The windows were most probably open in the room below, beneath the balcony, as he could hear women’s voices and laughter quite distinctly. Someone was having a party, it seemed.

Kovrin forced himself to open the letter, returned to his room and read: ‘Father has just died. I owe that to you, as you killed him. Our garden is going to rack and ruin – strangers are running it – that’s to say, what poor father feared so much has come about. I owe this to you as well. I hate you with all my heart and hope you’ll soon be dead. Oh, how I’m suffering! An unbearable pain is burning inside me. May you be damned! I took you for an outstanding man, for a genius, I loved you, but you turned out a madman…’

Kovrin could not read any more, tore the letter up and threw it away. He was seized by a feeling of anxiety that was very close to terror. Barbara was sleeping behind a screen and he could hear her breathing. From the ground floor came women’s voices and laughter, but he felt that besides himself there wasn’t a living soul in the whole hotel. He was terrified because the unhappy, broken-hearted Tanya had cursed him in her letter and had wished for his death. He glanced at the door, as if fearing that the unknown force which had wrought such havoc in his life and in the lives of those near and dear over the last two years might come into the room and take possession of him again.

He knew from experience that the best cure for shattered nerves is work. One should sit down at a table and force oneself at all costs to concentrate on one idea, no matter what. From his red briefcase he took out a notebook in which he had sketched out a plan for a short work he had considered compiling in case he was bored doing nothing in the Crimea. He sat at the table and busied himself with the plan, and it seemed his calm, resigned, detached state of mind was returning. The notebook and plan even stimulated him to meditate on the world’s vanity. He thought how much life demands in return for those insignificant or very ordinary blessings that it can bestow. For example, to receive a university chair in one’s late thirties, to be a run-of-the-mill professor, expounding in turgid, boring, ponderous language commonplace ideas that were not even original, in brief, to achieve the status of a third-rate scholar he, Kovrin, had had to study fifteen years – working day and night – suffer severe mental illness, experience a broken marriage and do any number of stupid, unjust things that were best forgotten. Kovrin realized quite clearly now that he was a nobody and eagerly accepted the fact since, in his opinion, every man should be content with what he is.

The plan would have calmed his nerves, but the sight of the shiny white pieces of letter on the floor stopped him concentrating. He got up from the table, picked up the pieces and threw them out of the window, but a light breeze blew in from the sea and scattered them over the windowsill. Once again he was gripped by that restless feeling, akin to panic, and he began to think that there was no one else besides him in the whole hotel… He went out onto the balcony. The bay, which seemed to be alive, looked at him with its many sky-blue, dark-blue, turquoise and flame-coloured eyes and beckoned him. It was truly hot and humid, and a bathe would not have come amiss. A violin began to play on the ground floor, under his balcony, and two female voices softly sang a song he knew. It was about some young girl, sick in her mind, who heard mysterious sounds one night in her garden and thought it must be a truly divine harmony, incomprehensible to us mortals… Kovrin caught his breath, he felt twinges of sadness in his heart and a wonderful, sweet, long-forgotten gladness quivered in his heart.

A tall black column like a whirlwind or tornado appeared on the far side of the bay. With terrifying speed it moved over the water towards the hotel, growing smaller and darker as it approached, and Kovrin barely had time to move out of its path… Barefoot, arms folded over chest, with a bare grey head and black eyebrows, the monk floated past and stopped in the middle of the room.

‘Why didn’t you trust me?’ he asked reproachfully, looking affectionately at Kovrin. ‘If you had trusted me then, when I told you that you were a genius, you wouldn’t have spent these two years so miserably, so unprofitably.’

Kovrin believed now that he was one of God’s Chosen, and a genius, and he vividly recollected all his previous conversations with the black monk; he wanted to speak, but the blood welled out of his throat onto his chest. Not knowing what to do, he drew his hands over his chest and his shirt cuffs became soaked with blood. He wanted to call Barbara, who was sleeping behind the screen, and with a great effort murmured, ‘Tanya!’

He fell on the floor, lifted himself on his arms and called again, ‘Tanya!’

He called on Tanya, on the great garden with its gorgeous flowers sprinkled with dew, he called on the park, the pines with their shaggy roots, the rye field, his wonderful learning, his youth, his daring, his joy; he called on life, which had been so beautiful. On the floor near his face, he saw a large pool of blood and was too weak now to say one word, but an ineffable, boundless happiness flooded his whole being. Beneath the balcony they were playing a serenade, and at the same time the black monk whispered to him that he was a genius and that he was dying only because his weak human body had lost its balance and could no longer serve to house a genius. When Barbara woke and came out from behind the screen Kovrin was dead and a blissful smile was frozen on his face.