第136章

At first he was worried at the arrest of the servant, but his illness and death soon set his mind at rest, for the man's death was apparently (so he reflected at the time) not owing to his arrest or his fright, but a chill he had taken on the day he ran away, when he had lain all night dead drunk on the damp ground.The theft of the money and other things troubled him little, for he argued that the theft had not been committed for gain but to avert suspicion.The sum stolen was small, and he shortly afterwards subscribed the whole of it, and much more, towards the funds for maintaining an almshouse in the town.He did this on purpose to set his conscience at rest about the theft, and it's a remarkable fact that for a long time he really was at peace- he told me this himself.He entered then upon a career of great activity in the service, volunteered for a difficult and laborious duty, which occupied him two years, and being a man of strong will almost forgot the past.Whenever he recalled it, he tried not to think of it at all.He became active in philanthropy too, founded and helped to maintain many institutions in the town, did a good deal in the two capitals, and in both Moscow and Petersburg was elected a member of philanthropic societies.

At last, however, he began brooding over the past, and the strain of it was too much for him.Then he was attracted by a fine and intelligent girl and soon after married her, hoping that marriage would dispel his lonely depression, and that by entering on a new life and scrupulously doing his duty to his wife and children, he would escape from old memories altogether.But the very opposite of what he expected happened.He began, even in the first month of his marriage, to be continually fretted by the thought, "My wife loves me-but what if she knew?" When she first told him that she would soon bear him a child, he was troubled."I am giving life, but I have taken life." Children came."How dare I love them, teach and educate them, how can I talk to them of virtue? I have shed blood." They were splendid children, he longed to caress them; "and I can't look at their innocent candid faces, I am unworthy."At last he began to be bitterly and ominously haunted by the blood of his murdered victim, by the young life he had destroyed, by the blood that cried out for vengeance.He had begun to have awful dreams.

But, being a man of fortitude, he bore his suffering a long time, thinking: "I shall expiate everything by this secret agony." But that hope, too, was vain; the longer it went on, the more intense was his suffering.

He was respected in society for his active benevolence, though everyone was overawed by his stern and gloomy character.But the more he was respected, the more intolerable it was for him.He confessed to me that he had thoughts of killing himself.But he began to be haunted by another idea- an idea which he had at first regarded as impossible and unthinkable, though at last it got such a hold on his heart that he could not shake it off.He dreamed of rising up, going out and confessing in the face of all men that he had committed murder.For three years this dream had pursued him, haunting him in different forms.At last he believed with his whole heart that if he confessed his crime, he would heal his soul and would be at peace for ever.But this belief filled his heart with terror, for how could he carry it out? And then came what happened at my duel.

"Looking at you, I have made up my mind."I looked at him.

"Is it possible," I cried, clasping my hands, "that such a trivial incident could give rise to a resolution in you?""My resolution has been growing for the last three years," he answered, "and your story only gave the last touch to it.Looking at you, I reproached myself and envied you." He said this to me almost sullenly.

"But you won't be believed," I observed; "it's fourteen years ago.""I have proofs, great proofs.I shall show them."Then I cried and kissed him.

"Tell me one thing, one thing," he said (as though it all depended upon me), "my wife, my children! My wife may die of grief, and though my children won't lose their rank and property, they'll be a convict's children and for ever! And what a memory, what a memory of me I shall leave in their hearts!"I said nothing.

"And to part from them, to leave them for ever? It's for ever, you know, for ever!" I sat still and repeated a silent prayer.I got up at last, I felt afraid.

"Well?" He looked at me.

"Go!" said I, "confess.Everything passes, only the truth remains.

Your children will understand, when they grow up, the nobility of your resolution."He left me that time as though he had made up his mind.Yet for more than a fortnight afterwards, he came to me every evening, still preparing himself, still unable to bring himself to the point.He made my heart ache.One day he would come determined and say fervently:

"I know it will be heaven for me, heaven, the moment I confess.

Fourteen years I've been in hell.I want to suffer.I will take my punishment and begin to live.You can pass through the world doing wrong, but there's no turning back.Now I dare not love my neighbour nor even my own children.Good God, my children will understand, perhaps, what my punishment has cost me and will not condemn me! God is not in strength but in truth.""All will understand your sacrifice," I said to him, "if not at once, they will understand later; for you have served truth, the higher truth, not of the earth."And he would go away seeming comforted, but next day he would come again, bitter, pale, sarcastic.

"Every time I come to you, you look at me so inquisitively as though to say, 'He has still not confessed!' Wait a bit, don't despise me too much.It's not such an easy thing to do as you would think.

Perhaps I shall not do it at all.You won't go and inform against me then, will you?"And far from looking at him with indiscreet curiosity, I was afraid to look at him at all.I was quite ill from anxiety, and my heart was full of tears.I could not sleep at night.