XXI
But after his wife had gone to sleep sitting on his knees, after he laid her down on her little sofa, Lopukhóf began to think seriously about her dream. It was not his affair whether she loved him or not; that was her concern, over which he had no control, and over which as he himself plainly saw, he had no control. This will settle itself; there is no need of thinking about it today; let time tell; but now there is no time for it; it is now his business to find out what is the cause of her foreboding that she does not love him.
For the first time he sat a long while in these thoughts; already for the last few days he has seen that he is not retaining her love for him. A great loss; but what could be done about it? If he could exchange his nature, acquire a tendency towards that gentle fondness which her nature demanded, then of course it would be a different thing. But he saw that such an attempt would be in vain. If the inclination is not given by nature, and if it is not developed by life independently of the man himself, this man cannot create it in himself by force of will, and without this tendency nothing can be done as it ought to be done. Consequently the question about him was already decided. His former thoughts had been spent in this very direction. But now that he had finished his own side of the case (like an egotist, who always thinks first about himself, and about others only when there is none of his own business left to think about), he was able to think for someone else; that is, to think about her. What can he do for her? She does not yet understand what is going on in her; she has not had such experience of her heart as he has; well, that’s natural; he is four years older than she is; at the beginning of youth four years is a long time. Can’t he, who is more experienced, analyze what she is unable to analyze? How, then, to interpret her dream?
A supposition quickly presented itself to Lopukhóf; the cause of her thoughts may be found in the circumstance which gave rise to her dream. In the motive to her dream may lie the connection with its tenor. She said that she felt bored because she did not go to the opera. Lopukhóf began to examine his way and her way of living, and gradually everything appeared before him in its true light. The larger part of the time not occupied by her duties she used to spend, as he did, in solitude. Then a change began; she began to be always ready for amusement. Now once more their old way had been reestablished. She cannot accept indifferently this renewal of their old mode of life; it was not in her nature, just as it would not be in the nature of the great majority of people. There is nothing mysterious about it. And from this it was a very short step to the supposition that the explanation of everything was her close relationship to Kirsánof and then Kirsánof’s estrangement. Why does Kirsánof stay away? The reason seemed sufficient in itself: his lack of time and multiplicity of occupations. But an honest and intellectual man, who has had experience in life, and who is particularly able to put in practice the theory of which Lopukhóf was an advocate, it is impossible to deceive by any tricks or cunningness. He may be deceived through lack of attention; he may not pay any attention to the fact itself; thus Lopukhóf was deceived the first time when Kirsánof deserted them; at that time, to tell the plain truth, there was no reason and consequently no desire energetically to investigate the reason why Kirsánof became estranged. The only important thing for him was to see whether he were not the cause for the severance of the friendship; it was plain that he was not, and so there was no cause for thinking of anything else; he was not Kirsánof’s uncle and not his pedagogue, bound to lead in the paths of virtue the steps of a man who understands things as clearly as he does. Yes, and what necessity is there in reality for him to do so? Was there in his relations with Kirsánof anything particularly important for him? As long as you are friendly and you want me to like you, I am very willing; no, on the contrary, I am very sorry, but go wherever you please. Isn’t it all the same to me? Whether there is one stupid fellow, more or less, in the world makes no difference to me. I took the stupid fellow to be a fine man; I am sorry, and that’s all. If our interests are not connected with the actions of a person, his actions in reality interest us but little, if we are serious people, except in two cases, which, however, seem exceptions to the general rule only for those people who are accustomed to understand the word “interest” in the too narrow sense of every day’s interpretation. The first case is where these actions are interesting for us from a theoretical standpoint, as psychological phenomena explaining the nature of a person, that is, if they have in them an intellectual interest: the other case is where the fate of a person depends upon us. Here we should be to blame in our own eyes for inattention to his actions; that is, if we take a conscientious interest in them. But in those former stupid actions of Kirsánof there was nothing that would not be known to Lopukhóf as a very ordinary peculiarity among people of the present day. There was nothing rare in a person having gentlemanly instincts giving himself over to triviality, resulting from the present state of things. And that Lopukhóf was destined to play an important part in Kirsánof’s fate was beyond Lopukhóf’s power of imagination. Why should Kirsánof be in need of his interference? Consequently, “Go ahead, my friend! go wherever you please without regarding me. What need have I of troubling about you?”
But now it is different. Kirsánof’s actions suddenly seem to have an important bearing on the interests of a woman whom Lopukhóf loved. He could not refrain from thinking carefully about them. But to think carefully about a fact and understand its causes is almost one and the same thing for a person of such a turn of mind as Lopukhóf. Lopukhóf found that his theory affords unerring means for analyzing the motions of the human heart, and I confess I agree with him in this respect. In those long years since I have accepted it as true, it has never once led me into error, and it has never refused to reveal the truth to me, no matter how deep the truth, in regard to some human action, might have been hidden. It is also true that the theory itself is not easily acquired; it is necessary to have lived and thought to be able to understand it.
Half an hour’s thinking was sufficient for Lopukhóf to understand the relations of Kirsánof to Viéra Pavlovna. But still he sat long thinking about the same thing; further explanation was needless, but it was interesting; the discovery was made with complete fullness of details, but it was so interesting that long he refrained from going to sleep.
However, what is the good of straining your nerves with sleeplessness? It is already three o’clock. “If I can’t fall asleep, I shall have to take morphine.” He took two pills. “I will just look at Viérotchka once more.” But instead of walking over to her and looking at her, he removed his chair over to her sofa, took her hand and kissed it.
“Mílenki, you have been working too hard, and all for my sake; how kind you are, and how I love you!” said she, half asleep. No shipwreck of the spirit can resist morphine in sufficient quantity; at this time, two pills proved to be enough; he is overcome by sleep. Consequently, the shipwreck of the soul by itself is approximately equal, according to Lopukhóf’s materialistic views, to four glasses of strong coffee, to overcome which one pill would not have been enough in Lopukhóf’s case; but three pills would have been too much. He fell asleep laughing at this comparison.