V
After my second attack they were afraid of me. In many houses the doors were quickly closed at my approach. At accidental meetings acquaintances shrank from me, smiled meanly and inquired significantly:
“Well, golubchik, how is your health?”
The situation developed to such a degree that I could have committed the most unlawful act and would not have lost the respect of those present. I looked at people and thought: If I so wish it, I may kill this one and that one, and nothing will happen to me. That which I experienced at this thought was something new, pleasant and a bit terrifying. Man ceased to be something strongly defended, a something which we fear to touch; in a word, some sort of shell fell from him; he seemed naked, and to kill him seemed easy and even tempting.
Fear, like a dense wall, protected me from inquisitive eyes, so that the necessity for a third preliminary attack was avoided. Only in this instance did I depart from the formulated plan; for the strength of genius does not build itself a frame for its confinement, and, to conform with changing conditions, does not even hesitate to alter the entire course of battle. It yet remained for me to obtain official absolution from past sins and sanction for those of the future—I refer to the necessity of securing scientifico-medical testimony of my illness.
At this time a happy concurrence of circumstances made it possible for me to turn to a psychiatrist, without it seeming more than by merest chance, or by obligation. This, perhaps, was an unnecessary but artistic touch in the interpretation of my role. It was Tatiana Nikolayevna and her husband who sent me to the psychiatrist.
“Do, please, go to the doctor, dear Anton Ignatyevich,” said Tatiana Nikolayevna. Never before did she call me “dear.” Apparently it was necessary to pass for mad to receive this meaningless caress.
“Very good, dear Tatiana Nikolayevna, I’ll go,” I replied submissively. We three—Alexis also being present—sat in the drawing-room, subsequently the scene of the murder.
“Yes, Anton, you must go without fail,” reiterated Alexis in a tone of authority, “or else you might do some mischief.”
“What sort of mischief could I do?” I timidly protested before my stern friend.
“Who knows? You may break someone’s head.”
I fondled in my hand a heavy, cast-iron paperweight. Looking now at that object, now at Alexis, I asked:
“Head? You say—head?”
“Yes, head. Catch a thing like that on your head and you’re done for.”
It was becoming interesting. It was precisely the head, and precisely with that thing that I had planned to crush it, and now that same head was telling how it would all end. It was telling and smiling, as without care. And yet there: are people who believe in presentiments, and that death sends before it invisible heralds. What nonsense!
“One can’t do much with this thing,” said I. “It is altogether too light.”
“So you think it’s too light!” returned Alexis hotly, as he snatched the paperweight from my hand and flourished it by its thin handle several times in the air. “Just try it!”
“Yes, I know …”
“No, take hold and see.”
I smiled, as unwillingly I took the heavy object. Just then Tatiana Nikolayevna interfered. Pale, her teeth chattering, she said, or rather shrieked:
“Stop that, Alexis, stop that!”
“Why, Tanya? What is the matter with you?” said he in an astonished tone.
“Stop that! You know I don’t like such jokes.”
We laughed, and the paperweight was replaced on the table.
On my visit to Professor T⸺ everything happened as I had anticipated. He was cautious, controlled in his utterances and grave; he inquired whether I had any relatives in whose care I could trust myself; he counselled me to go home, take a rest and live quietly. Assuming the privilege due me as a member of the medical profession, I made a slight attempt at remonstrance. My boldness removed whatever doubts may have remained in the physician’s mind, and he definitely placed me in the ranks of the demented. I trust, gentlemen experts, you will not attribute undue significance to this harmless jest aimed against one of our colleagues. As a scholar, Professor T⸺ undoubtedly deserves respect and honor.
The few days which followed were among the happiest of my life. Sympathy was extended me in my role of invalid, visits were paid me, and everyone addressed me in a broken, clumsy tongue. Only I knew that I was perfectly healthy, and I enjoyed to the full the well-planned, mighty labor of my mind. In a consideration of all that is wonderful and incomprehensible of life’s riches, nothing can be found to equal the human mind. There is divinity in it, a pledge of immorality and an indomitable force acknowledging no obstacles. People are overcome with ecstasy and wonderment when they behold the snowy summits of huge mountains. If they only would understand themselves, neither mountains, nor all the wonders and beauties of the earth, could transport them to such a degree as the consciousness of the power of thought. The simple mental process of the laborer as he expediently lays one brick upon the other—that is the supreme marvel and the deepest mystery.
I enjoyed my thought. Innocent in her beauty, she gave herself up to me with passion as a mistress; served me like a slave; and upheld me like a friend. Don’t take it for granted that all these days spent at home between the four walls were employed only in thinking about my project. No, that was all clear and prepared. I meditated upon many things. I and my thought played with life and death and soared high, high above them. Among other things I solved during those days two very interesting chess problems over which I had labored for a long time without success. Probably you are aware of the fact that three years ago I participated in the international chess tourney and was second only to Lasker. Had I not been an avowed enemy of publicity and continued to contend, Lasker would have been compelled to surrender his kingdom.
From the moment that the life of Alexis was delivered in my hands I was strangely disposed towards him. It was pleasant for me to think that he lived, drank, ate and rejoiced, simply because I permitted it. It was a feeling akin to that of a father toward a son. What alarmed me was his health. Notwithstanding his ill health, he was unpardonably careless, refusing to wear a waist-jacket and venturing outdoors without galoshes in the most threatening, raw weather. Tatiana Nikolayevna reassured me. She paid me a visit and told me that Alexis was in sound health and even slept well, which was unusual for him. Overjoyed, I requested Tatiana Nikolayevna to take with her a gift I had intended to make Alexis—a rare volume which accidentally fell into my hands and had struck for some time the literary man’s fancy. Possibly the gift was a mistake from the standpoint of my plan. My action could be suspected as a premeditated manoeuvre; but I wished so much to afford Alexis pleasure that I decided to run a small risk. I even ignored the circumstance that the gift sacrificed something of the artistic effect of my play.
Upon this occasion I was very amiable and frank, and made a favorable impression on Tatiana Nikolayevna. Neither she nor Alexis had witnessed a single one of my attacks, and hence it was difficult, even impossible, for them to imagine me as mad.
“Come and see us,” said Tatiana Nikolayevna at parting.
“Musn’t do it,” said I smilingly. “Doctor forbade.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks! That doesn’t mean us. In our house you are at home. And Alexis misses you.”
I promised, and never did I make a promise with such assurance of fulfillment as this one. When reflecting upon these happy coincidences, does it not strike you, gentlemen experts, that Alexis had been condemned not by me alone, but also by someone else? In truth, however, there was no one else. Nothing could be more simple or logical.
The cast-iron paperweight lay in its place, when on the eleventh of December, five o’clock in the afternoon, I entered the drawing-room of the Saveloffs. Both Alexis and Tatiana had been accustomed to rest the hour preceding dinner, which usually occurred at seven o’clock. They greeted me effusively.
“Thanks for the book, brother,” said Alexis, grasping my hand. “I was about to visit you, when Tanya told me that you were quite well again. We are going to the theatre this evening. Will you join us?”
A conversation began. I decided not to dissemble at all that evening—it was an occasion when the absence of dissembling was the subtlest kind of dissembling—and giving myself up to the mental exhilaration of the moment, I spoke at length and well. If the admirers of Saveloff’s glories only knew how many of “his” best ideas had their inception and development in the brain of one unknown Doctor Kerzhentseff!
I spoke clearly, precisely, emphasizing each phrase, at the same time keeping my eye on the hand of the clock, thinking that when it should point at six I would become a murderer. I said something funny and they laughed, and I made an effort to retain an impression of the sensation of one who was about to become a murderer. I understood the life process in Alexis not in the abstract, but rather in the physical sense—the beating of his heart, the coursing of the blood through the veins, the suppressed vibrations of the brain, and then—the interruption of this process, the cessation of the heart and the blood flow, and the death of the brain.
What would be its last thought?
Never did the clearness of my consciousness reach such height and power. Never was the sensation of the many-sided, harmoniously-working I so complete. Truly a god: not looking, I saw; not listening, I heard; not thinking, I understood.
Seven minutes remained, when Alexis lazily arose from the divan, stretched himself and went out.
“I’ll be right back,” he called after him.
I did not want to look upon Tatiana Nikolayevna, so I made my way to the window, threw aside the draperies and stood still. Without looking, I was conscious that Tatiana Nikolayevna had glided quickly through the room and was standing beside me. I heard her breathing, and knew that she was not looking through the window, but upon me, and I was silent.
“How beautifully the snow sparkles!” said Tatiana Nikolayevna, but I remained unresponsive. Her breath came quicker, then seemed to cease.
“Anton Ignatyevich!” said she, and stopped short.
I remained silent.
“Anton Ignatyevich!” she repeated in the same irresolute tone, and now I looked at her. Suddenly she tottered back, almost fell, as if she had been thrust back by the terrible force that was in my glance. She tottered and threw herself towards her husband, who had entered the room.
“Alexis!” she mumbled. “Alexis … He …”
“Well, what about him?”
Without smiling, but in a jesting tone, I said:
“She thinks that I want to kill you with that thing.”
Then, in an unperturbed manner, without attempt at concealment, I picked up the paperweight, and, raising it in my hand, calmly approached Alexis. He, without blinking, gazed upon me with his pale eyes and repeated:
“She thinks …”
“Yes, she thinks.”
Slowly, easily, I began to raise my hand, and Alexis also slowly began to raise his, without removing his eyes from me.
“Hold a moment!” said I sternly.
The hand of Alexis remained where it was, while he, pale, still keeping his eyes upon me, smiled incredulously with his lips alone. Tatiana Nikolayevna uttered a strange cry, but it was too late. I struck him with the sharp edge nearer the temple than the eye. And when he fell I bent over and struck him two times more. The district attorney declared that I had struck him several times, because his head was badly crushed. But that is untrue. I struck him only three times: once when he was standing, and twice on the floor.
It is true that the blows were very hard, but there were only three. That I remember for certain—three blows.