Chapter 21

"When we moved to Moscow, this gentleman--his name was
Troukhatchevsky--came to my house. It was in the morning. I received
him. In former times we had been very familiar. He tried, by various
advances, to re-establish the familiarity, but I was determined to keep
him at a distance, and soon he gave it up. He displeased me extremely.
At the first glance I saw that he was a filthy debauche. I was jealous
of him, even before he had seen my wife. But, strange thing! some occult
fatal power kept me from repulsing him and sending him away, and, on
the contrary, induced me to suffer this approach. What could have been
simpler than to talk with him a few minutes, and then dismiss him coldly
without introducing him to my wife? But no, as if on purpose, I turned
the conversation upon his skill as a violinist, and he answered that,
contrary to what I had heard, he now played the violin more than
formerly. He remembered that I used to play. I answered that I had
abandoned music, but that my wife played very well.

"Singular thing! Why, in the important events of our life, in those in
which a man's fate is decided,--as mine was decided in that moment,--why
in these events is there neither a past nor a future? My relations with
Troukhatchevsky the first day, at the first hour, were such as they
might still have been after all that has happened. I was conscious that
some frightful misfortune must result from the presence of this
man, and, in spite of that, I could not help being amiable to him. I
introduced him to my wife. She was pleased with him. In the beginning,
I suppose, because of the pleasure of the violin playing, which she
adored. She had even hired for that purpose a violinist from the
theatre. But when she cast a glance at me, she understood my feelings,
and concealed her impression. Then began the mutual trickery and deceit.
I smiled agreeably, pretending that all this pleased me extremely. He,
looking at my wife, as all debauches look at beautiful women, with an
air of being interested solely in the subject of conversation,--that is,
in that which did not interest him at all.

"She tried to seem indifferent. But my expression, my jealous or
false smile, which she knew so well, and the voluptuous glances of the
musician, evidently excited her. I saw that, after the first interview,
her eyes were already glittering, glittering strangely, and that, thanks
to my jealousy, between him and her had been immediately established
that sort of electric current which is provoked by an identity of
expression in the smile and in the eyes.

"We talked, at the first interview, of music, of Paris, and of all sorts
of trivialities. He rose to go. Pressing his hat against his swaying
hip, he stood