Chapter 24 - Page 2

the pleasure that
offers itself. There was a bond between them, music,--the most refined
form of sensual voluptuousness. What was there to restrain them?
Nothing. Everything, on the contrary, attracted them. And she, she had
been and had remained a mystery. I did not know her. I knew her only
as an animal, and an animal nothing can or should restrain. And now
I remember their faces on Sunday evening, when, after the 'Kreutzer
Sonata,' they played a passionate piece, written I know not by whom, but
a piece passionate to the point of obscenity.

"'How could I have gone away?' said I to myself, as I recalled their
faces. 'Was it not clear that between them everything was done that
evening? Was it not clear that between them not only there were no more
obstacles, but that both--especially she--felt a certain shame after
what had happened at the piano? How weakly, pitiably, happily she
smiled, as she wiped the perspiration from her reddened face! They
already avoided each other's eyes, and only at the supper, when she
poured some water for him, did they look at each other and smile
imperceptibly.'

"Now I remember with fright that look and that scarcely perceptible
smile. 'Yes, everything has happened,' a voice said to me, and directly
another said the opposite. 'Are you mad? It is impossible!' said the
second voice.

"It was too painful to me to remain thus stretched in the darkness.
I struck a match, and the little yellow-papered room frightened me. I
lighted a cigarette, and, as always happens, when one turns in a circle
of inextricable contradiction, I began to smoke. I smoked cigarette
after cigarette to dull my senses, that I might not see my
contradictions. All night I did not sleep, and at five o'clock, when it
was not yet light, I decided that I could stand this strain no longer,
and that I would leave directly. There was a train at eight o'clock. I
awakened the keeper who was acting as my servant, and sent him to look
for horses. To the assembly of Zemstvo I sent a message that I was
called back to Moscow by pressing business, and that I begged them to
substitute for me a member of the Committee. At eight o'clock I got into
a tarantass and started off."