‘Yes, uncord, my good fellow,’ I told the porter to keep him longer in the room. ‘I’ll dress quickly and go to the theatre.’ When the porter had uncorded, I said: ‘Please go to Number Eight and tell the gentleman who came here with me that I shall be ready immediately and will come to him.’
The porter went out and I dressed hurriedly, afraid to look at the walls. ‘What nonsense!’ I thought. ‘What am I afraid of? Just like a child! I am not afraid of ghosts. Ghosts! Ghosts would be better than what I am afraid of. Why, what is it? Nothing. Myself.… Oh, nonsense!’
However, I put on a hard, cold, starched shirt, inserted the studs, donned my evening coat and new boots, and went to find the Khárkov landowner, who was ready. We started for the opera. He stopped on the way at a hairdresser’s to have his hair curled, and I had mine cut by a French assistant and had a chat with him, and bought a pair of gloves. All was well, and I quite forgot my oblong room with its partition. In the theatre, too, it was pleasant. After the opera the Khárkov landowner suggested that we should have supper. That was contrary to my habit, but just then I again remembered the partition in my room and accepted his suggestion.
We got back after one. I had had two glasses of wine, to which I was unaccustomed, but in spite of that I felt cheerful. But no sooner had we entered the corridor in which the lamp was turned low and I was surrounded by the hotel smell, than a shiver of horror ran down my spine. There was nothing to be done however, and I pressed my companion’s hand and went into my room.
I spent a terrible night – worse than at Arzamás. Not till dawn, when the old man at the other side of the door was coughing again, did I fall asleep, and then not in the bed, in which I had lain down several times during the night, but on the sofa. I had suffered all night unbearably. Again my soul and body were being painfully torn asunder. ‘I am living, have lived, and ought to live, and suddenly – here is death to destroy everything. Then what is life for? To die? To kill myself at once? No, I am afraid. To wait for death till it comes? I fear that even more. Then I must live. But what for? In order to die?’ And I could not escape from that circle. I took up a book, read, and forgot myself for a moment, but then again the same question and the same horror. I lay down in bed and closed my eyes. It was worse still!
God has so arranged it. Why? They say: ‘Don’t ask, but pray!’ Very well. I prayed, and prayed as I had done at Arzamás. Then and afterwards I prayed simply, like a child. But now my prayers had a meaning. ‘If Thou dost exist, reveal to me why and what I am!’ I bowed down, repeated all the prayers I knew, composed my own, and added: ‘Then reveal it!’ and became silent, awaiting an answer. But no answer came. It was just as if there were no one who could give an answer. And I remained alone with myself. And in place of Him who would not reply I answered my own questions. ‘Why? In order to live in a future life,’ I said to myself. ‘Then why this obscurity, this torment? I cannot believe in a future life. I believed when I did not ask with my whole soul, but now I cannot, I cannot. If Thou didst exist Thou wouldst speak to me and to all men. And if Thou dost not exist there is nothing but despair. And I do not want that. I do not want that!’
I became indignant. I asked Him to reveal the truth to me, to reveal Himself to me. I did all that everybody does, but He did not reveal Himself. ‘Ask and it shall be given you’ I remembered, and I had asked and in that asking had found not consolation but relaxation. Perhaps I did not pray to Him but repudiated Him. ‘You recede a span and He recedes a mile’ as the proverb has it. I did not believe in Him but I asked, and He did not reveal anything to me. I was balancing accounts with Him and blaming Him. I simply did not believe.
* * *
The next day I did all in my power to get through my ordinary affairs so as to avoid another night in the hotel. Although I did not finish everything, I left for home that evening. I did not feel any spleen. That night in Moscow still further changed my life which had begun to change from the time I was at Arzamás. I now attended still less to my affairs and became apathetic. I also grew weaker in health. My wife insisted that I should undergo a treatment. She said that my talks about faith and God arose from ill health. But I knew that my weakness and ill health were the effect of the unsolved question within me. I tried not to let that question dominate me, and tried to fill my life amid my customary surroundings. I went to church on Sundays and feast days, prepared to receive Communion, and even fasted, as I had begun to do since my visit to Pénza, and I prayed, though more as a custom. I did not expect any result from this, but as it were kept the demand-note and presented it at the due date, though I knew it was impossible to secure payment. I only did it on the chance. I did not fill my life by estate management – it repelled me by the struggle it involved (I had no energy) – but by reading magazines, newspapers, and novels, and playing cards for small stakes. I only showed energy by hunting, which I did from habit. I had been fond of hunting all my life.
One winter day a neighbouring huntsman came with his wolf-hounds. I rode out with him. When we reached the place we put on snow-shoes and went to the spot where the wolf might be found. The hunt was unsuccessful, the wolves broke through the ring of beaters. I became aware of this from a distance and went through the forest following the fresh tracks of a hare. These led me far into a glade, where I spied the hare, but it jumped out so that I lost it. I went back through the thick forest. The snow was deep, my snow-shoes sank in, and branches of the trees entangled me. The trees grew ever more and more dense. I began to ask myself: ‘Where am I?’ The snow had altered the look of everything.
Suddenly I realized that I had lost my way. I was far from the house and from the hunters too, and could hear nothing. I was tired and bathed in perspiration. If I stopped I should freeze. If I went on my strength would fail me. I shouted. All was still. No one answered. I turned back, but it was the same again. I looked around – nothing but trees, impossible to tell which was east or west. Again I turned back. My legs were tired. I grew frightened, stopped, and was seized with the same horror as in Arzamás and Moscow, but a hundred times worse. My heart palpitated, my arms and legs trembled. ‘Is this death? I won’t have it! Why death? What is death?’ Once again I wanted to question and reproach God, but here I suddenly felt that I dare not and must not do so, that it is impossible to present one’s account to God, that He had said what is needful and I alone was to blame. I began to implore His forgiveness, and felt disgusted with myself.
The horror did not last long. I stood there for awhile, came to myself, went on in one direction and soon emerged from the forest. I had not been far from its edge, and came out on to the road. My arms and legs still trembled and my heart was beating, but I felt happy. I found the hunting party and we returned home. I was cheerful, but I knew there was something joyful which I would make out when alone. And so it was. I remained by myself in my study and began to pray, asking forgiveness and remembering my sins. There seemed to me to be but few, but when I recalled them they became hateful to me.
* * *
After that I began to read the scriptures. The Old Testament I found unintelligible though enchanting, but the Gospels moved me profoundly. But most of all I read the Lives of the Saints, and that reading consoled me, presenting examples that it seemed more and more possible to follow. From that time forth farming and family matters occupied me less and less. They even repelled me. They all seemed to me wrong. What it was that was ‘right’ I did not know, but what had formerly constituted my life had now ceased to do so. This became plain to me when I was going to buy another estate.