"Art and science are of no use here, that is clear . . ." thought Vasilyev. "The only way out of it is missionary work."
And he began to dream how the next evening he would stand at the comer of the street and say to every passer-by: "Where are you going and what for? Have the fear of God!"
He would tum to the apathetic cabmen and say to them: "Why are you staying here? Why aren't you re- volted? Why aren't you indignant? I suppose you be- lieve in God and know that it is a sin, that people go to hell for it? Why don't you speak? True, they are strangers to you, but you know even they have fathers, brothers, who are just like yourselves. . . ,"
One of Vasilyev's friends had once said of him that he was a talented man. There are aU sorts of talents— talent for writing, talent for the stage, talent for art; but he had a peculiar talent—a talent for humanity. He possessed an extraordinarily fine delicate scent for pain in general. As a good actor reflects in himself the move- ments and voice of others, so Vasilyev could reflect in his soul the sufferings of others. When he saw tears, he wept; beside a sick man, he felt sick himself and moaned; if he saw an act of violence, he felt as though he himself were the victim of it, he was frightened as a child, and in his fright ran to help. The pain of others worked On his nerves, excited him, roused him to a state of frenzy, and so on.
Whether this friend were right I don't know, but what Vasilyev experienced when he thought this ques- tion was settled was something like inspiration. He cried and laughed, spoke aloud the words that he should say next day, felt a fervent love for those who would listen to ^rn and would stand beside him at the comer of the street to preach; he sat down to write letters, made vows to himself. . . .
All this was like inspiration also in that it did not last long. Vasilyev soon grew tired. The mass of the cases in London, in Hamburg, in Warsaw, weighed upon him as a mountain weighs upon the earth; he felt dispirited, bewildered, in the face of this mass; he re- membered that he was no speaker, that he was cowardly and timid, that indifferent people were unlikely to be willing to listen and understand him, a law student in his third year, a timid and insignificant person, that genuine missionary work meant not only preaching but deeds. . . .
When it was daylight and carriages were already beginning to rumble in the street, Vasilyev was lying motionless on the sofa, staring into space. He was no longer thinking of the women, nor of the men, nor of missionary work. His whole attention was turned upon the mental agony which was torturing him. It was a dull, vague, indefinite pain akin to anguish, to an ex- treme form of terror, and to despair. He could point to the place where the pain was: in his chest under his heart; but he could not compare it with anything. In the past he had had acute toothache, he had had pleurisy and neuralgia, but all that was insignificant compared with this mental anguish. In the presence of this pain life seemed loathsome. The dissertation, the excellent work he' had written already, the people he loved, the salvation of fallen women—everything that only the day before he had cared about or been indifferent to, now when he thought of it irritated him in the same way as the noise of the carriages, the scurrying footsteps of the waiters in the passage, the daylight. . . . If at that moment someone had performed a great deed of mercy or had committed a revolting outrage, he would have felt the same repulsion for both actions. Of all the thoughts that strayed through his mind only two did not irritate him: one was that at every moment he had the power to kill himself, the other was that this agony would not last more than three days. This last he knew by experience.
After lying for a while he got up and, wringing his hands, paced the room, not as usual from corner to corner, but round the room along the walls. As he passed he glanced at himself in the looking-glass. His face looked pale and thin, his temples hollow, his eyes were bigger, darker, more staring, as though they be- longed to someone else, and they had an expression of intolerable mental agony.
At midday the artist knocked at the door.
"Grigory, are you at home?" he asked.
Getting no answer, he stood for a minute, pondered, and answered himself in Ukrainian: "Not there. The confounded fellow has gone to the university."
And he went away. Vasilyev lay down on the bed and, thrusting his head under the pillow, began crying with agony, and the more freely his tears flowed the more terrible his mental anguish became. As it began to get dark, he thought of the agonizing night awaiting him, and was overcome by horrible despair. He dressed quickly, ran out of his room, and, leaving his door wide open, for no object or reason went out into the street. Without asking himself where he should go, he walked quickly along Sadovaya Street.
Snow was falling as heavily as the day before; it was thawing. Thrusting his hands into his sleeves, shudder- ing and frightened by the noises, the street car bells, and the passers-by, Vasilyev walked along Sadovaya Street as far as Suharev Tower; then to the Red Gate;
from there he turned off to Basmannaya Street. He went into a tavern and drank off a big glass of vodka, but that did not make him feel better. When he reached Raz- gulyay he turned to the right, and strode along side streets in which he had never been before in his life. He reached the old bridge under which the Yauza runs gurgling and from which one can see long rows of lights in the windows of the Red Barracks. To counter- act his mental anguish by some new sensation or some other pain, Vasilyev, not knowing what to do, crying and shuddering, undid his overcoat and jacket and ex- posed his bare chest to the wet snow and the wind. But that did not lessen his suffering either. Then he bent down over the rail of the bridge and looked down into the black, yeasty Yauza, and he longed to plunge down head-foremost; not out of loathing for life, not for the sake of suicide, but in order to bruise himself at least, and by one pain ease the other. But the black water, the darkness, the deserted banks covered with snow were terrifying. He shivered and walked on. He walked up and down by the Red Barracks, then turned back and went down to a copse, from the copse back to the bridge again.
"No, home, home!" he thought. "At home I believe it's better. . . ."
And he went back. When he reached home he pulled off his wet overcoat and cap, began pacing round the room, and went on pacing round and round without stopping till morning.
VII
When next morning the artist and the medical stu- dent went in to him, he was tossing about the room with his shirt torn, biting his hands, and moaning with pain.
"For God's sake!" he sobbed when he saw his friends, "take me where you please, do what you can; but for God's sake, save me quickly! I shall kill myself!"
The artist turned pale and lost his head. The medical student, too, almost cried, but considering that doctors ought to be cool and composed in every emergency, said coldly:
"It's an attack of nerves. But it's nothing. Let us go at once to the doctor."
"Wherever you like, only for God's sake, make haste!"
"Don't excite yourself. You must try and control your- self."
The artist and the medical student with trembling hands dressed Vasilyev and led him out into the street.
"Mihail Sergeyich has been wanting to make your acquaintance for a long time," the medical student said on the way. "He is a very nice man and thoroughly good at his work. He took his degree in 1882, and he has an immense practice already. He treats students as though he were one himself."