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time he pictured vividly to himself her personal life, her ideas, her
desires, and the idea that she could and should have a separate life of
her own seemed to him so alarming that he made haste to dispel it. It
was the chasm which he was afraid to peep into. To put himself in
thought and feeling in another person’s place was a spiritual exercise
not natural to Alexey Alexandrovitch. He looked on this spiritual
exercise as a harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy.
“And the worst of it all,” thought he, “is that just now, at the very
moment when my great work is approaching completion” (he was think-
ing of the project he was bringing forward at the time), “when I stand
in need of all my mental peace and all my energies, just now this stupid
worry should fall foul of me. But what’s to be done? I’m not one of
those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the
force of character to face them.”
“I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind,”
he said aloud.
“The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be
passing in her soul, that’s not my affair; that’s the affair of her con-
science, and falls under the head of religion,” he said to himself, feeling
consolation in the sense that he had found to which division of regulat-
ing principles this new circumstance could be properly referred.
“And so,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, “questions as to
her feelings, and so on, are questions for her conscience, with which I
can have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. As the head of the
family, I am a person bound in duty to guide her, and consequently, in
part the person responsible; I am bound to point out the danger I
perceive, to warn her, even to use my authority. I ought to speak plainly
to her.” And everything that he would say tonight to his wife took clear
shape in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s head. Thinking over what he would
say, he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and
mental powers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for it,
but, in spite of that, the form and contents of the speech before him
shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a ministerial report.
“I must say and express fully the following points: first, exposition
of the value to be attached to public opinion and to decorum; secondly,
exposition of religious significance of marriage; thirdly, if need be, ref-
erence to the calamity possibly ensuing to our son; fourthly, reference
to the unhappiness likely to result to herself.” And, interlacing his
fingers, Alexey Alexandrovitch stretched them, and the joints of the
fingers cracked. This trick, a bad habit, the cracking of his fingers,
always soothed him, and gave precision to his thoughts, so needful to
him at this juncture.
There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door.
Alexey Alexandrovitch halted in the middle of the room.
A woman’s step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexey
Alexandrovitch, ready for his speech, stood compressing his crossed
fingers, waiting to see if the crack would not come again. One joint
cracked.
Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware
that she was close, and though he was satisfied with his speech, he felt
frightened of the explanation confronting him...