Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,126

the French novel I’ve just been reading, there is a man, a young scholar, who does foolish things and pines away from a longing for fame. This longing for fame is incomprehensible to me.”

“Because you’re intelligent. You look upon fame with indifference, as upon a plaything that does not interest you.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Celebrity has no charm for you. Is it flattering, or amusing, or instructive to have your name carved on a tombstone and then have time erase the inscription along with the gilding? Fortunately, though, there are too many of you for weak human memory to be able to preserve your names.”

“Agreed,” said Kovrin. “And why remember them? But let’s talk about something else. About happiness, for instance. What is happiness?”

When the clock struck five, he was sitting on his bed, his feet hanging down on the rug, and, addressing the monk, was saying:

“In ancient times one happy man finally became frightened of his happiness—so great it was!—and, to appease the gods, sacrificed his favorite ring to them. You know? I, too, like Polycrates,8am beginning to worry a little about my happiness. It seems strange to me that I experience nothing but joy from morning till evening. It fills the whole of me and stifles all my other feelings. I don’t know what sadness, sorrow, or boredom is. I’m not asleep now, I have insomnia, but I’m not bored. I say it seriously: I’m beginning to be puzzled.”

“But why?” The monk was amazed. “Is joy a supernatural feeling? Should it not be the normal state of man? The higher man is in his mental and moral development, the freer he is, the greater the pleasure that life affords him. Socrates, Diogenes, and Marcus Aurelius experienced joy, not sorrow. And the Apostle says: ‘Rejoice evermore.’9 Rejoice, then, and be happy.”

“And what if the gods suddenly get angry?” Kovrin joked and laughed. “If they take my comfort from me and make me suffer cold and hunger, it will hardly be to my liking.”

Tanya had awakened meanwhile and was looking at her husband with amazement and horror. He was addressing the armchair, gesticulating and laughing: his eyes shone, and there was something strange in his laughter.

“Andryusha, who are you talking to?” she asked, seizing the arm he had stretched out to the monk. “Andryusha! Who?”

“Eh? Who?” Kovrin was embarrassed. “To him … He’s sitting there,” he said, pointing to the black monk.

“No one is there … no one! Andryusha, you’re ill!”

Tanya embraced her husband and pressed herself to him, as if protecting him from visions, and she covered his eyes with her hand.

“You’re ill!” she began to sob, trembling all over. “Forgive me, my sweet, my dear, but I’ve long noticed that your soul is troubled by something … You’re mentally ill, Andryusha …”

Her trembling communicated itself to him. He glanced once more at the chair, which was now empty, suddenly felt a weakness in his arms and legs, became frightened, and began to dress.

“It’s nothing, Tanya, nothing …” he murmured, trembling. “In fact, I am a bit unwell … it’s time I admitted it.”

“I’ve long noticed it … and papa has noticed it,” she said, trying to hold back her sobs. “You talk to yourself, smile somehow strangely … don’t sleep. Oh, my God, my God, save us!” she said in horror. “But don’t be afraid, Andryusha, don’t be afraid, for God’s sake, don’t be afraid …”

She, too, began to dress. Only now, looking at her, did Kovrin realize all the danger of his situation, realize what the black monk and his conversations with him meant. It was clear to him now that he was mad.

They both got dressed, not knowing why themselves, and went to the drawing room: she first, and he after her. There, already awakened by the sobbing, in a dressing gown and with a candle in his hand, stood Yegor Semyonych, who was visiting them.

“Don’t be afraid, Andryusha,” Tanya was saying, trembling as if in fever, “don’t be afraid … Papa, it will go away … it will all go away …”

Kovrin was too agitated to speak. He wanted to say to his father-in-law, in a jocular tone: “Congratulate me, I think I’ve lost my mind,” but he only moved his lips and smiled bitterly

At nine o’clock in the morning they put a coat on him, then a fur coat, then wrapped him in a shawl, and drove him in a carriage to the doctor’s. He started treatment.

VIII

Summer came again, and the doctor ordered him to go