My wife was the daughter of a priest, who lived with her mother—her father was dead—and had the free disposition of her property. She had her own house, you might even say mansion, and she had money besides. She was a handsome girl, no fool, and of a lively disposition, but she was very fond of reading books, and this had a very bad effect both upon me and her. She was constantly fishing for rules of life in all sorts of little books, and whenever she got what she wanted, she immediately proceeded to apply k personally to us both. Now, from my tenderest years morality was a thing I never could endure.... At first I laughed at my wife, but afterwards it became tiresome to listen to her. I saw that she always made a great show of ideas extracted from various little books, and bookish lore is about as suitable for a woman as his master's cast-off costume is for a lackey. We began to quarrel.... Then I made the acquaintance of a certain priest—there was one of that sort there—a rogue who could play the guitar and sing, dance the trepak[2] to admiration, and take his skinful like a man. To my mind he was the best fellow in the town, because one could always live a jolly life in his company, and she—that is my wife—was always running him down, and always tried to drag me into the company of the Scribes and Pharisees who surrounded her. For in the evenings all the serious and best people in the town, as she called them, used to assemble at her house; and serious enough they all were, as serious, to my mind, as gallows-birds.... I also loved reading in those days, but I never used to trouble myself about what I read, and I don't understand why people should. But they—I mean my wife and those who were with her—whenever they had read through a book, immediately became as restless as if they had hundreds of prickles beneath their skin. Now, I look upon it like this. Here's a book. Very well! An interesting book. So much the better. But every book has been written by a man, and a man cannot leap higher than his own head. All books are written with one object: they want to prove that good is good and bad is bad, and it's all one whether you have read a hundred of them or a thousand. My wife discussed her little books by the dozen, so that I began to tell her straight out that I should have had a better time of it if I had married the parson instead of her. It was only the parson who saved me from boredom, and but for him I should have bolted from my wife there and then. As soon as the Pharisees called upon her—off I went to the parson. In this way I lived through a year and a half. From sheer boredom I helped the parson in the church services. At one time I read the epistles, at another I stood in the choir and sang:
"From my youth up many passions have fought against me."
[2] A boisterous national dance of Russia.
I went through a good deal in those days, and I shall be justified for many things at the Last Day for this endurance. But now my parson was joined by a young kinswoman, and this woman came to him first because he was a widower, and in the second place because his swine had eaten him, i.e., had not eaten him entirely, but spoilt the look of him. He had, you must know, fallen down drunk in the yard and gone to sleep, and the swine had come into the courtyard and nibbled away at his ears, cheeks, and neck. It is notorious that swine eat all sorts of garbage. This diminution of his person threw my parson into a fever, and caused him to summon his kinswoman that she might cherish him and I might cherish her. Well, she and I set about the business very zealously, and with great success. But my wife found out how the land lay—found out I say, and at last it came to a quarrel. What was I to do? I gave her as good as I got. Then she said to me: "Leave my house!" Well, I thought the matter well over, and I quietly went away—right away from the town. Thus the bonds of my marriage were unloosed. If my consort is still alive she certainly regards me as happily dead to her. I have never felt the slightest desire to see her again. I also think that it is well for her to forget me. May she live in peace! Greatly did she bore me in those days.
So now behold me a free man again, living in the town of Penza! I came to loggerheads with the police; no place could be found for me here or there—no place anywhere in fact. At last I became a psalmsinger in the church. I took up the office and sang and read. In the church I had again a "public" before me, and again a loathing of it arose within me. I was a miserable labourer in a dependent position. It was horrible to me. But a merchant's wife was my salvation. She was a stout, God-fearing woman, and had a very dull time of it. And she goes and gets enamoured of me by way of spiritual edification. So I got into the habit of going to see her, and she fed me. Her husband lived at home and was a little dotty, so she had to manage the whole plaguy business. I went to her very courteously, and I said to her: "It is hard for me to be paying visits here, Sekleteya Kirillovna, precious hard," I said; "why don't you make me your assistant?" She made some bones about it at first, and said I was much mistaken, but at last she took me as her manager. And now I had a good time of it, but the town itself was a filthy hole. There was no theatre, no decent hotel, no interesting people. Of course I was bored to death, and in the midst of my boredom I wrote a letter to my uncle. During my five years' absence from Petersburg I had, of course, become very knowing. So I wrote now requesting forgiveness for all that I had done, promised never to do anything like it any more, and asked, among other things, whether it was not possible for me to live at Petersburg. My uncle wrote it was possible, but I must be careful. Then I broke with the merchant's wife.
You must know that she was stupid, fat, stodgy, and ugly. I had had mistresses of great repute, elegant and sensible gossips every one of them. Very well! Yet with all my other mistresses I had parted scurvily; either I had driven them away with wrath and contumely, or they had played me some nasty trick or other. But this Sekleteya had inspired me with respect by reason of her very simplicity.
"Farewell," I said to her; "farewell, my dearly-beloved! God grant thee prosperity!"
"And does it not pain thee to part with me?" said she.
"What!" I cried, "how can I help being pained at parting with one so beautiful and wise?"
"I would never have parted from thee," said she, "but I suppose it must be so, nevertheless I will always remember thee. Well, now, thou art a free bird again, and canst fly away whithersoever thou desirest," and she burst into tears.