‘Life in the house goes on. The governess comes in and asks: “Where is madame? When will she be back?” The footman asks whether he is to serve tea. I go to the dining-room. The children, especially Lisa who already understands, gaze inquiringly and disapprovingly at me. We drink tea in silence. She has still not come back. The evening passes, she has not returned, and two different feelings alternate within me. Anger because she torments me and all the children by her absence which will end by her returning; and fear that she will not return but will do something to herself. I would go to fetch her, but where am I to look for her? At her sister’s? But it would be so stupid to go and ask. And it’s all the better: if she is bent on tormenting someone, let her torment herself. Besides that is what she is waiting for; and next time it would be worse still. But suppose she is not with her sister but is doing something to herself, or has already done it! It’s past ten, past eleven! I don’t go to the bedroom – it would be stupid to lie there alone waiting – but I’ll not lie down here either. I wish to occupy my mind, to write a letter or to read, but I can’t do anything. I sit alone in my study, tortured, angry, and listening. It’s three o’clock, four o’clock, and she is not back. Towards morning I fall asleep. I wake up, she has still not come!
‘Everything in the house goes on in the usual way, but all are perplexed and look at me inquiringly and reproachfully, considering me to be the cause of it all. And in me the same struggle still continues: anger that she is torturing me, and anxiety for her.
‘At about eleven in the morning her sister arrives as her envoy. And the usual talk begins. “She is in a terrible state. What does it all mean?” “After all, nothing has happened.” I speak of her impossible character and say that I have not done anything.
‘ “But, you know, it can’t go on like this,” says her sister.
‘ “It’s all her doing and not mine,” I say. “I won’t take the first step.59 If it means separation, let it be separation.”
‘My sister-in-law goes away having achieved nothing. I had boldly said that I would not take the first step; but after her departure, when I came out of my study and saw the children piteous and frightened, I was prepared to take the first step. I should be glad to do it, but60 I don’t know how. Again I pace up and down and smoke; at lunch I drink vodka and wine and attain what I unconsciously desire – I no longer see the stupidity and humiliation of my position.
‘At about three she comes. When she meets me she does not speak. I imagine that she has submitted, and begin to say that I had been provoked by her reproaches. She, with the same stern expression on her terribly harassed face, says that she has not come for explanations but to fetch the children, because we cannot live together. I begin telling her that the fault is not mine and that she provoked me beyond endurance. She looks severely and solemnly at me and says: “Do not say any more, you will repent it.” I tell her that I cannot stand comedies. Then she cries out something I don’t catch, and rushes into her room. The key clicks behind her, – she has locked herself in. I try the door, but getting no answer, go away angrily. Half an hour later Lisa runs in crying. “What is it? Has anything happened?” “We can’t hear mamma.” We go. I pull at the double doors with all my might. The bolt had not been firmly secured, and the two halves both open. I approach the bed, on which she is lying awkwardly in her petticoats and with a pair of high boots on. An empty opium bottle is on the table. She is brought to herself. Tears follow, and a reconciliation. No, not a reconciliation: in the heart of each there is still the old animosity, with the additional irritation produced by the pain of this quarrel which each attributes to the other. But one must of course finish it all somehow, and life goes on in the old way. And so the same kind of quarrel, and even worse ones, occurred continually: once a week, once a month, or at times every day. It was always the same. Once I had already procured a passport to go abroad – the quarrel had continued for two days. But there was again a partial explanation, a partial reconciliation, and I did not go.
XXI
