Once I felt particularly wretched. I had received a letter from Arakchéev8 the evening before about the assassination of his mistress. He described to me his desperate grief. Strange to say, his continual subtle flattery, and not only flattery but real dog-like devotion – which had begun while my father was alive and when we both swore allegiance to him in secret from my grandmother9 – that dog-like devotion of his made me love him, if indeed latterly I loved any man – and though to use the word love of such a monster is wrong. Another thing that bound me to him was his not having taken part in the murder of my father, as many others did who became hateful to me just because they were my accomplices in that crime, but he not only took no part in it but was devoted both to my father and to me; of that later, however.
I slept badly. Strange to say, the murder of that beauty – the spiteful Nastásya (she was extraordinarily voluptuously beautiful) – aroused desire in me, and I could not sleep all night. The fact that my consumptive, abhorrent, and undesired wife lay in the next room but one vexed and tormented me still more. The memory of Márya,10 who deserted me for an insignificant diplomat, also tormented me. It seemed that both my father and I were fated to be jealous of a Gagárin.11 But I am again letting myself be carried away by reminiscences. I did not sleep all night. Dawn began to break. I drew the curtain, put on my white dressing-gown, and called my valet. All were still asleep. I donned a frock-coat, a civilian overcoat and cap, and went out past the sentinels and into the street.
The sun was just rising over the sea. It was a cool autumn morning, and in the fresh air I immediately felt better and my sombre thoughts vanished. I walked towards the sun-flecked sea. Before reaching the green-coloured house at the corner I heard the sounds of drums and flutes from the square. I listened, and realized that someone was being made to run the gauntlet. I, who had so often sanctioned that form of punishment, had never seen it executed. And strange to say – evidently at the devil’s instigation – the thought of the murdered, voluptuously beautiful Nastásya and of the soldier’s body being lashed by rods, merged into one stimulating sensation. I remembered the men of the Semënov Regiment and the military exiles, hundreds of whom were flogged to death in this way, and the strange idea of witnessing that spectacle suddenly occurred to me. As I was in civilian clothes this was possible.
The nearer I drew the clearer came the rattling of the drums and the sound of the flutes. Being short-sighted I could not see clearly without my lorgnette, but could already make out the rows of soldiers and a tall, white-backed figure moving between them. When I got among the crowd that stood behind the rows watching the spectacle, I drew out my lorgnette and was able to see all that was being done. A tall, round-shouldered man, his bare arms tied to a bayonet, and his bare back here and there already growing red with blood, was advancing between rows of soldiers who held rods. That man was I: he was my double. The same height, the same round shoulders, the same bald head, the same whiskers without a moustache, the same cheek-bones, the same mouth and blue eyes; but his mouth did not smile; it kept opening and twisting as he screamed at the blows, and his eyes, now closing and now opening, were not tender and caressing but started terribly from his head.
When I had looked well at this man I recognized him. It was Struménski, a left-flank non-commissioned officer of the 3rd Company of the Semënov Regiment, at one time well known to all the Guards on account of his likeness to me. They used jokingly to call him Alexander II.
I knew that he had been transferred to garrison-duty with other rioters of the Semënov Regiment, and I guessed that here, in garrison, he had done something – probably deserted – had been recaptured, and was now being punished. I learnt later that this was so.
I stood as one spellbound, watching how the unfortunate man moved and how they flogged him, and I felt that something was going on within me. But I suddenly noticed that the people standing beside me, the spectators, were looking at me, and that some drew back from me while others approached. I had evidently been recognized. Having realized this I turned to hurry home. The drums still beat and the flutes played – so the tortures were still going on. My chief feeling was that I ought to approve of what was being done to this double of mine; or if not approve at least acknowledge that it was the proper thing to do, but I could not. Yet I felt that if I did not admit it to be necessary and right, I should have to admit that my whole life and all my actions were bad, and should have to do what I had long wished to: abandon everything, go away, and disappear.
