I struggled against this feeling that seized me: now admitting that the thing was right – a melancholy necessity – and now admitting that I ought myself to have been in the place of that wretched man. But strangely enough I felt no pity for him, and instead of stopping the torture I went home, fearing only lest I should be recognized.
Soon the sounds of the drums ceased, and on reaching home I seemed to have shaken off the feeling that had come over me. There I drank tea and received a report from Volkónski.12 Then came the usual lunch, the usual burdensome and insincere relations with my wife; then Diebitsch13 with a report confirming information we had had of a secret society. In due time, when I write the whole story of my life, I will, God willing, recount it all in detail; but now I will only say that I received that report too with outward composure. But this lasted only till after dinner, when I went to my study, lay down on the couch, and immediately fell asleep.
I had hardly been asleep five minutes when a shock passing through my whole body seemed to awake me, and I heard the rattling of the drums, the flutes, the sound of the blows, the screams of Struménski, and saw him or myself – I could not tell which of us was I; I saw his look of suffering and the gloomy faces of the soldiers and officers. This delusion did not last long. I jumped up, buttoned my coat, put on my hat and sword, and went out, saying I was going for a walk.
I knew where the military hospital was and went straight to it. My appearance as usual caused a commotion. The head doctor and the head of the staff came running up breathless. I said I wished to go through the wards. In the second ward I saw Struménski’s bald head. He was lying prone with his head on his arms, moaning pitifully. ‘He has been punished for trying to desert,’ I was told.
I said ‘Ah!’ and made my usual gesture of approval at what I heard, and I walked on.
Next day I sent to inquire how Struménski was, and was told that he had received the sacrament and was dying.
It was my brother Michael’s name-day,14 and there was to be a parade and a special service. I said I was unwell after my journey through the Crimea, and I did not attend the Mass. Diebitsch returned, and again reported about the plot in the Second Army, reminding me of what Count Witte had told me before my visit to the Crimea, and of the report of the non-commissioned officer Sherwood.
Only while listening to the report of Diebitsch, who attached such immense importance to all these attempted conspiracies, did I suddenly feel the full significance and strength of the change that had taken place within me. They were conspiring in order to alter our system of government and introduce a Constitution – the very thing that I had wanted to do twenty years back. I had made and unmade Constitutions in Europe, and what and who is any the better for it? And above all who was I that I should do it? All external life, all arrangements of external affairs and all participation in them – had I not participated in them and rearranged the life of the peoples of Europe? – seemed unimportant, unnecessary, and not at all my business. I suddenly realized that none of it was my business, that my business was with myself – my soul. All my old desires to abdicate – formerly ostentatious, with a wish to reveal the grandeur of my soul and to astonish people and make them regret me – now returned with fresh force and complete sincerity. I no longer thought of what other people would think, but only of myself, my soul. It was as if my whole life, a brilliant one in the worldly sense, had been lived only that I might return to that youthful desire – evoked by repentance – to abandon everything; but to abandon it without vanity, without thought of human fame, only for my own soul’s sake and for God. Then it had been a vague desire, now it was the impossibility of continuing to live as I had done.
But how? Not so as to astonish people and to be praised, but on the contrary, to go away with suffering and with no one’s knowledge. And this thought so pleased and delighted me that I began to think of how to accomplish it. I employed all the powers of my mind and all my characteristic cunning to effect it. But the execution of my intention was surprisingly easier than I had expected. My plan was to pretend to be ill and dying, and having persuaded and bribed a doctor to have the dying Struménski put in my place, to go away, to fly – concealing my identity from everyone.
It was as if everything happened expressly for the success of my project. On the 9th,15 as if on purpose, I fell ill with intermittent fever. I was ill for about a week, during which my intention became stronger and stronger and I considered my plan thoroughly. On the 16th I got up feeling well.
