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 Chapter 5

Multiple Choice (21) WARNING: CORRECT ANSWERS ARE IN THE SAME POSITION AND TAGGED WITH **.
YOU SHOULD RANDOMIZE THE LOCATION OF THE CORRECT ANSWERS IN YOUR EXAM.

1. When reading data from a file, the open function returns a(n) __________.
a. file object **
b. file name
c. file handle
d. file tuple

2. What function do you use to terminate a connection to a file?

a. close **
b. terminate
c. stop
d. disconnect

3. After all the lines of a file have been read, the readline method returns __________.
a. the empty string **
b. an empty tuple
c. the value None
d. a Throwback error

4. Python uses a(n) __________ as a temporary holding place for data to be written to disk.
a. buffer **
b. temp space
c. special memory location
d. list

5. When are the contents of the buffer written to disk?

a. When the buffer is full.
b. When the file is closed.
c. Both a & b. **
d. None of the above.

6. Which standard library module do you need to import in order to use the remove and rename
functions for files?
a. os **
b. file
c. path

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 d. pickle

7. A(n) __________ is an unordered collection of items with no duplicates.

a. set **
b. file
c. dictionary
d. tuple

8. Elements of a set are delimited with __________.

a. { } **
b. [ ]
c. ( )
d. < >

9. The statement set1.union(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates **
b. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2
c. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed
d. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed

10. The statement set1.intersection(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2 **
b. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates
c. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed
d. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed

11. The statement set1.difference(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed **
b. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed
c. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2
d. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates

12. An attempt to open a nonexistent file for input:

a. generates a runtime error **
b. generates a syntax error
c. creates an empty input file
d. none of the above

13. If a file that already exists is opened for writing:

a. the contents of the file will be erased **
b. the new data to be written will be appended to the end of the rile
c. a Throwback error will occur

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 d. the user will be prompted for the action they wish to take

14. The default mode for opening a file is

a. reading **
b. writing
c. appending
d. deleting

15. To avoid a potential runtime error when opening files for reading or writing:
a. use the os.path.isfile function **
b. use the os.path.file.exists function
c. prompt the user for the action to take if the file does not exist
d. use the Boolean value try to check if the file exists

16. What is the output of the following Python statement?

print (set(“bookkeeper”))
a. {‘b’, ‘o’, ‘k’, ‘e’, ‘p’, ‘r’} **
b. {‘b’, ‘o’, ‘o’, ‘k’, ‘k’, ‘e’, ‘e’, ‘p’, ‘e’, ‘r’}
c. {‘o’, ‘k’, ‘e’}
d. {‘b’, ‘p’, ‘r’}

17. Each line of a CSV file is referred to as a(n) __________.

a. record **
b. tuple
c. field
d. comma field

18. Each piece of data in a CSV file record is referred to as a(n) __________.
a. field **
b. record
c. tuple
d. line

19. In a dictionary, a pair such such as “dog” : “rover” is called a(n) __________.
a. item **
b. pair
c. key
d. couple

20. Which file format stores data as a sequence of types that can only be access by special readers?
a. binary **
b. text

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 c. CSV-formatted
d. all of the above

21. In order for Python to use functions to work with binary files, you must first import which
standard library module?
a. pickle **
b. os
c. binaries
d. osfile

True/False (23)

1. After all the lines of a file have been read, the readline method returns the value None.

Answer: false

2. You must close a file in order to guarantee that all data has been physically written to the disk.

Answer: true

3. The remove and rename functions cannot be used with open files.

Answer: true

4. Sets cannot contain lists.

Answer: true

5. Sets can contain other sets.

Answer: false

6. Elements of a set have no order.

Answer: true

7. Elements of a set may be duplicated.

Answer: false

8. Two sets are equal if they contain the same elements.

Answer: true

9. Elements if a set cannot be ordered.

Answer: true

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

10. Sets cannot be created with comprehension.

Answer: false

11. infile is a descriptive name bot not mandatory for file input usage.

Answer: true

12. An attempt to open a nonexistent file for input generates a syntax error.

Answer: false

13. If a file that already exists is opened for writing, the contents of the file will be erased.

Answer: true

14. The default mode for opening a file is writing.

Answer: false

15. Only strings can be written to text file.

Answer: true

16. The value of set() is the empty set.

Answer: true

17. The data in the fields of each record in a CSV file normally should be related.

Answer: true

18. In a dictionary, keys must be immutable objects.

Answer: true

19. It is common to create dictionaries from text files.

Answer: true

20. Dictionaries cannot have other dictionaries as values.

Answer: false

21. A dictionary is an ordered structure that can be sorted.

Answer: false

22. Dictionaries cannot be created with comprehension.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 Answer: false

23. Dictionary comprehension can be used to extract a subset of a dictionary.

Answer: true

Short Answer (11)

1. Complete the following function to open the file for reading and read the contents into a single
string named contents.

def readFile(file):

Answer:
infile = open(file, ‘r’)
contents = infile.read()

2. Write a Python statement to open a file called names for writing and assign it to a variable called
outfile.

Answer: outfile = open(names, ‘w’)

3. Write a Python statement to open a file called grades with the intent to add values to the end of
the file and assign it to a variable called outfile.

Answer: outfile = open(grades, ‘a’)

4. Write a single Python statement to convert the list [“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”] to a set
called seasons.

Answer: seasons = set([“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”])

5. Write a single Python statement to convert the tuple (“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”) to a
set called seasons.

Answer: seasons = set((“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”))

6. Why can’t elements of a set be indexed?

Answer: Elements of a set cannot be indexed have no order.

7. Explain the difference between a simple text file and a CSV-formatted file.

Answer: A simple text file has a single piece of data per line. A CSV-formatter file has several items
of data on each line with items separated by commas.

8. Write a Python statement to create an empty dictionary called dogs.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

Answer: dogs = { }

9. Write a Python statement to create a copy of the dictionary called dogs into a new dictionary
called canines.

Answer: canines = dict(dogs)

10. Create a dictionary called dogs for the following data.

Eddie Jack Russell

Lassie Collie
Ping Beagle

Answer: dogs = {“Eddie” : “Jack Russell”, “Lassie” : “Collie”, “Ping” : “Beagle”}

11. Why can’t lists and sets serve as keys for dictionaries?

Answer: Because dictionary keys must be immutable objects. Lists and sets are mutable.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Black
Monk, and Other Stories
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Black Monk, and Other Stories

Author: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Translator: R. E. C. Long

Release date: August 8, 2017 [eBook #55307]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon

in an extended version,also linking to free sources for
education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...)
Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK

MONK, AND OTHER STORIES ***
THE BLACK MONK
AND OTHER STORIES
By
 ANTON TCHEKHOFF
Translated from the Russian by

R. E. C. Long

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

1915

PREFACE

Anton Tchekhoff, the writer of the stories and sketches here

translated, although hardly known in this country, and but little
better known on the western continent of Europe, has during the
last fifteen years been regarded as the most talented of the younger
generation of Russian writers. Even the remarkable popularity
attained during the last few years by Maxim Gorky has not eclipsed
his fame, though it has probably done much to prevent the
recognition of his talents abroad. Tchekhoff's stories lack the striking
incidents and lurid colouring of the younger writer's, and thus, while
they appeal more strongly to the cultivated Russian, they are devoid
of the more obvious qualities that attract the translator and the
public which read translations. Though they have gone into
numberless editions in Russia, they are almost unknown abroad,
being, in fact, represented only by a few scattered translations and
small volumes published in France and Germany, and by a few
critical articles in the reviews of those countries. In England,
Tchekhoff is only a name to most of those interested in Eastern
literature, and not even a name to the general public.
Anton Pavlovitch Tchekhoff was born in 1860, spent his infancy in
South Russia, and was educated in the Medical Faculty of Moscow
University. Although a doctor by profession, and actually practising
for some years as a municipal medical officer, he began his literary
career as a story writer before completing his professional education,
contributing, when a student, sketches to the weekly comic journals,
and feuilletons to the St. Petersburg newspapers. Tchekhoff's early
stories turn largely upon domestic misunderstandings; they are brief,
avowedly humorous, and even farcical. They attracted early
attention by their irresponsible gaiety, seldom untinged with a
certain bitterness. The Steppe, a panorama of travel through the
great plains of South Russia, published serially in the now extinct
Sieverni Viestnik, was the first of his productions of sustained merit.
It was followed by a series of stories and sketches and one volume
of dramas, which have, in the opinion of Russian critics, established
the writer on a level with the best native fiction writers, and on a
much higher level than any of his contemporaries.
Tchekhoff in his manner of thought is essentially a Russian; as an
artist essentially Western, having perhaps only one thing in common
with the writers of his own country. Russian novelists, with few
exceptions—Turgenieff, a man of Western training and sympathies,
was one—have commonly lacked the instinct of coherency, the lack
of which in fiction is redeemed only by genius. The novels of
Dostoyeffsky and Tolstoy are notoriously defective in this respect.
Tchekhoff and Gorky suffer from the same deficiency. Unlike Gorky,
Tchekhoff has never essayed the long novel; and even his longer
short stories, one of which is included in this volume, are redeemed
from failure chiefly by their humour and close observation of Russian
life. With this exception, Tchekhoff has little in common with other
Russian writers. He is more objective, less diffuse, less inspiring, and
less human. His compatriots, Count Tolstoy among them, compare
him with Maupassant His method of treatment presents many
parallels; he has the same brevity, the same remorselessness, the
same insistence upon the significantly little.
But in his teaching, if teaching it can be called, Tchekhoff is
thoroughly Russian. A French critic[1] has lately reviewed his stories
in a chapter called L'impuissance de vivre, and this phrase
summarises admirably what Tchekhoff has to say. The political
condition of modern Russia involves the repression of all intellect
and initiative, or, at best, their diversion into unproductive official
channels; hence, the distaste for life. and intellectual stagnation
which, represented here in "Ward No. 6," run through all Tchekhoff's
longer stories, and particularly through his dramas, most of which
end in disillusion and suicide. Russian life presents itself to Tchekhoff
as the unprofitable struggle of the exceptional few against the trivial
and insignificant many. His pages are peopled with psychopaths,
degenerates of genius and virtue, who succumb in feeble revolt
against the baseness and banality of life, and are quite unfit to
combat the healthy, rude, but unintelligent forces around them.
Kovrin, Likharyóff, and Doctor Andréi Yéfimitch, three heroes in this
collection, are characteristic of Tchekhoff's outlook. All aspiring men,
he says, are predestined martyrs; only the base achieve immunity
from ruin: and as martyrdom is the exception, not the rule, it results
that Tchekhoff's ordinary men, and the secondary characters in most
of his stories, are insignificant and mean. The life depicted is in itself
uninteresting; its colour is grey, its keynote tedium, its only humour
the humour of the satirist, not of the sympathiser, and its only
tragedy, failure. Tchekhoff is essentially an objective writer, and this
gives him an undue detachment from the life which he describes; he
never points a moral, delays over an explanation, or shrinks from the
incompleteness which, truthful to life, is often unsatisfactory in art.
But his attitude towards life is not the less unmistakable because
never openly expressed; pessimism, inspired by fatalism and denial
of the will, but tempered by humour and apathy, is its note. That
note appears perhaps less in this volume than it would in a more
representative collection of Tchekhoff's writings. But in choosing
these stories from among more than a hundred, I have been guided
not merely by what was best, but also by what seemed most likely
to be understood by a public unfamiliar with Russian manners and
Russian thought.
The stories "The Black Monk," "In Exile," "Rothschild's Fiddle," "A
Father," and "At the Manor," have been translated from the volume
Poviesti i Razskazni, St. Petersburg, 1898; "A Family Council," from
Razskazni, 12th edition, St. Petersburg, 1898; "Ward No. 6," from
Palata No. Shestoi, 6th edition, St. Petersburg, 1898; "On the Way,"
"At Home," "Two Tragedies," and "An Event," from V Sumerkakh,
13th edition, St. Petersburg, 1899; and "Sleepyhead," from Khmuriye
Liudi, 8th edition, St. Petersburg, 1898. "In Exile" was published in
the Fortnightly Review in September, 1903, and is reprinted here
with the Editor's permission.
R. E. C. L.
[1] Ivan Strannik. La Pensée Russe Contemporaine. Paris, Librairie
Armand Colin, 1903.

CONTENTS

The Black Monk

On the Way
A Family Council
At Home
In Exile
Rothschild's Fiddle
A Father
Two Tragedies
Sleepyhead
At the Manor
An Event
Ward No. 6
 THE BLACK MONK

Andrei Vasilyevitch Kovrin, Magister, had worn himself out, and

unsettled his nerves. He made no effort to undergo regular
treatment; but only incidentally, over a bottle of wine, spoke to his
friend the doctor; and his friend the doctor advised him to spend all
the spring and summer in the country. And in the nick of time came
a long letter from Tánya Pesótsky, asking him to come and stay with
her father at Borisovka. He decided to go.
But first (it was in April) he travelled to his own estate, to his native
Kovrinka, and spent three weeks in solitude; and only when the fine
weather came drove across the country to his former guardian and
second parent, Pesótsky, the celebrated Russian horti-culturist. From
Kovrinka to Borisovka, the home of the Pesótskys, was a distance of
some seventy versts, and in the easy, springed calêche the drive
along the roads, soft in springtime, promised real enjoyment.
The house at Borisovka was, large, faced with a colonnade, and
adorned with figures of lions with the plaster falling off. At the door
stood a servant in livery. The old park, gloomy and severe, laid out
in English fashion, stretched for nearly a verst from the house down
to the river, and ended there in a steep clay bank covered with pines
whose bare roots resembled shaggy paws. Below sparkled a
deserted stream; overhead the snipe circled about with melancholy
cries—all, in short, seemed to invite a visitor to sit down and write a
ballad. But the gardens and orchards, which together with the seed-
plots occupied some eighty acres, inspired very different feelings.
Even in the worst of weather they were bright and joy-inspiring.
Such wonderful roses, lilies, camelias, such tulips, such a host of
flowering plants of every possible kind and colour, from staring white
to sooty black,—such a wealth of blossoms Kovrin had never seen
before. The spring was only beginning, and the greatest rareties
were hidden under glass; but already enough bloomed in the alleys
and beds to make up an empire of delicate shades. And most
charming of all was it in the early hours of morning, when dewdrops
glistened on every petal and leaf.
In childhood the decorative part of the garden, called
contemptuously by Pesótsky "the rubbish," had produced on Kovrin
a fabulous impression. What miracles of art, what studied
monstrosities, what monkeries of nature! Espaliers of fruit trees, a
pear tree shaped like a pyramidal poplar, globular oaks and lindens,
apple-tree houses, arches, monograms, candelabra—even the date
1862 in plum trees, to commemorate the year in which Pesótsky first
engaged in the art of gardening. There were stately, symmetrical
trees, with trunks erect as those of palms, which after examination
proved to be gooseberry or currant trees. But what most of all
enlivened the garden and gave it its joyous tone was the constant
movement of Pesótsky's gardeners. From early morning to late at
night, by the trees, by the bushes, in the alleys, and on the beds
swarmed men as busy as ants, with barrows, spades, and watering-
pots.
Kovrin arrived at Borisovka at nine o'clock. He found Tánya and her
father in great alarm. The clear starlight night foretold frost, and the
head gardener, Ivan Karlitch, had gone to town, so that there was
no one who could be relied upon. At supper they spoke only of the
impending frost; and it was decided that Tánya should not go to bed
at all, but should inspect the gardens at one o'clock and see if all
were in order, while Yegor Semiónovitch should rise at three o'clock,
or even earlier.
Kovrin sat with Tánya all the evening, and after midnight
accompanied her to the garden. The air already smelt strongly of
burning. In the great orchard, called "the commercial," which every
year brought Yegor Semiónovitch thousands of roubles profit, there
already crept along the ground the thick, black, sour smoke which
was to clothe the young leaves and save the plants. The trees were
marshalled like chessmen in straight rows—like ranks of soldiers;
and this pedantic regularity, together with the uniformity of height,
made the garden seem monotonous and even tiresome. Kovrin and
Tánya walked up and down the alleys, and watched the fires of
dung, straw, and litter; but seldom met the workmen, who
wandered in the smoke like shadows. Only the cherry and plum
trees and a few apple trees were in blossom, but the whole garden
was shrouded in smoke, and it was only when they reached the
seed-plots that Kovrin was able to breathe.
"I remember when I was a child sneezing from the smoke," he said,
shrugging his shoulders, "but to this day I cannot understand how
smoke saves plants from the frost."
"Smoke is a good substitute when there are no clouds," answered
Tánya.
"But what do you want the clouds for?"
"In dull and cloudy weather we have no morning frosts."
"Is that so?" said Kovrin.
He laughed and took Tánya by the hand. Her broad, very serious,
chilled face; her thick, black eyebrows; the stiff collar on her jacket
which prevented her from moving her head freely; her dress tucked
up out of the dew; and her whole figure, erect and slight, pleased
him.
"Heavens! how she has grown!" he said to himself. "When I was
here last time, five years ago, you were quite a child. You were thin,
long-legged, and untidy, and wore a short dress, and I used to tease
you. What a change in five years!"
"Yes, five years!" sighed Tánya. "A lot of things have happened since
then. Tell me, Andrei, honestly," she said, looking merrily into his
face, "do you feel that you have got out of touch with us? But why
do I ask? You are a man, you live your own interesting life, you....
Some estrangement is natural. But whether that is so or not,
Andrusha, I want you now to look on us as your own. We have a
right to that."
"I do, already, Tánya."
"Your word of honour?"
"My word of honour."
"You were surprised that we had so many of your photographs. But
surely you know how my father adores you, worships you. You are a
scholar, and not an ordinary man; you have built up a brilliant career,
and he is firmly convinced that you turned out a success because he
educated you. I do not interfere with his delusion. Let him believe
it!"
Already dawn. The sky paled, and the foliage and clouds of smoke
began to show themselves more clearly. The nightingale sang, and
from the fields came the cry of quails.
"It is time for bed!" said Tánya. "It is cold too." She took Kovrin by
the hand. "Thanks, Andrusha, for coming. We are cursed with most
uninteresting acquaintances, and not many even of them. With us it
is always garden, garden, garden, and nothing else. Trunks,
timbers," she laughed, "pippins, rennets, budding, pruning,
grafting.... All our life goes into the garden, we never even dream of
anything but apples and pears. Of course this is all very good and
useful, but sometimes I cannot help wishing for change. I remember
when you used to come and pay us visits, and when you came home
for the holidays, how the whole house grew fresher and brighter, as
if someone had taken the covers off the furniture; I was then a very
little girl, but I understood...."
Tánya spoke for a time, and spoke with feeling. Then suddenly it
came into Kovrin's head that during the summer he might become
attached to this little, weak, talkative being, that he might get
carried away, fall in love—in their position what was more probable
and natural? The thought pleased him, amused him, and as he bent
down to the kind, troubled face, he hummed to himself Pushkin's
couplet:
"Oniégin; I will not conceal
That I love Tatyana madly."
By the time they reached the house Yegor Semiónovitch had risen.
Kovrin felt no desire to sleep; he entered into conversation with the
old man, and returned with him to the garden. Yegor Semiónovitch
was tall, broad-shouldered, and fat. He suffered from shortness of
breath, yet walked so quickly that it was difficult to keep up with
him. His expression was always troubled and hurried, and he
seemed to be thinking that if he were a single second late
everything would be destroyed.
"There, brother, is a mystery for you!" he began, stopping to recover
breath. "On the surface of the ground, as you see, there is frost, but
raise the thermometer a couple of yards on your stick, and it is quite
warm.... Why is that?"
"I confess I don't know," said Kovrin, laughing.
"No!... You can't know everything.... The biggest brain cannot
comprehend everything. You are still engaged with your
philosophy?"
"Yes, ... I am studying psychology, and philosophy generally."
"And it doesn't bore you?"
"On the contrary, I couldn't live without it."
"Well, God grant ..." began Yegor Semiónovitch, smoothing his big
whiskers thoughtfully. "Well, God grant ... I am very glad for your
sake, brother, very glad...."
Suddenly he began to listen, and making a terrible face, ran off the
path and soon vanished among the trees in a cloud of smoke.
"Who tethered this horse to the tree?" rang out a despairing voice.
"Which of you thieves and murderers dared to tether this horse to
the apple tree? My God, my God! Ruined, ruined, spoiled, destroyed!
The garden is ruined, the garden is destroyed! My God!"
When he returned to Kovrin his face bore an expression of injury
and impotence.
"What on earth can you do with these accursed people?" he asked in
a whining voice, wringing his hands. "Stepka brought a manure cart
here last night and tethered the horse to an apple tree ... tied the
reins, the idiot, so tight, that the bark is rubbed off in three places.
What can you do with men like this? I speak to him and he blinks his
eyes and looks stupid. He ought to be hanged!"
When at last he calmed down, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him
on the cheek.
"Well, God grant ... God grant!..." he stammered. "I am very, very
glad that you have come. I cannot say how glad. Thanks!"
Then, with the same anxious face, and walking with the same quick
step, he went round the whole garden, showing his former ward the
orangery, the hothouses, the sheds, and two beehives which he
described as the miracle of the century.
As they walked about, the sun rose, lighting up the garden. It grew
hot. When he thought of the long, bright day before him, Kovrin
remembered that it was but the beginning of May, and that he had
before him a whole summer of long, bright, and happy days; and
suddenly through him pulsed the joyous, youthful feeling which he
had felt when as a child he played in this same garden. And in turn,
he embraced the old man and kissed him tenderly. Touched by
remembrances, the pair went into the house and drank tea out of
the old china cups, with cream and rich biscuits; and these trifles
again reminded Kovrin of his childhood and youth. The splendid
present and the awakening memories of the past mingled, and a
feeling of intense happiness filled his heart.
He waited until Tánya awoke, and having drunk coffee with her,
walked through the garden, and then went to his room and began to
work. He read attentively, making notes; and only lifted his eyes
from his books when he felt that he must look out of the window or
at the fresh roses, still wet with dew, which stood in vases on his
table. It seemed to hint that every little vein in his body trembled
and pulsated with joy.
 II

But in the country Kovrin continued to live the same nervous and
untranquil life as he had lived in town. He read much, wrote much,
studied Italian; and when he went for walks, thought all the time of
returning to work. He slept so little that he astonished the
household; if by chance he slept in the daytime for half an hour, he
could not sleep all the following night. Yet after these sleepless
nights he felt active and gay.
He talked much, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Often,
nearly every day, young girls from the neighbouring country-houses
drove over to Borisovka, played the piano with Tánya, and sang.
Sometimes the visitor was a young man, also a neighbour, who
played the violin well. Kovrin listened eagerly to their music and
singing, but was exhausted by it, so exhausted sometimes that his
eyes closed involuntarily, and his head drooped on his shoulder.
One evening after tea he sat upon the balcony, reading. In the
drawing-room Tánya—a soprano, one of her friends—a contralto,
and the young violinist studied the well-known serenade of Braga.
Kovrin listened to the words, but though they were Russian, could
not understand their meaning. At last, laying down his book and
listening attentively, he understood. A girl with a disordered
imagination heard by night in a garden some mysterious sounds,
sounds so beautiful and strange that she was forced to recognise
their harmony and holiness, which to us mortals are
incomprehensible, and therefore flew back to heaven. Kovrin's
eyelids drooped. He rose, and in exhaustion walked up and down
the drawing-room, and then up and down the hall. When the music
ceased, he took Tánya by the hand and went out with her to the
balcony.
"All day—since early morning," he began, "my head has been taken
up with a strange legend. I cannot remember whether I read it, or
where I heard it, but the legend is very remarkable and not very
coherent. I may begin by saying that it is not very clear. A thousand
years ago a monk, robed in black, wandered in the wilderness—
somewhere in Syria or Arabia ... Some miles away the fishermen saw
another black monk moving slowly over the surface of the lake. The
second monk was a mirage. Now put out of your mind all the laws of
optics, which legend, of course, does not recognise, and listen. From
the first mirage was produced another mirage, from the second a
third, so that the image of the Black Monk is eternally reflected from
one stratum of the atmosphere to another. At one time it was seen
in Africa, then in Spain, then in India, then in the Far North. At last it
issued from the limits of the earth's atmosphere, but never came
across conditions which would cause it to disappear. Maybe it is seen
to-day in Mars or in the constellation of the Southern Cross. Now the
whole point, the very essence of the legend, lies in the prediction
that exactly a thousand years after the monk went into the
wilderness, the mirage will again be cast into the atmosphere of the
earth and show itself to the world of men. This term of a thousand
years, it appears, is now expiring.... According to the legend we
must expect the Black Monk to-day or to-morrow."
"It is a strange story," said Tánya, whom the legend did not please.
"But the most astonishing thing," laughed Kovrin, "is that I cannot
remember how this legend came into my head. Did I read it? Did I
hear it? Or can it be that I dreamed of the Black Monk? I cannot
remember. But the legend interests me. All day long I thought of
nothing else."
Releasing Tánya, who returned to her visitors, he went out of the
house, and walked lost in thought beside the flower-beds. Already
the sun was setting. The freshly watered flowers exhaled a damp,
irritating smell. In the house the music had again begun, and from
the distance the violin produced the effect of a human voice.
Straining his memory in an attempt to recall where he had heard the
legend, Kovrin walked slowly across the park, and then, not noticing
where he went, to the river-bank.
By the path which ran down among the uncovered roots to the
water's edge Kovrin descended, frightening the snipe, and disturbing
two ducks. On the dark pine trees glowed the rays of the setting
sun, but on the surface of the river darkness had already fallen.
Kovrin crossed the stream. Before him now lay a broad field covered
with young rye. Neither human dwelling nor human soul was visible
in the distance; and it seemed that the path must lead to the
unexplored, enigmatical region in the west where the sun had
already set—where still, vast and majestic, flamed the afterglow.
"How open it is—how peaceful and free!" thought Kovrin, walking
along the path. "It seems as if all the world is looking at me from a
hiding-place and waiting for me to comprehend it."
A wave passed over the rye, and the light evening breeze blew softly
on his uncovered head. Yet a minute more and the breeze blew
again, this time more strongly, the rye rustled, and from behind
came the dull murmur of the pines. Kovrin stopped in amazement
On the horizon, like a cyclone or waterspout, a great, black pillar
rose up from earth to heaven. Its outlines were undefined; but from
the first it might be seen that it was not standing still, but moving
with inconceivable speed towards Kovrin; and the nearer it came the
smaller and smaller it grew. Involuntarily Kovrin rushed aside and
made a path for it. A monk in black clothing, with grey hair and
black eyebrows, crossing his hands upon his chest, was borne past.
His bare feet were above the ground. Having swept some twenty
yards past Kovrin, he looked at him, nodded his head, and smiled
kindly and at the same time slyly. His face was pale and thin. When
he had passed by Kovrin he again began to grow, flew across the
river, struck inaudibly against the clay bank and pine trees, and,
passing through them, vanished like smoke.
"You see," stammered Kovrin, "after all, the legend was true!"
Making no attempt to explain this strange phenomenon; satisfied
with the fact that he had so closely and so plainly seen not only the
black clothing but even the face and eyes of the monk; agitated
agreeably, he returned home.
In the park and in the garden visitors were walking quietly; in the
house the music continued. So he alone had seen the Black Monk.
He felt a strong desire to tell what he had seen to Tánya and Yegor
Semiónovitch, but feared that they would regard it as a
hallucination, and decided to keep his counsel. He laughed loudly,
sang, danced a mazurka, and felt in the best of spirits; and the
guests and Tánya noticed upon his face a peculiar expression of
ecstasy and inspiration, and found him very interesting.

III

When supper was over and the visitors had gone, he went to his
own room, and lay on the sofa. He wished to think of the monk. But
in a few minutes Tánya entered.
"There, Andrusha, you can read father's articles ..." she said. "They
are splendid articles. He writes very well."
"Magnificent!" said Yegor Semiónovitch, coming in after her, with a
forced smile. "Don't listen to her, please!... Or read them only if you
want to go to sleep—they are a splendid soporific."
"In my opinion they are magnificent," said Tánya, deeply convinced.
"Read them, Andrusha, and persuade father to write more often. He
could write a whole treatise on gardening."
Yegor Semiónovitch laughed, blushed, and stammered out the
conventional phrases used by abashed authors. At last he gave in.
"If you must read them, read first these papers of Gauche's, and the
Russian articles," he stammered, picking out the papers with
trembling hands. "Otherwise you won't understand them. Before you
read my replies you must know what I am replying to. But it won't
interest you ... stupid. And it's time for bed."
Tánya went out. Yegor Semiónovitch sat on the end of the sofa and
sighed loudly.
"Akh, brother mine ..." he began after a long silence. As you see, my
dear Magister, I write articles, and exhibit at shows, and get medals
sometimes. ... Pesótsky, they say, has apples as big as your head....
Pesótsky has made a fortune out of his gardens.... In one word:
"'Rich and glorious is Kotchubéi.'"
"But I should like to ask you what is going to be the end of all this?
The gardens—there is no question of that—are splendid, they are
models.... Not gardens at all, in short, but a whole institution of high
political importance, and a step towards a new era in Russian
agriculture and Russian industry.... But for what purpose? What
ultimate object?"
"That question is easily answered."
"I do not mean in that sense. What I want to know is what will
happen with the garden when I die? As things are, it would not last
without me a single month. The secret does not lie in the fact that
the garden is big and the workers many, but in the fact that I love
the work—you understand? I love it, perhaps, more than I love
myself. Just look at me! I work from morning to night. I do
everything with my own hands. All grafting, all pruning, all planting
—everything is done by me. When I am helped I feel jealous, and
get irritated to the point of rudeness. The whole secret is in love, in
a sharp master's eye, in a master's hands, and in the feeling when I
drive over to a friend and sit down for half an hour, that I have left
my heart behind me and am not myself—all the time I am in dread
that something has happened to the garden. Now suppose I die to-
morrow, who will replace all this? Who will do the work? The head
gardeners? The workmen? Why the whole burden of my present
worries is that my greatest enemy is not the hare or the beetle or
the frost, but the hands of the stranger."
"But Tánya?" said Kovrin, laughing. "Surely she is not more
dangerous than a hare?... She loves and understands the work."
"Yes, Tánya loves it and understands it. If after my death the garden
should fall to her as mistress, then I could wish for nothing better.
But suppose—which God forbid—she should marry!" Yegor
Semiónovitch whispered and look at Kovrin with frightened eyes.
"That's the whole crux. She might marry, there would be children,
and there would be no time to attend to the garden. That is bad
enough. But what I fear most of all is that she may marry some
spendthrift who is always in want of money, who will lease the
garden to tradesmen, and the whole thing will go to the devil in the
first year. In a business like this a woman, is the scourge of God."
Yegor Semiónovitch sighed and was silent for a few minutes.
"Perhaps you may call it egoism. But I do not want Tánya to marry. I
am afraid! You've seen that fop who comes along with a fiddle and
makes a noise. I know Tánya would never marry him, yet I cannot
bear the sight of him.... In short, brother, I am a character ... and I
know it."
Yegor Semiónovitch rose and walked excitedly up and down the
room. It was plain that he had something very serious to say, but
could not bring himself to the point.
"I love you too sincerely not to talk to you frankly," he said, thrusting
his hands into his pockets. "In all delicate questions I say what I
think, and dislike mystification. I tell you plainly, therefore, that you
are the only man whom I should not be afraid of Tánya marrying.
You are a clever man, you have a heart, and you would not see my
life's work ruined. And what is more, I love you as my own son ...
and am proud of you. So if you and Tánya were to end ... in a sort
of romance ... I should be very glad and very happy. I tell you this
straight to your face, without shame, as becomes an honest man."
Kovrin smiled. Yegor Semiónovitch opened the door, and was leaving
the room, but stopped suddenly on the threshold.
"And if you and Tánya had a son, I could make a horti-culturist out
of him," he added. "But that is an idle fancy. Good night!"
Left alone, Kovrin settled himself comfortably, and took up his host's
articles. The first was entitled "Intermediate Culture," the second "A
Few Words in Reply to the Remarks of Mr. Z. about the Treatment of
the Soil of a New Garden," the third "More about Grafting." The
others were similar in scope. But all breathed restlessness and sickly
irritation. Even a paper with the peaceful title of "Russian Apple
Trees" exhaled irritability. Yegor Semiónovitch began with the words
"Audi alteram partem," and ended it with "Sapienti sat"; and
between these learned quotations flowed a whole torrent of acid
words directed against "the learned ignorance of our patent
horticulturists who observe nature from their academic chairs," and
against M. Gauche, "whose fame is founded on the admiration of the
profane and dilletanti" And finally Kovrin came across an uncalled-for
and quite insincere expression of regret that it is no longer legal to
flog peasants who are caught stealing fruit and injuring trees.
"His is good work, wholesome and fascinating," thought Kovrin, "yet
in these pamphlets we have nothing but bad temper and war to the
knife. I suppose it is the same everywhere; in all careers men of
ideas are nervous, and victims of this kind of exalted sensitiveness. I
suppose it must be so."
He thought of Tánya, so delighted with her father's articles, and
then of Yegor Semiónovitch. Tánya, small, pale, and slight, with her
collar-bone showing, with her widely-opened, her dark and clever
eyes, which it seemed were always searching for something. And
Yegor Semiónovitch with his little, hurried steps. He thought again of
Tánya, fond of talking, fond of argument, and always accompanying
even the most insignificant phrases with mimicry and gesticulation.
Nervous—she must be nervous in the highest degree. Again Kovrin
began to read, but he understood nothing, and threw down his
books. The agreeable emotion with which he had danced the
mazurka and listened to the music still held possession of him, and
aroused a multitude of thoughts. It flashed upon him that if this
strange, unnatural monk had been seen by him alone, he must be ill,
ill to the point of suffering from hallucinations. The thought
frightened him, but not for long.
He sat on the sofa, and held his head in his hands, curbing the
inexplicable joy which filled his whole being; and then walked up and
down the room for a minute, and returned to his work. But the
thoughts which he read in books no longer satisfied him. He longed
for something vast, infinite, astonishing. Towards morning he
undressed and went unwillingly to bed; he felt that he had better
rest. When at last he heard Yegor Semiónovitch going to his work in
the garden, he rang, and ordered the servant to bring him some
wine. He drank several glasses; his consciousness became dim, and
he slept.

IV

Yegor Semiónovitch and Tánya often quarrelled and said

disagreeable things to one another. This morning they had both
been irritated, and Tánya burst out crying and went to her room,
coming down neither to dinner nor to tea At first Yegor Semiónovitch
marched about, solemn and dignified, as if wishing to give everyone
to understand that for him justice and order were the supreme
interests of life. But he was unable to keep this up for long; his
spirits fell, and he wandered about the park and sighed, "Akh, my
God!" At dinner he ate nothing, and at last, tortured by his
conscience, he knocked softly at the closed door, and called timidly:
"Tánya! Tánya!"
Through the door came a Weak voice, tearful but determined:
"Leave me alone!... I implore you."
The misery of father and daughter reacted on the whole household,
even on the labourers in the garden. Kovrin, as usual, was immersed
in his own interesting work, but at last even he felt tired and
uncomfortable. He determined to interfere, and disperse the cloud
before evening. He knocked at Tánya's door, and was admitted.
"Come, come! What a shame!" he began jokingly; and then looked
with surprise at her tear-stained and afflicted face covered with red
spots. "Is it so serious, then? Well, well!"
"But if you knew how he tortured me!" she said, and a flood of tears
gushed out of her big eyes. "He tormented me!" she continued,
wringing her hands. "I never said a word to him.... I only said there
was no need to keep unnecessary labourers, if ... if we can get day
workmen.... You know the men have done nothing for the whole
week. I ... I only said this, and he roared at me, and said a lot of
things ... most offensive ... deeply insulting. And all for nothing."
"Never mind!" said Kovrin, straightening her hair. "You have had your
scoldings and your cryings, and that is surely enough. You can't keep
up this for ever ... it is not right ... all the more since you know he
loves you infinitely."
"He has ruined my whole life," sobbed Tánya. "I never hear anything
but insults and affronts. He regards me as superfluous in his own
house. Let him! He will have cause! I shall leave here to-morrow,
and study for a position as telegraphist.... Let him!"
"Come, come. Stop crying, Tánya. It does you no good.... You are
both irritable and impulsive, and both in the wrong. Come, and I will
make peace!"
Kovrin spoke gently and persuasively, but Tánya continued to cry,
twitching her shoulders and wringing her hands as if she had been
overtaken by a real misfortune. Kovrin felt all the sorrier owing to
the smallness of the cause of her sorrow. What a trifle it took to
make this little creature unhappy for a whole day, or, as she had
expressed it, for a whole life! And as he consoled Tánya, it occurred
to him that except this girl and her father there was not one in the
world who loved him as a kinsman; and had it not been for them,
he, left fatherless and motherless in early childhood, must have lived
his whole life without feeling one sincere caress, or tasting ever that
simple, unreasoning love which we feel only for those akin to us by
blood. And he felt that his tired, strained nerves, like magnets,
responded to the nerves of this crying, shuddering girl. He felt, too,
that he could never love a healthy, rosy-cheeked woman; but pale,
weak, unhappy Tánya appealed to him.
He felt pleasure in looking at her hair and her shoulders; and he
pressed her hand, and wiped away her tears.... At last she ceased
crying. But she still continued to complain of her father, and of her
insufferable life at home, imploring Kovrin to try to realise her
position. Then by degrees she began to smile, and to sigh that God
had cursed her with such a wicked temper; and in the end laughed
aloud, called herself a fool, and ran out of the room. A little later
Kovrin went into the garden. Yegor Semiónovitch and Tánya, as if
nothing had happened, We were walking side by side up the alley,
eating rye-bread and salt, we both were very hungry.

Pleased with his success as peacemaker, Kovrin went into the park.
As he sat on a bench and mused, he heal'd the rattle of a carnage
and a woman's laugh—visitors evidently again. Shadows fell in the
garden, the sound of a violin, the music of a woman's voice reached
him almost inaudibly; and this reminded him of the Black Monk.
Whither, to what country, to what planet, had that optical absurdity
flown? Hardly had he called to mind the legend and painted in
imagination the black apparition in the rye-field when from behind
the pine trees opposite to him, walked inaudibly—without the
faintest rustling—a man of middle height. His grey head was
uncovered, he was dressed in black, and barefooted like a beggar.
On his pallid, corpse-like face stood out sharply a number of black
spots. Nodding his head politely the stranger or beggar walked
noiselessly to the bench and sat down, and Kovrin recognised the
Black Monk. For a minute they looked at one another, Kovrin with
astonishment, but the monk kindly and, as before, with a sly
expression on his face.
"But you are a mirage," said Kovrin. "Why are you here, and why do
you sit in one place? That is not in accordance with the legend."
"It is all the same," replied the monk softly, turning his face towards
Kovrin. "The legend, the mirage, I—all are products of your own
excited imagination. I am a phantom."
"That is to say you don't exist?" asked Kovrin. "Think as you like,"
replied the monk, smiling faintly. "I exist in your imagination, and as
your imagination is a part of Nature, I must exist also in Nature."
"You have a clever, a distinguished face—it seems to me as if in
reality you had lived more than a thousand years," said Kovrin. "I did
not know that my imagination was capable of creating such a
phenomenon. Why do you look at me with such rapture? Are you
pleased with me?"
"Yes. For you are one of the few who can justly be named the
elected of God. You serve eternal truth. Your thoughts, your
intentions, your astonishing science, all your life bear the stamp of
divinity, a heavenly impress; they are dedicated to the rational and
the beautiful, and that is, to the Eternal."
"You say, to eternal truth. Then can eternal truth be accessible and
necessary to men if there is no eternal life?"
"There is eternal life," said the monk.
"You believe in the immortality of men."
"Of course. For you, men, there awaits a great and a beautiful
future. And the more the world has of men like you the nearer will
this future be brought. Without you, ministers to the highest
principles, living freely and consciously, humanity would be nothing;
developing in the natural order it must wait the end of its earthly
history. But you, by some thousands of years, hasten it into the
kingdom of eternal truth—and in this is your high service. You
embody in yourself the blessing of God which rested upon the
people."
"And what is the object of eternal life?" asked Kovrin.
"The same as all life—enjoyment. True enjoyment is in knowledge,
and eternal life presents innumerable, inexhaustible fountains of
knowledge; it is in this sense it was said: 'In My Father's house are
many mansions....'"
"You cannot conceive what a joy it is to me to listen to you," said
Kovrin, rubbing his hands with delight.
"I am glad."
"Yet I know that when you leave me I shall be tormented by doubt
as to your reality. You are a phantom, a hallucination. But that
means that I am psychically diseased, that I am not in a normal
state?" "What if you are? That need not worry you. You are ill
because you have overstrained your powers, because you have
borne your health in sacrifice to one idea, and the time is near when
you will sacrifice not merely it but your life also. What more could
you desire? It is what all gifted and noble natures aspire to."
"But if I am psychically diseased, how can I trust myself?"
"And how do you know that the men of genius whom all the world
trusts have not also seen visions? Genius, they tell you now, is akin
to insanity. Believe me, the healthy and the normal are but ordinary
men—the herd. Fears as to a nervous age, over-exhaustion and
degeneration can trouble seriously only those whose aims in life lie
in the present—that is the herd."
"The Romans had as their ideal: mens sana in corpore sano."
"All that the Greeks and Romans said is not true. Exaltations,
aspirations, excitements, ecstacies—all those things which
distinguish poets, prophets, martyrs to ideas from ordinary men are
incompatible with the animal life, that is, with physical health. I
repeat, if you wish to be healthy and normal go with the herd."
"How strange that you should repeat what I myself have so often
thought!" said Kovrin. "It seems as if you had watched me and
listened to my secret thoughts. But do not talk about me. What do
you imply by the words: eternal truth?"
The monk made no answer. Kovrin looked at him, but could not
make out his face. His features clouded and melted away; his head
and arms disappeared; his body faded into the bench and into the
twilight, and vanished utterly.
"The hallucination has gone," said Kovrin, laughing. "It is a pity."
He returned to the house lively and happy. What the Black Monk had
said to him flattered, not his self-love, but his soul, his whole being.
To be the elected, to minister to eternal truth, to stand in the ranks
of those who hasten by thousands of years the making mankind
worthy of the kingdom of Christ, to deliver humanity from thousands
of years of struggle, sin, and suffering, to give to one idea
everything, youth, strength, health, to die for the general welfare—
what an exalted, what a glorious ideal! And when through his
memory flowed his past life, a life pure and chaste and full of labour,
when he remembered what he had learnt and what he had taught,
he concluded that in the words of the monk there was no
exaggeration. Through the park, to meet him, came Tánya. She was
wearing a different dress from that in which he had last seen her.
"You here?" she cried. "We were looking for you, looking.... But what
has happened?" she asked in surprise, looking into his glowing,
enraptured face, and into his eyes, now full of tears. "How strange
you are, Andrusha!"
"I am satisfied, Tánya," said Kovrin, laying his hand upon her
shoulder. "I am more than satisfied; I am happy! Tánya, dear Tánya,
you are inexpressibly dear to me. Tánya, I am so glad!"
He kissed both her hands warmly, and continued: "I have just lived
through the brightest, most wonderful, most unearthly moments....
But I cannot tell you all, for you would call me mad, or refuse to
believe me.... Let me speak of you! Tánya, I love you, and have long
loved you. To have you near me, to meet you ten times a day, has
become a necessity for me. I do not know how I shall live without
you when I go home."
"No!" laughed Tánya. "You will forget us all in two days. We are little
people, and you are a great man."
"Let us talk seriously," said he. "I will take you with me, Tánya! Yes?
You will come? You will be mine?"
Tánya cried "What?" and tried to laugh again. But the laugh did not
come, and, instead, red spots stood out on her cheeks. She
breathed quickly, and walked on rapidly into the park.
"I did not think ... I never thought of this ... never thought," she
said, pressing her hands together as if in despair.
But Kovrin hastened after her, and, with the same glowing,
enraptured face, continued to speak.
"I wish for a love which will take possession of me altogether, and
this love only you, Tánya, can give me. I am happy! How happy!"
She was overcome, bent, withered up, and seemed suddenly to have
aged ten years. But Kovrin found her beautiful, and loudly expressed
his ecstacy: "How lovely she is!"

VI

When he learned from Kovrin that not only had a romance resulted,
but that a wedding was to follow, Yegor Semiónovitch walked from
corner to corner, and tried to conceal his agitation. His hands shook,
his neck seemed swollen and purple; he ordered the horses to be
put into his racing droschky, and drove away. Tánya, seeing how he
whipped the horses and how he pushed his cap down over his ears,
understood his mood, locked herself into her room, and cried all day.
In the orangery the peaches and plums were already ripe. The
packing and despatch to Moscow of such a delicate load required
much attention, trouble, and bustle. Owing to the heat of the
summer every tree had to be watered; the process was costly in
time and working-power; and many caterpillars appeared, which the
workmen, and even Yegor Semiónovitch and Tánya, crushed with
their fingers, to the great disgust of Kovrin. The autumn orders for
fruit and trees had to be attended to, and a vast correspondence
carried on. And at the very busiest time, when it seemed no one had
a free moment, work began in the fields and deprived the garden of
half its workers. Yegor Semiónovitch, very sunburnt, very irritated,
and very worried, galloped about, now to the garden, now to the
fields; and all the time shouted that they were tearing him to bits,
and that he would put a bullet through his brain.
On top of all came the bustle over Tánya's trousseau, to which the
Pesótskys attributed infinite significance. With the eternal snipping of
scissors, rattle of sewing-machines, smell of flat-irons, and the
caprices of the nervous and touchy dressmaker, the whole house
seemed to spin round. And, to make matters worse, visitors arrived
every day, and these visitors had to be amused, fed, and lodged for
the night. Yet work and worry passed unnoticed in a mist of joy.
Tánya felt as if love and happiness had suddenly burst upon her,
although ever since her fourteenth year she had been certain that
Kovrin would marry nobody but herself. She was eternally in a state
of astonishment, doubt, and disbelief in herself. At one moment she
was seized by such great joy that she felt she must fly away to the
clouds and pray to God; but a moment later she remembered that
when August came she would have to leave the home of her
childhood and forsake her father; and she was frightened by the
thought—God knows whence it came—that she was trivial,
insignificant, and unworthy of a great man like Kovrin. When such
thoughts came she would run up to her room, lock herself in, and
cry bitterly for hours. But when visitors were present, it broke in
upon her that Kovrin was a singularly handsome man, that all the
women loved him and envied her; and in these moments her heart
was as full of rapture and pride as if she had conquered the whole
world. When he dared to smile on any other woman she trembled
with jealousy, went to her room, and again—tears. These new
feelings possessed her altogether; she helped her father
mechanically, noticing neither pears nor caterpillars, nor workmen,
nor how swiftly time was passing by.
Yegor Semiónovitch was in much the same state of mind. He still
worked from morning to night, Hew about the gardens, and lost his
temper; but all the while he was wrapped in a magic reverie. In his
sturdy body contended two men, one the real Yegor Semiónovitch,
who, when he listened to the gardener, Ivan Karlovitch's report of
some mistake or disorder, went mad with excitement, and tore his
hair; and the other the unreal Yegor Semiónovitch—a half-
intoxicated old man, who broke off an important conversation in the
middle of a word, seized the gardener by the shoulder, and
stammered:
"You may say what you like, but blood is thicker than water. His
mother was an astonishing, a most noble, a most brilliant woman. It
was a pleasure to see her good, pure, open, angel face. She painted
beautifully, wrote poetry, spoke five foreign languages, and sang....
Poor thing, Heaven rest her soul, she died of consumption!"
The unreal Yegor Semiónovitch sighed, and after a moment's silence
continued:
"When he was a boy growing up to manhood in my house he had
just such an angel face, open and good. His looks, his movements,
his words were as gentle and graceful as his mother's. And his
intellect It is not for nothing he has the degree of Magister. But you
just wait, Ivan Karlovitch; you'll see what he'll be in ten years' time.
Why, he'll be out of sight!" But here the real Yegor Semiónovitch
remembered himself, seized his head and roared:
"Devils! Frost-bitten! Ruined, destroyed! The garden is ruined; the
garden is destroyed!" Kovrin worked with all his former ardour, and
hardly noticed the bustle about him. Love only poured oil on the
flames. After every meeting with Tánya, he returned to his rooms in
rapture and happiness, and set to work with his books and
manuscripts with the same passion with which he had kissed her
and sworn his love. What the Black Monk had told him of his election
by God, of eternal truth, and of the glorious future of humanity, gave
to all his work a peculiar, unusual significance. Once or twice every
week, either in the park or in the house, he met the monk, and
talked with him for hours; but this did not frighten, but on the
contrary delighted him, for he was now assured that such
apparitions visit only the elect and exceptional who dedicate
themselves to the ministry of ideas.
Assumption passed unobserved. Then came the wedding, celebrated
by the determined wish of Yegor Semiónovitch with what was called
éclat, that is, with meaningless festivities which lasted for two days.
Three thousand roubles were consumed in food and drink; but what
with the vile music, the noisy toasts, the fussing servants, the
clamour, and the closeness of the atmosphere, no one appreciated
the expensive wines or the astonishing hors d'oeuvres specially
ordered from Moscow.

VII

One of the long winter nights. Kovrin lay in bed, reading a French
novel. Poor Tánya, whose head every evening ached as the result of
the unaccustomed life in town, had long been sleeping, muttering
incoherent phrases in her dreams.
The dock struck three. Kovrin put out the candle and lay down, lay
for a long time with dosed eyes unable to sleep owing to the heat of
the room and Tánya's continued muttering. At half-past four he
again lighted the candle. The Black Monk was sitting in a chair
beside his bed.