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Black Monk-Anton Chekhov · The Excursion

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  Speaker 1: The Black Monk by Anton Tchehov, translated by Robert Edward Krozier,
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  Speaker 1: Long Part one, chapters one through five. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: The Black Monk Chapter one Andrey Vassilyevitch kovrn Magastaire had
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  Speaker 1: worn himself out and unsettled his nerves. He made no
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  Speaker 1: effort to undergo regular treatment, but only incidentally, over a
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  Speaker 1: bottle of wine, spoke to his friend the doctor, and
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  Speaker 1: his friend the doctor advised him to spend all the
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  Speaker 1: spring and summer in the country, and in the nick
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  Speaker 1: of time came a long letter from Tanya Persotsky asking
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  Speaker 1: him to come and stay with her father at Borosovka.
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  Speaker 1: He decided to go, but first it was in April.
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  Speaker 1: He traveled to his own estate to his name Dative Kovrinka,
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  Speaker 1: and spent three weeks in solitude, and only when the
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  Speaker 1: fine weather came, drove across the country to his former
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  Speaker 1: guardian and second parent, Pysotsky, the celebrated Russian horticolturist. From
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  Speaker 1: Kovrinka to Borissovka, the home of the Posotskys was a
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  Speaker 1: distance of some seventy yests, and in the easy springed Kalesh,
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  Speaker 1: the drive along the roads, soft in springtime, promised real enjoyment.
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  Speaker 1: The house at Borissovka was large, faced with a colonnade
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  Speaker 1: and adorned with figures of lions, With a plaster falling off.
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  Speaker 1: At the door stood a servant in livery. The old park,
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  Speaker 1: gloomy and severe, laid out in English fashion, stretched for
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  Speaker 1: nearly a vyest from the house down to the river,
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  Speaker 1: and ended there in a steep clay bank covered with
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  Speaker 1: pines whose bare roots resembled shaggy palls. Below sparkled a
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  Speaker 1: deserted stream. Overhead, the snipe circled about with melancholy cries.
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  Speaker 1: All in short, seemed to invite a visitor to sit
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  Speaker 1: down and write a ballad. But the gardens and orchards,
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  Speaker 1: which together with the seed plots, occupied some eighty acres,
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  Speaker 1: inspired very different feelings. Even in the worst of weather.
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  Speaker 1: They were bright and joy inspiring. Such wonderful roses, lilies, camellias,
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  Speaker 1: such tulips, such a host of flowering plants of every
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  Speaker 1: possible kind and color. From staring white to sooty black.
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  Speaker 1: Such a wealth of blossoms Caulvern had never seen before.
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  Speaker 1: The spring was only beginning, and the greatest rarities were
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  Speaker 1: hidden under glass, But already enough bloomed in the alleys
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  Speaker 1: and beds to make up an empire of delicate shades.
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  Speaker 1: And most charming of all was it in the early
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  Speaker 1: hours of morning, when dewdrops glistened on every petal and leaf.
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  Speaker 1: In childhood, the decorative part of the garden, called contemptuously
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  Speaker 1: by Pasotsky, the rubbish had produced on Covern a fabulous impression.
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  Speaker 1: What miracles of art, What studied monstrosities, What monkeys of nature?
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  Speaker 1: As palliers of fruit trees, a pear tree shaped like
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  Speaker 1: a pyramidal poplar, globular oaks and lindens, apple tree houses, arches, monograms, candelabra,
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  Speaker 1: even the date eighteen sixty two in plum trees to
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  Speaker 1: commemorate the year in which Posotsky first engaged in the
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  Speaker 1: art of gardening. There were stately symmetrical trees with trunks
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  Speaker 1: erect as those of palms, which after examination proved to
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  Speaker 1: be gooseberry or currant trees. But what most of all
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  Speaker 1: enlivened the garden and gave it its joyous tone. Was
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  Speaker 1: the constant movement of Pasotsky's gardeners from early morning to
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  Speaker 1: late at night. By the trees, by the bushes, in
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  Speaker 1: the alleys, and all the beds, swarmed men as busy
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  Speaker 1: as ants with barrows, spades and watering pots. Kouvran arrived
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  Speaker 1: at Barosovka at nine o'clock. He found Tanya and her
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  Speaker 1: father in great alarm. The clear starlight night foretold frost,
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  Speaker 1: and the head gardener, Ivan Kharalitch had gone to town
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  Speaker 1: so that there was no one who could be relied upon.
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  Speaker 1: At supper, they spoke only of the impending frost, and
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  Speaker 1: it was decided that Tanya should not go to bed
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  Speaker 1: at all, but should inspect the gardens at one o'clock
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  Speaker 1: and see if all were in order, while Yegor Semyonovitch
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  Speaker 1: should rise at three o'clock or even earlier. Kouvran sat
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  Speaker 1: with Tanya all the evening, and after midnight accompanied her
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  Speaker 1: to the garden. The air already smelt strongly of burning
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  Speaker 1: in the great orchard called the commercial, which every year
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  Speaker 1: brought Yego Samyonovitch thousands of rubles profit. There already crept
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  Speaker 1: along the ground the thick black sours smoke, which was
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  Speaker 1: to clothe the young leaves and save the plants. The
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  Speaker 1: trees were marshaled like chess men, in straight rows, like
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  Speaker 1: ranks of soldiers, and this pedantic regularity, together with the
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  Speaker 1: uniformity of height, made the gardens seem monotonous and even tiresome.
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  Speaker 1: Cavern and Tanya walked up and down the alleys and
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  Speaker 1: watched the fires of dung straw and litter, but seldom
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  Speaker 1: met the workmen who wandered in the smoke like shadows.
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  Speaker 1: Only the cherry and plum trees and a few apple
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  Speaker 1: trees were in blossom, but the whole garden was shrouded
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  Speaker 1: in smoke, and it was only when they reached the
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  Speaker 1: seed plots that Couvern was able to breathe. I remember
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  Speaker 1: when I was a child, sneezing from the smoke, he said,
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  Speaker 1: shrugging his shoulders. But to this day I cannot understand
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  Speaker 1: how smoke saves plants from the frost. Smoke is a
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  Speaker 1: good substitute when there are no clouds, answered Tanya, But
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  Speaker 1: what do you want the clouds for? In dull and
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  Speaker 1: cloudy way, we have no morning frosts. Is that so,
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  Speaker 1: said Caulvern. He laughed and took Tanya by the hand.
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  Speaker 1: Her broad, very serious, chilled face, her thick black eyebrows,
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  Speaker 1: the stiff collar on her jacket which prevented her from
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  Speaker 1: moving her head freely, her dress tucked up out of
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  Speaker 1: the dew, and her whole figure erect and slight pleased him. Heavens,
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  Speaker 1: how she has grown, he said to himself. When I
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  Speaker 1: was here last time, five years ago, you were quite
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  Speaker 1: a child. You were thin, long legged and untidy, and
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  Speaker 1: wore a short dress. And I used to tease you.
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  Speaker 1: What a change in five years? Yes, five years, sighed Tanya.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of things have happened since then. Tell me, Andrea, honestly,
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  Speaker 1: she said, looking merrily into his face. Do you feel
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  Speaker 1: that you have got out of touch with us? But
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  Speaker 1: why do I ask? You? Are a man, You live
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  Speaker 1: your own interesting life. You some estrangement is natural. But
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  Speaker 1: but whether that is so or not, Androusha, I want
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  Speaker 1: you now to look on us as your own. We
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  Speaker 1: have a right to that. I do already, Tanya, your
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  Speaker 1: word of honor, my word of honor. You are surprised
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  Speaker 1: that we had so many of your photographs But surely
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  Speaker 1: you know how my father adores you, worships you. You
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  Speaker 1: are a scholar and not an ordinary man. You have
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  Speaker 1: built up a brilliant career, and he is firmly convinced
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  Speaker 1: that you turned out a success because he educated you.
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  Speaker 1: I do not interfere with his delusion. Let him believe it.
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  Speaker 1: Already dawn, the sky paled, and the foliage in clouds
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  Speaker 1: of smoke began to show themselves more clearly. The nightingales sang,
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  Speaker 1: and from the fields came the cry of quails. It
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  Speaker 1: is time for bed, said Tanya. It is cold too.
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  Speaker 1: She took Kauvran by the hand. Thanks Androsha for coming.
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  Speaker 1: We are cursed with most uninteresting acquaintances, and not many
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  Speaker 1: even of them. With us. It is always garden, garden, garden,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing else. Trunks, timbers, she laughed. Pippins, rennets, budding, pruning, grafting.
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  Speaker 1: All our life goes into the garden. We never even
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  Speaker 1: dream of anything but apples and pears. Of course, this
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  Speaker 1: is all very good and useful, but sometimes I cannot
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  Speaker 1: help wishing for change. I remember when you used to
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  Speaker 1: come and pay us visits, and when you came home
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  Speaker 1: for the holidays. How the whole house grew fresher and brighter,
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  Speaker 1: as if someone had taken the covers off the furniture.
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  Speaker 1: I was then a very little girl, but I understood
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  Speaker 1: Tanya spoke for a time and spoke with feeling. Then
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  Speaker 1: suddenly it came into Kauvan's head that during the summer
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  Speaker 1: he might become attached to this little, weak talkative being,
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  Speaker 1: that he might get carried away fall in love in
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  Speaker 1: their position. What was more probable and natural? The thought
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  Speaker 1: pleased him, amused him, and as he bent down to
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  Speaker 1: the kind troubled face, he hummed to himself, Pushkin's couplet,
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  Speaker 1: or Jiegin, I will not conceal that I love Tatiana madly.
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  Speaker 1: By the time they reached the house, Yego Samyonovitch had risen.
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  Speaker 1: Kauvan felt no desire to sleep. He entered into conversation
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  Speaker 1: with the old man and returned with him to the garden.
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  Speaker 1: Yegor Semyonovitch was tall, broad shouldered, and fat. He suffered
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  Speaker 1: from shortness of breath, yet walked so quickly that it
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  Speaker 1: was difficult to keep up with him. His expression was
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  Speaker 1: always troubled, and hearried, and he seemed to be thinking
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  Speaker 1: that if he were a single second late, everything would
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  Speaker 1: be destroyed. There, brother, is a mystery for you. He began,
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  Speaker 1: stopping to recover his breath. On the surface of the ground,
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  Speaker 1: as you see, there is frost. But raise the thermometer
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  Speaker 1: a couple of yards on your stick, and it is
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  Speaker 1: quite warm. Why is that? I confess I do not know,
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  Speaker 1: said Kaufin, laughing. No, you can't know everything. The biggest
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  Speaker 1: brain cannot comprehend everything. You are still engaged with your philosophy. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I am studying psychology and philosophy generally, and it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: bore you. On the contrary, I couldn't live without it. Well,
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  Speaker 1: God Grant began Yego Semyonovitch, smoothing his big whiskers thoughtfully. Well,
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  Speaker 1: God Grant, I'm very glad for your sake, brother, very glad.
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  Speaker 1: Suddenly he began to listen, and, making a terrible face,
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  Speaker 1: ran off the path and soon vanished among the trees
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  Speaker 1: in a cloud of smoke. Who tethered this horse to
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  Speaker 1: the tree? Rang out a despairing voice. Which of you,
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  Speaker 1: thieves and mutters, dared to tether this horse to the
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  Speaker 1: apple tree? My God, My God, ruined ruined, spoiled, destroyed.
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  Speaker 1: The garden is ruined. The garden has destroyed, my God.
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  Speaker 1: When he returned to Kauverin, his face born expression of
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  Speaker 1: injuring impotence, What on earth can you do with these
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  Speaker 1: accust people? He asked in a whining voice, wringing his hands.
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  Speaker 1: Stepka brought a manure cart here last night and tether
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  Speaker 1: the horse to an apple tree. Tied the reins the
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  Speaker 1: idiot so tight that the bark is rubbed off in
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  Speaker 1: three places. What can you do with men like this?
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  Speaker 1: I speak to him, and he blinks his eyes and
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  Speaker 1: looks stupid. He ought to be hanged. When at last
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  Speaker 1: he calmed down, he embraced Kauverin and kissed him on
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  Speaker 1: the cheek. Well, God, grant, God grant, he stammered. I
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  Speaker 1: am very very glad that you come. I cannot say
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  Speaker 1: how glad. Thanks. Then, with the same anxious face and
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  Speaker 1: walking with the same quick step, he went round the
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  Speaker 1: whole garden, showing his former ward, the orangery, the hot houses,
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  Speaker 1: the sheds, and two bee hives, which he described as
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  Speaker 1: the miracle of the century. As they walked about, the
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  Speaker 1: sun rose lighting up the garden, it grew hot. When
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  Speaker 1: he thought of the long bright day before him, Caulvern
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  Speaker 1: remembered that it was but the beginning of May, and
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  Speaker 1: that he had before him a whole summer of long,
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  Speaker 1: bright and happy days. And suddenly through him pulsed the joyous,
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  Speaker 1: youthful feeling which he had felt when as a child
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  Speaker 1: he played in this same garden. And in turn he
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  Speaker 1: embraced the old man and kissed him tenderly. Touched by remembrances,
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  Speaker 1: the pair went into the house and drank tea out
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  Speaker 1: of the old china cups with cream and rich biscuits,
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  Speaker 1: and these trifles again reminded Cauvern of his childhood and youth.
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  Speaker 1: The splendid presence and the awakening memories of the past mingled,
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  Speaker 1: and a feeling of intense happiness filled his heart. He
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  Speaker 1: waited until Tanya awoke, and, having drunk coffee with her,
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  Speaker 1: walked through the garden, and then went to his room
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  Speaker 1: and began to work. He read attentively, making notes, and
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  Speaker 1: only lifted his eyes from his books when he felt
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  Speaker 1: that he must look out of the window or at
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  Speaker 1: the fresh roses, still wet with dew, which stood in
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  Speaker 1: vases on his table. It seemed to hint that every
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  Speaker 1: little vein in his body trembled and pulsated with joy
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  Speaker 1: Chapter two. But in the country Kauverin continued to live
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  Speaker 1: the same nervous and untranquil life as he had lived
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  Speaker 1: in town. He read much, wrote much, studied Italian when
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  Speaker 1: he went for walks, thought all the time of returning
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  Speaker 1: to work. He slept so little that he astonished the household.
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  Speaker 1: If by chance he slept in the daytime for half
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  Speaker 1: an hour, he could not sleep all the following night.
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  Speaker 1: Yet after these sleepless nights he felt active and gay.
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  Speaker 1: He talked much, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Often.
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  Speaker 1: Nearly every day, young girls from the neighboring country houses
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  Speaker 1: drove over to Borisovka, played the piano with Tanya and sang.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the visitor was a young man, also a neighbor,
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  Speaker 1: who played the violin well. Kauvrin listened eagerly to their
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  Speaker 1: music and singing, but was exhausted by it, so exhausted
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  Speaker 1: sometimes that his eyes closed involuntarily and his head drooped
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  Speaker 1: on his shoulder. One evening, after tea, he sat upon
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  Speaker 1: the balcony reading in the drawing room. Tanya, a soprano,
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  Speaker 1: one of her friends, a contralto, and the young violinist
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  Speaker 1: studied the well known serenade of Braga. Kauvren listened to
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  Speaker 1: the words, but though they were Russian, could not understand
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  Speaker 1: their meaning. At last, laying down his book and listening attentively,
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  Speaker 1: he understood. A girl with a disordered imagination heard by
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  Speaker 1: night in a guard garden some mysterious sounds. Sounds so
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  Speaker 1: beautiful and strange that she was forced to recognize their
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  Speaker 1: harmony and holiness, which to us mortals are incomprehensible, and
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  Speaker 1: therefore flew back to heaven. Couvern's eyelids drooped. He rose, and,
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  Speaker 1: in exhaustion, walked up and down the drawing room, and
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  Speaker 1: then up and down the hall. When the music ceased,
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  Speaker 1: he took Tanya by the hand and went out with
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  Speaker 1: her to the balcony. All day since early morning, he began,
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  Speaker 1: my head has been taken up with a strange legend.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot remember whether I read it or where I
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  Speaker 1: heard it. But the legend is very remarkable and not
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  Speaker 1: very coherent. I may begin by saying that it is
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: not very clear. A thousand years ago, a monk robed
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: in black wandered in the wilderness somewhere in Syria or Arabia.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Some miles away, the fishermen saw another black monk moving
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: slowly over the surface of the lake. The second monk
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  Speaker 1: was a mirage. Now put out of your mind all
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the laws of optics, which legend, of course does not
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: recognize and listen. From the first mirage was produced, another mirage,
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  Speaker 1: from the second, a third, so that the image of
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  Speaker 1: the black monk is eternally reflected from one stratum of
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  Speaker 1: the atmosphere to another. At one time it was seen
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: in Africa, then in Spain, then in India, then in
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the far North. At last it issued from the limits
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of the Earth's atmosphere, but never came across conditions which
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: would cause it to disappear. Maybe it is seen today
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  Speaker 1: in Mars or in the constellation of the Southern Cross.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Now the whole point, the very essence of the legend,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: lies in the prediction that, exactly a thousand years after
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the monk went into the wilderness, the mirage will again
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: be cast into the atmosphere of the Earth and show
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: itself to the world of men. This term of a
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: thousand years, it appears, is now expiring according to the legend,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: we must expect the black monk to day or tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: It is a strange story, said Tanya, whom the legend
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: did not please. But the most astonishing thing, laughed Cauvn,
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  Speaker 1: is that I cannot remember how this legend came into
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  Speaker 1: my head. Did I read it? Did I hear it?
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Or can it be that I dreamed of the black Monk?
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  Speaker 1: I cannot remember, but the legend interests me. All day long,
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  Speaker 1: I thought of nothing else. Releasing Tanya, who returned to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: her visitors, he went out of the house and walked
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: lost in thought beside the flower beds. Already the sun
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: was setting. The freshly watered flowers exhaled a damp, irritating smell.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: In the house, the music had again begun, and from
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  Speaker 1: the distance the violin produced the effect of a human voice.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Strange his memory. In an attempt to recall where he
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: had heard the legend, Gauverin walked slowly across the park,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and then, not noticing where, he went, to the river
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  Speaker 1: bank by the path which ran down among the uncovered
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: roots to the water's edge. Caauvern descended, frightening the snipe
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and disturbing two ducks on the dark pine trees glowed
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the rays of the setting sun, but on the surface
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of the river darkness had already fallen. Gauverin crossed the stream.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Before him now lay a broad field covered with young rye.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Neither human dwelling nor human soul was visible in the distance,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and it seemed that the path must lead to the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: unexplored enigmatical region in the west, where the sun had
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: already set, where still vast and majestic flamed the afterglow.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: How open it is, how peaceful and free, thought cauvern
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: walking along the path. It seems as if all the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: world is looking at me from a hiding place and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: waiting for me to comprehend it. A wave passed over
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the rye, and the light evening breeze blew softly on
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  Speaker 1: his uncovered head. Yet a minute more, and the breeze
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: blew again, this time more strongly. The rye rustled, and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: from behind came the dull murmur of the pines. Kauverin
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: stopped in amazement. On the horizon, like a cyclone or
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: water spout, A great black pillar rose up from earth
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to heaven. Its outlines were undefined, but from the first
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: it might be seen that it was not standing still,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: but moving with inconceivable speed towards Kauvern, and the nearer
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it came, the smaller and smaller it grew. Involuntarily. Kauvern
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: rushed aside and made a path for it. A monk
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: in black clothing, with gray hair and black eyebrows, crossing
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: his hands upon his chest, was borne past. His bare
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: feet were above the ground, having swept some twenty yards
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  Speaker 1: past Caauvern. He looked at him, nodded his head, and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: smiled kindly and at the same time slyly. His face
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: was pale and thin. When he had passed by Couvern,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: he again began to grow, flew across the river, struck
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: inaudibly against the clay bank and pine trees, and passing
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: through them, vanished like smoke. You see, stammered Caauverin. After
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: all the legend was true, making no attempt to explain
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: this strange phenomenon. Satisfied with the fact that he had
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: so closely and so plainly seen not only the black
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: clothing but even the face and eyes of the monk,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: agitated agreeably. He returned home. In the park and in
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the garden, visitors were walking quietly in the house. The
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: music continued, so he alone had seen them Black Monk.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: He felt a strong desire to tell what he had
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: seen to Tanya and Yegor Semyonovitch, but feared that they
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: would regard it as a hallucination, and decided to keep
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: his counsel. He laughed loudly, sang, danced a mazurka, and
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: felt in the best of spirits. And the guests and
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Tanya noticed upon his face a peculiar expression of ecstasy
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and inspiration and found him very interesting. Chapter three. When
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: supper was over and the visitors had gone, he went
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to his own room and lay on the sofa. He
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: wished to think of the monk. But in a few
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: minutes Tanya entered there Andrusha, you can read father's articles,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: she said. They are splendid articles. He writes very well, magnificent,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: said Yegor Samyonovitch, coming in after her with a forced smile.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Don't listen to her, please, or read them only if
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you want to go to sleep. They are splendid, soporific.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, they are magnificent, said Tanya, deeply convinced,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: read them, Andrusha and persuade father to write more often.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: He could write a whole treatise on gardening. Yegor Semyonovitch laughed, blushed,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and stammered out the conventional phrases used by abashed authors.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: At last he gave in, if you must read them,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: read first, these papers of Gaush's and the Russian articles.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He stammered, picking out the papers with trembling hands. Otherwise
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: you won't understand them before you read my replies. You
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: must know what I am replying to, but it won't
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: interest you, stupid, And it's time for bed. Tanya went out.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Yego Samyonovitch sat on the end of the sofa and
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: sighed loudly. Ah, brother mine, he began, after a long silence.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: As you see, my dear Magasta, I write articles and
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: exhibit at shows and get medals. Sometimes. Passotsky, they say,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: has apples as big as your head. Pasotsky has made
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a fortune out of his gardens. In one word, rich
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and glorious is kotschubey. But I should like to ask
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: you what is going to be the end of all this.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: The gardens, there is no question of that, are splendid.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: They are models, not gardens at all. In short, but
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a whole institution of high political importance and a step
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: towards a new era in Russian agriculture and Russian industry.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: But for what purpose, what ultimate object? That question is
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: easily answered. I do not mean in that sense. What
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I want to know is what will happen with the
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: garden when I die. As things are, it would not
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: last without me a single month. The secret does not
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: lie in the fact that the garden is big and
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the work is many, but in the fact that I
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: love the work. You understand I love it, perhaps more
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: than I love myself. Just look at me. I work
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: from morning to night. I do everything with my own hands.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: All grafting, all pruning, all planting. Everything is done by me.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: When I am helped, I feel jealous and get irritated
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to the point of rudeness. The whole secret is in love,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: in a sharp master's eye and a master's hand, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in the feeling when I drive over to a friend
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and sit down for half an hour, that I have
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: left my heart behind me and am not myself All
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the time, I am in dread that something has happened
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to the garden. Now suppose I die tomorrow. Who will
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: replace all this? Who will do the work, the head gardeners,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the workmen. Why the whole burden of my present words
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: is that my greatest enemy is not the hair, or
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the beadle or the frost, but the hands of the stranger.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: But Tanya, said Kouvan, laughing, surely she is not more
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: dangerous than a hare. She loves and understands the work. Yes,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Tanya loves it and understands it. If after my death
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the garden should fall to her as mistress, then I
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: could wish for nothing better. But suppose, which God forbid,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: she should marry. Yegor Semyonovitch whispered and looked at Kauvern
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: with frightened eyes. That's the whole crux. She might marry,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: there would be children, and there would be no time
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to attend the garden. That is bad enough. But what
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I fear most of all is that she may marry
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: some spendthrift who is always in want of money, who
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: will lease the garden to tradesmen, and the whole thing
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: will go to the devil in the first year. In
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: a business like this, a woman is a scourge of God.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yego Semyonovitch sighed and was silent for a few minutes.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you may call it egoism, but I do not
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: want Tanya to marry I am afraid you've seen that
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: fop who comes along with a fiddle and makes a noise.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I know Tanya would never marry him, yet I cannot
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: bear the sight of him. In short, brother, I am
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a character, and I know it. Yego. Semyonovitch rose and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: walked excitedly up and down the room. It was plain
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that he had something very serious to say, but could
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: not bring himself to the point. I love you too
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: sincerely not to talk to you frankly, he said, thrusting
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: his hands into his pockets. In all delicate questions, I
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: say what I think, and dislike mystification. I tell you
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: plainly therefore, that you are the only man whom I
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: should not be afraid of Tanya marrying. You are a
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: clever man, you have a heart, and you would not
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: see my life's work ruined. And what is more, I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: love you as my own son and am proud of you.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: So if you and Tanya were to end in a
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: sort of romance, I should be very glad and very happy.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I tell you this straight to your face without shame,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: as becomes an honest man. Yegor Semyonovitch opened the door
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: and was leaving the room, but stopped suddenly on the threshold.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And if you and Tanya had a son, I could
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: make a horticulturist out of him, he added, But that
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: is an idle fancy. Good night. Left alone, Kavn settled
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: himself comfortably and took up his host's articles. The first
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: was entitled Intermediate Culture, the second of few words in
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: reply to the remarks of mister Z about the treatment
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of the soil of a new garden. The third more
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: about grafting. The others were similar in scope, but all
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: breathed restlessness and sickly irritation. Even a paper with a
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: peaceful title of Russian apple Trees exhaled irritability. Yegor Semyonovitch
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: began with the words audi alteram partum and ended it
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: with SAPIENTI sat. Between these learned quotations flowed a whole
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: torrent of acid words directed against the learned ignorance of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: our patent horticulturists who observed nature from their academic chairs,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and against mister Gausch, whose fame is founded on the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: admiration of the profane and dilettante. And finally Kuvn came
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: across an uncalled for and quite insincere expression of regret
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that it is no longer legal to flog peasants who
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: are caught stealing fruit and injuring trees. His is good work,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: wholesome and fast, fascinating, thought Caauvern. Yet in these pamphlets
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: we have nothing but bad temper and war to the knife.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I suppose it is the same everywhere, in all careers.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Men of ideas are nervous and victims of this kind
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: of exalted sensitiveness. I suppose it must be so. He
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: thought of Tanya, so delighted with her father's articles, and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: then of Yego Samyonovitch, Tanya small, pale and slight, with
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: her collar bones showing, with her widely opened, her dark
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: and clever eyes, which it seemed were always searching for something,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and Yego Semyonovitch, with his little hurried steps. He thought
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: again of Tanya, fond of talking, fond of argument, and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: always accompanying even the most insignificant phrases with mimicry and gesticulation. Nervous,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: She must be nervous in the highest degree. Again, Caulvern
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: began to read, but he understood nothing and threw down
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: his books. The agreeable emotion with which he had danced
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the mazurka and listened to the music still held possession
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: of him and aroused a multitude of thoughts. It flashed
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: upon him that if this strange, unnatural monk had been
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: seen by him alone, he must be ill, ill to
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the point of suffering from hallucinations. The thought frightened him,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: but not for long. He sat on the sofa and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: held his head in his hands, curbing the inexplicable joy
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: which filled his whole being, and then walked up and
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: down the room for a minute and returned to his work.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: But the thoughts which he read in books no longer
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: satisfied him. He longed for something vast, infinite, astonishing. Towards morning,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: he undressed and went unwillingly to bed. He felt that
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: he had better rest. Then at last he heard Yegor
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Samyonovitch going to his work in the garden. He rang
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and ordered the servants to bring him some wine. He
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: drank several glasses. His consciousness became dim and he slept.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Chapter fourg. Semyonovitch and Tanya often quarreled and said disagreeable
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: things to one another. This morning they had both been irritated,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and Tanya burst out, crying and went to her room,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: coming down neither to dinner nor to tea. At first,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Yego Semyonovitch marched about, solemn and dignified, as if wishing
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to give everyone to understand that for him, justice and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: order were the supreme interests of life. But he was
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: unable to keep this up for long. His spirits fell,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and he wandered about the park inside ah my God.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: At dinner he ate nothing, and at last, tortured by
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: his conscience, he knocked softly at the closed door and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: called timidly Tanya. Tanya, through the door came a weak voice,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: tearful but determined, leave me alone. I employ you. The
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: misery of father and daughter reacted on the whole household,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: even on the labors in the garden. Kauvan, as usual,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: was immersed in his own interesting work. But at last
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: even he he felt tired and uncomfortable. He determined to
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: interfere and disperse the cloud. Before evening, he knocked at
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Tanya's door and was admitted, come. Come, What a shame,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: he began jokingly, and then looked with surprise at her
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: tears stained an afflicted face covered with red spots. Is
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: it so serious? Then? Well, well, but if you knew
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: how he tortured me, she said, and a flood of
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: tears gushed out of her big eyes. He tormented me,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: she continued, wringing her hands. I never said a word
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to him. I only said there was no need to
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: keep unnecessary labors if if we can get day workmen.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: You know the men have done nothing for the whole week.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I I only said this, and he roared at me
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and said a lot of things, most offensive, deeply insulting,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and all for nothing. Never mind, said CAULVRN, straightening her hair.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: You have had your scoldings and your cryings, and add
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: surely enough you can't keep up this forever. It is
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: not right. All the more since you know he loves
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you infinitely. He has ruined my whole life, sobbed Tanya.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I never hear anything but insults and affronts. He regards
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: me as superfluous in his own house. Let him he
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: will have cause. I shall leave here tomorrow and study
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: for position as telegraphist. Let him come. Come, stop crying, Tanya.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: It does you no good. You are both irritable and impulsive,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: and both in the wrong. Come and I will make peace.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Covin spoke gently and persuasively, but Tanya continued to cry,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: twitching her shoulders and wringing her hands, as if she
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: had been overtaken by a real misfortune. Couvin felt all
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: the sorrier owing to the smallness of the cause of
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: her sorrow. What a trifle it took to make this
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: little creature unhappy for a whole day, or, as she
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: had expressed it, for a whole life. And as he
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: consoled Tanya, it occurred to him that except this girl
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: and her father, there was not one in the world
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: who loved him as a kinsman. And had it not
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: been for them, he left fatherless and motherless in early childhood,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: must have lived his whole life without feeling one sincere caress,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: or tasting even that simple, unreasoning love which we feel
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: only for those akin to us by blood. And he
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: felt that his tired, strained nerves, like magnets, responded to
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the nerves of this crying shuddering girl. He felt too
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: that he could never love a healthy, rosy cheeked woman.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: But pale, weak, unhappy Tanya appealed to him. He felt
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: pleasure in looking at her hair and her shoulders, and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: he pressed her hand and wiped away her tears. At
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: last she ceased crying, but she still continued to complain
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: of her father and of her insufferable life at home,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: imploring Kauvron to try to realize her position. Then by
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: degrees she began to smile and to sigh that God
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: had cursed her with such a wicked temper, and in
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the end laughed aloud, called herself a fool, and ran
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: out of the room a little lady. Kauvn went into
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the garden. Yegor Semyonovitch and Tanya, as if nothing had happened,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: were walking side by side up the alley, eating rye,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: bread and salt. Both were very hungry. Chapter five. Pleased
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: with his success as peacemaker, Couverin went into the park.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: As he sat on a bench and mused, he heard
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the rattle of a carriage and a woman's laugh. Visitors.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Evidently again shadows fell in the garden, the sound of
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a violin, the music of a woman's voice reached him,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: almost inaudibly, and this reminded him of the black monk.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Whither to what country? To what planet? Had that optical
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: absurdity flown? Hardly? Had he called to mind the legend
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and painted in imagination the black apparition in the rye field,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: When from behind the pine trees opposite to him walked inaudibly,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: without the faintest rustling a man of middle height. His
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: gray head was uncovered. He was dressed in black and barefooted,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: like a beggar. On his pallid corpselike face stood out
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: sharply a number of black spots. Nodding his head politely,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the stranger or beggar walked noiselessly to the bench and
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: sat down, and Couvern recognized the black monk. For a minute,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: they looked at one another, Couvern with astonishment, but the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: monk kindly, and as before, with a sly expression on
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: his face. But you are a mirage, said Cauvern. Why
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: are you here and why do you sit in one
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: place that is not in accordance with the legend. It
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: is all the same, replied the monk, softly, turning his
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: face towards govern, the legend, the mirage eye. All are
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: products of your own excited imagination. I am a phantom.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: That is to say, you don't exist, asked Couvern. Think
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: as you like, replied the monk, smiling faintly. I exist
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: in your imagination, and as your imagination is a part
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of nature, I must exist also in nature. You have
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a clever, distinguished face. It seems to me as if,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: in reality you had lived more than a thousand years,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: said Couvern. I did not know that my imagination was
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: capable of creating such a phenomenon. Why do you look
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: at me with such rapture? Are you pleased with me? Yes,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: for you are one of the few who can justly
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: be named the elected of God. You serve eternal truth.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Your thoughts, your intentions, your astonishing science, or your life
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: bear the stamp of divinity, a heavenly impress. They are
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: dedicated to the rational and the beautiful, and that is
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: to the eternal. You say, to the eternal, then can
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: eternal truth be accessible and necessary to men? If there
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: is no eternal life. There is eternal life, said the monk.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: You believe in the immortality of men, of course, for
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you men, there awaits a great and a beautiful future.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: And the more the world has of men like you,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the near will this future be brought. Without you, ministers
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to the highest principles, living freely and consciously, humanity would
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: be nothing developing in the natural order. It must wait
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the end of its earthly history. But you, by some
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: thousands of years, hasten it into the kingdom of eternal truth.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: And in this is your high service. You embody in
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: yourself the blessing of God which rested upon the people.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And what is the object of eternal life? Asked Covin
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the same as all life enjoyment, true enjoyment is in knowledge,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and eternal life presents innumerable, inexhaustible fountains of knowledge. It
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: is in this sense it was said, in my father's
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: house are many mansions. You cannot conceive what a joy
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: it is to me to listen to you, said Cauvrn,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: rubbing his hands with delight. I am glad, yet I
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: know that when you leave me, I shall be tormented
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: by doubt as to your reality. You are a phantom,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: a hallucination. But that means that I am psychically diseased,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: that I am not in a normal state. What if
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: you are that need not weary? You you are ill
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: because you have overstrained your powers, because you have borne
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: your health in sacrifice to one idea. And the time
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: is near when you will sacrifice not merely it, but
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: your life also. What more could you desire? It is
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: what all gifted and noble natures aspire to. But if
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I am psychically diseased, how can I trust myself? And
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: how do you know that the men of genius whom
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: all the world trusts, have not also seen visions genius?
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: They tell you now is akin to an insanity. Believe me,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: the healthy and the normal are but ordinary men. The
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: herd fears as to a nervous age, over exhaustion and
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: degeneration can trouble seriously. Only those whose aims in life
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: lie in the present, That is the herd. The Romans
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: had as their ideal men's sna incorpore sano. All that
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the Greeks and Romans said is not true. Exaltations, aspirations, excitements, ecstasies.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: All those things which distinguish poets, prophets, martyrs to ideas
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: from ordinary men are incompatible with the animal life, that is,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: with physical health. I repeat, if you wish to be
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: healthy and normal, go with the herd. How strange that
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: you should repeat what I myself have so often thought,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: said Cauvern. It seems as if you had watched me
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: and listened to my seaks, grit thoughts. But do not
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: talk about me. What do you imply by the words
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: eternal truth? The monk made no answer. Cauvern looked at him,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: but could not make out his face. His features clouded
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and melted away. His head and arms disappeared, His body
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: faded into the bench and into the twilight, and vanished utterly.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: The hallucination is gone, said Cauvern, laughing. It is a pity.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: He returned to the house lively and happy. What the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: black monk had said to him flattered not his self love,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: but his soul, his whole being. To be the elected,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to minister to eternal truth, to stand in the ranks
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: of those who hasten by thousands of years, the making
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: mankind worthy of the Kingdom of Christ, to deliver humanity
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: from thousands of years of struggle, sin and suffering, To
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: give to one idea everything, youth, strength, health, to die
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: for the general wealth. What an exalted what a glorious ideal,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: And when through his memory flowed his past life, a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: life pure and chaste and full of labor. When he
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: remembered what he had learnt and what he had taught,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: he concluded that, in the words of the monk, there
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: was no exaggeration. Through the park. To meet him, came Tanya.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: She was wearing a different dress from that in which
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: he had last seen her. You, hear, she cried. We
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: were looking for you, looking, But what has happened? She asked,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: in surprise, looking into his glowing, enraptured face and into
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: his eyes, now full of tears. How strange you are
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: and Brussia. I am satisfied, Tanya, said Kauvran, laying his
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: hand upon her shoulder. I am more than satisfied. I
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: am happy, Tanya. Dear Tanya, you are inexpressibly dear to me. Tanya,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I am so glad. He kissed both her hands warmly,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: and continued, I have just lived through the brightest, most wonderful,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: most unearthly moments. But I cannot tell you all, for
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you would call me mad or refuse to believe me.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Let me speak of you, Tanya. I love you and
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: have long loved you. To have you near me, to
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: meet you ten times a day, has become a necessity
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: for me. I do not know how I shall live
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: without you when I go home. No, laughed Tanya, you
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: will forget us all in two days. We are little
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: people and you are a great man. Let us talk, seriously,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: said he. I will take you with me, Tanya. Yes,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: you will come, You will be mine. Tanya cried what
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: and tried to laugh again, but the laugh did not come,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and instead red spots stood out on her cheeks. She
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: breathed quickly and walked on rapidly into the park. I
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: did not think. I never thought of this, never thought,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: she said, pressing her hands together as if in despair.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: But Cauvn hastened after her, and with the same glowing,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: enraptured face, continued to speak. I wish for love which
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: will take possession of me altogether, and this love only you,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Tanya can give me. I am happy. How happy? She was?
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Overcome bent, withered up, and seemed suddenly to have aged
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: ten years. But Kauverin found her beautiful and loudly expressed
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: his ecstasy. How lovely she is. End of Part one
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of The Black Monk by Anton Chekhov. The Black Monk
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: by Anton Chekhov, translated by Robert Edward Krazier, Long Part two,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: chapter six through nine. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: public domain. Chapter six, when he learned from Kauvin that
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: not only had a romance resulted, but that a wedding
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: was to follow, Yegor Semyonovitch walked from corner to corner
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and tried to conceal his agitation. His hands shook, his
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: neck seemed swollen and purple. He ordered the horses to
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: be put into his racing Droshky and drove away. Tanya,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: seeing how he whipped the horses and how he pushed
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: his cap down over his ears, understood his mood, locked
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: herself into a room and cried all day. In the orangery,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the peaches and plums were already ripe. The packing and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: dispatch to Moscow of such a delicate load required much attention,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: trouble and bustle. Owing to the heat of the summer,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: every tree had to be watered. The process was costly
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: in time and working power, and many caterpillars appeared, which
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the workmen and even Yegor Semyonovitch and Tanya crushed with
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: their fingers to the great disgust of cavern. The autumn
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: orders for fruit and trees had to be attended to,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and a vast correspondence carried on. And at the very
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: busiest time, when it seemed no one had a free moment,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: work began in the fields and deprived of the garden
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: of half its workers. Yegor's Semyonovitch, very sunburnt, very irritated,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: and very worried, galloped about, now to the garden, now
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: to the fields, and all the time shouted that they
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: were tearing him to bits, and that he would put
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: a bullet through his brain. On top of all came
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: the bustle over Tanya's trousseau, to which the Pototskys attributed
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: infinite significance. With the eternal snipping of scissors, rattle of
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: sewing machines, smell of flat irons, and the caprices of
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the nervous and touchy dressmaker, the whole house seemed to
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: spin round, and to make matters worse, visitors arrived every day,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: and these visitors had to be amused, fed and lodged
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: for the night. Yet work and worry passed unnoticed in
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: a mist of joy. Tanya felt as if love and
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: happiness had suddenly burst upon her. Although ever since her
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: fourteenth year she had been certain that Kauvan would marry
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: nobody but herself, she was eturned only in a state
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: of astonishment, doubt, and disbelief in herself. At one moment,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: she was seized by such great joy that she felt
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: she must fly away to the clouds and pray to God.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: But a moment later she remembered that when August came,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: she would have to leave the home of her childhood
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and forsake her father, and she was frightened by the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: thought God knows whence it came that she was trivial, insignificant,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and unworthy of a great man like Caulvern. When such
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: thoughts came, she would run up to her room, lock
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: herself in, and cry bitterly for hours. But when visitors
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: were present, it broke in upon her that Cauvern was
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: a singularly handsome man, that all the women loved him
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and envied her. And in these moments her heart was
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: as full of rapture and pride as if she had
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: conquered the whole world. When he dared to smile on
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: any other woman. She trembled with jealousy, went to her room,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: and again tears. These new feelings possessed her altogether. She
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: he helped her father mechanically, noticing neither pears, nor caterpillars,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: nor workmen, nor how swiftly time was passing by. Yegor
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Semyonovitch was in much the same state of mind. He
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: still worked from morning to night, flew about the gardens,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: and lost his temper, but all the while he was
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: wrapped in a magic reverie. In his sturdy body. Contended
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: two men, one the real Yegor Semyonovitch, who, when he
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: listened to the gardener Ivanklovitch's report of some mistake or disorder,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: went mad with excitement and tore his hair. And the
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: other the unreal Yegor Semyonovitch, a half intoxicated old man
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: who broke off an important conversation in the middle of
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: a word. Seized the gardener by the shoulder and stammered,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: you may say what you like, but blood is thicker
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: than water. His mother was an astonishing, a most noble,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: a most brilliant woman. It was a pleasure to see
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: her good, pure, open angel face. She painted, beautifully, wrote poetry,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: spoke five foreign languages, and sang, poor thing, Heaven rest
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: her soul. She died of consumption. The unreal yego Semyonovitch sighed, and,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: after a moment's silence, continued. When he was a boy
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: growing up to manhood in my house, he had just
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: such an angel face, open and good. His looks, his movements,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: his words were as gentle and graceful as his mother's.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: And his intellect. It is not for nothing he has
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the degree of magaste. But you just wait, Ivankolovitch, you'll
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: see what he'll be in ten years time. Why he'll
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: be out of sight. But here the rio Yego Samyonovitch
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: remembered himself, seized his head and roared devils, frost bit
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: and ruined, destroyed. The garden is ruined. The garden is destroyed.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Kauvin worked with all his former ardor and hardly noticed
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: the bustle about him. Love only poured oil on the flame.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: After every meeting with Tanya, he returned to his rooms
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: in rapture and happiness, and set to work with his
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: books and manuscript with the same passion with which he
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: had kissed her and sworn his love. What the Black
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Monk had told him of his election by God, of
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: eternal truth and of the glorious future of humanity, gave
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: to all his work a peculiar, unusual significance. Once or
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: twice every week, either in the park or in the house,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: he met the monk and talked with him for hours.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: But this did not frighten, but on the contrary, delighted him,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: for he was now assured that such apparitions visit only
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the elect and exceptional, who dedicate themselves to the ministry
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of ideas assumption past unobserved. Then came the wedding, celebrated
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: by the determined wish of Yegor Semyonovitch, with what was
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: called eklar, that is, with meaningless festivities, which lasted for
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: two days. Three thousand roubles were consumed in food and drink.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: But what with the vile music, the noisy toasts, the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: fussing servants, the clamor, and the closeness of the atmosphere,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: no one appreciated the expensive wines or the astonishing hord'euvs
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: specially ordered from Moscow, Chapter seven, one of the Long
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Winter nights, Cauvern lay in bed reading a French novel.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Poor Tania, whose head every evening ached as the result
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: of the unaccustomed life in town, had long been sleeping,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: muttering incoherent phrases in her dreams. The clock struck three,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Cauvern put out the candle and lay down. Lay for
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: a long time with closed eyes, unable to sleep owing
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: to the heat of the room and Tania's continued muttering.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: At half past four, he again lighted the candle. The
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: black monk was sitting in a chair beside his bed.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Good night, said the monk, and then, after a moment's silence, asked,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: what are you thinking of now? Of glory, answered Cauverin
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: in a French novel which I have just been reading,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the hero is a young man who does foolish things
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and dies from a passion for glory. To me, this
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: passion is inconceivable because you are too clever. You look
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: indifferently on fame as a toy, which cannot interest you.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: That is true, celebrity has no attractions for you. What flattery, joy,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: or instruction can a man draw from the knowledge that
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: his name will be graven on a monument When time
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: will effaced the inscription sooner or later. Yes, happily, there
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: are too many of you for brief human memory to
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: remember all your names, of course, said Cauverin, And why
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: remember them? But let us talk of something else, of happiness?
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: For instance, what is this happiness? When the clock struck five,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: he was sitting on the bed, with his feet trailing
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: on the carpet, and his head turned to the monk,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: and saying, in ancient times a man became frightened at
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: his happiness, so great it was, and to placate the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: gods laid before them in sacrifice his beloved ring. You
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: have heard now, I, like Polycrates, am a little frightened
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: at my own happiness. From morning to night, I experience
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: only joy. Joy absorbs me and stifles all other feelings.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I do not know the meaning of grief, affliction, or weariness.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I speak seriously. I am beginning to doubt. Why, asked
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: the monk in an astonished tone. Then you think joy
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: is a supernatural feeling. You think it is not the
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: normal condition of things. No, the higher man has climbed
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: in mental and moral development. The freer he is, the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: greater satisfaction he draws from life, Socrates, Diogenies, Marcus Aurelius,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: new joy and not sorrow. And the apostles said, rejoice succeedingly,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: rejoice and be happy, and suddenly the gods will be angered,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: said Kauver jokingly. But it would hardly be to my
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: taste if they were to steal my happiness and force
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: me to shiver and starve. Tanya awoke and looked at
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: her husband with amazement and terror. He spoke, He turned
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: to the chair, He gesticulated and laughed. His eyes glittered,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: and his laughter sounded strange. Andrusha, whom are you speaking to?
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: She asked, seizing the hand which he had stretched out
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: to the monk. Andrusha, who is it? Who? Answered Kauwin,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Why the monk? He is sitting there? He pointed to
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the black monk. There's no one there, no one. Andrusha,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: you are ill. Tanya embraced her husband, and, pressing against
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: him as if to defend him against the apparition, covered
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: his eyes with her hand. You are ill, she sobbed,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: trembling all over. Forgive me, darling, but for a long
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: time I have fancied you are unnerved in some way.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: You are ill psychically, andrusha. The shudder communicated itself to him.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: He looked one more at the chair, now empty, and
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: suddenly felt weakness in his arms and legs. He began
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: to dress. It is nothing, Tanya, nothing, he stammered, and
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: still shuddered. But I am a little unwell. It is
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: time to recognize it. I have noticed it for a
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: long time, and father noticed it, she said, trying to
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: restrain her sobs. You have been speaking so funnily to
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: yourself and smiling so strangely, and you do not sleep.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: O my God, by God save us, she cried in terror.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: But do not be afraid, Androsha, do not fear. For
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: God's sake, do not be afraid. She also dressed. It
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: was only as he looked at her that Kauvin understood
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the danger of his position and realized the meaning of
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: the black Monk and of their conversations. He became plain
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: to him that he was mad. Both themselves, not knowing why,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: dressed and went into the hall. She first, he after her.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: There they found Yegor Semyonovitch in his dressing gown. He
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: was staying with them and had been awakened by Tanya's sobs.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Do not be afraid and brusha, said Tania, trembling as
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: if in fever. Do not be afraid, father, this will
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: pass off. It will pass off. Couvern was so agitated
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: that he could hardly speak, but he tried to treat
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: the matter in a joke. He turned to his father
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: in law and attempted to say, congratulate me. It seems
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I've gone out of my mind, but his lips only
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: moved and he smiled bitterly. At nine o'clock, they put
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: on his overcoat and a fur cloak, wrapped him up
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: in a shawl, and drove him to the doctor's. He
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: began a course of treatment Chapter eight. Again summer. By
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: the doctor's orders, Couvern returned to the country. He had
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: recovered his health and no longer saw the black monk.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: It only remained for him to recruit his physical strength.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: He lived with his father in law, drank much milk,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: worked only two hours a day, never touched wine, and
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: gave up smoking. On the evening of the nineteenth June,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: before Elijah's Day, a vesper's service was held in the house.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: When the priest took the censer from the sexton, and
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the vast hall began to smell like a church. Cauvern
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: felt tired. He went into the garden, taking no notice
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: of the gorgeous blossoms around him. He walked up and down,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: sat for a while on a bench, and then walked
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: through the park. He descended the sloping bank to the
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: margin of the river and stood still, looking questioningly at
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: the water. The great pines with their shaggy roots, which
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: a year before had seen him so young, so joyous,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: so active, no longer whispered, but stood silent and motionless,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: as if not recognizing him. And indeed, with his short
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: dipped hair, his feeble walk, and his changed face, so
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: heavy and pale and changed since last year, he would
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: hardly have been recognized anywhere. He crossed the stream in
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: the field last year, covered with rye lay rows of
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: reaped oats. The sun had set, and on the horizon
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: flamed a broad red after glow for telling stormy weather.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: All was quiet and gazing towards the point at which
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: a year before he had first seen the black monk.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Cauveran stood twenty minutes watching the crimson fade. When he
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: returned to the house, tired and unsatisfied, Yegor Semyonovitch and
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Tanya were sitting on the steps of the terrace drinking tea.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: They were talking together and seeing Caulvern, stopped, but Cauvern
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: knew by their faces that they had been speaking of him.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: It is time for you to have your milk, said
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Tanya to her husband. No, not yet, he answered, sitting
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: down on the lowest step. You drink it. I do
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: not want it. Tanya timidly exchanged glances with her father
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and said, in a guilty voice. You know very well
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that the milk does you good. Yes, any amount of good,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: laughed Calvin. I congratulate you. I have gained a pound
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: in weight since I last Friday. He pressed his hands
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: to his head and said, in a pained voice, Why
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: why have you cured me? Bromide mixtures, idleness, warm baths,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: watching in trivial terror over every mouthful, every step. All this,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: in the end will drive me to idiocy. I had
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: gone out of my mind. I had the mannia of greatness.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: But for all that, I was bright, active and even happy.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I was interesting and original. Now I have become rational
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: and solid. Just like the rest of the world. I
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: am a mediocrity, and it is tiresome for me to live. Oh,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: how cruelly, how cruelly you have treated me. I had hallucinations,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: But what harm did that cause anyone? I ask you,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: what harm? God only knows what you mean, sighed Yego Samyonovitch.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: It is stupid even to listen to you. Then you
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: need not listen the presence of others, especially of Yego Semyonovitch,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: now irritated. Couvern he answered his father in law dryly, coldly,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: even rudely, and could not look on him without contempt
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: and hatred. And Yegor Semyonovitch felt confused and coughed guiltily,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: although he could not see how he was in the wrong.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Unable to understand the cause of such a sudden reversal
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: of their former hearty relations, Tanya leaned against her father
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: and looked with alarm into his eyes. It was becoming
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: plain to her that their relations every day grew worse
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: and worse, that her father had aged greatly, and that
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: her husband had become irritable, capricious, excitable, and uninteresting. She
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: no longer laughed and sang. She ate nothing, and whole
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: nights never slept, but lived under the weight of some
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: impending terror, torturing herself so much that she lay insensible
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: from dinner time till evening when the service was being held.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: It had seemed to her that her father was crying,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and now as she sat on the terr she she
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: made an effort not to think of it. How happy
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: weill Buddha and Mohammed and Shakespeare that their kind hearted
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: kinsmen and doctors did not cure them of ecstasy and inspiration,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: said Cauvern. If Mohammed had taken potassium bromide for his nerves,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: walked only two hours a day, and drunk milk, that
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: astonishing man would have left as little behind him as
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: his dog. Doctors and kind hearted relatives only do their
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: best to make humanity stupid, and the time will come
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: when mediocrity will be considered genius, and humanity will perish.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: If you only had some idea, concluded Cauvern, peevishly. If
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: you only had some idea, how grateful I am. He
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: felt strong irritation, and to prevent himself saying too much,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: rose and went into the house. It was a windowless night,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: and into the window was borne the smell of tobacco
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: plants and jalap through the windows of the great dark
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: hall on the floor and on the piano fell the
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: moon rays. Calvern recalled the raptures of the summer before,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: when the air as now was full of the smell
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: of jalap and the moon rays poured through the window.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: To awaken the mood of last year, he went to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: his room, lighted a strong cigar, and ordered the servant
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: to bring him wine. But now the cigar was bitter
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: and distasteful, and the wine had lost its flavor of
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: the year before. How much it means to get out
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: of practice from a single cigar and two SIPs of wine?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: His head went round, and he was obliged to take
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: bromide of potassium before going to bed. Tanya said to him, listen,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: father worships you, but you are annoyed with him about something,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: and that his killing him. Look at his face. He
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: is growing old, not by day, but by hours. I
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: implore you Androscha, for the love of Christ, for the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: sake of your own dead father, for the sake of
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: my peace of mind, be kind to him again. I cannot,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: and I do not want too. But why, Tanya trembled
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: all over. Explain to me Why Because I do not
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: like him, that is all, answered Kauvern, carelessly shrugging his shoulders.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: But better not talk of that is your father I
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: cannot cannot understand, said Tanya. She pressed her hands to
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: her forehead and fixed her eyes on one point. Something terrible,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: something incomprehensible, is going on in this house. You Andrusha
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: have changed. You are no longer yourself. You a clever,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: an exceptional man, get irritated over trifles. You are annoyed
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: by such little things that at any other time you, yourself,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: would have refused to believe it. Now, do not be angry.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Do not be angry. She continued, kissing his hands and
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: frightened by her own words. You are clever, good and noble.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: You will be just a father. He is so good.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: He is not good, but merely good humored. These vaudeville
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: uncles of your father's type, with well fed, easy going faces,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: are characters in their way, and once used to amuse me,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: whether in novels, in comedies, or in life. But they
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: are now hateful to me. They are egoists to the
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: mirror of their bones. Most disgusting of all is their satiety.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: And this stomachic purely bovine or Swinish optimism. Tania sat
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: on the bed and laid her head on a pillow.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: This this torture, she said, And from her voice it
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: was plain that she was utterly weary and found it
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: hard to speak since last winter, not a moment of rest.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: It is terrible, My God, I suffer. Yes, of course
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: I am hard, and you and your papa the massacred infants.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Of course, his face seemed to Tania ugly and disagreeable.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: The expression of hatred and contempt did not suit it.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: She even observed that something was lacking in his face.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Ever since his hair had been cut off, it seemed changed.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: She felt an almost irresistible desire to say something insulting,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: but restrained herself in time, and, overcome with terror, went
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: out of the bedroom. Chapter nine, Kauvrn received an independent chair.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: His inaugural address was fixed for the second of December,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: and a notice to that effect was posted in the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: corridors of the university. But when the day came, a
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: telegram was received by the university authorities that he could
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: not fulfill the engagement, owing to illness. Blood came from
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: his throat. He spat it up, and twice in one
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: month it flowed in streams. He felt terribly weak and
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: fell into a somnolent condition, but this illness did not
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: frighten him, for he knew that his dead mother had
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: lived with the same complaint more than ten years. His doctors, too,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: declared that there was no danger and advised him merely
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: not to work, to lead a regular life, and to
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: talk less. In January the lecture was post for the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: same reason, and in February it was too late to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: begin the course. It was postponed till the following year.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: He no longer lived with Tanya and with another woman
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: older than himself, who looked after him as if he
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: were a child. His temper was calm and obedient. He
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: submitted willingly, and when Varvara Nikolayevna that was her name,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: made arrangements for taking him to the Krimea, he consented
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to go, although he felt that from the change no
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: good would come. They reached Sevastopol late one evening and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: stopped there to rest, intending to drive to Yalta on
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the following day. Both were tired by the journey. Varvara
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Nikolayevna drank tea and went to bed, but Kauvn remained up.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: An hour before leaving home for the railway station, he
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: had received a letter from Tanya, which he had not read,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: and the thought of this letter caused him unpleasant agitation
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: in the depths of his heart. He knew that his
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: marriage was Tanya had been a mistake. He was glad
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: that he was finally parted from her. But the remembrance
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: of this woman, who, towards the last had seemed to
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: turn into a walking, living mummy in which all had
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: died except the great clever eyes awakened in him only
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: pity and vexation against himself. The writing on the envelope
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: reminded him that two years before he had been guilty
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: of cruelty and injustice, and that he had avenged on
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: people in no way guilty his spiritual vacuity, his solitude,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: his disenchantment with life. He remembered how he had once
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: torn into fragments his dissertation and all the articles written
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: by him since the time of his illness, and thrown
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: them out of the window. How the fragments flew in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: the wind and rested on the trees and flowers, in
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: every page he had seen strange and baseless pretensions, frivolous irritation,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: and amannia for greatness, And all this had produced upon
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: him an impression that he had written a description of
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: his own faults. Yet, when the last copy book had
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: been torn up and thrown out of the window, he
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: felt bitterness and vexation and went to his wife and
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: spoke to her cruelly. Heavens, how he had ruined her life.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: He remembered how, once wishing to cause her pain, he
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: had told her that her father had played in their
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: romance an unusual role, and had even asked him to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: marry her, and Yegor Semyonovitch, happening to overhear him, had
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: rushed into the room, so dumb with consternation that he
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: could not utter a word, but only stamped his feet
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: on one spot and bellowed strangely, as if his tongue
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: had been cut out. And Tanya, looking at her father,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: cried out in a heartrending voice and fell insensible on
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the floor. It was hideous. The memory of all this
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: returned to him at the sight of the well known handwrise.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: He went out on to the balcony. It was warm
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: and calm, and a salt smell came to him from
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: the sea. The moonlight and the lights around were imaged
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: on the surface of the wonderful bay, a surface of
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: a hue impossible to name. It was a tender and
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: soft combination of dark blue and green. In parts the
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: water resembled copperas and in parts instead of water, liquid
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: moonlight filled the bay, and all these combined in a
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: harmony of hues which exhaled tranquility and exultation. In the
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: lower story of the inn, underneath the balcony, the windows
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: were evidently open for women's voices and laughter could plainly
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: be heard. There must be an entertainment. Cauvern made an
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: effort over himself, unsealed of the letter, and returning to
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: his room, began to read, My father has just died.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: For this, I am indebted to you, for it was
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: you who killed him. Our garden is being ruined. It
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: is managed by strangers. What my poor father so dreaded
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: is taking place. For this also, I am indebted to you.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: I hate you with all my soul and wish that
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: you may perish soon. Oh how I suffer my heart
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: burns with an intolerable pain. May you be a cursed
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: I took you for an exceptional man, for genius. I
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: loved you, and you proved a madman. Caulverin could read
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: no more. He tore up the letter and threw the
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: pieces away. He was overtaken by restlessness, almost by terror.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: On the other side of the screen slept Varvara Nikolayevna.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: He could hear her breathing. From the story. Beneath came
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: the women's voices and laughter. But he felt that in
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: the whole hotel there was not one living soul except himself.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: The fact that wretched, overwhelmed Tanya had cursed him in
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: her letter and wished him ill caused him pain, and
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: he looked fearfully at the door, as if fearing to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: see again that unknown power which in two years had
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: brought about so much ruin in his own life and
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: in the lives of all who were dearest to him.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: By experience, he knew that when the nerves give way,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: the best refuge lies in work. He used to sit
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: at the table and concentrate his mind upon some definite thought.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: He took from his red portfolio a copy book containing
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: the conspect of a small work of compilation, which he
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: intended to carry out during his stay in the crimea.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: If he became tired of inactivity, he sat at the
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: table and worked on this conspect, and it seemed to
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: him that he was regaining his former, peaceful, resigned, impersonal mood.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: His conspect led him to speculation on the vanity of
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: the world. He thought of the great price which life
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: demands for the most trivial and ordinary benefits which it
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: gives to me. To reach a chair of philosophy under
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: forty years of age, to be an ordinary professor, to
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: expound commonplace thoughts, and those thoughts the thoughts of others
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: in feeble tiresome heavy language. In one word, to attain
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: the position of a learned mediocrity. He had studied fifteen years,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: worked day and night, passed through a severe psychical disease,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: survived an unsuccessful marriage, been guilty of many follies and
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: injustices which it was torture to remember. Cauvn now clearly
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: realized that he was a mediocrity, and he was willingly
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: reconciled to it, for he knew that every man must
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: be satisfied with what he is. The conspect calmed him,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: but the torn letter lay upon the floor and hindered
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: the concentration of his thoughts. He rose, picked up the
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: fragments and threw them out of the window, But a
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: light wind blew from the sea, and the papers fluttered
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: back on to the window sill. Again, he was overtaken
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: by restlessness akin to terror, and it seemed to him
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: that in the whole hotel, except himself, there was not
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: one living soul. He went to the balcony. The bay,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: as if alive, stared up at him from its multitude
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: of light and dark blue eyes, its eyes of turquoise
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and fire, and beckoned him. It was warm and stifling,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: how delightful he thought to bathe Suddenly, beneath the balcony
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: a violin was played, and two women's voices sang. All
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: this was known to him. The song which they sang
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: told of a young girl diseased in imagination, who heard
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: by night in her garden mysterious sounds, and found in
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: them a harmony and a holiness incomprehensible to us mortals.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Cavern held his breath, his heart ceased to beat, and
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: the magic ecstatic rapture which he had long forgotten, trembled
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: in his heart again. A high black pillar, like a
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: cyclone or water spout, appeared on the opposite coast. It
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: swept with incredible swiftness across the bay towards the hotel.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: It became smaller and smaller, and Cauvern stepped aside to
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: make room for it. The monk, with uncovered gray head
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: with black eyebrows, barefooted, folding his arms upon his chest,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: swept past him and stopped in the middle of the room.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: Why did you not believe me, he asked in a
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: tone of reproach, looking carelessly at Cauvern. If you had
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: believed me when I said you were a genius, these
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: last two years would not have been passed so sadly
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: and so barely. Cauvern again believed that he was the
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: elected of God and a genius. He vividly remembered all
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: his former conversation with the black monk and wished to reply,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: but the blood flowed from his throat on to his chest,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: and he, not knowing what to do, moved his hands
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: about his chest till his cuffs were red with the blood.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: He wished to call Varvara Nikolayevna, who slept behind the screen,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and making an effort to do so, cried Tanya. He
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: fell on the floor, and raising his hands again, cried Tanya.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: He cried to Tanya. Cried to the great garden with
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: the miraculous flowers. Cried to the park, to the pines
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: with their shaggy roots, to the rye field. Cried to
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: his marvelous science, to his youth, his daring, his joy.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: Cried to the life which had been so beautiful. He
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: saw on the floor before him a great pool of blood,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: and from weakness could not utter a single word, but
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: an inexpressible, infinite joy filled his whole being. Beneath the balcony,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: the serenade was being played, and the Black Monk whispered
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: to him that he was a genius and died only
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: because his feeble, mortal body had lost its balance and
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: could no longer serve as the covering of genius. When
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Varvara Nikolayevna awoke and came from behind her screen, Kauvn
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: was dead, but on his face was frozen an immovable
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: smile of happiness. End of the Black Monk by Anton Tchehov,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: translated by Robert Edward Krazier. Long