A CONFESSION [6]
a book, I had to know *why* I was doing it. As long as I did not
know why, I could do nothing and could not live. Amid the thoughts
of estate management which greatly occupied me at that time, the
question would suddenly occur: "Well, you will have 6,000
desyatinas [Footnote: The desyatina is about 2.75 acres.--A.M.] of
land in Samara Government and 300 horses, and what then?" ... And
I was quite disconcerted and did not know what to think. Or when
considering plans for the education of my children, I would say to
myself: "What for?" Or when considering how the peasants might
become prosperous, I would suddenly say to myself: "But what does
it matter to me?" Or when thinking of the fame my works would
bring me, I would say to myself, "Very well; you will be more
famous than Gogol or Pushkin or Shakespeare or Moliere, or than all
the writers in the world -- and what of it?" And I could find no
reply at all. The questions would not wait, they had to be
answered at once, and if I did not answer them it was impossible to
live. But there was no answer.
I felt that what I had been standing on had collapsed and that
I had nothing left under my feet. What I had lived on no longer
existed, and there was nothing left.
IV
My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink,
and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was
no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could
consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that
whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it.
Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not have
know what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something
which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in
sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was
really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the
truth, for I guessed of what it consisted. The truth was that life
is meaningless. I had as it were lived, lived, and walked, walked,
till I had come to a precipice and saw clearly that there was
nothing ahead of me but destruction. It was impossible to stop,
impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes or avoid
seeing that there was nothing ahead but suffering and real death --
complete annihilation.
It had come to this, that I, a healthy, fortunate man, felt I
could no longer live: some irresistible power impelled me to rid
myself one way or other of life. I cannot say I *wished* to kill
myself. The power which drew me away from life was stronger,
fuller, and more widespread than any mere wish. It was a force
similar to the former striving to live, only in a contrary
direction. All my strength drew me away from life. The thought of
self-destruction now came to me as naturally as thoughts of how to
improve my life had come formerly. and it was seductive that I had
to be cunning with myself lest I should carry it out too hastily.
I did not wish to hurry, because I wanted to use all efforts to
disentangle the matter. "If I cannot unravel matters, there will
always be time." and it was then that I, a man favoured by
fortune, hid a cord from myself lest I should hang myself from the
crosspiece of the partition in my room where I undressed alone
every evening, and I ceased to go out shooting with a gun lest I
should be tempted by so easy a way of ending my life. I did not
myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from
it, yet still hoped something of it.
And all this befell me at a time when all around me I had what
is considered complete good fortune. I was not yet fifty; I had a
good wife who lived me and whom I loved, good children, and a large
estate which without much effort on my part improved and increased.
I was respected by my relations and acquaintances more than at any
previous time. I was praised by others and without much self-
deception could consider that my name was famous.