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 CORK ELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Library 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 H. J. Patten 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PG 3452.M9E5 1910 
 
 Dilemma: 
 
 3 1924 026 685 663 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026685663 
 
A DILEMMA 
 
A DILEMMA 
 
 A STORY OF MENTAL PERPLEXITY 
 
 BY 
 
 LEONIDAS ANDREIYEFF 
 
 Author of "Silence," "Red Laugh," etc. 
 
 o > 
 
 Translated from the Russian by John Ccnimos 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 BROWN BROTHERS 
 
 1910 
 6 
 
COPYWGHT, 1910 
 BY 
 
 BROWN BROTHERS 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The story which follows is an analytical 
 tragedy, and its hero, despite other differ- 
 ences, is related to the types given us by Dos- 
 toyeffski in Crime and Punishment, and by 
 Bourget in The Disciple. These intellectual 
 heroes, products of the Nineteenth Century, 
 are bound to be with us during the period of 
 our unrest. It is the story of the fanaticism 
 of Reason ; yet Reason per se is the soberest 
 of things. 
 
 Dr. Kerzhentseff, the victim of the 
 Dilemma, is a type of "Superman." Can it 
 be that Zarathustra had dreamt of him in 
 that dream in which he saw his face distorted 
 in a mirror held up by a child ? A too great 
 consciousness of the power of his thought is 
 at the bottom of the tragedy. He wished to 
 make his mentality serve as a bridge where- 
 
 iii 
 
iv FOREWORD. 
 
 by to cross a thousand doubts, but the struc- 
 ture gave way, plunging him into those very 
 waters which he so defiantly attempted to 
 cross in confident security. 
 
 Sane or insane? is Dr. KerzhentsefT's 
 dilemma, and this dilemma is not one but 
 many, like a hydra-headed monster, the 
 glance of whose multiple eyes is sufficient to 
 stare one out of one's mental countenance. 
 For madness can be so delicate a thing 
 that it may become a difficult problem to dis- 
 tinguish it from the normal state. That a 
 fine line sometimes separates the two, as im- 
 perceptible as the merging of day with night, 
 is the chief idea delineated with mastery by 
 Andreiyeff; and that the modern tendency 
 to self-analysis, that fatal soul-surgery, is 
 conducive of this unfortunate condition is 
 also demonstrated with artistic skill. 
 
 Dr. Kerzhentseff's crime is committed in 
 the name of Culture, and the retribution is 
 worthy of Culture, being full of subtle ques- 
 tionings and refined tortures. He placed his 
 fate in the custody of Thought. How clear, 
 
FOREWORD. V 
 
 how beautiful, how powerful it seemed! 
 But no one may look on God's countenance 
 and live. For the ways of Reason are laby- 
 rinthine, its clearness are abysses, its eyes 
 gaze on ageless canyons blinding with sun- 
 light and maddening, ani its outlook is on 
 time and space. Men's minds snap in trying 
 to see too clearly. And though the world 
 had never thought more clearly than now, 
 never was it more confused. Everywhere is 
 unrest. Men are groping, women are in re- 
 volt, children commit suicide. Our souls are 
 sick. 
 
 Like Hamlet, our hero is "sicklied o'er 
 with the pale cast of thought ;" like him, too, 
 he feigns insanity to carry out his subtle 
 schemings, yet here is the vital difference: 
 in spite of his modernity, Dr. Kerzhentseff 
 harks back to the primitive for the motive of 
 his murder. Practically he seeks revenge, 
 while Shakespeare's hero is unquestionably 
 the more noble (and more lovable), for he 
 seeks justice itself. But that is another hair- 
 splitting distinction. 
 
vi FOREWORD. 
 
 Dr. Kerzhentseff's forceful logic con- 
 founds not only himself, but the experts, who 
 inevitably are bound to disagree as to the 
 prisoner's mental status, and the big ques- 
 tion to the end remains unanswered. As it 
 is, the experts themselves are on trial, and 
 who will judge the experts ? Aside from the 
 fact that they are not immune from mind's 
 direful malady and from the pitfalls of 
 heredity, they must face a severe indictment,' 
 drawn up by the Russian author, involving 
 the validity of their expertness. Those who 
 have watched the battle of alienists in a 
 recent interesting case in the^New York 
 courts can only too willingly COTCur in the 
 unreliability of so-called expert judgment, 
 which is divided against itself. How are we 
 to believe a Janus-faced expertness? 
 
 Incidentally, from a New Jersey town 
 comes an amazing story about a condemned 
 murderer whose execution has been ordered 
 delayed until he recover from mental ills 
 from which he is suffering. Here is an 
 
FOREWORD. vii 
 
 opportunity that no social satirist should 
 
 neglect. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Apart from the problems with which 
 A Dilemma deals, the story is undeniably a 
 work of art, more powerful, if not so poetic, 
 as Silence, a little tale whose generous re- 
 ception by the American public and press 
 has prompted the present publication in 
 English of a later and more complex study 
 by the same, author. A Dilemma was first 
 published in Russia in 1902, and though it 
 did not cause the tremendous sensation 
 aroused by In the Fog, which followed it, it 
 nevertheless gave the critics something to 
 talk about, and is, despite its chronological 
 precedence, the finer story of the two. 
 
 The translator has taken warranted lib- 
 erty with the title. In the Russian the story 
 is called Misl, literally A Thought, yet pos- 
 sessing in this instance greater significance 
 than the title would seem to indicate; as a 
 study of mental perplexity, A Dilemma 
 ought to do. 
 
 John Cournos. 
 
A DILEMMA. 
 
 On the nth of December of the year 
 1900 Anton Ignatyeff Kerzhentsefif, a physi- 
 cian by profession, perpetrated a murder. 
 The evidence presented in connection with 
 the act itself, as well as certain circumstances 
 which preceded the crime, gave cause to sus- 
 pect the abnormality of Kerzhentseff's men- 
 tal faculties. 
 
 Placed for purposes of investigation in the 
 Elizavetinsk Psychiatric Hospital, Kerzhent- 
 sefif was subjected to a severe and attentive 
 surveillance of several capable alienists, the 
 recently deceased Prof. Derzhembitzky being 
 among the number. Here are the documents 
 furnished in connection with the case by no 
 less a personage than Dr. Kerzhentsefif him- 
 self a month after the test had begun; to- 
 gether with other data they formed the 
 groundwork of expert judgment. 
 
Till the present moment, gentlemen ex- 
 perts, I have concealed the truth; but now 
 circumstances compel me to reveal it. Real- 
 izing this, you will comprehend that this 
 business is not at all so simple a matter as it 
 would seem to the ignorant ; not at all a mat- 
 ter of the strait- jacket or the hand-cuffs. 
 The thing involved here is neither the one 
 nor the other, but is more terrible than the 
 two combined. 
 
 M)'^ victim, Alexis Konstantinovich Sa- 
 veloff, was my companion in the gymnasia 
 and in the university, though in our pro- 
 fessions our ways were apart. I, as you 
 know, am a physician ; while he completed a 
 course of jurisprudence. I cannot say that 
 I did not love the man ; he was always sym- 
 pathetic toward me, and I never had a more 
 
 10 
 
A DILEMMA. ii 
 
 intimate friend than he. Notwithstanding 
 the possession of these sympathetic traits, he 
 did not belong to the class of men capable of 
 commanding my respect. The astonishing 
 softness and yieldingness of his nature, his 
 strange uncertainty in the domain of thought 
 and feeling, the capricious extremes of his 
 views, and the unsoundness of his constantly 
 changing judgments impelled me to regard 
 him as a child or a woman. Those near to 
 him, suffering now and then from his 
 caprices, and at the same time, owing to an 
 illogical human nature, loving him, found 
 a justification for his shortcomings and 
 their own attitude, by calling him an 
 "artist." Indeed, this worthless word 
 seemed to justify him completely, and that 
 which to the normal mind would appear as 
 silly was made to seem indifferent or even 
 good. Such is the power of words that even 
 I at one time, succumbed to the popular mis- 
 conception and eagerly overlooked the petty 
 shortcomings of Alexis. Of grand faults, 
 as indeed of all big things, he was incapable. 
 
12 A DILEMMA. 
 
 His literary productions amply attest this 
 fact; they are full of things petty and empty, 
 notwithstanding those short-sighted critics 
 who delight to assail newly-revealed talents. 
 Handsome and shallow were his productions, 
 even as their author was handsome and 
 shallow. 
 
 When Alexis died he was thirty-one years 
 old, about a year younger than myself. 
 
 Alexis was married. Gazing upon his 
 wife now, in mourning for her husband, you 
 can have but a faint idea of her former 
 beauty. She has grown ugly. Her cheeks 
 are colorless and the skin of her face is 
 flabby, aged — aged like a worn glove. And 
 she has wrinkles. They are wrinkles now, 
 but another year will pass and these will be- 
 come deep furrows and trenches. How she 
 did love him ! And her eyes have ceased to 
 sparkle, and they laugh no longer; formerly 
 they were wont to laugh always, even when 
 they ought to have wept. I have had the op- 
 portunity to see her for about a minute, hav- 
 ing met her by accident at the district at- 
 
A DILEMMA. 13 
 
 torney's office, and was astounded at the 
 change. She was powerless even to cast an 
 angry look upon me. What a pitiful figure ! 
 Only three persons — Alexis, I and Ta- 
 tiana Nikolayevna — knew that five years 
 ago, two years before the marriage of 
 Alexis, I had proposed to Tatiana Nikolay- 
 evna and had been rejected. Of course, it 
 is a mere conjecture about the three; more 
 likely Tatiana Nikolayevna has another half- 
 score of friends who had been apprised in de- 
 tail of Dr. Kerzhentsefif's one-time desire to 
 marry, and of his humiliating rejection. 
 I do not know whether she remembers 
 that she laughed then ; probably she does not 
 remember — she laughed so often. Remind 
 her, if you will : on the fifth of September she 
 laughed. If she should deny it — and she will 
 deny it — recall to her the circumstances. I, 
 that strong man who never had shed a tear, 
 stood before her and trembled. I trembled 
 and saw how she bit her lips, and I already 
 had stretched out my arms to embrace her, 
 when she lifted her eyes, and there was 
 
14 A DILEMMA. 
 
 laughter in them. My arms remained sus- 
 pended in the air. She began to laugh and 
 she laughed for a long time — as long as it 
 pleased her. Later, however, she apologized. 
 
 "Please forgive me," she said, but her 
 eyes laughed. 
 
 I also smiled, and though I could forgive 
 her laughter, I never could condone my own 
 smile. This was on the fifth of September, 
 six o'clock in the evening, according to St. 
 Petersburg time. I have added the last re- 
 mark because we were at that moment in a 
 railroad station; and I see now before me 
 clearly the big white time schedule and the 
 rows of figures running up and down. 
 
 Alexis Konstantinovich also had been 
 killed precisely at six o'clock — a curious 
 coincidence which might reveal much to the 
 perspicacious person. 
 
 One of the reasons for placing me here 
 has been the absence of motive responsible 
 for the crime. Do you perceive now that a 
 motive existed? Of course, it was not jeal- 
 ousy. The latter presupposes an ardent tem- 
 
A DILEMMA. 15 
 
 perament and a weakness of mental faculties 
 — that is something directly antagonistic to 
 a cool, reasoning nature like mine. Re- 
 venge? Yes, sooner that — if it is necessary 
 to employ an old word for defining a new 
 and unfamiliar emotion. The case is this: 
 Tatiana Nikolayevna once more had caused 
 me to blunder, and it irritated me. Knowing 
 Alexis well, I was convinced that Tatiana 
 Nikolayevna, married to him, would be un- 
 happy and would long for me; therefore I 
 insisted that Alexis, who was in love with 
 her, should marry her. Only a month pre- 
 ceding his tragic death he remarked to me : 
 
 "It is to you that I owe my present happi- 
 ness. Isn't that so, Tanya?" 
 
 She glanced at me and said: "That's 
 true," while her eyes smiled. I also smiled 
 Presently we all laughed, as, embracing Ta- 
 tiana Nikolayevna — they never felt abashed 
 before me — ^he added: 
 
 "Yes, brother, you missed your stroke." 
 
 This misplaced and tactless joke shortened 
 his life a whole week, as originally I had in- 
 
i6 A DILEMMA. 
 
 tended to kill him on the eighteenth of 
 December. 
 
 Their marriage turned out to be a happy 
 one, and especially happy was she. His love 
 toward Tatiana Nikolayevna was not in- 
 tense; and in general he was not capable of 
 deep love. He had his favorite occupation — 
 literature — which carried his interests be- 
 yond the bounds of the bedchamber. She, 
 however, loved only him, and lived only in 
 him. He was a victim to physical indisposi- 
 tions, such as frequent headaches and in- 
 somnia, and these, of course, caused him 
 much suffering. And she considered it a 
 happiness to look after the sick man and to 
 gratify his capriciotis desires. When a 
 woman loves she becomes altogether incom- 
 prehensible. 
 
 Day after day I saw her smiling face, 
 her happy face, young, beautiful, without 
 care. I thought: this is my doing. I 
 wished to give her a dissolute husband and 
 deprive her of my company, but instead I 
 have given her a husband whom she loves, 
 
A DILEMMA. 17 
 
 and at the same time she manages to keep 
 me near her. Here is an explanation of this 
 singularity: she was more clever than her 
 husband, and loved to chat with me, and, 
 having had her chat, she would go to sleep 
 with him and be happy. 
 
 I cannot recall when the thought to kill 
 Alexis first came to me. It appeared some- 
 how imperceptibly ; but from the first minute 
 it became old, as if I had been born with it. 
 I know that I wished to make Tatiana Nikol- 
 ayevna unhappy, and that at first I had 
 thought of various schemes less fatal to 
 Alexis. I have been always an enemy of un- 
 necessary violence. Taking advantage of 
 my influence over Alexis, I had thought of 
 causing him to fall in love with another 
 woman or of making a drunkard of him (he 
 had an inclination toward this last), but 
 none of these plans was practical. The ob- 
 stacle consisted in the fact that Tatiana 
 Nikolayevna would ^have contrived to re- 
 main happy, even in the event of her hus- 
 band's taking to another woman, or in spite 
 
i8 A DILEMMA. 
 
 of having to listen to his drunken chatter and 
 being compelled to accept his drunken 
 caresses. It was essential to her that this 
 man should live, and in one way or another 
 she would have served him. Such slavish 
 natures exist. Slave-like, they cannot un- 
 derstand or value the strength of others than 
 their master. The world has seen clever 
 women, good women and talented women, 
 but it has yet to see a just woman. 
 
 I candidly admit that this is not for the 
 purpose of securing your unnecessary conde- 
 scension, but rather to demonstrate the 
 straightforward and normal manner in 
 which was born my resolution, and that it 
 was a no slight struggle with my compassion 
 towards the man whom I had sentenced to 
 death. I had pity for the terror he experi- 
 enced just before he died, and for those 
 moments of suffering he endured when his 
 head was being crushed. I had pity — I 
 don't know whether you'll comprehend — 
 for the head itself. There is extraordinary 
 beauty in a harmoniously working living or- 
 
A DILEMMA. 19 
 
 ganism, and death, like disease, like age, is 
 first of all deformity. I remember how, 
 many years ago, upon graduating from the 
 university, I had gotten hold of a young and 
 beautiful dog having extraordinarily strong 
 limbs. It cost me much mental effort to take 
 its skin, as my experiment demanded. For 
 a long time afterward I recalled the animal 
 with regret. 
 
 If Alexis had not been so sickly and weak 
 — ^who knows, perhaps I should not have 
 killed him. To this day, however, I am sorry 
 for his beautiful head. Tell this to Tatiana 
 Nikolayevna, if you please. Beautiful, 
 beautiful was that head. Its eyes were its 
 only weakness. They were pale, without 
 fire and energy. 
 
 I should not have killed Alexis had the 
 critics really been justified in attributing to 
 him the supreme literary gift. The roads of 
 life are dark, and great is the need of mas- 
 terly men as beacon-bearers. Each of them 
 should be guarded as a rare jewel. It is 
 these few who justify the existence of a 
 
20 A DILEMMA. 
 
 thousand good-for-nothings and the com- 
 monplace. Alexis, however, was not a 
 genius. 
 
 This is not the place for a critical article, 
 but if you will read the more well-known 
 productions of the deceased you cannot but 
 agree with me that they are unnecessary to 
 life. They are necessary to a lot of satiated 
 people in want of diversion, but not to life, 
 nor to us, engaged upon solving life's prob- 
 lems. At a time when the author, employ- 
 ing the power of his thought and genius, 
 should have created new life, Saveloff clung 
 in his books to the old, not making an effort 
 to solve life's hidden significance. His soli- 
 tary story which appealed to me, encroach- 
 ing as it did upon the domain of the unex- 
 plored, was a story called "A Secret" — that 
 was the sole exception. Worse still, Alexis 
 was beginning to show evidence of having 
 "written himself out," his happy existence 
 having deprived him of his last teeth, which 
 are so essential to the "biting into" life and 
 to the gnawing of it. He frequently spoke 
 
A DILEMMA. 21 
 
 to me of his doubts, and I saw that they were 
 fundamental. I sounded him on his plans of 
 his future labors exactly and minutely. His 
 lamenting admirers may rest assured there 
 was nothing new or grand in them. From 
 among those near to Alexis only his wife 
 failed to see the decline of his talent; 
 nor would she ever have seen it. Do you 
 know why? She did not always read her 
 husband's productions. When I once made 
 an attempt to open her eyes even slightly, 
 she simply considered me a wretch. Seeing 
 that we were alone, she said: 
 
 "You cannot forgive him something 
 else." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "That he is my husband and that I love 
 him. If Alexis were not so attached to 
 you . . ." 
 
 She faltered, and I anticipatingly finished 
 her thought. 
 
 "You'd drive me out?" 
 
 Her eyes flashed laughter. And, smiling 
 innocently, she pronounced slowly : 
 
22 A DILEMMA. 
 
 "No. I would let you remain." 
 
 And I, understand, never, even by a 
 single word or gesture, let her know that I 
 continued to love her. I thought to myself : 
 so much the better that she has guessed. 
 
 The thought of taking a man's life did not 
 leave me.. I knew that this was a crime 
 severely punishable by the law; but then 
 nearly all we do is considered as criminal; 
 only the blind do not perceive this. Those 
 believing in God consider a crime as com- 
 mitted before God; others consider a crime 
 as before the people; such as I consider a 
 crime as before myself. It would have been 
 a great crime if, having decided it necessary 
 to kill Alexis, I had failed to carry out this 
 resolution. That people classify crimes as 
 grand and petty, and call murder a grand 
 crime, is nothing more than a conventional 
 and pitiful lie before oneself — an attempt to 
 conceal oneself from the answer behind one's 
 own spine. 
 
 I did not fear myself — that was more im- 
 portant than all else. The most terribly 
 
A DILEMMA. 23 
 
 thing to the murderer, the criminal, is not 
 the police, nor the court, but he himself, his 
 nerves, the potent protest of his entire body 
 trained in the familiar traditions. You will 
 recall Raskolnikoff, that pitifully and ab- 
 surdly lost man, and the benightedness of his 
 like. I had given much time and much 
 thought to this question, imagining myself 
 as I should be after the murder. I will not 
 say that I became convinced fully of my 
 tranquillity. Such a conviction could not 
 find existence in a thinking man capable of 
 considering all possibilities. However, hav- 
 ing gathered carefully all facts of my past, 
 taking into account the strength of my will, 
 the vigor of my unexhausted nervous system, 
 my deep and sincere contempt of the existing 
 morals, I could maintain a relative confi- 
 dence in the successful issue of the under- 
 taking. It would not be amiss to relate here 
 one interesting fact out of my life. 
 
 Upon one occasion, when I was yet a stu- 
 dent of the fifth semester, having stolen fif- 
 teen roubles of students' money confided to 
 
24 A DILEMMA. 
 
 my care, I asserted that the cashier had 
 made a mistake in his accounts, and all be- 
 lieved me. It was more than a simple theft. 
 It was not a case where the needy one stole 
 from the rich man. Here was not solely a 
 violated confidence; it was the deprivation 
 of a hungry one, a comrade at that, and a 
 student, and by a man with means — that is 
 why they believed me. This action, no doubt, 
 seems more contemptible to you than the 
 murder of my chum. Isn't that so? I, on 
 the contrary, recall that I felt jolly because 
 I could do it so well and adroitly, and I 
 looked into the eyes, directly into the eyes of 
 those to whom I so boldly and freely lied. 
 My eyes are dark, beautiful, frank — and 
 they were believed. Above all, I was proud 
 because I had felt no remorse. To this day 
 I recall with particular gratification the 
 menu of the unnecessarily festive dinner 
 which I had ordered with the stolen money 
 and had eaten with appetite. 
 
 Do I experience remorse even now — ^re- 
 pentance of the act ? Not a bit. 
 
A DILEMMA. 25 
 
 I feel sad. I feel intensely sad, as no other 
 person in this world feels ; and my hairs are 
 turning grey; but that is something else. 
 Something else. Something terrible, unan- 
 ticipated, incredible in its fearful simplicity. 
 
II. 
 
 Here was my problem. It was necessary 
 not only that I should kill Alexis, but that 
 Tatiana Nikolayevna should know that I 
 had slain her husband, and that I should 
 evade the punishment provided by the law. 
 Aside from the fact that it might give Ta- 
 tiana Nikolayevna another occasion for 
 mirth, the idea of penal servitude did not 
 at all appeal to me. I love life exceedingly. 
 \ I love to see the golden wine play in the 
 thin glass; I love, when weary, to drag my- 
 self towards the clean bed ; I love to breathe 
 in the pure air of the springtime, to see the 
 beautiful sunset, to read interesting and 
 clever books. I love myself, the strength of 
 my muscles, the strength of my thought, 
 clear and exact. I am happy that I am 
 alone, and that not a single curious look has 
 
 penetrated the depth of my soul with its 
 
 26 
 
A DILEMMA. 27 
 
 dark caves and abysses, at the edge of which 
 the head grows dizzy. Never have I under- 
 stood or known that which people call the 
 weariness of life. Life is interesting, and 
 I love it for the grand mystery imprisoned 
 within it ; I love it even for its rigors, for its 
 ferocious vindictiveness and its satanically- 
 gay play with people and events. ; 
 
 I was the sole person whom I respected. 
 How then could I risk to send this person off 
 to prison, where he would be deprived of all 
 possibility to lead the so-essential to him, va- 
 riegated, complete and deep existence ? Even 
 from your viewpoint I was right in desiring 
 to escape prison. I am good at doctoring. 
 Having means, I cured many poor people. 1^ 
 am useful — surely more useful than the 
 murdered Saveloff. 
 
 It would not have been difficult to have 
 escaped punishment. A thousand devices 
 exist whereby to kill a man unnoticed, and I, 
 in my physician's role, could have resorted 
 easily to one of these. Among my thought- 
 out and discarded plans, which consumed a 
 
28 A DILEMMA. 
 
 great deal of time, was this one : to inoculate 
 Alexis with an incurable and loathsome dis- 
 ease. The objections to the plan are evi- 
 dent: the lingering sufferings of the victim 
 himself, the something ugly about it all, its 
 coarseness, and its somewhat too — well, it's 
 not exactly clever; and finally, not even the 
 illness of her husband would have deprived 
 ■• Tatiana of joy. One imperative demand of 
 my problem was that Tatiana should know 
 whose hand smote her husband. ^Only 
 cowards shrink before obstacles; such as I 
 they only draw on.^ 
 
 An accident, that great ally of able men, 
 came to my help. And I wish to call your 
 especial attention, gentlemen experts, to this 
 detail: Precisely an accident, i. e., some- 
 thing external, not depending upon me, 
 served as the basis and motive for what fol- 
 lowed. In a newspaper I stumbled upon an 
 item concerning a cashier, or some clerk or 
 other, (the clipping is probably at my home 
 or in the district attorney's office), who sim- 
 ulated a fit of epilepsy and made a pretense 
 
A DILEMMA. 29 
 
 of having lost money during the attack — 
 actually, of course, having stolen it. The 
 clerk proved a coward, and .confessed, re- 
 vealing even the place of the stolen money; 
 but the idea itself was not stupid but could 
 be realized. To simulate insanity and 
 kill Alexis in a moment of aberration, and 
 then "to become cured" — this was the plan 
 which, conceived in a moment, needed much 
 time and labor to assume a more definite and 
 concrete form. At that time I was ac- 
 quainted with psychiatry only superficially, 
 like any physician not a specialist, and I 
 spent about a year in consulting authorities 
 and in reflection. In the end I became con- 
 vinced that my plan was altogether feasible. 
 First of all, the attention of the experts 
 should be directed to hereditary influences — 
 and my heritage, to my great joy, seemed 
 altogether consistent. My father was a 
 drunkard; one uncle, his brother, ended his 
 life in the hospital for the insane, and 
 finally, my only sister, Anna, now dead, suf- 
 fered from epilepsy. It is true, that on my 
 
30 A DILEMMA. 
 
 mother's side all were healthy; still a single 
 drop of the poison of madness is sufficient to 
 affect several generations. In physical 
 health I resembled my mother, but I was pos- 
 sessed of some harmless eccentricities which 
 could be depended upon to do me service. 
 ^ My relative unsociableness ; which is simply 
 an indication of a healthy mind, preferring 
 to spend its time in sohtude, with self and 
 books, rather than upon idle and empty chat- 
 ter^ could be misinterpreted as an unhealthy 
 misanthropy; my soberness of temperament 
 — non-seeking coarse, sensual pleasures — as 
 a manifestation of degeneracy. My stub- 
 bornness itself in reaching a once resolved 
 upon goal— plenty examples could be drawn 
 upon in my rich life — ^would have received, 
 in the language of the experts, the terrible 
 name of monomania, the domination of fixed 
 ideas. 
 
 The ground for simulation was, therefore, 
 unusually favorable — ^the statics of mad- 
 ness were upon the face of things, it re- 
 mained for dynamics to do the work. To the 
 
A DILEMMA. 31 
 
 unintentional touches of nature it would be 
 necessary to add two or three successful 
 brush strokes to make the picture of mad- 
 ness complete. And I delineated very clearly 
 to myself how it should all be, not with pro- 
 grammic thoughts, but with live images: 
 even though I do not write stupid stories, I 
 am far from deficient in artistic sense and 
 imagination. 
 
 I saw that I was in a position to enact my 
 role. A tendency to dissemble has been 
 always in my character and was one of the 
 forms whereby I strove to inner freedom. 
 Yet in the gymnasia I simulated friendship : 
 walked the corridor embracing someone, as 
 do real friends, artfully making a frank, 
 friendly utterance, and at the same time 
 sounding the fellow. When the softened 
 comrade revealed himself entirely, I cast 
 aside from me his little soul and walked 
 away with the proud consciousness of my 
 own strength and inner freedom. This same 
 duality I maintained at home among kin ; as 
 a home of the Starover sect has special 
 3 
 
32 A DILEMMA. 
 
 dishes for strangers, so I also had every- 
 thing special for various people — a special 
 smile, special conversations and candor. I 
 observed that people commit against them- 
 selves much that is stupid, injurious and un- 
 necessary, and it seemed to me that if I 
 should begin to tell the truth about myself, 
 I would become, as they, and all this 
 stupidity and superficiality would dominate 
 me. 
 
 It has pleased me always to be deferential 
 towards those whom I despised and to kiss 
 those whom I abhorred, which made me free 
 and a lord over others. Hence, I never was 
 conscious of a lie before myself — that more 
 general and lowest form of human subjec- 
 tion. The more I lied to people the more 
 unsparingly just I became before myself — a 
 dignity at which few have arrived. 
 
 Generally speaking, I think that within 
 me was concealed an uncommon actor, capa- 
 ble of enacting the naturalness of the play — 
 reaching at times a complete merging with 
 the character personified — with an indefat- 
 
A DILEMMA. 
 
 33 
 
 igable, cold control of mind. Even when 
 reading a book I would enter entirely into 
 the psychology of the represented character, 
 and — would you believe it ? — grown man that 
 I am, I have wept bitter tears over "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin." How wonderful this faculty '-^ 
 of the supple, sharpened, cultured mind — 
 that of reincarnation! You live through a 
 thousand lives; now you descend into the 
 darkness of Hades ; now you ascend the dear 
 mountain heights; with one j;lance you ob- 
 serve the infinite universe, [li man is des- 
 tined to become a God, his throne shall be a 
 book. .' 7\ 
 
 Yes. That is how it is. Incidentally, I 
 wish to make a complaint about the rules 
 here. They put me to bed when I wish to 
 write, when I must write. The doors are 
 permitted to remain open, and I am com- 
 pelled to listen how some madman bawls. 
 He bawls and he bawls: it is simply unen- 
 durable. Here you really can make a man 
 go out of his mind, and then say that he was 
 insane previously. And have they no extra 
 
34 A DILEMMA. 
 
 candle that I must injure my eyes with elec- 
 tric light ? 
 
 Well then, I once even thought of going 
 on the stage, but cast aside the stupid idea: 
 simulation, which everyone knows to be sim- 
 ulation, has little value. Likewise, the cheap 
 laurels of the official actor on government 
 pay attracted me but little. As to the quality 
 of my art you can judge from the fact that 
 many donkeys consider me even now the 
 most sincere and veracious of men. And 
 what is strange : I have been always success- 
 ful in deceiving not so much the donkeys — 
 I said that in haste — as especially clever 
 people; on the other hand, there exist two 
 classes of beings of a lower order, whose 
 confidence I never could succeed in obtain-, 
 ing. I refer to women and dogs. 
 
 Do you know that the respectable Tatiana 
 Nikolayevna never believed in my love, and 
 does not yet believe in it, I think, even after 
 I had killed her husband. According to her 
 logic, I did not love her, but killed Alexis be- 
 cause she loved him. And this nonsense, 
 
A DILEMMA. 35 
 
 doubtless, seems to her sound and convinc- 
 ing. Yet she is a clever woman ! 
 
 The role of a madman did not strike me as 
 being very difficult of enactment. Some of 
 the necessary directions I got from books; 
 others I had to obtain — like any actor worthy 
 of the name — through my own creative fac- 
 ulty ; the rest had to be left to be recreated V 
 by the public itself, whose emotions had been 
 developed through constant contact with 
 books and the theatre, where, by means of 
 two or three vague contouja, it had been 
 taught to recreate live types^There still re- 
 mained certain gaps to be filled; there was 
 the prospect of a stern and erudite investiga- 
 tion by experts to which I should be sub- 
 jected, but I looked for no serious danger 
 even here. The extensive realm of psycho- 
 pathology has been so little explored ; there is 
 yet so much that is dark and accidental, so 
 much freedom for the imagination and sub- 
 jectivity, that I boldly committed my fate 
 into your hands, gentlemen experts. I trust 
 I have not offended you. I do not wish to 
 
36 A DILEMMA. 
 
 reflect upon your scholarly authority, and 
 am confident that you will coincide with me, 
 as men accustomed to conscientious scientific 
 thought. 
 
 ... At last that fellow has ceased bawl- 
 ing. It is simply unendurable. 
 
 During the period that my plan still re- 
 mained a project, a thought struck me, which 
 hardly could have penetrated an insane mind. 
 This thought was concerning the danger of 
 my experiment. Do you comprehend? 
 Madness is a fire dangerous for jesting. 
 Having thrown a match into a powder maga- 
 zine, one may feel greater safety than if but 
 the slightest thought of madness should steal 
 into one's head. And I knew this, I knew — 
 yet did danger ever daunt a brave man ? 
 
 Moreover, was I not conscious of my 
 thought, firm and clear, as of hammered 
 steel, and absolutely obedient to me? As a 
 rapier of keen edge, it bent, pricked, bit, 
 pierced through the web of facts ; truly, as a 
 serpent it glided noiselessly in unexplored 
 and dark depths, concealed for ages from 
 
A DILEMMA. 37 
 
 the light of day ; I held its hilt in my hand ; 
 it was the iron hand of a deft and experi- 
 enced fencer. How obedient, expeditious 
 and rapid was my thought, and how I loved 
 it, my slave, my terrible power, my sole 
 treasure ! 
 
 . . . He howls again, and I am unable to 
 continue. How awful to hear a man howl, 
 I have heard many terrible sounds, but none 
 so terrible as this, none so awful. There is 
 nothing it resembles — it is the voice of a 
 wild animal, passing through a human 
 throat. It is something ferocious and 
 frightened; free and yet piteous to abject- 
 ness. The mouth twists to one side, the 
 muscles of the face become rigid, like ropes, 
 the teeth show, dog-like, and from the dark 
 opening of the mouth issues forth this dis- 
 gusting, bellowing, whistling, laughing, wail- 
 ing sound . . , 
 
 Yes. Yes. Such was my idea. Inciden- 
 tally you will direct 3^our attention, doubt- 
 less, to my handwriting, and I request you 
 not to attach significance to the fact that at 
 
38 A DILEMMA. 
 
 times it trembles and seems to change. It 
 is a long time since I have written; certain 
 recent occurrences and insomnia have weak- 
 ened me — hence the hand trembles occasion- 
 ally. It is something which used to occur 
 even before. 
 
Ill 
 
 Now you understand the significance of 
 the terrible fit into which I had fallen one 
 evening at the house of the Kurganoflfs. 
 That was my first experiment and successful 
 beyond all expectation. It is as if they really 
 knew beforehand what was going to happen, 
 — as if the sudden madness of a person in 
 full health were altogether natural, and to be 
 expected at any time. No one was aston- 
 ished, and each tried to outdo the other in 
 coloring my play with the play of his own 
 fantasy. It is a rare gastriloquist who has 
 such a fine troupe of naive, stupid, credu- 
 lous people. Did they tell you how pale I 
 was and how terrible? How cold — ^yes, pre- 
 cisely cold — sweat covered my entire body? 
 How my eyes gleamed with an insane flame? 
 When they told me later their impressions, 
 
 39 
 
40 A DILEMMA. 
 
 I seemed morose and depressed, but in truth 
 I trembled from head to foot with pride, 
 happiness and derision. 
 
 Tatiana Nikolayevna and her husband 
 were not there that evening — I do not know 
 whether you made note of that. It was not 
 an accident; I feared to frighten her; or, 
 still worse, to arouse her suspicion. If there 
 existed a person who could see through my 
 play, it was she and none other. 
 
 Nothing that occurred that evening was 
 accidental. On the contrary, every detail, 
 the most petty, was planned with care. I 
 timed my fit to occur after supper; I chose 
 that moment because there was sure to be a ' 
 gathering, and those present would be af- 
 fected somewhat by wine. I sat at the edge 
 of the table, a little distance from the can- 
 delabra with the lighted candles, as I did not 
 want to cause a fire or to burn my nose. At 
 my side sat Pavel Petrovich Pospelofif, that 
 fat pig whom for a long time I desired to 
 play a trick. He is especially disgusting 
 when eating. When I first saw him at this 
 
A DILEMMA. 41 
 
 occupation, the thought came into my head 
 that eating is an immoral business. Every- 
 thing occurred opportunely. Apparently no 
 one noticed that the plate flying in fragments 
 from the blow of my fist was covered with 
 a napkin, so that I should not cut my hands. 
 
 The whole trick was astoundingly clumsy, 
 even stupid, but I counted on that. They 
 could not have comprehended a more subtle 
 prank. I began by swinging my arms and 
 talked "excitingly" with Pavel Petrovich, un- 
 til that individual opened wide his eyes in 
 amazement; I followed this by falling into 
 "concentrated thought," which called forth 
 the question from the solicitous Irene Pav- 
 lovna : 
 
 "What is the matter with you, Anton 
 Ignatyevich ? Why are you so sad ?" 
 
 When they all turned their faces upon me 
 I smiled tragically. 
 
 "Are you ill?" 
 
 "Yes. Just a trifle. My head feels dizzy. 
 But do not concern yourself, please. It will 
 pass away shortly." 
 
42 A DILEMMA. 
 
 That reassured the hostess, but the sus- 
 picious Pavel Petrovich looked disapprov- 
 ingly askance. And when, a moment 
 later, smiling with gratification, he lifted 
 a glass of wine to his lips, I quickly- 
 struck the glass from under his nose — then 
 my fist descended on the plate with a 
 crash. The fragments flew, Pavel Petrovich 
 sprawled and grunted, the women shrieked, 
 and I, showing my teeth, pulled the table 
 cover containing all — it was an exceedingly 
 humorous picture. 
 
 Then I was surrounded and held; some- 
 one brought water, another led me to an 
 armchair; and I roared like a lion confined 
 "^in a "Zoo," and glared with my eyes. It was 
 all so absurd, and they all were so stupid 
 that, believe me, the desire was born in me to 
 smash a few of those jaws in earnest, tak- 
 ing advantage of the privileges of my condi- 
 tion. Naturally I restrained myself. 
 
 Gradually I grew calmer, while my breast 
 heaved convulsively; and I rolled my eyes 
 
A DILEMMA. 43 
 
 and gnashed my teeth and asked weakly 
 such questions as: 
 
 "Where am I ? What is the matter with 
 me?" 
 
 Even that absurd French phrase "Where 
 am I?" succeeded with this folk, and not 
 less than three imbeciles made haste to say : 
 
 "At the Kurganoffs." Then in a sweet- 
 ened voice: "Do you know, dear doctor, 
 who is Irene Pavlovna Kurganoff ?" 
 
 Seriously, they were too petty for big 
 play ! 
 
 After a day — ^having given sufficient time 
 for reports to reach the Saveloffs — I talked 
 with Tatiana Nikolayevna and Alexis. The 
 latter dismissed the matter with a single 
 question : 
 
 "What was that rumpus you raised at the 
 Kurganoffs ?" 
 
 Saying this, he turned on his heels and 
 entered his working chamber — from which 
 I gathered that if I had become actually mad 
 he wouldn't have choked himself on account 
 of it. To make up for it, his spouse proved 
 
44 A DILEMMA. 
 
 especially loquacious, fervid and, of course, 
 insincere, in the expression of her sympathy. 
 And then . , . not that I regretted what I 
 had begun, the question simply occurred to 
 me : Is it worth while ? 
 
 "Do you love your husband intensely?" I 
 said to Tatiana Nikolayevna, whose gaze fol- 
 lowed Alexis. She turned quickly. 
 
 "Yes. What of it?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing, only — " and after momen- 
 tary silence, cautious and full of unuttered 
 thoughts, I added : "Why have you no con- 
 fidence in me?" 
 
 She quickly and directly looked into my 
 eyes, without replying. During this minute 
 I forgot that some time in the past she 
 laughed, and my mind was free from malice 
 against her, and that which I was doing 
 seemed to me unnecessary and strange. It 
 was my weariness, natural after a severe 
 ordeal of the nerves, and it lingered but a 
 single moment. 
 
 "And may one trust you ?" asked Tatiana 
 Nikolayevna after a prolonged silence. 
 
A DILEMMA. 45 
 
 "Of course not !" I replied in jesting tone, 
 while within me flared up an extinguished 
 flame. A force, a courage, a determination 
 stopping before no obstacle — these I felt in 
 me. Proud of the success thus far achieved, 
 I resolved to go boldly to the end. In combat 
 is the joy of life. 
 
 The second fit occurred a month after the 
 first. There was less premeditation upon 
 this occasion, and this was really unneces- 
 sary in view of the general plan. Indeed, 
 I had no especial intention to arrange the 
 matter for this evening, but when circum- 
 stances are favorable it is foolish not to make 
 use of them. And I remember clearly how it 
 all happened. We sat in the drawing-room, 
 when I became very sad. With great mental 
 vividness I realized — this was a rare occur- 
 rence — that I was a stranger to all these 
 people and that I was alone in the world — I, 
 forever confined within this head, within 
 this prison. They all became disgusting to 
 me. And in my rage I shot out my fist and 
 
46 A DILEMMA. 
 
 shouted something coarse and saw with joy 
 the fright in the paled countenances. 
 
 "Good-for-nothings!" cried I. "Miser- 
 able, contented good-for-nothings! Liars, 
 hypocrites, vipers ! I hate you !" 
 
 It is true that I wrestled with them, then 
 with the lackeys and coachmen. I was con- 
 scious, however, that I wrestled, and knew 
 that it was for a purpose. I felt pleasant in 
 punishing them, telling them straight to their 
 faces the truth about themselves, what sort 
 they were. Is everyone who dares tell the 
 truth mad ? I assure you, gentlemen experts, 
 that I was altogether conscious that, when 
 striking, I felt the contact of my hand with 
 a live body experiencing pain. Later at 
 home, where I was alone, I laughed and 
 thought what a wonderful, excellent actor I 
 was. Then I went to bed and spent the night 
 reading a book ; I even can recall the author 
 — it was Guy de Maupassant. I enjoyed 
 him, as always, and afterward slept like an 
 infant. Do madmen read books and enjoy 
 them? Do they sleep like infants? 
 
A DILEMMA. 47 
 
 Madmen do not sleep. They suffer, and in 
 their head everything revolves. Yes, re- 
 volves and falls. . . And they desire to 
 howl, to scratch themselves with their nails. 
 They desire to go down on all fours and 
 crawl softly, softly, and then to spring up all 
 at once and to shriek out : 
 
 "Aha!" 
 
 And to laugh. And to howl. To raise up 
 one's head and to howl long — long, 
 protractedly — protractedly, piteously — pit- 
 eously. 
 
 Yes. Yes. 
 
 And I slept like an infant. Do madmen 
 sleep like infants ? 
 4 
 
IV. 
 
 Nurse Masha asked me last evening: 
 
 "Anton Ignatyevich ! Do you never pray 
 to God?" 
 
 She spoke seriously and she believed that 
 I would answer sincerely and seriously. And 
 I replied, without a smile, as she wished : 
 
 "No, Masha, never. But if it will aiiford 
 you pleasure, you may make the sign of the 
 cross over me." 
 
 Maintaining the same grave demeanor, 
 she made the sign of the cross over me 
 thrice, and I was very glad that I afforded a 
 minute of joy to this excellent woman. Like 
 all highly-bred and free people, you, gentle- 
 men experts, do not direct your attention to 
 the servant; but to us prisoners and "mad- 
 men" it is given to observe her closely and 
 
 to make astonishing discoveries occasionally. 
 48 
 
A DILEMMA. 49 
 
 I may take it for granted that it never has 
 occurred to you that the nurse Masha, hired 
 by you to look after the insane, is herself in- 
 sane? But such is the fact. 
 
 Observe her walk, noiseless, gliding, some- 
 what timid and astonishingly guarded and 
 graceful — it is as if she were walking be- 
 tween invisible, drawn swords. Examine 
 her face well, when she is not observing 
 and is unaware of your presence. When 
 Masha sees one of you approach her face as- 
 sumes a serious, grave aspect, and smiles 
 indulgently — the very same expression 
 which dominates your face at the moment. 
 The explanation is that Masha possesses the «- 
 strange and significant faculty of reflecting 
 involuntarily in her face the expression of 
 other faces. Occasionally she will look at 
 me and smile. It is a pale, reflected smile — 
 not her own. And I surmise that I must 
 have smiled when she looked at me. At 
 times Masha's countenance will express suf- 
 fering, will seem morose, her brows will con- 
 tract at the nose, the corners of the mouth 
 
50 A DILEMMA. 
 
 will descend; the entire face will age ten 
 years and grow sombre — evidently my own 
 face is thus at times. Now and then I 
 frighten her with my gaze. You know how 
 strange and somewhat awesome is the gaze 
 of every deeply thoughtful man. Seeing me 
 thus the eyes of Masha will open wide, the 
 pupils will grow darker, and, approaching me 
 noiselessly, with uplifted hand, she will do 
 something f riendy and unexpected — smooth 
 my hair or arrange my dress. 
 
 "Your belt will become undone," she will 
 say, while her face will maintain its fright- 
 ened expression. 
 
 However, there are moments when I see 
 her alone. And when she is alone her face 
 strangely seems to lack all expression. It is 
 pale, handsome and enigmatic, like the face 
 of a corpse. Cry out: "Masha!" and she 
 will turn, smiling with her own gentle and 
 timorous smile, and ask: 
 
 "Is there anything I can bring you? . . ." 
 
 She is always bringing or taking away 
 something, and if there is nothing to bring, 
 
A DILEMMA. 51 
 
 take away or arrange, she will show signs of 
 worriment. Her noiselessness is remarkable. 
 Not once have I noticed her drop anything, 
 or make a noise. I have attempted to talk 
 with her about life, and she is strangely in- 
 different to everything, even to murders, con- 
 flagrations and other horrors which affect 
 uncultured people. 
 
 "Do you realize they are being killed, 
 wounded, and they leave behind them at 
 home little himgry children?" said I to her 
 concerning war. 
 
 "Yes, I understand," she replied, and then, 
 as if lost in thought, asked : "Had I not bet- 
 ter bring you some milk ; you have eaten so 
 little to-day?" 
 
 When I laugh she responds with a some- 
 what frightened laugh. Never has she been 
 in a theatre, she does not know that Russia 
 is an empire and that there are other em- 
 pires; she cannot read,Nand her acquaintance 
 with the New Testament is limited to the 
 quotations she has heard read in the church. 
 Every evening she goes down on her knees 
 and prays at length. 
 
52 A DILEMMA. 
 
 For a long time I considered her simply 
 a limited, blunt being, born for bondage, but 
 a single incident compelled me to change my 
 view. You probably know, you must have 
 been informed, that I have lived through one 
 nasty minute here, which, of course, doesn't 
 demonstrate anything except weariness and 
 a temporary collapse of one's strength. / 
 refer to the towel incident. Being stronger 
 than Masha I could have killed her, as there 
 was no one present but us two, and if she had 
 cried out or caught my hand . . . but she 
 did nothing of the kind. She merely said : 
 "No need of that, goluhchik."* 
 I have thought often about this phrase and 
 till now cannot grasp the astonishing power 
 concentrated in it and felt by me. It is not 
 in the words, which in themselves are mean- 
 ingless and empty; rather is it somewhere 
 in the unknown to me and unfathomable 
 depths of Masha's soul. She knows some- 
 thing. Yes, she knows, but cannot or will 
 
 * Diminutive of dove, a term of endearment very commoo in 
 Russia. 
 
A DILEMMA. 53 
 
 not say. I have tried often to secure from 
 Masha an explanation of her words, but she 
 cannot explain. 
 
 "Do you think suicide a sin? That it is 
 forbidden by God?" I asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then why no need of that ?" 
 
 "Just so. Simply no need for it," she 
 said smilingly, and inquired: "May I bring 
 you something?" 
 
 Without a doubt she is insane, but quiet 
 and useful, like many insane people. Please 
 do not molest her. 
 
 I have permitted myself to depart from 
 my narrative, as something Masha did yes- 
 terday has recalled to me memories of 
 childhood. I do not remember my mother, 
 but I had an aunt named Anphisa, who 
 made the sign of the cross over me every 
 night. She was a taciturn old maid, with 
 pimples on her face, and she felt ashamed 
 when my father joked with her about a hus- 
 band. I was still a youngster aged eleven 
 when she strangled herself in the tiny barn 
 where we kept our coals. Later she con- 
 
54 A DILEMMA. 
 
 tinued to appear to father, and that jolly 
 atheist ordered prayers and masses. 
 
 My father was very clever and talented, 
 and his speeches in court made not only 
 nervous women, but also serious and bal- 
 anced people weep. Only I did not weep, 
 listening to him, because I knew him and 
 knew that he himself understood little of 
 what he was saying. He possessed consider- 
 able knowledge, many ideas and even more 
 words ; and his words and ideas and knowl- 
 edge frequently combined themselves suc- 
 cessfully and beautifully; but of this he had 
 no comprehension. / often even doubted as 
 to whether he existed — to such an extent did 
 he exist in sounds and gestures that it some- 
 times occurred to me that this was not a hu- 
 man being, but an image flashed by a cine- 
 matograph, combined with a gramaphone. 
 He did not comprehend that he was a human 
 being, that to-day he lived and that to-mor- 
 row he might die, and he sought nothing. 
 And when he went to bed he ceased to move 
 and fell into a slumber ; to all appearances he 
 
A DILEMMA. 55 
 
 had no dreams and ceased to exist. With 
 his tongue — ^he was an attorney — ^he earned 
 his thirty thousand a year, and not once was 
 he astonished or thoughtful over this circum- 
 stance. I recall having visited with him a 
 newly-purchased estate, and pointing at the 
 trees in the grounds I remarked: 
 "Clients?" 
 
 He smiled indulgently and replied: 
 "Yes, my boy, talent is a big thing." 
 He drank much, and his intoxication 
 found expression in more rapid movements, 
 which finally would cease altogether, and he 
 would end invariably by falling into a deep 
 slumber. Everyone considered him extra- 
 ordinarily endowed, and he often asserted 
 that had he not become a famous attorney 
 he would have been equally distinguished as 
 an artist or as an author. Unfortunately, 
 this is true. 
 
 Least of all he understood me. Once we 
 were threatened with the loss of all our 
 property. The thought gave me anguish. 
 Nowadays, when only wealth gives freedom, 
 
56 ' A DILEMMA. 
 
 I do not know what I should have become if 
 fate had placed me in the ranks of the pro- 
 letariat. I cannot picture to myself without 
 anger anyone daring to place his hand upon 
 me, compelling me to do that which I do not 
 wish, purchasing for money my labor, my 
 blood, my nerves, my life. This horror, how- 
 ever, I experienced only for one minute, as it 
 immediately dawned upon me that such as I 
 never remain poor. But father did not un- 
 derstand that. He sincerely considered me 
 a dull youth and viewed with apprehension 
 my supposed helplessness. 
 
 "Oh, Anton, Anton, what will become of 
 you?" he would say. He himself seemed 
 weary; his long, unkempt hair descended 
 over the forehead; his face was yellow. I 
 replied : 
 
 "Don't worry about me, papa. As I am 
 not talented, I will kill Rothschild or rob a 
 bank." 
 
 My father became angry, as he accepted 
 my answer as an untimely and flat jest. He 
 saw my face, he heard my voice and never- 
 
A DILEMMA. 57 
 
 theless accepted it as a jest. Wretched 
 pasteboard clown, through misapprehension 
 thou art called a man ! 
 
 He did not know my soul, although the 
 outward order of my life perturbed him, as 
 he did not enter into its understanding. I 
 was an apt pupil at the gymnasia, and this 
 distressed him. Once when we had visitors 
 — lawyers, litterateurs and artists — ^he di- 
 rected his finger at me and said: 
 
 "I have a son; he is the first in his class. 
 What have I done that God should punish 
 me so?" 
 
 And they all laughed at me, and I laughed 
 at them all. Even more than by my successes 
 he was distressed by my conduct and at- 
 tire. He would enter my room purposely 
 to rearrange, unnoticed by me, the books on 
 the table, and to create even a little bit of dis- 
 order. My neat way of combing my hair 
 robbed him of his appetite. 
 
 "The superintendent has ordered a close 
 hair cut," I would say seriously and re- 
 spectfully. 
 
S8 A DILEMMA. 
 
 He scolded vehemently, but my entire in- 
 ner being throbbed with contemptuous 
 laughter. 
 
 Nothing, however, aroused my father's ire 
 so much as my copybooks. Once, when 
 drunk, he looked through them, seeming 
 very hopeless and comical in his despond- 
 ency. 
 
 "Haven't you ever made a blot ?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, papa, it happened once. It was 
 when I was doing my trigonometry." 
 
 "Did you lick it up?" 
 
 "What do you mean by 'lick it up ?' " 
 
 "Just what I said — did you lick up the 
 blot of ink?" 
 
 "No, papa, I applied blotting paper." 
 
 My father waved his hand with a drunken 
 gesture and growled as he arose : 
 
 "No, you are no son of mine. No ! No !" 
 
 Among my despised copybooks, however, 
 was one which afforded him gratification — 
 notwithstanding the fact that it contained 
 not a single crooked line, not a blot or eras- 
 ure. It contained, however, approximately 
 
A DILEMMA. 59 
 
 the following: My father is a drunkard, a 
 thief and a coward. 
 
 This was followed by some details, which, 
 out of respect to my father's memory and 
 to the law, I consider unnecessary to state. 
 
 I now recall one forgotten fact, which I 
 think should prove of interest to you, gentle- 
 men experts. I am very happy to have re- 
 called it, very happy. How could it have 
 slipped my memory? 
 
 We had in our house a maid-servant 
 named Katia, who was the mistress of my 
 father, and simultaneously my mistress. 
 She loved father because he gave her money, 
 and me because I was young, had beautiful 
 dark eyes and did not give her money. The 
 night that my father's corpse lay in the 
 parlor I entered Katia's room. It was not 
 far from the parlor, whence could be heard 
 clearly the voice of the chanter. 
 
 I think that the immortal spirit of my 
 father must have experienced complete 
 gratification ! 
 
 This is really an interesting fact, and I 
 
6o A DILEMMA. 
 
 don't understand how I could have forgotten 
 it. To you, gentlemen experts, it may seem 
 a small matter, a childish prank, having no 
 serious significance, but that isn't so. It was 
 a hard struggle, gentlemen experts, and the 
 victory was not bought cheaply. My life was 
 at stake. Had I trembled, turned back, 
 proved thyself a faint-hearted lover, I 
 should have killed myself. / recall, that was 
 decided. 
 
 What I did was not an easy matter for a 
 youth of my years. Now I know that I 
 fought with a windmill, but at that time it 
 appeared to me in a different light. It is 
 difficult for me to relate now all that I had 
 lived through, but I can recall the feeling — 
 it seemed as if with one act I had demolished 
 all laws, divine and human. And I trembled 
 terribly, to the point of the ridiculous ; never- 
 theless I nerved myself, and when I entered 
 Katia's room I was prepared for her kisses 
 like a Romeo. 
 
 At that time I was yet a romanticist. 
 Happy time, how distant it is ! I remember, 
 
A DILEMMA. 6i 
 
 gentlemen experts, that returning from 
 Katia I stepped before the corpse, crossed 
 my arms on my chest Hke Napoleon, and 
 with laughable pride gazed upon the corpse. 
 Then I shuddered, frightened at seeing the 
 shroud stir, Happy, distant time! 
 
 I fear to think upon it, but it is possible 
 that I never have ceased to be a romanticist. 
 And I came near being an idealist. I be- 
 lieved in human thought and its boundless 
 force. The entire history of man seemed to 
 me as one triumphant thought, and that was 
 not so long ago. It is terrible for me to re- 
 flect that my entire life has been an illusion, 
 that all life long I have been a fool, like that 
 crazy actor once confined in the next ward. 
 He had gathered from everywhere strips of 
 blue and red paper, and he had designated 
 each strip a million roubles; he had begged 
 them from visitors; had stolen and carried 
 them from the closet, to the amusement of 
 the keepers, whom it gave an opportunity to 
 indulge in vulgar jests. He sincerely and 
 
62 A DILEMMA. 
 
 deeply detested them, but me he liked, and 
 upon parting handed me a million. 
 
 "It's a trifle," said he, "only a million, 
 but you will forgive me, I have such ex- 
 penses, such expenses." 
 
 Taking me aside, he explained in a 
 whisper : 
 
 "I am about to start to Italy. I want to 
 banish the Pope and to introduce new mon- 
 eys into the country — ^these. Then, on Sun- 
 day, I will declare myself a Saint. The 
 Italians will rejoice; they are always happy 
 when given a new Saint." 
 
 Have I not lived upon this million? 
 
 It is strange for me to reflect upon the fact 
 that my books — my companions and friends 
 — have remained in their cases and silently 
 guard that which I considered the wisdom 
 of the earth, its hope and happiness. I am 
 aware, gentlemen experts, that whether or 
 not I am insane, from your viewpoint I am 
 a good-for-nothing and a scamp — you should 
 see this good-for-nothing when he enters his 
 library ! 
 
A DILEMMA. 63 
 
 Go, gentlemen experts, examine my house 
 — ^you will find it interesting. In the left- 
 hand upper drawer of my writing-table you 
 will discover a detailed catalogue of my 
 books, pictures and trifles ; there also you will 
 find the keys to the cases. You are men of 
 culture, and I am confident that you will 
 conduct yourself toward my property with 
 due respect and care. / also request you to 
 see that the lamp doesn't smoke. There is 
 nothing worse than this smoke; it gathers 
 everywhere, and it then takes the hardest 
 kind of labor to get rid of its effects. 
 
 Remark. 
 
 The assistant doctor Petroff has refused 
 me chloralamide in the dose which I demand. 
 I am a physician and know what I am doing, 
 and if it is refused me I will take decisive 
 measures. I have not slept two nights, and 
 do not in the least desire to become insane. 
 I demand that chloralamide be given me. I 
 demand it. It is infamous to make one in- 
 sane, 
 
 5 
 
V. 
 
 After my second attack they were afraid 
 of me. In many houses the doors were 
 quickly closed at my approach. At acci- 
 dental meetings acquaintances shrank from 
 me, smiled meanly and inquired signifi- 
 cantly : 
 
 "Well, golubchik, how is your health?" 
 The situation developed to such a degree 
 that I could have committed the most unlaw- 
 ful act and would not have lost the respect of 
 those present. I looked at people and 
 thought : If I so wish it, I may kill this one 
 and that one, and nothing will happen to me. 
 That which I experienced at this thought 
 was something new, pleasant and a bit terri- 
 fying. Man ceased to be something strongly 
 defended, a something which we fear to 
 touch ; in a word, some sort of shell fell from 
 
 64 
 
A DILEMMA. 65 
 
 him ; he seemed naked, and to kill him seemed 
 easy and even tempting. 
 
 Fear, like a dense wall, protected me from 
 inquisitive eyes, so that the necessity for a 
 third preliminary attack was avoided. Only 
 in this instance did I depart from the formu- 
 lated plan; for the strength of genius does 
 not build itself a frame for its confinement, - 
 and, to conform with changing conditions, 
 does not even hesitate to alter the entire 
 course of battle. It yet remained for me to 
 obtain ofificial absolution from past sins and 
 sanction for those of the future — I refer to 
 the necessity of securing scientifico-medical 
 testimony of my illness. 
 
 At this time a happy concurrence of cir- 
 cumstances made it possible for me to turn to 
 a psychiatrist, without it seeming more than 
 by merest chance, or by obligation. This, 
 perhaps, was an unnecessary but artistic 
 touch in the interpretation of my role. It 
 was Tatiana Nikolayevna and her husband 
 who sent me to the psychiatrist. 
 
 "Do, please, go to the doctor, dear Anton 
 
66 A DILEMMA. 
 
 Ignatyevich," said Tatiana Nikolayevna. 
 Never before did she call me "dear." Ap- 
 parently it was necessary to pass for mad 
 to receive this meaningless caress. 
 
 "Very good, dear Tatiana Nikolayevna, 
 I'll go," I replied submissively. We three — 
 Alexis also being present — sat in the draw- 
 ing-room, subsequently the scene of the 
 murder. 
 
 "Yes, Anton, you must go without fail," 
 rerterated Alexis in a tone of authority, "or 
 else you might do some mischief." 
 
 "What sort of mischief could I do?" I 
 timidly protested before my stern friend. 
 
 "Who knows ? You may break someone's 
 head." 
 
 I fondled in my hand a heavy, cast-iron 
 paper-weight. Looking now at that object, 
 now at Alexis, I asked: 
 
 "Head? You say— head?" 
 
 "Yes, head. Catch a thing like that on 
 your head and you're done for." 
 
 It was becoming interesting. It was pre- 
 cisely the head, and precisely with that thing 
 
A DILEMMA. 67 
 
 that I had planned to crush it, and now that 
 same head was telling how it would all end. 
 It was telling and smiling, as without care. 
 And yet there are people who believe in pre- 
 sentiments, and that death sends before it 
 invisible heralds. What nonsense ! 
 
 "One can't do much with this thing," said 
 I. "It is altogether too light." 
 
 "So you think it's too light!" returned 
 Alexis hotly, as he snatched the paper-weight 
 ■from my hand and flourished it by its thin 
 handle several times Mn the air. "J^^t 
 try it!" 
 
 "Yes, I know. . /' 
 
 "No, take hold and see." 
 
 I smiled, as unwillingly I took the heav^' 
 object. Just then Tatiana Nikolayevna in- 
 terfered. Pale, her teeth chattering, she 
 said, or rather shrieked: 
 
 "Stop that, Alexis, stop that !" 
 
 "Why, Tanya? What is the matter with 
 you ?" said he in an astonished tone. 
 
 "Stop that! You know I don't like such 
 jokes." 
 
68 A DILEMMA. 
 
 We laughed, and the paper-weight was re- 
 placed on the table. 
 
 On my visit to Professor T every- 
 thing happened as I had anticipated. He 
 was cautious, controlled in his utterances 
 and grave; he inquired whether I had any 
 relatives in whose care I could trust myself ; 
 he counselled me to go home, take a rest and 
 live quietly. Assuming the privilege due me 
 as a member of the medical profession, I 
 made a slight attempt at remonstrance. My 
 boldness removed whatever doubts may have 
 remained in the physician's mind, and he 
 definitely placed me in the ranks of the de- 
 mented. I trust, gentlemen experts, you will 
 not attribute undue significance to this harm- 
 less jest aimed against one of our colleagues. 
 
 As a scholar, Professor T undoubtedly 
 
 deserves respect and honor. 
 
 ' The few days which followed were among 
 the happiest of my life. Sympathy was ex- 
 tended me in my role of invalid, visits were 
 paid me, and everyone addressed me in a 
 broken, clumsy tongue. Only I knew that I 
 
A DILEMMA. 69 
 
 was perfectly healthy, and I enjoyed to the 
 full the well-planned, mighty labor of my 
 mind. In a consideration of all that is won- 
 derful and incomprehensible of life's riches, 
 nothing can be found to equal the human 
 mind. There is divinity in it, a pledge of 
 immortality and an indomitable force ac- 
 knowledging no obstacles. People are over- 
 come with ecstacy and wonderment when 
 they behold the snowy summits of huge 
 mountains. If they only would understand 
 themselves, neither mountains, nor all the 
 wonders and beauties of the earth, could 
 transport them to such a degree as the con- 
 sciousness of the power of thought. The 
 simple mental process of the laborer as he 
 expediently lays one brick upon the other — 
 that is the supreme marvel and the deepest 
 mystery. 
 
 I enjoyed my thought. Innocent in her 
 beauty, she gave herself up to me with pas- 
 sion as a mistress; served me like a slave; 
 and upheld me like a friend. Don't take it 
 for granted that all these days spent at home 
 
70 A DILEMMA. 
 
 between the four walls were employed only 
 in thinking about my project. No, that was 
 all clear and prepared. I meditated upon 
 many things. I and my thought played with 
 life and death and soared high, high above 
 them. Among other things I solved during 
 those days two very interesting chess prob- 
 lems over which I had labored for a long 
 time without success. Probably you are 
 aware of the fact that three years ago I par- 
 ticipated in the international chess tourney 
 and was second only to Lasker. Had I not 
 been an avowed enemy of publicity and con- 
 tinued to contend, Lasker would have been 
 compelled to surrender his kingdom. 
 
 From the moment that the life of Alexis 
 was delivered in my hands I was strangely 
 disposed towards him.. It was pleasant for 
 me to think that he lived, drank, ate and re- 
 joiced, simply because I permitted it. It was 
 a feeling akin to that of a father toward a 
 son. What alarmed me was his health. 
 Notwithstanding his ill health, he was un- 
 pardonably careless, refusing to wear a 
 
A DILEMMA. 71 
 
 waist-jacket and venturing outdoors without 
 galoshes in the most threatening, raw- 
 weather. Tatiana Nikolayevna reassured 
 me. She paid me a visit and told me that 
 Alexis was in sound health and even slept 
 well, which was unusual for him. Over- 
 joyed, I requested Tatiana Nikolayevna to 
 take with her a gift I had intended to make 
 Alexis — a rare volume which accidentally 
 fell into my hands and had struck for some 
 time the literary man's fancy. Possibly the 
 gift was a mistake from the standpoint of my 
 plan. My action could be suspected as a pre- 
 meditated manoeuvre ; but I wished so much 
 to afford Alexis pleasure that I decided to 
 run a small risk. I even ignored the circum- 
 stance that the gift sacrificed something of 
 the artistic effect of my play. 
 
 Upon this occasion I was very amiable 
 and frank, and made a favorable impression 
 on Tatiana Nikolayevna. Neither she nor 
 Alexis had witnessed a single one of my at- 
 tacks, and hence it was difficult, even impos- 
 sible, for them to imagine me as mad. 
 
72 A DILEMMA. 
 
 "Come and see us," said Tatiana Nikol- 
 ayevna at parting. 
 
 "Musn't do it," said I smilingly. "Doctor 
 forbade." 
 
 "Oh, fiddlesticks ! That doesn't mean us. 
 In our house you are at home. And Alexis 
 misses you." 
 
 I promised, and never did I make a prom- 
 ise with such assurance of fulfillment as this 
 one. When reflecting upon these happy 
 coincidences, does it not strike you, gentle- 
 men experts, that Alexis had been con- 
 demned not by me alone, but also hy someone 
 else? In truth, however, there was no one 
 else. Nothing could be more simple or 
 logical. 
 
 The cast-iron paper-weight lay in its place, 
 when on the eleventh of December, five 
 o'clock in the afternoon, I entered the draw- 
 ing-room of the Saveloffs. Both Alexis and 
 Tatiana had been accustomed to rest the 
 hour preceding dinner, which usually oc- 
 curred at seven o'clock. They greeted me 
 effusively. 
 
A DILEMMA. 73 
 
 "Thanks for the book, brother," said 
 Alexis, grasping my hand. "I was about to 
 visit you, when Tanya told me that you were 
 quite well again. We are going to the 
 theatre this evening. Will you join us ?" 
 
 A conversation began. I decided not to 
 dissemble at all that evening — it was an oc- 
 casion when the absence of dissembling was 
 the subtlest kind of dissembling — and giving 
 myself up to the mental exhilaration of the 
 moment, I spoke at length and well. If the 
 admirers of Saveloff's glories only knew how 
 many of "his" best ideas had their inception 
 and development in the brain of one un- 
 known Doctor Kerzhentseff ! 
 
 I spoke clearly, precisely, emphasizing 
 each phrase, at the same time keeping my eye 
 on the hand of the clock, thinking that 
 when it should point at six I would become 
 a murderer. I said something funny and 
 they laughed, and I made an effort to retain 
 an impression of the sensation of one who 
 was about to become a murderer. I under- 
 stood the life process in Alexis not in the ab- 
 
74 A DILEMMA. 
 
 stract, but rather in the physical sense — 
 the beating of his heart, the coursing of the 
 blood through the veins, the suppressed 
 vibrations of the brain, and then — the inter- 
 ruption of this process, the cessation of the 
 heart and the blood flow, and the death of the 
 brain. 
 
 What would be its last thought ? 
 
 Never did the clearness of my conscious- 
 ness reach such height and power. Never 
 was the sensation of the many-sided,' har- 
 moniously-working / so complete. Truly a 
 god: not looking, I saw; not listening, I 
 heard ; not thinking, I understood. 
 
 Seven minutes remained, when Alexis 
 lazily arose from the divan, stretched him- 
 self and went out. 
 
 "I'll be right back," he called after him. 
 
 I did not want to look upon Tatiana Nikol- 
 ayevna, so Imade my way to the window, 
 threw aside the . draperies and stood still. 
 Without looking, I was conscious that 
 Tatiana Nikolayevna had glided quickly 
 through the room and was standing beside 
 
A DILEMMA. 75 
 
 me. I heard her breathing, and knew that 
 she was not looking through the window, but 
 upon me, and I was silent. 
 
 "How beautifully the snow sparkles!" 
 said Tatiana Nikolayevna, but I remained 
 unresponsive. Her breath came quicker, 
 then seemed to cease. 
 
 "Anton Ignatyevich !" said she, and 
 stopped short. 
 
 I remained silent. 
 
 "Anton Ignatyevich !" she repeated in the 
 same irresolute tone, and now I looked at 
 her. Suddenly she tottered back, almost 
 fell, as if she had been thrust back by the ter- 
 rible force that was in my glance. She 
 tottered and threw herself towards her 
 husband, who had entered the room. 
 
 "Alexis!" she mumbled. "Alexis . . , 
 He . . ." 
 
 "Well, what about him?" 
 
 Without smiling, but in a jesting tone, I 
 said: 
 
 "She thinks that I want to kill you with 
 that thing." 
 
76 A DILEMMA. 
 
 Then, in an unperturbed manner, without 
 attempt at concealment, I picked up the 
 paper-weight, and, raising it in my hand, 
 calmly approached Alexis. He, without 
 blinking, gazed upon me with his pale eyes 
 and repeated: 
 
 "She thinks . . ." 
 
 "Yes, she thinks." 
 
 Slowly, easily, I began to raise my hand, 
 and Alexis also slowly began to raise his, 
 without removing his eyes from me. 
 
 "Hold a moment !" said I sternly. 
 
 The hand of Alexis remained where it 
 was, while he, pale, still keeping his eyes 
 upon me, smiled incredulously with his lips 
 alone. Tatiana Nikolayevna uttered a 
 strange cry, but it was too late. I struck him 
 with the sharp edge nearer the temple than 
 the eye. And when he fell I bent over and 
 struck him two more times. The district 
 attorney declared that I had struck him sev- 
 eral times, because his head was badly 
 crushed. But that is untrue. I struck him 
 
A DILEMMA. jy 
 
 only three times: once when he was stand- 
 ing, and twice on the floor.' 
 
 It is true that the blows were very hard, 
 but there were only three. That I remember 
 for certain — three blows. 
 
yi. 
 
 Please do not attempt to make clear what 
 is crossed out at the end of the fourth part, 
 and in general do not attach undue signifi- 
 cance to my markings or accept them as evi- 
 dences of deranged thought. In the strange 
 position in which I find myself, I admit I am 
 forced to exercise the greatest care, as you 
 may well understand. 
 
 The dusk of night always acts strongly 
 upon an exhausted nervous system, and that 
 is why we are visited so frequently at night 
 by horrible thoughts. On that night, follow- 
 ing the murder, my nerves were, of course, 
 in a particularly tense state. Despite my 
 self-control, it is no jest to kill a man. After 
 tea, having made my toilet, manicured my 
 nails and changed my dress, I called in Maria 
 Vasilyevna to keep me company. She was 
 
 78 
 
A DILEMMA. 79 
 
 my housekeeper and a substitute for a wife. 
 I think she had a lover on the side, but she is 
 a pretty woman, gentle and not greedy, and 
 I easily reconciled myself with this slight 
 fault, which is almost unavoidable when a 
 man obtains love for money. This stupid 
 woman was the first to strike me a blow. 
 
 "Kiss me!" said I. 
 
 She smiled stupidly and remained un- 
 moved. 
 
 "Come, now !" 
 
 All of a sudden she trembled, blushed and 
 with frightened eyes drew herself appeal- 
 ingly toward me from across the table and 
 said: 
 
 "Anton Ignatyevich, little soul, go to the 
 doctor!" 
 
 "What next?" I exclaimed angrily. 
 
 "Oh, please, don't shout so, I'm afraid! 
 I'm so afraid of you, little soul mine, little 
 angel!" 
 
 Yet she knew nothing of my fits, nor of the 
 
 murder, and I had been always kind with 
 
 her and reasonable. It was to be inferred 
 6 
 
8o A DILEMMA. 
 
 that there was something in my person that 
 other people did not have — something that 
 frightened. The thought flashed through my 
 mind and was gone quickly, leaving a strange 
 sensation of cold in the legs and spine. It 
 dawned upon me that Maria Vasilyevna 
 must have learned something from the ser- 
 vant-maid or had stumbled across some 
 spoiled apparel discarded by me, and this 
 altogether naturally explained her fright. 
 
 "Leave me !" I commanded. 
 
 Then I retired to the divan in my library. 
 I had no desire to read ; my entire body felt 
 weary, and my condition in general was 
 such as experienced by an actor after a bril- 
 liantly played role. It was pleasant to gaze 
 upon the books and pleasant to think that 
 some time later I would read them. I was 
 pleased with my entire apartment, with the 
 divan and with Maria Vasilyevna. There 
 flashed through my mind fragments of 
 phrases from my role. Mentally I reenacted 
 certain motions which I had made, and occa- 
 sionally critical thoughts glided languidly: 
 
A DILEMMA. 8i 
 
 In such and such a situation it could have 
 been better said or done. However, I was 
 much gratified with my improvised "Hold a 
 moment !" This will seem flimsy to him who 
 himself has not experienced such an incredi- 
 ble instance of the power of inspiration. 
 
 "Hold a moment !" I repeated, closing my 
 eyes, and smiled. My eyelids began to grow 
 heavy, and I wanted to sleep, when lan- 
 guidly, very simply, like the other thoughts, 
 there entered into my head a new thought, 
 dominating with all the qualities of my 
 thought: clearness, preciseness and simplic- 
 ity. Languidly it entered and remained. 
 Here it is, speaking, as it were, in the third 
 person : 
 
 "It is very possible that Dr. Kerzhent- 
 seff is really insane. He thought that he 
 simulated, hut he is really insane — insane at 
 this very instant." 
 
 Three or four times this thought reap- 
 peared, but I still smiled, uncomprehending: 
 
 "He thought that he simulated, but he is 
 really insane — insane at this very instant." 
 
82 A DILEMMA. 
 
 When I realized ... at first I thought 
 that Maria Vasilyevna had uttered this 
 phrase, because it seemed as if there were a 
 voice, and this voice appeared to be hers. 
 Then I thought it was the voice of Alexis. 
 Yes, Alexis, who was dead. Then I under- 
 stood that it was my thought, and this was 
 terrifying. Clutching my hair, I found my- 
 self somehow standing in the middle of the 
 room. I mumbled: 
 
 "So that's how it is. All is ended. That 
 which I feared has happened. I approached 
 too closely to the border line, and now there 
 is only one thing before me — madness." 
 
 When they came to arrest me, I appeared, 
 according to their words, in an awful state — 
 disheveled, in torn apparel, pale and terri- 
 ble. But, oh, Lord! To live through such 
 a night and not to go out of one's mind — 
 does it not indicate the possession of an 
 invincible brain ? And, really, I only tore my 
 attire and broke a mirror. Apropos, permit 
 me to make a suggestion. If it ever falls to 
 the lot of any of you to live through that 
 
A DILEMMA. 83 
 
 which I had lived through this night, hang 
 a mirror in the room where you will toss 
 about. Hang it the same as you do when 
 there is a corpse in the house. Hang a 
 mirror! 
 
 It is terrible for me to write about it. I 
 fear that which I must recall and tell. But 
 I dare not delay it longer, and perhaps with 
 half-words I may only heighten the terror. 
 
 That evening! 
 
 Imagine to yourselves a drunken snake, 
 yes, yes, precisely a drunken snake: it has 
 saved its venom; it has increased its agility 
 and swiftness, and its teeth are sharp and 
 poisonous. It is drunk, and it is in a closed 
 room, where are many trembling people. 
 With its cold body it savagely glides among 
 them, coils around their legs, buries its fangs 
 in the very face, in the lips, and coils itself 
 into a ball and stings into its own body. And 
 it seems that it is not alone, but a thousand 
 snakes toss about and sting and devour them- 
 selves. Such was my thought, the same in 
 which I believed, and in the sharpness and 
 
84 A DILEMMA. 
 
 poison of whose teeth I saw my salvation and 
 safeguard. 
 
 The single thought scattered in a thousand 
 thoughts, each of which was strong and hos- 
 tile. They circled in a wild dance, and their 
 music was a monstrous voice, sounding as 
 from a horn, and issuing from some invisible 
 depth. This was an evasive thought, the 
 most terrible of all snakes, as it concealed 
 itself in the darkness. From within my 
 head, where I held it strongly, it entered into 
 the secret recesses of the body, into its dark 
 and invisible depths. And from thence it 
 cried out, like a stranger, like an escaping 
 slave, insolent and bold, in the consciousness 
 of his security : 
 
 You thought that you simulated, but you 
 were insane. You are small, you are bad, 
 you are stupid, you, Dr. Kerzhentseff. Some 
 sort of a Dr. Kerzhentseff, insane Dr. Kerz- 
 hentseff! . . . 
 
 Thus it cried out and I did not know 
 whence came that monstrous voice. I do not 
 even know who uttered it ; I call it a thought, 
 
A DILEMMA. 85 
 
 but perhaps it was not a thought. The other 
 thoughts, Uke birds hovering over flames, 
 circled in the head, while this one cried 
 from somewhere below, above, the sides, 
 where I could not see it or catch it. 
 
 And the most terrible thing which I ex- 
 perienced was the consciousness that I did 
 not know myself and never did. As long as 
 my / found itself within my brilliantly 
 lighted head, where all moved and lived in 
 law-conforming order, I had understood and 
 known myself, had reflected upon my char- 
 acter and plans, and was, as I had thought, 
 a lord. Now, however, I saw that I was not 
 a lord, but a slave, wretched and helpless. 
 Imagine to yourself that you are living in a 
 house containing many rooms, that you oc- 
 cupy one room and think that you dominate 
 the entire house. And suddenly you discover 
 that the other rooms are occupied. Yes, oc- 
 cupied. Occupied by some mysterious be- 
 ings, perhaps people, perhaps something else, 
 and the house belongs to them. You wish to 
 learn who they are, but the door is locked, 
 
86 A DILEMMA. 
 
 and no sound issues therefrom, no voice. At 
 the same time you are conscious that pre- 
 cisely there, behind the silent door, your fate 
 is being decided. 
 
 I. approach the mirror. . . Hang a mirror. 
 Hang one ! 
 
 I do not remember what happened after- 
 ward, until the arrival of the court authori- 
 ties and the police. I asked what hour it was, 
 and was told it was nine o'clock. For a long 
 time I found it difficult to realize that only 
 two hours had elapsed since my return home, 
 and only three since the murder of Alexis. 
 
 I ask your forgiveness, gentlemen experts, 
 for treating of a moment so important from 
 your standpoint, of the terrible state follow- 
 ing the murder, in such general and in- 
 definite terms. That, however, is all I 
 remember and all that I can express by 
 means of the human tongue. It is impos- 
 sible for me to express in human language 
 the terror I experienced in that brief space 
 of time. Aside from this, I cannot vouch for 
 the actuality of that which so vaguely im- 
 
A DILEMMA. 87 
 
 pressed itself upon my mind. Perhaps it 
 was not that which happened, but something 
 else. Only one thing I remember distinctly 
 — it was a thought, or a voice, or perhaps 
 something else: 
 
 "Dr. Kerzhentseff thought that he simu- 
 lated madness, hut he is actually insane." 
 
 I have just felt my pulse : 180 ! And that 
 at the mere recollection of it ! 
 
yii. 
 
 In the preceding pages I have written 
 much that was unnecessary and absurd, and 
 unfortunately you have received and read 
 them. I fear that it will give you a false con- 
 ception of my person, as well as of the actual 
 condition of my mental faculties. However, 
 I have faith in your knowledge and in your 
 clear mtellect, gentlemen experts. 
 
 You understand, of course, that only 
 grave reasons could have induced me, Dr. 
 Kerzhentseff, to reveal the entire truth con- 
 cerning the murder of Saveloff. And you 
 will easily understand and appreciate them 
 when I tell you that I do not know even now 
 whether I feigned madness to kill and go un- 
 punished, or killed because I was actually 
 mad; that, probably, I shall never know. 
 The nightmare of that evening is gone, but 
 
A DILEMMA. 89 
 
 it has left in its wake sparks of fire. I have 
 no absurd fears, but I feel the terror of a 
 man who has lost all. I have the cold con- 
 sciousness of the fall of perdition, deceit and 
 insolubility. 
 
 You learned men will argue about me. 
 Some of you will say that I am mad, others 
 will demonstrate that I am normal, and will 
 admit only certain limitations in the name of 
 degeneracy. With all your learning, how- 
 ever, you cannot demonstrate my madness 
 or my normality as clearly as I can. My 
 mind has returned to me, as you shall be con- 
 vinced. It lacks neither in power nor in 
 keenness. Excellent, energetic thought, giv- 
 ing even its enemies their due ! 
 
 / am mad. Shall I give you reasons ? 
 
 First of all, I will be judged by hereditary 
 influences, those same influences the dis- 
 covery of which rejoiced me so exceedingly 
 when I first conceived my plan. The fits I 
 had in my childhood. . . Guilty, gentlemen. 
 I wished to conceal from you this detail 
 about the fits, and have written that from 
 
90 A DILEMMA. 
 
 childhood on I have enjoyed perfect health. 
 Not that these trifling, short-lived attacks 
 alarmed me to any extent. Candidly, I did 
 not wish to encumber my account with un- 
 important details. Now this detail becomes 
 necessary to a strictly logical structure, and, 
 as you see, I give it unhesitatingly. 
 
 Therefore, hereditary influences and the 
 attacks testify to my susceptibility to 
 psychic illness. It began, unknown to my- 
 self, considerably prior to my plan. Domi- 
 nating, however, as all madmen, with an 
 unconscious cunning and a faculty to con- 
 form insane acts to norms of sober reflection, 
 I began to deceive, not others, as I had 
 thought, but myself. Borne along by a 
 strange power, I made it appear that I went 
 of my own accord. One can finish the model 
 from the remaining evidence as from wax. 
 You will agree with me. 
 
 It is not worth while to show that I did 
 not love Tatiana Nikolayevna — that a true 
 motive for the crime did not exist, but was 
 invented. Whether in the strangeness of my 
 
A DILEMMA. 91 
 
 plan, in the cold-bloodedness of its execu- 
 tion, or in the attention to the innumerable 
 details, one may detect easily the same unrea- 
 soning will. The very cunning and develop- 
 ment of my thought preceding the crime 
 demonstrate my abnormality. 
 
 " Wounded, death awaiting, in the arena I played. 
 The dying gladiator enacting. . ." 
 
 Not a single detail out of my life did I 
 leave unrevealed. I searched through my 
 entire life. I gave the aspect of madness to 
 all my steps, to all my words; and in each 
 case I made the mood fit the word and the 
 thought. It seems, and this is the most 
 astonishing thing of all, that even until to- 
 night I have entertained the thought: per- 
 haps I am actually mad. Yet somehow or 
 other I have avoided the thought and ig- 
 nored it. 
 
 While demonstrating my madness do you 
 know what I have perceived? That / am 
 not mad — that is what I have perceived. I 
 will explain. 
 
92 A DILEMMA. 
 
 The leading fact behind my hereditary im- 
 pulses and my fits is degeneracy. I am of the 
 degenerate, whose like can be found in large 
 numbers if only sought for more diligently, 
 even amongst you, gentlemen experts. 
 This gives a substantial key to the rest. My 
 moral view^s you may attribute not to con- 
 scious reflection, but to degeneracy. Truly, 
 moral instincts are lodged so deeply that only 
 in some deviation from the normal type is 
 complete freedom from them possible. As to 
 science, it maintains a too bold attitude in 
 its generalizations, relegating all such devi- 
 ations to the domain of degeneracy, even 
 where physically the man may boast of the 
 perfections of an Apollo, or the health of the 
 lowest idiot. So be it. I have nothing 
 against degeneracy — it brings me among ex- 
 cellent company. 
 
 Nor will I defend my motive for the 
 crime. I tell you altogether . candidly that 
 Tatiana Nikolayevna really had wounded me 
 by her laughter, and the offence lodged 
 very deeply, as it happens with hidden, soli- 
 
A DILEMMA. 93 
 
 tary natures such as mine. Suppose this is 
 untrue. Suppose even that I did not love her. 
 Is it not possible to admit that by killing 
 Alexis I simply had attempted to test my 
 powers ? Do you not freely admit the exist- 
 ence of men who, risking their lives, clamber 
 inaccessible summits simply because they 
 are inaccessible ; and yet you do not call them 
 mad ? You dare not pronounce as mad Nan- 
 sen, that mighty man of the expiring cen- 
 tury ! Moral life also has its poles, and one 
 of these I tried to reach. 
 
 You are confused by the absence of jeal- 
 ousy, vengeance, cupidity and similar really 
 stupid motives, which you have become ac- 
 customed to consider as the only ones that 
 are real and normal. Hence, you men of 
 science judge Nansen together with those 
 fools and ignoramuses who even consider his 
 enterprise as madness. 
 
 My plan ... It was unusual, it was orig- 
 inal, it was bold to audacity; but then was 
 it not intelligent from the viewpoint set by 
 my purpose ? It was precisely my inclination 
 
94 A DILEMMA. 
 
 to dissimulation, already explained reason- 
 ably and fully, that inspired the plan. Mad- 
 ness? Is then genius really insanity? 
 Cold-bloodedness ? But is it absolutely nec- 
 essary that a murderer should tremble, grow 
 pale and be agitated? Cowards always 
 tremble, even when embracing their servant- 
 maids. Is then bravery madness? 
 
 How simply my own doubts of my health 
 explain themselves! Like a true artist I 
 threw myself too deeply into my role, identi- 
 fied myself temporarily with the represented 
 character and for a moment lost my aptitude 
 for self-account. Will you say that even 
 in the courts, there is none who, playing 
 among the lawyer-actors, struggling daily 
 Othello, has felt the actual need to slay? 
 
 Sufficiently convincing, isn't it, most 
 learned gentlemen? Do you not experience 
 a strange consciousness of my seeming 
 sanity when I try to prove my madness and 
 the converse feeling of seeming madness — 
 when I try to prove my normality? 
 
 Yes. That is because you do not believe 
 
A DILEMMA. 95 
 
 me. . . I, too, do not believe myself, as I 
 do not know whom in me to believe. 
 Shall it be in thought, dastardly and worth- 
 less — that unfaithful servant who waits 
 upon all? It is good only with which to 
 clean one's boots, and I made it my friend, 
 my god. Off with you from the throne, 
 wretched, impotent thought ! 
 
 What am I then, gentlemen experts — in- 
 sane or not ? 
 
 Masha, charming woman, you know some- 
 thing that I do not know. Tell me, of whom 
 shall I seek help ? 
 
 I know your answer, Masha. No, I don't 
 mean that. You are a good and gracious 
 woman, Masha, but you know neither 
 physics nor chemistry. Not once have you 
 been to the theatre, and, busily bent upon 
 your daily tasks, you do not so much as sus- 
 pect that the object upon which you live 
 twirls. It twirls, Masha, it twirls, and we 
 twirl with it. You are a child, Masha, a 
 dull-witted creature, almost a plant, and I 
 7 
 
96 A DILEMMA. 
 
 envy you exceedingly, nearly as much as I 
 contemn you. 
 
 No, Masha, not you shall answer me. It 
 is untrue; you do not know anything. 
 Within one of the dark chambers of your 
 ingenuous domicile lives something very 
 useful to you, but in my house this chamber 
 is empty. That something which had lived 
 there died long ago, and on its grave I have 
 erected a magnificent monument. It died, 
 Masha, died, without hope of resurrection. 
 
 What am I then, gentlemen experts, in- 
 sane or not ? Pardon me if I, with such rude 
 persistence, dog you with this question ; but 
 then you are "men of science," as my father 
 called you when he wished to flatter you ; you 
 possess books and you dominate with clear, 
 precise and infallible human thought. It is 
 likely that half of you will maintain one 
 opinion, the other half of you will maintain 
 another ; but I will believe you, learned gen- 
 temen, believe the one and the other. Tell 
 me, then . . . and to assist your enlightened 
 minds I will reveal an interesting little fact. 
 
A DILEMMA. 97 
 
 During one calm and peaceful evening 
 passed between these white walls I observed 
 that Masha's countenance, each time it met 
 my eyes, expressed fear, confusion and a sub- 
 jection to something irresistible and terrible. 
 Presently she departed, and I sat on the 
 made bed and continued to think about one 
 thing and another. And I yearned to do 
 strange- things. I, Dr. Kerzhentseff, wished 
 to howl. Not shout, but howl, like that fel- 
 low. I wished to tear my clothes and to 
 scratch myself with my nails. I wished to 
 seize my shirt at the collar, and at the start 
 go slowly, slowly, and then tear it asunder, 
 with one quick jerk, to the very bottom. And 
 I, Dr. Kerzhentseff, wished to go down on 
 all fours and crawl. All around was calm, 
 and the snow beat against the window, and 
 somewhere not far off silently prayed 
 Masha. And I reflected long upon what to 
 do. If I should howl I would be heard, and 
 trouble would ensue. If I should tear my 
 shirt it would be noticed on the morrow. So 
 very shrewdly I chose the third: I would 
 
98 A DILEMMA. 
 
 crawl. No one could hear me, and if caught 
 I would say that a button came off and I was 
 looking for it. 
 
 As long as I tried to hit upon a choice the 
 feeling was thst of contentment ; it was not 
 at all terrible, it was even pleasant; so that 
 I recall I dangled my foot. Presently I re- 
 flected : 
 
 "But why crawl? Am I really insane?" 
 
 All at once a terrible feeling came upon 
 me, and simultaneously I wished to do all: 
 crawl, howl, scratch. And I became angry. 
 
 "Do you wish to crawl ?" asked I. But it 
 was silent. The desire was gone. 
 
 "No, you do wish to crawl," insisted I. 
 And it was silent. 
 
 "Well, crawl then!" 
 
 So, tucking up my sleeves, I went down 
 on my fours and crawled. And when I had 
 traversed about half of the room in this 
 manner, the absurdity of it aroused my 
 risibility, so I sat me down on the floor and 
 laughed, laughed, laughed. 
 
 With my habitual and unextinguished 
 
^ A DILEMMA. 99 
 
 faith in the possibilities of knowledge, I 
 thought that I had discovered the source of 
 my insane desires. Evidently the desire to 
 crawl, as well as other desires, were the re- 
 sult of auto-suggestion. The persistent 
 thought that I was a madman had called 
 forth the insane desires, and as soon as I 
 had gratified them it seemed that such de- 
 sires were absent and I was not insane. The 
 argument, as you see, is very simple and logi- 
 cal. But . . . 
 
 But then I did crawl? I did crawl? What 
 am I — a madman justifying himself, or a 
 normal man leading himself out of his mind? 
 
 So help me, oh, erudite men! Let your 
 authoritative word incline the scales to one 
 side or the other and solve this terrible, fero- 
 cious dilemma. And so I wait! . . . 
 
 Vainly I wait. Oh, my dear dull-heads — 
 are you not I ? Does not the same dastardly 
 human thought, ever lying, treacherous, illu- 
 sory, labor within your bald heads as within 
 mine? And wherein is mine inferior to 
 yours? If you should venture to prove me 
 
loo A DILEMMA. 
 
 insane, I shall prove to you that I am nor- 
 mal ; if you should try to prove me normal, I 
 shall prove to you that I am insane. You 
 will say that it is forbidden to steal, kill and 
 deceive because it is immoral and criminal, 
 and I will demonstrate that one may kill and 
 plunder and that it is very moral. And you 
 will think and speak, and I will think and 
 speak, and we all shall be right, and none of 
 us shall be right. Where is the judge who 
 can decide between us and find the truth ? 
 
 You have one formidable advantage which 
 confers upon you the possession of truth: 
 you did not commit a crime, you are not 
 under judgment, and you have been invited, 
 with substantial fees, to investigate my 
 psychic condition. Ergo, I am insane. On 
 the other hand, if you had been placed in 
 confinement here, Professor Derzhembitzky, 
 and I had been invited to observe you, then 
 you would have been the madman and I the 
 privileged bird — an expert, a liar, who dif- 
 fers from other liars only in that he lies not 
 otherwise than under oath. 
 
A DILEMMA. loi 
 
 It is true, you have killed no one, have not 
 stolen for the sake of stealing ; and when you 
 hire a cabby you consider it obligatory to 
 haggle him out of a small coin, which dem- 
 onstrates your spiritual health. You are not 
 insane. However, something might happen, 
 altogether unexpectedly. . . 
 
 Suddenly on the morrow, now, this mo- 
 ment, after you had read these lines, there 
 comes into your head a stupid, but unwary 
 thought : Perhaps I am insane ? What will 
 be your position then, professor? What a 
 stupid, absurd thought — what reason is there 
 to go out of one's mind ? But try if you will 
 to banish it. You have drank milk and 
 thought it pure until someone said that it was 
 mixed with water. Then an end — ^no more 
 pure milk. 
 
 You are insane. Have you no desire to 
 crawl on all-fours? Of course, you have 
 none. What normal man wants to crawl? 
 Well, for all that? ... are you not dis- 
 turbed by the appearance of just a slight 
 desire, altogether slight, altogether trifling, 
 
102 A DILEMMA. 
 
 mirth-provoking, to glide off the chair, 
 and to crawl a little, just a little? Of 
 course, no such desire appears. Whence 
 could it appear within a normal man, 
 who only a moment ago drank tea and 
 chatted with his wife? Yet, do you not 
 experience a something unusual in your legs, 
 though previously you had not experienced 
 it, and a strange feeling in your knees: a 
 heavy numbness wrestling with the desire to 
 bend the knees, and then . . . And actually, 
 Professor Derzhemhitzky, is there anyone to 
 restrain you if you wish to crawl a bit? 
 
 No one. 
 
 But don't crawl yet for a little while. I 
 need you still. My battle is not yet ended. 
 
VIII. 
 
 One of the manifestations of the paradoxi- 
 calness of my nature is that I exceedingly 
 love children, altogether small children, just 
 when they are beginning to lisp and resemble 
 all tiny animals: pups, kittens and diminu- 
 tive snakes. Even snakes can be attractive 
 when young. One serene, sunny day in au- 
 tumn, I witnessed the following little scene : 
 A very small girl, in a wadded overcoat and 
 a broad-brimmed bonnet, from under which 
 were visible only her rosy cheeks and her 
 little nose, wished to approach a very little, 
 thin-limbed, slender-headed dog, standing 
 tremblingly with its tail between its legs. 
 And suddenly the tot became scared, turned 
 on her heels, and, looking like a little white 
 ball, scampered over to her nurse, in whose 
 lap she hid her face, making no outcry and 
 shedding no tears. As to the pup, it blinked 
 103 
 
I04 A DILEMMA. 
 
 affectionately and bent its tail as if fright- 
 ened, while the face of the nurse seemed so 
 good and simple. 
 
 "Do not fear," said the nurse, as she 
 looked smilingly at me, and her face seemed 
 so good and simple, 
 
 I do not know why, but I have recalled 
 often the little maiden, while yet free, while 
 planning the murder, and here. Gazing 
 upon that lovely group, under the bright 
 autumn sun, I experienced the strange feel- 
 ing of one who possessed the solution to 
 something, and my projected murder seemed 
 to me like a cold lie from out of another, alto- 
 gether different world. That both of them, 
 the little girl and the little dog, were so small 
 and lovely, and that they laughably feared 
 each other, and that the sun shone so brightly 
 — all was so simple and full of benign and 
 deep wisdom, as if namely here, in this group, 
 was located the key to existence. Such was 
 the feeling I experienced. And I said to 
 myself : "I shall have to think about this'* — 
 but I thought about it no more. 
 
A DILEMMA. 105 
 
 I do not remember now the meaning of the 
 incident ; painfully I try to grasp it, but can- 
 not. Nor do I know why I have related this 
 amusing and unnecessary tale, when I have 
 so much that is more serious and important 
 to tell. It is urgent that I should finish. 
 
 The dead we will permit to rest in peace. 
 Alexis is dead ; it is a long time since he be- 
 gan to decompose ; he is no more — the devil 
 with him! There is something pleasant in 
 being dead. 
 
 Nor will we speak of Tatiana Nikolay- 
 evna. She is unhappy, and I eagerly join in 
 the general sympathy; but what is her un- 
 happiness and all the unhappiness of the 
 earth compared with that which I, Dr. Kerz- 
 hentseff , am living through now ! Not a few 
 wives in the world lose their beloved hus- 
 bands, and more husbands remain to be lost ! 
 We will leave them — let them weep ! 
 
 But here, within this head . . . 
 
 You comprehend, gentlemen experts, the 
 terrible happening. I loved no one on earth 
 except myself, and it was not the vile body, 
 
io6 A DILEMMA. 
 
 loved by the vulgar, that I loved in myself — 
 I loved my human thought, my freedom. I 
 never have known anything surpassing my 
 thought ; I worshipped it — and did it not de- 
 serve it? Did it not, like a giant, wrestle 
 with the entire world and its delusions? It 
 lifted me upon the summit of a high moun- 
 tain, and I saw how far below me swarmed 
 little people with their animal passions, with 
 their eternal dread of life and death, with 
 their churches, liturgies and prayers. 
 
 How mighty I felt, how free, how happy ! 
 Like a medieval baron secluded in his im- 
 pregnable castle, truly an eagle in his nest, 
 proudly and imperiously surveying the val- 
 leys below — so I was, invincible and proud 
 in my castle, behind these bones of the 
 cranium. A lord over myself, I also was a 
 lord over the world. 
 
 / have been betrayed — ^basiely, insidi- 
 ously; thus women betray, and slaves — 
 and thought. My castle became my prison. 
 My enemies fell upon me in my castle — 
 where's salvation ? In the irnpregnability of 
 
A DILEMMA. 107 
 
 the castle, in the thickness of its walls is 
 my perdition. My voice cannot penetrate 
 outside, and who is so strong as to save me? 
 No one. For none is stronger than I — and 
 I am the sole enemy of my "I." 
 
 Base thought has betrayed me who so in- 
 tensely believed in thought and loved it. It 
 has not lost in beauty; it is not a whit less 
 bright, keen or elastic — it is still like a rapier, 
 but its hilt is no longer in my hand. And it 
 is slaying me, its creator, its lord, with the 
 same stolid indifference with which I once 
 employed it to slay others. 
 
 Night comes on and I am seized with un- 
 speakable terror. I was strong and my feet 
 stood firmly upon the earth, and now I am 
 thrown into the emptiness of boundless 
 space. Exceeding great and terrible is my 
 solitude — ^behind me, before me and around 
 me a yawning emptiness. It is the fearful 
 loneliness of one who lives, feels and thinks, 
 and is incomprehensibly alone; how small I 
 seem, absurdly null, and so weak that I ex- 
 pect to be extinguished any moment. It is an 
 
io8 A DILEMMA. 
 
 ill-boding solitude ; in myself I constitute but 
 an infinitesimal part ; within myself I am sur- 
 rounded and suffocated by enemies, morosely 
 silent and mysterious. Whither I go they go 
 with me; I am solitary midst a vast empti- 
 ness, and cannot confide in myself. It is the 
 solitude of madness, and I have no means of 
 knowing who I am, because my lips, my 
 mind, my voice, are all given to utter the 
 thoughts of the unknown they. 
 
 One cannot live thus. Meanwhile the 
 world slumbers and husbands kiss their 
 wives and learned men read their lectures, 
 and the beggar rejoices in the penny thrown 
 his way. Oh, stupid world, happy in thy 
 stupidity, terrible will be thy awakening! 
 
 Who amongst the strong shall come to my 
 aid ? None ! None ! Where shall I seek that 
 eternal something to which I may cling with 
 my piteous, powerless, awesomely solitary 
 "I?" Nowhere! Nowhere! Oh, dear, dear 
 little girl, why is it that towards thee I 
 stretch my blood-stained hands? Art thou 
 not human like myself, and equally insignifi- 
 
A DILEMMA. 109 
 
 cant and lonely and subject to death? Is it 
 that I pity thee or that I invite thy pity ; but 
 I would, as behind a shield, hide me behind 
 thy helpless little body, from the hopeless 
 void of ages and space. But no, no, it is all 
 a lie! 
 
 I will ask you, gentlemen experts, to con- 
 fer upon me a great and important service, 
 and if you are possessed even of a little hu- 
 manity you cannot refuse me. I trust we 
 understand each other sufificiently not to be- 
 lieve each other. And if I should request 
 you to say in court that I am in a normal 
 state least of all shall I believe you. You 
 may decide for yourselves, but no one can 
 decide for me the question : 
 
 Did I simulate madness in order to slay, 
 or did I slay because I was mad? 
 
 But the judges will believe you and sen- 
 tence me to that which I wish : hard labor.* 
 Please do not place a false construction upon 
 my intentions. I do not repent of slaying 
 
 * Murder is punishable in Russia by penal servitude. Only where 
 the crime perpetrated inrolves military treason, or has a political 
 aspect, is capital punishment resorted to. 
 
no A DILEMMA. 
 
 Saveloff ; I do not seek in punishment an ex- 
 piation of sin; and if it is essential that in 
 order to demonstrate my well-being I should 
 kill someone, presumably for plunder, I 
 shall kill and plunder with pleasure. But in 
 penal servitude I seek something else, I my- 
 self do not know what. 
 
 I am being drawn toward these people by 
 a vague hope, that in their midst, among 
 violators of your laws — ^murderers and 
 thieves — I shall find unknown sources of 
 life and once again be on terms of friendli- 
 ness with myself. 
 
 Supposing that -I am doomed to disap- 
 pointment, that hope should deceive me — I 
 still desire to be with them. Oh, I know you 
 well ! You are cowards and hypocrites ; your 
 peace of mind is your first concern, and you 
 would gladly confine in the insane asylum 
 every thief who has stolen a loaf of bread — 
 in your overzealousness you would acknowl- 
 edge yourself as madmen rather than 
 disturb your pet theories. I know you 
 well. The criminal and the crime — ^that is 
 
A DILEMMA. iii 
 
 your perpetual anxiety; that is the terrible 
 voice coming from an unknown abyss; that 
 is the inexorable condemnation of your wise 
 and moral life, and howsoever you wad your 
 ears with cotton that voice penetrates — it 
 penetrates! And I wish to go to them. I, 
 Dr. Kerzhentseff, wish to take a place in the 
 ranks of this much-dreaded army — as an 
 eternal reproach, as one who asks and awaits 
 an answer. 
 
 I do not cringe before you, but I demand 
 that you report me as in normal health. Lie, 
 if you do not believe it. However, if you 
 pusillanimously wash your learned hands 
 and sentence me to the insane asylum, or 
 open the doors to freedom, I forewarn you 
 in a friendly way that I'll commit some con- 
 siderable unpleasantries. 
 
 I acknowledge no judge, no law, no for- 
 bidden thing. All is permissible. Can you 
 imagine a world, having no laws of gravita- 
 tion, having no above nor below, in which 
 everything is a matter of whim and chance? 
 
 I, Dr. Kerzhentseff, am that new world. -AH 
 8 
 
112 A DILEMMA. 
 
 is permissible. And I, Dr. Kerzhentseff, 
 shall prove that. I will simulate normality. 
 I will attain freedom. I will spend the re- 
 mainder of my life in learning. I will sur- 
 round me with your books, I will take from 
 you all the might of your knowledge, of 
 which you are so proud, and will seek the one 
 thjng of which the world has stood in need 
 for so long a time. That will be the explosive 
 essence. The equal of its force has not been 
 seen: it is more powerful than dynamite, 
 than nitroglycerine, more powerful than the 
 very thought of it. I possess talent, I am per- 
 sistent, I will find it. And when I do find it, 
 I shall scatter in the air your accursed earth, 
 which has so many gods and not ane eternal 
 God. 
 
 Upon his appearance in the court room, 
 Dr. Kerzhentseff maintained a very calm 
 demeanor, and remained during the entire 
 proceedings in one and the same non-ex- 
 pressive attitude. He replied to questions 
 indifferently and impassively, occasionally 
 
A DILEMMA. 113 
 
 calling for their repetition. Once he aroused 
 the mirth of the select public that crowded 
 the court room in large numbers. It was 
 when the presiding judge turned with some 
 order to the usher, and the accused, evidently 
 not having heard or because of abstraction, 
 arose and asked loudly : 
 
 "What? You tell me to go?" 
 
 ■"Go where ?" asked the astonished presid- 
 ing official. 
 
 "I don't know. I thought you said some- 
 thing." 
 
 The crowd laughed, and the presiding 
 judge explained to Kerzhentseff what was 
 the matter. 
 
 Four expert psychiatrists were called to 
 the stand, and their opinions were equally 
 divided. After the speech of the district at- 
 torney, the presiding judge turned to the 
 accused, who had refused to accept the ser- 
 vices of an attorney. 
 
 "Accused, what have you to say in your 
 justification ?" 
 
 Dr. Kerzhentseff arose. He slowly sur- 
 
114 A DILEMMA. 
 
 veyed the judges with his dull, unseeing-like 
 eyes and glanced at the public. And those 
 upon whom fell that heavy, unseeing gaze 
 experienced a strange and painful sensation : 
 it was as if out of the hollow orbs of a skull 
 there had glanced upon them nothing less 
 than death itself, mute and impassive. 
 
 "Nothing !" replied the accused. 
 
 Having cast another look upon the people 
 gathered in judgment upon him, he repeated: 
 
 "Nothing!" 
 
SILENCE 
 
 BY LEONIDAS ANDREIYEFF 
 
 Translated from the Russian by John Cournos 
 
 Printed in Large, Clear Type and Bound in Gray Bcmrdi, 
 with Paper Label 
 
 Price, postpaid - - 25 Cents 
 
 Silence is overflowing with the intensity and the 
 pent-up force of human misery. The story is not to 
 be readily disposed of with a few cursory notes of 
 comment. Though brief, it is significant of its 
 author's remarkable powers, the powers that the 
 Russians alone possess. — Boston Evening Tran- 
 script. 
 
 ... It is a wonderful word-painting of a silent 
 horror indescribably treated with the pen of an im- 
 pressionist, guided by the soul of a great artist. 
 . . . The artistry of the few pages is so strong that 
 the madness of it pursues the reader many hours 
 after the little book has been laid down and closed. — 
 Public Ledger, Philadelphia. 
 
 It is certainly poetry and literature — The New 
 York Sun. 
 
 BROWN BROTHERS, Publishers 
 
 N. B. Cor. Fifth and Pine Streets, Philadelphia 
 
THE ilKENINC OF SPRING 
 
 A Tragedy of Childhood 
 BY FRANK WEDEKIND 
 
 Translated from the German by Francis J. Zlegler 
 CLOTH, GILT TOP, DECKLE EDQE 
 
 $1.25 net. - - Postage, 10 cents 
 A BOOK for PARENTS and EDUCATORS 
 
 For the same reason that admirers of Maeterlinck no longer hail 
 him as the new Shakespeare, German enthusiasts will cease to 
 apply the title to Frank Wedekind. They will come to realize 
 that comparisons with the highest are no less odious than others, 
 and that their author has qualities sufficiently distinctive and re- 
 markable to stand by themselves. . . . All who are interested in 
 having the physiology of sex taught in schools will find beneath its 
 pessimism a fund of truth forcefully presented. Viewed as litera- 
 ture, it is, as the translator observes, full of gruesome situations; 
 but if the author's fancy occasionally runs riot in a gothic night- 
 mare of horrors, he has gleams of grim humor, and the play, once 
 read, can never be forgotten. -^fifara Franciico Chronicle, 
 
 "The Awakening of Spring" has much of a grim simplicity, 
 beside which Ibsen's "Ghosts" seems tame. In a series of dis- 
 connected scenes, and with harrowing climaxes purely mental in 
 their action, Wedekind handles the psychology of adolescence and 
 what comes of parents' failure to take cognizance of it. He 
 preaches what is nowadays preached by advanced students of social 
 hygiene, the sinfulness of allowing children to grow up in igno- 
 rance of the most vital fact of life, . . . Overfond of the ghastly, 
 Wedekind is yet an original who must be heard. — Boston Daily 
 Advertiser. 
 
 BROWN BROTHERS, Publishers 
 
 N. E. Cor. Fifth and Pine Streets, Philadelphia 
 
SWANWHITE 
 
 A FAIRY DRAMA 
 
 By AUGUST STRINDBERQ 
 
 TRANSLATED BT FRANCIS J. ZIEGLEB 
 
 Printed on Deckle Edge Paper and Attractively 
 Bound in Cloth 
 
 $i.oo net - - Postage, 8 cents 
 
 A poetic idyl which is charming in its sweet 
 purity, delightful in its optimism, elusive in its com- 
 plete symbolism, but wholesome in its message that 
 pure love can conquer evil. So out of the cold 
 North, out of the mouth of the world's most terri- 
 ble misogynists, comes a strange message, one which 
 is as sweet as it is unxepected. And August Strind- 
 berg, the enemy of love, sings that pure love is all- 
 powerful and all-conquering. — Springfield, Mass., 
 Republican. 
 
 It is worth while to have all of the plays of such 
 a great dramatist in our English tongue. Since the 
 death of Ibsen he is the chief of the Scandinavians. 
 . . . The publishers deserve thanks and support for 
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 just such an edition of contemporary foreign 
 plays. . . — The Sun, Baltimore. 
 
 An idyllic play filled with romantic machinery 
 of the Northern fairy tales and legends. . . It be- 
 longs to a class by itself. . . — Philadelphia Record. 
 
 BROWN BROTHERS, Publishers 
 
 N. E. Cor. Fifth and Pine Streets, Philadelphia