PART I // chapter 6-6

[모나리자]

계단을 떠나기도 전에 사소한 일이 그의 계산을 뒤엎었다. 여주인의 주방에 도착했을 때, 여주인의 주방 문은 평소처럼 열려 있었고, 나스타샤가 없는 사이에 여주인이 있는지, 아니면 여주인 방 문이 닫혀 있는지 조심스럽게 들여다보았다. 도끼를 찾으러 들어갔을 때 그녀가 밖을 엿보지 못하도록 말이다. 하지만 나스타샤가 주방에 있을 뿐만 아니라, 바구니에서 린넨을 꺼내 줄에 걸어놓고 있는 것을 갑자기 보고는 얼마나 놀랐을까.

그를 보고, 그녀는 옷을 걸어두는 것을 멈추고, 그에게 돌아서서 그가 지나가는 내내 그를 응시했다. 그는 눈을 돌리고 아무것도 보지 못한 듯 지나갔다. 하지만 모든 것이 끝났다. 도끼가 없었다! 그는 압도당했다. "내가 생각한 게 뭐였지?" 그는 관문 아래로 들어가면서 생각했다. "그녀가 그 순간 집에 없을 거라고 생각한 게 뭐였지! 왜, 왜, 왜 그렇게 확신했을까?" 그는 무너지고 심지어 굴욕을 당했다. 그는 분노에 스스로를 비웃을 수도 있었다.... 둔탁한 동물적 분노가 그의 안에서 끓어올랐다.

그는 관문에서 주저하며 서 있었다. 거리로 나가고, 겉모습을 위해 산책하는 것은 역겹고, 방으로 돌아가는 것은 더욱 역겹다. "그리고 영원히 놓친 기회!" 그는 관문에 아무 생각 없이 서서 중얼거렸다. 문지기의 작고 어두운 방 바로 맞은편에 서 있었는데, 방도 열려 있었다. 그는 갑자기 움직였다. 그에게서 두 걸음 떨어진 문지기의 방에서 오른쪽 벤치 아래에서 빛나는 무언가가 그의 눈을 사로잡았다... 그는 주변을 둘러보았다. 아무도 없었다. 그는 발끝으로 방에 다가가 두 걸음을 내려가서 희미한 목소리로 문지기에게 전화를 걸었다.

"그래, 집에서는 안 돼!" 하지만 가까운 곳, 마당에, 문이 활짝 열려 있으니까요." 그는 도끼로 달려가(도끼였습니다) 벤치 밑에서 꺼냈습니다. 도끼는 두 개의 나무 조각 사이에 놓여 있었습니다. 그는 나가기 전에 즉시 올가미에 고정하고 두 손을 주머니에 넣고 방에서 나갔습니다. 아무도 그를 눈치채지 못했습니다! "이성이 실패하면 악마가 도와준다!" 그는 이상한 미소를 지으며 생각했습니다. 이 기회는 그의 기분을 엄청나게 끌어올렸습니다.

그는 의심을 불러일으키지 않기 위해 서두르지 않고 조용하고 차분하게 걸어갔습니다. 그는 지나가는 사람들을 거의 보지 않고, 그들의 얼굴을 전혀 보지 않으려고 노력했으며, 가능한 한 눈에 띄지 않으려고 노력했습니다. 갑자기 그는 모자를 생각했습니다.

"맙소사! 어제만 해도 돈이 있었는데 대신 쓸 모자를 사지 않았네요!" 그의 영혼 깊은 곳에서 저주가 솟아올랐습니다. 그는 눈꼬치로 가게를 들여다보았고, 벽에 걸린 시계로 7시 10분을 훌쩍 넘겼다. 그는 서둘러야 했고, 동시에 어딘가로 돌아가서 반대편에서 집으로 접근해야 했다... 그가 이 모든 것을 미리 상상했을 때, 그는 때때로 자신이 매우 두려울 것이라고 생각했다. 하지만 그는 지금은 그다지 두렵지 않았고, 사실 전혀 두렵지 않았다.

그의 마음은 중요하지 않은 일들로 가득했지만, 오래도록 아무것도 없었다. 그는 유수포프 정원을 지나가면서 거대한 분수를 짓는 것과 그것이 모든 광장의 분위기에 미치는 상쾌한 효과에 대해 깊이 생각했다. 그는 점차 여름 정원을 화성까지 확장하고, 아마도 미하일로프스키 궁전의 정원과 합치면 훌륭한 일이 될 것이고 마을에 큰 이익이 될 것이라는 확신에 이르렀다.

그러자 그는 모든 대도시에서 사람들이 단순히 필요에 의해 움직이는 것이 아니라, 어떤 기이한 방식으로 정원이나 분수가 없는 지역에 살고 싶어 하는 이유가 무엇인지에 관심을 가졌다. 가장 더럽고 냄새나고 온갖 더러운 것들이 있는 곳 말이다. 그러자 헤이 마켓을 거닐던 자신의 모습이 떠올랐고, 잠시 현실을 깨달았다.

"이게 무슨 헛소리야!" 그는 생각했다. "아무 생각도 하지 않는 게 낫겠어!" "그래서 사람들은 길에서 마주치는 모든 물체를 정신적으로 붙잡고 처형당하는 모양이구나." 그의 머릿속에 번쩍였지만, 번개처럼 번쩍였다. 그는 서둘러 이 생각을 떨쳐버렸다.... 그리고 지금쯤 그는 가까이 있었다. 여기가 집이고, 여기가 문이었다. 갑자기 어딘가에서 시계가 한 번 울렸다.

"뭐야! 일곱 시 반이었어? 불가능해, 빠르겠지!" 다행히도 문에서는 모든 것이 다시 순조롭게 진행되었다. 바로 그 순간, 마치 그의 이익을 위해 그랬던 것처럼, 거대한 건초 마차가 문으로 들어와서, 그가 관문을 지날 때 그를 완전히 가렸고, 마차가 마당으로 들어가기도 전에 그는 순식간에 오른쪽으로 미끄러져 들어갔다.

마차의 반대편에서 그는 소리치고 다투는 소리가 들렸지만, 아무도 그를 알아차리지 못했고, 아무도 그를 만나지 못했다. 그 거대한 사각형 마당을 바라보는 많은 창문이 그 순간에 열려 있었지만, 그는 고개를 들지 않았다. 고개를 들 힘이 없었다. 늙은 여자의 방으로 이어지는 계단이 바로 가까이에 있었고, 관문 바로 오른쪽에 있었다. 그는 이미 계단 위에 있었다....

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One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before he had even left the staircase. When he reached the landlady’s kitchen, the door of which was open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see whether, in Nastasya’s absence, the landlady herself was there, or if not, whether the door to her own room was closed, so that she might not peep out when he went in for the axe. But what was his amazement when he suddenly saw that Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but was occupied there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line.

Seeing him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned to him and stared at him all the time he was passing. He turned away his eyes, and walked past as though he noticed nothing. But it was the end of everything; he had not the axe! He was overwhelmed. “What made me think,” he reflected, as he went under the gateway, “what made me think that she would be sure not to be at home at that moment! Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly?” He was crushed and even humiliated. He could have laughed at himself in his anger.... A dull animal rage boiled within him.

He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the street, to go a walk for appearance’ sake was revolting; to go back to his room, even more revolting. “And what a chance I have lost for ever!” he muttered, standing aimlessly in the gateway, just opposite the porter’s little dark room, which was also open. Suddenly he started. From the porter’s room, two paces away from him, something shining under the bench to the right caught his eye.... He looked about him—nobody. He approached the room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a faint voice called the porter.

“Yes, not at home! Somewhere near though, in the yard, for the door is wide open.” He dashed to the axe (it was an axe) and pulled it out from under the bench, where it lay between two chunks of wood; at once, before going out, he made it fast in the noose, he thrust both hands into his pockets and went out of the room; no one had noticed him! “When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought with a strange grin. This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily.

He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passers-by, tried to escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible. Suddenly he thought of his hat.

“Good heavens! I had the money the day before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!” A curse rose from the bottom of his soul. Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by a clock on the wall that it was ten minutes past seven. He had to make haste and at the same time to go someway round, so as to approach the house from the other side.... When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he had sometimes thought that he would be very much afraid. But he was not very much afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed.

His mind was even occupied by irrelevant matters, but by nothing for long. As he passed the Yusupov garden, he was deeply absorbed in considering the building of great fountains, and of their refreshing effect on the atmosphere in all the squares. By degrees he passed to the conviction that if the summer garden were extended to the field of Mars, and perhaps joined to the garden of the Mihailovsky Palace, it would be a splendid thing and a great benefit to the town.

Then he was interested by the question why in all great towns men are not simply driven by necessity, but in some peculiar way inclined to live in those parts of the town where there are no gardens nor fountains; where there is most dirt and smell and all sorts of nastiness. Then his own walks through the Hay Market came back to his mind, and for a moment he waked up to reality.

“What nonsense!” he thought, “better think of nothing at all!” “So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at every object that meets them on the way,” flashed through his mind, but simply flashed, like lightning; he made haste to dismiss this thought.... And by now he was near; here was the house, here was the gate. Suddenly a clock somewhere struck once.

“What! can it be half-past seven? Impossible, it must be fast!” Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates. At that very moment, as though expressly for his benefit, a huge waggon of hay had just driven in at the gate, completely screening him as he passed under the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had time to drive through into the yard, before he had slipped in a flash to the right.

On the other side of the waggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling; but no one noticed him and no one met him. Many windows looking into that huge quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his head—he had not the strength to. The staircase leading to the old woman’s room was close by, just on the right of the gateway. He was already on the stairs....