Chapter Chapter 3 · THIRD NIGHT

. THIRD NIGHT

To-day was a gloomy, rainy day without a glimmer of sunlight, like the

old age before me. I am oppressed by such strange thoughts, such gloomy

sensations; questions still so obscure to me are crowding into my

brain--and I seem to have neither power nor will to settle them. It's

not for me to settle all this!

To-day we shall not meet. Yesterday, when we said good-bye, the clouds

began gathering over the sky and a mist rose. I said that to-morrow it

would be a bad day; she made no answer, she did not want to speak

against her wishes; for her that day was bright and clear, not one cloud

should obscure her happiness.

"If it rains we shall not see each other," she said, "I shall not come."

I thought that she would not notice to-day's rain, and yet she has not

come.

Yesterday was our third interview, our third white night....

But how fine joy and happiness makes any one! How brimming over with

love the heart is! One seems longing to pour out one's whole heart; one

wants everything to be gay, everything to be laughing. And how

infectious that joy is! There was such a softness in her words, such a

kindly feeling in her heart towards me yesterday.... How solicitous and

friendly she was; how tenderly she tried to give me courage! Oh, the

coquetry of happiness! While I ... I took it all for the genuine thing,

I thought that she....

But, my God, how could I have thought it? How could I have been so

blind, when everything had been taken by another already, when nothing

was mine; when, in fact, her very tenderness to me, her anxiety, her

love ... yes, love for me, was nothing else but joy at the thought of

seeing another man so soon, desire to include me, too, in her

happiness?... When he did not come, when we waited in vain, she frowned,

she grew timid and discouraged. Her movements, her words, were no longer

so light, so playful, so gay; and, strange to say, she redoubled her

attentiveness to me, as though instinctively desiring to lavish on me

what she desired for herself so anxiously, if her wishes were not

accomplished. My Nastenka was so downcast, so dismayed, that I think she

realized at last that I loved her, and was sorry for my poor love. So

when we are unhappy we feel the unhappiness of others more; feeling is

not destroyed but concentrated....

I went to meet her with a full heart, and was all impatience. I had no

presentiment that I should feel as I do now, that it would not all end

happily. She was beaming with pleasure; she was expecting an answer. The

answer was himself. He was to come, to run at her call. She arrived a

whole hour before I did. At first she giggled at everything, laughed at

every word I said. I began talking, but relapsed into silence.

"Do you know why I am so glad," she said, "so glad to look at you?--why

I like you so much to-day?"

"Well?" I asked, and my heart began throbbing.

"I like you because you have not fallen in love with me. You know that

some men in your place would have been pestering and worrying me, would

have been sighing and miserable, while you are so nice!"

Then she wrung my hand so hard that I almost cried out. She laughed.

"Goodness, what a friend you are!" she began gravely a minute later.

"God sent you to me. What would have happened to me if you had not been

with me now? How disinterested you are! How truly you care for me! When

I am married we will be great friends, more than brother and sister; I

shall care almost as I do for him...."

I felt horribly sad at that moment, yet something like laughter was

stirring in my soul.

"You are very much upset," I said; "you are frightened; you think he

won't come."

"Oh dear!" she answered; "if I were less happy, I believe I should cry

at your lack of faith, at your reproaches. However, you have made me

think and have given me a lot to think about; but I shall think later,

and now I will own that you are right. Yes, I am somehow not myself; I

am all suspense, and feel everything as it were too lightly. But hush!

that's enough about feelings...."

At that moment we heard footsteps, and in the darkness we saw a figure

coming towards us. We both started; she almost cried out; I dropped her

hand and made a movement as though to walk away. But we were mistaken,

it was not he.

"What are you afraid of? Why did you let go of my hand?" she said,

giving it to me again. "Come, what is it? We will meet him together; I

want him to see how fond we are of each other."

"How fond we are of each other!" I cried. ("Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka," I

thought, "how much you have told me in that saying! Such fondness at

_certain_ moments makes the heart cold and the soul heavy. Your hand is

cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!... Oh, how

unbearable a happy person is sometimes! But I could not be angry with

you!")

At last my heart was too full.

"Listen, Nastenka!" I cried. "Do you know how it has been with me all

day."

"Why, how, how? Tell me quickly! Why have you said nothing all this

time?"

"To begin with, Nastenka, when I had carried out all your commissions,

given the letter, gone to see your good friends, then ... then I went

home and went to bed."

"Is that all?" she interrupted, laughing.

"Yes, almost all," I answered restraining myself, for foolish tears were

already starting into my eyes. "I woke an hour before our appointment,

and yet, as it were, I had not been asleep. I don't know what happened

to me. I came to tell you all about it, feeling as though time were

standing still, feeling as though one sensation, one feeling must remain

with me from that time for ever; feeling as though one minute must go on

for all eternity, and as though all life had come to a standstill for

me.... When I woke up it seemed as though some musical motive long

familiar, heard somewhere in the past, forgotten and voluptuously sweet,

had come back to me now. It seemed to me that it had been clamouring at

my heart all my life, and only now...."

"Oh my goodness, my goodness," Nastenka interrupted, "what does all that

mean? I don't understand a word."

"Ah, Nastenka, I wanted somehow to convey to you that strange

impression...." I began in a plaintive voice, in which there still lay

hid a hope, though a very faint one.

"Leave off. Hush!" she said, and in one instant the sly puss had

guessed.

Suddenly she became extraordinarily talkative, gay, mischievous; she

took my arm, laughed, wanted me to laugh too, and every confused word I

uttered evoked from her prolonged ringing laughter.... I began to feel

angry, she had suddenly begun flirting.

"Do you know," she began, "I feel a little vexed that you are not in

love with me? There's no understanding human nature! But all the same,

Mr. Unapproachable, you cannot blame me for being so simple; I tell you

everything, everything, whatever foolish thought comes into my head."

"Listen! That's eleven, I believe," I said as the slow chime of a bell

rang out from a distant tower. She suddenly stopped, left off laughing

and began to count.

"Yes, it's eleven," she said at last in a timid, uncertain voice.

I regretted at once that I had frightened her, making her count the

strokes, and I cursed myself for my spiteful impulse; I felt sorry for

her, and did not know how to atone for what I had done.

I began comforting her, seeking for reasons for his not coming,

advancing various arguments, proofs. No one could have been easier to

deceive than she was at that moment; and, indeed, any one at such a

moment listens gladly to any consolation, whatever it may be, and is

overjoyed if a shadow of excuse can be found.

"And indeed it's an absurd thing," I began, warming to my task and

admiring the extraordinary clearness of my argument, "why, he could not

have come; you have muddled and confused me, Nastenka, so that I too,

have lost count of the time.... Only think: he can scarcely have

received the letter; suppose he is not able to come, suppose he is going

to answer the letter, could not come before to-morrow. I will go for it

as soon as it's light to-morrow and let you know at once. Consider,

there are thousands of possibilities; perhaps he was not at home when

the letter came, and may not have read it even now! Anything may happen,

you know."

"Yes, yes!" said Nastenka. "I did not think of that. Of course anything

may happen?" she went on in a tone that offered no opposition, though

some other far-away thought could be heard like a vexatious discord in

it. "I tell you what you must do," she said, "you go as early as

possible to-morrow morning, and if you get anything let me know at once.

You know where I live, don't you?"

And she began repeating her address to me.

Then she suddenly became so tender, so solicitous with me. She seemed to

listen attentively to what I told her; but when I asked her some

question she was silent, was confused, and turned her head away. I

looked into her eyes--yes, she was crying.

"How can you? How can you? Oh, what a baby you are! what

childishness!... Come, come!"

She tried to smile, to calm herself, but her chin was quivering and her

bosom was still heaving.

"I was thinking about you," she said after a minute's silence. "You are

so kind that I should be a stone if I did not feel it. Do you know what

has occurred to me now? I was comparing you two. Why isn't he you? Why

isn't he like you? He is not as good as you, though I love him more than

you."

I made no answer. She seemed to expect me to say something.

"Of course, it may be that I don't understand him fully yet. You know I

was always as it were afraid of him; he was always so grave, as it were

so proud. Of course I know it's only that he seems like that, I know

there is more tenderness in his heart than in mine.... I remember how he

looked at me when I went in to him--do you remember?--with my bundle;

but yet I respect him too much, and doesn't that show that we are not

equals?"

"No, Nastenka, no," I answered, "it shows that you love him more than

anything in the world, and far more than yourself."

"Yes, supposing that is so," answered Nastenka naïvely. "But do you know

what strikes me now? Only I am not talking about him now, but speaking

generally; all this came into my mind some time ago. Tell me, how is it

that we can't all be like brothers together? Why is it that even the

best of men always seem to hide something from other people and to keep

something back? Why not say straight out what is in one's heart, when

one knows that one is not speaking idly? As it is every one seems

harsher than he really is, as though all were afraid of doing injustice

to their feelings, by being too quick to express them."

"Oh, Nastenka, what you say is true; but there are many reasons for

that," I broke in suppressing my own feelings at that moment more than

ever.

"No, no!" she answered with deep feeling. "Here you, for instance, are

not like other people! I really don't know how to tell you what I feel;

but it seems to me that you, for instance ... at the present moment ...

it seems to me that you are sacrificing something for me," she added

timidly, with a fleeting glance at me. "Forgive me for saying so, I am a

simple girl you know. I have seen very little of life, and I really

sometimes don't know how to say things," she added in a voice that

quivered with some hidden feeling, while she tried to smile; "but I only

wanted to tell you that I am grateful, that I feel it all too.... Oh,

may God give you happiness for it! What you told me about your dreamer

is quite untrue now--that is, I mean, it's not true of you. You are

recovering, you are quite a different man from what you described. If

you ever fall in love with some one, God give you happiness with her! I

won't wish anything for her, for she will be happy with you. I know, I

am a woman myself, so you must believe me when I tell you so."

She ceased speaking, and pressed my hand warmly. I too could not speak

without emotion. Some minutes passed.

"Yes, it's clear he won't come to-night," she said at last raising her

head. "It's late."

"He will come to-morrow," I said in the most firm and convincing tone.

"Yes," she added with no sign of her former depression. "I see for

myself now that he could not come till to-morrow. Well, good-bye, till

to-morrow. If it rains perhaps I shall not come. But the day after

to-morrow, I shall come. I shall come for certain, whatever happens; be

sure to be here, I want to see you, I will tell you everything."

And then when we parted she gave me her hand and said, looking at me

candidly: "We shall always be together, shan't we?"

Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! If only you knew how lonely I am now!

As soon as it struck nine o'clock I could not stay indoors, but put on

my things, and went out in spite of the weather. I was there, sitting on

our seat. I went to her street, but I felt ashamed, and turned back

without looking at their windows, when I was two steps from her door. I

went home more depressed than I had ever been before. What a damp,

dreary day! If it had been fine I should have walked about all night....

But to-morrow, to-morrow! To-morrow she will tell me everything. The

letter has not come to-day, however. But that was to be expected. They

are together by now....