บทที่ บทที่ 2 · A CORRESPONDENCE

. A CORRESPONDENCE

(1855)

Several years ago I was in Dresden. I stopped in the hotel. As I was

running about the town from early morning until late at night, I did not

consider it necessary to make acquaintance with my neighbours; at last,

accidentally, it came to my knowledge that there was a sick Russian in

the house. I went to him, and found a man in the last stage of

consumption. Dresden was beginning to pall upon me; I settled down with

my new acquaintance. It is wearisome to sit with an invalid, but even

boredom is agreeable sometimes; moreover, my invalid was not dejected,

and liked to chat. We endeavoured, in every way, to kill time: we played

“fool” together, we jeered at the doctor. My compatriot narrated to that

very bald German divers fictions about his own condition, which the

doctor always “had long foreseen”; he mimicked him when he was surprised

at any unprecedented attack, flung his medicine out of the window and so

forth.

Nevertheless I repeatedly remarked to my friend that it would not be a

bad idea to send for a good physician before it was too late, that his

malady was not to be jested with, and so forth. But Alexyéi (my

acquaintance’s name was Alexyéi Petróvitch S***) put me off every time

with jests about all doctors in general, and his own in particular, and

at last, one stormy autumn evening, to my importunate entreaties, he

replied with such a dejected glance, he shook his head so sadly, and

smiled so strangely, that I felt a certain surprise. That same night

Alexyéi grew worse, and on the following day he died. Just before his

death his customary cheerfulness deserted him: he tossed uneasily in the

bed, sighed, gazed anxiously about ... grasped my hand, whispered with

an effort: “‘Tis difficult to die, you know,” ... dropped his head on

the pillow, and burst into tears. I did not know what to say to him, and

sat silently beside his bed. But Alexyéi speedily conquered this last,

belated compassion.... “Listen,” he said to me:--“our doctor will come

to-day, and will find me dead.... I can imagine his phiz” ... and the

dying man tried to mimic him.... He requested me to send all his things

to Russia, to his relatives, with the exception of a small packet, which

he presented to me as a souvenir.

This packet contained letters--the letters of a young girl to Alexyéi

and his letters to her. There were fifteen of them in all. Alexyéi

Petróvitch S*** had known Márya Alexándrovna B*** for a long time--from

childhood, apparently. Alexyéi Petróvitch had a cousin, and Márya

Alexándrovna had a sister. In earlier years they had all lived together,

then they had dispersed, and had not met again for a long time; then

they had accidentally all assembled again in the country, in summer, and

had fallen in love--Alexyéi’s cousin with Márya Alexándrovna, and

Alexyéi himself with the latter’s sister. Summer passed and autumn came;

they parted. Alexyéi being a sensible man, speedily became convinced

that he was not in the least beloved, and parted from his beauty very

happily; his cousin corresponded with Márya Alexándrovna for a couple of

years longer ... but even he divined, at last, that he was deceiving

both her and himself in the most unconscionable manner, and he also fell

silent.

I should like to tell you a little about Márya Alexándrovna, dear

reader, but you will learn to know her for yourself from her letters.

Alexyéi wrote his first letter to her soon after her definitive breach

with his cousin. He was in Petersburg at the time, suddenly went abroad,

fell ill in Dresden and died. I have decided to publish his

correspondence with Márya Alexándrovna, and I hope for some indulgence

on the part of the reader, because these are not love-letters--God

forbid! Love-letters are generally read by two persons only (but, on the

other hand, a thousand times in succession), and are intolerable, if not

ridiculous, to a third person.

I

_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_

ST. PETERSBURG, March 7, 1840.

MY DEAR MÁRYA ALEXÁNDROVNA!

I have never yet written to you a single time, I think, and here I am

writing now.... I have chosen a strange time, have I not? This is what

has prompted me to it: _Mon cousin Théodore_ has been to see me to-day,

and--how shall I say it?... and has informed me, in the strictest

privacy (he never imparts anything in any other way), that he is in love

with the daughter of some gentleman here, and this time is bent on

marrying without fail, and that he has already taken the first step--he

has explained his intentions! As a matter of course, I hastened to

congratulate him on an event so pleasant for him; he has long stood in

need of an explanation ... but inwardly I was, I confess, somewhat

amazed. Although I knew that everything was over between you, yet it

seemed to me.... In a word, I was amazed. I was preparing to go out

visiting to-day, but I have remained at home, and intend to have a

little chat with you. If you do not care to listen to me, throw this

letter into the fire immediately. I declare to you that I wish to be

frank, although I feel that you have a perfect right to take me for a

decidedly-intrusive man. Observe, however, that I would not have taken

pen in hand if I had not known that your sister is not with you:

Théodore told me that she will be away all summer visiting your aunt,

Madame B***. May God grant her all good things!

So, then, this is the way it has all turned out.... But I shall not

offer you my friendship, and so forth; in general, I avoid solemn

speeches, and “intimate” effusions. In beginning to write this letter, I

have simply obeyed some momentary impulse: if any other feeling is

hiding within me, let it remain hidden from sight for the present.

Neither shall I attempt to console you. In consoling others, people

generally desire to rid themselves, as speedily as possible, of the

unpleasant feeling of involuntary, self-conceited compassion.... I

understand sincere, warm sympathy ... but such sympathy is not to be got

from every one.... Please be angry with me.... If you are angry, you

will probably read my epistle to the end.

But what right have I to write to you, to talk about my friendship, my

feelings, about consolation? None whatever--positively, none whatever;

and I am bound to admit that, and I rely solely upon your kindness.

Do you know what the beginning of my letter resembles? This: a certain

Mr. N. N. entered the drawing-room of a lady who was not in the least

expecting him,--who, perhaps, was expecting another man.... He divined

that he had come at the wrong time, but there was nothing to be done....

He sat down, and began to talk.... God knows what about: poetry, the

beauties of nature, the advantages of a good education ... in a word, he

talked the most frightful nonsense.... But in the meanwhile the first

five minutes had elapsed; he sat on; the lady resigned herself to her

fate, and lo! Mr. N. N. recovered himself, sighed, and began to

converse--to the best of his ability.

But, despite all this idle chatter, I feel somewhat awkward,

nevertheless. I seem to see before me your perplexed, even somewhat

angry face: I feel conscious that it is almost impossible for you not to

assume that I have some secret intentions or other, and therefore,

having perpetrated a piece of folly, like a Roman I wrap myself in my

toga and await in silence your ultimate condemnation....

But, in particular: Will you permit me to continue to write to you?

I remain sincerely and cordially your devoted servant--

ALEXYÉI S***.

II

_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_

VILLAGE OF ... NO, March 22, 1840.

DEAR SIR!

Alexyéi Petróvitch!

I have received your letter, and really, I do not know what to say to

you. I would even not have answered you at all had it not seemed to me

that beneath your jests was concealed a decidedly-friendly sentiment.

Your letter has produced an unpleasant impression on me. In reply to

your “idle chatter,” as you put it, permit me also to propound to you

one question: To what end? What have you to do with me, what have I to

do with you? I do not assume any evil intentions on your part, ... on

the contrary, I am grateful to you for your sympathy, ... but we are

strangers to each other, and I now, at all events, feel not the

slightest desire to become intimate with any one whomsoever.

With sincere respects I remain, and so forth,

MÁRYA B***.

III

_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_

ST. PETERSBURG, March 30.

I thank you, Márya Alexándrovna, I thank you for your note, curt as it

is. All this time I have been in a state of great agitation; twenty

times a day I have thought of you and of my letter. You can imagine how

caustically I have laughed at myself; but now I am in a capital frame of

mind, and am patting myself on the head. Márya Alexándrovna, I am

entering into correspondence with you! Confess that you could not

possibly have expected that after your reply; I am amazed at my own

audacity ... never mind! But calm yourself: I want to talk to you not

about myself, but about you. Here, do you see: I find it imperatively

necessary--to speak in antiquated style--to express myself to some one.

I have no right to select you for my confidante--I admit that; but

hearken: I demand from you no reply to my epistles; I do not even wish

to know whether you will peruse my “idle chatter,” but do not send me

back my letters, in the name of all that is holy!

Listen--I am utterly alone on earth. In my youth I led a solitary life,

although, I remember, I never pretended to be a Byron; but, in the

first place, circumstances, in the second place, the ability to dream

and a love for reverie, rather cold blood, pride, indolence--in a word,

a multitude of varied causes alienated me from the society of men. The

transition from a dreamy to an active life was effected in me late ...

perhaps too late, perhaps to this day not completely. So long as my own

thoughts and feelings diverted me, so long as I was capable of

surrendering myself to causeless silent raptures, and so forth, I did

not complain of my isolation. I had no comrades--I did have so-called

friends. Sometimes I needed their presence as an electrical machine

needs a discharger--that was all. Love ... we will be silent on that

subject for the present. But now, I confess, now loneliness weighs upon

me, and yet I see no escape from my situation. I do not blame Fate; I

alone am to blame, and I am justly chastised. In my youth one thing

alone interested me: my charming ego; I took my good-natured self-love

for shyness; I shunned society, and lo! now I am frightfully bored with

myself. What is to become of me? I love no one; all my friendships with

other people are, somehow, strained and false; and I have no memories,

because in all my past life, I find nothing except my own self. Save me!

I have not made you enthusiastic vows of love; I have not deafened you

with a torrent of chattering speeches; I have passed you by with

considerable coldness, and precisely for that reason I have made up my

mind now to have recourse to you. (I had thought of this even earlier,

but you were not free then....) Out of all my self-made joys and

sufferings, the sole genuine feeling was the small, but involuntary

attraction to you, which withered then, like a solitary ear of grain

amid worthless weeds.... Allow me, at least, to look into another face,

another soul,--my own face has grown repugnant to me; I am like a man

who has been condemned to live out his entire life in a room with walls

made of mirrors.... I do not demand any confessions from you--oh,

heavens, no! Grant me the speechless sympathy of a sister, or at least

the simple curiosity of a reader--I will interest you, really, I will.

At any rate, I have the honour to be your sincere friend,

A. S.

IV

_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_

PETERSBURG, April 7th.

I write again to you, although I foresee that, without your approval, I

shall speedily hold my peace. I must admit that you cannot fail to feel

a certain distrust of me. What of that? Perhaps you are right. Formerly

I would have declared to you (and, probably, would have believed my own

words) that, since we parted, I had “developed,” had advanced; with

condescending, almost affectionate scorn I would have referred to my

past; with touching boastfulness I would have initiated you into the

secrets of my present, active life ... but now, I assure you, Márya

Alexándrovna, I consider it shameful and disgusting to allude to the way

in which my vile self-love once on a time fermented and amused itself.

Fear not: I shall not force upon you any great truths, any profound

views; I have none--none of those truths and views. I have become a nice

fellow,--truly I have. I’m bored, Márya Alexándrovna--so bored that I

can endure it no longer. That is why I am writing to you.... Really, it

seems to me that we can come to an agreement....

However, I positively am in no condition to talk to you until you

stretch out your hand to me, until I receive from you a note with the

one word “Yes.”--Márya Alexándrovna, will you hear me out?--that is the

question.

Yours truly,

A. S.

V

_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_

VILLAGE OF ... NO, April 14.

What a strange man you are! Well, then--“yes.”

MÁRYA B***.

VI

_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_

PETERSBURG, May 2, 1840.

Hurrah! Thanks, Márya Alexándrovna, thanks! You are a very kind and

indulgent being.

I begin, according to my promise, to speak of myself, and I shall speak

with pleasure, verging on appetite.... Precisely that. One may talk of

everything in the world with fervour, with rapture, with enthusiasm, but

only of one’s self can one talk with appetite.

Listen: an extremely strange incident happened to me the other day: I

took a glance at my past for the first time. You will understand me:

every one of us frequently recalls the past--with compunction or with

vexation, or simply for the lack of something to do; but only at a

certain age can one cast a cold, clear glance at his whole past life--as

a traveller, turning round, gazes from a lofty mountain upon the plain

which he has traversed ... and a secret chill grips the heart of a man

when this happens to him for the first time. At any rate, my heart

contracted with pain. So long as we are young, that sort of looking

backward is impossible. But my youth is over--and, like the traveller on

the mountain, everything has become clearly visible to me....

Yes, my youth is gone, gone irrevocably!... Here it lies before me, all

of it, as though in the palm of my hand....

’Tis not a cheerful spectacle! I confess to you, Márya Alexándrovna,

that I am very sorry for myself. My God! My God! Is it possible that I

myself have ruined my own life to such a degree, have so ruthlessly

entangled and tortured myself?... Now I have come to my senses, but it

is too late. Have you ever rescued a fly from a spider? You have? Do you

remember, you placed it in the sunshine; its wings, its legs were stuck

together, glued fast.... How awkwardly it moved, how clumsily it tried

to clean itself!... After long-continued efforts, it got itself to

rights, after a fashion; it crawled, it tried to put its wings in order

... but it could not walk as it formerly did; it could not buzz,

care-free, in the sunshine, now flying through an open window into a

cool room, again fluttering freely out into the hot air.... It, at all

events, did not fall into the dreadful net of its own free will ... but

I!

I was my own spider.

And, nevertheless, I cannot blame myself so very much. Yes, and

who--tell me, for mercy’s sake--who ever was to blame for

anything--alone? Or, to put it more accurately, we are all to blame, yet

it is impossible to blame us. Circumstances settle our fate: they thrust

us into this road or that, and then they punish us. Every man has his

fate.... Wait, wait! There occurs to my mind on this score an

artfully-constructed but just comparison. As clouds are first formed by

the exhalations from the earth, rise up from its bosom, then separate

themselves from it, withdraw from it, and bear over it either blessings

or ruin, just so around each one of us and from us ourselves is

formed--how shall I express it?--is formed a sort of atmosphere which

afterward acts destructively or salutarily upon us ourselves. This I

call Fate.... In other words, and to put it simply: each person makes

his own fate, and it makes each person....

Each person makes his own fate--yes!... but our brethren make it far too

much--which constitutes our calamity! Consciousness is aroused in us too

early; too early do we begin to observe ourselves.... We Russians have

no other life-problem than the cultivation of our personality, and here

we, barely adult children, already undertake to cultivate it, this our

unhappy personality! Without having received from within any definite

direction, in reality respecting nothing, believing firmly in nothing,

we are free to make of ourselves whatsoever we will.... But it is

impossible to demand of every man that he shall immediately comprehend

the sterility of a mind, “seething in empty activity” ... and so, there

is one more monster in the world, one more of those insignificant beings

in which the habits of self-love distort the very striving after truth,

and ridiculous ingenuousness lives side by side with pitiful guile ...

one of those beings to whose impotent, uneasy thought there remains

forever unknown either the satisfaction of natural activity, or the

genuine suffering, or the genuine triumph of conviction.... Combining in

itself the defects of all ages, we deprive each defect of its good, its

redeeming side.... We are as stupid as children, but we are not sincere

like them; we are as cold as old men, but the common sense of old age is

not in us.... On the other hand, we are psychologists. Oh, yes, we are

great psychologists! But our psychology strays off into pathology; our

psychology is an artful study of the laws of a diseased condition and a

diseased development, with which healthy people have no concern.... But

the chief thing is, we are not young,--in youth itself we are not young!

And yet--why calumniate one’s self? Have we really never been young?

Have the vital forces never sparkled, never seethed, never quivered in

us? Yet we have been in Arcadia, and we have roved its bright meads!...

Have you ever happened, while strolling among bushes, to hit upon those

dark-hued harvest-flies, which, springing out from under your very feet,

suddenly expand their bright red wings with a clatter, flutter on a few

paces, and then tumble into the grass again? Just so did our dark youth

sometimes expand its gaily-coloured little wings for a few moments, and

a brief flight.... Do you remember our silent evening rambles, the four

of us together, along the fence of your park, after some long, warm,

animated conversation? Do you remember those gracious moments? Nature

received us affectionately and majestically into her lap. We entered,

with sinking heart, into some sort of blissful waves. Round about the

glow of sunset kindled with sudden and tender crimson; from the

crimsoning sky, from the illuminated earth, from everywhere, it seemed

as though the fresh and fiery breath of youth were wafted abroad, and

the joyous triumph of some immortal happiness; the sunset glow blazed;

like it, softly and passionately blazed our enraptured hearts, and the

tiny leaves of the young trees quivered sensitively and confusedly above

us, as though replying to the inward tremulousness of the indistinct

feelings and anticipations within us. Do you remember that purity, that

kindness and trustfulness of ideas, that emotion of noble hopes, that

silence of plenitude? Can it be that we were not then worthy of

something better than that to which life has conducted us? Why have we

been fated only at rare intervals to catch sight of the longed-for

shore, and never to stand thereon with firm foothold, never to touch

it--

Not to weep sweetly, like the first of the Jews

On the borders of the Promised Land?

These two lines of Fet[10] have reminded me of others,--also by him....

Do you remember how one day, as we were standing in the road, we beheld

in the distance a cloud of rosy dust, raised by a light breeze, against

the setting sun? “In a billowy cloud” you began, and we all fell silent

on the instant, and set to listening:

In a billowy cloud

The dust rises in the distance....

Whether horseman or pedestrian--

Cannot be descried for the dust.

I see some one galloping

On a spirited steed....

My friend, my distant friend--

Remember me!

You ceased.... All of us fairly shuddered, as though the breath of love

had flitted over our hearts, and each one of us--I am convinced of

that--longed inexpressibly to flee away in the distance, that unknown

distance, where the apparition of bliss rises up and beckons athwart the

mist. And yet, observe this odd thing: why should we reach out into the

distance?--we thought. Were not we in love with each other? Was not

happiness “so near, so possible”? And I immediately asked you: “Why have

not we gained the shore we long for?” Because falsehood was walking hand

in hand with us; because it was poisoning our best sentiments; because

everything in us was artificial and strained; because we did not love

each other at all, and only tried to love, imagined that we did love....

But enough, enough! Why irritate one’s wounds? Moreover, all that is

past irrevocably. That which was good in our past has touched me, and on

this good I bid you farewell for the time being. And it is time to end

this long letter. I will go and inhale the May air here, in which,

through the winter’s stern fortress, the spring is forcing its way with

a sort of moist and keen warmth. Farewell.

A. S.

VII

_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_

VILLAGE OF ... NO, May 20, 1840.

I have received your letter, Alexyéi Petróvitch, and do you know what

feeling it aroused in me?--Indignation ... yes, indignation ... and I

will immediately explain to you why it aroused precisely that feeling in

me. One thing is a pity: I am not a mistress of the pen--I rarely write.

I do not know how to express my thoughts accurately and in a few words;

but you will, I hope, come to my aid. You yourself will try to

understand me: if only for the sake of knowing why I am angry with you.

Tell me--you are a clever man--have you ever asked yourself what sort of

a creature a Russian woman is? What is her fate, her position in the

world--in short, what her life is like? I do not know whether you have

ever had time to put that question to yourself; I cannot imagine how you

would answer it.... I might, in conversation be able to communicate to

you my ideas on that subject, but I shall hardly manage it on paper.

However, it makes no difference. This is the point: you surely will

agree with me that we women--at all events, those of us who are not

satisfied with the ordinary cares of domestic life--receive our final

education, all the same, from you--from the men: you have a great and

powerful influence on us. Look, now, at what you do with us. I shall

speak of the young girls, especially of those who, like myself, dwell in

the dull places, and there are many such in Russia. Moreover, I do not

know others, and cannot judge with regard to them. Figure to yourself

such a young girl. Here, now, her education is finished; she is

beginning to live, to amuse herself. But amusement alone is not enough

for her. She demands a great deal from life; she reads, dreams ... of

love:--“Always of love alone!” you will say.... Let us assume that that

word means a great deal to her. I will say again that I am not talking

of the sort of girl who finds it burdensome and tiresome to think....

She looks about her, waits for the coming of him for whom her soul

pines.... At last he makes his appearance: she is carried away; she is

like soft wax in his hands. Everything--happiness, and love, and

thought--everything has invaded her together with him, all at once; all

her tremors are soothed, all her doubts are solved by him; truth itself

seems to speak by his mouth; she worships him, she is ashamed of her

happiness, she learns, she loves. Great is his power over her at this

period!... If he were a hero, he would kindle her to flame, he would

teach her to sacrifice herself, and all sacrifices would be easy to

her! But there are no heroes in our day.... Nevertheless, he guides her

whithersoever he will; she devotes herself to that which interests him,

his every word sinks into her soul: at that time, she does not know, as

yet, how insignificant and empty and false that word may be, how little

it costs him who utters it, and how little faith it merits! These first

moments of bliss and hope are followed, generally--according to

circumstances--(circumstances are always to blame)--are followed by

parting. It is said that there have been cases where two kindred souls,

on recognising each other, have immediately united indissolubly; I have

heard, also, that they are not always comfortable as a result.... But I

will not speak of that which I have not myself beheld--but that the very

pettiest sort of calculation, the most woful prudence, may dwell in a

young heart side by side with the most passionate rapture,--that is a

fact which, unhappily, I know by my own experience. So, then, parting

comes.... Happy is that young girl who instantly recognises that the end

of all has come, who does not comfort herself with expectation! But you

brave, just men, in the majority of cases, have neither the courage nor

the desire to tell us the truth ... you find it more easy to deceive

us.... I am ready to believe, however, that you deceive yourselves along

with us.... Parting! It is both difficult and easy to endure parting.

If only faith in him whom one loves were intact and unassailed, the soul

would conquer the pain of parting.... I will say more: only when she is

left alone does she learn the sweetness of solitude, not sterile but

filled with memories and thoughts. Only then will she learn to know

herself--will she come to herself, will she grow strong.... In the

letters of the distant friend she will find a support for herself; in

her own she will, perhaps, for the first time, express her mind

fully.... But as two persons who have started from the source of a river

along its different banks can, at first, clasp hands, then hold

communication only with the voice, but ultimately lose sight of each

other: so also two beings are ultimately disjoined by separation. “What

of that?” you will say: “evidently they were not fated to go

together....” But here comes in the difference between a man and a

woman. It signifies nothing to a man to begin a new life, to shake far

from him the past; a woman cannot do that. No, she cannot cast aside her

past, she cannot tear herself away from her roots--no, a thousand times

no! And so, a pitiful and ridiculous spectacle presents itself....

Gradually losing hope and faith in herself,--you can form no idea of how

painful that is,--she will pine away and fade alone, obstinately

clinging to her memories, and turning away from everything which life

around her offers.... And he?... Seek him! Where is he? And is it worth

while for him to pause? What time has he for looking back? All this is a

thing of the past for him, you see.

Or here is another thing which happens: it sometimes happens that he

will suddenly conceive a desire to meet the former object of his

affections, he will even deliberately go to her.... But, my God! from

what a motive of petty vain-glory he does it! In his polite compassion,

in his counsels which are intended to be friendly, in his condescending

explanations of the past, there is audible such a consciousness of his

own superiority! It is so agreeable and cheerful a thing for him to let

himself feel every minute how sensible and kind he is! And how little he

understands what he is doing! How well he manages not even to guess at

what is going on in the woman’s heart, and how insultingly he pities

her, if he does guess it!...

Tell me, please, whence are we to get the strength to endure all this?

Remember this, too: in the majority of cases, a girl who, to her

misfortune, has an idea beginning to stir in her head, when she begins

to love, and falls under the influence of a man, involuntarily separates

herself from her family, from her acquaintances. Even previously she has

not been satisfied with their life, yet she has walked on by their side,

preserving in her soul all her intimate secrets.... But the breach

speedily makes itself visible.... They cease to understand her, they are

ready to suspect every movement of hers.... At first she pays no heed

to this, but afterward, afterward ... when she is left alone, when that

toward which she has been striving and for which she has sacrificed

everything escapes her grasp, when she has not attained to heaven, but

when every near thing, every possible thing, has retreated far from

her--what shall uphold her? Sneers, hints, the vulgar triumph of coarse

common sense she can still bear, after a fashion ... but what is she to

do, to what is she to have recourse, when the inward voice begins to

whisper to her that all those people were right, and that she has been

mistaken; that life, of whatever sort it may be, is better than dreams,

as health is better than disease ... when her favourite occupations, her

favourite books, disgust her, the books from which one cannot extract

happiness,--what, say you,--what shall uphold her? How is she to help

succumbing in such a struggle? How is she to live and to go on living in

such a wilderness? Confess herself vanquished, and extend her hand like

a beggar to indifferent people? Will not they give her at least some of

that happiness with which the proud heart once imagined that it could

dispense--all that is nothing as yet! But to feel one’s self ridiculous

at the very moment when one is shedding bitter, bitter tears ... akh!

God forbid that you should go through that experience!...

My hands are trembling, and I am in a fever all over.... My face is

burning hot. It is time for me to stop.... I shall send off this letter

as speedily as possible, while I am not ashamed of my weakness. But, for

God’s sake, not a word in your reply--do you hear me?--not a word of

pity, or I will never write to you again. Understand me: I should not

like to have you take this letter as the outpouring of a misunderstood

soul which is making complaint.... Akh! it is all a matter of

indifference to me! Farewell.

M.

VIII

_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_

ST. PETERSBURG, May 28, 1840.

Márya Alexándrovna, you are a fine creature ... indeed you are ... your

letter has disclosed to me the truth at last! O Lord my God! what

torture! A man is constantly thinking that now he has attained

simplicity, no longer shows off, puts on airs, or lies ... but when you

come to look at him more attentively, he has become almost worse than he

was before. And this must be noted: the man himself, alone that is to

say, will never attain to that consciousness, bestir himself as he may!

his eye will not discern his own defects, just as the blunted eye of

the printer will not detect errors: another, a fresher eye is required.

I thank you, Márya Alexándrovna.... You see, I am speaking to you of

myself; I dare not speak of you.... Akh, how ridiculous my last letter

seems to me now,--so eloquent and sentimental! Go on, I beg of you, with

your confession; I have a premonition that you will be relieved thereby,

and it will be of great benefit to me. Not without cause does the

proverb say: “A woman’s wit is better than many thoughts”; and a woman’s

heart is far more so--God is my witness that it is so! If women only

knew how much better, and more magnanimous, and clever--precisely

that--clever they are than the men, they would grow puffed up with

pride, and get spoiled: but, fortunately, they do not know that; they do

not know it because their thoughts have not become accustomed to

returning incessantly to themselves, as have the thoughts of us men.

They think little about themselves--that is their weakness and their

strength; therein lies the whole secret--I will not say of our

superiority, but of our power. They squander their souls, as a lavish

heir squanders his father’s gold, but we collect interest from every

look.... How can they enter into rivalry with us?... All this is not

compliments, but the simple truth, demonstrated by experience. Again I

entreat you, Márya Alexándrovna, to continue writing to me.... If you

only knew all that comes into my mind!... But now I do not want to talk,

I want to listen to you.... My speech will come later on. Write, write.

Yours truly,

A. S.

IX

_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_

VILLAGE OF ... NO, June 12, 1840.

No sooner had I despatched my last letter to you, Alexyéi Petróvitch,

than I repented of it; but there was no help for it. One thing somewhat

soothed me: I am convinced that you have understood under the influence

of what long-suppressed feelings it was written, and have forgiven me. I

did not even read over at the time what I had written to you; I remember

that my heart was beating so violently that my pen trembled in my hand.

However, although I probably should have expressed myself differently if

I had given myself time to think it over, still I have no intention of

disclaiming either my words or the feelings which I have imparted to you

to the best of my ability. To-day I am much more cool-headed, and have

far better control over myself....

I remember that I spoke toward the end of my letter about the painful

situation of the young girl who recognises the fact that she is isolated

even among her own people.... I will not enlarge further on that point,

but rather will I communicate to you a few details; it seems to me that

I shall bore you less in that way.

In the first place, you must know that throughout the whole country-side

I am not called anything but “the female philosopher”; the ladies, in

particular, allude to me by that name. Some assert that I sleep with a

Latin book in my hands and in spectacles; others, that I know how to

extract some cubic roots or other: not one of them cherishes any doubt

that I wear masculine attire on the sly, and that instead of “good

morning,” I say abruptly: “Georges Sand!”--and indignation against “the

female philosopher” is on the increase. We have a neighbour, a man of

five-and-forty, a great wit, ... at least, he has the reputation of

being a great wit, ... and for him my poor person is an inexhaustible

subject for jeers. He has related, concerning me, that as soon as the

moon rises in the sky, I cannot take my eyes from it, and he shows how I

look; that I even drink coffee not with cream but with the moon, that is

to say, I set my cup in its rays. He swears that I use phrases in the

nature of the following: “That is easy because it is difficult;

although, on the other hand, it is difficult because it is easy.”...

He declares that I am always seeking some word or other, always yearning

“thither,” and he inquires, with comic indignation: “Whither is thither?

Whither?” He has also set in circulation about me a rumour to the effect

that I ride by night on horseback back and forth through the ford of the

river, singing the while Schubert’s “Serenade,” or simply moaning:

“Beethoven, Beethoven!” as much as to say--“She’s such a fiery old

woman!” and so forth, and so forth. Of course, all this immediately

reaches my ears. Perhaps this may surprise you; but do not forget that

four years have elapsed since you have sojourned in these parts.

Remember how every one gazed askance at us then.... Now their turn has

come. And all this is nothing. I sometimes happen to hear words which

pierce my heart much more painfully. I will not mention the fact that my

poor, good mother cannot possibly pardon me for your cousin’s

indifference; but all my life runs through the fire, as my old nurse

expresses it. “Of course,”--I hear constantly,--“how are we to keep up

with thee? We are plain folks, we are guided only by common sense; but,

after all, when one comes to think of it, to what have all these

philosophisings and books and acquaintances with learned people brought

thee?” Perhaps you remember my sister--not the one to whom you were

formerly not indifferent, but the other, the elder, who is married. Her

husband, you will remember, is a decidedly-ridiculous man; you often

used to make fun of him in those days. Yet she is happy: the mother of a

family, she loves her husband, and her husband adores her.... “I am like

all the rest,”--she says to me sometimes;--“but how about thee?” And she

is right: I envy her....

And nevertheless I feel that I should not like to change places with

her. Let them call me “a female philosopher,” “an eccentric,” whatever

they choose--I shall remain faithful to the end ... to what?--to an

ideal, pray? Yes, to an ideal. Yes, I shall remain faithful to the end

to that which first made my heart beat,--to that which I have

acknowledged and do acknowledge to be the true, the good. If only my

strength does not fail me, if only my idol does not prove a soulless

block....

If you really do feel friendship for me, if you really have not

forgotten me, you must help me; you must disperse my doubts, strengthen

my beliefs....

But what aid can you render me? “All this is nonsense, like the useless

running of a squirrel on a wheel,” said my uncle to me yesterday--I

think you do not know him--a retired naval officer, and a far from

stupid man. “A husband, children, a pot of buckwheat groats: to tend

husband and children, and look after the pot of groats--that’s what a

woman needs.”... Tell me, he is right, is he not?

If he really is right, I can still repair the past, I can still get into

the common rut. What else is there for me to wait for? What is there to

hope for? In one of your letters, you spoke of the wings of youth. How

often, how long they remain fettered! And then comes a time, when they

fall off; and it is no longer possible to raise one’s self above the

earth, to soar heavenward. Write to me.

Yours, M.

X

_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_

ST. PETERSBURG, June 16, 1840.

I hasten to answer your letter, my dear Márya Alexándrovna. I will

confess to you that if it were not for.... I will not say business--I

have none--if it were not for my being so stupidly habituated to this

place, I would go again to you and would talk my fill, but on paper all

this comes out so coldly, in such a dead manner....

I repeat to you, Márya Alexándrovna: women are better than men, and you

ought to demonstrate that in deed. Let us men fling aside our

convictions, like a worn-out garment, or barter them for a morsel of

bread, or, in conclusion, let them fall into the sleep which knows no

waking, and place over them, as over one formerly beloved, a tombstone,

to which one goes only now and then to pray--let us men do all that; but

do not you women be false to yourselves, do not betray your ideal....

That word has become ridiculous.... To be afraid of the ridiculous is

not to love the truth. It does happen, it is true, that a stupid laugh

will make the stupid man, even good people, renounce a great deal ...

take for example the defence of an absent friend.... I am guilty in that

respect myself. But, I repeat it, you women are better than we are....

In trifles you are inclined to yield to us; but you understand better

than we do how to look the devil straight in the eye. I shall give you

neither aid nor advice--how can I? and you do not need it; but I do

stretch forth my hand to you, and I do say to you: “Have patience; fight

until the end; and know that, as a feeling, the consciousness of a

battle honourably waged almost transcends the triumph of victory.”...

The victory does not depend upon us.

Of course, from a certain point of view, your uncle is right: family

life is everything for a woman; there is no other life for her.

But what does that prove? Only the Jesuits assert that every means is

good, if only one attains his end. It is not true! not true! It is an

indignity to enter a clean temple with feet soiled with the mire of the

road. At the end of your letter there is a phrase which I do not like:

you want to get into the common rut. Look out--do not make a misstep! Do

not forget, moreover, that it is impossible to efface the past; and

strive as you may, force yourself as you will, you cannot make yourself

your sister. You have ascended above her. But your soul is broken, hers

is intact. You can lower yourself, bend down to her, but nature will not

resign her rights, and the broken place will not grow together again....

You are afraid--let us speak without circumlocution--you are afraid of

remaining an old maid. I know that you are already twenty-six years old.

As a matter of fact, the position of old maids is not enviable: every

one so gladly laughs at them; every one notes their oddities and their

weaknesses with such unmagnanimous delight. But if you scan more closely

any elderly bachelor,--he deserves to have the finger of scorn pointed

at him also,--you will find in him cause to laugh your fill. What is to

be done? Happiness is not to be captured by battle. But we must not

forget that not happiness but human dignity is the chief goal of life.

You describe your position with great humour. I well understand all its

bitterness; your position may, I am sure, be called tragic. But you

must know that you are not the only one who finds herself in it: there

is hardly any man of the present day who does not find himself in it

also. You will say that that does not make it any the easier for you;

but what I think is that to suffer in company with thousands is quite a

different thing from suffering alone. It is not a question of egotism

here, but of a feeling of universal necessity.

“All this is very fine, let us assume,” you will say, ... “but, in point

of fact, it is not applicable to the case.” Why is it not applicable? Up

to the present day I think, and I hope that I shall never cease to

think, that in God’s world everything honest, good, and true is

applicable, and sooner or later will be fulfilled; and not only will be

fulfilled, but is already being fulfilled, if each one will only hold

himself firmly in his place, will not lose patience, will not desire the

impossible, but will act, so far as his strength permits. But I think I

have given myself up too much to abstractions. I will defer the

continuation of my arguments until another letter; but I do not wish to

lay down my pen without having pressed your hand warmly, very warmly,

and wished you, with all my soul, everything that is good on earth.

Yours, A. S.

P.S. By the way, you say that you have nothing to look forward to,

nothing to hope for; how do you know that, allow me to ask?

XI

_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_

VILLAGE OF ... NO, June 30, 1840.

How grateful I am to you for your letter, Alexyéi Petróvitch! How much

good it has done me! I see that you really are a good and trustworthy

man, and therefore I shall not dissimulate before you. I trust you. I

know that you will not make a bad use of my frankness and that you will

give me friendly advice. That is the point.

You noticed at the end of my letter a phrase which did not entirely

please you. This is what it referred to. There is a neighbour here ...

he was not here in your day, and you have not seen him. He ... I might

marry him, if I wished; he is a man who is still young, cultured,

wealthy. There are no obstacles on the side of my relatives; on the

contrary, they--I know this for certain--desire this marriage; he is a

fine man, and I think he loves me.... But he is so languid and petty,

all his desires are so narrow, that I cannot help recognising my

superiority over him; he feels this, and seems to take delight in it,

and precisely that repels me from him; I cannot respect him, although he

has an excellent heart. What am I to do, tell me? Think for me and

write me your opinion sincerely.

But how grateful I am to you for your letter!... Do you know, I have

sometimes been visited by such bitter thoughts.... Do you know, I have

gone so far as almost to feel ashamed of every--I will not say

exalted--but of every trustful feeling. I have shut my book in vexation

when it spoke of hope and happiness; I have turned away from the

cloudless sky, from the fresh verdure of the trees, from everything that

smiled and was glad. What a painful condition this was! I say “was” ...

as though it had passed!

I do not know whether it has passed; I know that if it does not return I

shall be indebted to you for it. You see, Alexyéi Petróvitch, how much

good you have done, perhaps without yourself suspecting it! Now, in the

very heart of summer, the days are magnificent, the sky is blue,

bright.... It cannot be more beautiful in Italy. But you are sitting in

a stifling and dusty town, you are walking on the scorching pavements.

What possesses you to do it? You ought, at least, to remove to a villa

somewhere. They say that beyond Peterhoff, on the seashore, there are

charming places.

I should like to write more to you, but it is impossible: such a sweet

perfume has been wafted up to me from the garden that I cannot remain

in the house. I shall put on my hat and go for a stroll.... Farewell

until another time, kind Alexyéi Petróvitch.

Yours truly,

M. B.

P.S. I have forgotten to tell you ... just imagine: that wit, of whom I

recently wrote you,--just imagine: he has made me a declaration of love,

and in the most fiery terms! At first I thought that he was making fun

of me; but he wound up with a formal proposal. What do you think of

that, after all his calumnies? But he is positively too old. Last night,

to pique him, I sat down at the piano in front of the open window in the

moonlight, and played Beethoven. It was so delightful to me to feel its

cold light on my face, so consolatory to send forth upon the perfumed

night air the noble sounds of music, athwart which, at times, the song

of the nightingale was audible! It is a long time since I have been so

happy, but do you write to me concerning the thing I asked you about in

the beginning of my letter: it is very important.

XII

_From Alexyéi Petróvich to Márya Alexándrovna_

ST. PETERSBURG, July 8, 1840.

My dear Márya Alexándrovna, here is my opinion in two words: throw both

the old bachelor and the young suitor overboard! There’s no use in

deliberating over this. Neither of them is worthy of you--that is as

clear as that twice two are four. The young neighbour may be a good man,

but I throw him over! I am convinced that you and he have nothing in

common, and you can imagine how cheerful it would be to live together!

And why be in a hurry? Is it possible that a woman like you--I have no

intention of paying compliments, and therefore will not enlarge

further--that such a woman as you should not meet some one who will know

how to appreciate her? No, Márya Alexándrovna; heed me if you really

think that my advice is beneficial.

But confess that you found it pleasant to behold that old calumniator at

your feet!... If I had been in your place, I would have made him sing

Beethoven’s “Adelaïda” the whole night through, staring at the moon the

while.

But God be with them, with your admirers! It is not of them that I wish

to talk with you to-day. I am in a sort of half-irritated,

half-agitated condition to-day, as the result of a letter which I

received yesterday. I send you a copy of it. This letter was written by

one of my very old friends and comrades in the service, a kind-hearted

but rather narrow-minded man. A couple of years ago he went abroad, and

up to the present he has not written to me a single time. Here is his

letter. N.B. He is very far from bad-looking.

“_Cher Alexis_:

“I am in Naples. I am sitting in my chamber on the Chiaja at the window.

The weather is wonderful. At first I gazed a long time at the sea, then

impatience seized upon me, and the brilliant idea of writing a letter to

thee occurred to me. I have always felt an affection for thee, my dear

friend,--Heaven is my witness that I have! And now I should like to pour

myself into thy bosom.... I believe that is the way it is expressed in

our elevated language. And the reason I have been seized with impatience

is that I am expecting a woman; together we shall go to Baiæ to eat

oysters and oranges, to watch the dark-brown shepherds in red nightcaps

dance the tarantella, to broil ourselves in the sunshine, to watch the

lizards--in a word, to enjoy life to the full. My dear friend, I am so

happy that I am unable to express it to you. If I possessed thy power

with the pen, oh, what a picture I would draw before thine eyes! But,

unfortunately, as thou knowest, I am an illiterate man. The woman for

whom I am waiting, and who has already made me constantly start and

glance at the door, loves me--and as for the way I love her, it seems to

me that even thou with thy eloquent pen couldst not describe that.

“I must tell thee that I have known her for the last three months, and

ever since the very first day of our acquaintance, my love has gone on

_crescendo_, in the shape of a chromatic scale, ever higher and higher,

and at the present moment it has already attained to the seventh heaven.

I am jesting, but, as a matter of fact, my attachment to that woman is

something extraordinary, supernatural. Just imagine: I hardly ever talk

with her, but I stare at her incessantly and laugh. I sit at her feet, I

feel that I am frightfully stupid and happy, simply unlawfully happy. It

sometimes happens that she lays her hand on my head.... And then, I must

tell thee, ... but thou canst not understand it; for thou art a

philosopher, and have been a philosopher all thy life. Her name is Nina,

Ninetta--as thou wilt; she is the daughter of a wealthy merchant here.

Beautiful as all thy Raphaels; lively as powder, blithe, so clever that

it is positively amazing that she should have fallen in love with such a

fool as myself; she sings like a bird, and her eyes--

“Forgive me, pray, for this involuntary tirade.... I thought the door

creaked.... No, the rogue has not come yet! Thou wilt ask me how all

this is going to end, and what I mean to do with myself, and whether I

shall remain here long. I know nothing, and wish to know nothing, about

that, my dear fellow. What is to be will be.... For if one is to pause

and reason constantly....

“‘Tis she!... She is running up the stairs and singing.... She has

come.... Well, good-by, my dear fellow.... I’m in no mood for thee.

Pardon me--it is she who has spattered this letter all over: she struck

the paper with her damp nosegay. At first she thought I was writing to a

woman; but as soon as she found out that it was to a man-friend, she

bade me give you her compliments, and inquire whether there are any

flowers in your country, and whether they are fragrant. Well,

good-by.... If you could only hear how she laughs!... Silver rings just

like that: and what goodness in every sound!--One fairly wants to kiss

her feet. Let us go, let us go! Be not angry at this untidy scrawl, and

envy thy--

M...”

The letter actually was bespattered, and exhaled an odour of

orange-flowers ... two white petals had adhered to the paper. This

letter has excited me.... I have called to mind my sojourn in

Naples.... The weather was magnificent then also; May was only just

beginning; I had recently completed my twenty-second year; but I did not

know any Ninetta. I roamed about alone, consumed with a thirst for

bliss, which was both painful and sweet,--sweet to the point where it

itself bore a sort of resemblance to bliss.... What a thing it is to be

young!... I remember I once went out for a row on the bay at night.

There were two of us: the boatman and I ... but what was it you thought?

What a night it was, and what a sky, what stars--how they trembled and

crumbled in the waves! With what a liquid flame did the water flow over

and flash up under the oars, what perfume was wafted all over the

sea--it is not for me to describe, however “eloquent” my pen may be. A

French ship of the line lay at anchor in the roadstead. It glowed

obscurely red all over with lights; long streaks of red light, the

reflection of the illuminated windows, stretched across the dark sea.

Merry music reached me in occasional bursts; I recall, in particular,

the trill of a small flute amid the dull blaring of the horns; it seemed

to flutter like a butterfly around my boat. I ordered the man to row to

the ship; twice did we make the circuit of it. Women’s forms flitted

past the windows, borne smartly past on the whirlwind of the waltz.... I

ordered the boatman to put off, far away, straight out into the

darkness.... I remember that the sounds pursued me long and

importunately.... At last they died away. I stood up in the boat and

stretched out my arms over the sea in the dumb pain of longing.... Oh,

how my heart ached then! How oppressive was my loneliness! With what joy

would I have given myself at that moment wholly, wholly ... wholly, if

only there had been any one to whom to give myself! With what a bitter

feeling in my soul did I fling myself, face down, in the bottom of the

boat and, like Repetíloff, request him to take me somewhere or other!

But my friend here experienced nothing of that sort. And why should he?

He has managed matters much more cleverly than I did. He is living ...

while I ... not without cause has he called me a philosopher.... ’Tis

strange! You, also, are called a philosopher.... Why should such a

calamity overtake us?...

I am not living.... But who is to blame for that? Why do I sit here in

Petersburg? What am I doing here? Why do I kill day after day? Why don’t

I go to the country? Are not our steppes beautiful? Or cannot one

breathe freely in them? Or is it stifling in them? What possesses me to

pursue dreams, when, perchance, happiness is within my reach? It is

settled: I am going away, I am going away to-morrow, if possible; I am

going home, that is, to you--it is all the same: for we live only

twenty versts apart. What’s the use, after all, in languishing here? And

why is it that this idea did not occur to me earlier? My dear Márya

Alexándrovna, we shall soon meet. But it is remarkable that this thought

did not enter my head until this moment! I ought to have gone away long,

long ago. Farewell until we meet, Márya Alexándrovna.

July 9th.

I have deliberately given myself twenty-four hours to think it over, and

now I am definitively convinced that there is no reason why I should

remain here. The dust in the streets is so biting that it makes one’s

eyes ache. To-day I shall begin to pack; on the day after to-morrow,

probably, I shall leave here; and ten days hence I shall have the

pleasure of seeing you. I hope you will receive me as of old. By the

way--your sister is still visiting your aunt, is she not?

Permit me, Márya Alexándrovna, to press your hand warmly, and to say to

you from my soul: farewell until a speedy meeting. I was preparing to

leave in any case, but this letter has precipitated my intention. Let us

assume that this letter proves nothing; let us even assume that Ninetta

would not please any one else--me, for example. Yet I am going, all the

same; there is no doubt about that. Farewell for the present.

Yours, A. S.

XIII

_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_

VILLAGE OF ... NO, July 16, 1840.

You are coming hither, you will soon be with us, will you not, Alexyéi

Petróvitch? I will not conceal from you that this news both delights and

agitates me.... How shall we meet? Will that spiritual bond be preserved

which, so it seems to me, has already begun to unite us? Will it not

break when we meet? I do not know; I am apprehensive, for some reason or

other. I will not answer your last letter, although I might say a good

deal; I will defer all this until we meet. My mother is greatly

delighted at your coming.... She has been aware that I was corresponding

with you. The weather is enchanting. We will walk a great deal; I will

show you the new places which I have discovered ... one long, narrow

valley is particularly nice: it lies between hillocks, covered with

forest.... It seems to be hiding in their curves. A tiny brook blows

along it and can barely force its way through the grass and flowers....

You shall see. Come: perhaps you will not find it tedious.

M. B.

P.S. You will not see my sister, I think: she is still visiting my aunt.

I believe (this is between ourselves) that she is going to marry a very

amiable young man--an officer. Why did you send me that letter from

Naples? The life here perforce seems dim and pale in comparison with

that luxury and that brilliancy. But Mademoiselle Ninetta is wrong:

flowers grow and are fragrant--even with us.

XIV

_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_

VILLAGE OF ... NO, January, 1841.

I have written to you several times, Alexyéi Petróvitch.... You have not

answered me. Are you alive? Or perhaps our correspondence has begun to

bore you; perhaps you have found for yourself a more agreeable diversion

than the letters of a rustic young lady can afford you? Evidently you

called me to mind for the lack of something to do. If that is the case,

I wish you happiness. If you do not answer me this time, I shall not

trouble you again; there will be nothing left for me to do but to regret

my imprudence, that I have unnecessarily permitted myself to be roused

up, have offered my hand and emerged, if only for a moment, from my

isolated nook. I ought to remain in it forever, lock myself in--that is

my portion, the portion of all old maids. I ought to accustom myself to

that thought. There is no necessity for coming out into God’s sunlight,

no necessity for craving fresh air, when the lungs will not bear it. By

the way, we are now blocked up with dead drifts of snow. I shall be more

sensible henceforth.... People do not die of boredom, but it is possible

to perish with melancholy, I suppose. If I am mistaken, prove it to me.

But I think I am not mistaken. In any case, farewell. I wish you

happiness.

M. B.

XV

_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_

DRESDEN, September, 1842.

I write to you, my dear Márya Alexándrovna, and I write only because I

do not wish to die without having taken leave of you, and without having

recalled myself to your mind. I am condemned by the doctors ... and I

myself feel that my life is drawing to a close. On my table stands a

rose; before it fades I shall be no more. But that comparison is not

quite just. The rose is far more interesting than I am.

As you see, I am abroad. I have been in Dresden six months. I received

your last letters--I am ashamed to confess: I lost several of them more

than a year ago, and did not answer you.... I will tell you presently

why. But, evidently, you have always been dear to me: with the exception

of yourself, there is no one of whom I wish to take leave, and perhaps I

have no one to whom I could bid farewell.

Soon after my last letter to you (I was quite ready to set out for your

parts, and was making various plans in advance), there happened to me an

episode which had, I may say, a strong influence on my fate,--so strong

that here I am, dying, thanks to that event. To wit: I set out for the

theatre, to see the ballet. I have never liked the ballet, and have

always felt a secret disgust for all sorts of actresses, singers, and

dancers.... But, obviously, one cannot change his fate, neither does any

one know himself, and it is also impossible to foresee the future. In

point of fact, nothing happens in life except the unexpected, and we do

nothing all our life long but adjust ourselves to events.... But I

believe I am dropping into philosophy again. Old habit!... In a word, I

fell in love with a dancer.

This was all the more strange because she could not be called a beauty.

She had, it is true, wonderful golden hair, with an ash tinge, and

large, bright eyes, with a pensive and, at the same time, a bold

glance.... Haven’t I cause to know the expression of that glance? I

pined and languished for a whole year in its rays! She had a splendid

figure, and when she danced her folkdance, the spectators used to stamp

and shout with rapture.... But I do not think any one besides myself

fell in love with her--at all events, no one fell in love with her as I

did. From the very minute that I beheld her for the first time--(will

you believe it? all I have to do even now is to shut my eyes, and

immediately here stands before me the theatre, the almost empty stage,

representing the interior of a forest, and she runs out from behind the

side-scenes on the right, with a wreath of vine-leaves on her head and a

tiger-skin over her shoulders)--from that fatal minute I belonged to her

wholly,--just as a dog belongs to his master; and if now, when I am

dying, I do not belong to her, it is merely because she has cast me off.

To tell the truth, she never troubled herself especially about me. She

barely noticed me, although she good-naturedly made use of my money. I

was for her, as she expressed it in her broken French jargon, “_oun

Rousso buon enfan_,”--and nothing more. But I ... I could no longer live

anywhere where she was not; I tore myself at one wrench from all that

was dear to me, from my native land itself, and set out in pursuit of

that woman.

Perhaps you think that she was clever?--Not in the least! It sufficed to

cast a glance at her low brow, it sufficed to note, if only once, her

lazy, heedless smile, in order instantly to convince one’s self as to

the paucity of her mental abilities. And I never imagined her to be a

remarkable woman. On the whole, I did not deceive myself for a single

minute on her score. But that did not help matters in the least.

Whatever I thought of her in her absence, in her presence I felt nothing

but servile adoration.... In the German fairytales the knights often

fall into that sort of stupor. I could not tear my eyes from her

features; I could not hear enough of her remarks, or sufficiently watch

every movement of hers; to tell the truth, I actually breathed to her

breathing. However, she was good-natured, unconstrained--too

unconstrained even; she did not put on airs, as the majority of artists

do. She had a great deal of life, that is, a great deal of blood, of

that splendid Southern blood, into which the sun of their land must have

dropped a portion of his rays. She slept nine hours a day, was fond of

good eating, never read a single line of print, unless, perhaps, the

articles in the newspapers in which she was mentioned, and almost the

sole tender sentiment in her life was her attachment to il signore

Carlino, a small and greedy Italian who served as her secretary and whom

she afterward married. And with such a woman as this I, who have tasted

so many varied intellectual subtleties, I, already an old man, could

fall in love! Who could have expected it? I never expected it, at all

events. I did not anticipate the part which I should be compelled to

play. I did not expect that I should haunt rehearsals, freeze and get

bored behind the scenes, inhale the reek of the theatre, make

acquaintance with various unseemly individuals ... what am I

saying?--make acquaintance--bow to them. I had not expected that I

should carry a dancer’s shawl, buy new gloves for her, clean her old

ones with white bread (but I did it, I take my oath!), cart home her

bouquets, run about to the anterooms of journalists and directors, wear

myself out, give serenades, catch cold, lose my strength.... I had not

expected that I should acquire at last in a certain little German town

the ingenious nickname of “_der Kunst-barbar_.”... And all this in

vain--in the fullest sense of the word, in vain! There, that is

precisely the state of the case....

Do you remember how you and I, orally and by letter, argued about love,

into what subtleties we entered? And when it is put to the proof, it

turns out that real love is a feeling not at all resembling that which

we imagined it to be. Love is not even a feeling at all; it is a malady,

a well-known condition of the soul and body. It does not develop

gradually; there is no possibility of doubting it; one cannot dodge it,

although it does not always manifest itself in identically the same

fashion. It generally takes possession of a man without being invited,

suddenly, against his will--precisely like the cholera or a fever.... It

lays hold upon him, the dear creature, as a hawk does upon a chicken;

and it will bear him off whithersoever it wishes, struggle and resist as

he may.... In love there is no equality, no so-called free union of

souls and other ideal things, invented at their leisure by German

professors.... No; in love one person is the slave, the other is the

sovereign, and not without cause do the poets prate of the chains

imposed by love. Yes, love is a chain, and the heaviest of chains at

that. At all events, I have arrived at that conviction, and have reached

it by the path of experience. I have purchased that conviction at the

price of my life, because I am dying a slave.

Alack, what a fate is mine! one thinks. In my youth I was resolutely

determined to conquer heaven for myself.... Later on, I fell to dreaming

about the welfare of all mankind, the prosperity of my fatherland. Then

that passed off: I thought only of how I might arrange my domestic, my

family life ... and I tripped over an ant-hill--and flop! I went

headlong on the ground, and into the grave.... What master hands we

Russians are at winding up in that fashion!

However, it is high time for me to turn away from all this,--it was time

long ago! May this burden fall from my soul along with my life! I wish

for the last time, if only for a moment, to enjoy that good, gentle

feeling which is diffused within me like a tranquil light as soon as I

call you to mind. Your image is now doubly dear to me.... Along with it

there surges up before me the image of my native land, and I waft to it

and to you my last greeting. Live on, live long and happily, and

remember one thing: whether you remain in that remote nook of the

steppes, where you sometimes find things so painful, but where I should

so like to spend my last day, or whether you shall enter upon another

career, remember: life fails to disappoint him alone who does not

meditate upon it, and, demanding nothing from it, calmly accepts its

sparse gifts, and calmly makes use of them. Go forward, while you can:

but when your feet fail you,--sit down near the road, and gaze at the

passers-by without vexation and without envy: for they will not go far!

I have said this to you before, but death will teach any man whomsoever;

moreover, who shall say what is life, what is truth? Remember _who_ it

was that gave no answer to this question.... Farewell, Márya

Alexándrovna; farewell for the last time, and bear no ill will to poor--

ALEXYÉI.