The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky (Modern Library Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “No, I haven’t got any letter,” I said at last. “Hasn’t he come?”

  She turned terribly pale and stared at me for a long time without moving. I had shattered her last hope.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” she said at last in a strangled voice. “If he leaves me like that, then perhaps it’s best to forget him!”

  She dropped her eyes, then tried to look at me, but couldn’t do it. For a few more minutes she tried to pull herself together, then she turned away from me suddenly, leaned on the railing with her elbows, and burst into tears.

  “Come, come,” I began, but as I looked at her I hadn’t the heart to go on. And, besides, what could I have said to her?

  “Don’t try to comfort me,” she said, weeping. “Don’t tell me he’ll come—that he hasn’t deserted me so cruelly and so inhumanly as he has. Why? Why did he do it? Surely there was nothing in my letter, in that unhappy letter of mine, was there?”

  Here her voice was broken by sobs. My heart bled as I looked at her.

  “Oh, how horribly cruel it is!” she began again. “And not a line, not a line! If he’d just written to say that he didn’t want me, that he rejected me, but not to write a single line in three days! How easy it is for him to slight and insult a poor defenceless girl whose only fault is that she loves him! Oh, what I’ve been through these three days! Lord, when I think that it was I who went to him the first time, when I think how I humiliated myself before him, how I cried, how I implored him for a little love! And after that!… But, look here,” she said, turning to me, and her black eyes flashed, “there’s something wrong! There must be something wrong! It’s not natural! Either you are mistaken or I am. Perhaps he didn’t get my letter. Perhaps he still doesn’t know anything. Tell me, for heaven’s sake, explain it to me—I can’t understand it—how could he have behaved so atrociously to me. Not one word! Why, people show more pity to the lowest creature on earth! Perhaps he has heard something, perhaps someone has told him something about me,” she cried, turning to me for an answer: “What do you think?”

  “Listen, Nastenka, I’ll go and see him tomorrow on your behalf.”

  “Well?”

  “I’ll try and find out from him what the position is. I’ll tell him everything.”

  “Well? Well?”

  “You write a letter. Don’t refuse, Nastenka, don’t refuse! I’ll make him respect your action. He’ll learn everything, and if—”

  “No, my friend, no,” she interrupted. “Enough! Not another word, not another word from me, not a line—I’ve had enough! I don’t know him any more, I don’t love him any more, I’ll f-f-forget him.”

  She did not finish.

  “Calm yourself, calm yourself, my dear! Sit here, Nastenka,” I said, making her sit down on the seat.

  “But I am calm. I tell you this is nothing. It’s only tears—they’ll soon dry. You don’t really think I’m going to do away with myself, drown myself, do you?”

  My heart was full: I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.

  “Listen,” she said, taking my hand, “you wouldn’t have behaved like this, would you? You wouldn’t have abandoned a girl who had come to you of her own free will, you wouldn’t have made a cruel mockery of her weak foolish heart, would you? You would have taken care of her. You would have reminded yourself that she had nobody in the whole world, that she was so inexperienced, that she could not prevent herself from falling in love with you, that she couldn’t help it, that it wasn’t her fault—no, it wasn’t her fault!—that she had not done anything wrong. Oh, dear God, dear God …”

  “Nastenka,” I cried, unable to restrain myself any longer, “this is more than I can endure! It’s sheer torture to me! You wound me to the heart, Nastenka! I can’t be silent! I must speak! I must tell you of all the anguish in my heart!”

  Saying this, I raised myself from the seat. She took my hand and looked at me in surprise.

  “What’s the matter?” she said at last.

  “Listen to me, Nastenka,” I said firmly, “listen to me, please! What I’m going to say to you now is all nonsense. It is foolish. It cannot be. I know it will never happen, but I cannot remain silent. In the name of all that you’re suffering now, I beseech you beforehand to forgive me!”

  “Well, what is it? What is it?” she demanded, and she stopped crying and looked intently at me, a strange gleam of curiosity in her startled eyes. “What is the matter with you?”

  “It’s out of the question, I know, but—I love you, Nastenka! That is what’s the matter with me. Now you know everything!” I said, with a despairing wave of my hand. “Now you can judge for yourself whether you ought to go on talking to me as you did just now, and—what is perhaps even more important—whether you ought to listen to what I’m going to say to you.”

  “Well, what about it?” Nastenka interrupted. “Of course I knew long ago that you loved me, only I always thought that—well, that you loved me in the ordinary way, I mean that you were just fond of me. Oh dear, oh dear!…”

  “At first it was in the ordinary way, Nastenka, but now—now I’m in the same position as you were when you went to him with your bundle that night. I’m in a worse position Nastenka, because he wasn’t in love with anyone at the time, and you—you are.”

  “Goodness, what are you saying to me! I really can’t understand you. But, look, what has made you—I mean, why did you—and so suddenly too! Oh dear, I’m talking such nonsense! But you—”

  And Nastenka got completely confused. Her cheeks were flushed. She dropped her eyes.

  “What’s to be done, Nastenka? What can I do about it? It’s entirely my fault, of course. I’ve taken an unfair advantage of—But no—no, Nastenka, it isn’t my fault. I know it isn’t. I feel it isn’t because my heart tells me I’m right, because I could never do anything to hurt you, because I could do nothing that you would ever take offence at. I was your friend? Well, I still am your friend. I have not been unfaithful to anyone. You see, I’m crying, Nastenka. But never mind. What if tears do run down my cheeks? Let them. They don’t hurt anyone. They’ll soon dry, Nastenka.”

  “But sit down, do sit down, please,” she said, making me sit down on the seat. “Oh dear, oh dear!”

  “No, Nastenka, I shan’t sit down. I can’t stay here any longer. You’ll never see me again. I’ll say what I have to say and go away. I only want to say that you’d never have found out that I loved you. I’d never have told my secret to a living soul. I’d never have tormented you with my egoism at such a moment. Never! But I could not bear to be silent now. It was you who began talking about it. It’s your fault, not mine. You just can’t drive me away from you.”

  “But I’m not—I’m not driving you away from me!” Nastenka said, doing her best, poor child, not to show how embarrassed she was.

  “You are not driving me away? No—but I meant to run away from you myself. And I will go away. I will. Only first let me tell you everything, for, you see, when you were talking to me here, I couldn’t sit still; when you cried here, when you tormented yourself because—well, because (I’d better say it, Nastenka)—because you were jilted, because your love was slighted and disregarded, I felt that in my heart there was so much love for you, Nastenka, so much love! And I so bitterly resented not being able to do anything to help you with my love that—that my heart was bursting and I—I couldn’t be silent any longer, Nastenka. I had to speak!”

  “Yes, yes, tell me everything, do speak to me like that!” said Nastenka with a gesture that touched me deeply. “It may seem strange to you that I should be speaking to you like this, but—do say what you have to say! I will tell you afterwards. I’ll tell you everything!”

  “You are sorry for me, Nastenka. You’re just sorry for me, my dear, dear friend! Well, what’s done is done. No use crying over spilt milk, is it? Well, so you know everything now. At any rate, that’s something to start with. All right. Everything’s fine now. Only, please, listen. When you were sitting here, when
you were crying, I thought to myself (Oh, do let me tell you what I was thinking!), I thought that (I know of course how utterly impossible it is, Nastenka)—I thought that you—that you somehow—I mean quite apart from anything else—that you no longer cared for him. If that is so, then—I already thought of that yesterday, Nastenka, and the day before yesterday—then I would—I most certainly would have done my best to make you care for me. You said yourself, Nastenka—you did say it several times, didn’t you?—that you almost loved me. Well, what more is there to tell you? That’s really all I wanted to say. All that remains to be said is what would happen if you fell in love with me—that’s all—nothing more! Now listen to me, my friend—for you are my friend, aren’t you?—I am of course an ordinary sort of fellow, poor and insignificant, but that doesn’t matter (I’m afraid I don’t seem to be putting it very well, Nastenka, because I’m so confused), what matters is that I’d love you so well, so well, Nastenka, that even if you still loved him and went on loving the man I don’t know, my love would never be a burden to you. All you’d feel, all you’d be conscious of every minute, is that a very grateful heart was beating at your side, Nastenka, an ardent heart which for your sake—Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka, what have you done to me?”

  “Don’t cry, I don’t want you to cry,” said Nastenka, rising quickly from the seat. “Come along, get up, come with me. Don’t cry, don’t cry,” she said, drying my tears with her handkerchief. “There, come along now. Perhaps I’ll tell you something. Well, if he has really given me up, if he has forgotten me, then though I still love him (and I don’t want to deceive you)—But, listen, answer me! If, for instance, I were to fall in love with you—I mean, if only I—Oh, my friend, my friend, when I think, when I only think how I must have offended you when I laughed at your love, when I praised you for not falling in love with me! Oh dear, why didn’t I foresee it? Why didn’t I foresee it? How could I have been so stupid? But never mind, I’ve made up my mind now. I’m going to tell you everything.”

  “Look here, Nastenka, do you know what? I’ll go away. Yes, I’ll go away! I can see that I’m simply tormenting you. Now you’re sorry you’ve been making fun of me, and I hate to think—yes, I simply hate to think that in addition to your own sorrow—Of course, it’s all my fault, Nastenka, it’s all my fault, but—goodbye!”

  “Stop! Listen to me first, please. You can wait, can’t you?”

  “Wait? What should I wait for? What do you mean?”

  “You see, I love him, but that will pass. It must pass. It’s quite impossible for it not to pass. As a matter of fact, it’s already passing. I can feel it. Who knows, maybe it’ll be over today, for I hate him! Yes, I hate him because he has slighted me, while you were weeping with me. I hate him because you haven’t let me down as he has, because you love me, while he has never really loved me, because—well, because I love you too. Yes, I love you! I love you as you love me. I’ve told you so before, haven’t I? You heard me say it yourself. I love you because you’re better than he is, because you’re more honourable than he is, because he—”

  She stopped crying at last, dried her eyes, and we continued our walk. I wanted to say something, but she kept asking me to wait. We were silent. At last she plucked up courage and began to speak.

  “Look,” she said, in a weak and trembling voice, in which, however, there was a strange note which pierced my heart and filled it with a sweet sensation of joy, “don’t think I’m so fickle, so inconstant. Don’t think that I can forget him so easily and so quickly, that I can be untrue to him. I have loved him for a whole year, and I swear I have never, never for a moment, been untrue to him even in thought. He has thought little of that, he has scorned me—well, I don’t mind that. But he has also hurt my feelings and wrung my heart. I don’t love him because I can only love what is generous, what is understanding, what is honourable, for I’m like that myself, and he’s not worthy of me. Well, let’s forget about him. I’d rather he behaved to me like that now than that I was disappointed later in my expectations and found out the sort of man he really was. Anyway, it’s all over now. And, besides, my dear friend,” she went on, pressing my hand, “who knows, perhaps my love for him was nothing but self-deception, nothing but imagination. Perhaps it started just as a joke, just as a bit of silly nonsense because I was constantly under Granny’s supervision. Perhaps I ought to love another man and not him, quite a different man, a man who’d have pity on me, and—and—anyway,” Nastenka broke off, overcome with emotion, “don’t let’s speak of it. Don’t let’s speak of it. I only wanted to tell you—I wanted to tell you that even if I do love him (no, did love him), even if in spite of this you still say—or rather feel that your love is so great that it could in time replace my love for him in my heart—if you really and truly have pity on me, if you won’t leave me alone to my fate, without consolation, without hope, if you promise to love me always as you love me now, then I swear that my gratitude—that my love will in time be worthy of your love. Will you take my hand now?”

  “Nastenka,” I cried, my voice broken with sobs, “Nastenka! Oh, Nastenka!”

  “All right, all right!” she said, making a great effort to speak calmly. “All right! That’s enough! Now everything’s been said, hasn’t it? Hasn’t it? Well, you are happy now, aren’t you? And I too am happy. So don’t let’s talk about it any more. Just wait a little—have patience—spare me! Talk of something else, for God’s sake!”

  “Yes, Nastenka, yes! Of course don’t let’s talk about it. Now I’m happy. Well, Nastenka, do let’s talk of something else. Come on, let’s. I don’t mind.”

  But we did not know what to talk about. We laughed, we cried, we said a thousand things without caring whether they made sense or not. One moment we walked along the pavement, and the next we suddenly turned back and crossed the road, then we stopped and crossed over to the embankment again. We were like children.…

  “I’m living alone, now, Nastenka,” I began, “but tomorrow—You know, of course, Nastenka, that I’m poor, don’t you? I’ve only got twelve hundred roubles, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course not, and Granny has her pension, so that she won’t be a burden to us. We’ll have to take Granny, of course.”

  “Of course we’ll take Granny! Only—there’s Matryona.”

  “Goodness, I never thought of that! And we’ve got Fyokla!”

  “Matryona is a good soul, only she has one fault: she has no imagination, Nastenka, none whatever! But I don’t suppose that matters!”

  “It makes no difference. They can live together. You’ll move to our house tomorrow, won’t you?”

  “How do you mean? To your house? Oh, very well, I don’t mind.”

  “I mean, you’ll take our attic. I told you we have an attic, didn’t I? It’s empty now. We had a woman lodger, an old gentlewoman, but she’s left, and I know Granny would like to let it to a young man. I said to her, ‘Why a young man, Granny?’ But she said, ‘Why not? I’m old and I like young people about. You don’t think I’m trying to get a husband for you, do you?’ Well, I saw at once of course that that was what she had in mind.”

  “Good Lord, Nastenka!”

  And we both laughed.

  “Oh, well, never mind. But where do you live? I’ve forgotten.”

  I told her I lived near a certain bridge in Barannikov’s house.

  “It’s a very big house, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s a very big house.”

  “Oh, yes, I know it. It’s a nice house, but I still think you ought to move out of it and come and live with us as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll do so tomorrow, Nastenka, tomorrow. I’m afraid I’m a little behindhand with my rent, but that doesn’t matter. I shall be getting my salary soon and—”

  “And you know I could be giving lessons. Yes, why not? I’ll learn everything myself first and then give lessons.”

  “That’s an excellent idea, Nastenka, an excellent idea! And I’ll be getting a b
onus soon.…”

  “So tomorrow you’ll be my lodger.…”

  “Yes, and we’ll go to The Barber of Seville, for I believe they’re going to put it on again soon.”

  “Oh yes, I’d love to,” said Nastenka, laughing. “Perhaps not The Barber, though. We’d better see something else.”

  “Oh, all right, something else then. I don’t mind. I suppose something else would be better. You see, I didn’t think—”

  Talking like this, we walked along in a sort of a daze, in a mist, as though we did not know ourselves what was happening to us. One moment we would stop and go on talking in one place for a long time, and the next we would be walking again till we would find ourselves goodness knows where—and more laughter, more tears. Then Nastenka would suddenly decide that she ought to be going back home, and I would not dare to detain her, but would insist on accompanying her to her house. We would start on our way back, and in about a quarter of an hour would find ourselves on the embankment by our seat. Then she would sigh, and tears would come into her eyes again, and I would be plunged into despair and a chilly premonition of disaster would steal into my heart. But she would at once press my hand and drag me off again to walk, talk, chatter.…

  “It’s time—time I went home now,” Nastenka said at last. “I think it must be awfully late. We’ve been behaving like children long enough!”

  “Yes, of course, Nastenka. Only I don’t suppose I shall be able to sleep now. No, I won’t go home.”

  “I don’t think I shall sleep, either. Only see me home, will you?”

  “Of course, I’ll see you home.…”

  “On your word of honour? Because, you see, I must get back home some time, mustn’t I?”

  “On my word of honour!” I replied, laughing.

  “All right, let’s go.”

  “Let’s go. Look at the sky, Nastenka, look! It’ll be a lovely day tomorrow! What a blue sky! What a moon! Look, a yellow cloud is drifting over it. Look! Look! No, it has passed by. Look, Nastenka, look!”