I
FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA
ST. PETERSBURG, March 7, 1840.
DEAR MARYA ALEXANDROVNA, —
I fancy I have never written to you before, and here I am writing to you now…. I have chosen a curious time to begin, haven’t I? I’ll tell you what gave me the impulse. Mon cousin Théodore was with me to - day, and…how shall I put it?…and he confided to me as the greatest secret (he never tells one anything except as a great secret), that he was in love with the daughter of a gentleman here, and that this time he is firmly resolved to be married, and that he has already taken the first step — he has declared himself! I made haste, of course, to congratulate him on an event so agreeable for him; he has been longing to declare himself for a great while…but inwardly, I must own, I was rather astonished. Although I knew that everything was over between you, still I had fancied…. In short, I was surprised. I had made arrangements to go out to see friends to - day, but I have stopped at home and mean to have a little gossip with you. If you do not care to listen to me, fling this letter forthwith into the fire. I warn you I mean to be frank, though I feel you are fully justified in taking me for a rather impertinent person. Observe, however, that I would not have taken up my pen if I had not known your sister was not with you; she is staying, so Théodore told me, the whole summer with your aunt, Madame B — - . God give her every blessing!
And so, this is how it has all worked out…. But I am not going to offer you my friendship and all that; I am shy as a rule of high - sounding speeches and ‘heartfelt’ effusions. In beginning to write this letter, I simply obeyed a momentary impulse. If there is another feeling latent within me, let it remain hidden under a bushel for the time.
I’m not going to offer you sympathy either. In sympathising with others, people for the most part want to get rid, as quick as they can, of an unpleasant feeling of involuntary, egoistic regret…. I understand genuine, warm sympathy … but such sympathy you would not accept from just any one…. Do, please, get angry with me…. If you’re angry, you’ll be sure to read my missive to the end.
But what right have I to write to you, to talk of my friendship, of my feelings, of consolation? None, absolutely none; that I am bound to admit, and I can only throw myself on your kindness.
Do you know what the preface of my letter’s like? I’ll tell you: some Mr. N. or M. walking into the drawing - room of a lady who doesn’t in the least expect him, and who does, perhaps, expect some one else…. He realises that he has come at an unlucky moment, but there’s no help for it…. He sits down, begins talking…goodness knows what about: poetry, the beauties of nature, the advantages of a good education…talks the most awful rot, in fact. But, meanwhile, the first five minutes have gone by, he has settled himself comfortably; the lady has resigned herself to the inevitable, and so Mr. N. or M. regains his self - possession, takes breath, and begins a real conversation — to the best of his ability.
In spite, though, of all this rigmarole, I don’t still feel quite comfortable. I seem to see your bewildered — even rather wrathful — face; I feel that it will be almost impossible you should not ascribe to me some hidden motives, and so, like a Roman who has committed some folly, I wrap myself majestically in my toga, and await in silence your final sentence….
The question is: Will you allow me to go on writing to you? — I remain sincerely and warmly devoted to you,
ALEXEY S.
II
FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH
VILLAGE OF X — — , March 22, 1840.
DEAR SIR,
ALEXEY PETROVITCH,
I have received your letter, and I really don’t know what to say to you. I should not even have answered you at all, if it had not been that I fancied that under your jesting remarks there really lies hid a feeling of some friendliness. Your letter made an unpleasant impression on me. In answer to your rigmarole, as you call it, let me too put to you one question: What for? What have I to do with you, or you with me? I do not ascribe to you any bad motives … on the contrary, I’m grateful for your sympathy … but we are strangers to each other, and I, just now at least, feel not the slightest inclination for greater intimacy with any one whatever. — With sincere esteem, I remain, etc.,
MARYA B.
III
FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA
ST. PETERSBURG, March 30.
Thank you, Marya Alexandrovna, thank you for your note, brief as it was. All this time I have been in great suspense; twenty times a day I have thought of you and my letter. You can’t imagine how bitterly I laughed at myself; but now I am in an excellent frame of mind, and very much pleased with myself. Marya Alexandrovna, I am going to begin a correspondence with you! Confess, this was not at all what you expected after your answer; I’m surprised myself at my boldness…. Well, I don’t care, here goes! But don’t be uneasy; I want to talk to you, not of you, but of myself. It’s like this, do you see: it’s absolutely needful for me, in the old - fashioned phraseology, to open my heart to some one. I have not the slightest right to select you for my confidant — agreed.
But listen: I won’t demand of you an answer to my letters; I don’t even want to know whether you read my ‘rigmarole’; but, in the name of all that’s holy, don’t send my letters back to me!
Let me tell you, I am utterly alone on earth. In my youth I led a solitary life, though I never, I remember, posed as a Byronic hero; but first, circumstances, and secondly, a faculty of imaginative dreaming and a love for dreaming, rather cool blood, pride, indolence — a number of different causes, in fact, cut me off from the society of men. The transition from dream - life to real life took place in me late…perhaps too late, perhaps it has not fully taken place up to now. So long as I found entertainment in my own thoughts and feelings, so long as I was capable of abandoning myself to causeless and unuttered transports and so on, I did not complain of my solitude. I had no associates; I had what are called friends. Sometimes I needed their presence, as an electrical machine needs a discharger — and that was all. Love…of that subject we will not speak for the present. But now, I will own, now solitude weighs heavy on me; and at the same time, I see no escape from my position. I do not blame fate; I alone am to blame and am deservedly punished. In my youth I was absorbed by one thing — my precious self; I took my simple - hearted self - love for modesty; I avoided society — and here I am now, a fearful bore to myself. What am I to do with myself? There is no one I love; all my relations with other people are somehow strained and false.
And I’ve no memories either, for in all my past life I can find nothing but my own personality. Save me. To you I have made no passionate protestations of love. You I have never smothered in a flood of aimless babble. I passed by you rather coldly, and it is just for that reason I make up my mind to have recourse to you now. (I have had thoughts of doing so before this, but at that time you were not free….) Among all my self - created sensations, pleasures and sufferings, the one genuine feeling was the not great, but instinctive attraction to you, which withered up at the time, like a single ear of wheat in the midst of worthless weeds…. Let me just for once look into another face, into another soul — my own face has grown hateful to me. I am like a man who should have been condemned to live all his life in a room with walls of looking - glass…. I do not ask of you any sort of confessions — oh mercy, no! Bestow on me a sister’s unspoken sympathy, or at least the simple curiosity of a reader. I will entertain you, I will really.
Meanwhile I have the honour to be your sincere friend,
A. S.
IV
FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA
ST. PETERSBURG, April 7.
I am writing to you again, though I foresee that without your approval I shall soon cease writing. I must own that you cannot but feel some distrust of me. Well, perhaps you are right too. In old days I should have triumphantly announced to you (and very likely I should have quite b
elieved my own words myself) that I had ‘developed,’ made progress, since the time when we parted. With condescending, almost affectionate, contempt I should have referred to my past, and with touching self - conceit have initiated you into the secrets of my real, present life … but, now, I assure you, Marya Alexandrovna, I’m positively ashamed and sick to remember the capers and antics cut at times by my paltry egoism. Don’t be afraid: I am not going to force upon you any great truths, any profound views. I have none of them — of those truths and views. I have become a simple good fellow — really. I am bored, Marya Alexandrovna, I’m simply bored past all enduring. That is why I am writing to you…. I really believe we may come to be friends….
But I’m positively incapable of talking to you, till you hold out a hand to me, till I get a note from you with the one word ‘Yes.’ Marya Alexandrovna, are you willing to listen to me? That’s the question. — Yours devotedly,
A. S.
V
FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH
VILLAGE OF X — — , April 14.
What a strange person you are! Very well, then. — Yes!
MARYA B.
VI
FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA
ST. PETERSBURG, May 2, 1840.
Hurrah! Thanks, Marya Alexandrovna, thanks! You are a very kind and indulgent creature.
I will begin according to my promise to talk about myself, and I shall talk with a relish approaching to appetite…. That’s just it. Of anything in the world one may speak with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but with appetite one talks only of oneself.
Let me tell you, during the last few days a very strange experience has befallen me. I have for the first time taken an all - round view of my past. You understand me. Every one of us often recalls what is over — with regret, or vexation, or simply from nothing to do. But to bend a cold, clear gaze over all one’s past life — as a traveller turns and looks from a high mountain on the plain he has passed through — is only possible at a certain age … and a secret chill clutches at a man’s heart when it happens to him for the first time. Mine, anyway, felt a sick pang. While we are young, such an all - round view is impossible. But my youth is over, and, like one who has climbed on to a mountain, everything lies clear before me.
Yes, my youth is gone, gone never to return!… Here it lies before me, as it were in the palm of my hand.
A sorry spectacle! I will confess to you, Marya Alexandrovna, I am very sorry for myself. My God! my God! Can it be that I have myself so utterly ruined my life, so mercilessly embroiled and tortured myself!… Now I have come to my senses, but it’s too late. Has it ever happened to you to save a fly from a spider? Has it? You remember, you put it in the sun; its wings and legs were stuck together, glued…. How awkwardly it moved, how clumsily it attempted to get clear!… After prolonged efforts, it somehow gets better, crawls, tries to open its wings … but there is no more frolicking for it, no more light - hearted buzzing in the sunshine, as before, when it was flying through the open window into the cool room and out again, freely winging its way into the hot air…. The fly, at least, fell through none of its own doing into the dreadful web … but I!
I have been my own spider!
And, at the same time, I cannot greatly blame myself. Who, indeed, tell me, pray, is ever to blame for anything — alone? Or, to put it better, we are all to blame, and yet we can’t be blamed. Circumstances determine us; they shove us into one road or another, and then they punish us for it. Every man has his destiny…. Wait a bit, wait a bit! A cleverly worked - out but true comparison has just come into my head. As the clouds are first condensed from the vapours of earth, rise from out of her bosom, then separate, move away from her, and at last bring her prosperity or ruin: so, about every one of us, and out of ourselves, is fashioned — how is one to express it? — is fashioned a sort of element, which has afterwards a destructive or saving influence on us. This element I call destiny…. In other words, and speaking simply, every one makes his own destiny and destiny makes every one….
Every one makes his destiny — yes!… but people like us make it too much — that’s what’s wrong with us! Consciousness is awakened too early in us; too early we begin to keep watch on ourselves…. We Russians have set ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personality, and when we’re children hardly grown - up we set to work to cultivate it, this luckless personality! Receiving no definite guidance from without, with no real respect for anything, no strong belief in anything, we are free to make what we choose of ourselves … one can’t expect every one to understand on the spot the uselessness of intellect ‘seething in vain activity’ … and so we get again one monster the more in the world, one more of those worthless creatures in whom habits of self - ccnsciousness distort the very striving for truth, and a ludicrous simplicity exists side by side with a pitiful duplicity … one of those beings of impotent, restless thought who all their lives know neither the satisfaction of natural activity, nor genuine suffering, nor the genuine thrill of conviction…. Mixing up together in ourselves the defects of all ages, we rob each defect of its good redeeming side … we are as silly as children, but we are not sincere as they are; we are cold as old people, but we have none of the good sense of old age…. To make up, we are psychologists. Oh yes, we are great psychologists! But our psychology is akin to pathology; our psychology is that subtle study of the laws of morbid condition and morbid development, with which healthy people have nothing to do…. And, what is the chief point, we are not young, even in our youth we are not young!
And at the same time — why libel ourselves? Were we never young, did we never know the play, the fire, the thrill of life’s forces? We too have been in Arcady, we too have strayed about her bright meadows!… Have you chanced, strolling about a copse, to come across those dark grasshoppers which, jumping up from under your very feet, suddenly with a whirring sound expand bright red wings, fly a few yards, and then drop again into the grass? So our dark youth at times spread its particoloured wings for a few moments and for no long flight…. Do you remember our silent evening walks, the four of us together, beside your garden fence, after some long, warm, spirited conversation? Do you remember those blissful moments? Nature, benign and stately, took us to her bosom. We plunged, swooning, into a flood of bliss. All around, the sunset with a sudden and soft flush, the glowing sky, the earth bathed in light, everything on all sides seemed full of the fresh and fiery breath of youth, the joyous triumph of some deathless happiness. The sunset flamed; and, like it, our rapturous hearts burned with soft and passionate fire, and the tiny leaves of the young trees quivered faintly and expectantly over our heads, as though in response to the inward tremor of vague feelings and anticipations in us. Do you remember the purity, the goodness and trustfulness of ideas, the softening of noble hopes, the silence of full hearts? Were we not really then worth something better than what life has brought us to? Why was it ordained for us only at rare moments to see the longed - for shore, and never to stand firmly on it, never to touch it:
’Never to weep with joy, like the first Jew
Upon the border of the promised land’!
These two lines of Fet’s remind me of others, also his…. Do you remember once, as we stood in the highroad, we saw in the distance a cloud of pink dust, blown up by the light breeze against the setting sun? ‘In an eddying cloud,’ you began, and we were all still at once to listen:
’In an eddying cloud
Dust rises in the distance …
Rider or man on foot
Is seen not in the dust.
I see some one trotting
On a gallant steed …
Friend of mine, friend far away,
Think! oh, think of me!’
You ceased … we all felt a shudder pass over us, as though the breath of love had flitted over our hearts, and each of us — I am sure of it — felt irresistibly drawn into the distance, the unknown distance, where t
he phantom of bliss rises and lures through the mist. And all the while, observe the strangeness; why, one wonders, should we have a yearning for the far away? Were we not in love with each other? Was not happiness ‘so close, so possible’? As I asked you just now: why was it we did not touch the longed - for shore? Because falsehood walked hand in hand with us; because it poisoned our best feelings; because everything in us was artificial and strained; because we did not love each other at all, but were only trying to love, fancying we loved….
But enough, enough! why inflame one’s wounds? Besides, it is all over and done with. What was good in our past moved me, and on that good I will take leave of you for a while. It’s time to make an end of this long letter. I am going out for a breath here of the May air, in which spring is breaking through the dry fastness of winter with a sort of damp, keen warmth. Farewell. — Yours,
A. S.
VII
FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH
VILLAGE OF X — — ,May 1840.
I have received your letter, Alexey Petrovitch, and do you know what feeling t aroused in me? — indignation … yes, indignation … and I will explain to you at once why it aroused just that feeling in me. It’s only a pity I’m not a great hand with my pen; I rarely write, and am not good at expressing my thoughts precisely and in few words. But you will, I hope, come to my aid. You must try, on your side, to understand me, if only to find out why I am indignant with you.
Tell me — you have brains — have you ever asked yourself what sort of creature a Russian woman is? what is her destiny? her position in the world — in short, what is her life? I don’t know if you have had time to put this question to yourself; I can’t picture to myself how you would answer it…. I should, perhaps, in conversation be capable of giving you my ideas on the subject, but on paper I am scarcely equal to it. No matter, though. This is the point: you will certainly agree with me that we women, those of us at least who are not satisfied with the common interests of domestic life, receive our final education, in any case, from you men: you have a great and powerful influence on us. Now, consider what you do to us. I am talking about young girls, especially those who, like me, live in the wilds, and there are very many such in Russia. Besides, I don’t know anything of others and cannot judge of them. Picture to yourself such a girl. Her education, suppose, is finished; she begins to live, to enjoy herself. But enjoyment alone is not much to her. She demands much from life, she reads, and dreams … of love. Always nothing but love! you will say…. Suppose so; but that word means a great deal to her. I repeat that I am not speaking of a girl to whom thinking is tiresome and boring…. She looks round her, is waiting for the time when he will come for whom her soul yearns…. At last he makes his appearance — she is captivated; she is wax in his hands. All — happiness and love and thought — all have come with a rush together with him; all her tremors are soothed, all her doubts solved by him. Truth itself seems speaking by his lips. She venerates him, is over - awed at her own happiness, learns, loves. Great is his power over her at that time!… If he were a hero, he would fire her, would teach her to sacrifice herself, and all sacrifices would be easy to her! But there are no heroes in our times…. Anyway, he directs her as he pleases. She devotes herself to whatever interests him, every word of his sinks into her soul. She has not yet learned how worthless and empty and false a word may be, how little it costs him who utters it, and how little it deserves belief! After these first moments of bliss and hope there usually comes — through circumstances — (circumstances are always to blame) — there comes a parting. They say there have been instances of two kindred souls, on getting to know one another, becoming at once inseparably united; I have heard it said, too, that things did not always go smoothly with them in consequence … but of what I have not seen myself I will not speak, — and that the pettiest calculation, the most pitiful prudence, can exist in a youthful heart, side by side with the most passionate enthusiasm — of that I have to my sorrow had practical experience. And so, the parting comes…. Happy the girl who realises at once that it is the end of everything, who does not beguile herself with expectations! But you, valorous, just men, for the most part, have not the pluck, nor even the desire, to tell us the truth…. It is less disturbing for you to deceive us…. However, I am ready to believe that you deceive yourselves together with us…. Parting! To bear separation is both hard and easy. If only there be perfect, untouched faith in him whom one loves, the soul can master the anguish of parting…. I will say more. It is only then, when she is left alone, that she finds out the sweetness of solitude — not fruitless, but filled with memories and ideas. It is only then that she finds out herself, comes to her true self, grows strong…. In the letters of her friend far away she finds a support for herself; in her own, she, very likely for the first time, finds full self - expression…. But as two people who start from a stream’s source, along opposite banks, at first can touch hands, then only communicate by voice, and finally lose sight of each other altogether; so two natures grow apart at last by separation. Well, what then? you will say; it’s clear they were not destined to be together…. But herein the difference between a man and a woman comes out. For a man it means nothing to begin a new life, to shake off all his past; a woman cannot do this. No, she cannot fling off her past, she cannot break away from her roots — no, a thousand times no! And now begins a pitiful and ludicrous spectacle…. Gradually losing hope and faith in herself — and how bitter that is you cannot even imagine! — she pines and wears herself out alone, obstinately clinging to her memories and turning away from everything that the life around offers her…. But he? Look for him! where is he? And is it worth his while to stand still? When has he time to look round? Why, it’s all a thing of the past for him. Or else this is what happens: it happens that he feels a sudden inclination to meet the former object of his feelings, that he even makes an excursion with that aim…. But, mercy on us! the pitiful conceit that leads him into doing that! In his gracious sympathy, in his would - be friendly advice, in his indulgent explanation of the past, such consciousness of his superiority is manifest! It is so agreeable and cheering for him to let himself feel every instant — what a clever person he is, and how kind! And how little he understands what he has done! How clever he is at not even guessing what is passing in a woman’s heart, and how offensive is his compassion if he does guess it!… Tell me, please, where is she to get strength to bear all this? Recollect this, too: for the most part, a girl in whose brain — to her misfortune — thought has begun to stir, such a girl, when she begins to love, and falls under a man’s influence, inevitably grows apart from her family, her circle of friends. She was not, even before then, satisfied with their life, though she moved in step with them, while she treasured all her secret dreams in her soul…. But the discrepancy soon becomes apparent…. They cease to comprehend her, and are ready to look askance at everything she does…. At first this is nothing to her, but afterwards, afterwards … when she is left alone, when what she was striving towards, for which she had sacrificed everything — when heaven is not gained while everything near, everything possible, is lost — what is there to support her? Jeers, sly hints, the vulgar triumph of coarse commonsense, she could still endure somehow … but what is she to do, what is to be her refuge, when an inner voice begins to whisper to her that all of them are right and she was wrong, that life, whatever it may be, is better than dreams, as health is better than sickness … when her favourite pursuits, her favourite books, grow hateful to her, books out of which there is no reading happiness — what, tell me, is to be her support? Must she not inevitably succumb in such a struggle? how is she to live and to go on living in such a desert? To know oneself beaten and to hold out one’s hand, like a beggar, to persons quite indifferent, for them to bestow the sympathy which the proud heart had once fancied it could well dispense with — all that would be nothing! But to feel yourself ludicrous at the very instant when you are shedding bitter, bitter tears …
O God, spare such suffering!…
A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1 Page 241