A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  My hands are trembling, and I am quite in a fever…. My face burns. It is time to stop…. I’ll send off this letter quickly, before I’m ashamed of its feebleness. But for God’s sake, in your answer not a word — do you hear? — not a word of sympathy, or I’ll never write to you again. Understand me: I should not like you to take this letter as the outpouring of a misunderstood soul, complaining…. Ah! I don’t care! — Good - bye.

  M.

  VIII

  FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA

  ST. PETERSBURG, May 28, 1840.

  Marya Alexandrovna, you are a splendid person … you … your letter revealed the truth to me at last! My God! what suffering! A man is constantly thinking that now at last he has reached simplicity, that he’s no longer showing off, humbugging, lying … but when you come to look at him more attentively, he’s become almost worse than before. And this, too, one must remark: the man himself, alone that is, never attains this self - recognition, try as he will; his eyes cannot see his own defects, just as the compositor’s wearied eyes cannot see the slips he makes; another fresh eye is needed for that. My thanks to you, Marya Alexandrovna…. You see, I speak to you of myself; of you I dare not speak…. Ah, how absurd my last letter seems to me now, so flowery and sentimental! I beg you earnestly, go on with your confession. I fancy you, too, will be the better for it, and it will do me great good. It’s a true saying: ‘A woman’s wit’s better than many a reason,’ and a woman’s heart’s far and away — by God, yes! If women knew how much better, nobler, and wiser they are than men — yes, wiser — they would grow conceited and be spoiled. But happily they don’t know it; they don’t know it because their intelligence isn’t in the habit of turning incessantly upon themselves, as with us. They think very little about themselves — that’s their weakness and their strength; that’s the whole secret — I won’t say of our superiority, but of our power. They lavish their soul, as a prodigal heir does his father’s gold, while we exact a percentage on every worthless morsel…. How are they to hold their own with us?… All this is not compliments, but the simple truth, proved by experience. Once more, I beseech you, Marya Alexandrovna, go on writing to me…. If you knew all that is coming into my brain! … But I have no wish now to speak, I want to listen to you. My turn will come later. Write, write. — Your devoted,

  A. S.

  IX

  FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH

  VILLAGE OF X — — , June 12, 1840.

  I had hardly sent off my last letter to you, Alexey Petrovitch, when I regretted it; but there was no help for it then. One thing reassures me somewhat: I am sure you realised that it was under the influence of feelings long ago suppressed that it was written, and you excused me. I did not even read through, at the time, what I had written to you; I remember my heart beat so violently that the pen shook in my fingers. However, though I should probably have expressed myself differently if I had allowed myself time to reflect, I don’t mean, all the same, to disavow my own words, or the feelings which I described to you as best I could. To - day I am much cooler and far more self - possessed.

  I remember at the end of my letter I spoke of the painful position of a girl who is conscious of being solitary, even among her own people…. I won’t expatiate further upon them, but will rather tell you a few instances; I think I shall bore you less in that way. In the first place, then, let me tell you that all over the country - side I am never called anything but the female philosopher. The ladies especially honour me with that name. Some assert that I sleep with a Latin book in my hand, and in spectacles; others declare that I know how to extract cube roots, whatever they may be. Not a single one of them doubts that I wear manly apparel on the sly, and instead of ‘good - morning’, address people spasmodically with ‘Georges Sand!’ — and indignation grows apace against the female philosopher. We have a neighbour, a man of five - and - forty, a great wit … at least, he is reputed a great wit … for him my poor personality is an inexhaustible subject of jokes. He used to tell of me that directly the moon rose I could not take my eyes off it, and he will mimic the way in which I gaze at it; and declares that I positively take my coffee with moonshine instead of with milk — that’s to say, I put my cup in the moonlight. He swears that I use phrases of this kind — ’It is easy because it is difficult, though on the other hand it is difficult because it is easy’…. He asserts that I am always looking for a word, always striving ‘thither,’ and with comic rage inquires: ‘whither - thither? whither?’ He has also circulated a story about me that I ride at night up and down by the river, singing Schubert’s Serenade, or simply moaning, ‘Beethoven, Beethoven!’ She is, he will say, such an impassioned old person, and so on, and so on. Of course, all this comes straight to me. This surprises you, perhaps. But do not forget that four years have passed since your stay in these parts. You remember how every one frowned upon us in those days. Their turn has come now. And all that, too, is no consequence. I have to hear many things that wound my heart more than that. I won’t say anything about my poor, good mother’s never having been able to forgive me for your cousin’s indifference to me. But my whole life is burning away like a house on fire, as my nurse expresses it. ‘Of course,’ I am constantly hearing, ‘we can’t keep pace with you! we are plain people, we are guided by nothing but common - sense. Though, when you come to think of it, what have all these metaphysics, and books, and intimacies with learned folks brought you to?’ You perhaps remember my sister — not the one to whom you were once not indifferent — but the other elder one, who is married. Her husband, if you recollect, is a simple and rather comic person; you often used to make fun of him in those days. But she’s happy, after all; she’s the mother of a family, she’s fond of her husband, her husband adores her…. ‘I am like every one else,’ she says to me sometimes, ‘but you!’ And she’s right; I envy her….

  And yet, I feel I should not care to change with her, all the same. Let them call me a female philosopher, a queer fish, or what they choose — I will remain true to the end … to what? to an ideal, or what? Yes, to my ideal. Yes, I will be faithful to the end to what first set my heart throbbing — to what I have recognised, and recognise still, as truth, and good…. If only my strength does not fail me, if only my divinity does not turn out to be a dumb and soulless idol!…

  If you really feel any friendship for me, if you have really not forgotten me, you ought to aid me, you ought to solve my doubts, and strengthen my convictions….

  Though after all, what help can you give me? ‘All that’s rubbish, fiddle - faddle,’ was said to me yesterday by my uncle — I think you don’t know him — a retired naval officer, a very sensible man; ‘husband, children, a pot of soup; to look after the husband and children and keep an eye on the pot — that’s what a woman wants.’… Tell me, is he right?

  If he really is right, I can still make up for the past, I can still get into the common groove. Why should I wait any longer? what have I to hope for? In one of your letters you spoke of the wings of youth. How often — how long they are tied! And later on comes the time when they fall off, and there is no rising above earth, no flying to heaven any more. Write to me. — Yours,

  M.

  X

  FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA

  ST. PETERSBURG, June 16, 1840.

  I hasten to answer your letter, dear Marya Alexandrovna. I will confess to you that if it were not … I can’t say for business, for I have none … if it were not that I am stupidly accustomed to this place, I should have gone off to see you again, and should have talked to my heart’s content, but on paper it all comes out cold and dead….

  Marya Alexandrovna, I tell you again, women are better than men, and you ought to prove this in practice. Let such as us fling away our convictions, like cast - off clothes, or abandon them for a crust of bread, or lull them into an untroubled sleep, and put over them — as over the dead, once dear to us — a gravestone, at which to come at rare i
ntervals to pray — let us do all this; but you women must not be false to yourselves, you must not be false to your ideal…. That word has become ridiculous…. To fear being ridiculous — is not to love truth. It happens, indeed, that the senseless laughter of the fool drives even good men into giving up a great deal … as, for instance, the defence of an absent friend…. I have been guilty of that myself. But, I repeat, you women are better than we…. In trifling matters you give in sooner than we; but you know how to face fearful odds better than we. I don’t want to give you either advice or help — how should I? besides, you have no need of it. But I hold out my hand to you; I say to you, Have patience, struggle on to the end; and let me tell you, that, as a sentiment, the consciousness of an honestly sustained struggle is almost higher than the triumph of victory…. Victory does not depend on ourselves. Of course your uncle is right from a certain point of view; family life is everything for a woman; for her there is no other life.

  But what does that prove? None but Jesuits will maintain that any means are good if only they attain the end. It’s false! it’s false! Feet sullied with the mud of the road are unworthy to go into a holy temple. At the end of your letter is a phrase I do not like; you want to get into the common groove; take care, don’t make a false step! Besides — do not forget, — there is no erasing the past; and however much you try, whatever pressure you put on yourself, you will not turn into your sister. You have reached a higher level than she; but your soul has been scorched in the fire, hers is untouched. Descend to her level, stoop to her, you can; but nature will not give up her rights, and the burnt place will not grow again….

  You are afraid — let us speak plainly — you are afraid of being left an old maid. You are, I know, already twenty - six. Certainly the position of old maids is an unenviable one; every one is so ready to laugh at them, every one comments with such ungenerous amusement on their peculiarities and weaknesses. But if you scrutinise with a little attention any old bachelor, one may just as well point the finger of scorn at him; one will find plenty in him, too, to laugh at. There’s no help for it. There is no getting happiness by struggling for it. But we must not forget that it’s not happiness, but human dignity, that’s the chief aim in life.

  You describe your position with great humour. I well understand all the bitterness of it; your position one may really call tragic. But let me tell you you are not alone in it; there is scarcely any quite modern person who isn’t placed in it. You will say that that makes it no better for you; but I am of opinion that suffering in company with thousands is quite a different matter from suffering alone. It is not a matter of egoism, but a sense of a general inevitability which comes in.

  All this is very fine, granted, you will say … but not practicable in reality. Why not practicable? I have hitherto imagined, and I hope I shall never cease to imagine, that in God’s world everything honest, good, and true is practicable, and will sooner or later come to pass, and not only will be realised, but is already being realised. Let each man only hold firm in his place, not lose patience, nor desire the impossible, but do all in his power. But I fancy I have gone off too much into abstractions. I will defer the continuation of my reflections till the next letter; but I cannot lay down my pen without warmly, most warmly, pressing your hand, and wishing you from my soul all that is good on earth.

  Yours, A. S.

  P.S. — By the way, you say it’s useless for you to wait, that you have nothing to hope for; how do you know that, let me ask?

  XI

  FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH

  VILLAGE OF X — — , June 30, 1840.

  How grateful I am to you for your letter, Alexey Petrovitch! How much good it did me! I see you really are a good and trustworthy man, and so I shall not be reserved with you. I trust you. I know you would make no unkind use of my openness, and will give me friendly counsel. Here is the question.