I had been walking a lot and for a long time, and I had already completely succeeded, as was my wont, in forgetting where I was, when I suddenly found myself at the city gates. I cheered up in an instant, and stepped to the other side of the barrier, walked between the sown fields and the meadows, oblivious of any fatigue, but sensing with all my being that some burden was being lifted from my soul. All the passers-by looked at me so cordially that we practically bowed to one another; everybody was so happy about something, every last one was smoking a cigar. And I was happy as I had never been before. It was as if I had suddenly found myself in Italy – nature had so strongly affected me, a semi-invalid city dweller who had almost died of suffocation within the city’s walls.
There is something inexplicably touching in our Petersburg nature, when with the advent of spring she suddenly displays all her might, all the powers granted her by heaven, when she bursts into leaves, dresses herself up and decks herself out in colourful flowers … Somehow I can’t help but be reminded of that weak and sickly girl, at whom you sometimes look with pity, sometimes with a compassionate love, and sometimes you simply do not notice her, but then suddenly, for a moment, she somehow, unexpectedly, becomes inexplicably, wonderfully beautiful, and you, startled and intoxicated, unwittingly ask yourself: What power caused those sad, thoughtful eyes to shine with such fire? What summoned the blood to those pale, sunken cheeks? What has suffused those tender features of her face with passion? Why does that breast heave so? What was it that so suddenly summoned strength, life and beauty to the poor girl’s face that it began to shine with such a smile, came to life with such a sparkling, effervescent laugh? You look around, you search for someone, you hazard a guess … But the moment passes and perhaps tomorrow you will once again meet the same thoughtful and distracted gaze as before, the same pale face, the same submissive and timid movements, and even repentance, even traces of some sort of deadening melancholy and annoyance at the short-lived exhilaration … And you regret that the momentary beauty faded so quickly, so irretrievably, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain – you regret this because there was not time for you even to fall in love with her …
But nevertheless my night was better than my day! Here’s what happened:
I arrived back in the city very late, and it had already struck ten o’clock as I approached my apartment. My path ran along the embankment of the canal,8 where at that hour you will not find a living soul. True, I live in a very remote part of the city. I was walking and singing, because when I am happy I am sure to hum something to myself, like every other happy man who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has nobody with whom he can share his joy. Suddenly the most unexpected adventure happened to me.
Somewhat to the side, leaning against the railing of the canal, stood a woman. With her elbows resting on the railing, she seemed to be looking very attentively at the canal’s turbid water. She was wearing a very pretty yellow hat and a bewitching black mantilla. ‘She’s a young girl, she just has to be a brunette,’ I thought. It seems she had not heard my steps; she didn’t even stir when I walked past, with bated breath, and with my heart beating violently. ‘Strange!’ I thought, ‘she must be completely absorbed by something’, and suddenly I stopped, rooted to the ground. I had heard a muffled sob. Yes! I hadn’t been deceived: the girl was crying and a minute later there was another whimper and then another. My God! My heart sank. And no matter how great my timidness with women, this was hardly the time! … I turned around, took a step in her direction and would certainly have uttered the word ‘Madam’, but for the fact that I knew that this exclamation had already been uttered a thousand times in all our Russian society novels. That was the only thing that stopped me. But while I was searching for a word, the girl came to her senses, glanced back, recollected where she was, cast her eyes down and slipped past me along the embankment. I set off after her at once, but when she realized this, she quit the embankment, crossed the street and set out walking down the pavement. My heart was fluttering, like a captured little bird. Suddenly a certain incident came to my aid.
On the sidewalk across the street, not far from my unknown girl, there suddenly appeared a gentleman in evening dress, a man with a solid number of years behind him, but whose gait was anything but solid. He walked, reeling, and carefully leaning against the wall. The girl meanwhile walked as straight as an arrow, hurriedly and timidly, as girls generally do when they don’t want someone to offer to see them home at night, and of course, the teetering gentleman would never have caught up with her if my good fortune had not given him the idea of looking to unnatural methods. Suddenly, without saying a word to anyone, my gentleman darts off and flies as fast as his legs will carry him; and running, he catches up with my unknown girl. She was moving along like the wind, but the staggering gentleman was overtaking her, he had overtaken her, the girl cried out – and … I thank my good fortune for my excellent knotty walking-stick, which just happened to be in my right hand on this occasion. In an instant I found myself on the sidewalk across the street; in an instant the uninvited gentleman understood what was what, took into account my incontrovertible reasoning, fell silent and dropped behind, and only when we were already quite far away did he reproach me in rather energetic terms. But his words scarcely reached us.
‘Give me your hand,’ I said to my unknown girl, ‘and he won’t dare bother us anymore.’
In silence she gave me her hand, which was still trembling from nervousness and fright. Oh, unbidden gentleman! How grateful I was to you at that moment! I cast a cursory glance at her: she was very pretty and a brunette – I had guessed right; on her black eyelashes still shone the tears of her recent fright or former sorrow – I don’t know which. But on her lips a smile already sparkled. She also cast a furtive glance at me, blushed and looked down.
‘Now then, you see, why did you drive me away? If I’d been there, nothing would have happened …’
‘But I didn’t know you: I thought that you too …’
‘But do you really know me now?’
‘A little bit. Now then, for example, why are you trembling?’
‘Oh, you guessed right from the very first!’ I answered, delighted that my girl was clever: that is never a bad thing where beauty is concerned. ‘Yes, you guessed from the very first glance the sort of person you’re dealing with. Yes, it’s true, it’s true, I’m timid with women, I’m nervous, I won’t deny it – no less than you were a moment ago when that gentleman frightened you … I’m frightened now. It’s like a dream, but even in my dreams I never guessed that I would ever talk with a woman.’
‘What? Really? …’
‘Yes, if my hand is trembling, then it’s because such a pretty small hand like yours has never clasped it before. I’ve grown quite unused to women; that is, I never became used to them; you see, I’m alone … I don’t even know how to talk to them. Even now I don’t know whether I’ve said something stupid to you. Tell me frankly; I should tell you that I don’t take offence easily …’
‘No, nothing, nothing; on the contrary. And since you’re already asking me to be candid, then I will tell you that women like such timidity; and if you want to know more, then I like it as well, and I won’t send you away until we reach my house.’
‘You’ll make it so,’ I began, gasping with delight, ‘that at once I’ll stop being my timid self, and then – farewell, all my methods! …’
‘Methods? What sort of methods, for what? Now that’s not very nice.’
‘Guilty, I won’t do it anymore, it was a slip of the tongue; but how do you expect me at a moment like this to have no desire …’
‘To be liked, is that it?’
‘Well, yes; yes, for God’s sake, be kind. Consider who I am! You see, I’m already twenty-six years old, but I don’t ever see anyone. So then, how can I speak well, cleverly and to the point? It will be to your advantage if everything comes out in the open … I don’t know how to keep
quiet when my heart is speaking inside me. Well, it doesn’t matter … Believe it or not, not a single woman, ever, ever! No acquaintances at all! And all I dream of every day is that at long last I will finally meet someone. Oh, if only you knew how many times I’ve fallen in love like that! …’
‘But how, with whom? …’
‘Why with nobody, with an ideal, with the one I see in my dreams. I create entire love stories in my dreams. Oh, you don’t know me! It’s true, of course, I couldn’t help meeting two or three women, but what sort of women were they? They were all landladies or something like that. But I’ll make you laugh, when I tell you that several times I have thought of striking up a conversation just like that, without ceremony, with some aristocratic lady on the street, when she is alone, it goes without saying; to speak, of course, timidly, respectfully, deferentially, ardently; to say that I am perishing all alone, so that she wouldn’t drive me away, that I don’t have the means to get to know any woman; to suggest to her that a woman is duty-bound not to spurn the timid entreaty of such an unfortunate man as I. That in the end all that I’m asking her for is merely to say a few brotherly words to me, with sympathy, not to drive me away at the very first moment, to take me at my word, to listen to what I have to say, to laugh at me if she likes, to give me hope, to say a few words to me, just a few words, even if we never meet again afterwards! … You’re laughing … But then that’s why I’m telling you …’
‘Don’t be annoyed; I’m laughing at the fact that you are your own worst enemy, and if you had tried, perhaps you might have succeeded, even though it was all taking place on the street; the simpler, the better … Not a single kind-hearted woman, provided she wasn’t silly or particularly angry about something at that moment, could have brought herself to send you away without those few words that you pleaded for so timidly … But what am I saying! Of course, she would have taken you for a madman. You see, I was judging by myself. But I know a lot about how people on this earth live!’
‘Oh, thank you!’ I cried out, ‘you don’t know what you’ve done for me today!’
‘Very well, very well! But tell me, how did you recognize me to be the sort of woman, with whom … well, whom you considered worthy … of attention and friendship … in a word, not a landlady, as you put it. Why did you make up your mind to approach me?’
‘Why? Why? But you were alone, that gentleman was too brazen, it’s night now: you must agree that it was my duty …’
‘No, no, even earlier, there, on the other side. You wanted to approach me then, didn’t you?’
‘There, on the other side? But I truly don’t know how to answer; I’m afraid … Do you know, today I was happy; I was walking, singing; I’d been on the outskirts of the city; I’d never experienced such happy moments before. You … it seemed to me, perhaps … Well, forgive me for reminding you: it seemed to me that you were crying, and I … I couldn’t bear to hear it … it made my heart ache … Oh, my God! Surely I might feel pangs of anguish for you? Surely it was not a sin to experience brotherly compassion for you! … Forgive me, I said compassion … Well, yes, in a word, could I really have offended you by impulsively taking it into my head to approach you? …’
‘Stop, enough, don’t speak …’ the girl said, having cast her eyes downward and squeezing my hand. ‘I’m the one who’s guilty for bringing it up; but I’m glad that I wasn’t mistaken about you … But here, I’m already home; I need to go that way, down the lane, it’s only a stone’s throw away … Goodbye, thank you …’
‘But is it possible, is it really possible that we shall never see each other again? … Is it possible it will end like this?’
‘There, you see,’ the girl said, laughing, ‘at first you wanted just two words, and now … However, I won’t say anything … Perhaps we’ll meet …’
‘I’ll come here tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Oh, forgive me, I’m already making demands …’
‘Yes, you’re impatient … you are practically demanding …’
‘Listen, listen!’ I interrupted her. ‘Forgive me if I again say something not quite … But here it is: I can’t help coming here tomorrow. I’m a dreamer; I have so little real life that I regard such moments as this one, now, to be so rare that I can’t help repeating these moments in my dreams. I will dream of you all night, for an entire week, all year long. I will come here tomorrow without fail, exactly here, to this very spot, exactly at this time, and I’ll be happy as I recall what happened yesterday. This place is already dear to me. I already have two or three such places in Petersburg. Once I even shed tears, because of a memory, like you … Who knows, perhaps ten minutes ago you, too, were crying because of a memory … But forgive me, I’ve forgotten myself again; perhaps at one time you were particularly happy here …’
‘Very well,’ the girl said, ‘perhaps I will come here tomorrow, also at ten o’clock. I see that I can’t forbid you … The fact of the matter is that I have to be here; don’t think that I’m arranging a meeting with you; I’m warning you in advance that I need to be here for myself. But, you see … Well, I’ll tell you frankly: it would be nice if you did come; in the first place, there might be some more unpleasantness like today, but that’s beside the point … in a word, I’d simply like to see you … so I could say a few words to you. Only please don’t think ill of me now. Don’t think that I arrange meetings so casually … I would have made one, if … But let that be my secret! Only we must make an agreement in advance …’
‘An agreement! Speak, tell me, tell me all beforehand; I’ll agree to everything, I’m ready for anything,’ I exclaimed in delight, ‘I’ll answer for myself – I will be obedient, respectful … you know me …’
‘It’s precisely because I do know you that I’m inviting you to come tomorrow,’ the girl said, laughing. ‘I know you completely. But see that you come on the following condition: first (only be so kind as to do what I ask – you see, I’m speaking candidly), don’t fall in love with me … That’s impossible, I assure you. I’m prepared to be your friend, here’s my hand … But falling in love is impossible, I beg you!’
‘I swear,’ I cried, as I clasped her hand …
‘Come, come, don’t swear, you see, I know that you’re capable of flaring up like gunpowder. Don’t condemn me for speaking like this. If you only knew … I also have no one to whom I can say a word, from whom I can ask advice. Of course, the street is not the place to look for advisers, but you’re an exception. I know you so well, as if we had been friends for twenty years … You won’t betray me, will you? …’
The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.) Page 5