‘Well, what of it? What of it?’ Nastenka interrupted, ‘what of it? Well, I knew long ago that you loved me, only it always seemed to me that you loved me simply, in a different way … Oh, my God, my God!’
‘In the beginning it was simple, Nastenka, but now, now … I’m in exactly the same position as you were when you went to him with your bundle. Worse than you, Nastenka, because he didn’t love someone then, but you do.’
‘What is it you’re saying to me! I truly don’t understand you at all. But listen here, why ever, that is, not why, but what reason do you have for so suddenly … My God! I’m talking nonsense! But you …’
And Nastenka became thoroughly confused. Her cheeks were flushed; she lowered her eyes.
‘What’s to be done, Nastenka, what am I to do? I am to blame, I abused your … But no, no, I’m not to blame, Nastenka; I know it, I feel it, because my heart tells me that I’m right, because I cannot hurt you, I cannot offend you! I was your friend; well, and that is what I am now; I have betrayed nothing. You see, now it’s me whose tears are streaming down, Nastenka. Let them stream, let them stream – they won’t bother anybody. They will dry, Nastenka …’
‘But sit down, do sit down,’ she said, as she was seating me on the bench, ‘oh, my God!’
‘No, Nastenka, I won’t sit down; I can’t stay here any longer, you won’t see me any more; I’ll say everything and leave. I only want to say that you would never have learned that I love you. I would have buried my secret. I would not have tormented you, at this moment, with my egoism. No! But I couldn’t bear it any longer now; you spoke of it yourself, you are to blame, you are to blame for all this, not me. You can’t drive me away from you …’
‘No, of course not, no, I’m not driving you off, no!’ Nastenka said, concealing, as best she could, her embarrassment, the poor thing.
‘You’re not driving me away? No! But I was going to run away from you myself. And I will leave, as soon as I tell you everything from the beginning, because when you were talking just now, I couldn’t sit still, when you were crying just now, when you were suffering because, well because (I’ll say it, Nastenka), because you were rejected, because your love had been spurned, I sensed, I felt in my heart that there was so much love for you, Nastenka, so much love! … And I was so sorry that I couldn’t help you with this love … that my heart was breaking, and I, I – could not be silent, I had to speak, Nastenka, I had to speak! …’
‘Yes, yes! Speak to me, speak to me like that!’ Nastenka said with an inexplicable gesture. ‘It might seem strange to you that I’m speaking to you like this, but … speak! I’ll tell you later! I’ll tell you everything!’
‘You feel sorry for me, Nastenka; you simply feel sorry for me, my little friend! What’s done is done! What’s said can’t be taken back! Isn’t that so? Well, now you know everything. Well, that’s a starting point. Well, all right! Everything’s fine now; only listen. When you were sitting and crying, I was thinking to myself (oh, let me tell you what I was thinking!), I was thinking that (well, of course, this could never be, Nastenka), I was thinking that you … I was thinking that you somehow … well, that you quite on your own had stopped loving him. Then – I was thinking this yesterday and the day before yesterday, Nastenka – then I would have made you, I would certainly have made you fall in love with me; you said, you know, you were saying yourself, Nastenka, that you had almost fallen in love with me. Well, what else? Well, that’s almost everything that I wanted to say; it remains only to say what it would have been like if you had fallen in love with me, only that, nothing more! Listen then, my friend – because you are still my friend – of course, I’m a simple person, poor and insignificant, only that’s not the point (I somehow keep talking about the wrong things, that’s because I’m embarrassed, Nastenka), but only I would love you so, I would love you so, that even if you still loved him and continued to love this person whom I don’t know, you still would not find my love to be a burden to you in any way. You would only feel, you would only sense at every moment that next to you beats a grateful, grateful heart, an ardent heart, which for your sake … Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! What have you done to me! …’
‘Now, don’t cry, I don’t want you to cry,’ Nastenka said, quickly getting up from the bench, ‘come along, get up, come with me, don’t cry, don’t cry,’ she kept saying, as she wiped away my tears with her handkerchief, ‘well, come along now; perhaps I’ll tell you something … Yes, if he has abandoned me now, if he has forgotten me, even though I still love him (I don’t wish to deceive you) … but, listen, answer me. If, for example, I were to love you, that is, if only I … Oh, my friend, my friend! When I think, when I think how I insulted you then when I laughed at your love, when I praised you for not falling in love! … Oh, my God! How did I not foresee it, how did I not foresee this, how could I have been so stupid, but … Well, well, I’ve made up my mind, I’ll tell you everything …’
‘Listen, Nastenka, do you know what? I’ll go away, that’s what! I’m simply tormenting you. Now you have pangs of remorse because you made fun of me, but I don’t want, yes, I don’t want you, in addition to your sorrow … Of course, I’m to blame, Nastenka, but goodbye!’
‘Stop, hear me out: can you wait?’
‘Wait for what, why?’
‘I love him; but that will pass, it must pass, it cannot but pass; it’s already passing, I can sense it … Who knows, perhaps it will even end today, because I hate him, because he’s had a good laugh at my expense, while you were crying here with me, because you didn’t reject me, like he did, because you love me, and he didn’t love me, because finally I love you myself … yes, I love! I love as you love me; you know, I myself even said so to you, you heard it yourself – because I love that you are better than he is, because you are nobler than he is, because, because he …’
The poor girl’s agitation was so intense that she didn’t finish, she put her head on my shoulder, then on my chest and burst into bitter tears. I comforted her, tried to bring her round, but she couldn’t stop; she kept squeezing my hand and saying between sobs: ‘Wait, wait, I’ll stop in just a minute! I want to tell you … don’t think that these tears – it’s just weakness, wait until it passes …’ Finally, she stopped, wiped away her tears and we set off walking once again. I wanted to speak, but for a long time yet she kept asking me to wait. We fell silent … Finally, she plucked up her courage and began to speak.
‘Now listen to me,’ she began in a weak and trembling voice, but one in which there was a ring of something that pierced right through my heart and began to ache there sweetly, ‘don’t think that I am so fickle and flighty, don’t think that I can so easily and quickly forget and be untrue … I loved him for a whole year and I swear to God that never, never was I unfaithful to him even in thought. He disdained this; he had a good laugh at my expense – good luck to him! But he wounded me and insulted my heart. I – I do not love him, because I can love only that which is magnanimous, which understands me, which is noble; because I am like that myself, and he is not worthy of me – well, good luck to him! It’s better that he disappoint me now than for me to learn what he’s like later on … Well, of course! But who knows, my dear friend,’ she continued, squeezing my hand, ‘who knows, perhaps all my love amounted to nothing more than my feelings and imagination, just my imagination, perhaps it began as a prank or foolishness, all because I was under Grandmother’s watch. Perhaps I ought to love someone else, another, and not him, not a man like him, but someone who would take pity on me and, and … Well, let’s leave it at that, let’s leave it at that,’ Nastenka broke off, choked with emotion, ‘I only wanted to say to you … I wanted to say that if, despite the fact that I love him (no, loved him), if, despite that, you will still say … if you feel that your love is so great that it may in the end drive out from my heart the former … if you wish to take pity on me, if you don’t wish to leave me alone to my fate, without consolation, without hope, if you wish to love me
always as you now love me, then I swear that gratitude … that my love will in the end be worthy of your love … Will you take my hand now?’
‘Nastenka,’ I cried out, choking with sobs, ‘Nastenka! … Oh, Nastenka! …’
‘Well, enough, enough! Well, now that’s certainly enough!’ she said, hardly able to control herself, ‘well, now everything has been said; isn’t that right? Isn’t that so? Well, and you’re happy, and I’m happy; not another word more about this; wait – spare me … Talk about something else, for God’s sake! …’
‘Yes, Nastenka, yes! Enough about that, now I am happy, I … Well, Nastenka, well, let’s talk about something else, quickly; yes, quickly, let’s talk about something else; yes! I’m ready …’
And we didn’t know what to say, we laughed, we cried, we said thousands of words without rhyme or reason; we first walked along the sidewalk, then suddenly we turned back and crossed the street; then we stopped and began to cross over to the embankment; we were like children …
‘I live alone now, Nastenka,’ I said, ‘but tomorrow … Well, of course, I’m poor, you know, Nastenka, I only have twelve hundred roubles, but that doesn’t matter …’
‘Of course not, and Grandmother has her pension; so she won’t be a burden to us. We must take Grandmother.’
‘Of course, we must take Grandmother … Only there’s Matryona …’
‘Oh, and we have Fyokla as well!’
‘Matryona is a good woman, only she has one fault: she doesn’t have any imagination, Nastenka, absolutely no imagination whatsoever; but that doesn’t matter! …’
‘It doesn’t make any difference; they can both live together; only you must move to our house tomorrow.’
‘What did you say? To your house? Fine, I’m ready …’
‘Yes, you’ll rent from us. We have an attic upstairs, it’s empty; there was a lodger, an old woman, a noblewoman, she’s moved out, and Grandmother, I know, wants to rent it to a young man; I said: “Why exactly a young man?” And she says: “Just because, I’m old now, but just don’t you start thinking, Nastenka, that I want to marry you off to him.” So I guessed that it was for that very reason …’
‘Oh, Nastenka! …’
And we both laughed.
‘Well, enough of that, enough. But where is it that you live? I’ve forgotten.’
‘Over there, by —sky Bridge, in Barannikov’s building.’
‘Is it that big house?’
‘Yes, the big house.’
‘Oh, I know it, it’s a good house; only you must leave it, you know, and move in with us as soon as possible …’
‘Tomorrow, then, Nastenka, tomorrow; I owe a bit for my apartment, but that doesn’t matter … I’ll receive my salary soon …’
‘And you know, perhaps I can give lessons; I’ll learn something myself and then I’ll give lessons …’
‘Well, now that’s wonderful … and I’ll get my bonus soon, Nastenka …’
‘So, then, tomorrow you’ll be my lodger …’
‘Yes, and we’ll go see The Barber of Seville, because they’re going to put it on again soon.’
‘Yes, let’s go,’ Nastenka said, smiling, ‘no, it would be better to see something else and not the Barber …’
‘Well, fine, something else; of course, that would be better, what was I thinking …’
As we said this, we were both walking in some kind of stupor, in a haze, as if we didn’t know ourselves what was happening to us. One moment we would stop and talk for a long time without moving, then we would start walking again and God only knows where we ended up, and then laughter again, and then tears … Then Nastenka would suddenly want to go home, and I didn’t dare keep her and wanted to see her home; we would set off and a quarter of an hour later we would find ourselves on the embankment by our bench. Then she would sigh, and once again her eyes would well up with tears; I would turn timid, and then feel a chill … But she would immediately squeeze my hand and drag me off to walk, to chatter, to talk …
‘It’s time now, it’s time for me to go home; I think it must be quite late,’ Nastenka said at last, ‘we’ve been behaving like children long enough!’
‘Yes, Nastenka, only I won’t fall asleep now; I won’t go home.’
‘I don’t think I’ll sleep either; just see me home …’
‘Absolutely!’
‘Only this time we absolutely must walk all the way to the apartment.’
‘Absolutely, absolutely …’
‘Word of honour? … Because, you see, I must return home at some point!’
‘Word of honour,’ I answered, laughing …
‘Well, let’s go!’
‘Let’s go! Look at the sky, Nastenka, look! Tomorrow will be a wonderful day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look: see how that yellow cloud is beginning to hide it from view, look, look! … No, it’s passed by. Look now, look! …’
But Nastenka wasn’t looking at the cloud, she stood speechless, rooted to the ground; a minute later she began somewhat timidly clinging to me tightly. Her hand began to tremble in my hand; I glanced at her … She pressed against me more tightly still …
At that moment a young man walked past us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently and then took several steps. My heart began to quiver …
‘Nastenka,’ I said in a hushed voice, ‘who is that, Nastenka?’
‘It’s him!’ she answered in a whisper, clinging to me even more tightly and more timidly … I could barely keep standing on my own two feet.
‘Nastenka! Nastenka! It’s you!’ we heard a voice behind us, and at that moment the young man took several steps towards us.
My God, what a cry! How she shuddered! How she tore herself from my arms and flew to meet him! … I stood and watched them, crushed. But she had scarcely given him her hand, had scarcely thrown herself into his embrace, when she suddenly turned to me again, and was at my side in a flash, like the wind, and before I had a chance to collect myself, she flung both arms around my neck and kissed me firmly, ardently. Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed to him again, took him by the hand and led him away.
I stood for a long time and watched them walk away … Finally, both of them vanished from sight.
MORNING
My nights ended with the morning. It was a dreadful day. The rain beat down on my windows cheerlessly; it was dark in the room, it was overcast outside. My head ached and was spinning; fever was stealing its way through my limbs.
‘A letter for you, sir, it came by the city post, the postman brought it,’ Matryona said, hovering over me.
‘A letter! From whom?’ I cried out, jumping up from my chair.
‘That I wouldn’t know, sir, have a look; maybe it’s written down there who it’s from.’
I broke the seal. It was from her!
Oh, forgive, forgive me! (Nastenka wrote me) I beg you on my knees to forgive me! I deceived both you and myself. It was a dream, a phantom … I have suffered torments about you today; forgive me, forgive me! …
Don’t blame me, because I haven’t changed in the least towards you; I said that I would love you, and I love you now, I more than love you. Oh, my God! If only I could love you both at the same time! Oh, if only you were he!
‘Oh, if only he were you!’ flashed through my mind. I remembered your words, Nastenka!
God knows what I would do for you now! I know that you’re miserable and sad. I have hurt you, but you know – when one loves, an injury is soon forgotten. And you love me!
Thank you! Yes, thank you for that love! Because it is stamped on my memory like a sweet dream that you remember long after waking up; because I will forever remember that moment when you opened up your heart to me like a brother and so generously accepted the gift of my shattered heart to protect, cherish and heal it … If you forgive me, then the memory of you will be exalted in me by a feeling of eternal gratitude to you that will never quit my heart … I will keep that memory alive, I will be tr
ue to it, I will not betray it, I will not betray my heart: it is too constant. It returned so quickly yesterday to him to whom it had always belonged.
We will meet, you will visit us, you will not abandon us, you will always be a friend, my brother … And when you see me, you will give me your hand … won’t you? You will give it to me, you have forgiven me, isn’t that so? Do you love me as you did before?
Oh, love me, don’t leave me, because I love you so at this moment, because I am worthy of your love, because I will deserve it … my dear friend! Next week I am to be married to him. He returned in love with me, he never forgot me … You won’t be angry that I have written about him. But I want to come and see you with him; you will love him, won’t you? …
Forgive me, remember and love your –
Nastenka
I read that letter over and over again for a long time; the tears welled up in my eyes. At last it fell out of my hands, and I covered my face with my hands.
‘Dearie! Come now, dearie!’ Matryona began.
‘What is it, old woman?’
‘I got all the cobwebs off the ceiling; now you can get married, or invite some guests, it’s just the time for it …’
I looked at Matryona … She was still a hale and hearty, young old woman, but I don’t know why, suddenly I pictured her with a vacant stare, wrinkled face, stooped, decrepit. I don’t know why but I suddenly pictured that my room had aged as much as the old woman. The walls and floors were faded, everything had become dingy; and the cobwebs had multiplied so there were more than ever before. I don’t know why, when I glanced out the window, it seemed to me that the house opposite had also become decrepit and dingy, that the plasterwork on the columns was peeling and crumbling, that the cornices had turned black and were cracked, and that the walls which had been painted a bright, deep yellow had become patchy …
Either a ray of sunshine, after suddenly peeping out from behind a cloud, had again hidden behind a rain cloud, and everything had darkened again before my eyes; or perhaps the whole vista of my future had flashed before me so bleakly and so sadly, and I saw myself just as I am now exactly fifteen years later, only older, in the same room, just as lonely, with the same Matryona, who hasn’t grown any wiser in all those years.
The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.) Page 10