A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

I must admit that her image is never out of my mind, and indeed I may almost say I have begun writing a letter to you with the object of having a reason for thinking and talking about her. I hear the tramp and neighing of horses; it’s my carriage being got ready. I am going to see them. My coachman has given up asking me where to drive to, when I get into my carriage – he takes me straight off to the Priemkovs’. A mile and a half from their village, at an abrupt turn in the road, their house suddenly peeps out from behind a birch copse… Each time I feel a thrill of joy in my heart directly I catch the glimmer of its windows in the distance. Schimmel (the harmless old man comes to see them from time to time; the princes H – , thank God, have only called once) … Schimmel, with the modest solemnity characteristic of him, said very aptly, pointing to the house where Vera lives: ‘That is the abode of peace!’ In that house dwells an angel of peace…

Cover me with thy wing,Still the throbbing of my heart,And grateful will be the shadeTo the enraptured soul…

But enough of this; or you’ll be fancying all sorts of things. Till next time … What shall I write to you next time, I wonder? – Good-bye! By the way, she never says ‘Good-bye,’ but always, ‘So, good-bye!’ – I like that tremendously. – Yours, P. B.

P.S.– I can’t recollect whether I told you that she knows I wanted to marry her.

SIXTH LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME

M – Village, August 10, 1850.

Confess you are expecting a letter from me of despair or of rapture!.. Nothing of the sort. My letter will be like any other letter. Nothing new has happened, and nothing, I imagine, possibly can happen. The other day we went out in a boat on the lake. I will tell you about this boating expedition. We were three: she, Schimmel, and I. I don’t know what induces her to invite the old fellow so often. The H – s, I hear, are annoyed with him for neglecting his lessons. This time, though, he was entertaining. Priemkov did not come with us; he had a headache. The weather was splendid, brilliant; great white clouds that seemed torn to shreds over a blue sky, everywhere glitter, a rustle in the trees, the plash and lapping of water on the bank, running coils of gold on the waves, freshness and sunlight! At first the German and I rowed; then we hoisted a sail and flew before the wind. The boat’s bow almost dipped in the water, and a constant hissing and foaming followed the helm. She sat at the rudder and steered; she tied a kerchief over her head; she could not have kept a hat on; her curls strayed from under it and fluttered in the air. She held the rudder firmly in her little sunburnt hand, and smiled at the spray which flew at times in her face. I was curled up at the bottom of the boat; not far from her feet. The German brought out a pipe, smoked his shag, and, only fancy, began singing in a rather pleasing bass. First he sang the old-fashioned song: ‘Freut euch des Lebens,’ then an air from the ‘Magic Flute,’ then a song called the ‘A B C of Love.’ In this song all the letters of the alphabet – with additions of course – are sung through in order, beginning with ‘A B C D – Wenn ich dich seh!’ and ending with ‘U V W X – Mach einen Knicks!’ He sang all the couplets with much expression; but you should have seen how slily he winked with his left eye at the word ‘Knicks!’ Vera laughed and shook her finger at him. I observed that, as far as I could judge, Mr. Schimmel had been a redoubtable fellow in his day. ‘Oh yes, I could take my own part!’ he rejoined with dignity; and he knocked the ash out of his pipe on to his open hand, and, with a knowing air, held the mouth-piece on one side in his teeth, while he felt in the tobacco-pouch. ‘When I was a student,’ he added, ‘o-oh-oh!’ He said nothing more. But what an o-oh-oh! it was! Vera begged him to sing some students’ song, and he sang her: ‘Knaster, den gelben,’ but broke down on the last note. Altogether he was quite jovial and expansive. Meanwhile the wind had blown up, the waves began to be rather large, and the boat heeled a little over on one side; swallows began flitting above the water all about us. We made the sail loose and began to tack about. The wind suddenly blew a cross squall, we had not time to right the sail, a wave splashed over the boat’s edge and flung a lot of water into the boat. And now the German proved himself a man of spirit; he snatched the cord from me, and set the sail right, saying as he did so – ‘So macht man ins Kuxhaven!’

Vera was most likely frightened, for she turned pale, but as her way is, she did not utter a word, but picked up her skirt, and put her feet upon the crosspiece of the boat. I was suddenly reminded of the poem of Goethe’s (I have been simply steeped in him for some time past) … you remember? – ‘On the waves glitter a thousand dancing stars,’ and I repeated it aloud. When I reached the line: ‘My eyes, why do you look down?’ she slightly raised her eyes (I was sitting lower than she; her gaze had rested on me from above) and looked a long while away into the distance, screwing up her eyes from the wind… A light rain came on in an instant, and pattered, making bubbles on the water. I offered her my overcoat; she put it over her shoulders. We got to the bank – not at the landing-place – and walked home. I gave her my arm. I kept feeling that I wanted to tell her something; but I did not speak. I asked her, though, I remember, why she always sat, when she was at home, under the portrait of Madame Eltsov, like a little bird under its mother’s wing. ‘Your comparison is a very true one,’ she responded, ‘I never want to come out from under her wing.’ ‘Shouldn’t you like to come out into freedom?’ I asked again. She made no answer.

I don’t know why I have described this expedition – perhaps, because it has remained in my memory as one of the brightest events of the past days, though, in reality, how can one call it an event? I had such a sense of comfort and unspeakable gladness of heart, and tears, light, happy tears were on the point of bursting from my eyes.

Oh! fancy, the next day, as I was walking in the garden by the arbour, I suddenly heard a pleasing, musical, woman’s voice singing – ‘Freut euch des Lebens!..’ I glanced into the arbour: it was Vera. ‘Bravo!’ I cried; ‘I didn’t know you had such a splendid voice.’ She was rather abashed, and did not speak. Joking apart, she has a fine, strong soprano. And I do believe she has never even suspected that she has a good voice. What treasures of untouched wealth lie hid in her! She does not know herself. But am I not right in saying such a woman is a rarity in our time?

August 12.

We had a very strange conversation yesterday. We touched first upon apparitions. Fancy, she believes in them, and says she has her own reasons for it. Priemkov, who was sitting there, dropped his eyes, and shook his head, as though in confirmation of her words. I began questioning her, but soon noticed that this conversation was disagreeable to her. We began talking of imagination, of the power of imagination. I told them that in my youth I used to dream a great deal about happiness (the common occupation of people, who have not had or are not having good luck in life). Among other dreams, I used to brood over the bliss it would be to spend a few weeks, with the woman I loved, in Venice. I so often mused over this, especially at night, that gradually there grew up in my head a whole picture, which I could call up at will: I had only to close my eyes. This is what I imagined – night, a moon, the moonlight white and soft, a scent – of lemon, do you suppose? no, of vanilla, a scent of cactus, a wide expanse of water, a flat island overgrown with olives; on the island, at the edge of the shore, a small marble house, with open windows; music audible, coming from I know not where; in the house trees with dark leaves, and the light of a half-shaded lamp; from one window, a heavy velvet cloak, with gold fringe, hangs out with one end falling in the water; and with their arms on the cloak, sit he and she, gazing into the distance where Venice can be seen. All this rose as clearly before my mind as though I had seen it all with my own eyes. She listened to my nonsense, and said that she too often dreamed, but that her day-dreams were of a different sort: she fancied herself in the deserts of Africa, with some explorer, or seeking the traces of Franklin in the frozen Arctic Ocean. She vividly imagined all the hardships she had to endure, all the difficulties she had to contend with…

‘You have read a lot of travels,’ observed her husband.

‘Perhaps,’ she responded; ‘but if one must dream, why need one dream of the unattainable?’

‘And why not?’ I retorted. ‘Why is the poor unattainable to be condemned?’

‘I did not say that,’ she said; ‘I meant to say, what need is there to dream of oneself, of one’s own happiness? It’s useless thinking of that; it does not come – why pursue it? It is like health; when you don’t think of it, it means that it’s there.’

These words astonished me. There’s a great soul in this woman, believe me… From Venice the conversation passed to Italy, to the Italians. Priemkov went away, Vera and I were left alone.

‘You have Italian blood in your veins too,’ I observed.

‘Yes,’ she responded; ‘shall I show you the portrait of my grandmother?’

‘Please do.’

She went to her own sitting-room, and brought out a rather large gold locket. Opening this locket, I saw excellently painted miniature portraits of Madame Eltsov’s father and his wife – the peasant woman from Albano. Vera’s grandfather struck me by his likeness to his daughter. Only his features, set in a white cloud of powder, seemed even more severe, sharp, and hard, and in his little yellow eyes there was a gleam of a sort of sullen obstinacy. But what a face the Italian woman had, voluptuous, open like a full-blown rose, with prominent, large, liquid eyes, and complacently smiling red lips! Her delicate sensual nostrils seemed dilating and quivering as after recent kisses. The dark cheeks seemed fragrant of glowing heat and health, the luxuriance of youth and womanly power… That brow had never done any thinking, and, thank God, she had been depicted in her Albanian dress! The artist (a master) had put a vine in her hair, which was black as pitch with bright grey high lights; this Bacchic ornament was in marvellous keeping with the expression of her face. And do you know of whom the face reminded me? My Manon Lescaut in the black frame. And what is most wonderful of all, as I looked at the portrait, I recalled that in Vera too, in spite of the utter dissimilarity of the features, there is at times a gleam of something like that smile, that look…

Yes, I tell you again; neither she herself nor any one else in the world knows as yet all that is latent in her…

By the way – Madame Eltsov, before her daughter’s marriage, told her all her life, her mother’s death, and so on, probably with a view to her edification. What specially affected Vera was what she heard about her grandfather, the mysterious Ladanov. Isn’t it owing to that that she believes in apparitions? It’s strange! She is so pure and bright herself, and yet is afraid of everything dark and underground, and believes in it…

But enough. Why write all this? However, as it is written, it may be sent off to you. – Yours, P. B.

SEVENTH LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME

M – Village, August 22, 1850.

I take up my pen ten days after my last letter… Oh my dear fellow, I can’t hide my feelings any longer!.. How wretched I am! How I love her! You can imagine with what a thrill of bitterness I write that fatal word. I am not a boy, not a young man even; I am no longer at that stage when to deceive another is almost impossible, but to deceive oneself costs no effort. I know all, and see clearly. I know that I am just on forty, that she’s another man’s wife, that she loves her husband; I know very well that the unhappy feeling which has gained possession of me can lead to nothing but secret torture and an utter waste of vital energy – I know all that, I expect nothing, and I wish for nothing; but I am not the better off for that. As long as a month ago I began to notice that the attraction she has for me was growing stronger and stronger. This partly troubled me, and partly even delighted me… But how could I dream that everything would be repeated with me, which you would have thought could no more come again than youth can? What am I saying! I never loved like this, no, never! Manon Lescauts, Fritilions, these were my idols – such idols can easily be broken; but now … only now, I have found out what it is to love a woman. I feel ashamed even to speak of it; but it’s so. I’m ashamed… Love is egoism any way; and at my years it’s not permissible to be an egoist; at thirty-seven one cannot live for oneself; one must live to some purpose, with the aim of doing one’s duty, one’s work on earth. And I had begun to set to work… And here everything is scattered to the winds again, as by a hurricane! Now I understand what I wrote to you in my first letter; I understand now what was the experience I had missed. How suddenly this blow has fallen upon me! I stand and look senselessly forward; a black veil hangs before my eyes; my heart is full of heaviness and dread! I can control myself, I am outwardly calm not only before others, but even in solitude. I can’t really rave like a boy! But the worm has crept into my heart, and gnaws it night and day. How will it end? Hitherto I have fretted and suffered when away from her, and in her presence was at peace again at once – now I have no rest even when I am with her, that is what alarms me. Oh my friend, how hard it is to be ashamed of one’s tears, to hide them! Only youth may weep; tears are only fitting for the young…

I cannot read over this letter; it has been wrung from me involuntarily, like a groan. I can add nothing, tell you nothing… Give me time; I will come to myself, and possess my soul again; I will talk to you like a man, but now I am longing to lay my head on your breast and —

Oh Mephistopheles! you too are no help to me! I stopped short of set purpose, of set purpose I called up what irony is in me, I told myself how ludicrous and mawkish these laments, these outbursts will seem to me in a year, in half a year… No, Mephistopheles is powerless, his tooth has lost its edge… Farewell. – Yours, P. B.

EIGHTH LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME

M – Village, September 8, 1850.

My dear Semyon Nikolaitch, – You have taken my last letter too much to heart. You know I have always been given to exaggerating my sensations. It’s done as it were unconsciously in me; a womanish nature! In the process of years this will pass away of course; but I admit with a sigh I have not corrected the failing so far. So set your mind at rest. I am not going to deny the impression made on me by Vera, but I say again, in all this there is nothing out of the way. For you to come here, as you write of doing, would be out of the question, quite. Post over a thousand versts, God knows with what object – why, it would be madness! But I am very grateful for this fresh proof of your affection, and believe me, I shall never forget it. Your journey here would be the more out of place as I mean to come to Petersburg shortly myself. When I am sitting on your sofa, I shall have a great deal to tell you, but now I really don’t want to; what’s the use? I shall only talk nonsense, I dare say, and muddle things up. I will write to you again before I start. And so good-bye for a little while. Be well and happy, and don’t worry yourself too much about the fate of – your devoted, P. B.

NINTH LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME

P – Village, March 10, 1853.

I have been a long while without answering your letter; I have been all these days thinking about it. I felt that it was not idle curiosity but real friendship that prompted you, and yet I hesitated whether to follow your advice, whether to act on your desire. I have made up my mind at last; I will tell you everything. Whether my confession will ease my heart as you suppose, I don’t know; but it seems to me I have no right to hide from you what has changed my life for ever; it seems to me, indeed, that I should be wronging – alas! even more wronging – the dear being ever in my thoughts, if I did not confide our mournful secret to the one heart still dear to me. You alone, perhaps, on earth, remember Vera, and you judge of her lightly and falsely; that I cannot endure. You shall know all. Alas! it can all be told in a couple of words. All there was between us flashed by in an instant, like lightning, and like lightning, brought death and ruin… Over two years have passed since she died; since I took up my abode in this remote spot, which I shall not leave till the end of my days, and everything is still as vivid in my memory, my wounds are still as fresh, my grief as bitter… I will not complain. Complaints rouse up sorrow and so ease it, but not mine. I will begin my story.

Do you remember my last letter – the letter in which I tried to allay your fears and dissuaded you from coming from Petersburg? You suspected its assumed lightness of tone, you put no faith in our seeing each other soon; you were right. On the day before I wrote to you, I had learnt that I was loved. As I write these words, I realise how hard it would be for me to tell my story to the end. The ever insistent thought of her death will torture me with redoubled force, I shall be consumed by these memories… But I will try to master myself, and will either throw aside the pen, or will say not a word more than is necessary. This is how I learnt that Vera loved me. First of all I must tell you (and you will believe me) that up to that day I had absolutely no suspicion. It is true she had grown pensive at times, which had never been the way with her before; but I did not know why this change had come upon her. At last, one day, the seventh of September – a day memorable for me – this is what happened. You know how I loved her and how wretched I was. I wandered about like an uneasy spirit, and could find no rest. I tried to keep at home, but I could not control myself, and went off to her. I found her alone in her own sitting-room. Priemkov was not at home, he had gone out shooting. When I went in to Vera, she looked intently at me and did not respond to my bow. She was sitting at the window; on her knees lay a book I recognised at once; it was my Faust. Her face showed traces of weariness. I sat down opposite her. She asked me to read aloud the scene of Faust with Gretchen, when she asks him if he believes in God. I took the book and began reading. When I had finished, I glanced at her. Her head leaning on the back of her low chair and her arms crossed on her bosom, she was still looking as intently at me.

I don’t know why, my heart suddenly began to throb.

‘What have you done to me?’ she said in a slow voice.

‘What?’ I articulated in confusion.

‘Yes, what have you done to me?’ she repeated.

‘You mean to say,’ I began; ‘why did I persuade you to read such books?’

She rose without speaking, and went out of the room. I looked after her.

On the doorway she stopped and turned to me.

‘I love you,’ she said; ‘that’s what you have done to me.’

The blood rushed to my head…

‘I love you, I am in love with you,’ repeated Vera.

She went out and shut the door after her. I will not try to describe what passed within me then. I remember I went out into the garden, made my way into a thicket, leaned against a tree, and how long I stood there, I could not say. I felt faint and numb; a feeling of bliss came over my heart with a rush from time to time… No, I cannot speak of that. Priemkov’s voice roused me from my stupor; they had sent to tell him I had come: he had come home from shooting and was looking for me. He was surprised at finding me alone in the garden, without a hat on, and he led me into the house. ‘My wife’s in the drawing-room,’ he observed; ‘let’s go to her.’ You can imagine my sensations as I stepped through the doorway of the drawing-room. Vera was sitting in the corner, at her embroidery frame; I stole a glance at her, and it was a long while before I raised my eyes again. To my amazement, she seemed composed; there was no trace of agitation in what she said, nor in the sound of her voice. At last I brought myself to look at her. Our eyes met… She faintly blushed, and bent over her canvas. I began to watch her. She seemed, as it were, perplexed; a cheerless smile hung about her lips now and then.

Priemkov went out. She suddenly raised her head and in a rather loud voice asked me – ‘What do you intend to do now?’

I was taken aback, and hurriedly, in a subdued voice, answered, that I intended to do the duty of an honest man – to go away, ‘for,’ I added, ‘I love you, Vera Nikolaevna, you have probably seen that long ago.’ She bent over her canvas again and seemed to ponder.

‘I must talk with you,’ she said; ‘come this evening after tea to our little house … you know, where you read Faust.’

She said this so distinctly that I can’t to this day conceive how it was Priemkov, who came into the room at that instant, heard nothing. Slowly, terribly slowly, passed that day. Vera sometimes looked about her with an expression as though she were asking herself if she were not dreaming. And at the same time there was a look of determination in her face; while I … I could not recover myself. Vera loves me! These words were continually going round and round in my head; but I did not understand them – I neither understood myself nor her. I could not believe in such unhoped-for, such overwhelming happiness; with an effort I recalled the past, and I too looked and talked as in a dream…

After evening tea, when I had already begun to think how I could steal out of the house unobserved, she suddenly announced of her own accord that she wanted a walk, and asked me to accompany her. I got up, took my hat, and followed her. I did not dare begin to speak, I could scarcely breathe, I awaited her first word, I awaited explanations; but she did not speak. In silence we reached the summer-house, in silence we went into it, and then – I don’t know to this day, I can’t understand how it happened – we suddenly found ourselves in each other’s arms. Some unseen force flung me to her and her to me. In the fading daylight, her face, with the curls tossed back, lighted up for an instant with a smile of self-surrender and tenderness, and our lips met in a kiss…

That kiss was the first and last.

Vera suddenly broke from my arms and with an expression of horror in her wide open eyes staggered back —

‘Look round,’ she said in a shaking voice; ‘do you see nothing?’

I turned round quickly.

‘Nothing. Why, do you see something?’

‘Not now, but I did.’

She drew deep, gasping breaths.

‘Whom? what?’

‘My mother,’ she said slowly, and she began trembling all over. I shivered too, as though with cold. I suddenly felt ashamed, as though I were guilty. And indeed, wasn’t I guilty at that instant?

‘Nonsense!’ I began; ‘what do you mean? Tell me rather – ’

‘No, for God’s sake, no!’ she interposed, clutching her head. ‘This is madness – I’m going out of my mind… One can’t play with this – it’s death… Good-bye…’

I held out my hands to her.

‘Stay, for God’s sake, for an instant,’ I cried in an involuntary outburst. I didn’t know what I was saying and could scarcely stand upright. ‘For God’s sake … it is too cruel!’

She glanced at me.

‘To-morrow, to-morrow evening,’ she said, ‘not to-day, I beseech you – go away to-day … to-morrow evening come to the garden gate, near the lake. I will be there, I will come… I swear to you I will come,’ she added with passion, and her eyes shone; ‘whoever may hinder me, I swear! I will tell you everything, only let me go to-day.’

And before I could utter a word she was gone. Utterly distraught, I stayed where I was. My head was in a whirl. Across the mad rapture, which filled my whole being, there began to steal a feeling of apprehension… I looked round. The dim, damp room in which I was standing oppressed me with its low roof and dark walls.

I went out and walked with dejected steps towards the house. Vera was waiting for me on the terrace; she went into the house directly I drew near, and at once retreated to her bedroom.

I went away.

How I spent the night and the next day till the evening I can’t tell you. I only remember that I lay, my face hid in my hands, I recalled her smile before our kiss, I whispered – ‘At last, she…’