I experienced that with Elena * * *, whom I loved to distraction. I said something tender to her; she took it as rudeness and complained of me to one of her lady friends. That totally disenchanted me. Besides Liza, I have Mashenka * * * for entertainment. She’s nice. These girls who grow up under the apple trees and amidst haystacks, educated by their nannies and nature, are far nicer than our monotonous beauties, who hold their mothers’ opinions before marriage, and their husbands’ after.
Good-bye, my friend. What’s new in society? Announce to everybody that I, too, have finally broken into poetry. The other day I composed an inscription for Princess Olga’s portrait (for which Liza chided me very sweetly):
Stupid as truth, boring as perfection.
Or maybe better:
Boring as truth, stupid as perfection.
They both have a resemblance to thought. Ask V. to come up with the first line and henceforth consider me a poet.
* * *
*1 ladies’ companions
*2 that is an event
*3 To affect a scorn of birth is ridiculous in a parvenu and baseness in a gentleman.
*4 idle foppishness
*5 Humble servant of them all.
*6 A man without fear or reproach, / Who is neither king, nor duke, nor count.
*7 former
*8 with the servant of the servants of God [i.e., the pope]
*9 a stereotypical man
At the Corner of a Little Square
CHAPTER ONE
Votre coeur est l’éponge imbibée de fiel et de vinaigre.
Correspondance inédite*1
At the corner of a little square, in front of a small wooden house, stood a carriage—a rare occurrence in that remote part of the city. The driver lay asleep on the box, and the postillion was having a snowball fight with some servant boys.
In a room decorated with taste and luxury, on a sofa, dressed with great refinement, propped on pillows, lay a pale lady, no longer young, but still beautiful. Before the fireplace sat a young man of about twenty-six, leafing through the pages of an English novel.
The pale lady did not take from him her dark and sunken eyes, ringed with an unhealthy blue. Night was falling, the fire was dying down; the young man went on with his reading. Finally she said:
“What’s the matter with you, Valerian? You’re angry today.”
“Yes, I am,” he replied, without raising his eyes from the book.
“With whom?”
“With Prince Goretsky. He’s giving a ball tonight, and I’m not invited.”
“And do you want so much to be at his ball?”
“Not in the least. Devil take him and his ball. But if he invites the whole town, he ought to invite me as well.”
“Which Goretsky is it? Not Prince Yakov?”
“Not at all. Prince Yakov died long ago. It’s his brother, Prince Grigory, a notorious brute.”
“Who is he married to?”
“The daughter of that chorister…what’s his name?”
“I haven’t gone out for so long that I’ve quite lost touch with your high society. So you value very much the attention of Prince Grigory, the notorious scoundrel, and the good graces of his wife, a chorister’s daughter?”
“But of course,” the young man replied hotly, flinging his book on the table. “I’m a man of society and do not want to be scorned by society aristocrats. I am not concerned either with their genealogies or with their morals.”
“Who are you calling aristocrats?”
“Those to whom Countess Fuflygina offers her hand.”
“And who is this Countess Fuflygina?”
“An insolent fool.”
“And the scorn of people you despise can upset you so much?!” said the lady, after some silence. “Confess, there’s some other reason here.”
“So: again suspicions! again jealousy! By God, this is insufferable.”
With those words he stood up and took his hat.
“You’re leaving already?” the lady said anxiously. “Don’t you want to dine here?”
“No, I gave my word.”
“Dine with me,” she went on in a gentle and timid voice. “I’ve ordered champagne.”
“What for? Am I some Moscow card player? Can’t I do without champagne?”
“But the last time you found my wine bad, you were angry that women are poor judges in that. I can’t please you.”
“I’m not asking you to please me.”
She made no reply. The young man immediately regretted the rudeness of these last words. He went to her, took her hand, and said tenderly:
“Zinaida, forgive me: I’m not myself today; I’m angry with everybody and for everything. At such moments I ought to stay home…Forgive me; don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry, Valerian; but it pains me to see that for some time now you’ve been quite changed. You come to see me as if out of duty, not by your heart’s prompting. You’re bored with me. You keep silent, don’t know how to occupy yourself, fumble with books, find fault with me, so as to quarrel with me and leave…I’m not reproaching you: our hearts are not in our power, but I…”
Valerian was no longer listening. He was pulling at the glove he had long since put on and kept glancing impatiently outside. She fell silent with an air of restrained vexation. He pressed her hand, said a few meaningless words, and ran out of the room, the way a frisky schoolboy runs out of class. Zinaida went to the window; she watched the carriage brought for him, watched him get into it and drive off. She stood for a long time in the same place, leaning her hot brow against the icy windowpane. Finally she said aloud, “No, he doesn’t love me!”—rang for the maid, told her to light the lamp, and sat down at her little writing desk.
CHAPTER TWO
Vous écrivez vos lettres de 4 pages plus vite que je ne puis les lire.*2
* * * soon became convinced of his wife’s infidelity. He found this extremely upsetting. He did not know what course to take: to pretend he had noticed nothing seemed stupid to him; to laugh at such a commonplace misfortune—contemptible; to get downright angry—too sensational; to complain with an air of deeply offended feeling—too ridiculous. Fortunately, his wife came to his aid.
Having fallen in love with Volodsky, she felt an aversion for her husband proper only to women and which only they can understand. One day she went into his study, shut the door behind her, and announced that she loved Volodsky, that she did not want to deceive her husband and dishonor him in secret, and that she had resolved to divorce him. * * * was alarmed by such openness and precipitousness. She gave him no time to recover, moved that same day from the English Embankment to Kolomna, and in a short note made it all known to Volodsky, who was not expecting anything of the sort…
He was in despair. He had never thought of binding himself with such ties. He disliked boredom, feared any obligation, and above all valued his egotistical independence. But that was all over. Zinaida was left on his hands. He pretended to be grateful and prepared himself for the bother of a liaison, as for the performance of a duty or the boring obligation of checking his butler’s monthly accounts…
* * *
*1 “Your heart is a sponge soaked in bile and vinegar.” Unpublished correspondence.
*2 “You write your four-page letters more quickly than I can read them.”
Notes of a Young Man
On May 4, 1825, I was promoted to officer, on the 6th I received orders to go to the regiment in the small town of Vasilkov, on the 9th I left Petersburg.
Was it not just recently that I was a cadet; just recently that they woke me up at six in the morning; just recently that I pored over my German lesson amid the eternal noise of the corps? Now I’m an ensign, have 475 roubles in my wallet, do what I like, and gallop on post horses to the small town of Vasilkov, where I’ll sleep till eight and never speak a single word of German.
In my ears still echo the noise and shouts of frolicking cadets and the monotonous hum of assiduous st
udents repeating vocables—le bluet, le bluet, cornflower, amarante, amaranth, amarante, amarante…Now the rumble of the cart and the jingle of the bell alone break the surrounding silence…I still cannot get used to this quiet.
At the thought of my freedom, of the pleasures of the way and the adventures awaiting me, a feeling of unutterable joy filled my soul to the point of ecstasy. But I gradually calmed down and began to observe the movement of the front wheels, making mathematical calculations. In some insensible way this pastime wearied me, and the journey no longer seemed as agreeable as at first.
On arriving at the posting station, I gave the one-eyed stationmaster my travel papers and demanded horses quickly. But to my indescribable displeasure I heard that there were no horses. I glanced into the posting register: a traveling sixth-class functionary with attendants had taken twelve horses from the town of * * * to Petersburg; General B.’s wife had taken eight; two troikas had gone off with the mail; our fellow ensign had taken the remaining two. At the station stood one courier troika, and the stationmaster could not give it to me. If perchance a courier or government messenger should come galloping up and find no horses, what would he be in for then, big trouble—he could lose his job, go begging. I tried to buy his conscience, but he stood firm and resolutely rejected my twenty kopecks. No help for it! I yielded to necessity.
“Would you like some tea or coffee?” asked the stationmaster. I thanked him and busied myself with examining the pictures that adorned his humble abode. In them was depicted the story of the prodigal son.1 In the first picture a venerable old man in a nightcap and dressing gown is sending off a restless young man, who hurriedly receives his blessing and a bag of money. In the second the depraved young man’s bad behavior is portrayed in vivid strokes; he sits at a table, surrounded by false friends and shameless women. Next the young wastrel, in a French kaftan and cocked hat, is herding swine and shares their meal with them. His face portrays deep sadness and repentance; he remembers his father’s house, where the least servant, etc. Finally his return to his father is represented. The good old man in the same nightcap and dressing gown runs out to meet him. The prodigal son is on his knees, in the distance a cook kills the fatted calf, and the older brother vexedly questions the servants about the cause of such rejoicing. German verses are printed under the pictures. I read them with pleasure and copied them down, so as to translate them at leisure.
The rest of the pictures have no frames and are tacked to the wall. They portray the burial of a cat, the dispute between a red nose and a heavy frost, and the like—and, in moral as well as artistic terms, are not worth an educated man’s attention.
I sat by the window. No view at all. A close-packed row of uniform cottages leaning against each other. Here and there two or three apple trees, two or three rowan trees, surrounded with a flimsy fence, the unhitched cart with my trunk and cellaret.
A hot day. The coachmen have gone off somewhere. In the street golden-haired, dirty children are playing knucklebones. An old woman sits sorrowfully in front of a cottage facing me. Now and then a cock crows. Dogs lie in the sun or wander around, tongues lolling and tails hanging, and pigs run oinking from under the gate and rush off for no apparent reason.
What boredom! I go for a stroll in the fields. A dilapidated well. Beside it a shallow puddle. In it some yellow ducklings frolic, supervised by a stupid duck, like spoiled children with a French governess.
I go down the high road—to the right skimpy winter rye, to the left bushes and swamp. Flat space around. All you meet are striped mileposts. In the sky a slow sun, here and there a cloud. What boredom! I turn back, having gone two miles and ascertained that it is another fifteen to the next station.
On returning, I tried to get my coachman to talk, but he, as if avoiding any proper conversation, responded to all my questions only with “There’s no knowing, Your Honor,” “God knows,” “But then, too…”
I sat by the window again and asked the fat housemaid, who ran past me every other minute, now to the back door, now to the pantry, if there was anything to read. She brought me several books. I was glad and eagerly threw myself into examining them. But I cooled off at once, seeing a well-worn ABC and an arithmetic book published for use in peasant schools. The stationmaster’s son, a rowdy boy of about nine, studied in them, as she said, all the tsar’s sciences, tearing out the pages as he learned them, for which, by the law of natural retribution, his hair had been pulled…
My Fate Is Decided. I Am Getting Married…
(From the French)
My fate is decided. I am getting married…
She whom I have loved for a whole two years, who has been the first my eyes sought out everywhere, to meet whom seemed like bliss to me—my God—she’s…nearly mine.
Waiting for the decisive answer was the most painful feeling of my life. Waiting for the last card to be dealt, the pangs of conscience, sleep before a duel—all that means nothing in comparison to it.
The thing was that I was not afraid of refusal alone. One of my friends used to say “I don’t understand how one can propose, if one knows for certain there will be no refusal.”
To marry! It’s easy to say—most people see marriage as shawls bought on credit, a new carriage, and a pink dressing gown.
Others—as a dowry and a settled life…
Still others marry just so, because everybody marries—because they’re thirty years old. Ask them what marriage is, and in reply they’ll repeat to you a banal saying.
I marry, i.e., I sacrifice independence, my carefree, whimsical independence, my luxurious habits, aimless travels, solitude, inconstancy.
I’m ready to double a life which is incomplete even without that. I never bothered about happiness, I could do without it. Now I need enough for two, and where am I to get it?
So long as I’m not married, what is meant by my responsibilities? I have a sick uncle whom I hardly ever see. If I call on him—he’s very glad; if I don’t—he excuses me: “My scapegrace is young, he can do without me.” I don’t correspond with anybody, I pay my bills every month. In the morning I get up whenever I like, I receive whomever I like, if I decide to go for a promenade—they saddle my smart, quiet Jenny, I ride along the lanes, look into the windows of low little houses: here a family is sitting around the samovar, there a servant is sweeping the rooms, further on a girl is having a piano lesson, beside her a hired musician. She turns her absentminded face to me, the teacher scolds her, I slowly ride on…I come home—sort through books, papers, put my toilet table in order, dress casually if I’m going visiting, with all possible care if I’m dining in a restaurant, where I read either a new novel or some journals; if Walter Scott and Cooper haven’t written anything, and there is no criminal trial in the papers, then I order a bottle of champagne on ice, watch the glass turn frosty, drink slowly, happy that the dinner costs me seventeen roubles and that I can allow myself such a caprice. I go to the theater, search the boxes for some remarkable apparel, dark eyes; communication is established between us, I’m occupied till the final curtain. I spend the evening either in a noisy gathering, where the whole city crowds, where I see everyone and everything, and no one notices me, or in a choice and amiable circle, where I talk about myself and they listen to me. I go home late; I fall asleep reading a good book. The next day I again go for a ride along the lanes, past the house where the girl was playing the piano. She is repeating yesterday’s lesson. She glances at me as at an old acquaintance and laughs.—Such is my bachelor life…
If I’m refused, I think, I’ll go abroad—and I already picture myself on a pyroscaphe. They bustle around me, say good-bye, carry trunks, look at their watches. The pyroscaphe sets off: fresh sea air blows in my face; I gaze for a long time at the retreating shore—“My native land, adieu.”1 Beside me a young woman begins to feel sick; this gives her pale face an expression of languid tenderness…She asks me for water. Thank God, I’ll be occupied till Kronstadt…
Just then they bring me
a note: the reply to my letter. My fiancée’s father affectionately invites me to visit…There’s no doubt, my proposal has been accepted. Nadenka, my angel, is mine!…All sorrowful doubts vanish before this paradisal thought. I rush to the carriage and gallop off; here is the house; I go into the front hall; I can already see from the hurried reception of the servants that I am a fiancé. I’m embarrassed: these people know my heart; they speak of my love in their lackey language!…
The father and mother were sitting in the drawing room. The former greeted me with open arms. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, wanted to start weeping but couldn’t, and decided to blow his nose. The mother’s eyes were red. They sent for Nadenka; she came in, pale, awkward. The father stepped out and came back with the icons of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and the Kazan Mother of God. They blessed us. Nadenka gave me her cold, unresponding hand. The mother started talking about a dowry, the father about an estate in Saratov province—I am a fiancé.
And so this is no longer the secret of two hearts. It is today’s news for the household, tomorrow’s for the public square.
Thus a poem, thought up in solitude on moonlit summer nights, is then put on sale in a bookstore and criticized in the journals by fools.
Everyone is glad of my happiness, everyone congratulates me, everyone now loves me. They all offer me their services: one his house, another a loan of money, yet another a Bukhara shawl merchant he knows. Someone is worried about my future numerous family and offers me twelve pairs of gloves with the portrait of Mlle Sontag.2