Four years passed. I had but just left the university, and did not yet
quite know what to do with myself, at what door to knock; in the
meanwhile, I was lounging about without occupation. One fine evening I
encountered Maidánoff in the theatre. He had contrived to marry and
enter the government service; but I found him unchanged. He went into
unnecessary raptures, just as of old, and became low-spirited as
suddenly as ever.
“You know,”--he said to me,--“by the way, that Madame Dólsky is here.”
“What Madame Dólsky?”
“Is it possible that you have forgotten? The former Princess Zasyékin,
with whom we were all in love, you included. At the villa, near
Neskútchny Park, you remember?”
“Did she marry Dólsky?”
“Yes.”
“And is she here in the theatre?”
“No, in Petersburg; she arrived here a few days ago; she is preparing to
go abroad.”
“What sort of a man is her husband?”--I asked.
“A very fine young fellow and wealthy. He’s my comrade in the service, a
Moscow man. You understand--after that scandal ... you must be well
acquainted with all that ...” (Maidánoff smiled significantly), “it was
not easy for her to find a husband; there were consequences ... but with
her brains everything is possible. Go to her; she will be delighted to
see you. She is handsomer than ever.”
Maidánoff gave me Zinaída’s address. She was stopping in the Hotel
Demuth. Old memories began to stir in me.... I promised myself that I
would call upon my former “passion” the next day. But certain affairs
turned up: a week elapsed, and when, at last, I betook myself to the
Hotel Demuth and inquired for Madame Dólsky I learned that she had died
four days previously, almost suddenly, in childbirth.
Something seemed to deal me a blow in the heart. The thought that I
might have seen her but had not, and that I should never see her,--that
bitter thought seized upon me with all the force of irresistible
reproach. “Dead!” I repeated, staring dully at the door-porter, then
quietly made my way to the street and walked away, without knowing
whither. The whole past surged up at one blow and stood before me. And
now this was the way it had ended, this was the goal of that young,
fiery, brilliant life? I thought that--I pictured to myself those dear
features, those eyes, those curls in the narrow box, in the damp,
underground gloom,--right there, not far from me, who was still alive,
and, perchance, only a few paces from my father.... I thought all that,
I strained my imagination, and yet--
From a mouth indifferent I heard the news of death,
And with indifference did I receive it--
resounded through my soul. O youth, youth! Thou carest for nothing: thou
possessest, as it were, all the treasures of the universe; even sorrow
comforts thee, even melancholy becomes thee; thou are self-confident and
audacious; thou sayest: “I alone live--behold!”--But the days speed on
and vanish without a trace and without reckoning, and everything
vanishes in thee, like wax in the sun, like snow.... And perchance the
whole secret of thy charm consists not in the power to do everything,
but in the possibility of thinking that thou wilt do
everything--consists precisely in the fact that thou scatterest to the
winds thy powers which thou hast not understood how to employ in any
other way,--in the fact that each one of us seriously regards himself as
a prodigal, seriously assumes that he has a right to say: “Oh, what
could I not have done, had I not wasted my time!”
And I myself ... what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich
future did I foresee, when I barely accompanied with a single sigh, with
a single mournful emotion, the spectre of my first love which had arisen
for a brief moment?
And what has come to pass of all for which I hoped? Even now, when the
shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what is there
that has remained for me fresher, more precious than the memory of that
morning spring thunder-storm which sped so swiftly past?
But I calumniate myself without cause. Even then, at that frivolous,
youthful epoch, I did not remain deaf to the sorrowful voice which
responded within me to the triumphant sound which was wafted to me from
beyond the grave. I remember that a few days after I learned of
Zinaída’s death I was present, by my own irresistible longing, at the
death-bed of a poor old woman who lived in the same house with us.
Covered with rags, with a sack under her head, she died heavily and with
difficulty. Her whole life had been passed in a bitter struggle with
daily want; she had seen no joy, she had not tasted the honey of
happiness--it seemed as though she could not have failed to rejoice at
death, at her release, her repose. But nevertheless, as long as her
decrepit body held out, as long as her breast heaved under the icy hand
which was laid upon it, until her last strength deserted her, the old
woman kept crossing herself and whispering:--“O Lord, forgive my
sins,”--and only with the last spark of consciousness did there vanish
from her eyes the expression of fear and horror at her approaching end.
And I remember that there, by the bedside of that poor old woman, I felt
terrified for Zinaída, and felt like praying for her, for my father--and
for myself.