(1855)
Several years ago I was in Dresden. I stopped in the hotel. As I was
running about the town from early morning until late at night, I did not
consider it necessary to make acquaintance with my neighbours; at last,
accidentally, it came to my knowledge that there was a sick Russian in
the house. I went to him, and found a man in the last stage of
consumption. Dresden was beginning to pall upon me; I settled down with
my new acquaintance. It is wearisome to sit with an invalid, but even
boredom is agreeable sometimes; moreover, my invalid was not dejected,
and liked to chat. We endeavoured, in every way, to kill time: we played
“fool” together, we jeered at the doctor. My compatriot narrated to that
very bald German divers fictions about his own condition, which the
doctor always “had long foreseen”; he mimicked him when he was surprised
at any unprecedented attack, flung his medicine out of the window and so
forth.
Nevertheless I repeatedly remarked to my friend that it would not be a
bad idea to send for a good physician before it was too late, that his
malady was not to be jested with, and so forth. But Alexyéi (my
acquaintance’s name was Alexyéi Petróvitch S***) put me off every time
with jests about all doctors in general, and his own in particular, and
at last, one stormy autumn evening, to my importunate entreaties, he
replied with such a dejected glance, he shook his head so sadly, and
smiled so strangely, that I felt a certain surprise. That same night
Alexyéi grew worse, and on the following day he died. Just before his
death his customary cheerfulness deserted him: he tossed uneasily in the
bed, sighed, gazed anxiously about ... grasped my hand, whispered with
an effort: “‘Tis difficult to die, you know,” ... dropped his head on
the pillow, and burst into tears. I did not know what to say to him, and
sat silently beside his bed. But Alexyéi speedily conquered this last,
belated compassion.... “Listen,” he said to me:--“our doctor will come
to-day, and will find me dead.... I can imagine his phiz” ... and the
dying man tried to mimic him.... He requested me to send all his things
to Russia, to his relatives, with the exception of a small packet, which
he presented to me as a souvenir.
This packet contained letters--the letters of a young girl to Alexyéi
and his letters to her. There were fifteen of them in all. Alexyéi
Petróvitch S*** had known Márya Alexándrovna B*** for a long time--from
childhood, apparently. Alexyéi Petróvitch had a cousin, and Márya
Alexándrovna had a sister. In earlier years they had all lived together,
then they had dispersed, and had not met again for a long time; then
they had accidentally all assembled again in the country, in summer, and
had fallen in love--Alexyéi’s cousin with Márya Alexándrovna, and
Alexyéi himself with the latter’s sister. Summer passed and autumn came;
they parted. Alexyéi being a sensible man, speedily became convinced
that he was not in the least beloved, and parted from his beauty very
happily; his cousin corresponded with Márya Alexándrovna for a couple of
years longer ... but even he divined, at last, that he was deceiving
both her and himself in the most unconscionable manner, and he also fell
silent.
I should like to tell you a little about Márya Alexándrovna, dear
reader, but you will learn to know her for yourself from her letters.
Alexyéi wrote his first letter to her soon after her definitive breach
with his cousin. He was in Petersburg at the time, suddenly went abroad,
fell ill in Dresden and died. I have decided to publish his
correspondence with Márya Alexándrovna, and I hope for some indulgence
on the part of the reader, because these are not love-letters--God
forbid! Love-letters are generally read by two persons only (but, on the
other hand, a thousand times in succession), and are intolerable, if not
ridiculous, to a third person.
I
_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_
ST. PETERSBURG, March 7, 1840.