_From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna_
ST. PETERSBURG, March 30.
I thank you, Márya Alexándrovna, I thank you for your note, curt as it
is. All this time I have been in a state of great agitation; twenty
times a day I have thought of you and of my letter. You can imagine how
caustically I have laughed at myself; but now I am in a capital frame of
mind, and am patting myself on the head. Márya Alexándrovna, I am
entering into correspondence with you! Confess that you could not
possibly have expected that after your reply; I am amazed at my own
audacity ... never mind! But calm yourself: I want to talk to you not
about myself, but about you. Here, do you see: I find it imperatively
necessary--to speak in antiquated style--to express myself to some one.
I have no right to select you for my confidante--I admit that; but
hearken: I demand from you no reply to my epistles; I do not even wish
to know whether you will peruse my “idle chatter,” but do not send me
back my letters, in the name of all that is holy!
Listen--I am utterly alone on earth. In my youth I led a solitary life,
although, I remember, I never pretended to be a Byron; but, in the
first place, circumstances, in the second place, the ability to dream
and a love for reverie, rather cold blood, pride, indolence--in a word,
a multitude of varied causes alienated me from the society of men. The
transition from a dreamy to an active life was effected in me late ...
perhaps too late, perhaps to this day not completely. So long as my own
thoughts and feelings diverted me, so long as I was capable of
surrendering myself to causeless silent raptures, and so forth, I did
not complain of my isolation. I had no comrades--I did have so-called
friends. Sometimes I needed their presence as an electrical machine
needs a discharger--that was all. Love ... we will be silent on that
subject for the present. But now, I confess, now loneliness weighs upon
me, and yet I see no escape from my situation. I do not blame Fate; I
alone am to blame, and I am justly chastised. In my youth one thing
alone interested me: my charming ego; I took my good-natured self-love
for shyness; I shunned society, and lo! now I am frightfully bored with
myself. What is to become of me? I love no one; all my friendships with
other people are, somehow, strained and false; and I have no memories,
because in all my past life, I find nothing except my own self. Save me!
I have not made you enthusiastic vows of love; I have not deafened you
with a torrent of chattering speeches; I have passed you by with
considerable coldness, and precisely for that reason I have made up my
mind now to have recourse to you. (I had thought of this even earlier,
but you were not free then....) Out of all my self-made joys and
sufferings, the sole genuine feeling was the small, but involuntary
attraction to you, which withered then, like a solitary ear of grain
amid worthless weeds.... Allow me, at least, to look into another face,
another soul,--my own face has grown repugnant to me; I am like a man
who has been condemned to live out his entire life in a room with walls
made of mirrors.... I do not demand any confessions from you--oh,
heavens, no! Grant me the speechless sympathy of a sister, or at least
the simple curiosity of a reader--I will interest you, really, I will.
At any rate, I have the honour to be your sincere friend,