The letter actually was bespattered, and exhaled an odour of
orange-flowers ... two white petals had adhered to the paper. This
letter has excited me.... I have called to mind my sojourn in
Naples.... The weather was magnificent then also; May was only just
beginning; I had recently completed my twenty-second year; but I did not
know any Ninetta. I roamed about alone, consumed with a thirst for
bliss, which was both painful and sweet,--sweet to the point where it
itself bore a sort of resemblance to bliss.... What a thing it is to be
young!... I remember I once went out for a row on the bay at night.
There were two of us: the boatman and I ... but what was it you thought?
What a night it was, and what a sky, what stars--how they trembled and
crumbled in the waves! With what a liquid flame did the water flow over
and flash up under the oars, what perfume was wafted all over the
sea--it is not for me to describe, however “eloquent” my pen may be. A
French ship of the line lay at anchor in the roadstead. It glowed
obscurely red all over with lights; long streaks of red light, the
reflection of the illuminated windows, stretched across the dark sea.
Merry music reached me in occasional bursts; I recall, in particular,
the trill of a small flute amid the dull blaring of the horns; it seemed
to flutter like a butterfly around my boat. I ordered the man to row to
the ship; twice did we make the circuit of it. Women’s forms flitted
past the windows, borne smartly past on the whirlwind of the waltz.... I
ordered the boatman to put off, far away, straight out into the
darkness.... I remember that the sounds pursued me long and
importunately.... At last they died away. I stood up in the boat and
stretched out my arms over the sea in the dumb pain of longing.... Oh,
how my heart ached then! How oppressive was my loneliness! With what joy
would I have given myself at that moment wholly, wholly ... wholly, if
only there had been any one to whom to give myself! With what a bitter
feeling in my soul did I fling myself, face down, in the bottom of the
boat and, like Repetíloff, request him to take me somewhere or other!
But my friend here experienced nothing of that sort. And why should he?
He has managed matters much more cleverly than I did. He is living ...
while I ... not without cause has he called me a philosopher.... ’Tis
strange! You, also, are called a philosopher.... Why should such a
calamity overtake us?...
I am not living.... But who is to blame for that? Why do I sit here in
Petersburg? What am I doing here? Why do I kill day after day? Why don’t
I go to the country? Are not our steppes beautiful? Or cannot one
breathe freely in them? Or is it stifling in them? What possesses me to
pursue dreams, when, perchance, happiness is within my reach? It is
settled: I am going away, I am going away to-morrow, if possible; I am
going home, that is, to you--it is all the same: for we live only
twenty versts apart. What’s the use, after all, in languishing here? And
why is it that this idea did not occur to me earlier? My dear Márya
Alexándrovna, we shall soon meet. But it is remarkable that this thought
did not enter my head until this moment! I ought to have gone away long,
long ago. Farewell until we meet, Márya Alexándrovna.
July 9th.
I have deliberately given myself twenty-four hours to think it over, and
now I am definitively convinced that there is no reason why I should
remain here. The dust in the streets is so biting that it makes one’s
eyes ache. To-day I shall begin to pack; on the day after to-morrow,
probably, I shall leave here; and ten days hence I shall have the
pleasure of seeing you. I hope you will receive me as of old. By the
way--your sister is still visiting your aunt, is she not?
Permit me, Márya Alexándrovna, to press your hand warmly, and to say to
you from my soul: farewell until a speedy meeting. I was preparing to
leave in any case, but this letter has precipitated my intention. Let us
assume that this letter proves nothing; let us even assume that Ninetta
would not please any one else--me, for example. Yet I am going, all the
same; there is no doubt about that. Farewell for the present.
Yours, A. S.