And, at the same time, I cannot greatly blame myself. Who, indeed, tell
me, pray, is ever to blame for anything--alone? Or, to put it better,
we are all to blame, and yet we can't be blamed. Circumstances
determine us; they shove us into one road or another, and then they
punish us for it. Every man has his destiny.... Wait a bit, wait a bit!
A cleverly worked-out but true comparison has just come into my head.
As the clouds are first condensed from the vapours of earth, rise from
out of her bosom, then separate, move away from her, and at last bring
her prosperity or ruin: so, about every one of us, and out of
ourselves, is fashioned--how is one to express it?--is fashioned a sort
of element, which has afterwards a destructive or saving influence on
us. This element I call destiny.... In other words, and speaking
simply, every one makes his own destiny and destiny makes every one....
Every one makes his destiny--yes!... but people like us make it too
much--that's what's wrong with us! Consciousness is awakened too early
in us; too early we begin to keep watch on ourselves.... We Russians
have set ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own
personality, and when we're children hardly grown-up we set to work to
cultivate it, this luckless personality! Receiving no definite guidance
from without, with no real respect for anything, no strong belief in
anything, we are free to make what we choose of ourselves ... one can't
expect every one to understand on the spot the uselessness of intellect
'seething in vain activity' ... and so we get again one monster the
more in the world, one more of those worthless creatures in whom habits
of self-consciousness distort the very striving for truth, and a
ludicrous simplicity exists side by side with a pitiful duplicity ...
one of those beings of impotent, restless thought who all their lives
know neither the satisfaction of natural activity, nor genuine
suffering, nor the genuine thrill of conviction.... Mixing up together
in ourselves the defects of all ages, we rob each defect of its good
redeeming side ... we are as silly as children, but we are not sincere
as they are; we are cold as old people, but we have none of the good
sense of old age.... To make up, we are psychologists. Oh yes, we are
great psychologists! But our psychology is akin to pathology; our
psychology is that subtle study of the laws of morbid condition and
morbid development, with which healthy people have nothing to do....
And, what is the chief point, we are not young, even in our youth we
are not young!
And at the same time--why libel ourselves? Were we never young, did we
never know the play, the fire, the thrill of life's forces? We too have
been in Arcady, we too have strayed about her bright meadows!... Have
you chanced, strolling about a copse, to come across those dark
grasshoppers which, jumping up from under your very feet, suddenly with
a whirring sound expand bright red wings, fly a few yards, and then
drop again into the grass? So our dark youth at times spread its
particoloured wings for a few moments and for no long flight.... Do you
remember our silent evening walks, the four of us together, beside your
garden fence, after some long, warm, spirited conversation? Do you
remember those blissful moments? Nature, benign and stately, took us to
her bosom. We plunged, swooning, into a flood of bliss. All around, the
sunset with a sudden and soft flush, the glowing sky, the earth bathed
in light, everything on all sides seemed full of the fresh and fiery
breath of youth, the joyous triumph of some deathless happiness. The
sunset flamed; and, like it, our rapturous hearts burned with soft and
passionate fire, and the tiny leaves of the young trees quivered
faintly and expectantly over our heads, as though in response to the
inward tremor of vague feelings and anticipations in us. Do you
remember the purity, the goodness and trustfulness of ideas, the
softening of noble hopes, the silence of full hearts? Were we not
really then worth something better than what life has brought us to?
Why was it ordained for us only at rare moments to see the longed-for
shore, and never to stand firmly on it, never to touch it:
'Never to weep with joy, like the first Jew
Upon the border of the promised land'!
These two lines of Fet's remind me of others, also his.... Do you
remember once, as we stood in the highroad, we saw in the distance a
cloud of pink dust, blown up by the light breeze against the setting
sun? 'In an eddying cloud,' you began, and we were all still at once to
listen:
'In an eddying cloud
Dust rises in the distance ...
Rider or man on foot
Is seen not in the dust.
I see some one trotting
On a gallant steed ...
Friend of mine, friend far away,
Think! oh, think of me!'
You ceased ... we all felt a shudder pass over us, as though the breath
of love had flitted over our hearts, and each of us--I am sure of
it--felt irresistibly drawn into the distance, the unknown distance,
where the phantom of bliss rises and lures through the mist. And all
the while, observe the strangeness; why, one wonders, should we have a
yearning for the far away? Were we not in love with each other? Was not
happiness 'so close, so possible'? As I asked you just now: why was it
we did not touch the longed-for shore? Because falsehood walked hand in
hand with us; because it poisoned our best feelings; because everything
in us was artificial and strained; because we did not love each other
at all, but were only trying to love, fancying we loved....
But enough, enough! why inflame one's wounds? Besides, it is all over
and done with. What was good in our past moved me, and on that good I
will take leave of you for a while. It's time to make an end of this
long letter. I am going out for a breath here of the May air, in which
spring is breaking through the dry fastness of winter with a sort of
damp, keen warmth. Farewell.--Yours,