ST. PETERSBURG, _June_ 16, 1840.
I hasten to answer your letter, dear Marya Alexandrovna. I will confess
to you that if it were not ... I can't say for business, for I have
none ... if it were not that I am stupidly accustomed to this place, I
should have gone off to see you again, and should have talked to my
heart's content, but on paper it all comes out cold and dead....
Marya Alexandrovna, I tell you again, women are better than men, and
you ought to prove this in practice. Let such as us fling away our
convictions, like cast-off clothes, or abandon them for a crust of
bread, or lull them into an untroubled sleep, and put over them--as
over the dead, once dear to us--a gravestone, at which to come at rare
intervals to pray--let us do all this; but you women must not be false
to yourselves, you must not be false to your ideal.... That word has
become ridiculous.... To fear being ridiculous--is not to love truth.
It happens, indeed, that the senseless laughter of the fool drives even
good men into giving up a great deal ... as, for instance, the defence
of an absent friend.... I have been guilty of that myself. But, I
repeat, you women are better than we.... In trifling matters you give
in sooner than we; but you know how to face fearful odds better than
we. I don't want to give you either advice or help--how should I?
besides, you have no need of it. But I hold out my hand to you; I say
to you, Have patience, struggle on to the end; and let me tell you,
that, as a sentiment, the consciousness of an honestly sustained
struggle is almost higher than the triumph of victory.... Victory does
not depend on ourselves. Of course your uncle is right from a certain
point of view; family life is everything for a woman; for her there is
no other life.
But what does that prove? None but Jesuits will maintain that any means
are good if only they attain the end. It's false! it's false! Feet
sullied with the mud of the road are unworthy to go into a holy temple.
At the end of your letter is a phrase I do not like; you want to get
into the common groove; take care, don't make a false step! Besides--do
not forget,--there is no erasing the past; and however much you try,
whatever pressure you put on yourself, you will not turn into your
sister. You have reached a higher level than she; but your soul has
been scorched in the fire, hers is untouched. Descend to her level,
stoop to her, you can; but nature will not give up her rights, and the
burnt place will not grow again....
You are afraid--let us speak plainly--you are afraid of being left an
old maid. You are, I know, already twenty-six. Certainly the position
of old maids is an unenviable one; every one is so ready to laugh at
them, every one comments with such ungenerous amusement on their
peculiarities and weaknesses. But if you scrutinise with a little
attention any old bachelor, one may just as well point the finger of
scorn at him; one will find plenty in him, too, to laugh at. There's no
help for it. There is no getting happiness by struggling for it. But we
must not forget that it's not happiness, but human dignity, that's the
chief aim in life.
You describe your position with great humour. I well understand all the
bitterness of it; your position one may really call tragic. But let me
tell you you are not alone in it; there is scarcely any quite modern
person who isn't placed in it. You will say that that makes it no
better for you; but I am of opinion that suffering in company with
thousands is quite a different matter from suffering alone. It is not a
matter of egoism, but a sense of a general inevitability which comes
in.
All this is very fine, granted, you will say ... but not practicable in
reality. Why not practicable? I have hitherto imagined, and I hope I
shall never cease to imagine, that in God's world everything honest,
good, and true is practicable, and will sooner or later come to pass,
and not only will be realised, but is already being realised. Let each
man only hold firm in his place, not lose patience, nor desire the
impossible, but do all in his power. But I fancy I have gone off too
much into abstractions. I will defer the continuation of my reflections
till the next letter; but I cannot lay down my pen without warmly, most
warmly, pressing your hand, and wishing you from my soul all that is
good on earth.
Yours, A. S.
_P.S._--By the way, you say it's useless for you to wait, that you have
nothing to hope for; how do you know that, let me ask?