"Shall the duel go on?"--he added, addressing Bizmyónkoff.
Bizmyónkoff made him no reply; but the Prince, without removing the
handkerchief from the wound, nor even giving himself the satisfaction
of teasing me at the barrier, replied with a smile: "The duel is ended,"
and fired into the air. I nearly wept with vexation and rage. That man,
by his magnanimity, had definitively trampled me in the mud, had cut my
throat. I wanted to protest, I wanted to demand that he should fire at
me; but he stepped up to me, and offering me his hand, "Everything is
forgotten between us, is it not?"--he said, in a cordial voice.
I cast a glance at his pale face, at that blood-stained handkerchief,
and utterly losing my head, blushing with shame, and annihilated, I
pressed his hand...
"Gentlemen!"--he added, addressing the seconds:--"I hope that all this
will remain a secret?"
"Of course!"--exclaimed Koloberdyáeff,--"but, Prince, allow me...."
And he himself bound up his head.
The Prince, as he departed, bowed to me once more; but Bizmyónkoff did
not even bestow a glance on me. Slain,--morally slain,--I returned home
with Koloberdyáeff.
"But what ails you?"--the captain asked me. "Calm yourself; the wound is
not dangerous. He can dance to-morrow, if he likes. Or are you sorry
that you did not kill him? In that case, you 're wrong; he 's a splendid
fellow."
"Why did he spare me?!"--I muttered at last.
"Oho! so that 's it!"--calmly retorted the captain... "Okh, these
romancers will be the death of me!"
I positively refuse to describe my tortures in the course of the evening
which followed this unlucky duel. My pride suffered inexpressibly. It
was not my conscience which tormented me; the consciousness of my
stupidity annihilated me. "I myself have dealt myself the last, the
final blow!" I kept repeating as I paced my room with long strides....
"The Prince wounded by me and forgiving me .... yes, Liza is his now.
Nothing can save her now, nor hold her back on the brink of perdition."
I was very well aware that our duel could not remain a secret, in spite
of the Prince's words; in any case, it could not remain a secret to
Liza. "The Prince is not so stupid"--I whispered in a frenzy--"as not to
take advantage of it."... And, nevertheless, I was mistaken: the whole
town heard about the duel and its actual cause,--on the very next day,
of course; but it was not the Prince who had babbled--on the contrary;
when he had presented himself to Liza with a bandaged head and an excuse
which had been prepared in advance, she already knew everything...
Whether Bizmyónkoff had betrayed me, or whether the news had reached her
by other roads, I cannot say. And, after all, is it possible to conceal
anything in a small town? You can imagine how Liza took it, how the
whole Ozhógin family took it! As for me, I suddenly became the object of
universal indignation, of loathing, a monster, a crazily jealous man,
and a cannibal. My few acquaintances renounced me, as they would have
renounced a leper. The town authorities appealed to the Prince with a
proposition to chastise me in a stern and exemplary manner; only the
persistent and importunate entreaties of the Prince himself warded off
the calamity which menaced my head. This man was fated to annihilate me
in every way. By his magnanimity he had shut me up as though with my
coffin-lid. It is needless to say that the Ozhógins' house was
immediately closed to me. Kiríla Matvyéevitch even returned to me a
plain pencil, which I had left at his residence. In reality, he was
precisely the last man who should have been incensed with me. My "crazy"
jealousy, as they called it in the town, had defined, elucidated, so to
speak, the relations between Liza and the Prince. The old Ozhógins
themselves and the other residents began to look upon him almost in the
light of a betrothed husband. In reality, that could not have been quite
agreeable to him; but he liked Liza very much; and moreover, at that
time he had not, as yet, attained his object.... With all the tact of a
clever man of the world, he accommodated himself to his new position,
immediately entered into the spirit of his new part, as the saying
is....
But I!... I then gave up in despair, so far as I myself was concerned,
and so far as my future was concerned. When sufferings reach such a
pitch that they make our whole inward being crack and creak like an
overloaded cart, they ought to cease being ridiculous.... But no!
laughter not only accompanies tears to the end, to exhaustion, to the
point where it is impossible to shed any more of them,--not at all! it
still rings and resounds at a point where the tongue grows dumb and
lamentation itself dies away.... And then, in the first place, as I have
no intention of appearing absurd even to myself, and in the second
place, as I am frightfully tired, I shall defer the continuation and,
God willing, the conclusion of my story until to-morrow....
March 29. A light frost; last night there was a thaw.
Yesterday I was unable to go on with my diary; like Póprishshtchin, I
lay most of the time in bed, and chatted with Teréntievna. There 's a
woman for you! Sixty years ago she lost her first betrothed from the
plague, she has outlived all her children, she herself is unpardonably
old, she drinks tea to her heart's content, she is well-fed, warmly
clad; but what do you think she talked to me about yesterday? I had
ordered that the cape of an old livery-coat should be given to another
utterly denuded old woman for a waistcoat (she wears a breast-piece in
the shape of a waistcoat).... The cape was pretty thoroughly eaten by
moths, so why should not she have it? "Well, it strikes me that I 'm
your nurse.... O-okh, my dear little father, 't is a sin for you to do
that.... And have n't I been tending you?".... and so forth. The
merciless old woman fairly wore me out with her reproaches.... But let
us return to the story.
So, then, I suffered like a dog which has had the hind part of its body
run over by a wheel. Only then,--only after my expulsion from the
Ozhógins' house,--did I become definitively aware how much pleasure a
man may derive from the contemplation of his own unhappiness. Oh, men!
ye are, in reality, a pitiful race!... Well, but that is in the nature
of a philosophical remark.... I passed my days in utter solitude, and
only in the most roundabout and even base ways was I able to find out
what was going on in the Ozhógin family, what the Prince was doing. My
servant struck up an acquaintance with the great-aunt of the wife of his
coachman. This acquaintance afforded me some alleviation, and my servant
speedily was able, from my hints and gifts, to divine what it behooved
him to talk about with his master, when he was pulling off the latter's
boots at night. Sometimes I chanced to meet in the street some member of
the Ozhógin family, Bizmyónkoff, or the Prince.... With the Prince and
Bizmyónkoff I exchanged bows, but I did not enter into conversation. I
saw Liza thrice in all: once with her mamma, in a milliner's shop, once
in an open calash with her father, her mother, and the Prince; once in
church. Of course, I did not venture to approach her, and only gazed at
her from afar. In the shop she was anxious but cheerful.... She was
ordering something for herself, and busily trying on ribbons. Her mother
was gazing at her, with hands clasped on her stomach, her nose elevated,
and indulging in that stupid and affectionate smile which is permissible
only to fond mothers. Liza was in the calash with the Prince.... I shall
never forget that meeting! The old Ozhógins were sitting on the back
seat of the calash, the Prince and Liza in front. She was paler than
usual; two pink streaks were barely discernible on her cheeks. She was
half-turned toward the Prince; supporting herself on her outstretched
right hand (she was holding her parasol in her left), and wearily
bending her head, she was gazing straight into his face with her
expressive eyes. At that moment she was surrendering herself utterly to
him, trusting him irrevocably. I did not have a chance to get a good
look at his face,--the calash dashed past too swiftly,--but it seemed to
me that he also was deeply moved.
The third time I saw her was in church. Not more than ten days had
elapsed since the day when I had encountered her in the calash with the
Prince, not more than three weeks since my duel. The business on account
of which the Prince had come to O*** had long been finished; but he
still deferred his departure; he reported in Petersburg that he was ill.
In the city, people were expecting every day a formal proposal on his
part to Kiríla Matvyéevitch. I myself was only waiting for this last
blow, in order to retire forever. The town of O*** had grown loathsome
to me. I could not sit still at home, and from morning till night I
dragged myself about the suburbs. One grey, wet day, as I was returning
from a stroll which had been cut short by the rain, I stepped into the
church. The evening service was only just beginning, there were very few
people present; I looked about me, and suddenly, near a window, I
descried a familiar profile. At first I did not recognise it; that pale
face, that extinct glance, those sunken cheeks--could it be the same
Liza whom I had seen two weeks before? Enveloped in a cloak, with no hat
on her head, illuminated from one side by a cold ray of light, which
fell through the broad window of white glass, she was staring immovably
at the ikonostásis, and, apparently, making a violent effort to pray,
striving to escape from some sort of dejected rigidity. A fat,
red-cheeked page with yellow cartridge-cases on his breast[14] was
standing behind her, with his hands clasped behind his back, and staring
with sleepy surprise at his mistress. I shuddered all over; I started to
go to her, but stopped short. A torturing foreboding gripped my breast.
Liza never stirred until the very end of vespers. All the congregation
departed, a chanter began to sweep out the church, and still she did not
stir from her place. The page approached her, and touched her gown; she
glanced round, passed her hand over her face, and went away. I escorted
her, at a distance, to her house, then returned home.
"She is ruined!" I exclaimed, as I entered my room.
Being a man, I do not know to this day what was the nature of my
sensations then. I remember that, folding my arms, I flung myself on the
divan, and riveted my eyes on the floor; but I did not know why, only,
in the midst of my grief, I seemed to be pleased at something.... I
would not have admitted that on any account, if I were not writing for
myself.... I really had been tortured by painful, terrible forebodings
.... and, who knows, perhaps I should have been disconcerted if they had
not been fulfilled. "Such is the human heart!" some middle-aged Russian
teacher would exclaim at this point, in an expressive voice, raising on
high his thick forefinger adorned with a carnelian ring. But what care
we for the opinion of a Russian teacher with an expressive voice, and a
carnelian ring on his finger?
Be that as it may, my forebodings had turned out to be correct. The news
suddenly spread through the town that the Prince had taken his
departure, in consequence, nominally, of an order from Petersburg; that
he had gone away without having made any proposal of marriage either to
Kiríla Matvyéevitch or to his spouse, and that Liza would continue to
mourn his perfidy to the end of her days. The Prince's departure had
been entirely unexpected, because, as late as the evening before, his
coachman, according to the assertions of my servant, had not in the
least suspected his master's intention. This news threw me into a fever.
I immediately dressed myself, was on the point of running to the
Ozhógins'; but after thinking the matter over, I concluded that it would
be decorous to wait until the following day. However, I lost nothing by
remaining at home. That evening there ran in to see me a certain
Pandopipópulo, a Greek on his travels, who had accidentally got stranded
in O***, a gossip of the first magnitude, who, more than any one else,
had seethed with indignation against me for my duel with the Prince. He
did not even give my servant time to announce him, but fairly forced
his way into my room, shook me vigorously by the hand, made a thousand
excuses for his conduct, called me a model of magnanimity and
fearlessness, depicted the Prince in the blackest colours, did not spare
the old Ozhógins, whom Fate had, in his opinion, justly punished; he
gave a hit at Liza also in passing, and ran off, after kissing me on the
shoulder. Among other things, I learned from him that the Prince, _en
vrai grand seigneur_, on the eve of his departure, had replied coldly to
a delicate hint from Kiríla Matvyéevitch, that he had not intended to
deceive any one and was not thinking of marrying; had risen, and made
his bow, and that was the last they had seen of him....
On the following day, I betook myself to the Ozhógins'. The blear-eyed
footman, at my appearance, sprang from the bench in the anteroom with
lightning-like swiftness; I ordered him to announce me. The lackey
hastened off, and immediately returned: "Please enter," said he; "I am
ordered to invite you in." I entered Kiríla Matvyéevitch's study....
Until to-morrow.
March 30. A frost.
So, then, I entered Kiríla Matvyéevitch's study. I would give a good
deal to any one who could have shown me my own face at the moment when
that worthy official, hastily wrapping his Bukhará dressing-gown round
him, stepped forward to meet me with outstretched hands. I must have
fairly radiated an atmosphere of modest triumph, patronising sympathy,
and limitless magnanimity.... I felt that I was something in the nature
of Scipio Africanus. Ozhógin was visibly embarrassed and depressed,
avoided my eye, and shifted from foot to foot where he stood. I also
noticed that he talked in an unnaturally-loud manner, and altogether
expressed himself very indefinitely;--indefinitely, but with fervour,
did he beg my pardon, indefinitely alluded to the departed visitor,
added a few general and indefinite remarks about the deceitfulness and
instability of earthly blessings, and suddenly, becoming conscious of a
tear in his eye, he hastened to take a pinch of snuff, probably with the
object of deluding me as to the cause which was making him weep.... He
used green Russian snuff, and every one knows that that plant makes even
old men shed tears, athwart which the human eye peers forth dimly and
senselessly for the space of several minutes.
As a matter of course I treated the old man very cautiously, inquired
after the health of his wife and daughter, and at once turned the
conversation artfully on the interesting question of rotation of crops.
I was dressed as usual; but the feeling of soft decorum and gentle
condescension which filled my breast, afforded me a festive and fresh
sensation, as though I were wearing a white waistcoat and a white
neckcloth. One thing disturbed me: the thought of meeting Liza again....
At last Ozhógin himself proposed to conduct me to his wife. That good,
but stupid woman, on beholding me, at first became frightfully
embarrassed; but her brain was incapable of preserving one and the same
impression for long together, and therefore she speedily recovered her
equanimity. At last I saw Liza.... She entered the room....
I had expected that I should find in her an abashed, penitent sinner,
and had already in advance imparted to my face the most cordial and
encouraging expression.... Why should I lie? I really loved her and
thirsted for the happiness of forgiving her, of putting out my hand to
her; but, to my unspeakable amazement, in reply to my significant bow,
she laughed coldly, remarked carelessly: "Ah? so it 's you?" and
immediately turned away from me. Her laugh appeared to me forced, it is
true, and, in any case, was ill-suited to her dreadfully emaciated
face.... But, nevertheless, I had not expected such a reception.... I
stared at her in astonishment.... What a change had taken place in her!
Between the former child and this woman there was nothing in common. She
seemed to have grown taller, to have drawn herself up straighter; all
her features, especially her lips, seemed to have acquired a more
defined outline .... her gaze had become more profound, more firm, and
dark. I sat with the Ozhógins until dinner; she rose, left the room and
returned to it, calmly replied to questions, and deliberately took no
heed of me. I could see that she wished to make me feel that I was not
worthy even of her anger, although I had come near killing her lover. At
last I lost patience: a malicious hint broke from my lips.... She
shuddered, darted a swift glance at me, rose, and, walking to the
window, said in a voice which trembled slightly: "You can say anything
you like, but you must know that I love that man and shall always love
him, and do not consider him to blame toward me in the slightest degree,
on the contrary ...." Her voice broke with a tinkle, she paused ....
tried to control herself, but could not, and burst into tears and left
the room.... The elder Ozhógins grew confused.... I shook hands with
both of them, sighed, cast a glance upward, and went away.
I am too weak, there is too little time left to me, I am not in a
condition to describe with my former minuteness this new series of
torturing meditations, firm intentions, and other fruits of the
so-called inward conflict, which started up in me after the renewal of
my acquaintance with the Ozhógins. I did not doubt that Liza still loved
and would long love the Prince .... but, being a man tamed now by
circumstances and who had resigned himself to his fate, I did not even
dream of her love: I merely desired her friendship, I wanted to win her
confidence, her respect, which, according to the assertions of
experienced persons, is regarded as the most trustworthy foundation for
happiness in marriage..... Unhappily, I had lost sight of one rather
important circumstance--namely, that Liza had hated me ever since the
day of the duel. I learned this too late.
I began to frequent the Ozhógins' house as of yore. Kiríla Matvyéevitch
was more cordial to me and petted me more than ever. I even have cause
to think that at the time he would have gladly given me his daughter,
although I was not an enviable match: public opinion condemned him and
Liza, and, on the other hand, extolled me to the skies. Liza's treatment
of me did not change: she maintained silence most of the time, obeyed
when she was bidden to eat, displayed no outward signs of grief, but,
nevertheless, she wasted away like a candle. I must do justice to Kiríla
Matvyéevitch: he spared her in every possible way; old Madame Ozhógin
merely bristled up as she looked at her poor child. There was only one
man whom Liza did not avoid, although she did not talk much to him,
namely, Bizmyónkoff. The old Ozhógins treated him sternly, even roughly;
they could not pardon him for having acted as second; but he continued
to come to their house, as though he did not notice their disfavour.
With me he was very cold, and,--strange to say!--I felt afraid of him,
as it were. This state of things lasted for about a fortnight. At last,
after a sleepless night, I made up my mind to have an explanation with
Liza, to lay bare my heart before her; to tell her that, notwithstanding
the past, notwithstanding all sorts of rumours and gossip, I should
regard myself as too happy if she would favour me with her hand, would
restore to me her trust. I really, without jesting, imagined that I was
exhibiting, as the compendiums of literature put it, an unprecedented
example of magnanimity, and that she would give her consent out of sheer
amazement. In any case, I wanted to clear up the situation with her, and
escape, definitively, from my state of uncertainty.
Behind the Ozhógins' house lay a fairly spacious garden, terminating in
a linden coppice, neglected and overgrown. In the middle of this coppice
rose an old arbour in the Chinese style; a board fence separated the
garden from a blind-alley. Liza sometimes strolled for hours at a time
alone in this garden. Kiríla Matvyéevitch knew this and had given orders
that she was not to be disturbed, and kept a watch over her: "Let her
grief wear itself out," he said. When she was not to be found in the
house, it was only necessary to ring a small bell on the porch at
dinner-time, and she immediately presented herself, with the same
obdurate taciturnity on her lips and in her gaze, and some sort of
crumpled leaf in her hand. So, one day, observing that she was not in
the house, I pretended that I was making ready to depart, took leave of
Kiríla Matvyéevitch, put on my hat, and emerged from the anteroom into
the courtyard, and from the courtyard into the street, but instantly,
with extraordinary swiftness, slipped back through the gate and made my
way past the kitchen into the garden. Luckily, no one espied me. Without
pausing long to think, I entered the grove with hasty steps. Before me,
on the path, stood Liza. My heart began to beat violently in my breast.
I stopped short, heaved a deep sigh, and was on the point of approaching
her, when all of a sudden, without turning round, she raised her hand
and began to listen.... From behind the trees, in the direction of the
blind-alley, two knocks rang out clearly, as though some one were
tapping on the fence. Liza clapped her hands, a faint squeaking of the
wicket-gate became audible, and Bizmyónkoff emerged from the coppice. I
promptly hid myself behind a tree. Liza turned silently toward him....
Silently he drew her arm through his, and both walked softly along the
path. I stared after them in astonishment. They halted, looked about
them, disappeared behind the bushes, appeared again, and finally entered
the arbour. This arbour was circular in shape, a tiny little building,
with one door and one small window; in the centre was to be seen an old
table with a single leg, overgrown with fine green moss; two faded
little plank divans stood at the sides, at some distance from the damp
and dark-hued walls. Here, on unusually hot days, and that once a year,
and in former times, they had been in the habit of drinking tea. The
door would not shut at all; the frame had long ago fallen out of the
window and, catching by one corner, dangled mournfully, like the wounded
wing of a bird. I stole up to the arbour and cautiously glanced through
a crack of the window. Liza was sitting on one of the little divans,
with drooping head; her right hand lay on her lap; Bizmyónkoff was
holding the left in both his hands. He was gazing at her with sympathy.
"How do you feel to-day?"--he asked her, in a low voice.
"Just the same!"--she replied;--"neither better nor worse.--Emptiness,
frightful emptiness!"--she added, dejectedly raising her eyes.
Bizmyónkoff made no reply.
"What think you," she went on;--"will he write to me again?"
"I think not, Lizavéta Kiríllovna!"
She remained silent for a while.
"And, in fact, what is there for him to write about? He told me
everything in his first letter. I could not be his wife; but I was
happy ... not for long.... I was happy...."
Bizmyónkoff lowered his eyes.
"Akh,"--she went on with animation;--"if you only knew how loathsome
that Tchulkatúrin is to me!... It always seems to me that I can see
..... his blood ... on that man's hands." (I writhed behind my crack.)
"However,"--she added thoughtfully;--"who knows,--perhaps had it not
been for that duel .... Akh, when I beheld him wounded, I immediately
felt that I was all his."
"Tchulkatúrin loves you,"--remarked Bizmyónkoff.
"What do I care for that? Do I need any one's love?..." She paused, and
added slowly: ... "except yours. Yes, my friend, your love is
indispensable to me: without you I should have perished. You have helped
me to endure terrible moments...."
She ceased.... Bizmyónkoff began to stroke her hand with paternal
tenderness. "There 's no help for it, there 's no help for it, Lizavéta
Kiríllovna,"--he repeated, several times in succession.
"Yes, and now,"--she said dully,--"I think I should die if it were not
for you. You alone sustain me; moreover, you remind me .... For you know
everything. Do you remember how handsome he was that day?.... But
forgive me: it must be painful for you...."
"Speak, speak! What do you mean? God bless you!"--Bizmyónkoff
interrupted her. She squeezed his hand.
"You are very kind, Bizmyónkoff,"--she went on:--"you are as kind as an
angel. What am I to do? I feel that I shall love him until I die. I have
forgiven him, I am grateful to him. May God grant him happiness! May God
give him a wife after his own heart!"--And her eyes filled with
tears.--"If only he does not forget me, if only he will now and then
recall his Liza to mind. Let us go out,"--she added, after a brief
pause.
Bizmyónkoff raised her hand to his lips.
"I know,"--she began with warmth,--"every one is blaming me, every one
is casting stones at me now. Let them! All the same, I would not
exchange my unhappiness for their happiness ... no! no!... He did not
love me long, but he did love me! He never deceived me: he did not tell
me that I was to be his wife; I myself never thought of such a thing.
Only poor papa hoped for that. And now I am still not utterly unhappy:
there remains to me the memory, and however terrible the consequences
may be .... I am stifling here .... it was here that I saw him for the
last time.... Let us go out into the air."
They rose. I barely managed to leap aside and hide behind a thick
linden. They came out of the arbour and, so far as I was able to judge
from the sound of their footsteps, went off into the grove. I do not
know how long I had been standing there, without stirring from the spot,
absorbed in a sort of irrational surprise, when suddenly the sound of
footsteps became audible again. I started and peered cautiously from my
ambush. Bizmyónkoff and Liza were returning by the same path. Both were
greatly agitated, especially Bizmyónkoff. He had been weeping,
apparently. Liza halted, gazed at him, and uttered the following words
distinctly: "I consent, Bizmyónkoff. I would not have consented, had you
merely wished to save me, to extricate me from a frightful position; but
you love me, you know all--and you love me; I shall never find a more
trustworthy, faithful friend. I will be your wife."
Bizmyónkoff kissed her hand; she smiled sadly at him, and went to the
house. Bizmyónkoff dashed into the thicket, and I went my way. As
Bizmyónkoff had probably said to Liza precisely what I had intended to
say to her, and as she had given him precisely the answer which I had
hoped to hear from her, there was no necessity for my troubling myself
further. A fortnight later she married him. The old Ozhógins were glad
to get any bridegroom.
Well, tell me now, am not I a superfluous man? Did not I play in the
whole of that affair the part of a superfluous man? The rôle of the
Prince .... as to that, there is nothing to be said; the rôle of
Bizmyónkoff also is comprehensible .... But I? Why was I mixed up in
it?... what a stupid, fifth wheel to the cart I was!... Akh, 't is
bitter, bitter!... So now, as the stevedores on the Volga say:
"Heave-ho! heave-ho!"[15]--one more little day, then another, and
nothing will be either bitter or sweet to me any more.
March 31.
Things are bad. I write these lines in bed. The weather has changed
suddenly since yesterday. To-day is hot--almost a summer day. Everything
is thawing, crumbling, and streaming. There is an odour of ploughed
earth in the air: a heavy, powerful, oppressive odour. The steam is
rising everywhere. The sun is fairly beating, fairly blazing down. I am
in a bad way. I feel that I am decomposing.
I started out to write a diary, and instead of that, what have I done? I
have narrated one incident out of my own life. I have been babbling,
sleeping memories have waked up and carried me away. I have written
leisurely, in detail, as though I still had years before me; and now,
lo, there is no time to continue. Death, death is advancing. I can
already hear its menacing crescendo... Time 's up.... Time 's up!...
And where 's the harm? Does it make any difference what I have told? In
the presence of death all the last earthly vanities disappear. I feel
that I am quieting down; I am becoming more simple, more clear. I have
acquired sense, but too late!... 'T is strange! I am growing still--'t
is true, and, nevertheless, I am overcome with dread. Yes, I am overcome
with dread. Half-leaning over the voiceless, yawning gulf, I shudder, I
turn aside, with eager attention I gaze about in all directions. Every
object is doubly dear to me. I cannot gaze my fill at my poor, cheerless
room, as I bid farewell to every tiny fleck on my walls! Sate yourselves
for the last time, ye eyes of mine! Life is withdrawing; it is flowing
evenly and softly away from me, like the shore from the glances of the
traveller by sea. The aged, yellow face of my nurse, bound up in a dark
kerchief, the hissing samovár on the table, the pot of geranium in front
of the window, and thou, my poor dog, Trésor, the pen wherewith I indite
these lines, my own hand, I see you now .... there you are, there.... Is
it possible .... to-day perhaps ... I shall see you no more? 'T is
painful for a living being to part with life! Why dost thou fawn on me,
poor dog? Why dost thou lean thy breast against my bed convulsively
tucking under thy short tail, and never taking from me thy kind, sad
eyes? Art thou sorry for me? Dost thou already feel instinctively that
thy master will soon be no more? Akh, if I could also pass in review
mentally all the objects in my room! I know that these memories are
cheerless and insignificant, but I have no others. Emptiness, frightful
emptiness! as Liza said.
Oh, my God! My God! Here I am dying.... My heart capable of love, and
ready to love, will soon cease to beat... And can it be that it will be
silenced forever, without having even once tasted of happiness, without
having a single time swelled beneath the sweet burden of joy? Alas! 't
is impossible, impossible, I know... If at least now, before my
death--and death, nevertheless, is a sacred thing, for it elevates every
being--if some charming, sad, friendly voice were to sing over me the
parting song of my own woe, perhaps I might become reconciled to it. But
to die is stupid, stupid...