‘But what is the meaning of her fright?’ I wondered--‘Can she really
have seen Madame Eltsov? Imagination!’ I thought, and again I gave
myself up to the emotions of expectation.
It was on that day I wrote you,--with what thoughts in my head it
hurts me to recall--that deceitful letter.
In the evening--the sun had not yet set--I took up my stand about fifty
paces from the garden gate in a tall thicket on the edge of the lake.
I had come from home on foot. I will confess to my shame; fear, fear
of the most cowardly kind, filled my heart; I was incessantly starting
… but I had no feeling of remorse. Hiding among the twigs, I kept
continual watch on the little gate. It did not open. The sun set, the
evening drew on; then the stars came out, and the sky turned black.
No one appeared. I was in a fever. Night came on. I could bear it no
longer; I came cautiously out of the thicket and stole down to the
gate. Everything was still in the garden. I called Vera, in a whisper,
called a second time, a third.… No voice called back. Half-an-hour
more passed by, and an hour; it became quite dark. I was worn out by
suspense; I drew the gate towards me, opened it at once, and on tiptoe,
like a thief, walked towards the house. I stopped in the shadow of a
lime-tree.
Almost all the windows in the house had lights in them; people were
moving to and fro in the house. This surprised me; my watch, as far as
I could make out in the dim starlight, said half-past eleven. Suddenly
I heard a noise near the house; a carriage drove out of the courtyard.
‘Visitors, it seems,’ I thought. Losing every hope of seeing Vera, I
made my way out of the garden and walked with rapid steps homewards.
It was a dark September night, but warm and windless. The feeling,
not so much of annoyance as of sadness, which had taken possession of
me, gradually disappeared, and I got home, rather tired from my rapid
walk, but soothed by the peacefulness of the night, happy and almost
light-hearted. I went to my room, dismissed Timofay, and without
undressing, flung myself on my bed and plunged into reverie.
At first my day-dreams were sweet, but soon I noticed a curious change
in myself. I began to feel a sort of secret gnawing anxiety, a sort of
deep, inward uneasiness. I could not understand what it arose from,
but I began to feel sick and sad, as though I were menaced by some
approaching trouble, as though some one dear to me were suffering at
that instant and calling on me for help. A wax candle on the table
burnt with a small, steady flame, the pendulum swung with a heavy,
regular tick. I leant my head on my hand and fell to gazing into
the empty half-dark of my lonely room. I thought of Vera, and my
heart failed me; all, at which I had so rejoiced, struck me, as it
ought to have done, as unhappiness, as hopeless ruin. The feeling
of apprehension grew and grew; I could not lie still any longer; I
suddenly fancied again that some one was calling me in a voice of
entreaty.… I raised my head and shuddered; I had not been mistaken; a
pitiful cry floated out of the distance and rang faintly resounding
on the dark window-panes. I was frightened; I jumped off the bed; I
opened the window. A distinct moan broke into the room and, as it
were, hovered about me. Chilled with terror, I drank in its last dying
echoes. It seemed as though some one were being killed in the distance
and the luckless wretch were beseeching in vain for mercy. Whether it
was an owl hooting in the wood or some other creature that uttered this
wail, I did not think to consider at the time, but, like Mazeppa, I
called back in answer to the ill-omened sound.
‘Vera, Vera!’ I cried; ‘is it you calling me?’ Timofay, sleepy and
amazed, appeared before me.
I came to my senses, drank a glass of water, and went into another
room; but sleep did not come to me. My heart throbbed painfully though
not rapidly. I could not abandon myself to dreams of happiness again; I
dared not believe in it.
Next day, before dinner, I went to the Priemkovs’. Priemkov met me with
a care-worn face.
‘My wife is ill,’ he began; ‘she is in bed; I sent for a doctor.’
‘What is the matter with her?’
‘I can’t make out. Yesterday evening she went into the garden and
suddenly came back quite beside herself, panic-stricken. Her maid
ran for me. I went in, and asked my wife what was wrong. She made no
answer, and so she has lain; by night delirium set in. In her delirium
she said all sorts of things; she mentioned you. The maid told me an
extraordinary thing; that Vera’s mother appeared to her in the garden;
she fancied she was coming to meet her with open arms.’
You can imagine what I felt at these words.
‘Of course that’s nonsense,’ Priemkov went on; ‘though I must admit
that extraordinary things have happened to my wife in that way.’
‘And you say Vera Nikolaevna is very unwell?’
‘Yes: she was very bad in the night; now she is wandering.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘The doctor said that the disease was undefined as yet.…’
_March 12._
I cannot go on as I began, dear friend; it costs me too much effort and
re-opens my wounds too cruelly. The disease, to use the doctor’s words,
became defined, and Vera died of it. She did not live a fortnight
after the fatal day of our momentary interview. I saw her once more
before her death. I have no memory more heart-rending. I had already
learned from the doctor that there was no hope. Late in the evening,
when every one in the house was in bed, I stole to the door of her room
and looked in at her. Vera lay in her bed, with closed eyes, thin and
small, with a feverish flush on her cheeks. I gazed at her as though
turned to stone. All at once she opened her eyes, fastened them upon
me, scrutinised me, and stretching out a wasted hand--
‘Was will er an dem heiligen Ort
Der da … der dort …’[1]
[1] _Faust_, Part I., Last Scene.
she articulated, in a voice so terrible that I rushed headlong away.
Almost all through her illness, she raved about _Faust_ and her mother,
whom she sometimes called Martha, sometimes Gretchen’s mother.
Vera died. I was at her burying. Ever since then I have given up
everything and am settled here for ever.
Think now of what I have told you; think of her, of that being so
quickly brought to destruction. How it came to pass, how explain this
incomprehensible intervention of the dead in the affairs of the living,
I don’t know and never shall know. But you must admit that it is not
a fit of whimsical spleen, as you express it, which has driven me to
retire from the world. I am not what I was, as you knew me; I believe
in a great deal now which I did not believe formerly. All this time I
have thought so much of that unhappy woman (I had almost said, girl),
of her origin, of the secret play of fate, which we in our blindness
call blind chance. Who knows what seeds each man living on earth leaves
behind him, which are only destined to come up after his death? Who
can say by what mysterious bond a man’s fate is bound up with his
children’s, his descendants’; how his yearnings are reflected in them,
and how they are punished for his errors? We must all submit and bow
our heads before the Unknown.
Yes, Vera perished, while I was untouched. I remember, when I was a
child, we had in my home a lovely vase of transparent alabaster. Not
a spot sullied its virgin whiteness. One day when I was left alone,
I began shaking the stand on which it stood … the vase suddenly fell
down and broke to shivers. I was numb with horror, and stood motionless
before the fragments. My father came in, saw me, and said, ‘There, see
what you have done; we shall never have our lovely vase again; now
there is no mending it!’ I sobbed. I felt I had committed a crime.
I grew into a man--and thoughtlessly broke a vessel a thousand times
more precious.…
In vain I tell myself that I could not have dreamed of such a sudden
catastrophe, that it struck me too with its suddenness, that I did not
even suspect what sort of nature Vera was. She certainly knew how to be
silent till the last minute. I ought to have run away directly I felt
that I loved her, that I loved a married woman. But I stayed, and that
fair being was shattered, and with despair I gaze at the work of my own
hands.
Yes, Madame Eltsov took jealous care of her daughter. She guarded her
to the end, and at the first incautious step bore her away with her to
the grave!
It is time to make an end.… I have not told one hundredth part of
what I ought to have; but this has been enough for me. Let all
that has flamed up fall back again into the depths of my heart.…
In conclusion, I say to you--one conviction I have gained from the
experience of the last years--life is not jest and not amusement; life
is not even enjoyment … life is hard labour. Renunciation, continual
renunciation--that is its secret meaning, its solution. Not the
fulfilment of cherished dreams and aspirations, however lofty they
may be--the fulfilment of duty, that is what must be the care of man.
Without laying on himself chains, the iron chains of duty, he cannot
reach without a fall the end of his career. But in youth we think--the
freer the better, the further one will get. Youth may be excused for
thinking so. But it is shameful to delude oneself when the stern face
of truth has looked one in the eyes at last.
Good-bye! In old days I would have added, be happy; now I say to
you, try to live, it is not so easy as it seems. Think of me, not
in hours of sorrow, but in hours of contemplation, and keep in your
heart the image of Vera in all its pure stainlessness.… Once more,
good-bye!--Yours, P. B.
1855.