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Meanwhile I have the honour to be your sincere friend,

A. S.

IV

FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA

ST. PETERSBURG, April 7.

I am writing to you again, though I foresee that without your approval I shall soon cease writing. I must own that you cannot but feel some distrust of me. Well, perhaps you are right too. In old days I should have triumphantly announced to you (and very likely I should have quite believed my own words myself) that I had ‘developed,’ made progress, since the time when we parted. With condescending, almost affectionate, contempt I should have referred to my past, and with touching self-conceit have initiated you into the secrets of my real, present life … but, now, I assure you, Marya Alexandrovna, I’m positively ashamed and sick to remember the capers and antics cut at times by my paltry egoism. Don’t be afraid: I am not going to force upon you any great truths, any profound views. I have none of them–of those truths and views. I have become a simple good fellow–really. I am bored, Marya Alexandrovna, I’m simply bored past all enduring. That is why I am writing to you…. I really believe we may come to be friends….

But I’m positively incapable of talking to you, till you hold out a hand to me, till I get a note from you with the one word ‘Yes.’ Marya Alexandrovna, are you willing to listen to me? That’s the question.–Yours devotedly,

A. S.

V

FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH

VILLAGE OF X—-, April 14.

What a strange person you are! Very well, then.–Yes!

MARYA B.

VI

FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA

ST. PETERSBURG, May 2, 1840.

Hurrah! Thanks, Marya Alexandrovna, thanks! You are a very kind and indulgent creature.

I will begin according to my promise to talk about myself, and I shall talk with a relish approaching to appetite…. That’s just it. Of anything in the world one may speak with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but with appetite one talks only of oneself.

Let me tell you, during the last few days a very strange experience has befallen me. I have for the first time taken an all-round view of my past. You understand me. Every one of us often recalls what is over–with regret, or vexation, or simply from nothing to do. But to bend a cold, clear gaze over all one’s past life–as a traveller turns and looks from a high mountain on the plain he has passed through–is only possible at a certain age … and a secret chill clutches at a man’s heart when it happens to him for the first time. Mine, anyway, felt a sick pang. While we are young, such an all-round view is impossible. But my youth is over, and, like one who has climbed on to a mountain, everything lies clear before me.

Yes, my youth is gone, gone never to return!… Here it lies before me, as it were in the palm of my hand.

A sorry spectacle! I will confess to you, Marya Alexandrovna, I am very sorry for myself. My God! my God! Can it be that I have myself so utterly ruined my life, so mercilessly embroiled and tortured myself!… Now I have come to my senses, but it’s too late. Has it ever happened to you to save a fly from a spider? Has it? You remember, you put it in the sun; its wings and legs were stuck together, glued…. How awkwardly it moved, how clumsily it attempted to get clear!… After prolonged efforts, it somehow gets better, crawls, tries to open its wings … but there is no more frolicking for it, no more light-hearted buzzing in the sunshine, as before, when it was flying through the open window into the cool room and out again, freely winging its way into the hot air…. The fly, at least, fell through none of its own doing into the dreadful web … but I!