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‘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,

A. S.

VII

FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH

VILLAGE OF X—-,May 1840.

I have received your letter, Alexey Petrovitch, and do you know what feeling t aroused in me?–indignation … yes, indignation … and I will explain to you at once why it aroused just that feeling in me. It’s only a pity I’m not a great hand with my pen; I rarely write, and am not good at expressing my thoughts precisely and in few words. But you will, I hope, come to my aid. You must try, on your side, to understand me, if only to find out why I am indignant with you.

Tell me–you have brains–have you ever asked yourself what sort of creature a Russian woman is? what is her destiny? her position in the world–in short, what is her life? I don’t know if you have had time to put this question to yourself; I can’t picture to myself how you would answer it…. I should, perhaps, in conversation be capable of giving you my ideas on the subject, but on paper I am scarcely equal to it. No matter, though. This is the point: you will certainly agree with me that we women, those of us at least who are not satisfied with the common interests of domestic life, receive our final education, in any case, from you men: you have a great and powerful influence on us. Now, consider what you do to us. I am talking about young girls, especially those who, like me, live in the wilds, and there are very many such in Russia. Besides, I don’t know anything of others and cannot judge of them. Picture to yourself such a girl. Her education, suppose, is finished; she begins to live, to enjoy herself. But enjoyment alone is not much to her. She demands much from life, she reads, and dreams … of love. Always nothing but love! you will say…. Suppose so; but that word means a great deal to her. I repeat that I am not speaking of a girl to whom thinking is tiresome and boring…. She looks round her, is waiting for the time when he will come for whom her soul yearns…. At last he makes his appearance–she is captivated; she is wax in his hands. All–happiness and love and thought–all have come with a rush together with him; all her tremors are soothed, all her doubts solved by him. Truth itself seems speaking by his lips. She venerates him, is over-awed at her own happiness, learns, loves. Great is his power over her at that time!… If he were a hero, he would fire her, would teach her to sacrifice herself, and all sacrifices would be easy to her! But there are no heroes in our times…. Anyway, he directs her as he pleases. She devotes herself to whatever interests him, every word of his sinks into her soul. She has not yet learned how worthless and empty and false a word may be, how little it costs him who utters it, and how little it deserves belief! After these first moments of bliss and hope there usually comes–through circumstances–(circumstances are always to blame)–there comes a parting. They say there have been instances of two kindred souls, on getting to know one another, becoming at once inseparably united; I have heard it said, too, that things did not always go smoothly with them in consequence … but of what I have not seen myself I will not speak,–and that the pettiest calculation, the most pitiful prudence, can exist in a youthful heart, side by side with the most passionate enthusiasm–of that I have to my sorrow had practical experience. And so, the parting comes…. Happy the girl who realises at once that it is the end of everything, who does not beguile herself with expectations! But you, valorous, just men, for the most part, have not the pluck, nor even the desire, to tell us the truth…. It is less disturbing for you to deceive us…. However, I am ready to believe that you deceive yourselves together with us…. Parting! To bear separation is both hard and easy. If only there be perfect, untouched faith in him whom one loves, the soul can master the anguish of parting…. I will say more. It is only then, when she is left alone, that she finds out the sweetness of solitude–not fruitless, but filled with memories and ideas. It is only then that she finds out herself, comes to her true self, grows strong…. In the letters of her friend far away she finds a support for herself; in her own, she, very likely for the first time, finds full self-expression…. But as two people who start from a stream’s source, along opposite banks, at first can touch hands, then only communicate by voice, and finally lose sight of each other altogether; so two natures grow apart at last by separation. Well, what then? you will say; it’s clear they were not destined to be together…. But herein the difference between a man and a woman comes out. For a man it means nothing to begin a new life, to shake off all his past; a woman cannot do this. No, she cannot fling off her past, she cannot break away from her roots–no, a thousand times no! And now begins a pitiful and ludicrous spectacle…. Gradually losing hope and faith in herself–and how bitter that is you cannot even imagine!–she pines and wears herself out alone, obstinately clinging to her memories and turning away from everything that the life around offers her…. But he? Look for him! where is he? And is it worth his while to stand still? When has he time to look round? Why, it’s all a thing of the past for him. Or else this is what happens: it happens that he feels a sudden inclination to meet the former object of his feelings, that he even makes an excursion with that aim…. But, mercy on us! the pitiful conceit that leads him into doing that! In his gracious sympathy, in his would-be friendly advice, in his indulgent explanation of the past, such consciousness of his superiority is manifest! It is so agreeable and cheering for him to let himself feel every instant–what a clever person he is, and how kind! And how little he understands what he has done! How clever he is at not even guessing what is passing in a woman’s heart, and how offensive is his compassion if he does guess it!… Tell me, please, where is she to get strength to bear all this? Recollect this, too: for the most part, a girl in whose brain–to her misfortune–thought has begun to stir, such a girl, when she begins to love, and falls under a man’s influence, inevitably grows apart from her family, her circl
e of friends. She was not, even before then, satisfied with their life, though she moved in step with them, while she treasured all her secret dreams in her soul…. But the discrepancy soon becomes apparent…. They cease to comprehend her, and are ready to look askance at everything she does…. At first this is nothing to her, but afterwards, afterwards … when she is left alone, when what she was striving towards, for which she had sacrificed everything–when heaven is not gained while everything near, everything possible, is lost–what is there to support her? Jeers, sly hints, the vulgar triumph of coarse commonsense, she could still endure somehow … but what is she to do, what is to be her refuge, when an inner voice begins to whisper to her that all of them are right and she was wrong, that life, whatever it may be, is better than dreams, as health is better than sickness … when her favourite pursuits, her favourite books, grow hateful to her, books out of which there is no reading happiness–what, tell me, is to be her support? Must she not inevitably succumb in such a struggle? how is she to live and to go on living in such a desert? To know oneself beaten and to hold out one’s hand, like a beggar, to persons quite indifferent, for them to bestow the sympathy which the proud heart had once fancied it could well dispense with–all that would be nothing! But to feel yourself ludicrous at the very instant when you are shedding bitter, bitter tears … O God, spare such suffering!…