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My hands are trembling, and I am quite in a fever…. My face burns. It is time to stop…. I’ll send off this letter quickly, before I’m ashamed of its feebleness. But for God’s sake, in your answer not a word–do you hear?–not a word of sympathy, or I’ll never write to you again. Understand me: I should not like you to take this letter as the outpouring of a misunderstood soul, complaining…. Ah! I don’t care!–Good-bye.

M.

VIII

FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA

ST. PETERSBURG, May 28, 1840.

Marya Alexandrovna, you are a splendid person … you … your letter revealed the truth to me at last! My God! what suffering! A man is constantly thinking that now at last he has reached simplicity, that he’s no longer showing off, humbugging, lying … but when you come to look at him more attentively, he’s become almost worse than before. And this, too, one must remark: the man himself, alone that is, never attains this self-recognition, try as he will; his eyes cannot see his own defects, just as the compositor’s wearied eyes cannot see the slips he makes; another fresh eye is needed for that. My thanks to you, Marya Alexandrovna…. You see, I speak to you of myself; of you I dare not speak…. Ah, how absurd my last letter seems to me now, so flowery and sentimental! I beg you earnestly, go on with your confession. I fancy you, too, will be the better for it, and it will do me great good. It’s a true saying: ‘A woman’s wit’s better than many a reason,’ and a woman’s heart’s far and away–by God, yes! If women knew how much better, nobler, and wiser they are than men–yes, wiser–they would grow conceited and be spoiled. But happily they don’t know it; they don’t know it because their intelligence isn’t in the habit of turning incessantly upon themselves, as with us. They think very little about themselves–that’s their weakness and their strength; that’s the whole secret–I won’t say of our superiority, but of our power. They lavish their soul, as a prodigal heir does his father’s gold, while we exact a percentage on every worthless morsel…. How are they to hold their own with us?… All this is not compliments, but the simple truth, proved by experience. Once more, I beseech you, Marya Alexandrovna, go on writing to me…. If you knew all that is coming into my brain! … But I have no wish now to speak, I want to listen to you. My turn will come later. Write, write.–Your devoted,

A. S.

IX

FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH

VILLAGE OF X—-, June 12, 1840.

I had hardly sent off my last letter to you, Alexey Petrovitch, when I regretted it; but there was no help for it then. One thing reassures me somewhat: I am sure you realised that it was under the influence of feelings long ago suppressed that it was written, and you excused me. I did not even read through, at the time, what I had written to you; I remember my heart beat so violently that the pen shook in my fingers. However, though I should probably have expressed myself differently if I had allowed myself time to reflect, I don’t mean, all the same, to disavow my own words, or the feelings which I described to you as best I could. To-day I am much cooler and far more self-possessed.

I remember at the end of my letter I spoke of the painful position of a girl who is conscious of being solitary, even among her own people…. I won’t expatiate further upon them, but will rather tell you a few instances; I think I shall bore you less in that way. In the first place, then, let me tell you that all over the country-side I am never called anything but the female philosopher. The ladies especially honour me with that name. Some assert that I sleep with a Latin book in my hand, and in spectacles; others declare that I know how to extract cube roots, whatever they may be. Not a single one of them doubts that I wear manly apparel on the sly, and instead of ‘good-morning’, address people spasmodically with ‘Georges Sand!’–and indignation grows apace against the female philosopher. We have a neighbour, a man of five-and-forty, a great wit … at least, he is reputed a great wit … for him my poor personality is an inexhaustible subject of jokes. He used to tell of me that directly the moon rose I could not take my eyes off it, and he will mimic the way in which I gaze at it; and declares that I positively take my coffee with moonshine instead of with milk–that’s to say, I put my cup in the moonlight. He swears that I use phrases of this kind–‘It is easy because it is difficult, though on the other hand it is difficult because it is easy’…. He asserts that I am always looking for a word, always striving ‘thither,’ and with comic rage inquires: ‘whither-thither? whither?’ He has also circulated a story about me that I ride at night up and down by the river, singing Schubert’s Serenade, or simply moaning, ‘Beethoven, Beethoven!’ She is, he will say, such an impassioned old person, and so on, and so on. Of course, all this comes straight to me. This surprises you, perhaps. But do not forget that four years have passed since your stay in these parts. You remember how every one frowned upon us in those days. Their turn has come now. And all that, too, is no consequence. I have to hear many things that wound my heart more than that. I won’t say anything about my poor, good mother’s never having been able to forgive me for your cousin’s indifference to me. But my whole life is burning away like a house on fire, as my nurse expresses it. ‘Of course,’ I am constantly hearing, ‘we can’t keep pace with you! we are plain people, we are guided by nothing but common-sense. Though, when you come to think of it, what have all these metaphysics, and books, and intimacies with learned folks brought you to?’ You perhaps remember my sister–not the one to whom you were once not indifferent–but the other elder one, who is married. Her husband, if you recollect, is a simple and rather comic person; you often used to make fun of him in those days. But she’s happy, after all; she’s the mother of a family, she’s fond of her husband, her husband adores her…. ‘I am like every one else,’ she says to me sometimes, ‘but you!’ And she’s right; I envy her….