Novels, Tales, Journeys

We went to the table. He sat across from me; I did not dare to look up at him, but I noticed that all eyes were fixed on him. He was silent and distracted. At another time I would have been very interested in the general wish to attract the attention of the visiting officer of the guards, the nervousness of the young ladies, the awkwardness of the men, their laughter at their own jokes, and with it all the polite coldness and total inattention of the guest. After dinner he came up to me. Feeling that I had to say something, I asked rather inappropriately whether he had come to our parts on business. “I’ve come on a business upon which the happiness of my life depends,” he replied in a low voice and stepped away at once. He sat down to play Boston with three old women (including my grandmother), and I went upstairs to Mashenka’s room, where I lay till evening on the pretext of a headache. In fact, I was worse than unwell. Mashenka never left my side. She is in raptures over * * *. He will spend a month or more with them. She will be with him all day long. I guess she’s in love with him—God grant that he, too, falls in love. She’s slender and strange—just what men ask for.

What am I to do, my dear? Here it won’t be possible for me to escape his pursuit. He has already managed to charm my grandmother. He’ll call on us—again there will be declarations, complaints, vows—and to what end? He’ll obtain my love, my declaration—then reflect on the disadvantages of the marriage, leave under some pretext, abandon me—and I…What a terrible future! For God’s sake, give me your hand: I’m drowning.

7. SASHA’S REPLY

How much better it is to relieve your heart with a full confession! None too soon, my angel! What was the point of not admitting to me what I had long known: * * * and you are in love—what’s wrong with that? All the best to you. You have a gift for looking at things from God knows what side. You’re asking for trouble—beware of bringing it upon yourself. Why shouldn’t you marry * * *? Where are the insuperable obstacles? He’s rich and you’re poor—a trifle! He’s rich enough for two—what more do you want? He’s an aristocrat; but aren’t you also an aristocrat by name, by upbringing?

Not long ago there was an argument about ladies of high society. I learned that R. once declared himself on the side of the aristocracy because they are better shod. So, then, isn’t it obvious that you are an aristocrat from head to foot?

Forgive me, my angel, but your heartfelt letter made me laugh. * * * came to the country to see you. How terrible! You’re perishing; you ask my advice. Can it be you’ve turned into a provincial heroine? My advice is: Get married as quickly as possible in your wooden church and come back to us, so that you can appear as Fornarina in the tableaux vivants that are being organized at the S.’s.9 Joking aside, your knight’s deed has moved me. Of course, in the old days, for the sake of a favorable glance, a lover would go to fight for three years in Palestine; but in our day, for a man to go three hundred miles from Petersburg to see the mistress of his heart truly means a lot. * * * deserves a reward.

8. VLADIMIR * * * TO HIS FRIEND

Do me a favor, spread the rumor that I’m on my deathbed, I intend to overstay and want to observe all possible proprieties. It’s already two weeks that I’ve been living in the country, and I don’t notice how the time flies. I’m resting from Petersburg life, which I’m terribly sick of. Not to love the country is forgivable in a young girl just released from her convent cage, or to an eighteen-year-old kammerjunker. Petersburg is the front hall, Moscow is the maids’ quarters, but the country is our study. A decent man passes of necessity through the front hall and rarely glances into the maids’ quarters, but sits down in his study. That’s how I’ll end up. I’ll retire, get married, and go off to my Saratov estate. Being a landowner is the same as being in the service. Managing three thousand souls, whose well-being depends entirely on us, is more important than commanding a platoon or copying diplomatic dispatches…

The neglect in which we leave our peasants is unforgivable. The more rights we have over them, the more responsibilities we have towards them. We leave them to the mercy of a swindling steward, who oppresses them and robs us. We run through our future earnings in debts, ruin ourselves; old age finds us in need and worry.

There lies the cause of the rapid decline of our nobility: the grandfather was rich, the son is in need, the grandson goes begging. Ancient families fall into insignificance; new ones arise and by the third generation vanish again. Fortunes merge, and no family knows its ancestors. What does such political materialism lead to? I don’t know. But it is time to block its path.