Novels, Tales, Journeys

We have already said that, despite her coldness, Marya Gavrilovna was as surrounded by suitors as before. But they all had to step back when the wounded hussar colonel Burmin appeared in her castle, with a St. George in his buttonhole9 and with an “interesting pallor,” as the local young ladies used to say. He was about twenty-six. He came on leave to his estate, which was next to Marya Gavrilovna’s village. Marya Gavrilovna singled him out at once. In his presence, her habitual pensiveness brightened up. It could not be said that she flirted with him; but a poet, observing her behavior, would have said:

Se amor non è, che dunque?…10

Burmin was indeed a very nice young man. His was just the sort of mind that women like: a mind decorous, observant, without any pretensions, and light-heartedly mocking. His conduct with Marya Gavrilovna was simple and unconstrained; but whatever she said or did, his soul and his gaze followed her. He seemed to be of a quiet and modest disposition, but rumor averred that he had once been a terrible scapegrace, though that did him no harm in the eyes of Marya Gavrilovna, who (like all young ladies generally) took pleasure in excusing pranks that betrayed a boldness and fervor of character.

But most of all…(more than his tenderness, more than his pleasant conversation, more than his interesting pallor, more than his bandaged arm) most of all it was the young hussar’s silence that piqued her curiosity and imagination. She could not help realizing that he liked her very much; probably he, too, with his intelligence and experience, had already been able to notice that she had singled him out: how was it, then, that until now she had not seen him at her feet and had not yet heard his declaration? What held him back? The timidity inseparable from true love, pride, the teasing of a clever philanderer? It was a riddle to her. Having given it a good deal of thought, she decided that timidity was the only cause of it, and proposed to encourage him by greater attentiveness and, depending on the circumstances, even by tenderness. She prepared the most unexpected denouement, and awaited with impatience the moment of a romantic declaration. Mystery, of whatever sort it might be, is always a burden for the feminine heart. Her military operation had the desired effect: at any rate Burmin fell into such pensiveness and his dark eyes rested on Marya Gavrilovna with such fire that the decisive moment seemed to be near. The neighbors spoke of the wedding as of an already settled matter, and the good Praskovya Petrovna rejoiced that her daughter had finally found herself a worthy match.

The old woman was sitting alone in the drawing room one day, laying out a game of grande patience,11 when Burmin came into the room and at once inquired about Marya Gavrilovna.

“She’s in the garden,” the old woman replied. “Go to her, and I’ll wait for you here.” Burmin went, and the old woman crossed herself and thought, “Maybe the matter will be settled today!”

Burmin found Marya Gavrilovna by the pond, under a willow tree, with a book in her hand and wearing a white dress, a veritable heroine of a novel. After the initial questions, Marya Gavrilovna deliberately stopped keeping up the conversation, thus intensifying the mutual embarrassment, which could only be dispelled by a sudden and resolute declaration. And so it happened: Burmin, feeling the difficulty of his position, declared that he had long been seeking a chance to open his heart to her, and asked for a moment of attention. Marya Gavrilovna closed the book and lowered her eyes in a sign of consent.

“I love you,” said Burmin, “I love you passionately…” (Marya Gavrilovna blushed and lowered her head still more.) “I have acted imprudently, giving myself up to the sweet habit, the habit of seeing you and hearing you every day…” (Marya Gavrilovna recalled the first letter of St. Preux.12) “Now it is already too late to resist my fate; your memory, your dear, incomparable image, will henceforth be the torment and delight of my life; but it still remains for me to fulfill a painful duty, to reveal to you a terrible secret, and to place an insurmountable obstacle between us…”

“It has always existed,” Marya Gavrilovna interrupted with animation. “I could never have been your wife…”

“I know,” he replied softly. “I know that you once loved, but death and three years of mourning…My good, dear Marya Gavrilovna! Do not try to deprive me of my last consolation: the thought that you could have agreed to make my happiness, if…don’t speak, for God’s sake, don’t speak. You torment me. Yes, I know, I feel that you could be mine, but—I am the most wretched of creatures…I am married!”

Marya Gavrilovna glanced up at him in astonishment.

“I am married,” Burmin went on. “I’ve been married for four years now, and I don’t know who my wife is, or where she is, or whether we are ever to see each other!”