A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

SECOND LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME

I have rather an important piece of news to tell you, my dear friend. Listen! Yesterday I felt disposed for a walk before dinner – only not in the garden; I walked along the road towards the town. Walking rapidly, quite aimlessly, along a straight, long road is very pleasant. You feel as if you’re doing something, hurrying somewhere. I look up; a coach is coming towards me. Surely not some one to see me, I wondered with secret terror… No: there was a gentleman with moustaches in the carriage, a stranger to me. I felt reassured. But all of a sudden, when he got abreast with me, this gentleman told the coachman to stop the horses, politely raised his cap, and still more politely asked me, ‘was not I …’ mentioning my name. I too came to a standstill, and with the fortitude of a prisoner brought up for trial, replied that I was myself; while I stared like a sheep at the gentleman with the moustaches and said to myself – ‘I do believe I’ve seen him somewhere!’

‘You don’t recognise me?’ he observed, as he got out of the coach.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘But I knew you directly.’

Explanations followed; it appeared that it was Priemkov – do you remember? – a fellow we used to know at the university. ‘Why, is that an important piece of news?’ you are asking yourself at this instant, my dear Semyon Nikolaitch. ‘Priemkov, to the best of my recollection, was rather a dull chap; no harm in him though, and not a fool.’ Just so, my dear boy; but hear the rest of our conversation.

‘I was delighted,’ says he, ‘when I heard you had come to your country-place, into our neighbourhood. But I was not alone in that feeling.’

‘Allow me to ask,’ I questioned: ‘who was so kind…’

‘My wife.’

‘Your wife!’

‘Yes, my wife; she is an old acquaintance of yours.’

‘May I ask what was your wife’s name?’

‘Vera Nikolaevna; she was an Eltsov…’

‘Vera Nikolaevna!’ I could not help exclaiming…

This it is, which is the important piece of news I spoke of at the beginning of my letter.

But perhaps you don’t see anything important even in this… I shall have to tell you something of my past … long past, life.

When we both left the university in 183 – I was three-and-twenty. You went into the service; I decided, as you know, to go to Berlin. But there was nothing to be done in Berlin before October. I wanted to spend the summer in Russia – in the country – to have a good lazy holiday for the last time; and then to set to work in earnest. How far this last project was carried out, there is no need to enlarge upon here … ‘But where am I to spend the summer?’ I asked myself. I did not want to go to my own place; my father had died not long before, I had no near relations, I was afraid of the solitude and dreariness… And so I was delighted to receive an invitation from a distant cousin to stay at his country-place in T … province. He was a well-to-do, good-natured, simple-hearted man; he lived in style as a country magnate, and had a palatial country house. I went to stay there. My cousin had a large family; two sons and five daughters. Besides them, there was always a crowd of people in his house. Guests were for ever arriving; and yet it wasn’t jolly at all. The days were spent in noisy entertainments, there was no chance of being by oneself. Everything was done in common, every one tried to be entertaining, to invent some amusement, and at the end of the day every one was fearfully exhausted. There was something vulgar about the way we lived. I was already beginning to look forward to getting away, and was only waiting till my cousin’s birthday festivities were over, when on the very day of those festivities, at the ball, I saw Vera Nikolaevna Eltsov – and I stayed on.

She was at that time sixteen. She was living with her mother on a little estate four miles from my cousin’s place. Her father – a remarkable man, I have been told – had risen rapidly to the grade of colonel, and would have attained further distinctions, but he died young, accidentally shot by a friend when out shooting. Vera Nikolaevna was a baby at the time of his death. Her mother too was an exceptional woman; she spoke several languages, and was very well informed. She was seven or eight years older than her husband whom she had married for love; he had run away with her in secret from her father’s house. She never got over his loss, and, till the day of her death (I heard from Priemkov that she had died soon after her daughter’s marriage), she never wore anything but black. I have a vivid recollection of her face: it was expressive, dark, with thick hair beginning to turn grey; large, severe, lustreless eyes, and a straight, fine nose. Her father – his surname was Ladanov – had lived for fifteen years in Italy. Vera Nikolaevna’s mother was the daughter of a simple Albanian peasant girl, who, the day after giving birth to her child, was killed by her betrothed lover – a Transteverino peasant – from whom Ladanov had enticed her away… The story made a great sensation at the time. On his return to Russia, Ladanov never left his house, nor even his study; he devoted himself to chemistry, anatomy, and magical arts; tried to discover means to prolong human life, fancied he could hold intercourse with spirits, and call up the dead… The neighbours looked upon him as a sorcerer. He was extremely fond of his daughter, and taught her everything himself: but he never forgave her elopement with Eltsov, never allowed either of them to come into his presence, predicted a life of sorrow for both of them, and died in solitude. When Madame Eltsov was left a widow, she devoted her whole time to the education of her daughter, and scarcely saw any friends. When I first met Vera Nikolaevna, she had – just fancy – never been in a town in her life, not even in the town of her district.

Vera Nikolaevna was not like the common run of Russian girls; there was the stamp of something special upon her. I was struck from the first minute by the extraordinary repose of all her movements and remarks. She seemed free from any sort of disturbance or agitation; she answered simply and intelligently, and listened attentively. The expression of her face was sincere and truthful as a child’s, but a little cold and immobile, though not dreamy. She was rarely gay, and not in the way other girls are; the serenity of an innocent heart shone out in everything about her, and cheered one more than any gaiety. She was not tall, and had a very good figure, rather slender; she had soft, regular features, a lovely smooth brow, light golden hair, a straight nose, like her mother’s, and rather full lips; her dark grey eyes looked out somewhat too directly from under soft, upward-turned eyelashes. Her hands were small, and not very pretty; one never sees hands like hers on people of talent … and, as a fact, Vera Nikolaevna had no special talents. Her voice rang out clear as a child of seven’s. I was presented to her mother at my cousin’s ball, and a few days later I called on them for the first time.

Madame Eltsov was a very strange woman, a woman of character, of strong will and concentration. She had a great influence on me; I at once respected her and feared her. Everything with her was done on a principle, and she had educated her daughter too on a principle, though she did not interfere with her freedom. Her daughter loved her and trusted her blindly. Madame Eltsov had only to give her a book, and say – ‘Don’t read that page,’ she would prefer to skip the preceding page as well, and would certainly never glance at the page interdicted. But Madame Eltsov too had her idées fixes, her fads. She was mortally afraid, for instance, of anything that might work upon the imagination. And so her daughter reached the age of seventeen without ever having read a novel or a poem, while in Geography, History, and even Natural History, she would often put me to shame, graduate as I was, and a graduate, as you know, not by any means low down on the list either. I used to try and argue with Madame Eltsov about her fad, though it was difficult to draw her into conversation; she was very silent. She simply shook her head.

‘You tell me,’ she said at last, ‘that reading poetry is both useful and pleasant… I consider one must make one’s choice early in life; either the useful or the pleasant, and abide by it once for all. I, too, tried at one time to unite the two… That’s impossible, and leads to ruin or vulgarity.’

Yes, a wonderful being she was, that woman, an upright, proud nature, not without a certain fanaticism and superstition of her own. ‘I am afraid of life,’ she said to me one day. And really she was afraid of it, afraid of those secret forces on which life rests and which rarely, but so suddenly, break out. Woe to him who is their sport! These forces had shown themselves in fearful shape for Madame Eltsov; think of her mother’s death, her husband’s, her father’s… Any one would have been panic-stricken. I never saw her smile. She had, as it were, locked herself up and thrown the key into the water. She must have suffered great grief in her time, and had never shared it with any one; she had hidden it all away within herself. She had so thoroughly trained herself not to give way to her feelings that she was even ashamed to express her passionate love for her daughter; she never once kissed her in my presence, and never used any endearing names, always Vera. I remember one saying of hers; I happened to say to her that all of us modern people were half broken by life. ‘It’s no good being half broken,’ she observed; ‘one must be broken in thoroughly or let it alone…’

Very few people visited Madame Eltsov; but I went often to see her. I was secretly aware that she looked on me with favour; and I liked Vera Nikolaevna very much indeed. We used to talk and walk together… Her mother was no check upon us; the daughter did not like to be away from her mother, and I, for my part, felt no craving for solitary talks with her… Vera Nikolaevna had a strange habit of thinking aloud; she used at night in her sleep to talk loudly and distinctly about what had impressed her during the day. One day, looking at me attentively, leaning softly, as her way was, on her hand, she said, ‘It seems to me that B. is a good person, but there’s no relying on him.’ The relations existing between us were of the friendliest and most tranquil; only once I fancied I detected somewhere far off in the very depths of her clear eyes something strange, a sort of softness and tenderness… But perhaps I was mistaken.

Meanwhile the time was slipping by, and it was already time for me to prepare for departure. But still I put it off. At times, when I thought, when I realised that soon I should see no more of this sweet girl I had grown so fond of, I felt sick at heart… Berlin began to lose its attractive force. I had not the courage to acknowledge to myself what was going on within me, and, indeed, I didn’t understand what was taking place, – it was as though a cloud were overhanging my soul. At last one morning everything suddenly became clear to me. ‘Why seek further, what is there to strive towards? Why, I shall not attain to truth in any case. Isn’t it better to stay here, to be married?’ And, imagine, the idea of marriage had no terrors for me in those days. On the contrary, I rejoiced in it. More than that; that day I declared my intentions; only not to Vera Nikolaevna, as one would naturally suppose, but to Madame Eltsov. The old lady looked at me.

‘No,’ she said; ‘my dear boy, go to Berlin, get broken in thoroughly. You’re a good fellow; but it’s not a husband like you that’s needed for Vera.’

I hung my head, blushed, and, what will very likely surprise you still more, inwardly agreed with Madame Eltsov on the spot. A week later I went away, and since then I have not seen her nor Vera Nikolaevna.

I have related this episode briefly because I know you don’t care for anything ‘meandering.’ When I got to Berlin I very quickly forgot Vera Nikolaevna… But I will own that hearing of her so unexpectedly has excited me. I am impressed by the idea that she is so close, that she is my neighbour, that I shall see her in a day or two. The past seems suddenly to have sprung up out of the earth before my eyes, and to have rushed down upon me. Priemkov informed me that he was coming to call upon me with the very object of renewing our old acquaintance, and that he should look forward to seeing me at his house as soon as I could possibly come. He told me he had been in the cavalry, had retired with the rank of lieutenant, had bought an estate about six miles from me, and was intending to devote himself to its management, that he had had three children, but that two had died, and he had only a little girl of five surviving.

‘And does your wife remember me?’ I inquired.

‘Yes, she remembers you,’ he replied, with some slight hesitation. ‘Of course, she was a child, one may say, in those days; but her mother always spoke very highly of you, and you know how precious every word of her poor mother’s is to her.’

I recalled Madame Eltsov’s words, that I was not suitable for her Vera… ‘I suppose you were suitable,’ I thought, with a sidelong look at Priemkov. He spent some hours with me. He is a very nice, dear, good fellow, speaks so modestly, and looks at me so good-naturedly. One can’t help liking him … but his intellectual powers have not developed since we used to know him. I shall certainly go and see him, possibly to-morrow. I am exceedingly curious to see how Vera Nikolaevna has turned out.

You, spiteful fellow, are most likely laughing at me as you read this, sitting at your directors’ table. But I shall write and tell you, all the same, the impression she makes on me. Good-bye – till my next. – Yours, P. B.

THIRD LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME

Well, my dear boy, I have been to her house; I have seen her. First of all I must tell you one astonishing fact: you may believe me or not as you like, but she has scarcely changed at all either in face or in figure. When she came to meet me, I almost cried out in amazement; it was simply a little girl of seventeen! Only her eyes are not a little girl’s; but then her eyes were never like a child’s, even in her young days, – they were too clear. But the same composure, the same serenity, the same voice, not one line on her brow, as though she had been laid in the snow all these years. And she’s twenty-eight now, and has had three children… It’s incomprehensible! Don’t imagine, please, that I had some preconceived preference, and so am exaggerating; quite the other way; I don’t like this absence of change in her a bit.

A woman of eight-and-twenty, a wife and a mother, ought not to be like a little girl; she should have gained something from life. She gave me a very cordial welcome; but Priemkov was simply overjoyed at my arrival; the dear fellow seems on the look-out for some one to make much of. Their house is very cosy and clean. Vera Nikolaevna was dressed, too, like a girl; all in white, with a blue sash, and a slender gold chain on her neck. Her daughter is very sweet and not at all like her. She reminds one of her grandmother. In the drawing-room, just over a sofa, there hangs a portrait of that strange woman, a striking likeness. It caught my eye directly I went into the room. It seemed as though she were gazing sternly and earnestly at me. We sat down, spoke of old times, and by degrees got into conversation. I could not help continually glancing at the gloomy portrait of Madame Eltsov. Vera Nikolaevna was sitting just under it; it is her favourite place. Imagine my amazement: Vera Nikolaevna has never yet read a single novel, a single poem – in fact, not a single invented work, as she expresses it! This incomprehensible indifference to the highest pleasures of the intellect irritated me. In a woman of intelligence, and as far as I can judge, of sensibility, it’s simply unpardonable.

‘What? do you make it a principle,’ I asked, ‘never to read books of that sort?’

‘I have never happened to,’ she answered; ‘I haven’t had time!’

‘Not time! You surprise me! I should have thought,’ I went on, addressing Priemkov, ‘you would have interested your wife in poetry.’