Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – A Correspondence – Contents
< < < Chapter VI
Chapter VIII > > >
VII
From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch
Village of … no, May 20, 1840.
I have received your letter, Alexyéi Petróvitch, and do you know what feeling it aroused in me?—Indignation … yes, indignation … and I will immediately explain to you why it aroused precisely that feeling in me. One thing is a pity: I am not a mistress of the pen—I rarely write. I do not know how to express my thoughts accurately and in a few words; but you will, I hope, come to my aid. You yourself will try to understand me: if only for the sake of knowing why I am angry with you.
Tell me—you are a clever man—have you ever asked yourself what sort of a creature a Russian woman is? What is her fate, her position in the world—in short, what her life is like? I do not know whether you have ever had time to put that question to yourself; I cannot imagine how you would answer it…. I might, in conversation be able to communicate to you my ideas on that subject, but I shall hardly manage it on paper. However, it makes no difference. This is the point: you surely will agree with me that we women—at all events, those of us who are not satisfied with the ordinary cares of domestic life—receive our final education, all the same, from you—from the men: you have a great and powerful influence on us. Look, now, at what you do with us. I shall speak of the young girls, especially of those who, like myself, dwell in the dull places, and there are many such in Russia. Moreover, I do not know others, and cannot judge with regard to them. Figure to yourself such a young girl. Here, now, her education is finished; she is beginning to live, to amuse herself. But amusement alone is not enough for her. She demands a great deal from life; she reads, dreams … of love:—“Always of love alone!” you will say…. Let us assume that that word means a great deal to her. I will say again that I am not talking of the sort of girl who finds it burdensome and tiresome to think…. She looks about her, waits for the coming of him for whom her soul pines…. At last he makes his appearance: she is carried away; she is like soft wax in his hands. Everything—happiness, and love, and thought—everything has invaded her together with him, all at once; all her tremors are soothed, all her doubts are solved by him; truth itself seems to speak by his mouth; she worships him, she is ashamed of her happiness, she learns, she loves. Great is his power over her at this period!… If he were a hero, he would kindle her to flame, he would teach her to sacrifice herself, and all sacrifices would be easy to her! But there are no heroes in our day…. Nevertheless, he guides her whithersoever he will; she devotes herself to that which interests him, his every word sinks into her soul: at that time, she does not know, as yet, how insignificant and empty and false that word may be, how little it costs him who utters it, and how little faith it merits! These first moments of bliss and hope are followed, generally—according to circumstances—(circumstances are always to blame)—are followed by parting. It is said that there have been cases where two kindred souls, on recognising each other, have immediately united indissolubly; I have heard, also, that they are not always comfortable as a result…. But I will not speak of that which I have not myself beheld—but that the very pettiest sort of calculation, the most woful prudence, may dwell in a young heart side by side with the most passionate rapture,—that is a fact which, unhappily, I know by my own experience. So, then, parting comes…. Happy is that young girl who instantly recognises that the end of all has come, who does not comfort herself with expectation! But you brave, just men, in the majority of cases, have neither the courage nor the desire to tell us the truth … you find it more easy to deceive us…. I am ready to believe, however, that you deceive yourselves along with us…. Parting! It is both difficult and easy to endure parting. If only faith in him whom one loves were intact and unassailed, the soul would conquer the pain of parting…. I will say more: only when she is left alone does she learn the sweetness of solitude, not sterile but filled with memories and thoughts. Only then will she learn to know herself—will she come to herself, will she grow strong…. In the letters of the distant friend she will find a support for herself; in her own she will, perhaps, for the first time, express her mind fully…. But as two persons who have started from the source of a river along its different banks can, at first, clasp hands, then hold communication only with the voice, but ultimately lose sight of each other: so also two beings are ultimately disjoined by separation. “What of that?” you will say: “evidently they were not fated to go together….” But here comes in the difference between a man and a woman. It signifies nothing to a man to begin a new life, to shake far from him the past; a woman cannot do that. No, she cannot cast aside her past, she cannot tear herself away from her roots—no, a thousand times no! And so, a pitiful and ridiculous spectacle presents itself…. Gradually losing hope and faith in herself,—you can form no idea of how painful that is,—she will pine away and fade alone, obstinately clinging to her memories, and turning away from everything which life around her offers…. And he?… Seek him! Where is he? And is it worth while for him to pause? What time has he for looking back? All this is a thing of the past for him, you see.
Or here is another thing which happens: it sometimes happens that he will suddenly conceive a desire to meet the former object of his affections, he will even deliberately go to her…. But, my God! from what a motive of petty vain-glory he does it! In his polite compassion, in his counsels which are intended to be friendly, in his condescending explanations of the past, there is audible such a consciousness of his own superiority! It is so agreeable and cheerful a thing for him to let himself feel every minute how sensible and kind he is! And how little he understands what he is doing! How well he manages not even to guess at what is going on in the woman’s heart, and how insultingly he pities her, if he does guess it!…
Tell me, please, whence are we to get the strength to endure all this? Remember this, too: in the majority of cases, a girl who, to her misfortune, has an idea beginning to stir in her head, when she begins to love, and falls under the influence of a man, involuntarily separates herself from her family, from her acquaintances. Even previously she has not been satisfied with their life, yet she has walked on by their side, preserving in her soul all her intimate secrets…. But the breach speedily makes itself visible…. They cease to understand her, they are ready to suspect every movement of hers…. At first she pays no heed to this, but afterward, afterward … when she is left alone, when that toward which she has been striving and for which she has sacrificed everything escapes her grasp, when she has not attained to heaven, but when every near thing, every possible thing, has retreated far from her—what shall uphold her? Sneers, hints, the vulgar triumph of coarse common sense she can still bear, after a fashion … but what is she to do, to what is she to have recourse, when the inward voice begins to whisper to her that all those people were right, and that she has been mistaken; that life, of whatever sort it may be, is better than dreams, as health is better than disease … when her favourite occupations, her favourite books, disgust her, the books from which one cannot extract happiness,—what, say you,—what shall uphold her? How is she to help succumbing in such a struggle? How is she to live and to go on living in such a wilderness? Confess herself vanquished, and extend her hand like a beggar to indifferent people? Will not they give her at least some of that happiness with which the proud heart once imagined that it could dispense—all that is nothing as yet! But to feel one’s self ridiculous at the very moment when one is shedding bitter, bitter tears … akh! God forbid that you should go through that experience!…
My hands are trembling, and I am in a fever all over…. My face is burning hot. It is time for me to stop…. I shall send off this letter as speedily as possible, while I am not ashamed of my weakness. But, for God’s sake, not a word in your reply—do you hear me?—not a word of pity, or I will never write to you again. Understand me: I should not like to have you take this letter as the outpouring of a misunderstood soul which is making complaint…. Akh! it is all a matter of indifference to me! Farewell.
M.
< < < Chapter VI
Chapter VIII > > >
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – A Correspondence – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
| If you liked this site, subscribe , put likes, write comments! Share on social networks Check out Our Latest Posts |
© 2023 Akirill.com – All Rights Reserved
AKirill, Learn, apprenez, translation, traduction, livres bilingues, bilingual books 