Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (161 page)
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Authors: IVAN TURGENEV
“Vera, Vera!” I cried; “is it you calling me?” Timofay, sleepy and amazed, appeared before me.
I came to my senses, drank a glass of water and went into another room; but sleep did not come to me. My heart throbbed painfully though not rapidly. I could not abandon myself to dreams of happiness again; I dared not believe in it.
Next day, before dinner, I went to the Priemkovs’. Priemkov met me with a care - worn face.
“My wife is ill,” he began; “she is in bed; I sent for a doctor.”
“What is the matter with her?”
“I can’t make out. Yesterday evening she went into the garden and suddenly came back quite beside herself, panic - stricken. Her maid ran for me. I went in, and asked my wife what was wrong. She made no answer, and so she has lain; by night delirium set in. In her delirium she said all sorts of things; she mentioned you. The maid told me an extraordinary thing; that Vera’s mother appeared to her in the garden; she fancied she was coming to meet her with open arms.”
You can imagine what I felt at these words.
“Of course that’s nonsense,” Priemkov went on; “though I must admit that extraordinary things have happened to my wife in that way.”
“And you say Vera Nikolaevna is very unwell?”
“Yes: she was very bad in the night; now she is wandering.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“The doctor said that the disease was undefined as yet. . . .”
March
12.
I cannot go on as I began, dear friend; it costs me too much effort and re - opens my wounds too cruelly. The disease, to use the doctor’s words, became defined, and Vera died of it. She did not live a fortnight after the fatal day of our momentary interview. I saw her once more before her death. I have no memory more heart - rending. I had already learned from the doctor that there was no hope. Late in the evening, when every one in the house was in bed, I stole to the door of her room and looked in at her. Vera lay in her bed, with closed eyes, thin and small, with a feverish flush on her cheeks. I gazed at her as though turned to stone. All at once she opened her eyes, fastened them upon me, scrutinised me, and stretching out a wasted hand -
-
“Was will er an dem heiligen Ort
Der da . . . der dort . . . .”
[
Faust,
Part I., Last Scene.]
she articulated, in a voice so terrible that I rushed headlong away. Almost all through her illness, she raved about
Faust
and her mother, whom she sometimes called Martha, sometimes Gretchen’s mother.
Vera died. I was at her burying. Ever since then I have given up everything and am settled here for ever.
Think now of what I have told you; think of her, of that being so quickly brought to destruction. How it came to pass, how explain this incomprehensible intervention of the dead in the affairs of the living, I don’t know and never shall know. But you must admit that it is not a fit of whimsical spleen, as you express it, which has driven me to retire from the world. I am not what I was, as you knew me; I believe in a great deal now which I did not believe formerly. All this time I have thought so much of that unhappy woman (I had almost said, girl), of her origin, of the secret play of fate, which we in our blindness call blind chance. Who knows what seeds each man living on earth leaves behind him, which are only destined to come up after his death? Who can say by what mysterious bond a man’s fate is bound up with his children’s, his descendants’; how his yearnings are reflected in them, and how they are punished for his errors? We must all submit and bow our heads before the Unknown.
Yes, Vera perished, while I was untouched. I remember, when I was a child, we had in my home a lovely vase of transparent alabaster. Not a spot sullied its virgin whiteness. One day when I was left alone, I began shaking the stand on which it stood . . . the vase suddenly fell down and broke to shivers. I was numb with horror, and stood motionless before the fragments. My father came in, saw me, and said, “There, see what you have done; we shall never have our lovely vase again; now there is no mending it!” I sobbed. I felt I had committed a crime.
I grew into a man -
- and thoughtlessly broke a vessel a thousand times more precious. . . .
In vain I tell myself that I could not have dreamed of such a sudden catastrophe, that it struck me too with its suddenness, that I did not even suspect what sort of nature Vera was. She certainly knew how to be silent till the last minute. I ought to have run away directly I felt that I loved her, that I loved a married woman. But I stayed, and that fair being was shattered, and with despair I gaze at the work of my own hands.
Yes, Madame Eltsov took jealous care of her daughter. She guarded her to the end, and at the first incautious step bore her away with her to the grave!
It is time to make an end. . . . I have not told one hundredth part of what I ought to have; but this has been enough for me. Let all that has flamed up fall back again into the depths of my heart. . . . In conclusion, I say to you -
- one conviction I have gained from the experience of the last years -
- life is not jest and not amusement; life is not even enjoyment . . . life is hard labour. Renunciation, continual renunciation -
- that is its secret meaning, its solution. Not the fulfilment of cherished dreams and aspirations, however lofty they may be -
- the fulfilment of duty, that is what must be the care of man. Without laying on himself chains, the iron chains of duty, he cannot reach without a fall the end of his career. But in youth we think -
- the freer the better, the further one will get. Youth may be excused for thinking so. But it is shameful to delude oneself when the stern face of truth has looked one in the eyes at last.
Good - bye! In old days I would have added, be happy; now I say to you, try to live, it is not so easy as it seems. Think of me, not in hours of sorrow, but in hours of contemplation, and keep in your heart the image of Vera in all its pure stainlessness. . . . Once more, good - bye! -
- Yours,
P. B.
1855
AT that time I was five - and - twenty, began N. N., -
- it was in days long past, as you perceive. I had only just gained my freedom and gone abroad, not to “finish my education,” as the phrase was in those days; I simply wanted to have a look at God’s world. I was young, and in good health and spirits, and had plenty of money. Troubles had not yet had time to gather about me. I existed without thought, did as I liked, lived like the lilies of the field, in fact. It never occurred to me in those days that man is not a plant, and cannot go on living like one for long. Youth will eat gilt gingerbread and fancy it’s daily bread too; but the time comes when you’re in want of dry bread even. There’s no need to go into that, though.
I travelled without any sort of aim, without a plan; I stopped wherever I liked the place, and went on again directly I felt a desire to see new faces -
- faces, nothing else. I was interested in people exclusively; I hated famous monuments and museums of curiosities, the very sight of a guide produced in me a sense of weariness and anger; I was almost driven crazy in the Dresden “Grüne - Gewölbe.” Nature affected me extremely, but I did not care for the so - called beauties of nature, extraordinary mountains, precipices, and waterfalls; I did not like nature to obtrude, to force itself upon me. But faces, living human faces -
- people’s talk, and gesture, and laughter -
- that was what was absolutely necessary to me. In a crowd I always had a special feeling of ease and comfort. I enjoyed going where others went, shouting when others shouted, and at the same time I liked to look at the others shouting. It amused me to watch people. . . though I didn’t even watch them -
- I simply stared at them with a sort of delighted, ever - eager curiosity. But I am diverging again.
And so twenty years ago I was staying in the little German town Z., on the left bank of the Rhine. I was seeking solitude; I had just been stabbed to the heart by a young widow, with whom I had made acquaintance at a watering - place. She was very pretty and clever, and flirted with every one -
- with me, too, poor sinner. At first she had positively encouraged me, but later on she cruelly wounded my feelings, sacrificing me for a red - faced Bavarian lieutenant. It must be owned, the wound to my heart was not a very deep one; but I thought it my duty to give myself up for a time to gloom and solitude -
- youth will find amusement in anything! -
- and so I settled at Z.
I liked the little town for its situation on the slope of two high hills, its ruined walls and towers, its ancient lime - trees, its steep bridge over the little clear stream that falls into the Rhine, and, most of all, for its excellent wine. In the evening, directly after sunset (it was June), very pretty flaxen - haired German girls used to walk about its narrow streets and articulate “Guten Abend” in agreeable voices on meeting a stranger, -
- some of them did not go home even when the moon had risen behind the pointed roofs of the old houses, and the tiny stones that paved the street could be distinctly seen in its still beams. I liked wandering about the town at that time; the moon seemed to keep a steady watch on it from the clear sky; and the town was aware of this steady gaze, and stood quiet and attentive, bathed in the moonlight, that peaceful light which is yet softly exciting to the soul. The cock on the tall Gothic bell - tower gleamed a pale gold, the same gold sheen glimmered in waves over the black surface of the stream; slender candles (the German is a thrifty soul!) twinkled modestly in the narrow windows under the slate roofs; branches of vine thrust out their twining tendrils mysteriously from behind stone walls; something flitted into the shade by the old - fashioned well in the three - cornered market place; the drowsy whistle of the night watchman broke suddenly on the silence, a good - natured dog gave a subdued growl, while the air simply caressed the face, and the lime - trees smelt so sweet that unconsciously the lungs drew in deeper and deeper breaths of it, and the name “Gretchen” hung, half exclamation, half question, on the lips.
The little town of Z. lies a mile and a half from the Rhine. I used often to walk to look at the majestic river, and would spend long hours on a stone - seat under a huge solitary ash - tree, musing, not without some mental effort, on the faithless widow. A little statue of a Madonna, with an almost childish face and a red heart, pierced with swords, on her bosom, peeped mournfully out of the branches of the ash - tree. On the opposite bank of the river was the little town L., somewhat larger than that in which I had taken up my quarters. One evening I was sitting on my favourite seat, gazing at the sky, the river, and the vineyards. In front of me flaxen - headed boys were scrambling up the sides of a boat that had been pulled ashore, and turned with its tarred bottom upwards. Sailing - boats moved slowly by with slightly dimpling sails; the greenish waters glided by, swelling and faintly rumbling. All of a sudden sounds of music drifted across to me; I listened. A waltz was being played in the town of L. The double bass boomed spasmodically, the sound of the fiddle floated across indistinctly now and then, the flute was tootling briskly.
“What’s that?” I inquired of an old man who came up to me, in a plush waistcoat, blue stockings, and shoes with buckles.
“That,” he replied, after first shifting his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, “is the students come over from B. to a commersh.”
“I’ll have a look at this commersh,” I thought. “I’ve never been over to L. either.” I sought out a ferryman, and went over to the other side.
