The Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev (book suggestions TXT) 📖

house on fire, as my nurse expresses it. 'Of course,' I am constantly hearing, 'we can't keep pace with you! we are plain people, we are guided by nothing but common-sense. Though, when you come to think of it, what have all these metaphysics, and books, and intimacies with learned folks brought you to?' You perhaps remember my sister--not the one to whom you were once not indifferent--but the other elder one, who is married. Her husband, if you recollect, is a simple and rather comic person; you often used to make fun of him in those days. But she's happy, after all; she's the mother of a family, she's fond of her husband, her husband adores her.... 'I am like every one else,' she says to me sometimes, 'but you!' And she's right; I envy her....

And yet, I feel I should not care to change with her, all the same. Let them call me a female philosopher, a queer fish, or what they choose--I will remain true to the end ... to what? to an ideal, or what? Yes, to my ideal. Yes, I will be faithful to the end to what first set my heart throbbing--to what I have recognised, and recognise still, as truth, and good.... If only my strength does not fail me, if only my divinity does not turn out to be a dumb and soulless idol!...

If you really feel any friendship for me, if you have really not forgotten me, you ought to aid me, you ought to solve my doubts, and strengthen my convictions....

Though after all, what help can you give me? 'All that's rubbish, fiddle-faddle,' was said to me yesterday by my uncle--I think you don't know him--a retired naval officer, a very sensible man; 'husband, children, a pot of soup; to look after the husband and children and keep an eye on the pot--that's what a woman wants.'... Tell me, is he right?

If he really is right, I can still make up for the past, I can still get into the common groove. Why should I wait any longer? what have I to hope for? In one of your letters you spoke of the wings of youth. How often--how long they are tied! And later on comes the time when they fall off, and there is no rising above earth, no flying to heaven any more. Write to me.--Yours,

M.


X

FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA

ST. PETERSBURG, _June_ 16, 1840.

I hasten to answer your letter, dear Marya Alexandrovna. I will confess to you that if it were not ... I can't say for business, for I have none ... if it were not that I am stupidly accustomed to this place, I should have gone off to see you again, and should have talked to my heart's content, but on paper it all comes out cold and dead....

Marya Alexandrovna, I tell you again, women are better than men, and you ought to prove this in practice. Let such as us fling away our convictions, like cast-off clothes, or abandon them for a crust of bread, or lull them into an untroubled sleep, and put over them--as over the dead, once dear to us--a gravestone, at which to come at rare intervals to pray--let us do all this; but you women must not be false to yourselves, you must not be false to your ideal.... That word has become ridiculous.... To fear being ridiculous--is not to love truth. It happens, indeed, that the senseless laughter of the fool drives even good men into giving up a great deal ... as, for instance, the defence of an absent friend.... I have been guilty of that myself. But, I repeat, you women are better than we.... In trifling matters you give in sooner than we; but you know how to face fearful odds better than we. I don't want to give you either advice or help--how should I? besides, you have no need of it. But I hold out my hand to you; I say to you, Have patience, struggle on to the end; and let me tell you, that, as a sentiment, the consciousness of an honestly sustained struggle is almost higher than the triumph of victory.... Victory does not depend on ourselves. Of course your uncle is right from a certain point of view; family life is everything for a woman; for her there is no other life.

But what does that prove? None but Jesuits will maintain that any means are good if only they attain the end. It's false! it's false! Feet sullied with the mud of the road are unworthy to go into a holy temple. At the end of your letter is a phrase I do not like; you want to get into the common groove; take care, don't make a false step! Besides--do not forget,--there is no erasing the past; and however much you try, whatever pressure you put on yourself, you will not turn into your sister. You have reached a higher level than she; but your soul has been scorched in the fire, hers is untouched. Descend to her level, stoop to her, you can; but nature will not give up her rights, and the burnt place will not grow again....

You are afraid--let us speak plainly--you are afraid of being left an old maid. You are, I know, already twenty-six. Certainly the position of old maids is an unenviable one; every one is so ready to laugh at them, every one comments with such ungenerous amusement on their peculiarities and weaknesses. But if you scrutinise with a little attention any old bachelor, one may just as well point the finger of scorn at him; one will find plenty in him, too, to laugh at. There's no help for it. There is no getting happiness by struggling for it. But we must not forget that it's not happiness, but human dignity, that's the chief aim in life.

You describe your position with great humour. I well understand all the bitterness of it; your position one may really call tragic. But let me tell you you are not alone in it; there is scarcely any quite modern person who isn't placed in it. You will say that that makes it no better for you; but I am of opinion that suffering in company with thousands is quite a different matter from suffering alone. It is not a matter of egoism, but a sense of a general inevitability which comes in.

All this is very fine, granted, you will say ... but not practicable in reality. Why not practicable? I have hitherto imagined, and I hope I shall never cease to imagine, that in God's world everything honest, good, and true is practicable, and will sooner or later come to pass, and not only will be realised, but is already being realised. Let each man only hold firm in his place, not lose patience, nor desire the impossible, but do all in his power. But I fancy I have gone off too much into abstractions. I will defer the continuation of my reflections till the next letter; but I cannot lay down my pen without warmly, most warmly, pressing your hand, and wishing you from my soul all that is good on earth.

Yours, A. S.

_P.S._--By the way, you say it's useless for you to wait, that you have nothing to hope for; how do you know that, let me ask?


XI

FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH

VILLAGE OF X----, _June_ 30, 1840.

How grateful I am to you for your letter, Alexey Petrovitch! How much good it did me! I see you really are a good and trustworthy man, and so I shall not be reserved with you. I trust you. I know you would make no unkind use of my openness, and will give me friendly counsel. Here is the question.

You noticed at the end of my letter a phrase which you did not quite like. I will tell what it had reference to. There is one of the neighbours here ... he was not here when you were, and you have not seen him. He ... I could marry him if I liked; he is still young, well-educated, and has property. There are no difficulties on the part of my parents; on the contrary, they--I know for a fact--desire this marriage. He is a good man, and I think he loves me ... but he is so spiritless and narrow, his aspirations are so limited, that I cannot but be conscious of my superiority to him. He is aware of this, and as it were rejoices in it, and that is just what sets me against him. I cannot respect him, though he has an excellent heart. What am I to do? tell me! Think for me and write me your opinion sincerely.

But how grateful I am to you for your letter!... Do you know, I have been haunted at times by such bitter thoughts.... Do you know, I had come to the point of being almost ashamed of every feeling--not of enthusiasm only, but even of faith; I used to shut a book with vexation whenever there was anything about hope or happiness in it, and turned away from a cloudless sky, from the fresh green of the trees, from everything that was smiling and joyful. What a painful condition it was! I say, _was_ ... as though it were over!

I don't know whether it is over; I know hat if it does not return I am indebted to you for it. Do you see, Alexey Petrovitch, how much good you have done, perhaps, without suspecting it yourself! By the way, do you know I feel very sorry for you? We are now in the full blaze of summer, the days are exquisite, the sky blue and brilliant.... It couldn't be lovelier in Italy even, and you are staying in the stifling, baking town, and walking on the burning pavement. What induces you to do so? You might at least move into some summer villa out of town. They say there are bright spots at Peterhof, on the sea-coast.

I should like to write more to you, but it's impossible. Such a sweet fragrance comes in from the garden that I can't stay indoors. I am going to put on my hat and go for a walk.

... Good-bye till another time, good Alexey Petrovitch. Yours devotedly, M. B.

_P.S._--I forgot to tell you ... only fancy, that witty gentleman, about whom I wrote to you the other day, has made me a declaration of love, and in the most ardent terms. I thought at first he was laughing at me; but he finished up with a formal proposal--what do you think of him, after all his libels! But he is positively too old. Yesterday evening, to tease him, I sat down to the piano before the open window, in the moonlight, and played Beethoven. It was so nice to feel its cold light on my face, so delicious to fill the fragrant night air with the sublime music, through which one could hear at times the singing of a nightingale. It is long since I have been so happy. But write to me about what I asked you at the beginning of my letter; it is very important.


XII

FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA

ST. PETERSBURG, _July_ 8, 1840.

DEAR MARYA ALEXANDROVNA,--Here is my opinion in a couple of words: both the old bachelor and the young suitor--overboard with them both! There is no need even to consider it. Neither of them is worthy of you--that's as clear as that twice two makes four. The