Part 17

Vladímir Sergyéitch made no reply, and stopped short in surprise. He could not comprehend how a gentleman who could bring himself to walk on the Névsky in a foraging-cap could be acquainted with his name.

“You do not recognise me,”--pursued the gentleman in the cap:--“I saw you eight years ago, in the country, in the T*** Government, at the Ipátoffs’. My name is Véretyeff.”

“Akh! Good heavens! excuse me!”--exclaimed Vladímir Sergyéitch.--“But how you have changed since then!...”

“Yes, I have grown old,”--returned Piótr Alexyéitch, passing his hand, which was devoid of a glove, over his face.--“But you have not changed.”

Véretyeff had not so much aged as fallen away and sunk down. Small, delicate wrinkles covered his face; and when he spoke, his lips and cheeks twitched slightly. From all this it was perceptible that the man had been living hard.

“Where have you disappeared to all this time, that you have not been visible?”--Vladímir Sergyéitch asked him.

“I have been wandering about here and there. And you have been in Petersburg all the while?”

“Yes, most of the time.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes.”

And Vladímir Sergyéitch assumed a rather severe mien, as though with the object of saying to Véretyeff: “My good fellow, don’t take it into thy head to ask me to present thee to my wife.”

Véretyeff understood him, apparently. An indifferent sneer barely flitted across his lips.

“And how is your sister?”--inquired Vladímir Sergyéitch.--“Where is she?”

“I cannot tell you for certain. She must be in Moscow. I have not received any letters from her this long time!”

“Is her husband alive?”

“Yes.”

“And Mr. Ipátoff?”

“I don’t know; probably he is alive also; but he may be dead.”

“And that gentleman--what the deuce was his name?--Bodryakóff,--what of him?”

“The one you invited to be your second--you remember, when you were so scared? Why, the devil knows!”

Vladímir Sergyéitch maintained silence for a while, with dignity written on his face.

“I always recall with pleasure those evenings,”--he went on,--“when I had the opportunity” (he had nearly said, “the honour”) “of making the acquaintance of your sister and yourself. She was a very amiable person. And do you sing as agreeably as ever?”

“No; I have lost my voice.... But that was a good time!”

“I visited Ipátovka once afterward,”--added Vladímir Sergyéitch, elevating his eyebrows mournfully. “I think that was the name of that village--on the very day of a terrible event....”

“Yes, yes, that was frightful, frightful,”--Véretyeff hastily interrupted him.--“Yes, yes. And do you remember how you came near fighting with my present brother-in-law?”

“H’m! I remember!”--replied Vladímir Sergyéitch, slowly.--“However, I must confess to you that so much time has elapsed since then, that all that sometimes seems to me like a dream....”

“Like a dream,”--repeated Véretyeff, and his pale cheeks flushed;--“like a dream ... no, it was not a dream, for me at all events. It was the time of youth, of mirth and happiness, the time of unlimited hopes, and invincible powers; and if it was a dream, then it was a very beautiful dream. And now, you and I have grown old and stupid, we dye our moustaches, and saunter on the Névsky, and have become good for nothing; like broken-winded nags, we have become utterly vapid and worn out; it cannot be said that we are pompous and put on airs, nor that we spend our time in idleness; but I fear we drown our grief in drink,--that is more like a dream, and a hideous dream. Life has been lived, and lived in vain, clumsily, vulgarly--that’s what is bitter! That’s what one would like to shake off like a dream, that’s what one would like to recover one’s self from!... And then ... everywhere, there is one frightful memory, one ghost.... But farewell!”

Véretyeff walked hastily away; but on coming opposite the door of one of the principal confectioners on the Névsky, he halted, entered, and after drinking a glass of orange vodka at the buffet, he wended his way through the billiard-room, all dark and dim with tobacco-smoke, to the rear room. There he found several acquaintances, his former comrades--Pétya Lazúrin, Kóstya Kovróvsky, and Prince Serdiukóff, and two other gentlemen who were called simply Vasiúk, and Filát. All of them were men no longer young, though unmarried; some of them had lost their hair, others were growing grey; their faces were covered with wrinkles, their chins had grown double; in a word, these gentlemen had all long since passed their prime, as the saying is. Yet all of them continued to regard Véretyeff as a remarkable man, destined to astonish the universe; and he was wiser than they only because he was very well aware of his utter and radical uselessness. And even outside of his circle, there were people who thought concerning him, that if he had not ruined himself, the deuce only knows what he would have made of himself.... These people were mistaken. Nothing ever comes of Véretyeffs.

Piótr Alexyéitch’s friends welcomed him with the customary greetings. At first he dumbfounded them with his gloomy aspect and his splenetic speeches; but he speedily calmed down, cheered up, and affairs went on in their wonted rut.

But Vladímir Sergyéitch, as soon as Véretyeff left him, contracted his brows in a frown and straightened himself up. Piótr Alexyéitch’s unexpected sally had astounded, even offended him extremely.

“‘We have grown stupid, we drink liquor, we dye our moustaches’ ... _parlez pour vous, mon cher_,”--he said at last, almost aloud, and emitting a couple of snorts caused by an access of involuntary indignation, he was preparing to continue his stroll.

“Who was that talking with you?”--rang out a loud and self-confident voice behind him.

Vladímir Sergyéitch turned round and beheld one of his best friends, a certain Mr. Pompónsky. This Mr. Pompónsky, a man of lofty stature, and stout, occupied a decidedly important post, and never once, from his very earliest youth, had he doubted himself.

“Why, a sort of eccentric,”--said Vladímir Sergyéitch, linking his arm in Mr. Pompónsky’s.

“Good gracious, Vladímir Sergyéitch, is it permissible for a respectable man to chat on the street with an individual who wears a foraging-cap on his head? ’Tis indecent! I’m amazed! Where could you have made acquaintance with such a person?”

“In the country.”

“In the country.... One does not bow to one’s country neighbours in town.... _ce n’est pas comme il faut_. A gentleman should always bear himself like a gentleman if he wishes that....”

“Here is my wife,”--Vladímir Sergyéitch hastily interrupted him.--“Let us go to her.”

And the two gentlemen directed their steps to a low-hung, elegant carriage, from whose window there peered forth the pale, weary, and irritatingly-arrogant little face of a woman who was still young, but already faded.

Behind her another lady, also apparently in a bad humour,--her mother,--was visible. Vladímir Sergyéitch opened the door of the carriage, and offered his arm to his wife. Pompónsky gave his to the mother-in-law, and the two couples made their way along the Névsky Prospékt, accompanied by a short, black-haired footman in yellowish-grey gaiters, and with a big cockade on his hat.

IT IS ENOUGH

(1864)

A FRAGMENT FROM THE DIARY OF A DEAD ARTIST

I

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II

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III

“It is enough,” I said to myself, while my feet, treading unwillingly the steep slope of the mountain, bore me downward toward the quiet river; “it is enough,” I repeated, as I inhaled the resinous scent of the pine grove, to which the chill of approaching evening had imparted a peculiar potency and pungency; “it is enough,” I said once more, as I seated myself on a mossy hillock directly on the brink of the river and gazed at its dark, unhurried waves, above which a thick growth of reeds lifted their pale-green stalks.... “It is enough!--Have done with dreaming, with striving: ’tis high time to pull thyself together; ’tis high time to clutch thy head with both hands and bid thy heart be still. Give over pampering thyself with the sweet indulgence of indefinite but captivating sensations; give over running after every new form of beauty; give over seizing every tremor of its delicate and powerful pinions.--Everything is known, everything has been felt over and over again many times already.... I am weary.--What care I that at this very moment the dawn is suffusing the sky ever more and more broadly, like some inflamed, all-conquering passion! What care I that two paces from me, amid the tranquillity and the tenderness and the gleam of evening, in the dewy depths of a motionless bush, a nightingale has suddenly burst forth in such magical notes as though there had never been any nightingales in the world before it, and as though it were the first to chant the first song of the first love! All that has been, has been, I repeat; it has been recapitulated a thousand times--and when one remembers that all this will so continue for a whole eternity--as though to order, by law--one even grows vexed! Yes ... vexed!”

IV

Eh, how I have suffered! Formerly such thoughts never entered my head--formerly, in those happy days when I myself was wont to flame like the glow of dawn, and to sing like the nightingale.--I must confess that everything has grown obscure round about me, all life has withered. The light which gives to its colours both significance and power--that light which emanates from the heart of man--has become extinct within me.... No, it has not yet become extinct--but it is barely smouldering, without radiance and without warmth. I remember how one day, late at night, in Moscow, I stepped up to the grated window of an ancient church and leaned against the uneven glass. It was dark under the low arches; a forgotten shrine-lamp flickered with a red flame in front of an ancient holy picture, and only the lips of the holy face were visible, stern and suffering: mournful gloom closed in around and seemed to be preparing to crush with its dull weight the faint ray of unnecessary light.... And in my heart reign now the same sort of light and the same sort of gloom.

V

And this I write to thee--to thee, my only and unforgettable friend; to thee, my dear companion,[31] whom I have left forever, but whom I shall never cease to love until my life ends.... Alas! thou knowest what it was that separated us. But I will not refer to that now. I have left thee ... but even here, in this remote nook, at this distance, in this exile, I am all permeated with thee, I am in thy power as of yore, as of yore I feel the sweet pressure of thy hands upon my bowed head!--Rising up for the last time, from the mute grave in which I now am lying, I run a mild, much-moved glance over all my past, over all our past.... There is no hope and no return, but neither is there any bitterness in me, or regret; and clearer than the heavenly azure, purer than the first snows on the mountain heights, are my beautiful memories.... They do not press upon me in throngs: they pass by in procession, like those muffled figures of the Athenian god-born ones, which--dost thou remember?--we admired so greatly on the ancient bas-reliefs of the Vatican....

VI

I have just alluded to the light which emanates from the human heart and illumines everything which surrounds it.... I want to talk with thee about that time when that gracious light burned in my heart.--Listen ... but I imagine that thou art sitting in front of me, and gazing at me with thine affectionate but almost severely-attentive eyes. O eyes never to be forgotten! On whom, on what are they now fixed? Who is receiving into his soul thy glance--that glance which seems to flow from unfathomable depths, like those mysterious springs--like you both bright and dark--which well up at the very bottom of narrow valleys, beneath overhanging cliffs?... Listen.

VII

It was at the end of March, just before the Feast of the Annunciation, shortly after I saw thee for the first time--and before I as yet suspected what thou wert destined to become to me, although I already bore thee, silently and secretly in my heart.--I was obliged to cross one of the largest rivers in Russia. The ice had not yet begun to move in it, but it seemed to have swollen up and turned dark; three days previously a thaw had set in. The snow was melting round about diligently but quietly; everywhere water was oozing out; in the light air a soundless breeze was roving. The same even, milky hue enveloped earth and sky: it was not a mist, but it was not light; not a single object stood out from the general opacity; everything seemed both near and indistinct. Leaving my kibítka far behind, I walked briskly over the river-ice, and with the exception of the beat of my own footsteps, I could hear nothing. I walked on, enveloped on all sides by the first stupor and breath of early spring ... and little by little augmenting with every step, with every movement in advance, there gradually rose up and grew within me a certain joyous incomprehensible agitation.... It drew me on, it hastened my pace--and so powerful were its transports, that I came to a standstill at last and looked about me in surprise and questioningly, as though desirous of detecting the outward cause of my ecstatic condition.... All was still, white, sunny; but I raised my eyes: high above flocks of migratory birds were flying past.... “Spring! Hail, Spring!”--I shouted in a loud voice. “Hail, life and love and happiness!”--And at that same instant, with sweetly-shattering force, similar to the flower of a cactus, there suddenly flared up within me thy image--flared up and stood there, enchantingly clear and beautiful--and I understood that I loved thee, thee alone, that I was all filled with thee....

VIII

I think of thee ... and many other memories, other pictures rise up before me,--and thou art everywhere, on all the paths of my life I encounter thee.--Now there presents itself to me an old Russian garden on the slope of a hill, illuminated by the last rays of the summer sun. From behind silvery poplars peeps forth the wooden roof of the manor-house, with a slender wreath of crimson smoke hanging above the white chimney, and in the fence a wicket-gate stands open a crack, as though some one had pulled it to with undecided hand. And I stand and wait, and gaze at that gate and at the sand on the garden paths; I wonder and I am moved: everything I see seems to me remarkable and new, everything is enveloped with an atmosphere of a sort of bright, caressing mystery, and already I think I hear the swift rustle of footsteps; and I stand, all alert and light, like a bird which has just folded its wings and is poised ready to soar aloft again--and my heart flames and quivers in joyous dread before the imminent happiness which is flitting on in front....

IX

Then I behold an ancient cathedral in a distant, beautiful land. The kneeling people are crowded close in rows; a prayerful chill, something solemn and sad breathes forth from the lofty, bare vault, from the huge pillars which branch upward.--Thou art standing by my side, speechless and unsympathetic, exactly as though thou wert a stranger to me; every fold of thy dark gown hangs motionless, as though sculptured; motionless lie the mottled reflections of the coloured windows at thy feet on the well-worn flagstones.--And now, vigorously agitating the air dim with incense, inwardly agitating us, in a heavy surge the tones of the organ roll out; and thou hast turned pale and drawn thyself up; thy gaze has touched me, has slipped on higher and is raised heavenward;--but it seems to me that only a deathless soul can look like that and with such eyes....

X

Now another picture presents itself to me.--’Tis not an ancient temple which crushes us with its stern magnificence: the low walls of a cosey little room separate us from the whole world.--What am I saying? We are alone--alone in all the world; except us two there is no living thing; beyond those friendly walls lie darkness and death and emptiness. That is not the wind howling, that is not the rain streaming in floods; it is Chaos wailing and groaning; it is its blind eyes weeping. But with us all is quiet and bright, and warm and gracious; something diverting, something childishly innocent is fluttering about like a butterfly, is it not? We nestle up to each other, we lean our heads together and both read a good book; I feel the slender vein in thy delicate temple beating; I hear how thou art living, thou hearest how I am living, thy smile is born upon my face before it comes on thine; thou silently repliest to my silent question; thy thoughts, my thoughts, are like the two wings of one and the same bird drowned in the azure.... The last partitions have fallen--and our love has become so calm, so profound, every breach has vanished so completely, leaving no trace behind it, that we do not even wish to exchange a word, a glance.... We only wish to breathe, to breathe together, to live together, to be together, ... and not even to be conscious of the fact that we are together....

XI

Or, in conclusion, there presents itself to me a clear September morning when thou and I were walking together through the deserted garden, as yet not wholly out of bloom, of an abandoned palace, on the bank of a great non-Russian river, beneath the soft radiance of a cloudless sky. Oh, how shall I describe those sensations?--that endlessly-flowing river, that absence of people, and tranquillity, and joy, and a certain intoxicating sadness, and the vibration of happiness, the unfamiliar, monotonous town, the autumnal croaking of the daws in the tall, bright trees--and those affectionate speeches and smiles and glances long and soft, which pierce to the very bottom, and beauty,--the beauty in ourselves, round about, everywhere;--it is beyond words. Oh, bench on which we sat in silence, with heads drooping low with happiness--I shall never forget thee to my dying hour!--How charming were those rare passers-by with their gentle greeting and kind faces, and the large, quiet boats which floated past (on one of them--dost thou remember?--stood a horse gazing pensively at the water gliding by under its feet), the childish babble of the little waves inshore and the very barking of distant dogs over the expanse of the river, the very shouts of the corpulent under-officer at the red-cheeked recruits drilling there on one side, with their projecting elbows and their legs thrust forward like the legs of cranes!... We both felt that there never had been and never would be anything better in the world for us than those moments--than all the rest.... But what comparisons are these! Enough ... enough.... Alas! yes: it is enough.

XII

For the last time I have surrendered myself to these memories, and I am parting from them irrevocably--as a miser, after gloating for the last time upon his hoard, his gold, his bright treasure, buries it in the damp earth; as the wick of an exhausted lamp, after flashing up in one last brilliant flame, becomes covered with grey ashes. The little wild animal has peered forth for the last time from his lair at the velvety grass, at the fair little sun, at the blue, gracious waters,--and has retreated to the deepest level, and curled himself up in a ball, and fallen asleep. Will he have visions, if only in his sleep, of the fair little sun, and the grass, and the blue, gracious waters?

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XIII

Sternly and ruthlessly does Fate lead each one of us--and only in the early days do we, occupied with all sorts of accidents, nonsense, ourselves, fail to feel her harsh hand.--So long as we are able to deceive ourselves and are not ashamed to lie, it is possible to live and to hope without shame. The truth--not the full truth (there can be no question of that), but even that tiny fraction which is accessible to us--immediately closes our mouths, binds our hands, and reduces “to negation.”--The only thing that is then left for a man, in order to keep erect on his feet and not crumble to dust, not to become bemired in the ooze of self-forgetfulness, is self-scorn; is to turn calmly away from everything and say: “It is enough!”--and folding his useless arms on his empty breast to preserve the last, the sole merit which is accessible to him, the merit of recognising his own insignificance; the merit to which Pascal alludes, when, calling man a thinking reed, he says that if the entire universe were to crush him, he, that reed, would still be higher than the universe because he would know that it is crushing him--while it would not know that. A feeble merit! Sad consolation! Try as thou mayest to permeate thyself with it, to believe in it,--oh, thou my poor brother, whosoever thou mayest be!--thou canst not refute those ominous words of the poet:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing....[32]

I have cited the verses from “Macbeth,” and those witches, phantoms, visions have recurred to my mind.... Alas! it is not visions, not fantastic, subterranean powers that are terrible; the creations of Hoffmann are not dreadful, under whatsoever form they may present themselves.... The terrible thing is that there is nothing terrible, that the very substance of life itself is petty, uninteresting--and insipid to beggary. Having once become permeated with _this_ consciousness, having once tasted of _this_ wormwood, no honey will ever seem sweet--and even that loftiest, sweetest happiness, the happiness of love, of complete friendship, of irrevocable devotion--even it loses all its charm; all its worth is annihilated by its own pettiness, its brevity. Well, yes: a man has loved, he has burned, he has faltered words about eternal bliss, about immortal enjoyments--and behold: it is long, long since the last trace vanished of that worm which has eaten out the last remnants of his withered tongue. Thus late in autumn, on a frosty day, when everything is lifeless and dumb in the last blades of grass, on the verge of the denuded forest, the sun has but to emerge for an instant from the fog, to gaze intently at the chilled earth, and immediately, from all sides, gnats rise up; they frolic in the warmth of his rays, they bustle and jostle upward, downward, they circle round one another.... The sun hides himself, and the gnats fall to the earth in a soft rain--and there is an end to their momentary life.

XIV