The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories

the old lady. Varia's face was rather paler than usual…. I fancied that she tried to avoid my eyes…. But what were my feelings when Matrona Semyonovna suddenly got up and went into the next room!… I began looking out of the window—I was trembling inwardly like an autumn leaf. Varia did not speak…. At last I mastered my timidity, went up to her, bent my head….

'What are you going to say to me?' I articulated in a breaking voice.

Varia turned away—the tears were glistening on her eyelashes.

'I see,' I went on, 'it's useless for me to hope.'…

Varia looked shyly round and gave me her hand without a word.

'Varia!' I cried involuntarily…and stopped, as though frightened at my own hopes.

'Speak to papa,' she articulated at last.

'You permit me to speak to Ivan Semyonitch?' …

'Yes.'… I covered her hands with kisses.

'Don't, don't,' whispered Varia, and suddenly burst into tears.

I sat down beside her, talked soothingly to her, wiped away her tears…. Luckily, Ivan Semyonitch was not at home, and Matrona Semyonovna had gone up to her own little room. I made vows of love, of constancy to Varia.

…'Yes,' she said, suppressing her sobs and continually wiping her eyes; 'I know you are a good man, an honest man; you are not like Kolosov.'… 'That name again!' thought I. But with what delight I kissed those warm, damp little hands! with what subdued rapture I gazed into that sweet face!… I talked to her of the future, walked about the room, sat down on the floor at her feet, hid my eyes in my hands, and shuddered with happiness…. Ivan Semyonitch's heavy footsteps cut short our conversation. Varia hurriedly got up and went off to her own room— without, however, pressing my hand or glancing at me. Mr. Sidorenko was even more amiable than on the previous day: he laughed, rubbed his stomach, made jokes about Matrona Semyonovna, and so on. I was on the point of asking for his blessing there and then, but I thought better of it and deferred doing so till the next day. His ponderous jokes jarred upon me; besides I was exhausted…. I said good-bye to him and went away.

I am one of those persons who love brooding over their own sensations, though I cannot endure such persons myself. And so, after the first transport of heartfelt joy, I promptly began to give myself up to all sorts of reflections. When I had got half a mile from the house of the retired lieutenant, I flung my hat up in the air, in excessive delight, and shouted 'Hurrah!' But while I was being jolted through the long, crooked streets of Moscow, my thoughts gradually took another turn. All sorts of rather sordid doubts began to crowd upon my mind. I recalled my conversation with Ivan Semyonitch about marriage in general … and unconsciously I murmured to myself, 'So he was putting it on, the old humbug!' It is true that I continually repeated, 'but then Varia is mine! mine!' … Yet that 'but'—alas, that but!—and then, too, the words, 'Varia is mine!' aroused in me not a deep, overwhelming rapture, but a sort of paltry, egoistic triumph…. If Varia had refused me point-blank, I should have been burning with furious passion; but having received her consent, I was like a man who has just said to a guest, 'Make yourself at home,' and sees the guest actually beginning to settle into his room, as if he were at home. 'If she had loved Kolosov,' I thought, 'how was it she consented so soon? It's clear she's glad to marry any one…. Well, what of it? all the better for me.'… It was with such vague and curious feelings that I crossed the threshold of my room. Possibly, gentlemen, my story does not strike you as sounding true.

I don't know whether it sounds true or not, but I know that all I have told is the absolute and literal truth. However, I gave myself up all that day to a feverish gaiety, assured myself that I simply did not deserve such happiness; but next morning….

A wonderful thing is sleep! It not only renews one's body: in a way it renews one's soul, restoring it to primaeval simplicity and naturalness. In the course of the day you succeed in tuning yourself, in soaking yourself in falsity, in false ideas … sleep with its cool wave washes away all such pitiful trashiness; and on waking up, at least for the first few instants, you are capable of understanding and loving truth. I waked up, and, reflecting on the previous day, I felt a certain discomfort…. I was, as it were, ashamed of all my own actions. With instinctive uneasiness I thought of the visit to be made that day, of my interview with Ivan Semyonitch…. This uneasiness was acute and distressing; it was like the uneasiness of the hare who hears the barking of the dogs and is bound at last to run out of his native forest into the open country…and there the sharp teeth of the harriers are awaiting him…. 'Why was I in such a hurry?' I repeated, just as I had the day before, but in quite a different sense. I remember the fearful difference between yesterday and to-day struck myself; for the first time it occurred to me that in human life there lie hid secrets—strange secrets…. With childish perplexity I gazed into this new, not fantastic, real world. By the word 'real' many people understand 'trivial.' Perhaps it sometimes is so; but I must own that the first appearance of reality before me shook me profoundly, scared me, impressed me….

What fine-sounding phrases all about love that didn't come off, to use Gogol's expression! … I come back to my story. In the course of that day I assured myself again that I was the most blissful of mortals. I drove out of the town to Ivan Semyonitch's. He received me very gleefully; he had been meaning to go and see a neighbour, but I myself stopped him. I was afraid to be left alone with Varia. The evening was cheerful, but not reassuring. Varia was neither one thing nor the other, neither cordial nor melancholy … neither pretty nor plain. I looked at her, as the philosophers say, objectively—that is to say, as the man who has dined looks at the dishes. I thought her hands were rather red. Sometimes, however, my heart warmed, and watching her I gave way to other dreams and reveries. I had only just made her an offer, as it is called, and here I was already feeling as though we were living as husband and wife … as though our souls already made up one lovely whole, belonged to one another, and consequently were trying each to seek out a separate path for itself….

'Well, have you spoken to papa?' Varia said to me, as soon as we were left alone.

This inquiry impressed me most disagreeably…. I thought to myself,

'You're pleased to be in a desperate hurry, Varvara Ivanovna.'

'Not yet,' I answered, rather shortly, 'but I will speak to him.'

Altogether I behaved rather casually with her. In spite of my promise, I said nothing definite to Ivan Semyonitch. As I was leaving, I pressed his hand significantly, and informed him that I wanted to have a little talk with him … that was all…. 'Good-bye!' I said to Varia.

'Till we meet!' said she.

I will not keep you long in suspense, gentlemen; I am afraid of exhausting your patience…. We never met again. I never went back to Ivan Semyonitch's. The first days, it is true, of my voluntary separation from Varia did not pass without tears, self-reproach, and emotion; I was frightened myself at the rapid drooping of my love; twenty times over I was on the point of starting off to see her. Vividly I pictured to myself her amazement, her grief, her wounded feelings; but—I never went to Ivan Semyonitch's again. In her absence I begged her forgiveness, fell on my knees before her, assured her of my profound repentance—and once, when I met a girl in the street slightly resembling her, I took to my heels without looking back, and only breathed freely in a cook-shop after the fifth jam-puff. The word 'to-morrow' was invented for irresolute people, and for children; like a baby, I lulled myself with that magic word. 'To-morrow I will go to her, whatever happens,' I said to myself, and ate and slept well to- day. I began to think a great deal more about Kolosov than about Varia … everywhere, continually, I saw his open, bold, careless face. I began going to see him as before. He gave me the same welcome as ever. But how deeply I felt his superiority to me! How ridiculous I thought all my fancies, my pensive melancholy, during the period of Kolosov's connection with Varia, my magnanimous resolution to bring them together again, my anticipations, my raptures, my remorse!… I had played a wretched, drawn-out part of screaming farce, but he had passed so simply, so well, through it all….

You will say, 'What is there wonderful in that? your Kolosov fell in love with a girl, then fell out of love again, and threw her over…. Why, that happens with everybody….' Agreed; but which of us knows just when to break with our past? Which of us, tell me, is not afraid of the reproaches—I don't mean of the woman—the reproaches of every chance fool? Which of us is proof against the temptation of making a display of magnanimity, or of playing egoistically with another devoted heart? Which of us, in fact, has the force of character to be superior to petty vanity, to petty fine feelings, sympathy and self-reproach?… Oh, gentlemen, the man who leaves a woman at that great and bitter moment when he is forced to recognise that his heart is not altogether, not fully, hers, that man, believe me, has a truer and deeper comprehension of the sacredness of love than the faint-