Lear of the Steppes, etc. — Faust Seventh & Eighth Letters

M---- VILLAGE, _August 22, 1850_.

I take up my pen ten days after my last letter.

… Oh my dear fellow, I can’t hide my feelings any longer!

… How wretched I am!

How I love her!

You can imagine with what a thrill of bitterness I write that fatal word.

I am not a boy, not a young man even; I am no longer at that stage when to deceive another is almost impossible, but to deceive oneself costs no effort.

I know all, and see clearly.

I know that I am just on forty, that she’s another man’s wife, that she loves her husband; I know very well that the unhappy feeling which has gained possession of me can lead to nothing but secret torture and an utter waste of vital energy--I know all that, I expect nothing, and I wish for nothing; but I am not the better off for that.

As long as a month ago I began to notice that the attraction she has for me was growing stronger and stronger.

This partly troubled me, and partly even delighted me.

… But how could I dream that everything would be repeated with me, which you would have thought could no more come again than youth can?

What am I saying!

I never loved like this, no, never!

Manon Lescauts, Fritilions, these were my idols--such idols can easily be broken; but now … only now, I have found out what it is to love a woman.

I feel ashamed even to speak of it; but it’s so.

I’m ashamed.

…

Love is egoism any way; and at my years it’s not permissible to be an egoist; at thirty-seven one cannot live for oneself; one must live to some purpose, with the aim of doing one’s duty, one’s work on earth.

And I had begun to set to work.

… And here everything is scattered to the winds again, as by a hurricane!

Now I understand what I wrote to you in my first letter; I understand now what was the experience I had missed.

How suddenly this blow has fallen upon me!

I stand and look senselessly forward; a black veil hangs before my eyes; my heart is full of heaviness and dread!

I can control myself, I am outwardly calm not only before others, but even in solitude.

I can’t really rave like a boy!

But the worm has crept into my heart, and gnaws it night and day.

How will it end?

Hitherto I have fretted and suffered when away from her, and in her presence was at peace again at once--now I have no rest even when I am with her, that is what alarms me.

Oh my friend, how hard it is to be ashamed of one’s tears, to hide them!

Only youth may weep; tears are only fitting for the young.

…

I cannot read over this letter; it has been wrung from me involuntarily, like a groan.

I can add nothing, tell you nothing.

… Give me time; I will come to myself, and possess my soul again; I will talk to you like a man, but now I am longing to lay my head on your breast and---- Oh Mephistopheles!

you too are no help to me!

I stopped short of set purpose, of set purpose I called up what irony is in me, I told myself how ludicrous and mawkish these laments, these outbursts will seem to me in a year, in half a year.

… No, Mephistopheles is powerless, his tooth has lost its edge.

… Farewell.

--Yours, P. B.

EIGHTH LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME M---- VILLAGE, _September 8, 1850_.

My dear Semyon Nikolaitch,--You have taken my last letter too much to heart.

You know I have always been given to exaggerating my sensations.

It’s done as it were unconsciously in me; a womanish nature!

In the process of years this will pass away of course; but I admit with a sigh I have not corrected the failing so far.

So set your mind at rest.

I am not going to deny the impression made on me by Vera, but I say again, in all this there is nothing out of the way.

For you to come here, as you write of doing, would be out of the question, quite.

Post over a thousand versts, God knows with what object--why, it would be madness!

But I am very grateful for this fresh proof of your affection, and believe me, I shall never forget it.

Your journey here would be the more out of place as I mean to come to Petersburg shortly myself.

When I am sitting on your sofa, I shall have a great deal to tell you, but now I really don’t want to; what’s the use?

I shall only talk nonsense, I dare say, and muddle things up.

I will write to you again before I start.

And so good-bye for a little while.

Be well and happy, and don’t worry yourself too much about the fate of--your devoted, P. B.

NINTH LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME