XIII
After dinner they brought me a letter from Sonia.
I have never hid anything from her. When I die—which will be soon; even now death is not creeping stealthily towards me, but is advancing with a firm tread, the sound of which I hear clearly on sleepless nights when I am feeling worse, when I am racked with pain, and the past comes up before me—when I die and she reads this diary, she will know that I have never, never lied to her. I have written to her all I have thought and felt, and only that which I have not myself suspected as being in my soul, or have not acknowledged even to myself, but perhaps vaguely felt, has not found a place in my long letters to her.
But she understood me. Although but nineteen, her sensitive, loving soul understood what I did not dare to confess to myself, what I have never once said to myself in actual words.
“You love her, Andrei. God grant you happiness. …”
I could not read further. A gigantic wave surged over me, overwhelmed me, and almost deprived me of consciousness. I leant back in the chair, and, holding the letter in my hand long, sat there motionless and with closed eyes, conscious only of this wave which was roaring and surging in my soul.
It was true. I loved her. I had not experienced this feeling up till now. I had described my attachment to my cousin as love. I was prepared in the course of a few years to become her husband, and perhaps should have been happy with her; I should not have believed it had anyone told me that I could love another woman. It seemed to me that my fate had been settled. “Here is thy wife,” had said the Lord to me, “and thou shalt have none other.” And in this I concurred, undisturbed for the future, and assured in my choice. To love another woman seemed to me an unnecessary and unworthy caprice.
And then came this strange, unhappy being, with her broken life and all her suffering in her eyes. Pity first possessed me; indignation against the man who had expressed his contempt for her made me still more inclined to take her part, and then … Then, I do not know how it happened … but Sonia was right. I loved her with the distraction and passion of the first love of a man who has reached twenty-five years of age without knowing love. I longed to snatch her from the horrors which were tormenting her, to take her in my arms somewhere far, far away, to fondle and press her to my heart, so that she might forget, so as to bring a smile on her suffering face. … And Sonia had said all this in one line of her letter. …
“Do not think of me. I do not want to say, forget me entirely, but only that you should not think of my suffering. I will not commence to complain of a broken heart—and do you know why? Because it is not at all broken. I have been accustomed to look upon you as a brother and future husband. The first was real; the second, I think, people thought of and arranged for us. I love you above all others in this world. I need not have written this, because you yourself know it, but when I read your last three letters and told myself the truth about you and Nadejda Nicolaievna—believe me, dear, I experienced not one atom of grief. I understood that I am a sister for you, and not a wife; I understood this from my own joy at your happiness—joy mingled with fear for you. I do not hide this fear, but God grant that you may save her, and be happy, and make her happy.
“From what you have written me of Nadejda Nicolaievna, I think she is worthy of your love. …”
I read these lines, and a new joyous feeling gradually took possession of me. I did not share Sonia’s fears. What and why should I fear? How or when this happened I do not know, but I believe in Nadejda Nicolaievna. All her past life, of which I did not know, her fall—the only thing I knew of in her life—appeared to me as some accident, unreal, some mistake of Fate, for which Nadejda Nicolaievna was not herself to blame. Something had rushed at her, surrounded her, knocked her off her feet, and thrown her in the mud, and I would lift her out of this mire, would clasp her to my heart, and there calm this life so full of suffering.
A sudden furious ring made me jump, I do not know why, and not waiting for Alexeievna, shuffling along in her slippers to open the door, I rushed to it and pushed back the bolt. The door flew open, and Simon Ivanovich seized me with both hands, danced about, and cried out in a radiant, squeaky voice:
“Andrei, I have brought her, have brought her, brought her! …”
Behind him stood a dark figure. I rushed to her, seized her trembling hands, and commenced to kiss them madly, not listening to what she was saying in an agitated voice as she strove to restrain her sobbing.