A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [58]
Over the rest of the evening I interfered with their conversation on purpose several times, but she would meet my remarks rather dryly, and with feigned vexation, I finally withdrew. The princess rejoiced in triumph; Grushnitsky did too.
Rejoice, my friends, and hurry . . . you won’t have long to rejoice. What is to be done? I have a premonition . . . Upon becoming acquainted with a woman, I have always guessed, without error, whether she would love me or not . . .
I spent the remaining part of the evening next to Vera and we discussed every single thing about the past . . . Why she loves me so much, really, I don’t know! Furthermore she is the one woman who has understood me completely, with all my small-minded weaknesses, my evil passions . . . Can it be that evil is so very attractive?
I left with Grushnitsky. On the street, he took me by the arm and after a long silence he said:
“Well?”
I wanted to tell him “you’re a fool,” but I held back and only shrugged my shoulders.
May 29
I haven’t once diverted from my plan during all these days. The young princess has started to like my conversation; I have recounted several of my life’s bizarre events to her, and she has started to see a rare person in me. I make fun of everything in the world, especially feelings: this has started to frighten her. She doesn’t dare start up a sentimental debate with Grushnitsky in front of me and has already several times replied to his escapades with a mocking smile. But every time Grushnitsky comes up to her, I adopt a meek attitude and leave them alone. The first time she was glad of this or tried to seem so. The second time she became angry with me, and the third time—with Grushnitsky.
“You have very little self-regard!” she said to me yesterday. “Why do you think it is more fun for me to be with Grushnitsky?”
I responded that I am sacrificing my own pleasure to the happiness of a friend . . .
“And mine, too,” she added.
I looked at her intently and assumed a serious air. Then I didn’t say a word to her for the rest of the day . . . In the evening she was pensive; and this morning by the well she was even more pensive. When I went up to her she was absentmindedly listening to Grushnitsky, who, it seems was delighting in nature, but as soon as she saw me, she started laughing loudly (very inappropriately), making it seem as if she had not noticed me. I went on a bit further and started to observe her stealthily: she turned from her interlocutor and yawned twice.
Grushnitsky has absolutely bored her.
I won’t speak to her for another two days.
June 3
I often ask myself why I strive so doggedly for the love of young ladies whom I don’t want to seduce and whom I will never marry! What is this feminine coquetry for? Vera loves me more than Princess Mary will ever love; if she had seemed an unconquerable beauty, then maybe I would be enticed by the difficulty of the enterprise . . . But not a bit! This is not that restless need for love, which torments us in the early years of youth and throws us from one woman to the other, until we find one that can’t stand us. At that point our constancy begins—the true, everlasting love, which can be mathematically expressed with a line falling from a point into space—and the secret of this everlastingness lies in the impossibility of attaining its goal, that is, the end.
So why am I going to such pains? Out of envy for Grushnitsky? The poor thing, he doesn’t deserve it at all. Or is this the result of that nasty but invincible feeling that makes us destroy the sweet delusions of a dear friend, in order to have the petty satisfaction of telling him, when in despair he asks you what he should believe: “My friend, I have had the same thing happen. And yet, as you can see, I enjoy dinner and supper and sleep very peacefully, and, I hope, I will be able to die without shouts and tears.”
But there is