Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [92]
1891
After the Theater
WHEN Nadia Zelenina came home with her mother from the theater, where they had been watching a performance of Eugene Onegin, she went to her own room, slipped quickly out of her dress, and wearing only a petticoat and a white bodice, sat down at the table in a great hurry and began to write a letter in the manner of Tatiana: “I love you,” she wrote, “but you have no love for me—none at all!”
A moment later she burst out laughing.
She was only sixteen, and in all her life she had never been in love. She knew that Gorny, an officer, and Gruzdev, a student, were both in love with her, but now, having seen the opera, she was inclined to doubt that they loved her. To be unloved and unhappy—how interesting that was! How beautiful, poetic, and touching, when one was hopelessly in love with someone who was completely indifferent. What was interesting about Onegin was that he was incapable of loving, and what was enchanting about Tatiana was that she was hopelessly in love. If they had loved each other with an identical passion and were completely happy together, how boring!
“You must never again confess your love for me,” Nadia went on writing, thinking of Gorny, the officer. “I cannot believe your words. You are clever, well educated, serious, you have a great talent, and maybe a brilliant future awaits you. As for me, I am only an insignificant and uninteresting young woman, and you yourself know perfectly well that I would only be a hindrance in your life; and though you were attracted to me, and thought you had found your ideal in me, still it was all a mistake, and even now you are saying to yourself in your despair: Why did I ever meet that girl?’ Only your goodness of heart prevents you from admitting it!”
At this point Nadia began to feel sorry for herself. She burst into tears, but continued writing: “If it were not so hard for me to leave my mother and my brother, I would take the veil and wander away wherever my feet led me. Then you would be free to love someone else. Oh, if only I were dead!”
Through her tears she could no longer see what she had written. Tiny rainbows trembled on the floor, on the table, on the ceiling, and it seemed to Nadia that she was looking through a prism. Impossible to go on writing. She threw herself back in her armchair and began thinking of Gorny.
Goodness, how attractive, how fascinating men were! Nadia remembered Gorny’s beautiful expression during a discussion on music: so compelling, so tender, so deferential, and he had difficulty subduing the passion in his voice. In society, where an icy pride and an air of indifference are the marks of a good education and fine breeding, he tried to conceal his feelings, but without success, and everyone knew how devoted he was—how passionately devoted—to music. Those never-ending discussions on music, and the loud criticisms of ignoramuses, kept him in a constant state of tension, so that he appeared to be awed, timid, and silent. He played the piano with the flair of a professional pianist, and if he had not been an officer, he would certainly have become a famous musician.
The tears dried on Nadia’s cheeks. She remembered now that Gorny had declared his love for her during a symphony concert, and then again downstairs near the cloakroom, where they were chilled by the strong draft which came at them from all sides.
“I am so glad you have at last made the acquaintance of the student Gruzdev,” she wrote. “He is a very clever man, and I am sure you will be friends. Yesterday he came to see us, and stayed until two. We were all so happy—I am sorry you could not join us. He said some very remarkable things.
Nadia laid her arms on the table, and rested her head on them. Her hair fell over the letter. It occurred to her that the student Gruzdev was also in love with her,