A Correspondence (1855)

SEVERAL years ago I was in Dresden. I stopped in the hotel. As I was running about the town from early morning until late at night, I did not consider it necessary to make acquaintance with my neighbours; at last, accidentally, it came to my knowledge that there was a sick Russian in the house. I went to him, and found a man in the last stage of consumption. Dresden was beginning to pall upon me; I settled down with my new acquaintance. It is wearisome to sit with an invalid, but even boredom is agreeable sometimes; moreover, my invalid was not dejected, and liked to chat. We endeavoured, in every way, to kill time: we played “fool” together, we jeered at the doctor. My compatriot narrated to that very bald German divers fictions about his own condition, which the doctor always “had long foreseen”; he mimicked him when he was surprised at any unprecedented attack, flung his medicine out of the window and so forth.

Nevertheless I repeatedly remarked to my friend that it would not be a bad idea to send for a good physician before it was too late, that his malady was not to be jested with, and so forth. But Alexyéi (my acquaintance’s name was Alexyéi Petróvitch S***) put me off every time with jests about all doctors in general, and his own in particular, and at last, one stormy autumn evening, to my importunate entreaties, he replied with such a dejected glance, he shook his head so sadly, and smiled so strangely, that I felt a certain surprise. That same night Alexyéi grew worse, and on the following day he died. Just before his death his customary cheerfulness deserted him: he tossed uneasily in the bed, sighed, gazed anxiously about ... grasped my hand, whispered with an effort: “‘Tis difficult to die, you know,” ... dropped his head on the pillow, and burst into tears. I did not know what to say to him, and sat silently beside his bed. But Alexyéi speedily conquered this last, belated compassion.... “Listen,” he said to me:—“our doctor will come to-day, and will find me dead.... I can imagine his phiz” ... and the dying man tried to mimic him.... He requested me to send all his things to Russia, to his relatives, with the exception of a small packet, which he presented to me as a souvenir.

This packet contained letters—the letters of a young girl to Alexyéi and his letters to her. There were fifteen of them in all. Alexyéi Petróvitch S*** had known Márya Alexándrovna B*** for a long time—from childhood, apparently. Alexyéi Petróvitch had a cousin, and Márya Alexándrovna had a sister. In earlier years they had all lived together, then they had dispersed, and had not met again for a long time; then they had accidentally all assembled again in the country, in summer, and had fallen in love—Alexyéi’s cousin with Márya Alexándrovna, and Alexyéi himself with the latter’s sister. Summer passed and autumn came; they parted. Alexyéi being a sensible man, speedily became convinced that he was not in the least beloved, and parted from his beauty very happily; his cousin corresponded with Márya Alexándrovna for a couple of years longer ... but even he divined, at last, that he was deceiving both her and himself in the most unconscionable manner, and he also fell silent.

I should like to tell you a little about Márya Alexándrovna, dear reader, but you will learn to know her for yourself from her letters. Alexyéi wrote his first letter to her soon after her definitive breach with his cousin. He was in Petersburg at the time, suddenly went abroad, fell ill in Dresden and died. I have decided to publish his correspondence with Márya Alexándrovna, and I hope for some indulgence on the part of the reader, because these are not love-letters—God forbid! Love-letters are generally read by two persons only (but, on the other hand, a thousand times in succession), and are intolerable, if not ridiculous, to a third person.