passionately fond of him, though sometimes, during their misunderstandings, she would vow and declare that she thirsted for his blood…. And Andrei, too, could not get on without her. Kolosov looked at me, and responded serenely, ‘Perhaps so.’
‘Not perhaps so,’ I shouted, ‘but certainly!’
Kolosov at last got sick of my reproaches…. He got up and put on his cap.
‘Where are you going?’
‘For a walk; you and Puzyritsin have given me a headache between you.’
‘You are angry with me?’
‘No,’ he answered, smiling his sweet smile, and holding out his hand to me.
‘Well, anyway, what do you wish me to tell Varia?’
‘Eh?’ … He thought a little. ‘She told you,’ he said, ‘that we had read Pushkin together…. Remind her of one line of Pushkin’s.’ ‘What line? what line?’ I asked impatiently. ‘This one:
«What has been will not be again.»‘
With those words he went out of the room. I followed him; on the stairs he stopped.
‘And is she very much upset?’ he asked me, pulling his cap over his eyes.
‘Very, very much!…’
‘Poor thing! Console her, Nikolai; you love her, you know.’
‘Yes, I have grown fond of her, certainly….’
‘You love her,’ repeated Kolosov, and he looked me straight in the face. I turned away without a word, and we separated.
On reaching home, I was in a perfect fever.
‘I have done my duty,’ I thought; ‘I have overcome my own egoism; I have urged Andrei to go back to Varia!… Now I am in the right; he that will not when he may…!’ At the same time Andrei’s indifference wounded me. He had not been jealous of me, he told me to console her…. But is Varia such an ordinary girl, is she not even worthy of sympathy?… There are people who know how to appreciate what you despise, Andrei Nikolaitch!… But what’s the good? She does not love me…. No, she does not love me now, while she has not quite lost hope of Kolosov’s return…. But afterwards…who knows, my devotion will touch her. I will make no claims…. I will give myself up to her wholly, irrevocably…. Varia! is it possible you will not love me?…never!…never!…
Such were the speeches your humble servant was rehearsing in the city of Moscow, in the year 1833, in the house of his revered preceptor. I wept… I felt faint… The weather was horrible…a fine rain trickled down the window panes with a persistent, thin, little patter; damp, dark-grey storm-clouds hung stationary over the town. I dined hurriedly, made no response to the anxious inquiries of the kind German woman, who whimpered a little herself at the sight of my red, swollen eyes (Germans—as is well known—are always glad to weep). I behaved very ungraciously to my preceptor…and at once after dinner set off to Ivan Semyonitch… Bent double in a jolting droshky, I kept asking myself whether I should tell Varia all as it was, or go on deceiving her, and little by little turn her heart from Andrei… I reached Ivan Semyonitch’s without knowing what to decide upon… I found all the family in the parlour. On seeing me, Varia turned fearfully white, but did not move from her place; Sidorenko began talking to me in a peculiarly jeering way. I responded as best I could, looking from time to time at Varia, and almost unconsciously giving a dejected and pensive expression to my features. The lieutenant started whist again. Varia sat near the window and did not stir. ‘You’re dull now, I suppose?’ Ivan Semyonitch asked her twenty times over.
At last I succeeded in seizing a favourable opportunity.
‘You are alone again,’ Varia whispered to me.
‘Yes,’ I answered gloomily; ‘and probably for long.’
She swiftly drew in her head.
‘Did you give him my letter?’ she asked in a voice hardly audible.
‘Yes.’
‘Well?’… she gasped for breath. I glanced at her…. There was a sudden flash of spiteful pleasure within me.
‘He told me to tell you,’ I pronounced deliberately, ‘that «what has been will not be again….»‘
Varia pressed her left hand to her heart, stretched her right hand out in front, staggered, and went quickly out of the room. I tried to overtake her…. Ivan Semyonitch stopped me. I stayed another two hours with him, but Varia did not appear. On the way back I felt ashamed … ashamed before Varia, before Andrei, before myself; though they say it is better to cut off an injured limb at once than to keep the patient in prolonged suffering; but who gave me a right to deal such a merciless blow at the heart of a poor girl?… For a long while I could not sleep … but I fell asleep at last. In general I must repeat that ‘love’ never once deprived me of sleep.
I began to go pretty often to Ivan Semyonitch’s. I used to see Kolosov as before, but neither he nor I ever referred to Varia. My relations with her were of a rather curious kind. She became attached to me with that sort of attachment which excludes every possibility of love. She could not help noticing my warm sympathy, and talked eagerly with me … of what, do you suppose?… of Kolosov, nothing but Kolosov! The man had taken such possession of her that she did not, as it were, belong to herself. I tried in vain to arouse her pride … she was either silent or, if she talked—chattered on about Kolosov. I did not even suspect in those days that sorrow of that kind—talkative sorrow—is in reality far more genuine than any silent suffering. I must own I passed many bitter moments at that time. I was conscious that I was not capable of filling Kolosov’s place; I was conscious that Varia’s past was so full, so rich … and her present so poor…. I got to the point of an involuntary shudder at the words ‘Do you remember’ … with which almost every sentence of hers began. She grew a little thinner during the first days of our acquaintance … but afterwards got better again, and even grew cheerful; she might have been compared then with a wounded bird, not yet quite recovered. Meanwhile my position had become insupportable; the lowest passions gradually gained possession of my soul; it happened to me to slander Kolosov in Varia’s presence. I resolved to cut short such unnatural relations. But how? Part from Varia—I could not…. Declare my love to her—I did not dare; I felt that I could not, as yet, hope for a return. Marry her…. This idea alarmed me; I was only eighteen; I felt a dread of putting all my future into bondage so early; I thought of my father, I could hear the jeering comments of Kolosov’s comrades…. But they say every thought is like dough; you have only to knead it well—you can make anything you like of it. I began, for whole days together, to dream of marriage…. I imagined what gratitude would fill Varia’s heart when I, the friend and confidant of Kolosov, should offer her my hand, knowing her to be hopelessly in love with another. Persons of experience, I remembered, had told me that marriage for love is a complete absurdity; I began to indulge my fancy; I pictured to myself our peaceful life together in some snug corner of South Russia; an mentally I traced the gradual transition in Varia’s heart from gratitude to affection, from affection to love…. I vowed to myself at once to leave Moscow, the university, to forget everything and every one. I began to avoid meeting Kolosov.
At last, one bright winter day (Varia had been somehow peculiarly enchanting the previous evening), I dressed myself in my best, slowly and solemnly sallied out from my room, took a first-rate sledge, and drove down to Ivan Semyonitch’s. Varia was sitting alone in the drawing-room reading Karamzin. On seeing me she softly laid the book down on her knees, and with agitated curiosity looked into my face; I had never been to see them in the morning before…. I sat down beside her; my heart beat painfully. ‘What are you reading?’ I asked her at last. ‘Karamzin.’ ‘What, are you taking up Russian literature?…’ She suddenly cut me short. ‘Tell me, haven’t you come from Andrei?’ That name, that trembling, questioning voice, the half-joyful, half-timid expression of her face, all these unmistakable signs of persistent love, pierced to my heart like arrows. I resolved either to part from Varia, or to receive from her herself the right to chase the hated name of Andrei from her lips for ever. I do not remember what I said to her; at first I must have expressed myself in rather confused fashion, as for a long while she did not understand me; at last I could stand it no longer, and almost shouted, ‘I love you, I want to marry you.’ ‘You love me?’ said Varia in bewilderment. I fancied she meant to get up, to go away, to refuse me. ‘For God’s sake,’ I whispered breathlessly, ‘don’t answer me, don’t say yes or no; think it over; to-morrow I will come again for a final answer…. I have long loved you. I don’t ask of you love, I want to be your champion, your friend; don’t answer me now, don’t answer…. Till to-morrow.’ With these words I rushed out of the room. In the passage Ivan Semyonitch met me, and not only showed no surprise at my visit, but positively, with an agreeable smile, offered me an apple. Such unexpected amiability so struck me that I was simply dumb with amazement. ‘Take the apple,
