Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

White Nights

sentimental romance

(From the memories of a dreamer)

Or was it created for
To stay even for a moment.
In the neighborhood of your heart? ..
Iv. Turgenev

night one

It was a wonderful night, such a night, which can only happen when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, such a bright sky, that, looking at it, one could not help asking oneself, can all kinds of angry and capricious people live under such a sky? This is also a young question, dear reader, a very young one, but God bless you more often!.. Speaking of capricious and various angry gentlemen, I could not help but recall my well-behaved behavior all that day. From the very morning some amazing melancholy began to torment me. It suddenly seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, alone, and that everyone was retreating from me. It is, of course, everyone has the right to ask: who are these all? because I have been living in St. Petersburg for eight years already, and I have not been able to make a single acquaintance. But why do I need acquaintances? I already know all of Petersburg; that's why it seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, when all of Petersburg got up and suddenly left for the dacha. I was afraid to be left alone, and for three whole days I wandered around the city in deep anguish, absolutely not understanding what was happening to me. If I go to the Nevsky, if I go to the garden, if I wander along the embankment - not a single person from those whom I used to meet in the same place, in famous hour whole year. They don't know me, of course, but I do know them. I know them briefly; I almost studied their physiognomy - and admire them when they are cheerful, and mope when they are clouded. I almost made friends with an old man whom I meet every single day, at a certain hour, on the Fontanka. The physiognomy is so important, thoughtful; still whispering under his breath and waving his left hand, and in his right he has a long gnarled cane with a gold knob. Even he noticed me and takes a spiritual part in me. If it happens that I am not at the same place of the Fontanka at a certain hour, I am sure that the melancholy will attack him. That's why we sometimes almost bow to each other, especially when both are in good location spirit. The other day, when we had not seen each other for two whole days and on the third day we met, we were already there and grabbed our hats, but fortunately we came to our senses in time, lowered our hands and walked beside each other with participation. I also know at home. When I walk, everyone seems to be running ahead of me into the street, looking at me through all the windows and almost saying: "Hello; how are you? And, thank God, I'm healthy, and a floor will be added to me in May." Or: "How are you? And I'm going to be repaired tomorrow." Or: "I almost burned out and, moreover, got scared," etc. Of these, I have favorites, I have short friends; one of them intends to be treated by an architect this summer. I will come in on purpose every day so that they don’t heal somehow, God save it! .. But I will never forget the story with one pretty light pink house. It was such a pretty little stone house, it looked at me so affably, it looked at its clumsy neighbors with such pride that my heart rejoiced when I happened to pass by. Suddenly, last week, I was walking down the street and, as I looked at my friend, I heard a plaintive cry: “And they paint me in yellow paint" Villains! barbarians! they spared nothing: neither columns nor cornices, and my friend turned as yellow as a canary. , which was painted in the color of the Celestial Empire. So, you understand, reader, how I am familiar with all of Petersburg. I have already said that I was tormented by anxiety for three whole days, until I guessed the reason for it. no, that’s not there, where did so-and-so go?) — and at home I was not myself. For two evenings I sought: what was missing in my corner? his green smoky walls, the ceiling, hung with cobwebs, which Matryona planted with great success, reviewed all his furniture, examined each chair, thinking, is there a problem? (because if at least one chair does not stand the same as it stood yesterday, so I'm not myself) looked out the window, and all in vain ... not at all it couldn't be easier! I even took it into my head to call on Matryona and immediately gave her a paternal reprimand for cobwebs and in general for slovenliness; but she only looked at me in surprise and walked away without answering a word, so that the web still hangs safely in place. Finally, only this morning I guessed what was the matter. E! yes, they are running away from me to the dacha! Forgive me for the trivial word, but I was not in the mood for a high style ... because, after all, everything that was in St. Petersburg either moved or moved to the dacha; because every respectable gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab, before my eyes, immediately turned into a respectable father of the family, who, after ordinary official duties, goes light into the bowels of his family, to the dacha, because every passer-by was now completely special kind, who almost said to everyone he met: "We, gentlemen, are here just like that, in passing, but in two hours we will leave for the dacha." If a window opened, on which at first thin, sugar-white fingers drummed, and the head of a pretty girl stuck out, calling a peddler with pots of flowers, it immediately, immediately seemed to me that these flowers were bought only in this way, that is, not at all for to enjoy spring and flowers in a stuffy city apartment, and that very soon everyone will move to the dacha and take the flowers with them. Moreover, I had already made such a success in my new, special kind of discoveries that I could already unmistakably, by one look, designate in which dacha someone lives. The inhabitants of the Kamenny and Aptekarsky islands or the Peterhof road were distinguished by the studied elegance of receptions, smart summer suits and excellent carriages in which they arrived in the mountains. the visitor to Krestovsky Island was notable for his imperturbably cheerful look. Did I manage to meet a long procession of draft cabs lazily walking with reins in their hands near carts loaded with whole mountains of all kinds of furniture, tables, chairs, Turkish and non-Turkish sofas and other household belongings, on which, in addition to all this, she often sat on the very top a wagon, a generous cook who cherishes the master's goods like the apple of her eye; did I look at the heavily loaded household utensils the boats that glided along the Neva or the Fontanka, to the Black River or the islands - carts and boats increased tenfold, lost in my eyes; it seemed that everything had risen and gone, everything was moving in whole caravans to the dacha; it seemed that all of Petersburg was threatening to turn into a desert, so that at last I felt ashamed, offended and sad: I had absolutely nowhere and no reason to go to the dacha. I was ready to leave with every cart, to leave with every gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab; but no one, decidedly no one, invited me; as if they had forgotten me, as if I really were a stranger to them! I walked a lot and for a long time, so that I was already quite in time, as usual; forget where I am, when suddenly I found myself at the outpost. In an instant, I felt cheerful, and I stepped behind the barrier, went between the sown fields and meadows, did not hear fatigue, but felt only with my whole body that some kind of burden was falling from my soul. All the passers-by looked at me so amiably that they almost bowed resolutely; everyone was so excited about something, every single one was smoking cigars. And I was glad, as never happened to me before. It was as if I had suddenly found myself in Italy, so much nature struck me, a half-sick city dweller who almost suffocated in the city walls. There is something inexplicably touching in our St. Petersburg nature, when, with the onset of spring, it suddenly shows all its power, all the powers bestowed on it by heaven will be downy, discharged, full of flowers ... Somehow, involuntarily, she reminds me of that stunted girl and an ailment at which you sometimes look with pity, sometimes with a kind of compassionate love, sometimes you simply do not notice it, but which suddenly, for a moment, somehow inadvertently becomes inexplicably, wonderfully beautiful, and you are amazed, intoxicated, involuntarily you ask yourself: what force made these sad, thoughtful eyes shine with such fire? what caused the blood on those pale, emaciated cheeks? what poured passion over these tender features? Why is this chest heaving? what so suddenly called strength, life and beauty into the face of the poor girl, made him shine with such a smile, perk up with such sparkling, sparkling laughter? You look around, you are looking for someone, you guess ... But the moment passes, and perhaps tomorrow you will meet again the same thoughtful and absent-minded look as before, the same pale face, the same humility and timidity. in movements and even remorse, even traces of some kind of deadly longing and annoyance at a moment's infatuation ... And it's a pity for you that so soon, so irrevocably withered instant beauty, that it flashed so deceptively and in vain in front of you - it's a pity because that you didn't even have time to love her. .. And yet my night was better than the day! Here's how it was: I came back to the city very late, and ten o'clock had already struck when I began to approach the apartment. My road went along the embankment of the canal, on which at this hour you will not meet a living soul. True, I live in the remotest part of the city. I walked and sang, because when I am happy, I certainly purr something to myself, like every happy person who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has no one to share his joy with. Suddenly, the most unexpected adventure happened to me. Off to the side, leaning against the railing of the canal, stood a woman; leaning on the grating, she seemed to be looking very attentively at the muddy water of the canal. She was dressed in a pretty yellow hat and a coquettish black cloak. "She's a girl, and certainly a brunette," I thought. She didn't seem to hear my footsteps, she didn't even move when I walked by, holding my breath and with a beating heart. "Strange! - I thought, - it's true, she was very thoughtful about something," and suddenly I stopped in my tracks. I heard a dull sob. Yes! I was not deceived: the girl was crying, and a minute later more and more sobbing. Oh my God! My heart sank. And no matter how timid I am with women, it was such a moment!... I turned back, stepped towards her, and would certainly have said: "Madame!" - if only I didn’t know that this exclamation has already been uttered a thousand times in all Russian high-society novels. This one stopped me. But while I was looking for a word, the girl woke up, looked around, caught herself, looked down and glided past me along the embankment. I immediately followed her, but she guessed it, left the embankment, crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk. I didn't dare to cross the street. My heart fluttered like a captured bird. Suddenly one incident came to my aid. On the other side of the pavement, not far from my stranger, suddenly appeared a gentleman in a tailcoat, of respectable years, but one cannot say , to a solid gait. He walked, staggering and carefully leaning against the wall. The girl, however, walked like an arrow, hastily and timidly, as all girls generally walk who do not want anyone to volunteer to accompany them home at night, and, of course, the swaying gentleman would never have caught up with her if my fate had not advised him to look for artificial means. Suddenly, without saying a word to anyone, my master takes off and flies at full speed, running, catching up with my stranger. She went like the wind, but the swaying gentleman overtook, overtook, the girl screamed - and ... I bless fate for the excellent gnarled stick that happened this time in my right hand . I instantly found myself on the other side of the pavement, instantly the uninvited gentleman understood what was the matter, took into consideration an irresistible reason, fell silent, lagged behind, and only when we were already very far away, protested against me in rather energetic terms. But his words barely reached us. “Give me your hand,” I said to my stranger, “and he will not dare to pester us anymore. She silently offered me her hand, which was still trembling with excitement and fright. O uninvited master! how I blessed you at this moment! I glanced at her: she was pretty and brunette - I guessed it; on her black eyelashes, tears of recent fright or former grief still glistened - I don’t know. But there was a smile on her lips. She, too, glanced at me furtively, blushed a little and looked down. "See, why did you drive me away then?" If I had been here, nothing would have happened... - But I didn't know you: I thought that you too... - Do you know me now? - A little bit. For example, why are you trembling? Oh, you guessed right the first time! - I answered in delight that my girlfriend is smart: this never interferes with beauty. - Yes, you guessed at a glance who you are dealing with. Exactly, I'm timid with women, I'm agitated, I don't argue, no less than you were a minute ago, when this gentleman frightened you ... I'm in some kind of fright now. Like a dream, and even in my sleep I did not guess that I would ever talk to at least some woman. -- As? really? .. - Yes, if my hand trembles, it is because it has never been clasped by such a pretty little hand as yours. I'm completely out of the habit of women; that is, I never got used to them; I'm alone... I don't even know how to talk to them. Even now I don't know - did I say something stupid to you? Tell me straight; I warn you, I'm not touchy... - No, nothing, nothing; against. And if you already demand that I be frank, then I will tell you that women like such timidity; and if you want to know more, then I like her too, and I will not drive you away from me to the house. - You will do with me, - I began, choking with delight, - that I will immediately cease to be shy, and then - forgive all my means! .. - Means? what means for what? this is really stupid. - I'm sorry, I won't, it broke from my tongue; but how do you want that at such a moment there was no desire ... - To please, or what? -- Well, yes; Yes, please, for God's sake, please. Judge who I am! After all, I'm twenty-six years old, and I've never seen anyone. Well, how can I speak well, deftly and appropriately? It will be more profitable for you when everything is open, outward... I cannot be silent when my heart speaks in me. Well, it doesn't matter... Believe me, not a single woman, never, never! No dating! and I only dream every day that finally someday I will meet someone. Ah, if you only knew how many times I have been in love in this way!.. - But how, with whom? I create entire novels in my dreams. Oh, you don't know me! True, it is impossible without that, I have met two or three women, but what kind of women are they? they are all such mistresses that ... But I will make you laugh, I will tell you that several times I thought of talking, so easily, with some aristocrat on the street, of course, when she is alone; speak, of course, timidly, respectfully, passionately; to say that I am dying alone, so that she does not drive me away, that there is no way to recognize at least some woman; to convince her that even in the duties of a woman it is not to reject the timid entreaty of such an unfortunate man as myself. That, finally, and all that I demand is only to say to me some two brotherly words, with participation, not to drive me away from the first step, take my word for it, listen to what I say, you have to laugh reassure me, if you like, tell me two words, only two words, then even though we never meet! .. But you laugh ... However, that's why I say ... - Do not be annoyed; I laugh at the fact that you are your own enemy, and if you had tried, you would have succeeded, perhaps even if it were on the street; the simpler the better... none kind woman unless she is stupid or especially angry at something at that moment, she would not have dared to send you away without these two words that you so timidly implore ... But what am I! Of course, I would take you for a madman. I judged by myself. I myself know a lot about how people live in the world! "Oh, thank you," I cried, "you don't know what you've done for me now!" -- Good good! But tell me, why did you know that I was such a woman with whom ... well, whom you considered worthy ... of attention and friendship ... in a word, not a hostess, as you call it. Why did you decide to come to me? -- Why? why? But you were alone, that gentleman was too bold, now it's night: you yourself will agree that this is a duty ... - No, no, even before, there, on the other side. You wanted to come to me, didn't you? - There, on the other side? But I really don't know how to answer; I'm afraid... You know, I was happy today; I walked, I sang; I was out of town; I have never had such happy moments. You... I may have thought... Well, forgive me if I remind you: I thought you were crying, and I... I couldn't hear it... my heart sank... Oh , Oh my God! Well, couldn't I have yearned for you? Was it really a sin to feel fraternal compassion for you? .. Excuse me, I said compassion ... Well, yes, in a word, could I really offend you by involuntarily taking it into my head to approach you? .. - Leave, enough, don't talk..." said the girl, looking down and squeezing my hand. “It’s my own fault for talking about it; but I'm glad I didn't mistake you... but now I'm at home; I need here, in the alley; there are two steps ... Farewell, thank you ... - So, really, really, we will never see each other again? .. Is it really going to remain so? “You see,” the girl said, laughing, “at first you wanted only two words, but now ... But, however, I won’t tell you anything ... Maybe we’ll meet ... - I’ll come here tomorrow,” I said. - Oh, forgive me, I'm already demanding ... - Yes, you are impatient ... you are almost demanding ... - Listen, listen! I interrupted her. "Forgive me if I say something like that again... But here's the thing: I can't help but come here tomorrow." I'm a dreamer; I have so little real life that I consider such moments as this, as now, so rare that I cannot help but repeat these moments in my dreams. I dream about you all night, all week, all year. I will certainly come here tomorrow, exactly here, to the same place, exactly at this hour, and I will be happy, remembering yesterday. This place is nice to me. I already have two or three such places in St. Petersburg. I even wept once at the recollection, like you... Who knows, perhaps ten minutes ago you too wept at the recollection... But forgive me, I forgot myself again; you may have been especially happy here sometime. "Very well," said the girl, "I think I'll come here tomorrow, also at ten o'clock." I see that I can no longer forbid you ... Here's the thing, I need to be here; don't think that I'm making an appointment with you; I'm warning you, I need to be here for myself. But... well, I'll tell you straight out: it won't matter if you come too; in the first place, there may be troubles again, as today, but that is aside... in a word, I would just like to see you... to say two words to you. Only, you see, you won't judge me now? don't think that I make appointments so easily... I would have made an appointment if only... But let it be my secret! Only forward agreement ... - Agreement! say, say, say everything in advance; I agree to everything, I’m ready for anything,” I cried in delight, “I’m responsible for myself—I’ll be obedient, respectful… you know me…” Precisely because I know you, and I invite you tomorrow ' said the girl, laughing. “I know you perfectly. But, look, come with a condition; firstly (only be kind, do what I ask - you see, I speak frankly), do not fall in love with me ... This is impossible, I assure you. I am ready for friendship, here is my hand for you ... But you can’t fall in love, I beg you! "I swear to you," I shouted, seizing her pen... Don't judge me if I say so. If you only knew... I also don't have anyone with whom I could say a word, who could I ask for advice. Of course, it’s not to look for advisers on the street, but you are an exception. I know you as if we had been friends for twenty years... Isn't it true, you won't change? - Sleep soundly; good night- and remember that I have already entrusted myself to you. But you exclaimed so well just now: Is it really possible to give an account of every feeling, even of brotherly sympathy! Do you know, it was so well said that I immediately thought of trusting you... - For God's sake, but in what? what? -- Till tomorrow. Let it be a secret for now. So much the better for you; even if it looks like a novel. Maybe I'll tell you tomorrow, maybe not... I'll talk to you beforehand, we'll get to know each other better... - Oh, yes, I'll tell you everything about myself tomorrow! But what is it? as if a miracle is happening to me ... Where am I, my God? Well, tell me, are you really unhappy that you didn’t get angry, as another would have done, didn’t drive me away at the very beginning? Two minutes and you have made me happy forever. Yes! happy; Who knows, maybe you have reconciled me with yourself, resolved my doubts... Maybe such moments come over me... Well, yes, I'll tell you everything tomorrow, you'll find out everything, everything... accept; you will begin ... - I agree. -- Goodbye! -- Goodbye! And we broke up. I walked all night; I could not bring myself to return home. I was so happy... see you tomorrow!

Night two

- Well, here we are! she said to me, laughing and shaking both my hands. - I've been here for two hours; you don't know what happened to me all day! “I know, I know… but to the point. Do you know why I came? It's not nonsense to talk like yesterday. Here's the thing: we need to move forward smarter. I thought about this for a long time yesterday. - In what, in what to be smarter? For my part, I'm ready; but, really, in my life nothing smarter happened to me than now. -- Indeed? First, I beg you, do not press my hands like that; secondly, I announce to you that I have been thinking about you for a long time today. - Well, what was the end of it? -- How did it end? I ended up having to start all over again, because in conclusion of everything I decided today that you are still completely unknown to me, that yesterday I acted like a child, like a girl, and, of course, it turned out that everything was to blame for my kind heart, that is, I praised myself, as it always ends when we start to disassemble ours. And therefore, in order to correct the mistake, I decided to find out about you in the most detailed way. But since there is no one to find out about you, then you yourself must tell me everything, all the ins and outs. Well, what kind of person are you? Hurry up - start the same, tell your story. -- History! - I shouted, frightened, - a story !! But who told you that I have my story? I have no history ... - So how did you live, if there is no history? she interrupted, laughing. - Completely without any stories! so, he lived, as we say, on his own, that is, one completely, - one, one completely - do you understand what one is? - How about one? So you never saw anyone? “Oh no, I see something, but still I am alone. "Well, aren't you talking to anyone?" - In the strict sense, with no one. - But who are you, explain yourself! Wait, I guess: you must have a grandmother, just like me. She is blind and has not let me go anywhere for a whole life, so I have almost forgotten how to speak completely. And when I played a trick two years ago, she sees that you can’t hold me back, she took me and called me and pinned my dress to hers with a pin - and since then we have been sitting for whole days; she knits a stocking, though she is blind; and I sit next to her, read aloud to her or read a book to her - such strange custom, which has been pinned for two years now ... - Oh, my God, what a misfortune! No, I don't have such a grandmother. - And if not, since you can sit at home? .. - Listen, you want to know who I am? -- Well, yes, yes! - In the strict sense of the word? "In the strictest sense of the word!" - Excuse me, I'm a type. - Type, type! what type?” the girl screamed, laughing as if she had not been able to laugh for a whole year. - Yes, it's fun with you! Look: there is a bench here; let's sit down! No one walks here, no one will hear us, and - start your story! because, you will not assure me, you have a story, and you are only hiding. First, what is a type? -- Type of? type is the original, it's like this funny man! I replied, laughing myself at her childish laughter. - It's such a character. Listen: do you know what a dreamer is? - Dreamer? Excuse me, how can you not know? I'm a dreamer myself! Sometimes you sit next to your grandmother and something will not enter your head. Well, then you start dreaming, and then you think about it - well, I’m just marrying a Chinese prince ... But it’s good to dream another time! No, but God knows! Especially if there is something to think about even without it,” the girl added, this time quite seriously. -- Excellent! Since you once married a Chinese Bogdykhan, then you will completely understand me. Well, listen... But allow me: I don't know your name yet, do I? -- Finally! remembered early! -- Oh my god! Yes, it didn’t even occur to me, I felt so good ... - My name is - Nastenka. - Nastenka! only? -- Only! Is it not enough for you, you insatiable kind! - Not enough? Many, many, on the contrary, very much, Nastenka, you are a kind girl, if from the first time you became Nastenka for me! -- That's it! well! - Well, here, Nastenka, listen, what a funny story is coming out here. I sat down beside her, assumed a pedantically serious pose, and began as if in writing: “Yes, Nastenka, if you don’t know it, there are rather strange corners in St. Petersburg. It is as if the same sun that shines for all Petersburg people does not look into these places, but some other, new one, as if specially ordered for these corners, and shines on everything with a different, special light. In these corners, dear Nastenka, it seems as if a completely different life is surviving, not like the one that boils around us, but one that can be in the thirty-first unknown kingdom, and not here, in our serious, serious time. It is this life that is a mixture of something purely fantastic, ardently ideal, and at the same time (alas, Nastenka!) dull prosaic and ordinary, not to say: improbably vulgar. -- Ugh! Oh my God! what a preface! What is it that I hear? - You will hear, Nastenka (it seems to me that I will never get tired of calling you Nastenka), you will hear that in these corners live weird people-- dreamers A dreamer -- if you need a detailed definition of it -- is not a person, but, you know, some kind of middle-class creature. He settles for the most part somewhere in impregnable m corner, as if hiding in it even from daylight, and if it climbs up to itself, it will grow to its corner like a snail, or, at least, it is very similar in this respect to that entertaining animal, which is both an animal and house together, which is called a turtle. Why do you think he loves his four walls so much, painted with green paint, smoky, dull and inadmissibly stoned? Why is this ridiculous gentleman when one of his rare acquaintances comes to visit him (and he ends up with all his acquaintances being translated), why does this ridiculous man meet him, so embarrassed, so changed in his face and in such confusion, as as if he had just committed a crime within his four walls, as if he had fabricated fake papers or some kind of rhyme to send to a magazine with an anonymous letter in which it was indicated that the real poet had already died and that his friend considered it a sacred duty to publish his verses? Why tell me, Nastenka, the conversation does not fit in between these two interlocutors? why neither laughter nor any brisk word escapes from the tongue of a friend who suddenly enters and is perplexed, who otherwise loves laughter very much , and a lively word, and talk about a beautiful field, and other funny themes? Why, finally, is this friend, probably a recent acquaintance, and at the first visit - because in this case there will be no second and the friend will not come another time - why does the friend himself become so embarrassed, so stiff, with all his wit (if only he has it), looking at the upturned face of the owner, who, in turn, has already completely lost himself and lost his last sense after gigantic, but futile efforts to smooth and brighten the conversation, to show on his part the knowledge of secularism, also to talk about the beautiful field, and at least with such humility to please the poor, the wrong person who, by mistake, came to visit him? Why, finally, does the guest suddenly grab his hat and quickly leave, suddenly remembering a self-important business that never happened, and somehow freeing his hand from the host’s hot shaking, trying in every possible way to show his repentance and correct what was lost? Why does the departing friend laugh, going out the door, immediately swears to himself never to come to this eccentric, although this eccentric is in essence an excellent fellow, and at the same time he can in no way refuse his imagination a small whim: to compare, even remote Thus, the physiognomy of his recent interlocutor during the entire meeting with the appearance of that unfortunate kitten, who was crushed, frightened and offended in every possible way by the children, treacherously capturing him, embarrassed into dust, which finally huddled under their chair, into the darkness, and there whole hour at leisure forced to bristle, snort and wash his offended stigma with both paws and long after that look with hostility at nature and life, and even at the sop from the master's dinner, which the compassionate housekeeper has in store for him? “Listen,” interrupted Nastenka, who had been listening to me all the time in surprise, opening her eyes and mouth, “listen: I don’t know at all why all this happened and why exactly you are asking me such ridiculous questions; but what I know for sure is that all these adventures happened to you without fail, from word to word. “Without a doubt,” I replied with the most serious air. “Well, if there is no doubt, then go on,” Nastenka answered, “because I really want to know how it will end.” - You want to know, Nastenka, what our hero, or, better, I, did in my corner, because the hero of the whole thing is I, my own modest person; do you want to know why I was so alarmed and lost for a whole day from an unexpected visit from a friend? Do you want to know why I fluttered so much, blushed so much when they opened the door to my room, why I did not know how to receive a guest and died so shamefully under the weight of my own hospitality? -- Well, yes, yes! - answered Nastenka, - that's the point. Listen: you tell a great story, but is it possible to tell it somehow not so beautifully? And then you say you're reading a book. - Nastenka! I answered in an important and stern voice, barely able to restrain myself from laughing, “dear Nastenka, I know that I am telling the story perfectly, but it’s my fault, otherwise I don’t know how to tell. Now, dear Nastenka, now he looks like the spirit of King Solomon, who was in a capsule for a thousand years, under seven seals, and from whom all these seven seals were finally removed. Now, dear Nastenka, when we met again after such a long separation, because I have known you for a long time, Nastenka, because I have been looking for someone for a long time, and this is a sign that I was looking for you and that we were destined now see each other - now thousands of valves have opened in my head, and I must spill a river of words, otherwise I will suffocate. So, I ask you not to interrupt me, Nastenka, but to listen humbly and obediently; otherwise, I will shut up. - No-no-no! no way! speak! Now I won't say a word. - I continue: there is, my friend Nastenka, in my day one hour, which I love extremely. This is the very hour when almost all business, positions and obligations end, and everyone rushes home to dine, lie down to rest and right there, on the road, invent other funny topics relating to the evening, night and all the remaining free time. At this hour, our hero too - because let me, Nastenka, tell in the third person, because in the first person it’s terribly embarrassing to tell all this - so, at this hour, our hero, who was also not idle , follows the others. But a strange feeling of pleasure plays on his pale, somewhat crumpled face. He looks indifferently at evening dawn, which is slowly fading in the cold Petersburg sky. When I say he looks, I am lying: he does not look, but contemplates somehow unconsciously, as if he is tired or busy at the same time with some other, more interesting subject, so that only briefly, almost involuntarily, can devote time to everything around. He is satisfied, because he has done away with annoying things for him until tomorrow. affairs, and glad, like a schoolboy who was released from the classroom to his favorite games and pranks. Look at him from the side, Nastenka: you will immediately see that a joyful feeling has already had a happy effect on his weak nerves and painfully irritated fantasy. Here he is thinking about something ... Do you think about dinner? about tonight? What is he looking at? Was it this gentleman of respectable appearance, who bowed so picturesquely to a lady who rode past him on roaring horses in a shiny carriage? No, Nastenka, what does he care about all this trifle now! He is now rich its special life; he somehow suddenly became rich, and it was not in vain that the parting ray of the fading sun flashed before him so cheerfully and evoked a whole swarm of impressions from his warmed heart. Now he barely notices the road on which before the smallest trifle could hit him. Now the “goddess of fantasy” (if you have read Zhukovsky, dear Nastenka) has already woven her golden base with a whimsical hand and has gone to develop patterns of an unprecedented, bizarre life in front of him - and, who knows, maybe she has transferred him with a whimsical hand to the seventh crystal sky from an excellent granite pavement along which he walks home. Try to stop him now, ask him suddenly: where is he standing now, what streets did he walk along? - he probably would not remember anything, neither where he went, nor where he stood now, and, blushing with annoyance, he would certainly lie something to save decency. That is why he was so startled, almost screamed, and looked around with fright, when a very respectable old woman politely stopped him in the middle of the sidewalk and began to question him about the road she had lost. Frowning with annoyance, he walks on, hardly noticing that more than one passerby smiled, looking at him, and turned after him, and that some little girl, timidly making way for him, laughed loudly, looking with all her eyes at his wide contemplative smile. and hand gestures. But all the same fantasy picked up on its playful flight both the old woman, and curious passers-by, and the laughing girl, and the peasants, who immediately dine on their barges, which flooded the Fontanka (we suppose that at that time our hero was passing through it) playfully killed everyone and everything in its own canvas, like flies in a cobweb, and with a new acquisition, the eccentric has already entered his pleasant hole, has already sat down to dinner, had already dined for a long time and woke up only when the thoughtful and eternally sad Matryona, who serves him, had already cleaned everything from the table and handed him the receiver, woke up and was surprised to remember that he had already completely dined, resolutely overlooking how it happened. The room grew dark; his soul is empty and sad; a whole realm of dreams collapsed around him, collapsed without a trace, without noise or crackle, passed like a dream, and he himself does not remember what he was dreaming about. But some dark sensation, from which his chest aches and agitates a little, some new desire seductively tickles and irritates his imagination and imperceptibly summons a whole swarm of new ghosts. Silence reigns in the small room; solitude and laziness cherish the imagination; it ignites slightly, boils slightly, like the water in the coffee pot of old Matryona, who is serenely fumbling around in the kitchen, preparing her cook's coffee. Now it is already slightly breaking through with flashes, now the book, taken without purpose and at random, falls out of the hands of my dreamer, who did not even reach the third page. His imagination is again attuned, excited, and suddenly again a new world, a new, charming life flashed before him in its brilliant perspective. new dream-- new happiness! New reception refined, voluptuous poison! Oh, what is he in our real life. In his bribed look, you and I, Nastenka, live so lazily, slowly, listlessly; in his opinion, we are all so dissatisfied with our fate, we are so languishing with our lives! And really, look, really, how at first glance everything between us is cold, gloomy, as if angry ... "Poor!" thinks my dreamer. And no wonder what he thinks! Look at these magical ghosts, which are so charmingly, so whimsically, so boundlessly and widely formed in front of him in such a magical, animated picture, where in the foreground, the first person, of course, is himself, our dreamer, his dear person. See what a variety of adventures, what an endless swarm of Rapturous Dreams. You may ask, what does he dream about? Why ask! yes about everything ... about the role of the poet, at first not recognized, and then crowned; about friendship with Hoffmann; St. Bartholomew's Night, Diana Vernon, a heroic role during the capture of Kazan by Ivan Vasilyevich, Clara Movbrai, Evfiya Dens, the cathedral of prelates and Gus in front of them, the uprising of the dead in "Robert" (remember the music? It smells like a cemetery!), Minna and Brenda, the battle of the Berezina, reading a poem at the countess V-d-d-d, Danton, Cleopatra e i suoi amanti [and her lovers (Italian)], a house in Kolomna, its own corner, and next to it is a cute creature that listens to you in winter evening, opening your mouth and eyes, how are you listening to me now, my little angel ... No, Nastenka, what is he, what is he, a voluptuous sloth, in that life in which we so want to be with you? he thinks that this is a poor, miserable life, not foreseeing that for him, perhaps, someday a sad hour will strike, when in one day of this miserable life he will give up all his fantastic years, and yet not for joy, not for happiness will give, and will not want to choose at that hour of sadness, remorse and unrequited grief. But while it has not yet come, this terrible time - he does not want anything, because he is above desires, because everything is with him, because he is satiated, because he himself is the artist of his life and creates it for himself every hour in a new way. arbitrariness. And it’s so easy, so naturally this fabulous, fantasy world ! It's like it's not really a ghost! Indeed, I am ready to believe at some moment that all this life is not an arousal of feelings, not a mirage, not a deception of the imagination, but that it is indeed real, real, existing! Why, tell me, Nastenka, why is the spirit embarrassed at such moments? Why, then, by some magic, by some unknown arbitrariness, does the pulse accelerate, tears spurt from the eyes of the dreamer, his pale, moistened cheeks burn, and his whole existence is filled with such irresistible joy? Why, then, whole sleepless nights pass like one moment, in inexhaustible joy and happiness, and when the dawn flashes a pink beam through the windows and the dawn illuminates the gloomy room with its dubious fantastic light, as here in St. Petersburg, our dreamer, tired, exhausted, rushes to bed and falls asleep in rapture from the delight of his painfully shaken spirit and with such languishingly sweet pain in his heart? Yes, Nastenka, you will be deceived and you will involuntarily believe in a stranger that a real, true passion excites his soul, you will involuntarily believe that there is a living, tangible in his incorporeal dreams! And after all, what a deceit - here, for example, love descended into his chest with all inexhaustible joy, with all tormenting torments ... Just look at him and be convinced! Looking at him, dear Nastenka, do you believe that he really never knew the one he loved so much in his frenzied dream? Did he only see her in some seductive phantoms and only dreamed of this passion? Didn't they really go hand in hand for so many years of their lives - alone, together, discarding the whole world and uniting each of their worlds, their lives with the life of a friend? Was it really not she, at a late hour, when parting came, was not she lying, weeping and longing, on his chest, not hearing the storm that broke out under the harsh sky, not hearing the wind that plucked and carried away the tears from her black eyelashes? Was it really all a dream - and this garden, dull, abandoned and wild, with paths overgrown with moss, solitary, gloomy, where they so often walked together, hoped, yearned, loved, loved each other for so long, "for so long and gently"! And this strange, great-grandfather's house, in which she lived solitarily and sadly for so long with her old, gloomy husband, eternally silent and bilious, frightening them, timid, like children, sadly and timidly concealing their love from each other? How they suffered, how they feared, how innocent and pure their love was, and how (of course, Nastenka) evil people were! And, my God, did he really not meet her later, far from the shores of his homeland, under a foreign sky, midday, hot, in a wondrous eternal city, in the splendor of a ball, with the thunder of music, in a palazzo (certainly in a palazzo), drowned in the sea , lights, on this balcony twined with myrtle and roses, where, recognizing him, she so hastily removed her mask and, whispering: "I am free", trembling, threw herself into his arms, and, crying out with delight, clinging to each other, in an instant they forgot both grief, and separation, and all the torments, and a gloomy house, and an old man, and a gloomy garden in a distant homeland, and a bench on which, with the last passionate kiss, she escaped from his arms, numb in desperate anguish ... Oh, you must admit, Nastenka, that you will flutter, be embarrassed and blush, like a schoolboy who has just stuffed an apple stolen from a neighboring garden into his pocket, when some tall, healthy guy, a merry fellow and the joker, your uninvited friend, will open your door and shout, as if nothing had happened: "And I, brother, this minute from Pavlovsk!" Oh my God! the old count is dead, indescribable happiness is setting in - here people come from Pavlovsk! I fell silent pathetically, having finished my pathetic exclamations. I remember that I wanted terribly to laugh out loud somehow, because I already felt that some kind of hostile demon was stirring in me, that my throat was already beginning to seize, my chin was twitching, and that my eyes were becoming more and more moist ... I expected that Nastenka, who was listening to me, opening her intelligent eyes, would burst out laughing with all her childish, irresistibly merry laughter, and I already repented that I had gone far, that in vain I had told what had long been boiling in my heart, about which I could speak as if it were written, because I had long ago prepared a sentence on myself, and now I could not resist reading it, confessing, not expecting to be understood; but, to my astonishment, she said nothing, after a while she lightly shook my hand, and with a kind of timid concern asked: “Have you really lived like this all your life?” “All my life, Nastenka,” I answered, “all my life, and it seems that I will end up like that!” “No, that cannot be,” she said uneasily, “that will not happen; so, perhaps, I will live all my life near my grandmother. Listen, do you know that it's not good to live like this at all? - I know, Nastenka, I know! I cried, no longer holding back my feelings. “And now I know more than ever that I have lost all my best years! Now I know this, and I feel more painful from such a consciousness, because God himself sent me you, my good angel to tell me this and prove it. Now, when I sit beside you and talk to you, I'm already afraid to think about the future, because in the future - again loneliness again this musty, unnecessary life; and what will I dream of when I was already so happy in reality beside you! Oh, be blessed, you, dear girl, for not rejecting me the first time, for the fact that I can already say that I lived at least two evenings in my life! - Oh, no, no! cried Nastenka, and tears glittered in her eyes, “no, it won’t be like that again; we won't be separated! What are two evenings! - Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! Do you know how long you have reconciled me to myself? do you know that now I will no longer think of myself as badly as I thought at other moments? Do you know that perhaps I will no longer grieve that I have done crime and sin in my life, because such a life is crime and sin? And don't think that I'm exaggerating anything for you, for God's sake, don't think that, Nastenka, because sometimes moments of such melancholy, such melancholy come over me... able to begin to live a real life; because it already seemed to me that I had lost all tact, all instinct in the present, the real; because at last I cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights, moments of sobering up are already coming over me, which are terrible. Meanwhile, you hear how the human crowd rumbles around you and spins in the whirlwind of life, you hear, you see how people live, they live in reality, you see that life is for them not ordered, that their life will not fly apart, like a dream, like a vision, that their life is eternally renewing, eternally young and not a single hour of it is like another, while dull and vulgarly monotonous is a fearful fantasy, a slave of a shadow, an idea, a slave of the first a cloud that the sun will suddenly cover and compress with anguish the real St. Petersburg heart, which so cherishes its sun - and what a fantasy in anguish! You feel that she is finally tired, exhausted in eternal tension, this inexhaustible a fantasy, because after all, you are maturing, you are surviving from your former ideals: they are shattered into dust into fragments; if there is no other life, then one has to build it from the same fragments. Meanwhile, the soul asks and wants something else And in vain the dreamer rummages, as in ashes, in his old dreams, looking for at least some spark in this ashes in order to inflate it, to warm the cold heart with renewed fire and resurrect everything in it again. that used to be so sweet, that touched the soul, that boiled the blood, that pulled tears from the eyes and deceived so luxuriously! Do you know, Nastenka, what I have come to? Do you know that I am already forced to celebrate the anniversary of my sensations, the anniversary of what used to be so sweet, which in essence never happened - because this anniversary is still celebrated according to the same stupid, incorporeal dreams - and to do this, because there are no such stupid dreams, because there is nothing to survive them: after all, even dreams survive! Do you know that I now love to remember and visit at a certain time those places where I was once happy in my own way, I love to build my present in harmony with the already irretrievably past and often wander like a shadow, needlessly and without purpose, dejectedly and sadly to St. Petersburg back streets and streets. What memories! I recall, for example, that here exactly a year ago, at exactly the same time, at the same hour, I wandered along the same sidewalk just as lonely, just as depressingly as now! And you remember that even then the dreams were sad, and although it was no better before, you still somehow feel that it was easier and more peaceful to live, that there was no this black thought that has now become attached to me; that there were no these remorse of conscience, remorse gloomy, gloomy, which neither day nor night now do not give rest. And you ask yourself: where are your dreams? and you shake your head, you say: how quickly the years fly by! And again you ask yourself: what have you done with your years? where did you bury yours best time? Did you live or not? Look, you say to yourself, look how cold the world is getting. Years will pass, and gloomy loneliness will come after them, shaking old age will come with a stick, followed by melancholy and despondency. Your fantastic world will turn pale, your dreams will fade, your dreams will fade and crumble, like yellow leaves from the trees... Oh, Nastenka! after all, it would be sad to remain alone, completely alone, and not even have anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing ... because everything that you lost, all this, everything was nothing, stupid, round zero, it was just a dream! "Well, don't pity me any more!" - said Nastenka, wiping away a tear that rolled out of her eyes. - Now it's over! Now we'll be together; now, whatever happens to me, we will never part. Listen. I am a simple girl, I studied little, although my grandmother hired a teacher for me; but, really, I understand you, because everything that you have told me now, I have already lived through myself when my grandmother pinned me to the dress. Of course, I wouldn’t have told it as well as you did, I didn’t study,” she added timidly, because she still felt some respect for my pathetic speech and for my high style, “but I’m very glad that you have completely opened up to me. Now I know you, absolutely, I know everything. And you know what? I want to tell you my story, all without concealment, and after that you will give me advice. you are very clever man; do you promise that you will give me this advice? “Ah, Nastenka,” I replied, “although I have never been an adviser, and even more so a smart adviser, but now I see that if we always live like this, then it will be somehow very smart and every friend a friend gives a lot of smart advice! Well, my pretty Nastenka, what advice do you have? Speak directly to me; I am now so cheerful, happy, brave and smart that I can’t reach into my pocket for a word. -- No no! - interrupted Nastenka, laughing, - I need more than one smart advice, I need advice from the heart, brotherly, as if you had loved me for a century! - It's coming, Nastenka, it's coming! I shouted in delight, “and if I had loved you for twenty years, I still wouldn’t love you more than I do now!” - Your hand! - said Nastenka. -- There she is! I answered, offering her my hand. So let's start my story!

HISTORY OF NASTENKA

- You already know half of the story, that is, you know what I have old grandmother... - If the other half is as short as this one ... - I interrupted, laughing. - Shut up and listen. First of all, an agreement: do not interrupt me, otherwise I will probably go astray. Well, listen quietly. I have an old grandmother. I came to her as a very young girl, because both my mother and father died. One must think that grandmother was richer before, because even now she remembers better days. She taught me French and then hired me a teacher. When I was fifteen years old (and now I'm seventeen), we finished studying. It was at this time that I messed up; so what have I done -- I won't tell you; enough that the offense was small. Only my grandmother called me to her one morning and said that since she was blind, she would not look after me, she took a pin and pinned my dress to hers, and then she said that we would sit like that all our lives, if, of course, I won't get better. In a word, at first it was impossible to move away: work, and read, and study - everything is near grandmother. I tried to cheat once and persuaded Fekla to sit in my place. Thekla is our worker, she is deaf. Thekla sat down instead of me; grandmother fell asleep in armchairs at that time, and I went not far to my friend. Well , it ended badly. Grandmother woke up without me and asked about something, thinking that I was still sitting quietly in place. Fyokla saw that her grandmother was asking, but she herself did not hear what, she thought, thought what to do, unfastened the pin and started running ... Then Nastenka stopped and began to laugh. I laughed along with her. She stopped immediately. “Listen, don’t laugh at your grandmother. I'm laughing because it's funny... What should I do when my grandmother is really like that, but I still love her a little. Well, yes, then I got it: they immediately put me back in my place and, no, no, it was impossible to move. Well, sir, I also forgot to tell you that we, that is, grandmother, have our own house, that is, small house , only three windows, completely wooden and as old as grandma; and upstairs is a mezzanine; so a new tenant moved in with us on the mezzanine ... - So, there was also an old tenant? I remarked casually. - Of course, he was, - answered Nastenka, - and who knew how to keep silent better than you. In fact, he barely spoke. He was an old man, dry, dumb, blind, lame, so that at last it became impossible for him to live in the world, and he died; and then a new tenant was needed, because we cannot live without a tenant: this is almost all of our income with my grandmother's pension. The new tenant, as if on purpose, was a young man, a stranger, a visitor. Since he did not bargain, his grandmother let him in, and then asked: "What, Nastenka, is our lodger young or not?" I didn’t want to lie: “So, I say, grandmother, not exactly young, but not old.” "Well, and good-looking?" asks the grandmother. I don't want to lie again. "Yes, pleasant, I say, appearance, grandmother!" And the grandmother says: “Ah! punishment, punishment! I’m telling you this, granddaughter, so that you don’t stare at him. And grandmother would have everything in the old days! And she was younger in the old days, and the sun was warmer in the old days, and the cream in the old days did not sour so quickly - everything in the old days! So I sit and keep silent, and I think to myself: why is it that my grandmother herself is thinking me up, asking if the tenant is good, if he is young? Yes, just like that, I just thought, and immediately began to count loops again, knit a stocking, and then completely forgot. Once in the morning, a tenant comes to us and asks that they promised to wallpaper his room. Word for word, the grandmother is talkative, and says: "Go, Nastenka, to my bedroom, bring the bills." I immediately jumped up, blushed all over, I don’t know why, and forgot that I was sitting pinned down; no, to quietly slap her away so that the tenant wouldn’t see her, she rushed so that grandmother’s chair started to move. When I saw that the lodger had now learned everything about me, I blushed, stood still as if rooted to the spot, and suddenly burst into tears—I felt so ashamed and bitter at that moment that I couldn’t even look at the world! Grandmother screams: "Why are you standing there?" - and I'm even worse ... The tenant, as he saw, saw that I was ashamed of him, bowed and immediately left! Since then, I, a little noise in the hallway, as if dead. Here, I think, the tenant is coming, but on the sly, just in case, I will spit off the pin. But it wasn't him, he didn't come. Two weeks passed; the lodger sends to tell Thekla that he has a lot of French books and that all the books are good, so that you can read; so doesn’t my grandmother want me to read them to her so that she wouldn’t be bored? Grandmother agreed with gratitude, only she kept asking about moral books or not, because if books are immoral, then, Nastenka says, you can’t read in any way, you will learn bad things. “What can I learn, grandma?” What is written there? -- AND! says, they describe how young people seduce well-behaved girls, how they, under the pretext that they want to take them for themselves, take them away from their parents' house, how then they leave these unfortunate girls to the will of fate and they die in the most deplorable way. Grandmother says, I have read many such books, and everything, she says, is so beautifully described that you sit at night and read quietly. So you, says Nastenka, look, don't read them. What kind of books, he says, he sent? “It’s all Walter Scott novels, grandma. -- Walter Scott novels! And full, are there any tricks here? See if he put some love note in them? - No, I say, grandmother, there is no note. - Yes, you look under the cover; they sometimes shove them into the binding, robbers! .. - No, grandmother, there is nothing under the binding. - Well, that's it! So we began to read Walter Scott and in a month we read almost half. Then he sent more and more. He sent me Pushkin, so that at last I could not be without books and stopped thinking about how to marry a Chinese prince. That was the case when one time I happened to meet our tenant on the stairs. Grandma sent me for something. He stopped, I blushed, and he blushed; however, he laughed, said hello, asked about his grandmother's health and said: "What, have you read the books?" I replied: "I read it." "What, he says, did you like better?" I say: "Ivangoe and Pushkin liked the most." This time it ended. A week later I ran into him again on the stairs. This time my grandmother did not send, but I myself needed something. It was three o'clock, and the tenant came home at that time. "Hello!" -- He speaks. I told him: "Hello!" - And what, he says, is it not boring for you to sit with your grandmother all day? When he asked me this, I, I don’t know why, blushed, felt ashamed, and again I felt offended, evidently because others had begun to ask about this matter. I really wanted to not answer and leave, but I didn’t have the strength. “Listen, she says, you are a good girl! Excuse me for talking to you like this, but I assure you that I better than grandma I wish you well. Do you have any friends to visit? I say that none, that there was one, Mashenka, and she left for Pskov. - Listen, he says, do you want to go to the theater with me? -- To the theatre? how about grandma? - Yes, you, he says, quietly from your grandmother ... - No, I say, I don’t want to deceive my grandmother. Farewell! - Well, goodbye, he says, but he himself did not say anything. Only after dinner does he come to us; he sat down, talked for a long time with his grandmother, asked what she was doing, whether she was going somewhere, whether there were any acquaintances, and then suddenly he said: “And today I was taking a box to the opera;” Barber of Seville"They give, acquaintances wanted to go, but then they refused, and I still had a ticket in my hands." "The Barber of Seville!" - shouted the grandmother, - is this the same "Barber" that they gave in the old days? - Yes, he says, this is the same "Barber", - and he looked at me. And I already understood everything, blushed, and my heart jumped with anticipation! - Yes, how, says the grandmother, how not to know. I myself in the old days home theater Rosina played! “So don’t you want to go today?” said the tenant. - my ticket is wasted. “Yes, perhaps we’ll go,” says the grandmother, why not go? But Nastya has never been to the theater with me. My God, what joy! Immediately we packed up, packed up and set off. Granny, although she is blind, still wanted to listen to music, and besides, she is a kind old woman: she wanted to amuse me more, we would never have gathered ourselves. I won’t tell you what impression I had from The Barber of Seville, but all that evening our tenant looked at me so well, spoke so well, that I immediately saw that he wanted to test me in the morning, suggesting that I be alone with went to him. Well, what a joy! I went to bed so proud, so cheerful, my heart was beating so hard that I got a little fever, and all night I raved about the Barber of Seville. I thought that after that he would come more and more often - it was not so. He almost completely stopped. So, once a month, it happened, he would come in, and then only in order to invite him to the theater. Twice we went again. It was just that I wasn't happy with it. I saw that he simply felt sorry for me for the fact that I was with my grandmother in such a pen, but nothing more. On and on, and it came over me: I don’t sit, and I don’t read, and I don’t work, sometimes I laugh and do something to spite my grandmother, other times I just cry. Finally, I lost weight and almost got sick. The opera season was over, and the tenant stopped visiting us altogether; when we met - all on the same stairs, of course - he would bow so silently, so seriously, as if he didn’t want to talk, and he’d go down completely to the porch, and I was still standing on the half of the stairs, red as a cherry , because all the blood began to rush to my head when I met him. Now it's over now. Exactly one year ago, in the month of May, a tenant comes to us and tells my grandmother that he has got his own business here and that he must again go to Moscow for a year. I, as I heard, turned pale and fell into a chair as if dead. Grandmother did not notice anything, but he, announcing; that leaves us, bowed to us and left. What should I do? I thought and thought, yearned, yearned, and finally decided. Tomorrow he will leave, and I decided that I would finish everything in the evening, when my grandmother went to bed. And so it happened. I tied everything in a bundle, including dresses, as much linen as needed, and with a bundle in my hands, neither alive nor dead, I went to the mezzanine to our tenant. I think I walked up the stairs for an hour. When I opened the door for him, he screamed, looking at me. He thought I was a ghost, and rushed to give me water, because I could hardly stand on my feet. My heart was beating so hard that it hurt in my head, and my mind was clouded. When I woke up, I began directly by placing my bundle on his bed, sat down beside him, covered myself with my hands and wept in three streams. He seemed to understand everything in an instant and stood before me pale and looked at me so sadly that my heart tore. “Listen,” he began, “listen, Nastenka, I can’t do anything; I am a poor man; I have nothing for the time being, not even a decent place; How are we going to live if I were to marry you? We talked for a long time, but I finally fell into a frenzy, said that I could not live with my grandmother, that I would run away from her, that I did not want to be pinned with a pin, and that I, as he wanted, would go with him to Moscow, because I can't live without him. And shame, and love, and pride - all at once spoke in me, and I almost fell on the bed in convulsions. I was so afraid of rejection! He sat silently for a few minutes, then got up, came up to me and took my hand. “Listen, my good, my dear Nastenka! he began, too, through tears, “listen. I swear to you that if someday I am able to marry, then you will certainly make up my happiness; I assure you, now you alone can make up my happiness. Listen: I'm going to Moscow and will stay there for exactly a year. I hope to arrange my affairs. When I toss and turn, and if you do not stop loving me, I swear to you, we will be happy. Now it’s impossible, I can’t, I don’t have the right to promise anything. But, I repeat, if this is not done in a year, then at least someday it will certainly happen; of course - if you do not prefer me another, because I cannot and do not dare to bind you with any word. That's what he said to me and left the next day. It was supposed together with the grandmother not to say a word about it. So he wanted. Well, now my whole story is almost over. Exactly one year has passed. He's arrived, he's been here for three whole days, and, and... I shouted, eager to hear the end. - And still has not been! - answered Nastenka, as if gathering her strength, - not a word or a breath ... Here she stopped, was silent for a while, lowered her head and suddenly, covering herself with her hands, sobbed so that about my heart turned over from these sobs. I did not expect such a denouement. - Nastenka! - I began in a timid and insinuating voice, - Nastenka! For God's sake, don't cry! Why do you know? perhaps he is not yet... "Here, here!" - picked up Nastenka. He's here, I know that. We had a condition, back then, that evening on the eve of our departure: when we had already said everything that I told you, and agreed, we went out here for a walk, on this embankment. It was ten o'clock; we sat on this bench; I didn’t cry anymore, it was sweet for me to listen to what he said ... He said that he would come to us immediately upon arrival and if I didn’t refuse him, then we would tell my grandmother about everything. Now he has arrived, I know it, and he is gone! And she burst into tears again. -- Oh my God! Is there really no way to help grief? I cried, jumping up from the bench in utter despair. - Tell me, Nastenka, would it be possible for me to go to him at least? .. - Is it possible? she said, suddenly raising her head. - No, of course not! ' I remarked, sighing. - and here's what: write a letter. - No, it's impossible, it's impossible! she answered resolutely, but already with her head bowed and not looking at me. - How can you not? why not? I continued, seizing on my idea. - But, you know, Nastenka, what a letter! Letter to letter is different and ... Ah, Nastenka, it's true! Trust me, trust me! I won't give you bad advice. All this can be arranged! You have begun the first step - why now... - You can't, you can't! Then it's as if I impose myself ... - Ah, my kind Nastenka! - I interrupted, not hiding a smile, - no, no; you are finally entitled, because he promised you. Yes, and from everything I see that he is a delicate person, that he acted well,” I continued, more and more delighted with the logic of my own arguments and convictions, “how did he act? He bound himself with a promise. He said that he would not marry anyone but you, if only he married; he left you complete freedom to refuse him even now ... In that case, you can take the first step, you have the right, you have an advantage over him, at least, for example, if you wanted to untie him from given word... - Listen, how would you write? -- What? Yes, this is a letter. - I would write like this: "Gracious sir ..." - Is it absolutely necessary - dear sir? -- Absolutely! However, why? I think... - Well, well! further! - "Dear sir! Excuse me for..." However, no, no apology is needed! Here the fact itself justifies everything, write simply: "I am writing to you. Forgive me my impatience; but I have been happy with hope for a whole year; am I to blame that I cannot now bear even a day of doubt? Now that you have already arrived, perhaps "You have already changed your intentions. Then this letter will tell you that I do not grumble and do not blame you. I do not blame you for not having power over your heart; such is my fate! You noble man. You will not smile and will not get annoyed at my impatient lines. Remember what writes them a poor girl that she was alone, that there was no one to teach her or advise her, and that she had never been able to control her own heart. But forgive me that doubt has crept into my soul even for a moment. You are not even mentally capable of offending the one who loved and loves you so much. "Yes, yes! it's exactly as I thought!" Nastenka shouted, and joy shone in her eyes. "Oh! you allowed my God himself sent you to me! Thank you, thank you!" "For what? for God sent me?" I answered, looking in delight at her joyful face. "Yes, at least for that." "Nastenka! After all, we thank other people at least for the fact that they live with us. I thank you for meeting me, for the fact that I will remember you all my life!" And now, listen to this: then there was a condition that as soon as he arrived, she would immediately make herself known by leaving me a letter in one place, with some of my acquaintances, kind and simple people who did not know anything about it. know; or if it will be impossible to write letters to me, because in a letter you will not always tell everything, then on the same day, as he arrives, he will be here exactly at ten o’clock, where we decided to meet with him I. I already know about his arrival; but for the third day now there has been neither a letter nor him. I can't leave my grandmother in the morning. Give my letter tomorrow you yourself kind people, which I told you about: they will already send; and if there is an answer, then you yourself will bring it in the evening at ten o'clock. But a letter, a letter! After all, you need to write a letter first! So unless the day after tomorrow all this will be. "A letter..." Nastenka answered, a little confused, "a letter... but... But she didn't finish." At first she turned her face away from me, blushed like a rose, and suddenly I felt a letter in my hand, apparently written long ago, completely prepared and sealed. Some familiar, sweet, graceful memory flashed through my mind! - R, o - Ro, s, i - si, n, a - na, - I began. -- Rosina! we both sang; now!" she said quickly. "Here's the letter for you, here's the address where to take it down. Farewell! goodbye! see you tomorrow! She squeezed both my hands tightly, nodded her head, and flashed like an arrow into her alley. I he stood still for a long time, following her with his eyes: "See you tomorrow! see you tomorrow!” flashed through my head as she disappeared from my eyes.

Night three

Today was a sad, rainy day, without a light, just like my future old age. I am oppressed by such strange thoughts, such dark sensations, such questions, still unclear to me, are crowding in my head - but somehow there is neither the strength nor the desire to solve them. It's not for me to decide this! We won't see each other today. Yesterday, when we said goodbye, the clouds began to cover the sky and the fog was rising. I said that tomorrow would be a bad day; she did not answer, she did not want to speak against herself; for her this day is both bright and clear, and not a single cloud will cover her happiness. "If it rains, we won't see each other!" -- she said. -- I will not come. I thought she didn't even notice today's rain, but meanwhile she didn't come. Yesterday was our third date, our third White Night... However, how joy and happiness make a person beautiful! how the heart boils with love! It seems that you want to pour all your heart into another heart, you want everything to be fun, everyone laughs. And how contagious that joy is! Yesterday there was so much bliss in her words, so much kindness to me in my heart... How she cared for me, how she caressed me, how she encouraged and unlived - my heart! Oh, how much coquetry from happiness! And I... I took everything at face value; I thought she... But, my God, how could I think that? how could I be so blind when everything has already been taken by another, everything is not mine; when, finally, even this very tenderness of hers, her care, her love ... yes, love for me, was nothing but joy at a meeting with another soon, a desire to impose his happiness on me too? .. When he did not come when we waited in vain, she frowned, she became shy and scared. All her movements, all her words have already become not so easy, playful and cheerful. And, strange to say, she redoubled her attention to me, as if instinctively wanting to pour out on me what she herself wished for herself, for which she herself was afraid if it did not come true. My Nastenka was so timid, so frightened, that, it seems, she finally realized that I loved her, and took pity on my poor love. Thus, when we are unhappy, we feel more strongly the unhappiness of others; the feeling is not broken, but concentrated ... I came to her with a full heart and barely waited for a meeting. I did not foresee what I would feel now, I did not foresee that it would not end like this. She beamed with joy, she expected an answer. The answer was himself. He had to come, run to her call. She arrived an hour before me. At first she laughed at everything, laughed at every word I said. I started to speak and fell silent. Do you know why I'm so happy? - she said, - so glad to see you? so love you today? -- Well? I asked, and my heart trembled. “I love you because you didn’t fall in love with me. After all, someone else, in your place, would begin to bother, pester, would get excited, get sick, and you are so cute! Then she squeezed my hand so hard that I almost screamed. She laughed. -- God! what a friend you are! she began in a moment very seriously. "God sent you to me!" Well, what would happen to me if you were not with me now? How selfless you are! How well you love me! When I get married, we will be very friendly, more than like brothers. I will love you almost as much as I love him ... I felt somehow terribly sad at that moment; yet something resembling laughter stirred in my soul. “You are in a fit,” I said, “you are a coward; you think he won't come. -- God with you! - she answered, - if I were less happy, I think I would cry from your disbelief, from your reproaches. However, you led me to an idea and asked me a long thought; but I will think about it later, and now I confess to you that you are telling the truth! Yes! somehow I'm not myself; I am somehow all in anticipation and feel everything somehow too easily. Come on, let's leave aside the feelings!.. At that moment steps were heard, and in the darkness a passer-by appeared who was walking towards us. We both trembled; she almost screamed. I lowered her hand and made a gesture as if I wanted to move away. But we were deceived: it was not him. -- What are you afraid of? Why did you throw my hand? she said, handing it to me again. - Well, what is it? we will meet him together. I want him to see how much we love each other. How much we love each other! I shouted. “Oh Nastenka, Nastenka!” I thought, “how much you said with that word! From such love, Nastenka, in different the hour turns cold on the heart and it becomes heavy on the soul. Your hand is cold, mine is hot as fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!.. Oh! how insufferable a happy person is at a different moment! But I couldn't be angry with you!.." Finally, my heart overflowed. "Listen, Nastenka!" I cried, "do you know what's been happening to me all day?" "Well, what's the matter? Tell me quickly! Why have you kept silent until now!—Firstly, Nastenka, when I fulfilled all your commissions, handed over the letter, visited your good people, then ... then I came home and went to bed. - she interrupted, laughing. - Yes, almost just, - I answered reluctantly, because stupid tears were already welling up in my eyes. - I woke up an hour before our meeting, but it was as if I had not slept. I don’t know what happened to me, I went to tell you all this, as if time had stopped for me, as if one feeling, one feeling should have remained in me from that time forever, as if one minute should have lasted an eternity. and it was as if my whole life had stopped for me... When I woke up, it seemed to me that some musical motif , long familiar, heard somewhere before, forgotten and sweet, was now remembered to me. It seemed to me that he had been begging all his life from my soul, and only now ... - Oh, my God, my God! - Nastenka interrupted, - how is it all so? I don't understand a word. - Oh, Nastenka! I wanted to somehow convey to you this strange impression ... - I began in a plaintive voice, in which there was still hope, although very remote. - Come on, stop it, come on! she said, and in an instant she guessed, you swindler! Suddenly she became somehow unusually talkative, cheerful, playful. She took my arm, laughed, wanted me to laugh too, and every embarrassed word of mine echoed in her with such a sonorous, such a long laugh ... I began to get angry, she suddenly began to flirt. “Listen,” she began, “I’m a little annoyed that you haven’t fallen in love with me. Disassemble after this man! But still, adamant sir, you can't help but praise me for being so simple. I tell you everything, I tell you everything, no matter what stupidity flashes through my head. -- Listen! It's eleven o'clock, I think? I said, as the measured sound of a bell boomed from a distant city tower. She suddenly stopped, stopped laughing and began to count. “Yes, eleven,” she said at last in a timid, hesitant voice. I immediately repented that I had frightened her, forced her to count the hours, and cursed myself for a fit of anger. I felt sad for her, and I did not know how to atone for my sin. I began to console her, look for the reasons for his absence, bring various arguments, evidence. No one could be more easily deceived than she was at that moment, and everyone at that moment somehow joyfully listens to at least some kind of consolation and is glad, glad, if there is even a shadow of justification. “Besides, it’s ridiculous,” I began, getting more and more excited and admiring the extraordinary clarity of my evidence, “besides, he couldn’t come; you deceived and lured me too, Nastenka, so that I lost track of time ... Just think: he could hardly get a letter; suppose he cannot come, suppose he will answer, so the letter will not arrive until tomorrow. I'll go after him tomorrow before light and let you know at once. Finally, suppose a thousand possibilities: well, he was not at home when the letter arrived, and he, perhaps, has not read it yet? After all, anything can happen. -- Yes Yes! - answered Nastenka, - I didn’t even think; of course, anything can happen,” she continued in the most accommodating voice, but in which, like an annoying dissonance, some other, distant thought was heard. “So what do you do,” she continued, “you go tomorrow as early as possible, and if you get anything, let me know at once.” Do you know where I live? And she began repeating her address to me. Then she suddenly became so tender, so timid with me... She seemed to be listening attentively to what I was saying to her; but when I turned to her with some question, she "You child! What childishness!... Come on!" She tried to smile, to calm down, but her chin was trembling and her chest was still heaving. "I'm thinking of you," she said to me after a moment's silence, I'd be stone if I didn't feel it. Do you know what occurred to me now? I compared you both. Why is he not you? Why isn't he like you? He's worse than you, even though I love him more you. I didn't answer anything. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something. "Of course, perhaps I don't quite understand him yet, I don't quite know him. You know, I always seemed to be afraid of him; he he was always so serious, as if proud. Of course, I know that he only looks in such a way that there is more tenderness in his heart than in mine ... I remember how he looked at me then, as I, by remember, she came to him with a bundle; but all the same, I somehow respect him too much, but it’s as if we were uneven? “No, Nastenka, no,” I answered, “it means that you love him more than anything in the world, and love yourself much more than yourself. “Yes, let’s suppose that this is so,” answered the naive Nastenka, “but do you know what came into my head now? Only now I will not talk about him, but in general; I've been thinking about all this for a long time. Listen, why are we all not like brothers and brothers? Why the most best person always as if something is hiding from the other and is silent from him? Why right now, not to say what is in your heart, if you know that you will not say your word to the wind? Otherwise, everyone looks as if he is more severe than he really is, as if everyone is afraid to offend their feelings if they show them very soon ... - Ah, Nastenka! you speak the truth; Why, this comes from many causes,” I interrupted, myself more than ever at that moment embarrassing my feelings. -- No no! she answered with deep feeling. - Here you are, for example, not like the others! I really don't know how to tell you what I feel; but it seems to me that you, for example ... if only now ... it seems to me that you are sacrificing something for me, ”she added timidly, glancing at me briefly. “Forgive me if I tell you so: I am a simple girl; I haven’t seen much in the world yet, and really I don’t know how to speak sometimes,” she added in a voice trembling with some secret feeling, and meanwhile trying to smile, “but I only wanted to tell you that I am grateful that I, too, feel it all ... Oh, God grant you happiness for this! What you told me then about your dreamer is completely untrue, that is, I want to say, it does not concern you at all. You are recovering, you are really a completely different person than the way you described yourself. If you ever fall in love, then God bless you with her! And I don’t wish anything for her, because she will be happy with you. I know I am a woman myself and you must believe me if I tell you so... She stopped and shook my hand firmly. I, too, could not speak for excitement. Several minutes passed. - Yes, it is clear that he will not come today! she said at last, raising her head. “Too late!” “He will come tomorrow,” I said in the most convincing and firm voice. “Yes,” she added, cheerfully, “I see for myself now that he won’t come until tomorrow.” Well, goodbye! till tomorrow! If it rains, I may not come. But the day after tomorrow I will come, I will certainly come, whatever happened to me; be here by all means; I want to see you, I'll tell you everything. And then, when we were saying goodbye, she gave me her hand and said, looking at me clearly: “After all, we are now forever together, aren’t we?” O! Nastenka, Nastenka! If you knew how alone I am now! When nine o'clock struck, I could not sit in the room, dressed and went out, despite the rainy time. I was there, sitting on our bench. I was about to go into their alley, but I felt ashamed, and I returned without looking at their windows, without having reached two steps to their house. I came home in such anguish, in which I have never been. What a raw, boring time! If the weather had been fine, I would have walked there all night... But see you tomorrow, see you tomorrow! Tomorrow she will tell me everything. However, there was no letter today. But anyway, that's how it should have been. They are already together...

night four

God, how did it all end! How did it all end! I came at nine o'clock. She was already there. I noticed her from a distance; she stood, as then, for the first time, leaning on the railing of the embankment, and did not hear how I approached her. - Nastenka! I called out to her, suppressing my excitement with great force. She quickly turned to me. -- Well! she said, “well! hurry up! I looked at her in bewilderment. - Well, where is the letter? Did you bring a letter? she repeated, clutching the railing with her hand. “No, I don’t have a letter,” I said at last, “hasn’t he been yet?” She turned terribly pale and looked at me motionless for a long time. I crushed her last hope. - Well, God bless him! she finally said in a broken voice, “God bless him, if he leaves me like that. She lowered her eyes, then wanted to look at me, but could not. For a few more minutes she overcame her excitement, but suddenly turned away, leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the embankment, and burst into tears. - Complete, complete! - I started talking, but I didn’t have the strength to continue, looking at her, and what would I say? “Don’t console me,” she said weeping, “don’t talk about him, don’t say that he will come, that he didn’t leave me so cruelly, so inhumanly, as he did. For what, for what? Was there really anything in my letter, in this unfortunate letter?.. Here sobs cut short her voice; My heart broke looking at her. “Oh, how inhumanly cruel! she began again. - And not a line, not a line! If only he would answer that he does not need me, that he rejects me; and then not a single line in the whole three days! How easy it is for him to offend, offend, a poor, defenseless girl, who is to blame for loving him! Oh, how much I endured these three days! Oh my God! Oh my God! When I remember that I came to him for the first time myself, that I humiliated myself in front of him, wept, that I begged for at least a drop of love from him... And after that!... Listen," she began, turning to me, and her black eyes flashed, - but it's not so! It cannot be so; it's unnatural! Either you or I were deceived; maybe he didn't get the letter? Maybe he still doesn't know? How can you, judge for yourself, tell me, for God's sake, explain to me - I can't understand it - how you can act so barbarously rudely, as he did to me! Not a single word! But to last person in the world are more compassionate. Maybe he heard something, maybe someone told him about me? she cried, turning to me with a question. - How do you think? - Listen, Nastenka, I will go to him tomorrow on your behalf. -- Well! “I will ask him everything, I will tell him everything. -- Oh well! - You will write a letter. Don't say no, Nastenka, don't say no! I will make him respect your deed, he will know everything, and if ... "No, my friend, no," she interrupted. -- Enough! Not a word more, not a single word from me, not a line - enough! I don't know him, I don't love him anymore, I'll...forget him...I'll... She didn't finish. - Calm down, calm down! Sit here, Nastenka, - I said, seating her on the bench. - Yes, I'm calm. Fullness! This is true! These are tears, this will dry up! What do you think, that I will ruin myself, that I will drown myself?.. My heart was full; I wanted to speak, but I couldn't. -- Listen! she went on, taking my hand, “tell me: wouldn’t you do that? would you not abandon the one who would come to you herself, would you not throw in her eyes a shameless mockery of her weak, stupid heart? Would you save her? You would imagine that she was alone, that she did not know how to look after herself, that she did not know how to protect herself from loving you, that she was not to blame, that she was finally not to blame ... that she did nothing! .. Oh, my God, my God! .. - Nastenka! I shouted at last, unable to overcome my excitement, “Nastenka! you torture me! You hurt my heart, you kill me, Nastenka! I can't be silent! I must finally speak, express what is boiling here in my heart ... Saying this, I half rose from the bench. She took my hand and looked at me in surprise. -- What's wrong with you? she finally spoke. -- Listen! I said decisively. - Listen to me, Nastenka! What am I going to say now, it's all nonsense, it's all unrealizable, it's all stupid! I know that this can never happen, but I cannot be silent. In the name of what you are suffering now, I beg you in advance, forgive me!.. - Well, what, what? - she said, ceasing to cry and looking intently at me, while a strange curiosity shone in her surprised eyes, - what with you? - It's unrealizable, but I love you, Nastenka! that's what! Well, now everything is said! I said, waving my hand. “Now you will see if you can talk to me the way you just spoke, can you finally listen to what I am going to say to you ...” “Well, well, what then? - Nastenka interrupted, - what of it? Well, I've known for a long time that you love me, but it only seemed to me that you love me so, simply, somehow... Oh, my God, my God! “At first it was simple, Nastenka, but now, now ... I am just like you when you came to him then with your bundle. Worse than like you, Nastenka, because then he did not love anyone, but you do. - What are you telling me! Finally, I don't understand you at all. But listen, why is this, that is, not why, but why are you like this, and so suddenly ... God! I'm talking nonsense! But you ... And Nastenka was completely confused. Her cheeks flushed; she lowered her eyes. "What should I do, Nastenka, what should I do?" I'm to blame, I used it for evil... But no, no, it's not my fault, Nastenka; I hear it, I feel it, because my heart tells me that I'm right, because I can't offend you in any way, offend you in any way! I was your friend; well, here I am now a friend; I didn't change anything. Now my tears are flowing, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow - they do not interfere with anyone. They'll dry up, Nastenka... "Sit down, sit down," she said, seating me on the bench. -- oh, my God! -- No! Nastenka, I won't sit down; I can no longer be here, you can no longer see me; I'll say everything and leave. I just want to say that you would never know that I love you. I would bury my secret. I would not torment you now, at this moment, with my selfishness. No! but I could not bear it now; you yourself started talking about it, you are to blame, you are to blame for everything, but I am not to blame. You can't drive me away from you... - No, no, I'm not driving you away, no! - said Nastenka, hiding, as best she could, her embarrassment, poor thing. - You're not chasing me? No! and I myself wanted to run away from you. I’ll leave, only I’ll say everything first, because when you were talking here, I couldn’t sit still, when you were crying here, when you were tormented because, well, because (I’m already calling it, Nastenka), because you reject, because they pushed your love away, I felt, I heard that in my heart there is so much love for you, Nastenka, so much love! .. And I became so bitter that I cannot help you with this love ... that my heart broke, and I, I - could not be silent, I had to speak, Nastenka, I had to speak! .. - Yes, yes! talk to me, talk to me like that! said Nastenka with an inexplicable movement. “Perhaps it is strange to you that I speak to you like that, but ... speak!” I'll tell you later! I'll tell you everything! “You feel sorry for me, Nastenka; you just feel sorry for me, my friend! What's gone is gone! what is said, you can’t turn it back! Is not it? Well, now you know everything. Well, here is the starting point. OK then! now everything is beautiful; just listen. When you were sitting and crying, I thought to myself (oh, let me tell you what I thought!), I thought that (well, of course, this cannot be, Nastenka), I thought that you ... I I thought that you somehow ... well, in a completely foreign way in some way, you don’t love him anymore. Then—I was already thinking about this yesterday and the third day, Nastenka—then I would have done it, I would certainly have done it in such a way that you would love me: after all, you said, you yourself said, Nastenka, that you almost completely loved. Well, what's next? Well, that's almost all I wanted to say; All that remains is to say what would happen then if you fell in love with me, only this, nothing more! Listen, my friend, - because you are still my friend - I, of course, am a simple, poor person, so insignificant, but that’s not the point (I’m somehow talking about the wrong thing, it’s from embarrassment , Nastenka), but only I would love you so, love you so much that if you also loved him and continued to love the one whom I don’t know, you still wouldn’t notice that my love is somehow there for you hard. You would only hear, you would only feel every minute that a grateful, grateful heart beats near you, a warm heart that is for you ... Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! What have you done to me! .. - Don't cry, I don't want you to cry, - said Nastenka, quickly getting up from the bench, - come on, get up, come with me, don't cry, don't cry, - - she said, wiping my tears with her handkerchief, - well, let's go now; maybe I’ll tell you something... Yes, since he has left me now, since he has forgotten me, although I still love him (I don’t want to deceive you) ... but, listen, answer me. If, for example, I fell in love with you, that is, if I only ... Oh, my friend, my friend! how will I think, how will I think that I offended you then, that I laughed at your love, when I praised you for not falling in love!.. Oh, God! Yes, how could I not have foreseen this, how could I not have foreseen this, how stupid I was, but... well, well, I made up my mind, I'll tell you everything... "Listen, Nastenka, you know what?" I'm leaving you, that's what! I'm just torturing you. Now you have remorse for what you mocked, but I don't want, Yes, I don't want you, except for your grief. .. Of course, I'm to blame, Nastenka, but goodbye! - Wait, listen to me: can you wait? - What to expect, how? -- I love him; but it will pass, it must pass, it cannot but pass; it’s already passing, I hear ... Who knows, maybe it will end today, because I hate him, because he laughed at me, while you were crying here with me, because you wouldn’t reject me like he did , because you love, but he did not love me, because, finally, I love you myself ... yes, I love you! love how you love me; I told you this myself before, you heard it yourself—because I love you, because you are better than him, because you are nobler than him, because he is... The poor thing's excitement was so great that she did not finish , put her head on my shoulder, then on my chest and wept bitterly. I consoled, persuaded her, but she could not stop; she kept shaking my hand and saying between sobs: “Wait, wait; here I am now! Finally she stopped, wiped away her tears, and we started walking again. I wanted to speak, but for a long time she kept asking me to wait. We fell silent ... At last she gathered her courage and began to speak ... "That's it," she began in a weak and trembling voice, but in which something suddenly rang that pierced right into my heart and sank sweetly into him - do not think that I am so fickle and windy, do not think that I can so easily and soon forget and change ... I loved him for a whole year and I swear to God that I have never, never even thought was unfaithful to him. He despised it; he laughed at me - God bless him! But he hurt me and hurt my heart. I--I don't love him, because I can only love what is magnanimous, what understands me, what is noble; because I myself am like that, and he is not worthy of me - well, God bless him! He did better than when I later deceived my expectations and found out who he was ... Well, it's over! But who knows, my good friend,” she continued, shaking my hand, “who knows, maybe all my love was a delusion of feelings, imagination, maybe it began with pranks, trifles, because I was grandmother's care? Maybe I should love another, and not him, not such a person, another who would take pity on me and, and ... Well, let's leave it, let's leave it, - Nastenka interrupted, choking with excitement, - I only wanted you to say... I wanted to tell you that if, despite the fact that I love him (no, I loved him), if, despite that, you still say. .. if you feel that your love is so great that it can finally force out the former one from My heart... if you want to take pity on me, if you don’t want to leave me alone in my fate, without consolation, without hope, if you want love me always, as you love me now, I swear that gratitude ... that my love will finally be worthy of your love ... Will you now take my hand? “Nastenka,” I shouted, choking with sobs, “Nastenka!.. Oh Nastenka!..—Well, enough, enough! Well, that's quite enough now! she began, hardly overpowering herself, “well, now everything has been said; is not it? So? Well, you are happy, and I am happy; not a word more about it; Wait; spare me ... Talk about something else, for God's sake! .. - Yes, Nastenka, yes! enough about that, now I'm happy, I... Well, Nastenka, well, let's talk about something else, quickly, quickly talk; Yes! I'm ready... And we didn't know what to say, we laughed, we cried, we spoke thousands of words without connection or thought; we walked along the sidewalk, then suddenly turned back and started to cross the street; then they stopped and again crossed to the embankment; we were like children ... - I now live alone, Nastenka, - I began, - and tomorrow ... Well, of course, you know, Nastenka, I am poor, I have only a thousand two hundred, but that's nothing. .. - Of course not, but my grandmother has a pension; so she won't bother us. We need to take grandma. - Of course, you need to take your grandmother ... Only Matryona ... - Oh, and we also have Fekla! - Matryona is kind, only one drawback: she has no imagination, Nastenka, absolutely no imagination; but that's nothing! .. - It's all the same; they both can be together; just move in with us tomorrow. -- Like this? to you! Okay, I'm ready... - Yes, you hire us. We have a mezzanine up there; it is empty; there was a tenant, an old woman, a noblewoman, she moved out. and grandmother, I know, wants young man let; I say: "Why the young man?" And she says: “Yes, I’m already old, but just don’t think, Nastenka, that I want to marry you to him.” I guessed that it was for that ... - Ah, Nastenka! .. And we both laughed. - Well, completeness, completeness. Where do you live? I forgot. -- There , at --sky bridge, in Barannikov's house. - Is this a big house? Yes, such a big house. - Ah, I know. good house; only you, you know, leave him and move in with us as soon as possible ... - Tomorrow , Nastenka, tomorrow; I owe a little for the apartment there, but that's nothing ... I'll get my salary soon ... - Do you know, maybe I'll give lessons; I will learn it myself and will give lessons ... - Well, that's fine ... and I will soon receive an award, Nastenka ... - So tomorrow you will be my tenant ... - Yes, and we will go to " the Barber of Seville," because now they will give him again soon. "Yes, let's go," said Nastenka, laughing, "no, we'd better not listen to The Barber, but something else..." "Very well, something else; of course, it will be better, otherwise I didn’t think ... Saying this, we both walked as if in a haze, in a fog, as if we ourselves did not know what was happening to us. First they stopped and talked for a long time in one place, then again they started walking and went in God knows where, and again laughter, again tears ... Now Nastenka suddenly wants to go home, I don’t dare to hold her back and I want to accompany her to the house; we set off on our journey and suddenly, a quarter of an hour later, we find ourselves on the embankment by our bench. Then she sighs, and again a tear will run into her eyes; I'll be shy, I'll get cold... But she immediately shakes my hand and drags me to walk again, chat, talk... - It's time now, it's time for me to go home; I think it's too late, - said Nastenka at last, - we've got to be so childish! “Yes, Nastenka, but I won’t sleep now; I won't go home. “I don’t seem to be able to sleep either; only you will see me off... - Absolutely! “But now we will certainly reach the apartment. - Definitely, definitely... Honestly.. because you have to come back home someday! "Honestly," I answered laughing... "Well, let's go!" - Let's go. - Look at the sky, Nastenka, look! Tomorrow will be a wonderful day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look: now this yellow cloud is covering it, look, look! .. No, it has passed by. Look, look! .. But Nastenka did not look at the cloud, she stood silently. as dug in; in a minute she began, somehow timidly, to press close to me. Her hand trembled in mine; I looked at her... She leaned on me even more. At that moment a young man walked past us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently, and then again took a few steps. My heart trembled... "Nastenka," I said in an undertone, "who is this, Nastenka?" -- It's him! - she answered in a whisper, even closer, clinging to me even more tremulously ... I could hardly stand on my feet. - Nastenka! Nastenka! it's you! - a voice was heard behind us, and at the same moment the young man took a few steps towards us. God, what a cry! how she shuddered! how she escaped from my hands and fluttered towards him! .. I stood and looked at them like a dead man. But she had hardly given him her hand, had hardly thrown herself into his arms, when suddenly she turned back to me, found herself beside me, like the wind, like lightning, and, before I had time to come to my senses, she clasped my neck with both hands and kissed me hard, passionately. Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed back to him, took his hands and dragged him along. I stood for a long time and looked after them ... Finally, both of them disappeared from my eyes.

Morning

My nights ended in the morning. The day was bad. It was raining and pounding dully on my windows; it was dark in the room, overcast outside. My head was aching and spinning; fever crept over my limbs. “The postman brought a letter to you, father, by the city post,” Matryona said over me. -- Letter! whom? I shouted, jumping up from my chair. - But I don’t know, father, look, maybe it’s written there from whom. I broke the seal. It's from her! “Oh, forgive me, forgive me!” Nastenka wrote to me, “I beg you on my knees, forgive me! I deceived you and myself. .. Don't blame me, because I haven't changed before you in anything; I said that I would love you, and now I love you, more than I love. Oh God! if only I could love you both at the same time! Oh, if if you were him!" "Oh, if it were you!" - flew through my head. I remembered your own words, Nastenka! "God sees what I would do for you now! I know that it is hard and sad for you. I offended you, but you know - if you love, how long do you remember the insult. And you love me! Thank you! Yes! Thank you for this love, because it was imprinted in my memory like a sweet dream that you remember for a long time after waking up, because I will always remember the moment when you so brotherly opened your heart to me and so generously accepted mine, killed, so that it cherish, cherish, heal him ... If you forgive me, then the memory of you will be exalted in me with an eternal, grateful feeling for you, which will never be erased from my soul ... I will keep this memory, I will be faithful to it, not "I will betray her, I will not betray my heart: it is too constant. Only yesterday it returned so soon to the one to which it belonged forever. We will meet, you will come to us, you will not leave us, you will be forever a friend, my brother ... And when you will see me, you will give me your hand, yes you will give it to me, you have forgiven me, haven't you whether? you love me still? Oh, love me, don't leave me, because I love you so much at this moment, because I am worthy of your love, because I will deserve it... my dear friend! I'm marrying him next week. He returned in love, he never forgot about me... You won't be angry because I wrote about him. But I want to come to you with him; you will love him, won't you?.. Forgive me, remember and love your Nastenka". I have been reading this letter for a long time; tears were begging from my eyes. Finally it fell out of my hands and I covered my face. - Kasatik! and a killer whale! Matrena began. - What, old woman? - And I took off all the cobwebs from the ceiling; now at least get married, call guests, so at that time ... I looked at Matryona ... She was still cheerful, young an old woman, but, I don’t know why, suddenly she appeared to me with a dull look, with wrinkles on her face, bent, decrepit ... I don’t know why, it suddenly seemed to me that my room had aged just like the old woman. The walls and floors were stained, everything was dull; cobwebs divorced even more. I don’t know why, when I looked out the window, it seemed to me that the house opposite was also decrepit and dimmed in turn, that the plaster on the columns was peeling and crumbling, that the cornices were blackened and cracked, and the walls of dark yellow bright color they became piebald... Or a ray of the sun, suddenly peeking out from behind a cloud, again hid under a rain cloud, and everything again dimmed in my eyes; or perhaps the whole prospect of my future flashed before me so unwelcomingly and sadly, and I saw myself as I am now, exactly fifteen years later, grown old, in the same room, just as alone, with the same Matryona, who is not at all hasn't mellowed in all these years. But so that I remember my offense, Nastenka! So that I catch up with a dark cloud on your clear, serene happiness, so that I, bitterly reproaching, catch melancholy on your heart, stab it with secret remorse and make it beat sadly in a moment of bliss, so that I crumple at least one of these delicate flowers that you wove into her black curls when she walked with him to the altar ... Oh, never, never! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and serene, may you be blessed for a moment of bliss and happiness that you gave to another, lonely, grateful heart! Oh my God! A whole minute of bliss! Isn't that enough even for the whole human life?

sentimental romance

(From the memories of a dreamer)

Or was it created for
To stay even for a moment.
In the neighborhood of your heart? ..
Iv. Turgenev

night one

It was a wonderful night, such a night, which can only happen when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, such a bright sky, that, looking at it, one could not help asking oneself, can all kinds of angry and capricious people live under such a sky? This is also a young question, dear reader, a very young one, but God bless you more often!.. Speaking of capricious and various angry gentlemen, I could not help but recall my well-behaved behavior all that day. From the very morning some amazing melancholy began to torment me. It suddenly seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, alone, and that everyone was retreating from me. It is, of course, everyone has the right to ask: who are these all? because I have been living in St. Petersburg for eight years already, and I have not been able to make a single acquaintance. But why do I need acquaintances? I already know all of Petersburg; that's why it seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, when all of Petersburg got up and suddenly left for the dacha. I was afraid to be left alone, and for three whole days I wandered around the city in deep anguish, absolutely not understanding what was happening to me. If I go to the Nevsky, if I go to the garden, if I wander along the embankment - not a single person from those whom I am used to meeting in the same place, at a certain hour, for a whole year. They don't know me, of course, but I do know them. I know them briefly; I almost studied their physiognomy - and admire them when they are cheerful, and mope when they are clouded. I almost made friends with an old man whom I meet every single day, at a certain hour, on the Fontanka. The physiognomy is so important, thoughtful; still whispering under his breath and waving his left hand, and in his right he has a long gnarled cane with a gold knob. Even he noticed me and takes a spiritual part in me. If it happens that I am not at the same place of the Fontanka at a certain hour, I am sure that the melancholy will attack him. That's why we sometimes almost bow to each other, especially when both are in good spirits. The other day, when we had not seen each other for two whole days and on the third day we met, we were already there and grabbed our hats, but fortunately we came to our senses in time, lowered our hands and walked beside each other with participation. I also know at home. When I walk, everyone seems to be running ahead of me into the street, looking at me through all the windows and almost saying: "Hello; how are you? And, thank God, I'm healthy, and a floor will be added to me in May." Or: "How are you? And I'm going to be repaired tomorrow." Or: "I almost burned out and, moreover, got scared," etc. Of these, I have favorites, I have short friends; one of them intends to be treated by an architect this summer. I will come in on purpose every day so that they don’t heal somehow, God save it! .. But I will never forget the story with one pretty light pink house. It was such a pretty little stone house, it looked at me so affably, it looked at its clumsy neighbors with such pride that my heart rejoiced when I happened to pass by. Suddenly, last week, I was walking down the street and, as I looked at my friend, I heard a plaintive cry: "They are painting me yellow!" Villains! barbarians! they spared nothing: no columns, no cornices, and my friend turned as yellow as a canary. I almost burst into bile over this occasion, and I still have not been able to see my mutilated poor man, who was painted in the color of the Celestial Empire. So, you understand, reader, how I am familiar with all of Petersburg. I have already said that for three whole days I was tormented by anxiety, until I guessed the reason for it. And in the street it was bad for me (that one is gone, that one is gone, where did such and such go?) - and at home I was not myself. For two evenings I sought: what do I lack in my corner? Why was it so embarrassing to stay there? - and in bewilderment I examined my green smoky walls, the ceiling, hung with cobwebs, which Matryona bred with great success, reviewed all my furniture, examined each chair, thinking, is there a problem here? (because if at least one chair doesn’t stand the way it stood yesterday, then I’m not myself) looked out the window, and it’s all in vain ... it didn’t get any easier! I even took it into my head to call on Matryona and immediately gave her a paternal reprimand for cobwebs and in general for slovenliness; but she only looked at me in surprise and walked away without answering a word, so that the web still hangs safely in place. Finally, only this morning I guessed what was the matter. E! yes, they are running away from me to the dacha! Forgive me for the trivial word, but I was not in the mood for a high style ... because, after all, everything that was in St. Petersburg either moved or moved to the dacha; because every respectable gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab, before my eyes, immediately turned into a respectable father of the family, who, after ordinary official duties, goes light to the bowels of his family, to the dacha, because every passer-by now had a completely special look, which I almost said to everyone I met: "We, gentlemen, are here just like that, in passing, but in two hours we will leave for the dacha." If a window opened, on which at first thin, sugar-white fingers drummed, and the head of a pretty girl stuck out, calling a peddler with pots of flowers, it immediately, immediately seemed to me that these flowers were bought only in this way, that is, not at all for to enjoy spring and flowers in a stuffy city apartment, and that very soon everyone will move to the dacha and take the flowers with them. Moreover, I had already made such a success in my new, special kind of discoveries that I could already unmistakably, by one look, designate in which dacha someone lives. The inhabitants of the Kamenny and Aptekarsky islands or the Peterhof road were distinguished by the studied elegance of receptions, smart summer suits and excellent carriages in which they arrived in the mountains. the visitor to Krestovsky Island was notable for his imperturbably cheerful look. Did I manage to meet a long procession of draft cabs lazily walking with reins in their hands near carts loaded with whole mountains of all kinds of furniture, tables, chairs, Turkish and non-Turkish sofas and other household belongings, on which, in addition to all this, she often sat on the very top a wagon, a generous cook who cherishes the master's goods like the apple of her eye; if I looked at the boats, heavily loaded with household utensils, gliding along the Neva or the Fontanka, to the Black River or the islands, the carts and boats were multiplied ten, lost in my eyes; it seemed that everything had risen and gone, everything was moving in whole caravans to the dacha; it seemed that all of Petersburg was threatening to turn into a desert, so that at last I felt ashamed, offended and sad: I had absolutely nowhere and no reason to go to the dacha. I was ready to leave with every cart, to leave with every gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab; but no one, decidedly no one, invited me; as if they had forgotten me, as if I really were a stranger to them! I walked a lot and for a long time, so that I was already quite in time, as usual; forget where I am, when suddenly I found myself at the outpost. In an instant, I felt cheerful, and I stepped behind the barrier, went between the sown fields and meadows, did not hear fatigue, but felt only with my whole body that some kind of burden was falling from my soul. All the passers-by looked at me so amiably that they almost bowed resolutely; everyone was so excited about something, every single one was smoking cigars. And I was glad, as never happened to me before. It was as if I had suddenly found myself in Italy, so much nature struck me, a half-sick city dweller who almost suffocated in the city walls. There is something inexplicably touching in our St. Petersburg nature, when, with the onset of spring, it suddenly shows all its power, all the powers bestowed on it by heaven will be downy, discharged, full of flowers ... Somehow, involuntarily, she reminds me of that stunted girl and an ailment at which you sometimes look with pity, sometimes with a kind of compassionate love, sometimes you simply do not notice it, but which suddenly, for a moment, somehow inadvertently becomes inexplicably, wonderfully beautiful, and you are amazed, intoxicated, involuntarily you ask yourself: what force made these sad, thoughtful eyes shine with such fire? what caused the blood on those pale, emaciated cheeks? what poured passion over these tender features? Why is this chest heaving? what so suddenly called strength, life and beauty into the face of the poor girl, made him shine with such a smile, perk up with such sparkling, sparkling laughter? You look around, you are looking for someone, you guess ... But the moment passes, and perhaps tomorrow you will meet again the same thoughtful and absent-minded look as before, the same pale face, the same humility and timidity. in movements and even remorse, even traces of some kind of deadly longing and annoyance at a moment's infatuation ... And it's a pity for you that so soon, so irrevocably withered instant beauty, that it flashed so deceptively and in vain in front of you - it's a pity because that you didn’t even have time to love her ... But all the same, my night was better than the day! Here's how it was: I came back to the city very late, and ten o'clock had already struck when I began to approach the apartment. My road went along the embankment of the canal, on which at this hour you will not meet a living soul. True, I live in the remotest part of the city. I walked and sang, because when I am happy, I certainly purr something to myself, like every happy person who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has no one to share his joy with. Suddenly, the most unexpected adventure happened to me. Off to the side, leaning against the railing of the canal, stood a woman; leaning on the grating, she seemed to be looking very attentively at the muddy water of the canal. She was dressed in a pretty yellow hat and a coquettish black cloak. "She's a girl, and certainly a brunette," I thought. She didn't seem to hear my footsteps, she didn't even move when I walked by, holding my breath and with a beating heart. "Strange! - I thought, - it's true, she was very thoughtful about something," and suddenly I stopped in my tracks. I heard a dull sob. Yes! I was not deceived: the girl was crying, and a minute later more and more sobbing. Oh my God! My heart sank. And no matter how timid I am with women, it was such a moment!... I turned back, stepped towards her, and would certainly have said: "Madame!" - if only I didn’t know that this exclamation has already been uttered a thousand times in all Russian high-society novels. This one stopped me. But while I was looking for a word, the girl woke up, looked around, caught herself, looked down and glided past me along the embankment. I immediately followed her, but she guessed it, left the embankment, crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk. I didn't dare to cross the street. My heart fluttered like a captured bird. Suddenly one incident came to my aid. On the other side of the pavement, not far from my stranger, suddenly appeared a gentleman in a tailcoat, of respectable years, but one cannot say , to a solid gait. He walked, staggering and carefully leaning against the wall. The girl, however, walked like an arrow, hastily and timidly, as all girls generally walk who do not want anyone to volunteer to accompany them home at night, and, of course, the swaying gentleman would never have caught up with her if my fate had not advised him to look for artificial means. Suddenly, without saying a word to anyone, my master takes off and flies at full speed, running, catching up with my stranger. She walked like the wind, but the swaying gentleman overtook, overtook, the girl screamed - and ... I bless fate for the excellent gnarled stick that happened this time in my right hand. I instantly found myself on the other side of the pavement, instantly the uninvited gentleman understood what was the matter, took into consideration an irresistible reason, fell silent, lagged behind, and only when we were already very far away, protested against me in rather energetic terms. But his words barely reached us. “Give me your hand,” I said to my stranger, “and he will not dare to pester us anymore. She silently offered me her hand, which was still trembling with excitement and fright. O uninvited master! how I blessed you at this moment! I glanced at her: she was pretty and brunette - I guessed it; on her black eyelashes, tears of recent fright or former grief still glistened - I don’t know. But there was a smile on her lips. She, too, glanced at me furtively, blushed a little and looked down. "See, why did you drive me away then?" If I had been here, nothing would have happened... - But I didn't know you: I thought that you too... - Do you know me now? - A little bit. For example, why are you trembling? Oh, you guessed right the first time! - I answered in delight that my girlfriend is smart: this never interferes with beauty. - Yes, you guessed at a glance who you are dealing with. Exactly, I'm timid with women, I'm agitated, I don't argue, no less than you were a minute ago, when this gentleman frightened you ... I'm in some kind of fright now. Like a dream, and even in my sleep I did not guess that I would ever talk to at least some woman. -- As? really? .. - Yes, if my hand trembles, it is because it has never been clasped by such a pretty little hand as yours. I'm completely out of the habit of women; that is, I never got used to them; I'm alone... I don't even know how to talk to them. Even now I don't know - did I say something stupid to you? Tell me straight; I warn you, I'm not touchy... - No, nothing, nothing; against. And if you already demand that I be frank, then I will tell you that women like such timidity; and if you want to know more, then I like her too, and I will not drive you away from me to the house. - You will do with me, - I began, choking with delight, - that I will immediately cease to be shy, and then - forgive all my means! .. - Means? what means for what? this is really stupid. - I'm sorry, I won't, it broke from my tongue; but how do you want that at such a moment there was no desire ... - To please, or what? -- Well, yes; Yes, please, for God's sake, please. Judge who I am! After all, I'm twenty-six years old, and I've never seen anyone. Well, how can I speak well, deftly and appropriately? It will be more profitable for you when everything is open, outward... I cannot be silent when my heart speaks in me. Well, it doesn't matter... Believe me, not a single woman, never, never! No dating! and I only dream every day that finally someday I will meet someone. Ah, if you only knew how many times I have been in love in this way!.. - But how, with whom? I create entire novels in my dreams. Oh, you don't know me! True, it is impossible without that, I have met two or three women, but what kind of women are they? they are all such mistresses that ... But I will make you laugh, I will tell you that several times I thought of talking, so easily, with some aristocrat on the street, of course, when she is alone; speak, of course, timidly, respectfully, passionately; to say that I am dying alone, so that she does not drive me away, that there is no way to recognize at least some woman; to convince her that even in the duties of a woman it is not to reject the timid entreaty of such an unfortunate man as myself. That, finally, and all that I demand is only to say to me some two brotherly words, with participation, not to drive me away from the first step, take my word for it, listen to what I say, you have to laugh reassure me, if you like, tell me two words, only two words, then even though we never meet! .. But you laugh ... However, that's why I say ... - Do not be annoyed; I laugh at the fact that you are your own enemy, and if you had tried, you would have succeeded, perhaps even if it were on the street; the simpler, the better... No kind woman, unless she is stupid or especially angry at something at that moment, would dare to send you away without these two words that you so timidly implore... However, what am I! Of course, I would take you for a madman. I judged by myself. I myself know a lot about how people live in the world! "Oh, thank you," I cried, "you don't know what you've done for me now!" -- Good good! But tell me, why did you know that I was such a woman with whom ... well, whom you considered worthy ... of attention and friendship ... in a word, not a hostess, as you call it. Why did you decide to come to me? -- Why? why? But you were alone, that gentleman was too bold, now it's night: you yourself will agree that this is a duty ... - No, no, even before, there, on the other side. You wanted to come to me, didn't you? - There, on the other side? But I really don't know how to answer; I'm afraid... You know, I was happy today; I walked, I sang; I was out of town; I have never had such happy moments. You... I may have thought... Well, forgive me if I remind you: I thought you were crying, and I... I couldn't hear it... my heart sank... Oh , Oh my God! Well, couldn't I have yearned for you? Was it really a sin to feel fraternal compassion for you? .. Excuse me, I said compassion ... Well, yes, in a word, could I really offend you by involuntarily taking it into my head to approach you? .. - Leave, enough, don't talk..." said the girl, looking down and squeezing my hand. “It’s my own fault for talking about it; but I'm glad I didn't mistake you... but now I'm at home; I need here, in the alley; there are two steps ... Farewell, thank you ... - So, really, really, we will never see each other again? .. Is it really going to remain so? “You see,” the girl said, laughing, “at first you wanted only two words, but now ... But, however, I won’t tell you anything ... Maybe we’ll meet ... - I’ll come here tomorrow,” I said. - Oh, forgive me, I'm already demanding ... - Yes, you are impatient ... you are almost demanding ... - Listen, listen! I interrupted her. "Forgive me if I say something like that again... But here's the thing: I can't help but come here tomorrow." I'm a dreamer; I have so little real life that I consider such moments as this, as now, so rare that I cannot help but repeat these moments in my dreams. I dream about you all night, all week, all year. I will certainly come here tomorrow, exactly here, to the same place, exactly at this hour, and I will be happy, remembering yesterday. This place is nice to me. I already have two or three such places in St. Petersburg. I even once wept at the recollection, just like you... Who knows, perhaps ten minutes ago you, too, wept at the recollection. .. But forgive me, I forgot myself again; you may have been especially happy here sometime. "Very well," said the girl, "I think I'll come here tomorrow, also at ten o'clock." I see that I can no longer forbid you ... Here's the thing, I need to be here; don't think that I'm making an appointment with you; I'm warning you, I need to be here for myself. But... well, I'll tell you straight out: it won't matter if you come too; in the first place, there may be troubles again, as today, but that is aside... in a word, I would just like to see you... to say two words to you. Only, you see, you won't judge me now? don't think that I make appointments so easily... I would have made an appointment if only... But let it be my secret! Only forward agreement ... - Agreement! say, say, say everything in advance; I agree to everything, I’m ready for anything,” I cried in delight, “I’m responsible for myself—I’ll be obedient, respectful… you know me…” Precisely because I know you, and I invite you tomorrow ' said the girl, laughing. “I know you perfectly. But, look, come with a condition; firstly (only be kind, do what I ask - you see, I speak frankly), do not fall in love with me ... This is impossible, I assure you. I am ready for friendship, here is my hand for you ... But you can’t fall in love, I beg you! "I swear to you," I shouted, seizing her pen... Don't judge me if I say so. If you only knew... I also don't have anyone with whom I could say a word, who could I ask for advice. Of course, it’s not to look for advisers on the street, but you are an exception. I know you as if we had been friends for twenty years... Isn't it true, you won't change? - Sleep soundly; good night - and remember that I have already entrusted myself to you. But you exclaimed so well just now: Is it really possible to give an account of every feeling, even of brotherly sympathy! Do you know, it was so well said that I immediately thought of trusting you... - For God's sake, but in what? what? -- Till tomorrow. Let it be a secret for now. So much the better for you; even if it looks like a novel. Maybe I'll tell you tomorrow, maybe not... I'll talk to you beforehand, we'll get to know each other better... - Oh, yes, I'll tell you everything about myself tomorrow! But what is it? as if a miracle is happening to me ... Where am I, my God? Well, tell me, are you really unhappy that you didn’t get angry, as another would have done, didn’t drive me away at the very beginning? Two minutes and you have made me happy forever. Yes! happy; Who knows, maybe you have reconciled me with yourself, resolved my doubts... Maybe such moments come over me... Well, yes, I'll tell you everything tomorrow, you'll find out everything, everything... accept; you will begin ... - I agree. -- Goodbye! -- Goodbye! And we broke up. I walked all night; I could not bring myself to return home. I was so happy... see you tomorrow!

Night two

Well, here we are! she said to me, laughing and shaking both my hands. - I've been here for two hours; you don't know what happened to me all day! “I know, I know… but to the point. Do you know why I came? It's not nonsense to talk like yesterday. Here's the thing: we need to move forward smarter. I thought about this for a long time yesterday. - In what, in what to be smarter? For my part, I'm ready; but, really, in my life nothing smarter happened to me than now. -- Indeed? First, I beg you, do not press my hands like that; secondly, I announce to you that I have been thinking about you for a long time today. - Well, what was the end of it? -- How did it end? I ended up having to start all over again, because in conclusion of everything I decided today that you are still completely unknown to me, that yesterday I acted like a child, like a girl, and, of course, it turned out that my good heart was to blame for everything, then there, I praised myself, as it always ends when we begin to sort out our own. And therefore, in order to correct the mistake, I decided to find out about you in the most detailed way. But since there is no one to find out about you, then you yourself must tell me everything, all the ins and outs. Well, what kind of person are you? Hurry up - start the same, tell your story. -- History! - I shouted, frightened, - a story !! But who told you that I have my story? I have no history ... - So how did you live, if there is no history? she interrupted, laughing. - Completely without any stories! so, he lived, as we say, on his own, that is, one completely, - one, one completely - do you understand what one is? - How about one? So you never saw anyone? “Oh no, I see something, but still I am alone. "Well, aren't you talking to anyone?" - In the strict sense, with no one. - But who are you, explain yourself! Wait, I guess: you must have a grandmother, just like me. She is blind and has not let me go anywhere for a whole life, so I have almost forgotten how to speak completely. And when I played a trick two years ago, she sees that you can’t hold me back, she took me and called me and pinned my dress to hers with a pin - and since then we have been sitting for whole days; she knits a stocking, though she is blind; and I sit beside her, read or read a book aloud to her - such a strange custom that I've been pinned for two years now ... - Oh, my God, what a misfortune! No, I don't have such a grandmother. - And if not, since you can sit at home? .. - Listen, you want to know who I am? -- Well, yes, yes! - In the strict sense of the word? "In the strictest sense of the word!" - Excuse me, I'm a type. - Type, type! what type?” the girl screamed, laughing as if she had not been able to laugh for a whole year. - Yes, it's fun with you! Look: there is a bench here; let's sit down! No one walks here, no one will hear us, and - start your story! because, you will not assure me, you have a story, and you are only hiding. First, what is a type? -- Type of? the type is the original, this is such a funny person! I replied, laughing myself at her childish laughter. - It's such a character. Listen: do you know what a dreamer is? - Dreamer? Excuse me, how can you not know? I'm a dreamer myself! Sometimes you sit next to your grandmother and something will not enter your head. Well, then you start dreaming, and then you think about it - well, I’m just marrying a Chinese prince ... But it’s good to dream another time! No, but God knows! Especially if there is something to think about even without it,” the girl added, this time quite seriously. -- Excellent! Since you once married a Chinese Bogdykhan, then you will completely understand me. Well, listen... But allow me: I don't know your name yet, do I? -- Finally! remembered early! -- Oh my god! Yes, it didn’t even occur to me, I felt so good ... - My name is - Nastenka. - Nastenka! only? -- Only! Is it not enough for you, you insatiable kind! - Not enough? Many, many, on the contrary, very much, Nastenka, you are a kind girl, if from the first time you became Nastenka for me! -- That's it! well! - Well, here, Nastenka, listen, what a funny story is coming out here. I sat down beside her, assumed a pedantically serious pose, and began as if in writing: “Yes, Nastenka, if you don’t know it, there are rather strange corners in St. Petersburg. It is as if the same sun that shines for all Petersburg people does not look into these places, but some other, new one, as if specially ordered for these corners, and shines on everything with a different, special light. In these corners, dear Nastenka, it seems as if a completely different life is surviving, not like the one that boils around us, but one that can be in the thirty-first unknown kingdom, and not here, in our serious, serious time. It is this life that is a mixture of something purely fantastic, ardently ideal, and at the same time (alas, Nastenka!) dull prosaic and ordinary, not to say: improbably vulgar. -- Ugh! Oh my God! what a preface! What is it that I hear? - You will hear, Nastenka (it seems to me that I will never get tired of calling you Nastenka), you will hear that strange people live in these corners - dreamers Dreamer - if you need a detailed definition - not a person, but, you know, what something of a middle class. He settles for the most part somewhere in impregnable m corner, as if hiding in it even from daylight, and if it climbs up to itself, it will grow to its corner like a snail, or, at least, it is very similar in this respect to that entertaining animal, which is both an animal and house together, which is called a turtle. Why do you think he loves his four walls so much, painted with green paint, smoky, dull and inadmissibly stoned? Why is this ridiculous gentleman when one of his rare acquaintances comes to visit him (and he ends up with all his acquaintances being translated), why does this ridiculous man meet him, so embarrassed, so changed in his face and in such confusion, as as if he had just committed a crime within his four walls, as if he had fabricated fake papers or some kind of rhyme to send to a magazine with an anonymous letter in which it was indicated that the real poet had already died and that his friend considered it a sacred duty to publish his verses? Why tell me, Nastenka, the conversation does not fit in between these two interlocutors? why neither laughter nor any brisk word escapes from the tongue of a friend who suddenly enters and is perplexed, who otherwise loves laughter very much , and a lively word, and talk about a beautiful field, and other cheerful topics? Why, finally, is this friend, probably a recent acquaintance, and at the first visit - because in this case there will be no second and the friend will not come another time - why does the friend himself become so embarrassed, so stiff, with all his wit (if only he has it), looking at the upturned face of the owner, who, in turn, has already completely lost himself and lost his last sense after gigantic, but futile efforts to smooth and brighten the conversation, to show on his part the knowledge of secularism, also to talk about the beautiful field, and at least with such humility to please the poor, the wrong person who, by mistake, came to visit him? Why, finally, does the guest suddenly grab his hat and quickly leave, suddenly remembering a self-important business that never happened, and somehow freeing his hand from the host’s hot shaking, trying in every possible way to show his repentance and correct what was lost? Why does the departing friend laugh, going out the door, immediately swears to himself never to come to this eccentric, although this eccentric is in essence an excellent fellow, and at the same time he can in no way refuse his imagination a small whim: to compare, even remote Thus, the physiognomy of his recent interlocutor during the entire meeting with the appearance of that unfortunate kitten, who was crushed, frightened and offended in every possible way by the children, treacherously capturing him, embarrassed into dust, which finally huddled under their chair, into the darkness, and there for a whole hour at leisure forced to bristle, snort and wash his offended stigma with both paws and long after that look with hostility at nature and life, and even at the sop from the master's dinner, which the compassionate housekeeper has in store for him? “Listen,” interrupted Nastenka, who had been listening to me all the time in surprise, opening her eyes and mouth, “listen: I don’t know at all why all this happened and why exactly you are asking me such ridiculous questions; but what I know for sure is that all these adventures happened to you without fail, from word to word. “Without a doubt,” I replied with the most serious air. “Well, if there is no doubt, then go on,” Nastenka answered, “because I really want to know how it will end.” - You want to know, Nastenka, what our hero, or, better, I, did in my corner, because the hero of the whole thing is I, my own modest person; do you want to know why I was so alarmed and lost for a whole day from an unexpected visit from a friend? Do you want to know why I fluttered so much, blushed so much when they opened the door to my room, why I did not know how to receive a guest and died so shamefully under the weight of my own hospitality? -- Well, yes, yes! - answered Nastenka, - that's the point. Listen: you tell a great story, but is it possible to tell it somehow not so beautifully? And then you say you're reading a book. - Nastenka! I answered in an important and stern voice, barely able to restrain myself from laughing, “dear Nastenka, I know that I am telling the story perfectly, but it’s my fault, otherwise I don’t know how to tell. Now, dear Nastenka, now he looks like the spirit of King Solomon, who was in a capsule for a thousand years, under seven seals, and from whom all these seven seals were finally removed. Now, dear Nastenka, when we met again after such a long separation, because I have known you for a long time, Nastenka, because I have been looking for someone for a long time, and this is a sign that I was looking for you and that we were destined now see each other - now thousands of valves have opened in my head, and I must spill a river of words, otherwise I will suffocate. So, I ask you not to interrupt me, Nastenka, but to listen humbly and obediently; otherwise, I will shut up. - No-no-no! no way! speak! Now I won't say a word. - I continue: there is, my friend Nastenka, in my day one hour, which I love extremely. This is the very hour when almost all business, positions and obligations end, and everyone rushes home to dine, lie down to rest and right there, on the road, invent other funny topics relating to the evening, night and all the remaining free time. At this hour, our hero too - because let me, Nastenka, tell in the third person, because in the first person it’s terribly embarrassing to tell all this - so, at this hour, our hero, who was also not idle , follows the others. But a strange feeling of pleasure plays on his pale, somewhat crumpled face. He looks indifferently at the evening dawn, which is slowly fading in the cold Petersburg sky. When I say he’s looking, I’m lying: he doesn’t look, but he contemplates somehow unconsciously, as if tired or at the same time occupied with some other, more interesting subject, so that only briefly, almost involuntarily, can make time for everything around you. He is satisfied, because he has done away with annoying things for him until tomorrow. affairs, and glad, like a schoolboy who was released from the classroom to his favorite games and pranks. Look at him from the side, Nastenka: you will immediately see that a joyful feeling has already had a happy effect on his weak nerves and painfully irritated fantasy. Here he is thinking about something ... Do you think about dinner? about tonight? What is he looking at? Was it this gentleman of respectable appearance, who bowed so picturesquely to a lady who rode past him on roaring horses in a shiny carriage? No, Nastenka, what does he care about all this trifle now! He is now rich its special life; he somehow suddenly became rich, and it was not in vain that the parting ray of the fading sun flashed before him so cheerfully and evoked a whole swarm of impressions from his warmed heart. Now he barely notices the road on which before the smallest trifle could hit him. Now the “goddess of fantasy” (if you have read Zhukovsky, dear Nastenka) has already woven her golden base with a whimsical hand and has gone to develop patterns of an unprecedented, bizarre life in front of him - and, who knows, maybe she has transferred him with a whimsical hand to the seventh crystal sky from an excellent granite pavement along which he walks home. Try to stop him now, ask him suddenly: where is he standing now, what streets did he walk along? - he probably would not remember anything, neither where he went, nor where he stood now, and, blushing with annoyance, he would certainly lie something to save decency. That is why he was so startled, almost screamed, and looked around with fright, when a very respectable old woman politely stopped him in the middle of the sidewalk and began to question him about the road she had lost. Frowning with annoyance, he walks on, hardly noticing that more than one passerby smiled, looking at him, and turned after him, and that some little girl, timidly making way for him, laughed loudly, looking with all her eyes at his wide contemplative smile. and hand gestures. But all the same fantasy picked up on its playful flight both the old woman, and curious passers-by, and the laughing girl, and the peasants, who immediately dine on their barges, which flooded the Fontanka (we suppose that at that time our hero was passing through it) playfully killed everyone and everything in its own canvas, like flies in a cobweb, and with a new acquisition, the eccentric has already entered his pleasant hole, has already sat down to dinner, had already dined for a long time and woke up only when the thoughtful and eternally sad Matryona, who serves him, had already cleaned everything from the table and handed him the receiver, woke up and was surprised to remember that he had already completely dined, resolutely overlooking how it happened. The room grew dark; his soul is empty and sad; a whole realm of dreams collapsed around him, collapsed without a trace, without noise or crackle, passed like a dream, and he himself does not remember what he was dreaming about. But some dark sensation, from which his chest aches and agitates a little, some new desire seductively tickles and irritates his imagination and imperceptibly summons a whole swarm of new ghosts. Silence reigns in the small room; solitude and laziness cherish the imagination; it ignites slightly, boils slightly, like the water in the coffee pot of old Matryona, who is serenely fumbling around in the kitchen, preparing her cook's coffee. Now it is already slightly breaking through with flashes, now the book, taken without purpose and at random, falls out of the hands of my dreamer, who did not even reach the third page. His imagination was again attuned, excited, and suddenly again a new world, a new, charming life flashed before him in its brilliant perspective. New dream - new happiness! A new technique of refined, voluptuous poison! Oh, what is he in our real life. In his bribed look, you and I, Nastenka, live so lazily, slowly, listlessly; in his opinion, we are all so dissatisfied with our fate, we are so languishing with our lives! And really, look, really, how at first glance everything between us is cold, gloomy, as if angry ... "Poor!" thinks my dreamer. And no wonder what he thinks! Look at these magical ghosts, which are so charmingly, so whimsically, so boundlessly and widely formed in front of him in such a magical, animated picture, where in the foreground, the first person, of course, is himself, our dreamer, his dear person. See what a variety of adventures, what an endless swarm of Rapturous Dreams. You may ask, what does he dream about? Why ask! yes about everything ... about the role of the poet, at first not recognized, and then crowned; about friendship with Hoffmann; St. Bartholomew's Night, Diana Vernon, a heroic role during the capture of Kazan by Ivan Vasilyevich, Clara Movbrai, Evfiya Dens, the cathedral of prelates and Gus in front of them, the uprising of the dead in "Robert" (remember the music? It smells like a cemetery!), Minna and Brenda, the battle of the Berezina, reading a poem at the countess V-d-d-d, Danton, Cleopatra e i suoi amanti [and her lovers (Italian) ], a house in Kolomna, its own corner, and next to it is a sweet creature that listens to you on a winter evening, opening its mouth and eyes, how you listen to me now, my little angel ... No, Nastenka, what is he, what is he, a voluptuous sloth , in the life in which we so want to be with you? he thinks that this is a poor, miserable life, not foreseeing that for him, perhaps, someday a sad hour will strike, when in one day of this miserable life he will give up all his fantastic years, and yet not for joy, not for happiness will give, and will not want to choose at that hour of sadness, remorse and unrequited grief. But while it has not yet come, this terrible time - he does not want anything, because he is above desires, because everything is with him, because he is satiated, because he himself is the artist of his life and creates it for himself every hour in a new way. arbitrariness. And it's so easy, so naturally this fabulous, fantastic world is created! It's like it's not really a ghost! Indeed, I am ready to believe at some moment that all this life is not an arousal of feelings, not a mirage, not a deception of the imagination, but that it is indeed real, real, existing! Why, tell me, Nastenka, why is the spirit embarrassed at such moments? Why, then, by some magic, by some unknown arbitrariness, does the pulse accelerate, tears spurt from the eyes of the dreamer, his pale, moistened cheeks burn, and his whole existence is filled with such irresistible joy? Why, then, whole sleepless nights pass like one moment, in inexhaustible joy and happiness, and when the dawn flashes a pink beam through the windows and the dawn illuminates the gloomy room with its dubious fantastic light, as here in St. Petersburg, our dreamer, tired, exhausted, rushes to bed and falls asleep in rapture from the delight of his painfully shaken spirit and with such languishingly sweet pain in his heart? Yes, Nastenka, you will be deceived and you will involuntarily believe in a stranger that a real, true passion excites his soul, you will involuntarily believe that there is a living, tangible in his incorporeal dreams! And after all, what a deceit - here, for example, love descended into his chest with all inexhaustible joy, with all tormenting torments ... Just look at him and be convinced! Looking at him, dear Nastenka, do you believe that he really never knew the one he loved so much in his frenzied dream? Did he only see her in some seductive phantoms and only dreamed of this passion? Didn't they really go hand in hand for so many years of their lives - alone, together, discarding the whole world and uniting each of their worlds, their lives with the life of a friend? Was it really not she, at a late hour, when parting came, was not she lying, weeping and longing, on his chest, not hearing the storm that broke out under the harsh sky, not hearing the wind that plucked and carried away the tears from her black eyelashes? Was it really all a dream - and this garden, dull, abandoned and wild, with paths overgrown with moss, solitary, gloomy, where they so often walked together, hoped, yearned, loved, loved each other for so long, "for so long and gently"! And this strange, great-grandfather's house, in which she lived solitarily and sadly for so long with her old, gloomy husband, eternally silent and bilious, frightening them, timid, like children, sadly and timidly concealing their love from each other? How they suffered, how they feared, how innocent and pure their love was, and how (of course, Nastenka) evil people were! And, my God, did he really not meet her later, far from the shores of his homeland, under a foreign sky, midday, hot, in a wondrous eternal city, in the splendor of a ball, with the thunder of music, in a palazzo (certainly in a palazzo), drowned in the sea , lights, on this balcony twined with myrtle and roses, where, recognizing him, she so hastily removed her mask and, whispering: "I am free", trembling, threw herself into his arms, and, crying out with delight, clinging to each other, in an instant they forgot both grief, and separation, and all the torments, and a gloomy house, and an old man, and a gloomy garden in a distant homeland, and a bench on which, with a last passionate kiss, she escaped from his arms, numb in desperate anguish. .. Oh, you must admit, Nastenka, that you will flutter, be embarrassed and blush, like a schoolboy who has just stuffed an apple stolen from a neighboring garden into his pocket, when some tall, healthy guy, a merry fellow and a joker, your uninvited friend, opens your door and shout, as if nothing had happened: "And I, brother, this minute from Pavlovsk a!" Oh my God! the old count is dead, indescribable happiness is setting in - here people come from Pavlovsk! I fell silent pathetically, having finished my pathetic exclamations. I remember that I wanted terribly to laugh out loud somehow, because I already felt that some kind of hostile demon was stirring in me, that my throat was already beginning to seize, my chin was twitching, and that my eyes were becoming more and more moist ... I expected that Nastenka, who was listening to me, opening her intelligent eyes, would burst out laughing with all her childish, irresistibly merry laughter, and I already repented that I had gone far, that in vain I had told what had long been boiling in my heart, about which I could speak as if it were written, because I had long ago prepared a sentence on myself, and now I could not resist reading it, confessing, not expecting to be understood; but, to my astonishment, she said nothing, after a while she lightly shook my hand, and with a kind of timid concern asked: “Have you really lived like this all your life?” “All my life, Nastenka,” I answered, “all my life, and it seems that I will end up like that!” “No, that cannot be,” she said uneasily, “that will not happen; so, perhaps, I will live all my life near my grandmother. Listen, do you know that it's not good to live like this at all? - I know, Nastenka, I know! I cried, no longer holding back my feelings. “And now I know more than ever that I have wasted all my best years!” Now I know this, and I feel more painful from such a consciousness, because God himself sent you to me, my good angel, to tell me this and prove it. Now, when I sit beside you and talk to you, I'm already afraid to think about the future, because in the future - again loneliness again this musty, unnecessary life; and what will I dream of when I was already so happy in reality beside you! Oh, be blessed, you, dear girl, for not rejecting me the first time, for the fact that I can already say that I lived at least two evenings in my life! - Oh, no, no! cried Nastenka, and tears glittered in her eyes, “no, it won’t be like that again; we won't be separated! What are two evenings! - Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! Do you know how long you have reconciled me to myself? do you know that now I will no longer think of myself as badly as I thought at other moments? Do you know that perhaps I will no longer grieve that I have done crime and sin in my life, because such a life is crime and sin? And don't think that I'm exaggerating anything for you, for God's sake, don't think that, Nastenka, because sometimes moments of such melancholy, such melancholy come over me... able to begin to live a real life; because it already seemed to me that I had lost all tact, all instinct in the present, the real; because at last I cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights, moments of sobering up are already coming over me, which are terrible. Meanwhile, you hear how the human crowd rumbles around you and spins in the whirlwind of life, you hear, you see how people live, they live in reality, you see that life is for them not ordered, that their life will not fly apart, like a dream, like a vision, that their life is eternally renewing, eternally young and not a single hour of it is like another, while dull and vulgarly monotonous is a fearful fantasy, a slave of a shadow, an idea, a slave of the first a cloud that the sun will suddenly cover and compress with anguish the real St. Petersburg heart, which so cherishes its sun - and what a fantasy in anguish! You feel that she is finally tired, exhausted in eternal tension, this inexhaustible a fantasy, because after all, you are maturing, you are surviving from your former ideals: they are shattered into dust into fragments; if there is no other life, then one has to build it from the same fragments. Meanwhile, the soul asks and wants something else And in vain the dreamer rummages, as in ashes, in his old dreams, looking for at least some spark in this ashes in order to inflate it, to warm the cold heart with renewed fire and resurrect everything in it again. that used to be so sweet, that touched the soul, that boiled the blood, that pulled tears from the eyes and deceived so luxuriously! Do you know, Nastenka, what I have come to? Do you know that I am already forced to celebrate the anniversary of my sensations, the anniversary of what used to be so sweet, which in essence never happened - because this anniversary is still celebrated according to the same stupid, incorporeal dreams - and to do this, because there are no such stupid dreams, because there is nothing to survive them: after all, even dreams survive! Do you know that I now love to remember and visit at a certain time those places where I was once happy in my own way, I love to build my present in harmony with the already irretrievably past and often wander like a shadow, needlessly and without purpose, dejectedly and sadly to St. Petersburg back streets and streets. What memories! I recall, for example, that here exactly a year ago, at exactly the same time, at the same hour, I wandered along the same sidewalk just as lonely, just as depressingly as now! And you remember that even then the dreams were sad, and although it was no better before, you still somehow feel that it was easier and more peaceful to live, that there was no this black thought that has now become attached to me; that there were no these remorse of conscience, remorse gloomy, gloomy, which neither day nor night now do not give rest. And you ask yourself: where are your dreams? and you shake your head, you say: how quickly the years fly by! And again you ask yourself: what have you done with your years? where did you bury your best time? Did you live or not? Look, you say to yourself, look how cold the world is getting. Years will pass, and gloomy loneliness will come after them, shaking old age will come with a stick, followed by melancholy and despondency. Your fantasy world will turn pale, your dreams will fade, your dreams will fade and crumble like yellow leaves from trees... Oh, Nastenka! after all, it would be sad to remain alone, completely alone, and not even have anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing ... because everything that you lost, all this, everything was nothing, stupid, round zero, it was just a dream! "Well, don't pity me any more!" - said Nastenka, wiping away a tear that rolled out of her eyes. - Now it's over! Now we'll be together; now, whatever happens to me, we will never part. Listen. I am a simple girl, I studied little, although my grandmother hired a teacher for me; but, really, I understand you, because everything that you have told me now, I have already lived through myself when my grandmother pinned me to the dress. Of course, I wouldn’t have told it as well as you did, I didn’t study,” she added timidly, because she still felt some respect for my pathetic speech and for my high style, “but I’m very glad that you have completely opened up to me. Now I know you, absolutely, I know everything. And you know what? I want to tell you my story, all without concealment, and after that you will give me advice. You are a very smart person; do you promise that you will give me this advice? “Ah, Nastenka,” I replied, “although I have never been an adviser, and even more so a smart adviser, but now I see that if we always live like this, then it will be somehow very smart and every friend a friend gives a lot of smart advice! Well, my pretty Nastenka, what advice do you have? Speak directly to me; I am now so cheerful, happy, brave and smart that I can’t reach into my pocket for a word. -- No no! - interrupted Nastenka, laughing, - I need more than one smart advice, I need advice from the heart, brotherly, as if you had loved me for a century! - It's coming, Nastenka, it's coming! I shouted in delight, “and if I had loved you for twenty years, I still wouldn’t love you more than I do now!” - Your hand! - said Nastenka. -- There she is! I answered, offering her my hand. So let's start my story!

HISTORY OF NASTENKA

You already know half of the story, that is, you know that I have an old grandmother ... - If the other half is as short as this one ... - I interrupted, laughing. - Shut up and listen. First of all, an agreement: do not interrupt me, otherwise I will probably go astray. Well, listen quietly. I have an old grandmother. I came to her as a very young girl, because both my mother and father died. One must think that grandmother used to be richer, because even now she remembers better days. She taught me French and then hired me a teacher. When I was fifteen years old (and now I'm seventeen), we finished studying. It was at this time that I messed up; so what have I done -- I won't tell you; enough that the offense was small. Only my grandmother called me to her one morning and said that since she was blind, she would not look after me, she took a pin and pinned my dress to hers, and then she said that we would sit like that all our lives, if, of course, I won't get better. In a word, at first it was impossible to move away: work, and read, and study - everything is near grandmother. I tried to cheat once and persuaded Fekla to sit in my place. Thekla is our worker, she is deaf. Thekla sat down instead of me; grandmother fell asleep in armchairs at that time, and I went not far to my friend. Well , it ended badly. Grandmother woke up without me and asked about something, thinking that I was still sitting quietly in place. Fyokla saw that her grandmother was asking, but she herself did not hear what, she thought, thought what to do, unfastened the pin and started running ... Then Nastenka stopped and began to laugh. I laughed along with her. She stopped immediately. “Listen, don’t laugh at your grandmother. I'm laughing because it's funny... What should I do when my grandmother is really like that, but I still love her a little. Well, yes, then I got it: they immediately put me back in my place and, no, no, it was impossible to move. Well, I also forgot to tell you that we, that is, grandmother, have our own house, that is, a small house, only three windows, completely wooden and as old as grandmother; and upstairs is a mezzanine; so a new tenant moved in with us on the mezzanine ... - So, there was also an old tenant? I remarked casually. - Of course, he was, - answered Nastenka, - and who knew how to keep silent better than you. In fact, he barely spoke. He was an old man, dry, dumb, blind, lame, so that at last it became impossible for him to live in the world, and he died; and then a new tenant was needed, because we cannot live without a tenant: this is almost all of our income with my grandmother's pension. The new tenant, as if on purpose, was a young man, a stranger, a visitor. Since he did not bargain, his grandmother let him in, and then asked: "What, Nastenka, is our lodger young or not?" I didn’t want to lie: “So, I say, grandmother, not exactly young, but not old.” "Well, and good-looking?" asks the grandmother. I don't want to lie again. "Yes, pleasant, I say, appearance, grandmother!" And the grandmother says: “Ah! punishment, punishment! I’m telling you this, granddaughter, so that you don’t stare at him. And grandmother would have everything in the old days! And she was younger in the old days, and the sun was warmer in the old days, and the cream in the old days did not sour so quickly - everything in the old days! So I sit and keep silent, and I think to myself: why is it that my grandmother herself is thinking me up, asking if the tenant is good, if he is young? Yes, just like that, I just thought, and immediately began to count loops again, knit a stocking, and then completely forgot. Once in the morning, a tenant comes to us and asks that they promised to wallpaper his room. Word for word, the grandmother is talkative, and says: "Go, Nastenka, to my bedroom, bring the bills." I immediately jumped up, blushed all over, I don’t know why, and forgot that I was sitting pinned down; no, to quietly slap her away so that the tenant wouldn’t see her, she rushed so that grandmother’s chair started to move. When I saw that the lodger had now learned everything about me, I blushed, stood still as if rooted to the spot, and suddenly burst into tears—I felt so ashamed and bitter at that moment that I couldn’t even look at the world! Grandmother screams: "Why are you standing there?" - and I'm even worse ... The tenant, as he saw, saw that I was ashamed of him, bowed and immediately left! Since then, I, a little noise in the hallway, as if dead. Here, I think, the tenant is coming, but on the sly, just in case, I will spit off the pin. But it wasn't him, he didn't come. Two weeks passed; the lodger sends to tell Thekla that he has a lot of French books and that all the books are good, so that you can read; so doesn’t my grandmother want me to read them to her so that she wouldn’t be bored? Grandmother agreed with gratitude, only she kept asking about moral books or not, because if books are immoral, then, Nastenka says, you can’t read in any way, you will learn bad things. “What can I learn, grandma?” What is written there? -- AND! says, they describe how young people seduce well-behaved girls, how they, under the pretext that they want to take them for themselves, take them away from their parents' house, how then they leave these unfortunate girls to the will of fate and they die in the most deplorable way. Grandmother says, I have read many such books, and everything, she says, is so beautifully described that you sit at night and read quietly. So you, says Nastenka, look, don't read them. What kind of books, he says, he sent? “It’s all Walter Scott novels, grandma. -- Walter Scott novels! And full, are there any tricks here? See if he put some love note in them? - No, I say, grandmother, there is no note. - Yes, you look under the cover; they sometimes shove them into the binding, robbers! .. - No, grandmother, there is nothing under the binding. - Well, that's it! So we began to read Walter Scott and in a month we read almost half. Then he sent more and more. He sent me Pushkin, so that at last I could not be without books and stopped thinking about how to marry a Chinese prince. That was the case when one time I happened to meet our tenant on the stairs. Grandma sent me for something. He stopped, I blushed, and he blushed; however, he laughed, said hello, asked about his grandmother's health and said: "What, have you read the books?" I replied: "I read it." "What, he says, did you like better?" I say: "Ivangoe and Pushkin liked the most." This time it ended. A week later I ran into him again on the stairs. This time my grandmother did not send, but I myself needed something. It was three o'clock, and the tenant came home at that time. "Hello!" -- He speaks. I told him: "Hello!" - And what, he says, is it not boring for you to sit with your grandmother all day? When he asked me this, I, I don’t know why, blushed, felt ashamed, and again I felt offended, evidently because others had begun to ask about this matter. I really wanted to not answer and leave, but I didn’t have the strength. “Listen, she says, you are a good girl! Excuse me for talking to you like this, but I assure you, I wish you well better than your grandmother. Do you have any friends to visit? I say that none, that there was one, Mashenka, and she left for Pskov. - Listen, he says, do you want to go to the theater with me? -- To the theatre? how about grandma? - Yes, you, he says, quietly from your grandmother ... - No, I say, I don’t want to deceive my grandmother. Farewell! - Well, goodbye, he says, but he himself did not say anything. Only after dinner does he come to us; he sat down, talked for a long time with his grandmother, asked what she was doing, whether she was going somewhere, whether there were any acquaintances, and then suddenly he said: “And today I was taking a box to the opera; they give The Barber of Seville, acquaintances wanted to go, yes then they refused, and I still had a ticket in my hands. "The Barber of Seville!" - shouted the grandmother, - is this the same "Barber" that they gave in the old days? - Yes, he says, this is the same "Barber", - and he looked at me. And I already understood everything, blushed, and my heart jumped with anticipation! - Yes, how, says the grandmother, how not to know. In the old days, I myself played Rosina at the home theater! “So don’t you want to go today?” said the tenant. - my ticket is wasted. “Yes, perhaps we’ll go,” says the grandmother, why not go? But Nastya has never been to the theater with me. My God, what joy! Immediately we packed up, packed up and set off. Granny, although she is blind, still wanted to listen to music, and besides, she is a kind old woman: she wanted to amuse me more, we would never have gathered ourselves. I won’t tell you what impression I had from The Barber of Seville, but all that evening our tenant looked at me so well, spoke so well, that I immediately saw that he wanted to test me in the morning, suggesting that I be alone with went to him. Well, what a joy! I went to bed so proud, so cheerful, my heart was beating so hard that I got a little fever, and all night I raved about the Barber of Seville. I thought that after that he would come more and more often - it was not so. He almost completely stopped. So, once a month, it happened, he would come in, and then only in order to invite him to the theater. Twice we went again. It was just that I wasn't happy with it. I saw that he simply felt sorry for me for the fact that I was with my grandmother in such a pen, but nothing more. On and on, and it came over me: I don’t sit, and I don’t read, and I don’t work, sometimes I laugh and do something to spite my grandmother, other times I just cry. Finally, I lost weight and almost got sick. The opera season was over, and the tenant stopped visiting us altogether; when we met - all on the same stairs, of course - he would bow so silently, so seriously, as if he didn’t want to talk, and he’d go down completely to the porch, and I was still standing on the half of the stairs, red as a cherry , because all the blood began to rush to my head when I met him. Now it's over now. Exactly one year ago, in the month of May, a tenant comes to us and tells my grandmother that he has got his own business here and that he must again go to Moscow for a year. I, as I heard, turned pale and fell into a chair as if dead. Grandmother did not notice anything, but he, announcing; that leaves us, bowed to us and left. What should I do? I thought and thought, yearned, yearned, and finally decided. Tomorrow he will leave, and I decided that I would finish everything in the evening, when my grandmother went to bed. And so it happened. I tied everything in a bundle, including dresses, as much linen as needed, and with a bundle in my hands, neither alive nor dead, I went to the mezzanine to our tenant. I think I walked up the stairs for an hour. When I opened the door for him, he screamed, looking at me. He thought I was a ghost, and rushed to give me water, because I could hardly stand on my feet. My heart was beating so hard that it hurt in my head, and my mind was clouded. When I woke up, I began directly by placing my bundle on his bed, sat down beside him, covered myself with my hands and wept in three streams. He seemed to understand everything in an instant and stood before me pale and looked at me so sadly that my heart tore. “Listen,” he began, “listen, Nastenka, I can’t do anything; I am a poor man; I have nothing for the time being, not even a decent place; How are we going to live if I were to marry you? We talked for a long time, but I finally fell into a frenzy, said that I could not live with my grandmother, that I would run away from her, that I did not want to be pinned with a pin, and that I, as he wanted, would go with him to Moscow, because I can't live without him. And shame, and love, and pride - all at once spoke in me, and I almost fell on the bed in convulsions. I was so afraid of rejection! He sat silently for a few minutes, then got up, came up to me and took my hand. “Listen, my good, my dear Nastenka! he began, too, through tears, “listen. I swear to you that if someday I am able to marry, then you will certainly make up my happiness; I assure you, now you alone can make up my happiness. Listen: I'm going to Moscow and will stay there for exactly a year. I hope to arrange my affairs. When I toss and turn, and if you do not stop loving me, I swear to you, we will be happy. Now it’s impossible, I can’t, I don’t have the right to promise anything. But, I repeat, if this is not done in a year, then at least someday it will certainly happen; of course - if you do not prefer me another, because I cannot and do not dare to bind you with any word. That's what he said to me and left the next day. It was supposed together with the grandmother not to say a word about it. So he wanted. Well, now my whole story is almost over. Exactly one year has passed. He's arrived, he's been here for three whole days, and, and... I shouted, eager to hear the end. - And still has not been! - answered Nastenka, as if gathering her strength, - not a word or a breath ... Here she stopped, was silent for a while, lowered her head and suddenly, covering herself with her hands, sobbed so that about my heart turned over from these sobs. I did not expect such a denouement. - Nastenka! - I began in a timid and insinuating voice, - Nastenka! For God's sake, don't cry! Why do you know? perhaps he is not yet... "Here, here!" - picked up Nastenka. He's here, I know that. We had a condition, back then, that evening on the eve of our departure: when we had already said everything that I told you, and agreed, we went out here for a walk, on this embankment. It was ten o'clock; we sat on this bench; I didn’t cry anymore, it was sweet for me to listen to what he said ... He said that he would come to us immediately upon arrival and if I didn’t refuse him, then we would tell my grandmother about everything. Now he has arrived, I know it, and he is gone! And she burst into tears again. -- Oh my God! Is there really no way to help grief? I cried, jumping up from the bench in utter despair. - Tell me, Nastenka, would it be possible for me to go to him at least? .. - Is it possible? she said, suddenly raising her head. - No, of course not! ' I remarked, sighing. - and here's what: write a letter. - No, it's impossible, it's impossible! she answered resolutely, but already with her head bowed and not looking at me. - How can you not? why not? I continued, seizing on my idea. - But, you know, Nastenka, what a letter! Letter to letter is different and ... Ah, Nastenka, it's true! Trust me, trust me! I won't give you bad advice. All this can be arranged! You have begun the first step - why now... - You can't, you can't! Then it's as if I impose myself ... - Ah, my kind Nastenka! - I interrupted, not hiding a smile, - no, no; you are finally entitled, because he promised you. Yes, and from everything I see that he is a delicate person, that he acted well,” I continued, more and more delighted with the logic of my own arguments and convictions, “how did he act? He bound himself with a promise. He said that he would not marry anyone but you, if only he married; he left you complete freedom to refuse it even now ... In this case, you can take the first step, you have the right, you have an advantage over him, at least, for example, if you wanted to untie him from this word ... - - Listen, how would you write? -- What? Yes, this is a letter. - I would write like this: "Gracious sir ..." - Is it absolutely necessary - dear sir? -- Absolutely! However, why? I think... - Well, well! further! - "Dear sir! Excuse me for..." However, no, no apology is needed! Here the fact itself justifies everything, write simply: "I am writing to you. Forgive me my impatience; but I have been happy with hope for a whole year; am I to blame that I cannot now bear even a day of doubt? Now that you have already arrived, perhaps "You have already changed your mind. Then this letter will tell you that I do not grumble and do not blame you. I do not blame you for not having power over your heart; such is my fate! You are a noble person. You will not smile and do not you will be annoyed at my impatient lines. Remember that they are written by a poor girl, that she is alone, that there is no one to teach her or advise her, and that she herself never knew how to control her heart. But forgive me that even for one for a moment doubt crept in. You are not even capable of offending the one who loved and loves you so much. -- Yes Yes! it's exactly what I thought! cried Nastenka, and joy shone in her eyes. -- O! you resolved my doubts, God himself sent you to me! Thank you, thank you! -- For what? because God sent me? I replied, looking in delight at her joyful face. - Yes, at least for that. - Oh, Nastenka! After all, we thank other people even for the fact that they live with us. I thank you for meeting me, for the fact that I will remember you all my life! - Well, that's enough, that's enough! And now, listen to this: then there was a condition that as soon as he arrived, she would immediately make herself known by leaving me a letter in one place, with some of my acquaintances, kind and simple people who did not know anything about it. know; or if it will be impossible to write letters to me, because in a letter you will not always tell everything, then on the same day as he arrives, he will be here exactly at ten o'clock, where we decided to meet him. I already know about his arrival; but for the third day now there has been neither a letter nor him. I can't leave my grandmother in the morning. Give my letter tomorrow yourself to those kind people about whom I told you: they will send it on; and if there is an answer, then you yourself will bring it in the evening at ten o'clock. But a letter, a letter! After all, you need to write a letter first! So unless the day after tomorrow all this will be. "A letter..." Nastenka answered, a little confused, "a letter... but... But she didn't finish." At first she turned her face away from me, blushed like a rose, and suddenly I felt a letter in my hand, apparently written long ago, completely prepared and sealed. Some familiar, sweet, graceful memory flashed through my mind! - R, o - Ro, s, i - si, n, a - na, - I began. -- Rosina! we both sang; now!" she said quickly. "Here's the letter for you, here's the address where to take it down. Farewell! goodbye! see you tomorrow! She squeezed both my hands tightly, nodded her head, and flashed like an arrow into her alley. I he stood still for a long time, following her with his eyes: "See you tomorrow! see you tomorrow!” flashed through my head as she disappeared from my eyes.

Night three

Today was a sad, rainy day, without a light, just like my future old age. I am oppressed by such strange thoughts, such dark sensations, such questions, still unclear to me, are crowding in my head - but somehow there is neither the strength nor the desire to solve them. It's not for me to decide this! We won't see each other today. Yesterday, when we said goodbye, the clouds began to cover the sky and the fog was rising. I said that tomorrow would be a bad day; she did not answer, she did not want to speak against herself; for her this day is both bright and clear, and not a single cloud will cover her happiness. "If it rains, we won't see each other!" -- she said. -- I will not come. I thought she didn't even notice today's rain, but meanwhile she didn't come. Yesterday was our third date, our third white night ... However, how joy and happiness make a person beautiful! how the heart boils with love! It seems that you want to pour all your heart into another heart, you want everything to be fun, everyone laughs. And how contagious that joy is! Yesterday there was so much bliss in her words, so much kindness to me in my heart... How she cared for me, how she caressed me, how she encouraged and unlived - my heart! Oh, how much coquetry from happiness! And I... I took everything at face value; I thought she... But, my God, how could I think that? how could I be so blind when everything has already been taken by another, everything is not mine; when, finally, even this very tenderness of hers, her care, her love ... yes, love for me, was nothing but joy at a meeting with another soon, a desire to impose his happiness on me too? .. When he did not come when we waited in vain, she frowned, she became shy and scared. All her movements, all her words have already become not so easy, playful and cheerful. And, strange to say, she redoubled her attention to me, as if instinctively wanting to pour out on me what she herself wished for herself, for which she herself was afraid if it did not come true. My Nastenka was so timid, so frightened, that, it seems, she realized at last that I loved her, and took pity on my poor love. Thus, when we are unhappy, we feel more strongly the unhappiness of others; the feeling is not broken, but concentrated ... I came to her with a full heart and barely waited for a meeting. I did not foresee what I would feel now, I did not foresee that it would not end like this. She beamed with joy, she expected an answer. The answer was himself. He had to come, run to her call. She arrived an hour before me. At first she laughed at everything, laughed at every word I said. I started to speak and fell silent. Do you know why I'm so happy? - she said, - so glad to see you? so love you today? -- Well? I asked, and my heart trembled. “I love you because you didn’t fall in love with me. After all, someone else, in your place, would begin to bother, pester, would get excited, get sick, and you are so cute! Then she squeezed my hand so hard that I almost screamed. She laughed. -- God! what a friend you are! she began in a moment very seriously. "God sent you to me!" Well, what would happen to me if you were not with me now? How selfless you are! How well you love me! When I get married, we will be very friendly, more than like brothers. I will love you almost as much as I love him ... I felt somehow terribly sad at that moment; yet something resembling laughter stirred in my soul. “You are in a fit,” I said, “you are a coward; you think he won't come. -- God with you! - she answered, - if I were less happy, I think I would cry from your disbelief, from your reproaches. However, you led me to an idea and asked me a long thought; but I will think about it later, and now I confess to you that you are telling the truth! Yes! somehow I'm not myself; I am somehow all in anticipation and feel everything somehow too easily. Come on, let's leave aside the feelings!.. At that moment steps were heard, and in the darkness a passer-by appeared who was walking towards us. We both trembled; she almost screamed. I lowered her hand and made a gesture as if I wanted to move away. But we were deceived: it was not him. -- What are you afraid of? Why did you throw my hand? she said, handing it to me again. - Well, what is it? we will meet him together. I want him to see how much we love each other. How much we love each other! I shouted. “Oh Nastenka, Nastenka!” I thought, “how much you said with that word! From such love, Nastenka, in different the hour turns cold on the heart and it becomes heavy on the soul. Your hand is cold, mine is hot as fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!.. Oh! how insufferable a happy person is at a different moment! But I couldn't be angry with you!.." Finally, my heart overflowed. "Listen, Nastenka!" I cried, "do you know what's been happening to me all day?" "Well, what's the matter? Tell me quickly! Why have you kept silent until now!—Firstly, Nastenka, when I fulfilled all your commissions, handed over the letter, visited your good people, then ... then I came home and went to bed. - she interrupted, laughing. - Yes, almost just, - I answered reluctantly, because stupid tears were already welling up in my eyes. - I woke up an hour before our meeting, but it was as if I had not slept. I don’t know what happened to me, I went to tell you all this, as if time had stopped for me, as if one feeling, one feeling should have remained in me from that time forever, as if one minute should have lasted an eternity. and it was as if my whole life had stopped for me ... When I woke up, it seemed to me that some musical motive, long familiar, heard somewhere before, forgotten and sweet, now I remembered. It seemed to me that he had been begging all his life from my soul, and only now ... - Oh, my God, my God! - Nastenka interrupted, - how is it all so? I don't understand a word. - Oh, Nastenka! I wanted to somehow convey to you this strange impression ... - I began in a plaintive voice, in which there was still hope, although very remote. - Come on, stop it, come on! she said, and in an instant she guessed, you swindler! Suddenly she became somehow unusually talkative, cheerful, playful. She took my arm, laughed, wanted me to laugh too, and every embarrassed word of mine echoed in her with such a sonorous, such a long laugh ... I began to get angry, she suddenly began to flirt. “Listen,” she began, “I’m a little annoyed that you haven’t fallen in love with me. Disassemble after this man! But still, adamant sir, you can't help but praise me for being so simple. I tell you everything, I tell you everything, no matter what stupidity flashes through my head. -- Listen! It's eleven o'clock, I think? I said, as the measured sound of a bell boomed from a distant city tower. She suddenly stopped, stopped laughing and began to count. “Yes, eleven,” she said at last in a timid, hesitant voice. I immediately repented that I had frightened her, forced her to count the hours, and cursed myself for a fit of anger. I felt sad for her, and I did not know how to atone for my sin. I began to console her, look for the reasons for his absence, bring various arguments, evidence. No one could be more easily deceived than she was at that moment, and everyone at that moment somehow joyfully listens to at least some kind of consolation and is glad, glad, if there is even a shadow of justification. “Besides, it’s ridiculous,” I began, getting more and more excited and admiring the extraordinary clarity of my evidence, “besides, he couldn’t come; you deceived and lured me too, Nastenka, so that I lost track of time ... Just think: he could hardly get a letter; suppose he cannot come, suppose he will answer, so the letter will not arrive until tomorrow. I'll go after him tomorrow before light and let you know at once. Finally, suppose a thousand possibilities: well, he was not at home when the letter arrived, and he, perhaps, has not read it yet? After all, anything can happen. -- Yes Yes! - answered Nastenka, - I didn’t even think; of course, anything can happen,” she continued in the most accommodating voice, but in which, like an annoying dissonance, some other, distant thought was heard. “So what do you do,” she continued, “you go tomorrow as early as possible, and if you get anything, let me know at once.” Do you know where I live? And she began repeating her address to me. Then she suddenly became so tender, so timid with me... She seemed to be listening attentively to what I was saying to her; but when I turned to her with some question, she "You child! What childishness!... Come on!" She tried to smile, to calm down, but her chin was trembling and her chest was still heaving. "I'm thinking of you," she said to me after a moment's silence, I'd be stone if I didn't feel it. Do you know what occurred to me now? I compared you both. Why is he not you? Why isn't he like you? He's worse than you, even though I love him more you. I didn't answer anything. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something. "Of course, perhaps I don't quite understand him yet, I don't quite know him. You know, I always seemed to be afraid of him; he he was always so serious, as if proud.Of course, I know that it is he who only looks in such a way that there is more tenderness in his heart than in mine. .. I remember how he looked at me when, remember, I came to him with a bundle; but all the same, I somehow respect him too much, but it’s as if we were uneven? “No, Nastenka, no,” I answered, “it means that you love him more than anything in the world, and love yourself much more than yourself. “Yes, let’s suppose that this is so,” answered the naive Nastenka, “but do you know what came into my head now? Only now I will not talk about him, but in general; I've been thinking about all this for a long time. Listen, why are we all not like brothers and brothers? Why does the best person always seem to hide something from the other and keep silent from him? Why right now, not to say what is in your heart, if you know that you will not say your word to the wind? Otherwise, everyone looks as if he is more severe than he really is, as if everyone is afraid to offend their feelings if they show them very soon ... - Ah, Nastenka! you speak the truth; Why, this comes from many causes,” I interrupted, myself more than ever at that moment embarrassing my feelings. -- No no! she answered with deep feeling. - Here you are, for example, not like the others! I really don't know how to tell you what I feel; but it seems to me that you, for example ... if only now ... it seems to me that you are sacrificing something for me, ”she added timidly, glancing at me briefly. “Forgive me if I tell you so: I am a simple girl; I haven’t seen much in the world yet, and really I don’t know how to speak sometimes,” she added in a voice trembling with some secret feeling, and meanwhile trying to smile, “but I only wanted to tell you that I am grateful that I, too, feel it all ... Oh, God grant you happiness for this! What you told me then about your dreamer is completely untrue, that is, I want to say, it does not concern you at all. You are recovering, you are really a completely different person than the way you described yourself. If you ever fall in love, then God bless you with her! And I don’t wish anything for her, because she will be happy with you. I know I am a woman myself and you must believe me if I tell you so... She stopped and shook my hand firmly. I, too, could not speak for excitement. Several minutes passed. - Yes, it is clear that he will not come today! she said at last, raising her head. “Too late!” “He will come tomorrow,” I said in the most convincing and firm voice. “Yes,” she added, cheerfully, “I see for myself now that he won’t come until tomorrow.” Well, goodbye! till tomorrow! If it rains, I may not come. But the day after tomorrow I will come, I will certainly come, whatever happened to me; be here by all means; I want to see you, I'll tell you everything. And then, when we were saying goodbye, she gave me her hand and said, looking at me clearly: “After all, we are now forever together, aren’t we?” O! Nastenka, Nastenka! If you knew how alone I am now! When nine o'clock struck, I could not sit in the room, dressed and went out, despite the rainy time. I was there, sitting on our bench. I was about to go into their alley, but I felt ashamed, and I returned without looking at their windows, without having reached two steps to their house. I came home in such anguish, in which I have never been. What a raw, boring time! If the weather had been fine, I would have walked there all night... But see you tomorrow, see you tomorrow! Tomorrow she will tell me everything. However, there was no letter today. But anyway, that's how it should have been. They are already together...

night four

God, how did it all end! How did it all end! I came at nine o'clock. She was already there. I noticed her from a distance; she stood, as then, for the first time, leaning on the railing of the embankment, and did not hear how I approached her. - Nastenka! I called out to her, suppressing my excitement with great force. She quickly turned to me. -- Well! she said, “well! hurry up! I looked at her in bewilderment. - Well, where is the letter? Did you bring a letter? she repeated, clutching the railing with her hand. “No, I don’t have a letter,” I said at last, “hasn’t he been yet?” She turned terribly pale and looked at me motionless for a long time. I crushed her last hope. - Well, God bless him! she finally said in a broken voice, “God bless him, if he leaves me like that. She lowered her eyes, then wanted to look at me, but could not. For a few more minutes she overcame her excitement, but suddenly turned away, leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the embankment, and burst into tears. - Complete, complete! - I started talking, but I didn’t have the strength to continue, looking at her, and what would I say? “Don’t console me,” she said weeping, “don’t talk about him, don’t say that he will come, that he didn’t leave me so cruelly, so inhumanly, as he did. For what, for what? Was there really anything in my letter, in this unfortunate letter?.. Here sobs cut short her voice; My heart broke looking at her. “Oh, how inhumanly cruel! she began again. - And not a line, not a line! If only he would answer that he does not need me, that he rejects me; and then not a single line in the whole three days! How easy it is for him to offend, offend, a poor, defenseless girl, who is to blame for loving him! Oh, how much I endured these three days! Oh my God! Oh my God! When I remember that I came to him for the first time myself, that I humiliated myself in front of him, wept, that I begged for at least a drop of love from him... And after that!... Listen," she began, turning to me, and her black eyes flashed, - but it's not so! It cannot be so; it's unnatural! Either you or I were deceived; maybe he didn't get the letter? Maybe he still doesn't know? How can you, judge for yourself, tell me, for God's sake, explain to me - I can't understand it - how you can act so barbarously rudely, as he did to me! Not a single word! But they are more compassionate towards the last person in the world. Maybe he heard something, maybe someone told him about me? she cried, turning to me with a question. - How do you think? - Listen, Nastenka, I will go to him tomorrow on your behalf. -- Well! “I will ask him everything, I will tell him everything. -- Oh well! - You will write a letter. Don't say no, Nastenka, don't say no! I will make him respect your deed, he will know everything, and if ... "No, my friend, no," she interrupted. -- Enough! Not a word more, not a single word from me, not a line - enough! I don't know him, I don't love him anymore, I'll...forget him...I'll... She didn't finish. - Calm down, calm down! Sit here, Nastenka, - I said, seating her on the bench. - Yes, I'm calm. Fullness! This is true! These are tears, this will dry up! What do you think, that I will ruin myself, that I will drown myself?.. My heart was full; I wanted to speak, but I couldn't. -- Listen! she went on, taking my hand, “tell me: wouldn’t you do that? would you not abandon the one who would come to you herself, would you not throw in her eyes a shameless mockery of her weak, stupid heart? Would you save her? You would imagine that she was alone, that she did not know how to look after herself, that she did not know how to protect herself from loving you, that she was not to blame, that she was finally not to blame ... that she did nothing! .. Oh, my God, my God! .. - Nastenka! I shouted at last, unable to overcome my excitement, “Nastenka! you torture me! You hurt my heart, you kill me, Nastenka! I can't be silent! I must finally speak, express what is boiling here in my heart ... Saying this, I half rose from the bench. She took my hand and looked at me in surprise. -- What's wrong with you? she finally spoke. -- Listen! I said decisively. - Listen to me, Nastenka! What am I going to say now, it's all nonsense, it's all unrealizable, it's all stupid! I know that this can never happen, but I cannot be silent. In the name of what you are suffering now, I beg you in advance, forgive me!.. - Well, what, what? - she said, ceasing to cry and looking intently at me, while a strange curiosity shone in her surprised eyes, - what with you? - It's unrealizable, but I love you, Nastenka! that's what! Well, now everything is said! I said, waving my hand. “Now you will see if you can talk to me the way you just spoke, can you finally listen to what I am going to say to you ...” “Well, well, what then? - Nastenka interrupted, - what of it? Well, I've known for a long time that you love me, but it only seemed to me that you love me so, simply, somehow... Oh, my God, my God! “At first it was simple, Nastenka, but now, now ... I am just like you when you came to him then with your bundle. Worse than like you, Nastenka, because then he did not love anyone, but you do. - What are you telling me! Finally, I don't understand you at all. But listen, why is this, that is, not why, but why are you like this, and so suddenly ... God! I'm talking nonsense! But you ... And Nastenka was completely confused. Her cheeks flushed; she lowered her eyes. "What should I do, Nastenka, what should I do?" I'm to blame, I used it for evil... But no, no, it's not my fault, Nastenka; I hear it, I feel it, because my heart tells me that I'm right, because I can't offend you in any way, offend you in any way! I was your friend; well, here I am now a friend; I didn't change anything. Now my tears are flowing, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow - they do not interfere with anyone. They'll dry up, Nastenka... "Sit down, sit down," she said, seating me on the bench. -- oh, my God! -- No! Nastenka, I won't sit down; I can no longer be here, you can no longer see me; I'll say everything and leave. I just want to say that you would never know that I love you. I would bury my secret. I would not torment you now, at this moment, with my selfishness. No! but I could not bear it now; you yourself started talking about it, you are to blame, you are to blame for everything, but I am not to blame. You can't drive me away from you... - No, no, I'm not driving you away, no! - said Nastenka, hiding, as best she could, her embarrassment, poor thing. - You're not chasing me? No! and I myself wanted to run away from you. I’ll leave, only I’ll say everything first, because when you were talking here, I couldn’t sit still, when you were crying here, when you were tormented because, well, because (I’m already calling it, Nastenka), because you reject, because they pushed your love away, I felt, I heard that in my heart there is so much love for you, Nastenka, so much love! .. And I became so bitter that I cannot help you with this love ... that my heart broke, and I, I - could not be silent, I had to speak, Nastenka, I had to speak! .. - Yes, yes! talk to me, talk to me like that! said Nastenka with an inexplicable movement. “Perhaps it is strange to you that I speak to you like that, but ... speak!” I'll tell you later! I'll tell you everything! “You feel sorry for me, Nastenka; you just feel sorry for me, my friend! What's gone is gone! what is said, you can’t turn it back! Is not it? Well, now you know everything. Well, here is the starting point. OK then! now everything is beautiful; just listen. When you were sitting and crying, I thought to myself (oh, let me tell you what I thought!), I thought that (well, of course, this cannot be, Nastenka), I thought that you ... I I thought that you somehow ... well, in a completely foreign way in some way, you don’t love him anymore. Then—I was already thinking about this yesterday and the third day, Nastenka—then I would have done it, I would certainly have done it in such a way that you would love me: after all, you said, you yourself said, Nastenka, that you almost completely loved. Well, what's next? Well, that's almost all I wanted to say; All that remains is to say what would happen then if you fell in love with me, only this, nothing more! Listen, my friend, - because you are still my friend - I, of course, am a simple, poor person, so insignificant, but that’s not the point (I’m somehow talking about the wrong thing, it’s from embarrassment , Nastenka), but only I would love you so, love you so much that if you also loved him and continued to love the one whom I don’t know, you still wouldn’t notice that my love is somehow there for you hard. You would only hear, you would only feel every minute that a grateful, grateful heart beats near you, a warm heart that is for you ... Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! What have you done to me! .. - Don't cry, I don't want you to cry, - said Nastenka, quickly getting up from the bench, - come on, get up, come with me, don't cry, don't cry, - - she said, wiping my tears with her handkerchief, - well, let's go now; maybe I’ll tell you something... Yes, since he has left me now, since he has forgotten me, although I still love him (I don’t want to deceive you) ... but, listen, answer me. If, for example, I fell in love with you, that is, if I only ... Oh, my friend, my friend! how will I think, how will I think that I offended you then, that I laughed at your love, when I praised you for not falling in love!.. Oh, God! Yes, how could I not have foreseen this, how could I not have foreseen this, how stupid I was, but... well, well, I made up my mind, I'll tell you everything... "Listen, Nastenka, you know what?" I'm leaving you, that's what! I'm just torturing you. Now you have remorse for what you mocked, but I don’t want, Yes, I don’t want you, except for your grief ... I, of course, am to blame, Nastenka, but goodbye! - Wait, listen to me: can you wait? - What to expect, how? -- I love him; but it will pass, it must pass, it cannot but pass; it's gone, I hear it. .. Who knows, maybe it will end today, because I hate him, because he laughed at me, while you cried here with me, because you would not reject me like he did, because you love, but he did not love me, because, finally, I love you myself ... yes, I love you! love how you love me; I told you this myself before, you heard it yourself—because I love you, because you are better than him, because you are nobler than him, because he is... The poor thing's excitement was so great that she did not finish , put her head on my shoulder, then on my chest and wept bitterly. I consoled, persuaded her, but she could not stop; she kept shaking my hand and saying between sobs: “Wait, wait; here I am now! Finally she stopped, wiped away her tears, and we started walking again. I wanted to speak, but for a long time she kept asking me to wait. We fell silent ... At last she gathered her courage and began to speak ... "That's it," she began in a weak and trembling voice, but in which something suddenly rang that pierced right into my heart and sank sweetly into him - do not think that I am so fickle and windy, do not think that I can so easily and soon forget and change ... I loved him for a whole year and I swear to God that I have never, never even thought was unfaithful to him. He despised it; he laughed at me - God bless him! But he hurt me and hurt my heart. I--I don't love him, because I can only love what is magnanimous, what understands me, what is noble; because I myself am like that, and he is not worthy of me - well, God bless him! He did better than when I later deceived my expectations and found out who he was ... Well, it's over! But who knows, my good friend,” she continued, shaking my hand, “who knows, maybe all my love was a delusion of feelings, imagination, maybe it began with pranks, trifles, because I was grandmother's care? Maybe I should love another, and not him, not such a person, another who would take pity on me and, and ... Well, let's leave it, let's leave it, - Nastenka interrupted, choking with excitement, - I only wanted you tell you... I wanted to tell you that if, despite the fact that I love him (no, I loved him), if, despite the fact, you still say... if you feel that your love is so great that it can to finally drive out the former one from My heart... if you want to take pity on me, if you don’t want to leave me alone in my fate, without consolation, without hope, if you want to love me always, as you love me now, then I swear that gratitude . .. that my love will finally be worthy of your love... Will you now take my hand? “Nastenka,” I shouted, choking with sobs, “Nastenka!.. Oh Nastenka!..—Well, enough, enough! Well, that's quite enough now! she began, hardly overpowering herself, “well, now everything has been said; is not it? So? Well, you are happy, and I am happy; not a word more about it; Wait; spare me ... Talk about something else, for God's sake! .. - Yes, Nastenka, yes! enough about that, now I'm happy, I... Well, Nastenka, well, let's talk about something else, quickly, quickly talk; Yes! I'm ready... And we didn't know what to say, we laughed, we cried, we spoke thousands of words without connection or thought; we walked along the sidewalk, then suddenly turned back and started to cross the street; then they stopped and again crossed to the embankment; we were like children ... - I now live alone, Nastenka, - I began, - and tomorrow ... Well, of course, you know, Nastenka, I am poor, I have only a thousand two hundred, but that's nothing. .. - Of course not, but my grandmother has a pension; so she won't bother us. We need to take grandma. - Of course, you need to take your grandmother ... Only Matryona ... - Oh, and we also have Fekla! - Matryona is kind, only one drawback: she has no imagination, Nastenka, absolutely no imagination; but that's nothing! .. - It's all the same; they both can be together; just move in with us tomorrow. -- Like this? to you! Okay, I'm ready... - Yes, you hire us. We have a mezzanine up there; it is empty; there was a tenant, an old woman, a noblewoman, she moved out. and grandmother, I know, wants to let the young man in; I say: "Why the young man?" And she says: “Yes, I’m already old, but just don’t think, Nastenka, that I want to marry you to him.” I guessed that it was for that ... - Ah, Nastenka! .. And we both laughed. - Well, completeness, completeness. Where do you live? I forgot. -- There , at --sky bridge, in Barannikov's house. - Is this a big house? Yes, such a big house. “Ah, I know, a good house; only you, you know, leave him and move in with us as soon as possible ... - Tomorrow , Nastenka, tomorrow; I owe a little for the apartment there, but that's nothing ... I'll get my salary soon ... - Do you know, maybe I'll give lessons; I will learn it myself and will give lessons ... - Well, that's fine ... and I will soon receive an award, Nastenka ... - So tomorrow you will be my tenant ... - Yes, and we will go to " the Barber of Seville," because now they will give him again soon. "Yes, let's go," said Nastenka, laughing, "no, we'd better not listen to The Barber, but something else..." "Very well, something else; of course, it will be better, otherwise I didn’t think ... Saying this, we both walked as if in a haze, in a fog, as if we ourselves did not know what was happening to us. First they stopped and talked for a long time in one place, then again they started walking and went in God knows where, and again laughter, again tears ... Now Nastenka suddenly wants to go home, I don’t dare to hold her back and I want to accompany her to the house; we set off on our journey and suddenly, a quarter of an hour later, we find ourselves on the embankment by our bench. Then she sighs, and again a tear will run into her eyes; I'll be shy, I'll get cold... But she immediately shakes my hand and drags me to walk again, chat, talk... - It's time now, it's time for me to go home; I think it's too late, - said Nastenka at last, - we've got to be so childish! “Yes, Nastenka, but I won’t sleep now; I won't go home. “I don’t seem to be able to sleep either; only you will see me off... - Absolutely! “But now we will certainly reach the apartment. - Absolutely, certainly ... - Honestly? .. because you really need to return home someday! "Honestly," I answered laughing... "Well, let's go!" - Let's go. - Look at the sky, Nastenka, look! Tomorrow will be a wonderful day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look: now this yellow cloud is covering it, look, look! .. No, it has passed by. Look, look! .. But Nastenka did not look at the cloud, she stood silently. as dug in; in a minute she began, somehow timidly, to press close to me. Her hand trembled in mine; I looked at her... She leaned on me even more. At that moment a young man walked past us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently, and then again took a few steps. My heart trembled... "Nastenka," I said in an undertone, "who is this, Nastenka?" -- It's him! - she answered in a whisper, even closer, clinging to me even more tremulously ... I could hardly stand on my feet. - Nastenka! Nastenka! it's you! - a voice was heard behind us, and at the same moment the young man took a few steps towards us. God, what a cry! how she shuddered! how she escaped from my hands and fluttered towards him! .. I stood and looked at them like a dead man. But she had hardly given him her hand, had hardly thrown herself into his arms, when suddenly she turned back to me, found herself beside me, like the wind, like lightning, and, before I had time to come to my senses, she clasped my neck with both hands and kissed me hard, passionately. Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed back to him, took his hands and dragged him along. I stood for a long time and looked after them ... Finally, both of them disappeared from my eyes.

Morning

My nights ended in the morning. The day was bad. It was raining and pounding dully on my windows; it was dark in the room, overcast outside. My head was aching and spinning; fever crept over my limbs. “The postman brought a letter to you, father, by the city post,” Matryona said over me. -- Letter! whom? I shouted, jumping up from my chair. - But I don’t know, father, look, maybe it’s written there from whom. I broke the seal. It's from her! “Oh, forgive me, forgive me!” Nastenka wrote to me, “I beg you on my knees, forgive me! I deceived you and myself. .. Don't blame me, because I haven't changed before you in anything; I said that I would love you, and now I love you, more than I love. Oh God! if only I could love you both at the same time! Oh, if if you were him!" "Oh, if it were you!" - flew through my head. I remembered your own words, Nastenka! "God sees what I would do for you now! I know that it is hard and sad for you. I offended you, but you know - if you love, how long do you remember the insult. And you love me! Thank you! Yes! Thank you for this love, because it was imprinted in my memory like a sweet dream that you remember for a long time after waking up, because I will always remember the moment when you so brotherly opened your heart to me and so generously accepted mine, killed, so that it cherish, cherish, heal him ... If you forgive me, then the memory of you will be exalted in me with an eternal, grateful feeling for you, which will never be erased from my soul ... I will keep this memory, I will be faithful to it, not "I will betray her, I will not betray my heart: it is too constant. Only yesterday it returned so soon to the one to which it belonged forever. We will meet, you will come to us, you will not leave us, you will be forever a friend, my brother ... And when you will see me, you will give me your hand, will you give it to me, you have forgiven me, haven't you and? you love me still? Oh, love me, don't leave me, because I love you so much at this moment, because I am worthy of your love, because I will deserve it... my dear friend! I'm marrying him next week. He returned in love, he never forgot about me... You won't be angry because I wrote about him. But I want to come to you with him; you will love him, won't you?.. Forgive me, remember and love your Nastenka". I have been reading this letter for a long time; tears were begging from my eyes. Finally it fell out of my hands and I covered my face. - Kasatik! and a killer whale! Matrena began. - What, old woman? - And I took off all the cobwebs from the ceiling; now at least get married, call guests, so at that time ... I looked at Matryona ... She was still cheerful, young an old woman, but, I don’t know why, suddenly she appeared to me with a dull look, with wrinkles on her face, bent, decrepit ... I don’t know why, it suddenly seemed to me that my room had aged just like the old woman. The walls and floors were stained, everything was dull; cobwebs divorced even more. I don’t know why, when I looked out the window, it seemed to me that the house opposite was also decrepit and dimmed in turn, that the plaster on the columns was peeling and crumbling, that the cornices were blackened and cracked, and the walls from a dark yellow bright color became piebald ... Or a ray of the sun, suddenly peeking out from behind a cloud, again hid under a rain cloud, and everything again dimmed in my eyes; or perhaps the whole prospect of my future flashed before me so unwelcomingly and sadly, and I saw myself as I am now, exactly fifteen years later, grown old, in the same room, just as alone, with the same Matryona, who is not at all hasn't mellowed in all these years. But so that I remember my offense, Nastenka! So that I catch up with a dark cloud on your clear, serene happiness, so that I, bitterly reproaching, catch melancholy on your heart, stab it with secret remorse and make it beat sadly in a moment of bliss, so that I crumple at least one of these delicate flowers that you wove into her black curls when she walked with him to the altar ... Oh, never, never! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and serene, may you be blessed for a moment of bliss and happiness that you gave to another, lonely, grateful heart! Oh my God! A whole minute of bliss! Isn't that enough even for the whole human life?

Or was it created for

To stay even for a moment

In the neighborhood of your heart?...

Iv. Turgeniev

NIGHT ONE

It was a wonderful night, such a night, which can only happen when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, such a bright sky, that, looking at it, it was involuntarily necessary to ask oneself: can all kinds of angry and capricious people live under such a sky? This is also a young question, dear reader, a very young one, but God bless you more often!.. Speaking of capricious and various angry gentlemen, I could not help but recall my well-behaved behavior all that day. From the very morning some amazing melancholy began to torment me. It suddenly seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, alone, and that everyone was retreating from me. It is, of course, everyone has the right to ask: who are these all? because I have been living in St. Petersburg for eight years already, and I have not been able to make a single acquaintance. But what do I need dating? I already know all of Petersburg; that's why it seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, when all of Petersburg got up and suddenly left for the dacha. I was afraid to be left alone, and for three whole days I wandered around the city in deep anguish, absolutely not understanding what was happening to me. Whether I go to the Nevsky, whether I go to the garden, whether I wander along the embankment - not a single person from those whom I am used to meeting in the same place, at a certain hour, for a whole year. They don't know me, of course, but I know them. I know them briefly; I almost studied their faces - and admire them when they are cheerful, and mope when they are clouded. I almost made friends with an old man whom I meet every single day, at a certain hour, on the Fontanka. The physiognomy is so important, thoughtful; still whispering under his breath and waving his left hand, and in his right he has a long gnarled cane with a gold knob. Even he noticed me and takes a spiritual part in me. If it happens that I am not at the same place of the Fontanka at a certain hour, I am sure that the melancholy will attack him. That's why we sometimes almost bow to each other, especially when both are in good spirits. The other day, when we had not seen each other for two whole days and on the third day we met, we were already there and grabbed our hats, but fortunately we came to our senses in time, lowered our hands and walked beside each other with participation. I also know at home. When I walk, everyone seems to be running ahead of me into the street, looking at me through all the windows and almost saying: “Hello; how is your health? and, thank God, I am healthy, and a floor will be added to me in the month of May. Or: “How are you? and I'll be fixed tomorrow." Or: “I almost burned out and, moreover, got scared,” etc. Of these, I have favorites, I have short friends; one of them intends to be treated by an architect this summer. I’ll come in on purpose every day so that they don’t close up somehow, God save it! .. But I will never forget the story with one pretty light pink house. It was such a pretty little stone house, it looked at me so affably, it looked at its clumsy neighbors with such pride that my heart rejoiced when I happened to pass by. Suddenly, last week, I was walking down the street and, as I looked at my friend, I heard a plaintive cry: “They are painting me yellow!” Villains! barbarians! they spared nothing: no columns, no cornices, and my friend turned as yellow as a canary. I almost burst into bile over this occasion, and I still have not been able to see my mutilated poor man, who was painted in the color of the Celestial Empire.

So, you understand, reader, how I am familiar with all of Petersburg.

I have already said that for three whole days I was tormented by anxiety, until I guessed the reason for it. And on the street it was bad for me (that one is gone, that one is gone, where did such and such go?) - and at home I was not myself. For two evenings I sought: what do I lack in my corner? Why was it so embarrassing to stay there? - and with bewilderment I examined my green smoky walls, the ceiling, hung with cobwebs, which Matryona bred with great success, reviewed all my furniture, examined each chair, thinking, is there a problem here? (because if at least one chair is not standing the same as it was yesterday, then I am not myself) looked out the window, and all in vain ... it was not at all easier! I even took it into my head to call on Matryona and immediately gave her a paternal reprimand for cobwebs and in general for slovenliness; but she only looked at me in surprise and walked away without answering a word, so that the web still hangs safely in place. Finally, only this morning I guessed what was the matter. E! Yes, they are running away from me to the dacha! Forgive me for the trivial word, but I was not in the mood for a high style ... because, after all, everything that was in St. Petersburg either moved or moved to the dacha; because every respectable gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab, before my eyes, immediately turned into a respectable father of the family, who, after ordinary official duties, sets off lightly to the bowels of his family, to the dacha; because every passer-by now had a completely special look, which almost said to everyone he met: “We, gentlemen, are only here, in passing, but in two hours we will leave for the dacha.” If a window opened, on which at first thin fingers, white as sugar, drummed, and the head of a pretty girl stuck out, calling a peddler with pots of flowers, it immediately, immediately seemed to me that these flowers were bought only in this way, that is, not at all for in order to enjoy spring and flowers in a stuffy city apartment, and that very soon everyone will move to the dacha and take the flowers with them. Moreover, I had already made such progress in my new, special kind of discoveries that I could already unmistakably, by one look, designate in which dacha someone lives. The inhabitants of the Kamenny and Aptekarsky islands or the Peterhof road were distinguished by the studied elegance of receptions, smart summer suits and excellent carriages in which they arrived in the city. The inhabitants of Pargolovo and farther away, at first glance, "inspired" with their prudence and solidity; the visitor to Krestovsky Island was notable for his imperturbably cheerful look. Did I manage to meet a long procession of draft cabs lazily walking with reins in their hands near carts loaded with whole mountains of all kinds of furniture, tables, chairs, Turkish and non-Turkish sofas and other household belongings, on which, in addition to all this, she often sat on the very top a wagon, a puny cook who cherishes her master's goods like the apple of her eye; if I looked at the boats, heavily loaded with household utensils, gliding along the Neva or the Fontanka, to the Black River or the islands, the carts and boats were multiplied ten, lost in my eyes; it seemed that everything got up and set off, everything moved in whole caravans to the dacha; it seemed that all of Petersburg was threatening to turn into a desert, so that at last I felt ashamed, offended and sad: I had absolutely nowhere and no reason to go to the dacha. I was ready to leave with every cart, to leave with every gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab; but no one, decidedly no one, invited me; as if they had forgotten me, as if I really were a stranger to them!

I walked a lot and for a long time, so that I had already quite managed, as usual, to forget where I was, when suddenly I found myself at the outpost. In an instant, I felt cheerful, and I stepped behind the barrier, went between the sown fields and meadows, did not hear fatigue, but felt only with my whole body that some kind of burden was falling from my soul. All the passers-by looked at me so amiably that they almost bowed resolutely; everyone was so excited about something, every single one was smoking cigars. And I was glad, as never happened to me before. It was as if I suddenly found myself in Italy - nature struck me so strongly, a half-sick city dweller who almost suffocated in the city walls.

There is something inexplicably touching in our St. Petersburg nature, when, with the onset of spring, it suddenly shows all its might, all the powers bestowed upon it by heaven, becomes pubescent, discharged, full of flowers ... Somehow involuntarily she reminds me of that stunted girl and an ailment, at which you sometimes look with pity, sometimes with a kind of compassionate love, sometimes you simply do not notice it, but which suddenly, for a moment, somehow inadvertently becomes inexplicably, wonderfully beautiful, and you, amazed, intoxicated , you involuntarily ask yourself: what force made these sad, thoughtful eyes shine with such fire? what caused the blood on those pale, emaciated cheeks? what poured passion over these tender features? Why is this chest heaving? what so suddenly called strength, life and beauty into the face of the poor girl, made him shine with such a smile, perk up with such sparkling, sparkling laughter? You look around, you are looking for someone, you guess ... But the moment passes, and perhaps tomorrow you will meet again the same thoughtful and absent-minded look, as before, the same pale face, the same humility and timidity in movements and even repentance, even traces of some kind of deadly longing and annoyance at a moment's infatuation ... And it's a pity for you that so soon, so irrevocably withered instantaneous beauty, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain - it's a pity because even you didn't have time to love her...

And yet my night was better than the day! That's how it was.

I came back to the city very late, and it was already ten o'clock when I began to approach the apartment. My road went along the embankment of the canal, on which at this hour you will not meet a living soul. True, I live in the remotest part of the city. I walked and sang, because when I am happy, I certainly purr something to myself, like every happy person who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has no one to share his joy with. Suddenly, the most unexpected adventure happened to me.

Off to the side, leaning against the railing of the canal, stood a woman; leaning on the grating, she seemed to be looking very attentively at the muddy water of the canal. She was dressed in a pretty yellow hat and a coquettish black cloak. “This is a girl, and certainly a brunette,” I thought. She didn't seem to hear my footsteps, she didn't even move when I walked by, holding my breath and with a beating heart. "Weird! - I thought, - it’s true, she’s really thinking about something, ”and suddenly I stopped in my tracks. I heard a dull sob. Yes! I was not deceived: the girl was crying, and a minute later more and more sobbing. Oh my God! My heart sank. And no matter how timid I am with women, but it was such a moment! .. I turned back, stepped towards her and would certainly have said: “Madame!” - if only I didn’t know that this exclamation has already been uttered a thousand times in all Russian high-society novels. This one stopped me. But while I was looking for a word, the girl woke up, looked around, caught herself, looked down and glided past me along the embankment. I immediately followed her, but she guessed it, left the embankment, crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk. I didn't dare to cross the street. My heart fluttered like a captured bird. Suddenly one incident came to my aid.

On the other side of the pavement, not far from my stranger, suddenly appeared a gentleman in a tailcoat, of respectable years, but one cannot say that of a respectable gait. He walked, staggering and carefully leaning against the wall. The girl, on the other hand, walked like an arrow, hastily and timidly, as all girls generally walk who do not want anyone to volunteer to accompany them home at night, and, of course, the swaying gentleman would never have caught up with her if my fate had not advised him to look for artificial means. Suddenly, without saying a word to anyone, my master takes off and flies at full speed, running, catching up with my stranger. She walked like the wind, but the swaying gentleman overtook, overtook, the girl screamed - and ... I bless fate for the excellent gnarled stick that happened this time in my right hand. I instantly found myself on the other side of the pavement, instantly the uninvited gentleman understood what was the matter, took into consideration an irresistible reason, fell silent, lagged behind, and only when we were already very far away, protested against me in rather energetic terms. But his words barely reached us.

... Or was he created in order
To stay even for a moment
In the neighborhood of your heart?...

Iv. Turgeniev

NIGHT ONE

It was a wonderful night, such a night, which can only happen when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, such a bright sky, that, looking at it, it was involuntarily necessary to ask oneself: can all kinds of angry and capricious people live under such a sky? This is also a young question, dear reader, a very young one, but God bless you more often!.. Speaking of capricious and various angry gentlemen, I could not help but recall my well-behaved behavior all that day. From the very morning some amazing melancholy began to torment me. It suddenly seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, alone, and that everyone was retreating from me. It is, of course, everyone has the right to ask: who are these all? because I have been living in St. Petersburg for eight years already, and I have not been able to make a single acquaintance. But what do I need dating? I already know all of Petersburg; that's why it seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, when all of Petersburg got up and suddenly left for the dacha. I was afraid to be left alone, and for three whole days I wandered around the city in deep anguish, absolutely not understanding what was happening to me. Whether I go to the Nevsky, whether I go to the garden, whether I wander along the embankment - not a single person from those whom I am used to meeting in the same place, at a certain hour, for a whole year. They don't know me, of course, but I know them. I know them briefly; I almost studied their faces - and admire them when they are cheerful, and mope when they are clouded. I almost made friends with an old man whom I meet every single day, at a certain hour, on the Fontanka. The physiognomy is so important, thoughtful; still whispering under his breath and waving his left hand, and in his right he has a long gnarled cane with a gold knob. Even he noticed me and takes a spiritual part in me. If it happens that I am not at the same place of the Fontanka at a certain hour, I am sure that the melancholy will attack him. That's why we sometimes almost bow to each other, especially when both are in good spirits. The other day, when we had not seen each other for two whole days and on the third day we met, we were already there and grabbed our hats, but fortunately we came to our senses in time, lowered our hands and walked beside each other with participation. I also know at home. When I walk, everyone seems to be running ahead of me into the street, looking at me through all the windows and almost saying: “Hello; how is your health? and, thank God, I am healthy, and a floor will be added to me in the month of May. Or: “How are you? and I'll be fixed tomorrow." Or: “I almost burned out and, moreover, got scared,” etc. Of these, I have favorites, I have short friends; one of them intends to be treated by an architect this summer. I’ll come in on purpose every day so that they don’t close up somehow, God save it! .. But I will never forget the story with one pretty light pink house. It was such a pretty little stone house, it looked at me so affably, it looked at its clumsy neighbors with such pride that my heart rejoiced when I happened to pass by. Suddenly, last week, I was walking down the street and, as I looked at my friend, I heard a plaintive cry: “They are painting me yellow!” Villains! barbarians! they spared nothing: no columns, no cornices, and my friend turned as yellow as a canary. I almost burst into bile over this occasion, and I still have not been able to see my mutilated poor man, who was painted in the color of the Celestial Empire.
So, you understand, reader, how I am familiar with all of Petersburg.
I have already said that for three whole days I was tormented by anxiety, until I guessed the reason for it. And on the street it was bad for me (that one is gone, that one is gone, where did such and such go?) - and at home I was not myself. For two evenings I sought: what do I lack in my corner? Why was it so embarrassing to stay there? - and with bewilderment I examined my green smoky walls, the ceiling, hung with cobwebs, which Matryona bred with great success, reviewed all my furniture, examined each chair, thinking, is there a problem here? (because if at least one chair is not standing the same as it was yesterday, then I am not myself) looked out the window, and all in vain ... it was not at all easier! I even took it into my head to call on Matryona and immediately gave her a paternal reprimand for cobwebs and in general for slovenliness; but she only looked at me in surprise and walked away without answering a word, so that the web still hangs safely in place. Finally, only this morning I guessed what was the matter. E! Yes, they are running away from me to the dacha! Forgive me for the trivial word, but I was not in the mood for a high style ... because, after all, everything that was in St. Petersburg either moved or moved to the dacha; because every respectable gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab, before my eyes, immediately turned into a respectable father of the family, who, after ordinary official duties, sets off lightly to the bowels of his family, to the dacha; because every passer-by now had a completely special look, which almost said to everyone he met: “We, gentlemen, are only here, in passing, but in two hours we will leave for the dacha.” If a window opened, on which at first thin fingers, white as sugar, drummed, and the head of a pretty girl stuck out, calling a peddler with pots of flowers, it immediately, immediately seemed to me that these flowers were bought only in this way, that is, not at all for in order to enjoy spring and flowers in a stuffy city apartment, and that very soon everyone will move to the dacha and take the flowers with them. Moreover, I had already made such progress in my new, special kind of discoveries that I could already unmistakably, by one look, designate in which dacha someone lives. The inhabitants of the Kamenny and Aptekarsky islands or the Peterhof road were distinguished by the studied elegance of receptions, smart summer suits and excellent carriages in which they arrived in the city. The inhabitants of Pargolovo and farther away, at first glance, "inspired" with their prudence and solidity; the visitor to Krestovsky Island was notable for his imperturbably cheerful look. Did I manage to meet a long procession of draft cabs lazily walking with reins in their hands near carts loaded with whole mountains of all kinds of furniture, tables, chairs, Turkish and non-Turkish sofas and other household belongings, on which, in addition to all this, she often sat on the very top a wagon, a puny cook who cherishes her master's goods like the apple of her eye; if I looked at the boats, heavily loaded with household utensils, gliding along the Neva or the Fontanka, to the Black River or the islands, the carts and boats were multiplied ten, lost in my eyes; it seemed that everything got up and set off, everything moved in whole caravans to the dacha; it seemed that all of Petersburg was threatening to turn into a desert, so that at last I felt ashamed, offended and sad: I had absolutely nowhere and no reason to go to the dacha. I was ready to leave with every cart, to leave with every gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab; but no one, decidedly no one, invited me; as if they had forgotten me, as if I really were a stranger to them!
I walked a lot and for a long time, so that I had already quite managed, as usual, to forget where I was, when suddenly I found myself at the outpost. In an instant, I felt cheerful, and I stepped behind the barrier, went between the sown fields and meadows, did not hear fatigue, but felt only with my whole body that some kind of burden was falling from my soul. All the passers-by looked at me so amiably that they almost bowed resolutely; everyone was so excited about something, every single one was smoking cigars. And I was glad, as never happened to me before. It was as if I suddenly found myself in Italy - nature struck me so strongly, a half-sick city dweller who almost suffocated in the city walls.
There is something inexplicably touching in our St. Petersburg nature, when, with the onset of spring, it suddenly shows all its might, all the powers bestowed upon it by heaven, becomes pubescent, discharged, full of flowers ... Somehow involuntarily she reminds me of that stunted girl and an ailment, at which you sometimes look with pity, sometimes with a kind of compassionate love, sometimes you simply do not notice it, but which suddenly, for a moment, somehow inadvertently becomes inexplicably, wonderfully beautiful, and you, amazed, intoxicated , you involuntarily ask yourself: what force made these sad, thoughtful eyes shine with such fire? what caused the blood on those pale, emaciated cheeks? what poured passion over these tender features? Why is this chest heaving? what so suddenly called strength, life and beauty into the face of the poor girl, made him shine with such a smile, perk up with such sparkling, sparkling laughter? You look around, you are looking for someone, you guess ... But the moment passes, and perhaps tomorrow you will meet again the same thoughtful and absent-minded look, as before, the same pale face, the same humility and timidity in movements and even repentance, even traces of some kind of deadly longing and annoyance at a moment's infatuation ... And it's a pity for you that so soon, so irrevocably withered instantaneous beauty, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain - it's a pity because even you didn't have time to love her...
And yet my night was better than the day! That's how it was.
I came back to the city very late, and it was already ten o'clock when I began to approach the apartment. My road went along the embankment of the canal, on which at this hour you will not meet a living soul. True, I live in the remotest part of the city. I walked and sang, because when I am happy, I certainly purr something to myself, like every happy person who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has no one to share his joy with. Suddenly, the most unexpected adventure happened to me.
Off to the side, leaning against the railing of the canal, stood a woman; leaning on the grating, she seemed to be looking very attentively at the muddy water of the canal. She was dressed in a pretty yellow hat and a coquettish black cloak. “This is a girl, and certainly a brunette,” I thought. She didn't seem to hear my footsteps, she didn't even move when I walked by, holding my breath and with a beating heart. "Weird! - I thought, - it’s true, she’s really thinking about something, ”and suddenly I stopped in my tracks. I heard a dull sob. Yes! I was not deceived: the girl was crying, and a minute later more and more sobbing. Oh my God! My heart sank. And no matter how timid I am with women, but it was such a moment! .. I turned back, stepped towards her and would certainly have said: “Madame!” - if only I didn’t know that this exclamation has already been uttered a thousand times in all Russian high-society novels. This one stopped me. But while I was looking for a word, the girl woke up, looked around, caught herself, looked down and glided past me along the embankment. I immediately followed her, but she guessed it, left the embankment, crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk. I didn't dare to cross the street. My heart fluttered like a captured bird. Suddenly one incident came to my aid.
On the other side of the pavement, not far from my stranger, suddenly appeared a gentleman in a tailcoat, of respectable years, but one cannot say that of a respectable gait. He walked, staggering and carefully leaning against the wall. The girl, on the other hand, walked like an arrow, hastily and timidly, as all girls generally walk who do not want anyone to volunteer to accompany them home at night, and, of course, the swaying gentleman would never have caught up with her if my fate had not advised him to look for artificial means. Suddenly, without saying a word to anyone, my master takes off and flies at full speed, running, catching up with my stranger. She walked like the wind, but the swaying gentleman overtook, overtook, the girl screamed - and ... I bless fate for the excellent gnarled stick that happened this time in my right hand. I instantly found myself on the other side of the pavement, instantly the uninvited gentleman understood what was the matter, took into consideration an irresistible reason, fell silent, lagged behind, and only when we were already very far away, protested against me in rather energetic terms. But his words barely reached us.
“Give me your hand,” I said to my stranger, “and he will not dare to pester us anymore.
She silently offered me her hand, which was still trembling with excitement and fright. O uninvited master! how I blessed you at this moment! I glanced at her: she was pretty and brunette - I guessed it; on her black eyelashes, tears of recent fright or former grief still glittered - I don’t know. But there was a smile on her lips. She, too, glanced at me furtively, blushed a little and looked down.
“See, why did you drive me away then? If I were here, none of this would have happened...
"But I didn't know you: I thought you too..."
- Do you know me now?
- A little bit. For example, why are you trembling?
- Oh, you guessed right the first time! - I answered in delight that my girlfriend is smart: this never interferes with beauty. - Yes, you guessed at a glance who you are dealing with. Exactly, I'm timid with women, I'm agitated, I don't argue, no less than you were a minute ago, when this gentleman frightened you ... I'm in some kind of fright now. Like a dream, and even in my sleep I did not guess that I would ever talk to at least some woman.
- As? really?..
“Yes, if my hand trembles, it is because it has never been clasped by such a pretty little hand as yours. I'm completely out of the habit of women; that is, I never got used to them; I'm alone... I don't even know how to talk to them. And now I don’t know if I said something stupid to you? Tell me straight; I warn you, I'm not offended...
- No, nothing, nothing; against. And if you already demand that I be frank, then I will tell you that women like such timidity; and if you want to know more, then I like her too, and I will not drive you away from me to the house.
“You will do to me,” I began, choking with delight, “that I will immediately cease to be shy, and then—forgive all my means!”
- Facilities? what means for what? this is really stupid.
- I'm sorry, I won't, it fell off my tongue; but how do you wish that at such a moment there was no desire ...
- Like it, right?
- Well, yes; Yes, please, for God's sake, please. Judge who I am! After all, I'm twenty-six years old, and I've never seen anyone. Well, how can I speak well, deftly and appropriately? It will be more profitable for you when everything is open, outward... I cannot be silent when my heart speaks in me. Well, it doesn't matter ... Believe me, not a single woman, never, never! No dating! and I only dream every day that finally someday I will meet someone. Ah, if you knew how many times I have been in love in this way! ..
- But how, in whom?
- Yes, in anyone, ideally, in the one that you dream about in a dream. I create entire novels in my dreams. Oh, you don't know me! True, it is impossible without that, I have met two or three women, but what kind of women are they? they are all such housewives that ... But I will make you laugh, I will tell you that several times I thought of talking, so easily, with some aristocrat on the street, of course, when she is alone; speak, of course, timidly, respectfully, passionately; to say that I am dying alone, so that she does not drive me away, that there is no way to recognize at least some woman; to convince her that even in the duties of a woman it is not to reject the timid entreaty of such an unfortunate man as myself. That, finally, and all that I demand is only to say to me some two brotherly words, with participation, not to drive me away from the first step, take my word for it, listen to what I say, you have to laugh me, if you like, to reassure me, to say two words to me, only two words, then even though we never meet! .. But you are laughing ... However, that’s why I’m talking ...
- Do not be annoyed; I laugh at the fact that you are your own enemy, and if you had tried, you would have succeeded, perhaps even if it were on the street; the simpler, the better... No kind woman, unless she is stupid or especially angry at something at that moment, would dare to send you away without these two words that you so timidly implore... However, what am I! Of course, I would take you for a madman. I judged by myself. I myself know a lot about how people live in the world!
“Oh, thank you,” I cried, “you don’t know what you have done for me now!
- Good good! But tell me, why did you know that I was such a woman with whom ... well, whom you considered worthy ... of attention and friendship ... in a word, not a hostess, as you call it. Why did you decide to come to me?
- Why? why? But you were alone, that gentleman was too bold, now it's night: you yourself will agree that this is a duty ...
- No, no, even before, there, on the other side. You wanted to come to me, didn't you?
- There, on the other side? But I really don't know how to answer; I'm afraid... You know, I was happy today; I walked, I sang; I was out of town; I have never had such happy moments. You... I may have thought... Well, forgive me if I remind you: I thought you were crying, and I... I couldn't hear it... my heart sank... Oh , Oh my God! Well, couldn't I have yearned for you? Was it really a sin to feel fraternal compassion for you?.. Excuse me, I said compassion... Well, yes, in a word, could I really offend you by involuntarily thinking of approaching you?..
- Leave, enough, do not talk ... - said the girl, looking down and squeezing my hand. - It's my own fault for talking about it; but I'm glad I didn't mistake you... but now I'm at home; I need here, in the alley; there are two steps... Goodbye, thank you...
- So really, really, we will never see each other again? .. Is it really so and will remain?
“You see,” the girl said, laughing, “at first you only wanted two words, but now ... But, by the way, I won’t tell you anything ... Maybe we’ll meet ...
"I'll come here tomorrow," I said. - Oh, forgive me, I already demand ...
- Yes, you are impatient ... you almost demand ...
- Listen, listen! I interrupted her. - Forgive me if I tell you something like that again ... But here's the thing: I can't help but come here tomorrow. I'm a dreamer; I have so little real life that I consider such moments as this, as now, so rare that I cannot help but repeat these moments in my dreams. I dream about you all night, all week, all year. I will certainly come here tomorrow, exactly here, to the same place, exactly at this hour, and I will be happy, remembering yesterday. This place is nice to me. I already have two or three such places in St. Petersburg. I even wept once at the recollection, like you... Who knows, perhaps ten minutes ago you too wept at the recollection... But forgive me, I forgot myself again; you may have been especially happy here sometime...
- Well, - said the girl, - I, perhaps, will come here tomorrow, also at ten o'clock. I see that I can no longer forbid you ... Here's the thing, I need to be here; don't think that I'm making an appointment with you; I'm warning you, I need to be here for myself. But... well, I'll tell you straight out: it won't matter if you come too; in the first place, there may be troubles again, as today, but that is aside... in a word, I would just like to see you... to say two words to you. Only, you see, you won't judge me now? don't think that I make appointments so easily... I would have made an appointment if only... But let it be my secret! Only forward agreement ...
- Deal! say, say, say everything in advance; I agree to everything, I’m ready for anything,” I cried in delight, “I’m responsible for myself—I’ll be obedient, respectful… you know me…”
- Precisely because I know you, and I invite you tomorrow, - said the girl, laughing. - I know you perfectly. But, look, come with a condition; firstly (only be kind, do what I ask - you see, I speak frankly), do not fall in love with me ... This is impossible, I assure you. I am ready for friendship, here is my hand for you ... But you can’t fall in love, I beg you!
"I swear to you," I shouted, grabbing her pen...
- Come on, don't swear, I know you can flare up like gunpowder. Don't judge me if I say so. If you only knew... I also don't have anyone with whom I could say a word, who could I ask for advice. Of course, it’s not to look for advisers on the street, but you are an exception. I know you as if we had been friends for twenty years ... Isn't it true, you won't change?
- You will see ... only I don’t know how I will live even a day.
- Sleep soundly; good night - and remember that I have already entrusted myself to you. But you exclaimed so well just now: Is it really possible to give an account of every feeling, even of brotherly sympathy! You know, it was so well said that I immediately thought of trusting you...
- For God's sake, but what? what?
- Till tomorrow. Let it be a secret for now. So much the better for you; even if it looks like a novel. Maybe I'll tell you tomorrow, maybe not... I'll talk to you in advance, we'll get to know each other better...
- Oh, yes, tomorrow I will tell you everything about myself! But what is it? as if a miracle is happening to me ... Where am I, my God? Well, tell me, are you really unhappy that you didn’t get angry, as another would have done, didn’t drive me away at the very beginning? Two minutes and you have made me happy forever. Yes! happy; who knows, maybe you have reconciled me with yourself, resolved my doubts... Maybe such moments come over me... Well, yes, I'll tell you everything tomorrow, you'll know everything, everything...
- Okay, I accept; you will start...
- Agree.
- Goodbye!
- Goodbye!
And we broke up. I walked all night; I could not bring myself to return home. I was so happy... see you tomorrow!

NIGHT TWO

Well, here we are! she said to me, laughing and shaking both my hands.
- I've been here for two hours; you don't know what happened to me all day!
- I know, I know ... but to the point. Do you know why I came? It's not nonsense to talk like yesterday. Here's the thing: we need to move forward smarter. I thought about this for a long time yesterday.
- In what, in what to be smarter? For my part, I'm ready; but, really, in my life nothing smarter happened to me than now.
- Indeed? First, I beg you, do not press my hands like that; secondly, I announce to you that I have been thinking about you for a long time today.
- Well, how did it end?
- How did it end? I ended up having to start all over again, because in conclusion of everything I decided today that you are still completely unknown to me, that yesterday I acted like a child, like a girl, and, of course, it turned out that my good heart was to blame for everything, then there, I praised myself, as it always ends when we begin to sort out our own. And therefore, in order to correct the mistake, I decided to find out about you in the most detailed way. But since there is no one to find out about you, then you yourself must tell me everything, all the ins and outs. Well, what kind of person are you? Hurry up - start the same, tell your story.
- History! - I shouted, frightened, - history! But who told you that I have my story? I don't have a story...
- So how did you live, if there is no history? she interrupted, laughing.
- Completely without any stories! so, he lived, as we say, on his own, that is, one completely - one, one completely - do you understand what one is?
- How is one? So you never saw anyone?
- Oh no, I see something - but still I'm alone.
- Well, don't you talk to anyone?
- In the strict sense, with no one.
- Yes, who are you, explain yourself! Wait, I guess: you must have a grandmother, just like me. She is blind and has not let me go anywhere for a whole life, so I have almost forgotten how to speak completely. And when I messed up about two years ago, she sees that you can’t keep me, she called me, and she pinned my dress to hers with a pin - and since then we have been sitting for whole days; she knits a stocking, though she is blind; and I sit beside her, read or read a book aloud to her - such a strange custom that I've been pinned for two years now ...
- Oh, my God, what a misfortune! No, I don't have such a grandmother.
- And if not, how can you sit at home? ..
- Listen, you want to know who I am?
- Well, yes, yes!
- In the strict sense of the word?
- In the strictest sense of the word!
- Excuse me, I'm a type.
- Type, type! what type? cried the girl, laughing as if she had not been able to laugh for a whole year. - Yes, it's fun with you! Look: there is a bench here; let's sit down! No one walks here, no one will hear us, and - start your story! because, you will not assure me, you have a story, and you are only hiding. First, what is a type?
- Type of? type is the original, it's such a funny person! I replied, laughing myself at her childish laughter. - It's such a character. Listen: do you know what a dreamer is?
- Dreamer? Excuse me, how can you not know? I'm a dreamer myself! Sometimes you sit next to your grandmother and something will not enter your head. Well, then you start dreaming, and then you think about it - well, I’m just marrying a Chinese prince ... But it’s good to dream another time! No, but God knows! Especially if there is something to think about even without it,” the girl added, this time quite seriously.
- Excellent! Since you once married a Chinese Bogdykhan, then you will completely understand me. Well, listen... But allow me: I don't know your name yet, do I?
- Finally! remembered early!
- Oh my god! Yes, it didn’t even cross my mind, I was already so good ...
- My name is Nastenka.
- Nastenka! only?

It was a wonderful night, such a night, which can only happen when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, such a bright sky, that, looking at it, it was involuntarily necessary to ask oneself: can all kinds of angry and capricious people live under such a sky? This is also a young question, dear reader, a very young one, but God bless you more often!.. Speaking of capricious and various angry gentlemen, I could not help but recall my well-behaved behavior all that day. From the very morning some amazing melancholy began to torment me. It suddenly seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, alone, and that everyone was retreating from me. It is, of course, everyone has the right to ask: who are these all? because I have been living in St. Petersburg for eight years already, and I have not been able to make a single acquaintance. But what do I need dating? I already know all of Petersburg; that's why it seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, when all of Petersburg got up and suddenly left for the dacha. I was afraid to be left alone, and for three whole days I wandered around the city in deep anguish, absolutely not understanding what was happening to me. Whether I go to the Nevsky, whether I go to the garden, whether I wander along the embankment - not a single person from those whom I am used to meeting in the same place, at a certain hour, for a whole year. They don't know me, of course, but I know them. I know them briefly; I almost studied their faces - and admire them when they are cheerful, and mope when they are clouded. I almost made friends with an old man whom I meet every single day, at a certain hour, on the Fontanka. The physiognomy is so important, thoughtful; still whispering under his breath and waving his left hand, and in his right he has a long gnarled cane with a gold knob. Even he noticed me and takes a spiritual part in me. If it happens that I am not at the same place of the Fontanka at a certain hour, I am sure that the melancholy will attack him. That's why we sometimes almost bow to each other, especially when both are in good spirits. The other day, when we had not seen each other for two whole days and on the third day we met, we were already there and grabbed our hats, but fortunately we came to our senses in time, lowered our hands and walked beside each other with participation. I also know at home. When I walk, everyone seems to be running ahead of me into the street, looking at me through all the windows and almost saying: “Hello; how is your health? and, thank God, I am healthy, and a floor will be added to me in the month of May. Or: “How are you? and I'll be fixed tomorrow." Or: “I almost burned out and, moreover, got scared,” etc. Of these, I have favorites, I have short friends; one of them intends to be treated by an architect this summer. I’ll come in on purpose every day so that they don’t close up somehow, God save it! .. But I will never forget the story with one pretty light pink house. It was such a pretty little stone house, it looked at me so affably, it looked at its clumsy neighbors with such pride that my heart rejoiced when I happened to pass by. Suddenly, last week, I was walking down the street and, as I looked at my friend, I heard a plaintive cry: “And they paint me yellow!” Villains! barbarians! they spared nothing: no columns, no cornices, and my friend turned as yellow as a canary. I almost burst into bile over this occasion, and I still have not been able to see my mutilated poor man, who was painted in the color of the Celestial Empire.

So, you understand, reader, how I am familiar with all of Petersburg.

I have already said that for three whole days I was tormented by anxiety, until I guessed the reason for it. And on the street it was bad for me (that one is gone, that one is gone, where did such and such go?) - and at home I was not myself. For two evenings I sought: what do I lack in my corner? Why was it so embarrassing to stay there? - and with bewilderment I examined my green smoky walls, the ceiling, hung with cobwebs, which Matryona bred with great success, reviewed all my furniture, examined each chair, thinking, is there a problem here? (because if at least one chair is not standing the same as it was yesterday, then I am not myself) looked out the window, and all in vain ... it was not at all easier! I even took it into my head to call on Matryona and immediately gave her a paternal reprimand for cobwebs and in general for slovenliness; but she only looked at me in surprise and walked away without answering a word, so that the web still hangs safely in place. Finally, only this morning I guessed what was the matter. E! Yes, they are running away from me to the dacha! Forgive me for the trivial word, but I was not in the mood for a high style ... because, after all, everything that was in St. Petersburg either moved or moved to the dacha; because every respectable gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab, before my eyes, immediately turned into a respectable father of the family, who, after ordinary official duties, sets off lightly to the bowels of his family, to the dacha; because every passer-by now had a completely special look, which almost said to everyone he met: “We, gentlemen, are only here, in passing, but in two hours we will leave for the dacha.” If a window opened, on which at first thin fingers, white as sugar, drummed, and the head of a pretty girl stuck out, calling a peddler with pots of flowers, it immediately, immediately seemed to me that these flowers were bought only in this way, that is, not at all for in order to enjoy spring and flowers in a stuffy city apartment, and that very soon everyone will move to the dacha and take the flowers with them. Moreover, I had already made such progress in my new, special kind of discoveries that I could already unmistakably, by one look, designate in which dacha someone lives. The inhabitants of the Kamenny and Aptekarsky islands or the Peterhof road were distinguished by the studied elegance of receptions, smart summer suits and excellent carriages in which they arrived in the city. The inhabitants of Pargolovo and farther away, at first glance, "inspired" with their prudence and solidity; the visitor to Krestovsky Island was notable for his imperturbably cheerful look. Did I manage to meet a long procession of draft cabs lazily walking with reins in their hands near carts loaded with whole mountains of all kinds of furniture, tables, chairs, Turkish and non-Turkish sofas and other household belongings, on which, in addition to all this, she often sat on the very top a wagon, a puny cook who cherishes her master's goods like the apple of her eye; if I looked at the boats, heavily loaded with household utensils, gliding along the Neva or the Fontanka, to the Black River or the islands, the carts and boats were multiplied ten, lost in my eyes; it seemed that everything got up and set off, everything moved in whole caravans to the dacha; it seemed that all of Petersburg was threatening to turn into a desert, so that at last I felt ashamed, offended and sad: I had absolutely nowhere and no reason to go to the dacha. I was ready to leave with every cart, to leave with every gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab; but no one, decidedly no one, invited me; as if they had forgotten me, as if I really were a stranger to them!

I walked a lot and for a long time, so that I had already quite managed, as usual, to forget where I was, when suddenly I found myself at the outpost. In an instant, I felt cheerful, and I stepped behind the barrier, went between the sown fields and meadows, did not hear fatigue, but felt only with my whole body that some kind of burden was falling from my soul. All the passers-by looked at me so amiably that they almost bowed resolutely; everyone was so excited about something, every single one was smoking cigars. And I was glad, as never happened to me before. It was as if I had suddenly found myself in Italy, so much nature struck me, a half-sick city dweller who almost suffocated in the city walls.

There is something inexplicably touching in our St. Petersburg nature, when, with the onset of spring, it suddenly shows all its might, all the powers bestowed upon it by heaven, becomes pubescent, discharged, full of flowers ... Somehow involuntarily she reminds me of that stunted girl and an ailment, at which you sometimes look with pity, sometimes with a kind of compassionate love, sometimes you simply do not notice it, but which suddenly, for a moment, somehow inadvertently becomes inexplicably, wonderfully beautiful, and you, amazed, intoxicated , you involuntarily ask yourself: what force made these sad, thoughtful eyes shine with such fire? what caused the blood on those pale, emaciated cheeks? what poured passion over these tender features? Why is this chest heaving? what so suddenly called strength, life and beauty into the face of the poor girl, made him shine with such a smile, perk up with such sparkling, sparkling laughter? You look around, you are looking for someone, you guess ... But the moment passes, and perhaps tomorrow you will meet again the same thoughtful and absent-minded look, as before, the same pale face, the same humility and timidity in movements and even repentance, even traces of some kind of deadly longing and annoyance at a moment's infatuation... And it's a pity for you that so soon, so irrevocably withered instantaneous beauty, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain - it's a pity because even you didn't have time to love her...

And yet my night was better than the day! That's how it was.

I came back to the city very late, and it was already ten o'clock when I began to approach the apartment. My road went along the embankment of the canal, on which at this hour you will not meet a living soul. True, I live in the remotest part of the city. I walked and sang, because when I am happy, I certainly purr something to myself, like every happy person who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has no one to share his joy with. Suddenly, the most unexpected adventure happened to me.

Off to the side, leaning against the railing of the canal, stood a woman; leaning on the grating, she seemed to be looking very attentively at the muddy water of the canal. She was dressed in a pretty yellow hat and a coquettish black cloak. “This is a girl, and certainly a brunette,” I thought. She didn't seem to hear my footsteps, she didn't even move when I walked by, holding my breath and with a beating heart. "Weird! I thought, “it’s true, she’s really thinking about something,” and suddenly I stopped in my tracks. I heard a dull sob. Yes! I was not deceived: the girl was crying, and a minute later more and more sobbing. Oh my God! My heart sank. And no matter how timid I am with women, but it was such a moment! .. I turned back, stepped towards her and would certainly have said: “Madame!” - if only I didn’t know that this exclamation has already been uttered a thousand times in all Russian high-society novels. This one stopped me. But while I was looking for a word, the girl woke up, looked around, caught herself, looked down and glided past me along the embankment. I immediately followed her, but she guessed it, left the embankment, crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk. I didn't dare to cross the street. My heart fluttered like a captured bird. Suddenly one incident came to my aid.

On the other side of the pavement, not far from my stranger, suddenly appeared a gentleman in a tailcoat, of respectable years, but one cannot say that of a respectable gait. He walked, staggering and carefully leaning against the wall. The girl, on the other hand, walked like an arrow, hastily and timidly, as all girls generally walk who do not want anyone to volunteer to accompany them home at night, and, of course, the swaying gentleman would never have caught up with her if my fate had not advised him to look for artificial means. Suddenly, without saying a word to anyone, my master takes off and flies at full speed, running, catching up with my stranger. She walked like the wind, but the swaying gentleman overtook, overtook, the girl screamed - and ... I bless fate for the excellent gnarled stick that happened this time in my right hand. I instantly found myself on the other side of the pavement, instantly the uninvited gentleman understood what was the matter, took into consideration an irresistible reason, fell silent, lagged behind, and only when we were already very far away, protested against me in rather energetic terms. But his words barely reached us.

“Give me your hand,” I said to my stranger, “and he will not dare to pester us anymore.

She silently offered me her hand, which was still trembling with excitement and fright. O uninvited master! how I blessed you at this moment! I glanced at her: she was pretty and brunette - I guessed; on her black eyelashes, tears of recent fright or former grief still glittered - I don’t know. But there was a smile on her lips. She, too, glanced at me furtively, blushed a little and looked down.

“You see, why did you drive me away then? If I were here, none of this would have happened...

"But I didn't know you: I thought you did too..."

“But do you know me now?”

- A little. For example, why are you trembling?

- Oh, you guessed right the first time! - I answered in delight that my girlfriend is smart: this never interferes with beauty. – Yes, you guessed at a glance who you are dealing with. Exactly, I'm timid with women, I'm agitated, I don't argue, no less than you were a minute ago, when this gentleman frightened you ... I'm in some kind of fright now. Like a dream, and even in my sleep I did not guess that I would ever talk to at least some woman.

- As? really?..

“Yes, if my hand trembles, it is because it has never been clasped by such a pretty little hand as yours. I'm completely out of the habit of women; that is, I never got used to them; I'm alone... I don't even know how to talk to them. And now I don’t know if I said something stupid to you? Tell me straight; I warn you, I'm not offended...

- No, nothing, nothing; against. And if you already demand that I be frank, then I will tell you that women like such timidity; and if you want to know more, then I like her too, and I will not drive you away from me to the house.

“You will do with me,” I began, choking with delight, “that I will immediately cease to be shy, and then—forgive all my means!”

- Facilities? what means for what? this is really stupid.

- I'm sorry, I won't, it fell off my tongue; but how do you wish that at such a moment there was no desire ...

- Like it, right?

- Well, yes; Yes, please, for God's sake, please. Judge who I am! After all, I'm twenty-six years old, and I've never seen anyone. Well, how can I speak well, deftly and appropriately? It will be more profitable for you when everything is open, outward... I cannot be silent when my heart speaks in me. Well, it doesn't matter ... Believe me, not a single woman, never, never! No dating! and I only dream every day that finally someday I will meet someone. Ah, if you knew how many times I have been in love in this way! ..

- But how, in whom?

- Yes, in anyone, ideally, in the one that you dream about in a dream. I create entire novels in my dreams. Oh, you don't know me! True, it is impossible without that, I have met two or three women, but what kind of women are they? they are all such housewives that ... But I will make you laugh, I will tell you that several times I thought of talking, so easily, with some aristocrat on the street, of course, when she is alone; speak, of course, timidly, respectfully, passionately; to say that I am dying alone, so that she does not drive me away, that there is no way to recognize at least some woman; to convince her that even in the duties of a woman it is not to reject the timid entreaty of such an unfortunate man as myself. That, finally, and all that I demand is only to say to me some two brotherly words, with participation, not to drive me away from the first step, take my word for it, listen to what I say, you have to laugh me, if you like, to reassure me, to say two words to me, only two words, then even though we never meet! .. But you are laughing ... However, that’s why I’m talking ...

- Do not be annoyed; I laugh at the fact that you are your own enemy, and if you had tried, you would have succeeded, perhaps even if it were on the street; the simpler, the better... No kind woman, unless she is stupid or especially angry at something at that moment, would dare to send you away without these two words that you so timidly implore... However, what am I! Of course, I would take you for a madman. I judged by myself. I myself know a lot about how people live in the world!

“Oh, thank you,” I cried, “you don’t know what you have done for me now!”

- Good good! But tell me, why did you know that I was such a woman with whom ... well, whom you considered worthy ... of attention and friendship ... in a word, not a hostess, as you call it. Why did you decide to come to me?

- Why? why? But you were alone, that gentleman was too bold, now it's night: you yourself will agree that this is a duty ... - No, no, even before, there, on the other side. You wanted to come to me, didn't you?

- There, on the other side? But I really don't know how to answer; I'm afraid... You know, I was happy today; I walked, I sang; I was out of town; I have never had such happy moments. You... I may have thought... Well, forgive me if I remind you: I thought you were crying, and I... I couldn't hear it... my heart sank... Oh , Oh my God! Well, couldn't I have yearned for you? Was it really a sin to feel fraternal compassion for you?.. Excuse me, I said compassion... Well, yes, in a word, could I really offend you by involuntarily thinking of approaching you?..

“Leave it alone, that’s enough, don’t talk…” the girl said, looking down and squeezing my hand. “It’s my own fault for talking about it; but I'm glad I didn't mistake you... but now I'm at home; I need here, in the alley; there are two steps... Goodbye, thank you...

– So really, really, we will never see each other again? .. Is it really like this?

“You see,” the girl said, laughing, “at first you wanted only two words, but now ... But, by the way, I won’t tell you anything ... Maybe we’ll meet ...

“I will come here tomorrow,” I said. - Oh, forgive me, I already demand ...

– Yes, you are impatient... you almost demand...

- Listen, listen! I interrupted her. – Forgive me if I tell you something like that again... But here's the thing: I can't help but come here tomorrow. I'm a dreamer; I have so little real life that I consider such moments as this, as now, so rare that I cannot help but repeat these moments in my dreams. I dream about you all night, all week, all year. I will certainly come here tomorrow, exactly here, to the same place, exactly at this hour, and I will be happy, remembering yesterday. This place is nice to me. I already have two or three such places in St. Petersburg. I even wept once at the recollection, like you... Who knows, perhaps ten minutes ago you too wept at the recollection... But forgive me, I forgot myself again; you may have been especially happy here sometime...

“Very well,” said the girl, “perhaps I will come here tomorrow, also at ten o’clock.” I see that I can no longer forbid you ... Here's the thing, I need to be here; don't think that I'm making an appointment with you; I'm warning you, I need to be here for myself. But... well, I'll tell you straight out: it won't matter if you come too; in the first place, there may be troubles again, as today, but that is aside... in a word, I would just like to see you... to say two words to you. Only, you see, you won't judge me now? don't think that I make appointments so easily... I would have made an appointment if only... But let it be my secret! Only forward agreement ...

- Deal! say, say, say everything in advance; I agree to everything, I’m ready for anything,” I cried in delight, “I’m responsible for myself—I’ll be obedient, respectful… you know me…”

- Precisely because I know you, and I invite you tomorrow, - said the girl, laughing. “I know you perfectly. But, look, come with a condition; in the first place (only be kind, do what I ask - you see, I speak frankly), do not fall in love with me ... This is impossible, I assure you. I am ready for friendship, here is my hand for you ... But you can’t fall in love, I beg you!

“I swear to you,” I shouted, grabbing her pen...

- Come on, don't swear, I know you can catch fire like gunpowder. Don't judge me if I say so. If you only knew... I also don't have anyone with whom I could say a word, who could I ask for advice. Of course, it’s not to look for advisers on the street, but you are an exception. I know you as if we had been friends for twenty years ... Isn't it true, you won't change?

- You will see ... only I don’t know how I will live even a day.

- Sleep soundly; good night - and remember that I have already entrusted myself to you. But you exclaimed so well just now: Is it really possible to give an account of every feeling, even of brotherly sympathy! You know, it was so well said that I immediately thought of trusting you...

- For God's sake, but what? what?

- Till tomorrow. Let it be a secret for now. So much the better for you; even if it looks like a novel. Maybe I'll tell you tomorrow, maybe not... I'll talk to you in advance, we'll get to know each other better...

“Oh, I’ll tell you everything about myself tomorrow!” But what is it? as if a miracle is happening to me ... Where am I, my God? Well, tell me, are you really unhappy that you didn’t get angry, as another would have done, didn’t drive me away at the very beginning? Two minutes and you have made me happy forever. Yes! happy; who knows, maybe you have reconciled me with yourself, resolved my doubts... Maybe such moments come over me... Well, yes, I'll tell you everything tomorrow, you'll know everything, everything...

- Okay, I accept; you will start...

- Agree.

- Goodbye!

- Goodbye!

And we broke up. I walked all night; I could not bring myself to return home. I was so happy... see you tomorrow!

NIGHT TWO

- Well, here we are! she said to me, laughing and shaking both my hands.

- I've been here for two hours; you don't know what happened to me all day!

“I know, I know… but to the point. Do you know why I came? It's not nonsense to talk like yesterday. Here's the thing: we need to move forward smarter. I thought about this for a long time yesterday.

- In what, in what to be smarter? For my part, I'm ready; but, really, in my life nothing smarter happened to me than now.

- Indeed? First, I beg you, do not press my hands like that; secondly, I announce to you that I have been thinking about you for a long time today.

- Well, what was the end of it?

- How did it end? I ended up having to start all over again, because in conclusion of everything I decided today that you are still completely unknown to me, that yesterday I acted like a child, like a girl, and, of course, it turned out that my good heart was to blame for everything, then there, I praised myself, as it always ends when we begin to sort out our own. And therefore, in order to correct the mistake, I decided to find out about you in the most detailed way. But since there is no one to find out about you, then you yourself must tell me everything, all the ins and outs. Well, what kind of person are you? Hurry up and get started, tell your story.

- History! - I shouted, frightened, - history! But who told you that I have my story? I don't have a story...

- So how did you live, if there is no history? she interrupted, laughing.

- Completely without any stories! so, he lived, as we say, on his own, that is, one completely - one, one completely - do you understand what one is?

- How about one? So you never saw anyone?

“Oh no, I see something, but still I am alone.

"Well, aren't you talking to anyone?"

- In the strict sense, with no one.

- But who are you, explain yourself! Wait, I guess: you must have a grandmother, just like me. She is blind and has not let me go anywhere for a whole life, so I have almost forgotten how to speak completely. And when I messed up about two years ago, she sees that you can’t hold me back, she took me, she called me, and she pinned my dress to hers with a pin - and since then we have been sitting for whole days; she knits a stocking, though she is blind; and I sit beside her, read or read a book aloud to her - such a strange custom that I have been pinned for two years now ...

“Oh, my God, what a misfortune! No, I don't have such a grandmother.

- And if not, how can you sit at home? ..

“Listen, do you want to know who I am?

- Well, yes, yes!

– In the strict sense of the word?

In the strictest sense of the word!

- Excuse me, I'm a type.

- Type, type! what type? cried the girl, laughing as if she had not been able to laugh for a whole year. - Yes, it's fun with you! Look: there is a bench here; let's sit down! No one walks here, no one will hear us, and - start your story! because, you will not assure me, you have a story, and you are only hiding. First, what is a type?

- Type of? the type is the original, this is such a funny person! I answered, laughing myself at her childish laughter. - It's such a character. Listen: do you know what a dreamer is?

- Dreamer? Excuse me, how can you not know? I'm a dreamer myself! Sometimes you sit next to your grandmother and something will not enter your head. Well, then you start dreaming, and then you think about it - well, I’m just marrying a Chinese prince ... But it’s good to dream another time! No, but God knows! Especially if there is something to think about even without it,” the girl added this time quite seriously.

- Excellent! Since you once married a Chinese Bogdykhan, then you will completely understand me. Well, listen... But allow me: I don't know your name yet, do I?

- Finally! remembered early!

- Oh my god! Yes, it didn’t even cross my mind, I was already so good ...

- My name is Nastenka.

- Nastenka! only?

- Only! Is it not enough for you, you insatiable kind!

- Not enough? Many, many, on the contrary, very much, Nastenka, you are a kind girl, if from the first time you became Nastenka for me!

- That's it! well!

- Well, here, Nastenka, listen, what a funny story is coming out here.

I sat down beside her, assumed a pedantically serious pose, and began as if in writing:

- Yes, Nastenka, if you don't know it, there are rather strange corners in St. Petersburg. It is as if the same sun that shines for all Petersburg people does not look into these places, but some other, new one, as if specially ordered for these corners, and shines on everything with a different, special light. In these corners, dear Nastenka, it seems as if a completely different life is surviving, not like the one that boils around us, but one that can be in the thirty-first unknown kingdom, and not here, in our serious, serious time. It is this life that is a mixture of something purely fantastic, ardently ideal, and at the same time (alas, Nastenka!) dull prosaic and ordinary, not to say: improbably vulgar.

- Ugh! Oh my God! what a preface! What is it that I hear?

- You will hear, Nastenka (it seems to me that I will never get tired of calling you Nastenka), you will hear that strange people live in these corners - dreamers. The dreamer - if you need a detailed definition of it - is not a person, but, you know, some kind of middle-class creature. For the most part, he settles somewhere in an inaccessible corner, as if hiding in it even from daylight, and if he climbs up to himself, he will grow to his corner like a snail, or, at least, he is very similar in this relation to that entertaining animal, which is both an animal and a house together, which is called a tortoise. Why do you think he loves his four walls so much, painted with green paint, smoky, dull and inadmissibly stoned? Why is this ridiculous gentleman when one of his rare acquaintances comes to visit him (and he ends up with all his acquaintances being translated), why does this ridiculous man meet him, so embarrassed, so changed in his face and in such confusion, as as if he had just committed a crime within his four walls, as if he had fabricated fake papers or some kind of rhyme to send to a magazine with an anonymous letter in which it was indicated that the real poet had already died and that his friend considered it a sacred duty to publish his verses? Why, tell me, Nastenka, does the conversation go so wrong with these two interlocutors? why does not laughter, or some kind of brisk word, fly off the tongue of a suddenly entered and puzzled friend, who in another case is very fond of laughter, and a brisk word, and talk about a beautiful field, and other cheerful topics? Why, finally, does this friend, probably a recent acquaintance, even at the first visit - because in this case there will be no second and the friend will not come another time - why does the friend himself become so embarrassed, so stiff, with all his wit (if only he has it), looking at the overturned face of the owner, who, in turn, has already completely lost himself and lost his last sense after gigantic, but futile efforts to smooth and brighten the conversation, show, for his part, knowledge of secularism, also talk about the beautiful field and at least such humility will please a poor, misguided person who, by mistake, came to visit him? Why, finally, does the guest suddenly grab his hat and quickly leave, suddenly remembering a self-important business that never happened, and somehow freeing his hand from the host’s hot shaking, trying in every possible way to show his repentance and correct what was lost? Why does the departing friend laugh, going out the door, immediately swears to himself never to come to this eccentric, although this eccentric is in essence an excellent fellow, and at the same time he can in no way refuse his imagination a small whim: to compare, even remote Thus, the physiognomy of his recent interlocutor during the entire meeting with the appearance of that unfortunate kitten, who was crushed, frightened and offended in every possible way by the children, treacherously capturing him, embarrassed him into dust, which finally hid from them under a chair, into darkness, and there for a whole hour at leisure forced to bristle, snort and wash his offended stigma with both paws and long after that look with hostility at nature and life, and even at the sop from the master's dinner, which the compassionate housekeeper has in store for him?

Listen, - interrupted Nastenka, who listened to me all the time in surprise, opening her eyes and mouth, - listen: I don’t know at all why all this happened and why exactly you offer me such ridiculous questions; but what I know for sure is that all these adventures happened to you without fail, from word to word.

Without a doubt, - I answered with the most serious mine.

Well, if there is no doubt, then go on, - Nastenka answered, - because I really want to know how it will end. - You want to know, Nastenka, what our hero did in his corner, or, better, I, because the hero of the whole thing is I, my own modest person; do you want to know why I was so alarmed and lost for a whole day from an unexpected visit from a friend? Do you want to know why I fluttered so much, blushed so much when they opened the door to my room, why I did not know how to receive a guest and died so shamefully under the weight of my own hospitality?

Well, yes, yes! - answered Nastenka, - that's the point. Listen: you tell a great story, but is it possible to tell it somehow not so beautifully? And then you say you're reading a book.

Nastenka! - I answered in an important and stern voice, barely restraining myself from laughing, - dear Nastenka, I know that I am telling a story perfectly, but - it’s my fault, otherwise I don’t know how to tell. Now, dear Nastenka, now I look like the spirit of King Solomon, who was in a capsule for a thousand years, under seven seals, and from whom all these seven seals were finally removed. Now, dear Nastenka, when we met again after such a long separation - because I have known you for a long time, Nastenka, because I have been looking for someone for a long time, and this is a sign that I was looking for you and that we were destined now see each other - now thousands of valves have opened in my head, and I must spill a river of words, otherwise I will suffocate. So, I ask you not to interrupt me, Nastenka, but to listen humbly and obediently; otherwise, I will shut up.

No-no-no! no way! speak! Now I won't say a word.

I continue: there is, my friend Nastenka, there is one hour in my day, which I love extremely. This is the very hour when almost all business, positions and obligations end, and everyone rushes home to dine, lie down to rest and right there, on the road, invent other funny topics relating to the evening, night and all the remaining free time. At this hour, our hero too - because let me, Nastenka, tell in the third person, because in the first person it’s terribly embarrassing to tell all this - so, at this hour, our hero, who was also not idle, is walking for others. But a strange feeling of pleasure plays on his pale, somewhat crumpled face. He looks indifferently at the evening dawn, which is slowly fading in the cold Petersburg sky. When I say he's looking, I'm lying: he doesn't look, but contemplates somehow unconsciously, as if he were tired or occupied at the same time with some other, more interesting subject, so that only briefly, almost involuntarily, he can give time for everything around. He is pleased, because he has done away with things that are annoying for him until tomorrow, and he is happy, like a schoolboy who has been released from the classroom to his favorite games and pranks. Look at him from the side, Nastenka: you will immediately see that a joyful feeling has already had a happy effect on his weak nerves and painfully irritated fantasy. Here he is thinking about something ... Do you think about dinner? about tonight? What is he looking at? Was it this gentleman of respectable appearance, who bowed so picturesquely to a lady who rode past him on roaring horses in a shiny carriage? No, Nastenka, what does he care about all this trifle now! He is already rich in his special life ; he somehow suddenly became rich, and it was not in vain that the parting ray of the fading sun flashed before him so cheerfully and evoked a whole swarm of impressions from his warmed heart. Now he barely notices the road on which before the smallest trifle could hit him. Now the “goddess of fantasy” (if you read Zhukovsky, dear Nastenka) has already woven her golden base with a whimsical hand and went to develop patterns of an unprecedented, bizarre life in front of him - and, who knows, maybe she transferred him with a whimsical hand to the seventh crystal sky from an excellent granite sidewalk on which he walks home. Try to stop him now, ask him suddenly: where is he standing now, what streets did he walk along? - he probably would not remember anything, neither where he went, nor where he stood now, and, blushing with annoyance, he would certainly lie something to save decency. That is why he was so startled, almost screamed, and looked around with fright, when a very respectable old woman politely stopped him in the middle of the sidewalk and began to question him about the road she had lost. Frowning with annoyance, he walks on, hardly noticing that more than one passerby smiled, looking at him, and turned after him, and that some little girl, timidly making way for him, laughed loudly, looking with all her eyes at his wide contemplative smile. and hand gestures. But all the same fantasy picked up on its playful flight both the old woman, and curious passers-by, and the laughing girl, and the peasants, who immediately dine on their barges that flooded the Fontanka (suppose our hero was passing through it at that time), playfully killed everyone and everything in his canvas, like flies in a cobweb, and with a new acquisition, the eccentric has already entered his comfortable hole, has already sat down to dinner, had already dined a long time ago and woke up only when the pensive and eternally sad Matryona, who waits on him, was already done. cleared the table and handed him the phone, woke up and was surprised to remember that he had already completely dined, resolutely overlooking how it happened. The room grew dark; his soul is empty and sad; a whole realm of dreams collapsed around him, collapsed without a trace, without noise or crackle, passed like a dream, and he himself does not remember what he was dreaming about. But some dark sensation, from which his chest ached and agitated a little, some new desire seductively tickles and irritates his imagination and imperceptibly summons a whole swarm of new ghosts. Silence reigns in the small room; solitude and laziness cherish the imagination; it ignites slightly, boils slightly, like the water in the coffee pot of old Matryona, who is serenely fumbling around in the kitchen, preparing her cook's coffee. Now it is already slightly breaking through with flashes, now the book, taken without purpose and at random, falls out of the hands of my dreamer, who did not even reach the third page. His imagination was again attuned, excited, and suddenly again a new world, a new, charming life flashed before him in its brilliant perspective. New dream - new happiness! A new technique of refined, voluptuous poison! Oh, what is he in our real life! In his bribed look, you and I, Nastenka, live so lazily, slowly, listlessly; in his opinion, we are all so dissatisfied with our fate, we are so languishing with our lives! And really, look, really, how at first glance everything between us is cold, gloomy, as if angry ... "Poor!" - thinks my dreamer. And no wonder what he thinks! Look at these magical ghosts, which are so charmingly, so whimsically, so boundlessly and widely formed in front of him in such a magical, animated picture, where in the foreground, the first person, of course, is himself, our dreamer, his dear person. See what a variety of adventures, what an endless swarm of rapturous dreams. You may ask, what does he dream about? Why ask! yes about everything ... about the role of the poet, at first not recognized, and then crowned; about friendship with Hoffmann; St. Bartholomew's Night, Diana Vernon, a heroic role during the capture of Kazan by Ivan Vasilyevich, Clara Movbray, Evfiya Dens, the cathedral of prelates and Gus in front of them, the uprising of the dead in Robert (remember the music? It smells like a cemetery!), Minna and Brenda, the battle of Berezina, reading a poem at Countess V-d-d-d , Danton, Cleopatra e i suoi amanti, a house in Kolomna, its own corner, and next to it is a cute creature that listens to you on a winter evening, opening its mouth and eyes, how you listen to me now, my little angel ... No, Nastenka, what is he , what is he, a voluptuous sloth, in that life in which we so want to be with you? he thinks that this is a poor, miserable life, not foreseeing that for him, perhaps, someday a sad hour will strike, when in one day of this miserable life he will give up all his fantastic years, and yet not for joy, not for happiness will give, and will not want to choose at that hour of sadness, remorse and unrequited grief. But while it has not yet come, this terrible time - he does not want anything, because he is above desires, because everything is with him, because he is satiated, because he himself is the artist of his life and creates it for himself every hour according to a new arbitrariness . And it's so easy, so naturally this fabulous, fantastic world is created! As if it really wasn't all a ghost! Indeed, I am ready to believe at some moment that all this life is not an arousal of feelings, not a mirage, not a deception of the imagination, but that it is indeed real, real, existing! Why, tell me, Nastenka, why is the spirit embarrassed at such moments? Why, then, by some magic, by some unknown arbitrariness, does the pulse accelerate, tears flow from the eyes of the dreamer, his pale, moistened cheeks burn, and his whole existence is filled with such irresistible joy? Why, then, whole sleepless nights pass like one moment, in inexhaustible joy and happiness, and when the dawn flashes a pink beam through the windows and the dawn illuminates the gloomy room with its dubious fantastic light, as here in St. Petersburg, our dreamer, tired, exhausted, rushes to bed and falls asleep in rapture from the delight of his painfully shaken spirit and with such languishingly sweet pain in his heart? Yes, Nastenka, you will be deceived and you will involuntarily believe in a stranger that a real, true passion excites his soul, you will involuntarily believe that there is a living, tangible in his incorporeal dreams! And after all, what a deceit - for example, love descended into his chest with all inexhaustible joy, with all tormenting torments ... Just look at him and make sure! Looking at him, dear Nastenka, do you believe that he really never knew the one he loved so much in his frenzied dream? Did he only see her in some seductive phantoms and only dreamed of this passion? Didn't they really go hand in hand for so many years of their lives - alone, together, discarding the whole world and connecting each of their worlds, their lives with the life of a friend? Was it really not she, at a late hour, when parting came, was not she lying, weeping and longing, on his chest, not hearing the storm that broke out under the harsh sky, not hearing the wind that plucked and carried away the tears from her black eyelashes? Was it really all a dream - and this garden, dull, abandoned and wild, with paths overgrown with moss, solitary, gloomy, where they so often walked together, hoped, yearned, loved, loved each other for so long, "so long and tenderly "! And this strange, great-grandfather's house, in which she lived solitarily and sadly for so long with her old, gloomy husband, eternally silent and bilious, frightening them, timid, like children, sadly and timidly concealing their love from each other? How they suffered, how they feared, how innocent and pure their love was, and how (of course, Nastenka) evil people were! And, my God, did he really not meet her later, far from the shores of his homeland, under a foreign sky, midday, hot, in a wondrous eternal city, in the splendor of a ball, with the thunder of music, in a palazzo (certainly in a palazzo), drowned in the sea lights, on this balcony twined with myrtle and roses, where, recognizing him, she so hastily removed her mask and, whispering: "I am free", trembling, threw herself into his arms, and screaming with delight, clinging to each other, they for a moment they forgot both grief, and separation, and all the torment, and the gloomy house, and the old man, and the gloomy garden in a distant homeland, and the bench on which, with the last passionate kiss, she broke out of his arms, numb in desperate anguish ... Oh, you must admit, Nastenka, that you will flutter, be embarrassed and blush, like a schoolboy who has just stuffed an apple stolen from a neighboring garden into his pocket, when some tall, healthy guy, a merry fellow and a joker, your uninvited friend, opens your door and shouts, as if nothing had happened: “And I, brother, this minute from Pavlovsk !" Oh my God! the old count is dead, indescribable happiness sets in - here people come from Pavlovsk!

I fell silent pathetically, having finished my pathetic exclamations. I remember that I wanted terribly to laugh out loud somehow, because I already felt that some kind of hostile demon was stirring in me, that my throat was already beginning to seize, my chin was twitching, and that my eyes were becoming more and more moist ... I expected that Nastenka, who was listening to me, opening her intelligent eyes, would burst out laughing with all her childish, uncontrollably cheerful laughter, and I already repented that I had gone far, that in vain I told what had long boiled in my heart, about which I could talk as written, because I had long ago prepared a sentence on myself, and now I could not resist not to read it, to confess, not expecting that they would understand me; but, to my astonishment, she said nothing, after a little while shook my hand lightly, and with a kind of timid concern asked:

Have you really lived your whole life like this?

All my life, Nastenka, - I answered, - all my life, and, it seems, I will end up like that!

No, this cannot be, - she said uneasily, - this will not happen; so, perhaps, I will live all my life near my grandmother. Listen, do you know that it's not good to live like this at all?

I know, Nastenka, I know! I cried, no longer holding back my feeling. - And now I know more than ever that I have lost all my best years for nothing! Now I know this, and I feel more painful from such a consciousness, because God himself sent you to me, my good angel, to tell me this and prove it. Now, when I sit beside you and talk to you, it’s already scary for me to think about the future, because in the future - again loneliness, again this musty, unnecessary life; and what will I dream of when I was already so happy in reality beside you! Oh, be blessed, you, dear girl, for not rejecting me the first time, for the fact that I can already say that I lived at least two evenings in my life!

Oh no, no! screamed Nastenka, and tears shone in her eyes, “no, it won’t be like that anymore; we won't be separated! What are two evenings!

Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! Do you know how long you have reconciled me to myself? do you know that now I will no longer think of myself as badly as I thought at other moments? Do you know that perhaps I will no longer grieve that I have done crime and sin in my life, because such a life is crime and sin? And don't think that I'm exaggerating anything for you, for God's sake, don't think that, Nastenka, because sometimes moments of such melancholy, such melancholy come over me... able to begin to live a real life; because it already seemed to me that I had lost all tact, all instinct in the present, the real; because at last I cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights, moments of sobering up are already found on me, which are terrible! Meanwhile, you hear how a crowd of people rumbles around you and whirls in the whirlwind of life, you hear, you see how people live, they live in reality, you see that life is not ordered for them, that their life will not fly apart, like a dream, like a vision, that their life is eternally renewed, eternally young, and not a single hour of it is like another, while timid fantasy is dull and monotonous to the point of vulgarity, a slave of a shadow, an idea, a slave of the first cloud that will suddenly cover the sun and squeeze with anguish the real Petersburg heart, which so cherishes its the sun, - and what a fantasy in anguish! You feel that it is finally getting tired, exhausted in eternal tension, this inexhaustible fantasy, because you are growing up, you are surviving from your former ideals: they break into dust, into fragments; if there is no other life, then one has to build it from the same fragments. Meanwhile, the soul asks and wants something else! And in vain the dreamer digs, as in ashes, in his old dreams, looking for at least some spark in this ashes in order to inflate it, to warm the cold heart with renewed fire and resurrect in it again everything that was before so sweet, that touched the soul, that boiled the blood, that drew tears from the eyes and deceived so luxuriously! Do you know, Nastenka, what I have come to? Do you know that I am already forced to celebrate the anniversary of my sensations, the anniversary of what used to be so sweet, which in essence never happened - because this anniversary is still celebrated according to the same stupid, incorporeal dreams - and to do this because and these foolish dreams do not exist, because there is nothing to survive them: after all, dreams survive! Do you know that I now love to remember and visit at a certain time those places where I was once happy in my own way, I love to build my present in harmony with the already irretrievably past and often wander like a shadow, needlessly and without purpose, dejectedly and sadly Petersburg back streets and streets. What memories! I recall, for example, that here exactly a year ago, at exactly the same time, at the same hour, I wandered along the same sidewalk just as lonely, just as depressingly as now! And you remember that even then the dreams were sad, and although before it was no better, you still somehow feel that it was as if it was easier and more peaceful to live, that there was no this black thought that has now become attached to me; that there were no these remorse of conscience, remorse gloomy, gloomy, which neither day nor night now do not give rest. And you ask yourself: where are your dreams? and you shake your head, you say: how quickly the years fly by! And again you ask yourself: what have you done with your years? where did you bury your best time? Did you live or not? Look, you say to yourself, look how cold the world is getting. Years will pass, and gloomy loneliness will come after them, shaking old age will come with a stick, followed by melancholy and despondency. Your fantastic world will turn pale, your dreams will freeze, drown and crumble like yellow leaves from trees ... Oh, Nastenka! after all, it would be sad to remain alone, completely alone, and not even have something to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing ... because everything that was lost, all this, everything was nothing, stupid, round zero, it was just a dream!

Well, don't pity me anymore! - said Nastenka, wiping away a tear that rolled out of her eyes. - Now it's over! Now we'll be together; now, whatever happens to me, we will never part. Listen. I am a simple girl, I studied little, although my grandmother hired a teacher for me; but, really, I understand you, because everything that you have told me now, I have already lived through myself when my grandmother pinned me to the dress. Of course, I wouldn’t have told you as well as you did, I didn’t study, ”she added timidly, because she still felt some respect for my pathetic speech and for my high style,“ but I am very glad that you are completely opened up to me. Now I know you, absolutely, I know everything. And you know what? I want to tell you my story, all without concealment, and after that you will give me advice. You are a very smart person; do you promise that you will give me this advice?

Ah, Nastenka, - I answered, - although I have never been an adviser, and even more so a smart adviser, but now I see that if we always live like this, it will be somehow very smart, and everyone gives each other a lot. smart advice! Well, my pretty Nastenka, what advice do you have? Speak directly to me; I am now so cheerful, happy, brave and smart that I can’t reach into my pocket for a word.

No no! - interrupted Nastenka, laughing, - I need more than one smart advice, I need advice from the heart, brotherly, as if you had loved me for a century!

It's coming, Nastenka, it's coming! I shouted in delight, “and if I had loved you for twenty years, I still wouldn’t love you more than now!”

Your hand! - said Nastenka.

There she is! I answered, offering her my hand.

So let's start my story!

HISTORY OF NASTENKA

You already know half of the story, that is, you know that I have an old grandmother...

If the other half is as short as this one ... - I interrupted, laughing.

Be silent and listen. First of all, an agreement: do not interrupt me, otherwise I will probably go astray. Well, listen quietly.

I have an old grandmother. I came to her as a very young girl, because both my mother and father died. One must think that grandmother used to be richer, because even now she remembers better days. She taught me French and then hired me a teacher. When I was fifteen years old (and now I'm seventeen), we finished studying. It was at this time that I messed up; so what I did - I will not tell you; enough that the offense was small. Only my grandmother called me to her one morning and said that since she was blind, she would not look after me, she took a pin and pinned my dress to hers, and then she said that we would sit like that all our lives, if, of course, I won't get better. In a word, at first it was impossible to move away: work, and read, and study - everything is near grandmother. I tried to cheat once and persuaded Fekla to sit in my place. Thekla is our worker, she is deaf. Thekla sat down instead of me; grandmother fell asleep in armchairs at that time, and I went not far to my friend. Well, it ended badly. Grandma woke up without me and asked about something, thinking that I was still sitting quietly in my place. Fyokla sees that grandmother is asking, but she herself does not hear what, she thought, thought what to do, unfastened the pin and started running ...

Here Nastenka stopped and began to laugh. I laughed along with her. She stopped immediately.

Listen, don't make fun of your grandmother. I'm laughing because it's funny... What should I do when my grandmother is really like that, but I still love her a little. Well, yes, then I got it: they immediately put me back in my place and, no, no, it was impossible to move.

Well, I also forgot to tell you that we, that is, grandmother's, have our own house, that is, a small house, only three windows, completely wooden and as old as grandmother; and upstairs is a mezzanine; so a new tenant moved to our mezzanine ...

So there was an old tenant too? I remarked casually.

Of course, there was, - answered Nastenka, - and who knew how to be silent better than you. In fact, he barely spoke. He was an old man, dry, dumb, blind, lame, so that at last it became impossible for him to live in the world, and he died; and then a new tenant was needed, because we cannot live without a tenant: this is almost all of our income with my grandmother's pension. The new tenant, as if on purpose, was a young man, a stranger, a visitor. Since he did not bargain, the grandmother let him in, and then asked, “What, Nastenka, is our tenant young or not?” I didn’t want to lie: “So, I say, grandmother, not exactly young, but not old.” "Well, and good-looking?" - asks the grandmother

I don't want to lie again. “Yes, pleasant, I say, the appearance of a grandmother!” And the grandmother says: “Oh! punishment, punishment! I am a granddaughter, for this I tell you so that you do not stare at him. What an age! go, such a small tenant, and yet also of a pleasant appearance: not like in the old days!

And grandmother would have everything in the old days! And she was younger in the old days, and the sun was warmer in the old days, and the cream in the old days did not sour so quickly - everything in the old days! So I sit and keep silent, and I think to myself: why is it that my grandmother herself is thinking me up, asking if the tenant is good, if he is young? Yes, just like that, I just thought, and immediately began to count loops again, knit a stocking, and then completely forgot.

Once in the morning, a tenant comes to us and asks that they promised to wallpaper his room. Word for word, the grandmother is chatty, and says: “Go, Nastenka, to my bedroom, bring the bills. I immediately jumped up, all, I don’t know why, blushed, and forgot that I was sitting pinned; so that the tenant wouldn't see it, I rushed so that my grandmother's chair would move. As I saw that the tenant now knew everything about me, she blushed, stood in place as if rooted to the spot, and suddenly burst into tears - I felt so ashamed and bitter at that moment that not even look at the light! Grandmother shouts: "Why are you standing there?" - and I'm even worse ... The tenant, as he saw, saw that I felt ashamed of him, bowed and immediately left!

Since then, I, a little noise in the hallway, as if dead. Here, I think, the tenant is coming, but on the sly, just in case, I will spit off the pin. But it wasn't him, he didn't come. Two weeks passed; lodger and sends to tell Thekla that he has a lot of French books and that everything good books so that you can read; so doesn’t my grandmother want me to read them to her so that she wouldn’t be bored? Grandmother agreed with gratitude, only she kept asking whether books were moral or not, because if books are immoral, then, Nastenka says, you can’t read in any way, you will learn bad things.

What will I learn, grandma? What is written there?

AND! says, they describe how young people seduce well-behaved girls, how they, under the pretext that they want to take them for themselves, take them away from their parents' house, how then they leave these unfortunate girls to the will of fate and they die in the most deplorable way. I, - says my grandmother, - have read many such books, and everything, she says, is so beautifully described that you sit at night, quietly reading. So you, says Nastenka, look, don't read them. What kind of books, he says, he sent?

And all Walter Scott novels, grandma.

Walter Scott novels! And full, are there any tricks here? See if he put some love note in them?

No, I say, grandmother, there is no note.

Yes, you look under the cover; sometimes they shove them into bindings, robbers! ..

No, grandma, there's nothing under the binding either.

Well, that's it!

So we began to read Walter Scott and in a month we read almost half. Then he sent more and more, sent Pushkin, so that at last I could not be without books and stopped thinking about how to marry a Chinese prince.

That was the case when one time I happened to meet our tenant on the stairs. Grandma sent me for something. He stopped, I blushed, and he blushed; however, he laughed, said hello, asked about his grandmother’s health and said: “What, have you read the books?” I replied: "I read it." “What, he says, did you like better?” I say: "Ivangoe and Pushkin liked the most." This time it ended.

A week later I ran into him again on the stairs. This time my grandmother did not send, but I myself needed something. It was three o'clock, and the tenant came home at that time.

"Hello!" - He speaks. I told him: "Hello!"

And what, he says, is it not boring for you to sit with your grandmother all day?

When he asked me this, I, I don’t know why, blushed, felt ashamed, and again I felt offended, evidently because others had begun to ask about this matter. I really wanted to not answer and leave, but I didn’t have the strength.

Listen, he says, you are a kind girl! Excuse me for talking to you like this, but I assure you, I wish you well better than your grandmother. Do you have any friends to visit?

I say that none, that there was one, Mashenka, and she left for Pskov.

Listen, he says, do you want to go to the theater with me?

To the theatre? how about grandma?

Yes, you, he says, quietly from your grandmother ...

No, I say, I don’t want to deceive my grandmother. Farewell!

Well, goodbye, he says, but he himself did not say anything.

Only after dinner does he come to us; he sat down, talked for a long time with his grandmother, asked what she was doing, whether she was going somewhere, whether there were any acquaintances, and then suddenly he said: “And today I was taking a box to the opera; “The Barber of Seville” is given, my friends wanted to go, but then they refused, and I still had a ticket in my hands.

- The Barber of Seville! - shouted the grandmother, - is this the same "Barber", which was given in the old days?

Yes, he says, this is the same "Barber", - and he looked at me. And I already understood everything, blushed, and my heart jumped with anticipation!

But how, says the grandmother, how not to know. In the old days, I myself played Rosina at the home theater!

So would you like to go today? the resident said. - My ticket is wasted.

Yes, perhaps we’ll go, says Grandma, why not go? But Nastya has never been to the theater with me.

My God, what joy! Immediately we packed up, packed up and set off. Granny, although she is blind, still wanted to listen to music, and besides, she is a kind old woman: she wanted to amuse me more, we would never have gathered ourselves. I won’t tell you what my impression of The Barber of Seville was, only all that evening our tenant looked at me so well, spoke so well that I immediately saw that he wanted to test me in the morning, suggesting that I be alone with went to him. Well, what a joy! I went to bed so proud, so cheerful, my heart was beating so hard that I got a little fever and all night long I raved about The Barber of Seville.

I thought that after that he would come in more often and more often - it was not there. He almost completely stopped. So, once a month, it happened, he would come in, and then only in order to invite him to the theater. Twice we went again. It was just that I wasn't happy with it. I saw that he simply felt sorry for me for the fact that I was with my grandmother in such a pen, but nothing more. On and on, and it came over me: I don’t sit, and I don’t read, and I don’t work, sometimes I laugh and do something to spite my grandmother, other times I just cry. Finally, I lost weight and almost got sick. The opera season was over, and the tenant stopped visiting us altogether; when we met - all on the same staircase, of course - he would bow so silently, so seriously, as if he didn’t want to talk, and he would go down completely to the porch, and I was still standing on the half of the stairs, red as a cherry, because that all my blood began to rush to my head when I met him.

Now it's over now. Exactly one year ago, in the month of May, a tenant comes to us and tells my grandmother that he has got his own business here and that he must again go to Moscow for a year. I, as I heard, turned pale and fell into a chair as if dead. Grandmother did not notice anything, and he, announcing that he was leaving us, bowed to us and left.

What should I do? I thought and thought, yearned, yearned, and finally decided. Tomorrow he will leave, and I decided that I would finish everything in the evening, when my grandmother went to bed. And so it happened. I tied everything in a bundle, including dresses, as much linen as needed, and with a bundle in my hands, neither alive nor dead, I went to the mezzanine to our tenant. I think I walked up the stairs for an hour. When I opened the door to him, he screamed, looking at me. He thought I was a ghost, and rushed to give me water, because I could hardly stand on my feet. My heart was beating so hard that it hurt in my head, and my mind was clouded. When I woke up, I began directly by placing my bundle on his bed, sat down beside him, covered myself with my hands and wept in three streams. He seemed to understand everything in an instant and stood before me pale and looked at me so sadly that my heart tore.

Listen, - he began, - listen, Nastenka, I can't do anything; I am a poor man; I have nothing for the time being, not even a decent place; How are we going to live if I were to marry you?

We talked for a long time, but I finally fell into a frenzy, said that I could not live with my grandmother, that I would run away from her, that I did not want to be pinned with a pin, and that I, as he wanted, would go with him to Moscow, because I can't live without him. And shame, and love, and pride - all at once spoke in me, and I almost fell on the bed in convulsions. I was so afraid of rejection!

He sat silently for a few minutes, then got up, came up to me and took my hand.

Listen, my good, my dear Nastenka! - he began, too, through tears, - listen. I swear to you that if someday I am able to marry, then you will certainly make up my happiness; I assure you, now you alone can make up my happiness. Listen: I'm going to Moscow and will stay there for exactly a year. I hope to arrange my affairs. When I toss and turn, and if you do not stop loving me, I swear to you, we will be happy. Now it is impossible, I cannot, I have no right to promise anything. But, I repeat, if this is not done in a year, then at least someday it will certainly happen; of course - in the event that you do not prefer me another, because I cannot and do not dare to bind you with any word.

That's what he said to me and left the next day. It was supposed together with the grandmother not to say a word about it. So he wanted. Well, now my whole story is almost over. Exactly one year has passed. He's arrived, he's been here for three whole days, and, and...

And what? I screamed, eager to hear the end.

And still hasn't been! - answered Nastenka, as if gathering her strength, - not a word, not a breath ...

Here she stopped, was silent for a while, lowered her head, and suddenly, covering herself with her hands, sobbed so that my heart turned over from these sobs.

I did not expect such a denouement.

Nastenka! - I began in a timid and insinuating voice, - Nastenka! For God's sake, don't cry! Why do you know? maybe it doesn't exist yet...

Here, here! - picked up Nastenka. - He's here, I know it. We had a condition, back then, that evening, on the eve of departure: when we had already said everything that I told you, and agreed, we went out here for a walk, on this embankment. It was ten o'clock; we sat on this bench; I didn’t cry anymore, it was sweet for me to listen to what he said ... He said that he would come to us immediately upon arrival and if I didn’t refuse him, then we would tell my grandmother about everything. Now he has arrived, I know it, and he is gone, no!

And she burst into tears again.

Oh my God! Is there really no way to help grief? I shouted, jumping up from the bench in utter despair. "Tell me, Nastenka, can't I at least go to him?"

Is it possible? she said, suddenly raising her head.

No, of course not! I remarked, catching myself. - Here's what: write a letter.

No, it's impossible, it's impossible! she answered resolutely, but already with her head bowed and not looking at me.

How can you not? why not? I continued, seizing on my idea. - But, you know, Nastenka, what a letter! Letter to letter is different and ... Ah, Nastenka, it's true! Trust me, trust me! I won't give you bad advice. All this can be arranged! You have started the first step - why now ...

You can't, you can't! Then I seem to impose ...

Oh, my good Nastenka! - I interrupted, not hiding a smile, - no, no; you are finally entitled, because he promised you. Yes, and from everything I see that he is a delicate person, that he acted well, - I continued, more and more delighted with the logic of my own arguments and convictions, - how did he act? He bound himself with a promise. He said that he would not marry anyone but you, if only he married; He left you complete freedom to refuse it even now... In that case, you can take the first step, you have the right, you have an advantage over him, if only, for example, if you wanted to untie him from this word...

Listen, how would you write?

Yes, this is a letter.

Here's how I would write: "Dear sir..."

Is it absolutely necessary, dear sir?

By all means! However, why? I think...

- "Your Majesty!

Excuse me for ... "But no, no apologies are needed! Here the very fact justifies everything, write simply:

“I am writing to you. Forgive me my impatience; but I have been happy with hope for a whole year; am I to blame that I cannot now endure even a day of doubt? Now that you have already arrived, perhaps you have already changed your intentions. Then this the letter will tell you that I do not grumble and do not accuse you, I do not accuse you because I have no power over your heart, such is my fate!

You are a noble person. You will not smile and will not get annoyed at my impatient lines. Remember that a poor girl writes them, that she is alone, that there is no one to teach her or advise her, and that she never knew how to control her heart on her own. But forgive me that doubt has crept into my soul even for a moment. You are not even capable of offending the one who loved and loves you so much.

Yes Yes! it's exactly what I thought! cried Nastenka, and joy shone in her eyes. - O! you resolved my doubts, God himself sent you to me! Thank you, thank you!

For what? because God sent me? I replied, looking in delight at her joyful face.

Yes, even for that.

Ah, Nastenka! After all, we thank other people even for the fact that they live with us. I thank you for meeting me, for the fact that I will remember you all my life!

Well, enough, enough! And now, listen to this: then there was a condition that as soon as he arrived, he would immediately make himself known by leaving me a letter in one place, with some of my acquaintances, kind and ordinary people who know nothing about it; or if it will be impossible to write letters to me, because in a letter one cannot always tell everything, then on the same day as he arrives, he will be here exactly at ten o'clock, where we decided to meet him. I already know about his arrival; but for the third day now there has been neither a letter nor him. I can't leave my grandmother in the morning. Give my letter tomorrow yourself to those kind people about whom I told you: they will send it on; and if there is an answer, then you yourself will bring it in the evening at ten o'clock.

But a letter, a letter! After all, you need to write a letter first! So unless the day after tomorrow all this will be.

A letter ... - answered Nastenka, a little confused, - a letter ... but ...

But she didn't agree. At first she turned her face away from me, blushed like a rose, and suddenly I felt a letter in my hand, apparently written long ago, completely prepared and sealed. Some familiar, sweet, graceful memory flashed through my mind!

R, o - Ro, s, i - si, n, a - na, - I began.

Rosina! - we both sang, I, almost hugging her with delight, she, blushing as much as she could blush, and laughing through the tears that trembled like pearls on her black eyelashes.

Well, enough, enough! Farewell now! she said curtly. - Here's a letter for you, here's the address where to take it down. Farewell! goodbye! till tomorrow!

She squeezed both my hands tightly, nodded her head and flashed like an arrow into her alley. I stood still for a long time, following her with my eyes.

"Till tomorrow! till tomorrow!" - flashed through my head when she disappeared from my eyes.