"Was will er an dem heiligen Ort
Der da . . . der dort . . . ."
[Faust, Part I., Last Scene.]
she articulated, in a voice so terrible that I rushed headlong away. Almost all through her illness, she raved about Faust and her mother, whom she sometimes called Martha, sometimes Gretchen's mother.
Vera died. I was at her burying. Ever since then I have given up everything and am settled here for ever.
Think now of what I have told you; think of her, of that being so quickly brought to destruction. How it came to pass, how explain this incomprehensible intervention of the dead in the affairs of the living, I don't know and never shall know. But you must admit that it is not a fit of whimsical spleen, as you express it, which has driven me to retire from the world. I am not what I was, as you knew me; I believe in a great deal now which I did not believe formerly. All this time I have thought so much of that unhappy woman (I had almost said, girl), of her origin, of the secret play of fate, which we in our blindness call blind chance. Who knows what seeds each man living on earth leaves behind him, which are only destined to come up after his death? Who can say by what mysterious bond a man's fate is bound up with his children's, his descendants'; how his yearnings are reflected in them, and how they are punished for his errors? We must all submit and bow our heads before the Unknown.
Yes, Vera perished, while I was untouched. I remember, when I was a child, we had in my home a lovely vase of transparent alabaster. Not a spot sullied its virgin whiteness. One day when I was left alone, I began shaking the stand on which it stood . . . the vase suddenly fell down and broke to shivers. I was numb with horror, and stood motionless before the fragments. My father came in, saw me, and said, "There, see what you have done; we shall never have our lovely vase again; now there is no mending it!" I sobbed. I felt I had committed a crime.
I grew into a man--and thoughtlessly broke a vessel a thousand times more precious. . . .
In vain I tell myself that I could not have dreamed of such a sudden catastrophe, that it struck me too with its suddenness, that I did not even suspect what sort of nature Vera was. She certainly knew how to be silent till the last minute. I ought to have run away directly I felt that I loved her, that I loved a married woman. But I stayed, and that fair being was shattered, and with despair I gaze at the work of my own hands.
Yes, Madame Eltsov took jealous care of her daughter. She guarded her to the end, and at the first incautious step bore her away with her to the grave!
It is time to make an end. . . . I have not told one hundredth part of what I ought to have; but this has been enough for me. Let all that has flamed up fall back again into the depths of my heart. . . . In conclusion, I say to you--one conviction I have gained from the experience of the last years--life is not jest and not amusement; life is not even enjoyment . . . life is hard labour. Renunciation, continual renunciation--that is its secret meaning, its solution. Not the fulfilment of cherished dreams and aspirations, however lofty they may be--the fulfilment of duty, that is what must be the care of man. Without laying on himself chains, the iron chains of duty, he cannot reach without a fall the end of his career. But in youth we think--the freer the better, the further one will get. Youth may be excused for thinking so. But it is shameful to delude oneself when the stern face of truth has looked one in the eyes at last.
Good-bye! In old days I would have added, be happy; now I say to you, try to live, it is not so easy as it seems. Think of me, not in hours of sorrow, but in hours of contemplation, and keep in your heart the image of Vera in all its pure stainlessness. . . . Once more, good-bye!--Yours,
P. B.
1855
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