There was a depth of pride, imperiousness, even cruelty about her, yet, at the same time, she was so good, so genuinely womanly, so infinitely pleasant and lovable.
She had two natures—the one egoistical and calculating, the other all heart and passionate tenderness.
See here, I have it. Read it now, Romashov.
The beginning will not interest you much” (Nasanski turned over a few lines of the letter), “but read from here; read it all.”
Romashov felt as if some one had struck him a stunning blow on the head, and the whole room seemed to dance before his eyes, for the letter was written in a large but nervous and compressed hand, that could only belong to Alexandra Petrovna—quaint, irregular, but by no means unsympathetic.
Romashov, who had often received cards from her with invitations to small dinners and card parties, recognized this hand at once.
“It is a bitter and hard task for me to write this,” read Romashov under Nasanski’s hand; “but only you yourself are to blame for our acquaintance coming to this tragic end.
Lying I abominate more than anything else in life. It always springs from cowardice and weakness, and this is the reason why I shall also tell you the whole truth.
I loved you up to now; yes, I love you even now, and I know it will prove very hard for me to master this feeling.
But I also know that, in the end, I shall gain the victory.
What do you suppose our lot would be if I acted otherwise?
I confess I lack the energy and self-denial requisite for becoming the housekeeper, nurse-girl, or sister of mercy to a weakling with no will of his own.
I loathe above everything self-sacrifice and pity for others, and I shall let neither you nor any one else excite these feelings in me.
I will not have a husband who would only be a dog at my feet, incessantly craving alms or proofs of affection.
And you would never be anything else, in spite of your extraordinary talents and noble qualities. Tell me now, with your hand upon your heart, if you are capable of it.
Alas! my dear Vasili Nilich, if you could.
All my heart, all my life yearns for you. I love you.
What is the obstacle, then? No one but yourself.
For a person one loves, one can, you know, sacrifice the whole world, and now I ask of you only this one thing; but can you?
No, you cannot, and now I bid you good-bye for ever.
In thought I kiss you on your forehead as one kisses a corpse, and you are dead to me—for ever.
I advise you to destroy this letter, not that I blush for or fear its contents, but because I think it will be a source to you of tormenting recollections.
I repeat once more——”
“The rest is of little interest to you,” said Nasanski abruptly, as he took the letter from Romashov’s hand.
“This, as I have just told you, was her only letter to me.”
“What happened afterwards?” stammered Romashov awkwardly.
“Afterwards?
We never saw one another afterwards.
She went her way and is reported to have married an engineer.
That, however, is another matter.”
“And you never visit Alexandra Petrovna?”
Romashov uttered these words in a whisper, but both officers started at the sound of them, and gazed at each other a long time without speaking.
During these few seconds all the barriers raised by human guile and hypocrisy fell away, and the two men read each other’s soul as an open book.
Hundreds of things that had hitherto been for them a profound secret stood before them that moment in dazzling light, and the whole of the conversation that evening suddenly took a peculiar, deep, nay, almost tragic, significance.
“What? you too?” exclaimed Nasanski at last, with an expression bordering on fear in his eyes, but he quickly regained his composure and exclaimed with a laugh,
“Ugh! what a misunderstanding!
We were discussing something quite different.
That letter which you have just read was written hundreds of years ago, and the woman in question lived in Transcaucasia. But where was it we left off?”
“It is late, Vasili Nilich, and time to say good-night,” replied Romashov, rising.
Nasanski did not try to keep him.
They separated neither in a cold or unfriendly way, but they were, as it seemed, ashamed of each other.
Romashov was now more convinced than ever that the letter was from Shurochka.
During the whole of his way home he thought of nothing except this letter, but he could not make out what feelings it aroused in him.
They were a mingling of jealousy of Nasanski—jealousy on account of what had been—but also a certain exultant pity for Nasanski, and in himself there awoke new hopes, dim and indefinite, but delicious and alluring.
It was as if this letter had put into his hand a mysterious, invisible clue that was leading him into the future.
The breeze had subsided.
The tepid night’s intense darkness and silence reminded one of soft, warm velvet.
One felt, as it were, life’s mystic creative force in the never-slumbering air, in the dumb stillness of the invisible trees, in the smell of the earth.
Romashov walked without seeing which way he went, and it seemed to him as if he felt the hot breath of something strong and powerful, but, at the same time, sweet and caressing.
His thoughts went back with dull, harrowing pain to bygone happy springs that would never more return—to the blissful, innocent days of his childhood.