But try to understand what kind of love I am talking about.
Love must be a tragedy.
The greatest mystery in the world!
No comforts, calculations or compromises must affect it."
"Have you ever seen such love, Grandad?" Vera asked softly.
"No," the old man replied firmly. "I know of two instances that come close to it.
But one of them was prompted by stupidity, and the other — it was — a kind of sour stuff — utterly idiotic.
I can tell you about them if you like.
It won't take long."
"Please do, Grandad."
"All right.
A regimental commander in our division — but not in our regiment — had a wife.
She was a regular scarecrow, I must tell you.
She was bony, red-haired, long-legged, scraggy, big-mouthed.
Her make-up used to peel off her face like plaster off an old Moscow house.
But, for all that, she was a kind of regimental Messalina, with a lot of spirit, arrogance, contempt for people, a passion for variety, and she was a morphine addict into the bargain.
"One day in autumn a new ensign was sent to our regiment, a greenhorn fresh from military school.
A month later that old jade had him under her thumb.
He was her page, her slave, her eternal dance partner. He used to carry her fan and handkerchief and rush out in snow and frost to get her horses, with nothing on but his flimsy coat.
It's awful when an innocent lad lays his first love at the feet of an old, experienced, ambitious debauchee.
Even if he manages to get away unscathed, you must give him up for lost just the same.
He's marked for life.
"By Christmas she was fed up with him.
She fell back on one of her previous, tried and tested passions.
But he couldn't do without her.
He trailed after her like a shadow.
He was worn out, and lost weight and colour.
In high-flown language, 'death had marked his brow.'
He was terribly jealous of her.
They said that he used to stand under her window all night long.
"One day in spring they got up a kind of picnic in the regiment.
I knew the two personally, but I was not there when it happened.
As usual on such occasions, a lot was drunk.
They started back after nightfall, along the railway.
Suddenly they saw a goods train coming.
It was creeping up a rather steep incline.
They heard whistles.
And the moment the headlights of the engine came alongside she suddenly whispered in the ensign's ear,
'You keep telling me you love me.
But if I tell you to throw yourself under this train I'm sure you won't do it.'
He didn't say a word in reply, but just rushed under the train.
They say he had worked it out well, and meant to drop between the front and back wheels, where he would have been neatly cut in two.
But some idiot tried to keep him back and push him away.
Only he wasn't strong enough.
The ensign clung to the rail with both his hands and they were chopped off."
"How dreadful!" Vera exclaimed.
"He had to resign from military service.
His comrades collected a little money for his journey.
He couldn't very well stay in a town where he was a living reproach both to her and to the entire regiment.
And that was the end of the poor chap — he became a beggar, and then froze to death somewhere on a Petersburg pier.