Short Fiction, Vsevolod Garshin [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

Lopatin’s Notes.⁠—Why drag it out any longer? Is it not better to end my reminiscences in these hnes?

No, I will write them to the end. It is all the same; if I throw down my pen and this diary, that awful day will be lived by me a thousand times. For the thousandth time I am experiencing the horror and torment of conscience and the agony of loss; for the thousandth time the scene of which I am going to write now will pass before my eyes in all its details, and each detail will lie on my heart with fresh, awful emphasis. I will go on to the very end.

I led Nadejda Nicolaievna into the room. She could scarcely stand, and was trembling as if in a fever. She gazed at me all the time with the same frightened glance, and for the first minute could not utter a word. I sat her down and gave her some water.

“Andrei Nicolaievich, beware! Lock the door!⁠ ⁠… Let no one come in. He will be here in a minute.”

“Who? Bezsonow?”

“Lock the doors!” she gasped.

Rage possessed me. It was not sufficient to write anonymous letters; he had resorted to violence.

“What has he done to you? Where have you seen him? Calm yourself. Drink some more water, and tell me. Where did you see him?”

“He has been to see me.”

“For the first time?”

“No, not for the first time. He has been twice before. I did not want to tell you, so as not to upset you. I begged him to stop coming to me. I told him it distressed me to see him. He said nothing, and went, and for three weeks did not come near me. Today he came early, and waited until I had dressed.⁠ ⁠…”

She stopped. It was difficult for her to continue.

“Well, and further?”

“I have never seen him before like he was. He began by speaking quietly. He spoke of you. He said nothing bad about you, only that you were impressionable and fickle, and that I could not rely on you. He said straight out that you would throw me aside because you would tire of me.⁠ ⁠…”

She stopped and began to cry. Oh, never was I possessed with such love and pity for her. I took her cold hands and kissed them. I was madly happy. Words flowed without restraint from my lips. I told her I would love her for life, that she must be my wife, and that she would see and know that Bezsonow was wrong. I spoke a thousand senseless words⁠—words of delirious happiness for the most part, having no outward sense⁠—but she understood them. I saw her dear face, radiant with happiness, resting close to my heart. It was an entirely new, somewhat strange face⁠—not the face with a secret suffering writ on its features that I had been accustomed to see.

She laughed and cried, and kissed my hands, and pressed towards me. And at that moment the world held only us two. She spoke of her good fortune, and how she had loved me from the very first meeting, and had run away from me frightened at this love. She declared she was not worthy of me, that it terrified her that I should link my fate with hers, and she again embraced me, and again shed tears of joy and happiness. Finally she sobered down.

“But Bezsonow,” she said suddenly.

“Let Bezsonow come,” I replied. “What has Bezsonow got to do with us?”

“Wait; I will finish what I began to tell you of him. Yes, he spoke of you, then of himself. He said he was a far more hopeful support than you. He reminded me that three years ago I loved him and would have gone with him, and when I told him he was deceiving himself his whole pride blazed out, and he so lost control of himself that he rushed at me.⁠ ⁠… Wait, wait,” said Nadejda Nicolaievna, seizing me by the hand as I jumped to my feet; “he did not touch me.⁠ ⁠… I am sorry for him, Andrei Nicolaievich⁠ ⁠… he threw himself at my feet, this proud man. If only you had seen him!”

“What did you say to him?”

“What was there to say? I was silent. I could only tell him that I did not love him, and when he asked me if it was because I loved you, I told him the truth.⁠ ⁠… Then something strange came over him, which I could not understand. He rushed at me, clasped me to himself, and whispered ‘Goodbye, goodbye,’ and went to the door. I have never seen such an awful face. I fell into a chair. At the door he turned, and, smiling strangely, said, ‘But I shall see you with him,’ and his face was so awful.⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly she stopped speaking and turned deadly pale, fixing her eyes on the door of