Short Fiction, Fyodor Sologub [most popular novels of all time .txt] 📗

form of the stage Lohengrin, clad in shining armour, singing so sweetly and making his theatrically beautiful stage gestures, blended itself with the form of an unattractive young man wearing a fur cap instead of a helmet, and a starched shirt in place of armour; speaking eloquently in his hoarse but pleasant-sounding Yaroslavsky tone of voice, and making these same amusingly-triumphant gestures.

“He loves me, poor boy,” thought Mashenka, and the thought became more and more pleasant to her.

To believe firmly that you are beloved by another, is it not as if you yourself loved? And is not love infectious? Sweet, ingratiating, enchanting, love spreads a brightly gleaming veil of enchantment over all the objects of its desire.

And so, becoming accustomed little by little to the pleasant thought of being beloved, accustomed to this amusing mixture of the two Lohengrins⁠—one of the opera of the wise magician Wagner, the other of the everyday life in Pea Street⁠—Mashenka felt at length that she was in love. The amusing mystery enveloping his actual life became less of a hindrance to her.

After some time Lohengrin guessed that Mashenka had begun to care for him, and one day he said to her:

“Marya Constantìnovna, you can make me the happiest of men⁠—I beg you to consent to be my wife.”

Then, as if she were not yet ready to be asked such a question, Mashenka was seized with a profound alarm. The dark and dreadful suspicions sleeping in her soul were roused and they were too strong for her. She looked at Lohengrin in terror and thought:

“Why does he hide his occupation from me⁠—it must be something shameful and contemptible. Perhaps he is a spy or a hangman!”

Not long before, Mashenka had read in a newspaper an account of a young workman who had hired himself out as a hangman. He was described as a weak and ugly person, and as she read the description of him, she had thought that he must have looked something like her Lohengrin.

“You must tell me first,” Mashenka said timidly, “who you are. It’s dreadful not to know.”

She felt her cheeks grow pale and her lips tremble. She was seated in a deep soft armchair in the corner of the drawing-room, her mother’s favourite chair; it had been in the family longer than any of them could remember, and many remembrances of pleasure and agitation were connected with it. Enveloped in the depths of the large chair, where she could smell the odour of its old material, Mashenka felt herself very small and pitiful; her hands clasped together on her knees were pale and trembling as if with cold.

Lohengrin reddened a little and was more confused than Mashenka had ever seen him. He stood with his back to the windows, but in the twilight Mashenka watched strange shadows flitting across his face. His eyes blinked continuously, his little red ears twitched, he made strange unsuitable gestures with his hands as he replied:

“Marya Constantìnovna, if the lady Elsa was inquisitive and indiscreet, and if the noble Lohengrin could not withstand her importunity, why need we repeat their fatal mistake? You were pleased to say, Marya Constantìnovna, that all this is dreadful for you, but why? I have an extraordinary love for you, a love devouring all my life, a love very rarely met with and only described in old romances, not at all in the works of present-day writers. Loving you with such an unusual love, so ardent that I cannot live without you⁠—if you refuse me I shall quickly put an end to myself⁠—I desire, dear Mashenka, that your own love should overcome the terrors you are feeling, and triumph over all that which is at present unknown to you. True and passionate love ought to be stronger even than death itself. So, dear Mashenka, conquer your fears and tell me⁠—do you love me, and will you continue to love me whatever you may afterwards learn about me?”

Mashenka began to weep. What else could she do! Tears are so helpful in the various difficulties of life. She fumbled for her handkerchief, but, of course, it was not to be found, and she was obliged to wipe away her tears with the palm of her right hand⁠—the tears which trickled mercilessly down both cheeks and along her little upturned nose. She wept and said:

“Why, oh why do you wish not to say who you are? Why do you torture me like this? Perhaps you do something very bad.”

Lohengrin shrugged his shoulders as he answered:

“That depends on how you look at it. To some people my occupation may seem mean and base, and some people may despise me for it. But I do what I know how to do, and you yourself have been able to see what sort of a man I am apart from my work. If you love me you must believe in me, and even if it turned out that I was a loathsome vampire you should follow me to my tomb, for, if I see in you the most beautiful maiden upon earth, the enchanting Lady Elsa, then you, loving me in return, ought to see in me the noble knight Lohengrin, whose father Parsifal is the guardian of the Holy Grail. And though we may live in the prosaic town of Petersburg in one of the most ordinary streets, and not in one of the castles of the knights of old; though we have to live the ordinary life of every day, and cannot perform the knightly exploits of old time⁠—our destiny has been portioned out to us by Fate⁠—none of this can alter the passionate feelings of our hearts.”

Mashenka still wept, and yet she was able to laugh, too. The eloquence of Lohengrin’s plea was full of sweet and tender soothing.

“I am the Princess Elsa,” she thought, “and not simply Mashenka. It means that I am indeed what I feel in myself and not what I appear to others. And he, my Lohengrin! How is it