Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

epub:type="noteref">116 Did you not know her? Not at all?”

“No.”

“You know, there was so much of that womanliness about her, that tenderness, and then such love!⁠ ⁠… Oh God! I did not know how to value my happiness then.⁠ ⁠… Or when we returned from the theatre and had supper together. It was never dull in her company, toujours gaie, toujours aimante.117 Yes, I did not then foresee how rare a joy it was. Et j’ai beaucoup à me reprocher118 in regard to her. Je l’ai fait souffrir, et souvent119⁠—I was cruel. Oh, what a delightful time it was! But I am wearying you.”

“No, not at all.”

“Then I will tell you about our evenings. I used to enter⁠—oh, that staircase, I knew every plant-pot on it⁠—the very door-handle⁠—all was so nice, so familiar to me⁠—then the anteroom, and then her room.⁠ ⁠… No, it will never, never, return! She writes to me even now; I can, if you like, even show you her letters. But I am no longer what I was⁠—I am ruined, I am no longer worthy of her.⁠ ⁠… Yes, I am completely ruined! Je suis cassé.120 I have neither energy nor pride; nothing, not even nobility⁠ ⁠… Yes, I am ruined! and no one will ever understand what I have suffered. Everyone is indifferent. I am a lost man! I can never rise again, because I have sunk morally⁠ ⁠… sunk into the mire⁠ ⁠… sunk.⁠ ⁠…” And a real, deep despair sounded in his voice at that moment; he did not look at me, but sat motionless.

“Why give way to such despair?” I said.

“Because I am vile; this life has destroyed me; all that was in me has perished. I no longer suffer proudly, but basely; I have no dignité dans le malheur.121 I am insulted every moment, and I bear it all, and go to meet insults halfway. The mud a déteint sur moi.122 I have become coarse myself, have forgotten what I knew, I can’t even speak French now, and I feel that I am base and despicable. I can’t fight in these surroundings; it is impossible! I might perhaps have been a hero: give me a regiment, gold epaulets, and trumpeters; but to march side by side with some uncivilized Antonov Bondarenko or other, and to think there is no difference between him and me, it is all the same whether I get killed or he does⁠—that is the thought that is killing me. You understand how terrible it is that some ragamuffin may kill me⁠—a man who thinks and feels, and that he might as well kill Antonov by my side, a creature indistinguishable from a brute; and it is quite likely to happen that it is I who will be killed and not Antonov⁠—it is always so, une fatalité for all that is lofty or good. I know they call me a coward. Granted that I am a coward. It is true I am a coward and cannot help it; but it is not enough that I am a coward, according to them I am also a beggar and a contemptible fellow. There, I have just begged money from you, and you have a right to despise me. No, take back your money,” and he held out to me the crumpled note; “I want you to respect me.” He covered his face with his hands and began to cry, and I did not in the least know what to say or do.

“Don’t go on like that,” said I; “you are too sensitive; you should not take things so much to heart: don’t analyse but look at things simply. You say yourself that you are a man of character; face your task, you have not much longer to suffer,” I said to him very incoherently, for I was excited both by feelings of pity and by a feeling of repentance at having allowed myself to condemn a man who was truly and deeply suffering.

“Yes,” he began; “had I but once, since I came into this hell, heard a single word of advice, sympathy, or friendship⁠—a single human word such as I hear from you⁠—I might have borne everything calmly, have faced my task, and even behaved as a soldier; but now it is terrible.⁠ ⁠… When I reason sanely, I long for death. Why should I care for a life of dishonour, or for myself, who am dead to all that is good in life? But at the least sign of danger I can’t help craving for this vile life, and guarding it as if it were something very precious, and I can’t, je ne puis pas,123 master myself.⁠ ⁠… That is, I can,” he continued, after a moment’s pause; “but it costs me too great an effort, a tremendous effort, when I am alone. When others are present, and in ordinary circumstances when going into action, I am brave enough⁠—j’ai fait mes preuves124⁠—because I have self-love and am proud⁠—that is my fault⁠—and in the presence of others⁠ ⁠… I say, let me spend the night with you; they’ll be playing all night in our tent. I can sleep anywhere⁠—on the ground.”

While Nikita was making up a bed we rose, and again, in the dark, began walking up and down the battery. Guskov must really have had a very weak head, for after only two cups of vodka and two glasses of wine he was unsteady on his feet. When we had walked away from the candle I noticed that he put the ten-ruble note, which he had held in his hand all through the foregoing conversation, back into his pocket, trying not to let me see it. He continued to say that he felt he might yet rise if he had a man like myself to take an interest in