To-morrow I shall take them Faust. I’m afraid old Goethe and I may not come off very well. I will write and tell you all about it most exactly.
Well, and what do you think of all these proceedings? No doubt, that she has made a great impression on me, that I’m on the point of falling in love, and all the rest of it? Rubbish, my dear boy! There’s a limit to everything. I’ve been fool enough. No more! One can’t begin life over again at my age. Besides, I never did care for women of that sort.… Nice sort of women I did care for, if you come to that!!
‘I shudder—my heart is sick—
I am ashamed of my idols.’
Any way, I am very glad of such neighbours, glad of the opportunity of seeing something of an intelligent, simple, bright creature. And as to what comes of it later on, you shall hear in due time.—Yours, P. B.
FOURTH LETTER
From the SAME to the SAME
M—— Village, June 20, 1850.
The reading took place yesterday, dear friend, and here follows the manner thereof. First of all, I hasten to tell you: a success quite beyond all expectation—success, in fact, is not the word.… Well, I’ll tell you. I arrived to dinner. We sat down a party of six to dinner: she, Priemkov, their little girl, the governess (an uninteresting colourless figure), I, and an old German in a short cinnamon-coloured frock-coat, very clean, well-shaved and brushed; he had the meekest, most honest face, and a toothless smile, and smelled of coffee mixed with chicory … all old Germans have that peculiar odour about them. I was introduced to him; he was one Schimmel, a German tutor, living with the princes H., neighbours of the Priemkovs. Vera Nikolaevna, it appeared, had a liking for him, and had invited him to be present at the reading. We dined late, and sat a long while at table, and afterwards went a walk. The weather was exquisite. In the morning there had been rain and a blustering wind, but towards evening all was calm again. We came out on to an open meadow. Directly over the meadow a great rosy cloud poised lightly, high up in the sky; streaks of grey stretched like smoke over it; on its very edge, continually peeping out and vanishing again, quivered a little star, while a little further off the crescent of the moon shone white upon a background of azure, faintly flushed with red. I drew Vera Nikolaevna’s attention to the cloud.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is lovely; but look in this direction.’ I looked round. An immense dark-blue storm-cloud rose up, hiding the setting sun; it reared a crest like a thick sheaf flung upwards against the sky; it was surrounded by a bright rim of menacing purple, which in one place, in the very middle, broke right through its mighty mass, like fire from a burning crater.…