First love, and other stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

IV

Eh, how I have suffered! Formerly such thoughts never entered my head—formerly, in those happy days when I myself was wont to flame like the glow of dawn, and to sing like the nightingale.—I must confess that everything has grown obscure round about me, all life has withered. The light which gives to its colours both significance and power—that light which emanates from the heart of man—has become extinct within me.... No, it has not yet become extinct—but it is barely smouldering, without radiance and without warmth. I remember how one day, late at night, in Moscow, I stepped up to the grated window of an ancient church and leaned against the uneven glass. It was dark under the low arches; a forgotten shrine-lamp flickered with a red flame in front of an ancient holy picture, and only the lips of the holy face were visible, stern and suffering: mournful gloom closed in around and seemed to be preparing to crush with its dull weight the faint ray of unnecessary light.... And in my heart reign now the same sort of light and the same sort of gloom.

V

And this I write to thee—to thee, my only and unforgettable friend; to thee, my dear companion,[31] whom I have left forever, but whom I shall never cease to love until my life ends.... Alas! thou knowest what it was that separated us. But I will not refer to that now. I have left thee ... but even here, in this remote nook, at this distance, in this exile, I am all permeated with thee, I am in thy power as of yore, as of yore I feel the sweet pressure of thy hands upon my bowed head!—Rising up for the last time, from the mute grave in which I now am lying, I run a mild, much-moved glance over all my past, over all our past.... There is no hope and no return, but neither is there any bitterness in me, or regret; and clearer than the heavenly azure, purer than the first snows on the mountain heights, are my beautiful memories.... They do not press upon me in throngs: they pass by in procession, like those muffled figures of the Athenian god-born ones, which—dost thou remember?—we admired so greatly on the ancient bas-reliefs of the Vatican....

VI

I have just alluded to the light which emanates from the human heart and illumines everything which surrounds it.... I want to talk with thee about that time when that gracious light burned in my heart.—Listen ... but I imagine that thou art sitting in front of me, and gazing at me with thine affectionate but almost severely-attentive eyes. O eyes never to be forgotten! On whom, on what are they now fixed? Who is receiving into his soul thy glance—that glance which seems to flow from unfathomable depths, like those mysterious springs—like you both bright and dark—which well up at the very bottom of narrow valleys, beneath overhanging cliffs?... Listen.

VII

It was at the end of March, just before the Feast of the Annunciation, shortly after I saw thee for the first time—and before I as yet suspected what thou wert destined to become to me, although I already bore thee, silently and secretly in my heart.—I was obliged to cross one of the largest rivers in Russia. The ice had not yet begun to move in it, but it seemed to have swollen up and turned dark; three days previously a thaw had set in. The snow was melting round about diligently but quietly; everywhere water was oozing out; in the light air a soundless breeze was roving. The same even, milky hue enveloped earth and sky: it was not a mist, but it was not light; not a single object stood out from the general opacity; everything seemed both near and indistinct. Leaving my kibítka far behind, I walked briskly over the river-ice, and with the exception of the beat of my own footsteps, I could hear nothing. I walked on, enveloped on all sides by the first stupor and breath of early spring ... and little by little augmenting with every step, with every movement in advance, there gradually rose up and grew within me a certain joyous incomprehensible agitation.... It drew me on, it hastened my pace—and so powerful were its transports, that I came to a standstill at last and looked about me in surprise and questioningly, as though desirous of detecting the outward cause of my ecstatic condition.... All was still, white, sunny; but I raised my eyes: high above flocks of migratory birds were flying past.... “Spring! Hail, Spring!”—I shouted in a loud voice. “Hail, life and love and happiness!”—And at that same instant, with sweetly-shattering force, similar to the flower of a cactus, there suddenly flared up within me thy image—flared up and stood there, enchantingly clear and beautiful—and I understood that I loved thee, thee alone, that I was all filled with thee....

VIII

I think of thee ... and many other memories, other pictures rise up before me,—and thou art everywhere, on all the paths of my life I encounter thee.—Now there presents itself to me an old Russian garden on the slope of a hill, illuminated by the last rays of the summer sun. From behind silvery poplars peeps forth the wooden roof of the manor-house, with a slender wreath of crimson smoke hanging above the white chimney, and in the fence a wicket-gate stands open a crack, as though some one had pulled it to with undecided hand. And I stand and wait, and gaze at that gate and at the sand on the garden paths; I wonder and I am moved: everything I see seems to me remarkable and new, everything is enveloped with an atmosphere of a sort of bright, caressing mystery, and already I think I hear the swift rustle of footsteps; and I stand, all alert and light, like a bird which has just folded its wings and is poised ready to soar aloft again—and my heart flames and quivers in joyous dread before the imminent happiness which is flitting on in front....