First love, and other stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

But what aid can you render me? “All this is nonsense, like the useless running of a squirrel on a wheel,” said my uncle to me yesterday—I think you do not know him—a retired naval officer, and a far from stupid man. “A husband, children, a pot of buckwheat groats: to tend husband and children, and look after the pot of groats—that’s what a woman needs.”... Tell me, he is right, is he not?

If he really is right, I can still repair the past, I can still get into the common rut. What else is there for me to wait for? What is there to hope for? In one of your letters, you spoke of the wings of youth. How often, how long they remain fettered! And then comes a time, when they fall off; and it is no longer possible to raise one’s self above the earth, to soar heavenward. Write to me.

Yours, M.

X
From Alexyéi Petróvitch to Márya Alexándrovna

St. Petersburg, June 16, 1840.

I hasten to answer your letter, my dear Márya Alexándrovna. I will confess to you that if it were not for.... I will not say business—I have none—if it were not for my being so stupidly habituated to this place, I would go again to you and would talk my fill, but on paper all this comes out so coldly, in such a dead manner....

I repeat to you, Márya Alexándrovna: women are better than men, and you ought to demonstrate that in deed. Let us men fling aside our convictions, like a worn-out garment, or barter them for a morsel of bread, or, in conclusion, let them fall into the sleep which knows no waking, and place over them, as over one formerly beloved, a tombstone, to which one goes only now and then to pray—let us men do all that; but do not you women be false to yourselves, do not betray your ideal.... That word has become ridiculous.... To be afraid of the ridiculous is not to love the truth. It does happen, it is true, that a stupid laugh will make the stupid man, even good people, renounce a great deal ... take for example the defence of an absent friend.... I am guilty in that respect myself. But, I repeat it, you women are better than we are.... In trifles you are inclined to yield to us; but you understand better than we do how to look the devil straight in the eye. I shall give you neither aid nor advice—how can I? and you do not need it; but I do stretch forth my hand to you, and I do say to you: “Have patience; fight until the end; and know that, as a feeling, the consciousness of a battle honourably waged almost transcends the triumph of victory.”... The victory does not depend upon us.

Of course, from a certain point of view, your uncle is right: family life is everything for a woman; there is no other life for her.

But what does that prove? Only the Jesuits assert that every means is good, if only one attains his end. It is not true! not true! It is an indignity to enter a clean temple with feet soiled with the mire of the road. At the end of your letter there is a phrase which I do not like: you want to get into the common rut. Look out—do not make a misstep! Do not forget, moreover, that it is impossible to efface the past; and strive as you may, force yourself as you will, you cannot make yourself your sister. You have ascended above her. But your soul is broken, hers is intact. You can lower yourself, bend down to her, but nature will not resign her rights, and the broken place will not grow together again....

You are afraid—let us speak without circumlocution—you are afraid of remaining an old maid. I know that you are already twenty-six years old. As a matter of fact, the position of old maids is not enviable: every one so gladly laughs at them; every one notes their oddities and their weaknesses with such unmagnanimous delight. But if you scan more closely any elderly bachelor,—he deserves to have the finger of scorn pointed at him also,—you will find in him cause to laugh your fill. What is to be done? Happiness is not to be captured by battle. But we must not forget that not happiness but human dignity is the chief goal of life.