She had left St. Petersburg a few days before, in order, as by agreement, to meet Lensky, whom she has not seen since the beginning of March, in the German capital. It had been a great disappointment for her that she had not found Boris in Berlin, but he has accustomed her to disappointments.
She reads the letter once more. It is a dear, good letter. Ah! Natalie has received such dear, good, tender letters from all the large cities in Europe and America--and knows----
Not that Boris is deceiving her when he writes to her in this tender tone. No, every trace of falseness is strange to him, his attachment to her, his anxiety about her, are sincere--but----
What use to grieve over it? These great geniuses are never different. One must not judge them like other men! With this shallow commonplace, with which she has so often put to sleep her inconsolable heart if it sometimes wishes violently to rise up against its oppressive, ignominious lot, she compels it to rest again to-day. It is easier now than formerly; her poor heart has already accustomed itself to grievances.
Nine years have passed since that time in the pretty, cosey Hermitage when she--forgave him too easily, and thereby lost her power over him forever. She has known it a long time. Late in that following autumn a great symphony by him was given in the "Gewandhaus," in Leipzig. The work was beautiful, the success moderate, Lensky's discouragement exaggerated, quite morbid. A few months later he took up his wanderer's staff anew, and left Petersburg, where he had returned with his family, in order to distract himself by the most exaggerated virtuoso triumphs from the humiliation which had befallen the composer. Oftener, ever oftener, he had then left wife and children, and now, in his own house, he had long been only an indulged, distinguished guest.
But in the time which he every year devoted to his wife, to his family, he behaved in an exemplary fashion. He did everything that lay in his power to make life bearable to Natalie--everything except to lay a restraint upon himself; that he simply could not, and for that reason he must leave home so often in order to vent his passion.
Natalie's nature was broken. An unexpressed, numbing, blunting conviction that this was the natural course of things, and that nothing of all this could be changed, had overpowered her. As to what might take place while he was away from her, of that she did not permit herself to think.
With his art matters had long gone downward, even more rapidly than Natalie--who already after his return from America had been startled by the exaggerations to which he had accustomed himself in his playing--had deemed possible. At that time he had given the reins to his temperament with assiduity in order to dazzle the public. Now--now, he had long lost power over himself. And concerning his compositions! A fearful pain contracted Natalie's heart if she thought how she had formerly, in her tender enthusiasm, called him the last musical poet, in opposition to the other great composers of modern times, whom at that time she had described as--musical bunglers. She could no longer remember the speech without blushing.
The bunglers had all grown above his head. One scarcely spoke of his compositions now, and the worst of it was--Natalie herself no longer cared to hear them.
Where was the sweet, sunny, charming element of his first little works? Where the fiery earnestness, the penetrating, noble sound of pain in his later works?