Chapter 3

April 8th

MY DEAREST BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,--To think that a day like this
should have fallen to my miserable lot! Surely you are making fun
of an old man? ... However, it was my own fault--my own fault
entirely. One ought not to grow old holding a lock of Cupid's
hair in one's hand. Naturally one is misunderstood.... Yet man is
sometimes a very strange being. By all the Saints, he will talk
of doing things, yet leave them undone, and remain looking the
kind of fool from whom may the Lord preserve us! . . . Nay, I am
not angry, my beloved; I am only vexed to think that I should
have written to you in such stupid, flowery phraseology. Today I
went hopping and skipping to the office, for my heart was under
your influence, and my soul was keeping holiday, as it were. Yes,
everything seemed to be going well with me. Then I betook myself
to my work. But with what result? I gazed around at the old
familiar objects, at the old familiar grey and gloomy objects.
They looked just the same as before. Yet WERE those the same
inkstains, the same tables and chairs, that I had hitherto known?
Yes, they WERE the same, exactly the same; so why should I have
gone off riding on Pegasus' back? Whence had that mood arisen? It
had arisen from the fact that a certain sun had beamed upon me,
and turned the sky to blue. But why so? Why is it, sometimes,
that sweet odours seem to be blowing through a courtyard where
nothing of the sort can be? They must be born of my foolish
fancy, for a man may stray so far into sentiment as to forget his
immediate surroundings, and to give way to the superfluity of
fond ardour with which his heart is charged. On the other hand,
as I walked home from the office at nightfall my feet seemed to
lag, and my head to be aching. Also, a cold wind seemed to be
blowing down my back (enraptured with the spring, I had gone out
clad only in a thin overcoat). Yet you have misunderstood my
sentiments, dearest. They are altogether different to what you
suppose. It is a purely paternal feeling that I have for you. I
stand towards you in the position of a relative who is bound to
watch over your lonely orphanhood. This I say in all sincerity,
and with a single purpose, as any kinsman might do. For, after
all, I AM a distant kinsman of yours--the seventh drop of water
in the pudding, as the proverb has it--yet still a kinsman, and
at the present time your nearest relative and protector, seeing
that where you had the right to look for help and protection, you
found only treachery and insult. As for poetry, I may say that I
consider it unbecoming for a man of my years to devote his
faculties to the making of verses. Poetry is rubbish. Even boys
at school ought to be whipped for writing it.