White nights, and other storiesDostoyevsky, Fyodor
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White nights, and other stories
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881 -- Translations into English; Russian fiction -- Translations into English
One day passed, however, another and another; she did not come and I
began to grow calmer. I felt particularly bold and cheerful after nine
o'clock, I even sometimes began dreaming, and rather sweetly: I, for
instance, became the salvation of Liza, simply through her coming to me
and my talking to her.... I develop her, educate her. Finally, I notice
that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not to understand (I
don't know, however, why I pretend, just for effect, perhaps). At last
all confusion, transfigured, trembling and sobbing, she flings herself
at my feet and says that I am her saviour, and that she loves me better
than anything in the world. I am amazed, but.... "Liza," I say, "can you
imagine that I have not noticed your love, I saw it all, I divined it,
but I did not dare to approach you first, because I had an influence
over you and was afraid that you would force yourself, from gratitude,
to respond to my love, would try to rouse in your heart a feeling which
was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that ... because it would be
tyranny ... it would be indelicate (in short, I launch off at that point
into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties à la George Sand), but now,
now you are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, you are good, you
are my noble wife.
'Into my house come bold and free,
Its rightful mistress there to be.'"
Then we begin living together, go abroad and so on, and so on. In fact,
in the end it seemed vulgar to me myself, and I began putting out my
tongue at myself.
Besides, they won't let her out, "the hussy!" I thought. They don't let
them go out very readily, especially in the evening (for some reason I
fancied she would come in the evening, and at seven o'clock precisely).
Though she did say she was not altogether a slave there yet, and had
certain rights; so, h'm! Damn it all, she will come, she is sure to
come!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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