Nastenka (Young Woman) Character Analysis

Whether I managed to run into a long procession of carters holding the reins as they lazily walked alongside their carts, loaded with whole mountains of furniture of every description […] the carts and boats increased tenfold, a hundredfold before my very eyes, it seemed as though everything had up and left, that whole caravans had moved to the dacha; it seemed that all of Petersburg threatened to turn into a desert, so that in the end I became ashamed, hurt and sad: I had absolutely nowhere to go and no reason to go to a dacha. I was ready to leave with every cart, to drive off with every gentleman of venerable appearance who was hiring a cabbie, but no one, absolutely no one invited me; it was as if I indeed was a stranger to them!

“Now then, you see, why did you drive me away? If I’d been there, nothing would have happened …”

“But I didn’t know you: I thought that you too …”

“But do you really know me now?”

“A little bit. Now then, for example, why are you trembling?”

“Oh, you guessed right from the very first!” I answered, delighted that my girl was clever: that is never a bad thing where beauty is concerned. “Yes, you guessed from the very first glance the sort of person you’re dealing with. Yes, it’s true, I’m timid with women, I’m nervous, I won’t deny it—no less than you were a moment ago when that gentleman frightened you … I’m frightened now. It’s like a dream, but even in my dreams I never guessed that I would talk with a woman.”

“Believe it or not, not a single woman, ever, ever! And all I dream of every day is that at long last I will finally meet someone. Oh, if only you knew how many times I’ve fallen in love like that! …”

“But how, with whom?”

“Why with nobody, with an ideal, with the one I see in my dreams. I create entire love stories in my dreams. Oh, you don’t know me! It’s true, of course, I couldn’t help meeting two or three women, but what sort of women were they? They were all landladies or something like that.”

“[You] probably have a grandmother, like I do. She’s blind, and for as long as I can remember she has never let me go anywhere, so that I’ve practically forgotten how to talk. A couple of years ago I got into a lot of mischief and she saw that she couldn’t control me, so she called me over and pinned my dress to hers with a safety pin—and ever since we sit like that for days on end; she knits a stocking, even though she’s blind; and I sit beside her, sewing or reading a book to her out loud—it’s such a strange way to live and I’ve been pinned to her like that now for two years already …”

“Oh, my God, how dreadful! But no, I don’t have a grandmother like that.”

“But if you don’t, then how is it that you stay at home? …”

“Listen: do you know what a dreamer is?”

“A dreamer? Excuse me, but of course I do! I’m a dreamer myself! What doesn’t enter my head sometimes when I’m sitting beside my grandmother. Well, then, you begin to dream, and you become so lost in your thoughts that before you know it you’re marrying a Chinese prince … But sometimes dreaming is a good thing! But then, God only knows! Particularly if there’s something to think about without dreaming,” the girl added, quite serious now.

“Excellent! If you’ve been married to a Chinese emperor, that means you’ll understand me perfectly then.”

Why does neither laughter nor some lively remark fly from the tongue of the completely unexpected and perplexed friend, who in different circumstances likes to laugh a great deal, as well as engage in lively banter, and conversations about the fair sex, and other cheerful subjects? And why, finally, does this friend, probably a recent acquaintance making his first visit—because in this case there will not be a second one and the friend won’t come again—why does this friend become so embarrassed, so stiff, all his wit notwithstanding (if indeed he has any) as he looks at the crestfallen face of his host, who in turn has already managed to become completely flustered and utterly muddled after gigantic but futile efforts to smooth over and keep the conversation going […]? Why, finally, does the guest suddenly grab his hat and quickly leave […]?

“Listen: you tell it splendidly, but could you tell it somehow less splendidly? Otherwise, you talk as though you were reading from a book.”

“Nastenka!” I answered in a dignified and stern voice […] “dear Nastenka, I know that I am telling it splendidly; I plead guilty—but I don’t know how to tell it differently. Now, dear Nastenka, now I’m like King Solomon’s genie trapped in an earthenware urn for a thousand years, under seven seals and from which these seven seals were finally removed. Now, dear Nastenka, when we have come together again after such a lengthy separation—because I have known you a long time, Nastenka […]—now in my head thousands of valves have opened and I must set loose this river of words, or I will choke to death. So then, I ask that you not interrupt me, Nastenka, but listen obediently and dutifully; otherwise—I’ll keep my silence.”

[The Dreamer’s] imagination is once again incited, excited, and suddenly again a new world, a new enchanting life with its glittering vistas flashes before him. A new dream of happiness! A new dose of exquisite, voluptuous poison! Oh, what does a real life have to offer him! In his misdirected view […] we are all so dissatisfied with our fate, so worn down by our life! And really, as a matter of fact, look how everything at first glance among us is cold, gloomy, indeed wrathful … “The poor things,” my dreamer thinks. And it’s no wonder he should think so! Look at these magical phantoms that so enchantingly, so whimsically, so boundlessly and broadly take shape before him in such a magical, animated picture, in which the most important figure in the foreground, of course, is he himself, our dreamer, in his own dear person. Look, what diverse adventures, what an endless swarm of ecstatic daydreams.”

And you ask yourself: Where are your dreams? And you shake your head and say: How quickly do the years fly by! And again you ask yourself: What have you done with your years? Where have you buried your best days? Did you live or not? Look, you say to yourself, look how cold the world is becoming. More years will pass, followed by gloomy solitude, and then doddering old age will come on a walking-stick, to be followed by anguish and despondency. Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will wither, die and scatter like yellow leaves from the trees … Oh, Nastenka! It will be sad, you know, to be left alone, quite alone, and not even have something to regret—nothing, absolutely nothing … because all that I have lost, all this, it was nothing but a stupid, a round zero—it was merely a dream!

“‘But of course I know it!’ Grandmother says. ‘In the old days I even sang Rosina in amateur theatricals. […] Yes, I suppose we could go […] why shouldn’t we go? After all, my Nastenka has never been to the theatre.’

“My goodness, what joy! We at once pulled ourselves together, got ready, and set off. Even though Grandmother is blind, she still wanted to hear the music, and beside she’s a kind old woman: more than anything she wanted me to enjoy myself; we should never have gone on our own. I won’t tell you my impressions of The Barber of Seville, except to say that all that evening our lodger looked at me so nicely […] Well, what joy! I went to bed so proud, so happy; my heart was pounding so that I became slightly feverish and I raved on about The Barber of Seville all night long.”

And then as time went on, something came over me: I couldn’t sit still, and I couldn’t read, and I couldn’t work; sometimes I would laugh and do something to Grandmother out of spite, while at other times I would simply cry. In the end, I grew thin and almost became ill. The opera season was over and the lodger stopped dropping by altogether; whenever we would meet—always on that same staircase, it goes without saying—he would bow so silently, so seriously, as though he didn’t wish to speak, and then walk down all the way to the front door, while I was still standing halfway up the stairs, as red as a cherry, because all my blood would rush to my head whenever we met.

Forgive my impatience; but for a whole year hope alone has made me happy; am I to blame that I cannot now bear even a day of doubt? Now, when you have come back, perhaps you have changed your intentions. Then this letter will tell you that I do not complain, nor do I blame you. I do not blame you that I have no power over your heart; such, then, is my fate!

You are a noble person. You will not laugh and will not be annoyed at my impatient lines. Remember that they are written by a poor girl, that she is alone, that she has no one to teach her or advise her and that she has never been able to control her heart. But forgive me that doubt should have crept into my heart for even a single moment. You are not capable of insulting, even in thought, the one who loved you and still loves you.

“Do you know why I’m so happy?” she said, “so happy to look at you? Why I love you so today?”

“Well?” I asked, and my heart began to tremble.

“I love you because you didn’t fall in love with me. Why, someone else in your place would have started bothering me, pestering me, sighing, falling ill, but you’re such a dear!”

And then she squeezed my hand so that I almost cried out. She laughed.

“My goodness! What a friend you are!” she began a minute later very seriously. “Yes, God himself sent you to me! Well, what would have happened to me if you had not been with me now? You’re so unselfish! You love me so! When I’m married, we will be great friends, more than if we had been brothers. I will love you almost as much as I love him …”

“I was thinking about you,” she said to me after a minute’s silence, “you’re so kind that I would have to be just made of stone not to feel it. Do you know what just occurred to me? I was comparing the two of you. Why isn’t he—you? Why isn’t he like you? He’s not as good as you, even though I love him more than you.”

[…]

“Of course, perhaps I don’t fully understand him yet, don’t fully know him yet. You know, I was always a bit afraid of him; he was always so serious, he seemed so proud. Of course, I know that he only looks like that, that there is more tenderness in his heart than there is in mine … I remember how he looked at me […when I] came to him with my bundle; but all the same I respect him too much, and doesn’t that mean we’re not equals?”

“O, may God grant you happiness for this! Now then, everything that you told me then about your dreamer is absolutely untrue, that is, I wish to say that it doesn’t have anything to do with you. You’re getting better, you really are a completely different person than the one you described. If you ever fall in love, then may God grant you happiness with her! But I won’t wish her anything, because she will be happy with you. I know, I’m a woman myself, and you must believe me when I tell you …”

She fell silent and firmly squeezed my hand. I couldn’t say anything either because of the emotion. Several minutes passed.

“Listen!” she continued, taking me by the hand. “Tell me, would you have acted like this? Would you have abandoned a girl who came to you on her own, would you have thrown in her face a shameless jeer at her weak, foolish heart? Would you have looked after her? Would you have understood that she was all alone, that she didn’t know how to take care of herself, that she didn’t know how to protect herself from loving you, that it wasn’t her fault, that, finally, it wasn’t her fault … that she had done nothing! … Oh, my God, my God! …”

“What’s to be done, Nastenka, what am I to do? I am to blame, I abused your … But no, no I’m not to blame, Nastenka; I know it, I feel it, because my heart tells me that I’m right, because I cannot hurt you. I cannot offend you! I was your friend; well, and that is what I am now; I have betrayed nothing. You see, now it’s me whose tears are streaming down, Nastenka. Let them stream, let them stream—they won’t bother anybody. They will only dry. Nastenka …”

“But sit down, sit down,” she said, as she was seating me on the bench, “oh, my God!”

“No, Nastenka, I won’t sit down; I can’t stay here any longer, you won’t see me any more; I’ll say everything and leave. I only want to say that you should never have learned that I love you. I would have buried my secret.”

[Perhaps] all my love amounted to nothing more than my feelings and imagination, just my imagination, perhaps it began as a prank or foolishness, all because I was under Grandmother’s watch. Perhaps I ought to love someone else, another, and not him, not a man like him, but someone who would take pity on me [… If] you feel that your love is so great that it may in the end drive out from my heart the former … if you wish to take pity on me, if you don’t wish to leave me alone to my fate, without consolation, without hope, if you wish to love me always as you now love me, then I swear that gratitude … that my love will in the end be worthy of your love … Will you take my hand now?

[We] were both walking in some kind of stupor, in a haze, as if we didn’t know ourselves what was happening to us. One moment we would stop and talk for a long time without moving, then we would start walking again and God only knows where we ended up, and then laughter again, and then tears … Then Nastenka would suddenly want to go home, and I didn’t dare keep her and wanted to see her home; we would set off and a quarter of an hour later we would find ourselves on the embankment by our bench. Then she would sigh, and once again her eyes would well up with tears; I would turn timid, and then feel a chill … But she would immediately squeeze my hand and drag me off to walk, to chatter, to talk …

“Let’s go! Look at the sky, Nastenka, look! Tomorrow will be a wonderful day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look: see how that yellow cloud is beginning to hide it from view, look, look! … No, it’s passed by. Look now, look! …”

But Nastenka wasn’t looking at the cloud, she stood speechless, rooted to the ground; a minute later, she began somewhat timidly clinging to me tightly. Her hand began to tremble in my hand; I glanced at her … She pressed against me more tightly still …

At that moment a young man walked past us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently and then took several steps. My heart began to quiver…

Don’t blame me, because I haven’t changed in the least towards you; I said that I would love you, and I love you now, I more than love you. […] I know that you’re miserable and sad. I have hurt you, but you know—when one loves, an injury is soon forgotten. And you love me!

Thank you! Yes, thank you for that love! Because it is stamped on my memory like a sweet dream that you remember long after waking up; because I will forever remember that moment when you opened up your heart to me like a brother and so generously accepted the gift of my shattered heart to protect, cherish, and heal it […] I will keep that memory alive, I will be true to it, I will not betray it, I will not betray my heart: it is too constant. It returned so quickly yesterday to him to whom it had always belonged.

I saw myself just as I am now exactly fifteen years later […] in the same room, just as lonely […]

But that I should nurse a grudge, Nastenka! That I should cast a dark cloud over your bright, serene happiness; that I, with bitter reproaches, should cast pangs of anguish on your own heart, wound it with secret remorse and force it to beat with anguish at the moment of bliss; that I would crush even one of those delicate flowers that you plaited into your black curls when you walked together with him to the altar … Oh, never, never! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and serene, may you be blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness that you have to another lonely, grateful heart!

My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man’s life?