The Pain of Unrequited Love Theme Analysis

“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.”

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!

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.”

“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?