A Gentle Creature and Other Stories: White Nights; A Gentle Creature; The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Oxford World's Classics) by Dostoevsky Fyodor & Alan Myers & W. J. Leatherbarrow

Author:Dostoevsky, Fyodor & Alan Myers & W. J. Leatherbarrow [Dostoevsky, Fyodor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2017-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

MORNING

MY nights ended with the morning. It was a nasty day. Rain was falling and beat dismally against my window panes; it was dark in my little room and heavily overcast outside. My aching head fairly swam; a fever was stealing through my limbs.

‘A letter for you, master, by the town post, the postman brought it’, Matryona was pronouncing over me.

‘A letter! Who from?’ I shouted, leaping from my chair.

‘That I don’t know, master, have a look, maybe it says who it’s from.’

I broke the seal. It was from her!

‘Ah forgive me, forgive me!’ Nastenka had written. ‘I beg you on my knees to forgive me! I deluded both myself and you. It was a dream, a phantom … I have longed for you today; forgive me, oh forgive me! …

‘Do not reproach me: I have not changed in the least towards you; I said I would love you, and so I do, more than love you. Oh God! If I could only love you both at once! Ah, if only you were he!’

‘Ah, if only he were you!’ flashed through my brain. I recalled your own words, Nastenka!

‘God understands what I would do for you now! I know you feel miserable and sad. I have hurt you, but you know—if one loves, the pain is soon forgotten. And you do love me!

‘Thank you! Yes! I thank you for that love of yours, because it is stamped on my memory like a sweet dream, long remembered after waking; because I will remember for ever that moment when you opened your heart to me like a brother, and so generously accepted my own, crushed as it was, to guard, cherish, and heal … If you forgive me, the memory of you will be exalted within me into an eternal sense of gratitude towards you which will never be erased from my soul … I will preserve that memory, be ever faithful to it, never betray it or my heart: it is too steadfast. Yesterday indeed, it returned so swiftly to the one to whom if forever belongs.

‘We shall meet, you will visit us, you won’t desert us, you will always be my friend and brother … And when you see me, you will give me your hand … yes? You will give it to me, you have forgiven me, haven’t you? You love me as before?

‘Ah, do love me, do not forsake me, because I love you so much at this moment, because I am worthy of your love, because I deserve it … my dear friend! Next week I am getting married to him. He came back as a lover, he had never forgotten me … Don’t be angry that I have written about him. But I want to come with him to see you; you will take to him, won’t you?

‘Forgive us, remember and love your

Nastenka.’

I read the letter over and over for a long time as tears welled up in my eyes. At length it dropped from my hands and I covered my face.

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