The Sixth Tale of I.P. Belkin, or the Fatal Love of a Russian Writer

“First of all, it’s worth saying that Ivan Petrovich Belkin was of the most nervous temperament, and this often prevented him from being happy. He would have been glad to have been born the way some of his friends were born—cheerful, slightly rough people, and above all eager for the enjoyment of life every single moment—but alas, he wasn’t.

Anxiety consumed him.

Especially in the morning, when you’d wake up, it would happen that in the apartment on Podkopaevsky Street, which Ivan Petrovich later even came to like, although in the first weeks after the country’s open spaces he simply couldn’t get used to the cramped new home. The capital filled him at times with fear, and at other times with some wild sort of excitement. The loneliness was terrible, especially at night. In the countryside—what’s it like? There’s always someone nearby: mother sleeps, the kitten is there, the nanny is there. But here, on Podkopaevsky? Here, no one. Gradually, Ivan Petrovich got used to life in the capital, and no one, except the very participants in this unfortunate story itself, knew why later he returned back to the village, left the capital and abandoned his service, and what had so badly wounded him—down to the bone and through and through.

That, in essence, is what the story is about. But even then, one must not rush; it should be said that Ivan Petrovich lost his innocence two years before moving to the capital, and it happened at home—that is, in the village—in the eighteenth spring of his life. Being an incorrigible dreamer, he would often leave the yard and go somewhere farther away: out into the fields, for example, and into oak groves, and in thickets of trees, where he would indulge in his dreams.

One day, that afternoon when nature itself, it seems, is exhausted by the abundance of light poured into every little vein of it, into every leaf and petal, and birds sing both more beautifully and more passionately than even the singers in the best theaters, and there is no evil on earth, not even a hint of evil anywhere—very young Ivan Petrovich lay under a tree, his white shirt unbuttoned at the chest, and dozed peacefully, carefree, immersed in pleasure. Suddenly a rustle woke him. Ivan Petrovich opened his eyes and right in front of him saw a woman—still young, though not too young— with a large, ярко-red (bright fiery red) braid, in a loose peasant dress (saraфan), and with such curious green eyes that he even shuddered: he’d never seen such eyes, not only on faces of the common class, but even among ladies who were inaccessible and noble. The peasant woman’s eyes were a marvel—enormous, the color of grass, with fluffy lashes like a bee’s, and her eyelids seemed slightly green, as though her pupils had spilled beneath the skin of their own burning and dark green tint. The stranger looked at Ivan Petrovich, who was lying under the tree, with surprise, but she wasn’t going to run anywhere, and there was no noticeable embarrassment in her.”