On the Eve quotes

“H’m,” replied Shubin, “I’ll tell you, Andrei Petrovitch, what all that comes from. You describe the sensations of a solitary man, who is not living but only looking on in ecstasy.

Why look on? Live, yourself, and you will be all right.

However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words, because she is dumb. She will utter a musical sound, or a moan, like a harp string, but don’t expect a song from her.

“H’m,” replied Shubin, “I’ll tell you, Andrei Petrovitch, what all that comes from. You describe the sensations of a solitary man, who is not living but only looking on in ecstasy. Why look on? Live, yourself, and you will be all right.

However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words, because she is dumb.

She will utter a musical sound, or a moan, like a harp string, but don’t expect a song from her. A living heart, now—that will give you your answer—especially a woman’s heart.

… I only wanted to explain why nature has the effect on us you spoke of. It’s because she arouses in us a need for love, and is not capable of satisfying it.

Nature is gently driving us to other living embraces, but we don’t understand, and expect something from nature herself.

Ah, Andrei, Andrei, this sun, this sky is beautiful, everything around us is beautiful, still you are sad;

Elena was greatly distressed, and spent sleepless nights for long after she heard of Katya’s death. The last words of the little beggar-girl were constantly ringing in her ears, and she fancied that she was being called. …

The years passed and passed; swiftly and noiselessly, like waters running under the snow, Elena’s youth glided by, outwardly uneventful, inwardly in conflict and emotion.

She had no friend; she did not get on with any one of all the girls who visited the Stahovs’ house. Her parents’ authority had never weighed heavily on Elena, and from her sixteenth year she became absolutely independent;

“Yes.

He is a man of iron.

And at the same time you will see there is something childlike and frank, with all his concentration and even his reserve. It’s true, his frankness is not our poor sort of frankness—the frankness of people who have absolutely nothing to conceal.

“No, he’s not shy.

It’s only vain people who are shy.

”

“

Revenge is only to be found in novels, Elena Nikolaevna; and, besides, in twelve years that aga may well be dead.

”

I see here that you don’t refuse help even to puppies, and I think well of you for it. And as for the time I have lost, that’s no great harm; I will make it up later.

Our time does not belong to us.

”

“That remains to be shown,” he answered. “

When one of us dies for her, then one can say he loved his country.

”

He did not speak, and she needed no words. “He is here, he loves me … what need of more?”

The peace of perfect bliss, the peace of the harbour reached after storm, of the end attained, that heavenly peace which gives significance and beauty even to death, filled her with its divine flood.

She desired nothing, for she had gained all. “O my brother, my friend, my dear one!” her lips were whispering, while she did not know whose was this heart, his or her own, which beat so blissfully, and melted against her bosom.

Nikolai Artemyevitch was much displeased at the frequent visits of “the scholar,” especially as his “cherished projects” in regard to Kurnatovsky were making no way; the practical chief secretary was puzzled and biding his time.

Elena did not even thank Bersenyev; there are services for which thanks are cruel and shameful.

Only once at her fourth interview with him—Insarov had passed a very bad night, the doctor had hinted at a consultation—only then she reminded him of his promise. “Very well, then let us go,” he said to her.

“Why? Andrei Petrovitch is so good. I was not ashamed before him. And what have I to be ashamed of?

I am ready to tell all the world that I am yours.

… And Andrei Petrovitch I trust like a brother.”

“Tears? Are there?” She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. “

Oh, what a silly boy! He doesn’t know yet that people weep from happiness.

I wanted to tell you: when I saw you the first time, I saw nothing special in you, really. I remember, Shubin struck me much more at first, though I never loved him, and as for Andrei Petrovitch—oh, there was a moment when I thought:

“

Try beating her; see what that would do.

”

“Yes, a youthful, glorious, bold affair.

Death, life, conflict, defeat, triumph, love, freedom, country.

… Good God, grant as much to all of us! That’s a very different thing from sitting up to one’s neck in a bog, and pretending it’s all the same to you, when in fact it really is all the same.

Insarov bent over the edge of the box, and looked attentively at Violetta.

“Yes,” he commented, “she is in earnest; she’s on the brink of the grave herself.”

The third act began. The curtain rose—Elena shuddered at the sight of the bed, the drawn curtains, the glass of medicine, the shaded lamps. She recalled the near past. “What of the future? What of the present?” flashed across her mind.

What is the meaning of this smiling, blessing sky; this happy, sleeping earth? Can it be that all that is only in us, and that outside us is eternal cold and silence?

Can it be that we are alone⁠ ⁠… alone⁠ ⁠… and there, on all sides, in all those unattainable depths and abysses⁠—nothing is akin to us; all, all is strange and apart from us?

Why, then, have we this desire for, this delight in prayer?” (Morir si giovane was echoing in her heart.) … “Is it impossible, then, to propitiate, to avert, to save … O God! is it impossible to believe in miracle?”

“And the grief of my poor, lonely mother?” she asked herself, and was bewildered, and could find no answer to her question.

Elena did not know that every man’s happiness is built on the unhappiness of another, that even his advantage, his comfort, like a statue needs a pedestal, the disadvantage, the discomfort of others.

“Renditch!” muttered Insarov in his sleep.