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that the lecture began. Here is how it proceeded. In the sitting room, over a cup of coffee, the old Uvarov started a conversation on how the hours fly by, and how we fail to treasure these priceless hours. “It is especially so with the young,” the old man added, looking at his sons. “Here is a striking example for you,” Karl Pavlovich picked up the thought, pointing at me. “He left classes today simply to fritter away his time at a summer house.” What he said had the effect of boiling water having been poured all over me, but he, without paying heed to anything, read me such a lecture on the allconsuming transience of time that it is only now I feel and understand the symbolic statue of Saturn gobbling up his children. The entire lecture was read with such a great deal of paternal love that right then and there, in the presence of all the guests, I burst into tears like a child that had been caught in the act of an idle prank. So tell me what do I still lack? It is you. Your presence is all I lack. Oh, will I ever see the great joyous moment when I can hug you, my dear, sincere friend? If you did not write you would come on the Holy Week, I would have visited you by all means during the past winter. But the saints in heaven must have envied my earthly happiness and obstructed our joyous reunion. But for all my supreme happiness, I occasionally feel so unbearably sad that I do not know where to hide from this oppressive grief. At such horribly endless minutes it is only my charming pupil who has a beneficial effect on me. How much do I then want to open to her my suffering soul, to overflow and melt in my tears in her presence. But this might offend her virginal modesty. I would sooner dash my head against the wall than offend any woman, let alone her, the beautiful and incorruptibly chaste girl. I seemed to have written you last autumn that I intended to paint from her a vestal virgin in addition to her portrait of a diligent pupil. But it was difficult to come by lilies or white roses in winter, and, the main thing, the unbearable midshipman interfered in my work all the time. Now these obstacles have been removed, and I think that in between my other pursuits, that is, while I am busy with my program work, I will be able to realize my cherished project. It is the more possible, because my program is not complicated – three figures in all: Joseph interpreting the dreams of his fellow prisoners, the cupbearer and the bread-provider. The subject is old and trite, and that is why I must develop it thoroughly – I mean, compose it, for there is not much mechanical work to do on it. I have still over three months left. You write about the importance of what might be my last program work, and advise that I study it as diligently as possible or, as you put it, imbue my mind with it. All this is wonderful, and I realize completely its necessity. But, my one and only friend, I am afraid to say that the Vestal Virgin is occupying my mind more and more. My program work is part of the background for the Vestal Virgin. However much I try to place it in the foreground, nothing comes out of it. It just slips away, and I do not know the reason why. I intend to finish working on the Vestal Virgin first (I have begun work on it long ago), and after I am through with it, I will have more time for my program work. Program work! I have an unquiet presentiment about my program work. Where does it come from, I wonder? Or should I refuse to take part in it until the next year? But that would mean losing a year! What will this loss be rewarded with? With definite success! But who will guarantee this success? I am ill, am I not? I am really a little bit out of my mind and am beginning to resemble Khemnitzer’s Metaphysician94. For God’s sake, do come and restore my declining spirit. What a shameless egoist I am. On what grounds am I almost demanding your visit? For the sake of what clever idea do you have to abandon your work and duties just to see a semiidiot? Begone, unworthy faint-heartedness! It’s childishness, and nothing more. Thank God, I have been admitted to compete for the first gold medal. I am already a man who is ending – 94
Ivan Khemnitzer (1745-1784) – Russian poet. In the mentioned fable a philosopher devoid of any sense of reality is represented as a metaphysician.