Page:The Prose Tales of Alexander Poushkin (Bell, 1916).djvu/440

 "My happiness could not continue: I have enjoyed it against fate and nature. You must have ceased to love me; the enchantment must have vanished. This thought has always pursued me, even in those moments when I have seemed to forget everything, when at your feet I have been intoxicated by your passionate self-denial, by your unbounded tenderness The thoughtless world unmercifully runs down that which it permits in theory; its cold irony sooner or later would have vanquished you, would have humbled your ardent soul, and at last you would have become ashamed of your passion What would then have become of me? No, it were better that I should die, better that I should leave you before that terrible moment.

"Your tranquillity is dearer to me than everything: you could not enjoy it while the eyes of the world were fixed upon you. Think of all that you have suffered, all your wounded self-love, all the tortures of fear; remember the terrible birth of our son. Think: ought I to expose you any longer to such agitations and dangers? Why should I endeavour to unite the fate of such a tender, beautiful creature to the miserable fate of a negro, of a pitiable being, scarce worthy of the name of man?

" Farewell, Leonora; farewell, my dear and only friend. I am leaving you, I am leaving the first and last joy of my life. I have neither fatherland nor kindred; I am going to Russia, where my utter loneliness will be a consolation to me. Serious business, to which from this time forth I devote myself, if it will not stifle, will at least divert painful recollections of the days of rapture and bliss Farewell, Leonora! I tear myself away from this letter, as if from your embrace. Farewell, be happy, and think sometimes of the poor negro, of your faithful Ibrahim."

That same night he set out for Russia.