February 18, 1918
...A passionate joy comes over me when I look into the distance; there, beyond the houses, the towns, the people, all is radiant, all is full of sunshine...Then it dawns upon me that my life will be different from theirs...bright, interesting...
Then I see young girls, such as I shall become in three or four years' time. They live, like every one else from day to day, waiting for something. They live drab, dull lives...Probably they too had visions of a bright, happy future, and gazed into the golden distance...But now...where is that golden distance? Did they not reach it? Can one never reach it? Does it exist really, or only in our dreams?
For, surely, I am not the only dreamer. Are they not dreamers too? Shall I live on as they do, following the pattern woven by routine on the canvas of life? Waiting for some one?
There will be nothing...No, no, not that! I am frightened. Given me my golden horizon. Let me live a full life, with all the strength of my soul.
October 14, 1918
...I shall arrange it, so as not to depend on love, let alone wait for it as so many girls do. I shall live. If love comes I shall take it; if not, I shall regret it, wildly regret it, but I shall live all the same.
I see in my imagination a small flat, furnished with exquisite comfort...Beauty everywhere, softness, cosiness. And I am the mistress of it - a woman and a personality at the same time. I live an interesting life: writers, artists, painters forgather at my house, a really interesting circle, a close, friendly community. I know no picture more attractive than this. I am free, independent. In these surroundings, in which there is even no place for it, I shall not regret love. Life is full without it. It is only the dawn of love which I should miss...those moments, the memory of which beautifies all the life of man.
-Nelly Ptaschkina
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