Her lover The Invisible Love Learn English through story
her lover invisible love
by maxim gorky an acquaintance of mine
once told me the following story
when i was a student at moscow i
happened to live alongside one of those
ladies whose repute
is questionable she was a pole
and they called her teresa she was a
tallish
powerfully built brunette with black
bushy eyebrows
and a large coarse face as if carved out
by a hatchet
the beastial gleam of her dark eyes her
thick
base voice her cab man like gate
and her immense muscular vigor worthy of
a fish wife
inspired me with horror
i lived on the top flight and her
garrett was opposite to mine
i never left my door open when i knew
her to be at home
but this after all was a very rare
occurrence
sometimes i chanced to meet her on the
staircase or in the yard
and she would smile upon me with a smile
which seemed to me to be
sly and cynical occasionally
i saw her drunk with bleary eyes tousled
hair
and a particularly hideous grin
on such occasions she would speak to me
howdy mr student
and her stupid laugh would still further
intensify my loathing of her
i should have liked to have changed my
quarters in order to have avoided such
encounters and greetings
but my little chamber was a nice one and
it was such a wide view from the window
and it was always so quiet in the street
below
so i endured
and one morning i was sprawling on my
couch
trying to find some sort of excuse for
not attending my class
when the door opened and the base voice
of teresa the losem
resounded from my threshold good health
to you mr student
what do you want i said i saw that her
face was confused and supplicatory
it was a very unusual sort of face for
her
sir i want to beg a favor of you
will you grant it me i lay there silent
and thought to myself
gracious courage my boy
i want to send a letter home that’s what
it is
she said her voice was beseeching soft
timid deuce take you
i thought but up i jumped
sat down at my table took a sheet of
paper and said
come here sit down and dictate
she came sat down very gingerly on a
chair
and looked at me with a guilty look
well do whom do you want to write
to boleslav kashput
at the town of switzyana on the warsaw
road
well fire away
my dear bolas my darling
my faithful lover may the mother of god
protect thee thou heart of gold
why hast thou not written for such a
long time
to thy sorrowing little tough teresa
i very nearly burst out laughing
a sorrowing little dove more than
five feet high with fists a stone and
more in weight
and as black a face as if the little
dove had lived
all its life in a chimney and had never
once
washed itself restraining myself somehow
i asked who is this bolast
boles meets their student she said
as if offended with me for blundering
over the name
he is boles my young man
young man why
are you so surprised sir cannot i
a girl have a young man she
a girl well
oh why not i said
all things are possible and has he been
your
young man long six years
oh i thought well
let us write your letter and i tell you
plainly that i would willingly have
changed
places with this bolus if his fair
correspondent had been not theresa
but something less than she
i thank you most heartily sir for your
kind services
said teresa to me with a curtsy
perhaps i can show you
some service
no i most humbly thank you all the same
perhaps sir your shirts or your trousers
may want a little mending
i felt that this mastodon in petticoats
had made me grow quite red with shame
and i told her pretty sharply that i had
no need whatever
of her services she departed
a week or two passed away it was evening
i was sitting at my window whistling and
thinking of some expedient for enabling
me to get away from myself
i was bored the weather was dirty
i didn’t want to go out and out of sheer
ennui i began a course of self analysis
and reflection this also was dull enough
work
but i didn’t care about doing anything
else then
the door opened heaven be praised
someone came in oh mr
student you have no pressing business i
hope
it was teresa
no what is it i
was going to ask you sir to write me
another letter very well
to bola say no
this time it is from him
what stupid that i
am it is not for me mr student i
beg your pardon it is for a friend of
mine that is to say
not a friend but an acquaintance
a man acquaintance he has a sweetheart
just like me here teresa
that’s how it is will you sir write a
letter to
this teresa i looked at her
her face was troubled her fingers were
trembling
i was a bit fogged at first and then
i guessed how it was look here my
lady i said there are no boluses or
terraces at all
and you’ve been telling me a pack of
lies don’t you come sneaking about me
any longer i have no wish whatever to
cultivate your acquaintance
do you understand and suddenly
she grew strangely terrified and
distraught
she began to shift from foot to foot
without moving from the place
and spluttered comically as if she
wanted to say something and couldn’t
i waited to see what would come of all
this
and i saw and felt that apparently
i had made a great mistake in suspecting
her of wishing to draw me from the path
of righteousness
it was evidently something very
different
mr student she began
and suddenly waving her hand she turned
abruptly towards the door and went out
i remained with a very unpleasant
feeling in my mind
i listened her door was flung violently
too
plainly the poor wench was very angry i
thought it over
and resolved to go to her and inviting
her to come in here
write everything she wanted i entered
her apartment
i looked round she was sitting at the
table leaning on her elbows with her
head in her hands
listen to me i said now
whenever i come to this point in my
story i always feel horribly
awkward and idiotic well
well listen to me i said
she leaped from her seat came towards me
with flashing eyes
and laying her hands on my shoulders
began to whisper
or rather to hum in her peculiar base
voice
look you now it’s like this there’s no
ballast at all
and there’s no eraser either but what’s
that to you
is it a hard thing for you to draw your
pen over paper
huh ah and you
too still such a little fair-haired boy
there’s nobody at all neither bolas
nor teresa only me
there you have it in much good may it do
you
pardon me said i altogether
flabbergasted by such a reception
what is it all about there’s no bolus
you say
no so it is and
no teresa either and no teresa
i’m theresa i didn’t understand it at
all
i fixed my eyes upon her and tried to
make out which of us was taking leave of
his or her senses
but she went again to the table searched
about for something came back to me
and said in an offended tone
if it was so hard for you to write to
bolas
look there’s your letter take it
others will write for me i looked
in her hand was my letter to bolus
phew listen teresa
what is the meaning of all this why must
you get
others to write for you when i have
already written it and you haven’t sent
it
sent it where why to this
bolus there’s no such person
i absolutely did not understand it
there was nothing for me but to spit and
go
then she explained what
is it she said still offended
there’s no such person i tell you
and she extended her arms as if she
herself did not
understand why there should be no such
person
but i wanted him to be
am i then not a human creature like the
rest of them
yes yes i know i know of course
it no harm was done to anyone by my
writing to him that i can see
pardon me to whom to
bolles of course but
he doesn’t exist alas alas
but what if he doesn’t he doesn’t exist
but he might i write to him
and it looks as if he did exist and
teresa
that’s me and he replies to me
and then i write to him again
i understood at last
and i felt so sick so miserable so
ashamed somehow
alongside of me not three yards away
lived a human creature who had nobody in
the world
to treat her kindly affectionately
and this human being had invented a
friend for herself
look now you wrote me a letter to bolus
and i gave it to someone else to read it
to me
and when they read it to me i listened
and fancied that bolus was there
and i asked you to write me a letter
from bollis to teresa
that is to me when they write such a
letter for me
and read it to me i feel quite sure that
bolas is there
and life grows easier for me in
consequence
deuce take you for a blockhead
said i to myself when i heard this
and from thenceforth regularly twice
a week i wrote a letter to bolus
and an answer from bolas to teresa
i wrote those answers well she of course
listened to them and wept like anything
roared i should say with her base voice
and in return from i thus moving her to
tears by
real letters from the imaginary bolas
she began to mend the holes i had in my
socks shirts and other articles of
clothing
subsequently about three months after
this history began
they put her in prison for something or
other no doubt by this time
she is dead my acquaintance
shook the ash from his cigarette looked
pensively up at the sky
and thus concluded
well well the more a human creature has
tasted of bitter things
the more it hungers after the sweet
things of life
and we wrapped round in the rags of our
virtues
and regarding others through the midst
of our self-sufficiency
and persuaded of our universal
impeccability
do not understand this and the whole
thing
turns out pretty stupidly and very
cruelly
the fallen classes we say and who are
the fallen
classes i should like to know they are
first of all
people with the same bones flesh and
blood and nerves as ourselves
we have been told this day after day for
ages and we actually listen
and the devil only knows how hideous the
whole thing is
or are we completely depraved by the
loud
sermonizing of humanism in reality
we also our fallen folks and so far as i
can see
very deeply fallen into the abyss of
self-sufficiency
and the conviction of our own
superiority
but enough of this it is all as old as
the hills
so old that it is a shame to speak of it
very old indeed yes
that’s what it is
you