Do you sometimes feel as if you are bitten by some strange bug, that you are set on a pursuit that seems to lead nowhere yet you can not stop from it? Neither can you forget the object of your pursuit? Take courage, you are not alone, long time ago others have beaten this path!
Perhaps you too are “sunstroked,” e.i., looking for Marya Morevna, the princess beyond the sea, the beautiful stranger …
I’m joking of course, but you may want to check this famous Russian writing, of a sad story, it almost seems to be about the AM of nowadays traveling through Russia in search of his dream …
However, unlike here you can see your dream fulfilled, if you do it right. Wish you the best in it!
SUNSTROKE by Ivan Bunin (from Russian Stories, A Dual-Language Book, ed. Gleb Struve)
After dinner they came out of the bright, hot glare of the dining room onto the deck and stood by the railing. She closed her eyes, laid her hand palm out against her cheek, laughed her natural, charming laugh—everything was charming about this small woman—and said:
"I am quite drunk. Altogether, I've gone quite mad. Where did you come from? Three hours ago I hadn't even any idea that you existed. I don't even know where you came on board. At Samara? But it doesn't matter, you're a dear. Is it my head going round or are we turning somewhere?"
Ahead of them lay darkness and lights. From the darkness a strong, warm wind blew in their faces, and the lights rushed somewhere to one side: their steamer, sweeping a wide curve with true Volga smartness, was approaching a small landing stage.
The lieutenant took her hand, lifted it to his lips. The hand, small and strong, smelt of suntan. Blissfully, fearfully, his heart skipped a beat at the thought of how strong and tanned all of her probably was beneath this light gingham dress after a whole month of lying under the southern sun on the hot sea sand (she had told him that she was on her way from Anapa). The lieutenant muttered:
"Let's get off. . . ."
"Where?" she asked, surprised.
"At this landing."
"Why?"
He did not answer. She again laid the back of her hand against her hot cheek.
"You're mad. . . ."
"Let's get off," he repeated dully. "I implore you. ..."
"Oh, do as you like," said she, turning away.
With a soft thud the gliding steamer hit the dimly lit landing pier and they almost fell on top of one another. The end of a hawser flew past overhead, then the steamer bore back, water churned noisily, the gangplank rattled. The lieutenant dashed for their things.
A minute later they went past the drowsy ticket office, came out onto the hub-deep sand and silently got into a dusty cab. The gradual climb up hill, past infrequent crooked lamp posts, along a road soft with dust, seemed to them interminable. But at last they reached the top and drove with a clatter over cobblestones: there was some sort of square, public buildings, a watchtower, the warmth and odors of a provincial town on a summer night. The driver stopped in front of a lighted entrance, beyond the open door of which an old wooden staircase rose steeply. An old unshaven porter in a pink Russian shirt and frockcoat grumpily took their things and shambled ahead of them. They came into a large but terribly stuffy room, burning hot from the day's sun, with white curtains lowered on the windows and two unused candles on the mantelpiece. And as soon as they had come in, and the porter had closed the door, the lieutenant rushed to her so impetuously, and they both kissed with such breathless passion, that many years later they were still to remember this moment: in all their lives neither of them had experienced anything like that.
At ten o'clock in the morning—a morning that was sunny, hot, happy, with the pealing of church bells, a market in the square before the hotel, a smell of hay and tar and all that heady mixture of other smells found in a Russian provincial town—she, this small anonymous woman, who never did tell him her name, jokingly referring to herself as the beautiful stranger, went away. They had slept little, but when she came out from behind the screen by the bed, having washed and dressed in five minutes, she was as fresh as though she were seventeen years old. Was she embarrassed? No, not much. As before, she was natural, gay, and—already inclined to be rational.
"No, no, my dear," she said in answer to his plea that they travel on together, "no, you must stay here until the next steamer. If we go on together, everything will be spoiled. That would be very unpleasant for me. I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you may have thought me. Nothing remotely like this has ever happened to me, nor will in the future. It was a kind of eclipse ... or rather, we both had a kind of sunstroke. . . ."
And somehow the lieutenant agreed with her readily. In a light-hearted and happy mood he took her to the landing stage just in time for the departure of a pink "Samolyot" steamer, kissed her on the deck in front of everyone, and barely had time to leap onto the gangway which was already being pulled back.
In the same light-hearted and carefree mood he returned to the hotel. Something, however, had changed already. Without her, the room appeared to be quite different from what it had been when she was there. It was still full of her—and empty. This was strange! There was still the smell of her good English eau de cologne; her unfinished cup still stood on a tray; but she was no longer there. And the lieutenant's heart contracted with such a pang of tenderness that he hastened to light a cigarette and paced the length of the room several times, slapping the sides of boots with his swagger-stick.
"A strange adventure!" he said aloud, laughing and feeling tears come to his eyes. " 'I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you may have thought me. . . .' And now she is gone. Absurd woman!"
The screen had been moved away, the bed still unmade. And he felt that he simply could not bear to look at that bed now. He put the screen before it, closed the windows in order not to hear the market noises and the creaking of wheels, lowered the billowing white curtains, and sat down on the sofa. Yes, here was the end to this "travel adventure"! She was gone and by now must be far away, probably sitting in the white glassed-in lounge or on deck and looking at the vast river sparkling in the sun, at the passing rafts, at the yellow shoals, at the shimmering vista of water and sky, at all this immense Volga expanse. And farewell—for good, forever. For where can they possibly meet now? "I can't," he thought, "I can't just go to the town where her husband is and her three-year-old girl, and the rest of her family, and all her ordinary life?" And that town appeared to him as something special, set apart, and the thought that she would just go on living her lonely life there, perhaps often remembering him, remembering their fleeting chance encounter, and that he would never see her again—this thought amazed and overwhelmed him. No, this could not be! This would be too senseless, unnatural, unreal! And he felt such pain, and all his future life without her appeared to him so futile, that he was seized with horror and despair.
"What the devil!" he thought as he got up, paced the room again and tried not to look at the bed behind the screen. "What is the matter with me? After all, it isn't the first time—and here . . . What is so special about her anyway, and what has really happened? Indeed, it is a kind of sunstroke! But the main thing is: How am I now to spend a whole day in this out-of-the-way place without her?"
He still could remember all of her, with all the minutest details, could remember the fragrance of her suntan and of her gingham dress, her strong body, the lively, natural, and gay sound of her voice. The feeling of delight he had just experienced from all her woman's loveliness was still extraordinarily vivid in him, but now the most important was this other, completely new feeling this strange, incomprehensible feeling which had not been there while they were together, which he could not even imagine himself capable of when he ventured, yesterday, upon this, as he thought, merely amusing acquaintance a feeling which there was now no one, no one to tell about! "And the main thing," he thought, "is that I never shall be able to tell her about it! And what am I to do, how am I to live through the rest of this endless day, with these memories, with this unresolved agony, in this God-forsaken little town above the same glistening Volga along which that pink steamer has carried her away!"
He had to look for escape, to occupy himself somehow, to distract himself, to go somewhere. Resolutely he put on his cap, took his swagger-stick, walked rapidly, jingling his spurs, along the deserted corridor, ran down the steep stairs to the front entrance. Yes, but where was he to go? Before the entrance stood a cab, the young driver, in a smart poddyovka, calmly smoking a cigarette, evidently waiting for someone. The lieutenant glanced at him with bewildered astonishment. How could one sit so calmly on the box, smoke, and altogether be simple, carefree, indifferent? "Probably I alone am so dreadfully unhappy in all this town," he thought as he set off for the market.
The market was already breaking up. For some reason he strolled, treading upon fresh manure, among carts and wagons with cucumbers, among new pots and pans, and the peasant women sitting on the ground vied with each other in trying to get his attention. They took the pots in their hands, rapped them with their fingers, demonstrating their soundness. The men deafened him, shouting: "Here are first-rate cucumbers, your honor!" All this was so inane, so ridiculous, that he fled from the market. He went into the cathedral where they were already singing loudly, cheerfully, and with determination, conscious of duty fulfilled, then walked for a long time, circling a small, hot and neglected public garden on the cliff above the infinite steel-bright expanse of the river. His shoulder straps and the buttons of his tunic had become too hot to touch. The band inside his cap was wet with sweat, his face was flaming. On his return to the hotel he entered with delight the big, deserted, cool dining room on the ground floor; with delight took off his cap and sat down at a table by an open window which let in heat but with a breath of fresh air, and ordered some iced soup. Everything was good, in everything there was immense happiness and great joy; there was this joy even in the heat and in all the market smells, in the whole of this unfamiliar wretched little town and in this old provincial hotel, and yet his heart was simply breaking asunder. He drank several glasses of vodka, accompanying it with fresh dill pickles and feeling that he would, without hesitating, die tomorrow if by some miracle he could bring her back, spend one more day, this day, with her—spend it only for the purpose, only for the purpose of telling her, and in some way demonstrating to her, convincing her, how agonizingly and rapturously he loved her. Why demonstrate it? Why convince? He didn't know why, but it was more necessary to him than life itself.
“My nerves are all shot to pieces!" he said, pouring himself a fifth glass of vodka.
He drank a whole decanter, hoping to drug, to stupefy himself, hoping that this agonizing and rapturous state would at last resolve itself. But no, it grew and grew.
He pushed away the soup, asked for black coffee and began to smoke, thinking intently: what was he to do now, how was he to rid himself of this sudden, unexpected love? But to rid himself of it—he felt this all too vividly—was impossible. And suddenly he again rose abruptly, took his cap and his stick and inquiring where the post office was, set hurriedly off for it with the telegram ready-phrased in his mind: "Henceforth my whole life forever, until death is yours, in your power." But when he reached the old, thick-walled building where the post and telegraph office was located he stopped horror-stricken. He knew the town where she lived, knew that she had a husband and a three-year-old daughter, but he did not know either her surname or her first name! He had asked for it several times yesterday at dinner and in the hotel, and each time she had laughed and said: "But why should you know who I am? I am Marya Morevna, the princess from beyond the sea. In short, the beautiful stranger. Isn't that enough for you?"
At the corner, next to the post office, there was a photographer's shop window. He gazed for a long time at a large portrait of some military man with thick epaulets, bulging eyes, a low forehead, amazingly magnificent side-whiskers, and an extraordinarily broad chest, all covered with decorations. . . . How mad, how absurd, how terrible are everyday, humdrum things when the heart is smitten—yes, smitten, he understood it now—by this terrible "sunstroke," this too great love, too great happiness! He looked at a couple of newlyweds—a young man in a long frockcoat and white tie, with cropped hair, standing at attention, arm in arm with a young girl in a bridal veil; shifted his eyes to the portrait of a pretty and perky young lady in a student's cap cocked to one side. Then, tormented with envy of all these unknown people who did not suffer, he stared down the street.
"Where am I to go? What am I to do?" These insoluble questions weighed heavily on his mind and heart.
The street was quite empty. The houses were all alike, two-storied, merchants' houses, with large gardens, and they looked uninhabited. Thick white dust lay on the roadway. And all this was dazzling, all was drenched in hot sunshine, fiery and joyous, but now somehow pointless. In the distance the street rose, humped, and ran into the horizon—pure, cloudless, grayish with a mauve tinge. There was in it something southern, reminding one of Sevastopol, Kerch . . . Anapa. This was particularly unbearable. And the lieutenant, his head lowered, his eyes screwed up against the glare, looking with concentration underfoot, staggering, stumbling, one spur catching on the other, walked back.
He returned to the hotel so worn out by fatigue as though he had completed a long march somewhere in Turkestan, in the Sahara. Mustering the remnants of his strength he entered his large, empty room. It had been already tidied, deprived of the last traces of her—only one hairpin, forgotten by her, lay on the bedside table. He took on his tunic and looked at himself in the mirror; his face—the usual officer's face, dark from sunburn, with pale, sunbleached mustache and bluish whites of the eyes which, because of the sunburn, looked even whiter—now wore an agitated, crazed expression; and in the fine white shirt, with its starched stand-up collar, there was something youthful and profoundly unhappy. He lay down on the bed, putting his dusty boots on the footboard. The windows were open, the curtains down, and a light breeze from time to time puffed them out, wafting into the room the heat of the sweltering iron roofs and of the whole of this luminous Volga world, now completely emptied, soundless and deserted. He lay with his hands under the back of his head and stared into the space in front of him. Then he clenched his teeth, lowered his eyelids, feeling tears roll from under them down his cheeks, and, at last, fell asleep. And when he opened his eyes again, the evening sun was already showing reddish-yellow behind the curtains. The wind had died down, the room was stuffy and dry like an oven. Both the previous day and this morning came back to him as though they had been ten years ago.
Unhurriedly he rose, unhurriedly he washed, raised the curtains, rang and asked for a samovar and his bill took a long time drinking tea with lemon. Then he gave orders for a cab to be brought and his things to be carried down, and getting into the cab, onto its rusty, faded seat, gave the porter all of five rubles.
Looks, your honor, as though it was I who brought you here last night, too," cheerfully said the driver, picking up the reins.
As they drove down to the landing pier the blue summer night had descended on the Volga, and many multicolored lights were already scattered along the river, and lights hung on the masts of the swiftly approaching steamer. "I made it just in time," said the driver obsequiously.
The lieutenant gave him five rubles, too, bought a ticket, went out onto the landing pier. Just as yesterday there was a soft thud against its moorings and a light dizziness from unsure footing, then the flying end of the hawser, then the noise of the churning water as it ran for ward under the wheels of the slightly backing steamer. And there was something extraordinarily welcoming something good about this crowded steamer, already lit up and redolent of cooking.
In a minute they were on their way upstream where she too had been swept that morning.
The dark summer evening glow died away far ahead its many colors duskily and drowsily reflected in the river which, here and there, still shimmered and rippled in the distance beneath it, beneath that glow, and the lights scattered in the darkness around, floated farther and farther back.
The lieutenant sat on the deck under an awning, feeling himself grown ten years older.
