Soon after my last letter to you (I was on the very point of going down to your neighbourhood, and had made various plans in advance) an incident occurred which had, one may truly say, a great influence on my fate, so great an influence that here I am dying, thanks to that incident. I went to the theatre to see a ballet. I never cared for ballets; and for every sort of actress, singer, and dancer I had always had a secret feeling of repulsion.... But it is clear there's no changing one's fate, and no one knows himself, and one cannot foresee the future. In reality, in life it's only the unexpected that happens, and we do nothing in a whole lifetime but accommodate ourselves to facts.... But I seem to be rambling off into philosophising again. An old habit! In brief, I fell in love with a dancing-girl.
This was the more curious as one could not even call her a beauty. It is true she had marvellous hair of ashen gold colour, and great clear eyes, with a dreamy, and at the same time daring, look in them.... Could I fail to know the expression of those eyes? For a whole year I was pining and swooning in the light--of them! She was splendidly well-made, and when she danced her national dance the audience would stamp and shout with delight.... But, I fancy, no one but I fell in love with her,--at least, no one was in love with her as I was. From the very minute when I saw her for the first time (would you believe it, I have only to close my eyes, and at once the theatre is before me, the almost empty stage, representing the heart of a forest, and she running in from the wing on the right, with a wreath of vine on her head and a tiger-skin over her shoulders)--from that fatal moment I have belonged to her utterly, just as a dog belongs to its master; and if, now that I am dying, I do not belong to her, it is only because she has cast me off.
To tell the truth, she never troubled herself particularly about me. She scarcely noticed me, though she was very good-natured in making use of my money. I was for her, as she expressed it in her broken French, 'oun Rousso, boun enfant,' and nothing more. But I ... I could not live where she was not living; I tore myself away once for all from everything dear to me, from my country even, and followed that woman.