An Immortal Love Letter

Maxim Gorky was one of the great writers of Soviet Russia.

At the age of fifty this great writer became infatuated with a beautiful young woman, "Olga Ivanova." The girl knew nothing of the poet's love for her until this letter came to her from him. Gorky loved her with all the violence, force, and burning of ripe age; and this Olga was generous of soul, and allowed the poet to visit her as a friend after her marriage, and the two lived in the shade of an ideal friendship. Gorky respected the girl and her friendship, and his love remained silent and violent; but at last it tore itself apart, and he could no longer endure this love, so one day he vanished from her sight and never returned to her again.

I do not know why I have written you this letter. I ought never to have written it, but an overpowering force drove me, a deep emotion seized me, and a harsh, tyrannical desire sealed my sight and stripped me of all reason, all thought, all understanding.

What??... Can such a one as I aspire to happiness?... Can such a one as I sit in the company of bliss?... I am a man of fifty-three, and you... you are a girl of twenty-two!... And yet I must lay my burden down at your feet, and I must open to you the locked chambers of my breast, and I must confess to you this sudden, strong, violent love that took my heart unawares and took my mind unawares and settled in the very core of my tormented being!...

Yes, I love you, my girl!... I say it with shame filling my soul, humiliation crushing my heart, and disgrace mantling my head. But what can I do against my feelings, what can I do against the leapings of my spirit, what can I do against the call of youth and life that peals all around me, deafens my ears, and blinds me to the sight of my own truth!...

It is a crime of mine to think of you, and a crime of mine to worship you, and a crime of mine to trace such a letter to you. But I want to live, and you are the means of my life. I want to be intoxicated, and you are the wine of my cup. I want to triumph over sickness and weakness and old age and death, and you are the spur of my strength!... So save me, my girl, my daughter, my sister!... Save my spirit from darkness, my mind from madness, my body from swift corruption and decay and ruin... Bend over me if only for a moment; pity me though it be a deception. Delude me about my love, and delude me about my hope, then mock me and laugh at me — on condition that I do not understand, and on condition that I neither see nor hear!...

This is all I ask of you: a word and a smile, a glance and a greeting, softness and sweetness, pity and mercy, kindness and tenderness... After that, you may be happy. After that, you may love. After that, you may marry... And I call to witness my torn heart, my disappointed hope, and my luckless fortune, that I shall love your happiness as though it were my own happiness, and love your husband as though he were my own self, and love your children as though they were of my own flesh and the essence of my blood!...

Grant me, then, the last grace for which my soul yearns: the grace only to see you, only to feel your presence, only to live in your shadow. And I shall bury my sorrow in my breast, and keep my secret from all, and before people — of my own full will and choice, in the fullness of my anguish and torment, and in the fullness of my rapture and joy — I shall turn into a statue of silence, in whose breast the emotions boil while its lips never stir with a phrase of complaint, or the shadow of a sigh, or a word of reproach, or a whispered moan!...

And I am certain that then I shall live and take delight; I shall live and be renewed; by your nearness I shall defeat sickness, by your presence I shall fell pain, and by your forgiving, pure, generous love I shall vanquish the abasement of weakness, the impotence of old age, and the dominion of death.