Two Hussars - A Story
By Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
First published in 1856
Distributed by the Tolstoy Library
Jomini and Jomini --
Not half a word of vodka. - D. Davydov
[Footnote: From *The Song of an Old Hussar*, in which the great days
of the past are contrasted with the trivial present. D. V. Davydov is
referred to in *War and Peace*.
Early in the nineteenth century, when there were as yet no railways or
macadamized roads, no gaslight, no stearine candles, no low couches
with sprung cushions, no unvarnished furniture, no disillusioned youths
with eye glasses, no liberalizing women philosophers, nor any charming
*dames aux camelias* of whom there are so many in our times, in those
naive days, when leaving Moscow for Petersburg in a coach or carriage
provided with a kitchenful of home-made provisions one traveled for
eight days along a soft, dusty or muddy road and believed in chopped
cutlets, sledge-bells, and plain rolls; when in the long autumn
evenings the tallow candles, around which family groups of twenty or
thirty people gathered, had to be snuffed; when ball-rooms were
illuminated by candelabra with wax or spermaceti candles, when
furniture was arranged symmetrically, when our fathers were still young
and proved it not only by the absence of wrinkles and grey hair but by
fighting duels for the sake of a woman and rushing from the opposite
corner of a room to pick up a bit of handkerchief purposely or
accidentally dropped; when our mothers wore short-waisted dresses and
enormous sleeves and decided family affairs by drawing lots, when the
charming *dames aux camelias* hid from the light of day - in those
naïve days of Masonic lodges, Martinists, and Tugenbudns, the days of
Miloradoviches and Davydovs and Pushkins - a meeting of landed
proprietors was held in the Government town of K--, and the nobility
elections were being concluded.
I
"Well, never mind, the saloon will do," said a young officer in a fur
cloak and hussar's cap, who had just got out of a post-sledge and was
entering the best hotel in the town of K--.
"The assembly, your Excellency, is enormous," said the boots, who had
already managed to learn from the orderly that the hussar's name was
Count Turbin, and therefore addressed him as "your Excellency."
"The proprietress of Afremovo with her daughters has said she is
leaving this evening, so No. 11 will be at your disposal as soon as
they go," continued the boots, stepping softly before the count along
the passage and continually looking round.
In the general saloon at a little table under the dingy full-length
portrait of the Emperor Alexander the First, several men, probably
belonging to the local nobility, sat drinking champagne, while at
another side of the room sat some travelers - tradesmen in blue, fur-
lined cloaks.
Entering the room and calling in Blucher, a gigantic grey mastiff he
had brought with him, the count threw off his cloak, the collar of
which was still covered with hoar-frost, called for vodka, sat down at
the table in his blue-satin Cossack jacket, and entered into
conversation with the gentlemen there.
The handsome open countenance of the newcomer immediately predisposed
them in his favour and they offered him a glass of champagne. The
count first drank a glass of vodka and then ordered another bottle of
champagne to treat his new acquaintances. The sledge-driver came in to
ask for a tip.
"Sashka!" shouted the count. "Give him something!"
The driver went out with Sashka but came back again with the money in
his hand.
"Look here, y'r 'xcelence, haven't I done my very best for y'r honour?
Didn't you promise me half a ruble, and he's only given me a quarter!"
"Give him a ruble, Sashka."
Sashka cast down his eyes and looked at the driver's feet.
"He's had enough!" he said, in a bass voice. "And besides, I have no
more money."
The count drew from his pocket-book the two five-ruble notes which were
all it contained and gave one of them to the driver, who kissed his
hand and went off.
"I've run it pretty close!" said the count. "These are my last five
rubles."
"Real hussar fashion, Count," said one of the nobles who from his
moustache, voice, and a certain energetic freedom about his legs, was
evidently a retired cavalryman. "Are you staying here some time,
Count?"
"I must get some money. I shouldn't have stayed here at all but for
that. And there are no rooms to be had, devil take them, in this
accursed pub."
"Permit me, Count," said the cavalryman. "Will you not join me? My
room in No. 7 . . . If you do not mind just for the night. And then
you'll stay a couple of days with us? It happens that the *Marechal de
la Noblesse* is giving a ball tonight. You would make him very happy
by going."
"Yes, Count, do stay," said another, a handsome young man. "You have
surely no reason to hurry away! You know this only comes once in three
years - the elections, I mean. You should at least have a look at our
young ladies, Count!"
"Sashka, get my clean linen ready. I am going to the bath," said the
count, rising, "and from there perhaps I may look in at the Marshal's."
Then, having called the waiter and whispered something to him to which
the latter replied with a smile, "That can all be arranged," he went
out.
"So I'll order my trunk to be taken to your room, old fellow," shouted
the count from the passage.
"Please do, I shall be most happy," replied the cavalryman, running to
the door. "No. 7 - don't forget."
When the count's footsteps could no longer be heard the cavalryman
returned to his place and sitting close to one of the group - a
government official - and looking him straight in the face with smiling
eyes, said: "It is the very man, you know!"
"No!"
"I tell you it is! It is the very same duellist hussar - the famous
Turbin. He knew me - I bet you anything he knew me. Why, he and I
went on the spree for three weeks without a break when I was at
Lebedyani for remounts. There was one thing he and I did together. . .
. He's a fine fellow, eh?"
"A splendid fellow. And so pleasant in his manner! Doesn't show a
grain of - what d'you call it?" answered the handsome young man. "How
quickly we became intimate. . . . He's not more than twenty-five, is
he?"
"Oh no, that's what he looks but he is more than that. One has to get
to know him, you know. Who abducted Migunova? He. It was he who
killed Sablin. It was he who dropped Matnev out of the window by his
legs. It was he who won three hundred thousand rubles from Prince
Nestorov. He is a regular dare-devil, you know: a gambler, a
duellist, a seducer, but a jewel of an hussar - a real jewel. The
rumors that are afloat about us are nothing to the reality - if anyone
knew what a true hussar is! Ah yes, those were times!"
And the cavalryman told his interlocutor of such a spree with the count
in Lebedyani as not only never had, but never even could have, taken
place.
It could not have done so, first because he had never seen the count
till that day and had left the army two years before the count entered
it; and secondly because the cavalryman had never really served in the
cavalry at all but had for four years been the humblest of cadets in
the Belevski regiment and retired as soon as ever he became ensign.
But ten years ago he had inherited some money and had really been in
Lebedyani where he squandered seven hundred rubles with some officers
who were there buying remounts. He had even gone so far as to have an
uhlan uniform made with orange facings, meaning to enter an uhlan
regiment. This desire to enter the cavalry, and the three weeks spent
with the remount officers at Lebedyani, remained the brightest and
happiest memories of his life, so he transformed the desire first into
a reality and then into a reminiscence and came to believe firmly in
his past as a cavalry officer - all of which did not prevent his being,
as to gentleness and honesty, a most worthy man.
"Yes, those who have never served in the cavalry will never understand
us fellows."
He sat astride a chair and thrusting out his lower jaw began to speak
in a bass voice. "You ride at the head of your squadron, not a horse
but the devil incarnate prancing about under you, and you just sit in
devil-may-care style. The squadron commander rides up to review:
'Lieutenant,' he says. 'We can't get on without you - please lead the
squadron to parade.' 'All right,' you say, and there you are: you
turn round, shout to your moustached fellows. . . . . Ah, devil take
it, those were times!"
The count returned from the bath-house very red and with wet hair, and
went straight to No. 7, where the cavalryman was already sitting in his
dressing-gown smoking a pipe and considering with pleasure, and not
without some apprehension, the happiness that had befallen him of
sharing a room with the celebrated Turbin. "Now suppose," he thought,
"that he suddenly takes me, strips me naked, drives me to the town
gates, and sets me in the snow, or . . . tars me, or simply . . . .
But no," he consoled himself, "He wouldn't do that to a comrade."
"Sashka, feed Blucher!" shouted the count.
Sashka, who had taken a tumbler of vodka to refresh himself after the
journey and was decidedly tipsy, came in.
"What, already! You've been drinking, you rascal! . . . Feed Blucher!"
"He won't starve anyway: see how sleek he is!" answered Sashka,
stroking the dog.
"Silence! Be off and feed him!"
"You want the dog to be fed, but when a man drinks a glass you reproach
him."
""Hey! I'll thrash you!" shouted the count in a voice that made the
window-panes rattle and even frightened the cavalryman a bit.
"You should ask if Sashka has had a bite today! Yes, beat me if you
think more of a dog than of a man," muttered Sashka.
But here he received such a terrible blow in the face from the count's
fist that he fell, knocked his head against the partition, and
clutching his nose fled from the room and fell on a settee in the
passage.
"He's knocked my teeth out," grunted Sashka, wiping his bleeding nose
with one hand while with the other he scratched the back of Blucher,
who was licking himself. "He's knocked my teeth out, Bluchy, but still
he's my count and I'd go through fire for him - I would! Because he -
is my count. Do you understand, Bluchy? Want your dinner, eh?"
After lying still for a while he rose, fed the dog and then, almost
sobered, went in to wait on his count and to offer him some tea.
"I shall really feel hurt," the cavalryman was saying meekly, as he
stood before the count who was lying on the other's bed with his legs
up against the partition. "You see I also am an old army man and, if I
may say so, a comrade. Why should you borrow from anyone else when I
shall be delighted to lend you a couple of hundred rubles? I haven't
got them just now - only a hundred rubles - but I'll get the rest
today. You would really hurt my feelings, Count."
"Thank you, old man," said the count, instantly discerning what kind of
relations had to be established between them, and slapping the
cavalryman on the shoulder. "Thanks! Well then, we'll go to the ball
if it must be so. But what are we to do now? Tell me what you have in
your town. What pretty girls? What men fit for a spree? What
gaming?"
The cavalryman explained that there would be an abundance of pretty
creatures at the ball, that Kolkov, who had been re-elected captain of
police, was the best hand at a spree, only he lacked the true hussar go
- otherwise he was a good sort of chap, that the Ilyushin gipsy chorus
had been singing in the town since the elections began, Streshka
leading, and that everybody meant to go to hear them after leaving the
marshal's that evening.
"And there's a devilish lot of card-playing too," he went on. Lukhnov
plays. He has money and is staying here to break his journey, and
Ilyin, an uhlan cornet who has room No. 8, has lost a lot. They have
already begun in his room. They play every evening. And what a fine
fellow that Ilyin is! I tell you, Count, he's not mean - he'll let his
last shirt go."
"Well then, let us go to his room. Let's see what sort of people they
are," said the count.
"Yes do - pray do. They'll be devilish glad."
II
The uhlan cornet, Ilyin, had not long been awake. The evening before
he had sat down to cards at eight o'clock and had lost pretty steadily
for fifteen hours on end - till eleven in the morning. He had lost a
considerable sum but did not know exactly how much, because he had
about three thousand rubles of his own, and fifteen thousand of Crown
money which had long since got mixed up with his own, and he feared to
count lest his fears that some of the Crown money was already gone
should be confirmed. It was nearly noon when he fell asleep and he had
slept that heavy dreamless sleep which only very young men sleep after
a heavy loss. Waking at six o'clock (just when Count Turbin arrived at
the hotel), and seeing the floor all around strewn with cards and bits
of chalk, and the chalk-marked tables in the middle of the room, he
recalled with horror last night's play, and the last card - a knave on
which he lost five hundred rubles; but not yet quite convinced of the
reality of all this, he drew his money from under the pillow and began
to count it. He recognized some notes which had passed from hand to
hand several times with "corners" and "transports" and he recalled the
whole course of the game. He had none of his own three thousand rubles
left, and some two thousand five hundred of the government money was
also gone.
Ilyin had been playing for four nights running.
He had come from Moscow where the crown money had been entrusted to him
and at K-- had been detained by the superintendent of the post-house on
the pretext that there were no horses, but really because the
superintendent had an agreement with the hotel-keeper to detain all
travellers for a day. The uhlan, a bright young lad who had just
received three thousand rubles from his parents in Moscow for his
equipment on entering his regiment, was glad to spend a few days in the
town of K-- during the elections and hoped to enjoy himself thoroughly.
He knew one of the landed gentry there who had a family, and he was
thinking of looking them up and flirting with the daughters, when the
cavalryman turned up to make his acquaintance. Without any evil
intention the cavalryman introduced him that same evening, in the
general saloon or common room of the hotel, to his acquaintances,
Lukhnov and other gamblers. And ever since then the uhlan had been
playing cards, not asking at the post-station for horses, much less
going to visit his acquaintance the landed proprietor, and not even
leaving his room for four days on end.
Having dressed and drunk tea he went to the window. He felt that he
would like to go for a stroll to get rid of the recollections that
haunted him, and he put on his cloak and went out into the street. The
sun was already hidden behind the white houses with the red roofs and
it was getting dusk. It was warm for winter. Large wet snowflakes
were falling slowly into the muddy street. Suddenly at the thought
that he had slept all through the day now ending, a feeling of
intolerable sadness overcame him.
"This day, now past, can never be recovered," he thought.
"I have ruined my youth!" he suddenly said to himself, not because he
really thought he had ruined his youth - he did not even think about it
- but because the phrase happened to occcur to him.
"And what am I to do now?" thought he. "Borrow from someone and go
away?" A lady passed him along the pavement. "There's a stupid
woman," thought he for some reason. "There's no one to borrow from . .
. I have ruined my youth!" He came to the bazaar. A tradesman in a
fox-fur cloak stood at the door of his shop touting for customers. "If
I had not withdrawn that eight I should have recovered my losses." An
old beggar-woman followed him whimpering. "There's no one to borrow
from." A man drove past in a bearskin cloak; a policeman was standing
at his post. "What unusual thing could I do? Fire at them? No, it's
dull . . . I have ruined my youth! . . . Ah, if only I could drive in a
troyka: Gee-up, beauties! . . . I'll go back. Lukhnov will come soon,
and we'll play."
He returned to the hotel and again counted his money. No, he had made
no mistake the first time: there were still two thousand five hundred
rubles of Crown money missing. I'll stake twenty-five rubles, than
make a 'corner' . . . seven-fold it, fifteen-fold thirty, sixty . . .
three thousand rubles. Then I'll buy the horse-collars and be off. He
won't let me, the rascal! I have ruined my youth!"
That is what was going on in the uhlan's head when Lukhnov actually
entered the room.
"Have you been up long, Michael Vasilich?" asked Lukhnov, slowly
removing the gold spectacles from his skinny nose and carefully wiping
them with a red silk handkerchief.
"No, I've only just got up - I slept uncommonly well."
"Some hussar or other has arrived. He has put up with Zavalshevski -
had you heard?"
"No, I hadn't. But how is it no one else is here yet?"
"They must have gone to Pryakhin's. They'll be here directly."
And sure enough a little later there came into the room a garrison
officer who always accompanied Lukhnov, a Greek merchant with an
enormous brown hooked nose and sunken black eyes, and a fat puffy
landowner, the proprietor of a distillery, who played whole nights,
always staking "simples" of half a ruble each. Everybody wished to
begin playing as soon as possible, but the principal gamesters,
especially Lukhnov who was telling about a robbery in Moscow in an
exceedingly calm manner, did not refer to the subject.
"Just fancy," he said, "a city like Moscow, the historic capital, a
metropolis, and men dressed up as devils go about there with crooks,
frighten stupid people, and rob the passers-by - and that's the end of
it! What are the police about? That's the question."
The uhlan listened attentively to the story about the robbers, but when
a pause came he rose and quietly ordered cards to be brought. The fat
landowner was the first to speak out.
"Well, gentlemen, why lose precious time? If we mean business let's
begin."
"Yes, you walked off with a pile of half-rubles last night soyou like
it," said the Greek.
"I think we might start," said the garrison officer.
Ilyin looked at Lukhnov. Lukhnov looking him in the eye quietly
continued his story about robbers dressed up like devils with claws.
"Will you keep the bank?" asked the uhlan.
"Isn't it too early?"
"Belov!" shouted the uhlan, blushing for some unknown reason, "bring me
some dinner - I haven't had anything to eat yet, gentlemen - and a
bottle of champagne and some cards."
At this moment the count and Zavalshevski entered the room. It turned
out that Turbin and Ilyin belonged to the same division. They took to
one another at once, clinked glasses, drank champagne together, and
were on intimate terms in five minutes. The count seemed to like Ilyin
very much; he looked smilingly at him and teased him about his youth.
"There's an uhlan of the right sort!" he said. "What moustaches! Dear
me, what moustaches!"
Even what little down there was on Ilyin's lip was quite white.
"I suppose you are going to play?" said the count. "Well, I wish you
luck, Ilyin! I should think you are a master at it," he added with a
smile.
"Yes, they mean to start," said Lukhnov, tearing open a bundle of a
dozen packs of cards, "and you'll joint in too, Count, won't you?"
"No, not today. I should clear you all out if I did. When I begin
'cornering' in earnest the bank begins to crack! But I have nothing to
play with - I was cleaned out at a station near Volochok. I met some
infantry fellow there with rings on his fingers - a sharper I should
think - and he plucked me clean."
"Why, did you stay at that station long?" asked Ilyin.
"I sat there for twenty-two hours. I shan't forget that accursed
station! And the superintendent won't forget me either . . . "
"How's that?"
"I drive up, you know; out rushes the superintendent looking a regular
brigand. 'No horses!' says he. Now I must tell you that it's my rule,
if there are no horses I don't take off my fur cloak but go into the
superintendent's own room - not into the public room but into his
private room - and I have all the doors and windows opened on the
ground that it's smoky. Well, that's just what I did there. You
remember what frosts we had last month? About twenty degrees!
[Footnote: Reaumur = thirteen below zero Fahrenheit.] The
superintendent began to argue; I punched his head. There was an old
woman there, and girls and other women; they kicked up a row, snatched
up their pots and pans, and were rushing off to the village. . . . I
went to the door and said, 'Let me have horses and I'll be off. If not,
no one shall go out: I'll freeze you all.'"
"That's an infernally good plan!" said the puffy squire, rolling with
laughter. "It's the way they freeze out cockroaches . . . "
"But I didn't watch carefully enough and the superintendent got away
with the women. Only one old woman remained in pawn on the top of the
stove; she kept sneezing and saying prayers. Afterwards we began
negotiating: the superintendent came and from a distance began
persuading me to let the old woman go, but I set Blucher at him a bit.
Blucher's splendid at tackling superintendents! But still the rascal
didn't let me have horses until the next morning. Meanwhile that
infantry fellow came along. I joined him in another room, and we began
to play. You have seen Blucher? . . . Blucher! . . . " and he gave a
whistle.
Blucher rushed in, and the players condescendingly paid some attention
to him though it was evident that they wished to attend to quite other
matters.
"But why don't you play, gentlemen? Please don't let me prevent you.
I am a chatterbox, you see," said Turbin. "Play is play whether one
likes it or not."
III
Lukhnov drew two candles nearer to him, took out a large brown pocket-
book full of paper money, and slowly, as if performing some rite,
opened it on the table, took out two one-hundred rubles notes and
placed them under the cards.
"Two hundred for the bank, the same as yesterday," said he, adjusting
his spectacles and opening a pack of cards.
"Very well," said Ilyin, continuing his conversation with Turbin
without looking at Lukhnov.
The game started. Lukhnov dealt the cards with machine-like precision,
stopping now and then and deliberately jotting something down, or
looking sternly over his spectacles and saying in low tones, "Pass up!"
The fat landowner spoke louder than anyone else, audibly deliberating
with himself and wetting his plump fingers when he turned down the
corner of a card. The garrison officer silently and neatly noted the
amount of his stake on his card and bent down small corners under the
table. The Greek sat beside the banker, watching the game attentively
with his sunken black eyes, and seemed to be waiting for something.
Zavalshevski, standing by the table, would suddenly begin to fidget all
over, take a red or blue bank-note [Footnote: Five-ruble notes were
blue and ten-ruble notes red.] out of his trouser pocket, lay a card on
it, slap it with his palm, and say, "Little seven, pull me through!"
Then he would bite his moustache, shift from foot to foot, and keep
fidgeting till his card was dealt. Ilyin sat eating veal and pickled
cucumbers, which were placed beside him on the horse hair sofa, and
hastily wiping his hands on his coat laid down one card after another.
Turbin, who at first was sitting on the sofa, quickly saw how matters
stood. Lukhnov did not look at or speak to Ilyin, only now and then
his spectacles would turn for a moment towards the latter's hand, but
most of Ilyin's cards lost.
"There now, I'd like to beat that card," said Lukhnov of a card the fat
landowner, who was staking half-rubles, had put down.
"You beat Ilyin's, never mind me!" remarked the squire.
And indeed Ilyin's cards lost more often than any of the others. He
would tear up the losing card nervously under the table and choose
another with trembling fingers. Turbin rose from the sofa and asked
the Greek to let him sit by the banker. The Greek moved to another
place; the count took his chair and began watching Lukhnov's hands
attentively, not taking his eyes off them.
"Ilyin!" he suddenly said in his usual voice, which quiet
unintentionally drowned all the others. "Why do you keep to a routine?
You don't know how to play."
"It's all the same how one plays."
"But you're sure to lose that way. Let me play for you."
"No, please excuse me. I always do it myself. Play for yourself if
you like."
"I said I should not play for myself, but I should like to play for
you. I am vexed that you are losing."
"I suppose it's my fate."
The count was silent, but leaning on his elbows he again gazed intently
at the banker's hands.
"Abominable!" he suddenly said in a loud, long-drawn tone.
Lukhnov glanced at him.
"Abominable, quite abominable!" he repeated still louder, looking
straight into Lukhnov's eyes.
The game continued.
"It is not right!" Turbin remarked again, just as Lukhnov beat a
heavily backed card of Ilyin's.
"What is it you don't like, Count?" inquired the banker with polite
indifference.
"This! - that you let Ilyin win his simples and beat his corners.
That's what's bad."
Lukhnov made a slight movement with his brows and shoulders, expressing
the advisability of submitting to fate in everything, and continued to
play.
"Blucher!" shouted the count, rising and whistling to the dog. "At
him!" he added quickly.
Blucher, bumping his back against the sofa as he leapt from under it
and nearly upsetting the garrison officer, ran to his master and
growled, looking around at everyone and moving his tail as if asking,
"Who is misbehaving here, eh?"
Lukhnov put down his cards and moved his chair to one side.
"One can't play like that," he said. "I hate dogs. What kind of a
game is it when you bring a whole pack of hounds in here?"
"Especially a dog like that. I believe they are called 'leeches,'"
chimed in the garrison officer.
"Well, are we going to play or not, Michael Vasilich?" said Lukhnov to
their host.
"Please don't interfere with us, Count," said Ilyin, turning to Turbin.
"Come here a minute," said Turbin, taking Ilyin's arm and going behind
the partition with him.
The count's words, spoken in his usual tone, were distinctly audible
from there. His voice always carried across three rooms.
"Are you daft, eh? Don't you see that that gentleman in spectacles is
a sharper of the first water?"
"Come now, enough! What are you saying?"
"No enough about it! Stop playing, I tell you. It's nothing to me.
Another time I'd pluck you myself, but somehow I'm sorry to see you
fleeced. And maybe you have Crown money too?"
"No . . . why do you imagine such things?"
"Ah, my lad, I've been that way myself so I know all those sharpers'
tricks. I tell you the one in spectacles is a sharper. Stop playing!
I ask you as a comrade."
"Well then, I'll only finish this one deal."
"I know what 'one deal' means. Well, we'll see."
They went back. In that one deal Ilyin put down so many cards and so
many of them were beaten that he lost a large amount.
Turbin put his hands in the middle of the table "Now stop it! Come
along."
"No, I can't. Leave me alone, do!" said Ilyin, irritably shuffling
some bent cards without looking at Turbin.
"Well, go to the devil! Go on losing for certain, if that pleases you.
It's time for me to be off. Let's go to the Marshal's, Savalshevski."
They went out. All remained silent and Lukhnov dealt no more cards
until the sound of their steps and of Blucher's claws on the passage
floor had died away.
"What a devil of a fellow!" said the landowner, laughing.
"Well, he won't interfere now," remarked the garrison officer hastily,
and still in a whisper.
And the play continued.
IV
The band, composed of some of the marshal's serfs standing in the
pantry - which had been cleared out for the occasion - with their coat-
sleeves turned up already, had at a given signal struck up the old
polonaise, "Alexander, 'Lizabeth," and under the bright soft light of
the wax-candles a Governor-general of Catherine's days, with a star on
his breast, arm-in-arm with the marshal's skinny wife, and the rest of
the local grandees with their partners, had begun slowly gliding over
the parquet floor of the large dancing-room in various combinations and
variations, when Zavalshevski entered, wearing stockings and pumps and
a blue swallow-tail coat with an immense and padded collar, and
exhaling a strong smell of the frangipane with which the facings of his
coat, his handkerchief, and his moustaches, were abundantly sprinkled.
The handsome hussar who came with him wore tight-fitting light-blue
riding-breeches and a gold-embroidered scarlet on which a Vladimir
cross and an 1812 medal were fastened. The count was not tall but
remarkably well built. His clear blue and exceedingly brilliant eyes,
and thick, closely curling, dark-brown hair, gave a remarkable
character to his beauty. His arrival at the ball was expected, for the
handsome young man who had seen him at the hotel had already prepared
the Marshal for it. Various impressions had been produced by the news,
for the most part not altogether pleasant.
"It's not unlikely that this youngster will hold us up to ridicule,"
was the opinion of the men and of the older women. "What if he should
run away with me?" was more or less in the minds of the younger ladies,
married or unmarried.
As soon as the polonaise was over and the couples after bowing to one
another had separated - the women into one group and the men into
another - Zavalshevski, proud and happy, introduced the count to their
hostess.
The marshal's wife, feeling an inner trepidation lest this hussar
should treat her in some scandalous manner before everybody, turned
away haughtily and contemptuously as she said, "Very pleased, I hope
you will dance," and then gave him a distrustful look that said, "Now,
if you offend a woman it will show me that you are a perfect villain."
The count however soon conquered her prejudices by his amiability,
attentive manner, and handsome gay appearance, so that five minutes
later the expression on the face of the Marshal's wife told the
company: "I know how to manage such gentlemen. He immediately
understood with whom he had to deal, and now he'll be charming to me
for the rest of the evening." Moreover at that moment the governor of
the town, who had known the count's father, came up to him and very
affably took him aside for a talk, which still further calmed the
provincial public and raised the count in its estimation. After that
Zavalshevski introduced the count to his sister, a plump young widow
whose large black eyes had not left the count from the moment he
entered. The count asked her to dance the waltz the band had just
commenced, and the general prejudice was finally dispersed by the
masterly way in which he danced.
"What a splendid dancer!" said a fat landed proprietress, watching his
legs in their blue riding-breeches as they flitted across the room, and
mentally counting "one, two, three - one, two, three - splendid!"
"There he goes - jig, jig, jig," said another, a visitor in the town
whom local society did not consider genteel. "How does he manage not
to entangle his spurs? Wonderfully clever!"
The count's artistic dancing eclipsed the three best dancers of the
province: the tall fair-haired adjutant of the governor, noted for the
rapidity with which he danced and for holding his partner very close to
him; the cavalryman, famous for the graceful swaying motion with which
he waltzed and for the frequent but light tapping of his heels; and a
civilian, of whom everybody said that thought he was not very
intellectual he was a first-rate dancer and the soul of every ball. In
fact, from its very commencement this civilian would ask all the ladies
in turn to dance, in the order in which they were sitting, and never
stopped for a moment except occasionally to wipe the perspiration from
his weary but cheerful face with a very wet cambric handkerchief. The
count eclipsed them all and danced with the three principal ladies:
the tall one, rich, handsome, stupid; the one of middle height, thin
and not very pretty but splendidly dressed; and the little one, who was
plain but very clever. He danced with others too - with all the pretty
ones, and there were many of these - but it was Zavalshevski's sister,
the little widow, who pleased him best. With her he danced a
quadrille, and *ecossaise*, and a mazurka. When they were sitting down
during the quadrille he began paying her many compliments; comparing
her to Venus and Diana, to a rose, and to some other flower. But all
these compliments only made the widow bend her white neck, lower her
eyes and look at her white muslin dress, or pass her fan from hand to
hand. But when she said "Don't, you're only joking, Count," and other
words to that effect, there was a note of such naïve simplicity and
amusing silliness in her slightly guttural voice that looking at her it
really seemed that this was not a woman but a flower, and not a rose,
but some gorgeous scentless rosy-white wild flower that had grown all
alone out of a snowdrift in some very remote land.
This combination of naivete and unconventionality with her fresh beauty
created such a peculiar impression on the count that several times
during the intervals of conversation, when gazing silently into her
eyes or at the beautiful outline of her neck and arms, the desire to
seize her in his arms and cover her with kisses assailed him with such
force that he had to make a serious effort to resist it. The widow
noticed with pleasure the effect she was producing, yet something in
the count's behaviour began to frighten and excite her, though the
young hussar, despite his insinuating amiability, was respectful to a
degree that in our days would be considered cloying. He ran to fetch
almond-milk for her, picked up her handkerchief, snatched a chair from
the hands of a scrofulous young squire who danced attendance onher to
hand it her more quickly, and so forth.
When he noticed that the society attentions of the day had little
effect on the lady he tried to amuse her by telling her funny stories
and assured her that he was ready to stand on his head, to crow like a
cock, to jump out of the window or plunge into the water through a hole
in the ice, if she ordered him to do so. This proved quite a success.
The widow brightened up and burst into peals of laughter, showing her
lovely white teeth, and was quite satisfied with her cavalier. The
count liked her more and more every minute, so that by the end of the
quadrille he was seriously in love with her.
When, after the quadrille, her eighteen-year-old adorer of long
standing came up to the widow (he was the same scrofulous young man
from whom Turbin had snatched the chair - a son of the richest local
landed proprietor and not yet in government service) she received him
with extreme coolness and did not show one-tenth of the confusion she
had experienced with the count.
"Well, you are a fine fellow!" she said, looking all the time at
Turbin's back and unconsciously considering how many yards of gold cord
it had taken to embroider his whole jacket. "You are a good one! You
promised to call and fetch me for a drive and bring me some comfits."
"I did come, Anna Fedorovna, but you had already gone, and I left some
of the very best comfits for you," said the young man, who - despite
his tallness - spoke in a very high-pitched voice.
"You always find excuses! . . . I don't want your bon-bons. Please
don't imagine - "
"I see, Anna Fedorovna, that you have changed towards me and I know
why. But it's not right," he added, evidently unable to finish his
speech because a strong inward agitation caused his lips to quiver in a
very strange and rapid manner.
Anna Fedorovna did not listen to him but continued to follow Turbin
with her eyes.
The master of the house, the stout, toothless, stately old marshal,
came up to the count, took him by the arm, and invited him into the
study for a smoke and a drink. As soon as Turbin left the room Anna
Fedorovna felt that there was absolutely nothing to do there and went
out into the dressing-room arm-in-arm with a friend of hers, a bony,
elderly, maiden lady.
"Well, is he nice?" asked the maiden lady.
"Only he bothers so!" Anna Fedorovna replied walking up to the mirror
and looking at herself.
Her face brightened, her eyes laughed, she even blushed, and suddenly
imitating the ballet-dancers she had seen during the elections, she
twirled round on one foot, then laughed her guttural but pleasant laugh
and even bent her knees and gave a jump.
"Just fancy, what a man! He actually asked me for a keepsake," she
said to her friend, "but he will get no-o-o-thing." She sang the last
word and held up one finger in her kid glove which reached to her
elbow.
In the study, where the marshal had taken Turbin, stood bottles of
different sorts of vodka, liqueurs, champagne, and *zakuska* [snacks].
The nobility, walking about or sitting in a cloud of tobacco smoke,
were talking about the elections.
"When the whole worshipful society of our nobility has honoured him by
their choice," said the newly elected Captain of Police who had already
imbibed freely, "he should on no account transgress in the face of the
whole society - he ought never . . . "
The count's entrance interrupted the conversation. Everybody wished to
be introduced to him, and the Captain of Police especially kept
pressing the count's hand between his own for a long time and
repeatedly asked him not to refuse to accompany him to the new
restaurant where he was going to treat the gentlemen after the ball,
and where the gipsies were going to sing. The count promised to come
without fail, and drank some glasses of champagne with him.
"But why are you not dancing, gentlemen?" said the count, as he was
about to leave the room.
"We are not dancers," replied the Captain of Police, laughing. "Wine
is more in our line, Count. . . . And besides, I have seen all those
young ladies grow up, Count! But I can walk through an *ecossaise* now
and then, Count . . . I can do it, Count."
"Then come and walk through one now," said Turbin. "It will brighten
us up before going to hear the gipsies."
"Very well, gentlemen! Let's come and gratify our host."
And three or four of the noblemen who had been drinking in the study
since the commencement of the ball, put on gloves of black kid or
knitted silk and with red faces were just about to follow the count
into the ball-room when they were stopped by the scrofulous young man
who, pale and hardly able to restrain his tears, accosted Turbin.
"You think that because you are a count you can jostle people about as
if you were in the market-place," he said, breathing with difficulty,
"but that is impolite . . . "
And again, do what he would, his quivering lips checked the flow of his
words.
"What?" cried Turbin, suddenly frowning. "What? . . . You brat!" he
cried, seizing him by the arms and squeezing them so that the blood
rushed to the young man's head not so much from vexation as from fear.
"What? Do you want to fight? I am at your service!"
Hardly had Turbin released the arms he had been squeezing so hard than
two nobles caught hold of them and dragged the young man towards the
back door.
"What! Are you out of your mind? You must be tipsy! Suppose we were
to tell your papa! What's the matter with you?" they said to him.
"No, I'm not tipsy, but he jostles one and does not apologize. He's a
swine, that's what he is!" squealed the young man, now quite in tears.
But they did not listen to him and someone took him home.
On the other side the Captain of Police and Zavalshevski were exhorting
Turbin: "Never mind him, Count, he's only a child. He still gets
whipped, he's only sixteen. . . . What can have happened to him? What
bee has stung him? And his father such a respectable man - and our
candidate."
"Well, let him go to the devil if he does not wish . . . "
And the count returned to the ball-room and danced the *ecossaise* with
the pretty widow as gaily as before, laughed with all his heart as he
watched the steps performed by the gentlemen who had come with him out
of the study, and burst into peals of laughter than rang across the
room when the Captain of Police slipped and measured his full length in
the midst of the dancers.
V
While the count was in the study Anna Fedorovna had approached her
brother, and supposing that she ought to pretend to be very little
interested in the count, began by asking: "Who is that hussar who was
dancing with me? Can you tell me, brother?"
The cavalryman explained to his sister as well as he could what a great
man the hussar was and told her at the same time that the count was
only stopping in the town because his money had been stolen on the way,
and that he himself had lent him a hundred rubles, but that that was
not enough, so that perhaps "sister" would lend another couple of
hundred. Only Zavalshevski asked her on no account to mention the
matter to anyone - especially not to the count. Anna Fedorovna
promised to send her brother the money that very day and to keep the
affair secret, but somehow during the *ecossaise* she felt a great
longing in herself to offer the count as much money as he wanted. She
took a long time making up her mind, and blushed, but at last with a
great effort broached the subject as follows.
"My brother tells me that a misfortune befell you on the road, Count,
and that you have no money by you. If you need any, won't you take it
from me? I should be so glad."
But having said this, Anna Fedorovna suddenly felt frightened of
something and blushed. All gaiety instantly left the count's face.
"Your brother is a fool!" he said abruptly. "You know when a man
insults another man they fight; but when a woman insults a man, what
does he do then - do you know?"
Poor Anna Fedorovna's neck and ears grew red with confusion. She
lowered her eyes and said nothing.
"He kisses the woman in public," said the count in a low voice, leaning
towards her ear. "Allow me at least to kiss your little hand," he
added in a whisper after a prolonged silence, taking pity on his
partner's confusion.
"But not now!" said Anna Fedorovna, with a deep sigh.
"When then? I am leaving early tomorrow and you owe it me."
"Well then it's impossible," said Anna Fedorovna with a smile.
"Only allow me a chance to meet you tonight to kiss your hand. I shall
not fail to find an opportunity."
"How can you find it?"
"That is not your business. In order to see you everything is
possible. . . . It's agreed?"
"Agreed."
The *ecossaise* ended. After that they danced a mazurka and the count
was quite wonderful: catching handkerchiefs, kneeling on one knee,
striking his spurs together in a quite special Warsaw manner, so that
all the old people left their game of boston and flocked into the ball-
room to see, and the cavalryman, their best dancer, confessed himself
eclipsed. Then they had supper after which they danced the
"Grandfather," and the ball began to break up. The count never took
his eyes off the little widow. It was not pretence when he said he was
ready to jump through a hole in the ice for her sake. Whether it was
whim, or love, or obstinacy, all his mental powers that even ing were
concentrated on the one desire - to meet and love her. As soon as he
noticed that Anna Fedorovna was taking leave of her hostess he ran out
to the footmen's room, and thence - without his fur cloak - into the
courtyard to the place where the carriages stood.
"Anna Fedorovna Zaytseva's carriage!" he shouted.
A high four-seated closed carriage with lamps burning moved from its
place and approached the porch.
"Stop!" he called to the coachman and plunging knee-deep into the snow
ran to the carriage.
"What do you want?" said the coachman.
"I want to get into the carriage," replied the count, opening the door
and trying to get in while the carriage was moving. "Stop, I tell you,
you fool!"
"Stop, Vaska!" shouted the coachman to the postilion and pulled up the
horses. "What are you getting into other people's carriages for? This
carriage belongs to my mistress, to Anna Fedorovna, and not to your
honour."
"Shut up, you blockhead! Here's a ruble for you; get down and close
the door," said the count. But as the coachman did not stir he lifted
the steps himself and, lowering the window, managed somehow to close
the door. In the carriage, as in all old carriages, especially in
those in which yellow galloon is used, there was a musty odour
something like the smell of decayed and burnt bristles. The count's
legs were wet with snow up to the knees and felt very cold in his thin
boots and riding-breeches; in fact the winter cold penetrated his whole
body. The coachman grumbled on the box and seemed to be preparing to
get down. But the count neither heard nor felt anything. His face was
aflame and his heart beat fast. In his nervous tension he seized the
yellow window strap and leant out of the side window, and all his being
merged into one feeling of expectation.
This expectancy did not last long. Someone called from the porch:
"Zaytseva's carriage!" The coachman shook the reins, the body of the
carriage swayed on its high springs, and the illuminated windows of the
house ran one after another past the carriage windows.
"Mind, fellow," said the count to the coachman, putting his head out of
the front window, "if you tell the footman I'm here, I'll thrash you,
but hold your tongue and you shall have another ten rubles."
Hardly had he time to close the window before the body of the carriage
shook more violently and then stopped. He pressed close into the
corner, held his breath, and even shut his eyes, so terrified was he
lest anything should balk his passionate expectation. The door opened,
the carriage steps fell noisily one after the other, he heard the
rustle of a woman's dress, a smell of frangipane perfume filled the
musty carriage, quick little feet ran up the carriage steps, and Anna
Fedorovna, brushing the count's leg with the skirt of her cloak which
had come open, sank silently onto the seat behind him breathing
heavily.
Whether she saw him or not no one could tell, not even Anna Fedorovna
herself, but when he took her hand and said, "Well, now I will kiss
your little hand," she showed very little fear, gave no reply, but
yielded her arm to him, which he covered much higher than the top of
her glove with kisses. The carriage started.
"Say something! Art thou angry?" he said.
She silently pressed into her corner, but suddenly something caused her
to burst into tears and of her own accord she let her head fall on his
breast.
VI
The newly elected Captain of Police and his guests the cavalryman and
other nobles had long been listening to the gipsies and drinking in the
new restaurant when the count, wearing a blue cloth cloak lined with
bearskin which had belonged to Anna Fedorovna's late husband, joined
them.
"Sure, your excellency, we have been awaiting you impatiently!" said a
dark cross-eyed gipsy, showing his white teeth, as he met the count at
the very entrance and rushed to help him off with his cloak. "We have
not seen you since the fair at Lebedyani . . . Steshka is quite pining
away for you."
Steshka, a young, graceful little gipsy with a brick-red glow on her
brown face and deep, sparkling black eyes shaded by long lashes, also
ran out to meet him.
"Ah, little Count! Dearest! Jewel! This is a joy!" she murmured
between her teeth, smiling merrily.
Ilyushka himself ran out to greet him, pretending to be very glad to
see him. The old women, matrons, and maids jumped from their places
and surrounded the guest, some claiming him as a fellow godfather, some
as brother by baptism.
Turbin kissed all the young gipsy girls on their lips; the old women
and the men kissed him on his shoulder or hand. The noblemen were also
glad of their visitor's arrival, especially as the carousal, having
reached its zenith, was beginning to flag, and everyone was beginning
to feel satiated. The wine having lost its stimulating effect on the
nerves merely weighed on the stomach. Each one had already let off his
store of swagger, and they were getting tired of one another; the songs
had all been sung and had got mixed in everyone's head, leaving a
noisy, dissolute impression behind. No matter what strange or dashing
thing anyone did, it began to occur to everyone that there was nothing
agreeable or funny in it. The Captain of Police who lay in a shocking
state on the floor at the feet of an old woman, began wriggling his
legs and shouting: "Champagne . . . The Count's come! . . .
Champagne! . . . He's come . . . now then, champagne! . . . I'll have a
champagne bath and bathe in it! Noble gentlemen! . . . I love the
society of our brave old nobility . . . Steshka, sing 'The Pathway'."
The cavalryman was also rather tipsy, but in another way. He sat on a
sofa in the corner very close to a tall handsome gipsy girl, Lyubasha;
and feeling this eyes misty with drink he kept blinking and shaking his
head and, repeating the same words over and over again in a whisper,
besought the gypsy to fly with him somewhere. Lyubasha, smiling and
listening as if what he said were very amusing and yet rather sad,
glanced occasionally at her husband - the cross-eyed Sashka who was
standing behind the chair opposite her - and in reply to the
cavalryman's declarations of love, stooped and whispering his he ear
asked him to buy her some scent and ribbons on the quiet so that the
others should not notice.
"Hurrah!" cried the cavalryman when the count entered.
The handsome young man was pacing up and down the room with laboriously
steady steps and a careworn expression on his face, warbling an air
from *Il Seraglio*.
An elderly paterfamilias, who had been tempted by the persistent
entreaties of the nobles to come and hear the gipsies, as they said
that without him the thing would be worthless and it would be better
not to go at all, was lying on a sofa where he had sunk as soon as he
arrived, and no one was taking any notice of him. Some official or
other who was also there had taken off his swallow-tail coat and was
sitting up on the table, feet and all, ruffling his hair, and thereby
showing that he was very much on the spree. As soon as the count
entered, this official unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and got still
farther onto the table. In general, on Turbin's arrival the carousal
revived.
The gipsy girls, who had been wandering about the room, again gathered
and sat down in a circle. The count took Steshka, the leading singer,
on his knee, and ordered more champagne.
Ilyushka came and stood in front of Steshka with his guitar, and the
"dance" commenced - that is, the gipsy songs, "When you go along the
Street," "O Hussars!," "Do you hear, do you know?," and so on in a
definite order. Steshka sang admirably. The flexible sonorous
contralto that flowed from her very chest, her smiles while singing,
her laughing passionate eyes, and her foot that moved involuntarily in
measure with the song, her wild shriek at the commencement of the
chorus - all touched some powerful but rarely-reached chord. It was
evident that she lived only in the song she was singing. Ilyushka
accompanied her on the guitar - his back, legs, smile, and whole being
expressing sympathy with the song - and eagerly watching her, raised
and lowered his head as attentive and engrossed as though he heard the
song for the first time. Then the last melodious note he suddenly drew
himself up and, as if feeling himself superior to everyone in the
world, proudly and resolutely threw up his guitar with his foot,
twirled it about, stamped, tossed back his hair, and looked round at
the choir with a frown. His whole body from neck to heels began
dancing in every muscle - and twenty energetic, powerful voices each
trying to chime in more strongly and more strangely than the rest, rang
through the air. The old women bobbed up and down on their chairs
waving their handkerchiefs, showing their teeth, can vying with one
another in their harmonious and measured shouts. The basses with
strained necks and heads bent to one side boomed while standing behind
the chairs.
When Steska took a high note Ilyushka brought his guitar closer to her
as if wishing to help her, and the handsome young man screamed with
rapture, saying that now they were beginning the *bemols*.
When a dance was struck up and Dunyasha, advancing with quivering
shoulders and bosom, twirled round in front of the count and glided
onwards, Turbin leapt up, threw off his jacket, and in his red shirt
stepped jauntily with her in precise and measured step, accomplishing
such things with his legs that the gipsies smiled with approval and
glanced at one another.
The Captain of Police sat down like a Turk, beat his breast with his
fist and cried "Vivat!" and then, having caught hold of the count's
leg, began to tell him that of two thousand rubles he now had only five
hundred left, but that he could do anything he liked if only the count
would allow it. The elderly paterfamilias awoke and wished to go away
but was not allowed to do so. The handsome young man began persuading
a gipsy to waltz with him. The cavalryman, wishing to show off his
intimacy with the count, rose and embraced Turbin. "Ah, my dear
fellow," he said, "why didst thou leave us, eh?" The count was silent,
evidently thinking of something else. "Where did you go to? Ah, you
rogue of a count, I know where you went to!"
For some reason this familiarity displeased Turbin. Without a smile he
looked silently into the cavalryman's face and suddenly launched at him
such a terrible and rude abuse that the cavalryman was pained and for a
while could not make up his mind whether to take the offence as a joke
or seriously. At last he decided to take it as a joke, smiled, and
went back to his gipsy, assuring her that he would certainly marry her
after Easter. They sang another song and another, danced again, and
"hailed the guests," and everyone continued to imagine that he was
enjoying it. There was no end to the champagne. The count drank a
great deal. His eyes seemed to grow moist, but he was not unsteady.
He danced even better than before, spoke firmly, even joined in the
chorus extremely well, and chimed in when Steshka sang "Friendship's
Tender Emotions." In the midst of a dance the landlord came in to ask
the guests to return to their homes as it was getting on for three in
the morning.
The count seized the landlord by the scruff of his neck and ordered him
to dance the Russian dance. The landlord refused. The count snatched
up a bottle of champagne and having stood the landlord on his head and
had him held in that position, amidst general laughter, slowly emptied
the bottle over him.
It was beginning to dawn. Everyone looked pale and exhausted except
the count.
"Well, I must be starting for Moscow," said he, suddenly rising. "Come
along, all of you! Come and see me off . . . and we'll have some tea
together."
All agreed except the paterfamilias (who was left behind asleep), and
crowding into the three large sledges that stood at the door, they all
drove off to the hote.
VII
"Get horses ready!" cried the count as he entered the saloon of his
hotel, followed by the guests and gipsies. "Sashka! - not gipsy Sashka
but my Sashka - tell the superintendent I'll thrash him if he gives me
bad horses. And get us some tea. Zavalshevski, look after the tea:
I'm going to have a look at Ilyin and see how he's getting on . . . "
added Turbin and went along the passage towards the uhlan's room.
Ilyin had just finished playing and having lost his last kopek was
lying face downwards on the sofa, pulling one hair after another from
its torn horsehair cover, putting them in his mouth, biting them in two
and spitting them out again.
Two tallow candles, one of which had burnt down to the paper in the
socket, stood on the card-strewn table and feebly wrestled with the
morning light that crept in through the window. There were no ideas in
Ilyin's head: a dense mist of gambling passion shrouded all his
faculties; he did not even feel penitent. He made one attempt to think
of what he should do now: how being penniless he could get away, how
he could repay the fifteen thousand rubles of Crown money, what his
regimental commander would say, what his mother and his comrades would
say, and he felt such terror and disgust with himself that wishing to
forget himself he rose and began pacing up and down the room trying to
step only where the floor-boards joined, and began, once more, vividly
to recall every slightest detail of the course of play. He vividly
imagined how he had begun to win back his money, how he withdrew a nine
and placed the king of spades over two thousand rubles. A queen was
dealt to the right, an ace to the left, then the king of diamonds to
the right and all was lost; but if, say, a six had been dealt to the
right and the king of diamonds to the left, he would have won
everything back, would have played once more double or quits, would
have won fifteen thousand rubles, and would then have bought himself an
ambler from his regimental commander and another pair of horses
besides, and a phaeton. Well, and what then? Well, it would have been
a splendid, splendid thing!
And he lay down on the sofa again and began chewing the horse-hair.
"Why are they singing in No. 7?" thought he. "There must be a spree on
at Turbin's. Shall I go in and have a good drink?"
At this moment the count entered.
"Well, old fellow, cleaned out, are you? Eh?" cried he.
"I'll pretend to be asleep," thought Ilyin, "or else I shall have to
speak to him, and I want to sleep."
Turbin, however, came up and stroked his head.
"Well, my dear friend, cleaned out - lost everything? Tell me."
Ilyin gave no answer.
The count pulled his arm.
"I have lost. But what is that to you?" muttered Ilyin in a sleepy,
indifferent, discontented voice, without changing his position.
"Everything?"
"Well - yes. What of it? Everything. What is it to you?"
"Listen. Tell me the truth as to a comrade," said the count, inclined
to tenderness by the influence of the wine he had drunk and continuing
to stroke Ilyin's hair. "I have really taken a liking to you. Tell me
the truth. If you have lost Crown money I'll get you out of your
scrape: it will soon be too late. . . . Had you Crown money?"
Ilyin jumped up from the sofa.
"Well then, if you wish me to tell you, don't speak to me, because . .
. please don't speak to me. . . . To shoot myself is the only thing!"
said Ilyin, with real despair, and his head fell on his hands and he
burst into tears, though but a moment before he had been calmly
thinking about amblers.
"What pretty girlishness! Where's the man who has not done the like?
It's not such a calamity; perhaps we can mend it. Wait for me here."
The count left the room.
"Where is Squire Lukhnov's room?" he asked the boots.
The boots offered to show him the way. In spite of the valet's remark
that his master had only just returned and was undressing, the count
went in. Lukhnov was sitting at a table in his dressing-gown counting
several packets of paper money that lay before him. A bottle of Rhine
wine, of which he was very fond, stood on the table. After winning he
permitted himself that pleasure. Lukhnov looked coldly and sternly
through his spectacles at the count as though not recognizing him.
"You don't recognize me, I think?" said the count, resolutely stepping
up to the table.
"Lukhnov made a gesture of recognition, and said, "What is it you
want?"
"I should like to play with you," said Turbin, sitting down on the
sofa.
"Now?"
"Yes."
"Another time with pleasure, Count! But now I am tired and am going to
bed. Won't you have a glass of wine? It is famous wine."
"But I want to play a little - now."
"I don't intend to play any more tonight. Perhaps some of the other
gentlemen will, but I won't. You must please excuse me, Count."
"Then you won't?"
"Lukhnov shrugged his shoulders to express his regret at his inability
to comply with the count's desire.
"Not on any account?"
The same shrug.
"But I particularly request it. . . . Well, will you play?"
Silence.
"Will you play?" the count asked again. "Mind!"
The same silence and a rapid glance over the spectacles at the count's
face which was beginning to frown.
"Will you play?" shouted the count very loud, striking the table with
his hand so that the bottle toppled over and the wine was spilt. "You
know you did not win fairly. . . . Will you play? I ask you for the
third time."
"I said I would not. This is really strange, Count! And it is not at
all proper to come and hold a knife to a man's throat," remarked
Lukhnov, not raising his eyes. A momentary silence followed during
which the count's face grew paler and paler. Suddenly a terrible blow
on the head stupefied Lukhnov. He fell on the sofa trying to seize the
money and uttered such a piercingly despairing cry as no one could have
expected from so calm and imposing a person. Turbin gathered up what
money lay on the table, pushed aside the servant who ran in to his
master's assistance, and left the room with rapid strides.
"If you want satisfaction I am at your service! I shall be in my room
for another half-hour," said the count, returning to Lukhnov's door.
"Thief! Robber! I'll have the law on you . . . " was all that was
audible from the room.
Ilyin, who had paid no attention to the count's promise to help him,
still lay as before on the sofa in his room choking with tears of
despair. Consciousness of what had really happened, which the count's
caresses and sympathy had evoked from behind the strange tangle of
feelings, thoughts, and memories filling his soul, did not leave him.
His youth, rich with hope, his honour, the respect of society, his
dreams of love and friendship - all were utterly lost. The source of
his tears began to run dry, a too passive feeling of hopelessness
overcame him more and more, and thoughts of suicide, no longer arousing
revulsion or horror, claimed his attention with increasing frequency.
Just then the count's firm footsteps were heard.
In Turbin's face traces of anger could still be seen, his hands shook a
little, but his eyes beamed with kindly merriment and self-
satisfaction.
"Here you are, it's won back!" he said, throwing several bundles of
paper money on the table. "See if it's all there and then make haste
and come into the saloon. I am just leaving," he added, as though not
noticing the joy and gratitude and extreme agitation on Ilyin's face,
and whistling a gipsy song he left the room.
VIII
Sashka, with a sash tied round his waist, announced that the horses
were ready but insisted that the count's cloak, which, he said, with
its fur collar was worth three hundred rubles, should be recovered, and
the shabby blue one returned to the rascal who had changed it for the
count's at the Marshal's; but Turbin told him there was no need to look
for the cloak, and went to his room to change his clothes.
The cavalryman kept hiccoughing as he sat silent beside his gipsy girl.
The Captain of Police called for vodka and invited everyone to come at
once and have breakfast with him, promising that his wife would
certainly dance with the gipsies. The handsome young man was
profoundly explaining to Ilyushka that there is more soulfulness in
pianoforte music and that it is not possible to play *bemols* on a
guitar. The official sat in a corner sadly drinking his tea and in the
daylight seemed ashamed of his debauchery. The gipsies were disputing
among themselves in their own tongue as to "hailing the guests" again,
which Steshka opposed, saying that the *baroray* (in gipsy language,
count or prince or, more literally, "great gentleman") would be angry.
In general the last embers of the debauch were dying down in everyone.
"Well, one farewell song, and then off home!" said the count, entering
the parlour in travelling dress, fresh, merry, and handsomer than ever.
The gipsies again formed their circle and were just ready to begin when
Ilyin entered with a packet of paper money in his hand and took the
count aside.
"I had only fifteen thousand rubles of Crown money and you have given
me sixteen thousand three hundred," he said, "so this is yours."
"That's a good thing. Give it here!"
Ilyin gave him the money and, looking timidly at the count, opened his
lips to say something, but only blushed till tears came into his eyes
and seizing the count's hand began to press it.
"you be off! . . . Ilyushka! Here's some money for you, but you must
accompany me out of the town with songs!" and he threw onto the guitar
the thirteen hundred rubles Ilyin had brought him. But the count quite
forgot to repay the hundred rubles he had borrowed of the cavalryman
the day before.
It was already ten o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen above the
roofs of the houses. People were moving about in the streets. The
tradesmen had long since opened their shops. Noblemen and officials
were driving through the streets and ladies were shopping in the
bazaar, when the whole gipsy band, with the Captain of Police, the
cavalryman, the handsome young man, Ilyin, and the count in the blue
bearskin cloak came out into the hotel porch.
It was a sunny day and a thaw had set in. The large post-sledges, each
drawn by three horses with their tails tied up tight, drove up to the
porch splashing through the mud and the whole lively party took their
places. The count, Ilyin, Steshka, and Ilyushka, with Sashka the
count's orderly, got into the first sledge. Blucher was beside himself
and wagged his tail, barking at the shaft-horse. The other gentlemen
got into the two other sledges with the rest of the gipsy men and
women. The troykas got abreast as they left the hotel and the gipsies
struck up in chorus. The troykas with their songs and bells - forcing
every vehicle they met right onto the pavements - dashed through the
whole town right to the town gates.
The tradesmen and passers-by who did not know them, and especially
those who did, were not a little astonished when they saw the noblemen
driving through the streets in broad daylight with gipsy girls and
tipsy gipsy men, singing.
When they had passed the town gates the troykas stopped and everyone
began bidding the count farewell.
Ilyin, who had drunk a good deal at the leave-taking and had himself
been driving the sledge all the way, suddenly became very sad, begged
the count to stay another day, and, when he found that this was not
possible, rushed quite unexpectedly at his new friend, kissed him, and
promised with tears to try to exchange into the hussar regiment the
count was serving in as soon as he got back. The count was
particularly gay; he tumbled the cavalryman, who had become very
familiar in the morning, into a snowdrift, set Blucher at the Captain
of Police, took Steshka in his arms and wished to carry her off to
Moscow, and finally jumped into his sledge and made Blucher, who wanted
to stand up in the middle, sit down by his side. Sashka jumped on the
box after having again asked the cavalryman to recover the count's
cloak from *them* and to send it on. The count cried, "Go!," took off
his cap, waved it over his head, and whistled to the horses like a
post-boy. The troykas drove off in their different directions.
A monotonous snow-covered plain stretched far in front with a dirty
yellowish road winding through it. The bright sunshine - playfully
sparkling on the thawing snow which was coated with a transparent crust
of ice - was pleasantly warm to one's face and back. Steam rose
thickly from the sweating horses. The bell tinkled merrily. A
peasant, with a loaded sledge that kept gliding to the side of the
road, got hurriedly out of the way, jerking his rope reins and plashing
with his wet bast shoes as he ran along the thawing road. A fat red-
faced peasant woman, with a baby wrapped in the bosom of her sheepskin
cloak, sat in another laden sledge, urging on a thin-tailed, jaded
white horse with the ends of the reins. The count suddenly thought of
Anna Fedorovna.
"Turn back!" he shouted.
The driver did not at once understand.
"Turn back! Back to town! Be quick!"
The troyka passed the town gates once more, and drove briskly up to the
wooden porch of Anna Fedorovna's house. The count ran quickly up the
steps, passed through the vestibule and the drawing-room, and having
found the widow still asleep, took her in his arms, lifted her out of
bed, kissed her sleepy eyes, and ran quickly back. Anna Fedorovna,
only half awake, licked her lips and asked, "What has happened?" The
count jumped into his sledge, shouted to the driver, and with no
further delay and without even a thought of Lukhnov, or the widow, or
Steshka, but only of what awaited him in Moscow, left the town of K--
forever.
IX
More than twenty years had gone by. Much water had flowed away, many
people had died, many been born, many had grown up or grown old; still
more ideas had been born and had died, much that was old and beautiful
and much that was old and bad had perished; much that was beautiful and
new had grown up and still more that was immature, monstrous, and new,
had come into God's world.
Count Fedor Turbin had been killed long ago in a duel by some foreigner
he had horse-whipped in the street. His son, physically as like him as
one drop of water to another, was a handsome young man already twenty-
three years old and serving in the Horse Guards. But morally the young
Turbin did not in the least resemble his father. There was not a shade
of the impetuous, passionate, and, to speak frankly, depraved
propensities of the past age. Together with his intelligence, culture,
and the gifted nature he had inherited a love of propriety and the
comforts of life; a practical way of looking at men and affairs,
reasonableness, and prudence were his distinguishing characteristics.
The young count had got on well in the service and at twenty-three was
already a lieutenant. At the commencement of the war he made up his
mind that he would be more likely to secure promotion if he exchanged
into the active army, and so he entered an hussar regiment as captain
and was soon in command of a squadron.
In May 1848 [Footnote: Tolstoy seems here to antedate Russians
intervention in the Hungarian insurrection. The Russian army did not
enter Hungary till May 1849 and the war lasted till the end of
September of that year.] the S-- hussar regiment was marching to the
campaign through the province of K-- and the very squadron young Count
Turbin commanded had to spend the night in the village of Morozovka,
Anna Fedorovna's estate.
Ann Fedorovna was still living but was already so far from young that
she did not even consider herself young, which means a good deal for a
woman. She had grown very fat, which is said to make a woman look
younger, but deep soft wrinkles were apparent on her white plumpness.
She never went to town now, it was an effort for her even to get into
her carriage, but she was still just as kind-hearted and as silly as
ever (now that her beauty no longer biases one, the truth may be told).
With her lived her twenty-three-year-old daughter Lisa, a Russian
country belle, and her brother - our acquaintance the cavalryman - who
had good-naturedly squandered the whole of his small fortune and had
found a home for his old age with Anna Fedorovna. His hair was quite
grey and his upper lip had fallen in, but the moustache above it was
still carefully blackened. His back was bent, and not only his
forehead and cheeks but even his nose and neck were wrinkled, yet in
the movements of his feeble crooked legs the manner of a cavalryman was
still perceptible.
The family and household sat in the small drawing-room of the old
house, with an open door leading out onto the verandah, and open
windows overlooking the ancient star-shaped garden with its lime trees.
Grey-haired Anna Fedorovna, wearing a lilac jacket, sat on the sofa
laying out cards on a round mahogany table. Her old brother in his
clean white trousers and a blue coat had settled himself by the window
and was plaiting a cord out of white cotton with the aid of a wooden
fork - a pastime his niece had taught him and which he liked very much,
as he could no longer do anything and his eyes were too weak for
newspaper reading, his favourite occupation. Pimochka, Anna
Fedorovna's ward, sat by him learning a lesson - Lisa helping her and
at the same time making a goat's-wool stocking for her uncle with
wooden knitting needles. The last rays of the setting sun, as usual at
that hour, shone through the lime-tree avenue and threw slanting gleams
on the farthest window and the what-not standing near it. It was so
quiet in the garden and the room that one could hear the swift flutter
of a swallow's wings outside the window and Anna Fedorovna's soft sigh
or the old man's slight groan as he crossed his legs.
"How do they go? Show me, Lisa! I always forget," said Anna
Fedorovna, at a standstill in laying out her cards for patience.
Without stopping her work Lisa went to her mother and glanced at the
cards.
"Ah, you've muddled them all, mamma dear!" she said, rearranging them.
"That's the way they should go. And what you are trying your fortune
about will still come true," she added, withdrawing a card so that it
was not noticed.
"Ah yes, you always deceive me and say it has come out."
"No, really, it means . . . you'll succeed. It has come out."
"All right, all right, you sly puss! But isn't it time we had tea?"
"I have ordered the samovar to be lit. I'll see to it at once. Do you
want to have it here? . . . Be quick and finish your lesson Pimochka,
and let's have a run."
And Lisa went to the door.
"Lisa, Lizzie!" said her uncle, looking intently at his fork. "I think
I've dropped a stitch again - pick it up for me, there's a dear."
"Directly, directly. But I must give out a loaf of sugar to be broken
up."
And really, three minutes later she ran back, went to her uncle and
pinched his ear.
"That's for dropping your stitches!" she said, laughing, and you
haven't done your task!"
"Well, well, never mind, never mind. Put it right - there's a little
knot or something."
Lisa took the fork, drew a pin out of her tippet - which thereupon the
breeze coming in at the door blew slightly open - and managing somehow
to pick up the stitch with the pin pulled two loops through, and
returned the fork to her uncle.
"Now give me a kiss for it," she said, holding out her rosy cheek to
him and pinning up her tippet. "You shall have rum with your tea
today. It's Friday, you know."
And she again went into the tea-room.
"Come here and look, uncle, the hussars are coming!" she called from
there in her clear voice.
Anna Fedorovna came with her brother into the tea-room, the windows of
which overlooked the village, to see the hussars. Very little was
visible from the windows - only a crowd moving in a cloud of dust.
"It's a pity we have so little room, sister, and that the wing is not
yet finished," said the old man to Anna Fedorovna. "We might have
invited the officers. Hussar officers are such splendid, gay young
fellows, you know. It would have been good to see something of them."
"Why of course, I should have been only too glad, brother; but you know
yourself we have no room. There's my bedroom, Lisa's room, the
drawing-room, and this room of yours, and that's all. Really now,
where could we put them? The village elder's hut has been cleaned up
for them: Michael Matveev says its quite clean now."
"And we could have chosen a bridegroom for you from among them, Lizzie
- a fine hussar!"
"I don't want an hussar; I'd rather have an uhlan. Weren't you in the
uhlans, uncle? . . . I don't want to have anything to do with these
hussars. They are all said to be desperate fellows." And Lisa blushed
a little but again laughed her musical laugh.
"Here comes Ustyushka running; we must ask her what she has seen," she
added.
Anna Fedorovna told her to call Ustyushka.
"It's not in you to keep to your work, you must needs run off to see
the soldiers," said Anna Fedorovna. "Well, where have the officers put
up?"
"In Eromkin's house, mistress. There are two of them, such handsome
ones. One's a count, they say!"
"And what's his name?"
"Dazarov or Turbinov. . . . . I'm sorry - I've forgotten."
"What a fool; can't so much as tell us anything. You might at least
have found out the name."
"Well, I'll run back."
"Yes, I know you're first-rate at that sort of thing. . . . No, let
Daniel go. Tell him to go and ask whether the officers want anything,
brother. One ought to show them some politeness after all. Say the
mistress sent to inquire."
The old people again sat down in the tea-room and Lisa went to the
servants' room to put into a box the sugar that had been broken up.
Ustyushka was there telling about the hussars.
"Darling miss, what a handsome man that count is!" she said. "A
regular cherubim with black eyebrows. There now, if you had a
bridegroom like that you would be a couple of the right sort."
The other maids smiled approvingly; the old nurse sighed as she sat
knitting at a window and even whispered a prayer, drawing in her
breath.
"So you liked the hussars very much?" said Lisa. "And you're a good
one at telling what you've seen. Go, please, and bring some of the
cranberry juice, Ustyushka, to give the hussars something sour to
drink."
And Lisa, laughing, went out with the sugar basin in her hands.
"I should really like to have seen what that hussar is like," she
thought, "brown or fair? And he would have been glad to make our
acquaintance I should think. . . . And if he goes away he'll never know
that I was here and thought about him. And how many such have already
passed me by? Who sees me here except uncle and Ustyushka? Whichever
way I do my hair, whatever sleeves I put on, no one looks at me with
pleasure," she thought with a sigh as she looked at her plump white
arm. "I suppose he is tall, with large eyes, and certainly small black
moustaches. . . . Here am I, more than twenty-two, and no one has
fallen in love with me except pock-marked Ivan Ipatich, and four years
ago I was even prettier. . . . And so my girlhood has passed without
gladdening anyone. Oh, poor, poor country lass that I am!"
Her mother's voice, calling her to pour out tea, roused the country
lass from this momentary meditation. She lifted her head with a start
and went into the tea-room.
The best results are often obtained accidentally, and the more one
tries the worse things turn out. In the country, people rarely try to
educate their children and therefore unwittingly usually give them an
excellent education. This was particularly so in Lisa's case. Anna
Fedorovna, with her limited intellect and careless temperament, gave
Lisa no education - did not teach her music or that very useful French
language - but having accidentally borne a healthy pretty child by her
deceased husband she gave her little daughter over to a wet-nurse and a
dry-nurse, fed her, dressed her in cotton prints and goat-skin shoes,
sent her out to walk and gather mushrooms and wild berries, engaged a
student from the seminary to teach her reading, writing, and
arithmetic, and when sixteen years had passed she casually found in
Lisa a friend, an ever-kind-hearted, ever-cheerful soul, and an active
housekeeper. Anna Fedorovna, being kind-hearted, always had some
children to bring up - either serf children or foundlings. Lisa began
looking after them when she was ten years old: teaching them, dressing
them, taking them to church, and checking them when they played too man
pranks. Later on the decrepit kindly uncle, who had to be tended like
a child, appeared on the scene. Then the servants and peasants came to
the young lady with various requests and with their ailments, which
latter she treated with elderberry, peppermint, and camphorated
spirits. Then there was the household management which all fell on her
shoulders of itself. Then an unsatisfied longing for love awoke and
found its outlet only in Nature and religion. And Lisa accidentally
grew into an active, good-natured, cheerful, self-reliant, pure, and
deeply religious woman. It is true that she suffered a little from
vanity when she saw neighbours standing by her in church wearing
fashionable bonnets brought from K--, and sometimes she was vexed to
tears by her old mother's whims and grumbling. She had dreams of love,
too, in most absurd and sometimes crude forms, but these were dispersed
by her useful activity which had grown into a necessity, and at the age
of twenty-two there was not one spot or sting of remorse in the clear
calm soul of the physically and morally beautifully developed maiden.
Lisa was of medium height, plump rather than thin; her eyes were hazel,
not large, and had slight shadows on the lower lids; and she had a long
light-brown plait of hair. She walked with big steps and with a slight
sway - a "duck's waddle" as the saying is. Her face, when she was
occupied and not agitated by anything in particular, seemed to say to
everyone who looked into it: "It is a joy to live in the world when
one has someone to love and a clear conscience." Even in moments of
vexation, perplexity, alarm, or sorrow, in spite of herself there shone
- through the tear in her eye, her frownning left eyebrow, and her
compressed lips - a kind straightforward spirit unspoilt by the
intellect; it shone in the dimples of her cheeks, in the corners of her
mouth, and in her beaming eyes accustomed to smile and to rejoice in
life.
X
The air was still hot though the sun was setting when the squadron
entered Morozovka. In front of them along the dusty village street
trotted a brindled cow separated from its herd, looking around and now
and then stopping and lowing, but never suspecting that all she had to
do was to turn aside. The peasants - old men, women, and children -
the servants from the manor-house, crowded on both sides of the street
and eagerly watched the hussars as the latter rode through a thick
cloud of dust, curbing their horses which occasionally stamped and
snorted. On the right of the squadron were two officers who sat their
fine black horses carelessly. One was Count Turbin, the commander, the
other a very young man recently promoted from cadet, whose name was
Polozov.
An hussar in a white linen jacket came out of the best of the huts,
raised his cap, and went up to the officers.
"Where are the quarters assigned us?"
"For your Excellency?" answered the quartermaster-sergeant, with a
start of his whole body. "The village elder's hut has been cleaned
out. I wanted to get quarters at the manor-house, but they say there
is no room there. The proprietress is such a vixen."
"All right!" said the count, dismounting and stretching his legs as he
reached the village elder's hut. "And has my phaeton arrived?"
"It has deigned to arrive, your Excellency!" answered the
quartermaster-sergeant, pointing with his cap to the leather body of a
carriage visible through the gateway and rushing forward to the
entrance of the hut, which was thronged with members of the peasant
family collected to look at the officer. He even pushed one old woman
over as he briskly opened the door of the freshly cleaned hut and
stepped aside to let the count pass.
The hut was fairly large and roomy but not very clean. The German
valet, dressed like a gentleman, stood inside sorting the linen in a
portmanteau after having set up an iron bedstead and made the bed.
"Faugh, what filthy lodgings!" said the count with vexation. "Couldn't
you have found anything better at some gentleman's house, Dyadenko?"
"If your Excellency desires it I will try at the manor-house," answered
the quartermaster-sergeant, "but it isn't up to much - doesn't look
much better than a hut."
"Never mind now. Go away."
And the count lay down on the bed and threw his arms behind his head.
"Johann!" he called to his valet. "You've made a lump in the middle
again! How is it you can't make a bed properly?"
Johann came up to put it right.
"No, never mind now. But where is my dressing-gown?" said the count in
a dissatisfied tone.
The valet handed him the dressing-gown. Before putting it on the count
examined the front.
"I thought so, that spot is not cleaned off. Could anyone be a worse
servant than you?" he added, pulling the dressing-gown out of the
valet's hands and putting it on. "Tell me, do you do it on purpose? .
. . Is the tea ready?"
"I have not had time," said Johann.
"Fool!"
After that the count took up the French novel placed ready for him and
read for some time in silence: Johann went out into the passage to
prepare the samovar. The count was obviously in a bad temper, probably
caused by fatigue, a dusty face, tight clothing, and an empty stomach.
"Johann!" he cried again, "bring me the account for those ten rubles.
What did you buy in the town?"
He looked over the account handed him, and made some dissatisfied
remarks about the dearness of the things purchased.
"Serve rum with my tea."
"I didn't buy any rum," said Johann.
"That's good! . . . How many times have I told you to have rum?"
"I hadn't enough money."
"Then why didn't Polozov buy some? You should have got some from his
man."
"Cornet Polozov? I don't know. He bought the tea and the sugar."
"Idiot! . . . Get out! . . . You are the only man who knows how to make
me lose my patience. . . . You know that on a march I always have rum
with my tea."
"Here are two letters for you from the staff," said the valet.
The count opened his letters and began reading them without rising.
The cornet, having quartered the squadron, came in with a merry face.
"Well, how is it, Turbin? It seems very nice here. But I must confess
I'm tired. It was hot."
"Very nice! . . . A filthy stinking hut, and thanks to your lordship no
rum; your blockhead didn't buy any, nor did this one. You might at
least have mentioned it."
And he continued to read his letter. When he had finished he rolled it
into a ball and threw it on the floor.
In the passage the cornet was meanwhile saying to his orderly in a
whisper: "Why didn't you buy any rum? You had money enough, you
know."
"But why should we buy everything? As it is I pay for everything,
while his German does nothing but smoke his pipe."
It was evident that the count's second letter was not unpleasant, for
he smiled as he read it.
"Who is it from?" asked Polozov, returning to the room and beginning to
arrange a sleeping-place for himself on some boards by the oven.
"From Mina," answered the count gaily, handing him the letter, "Do you
want to see it? What a delightful woman she is! . . . Really she's
much better than our young ladies. . . . Just see how much feeling and
wit there is in that letter. Only one thing is bad - she's asking for
money."
"Yes, that's bad," said the cornet.
"It's true I promised her some, but then this campaign came on, and
besides. . . However if I remain in command of the squadron another
three months I'll send her some. It's worth it, really; such a
charming creature, eh?" said he, watching the expression on Polozov's
face as he read the letter.
"Dreadfully ungrammatical, but very nice, and it seems as if she really
loves you," said the cornet.
"H'm . . . I should think so! It's only women of that kind who love
sincerely when once they do love."
"And who was the other letter from?" asked the cornet, handing back the
one he had read.
"Oh, that . . . there's a man, a nasty beast who won from me at cards,
and he's reminding me of it for the third time. . . . I can't let him
have it at present. . . . A stupid letter!" said the count, evidently
vexed at the recollection.
After this both officers were silent for a while. The cornet, who was
evidently under the count's influence, glanced now and then at the
handsome though clouded countenance of Turbin - who was looking fixedly
through the window - and drank his tea in silence, not venturing to
start a conversation.
"But d'you know, it may turn out capitally," said the count, suddenly
turning to Polozov with a shake of his head. "Supposing we get
promotions by seniority this year and take part in an action besides, I
may get ahead of my own captains in the Guards."
The conversation was still on the same topic and they were drinking
their second tumblers of tea when old Daniel entered and delivered Anna
Fedorovna's message.
"And I was also to inquire if you are not Count Fedor Ivanych Turbin's
son?" added Daniel on his own account, having learnt the count's name
and remembering the deceased count's sojourn in the town of K--. "Our
mistress, Anna Fedorovna, was very well acquainted with him."
"He was my father. And tell your mistress I am very much obliged to
her. We want nothing but say we told you to ask whether we could not
have a cleaner room somewhere - in the manor-house or anywhere."
"Now, why did you do that?" asked Polozov when Daniel had gone. "What
does it matter? Just for one night - what does it matter? And they
will be inconveniencing themselves."
"What an idea! I think we've had our share of smoky huts! . . . It's
easy to see you're not a practical man. Why not seize the opportunity
when we can, and live like human beings for at least one night? And on
the contrary they will be very pleased to have us. . . . The worst of
it is, if this lady really knew my father . . . " continued the count
with a smile which displayed his glistening white teeth. "I always
have to feel ashamed of my departed papa. There is always some
scandalous story or other, or some debt he has left. That's why I hate
meeting these acquaintances of my father's. However, that was the way
in those days," he added, growing serious.
"Did I ever tell you," said Polozov, "I once met an uhlan brigade-
commander, Ilyin? He was very anxious to meet you. He is awfully fond
of your father."
"That Ilyin is an awful good-for-nothing, I believe. But the worst of
it is that these good people, who assure me that they knew my father in
order to make my acquaintance, while pretending to be very pleasant,
relate such tales about my father as make me ashamed to listen. It is
true - I don't deceive myself, but look at things dispassionately -
that he had too ardent a nature and sometimes did things that were not
nice. However, that was the way in those times. In our days he might
have turned out a very successful man, for to do him justice he had
extraordinary capacities."
A quarter of an hour later the servant came back with a request from
the proprietress that they would be so good as to spend the night at
her house.
XI
Having heard that the hussar officer was the son of Count fedor Turbin,
Anna Fedorovna was all in a flutter.
"Oh, dear me! The darling boy! . . . Daniel, run quickly and say your
mistress asks them to her house!" she began, jumping up and hurrying
with quick steps to the servants' room. "Lizzie! Ustyushka! . . .
Your room must be got ready, Lisa, you can move into your uncle's room.
And you, brother, you won't mind sleeping in the drawing-room, will
you? It's only for one night."
"I don't mind, sister. I can sleep on the floor."
"He must be handsome if he's like his father. Only to have a look at
him, the darling. . . . You must have a good look at him, Lisa! The
father *was* handsome. . . . Where are you taking that table to? Leave
it here," said Anna Fedorovna, bustling about. "Bring two beds - take
one from the foreman's - and get the crystal candlestick, the one my
brother gave me on my birthday - it's on the what-not - and put a
stearine candle in it."
At last everything was ready. In spite of her mother's interference
Lisa arranged the room for the two officers her own way. She took out
clean bed-clothes scented with mignonette, made the beds, had candles
and a bottle of water placed on a small table near by, fumigated the
servants' room with scented paper, and moved her own little bed into
her uncle's room. Anna Fedorovna quieted down a little, settled in her
own place, and even took up the cards again, but instead of laying them
out she leaned her plump elbow on the table and grew thoughtful.
"Ah, time, time, how it flies!" she whispered to herself. "Is it so
long ago? It is as if I could see him now. Ah, he was a madcap!. . ."
and tears came into her eyes. "And now there's Lizzie . . . but still,
she's not what I was at her age - she's a nice girl but she's not like
that . . ."
"Lisa, you should put on your *mousseline-de-laine* dress for the
evening."
"Why, mother, you are not going to ask them in to see us? Better not,"
said Lisa, unable to master her excitement at the thought of meeting
the officers. "Better not, mamma!"
And really her desire to see them was less strong than her fear of the
agitating joy she imagined awaited her.
"Maybe they themselves will wish to make our acquaintance, Lizzie!"
said Anna Fedorovna, stroking her head and thinking, "No, her hair is
not what mine was at her age. . . . Oh, Lizzie, how I should like you
to . . ." And she ready did very earnestly desire something for her
daughter. But she could not imagine a marriage with the count, and she
could not desire for her daughter relations such as she had had with
the father; but still she did desire something very much. She may have
longed to relive in the soul of her daughter what she had experienced
with him who was dead.
The old cavalryman was also somewhat excited by the arrival of the
count. He locked himself into his room and emerged a quarter of an
hour later in a Hungarian jacket and pale-blue trousers, and entered
the room prepared for the visitors with the bashfully pleased
expression of a girl who puts on a ball-dress for the first time in her
life.
"I'll have a look at the hussars of today, sister! The late count was
indeed a true hussar. "I'll see, I'll see!"
The officers had already reached the room assigned to them through the
back entrance.
"There, you see! Isn't this better than that hut with the
cockroaches?" said the count, lying down as he was, in his dusty boots,
on the bed that had been prepared for him.
"Of course it's better; but still, to be indebted to the proprietress
... "
"Oh, what nonsense! One must be practical in all things. They're
awfully pleased, I'm sure . . . Eh, you there!" he cried. "Ask for
something to hang over this window, or it will be draughty in the
night."
At this moment the old man came in to make the officers' acquaintance.
Of course, though he did it with a slight blush, he did not omit to say
that he and the old count had been comrades, that he had enjoyed the
count's favour, and he even added that he had more than once been under
obligations to the deceased. What obligations he referred to, whether
it was the count's omission to repay the hundred rubles he had
borrowed, or his throwing him into a snow-heap, or swearing at him, the
old man quite omitted to explain. The young count was very polite to
the old cavalryman and thanked him for the night's lodging.
"You must excuse us if it is not luxurious, Count," (he very nearly
said "your Excellency," so unaccustomed had he become to conversing
with important persons), "my sister's house is so small. But we'll
hang something up there directly and it will be all right," added the
old man, and on the plea of seeing about a curtain, but mainly because
he was in a hurry to give an account of the officers, he bowed and left
the room.
The pretty Ustyushka came in with her mistress's shawl to cover the
window, and besides, the mistress had told her to ask if the gentlemen
would not like some tea.
The pleasant surrounds seemed to have a good influence on the count's
spirits. He smiled merrily, joked with Ustyushka in such a way that
she even called him a scamp, asked whether her young lady was pretty,
and in answer to her question whether they would have any tea he said
she might bring them some tea, but the chief thing was that, their own
supper not being ready yet, perhaps they might have some vodka and
something to eat, and some sherry if there was any.
The uncle was in raptures over the young count's politeness and praised
the new generation of officers to the skies, saying that the present
men were incomparable superior to the former generation.
Anna Fedorovna did not agree - no one could be superior to Count Fedor
Ivanych Turbin - and at last she grew seriously angry and drily
remarked, "The one who has last stroked you, brother, is always the
best. . . . Of course people are cleverer nowadays, but Count Fedor
Ivanych danced the *ecossaise* in such a way and was so amiable that
everybody lost their heads about him, though he paid attention to no
one but me. So you see, there were good people in the old days too."
Here came the news of the demand for vodka, light refreshments, and
sherry.
"There now, brother, you never do the right thing; you should have
ordered supper," began Anna Fedorovna. "Lisa, see to it, dear!"
Lisa ran to the larder to get some pickled mushrooms and fresh butter,
and the cook was ordered to make rissoles.
"But how about sherry? Have you any left, brother?"
"No, sister, I never had any."
"How's that? Why, what is it you take with your tea?"
"That's rum, Anna Fedorovna."
"Isn't it all the same? Give me some of that - it's all the same. But
wouldn't it after all be best to ask them in here, brother? You know
all about it - I don't think they would take offence."
The cavalryman declared he would warrant that the count was too good-
natured to refuse and that he would certainly fetch them. Anna
Fedorovna went and put on a silk dress and a new cap for some reason,
but Lisa was so busy that she had no time to change her pink gingham
dress with the wide sleeves. Besides, she was terribly excited; she
felt as if something wonderful was awaiting her and as if a low black
cloud hung over her soul. It seemed to her that this handsome hussar
count must be a perfectly new, incomprehensible, but beautiful being.
His character, his habits, his speech must all be so unusual, so
different from anything she had ever met. All he thinks or says must
be wise and right; all he does must be honourable; his whole appearance
must be beautiful. She never doubted that. Had he asked not merely
for refreshments and sherry but for a bath of sage-brandy and perfume,
she would not have been surprised and would not have blamed him but
would have been firmly convinced that it was right and necessary.
The count at once agreed when the cavalryman informed them of his
sister's wish. He brushed his hair, put on his uniform, and took his
cigar-case.
"Come along," he said to Polozov.
"Really it would be better not to go," answered the cornet. "Ils
feront des frais pour nous recevoir." [Footnote: They will be putting
themselves to expense on our account.]
"Nonsense, they will be only too happy! Besides, I have made some
inquiries: there is a pretty daughter. . . . Come along!" said the
count, speaking in French.
"Je vous en prie, messieurs!" [Footnote: If you please, gentlemen.]
said the cavalryman, merely to make the officers feel that he also knew
French and had understood what they had said.
XII
Lisa, afraid to look at the officers, blushed and cast down her eyes
and pretended to be busy filling the teapot when they entered the room.
Anna Fedorovna on the contrary jumped up hurriedly, bowed, and not
taking her eyes off the count, began talking to him - now saying how
unusually like his father he was, now introducing her daughter to him,
now offering him tea, jam, or home-made sweetmeats. No one paid any
attention to the cornet because of his modest appearance, and he was
very glad of it, for he was, as far as propriety allowed, gazing at
Lisa and minutely examining her beauty which evidently took him by
surprise. The uncle, listening to his sister's conversation with the
count, awaited, with the words ready on his lips, an opportunity to
narrate his cavalry reminiscences. During tea the count lit a cigar
and Lisa found it difficult to prevent herself from coughing. He was
very talkative and amiable, at first slipping his stories into the
intervals of Anna Fedorovna's ever-flowing speech, but at last
monopolizing the conversation. One thing struck his hearers as
strange; in his stories he often used words not considered improper in
the society he belonged to, but which here sounded rather too bold and
somewhat frightened Anna Fedorovna and made Lisa blush to her ears, but
the count did not notice it and remained calmly natural and amiable.
Lisa silently filled the tumblers, which she did not give into the
visitors' hands but placed on the table near them, not having quite
recovered from her excitement, and she listened eagerly to the count's
remarks. His stories, which were not very deep, and the hesitation in
his speech gradually calmed her. She did not hear from him the very
clever things she had expected, nor did she see that elegance in
everything which she had vaguely expected to find in him. At the third
glass of tea, after her bashful eyes had once met his and he had not
looked down but had continued to look at her too quietly and with a
slight smile, she even felt rather inimically disposed towards him and
soon found that not only was there nothing especial about him but that
he was in no wise different from other people she had met, that there
was no need to be afraid of him though his nails were long and clean,
and there was not even any special beauty in him. Lisa suddenly
relinquished her dream, not without some inward pain, and grew calmer,
and only the gaze of the taciturn cornet which she felt fixed upon her,
disquieted her.
"Perhaps it's not this one, but that one!" she thought.
XIII
After tea the old lady asked the visitors into the drawing-room and
again sat down in her old place.
"But wouldn't you like to rest, Count?" she asked, and after receiving
an answer in the negative continued, "What can I do to entertain our
dear guests? Do you play cards, Count? There now, brother, you should
arrange something; arrange a set - "
"But you yourself play *preference*," answered the cavalryman. "Why
not all play? Will you play, Count? And you too?"
The officers expressed their readiness to do whatever their kind hosts
desired.
Lisa brought her old pack of cards which she used for divining when her
mother's swollen face would get well, whether her uncle would return
the same day when he went to town, whether a neighbour would call
today, and so on. These cards, though she had used them for a couple
of months, were cleaner than those Anna Fedorovna used to tell
fortunes.
"But perhaps you won't play for small stakes?" inquired the uncle.
"Anna Fedorovna and I play for half-kopeks. . . . And even so she wins
all our money."
"Oh, any stakes you like - I shall be delighted," replied the count.
"Well then, one-kopek 'assignats' just for once, in honour of our dear
visitors! Let them beat me, an old woman!" said Anna Fedorovna,
settling down in her armchair and arranging her mantilla. "And perhaps
I'll win a ruble or so from them," thought she, having developed a
slight passion for cards in her old age.
"If you like, I'll teach you to play with 'tables' and *misere*," said
the count. "It is capital."
Everyone liked the new Petersburg way. The uncle was even sure he knew
it; it was just the same as "boston" used to be, only he had forgotten
it a bit. But Anna Fedorovna could not understand it at all and failed
to understand it for so long that at last, with a smile and nod of
approval, she felt herself obliged to assert that now she understood it
and that all was quite clear to her. There was not a little laughter
during the game when Anna Fedorovna, holding ace and king blank,
declared *misere* and was left with six tricks. She even became
confused and began to smile shyly and hurriedly explain that she had
not got quite used to the new way. But they scored against her all the
same, especially as the count, being used to playing a careful game for
high stakes, was cautious, skillfully played through his opponents'
hands, and refused to understand the shoves the cornet gave him under
the table with his foot or the mistakes the latter made when they were
partners.
Lisa brought more sweets, three kinds of jam, and some specially
prepared apples that had been kept since last season and stood behind
her mother's back watching the game and occasionally looking at the
officers and especially at the count's white hands with their rosy
well-kept nails which threw the cards and took up the tricks in so
practised, assured, and elegant a manner.
Again Anna Fedorovna, rather irritably outbidding the others, declared
seven tricks, made only four, and was fined accordingly, and having
very clumsily noted down, on her brother's demand, the points she had
lost, became quite confused and fluttered.
"Never mind, mamma, you'll win it back!" smilingly remarked Lisa,
wishing to help her mother out of the ridiculous situation. "Let uncle
make a forfeit, and then he'll be caught."
"If you would only help me, Lisa dear!" said Anna Fedorovna, with a
frightened glance at her daughter. "I don't know how this is ... "
"But I don't know this way either," Lisa answered, mentally reckoning
up her mother's losses. "You will lose a lot that way, mamma! There
will be nothing left for Pimochka's new dress," she added in just.
"Yes, this way one may easily lose ten silver rubles," said the cornet
looking at Lisa and anxious to enter into conversation with her.
"Aren't we playing for assignats?" said Anna Fedorovna, looking round
at them all.
"I don't know how we are playing, but I can't reckon in assignats,"
said the count. "What is it? I mean, what are assignats?"
"Why nowadays nobody counts in assignats any longer," remarked the
uncle, who had played very cautiously and had been winning.
The old lady ordered some sparkling home-made wine to be brought, drank
two glasses, became very red, and seemed to resign herself to any fate.
A lock of her grey hair escaped from under her cap and she did not even
put it right. No doubt it seemed to her as if she had lost millions
and it was all up with her. The cornet touched the count with his foot
more and more often. The count scored down the old lady's losses. At
last the game ended, and in spite of Anna Fedorovna's attempts to add
to her score by pretending to make mistakes in adding it up, in spite
of her horror at the amount of her losses, it turned out at last that
she had lost 920 points. "That's nine assignats?" she asked several
times and did not comprehend the full extent of her loss until her
brother told her, to her horror, that she had lost more than thirty-two
assignats and that she must certainly pay.
The count did not even add up his winnings but rose immediately the
game was over, went over to the window at which Lisa was arranging the
*zakushka* and turning pickled mushrooms out of a jar onto a plate for
supper, and there quite quietly and simply did what the cornet had all
that evening so longed, but failed, to do - entered into conversation
with her about the weather.
Meanwhile the cornet was in a very unpleasant position. In the absence
of the count, and more especially of Lisa, who had been keeping her in
good humour, Anna Fedorovna became frankly angry.
"Really, it's too bad that we should win from you like this," said
Polozov in order to say something. "It is a real shame!"
"Well, of course, if you go and invent some kind of 'tables' and
'*miseres*' and I don't know how to play them. ... Well then, how much
does it come to in assignats?" she asked.
"Thirty-two rubles, thirty-two and a quarter," repeated the cavalryman,
who under the influence of his success was in a playful mood. "Hand
over the money, sister; pay up!"
"I'll pay it all, but you won't catch me again. No! ... I shall not
win this back as long as I live."
And Anna Fedorovna went off to her room, hurriedly swaying from side to
side, and came back bringing nine assignats. It was only on the old
man's insistent demand that she eventually paid the whole amount.
Polozov was seized with fear lest Anna Fedorovna should scold him if he
spoke to her. He silently and quietly left her and joined the count
and Lisa who were talking at the open window.
On the table spread for supper stood two tallow candles. Now and then
the soft fresh breath of the May night caused the flames to flicker.
Outside the window, which opened onto the garden, it was also light but
it was a quite different light. The moon, which was almost full and
already losing its golden tinge, floated above the tops of the tall
lindens and more and more lit up the thin white clouds which veiled it
at intervals. Frogs were croaking loudly by the pond, the surface of
which, silvered in one place by the moon, was visible through the
avenue. Some little birds fluttered slightly or lightly hopped from
bough to bough in a sweet-scented lilac-bush whose dewy branches
occasionally swayed gently close to the window.
"What wonderful weather!" the count said as he approached Lisa and sat
down on the low window-sill. "I suppose you walk a good deal?"
"Yes," said Lisa, not feeling the least shyness in speaking with the
count. "In the morning about seven o'clock I look after what hs to be
attended to on the estate and take my mother's ward, Pimochka, with me
for a walk."
"It is pleasant to live in the country!" said the count, putting his
eye-glass to his eye and looking now at the garden, now at Lisa. "And
don't you ever go out at night, by moonlight?"
"No. But two years ago uncle and I used to walk every moonlight night.
He was troubled with a strange complaint - insomnia. When there was a
full moon he could not fall asleep. His little room - that one - looks
straight out into the garden, the window is low but the moon shines
straight into it."
"That's strange: I thought that was your room," said the count.
"No. I only sleep there tonight. You have my room."
"Is it possible? Dear me, I shall never forgive myself for having
disturbed you in such a way!" said the count, letting the monocle fall
from his eye in proof of the sincerity of his feelings. "If I had
known that I was troubling you ... "
"It's no trouble! On the contrary I am very glad: uncle's is such a
charming room, so bright, and the window is so low. I shall sit there
till I fall asleep, or else I shall climb out into the garden and walk
about a bit before going to bed."
"What a splendid girl!" thought the count, replacing his eyeglass and
looking at her and trying to touch her foot with his own while
pretending to seat himself more comfortably on the window-sill. "And
how cleverly she has let me know that I may see her in the garden at
the window if I like!" Lisa even lost much of her charm in his eyes -
the conquest seemed too easy.
"And how delightful it must be," he said, looking thoughtfully at the
dark avenue of trees, "to spend a night like this in the garden with a
beloved one."
Lisa was embarrassed by these words and by the repeated, seemingly
accidental touch of his foot. Anxious to hide her confusion she said
without thinking, "Yes, it is nice to walk in the moonlight." She was
beginning to feel rather uncomfortable. She had tied up the jar out of
which she had taken the mushrooms and was going away from the window,
when the cornet joined them and she felt a wish to see what kind of man
he was.
"What a lovely night!" he said.
"Why, they talk of nothing but the weather," thought Lisa.
"What a wonderful view!" continued the cornet. "But I suppose you are
tired of it," he added, having a curious propensity to say rather
unpleasant things to people he liked very much.
"Why do you think so? The same kind of food or the same dress one may
get tired of, but not of a beautiful garden if one is fond of walking -
especially when the moon is still higher. From uncle's window the
whole pond can be seen. I shall look at it tonight."
"But I don't think you have any nightingales?" said the count, much
dissatisfied that the cornet had come and prevented his ascertaining
more definitely the terms of the rendezvous.
"No, but there always were until last year when some sportsman caught
one, and this year one began to sing beautifully only last week but the
police-officer came here and his carriage-bells frightened it away.
Two years ago uncle and I used to sit in the covered alley and listen
to them for two hours or more at a time."
"What is this chatterbox telling you?" said her uncle, coming up to
them. "Won't you come and have something to eat?"
After supper, during which the count by praising the food and by his
appetite has somewhat dispelled the hostess's ill humour, the officers
said good-night and went into their room. The count shook hands with
the uncle and to Anna Fedorovna's surprise shook her hand also without
kissing it, and even shook Lisa's, looking straight into her eyes the
while and slightly smiling his pleasant smile. This look again abashed
the girl.
"He is very good-looking," she thought, "but he thinks too much of
himself."
XIV
"I say, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" said Polozov when they were in
their room. "I purposely tried to lose and kept touching you under the
table. Aren't you ashamed? The old lady was quite upset, you know."
The count laughed very heartily.
"She was awfully funny, that old lady. ... How offended she was! ... "
And he again began laughing so merrily that even Johann, who stood in
front of him, cast down his eyes and turned away with a slight smile.
"And with the son of a friend of the family! Ha-ha-ha! ... " the count
continued to laugh.
"No, really it was too bad. I was quite sorry for her," said the
cornet.
"What nonsense! How young you still are! Why, did you wish me to
lose? Why should one lose? I used to lose before I knew how to play!
Ten rubles may come in useful, my dear fellow. You must look at life
practically or you'll always be left in the lurch."
Polozov was silenced; besides, he wished to be quiet and to think about
Lisa, who seemed to him an unusually pure and beautiful creature. He
undressed and lay down in the soft clean bed prepared for him.
"What nonsense all this military honour and glory is!" he thought,
looking at the window curtained by the shawl through which the white
moonbeams stole in. "It would be happiness to live in a quiet nook
with a dear, wise, simple-hearted wife - yes, that is true and lasting
happiness!"
But for some reason he did not communicate these reflections to his
friend and did not even refer to the country lass, though he was
convinced that the count too was thinking of her.
"Why don't you undress?" he asked the count who was walking up and down
the room.
"I don't feel sleepy yet, somehow. You can put out the candle if you
like. I shall lie down as I am."
And he continued to pace up and down.
"Don't feel sleepy yet somehow," repeated Polozov, who after this last
evening felt more dissatisfied than ever with the count's influence
over him and was inclined to rebel against it. "I can imagine," he
thought, addressing himself mentally to Turbin, "what is now passing
through that well-brushed head of yours! I saw how you admired her.
But you are not capable of understanding such a simple honest creature:
you want a Mina and a colonel's epaulettes. ... I really must ask him
how he liked her."
And Polozov turned towards him - but changed his mind. He felt he
would not be able to hold his own with the count, if the latter's
opinion of Lisa were what he supposed it to be, and that he would even
be unable to avoid agreeing with him, so accustomed was he to bow to
the count's influence, which he felt more and more every day to be
oppressive and unjust.
"Where are you going?" he asked, when the count put on his cap and went
to the door.
"I'm going to see if things are all right in the stables."
"Strange!" thought the cornet, but put out the candle and turned over
on his other side, trying to drive away the absurdly jealous and
hostile thoughts that crowded into his head concerning his former
friend.
Anna Fedorovna meanwhile, having as usual kissed her brother, daughter,
and ward and made the sign of the cross over each of them, had also
retired to her room. It was long since the old lady had experienced so
many strong impressions in one day and she could not even pray quietly:
she could not rid herself of the sad and vivid memories of the deceased
count and of the young dandy who had plundered her so unmercifully.
However, she undressed as usual, drank half a tumbler of *kvas* that
stood ready for her on a little table by her bed, and lay down. Her
favourite cat crept softly into the room. Anna Fedorovna called her up
and began to stroke her and listen to her purring but could not fall
asleep.
"It's the cat that keeps me awake," she thought and drove her away.
The cat fell softly on the floor and gently moving her bushy tail leapt
onto the stove. And now the maid, who always slept in Anna Fedorovna's
room, came and spread the piece of felt that served her for a mattress,
put out the candle, and lit the lamp before the icon. At last the maid
began to snore, but still sleep would not come to soothe Anna
Fedorovna's excited imagination. When she closed her eyes the hussar's
face appeared to her, and she seemed to see it in the room in various
guises when she opened her eyes and by the dim light of the lamp looked
at the chest of drawers, the table, or a white dress that was hanging
up. Now she felt very hot on the feather bed, now her watch ticked
unbearably on the little table, and the maid snored unendurably through
her nose. She woke her up and told her not to snore. Again thoughts
of her daughter, of the old count and the young one, and of the
*preference*, became curiously mixed in her head. Now she saw herself
waltzing with the old count, saw her own round white shoulders, felt
someone's kisses on them, and then saw her daughter in the arms of the
young count. Ustyushka again began to snore.
"No, people are not the same nowadays. The other one was ready to leap
into the fire for me - and not without cause. But this one is sleeping
like a fool, no fear, glad to have won - no love-making about him. ...
How the other one said on his knees, 'What do you wish me to do? I'll
kill myself on the spot, or do anything you like!' And he would have
killed himself had I told him to."
Suddenly she heard a patter of bare feet in the passage and Lisa, with
a shawl thrown over, ran in pale and trembling and almost fell onto her
mother's bed.
After saying good-night to her mother that evening Lisa had gone alone
to the room her uncle generally slept in. She put on a white dressing-
jacket and covered her long thick plait with a kerchief, extinguished
the candle, opened the window, and sat down on a chair, drawing her
feet up and fixing her pensive eyes on the pond now all glittering in
the silvery light.
All her accustomed occupations and interests suddenly appeared to her
in a new light: her capricious old mother, uncritical love for whom
had become part of her soul; her decrepit but amiable old uncle; the
domestic and village serfs who worshipped their young mistress; the
milch cows and the calves, and all this Nature which had died and been
renewed so many times and amid which she had grown up loving and
beloved - all this that had given such light and pleasant tranquillity
to her soul suddenly seemed unsatisfactory; it seemed dull and
unnecessary. It was as if someone had said to her: "Little fool,
little fool, for twenty years you have been trifling, serving someone
without knowing why, and without knowing what life and happiness are!"
As she gazed into the depths of the moonlit, motionless garden she
thought this more intensely, far more intensely, than ever before. And
what caused these thoughts? Not any sudden love for the count as one
might have supposed. On the contrary, she did not like him. She could
have been interested in the cornet more easily, but he was plain, poor
fellow, and silent. She kept involuntarily forgetting him and
recalling the image of the count with anger and annoyance. "No, that's
not it," she said to herself. Her ideal had been so beautiful. It was
an ideal that could have been loved on such a night amid this nature
without impairing its beauty - an ideal never abridged to fit it to
some coarse reality.
Formerly, solitude and the absence of anyone who might have attracted
her attention had caused the power of love, which Providence has given
impartially to each of us, to rest intact and tranquil in her bosom,
and now she had lived too long in the melancholy happiness of feeling
within her the presence of this something, and of now and again opening
the secret chalice of her heart to contemplate its riches, to be able
to lavish its contents thoughtlessly on anyone. God grant she may
enjoy to her grave this chary bliss! Who knows whether it be not the
best and strongest, and whether it is not the only true and possible
happiness?
"O Lord my God," she thought, "can it be that I have lost my youth and
happiness in vain and that it will never be ... never be? Can that be
true?" And she looked into the depths of the sky lit up by the moon
and covered by light fleecy clouds that, veiling the stars, crept
nearer to the moon. "If that highest white cloudlet touches the moon
it will be a sign that it is true," thought she. The mist-like smoky
strip ran across the bottom half of the bright disk and little by
little the light on the grass, on the tops of the limes, and on the
pond, grew dimmer and the black shadows of the trees grew less
distinct. As if to harmonize with the gloomy shadows that spread over
the world outside, a light wind ran through the leaves and brought to
the window the odour of dewy leaves, of moist earth, and of blooming
lilacs.
"But it is not true," she consoled herself. "There now, if the
nightingale sings tonight it will be a sign that what I'm thinking is
all nonsense, and that I need not despair," thought she. And she sat a
long while in silence waiting for something, while again all became
bright and full of life and again and again the cloudlets ran across
the moon making everything dim. She was beginning to fall asleep as
she sat by the window, when the quivering trills of a nightingale came
ringing from below across the pond and awoke her. The country maiden
opened her eyes. And once more her soul was renewed with fresh joy by
its mysterious union with Nature which spread out so calmly and
brightly before her. She leant on both arms. A sweet, languid
sensation of sadness oppressed her heart, and tears of pure wide-
spreading love, thirsting to be satisfied - good comforting tears -
filled her eyes. She folded her arms on the window-sill and laid her
head on them. Her favourite prayer rose to her mind and she fell
asleep with her eyes still moist.
The touch of someone's hand aroused her. She awoke. But the touch was
light and pleasant. The hand pressed hers more closely. Suddenly she
became alive to reality, screamed, jumped up, and trying to persuade
herself that she had not recognized the count who was standing under
the window bathed in the moonlight, she ran out of the room. ...
XV
And it really was the count. When he heard the girl's cry and a husky
sound from the watchman behind the fence, who had been roused by that
cry, he rushed headlong across the wet dewy grass into the depths of
the garden feeling like a detected thief. "Fool that I am!" he
repeated unconsciously, "I frightened her. I ought to have aroused her
gently by speaking to her. Awkward brute that I am!" He stopped and
listened: the watchman came into the garden through the gateway,
dragging his stick along the sandy path. It was necessary to hide and
the count went down by the pond. The frogs made him start as they
plumped from beneath his feet into the water. Though his boots were
wet through, he squatted down and began to recall all that he had done:
how he had climbed the fence, looked for her window, and at last espied
a white shadow; how, listening to the faintest rustle, he had several
times approached the window and gone back again; how at one moment he
felt sure she was waiting, vexed at his tardiness, and the next, that
it was impossible she should so readily agreed to a rendezvous; how at
last, persuading himself that it was only the bashfulness of a country-
bred girl that made her pretend to be asleep, he went up resolutely and
distinctly saw how she sat but then for some reason ran away again and
only after severely taunting himself for cowardice boldly drew near to
her and touched her hand.
The watchman again made a husky sound and the gate creaked as he left
the garden. The girl's window was slammed to and a shutter fastened
from inside. This was very provoking. The count would have given a
good deal for a chance to begin all over again; he would not have acted
so stupidly now. ... "And she is a wonderful girl - so fresh - quite
charming! And I have let her slip through my fingers. ... Awkward fool
that I am!" He did not want to sleep now and went at random, with the
firm tread of one who has been crossed, along the covered lime-tree
avenue.
And here the night brought to him all its peaceful gifts of soothing
sadness and the need of love. The straight pale beams of the moon
threw spots of light through the thick foliage of the limes onto the
clay path, where a few blades of grass grew or a dead branch lay here
and there. The light falling on one side of a bent bough made it seem
as if covered with white moss. The silvered leaves whispered now and
then. There were no lights in the house and all was silent; the voice
of the nightingale alone seemed to fill the bright, still, limitless
space. "O God, what a night! What a wonderful night!" thought the
count, inhaling the fragrant freshness of the garden. "Yet I feel a
kind of regret - as if I were discontented with myself and with others,
discontented with life generally. A splendid, sweet girl! Perhaps she
was really hurt. ... " Here his dreams became mixed: he imagined
himself in this garden with the country-bred girl in various
extraordinary situations. Then the role of the girl was taken by his
beloved Mina. "Eh, what a fool I was! I ought simply to have caught
her round the waist and kissed her." And regretting that he had not
done so, the count returned to his room.
The cornet was still awake. He at once turned in his bed and faced the
count.
"Not asleep yet?" asked the count.
"No."
"Shall I tell you what has happened?"
"Well?"
"No, I'd better not, or ... all right, I'll tell you - draw in your
legs."
And the count, having mentally abandoned the intrigue that had
miscarried, sat down on his comrade's bed with an animated smile.
"Would you believe it, that young lady gave me a rendezvous!"
"What are you saying?" cried Polozov, jumping out of bed.
"No, but listen."
"But how? When? It's impossible!"
"Why, while you were adding up after we had played *preference*, she
told me she would be at the window in the night and that one could get
in at the window. There, you see what it is to be practical! While
you were calculating with the old woman, I arranged that little matter.
Why, you heard her say in your presence that she would sit by the
window tonight and look at the pond."
"Yes, but she didn't mean anything of the kind."
"Well, that's just what I can't make out: did she say it intentionally
or not? Maybe she didn't really wish to agree so suddenly, but it
looked very like it. It turned out horribly. I quiet played the
fool," he added, smiling contemptuously at himself.
"What do you mean? Where have you been?"
The count, omitting his manifold irresolute approaches, related
everything as it had happened.
"I spoilt it myself: I ought to have been bolder. She screamed and
ran from the window."
"So she screamed and ran away," said the cornet, smiling uneasily in
answer to the count's smile, which for such a long time had had so
strong an influence over him.
"Yes, but it's time to go to sleep."
The cornet again turned his back to the door and lay silent for about
ten minutes. Heaven knows what went on in his soul, but when he turned
again, his face bore an expression of suffering and resolve.
"Count Turbin!" he said abruptly.
"Are you delirious?" quietly replied the count. "What is it, Cornet
Polozov?"
"Count Turbin, you are a scoundrel!" cried Polozov and again jumped out
of bed.
XVI
The squadron left next day. The two officers did not see their hosts
again and did not bid them farewell. Neither did they speak to one
another. They intended to fight a duel at the first halting-place.
But Captain Schulz, a good comrade and splendid horseman, beloved by
everyone in the regiment and chosen by the count to act as his second,
managed to settle the affair so well that not only did they not fight
but no one in the regiment knew anything about the matter, and Turbin
and Polozov, though no longer on the old friendly footing, still
continued to speak in familiar terms to one another and to meet at
dinners and card-parties.
THE END
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