In order completely to undeceive her, I replied in French, with a slight bow:
“Ne craignez rien, madame, je ne suis pas plus dangereux que votre cavalier” . . .
She grew embarrassed — but at what? At her own mistake, or because my answer struck her as insolent? I should like the latter hypothesis to be correct. Grushnitski cast a discontented glance at me.
Late in the evening, that is to say, about eleven o’clock, I went for a walk in the lilac avenue of the boulevard. The town was sleeping; lights were gleaming in only a few windows. On three sides loomed the black ridges of the cliffs, the spurs of Mount Mashuk, upon the summit of which an ominous cloud was lying. The moon was rising in the east; in the distance, the snow-clad moun- tains glistened like a fringe of silver. The calls of the sentries mingled at intervals with the roar of the hot springs let flow for the night. At times the loud clattering of a horse rang out along the street, accompanied by the creaking of a Nagai wagon and the plaintive burden of a Tartar song.
I sat down upon a bench and fell into a reverie. . . I felt the necessity of pouring forth my thoughts in friendly conversation. . . But with whom? . . .
“What is Vera doing now?” I wondered.
I would have given much to press her hand at that moment.
All at once I heard rapid and irregular steps. . . Grushnitski, no doubt! . . . So it was!
“Where have you come from?”
“From Princess Ligovski’s,” he said very importantly. “How well Mary does sing!” . . .
“Do you know?” I said to him. “I wager that she does not know that you are a cadet. She thinks you are an officer reduced to the ranks” . . .
“Maybe so. What is that to me!” . . . he said absently.
“No, I am only saying so” . . .
“But, do you know that you have made her terribly angry to-day? She considered it an un- heard-of piece of insolence. It was only with difficulty that I was able to convince her that you are so well bred and know society so well that you could not have had any intention of insulting her. She says that you have an impudent glance, and that you have certainly a very high opinion of yourself.”
“She is not mistaken. . . But do you not want to defend her?”
“I am sorry I have not yet the right to do so” . . .
“Oho!” I said to myself, “evidently he has hopes already.”
“However, it is the worse for you,” con- tinued Grushnitski; “it will be difficult for you to make their acquaintance now, and what a pity! It is one of the most agreeable houses I know” . . .
I smiled inwardly.
“The most agreeable house to me now is my own,” I said, with a yawn, and I got up
to go.
“Confess, though, you repent?” . . .
“What nonsense! If I like I will be at Princess Ligovski’s to-morrow evening!” . . .
“We shall see” . . .
“I will even begin to pay my addresses to Princess Mary, if you would like me to” . . .
“Yes, if she is willing to speak to you” . . .
“I am only awaiting the moment when she will be bored by your conversation. . . Good- bye” . . .
“Well, I am going for a stroll; I could not go to sleep now for anything. . . Look here, let us go to the restaurant instead, there is card- playing going on there. . . What I need now is violent sensations” . . .
“I hope you will lose” . . .
I went home.
CHAPTER IV
21st May.
NEARLY a week has passed, and I have not yet made the Ligovskis’ acquaintance. I am awaiting a convenient opportunity. Grushnitski follows Princess Mary everywhere like a shadow. Their conversations are interminable; but, when will she be tired of him? . . . Her mother pays no attention, because he is not a man who is in a position to marry. Behold the logic of mothers! I have caught two
or three tender glances — this must be put a stop to.
Yesterday, for the first time, Vera made her appearance at the well. . . She has never gone out of doors since we met in the
grotto. We let down our tumblers at the same time, and as she bent forward she whispered to me:
“You are not going to make the Ligovskis’ acquaintance? . . . It is only there that we can meet” . . .
A reproach! . . . How tiresome! But I have deserved it. . .
By the way, there is a subscription ball to- morrow in the saloon of the restaurant, and I will dance the mazurka with Princess Mary.
CHAPTER V
29th May.
THE saloon of the restaurant was converted into the assembly room of a Nobles’ Club. The company met at nine o’clock. Princess Ligovski and her daughter were amongst the latest to make their appearance. Several of the ladies looked at Princess Mary with envy and malevolence, because she dresses with taste. Those who look upon themselves as the aris- tocracy of the place concealed their envy and attached themselves to her train. What else could be expected? Wherever there is a gathering of women, the company is immediately divided into a higher and a lower circle.
Beneath the window, amongst a crowd of people, stood Grushnitski, pressing his face to the pane and never taking his eyes off his divinity. As she passed by, she gave him a hardly per- ceptible nod. He beamed like the sun. . . The first dance was a polonaise, after which the musicians struck up a waltz. Spurs began to jingle, and skirts to rise and whirl.
I was standing behind a certain stout lady who was overshadowed by rose-coloured feathers. The magnificence of her dress reminded me of the times of the farthingale, and the motley hue of her by no means smooth skin, of the happy epoch of the black taffeta patch. An immense wart on her neck was covered by a clasp. She was saying to her cavalier, a captain of dragoons:
“That young Princess Ligovski is a most intolerable creature! Just fancy, she jostled against me and did not apologise, but even turned round and stared at me through her lorgn- ette! . . . C’est impayable! . . . And what has she to be proud of? It is time somebody gave her a lesson” . . .
“That will be easy enough,” replied the obliging captain, and he directed his steps to the other room.
I went up to Princess Mary immediately, and, availing myself of the local customs which allowed one to dance with a stranger, I invited her to waltz with me.
She was scarcely able to keep from smiling and letting her triumph be seen; but quickly enough she succeeded in assuming an air of perfect indifference and even severity. Carelessly she let her hand fall upon my shoulder, inclined her head slightly to one side, and we began to dance. I have never known a waist more voluptuous and supple! Her fresh breath touched my face; at times a lock of hair, becoming separated from its com- panions in the eddy of the waltz, glided over my burning cheek. . .
I made three turns of the ballroom (she waltzes surprisingly well). She was out of breath, her eyes were dulled, her half-open lips were scarcely able to whisper the indispensable: “merci, monsieur.”
After a few moments’ silence I said to her, assuming a very humble air:
“I have heard, Princess, that although quite unacquainted with you, I have already had the misfortune to incur your displeasure . . . that you have considered me insolent. Can that possibly true?”
“Would you like to confirm me in that opinion now?” she answered, with an ironical little grimace — very becoming, however, to her mobile countenance.
“If I had the audacity to insult you in any way, then allow me to have the still greater audacity to beg your pardon. . . And, indeed, I should very much like to prove to you that you are mistaken in regard to me” . . .
“You will find that a rather difficult task” . . .
“But why?” . . .
“Because you never visit us and, most likely, there will not be many more of these balls.”
“That means,” I thought, “that their doors are closed to me for ever.”
“You know, Princess,” I said to her, with a certain amount of vexation, “one should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before . . . and then” . . .
Sudden laughter and whispering from the people around us caused me to turn my head and to interrupt my phrase. A few paces away from me stood a group of men, amongst them the captain of dragoons, who had manifested inten- tions hostile to the charming Princess. He was particularly well pleased with something or other, and was rubbing his hands, laughing and ex- changing meaning glances with his companions. All at once a gentleman in an evening-dress coat and with long moustaches and a red face separated himself from the crowd and directed his uncertain steps straight towards Princess Mary. He was drunk. Coming to a halt opposite the em- barrassed Princess and placing his hands behind his back, he fixed his dull grey eyes upon her, and said in a hoarse treble:
“Permettez . . . but what is the good of that sort of thing here. . . All I need say is: I en- gage you for the mazurka” . . .
“Very well!” she replied in a trembling voice, throwing a beseeching glance around. Alas! Her mother was a long way off, and not one of the cavaliers of her acquaintance was near. A certain aide-de-camp apparently saw the whole scene, but he concealed himself behind the crowd in order not to be mixed up in the affair.
“What?” said the drunken gentleman, wink- ing to the captain of dragoons, who was encourag- ing him by signs. “Do you not wish to dance then? . . . All the same I again have the honour to engage you for the mazurka. . . You think, perhaps, that I am drunk! That is all right! . . . I can dance all the easier, I assure you” . . .
I saw that she was on the point of fainting with fright and indignation.
I went up to the drunken gentleman, caught him none too gently by the arm, and, looking him fixedly in the face, requested him to retire. “Because,” I added, “the Princess promised long ago to dance the mazurka with me.”
“Well, then, there’s nothing to be done! Another time!” he said, bursting out laughing, and he retired to his abashed companions, who immediately conducted him into another room.
I was rewarded by a deep, wondrous glance.
The Princess went up to her mother and told her the whole story. The latter sought me out among the crowd and thanked me. She informed me that she knew my mother and was on terms of friendship with half a dozen of my aunts.
“I do not know how it has happened that we have not made your acquaintance up to now,” she added; “but confess, you alone are to blame for that. You fight shy of everyone in a positively unseemly way. I hope the air of my drawing- room will dispel your spleen. . . Do you not think so?”
I uttered one of the phrases which everybody must have ready for such an occasion.
The quadrilles dragged on a dreadfully long time.
At last the music struck up from the gallery, Princess Mary and I took up our places.
I did not once allude to the drunken gentleman, or to my previous behaviour, or to Grushnitski. The impression produced upon her by the
unpleasant scene was gradually dispelled; her face brightened up; she jested very charmingly; her conversation was witty, without pretensions to wit, vivacious and spontaneous; her observations were sometimes profound. . . In a very involved sentence I gave her to understand that I had liked her for a long time. She bent her head and blushed slightly.
“You are a strange man!” she said, with a forced laugh, lifting her velvet eyes upon me.
“I did not wish to make your acquaintance,” I continued, “because you are surrounded by too dense a throng of adorers, in which I was afraid of being lost to sight altogether.”
“You need not have been afraid; they are all very tiresome” . . .
“All? Not all, surely?”
She looked fixedly at me as if endeavouring to recollect something, then blushed slightly again and finally pronounced with decision:
“All!”
“Even my friend, Grushnitski?”
“But is he your friend?” she said, manifesting some doubt.
“Yes.”
“He, of course, does not come into the category of the tiresome” . . .
“But into that of the unfortunate!” I said, laughing.
“Of course! But do you consider that
funny? I should like you to be in his place” . . .
“Well? I was once a cadet myself, and, in truth, it was the best time of my life!”
“Is he a cadet, then?” . . . she said rapidly, and then added: “But I thought” . . .
“What did you think?” . . .
“Nothing! Who is that lady?”
Thereupon the conversation took a different direction, and it did not return to the former subject.
And now the mazurka came to an end and we separated — until we should meet again. The ladies drove off in different directions. I went to get some supper, and met Werner.
“Aha!” he said: “so it is you! And yet you did not wish to make the acquaintance of Princess Mary otherwise than by saving her from certain death.”
“I have done better,” I replied. “I have saved her from fainting at the ball” . . .
“How was that? Tell me.”
“No, guess! — O, you who guess everything in the world!”
CHAPTER VI
30th May.
ABOUT seven o’clock in the evening, I was walking on the boulevard. Grushnitski
perceived me a long way off, and came up to me. A sort of ridiculous rapture was shining in his eyes. He pressed my hand warmly, and said in a tragic voice:
“I thank you, Pechorin. . . You understand me?”
“No; but in any case it is not worth grati- tude,” I answered, not having, in fact, any good deed upon my conscience.
“What? But yesterday! Have you for-
gotten? . . . Mary has told me everything” . . .
“Why! Have you everything in common so soon as this? Even gratitude?” . . .
“Listen,” said Grushnitski very earnestly; “pray do not make fun of my love, if you wish to remain my friend. . . You see, I love her to the point of madness . . . and I think — I hope — she loves me too. . . I have a request to make of you. You will be at their house this even- ing; promise me to observe everything. I know you are experienced in these matters, you know women better than I. . . Women! Women!
Who can understand them? Their smiles contra- dict their glances, their words promise and allure, but the tone of their voice repels. . . At one time they grasp and divine in a moment our most secret thoughts, at another they cannot under- stand the clearest hints. . . Take Princess Mary, now: yesterday her eyes, as they rested upon me, were blazing with passion; to-day they are dull and cold” . . .
“That is possibly the result of the waters,” I replied.
“You see the bad side of everything . . . materialist,” he added contemptuously. “How- ever, let us talk of other matters.”
And, satisfied with his bad pun, he cheered up.
At nine o’clock we went to Princess Ligovski’s together.
Passing by Vera’s windows, I saw her looking out. We threw a fleeting glance at each other. She entered the Ligovskis’ drawing-room soon after us. Princess Ligovski presented me to her, as a relation of her own. Tea was served. The guests were numerous, and the conversation was general. I endeavoured to please the Princess, jested, and made her laugh heartily a few times. Princess Mary, also, was more than once on the point of bursting out laughing, but she restrained herself in order not to depart from the role she had assumed. She finds languor becoming to her, and perhaps she is not mistaken. Grushnitski appears to be very glad that she is not infected by my gaiety.
After tea we all went into the drawing- room.
“Are you satisfied with my obedience, Vera?” I said as I was passing her.
She threw me a glance full of love and grati- tude. I have grown accustomed to such glances; but at one time they constituted my felicity. The Princess seated her daughter at the piano- forte, and all the company begged her to sing. I kept silence, and, taking advantage of the hubbub, I went aside to the window with Vera, who wished to say something of great import- ance to both of us. . . It turned out to be — nonsense. . .
Meanwhile my indifference was vexing Princess Mary, as I was able to make out from a single angry, gleaming glance which she cast at me. . . Oh! I understand the method of conversation wonderfully well: mute but expressive, brief but forceful! . . .
She began to sing. She has a good voice, but she sings badly. . . However, I was not listening.
Grushnitski, on the contrary, leaning his elbows on the grand piano, facing her, was devouring her with his eyes and saying in an undertone every minute: “Charmant! Delicieux!”
“Listen,” said Vera to me, “I do not wish you to make my husband’s acquaintance, but you must, without fail, make yourself agreeable to the Princess; that will be an easy task for you: you can do anything you wish. It is only here that we shall see each other” . . .
“Only here?” . . .
She blushed and continued:
“You know that I am your slave: I have never been able to resist you . . . and I shall be punished for it, you will cease to love me! At least, I want to preserve my reputation . . . not for myself — that you know very well! . . . Oh! I beseech you: do not torture me, as before, with idle doubts and feigned coldness! It may be that I shall die soon; I feel that I am growing weaker from day to day. . . And, yet, I cannot think of the future life, I think only of you. . . You men do not understand the delights of a glance, of a pressure of the hand . . . but as for me, I swear to you that, when I listen to your voice, I feel such a deep, strange bliss that the most passionate kisses could not take its place.”
Meanwhile, Princess Mary had finished her song. Murmurs of praise were to be heard all around. I went up to her after all the other guests, and said something rather carelessly to her on the subject of her voice.
She made a little grimace, pouting her lower lip, and dropped a very sarcastic curtsey.
“That is all the more flattering,” she said, “because you have not been listening to me at all; but perhaps you do not like music?” . . .
“On the contrary, I do . . . After dinner, especially.”
“Grushnitski is right in saying that you have very prosaic tastes . . . and I see that you like music in a gastronomic respect.”
“You are mistaken again: I am by no means an epicure. I have a most wretched digestion. But music after dinner puts one to sleep, and to sleep after dinner is healthful; consequently I like music in a medicinal respect. In the evening, on the contrary, it excites my nerves too much: I become either too melancholy or too gay. Both are fatiguing, where there is no positive reason for being either sorrowful or glad. And, more- over, melancholy in society is ridiculous, and too great gaiety is unbecoming” . . .
She did not hear me to the end, but went away and sat beside Grushnitski, and they entered into a sort of sentimental conversation. Ap- parently the Princess answered his sage phrases rather absent-mindedly and inconsequently, although endeavouring to show that she was listening to him with attention, because sometimes he looked at her in astonishment, trying to divine the cause of the inward agitation which was expressed at times in her restless glance . . .
But I have found you out, my dear Princess! Have a care! You want to pay me back in the same coin, to wound my vanity — you will not succeed! And if you declare war on me, I will be merciless!
In the course of the evening, I purposely tried a few times to join in their conversation, but she met my remarks rather coldly, and, at last, I retired in pretended vexation. Princess Mary was triumphant, Grushnitski likewise. Triumph, my friends, and be quick about it! . . . You will not have long to triumph! . . . It cannot be otherwise. I have a presentiment. . . On making a woman’s acquaintance I have always unerringly guessed whether she would fall in love with me or not.
The remaining part of the evening I spent at Vera’s side, and talked to the full about the old days. . . Why does she love me so much? In truth, I am unable to say, all the more so because she is the only woman who has understood me perfectly, with all my petty weaknesses and evil passions. . . Can it be that wickedness is so attractive? . . .
Grushnitski and I left the house together. In the street he took my arm, and, after a long silence, said:
“Well?”
“You are a fool,” I should have liked to answer. But I restrained myself and only shrugged my shoulders.
CHAPTER VII
6th June.
ALL these days I have not once departed from my system. Princess Mary has come to like talking to me; I have told her a few of the strange events of my life, and she is beginning to look on me as an extraordinary man. I mock at everything in the world, especially feelings; and she is taking alarm. When I am present, she does not dare to embark upon sentimental discussions with Grushnitski, and already, on a few occasions, she has answered his sallies with a mocking smile. But every time that Grushnitski comes up to her I assume an air of meekness and leave the two of them together. On the first occasion, she was glad, or tried to make it appear so; on the second, she was angry with me; on the third — with Grushnitski.
“You have very little vanity!” she said to me yesterday. “What makes you think that I find Grushnitski the more entertaining?”
I answered that I was sacrificing my own pleasure for the sake of the happiness of a friend.
“And my pleasure, too,” she added.
I looked at her intently and assumed a serious air. After that for the whole day I did not speak a single word to her. . . In the evening, she was pensive; this morning, at the well, more pensive still. When I went up to her, she was listening absent-mindedly to Grushnitski, who was ap- parently falling into raptures about Nature, but, so soon as she perceived me, she began to laugh — at a most inopportune moment — pretending not to notice me. I went on a little further and began stealthily to observe her. She turned away from her companion and yawned twice. Decidedly she had grown tired of Grushnitski — I will not talk to her for another two days.
CHAPTER VIII
11th June.
I OFTEN ask myself why I am so obstinately endeavouring to win the love of a young girl whom I do not wish to deceive, and whom I will never marry. Why this woman-like coquetry? Vera loves me more than Princess Mary ever will. Had I regarded the latter as an invincible beauty, I should perhaps have been allured by the difficulty of the undertaking. . .
However, there is no such difficulty in this case! Consequently, my present feeling is not that restless craving for love which torments us in the early days of our youth, flinging us from one woman to another until we find one who can- not endure us. And then begins our constancy — that sincere, unending passion which may be expressed mathematically by a line falling from a point into space — the secret of that endlessness lying only in the impossibility of attaining the aim, that is to say, the end.
From what motive, then, am I taking all this trouble? — Envy of Grushnitski? Poor fellow!
He is quite undeserving of it. Or, is it the result of that ugly, but invincible, feeling which causes us to destroy the sweet illusions of our neighbour in order to have the petty satisfaction of saying to him, when, in despair, he asks what he is to believe:
“My friend, the same thing happened to me, and you see, nevertheless, that I dine, sup, and sleep very peacefully, and I shall, I hope, know how to die without tears and lamentations.”
There is, in sooth, a boundless enjoyment in the possession of a young, scarce-budded soul! It is like a floweret which exhales its best perfume at the kiss of the first ray of the sun. You should pluck the flower at that moment, and, breathing its fragrance to the full, cast it upon the road: perchance someone will pick it up! I feel within me that insatiate hunger which devours everything it meets upon the way; I look upon the sufferings and joys of others only from the point of view of their relation to myself, regarding them as the nutriment which sustains my
spiritual forces. I myself am no longer capable of committing follies under the influence of passion; with me, ambition has been repressed by circumstances, but it has emerged in another form, because ambition is nothing more nor less than a thirst for power, and my chief pleasure is to make everything that surrounds me subject to my will. To arouse the feeling of love, devotion and awe towards oneself — is not that the first sign, and the greatest triumph, of power? To be the cause of suffering and joy to another — without in the least possessing any definite right to be so — is not that the sweetest food for our pride? And what is happiness? — Satisfied pride. Were I to consider myself the best, the most powerful man in the world, I should be happy; were all to love me, I should find within me inexhaustible springs of love. Evil begets evil; the first suffering gives us the conception of the satis- faction of torturing another. The idea of evil cannot enter the mind without arousing a desire to put it actually into practice. “Ideas are organic entities,” someone has said. The very fact of their birth endows them with form, and that form is action. He in whose brain the most ideas are born accomplishes the most. From that cause a genius, chained to an official desk, must die or go mad, just as it often happens that a man of powerful constitution, and at the same time of sedentary life and simple habits, dies of an apoplectic stroke.
Passions are naught but ideas in their first development; they are an attribute of the youth of the heart, and foolish is he who thinks that he will be agitated by them all his life. Many quiet rivers begin their course as noisy waterfalls, and there is not a single stream which will leap or foam throughout its way to the sea. That quiet- ness, however, is frequently the sign of great, though latent, strength. The fulness and depth of feelings and thoughts do not admit of frenzied outbursts. In suffering and in enjoyment the soul renders itself a strict account of all it experiences and convinces itself that such things must be. It knows that, but for storms, the constant heat of the sun would dry it up! It imbues itself with its own life — pets and punishes itself like a favourite child. It is only in that highest state of self-knowledge that a man can appreciate the divine justice.
On reading over this page, I observe that I have made a wide digression from my subject. . . But what matter? . . . You see, it is for myself that I am writing this diary, and, consequently anything that I jot down in it will in time be a valuable reminiscence for me.
. . . . .
Grushnitski has called to see me to-day. He flung himself upon my neck; he has been pro- moted to be an officer. We drank champagne. Doctor Werner came in after him.
“I do not congratulate you,” he said to Grushnitski.
“Why not?”
“Because the soldier’s cloak suits you very well, and you must confess that an infantry uniform, made by one of the local tailors, will not add anything of interest to you. . . Do you not see? Hitherto, you have been an exception, but now you will come under the general
rule.”
“Talk away, doctor, talk away! You will not prevent me from rejoicing. He does not know,” added Grushnitski in a whisper to me, “how many hopes these epaulettes have lent me. . . Oh! . . . Epaulettes, epaulettes! Your little stars are guiding stars! No! I am perfectly happy now!”
“Are you coming with us on our walk to the hollow?” I asked him.
“I? Not on any account will I show myself to Princess Mary until my uniform is finished.”
“Would you like me to inform her of your happiness?”
“No, please, not a word. . . I want to give her a surprise” . . .
“Tell me, though, how are you getting on with her?”
He became embarrassed, and fell into thought; he would gladly have bragged and told lies, but his conscience would not let him; and, at the same time, he was ashamed to confess the truth.
“What do you think? Does she love
you?” . . .
“Love me? Good gracious, Pechorin, what ideas you do have! . . . How could she possibly love me so soon? . . . And a well-bred woman, even if she is in love, will never say so” . . .
“Very well! And, I suppose, in your opinion, a well-bred man should also keep silence in regard to his passion?” . . .
“Ah, my dear fellow! There are ways of doing everything; often things may remain unspoken, but yet may be guessed” . . .
“That is true. . . But the love which we read in the eyes does not pledge a woman to any- thing, whilst words. . . Have a care, Grush- nitski, she is befooling you!”
“She?” he answered, raising his eyes heaven- ward and smiling complacently. “I am sorry for you, Pechorin!” . . .
He took his departure.
In the evening, a numerous company set off to walk to the hollow.
In the opinion of the learned of Pyatigorsk, the hollow in question is nothing more nor less than an extinct crater. It is situated on a slope of Mount Mashuk, at the distance of a verst from the town, and is approached by a narrow path between brushwood and rocks. In climbing up the hill, I gave Princess Mary my arm, and she did not leave it during the whole excur- sion.
Our conversation commenced with slander; I proceeded to pass in review our present and absent acquaintances; at first I exposed their ridiculous, and then their bad, sides. My choler rose. I began in jest, and ended in genuine malice. At first she was amused, but afterwards frightened.
“You are a dangerous man!” she said. “I would rather perish in the woods under the knife of an assassin than under your tongue. . . In all earnestness I beg of you: when it comes into your mind to speak evil of me, take a knife instead and cut my throat. I think you would not find that a very difficult matter.”
“Am I like an assassin, then?” . . .
“You are worse” . . .
I fell into thought for a moment; then, assuming a deeply moved air, I said:
“Yes, such has been my lot from very child- hood! All have read upon my countenance the marks of bad qualities, which were not existent; but they were assumed to exist — and they were born. I was modest — I was accused of slyness: I grew secretive. I profoundly felt both good and evil — no one caressed me, all insulted me: I grew vindictive. I was gloomy — other children merry and talkative; I felt myself higher than they — I was rated lower: I grew envious. I was prepared to love the whole world — no one understood me: I learned to hate. My colour- less youth flowed by in conflict with myself and the world; fearing ridicule, I buried my best feelings in the depths of my heart, and there they died. I spoke the truth — I was not believed: I began to deceive. Having acquired a thorough knowledge of the world and the springs of society, I grew skilled in the science of life; and I saw how others without skill were happy, en- joying gratuitously the advantages which I so unweariedly sought. Then despair was born within my breast — not that despair which is cured at the muzzle of a pistol, but the cold, powerless despair concealed beneath the mask of amiability and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple. One half of my soul ceased to exist; it dried up, evaporated, died, and I cut it off and cast it from me. The other half moved and lived — at the service of all; but it remained un- observed, because no one knew that the half which had perished had ever existed. But, now, the memory of it has been awakened within me by you, and I have read you its epitaph. To many, epitaphs in general seem ridiculous, but to me they do not; especially when I remember what reposes beneath them. I will not, however, ask you to share my opinion. If this outburst seems absurd to you, I pray you, laugh! I fore- warn you that your laughter will not cause me the least chagrin.”
At that moment I met her eyes: tears were welling in them. Her arm, as it leaned upon mine, was trembling; her cheeks were aflame; she pitied me! Sympathy — a feeling to which all women yield so easily, had dug its talons into her inexperienced heart. During the whole excursion she was preoccupied, and did not flirt with anyone — and that is a great sign!
We arrived at the hollow; the ladies left their cavaliers, but she did not let go my arm. The witticisms of the local dandies failed to make her laugh; the steepness of the declivity beside which she was standing caused her no alarm, although the other ladies uttered shrill cries and shut their eyes.
On the way back, I did not renew our melan- choly conversation, but to my idle questions and jests she gave short and absent-minded answers.
“Have you ever been in love?” I asked her at length.
She looked at me intently, shook her head and again fell into a reverie. It was evident that she was wishing to say something, but did not know how to begin. Her breast heaved. . . And, indeed, that was but natural! A muslin sleeve is a weak protection, and an electric spark was running from my arm to hers. Almost all passions have their beginning in that way, and frequently we are very much deceived in thinking that a woman loves us for our moral and physical merits; of course, these prepare and predispose the heart for the reception of the holy flame, but for all that it is the first touch that decides the matter.
“I have been very amiable to-day, have I not?” Princess Mary said to me, with a forced smile, when we had returned from the walk.
We separated.
She is dissatisfied with herself. She accuses herself of coldness. . . Oh, that is the first, the chief triumph!
To-morrow, she will be feeling a desire to recompense me. I know the whole proceeding by heart already — that is what is so tiresome!
CHAPTER IX
12th June.
I HAVE seen Vera to-day. She has begun to plague me with her jealousy. Princess Mary has taken it into her head, it seems, to confide the secrets of her heart to Vera: a happy choice, it must be confessed!
“I can guess what all this is leading to,” said Vera to me. “You had better simply tell me at once that you are in love with her.”
“But supposing I am not in love with
her?”
“Then why run after her, disturb her, agitate her imagination! . . . Oh, I know you well! Listen — if you wish me to believe you, come to Kislovodsk in a week’s time; we shall be moving thither the day after to-morrow. Princess Mary will remain here longer. Engage lodgings next door to us. We shall be living in the large house near the spring, on the mezzanine floor. Princess Ligovski will be below us, and next door there is a house belonging to the same landlord, which has not yet been taken. . . Will you come?” . . .
I gave my promise, and this very same day I have sent to engage the lodgings.
Grushnitski came to me at six o’clock and announced that his uniform would be ready to-morrow, just in time for him to go to the ball in it.
“At last I shall dance with her the whole evening through. . . And then I shall talk to my heart’s content,” he added.
“When is the ball?”
“Why, to-morrow! Do you not know, then? A great festival — and the local authorities have undertaken to organize it” . . .
“Let us go to the boulevard” . . .
“Not on any account, in this nasty cloak” . . .
“What! Have you ceased to love it?” . . .
I went out alone, and, meeting Princess Mary I asked her to keep the mazurka for me. She seemed surprised and delighted.
“I thought that you would only dance from necessity as on the last occasion,” she said, with a very charming smile. . .
She does not seem to notice Grushnitski’s absence at all.
“You will be agreeably surprised to-morrow,” I said to her.
“At what?”
“That is a secret. . . You will find it out yourself, at the ball.”
I finished up the evening at Princess Ligovski’s; there were no other guests present except Vera and a certain very amusing, little old gentleman. I was in good spirits, and improvised various extraordinary stories. Princess Mary sat opposite me and listened to my nonsense with such deep, strained, and even tender attention that I grew ashamed of myself. What had become of her vivacity, her coquetry, her caprices, her haughty mien, her contemptuous smile, her absent- minded glance? . . .
Vera noticed everything, and her sickly coun- tenance was a picture of profound grief. She was sitting in the shadow by the window, buried in a wide arm-chair. . . I pitied her.
Then I related the whole dramatic story of our acquaintanceship, our love — concealing it all, of course, under fictitious names.
So vividly did I portray my tenderness, my anxieties, my raptures; in so favourable a light did I exhibit her actions and her character, that involuntarily she had to forgive me for my flirtation with Princess Mary.
She rose, sat down beside us, and brightened up . . . and it was only at two o’clock in the morning that we remembered that the doctors had ordered her to go to bed at eleven.
CHAPTER X
13th June.
HALF an hour before the ball, Grushnitski presented himself to me in the full splendour of the uniform of the Line infantry. Attached to his third button was a little bronze chain, on which hung a double lorgnette. Epaulettes of incredible size were bent backwards and upwards in the shape of a cupid’s wings; his boots creaked; in his left hand he held cinnamon- coloured kid gloves and a forage-cap, and with his right he kept every moment twisting his frizzled tuft of hair up into tiny curls. Com- placency and at the same time a certain diffi- dence were depicted upon his face. His festal appearance and proud gait would have made me burst out laughing, if such a proceeding had been in accordance with my intentions.
He threw his cap and gloves on the table and began to pull down the skirts of his coat and to put himself to rights before the looking-glass. An enormous black handkerchief, which was twisted into a very high stiffener for his cravat, and the bristles of which supported his chin, stuck out an inch over his collar. It seemed to him to be rather small, and he drew it up as far as his ears. As a result of that hard work — the collar of his uniform being very tight and uncomfortable — he grew red in the face.
“They say you have been courting my princess terribly these last few days?” he said, rather carelessly and without looking at me.
“‘Where are we fools to drink tea!'”[1] I answered, repeating a pet phrase of one of the cleverest rogues of past times, once celebrated in song by Pushkin.
[1] A popular phrase, equivalent to: “How should I think of doing such a thing?”
“Tell me, does my uniform fit me well? . . . Oh, the cursed Jew! . . . How it cuts me under the armpits! . . . Have you got any scent?”
“Good gracious, what more do you want? You are reeking of rose pomade as it is.”
“Never mind. Give me some” . . .
He poured half a phial over his cravat, his pocket-handkerchief, his sleeves.
“You are going to dance?” he asked.
“I think not.”
“I am afraid I shall have to lead off the mazurka with Princess Mary, and I scarcely know a single figure” . . .
“Have you asked her to dance the mazurka with you?”
“Not yet” . . .
“Mind you are not forestalled” . . .
“Just so, indeed!” he said, striking his fore- head. “Good-bye. . . I will go and wait for her at the entrance.”
He seized his forage-cap and ran.
Half an hour later I also set off. The street was dark and deserted. Around the assembly rooms, or inn — whichever you prefer — people were thronging. The windows were lighted up, the strains of the regimental band were borne to me on the evening breeze. I walked slowly; I felt melancholy.
“Can it be possible,” I thought, “that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and to act, it seems always to have been my fate to play a part in the ending of other people’s dramas, as if, but for me, no one could either die or fall into despair! I have been the indispensable person of the fifth act; unwillingly I have played the pitiful part of an executioner or a traitor. What object has fate had in this? . . . Surely, I have not been appointed by destiny to be an author of middle- class tragedies and family romances, or to be a collaborator with the purveyor of stories — for the ‘Reader’s Library,'[1] for example? . . . How can I tell? . . . Are there not many people who, in beginning life, think to end it like Lord Byron or Alexander the Great, and, nevertheless, remain Titular Councillors[2] all their days?”
[1] Published by Senkovski, and under the censorship of the Government.
[2] Civil servants of the ninth (the lowest) class.
Entering the saloon, I concealed myself in a crowd of men, and began to make my observa- tions.
Grushnitski was standing beside Princess Mary and saying something with great warmth. She was listening to him absent-mindedly and looking about her, her fan laid to her lips. Impatience was depicted upon her face, her eyes were searching all around for somebody. I went softly behind them in order to listen to their conversation.
“You torture me, Princess!” Grushnitski was saying. “You have changed dreadfully since I saw you last” . . .
“You, too, have changed,” she answered, casting a rapid glance at him, in which he was unable to detect the latent sneer.
“I! Changed? . . . Oh, never! You know that such a thing is impossible! Whoever has seen you once will bear your divine image with him for ever.”
“Stop” . . .
“But why will you not let me say to-night what you have so often listened to with con- descension — and just recently, too?” . . .
“Because I do not like repetitions,” she answered, laughing.
“Oh! I have been bitterly mistaken! . . . I thought, fool that I was, that these epaulettes, at least, would give me the right to hope. . . No, it would have been better for me to have remained for ever in that contemptible soldier’s cloak, to which, probably, I was indebted for your attention” . . .
“As a matter of fact, the cloak is much more becoming to you” . . .
At that moment I went up and bowed to Princess Mary. She blushed a little, and went on rapidly:
“Is it not true, Monsieur Pechorin, that the grey cloak suits Monsieur Grushnitski much better?” . . .
“I do not agree with you,” I answered: “he is more youthful-looking still in his uniform.”
That was a blow which Grushnitski could not bear: like all boys, he has pretensions to being an old man; he thinks that the deep traces of passions upon his countenance take the place of the lines scored by Time. He cast a furious glance at me, stamped his foot, and took himself off.
“Confess now,” I said to Princess Mary: “that although he has always been most ridiculous, yet not so long ago he seemed to you to be inter- esting . . . in the grey cloak?” . . .
She cast her eyes down and made no reply.
Grushnitski followed the Princess about during the whole evening and danced either with her or vis-a-vis. He devoured her with his eyes, sighed, and wearied her with prayers and reproaches. After the third quadrille she had begun to hate him.
“I did not expect this from you,” he said, coming up to me and taking my arm.
“What?”
“You are going to dance the mazurka with her?” he asked in a solemn tone. “She ad- mitted it” . . .
“Well, what then? It is not a secret, is it”?*
“Of course not. . . I ought to have expected such a thing from that chit — that flirt. . . I will have my revenge, though!”
“You should lay the blame on your cloak, or your epaulettes, but why accuse her? What fault is it of hers that she does not like you any longer?” . . .
“But why give me hopes?”
“Why did you hope? To desire and to strive after something — that I can understand! But who ever hopes?”
“You have won the wager, but not quite,” he said, with a malignant smile.
The mazurka began. Grushnitski chose no one but the Princess, other cavaliers chose her every minute: obviously a conspiracy against me — all the better! She wants to talk to me, they are preventing her — she will want to twice as much.
I squeezed her hand once or twice; the second time she drew it away without saying a word.
“I shall sleep badly to-night,” she said to me when the mazurka was over.
“Grushnitski is to blame for that.”
“Oh, no!”
And her face became so pensive, so sad, that I promised myself that I would not fail to kiss her hand that evening.
The guests began to disperse. As I was handing Princess Mary into her carriage, I rapidly pressed her little hand to my lips. The night was dark and nobody could see.
I returned to the saloon very well satisfied with myself.
The young men, Grushnitski amongst them, were having supper at the large table. As I came in, they all fell silent: evidently they had been talking about me. Since the last ball many of them have been sulky with me, especially the captain of dragoons; and now, it seems, a hostile gang is actually being formed against me, under the command of
Grushnitski. He wears such a proud and courageous air. . .
I am very glad; I love enemies, though not in the Christian sense. They amuse me, stir my blood. To be always on one’s guard, to catch every glance, the meaning of every word, to guess intentions, to crush conspiracies, to pretend to be deceived and suddenly with one blow to over- throw the whole immense and laboriously con- structed edifice of cunning and design — that is what I call life.
During supper Grushnitski kept whispering and exchanging winks with the captain of dragoons.
CHAPTER XI
14th June.
VERA and her husband left this morning for Kislovodsk. I met their carriage as I was walking to Princess Ligovski’s. Vera nodded to me: reproach was in her glance.
Who is to blame, then? Why will she not give me an opportunity of seeing her alone? Love is like fire — if not fed it dies out. Perchance, jealousy will accomplish what my entreaties have failed to do.
I stayed a whole hour at Princess Ligovski’s. Mary has not been out, she is ill. In the evening she was not on the boulevard. The newly formed gang, armed with lorgnettes, has in very fact assumed a menacing aspect. I am glad that Princess Mary is ill; they might be guilty of some impertinence towards her. Grushnitski goes about with dishevelled locks, and wears an appearance of despair: he is evidently afflicted, as a matter of fact; his vanity especially has been injured. But, you see, there are some people in whom even despair is divert- ing! . . .
On my way home I noticed that something was lacking. I have not seen her! She is ill! Surely I have not fallen in love with her in real earnest? . . . What nonsense!
CHAPTER XII
15th June.
AT eleven o’clock in the morning — the hour at which Princess Ligovski is usually perspiring in the Ermolov baths — I walked past her house. Princess Mary was sitting pensively at the window; on seeing me she sprang up.
I entered the ante-room, there was nobody there, and, availing myself of the freedom afforded by the local customs, I made my way, unan- nounced, into the drawing-room.
Princess Mary’s charming countenance was shrouded with a dull pallor. She was standing by the pianoforte, leaning one hand on the back of an arm-chair; her hand was very faintly trembling. I went up to her softly and
said:
“You are angry with me?” . . .
She lifted a deep, languid glance upon me and shook her head. Her lips were about to utter something, but failed; her eyes filled with tears; she sank into the arm-chair and buried her face in her hands.
“What is the matter with you?” I said, taking her hand.
“You do not respect me! . . . Oh, leave me!” . . .
I took a few steps. . . She drew herself up in the chair, her eyes sparkled.
I stopped still, took hold of the handle of the door, and said:
“Forgive me, Princess. I have acted like a madman. . . It will not happen another time; I shall see to that. . . But how can you know what has been taking place hitherto within my soul? That you will never learn, and so much the better for you. Farewell.”
As I was going out, I seemed to hear her weeping.
I wandered on foot about the environs of Mount Mashuk till evening, fatigued myself terribly and, on arriving home, flung myself on my bed, utterly exhausted.
Werner came to see me.
“Is it true,” he asked, “that you are going to marry Princess Mary?”
“What?”
“The whole town is saying so. All my
patients are occupied with that important piece of news; but you know what these patients are: they know everything.”
“This is one of Grushnitski’s tricks,” I said to myself.
“To prove the falsity of these rumours, doctor, I may mention, as a secret, that I am moving to Kislovodsk to-morrow” . . .
“And Princess Mary, too?”
“No, she remains here another week” . . .
“So you are not going to get married?” . . .
“Doctor, doctor! Look at me! Am I in the least like a bridegroom, or any such thing?”
“I am not saying so. . . But you know there are occasions . . .” he added, with a crafty smile — “in which an honourable man is obliged to marry, and there are mothers who, to say the least, do not prevent such occasions. . . And so, as a friend, I should advise you to be more cautious. The air of these parts is very dangerous. How many handsome young men, worthy of a better fate, have I not seen departing from here straight to the altar! . . . Would you believe me, they were even going to find a wife for me! That is to say, one person was — a lady belonging to this district, who had a very pale daughter. I had the misfortune to tell her that the latter’s colour would be restored after wedlock, and then with tears of gratitude she offered me her daughter’s hand and the whole of her own fortune — fifty souls,[1] I think. But I replied that I was unfit for such an honour.”
[1] i.e. serfs.
Werner left, fully convinced that he had put me on my guard.
I gathered from his words that various ugly rumours were already being spread about the town on the subject of Princess Mary and myself: Grushnitski shall smart for this!
CHAPTER XIII
18th June.
I HAVE been in Kislovodsk three days now. Every day I see Vera at the well and out walking. In the morning, when I awake, I sit by my window and direct my lorgnette at her balcony. She has already been dressed long ago, and is waiting for the signal agreed upon. We meet, as though unexpectedly, in the garden which slopes down from our houses to the well. The life-giving mountain air has brought back her colour and her strength. Not for nothing is Narzan called the “Spring of Heroes.” The inhabitants aver that the air of Kislovodsk pre- disposes the heart to love and that all the romances which have had their beginning at the foot of Mount Mashuk find their consummation here. And, in very fact, everything here breathes of solitude; everything has an air of secrecy — the thick shadows of the linden avenues, bending over the torrent which falls, noisy and foaming, from flag to flag and cleaves itself a way between the mountains now becoming clad with verdure — the mist-filled, silent ravines, with their rami- fications straggling away in all directions — the freshness of the aromatic air, laden with the fragrance of the tall southern grasses and the white acacia — the never-ceasing, sweetly-slumber- ous babble of the cool brooks, which, meeting at the end of the valley, flow along in friendly emulation, and finally fling themselves into the Podkumok. On this side, the ravine is wider and becomes converted into a verdant dell, through which winds the dusty road. Every time I look at it, I seem to see a carriage coming along and a rosy little face looking out of the carriage-window. Many carriages have already driven by — but still there is no sign of that particular one. The village which lies behind the fortress has become populous. In the restaurant, built upon a hill a few paces distant from my lodgings, lights are beginning to flash in the evening through the double row of poplars; noise and the jingling of glasses resound till late at night.
In no place are such quantities of Kakhetian wine and mineral waters drunk as here.
“And many are willing to mix the two,
But that is a thing I never do.”
Every day Grushnitski and his gang are to be found brawling in the inn, and he has almost ceased to greet me.
He only arrived yesterday, and has already succeeded in quarrelling with three old men who were going to take their places in the baths before him.
Decidedly, his misfortunes are developing a warlike spirit within him.
CHAPTER XIV
22nd June.
AT last they have arrived. I was sitting by the window when I heard the clattering of their carriage. My heart throbbed. . . What does it mean? Can it be that I am in love? . . . I am so stupidly constituted that such a thing might be expected of me.
I dined at their house. Princess Ligovski looked at me with much tenderness, and did not leave her daughter’s side . . . a bad sign! On the other hand, Vera is jealous of me in re- gard to Princess Mary — however, I have been striving for that good fortune. What will not a woman do in order to chagrin her rival? I re- member that once a woman loved me simply because I was in love with another woman. There is nothing more paradoxical than the fe- male mind; it is difficult to convince a woman of anything; they have to be led into convincing themselves. The order of the proofs by which they demolish their prejudices is most original; to learn their dialectic it is necessary to over- throw in your own mind every scholastic rule of logic. For example, the usual way:
“This man loves me; but I am married: therefore I must not love him.”
The woman’s way:
“I must not love him, because I am married; but he loves me — therefore” . . .
A few dots here, because reason has no more to say. But, generally, there is something to be said by the tongue, and the eyes, and, after these, the heart — if there is such a thing.
What if these notes should one day meet a woman’s eye?
“Slander!” she will exclaim indignantly.
Ever since poets have written and women have read them (for which the poets should be most deeply grateful) women have been called angels so many times that, in very truth, in their sim- plicity of soul, they have believed the compli- ment, forgetting that, for money, the same poets have glorified Nero as a demigod. . .
It would be unreasonable were I to speak of women with such malignity — I who have loved nothing else in the world — I who have always been ready to sacrifice for their sake ease, am- bition, life itself. . . But, you see, I am not endeavouring, in a fit of vexation and injured vanity, to pluck from them the magic veil through which only an accustomed glance can penetrate. No, all that I say about them is but the result of
“A mind which coldly hath observed,
A heart which bears the stamp of woe.”[1]
[1] Pushkin: Eugene Onyegin.
Women ought to wish that all men knew them as well as I because I have loved them a hundred times better since I have ceased to be afraid of them and have comprehended their little weaknesses.
By the way: the other day, Werner compared women to the enchanted forest of which Tasso tells in his “Jerusalem Delivered.”[2]
“So soon as you approach,” he said, “from all directions terrors, such as I pray Heaven may preserve us from, will take wing at you: duty, pride, decorum, public opinion, ridicule, con- tempt. . . You must simply go straight on without looking at them; gradually the monsters disappear, and, before you, opens a bright and quiet glade, in the midst of which blooms the green myrtle. On the other hand, woe to you if, at the first steps, your heart trembles and you turn back!”
[2] Canto XVIII, 10:
“Quinci al bosco t’ invia, dove cotanti
Son fantasmi inganne vole e bugiardi” . . .
CHAPTER XV
24th June.
THIS evening has been fertile in events. About three versts from Kislovodsk, in the gorge through which the Podkumok flows, there is a cliff called the Ring. It is a naturally formed gate, rising upon a lofty hill, and through it the setting sun throws its last flaming glance upon the world. A numerous cavalcade set off thither to gaze at the sunset through the rock-window. To tell the truth, not one of them was thinking about the sun. I rode beside Princess Mary. On the way home, we had to ford the Podkumok. Mountain streams, even the smallest, are danger- ous; especially so, because the bottom is a perfect kaleidoscope: it changes every day owing to the pressure of the current; where yesterday there was a rock, to-day there is a cavity. I took Prin- cess Mary’s horse by the bridle and led it into the water, which came no higher than its knees. We began to move slowly in a slanting direction against the current. It is a well-known fact that, in crossing rapid streamlets, you should never look at the water, because, if you do, your head begins to whirl directly. I forgot to warn Princess Mary of that.
We had reached the middle and were right in the vortex, when suddenly she reeled in her saddle.
“I feel ill!” she said in a faint voice.
I bent over to her rapidly and threw my arm around her supple waist.
“Look up!” I whispered. “It is nothing; just be brave! I am with you.”
She grew better; she was about to disengage herself from my arm, but I clasped her tender, soft figure in a still closer embrace; my cheek almost touched hers, from which was wafted flame.
“What are you doing to me? . . . Oh,
Heaven!” . . .
I paid no attention to her alarm and confusion, and my lips touched her tender cheek. She shud- dered, but said nothing. We were riding behind the others: nobody saw us.
When we made our way out on the bank, the horses were all put to the trot. Princess Mary kept hers back; I remained beside her. It was evident that my silence was making her uneasy, but I swore to myself that I would not speak a single word — out of curiosity. I wanted to see how she would extricate herself from that em- barrassing position.
“Either you despise me, or you love me very much!” she said at length, and there were tears in her voice. “Perhaps you want to laugh at me, to excite my soul and then to abandon me. . . That would be so base, so vile, that the mere supposition . . . Oh, no!” she added, in a voice of tender trustfulness; “there is nothing in me which would preclude respect; is it not so? Your presumptuous action . . . I must, I must forgive you for it, because I permitted it. . . Answer, speak, I want to hear your voice!” . . .
There was such womanly impatience in her last words that, involuntarily, I smiled; happily it was beginning to grow dusk. . . I made no answer.
“You are silent!” she continued; “you wish, perhaps, that I should be the first to tell you that I love you.” . . .
I remained silent.
“Is that what you wish?” she continued, turning rapidly towards me. . . . There was something terrible in the determination of her glance and voice.
“Why?” I answered, shrugging my shoulders.
She struck her horse with her riding-whip and set off at full gallop along the narrow, dangerous road. It all happened so quickly that I was scarcely able to overtake her, and then only by the time she had joined the rest of the company.
All the way home she was continually talk- ing and laughing. There was something feverish in her movements; not once did she look in my direction. Everybody observed her unusual gaiety. Princess Ligovski rejoiced inwardly as she looked at her daughter. However, the latter simply has a fit of nerves: she will spend a sleep- less night, and will weep.
This thought affords me measureless delight: there are moments when I understand the Vam- pire. . . And yet I am reputed to be a good fellow, and I strive to earn that designation!
On dismounting, the ladies went into Princess Ligovski’s house. I was excited, and I galloped to the mountains in order to dispel the thoughts which had thronged into my head. The dewy evening breathed an intoxicating coolness. The moon was rising from behind the dark summits. Each step of my unshod horse resounded hollowly in the silence of the gorges. I watered the horse at the waterfall, and then, after greedily inhaling once or twice the fresh air of the southern night,
I set off on my way back. I rode through the village. The lights in the windows were begin- ning to go out; the sentries on the fortress- rampart and the Cossacks in the surrounding pickets were calling out in drawling tones to one another.
In one of the village houses, built at the edge of a ravine, I noticed an extraordinary illumina- tion. At times, discordant murmurs and shouting could be heard, proving that a military carouse was in full swing. I dismounted and crept up to the window. The shutter had not been made fast, and I could see the banqueters and catch what they were saying. They were talking about me.
The captain of dragoons, flushed with wine, struck the table with his fist, demanding attention.
“Gentlemen!” he said, “this won’t do! Pechorin must be taught a lesson! These Peters- burg fledglings always carry their heads high until they get a slap in the face! He thinks that be- cause he always wears clean gloves and polished boots he is the only one who has ever lived in society. And what a haughty smile! All the same, I am convinced that he is a coward — yes, a coward!”
“I think so too,” said Grushnitski. “He is fond of getting himself out of trouble by pre- tending to be only having a joke. I once gave him such a talking to that anyone else in his place would have cut me to pieces on the spot. But Pechorin turned it all to the ridiculous side. I, of course, did not call him out because that was his business, but he did not care to have anything more to do with it.”
“Grushnitski is angry with him for having captured Princess Mary from him,” somebody said.
“That’s a new idea! It is true I did run after Princess Mary a little, but I left off at once be- cause I do not want to get married; and it is against my rules to compromise a girl.”
“Yes, I assure you that he is a coward of the first water, I mean Pechorin, not Grushnitski — but Grushnitski is a fine fellow, and, besides, he is my true friend!” the captain of dragoons went on.
“Gentlemen! Nobody here stands up for him? Nobody? So much the better! Would
you like to put his courage to the test? It would be amusing” . . .
“We would; but how?”
“Listen here, then: Grushnitski in particular is angry with him — therefore to Grushnitski falls the chief part. He will pick a quarrel over some silly trifle or other, and will challenge Pechorin to a duel. . . Wait a bit; here is where the joke comes in. . . He will challenge him to a duel; very well! The whole proceed- ing — challenge, preparations, conditions — will be as solemn and awe-inspiring as possible — I will see to that. I will be your second, my poor friend! Very well! Only here is the rub; we will put no bullets in the pistols. I can answer for it that Pechorin will turn coward — I will place them six paces apart, devil take it! Are you agreed, gentlemen?”
“Splendid idea! . . . Agreed! . . . And why not?” . . . came from all sides.
“And you, Grushnitski?”
Tremblingly I awaited Grushnitski’s answer. I was filled with cold rage at the thought that, but for an accident, I might have made myself the laughing-stock of those fools. If Grushnitski had not agreed, I should have thrown myself upon his neck; but, after an interval of silence, he rose from his place, extended his hand to the captain, and said very gravely:
“Very well, I agree!”
It would be difficult to describe the enthusiasm of that honourable company.
I returned home, agitated by two different feel- ings. The first was sorrow.
“Why do they all hate me?” I thought — “why? Have I affronted anyone? No. Can it be that I am one of those men the mere sight of whom is enough to create animosity?”
And I felt a venomous rage gradually filling my soul.
“Have a care, Mr. Grushnitski!” I said, walk- ing up and down the room: “I am not to be jested with like this! You may pay dearly for the approbation of your foolish comrades. I am not your toy!” . . .
I got no sleep that night. By daybreak I was as yellow as an orange.
In the morning I met Princess Mary at the well.
“You are ill?” she said, looking intently at me.
“I did not sleep last night.”
“Nor I either. . . I was accusing you . . . perhaps groundlessly. But explain yourself, I can forgive you everything” . . .
“Everything?” . . .
“Everything . . . only speak the truth . . . and be quick. . . You see, I have been thinking a good deal, trying to explain, to justify, your be- haviour. Perhaps you are afraid of opposition on the part of my relations . . . that will not matter. When they learn” . . .
Her voice shook.
“I will win them over by entreaties. Or, is it your own position? . . . But you know that I can sacrifice everything for the sake of the man I love. . . Oh, answer quickly — have pity. . . You do not despise me — do you?”
She seized my hand.
Princess Ligovski was walking in front of us with Vera’s husband, and had not seen anything; but we might have been observed by some of the invalids who were strolling about — the most in- quisitive gossips of all inquisitive folk — and I rapidly disengaged my hand from her passionate pressure.
“I will tell you the whole truth,” I answered. “I will not justify myself, nor explain my ac- tions: I do not love you.”
Her lips grew slightly pale.
“Leave me,” she said, in a scarcely audible voice.
I shrugged my shoulders, turned round, and walked away.
CHAPTER XVI