‘Princess …’ I began.
‘First of all, you must call me Zinaida Alexandrovna. And secondly, what’s the sense in children—’ (she corrected herself) ‘—young people, I mean, not saying straight out what they feel? That’s all very well for grown-ups. You do like me, don’t you?’
Although I was greatly enjoying the way she talked so frankly to me, I was rather hurt. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t a little boy, so I did my best to put on a nonchalant, serious air and announced:
‘Of course, Zinaida Alexandrovna, I like you a lot. I wouldn’t want to hide that.’
She very deliberately shook her head.
‘Have you got a tutor?’ she asked suddenly.
‘No, I haven’t had one for ages.’
I was lying. Not a month had passed since my Frenchman had left us.
‘Oh! Yes, I see, you’re quite grown up.’
She tapped me lightly on the fingers.
‘Hold your arms out straight!’—And she carried on carefully winding her ball of wool.
She kept her eyes lowered, and I took advantage to begin watching her, first stealthily and then more and more boldly. Her face looked even more beautiful than the day before—everything about it was so delicate, intelligent and charming. She was sitting with her back to a window with a white blind over it. A sunbeam shining through the blind shed a soft light on her fluffy golden hair, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders and tender, untroubled bosom. I gazed at her—how close and dear she was to me! I felt that I had known her for a very long time, and that before her, I had never known anything, nor ever lived … She was wearing a shabby, dark dress and an apron; I think I would have been happy to caress every fold of both dress and apron. The tips of her boots peeped out from under the hem of her dress: I could have knelt down in adoration before them. ‘And here I am, sitting in front of her,’ I thought, ‘I’ve come to know her … my God, what happiness!’ In my delight, I almost jumped up from my chair, but instead I just swung my legs a bit, like a child munching on a treat.
I felt as happy as a fish in water; I should have liked never to leave that room, nor move from my place.
Slowly she raised her eyelids, and once again her clear eyes shone gently at me—and once again she smiled.
‘How you’re looking at me!’ she said slowly, wagging a forefinger at me.
I blushed. ‘She understands everything—she sees everything!’—the thought flashed through my mind. ‘And how could she fail to see and understand everything?’
Suddenly there were noises in the next room, and the clink of a sabre.
‘Zina!’ the old princess called from the drawing room. ‘Belovzorov has brought you a kitten.’
‘A kitten!’ squealed Zinaida, leaping up from her chair. She tossed the ball of wool onto my knees and rushed out of the room.
I got up too, laid the skein and the ball of wool on the windowsill, and went back to the drawing room. There I halted in amazement. In the middle of the room lay a tabby kitten, its paws spreadeagled on the floor. Zinaida was on her knees beside it, gently raising its head. Standing by the old princess, and occupying almost the whole stretch of wall between the two windows, was a curly-headed blond young hussar with a ruddy complexion and bulging eyes.
‘Isn’t it funny!’ Zinaida kept repeating. ‘And its eyes aren’t grey but green. And what big ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegorich. That was very sweet of you.’
The hussar, whom I recognized as one of the young men I had seen the day before, smiled and bowed, clicking his spurs and jingling his sabre chain.
‘Yesterday you were good enough to say that you wished to have a tabby kitten with big ears … so I got one for you. Your word is law.’ And he bowed once more.
The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the floor.
‘It’s hungry!’ cried Zinaida. ‘Boniface! Sonia! Bring some milk!’
A maid in an old yellow dress with a faded kerchief round her neck brought in a saucer of milk and placed it in front of the kitten. The kitten gave a start, blinked and began lapping it up.
‘How pink its little tongue is,’ remarked Zinaida, bending her head almost down to the floor and peering right under the kitten’s nose.
After drinking its fill, the kitten purred and daintily licked its paws. Zinaida stood up, turned to the maid and said carelessly, ‘Take it away.’
‘In return for the kitten, I claim your hand,’ simpered the hussar, drawing up his mighty frame tightly squeezed into a brand-new uniform.
‘Both of them,’ rejoined Zinaida, holding out her hands to him. As he kissed them, she looked over his shoulder at me.
I stood stock still, not knowing whether to laugh, say something or keep quiet. Suddenly, through the open doorway to the passage, I caught sight of our footman Fyodor making signs to me. I went out to him in a daze.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Your mama has sent for you,’ he whispered. ‘She is annoyed with you for not coming back with an answer.’
‘Why, have I been here long?’
‘Over an hour.’
‘Over an hour!’ I blurted out, returning to the drawing room and beginning to scrape my heels and make my bows.
‘Where are you off to?’ asked the young princess, looking at me over the hussar’s shoulder.
‘I have to go home. So I’ll tell my mother,’ I added to the old princess, ‘that you’ll pay us a visit after one o’clock.’
‘Yes, young man, please do.’
Hurriedly she pulled out her snuffbox, and gave such a loud sniff that I started.
‘Please do tell her,’ she repeated with a grunt, blinking her rheumy eyes.
I bowed once more, turned and left the room, with that awkward tingle in my spine which any very young man has when he knows that everyone is watching him leave.
‘Now mind, Monsieur Voldemar, mind you come back and see us,’ cried Zinaida, bursting out laughing again.
‘Why does she keep laughing?’ I wondered as I walked home, while Fyodor followed silently behind me exuding disapproval. Mama scolded me and demanded to know what on earth had kept me so long at the princess’s. I went straight up to my room without answering. I was suddenly feeling very sad, and trying hard not to cry … I was jealous of the hussar.
V
The princess called on my mother as she had promised. My mother did not take to her. I wasn’t present at their meeting, but at dinner Mama told my father that she found this Princess Zasekina une femme très vulgaire. The princess had annoyed my mother by repeatedly begging her to intercede with Prince Sergey on her behalf; she seemed to be engaged in endless lawsuits—des vilaines affaires d’argent—and must be a terrible troublemaker. But then my mother added that she had invited the princess and her daughter to dinner next day (on hearing the word ‘daughter’, I buried my nose in my plate), because when all was said and done, she was our neighbour and a titled lady. To this my father observed that he now remembered who this lady was. As a young man he had known the late Prince Zasekin, a very well-bred but absurdly empty-headed person, who had spent so long in Paris that he was nicknamed ‘Le Parisien’. He used to be very rich, but lost his whole fortune at cards; and then for some reason, nobody knew why, though it might have been for money (and he could have made a better choice, added my father with a frosty smile), he had married the daughter of some business agent. After which he started speculating and hopelessly ruined himself.
‘I hope she doesn’t come asking for a loan,’ remarked my mother.
‘She may well do,’ said my father calmly. ‘Does she speak French?’
‘Very badly.’
‘Hmm. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I believe you said you’d invited her daughter too. Someone was telling me that she’s a very pretty and cultured girl.’
‘Ah! Then she doesn’t take after her mother.’
‘Nor her father either,’ he replied. ‘That man was quite well educated, but stupid.’
&n
bsp; My mother sighed and looked thoughtful. My father said no more. I had been feeling very uncomfortable all through this conversation.
After dinner I went out into the garden, but without my gun. I had promised myself not to go near the Zasekins’ garden, but an irresistible force drew me towards it, and with good reason. Even before I reached the fence, I caught sight of Zinaida. This time she was alone. She was holding a little book and walking slowly along the path. She did not notice me.
I very nearly let her pass by, but all at once I thought better of it and coughed.
She turned, but did not stop. Drawing back the broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat with her hand, she looked at me, smiled a gentle smile and fixed her eyes on her book again.
I took off my cap, hesitated a moment or two, and then walked away with a heavy heart. ‘Que suis-je pour elle?’ I asked myself—in French, heaven knows why.
I heard familiar footsteps behind me. Looking round, I saw my father coming after me with his light, rapid step.
‘Is that the young princess?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know her, then?’
‘I met her this morning at her mother’s.’
My father stopped, turned abruptly on his heels and went back. When he came up alongside Zinaida he bowed politely. She returned his bow, looking rather surprised, and lowered her book. I saw her following him with her eyes. My father was always very elegantly dressed, with a simple style of his own; but I had never seen him look so graceful, nor ever seen his grey hat sit so finely on his barely thinning hair.
I made to move towards Zinaida, but she did not even spare me a look. Raising her book again, she walked off.
VI
I spent all that evening and next morning in a state of numb misery. I tried to work, I remember, and picked up my Kaidanov; I stared and stared at the large print in that famous textbook, but it was no use. Ten times over I read the words ‘Julius Caesar was renowned for his military prowess’ but nothing got through to me, and I gave up. Before dinner I pomaded my hair and put on my tailcoat and tie again.
‘What’s all this for?’ asked my mother. ‘You aren’t a student yet—heaven knows whether you’ll pass your exams. And you haven’t had your jacket long. You can’t just throw it away!’
‘We’ve got guests coming,’ I whispered hopelessly.
‘Rubbish! Guests indeed!’
I had to give in. I took off the tailcoat and put on my jacket instead, but I kept the tie on. The old princess and her daughter turned up half an hour before dinnertime. The mother was wearing a yellow shawl over the green dress I had already seen, and an old-fashioned cap with flame-coloured ribbons. She started straight off talking about her bills of exchange, sighing and complaining about how poor she was, whimpering about how she needed help, noisily sniffing her snuff, wriggling and twisting about on her chair, and utterly forgetting her dignity as a princess. Zinaida, for her part, held herself quite primly, almost haughtily, like a real princess. Her expression was so unbendingly cold and dignified that I barely recognized her; I had never seen her look like that or smile like that—but I found her just as beautiful like this. Her gauzy summer dress had a pale-blue motif on it. She wore her long hair down, framing her face in the English style, which matched the cold expression on her face. My father sat next to her during our meal, entertaining his neighbour with his characteristic calm, elegant courtesy. From time to time he would cast a glance at her—and she would glance at him, with a very strange, almost hostile look. They talked French, and I remember being astonished at the purity of her accent. During the meal, the old princess went on behaving with great freedom, eating a great deal and praising the food she was served. My mother was visibly bored with her, answering her questions with a kind of wan indifference. Occasionally my father gave a faint frown. My mother did not like Zinaida either.
‘A stuck-up little miss,’ she said next day. ‘And what’s she got to be so conceited about, avec sa mine de grisette!’
‘You’ve obviously never seen any grisettes,’ my father remarked.
‘And thank goodness for that!’
‘Well, thank goodness indeed—but how can you be judging them, then?’
Zinaida had not paid me the slightest attention during dinner, and as soon as it was over her mother began taking her leave.
‘I shall hope for your kind offices, Marya Nikolaevna and Piotr Vasilyich,’ she intoned to my mother and father. ‘What can I do? We had some good times, but they’re over now. And here I am—an excellency,’ she went on with an unpleasant laugh, ‘what a useless honour when we’ve nothing to eat!’
My father gave her a respectful bow and saw her to the hall door. I was standing right there, in my short little jacket, staring at the floor like a man condemned to death. I was utterly crushed by Zinaida’s treatment of me. Imagine my amazement when, as she passed me, she quickly whispered, with the old affectionate look in her eyes, ‘Come over at eight o’clock, do you hear? Without fail …’
I flung out my arms in surprise—but she was gone, throwing a white scarf over her hair as she went out.
VII
On the stroke of eight I walked into the hallway of the little lodge where the princess lived, wearing my tailcoat and with my hair brushed up in a quiff over my brow. The old servant gave me a morose look and got up unwillingly from his bench. I could hear merry voices coming from the drawing room. I opened the door, and stepped back in astonishment. The young princess was standing on a chair in the middle of the room, holding a man’s hat in front of her, with five men gathered around the chair. Each was trying to dip a hand into the hat, which she was holding high in the air and shaking vigorously. When she caught sight of me, she cried out:
‘Stop, wait! Here’s another guest, he has to have a ticket too!’ Then she jumped down from the chair and took me by my sleeve. ‘Come on, then!’ she said. ‘What are you waiting for? Messieurs, allow me to introduce you: this is Monsieur Voldemar, our neighbours’ son. And these,’ she added, turning to me and pointing out her guests in turn, ‘are Count Malevsky, Doctor Lushin, Maidanov the poet, retired Captain Nirmatsky, and Belovzorov, the hussar you’ve already met. I hope you’ll be friends.’
I was so embarrassed, I did not even bow to anyone. I recognized Doctor Lushin as the same dark-skinned gentleman who had so mercilessly humiliated me in the garden. The others I had never seen before.
‘Count!’ Zinaida went on, ‘write out a ticket for Monsieur Voldemar.’
‘That’s not fair,’ objected the count, talking with a slight Polish accent. He was a very handsome man, stylishly dressed, with brown hair and expressive dark-brown eyes, a narrow little white nose and a thin moustache over his tiny mouth. ‘This gentleman hasn’t been playing forfeits with us.’
‘Yes, unfair,’ echoed Belovzorov and the gentleman described as a retired captain—a man of about forty, repulsively pockmarked, frizzy-haired as a blackamoor, round-shouldered, bow-legged, and dressed in an unbuttoned military tunic with no epaulettes.
‘Go on, write him a ticket, I say,’ repeated the princess. ‘What’s this, a mutiny? Monsieur Voldemar is here for the first time, and he’s excused all the rules. There’s no use grumbling, write it out, that’s what I want.’
The count shrugged, bowed his head obediently, picked up a pen in his white hand with its many rings, tore off a scrap of paper and began writing.
‘At least let us tell Monsieur Voldemar what’s going on,’ began Lushin sarcastically, ‘otherwise he’ll be completely in the dark. You see, young man, we’re playing at forfeits; the princess has lost, and now whoever draws the lucky ticket will have the right to kiss her hand. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
I merely looked at him and remained standing there in bewilderment, while the princess jumped back onto the chair and began shaking the hat again. Everyone stretched their arms up, and I did the same.
‘Maidanov,’ said the princess to a tall young man with
a thin face, half-blind little eyes and extremely long black hair, ‘as a poet, you ought to be magnanimous and let Monsieur Voldemar have your ticket, so that he has two chances instead of just one.’
But Maidanov shook his head and tossed his hair aside. I took my turn last, dipped my hand into the hat, picked out a paper and unfolded it. Oh Lord! Imagine my feelings when I read the word ‘Kiss!’
‘A kiss!’ I could not help crying out.
‘Bravo! He’s won,’ said the princess. ‘I’m so glad!’ She stepped down off the chair and looked me in the eyes with such a bright, sweet gaze that my heart leapt up. ‘Are you glad too?’ she asked.
‘Me? …’ I stammered
‘Sell me your ticket,’ Belovzorov suddenly barked beside my ear. ‘I’ll give you a hundred roubles for it.’
I replied with a look of such indignation that Zinaida clapped her hands, while Lushin cried ‘Well done!’
‘But,’ he went on, ‘as master of ceremonies, I have to see that all the rules are observed. Monsieur Voldemar, get down on one knee. That’s how we do things here.’
Zinaida stood in front of me, leaned her head a little to one side, as if to take a better look at me, and ceremoniously extended her hand. My head swam; I tried to get down on one knee, but sank onto both, and pressed my lips against Zinaida’s fingers so clumsily that her fingernail gave my nose a slight scratch.
‘Very good!’ cried Lushin, and helped me to my feet.
The game of forfeits continued. Zinaida placed me next to her. What amazing penalties she thought up! She herself, for instance, had to pretend to ‘be a statue’—and for her pedestal she chose ugly Nirmatsky, ordering him to lie face down on the floor and even bend his head down on his chest. The laughter never ceased for a second. I myself had had a dull, lonely upbringing in a traditional genteel home, and all this noise and uproar, this unconstrained and almost riotous merriment, these outrageous goings-on with complete strangers, utterly turned my head. I was as drunk as though from too much wine. I began laughing and chattering louder than anyone else, so that even the old princess, sitting in the next room with some clerk from the Iberian Gate whom she had summoned for a consultation, came out to take a look at me. But I was feeling so happy, I couldn’t have cared less about people laughing at me or giving me odd looks.
Love and Youth Page 2