by Leo Tolstoy
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 Fëdor Túrbin, Anna Fëdorovna 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! Ustyúshka! … 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 Fëdorovna, 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 Fëdorovna 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 Fëdorovna, 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 really 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 to-day, 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 Ustyúshka 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 surroundings seemed to have a good influence on the count’s spirits. He smiled merrily, joked with Ustyúshka 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 incomparably superior to the former generation.
Anna Fëdorovna did not agree – no one could be superior to Count Fëdor Iványch Túrbin – 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 Fëdor Iványch danced the écossaise 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 Fëdorovna. ‘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 Fëdorovna.’
‘Isn’t it all the same? Give them 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 Fëdorovna 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 alon
g,’ he said to Pólozov.
‘Really it would be better not to go,’ answered the cornet. ‘Ils feront des frais pour nous recevoir.’20
‘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!’21 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 Fëdorovna 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 Fëdorovna’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 Fëdorovna 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 that 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 préférence,’22 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 to-day, and so on. These cards, though she had used them for a couple of months, were cleaner than those Anna Fëdorovna used to tell fortunes.
‘But perhaps you won’t play for small stakes?’ inquired the uncle. ‘Anna Fëdorovna 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”23 just for once, in honour of our dear visitors! Let them beat me, an old woman!’ said Anna Fëdorovna, settling down in her arm-chair 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 “misère”,’ 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 Fëdorovna could not understand it at all, and failed to understand it for so long that at last, with a smile and a 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 Fëdorovna, holding ace and king blank, declared misère, 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, skilfully 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 Fëdorovna, 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 Fëdorovna, 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 Pímochka’s new dress,’ she added in jest.
‘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 Fëdorovna, 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 Fëdorovna’s wicked 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 zakúshka and turning pickled mushroom
s 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 Fëdorovna became frankly angry.
‘Really, it’s too bad that we should win from you like this,’ said Pólozov in order to say something. ‘It is a real shame!’
‘Well, of course, if you go and invent some kind of “tables” and “misères” 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 Fëdorovna 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.
Pólozov was seized with fear lest Anna Fëdorovna 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.