“Beauty is a matter of taste,” the Russian answered, “but there’s no point in talking about our amiability. It’s not fashionable; no one even thinks of it. The women are afraid of being taken for coquettes, the men of losing their dignity. They all strive to be nonentities with taste and decorum. As for purity of morals, so as not to take advantage of a foreigner’s trustfulness, I shall tell you…”
And the conversation took a most satirical turn.
Just then the door to the reception room opened, and Volskaya came in. She was in the first bloom of youth. Her regular features, her big dark eyes, the vivacity of her movements, the very strangeness of her dress—all could not help but attract attention. The men greeted her with a sort of jocular affability, the ladies with noticeable ill will; but Volskaya noticed nothing; responding obliquely to commonplace questions, she glanced around distractedly; her face, changeable as a cloud, showed vexation; she sat down beside the imposing Princess G. and se mit à bouder,*1 as they say.
Suddenly she gave a start and turned to the balcony. Restlessness came over her. She rose, walked past the chairs and tables, stopped for a moment behind the chair of old General R., made no reply to his subtle compliment, and suddenly slipped out to the balcony.
The Spaniard and the Russian rose. She went up to them and with embarrassment said a few words in Russian. The Spaniard, supposing himself superfluous, left her and went back inside.
The imposing Princess G. followed Volskaya with her eyes and said in a low voice to her neighbor:
“I have never seen the like.”
“She’s terribly flighty,” he replied.
“Flighty? And then some. Her behavior is unforgivable. She can disrespect herself as much as she likes, but society does not deserve such scorn from her. Minsky might let her know that.”
“Il n’en fera rien, trop heureux de pouvoir la compromettre.*2 Meanwhile, I’ll wager their conversation is quite innocent.”
“I’m sure of it…Since when are you so benevolent?”
“I confess, I’ve taken an interest in that young woman’s fate. There’s a lot of good in her, and much less bad than people think. But passions will be the ruin of her.”
“Passions! That’s a big word! What are these passions? Are you imagining that she has an ardent heart, a romantic head? She’s simply ill-bred…What is this lithograph? A portrait of Hussein Pasha?2 Show it to me.”
The guests were leaving; not one lady was left in the reception room. Only the hostess stood with obvious displeasure by the table at which two diplomats were finishing a last game of écarté.3 Volskaya suddenly noticed the dawn and hastily left the balcony, where she had spent nearly a whole three hours alone with Minsky. The hostess said good-bye to her coldly, and deliberately did not bestow even a glance on Minsky. At the entrance several guests were waiting for their carriages. Minsky helped Volskaya into hers.
“Seems it’s your turn,” a young officer said to him.
“Not at all,” he replied. “She’s taken. I’m simply her confidant, or whatever. But I love her with all my heart—she’s killingly funny.”
—
Zinaida Volskaya lost her mother when she was five years old. Her father, a busy and distracted man, handed her over to a French governess, hired all sorts of teachers, and after that no longer bothered with her. At fourteen she was beautiful and wrote love letters to her dancing master. The father learned of it, fired the dancing master, and brought her out in society, considering her education finished. Zinaida’s coming out caused a great stir. Volsky, a rich young man accustomed to subjecting his feelings to the opinions of others, fell madly in love with her, because the emperor, having met her on the English Embankment,4 spent a whole hour talking with her. He proposed. Her father was glad of the chance to get the fashionable bride off his hands. Zinaida was burning with impatience to marry, so as to see the whole town in her house. Besides which Volsky was not repugnant to her, and so her fate was decided.
Her candor, unexpected pranks, childish frivolity, made a pleasant impression at first, and society was even grateful to the one who kept disrupting the solemn monotony of the aristocratic circle. They laughed at her antics, recounted her strange escapades. But years passed, and Zinaida’s soul was still fourteen years old. Murmuring began. They found that Volskaya had no sense of the decorum proper to her sex. Women began to distance themselves from her, while the men drew closer. Zinaida thought that she was not the loser, and was comforted.
Rumor began to ascribe lovers to her. Scandal, even without proof, leaves almost eternal traces. In the social code, plausibility equals probability, and to be the object of slander humiliates us in our own eyes. Volskaya, in tears of indignation, resolved to rebel against the power of unjust society. A chance soon presented itself.
Among the young men of her surroundings Zinaida singled out Minsky. Evidently a certain similarity of character and circumstances of life was bound to bring them together. In his early youth Minsky’s wantonness of behavior had earned him the censure of society, which punished him with slander. Minsky had abandoned society, feigning indifference. For a time passions stifled in his heart the pangs of amour-propre; but, tamed by experience, he appeared again on the social scene and now brought to it, not the ardor of his imprudent youth, but the indulgence and seemliness of egoism. He did not like society, but he did not scorn it, for he knew the necessity of its approval. With all that, while respecting it in general, he did not spare it in its particulars, and was ready to offer up each of its members in sacrifice to his rancorous amour-propre. He liked Volskaya because she dared to openly despise the conventions he hated. He set her on with encouragements and advice, made himself her confidant, and soon became necessary to her.
B. occupied her imagination for some time.
“He’s too insignificant for you,” Minsky said to her. “All his intelligence is picked up from Les Liaisons dangereuses, just as all his military theory is stolen from Jomini.5 Get to know him intimately, and you’ll despise his ponderous immorality, just as military men despise his banal pronouncements.”
“I’d like to fall in love with R.,” Zinaida said to him.
“What nonsense!” he replied. “Why on earth would you have anything to do with a man who dyes his hair and rapturously repeats every five minutes: ‘Quand j’étais à Florence…’*3 They say his insufferable wife is in love with him; leave them alone: they’re made for each other.”
“And Baron W.?”
“He’s a little girl in uniform; what is there in him…but you know what? Fall in love with L. He’ll occupy your imagination: he’s as remarkably intelligent as he is remarkably ugly, et puis c’est un homme à grands sentiments;*4 he’ll be jealous and passionate, he’ll torment you and make you laugh—what more do you want?”
However, Volskaya did not listen to him. Minsky divined her heart; his amour-propre was touched; not supposing that frivolity could be combined with strong passions, he foresaw a liaison without serious consequences, one more woman on the list of his flighty mistresses, and reflected cold-bloodedly on his victory. Most likely, if he could have imagined the storms awaiting him, he would have renounced his triumph, for a man of society easily sacrifices his pleasures and even his vanity to laziness and respectability.
II
Minsky was still lying in bed when a letter was brought to him. He opened it with a yawn, shrugged his shoulders, unfolded two pages covered all over with a woman’s minute handwriting. The letter began thus:
I was unable to speak out to you everything I have in my heart; in your presence I did not find the thoughts that now pursue me so keenly. Your sophisms do not lull my suspicions, but force me to keep silent; that proves your constant superiority to me, but is not enough for happiness, for the ease of my heart…
Volskaya reproached him for coldness, mistrust, and so on, complained, pleaded, herself not knowing for what; poured out tender, affectionate assurances—and set up an evening rendezvous with him
in her theater box. Minsky answered her in a couple of words, excusing himself with boring, necessary errands, and promising to be in the theater without fail.
III
“You are so open and indulgent,” said the Spaniard, “that I venture to ask you to solve a problem for me: I have wandered all over the world, have been presented at all the European courts, have visited high society everywhere, but nowhere have I felt myself so constrained, so awkward, as in your accursed aristocratic circle. Each time I enter Princess V.’s reception room, and see these mute, motionless mummies, reminding me of Egyptian cemeteries, a sort of chill runs through me. Among them there is not a single moral authority, not a single name that fame has repeated to me—what is it that makes me timid?”
“Ill will,” the Russian replied. “It is a trait of our character. Among the people it is expressed by mockery, in high circles by inattention and coldness. Besides, our ladies are very superficially educated, and nothing European occupies their thoughts. Of the men there is even no point in talking. Politics and literature do not exist for them. Wit has long been in disgrace as a sign of frivolity. What have they got to talk about? Themselves? No, they’re much too well bred. What remains for them is some sort of domestic, petty, private conversation, comprehensible only to the few—the chosen. And a man who does not belong to that small flock is received as an outsider—and not only a foreigner, but their own as well.”
“Forgive me my questions,” said the Spaniard, “but I will hardly find satisfactory answers another time, and I hasten to take advantage of you. You have mentioned your aristocracy: what is the Russian aristocracy? Studying your laws, I see that hereditary aristocracy, based on the indivisibility of property, does not exist in Russia. It seems that civic equality exists among your nobility and access to it is not limited in any way. What, then, is your so-called aristocracy based on—can it be on ancient lineage alone?”
The Russian laughed.
“You are mistaken,” he replied. “The ancient Russian nobility, owing to the reasons you have mentioned, fell into obscurity and has formed a sort of third estate. Our aristocratic mob, to which I also belong, considers Rurik and Monomakh its ancestors.6 I say, for instance,” the Russian went on with an air of self-satisfied nonchalance, “that the roots of my nobility are lost in remote antiquity, the names of my forebears are on every page of our history. But if I ever thought of calling myself an aristocrat, many people would probably laugh. But our real aristocrats would have a hard time even naming their grandfathers. Their ancient lineages go back to Peter and Elizabeth.7 Orderlies, choirboys, Ukrainians—those are their family founders. I don’t say it in reproach: merit is always merit, and the benefit of the state calls for its elevation. Only it is funny to see in the worthless grandsons of pastry chefs, orderlies, choirboys, and sextons the haughtiness of the duc de Montmorency, the first baron of Christendom, or Clermont-Tonnerre.8 We’re so matter-of-fact that we go on our knees before the luck, the success of the moment, and…but the charm of antiquity, gratitude towards the past, and respect for moral merits do not exist for us. Karamzin recently told us our history.9 But we hardly paid attention. We’re proud, not of our ancestral glory, but of some uncle’s rank or the balls given by our cousin. Note that disrespect for one’s forebears is the first sign of savagery and immorality.”
* * *
*1 began to sulk
*2 “He’ll do nothing of the sort, he’s too happy being able to compromise her.”
*3 ‘When I was in Florence…’
*4 “and then he’s a man of great feelings”
A Novel in Letters
1. LIZA TO SASHA
You were surprised, of course, dear Sashenka, by my unexpected departure for the country. I hasten to explain it all candidly. The dependency of my position has always been a burden to me. Of course, Avdotya Andreevna brought me up on an equal footing with her niece. But all the same I was a ward in her house, and you cannot imagine how many petty trials are bound up with that title. I had to bear with many things, to give way in many things, to overlook many things, while my amour-propre assiduously noticed the slightest tinge of negligence. My very equality with the princess was a burden to me. When we appeared at a ball, dressed identically, I was annoyed to see no pearls around her neck. I sensed that she did not wear them only so as not to differ from me, and that very attentiveness offended me. Can it be, I thought, that people suspect me of envy or any other such childish weakness? Men’s behavior with me, however courteous it might be, constantly wounded my amour-propre. Coolness or affability, it all seemed like disrespect to me. In short, I was a most unhappy creature, and my heart, naturally tender, was becoming more hardened by the hour. Have you noticed that all girls who live as wards, distant relations, demoiselles de compagnie,*1 and the like, are usually either basely subservient or unbearably whimsical? The latter I respect and forgive from the bottom of my heart.
Exactly three weeks ago I received a letter from my poor grandmother. She complained of her solitude and invited me to her country estate. I decided to make use of this opportunity. I barely managed to get Avdotya Andreevna’s permission to go, and had to promise to come back to Petersburg in the winter, but I have no intention of keeping my word. Grandmother was extremely glad to see me; she never expected me. Her tears moved me beyond words. I’ve come to love her with all my heart. She once belonged to high society and has kept much of the amiability of that time.
Now I am living at home, I am the mistress, and you would not believe what a true delight it is for me. I got used to country life at once, and the absence of luxury is not strange to me in the least. Our estate is very nice. An old house on a hill, a garden, a lake, pine woods around—it’s all a bit dreary in autumn and winter, but in spring and summer it must seem an earthly paradise. We have few neighbors, and I have not yet seen any of them. Solitude actually pleases me, as in the elegies of your Lamartine.1
Write to me, my angel, your letters will be a great comfort to me. How are your balls, how are our mutual acquaintances? Though I have made myself a recluse, I have not renounced the vanity of the world altogether—news of it will interest me.
The Village of Pavlovskoe
2. SASHA’S REPLY
Dear Liza,
Imagine my amazement when I learned of your departure for the country. Seeing Princess Olga alone, I thought you were unwell, and did not want to believe her words. The next day I received your letter. I congratulate you, my angel, on your new way of life. I’m glad you like it. Your complaints about your former position moved me to tears, but seemed much too bitter to me. How can you compare yourself with wards and demoiselles de compagnie? Everybody knows that Olga’s father owed everything to yours and that their friendship was as sacred as the closest family ties. You seemed pleased with your lot. I never supposed there was so much touchiness in you. Confess: Is there not some other, secret reason for your hasty departure? I suspect…but you are playing modest with me, and I’m afraid to anger you in absentia with my guesses.
What can I tell you about Petersburg? We’re still at our dacha, but almost everyone has already gone. The balls will begin in some two weeks. The weather is fine. I walk a great deal. The other day we had guests for dinner—one of them asked whether I had any news of you. He said that your absence at the balls is noticeable, like a broken string in a piano—and I agree with him completely. I keep hoping that this fit of misanthropy will not last long. Come back, my angel; otherwise I will have no one to share my innocent observations with this winter, and no one to whom I can pass on the epigrams of my heart. Good-bye, my dear—think it over, and think better of it.
Krestovsky Island2
3. LIZA TO SASHA
Your letter has comforted me greatly. It reminded me so vividly of Petersburg, it was as if I could hear you! How ridiculous your eternal suppositions are! You suspect some deep, secret feelings in me, some unhappy love—is it not so? Rest assured, my dear, you’re mistaken: I resemble a heroine
only in that I live in the deep countryside and pour tea like Clarissa Harlowe.3
You say you will have no one to whom you can pass on your satirical observations this winter—but what about our correspondence? Write to me everything you notice; I repeat to you that I have not renounced society altogether, that everything concerning it interests me. In proof of that I ask you to write about who it is that finds my absence so noticeable. Is it not our amiable babbler Alexei R.? I’m sure I’ve guessed right…My ears were ever at his service, and that was just what he needed.
I’ve made the acquaintance of the * * * family. The father is a banterer and the soul of hospitality; the mother is a fat, merry woman, a great lover of whist; the daughter—a slender, melancholy girl of about seventeen, brought up on novels and fresh air. She spends all day in the garden or in the fields with a book in her hands, surrounded by yard dogs, talks in singsong about the weather, and with great feeling treats you to preserves. I have discovered that she has a whole bookcase full of old novels. I intend to read them all, and have started with Richardson. One must live in the country to have the possibility of reading the much-praised Clarissa. I began, God help me, with the translator’s preface and, finding assurance in it that, while the first six parts were a bit boring, the last six would fully reward the reader’s patience, I bravely set about it. I read one volume, a second, a third—finally got as far as the sixth—boring, much too much. Well, I thought, now I’ll be rewarded for my pains. What then? I read about the death of Clarissa, the death of Lovelace, and that was it. Each volume consisted of two parts, and I had not noticed the transition from the six boring ones to the six interesting ones.
Reading Richardson gave me an occasion to reflect. What a terrible difference between the ideals of grandmothers and of granddaughters! What do Lovelace and Adolphe have in common?4 Yet the role of women does not change. Except for a few ceremonious curtsies, Clarissa is exactly like the heroine of the latest novels. Perhaps it is because the ways of pleasing, in a man, depend on fashion, on momentary opinion…while in women they are based on feeling and nature, which are eternal.
Novels, Tales, Journeys: The Complete Prose of Alexander Pushkin Page 48