A Hero of Our Time (18 page)

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Authors: Mikhail Lermontov

Tags: #Fiction, #Classics, #Historical, #Literary

BOOK: A Hero of Our Time
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“And would you now like to confirm that opinion for me?” she replied with an ironic grimace, which, however, well suited her animated physiognomy.
“If I have had the audacity to offend you somehow, then let me have the even greater audacity to beg your forgiveness . . . And, really, I would very much like to prove to you that you are mistaken with regard to me . . .”
“That will be very difficult for you . . .”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t visit us, and these balls, likely, will not be repeated very often.”
This means, I thought, that their doors are forever closed to me.
“Do you know, princess,” I said with a certain vexation, “one must never reject a penitent criminal: he might do something doubly criminal out of despair . . . and then . . .”
A guffaw and whispering in the people surrounding us forced me to turn and cut short my sentence. Several paces away from me stood a group of men, and in their number was the dragoon captain, who had just expressed hostile intentions toward the charming princess. He was especially pleased with something; he was rubbing hands, guffawing, and winking at his friends. Suddenly a gentleman in a frock coat with a long mustache and a flushed face separated from among them, and directed his unsure steps straight for the princess: he was drunk. Stopping in front of the embarrassed princess and putting his hand behind his back, he fixed his cloudy gray eyes on her and pronounced in a wheezy descant:
“Permetay . . . oh now what is it!? . . . Essentially, I’m reserving you for the
mazurka . . .
”
“What can I do for you?” uttered the princess in a trembling voice, throwing a pleading look around. Alas! Her mother was far away, and none of her friendly cavaliers were nearby; one adjutant, it seems, saw all this and hid behind the crowd, in order not to be caught up in the story.
“What?” said the drunken gentleman, winking at the dragoon captain, who was encouraging him with his gestures. “Aren’t you game? . . . Then I again request the honor of engaging you for the
mazurka
. . . Maybe you think I’m drunk? No matter! . . . I can assure you it feels a lot more free that way . . .”
I saw that she was ready to faint out of fright and indignation.
I walked up to the drunk gentleman, grabbed him rather firmly by the arm, and, looking at him squarely in the eyes, requested him to move off. “Because,” I added, “the princess long ago promised the
mazurka
to me.”
“Well, what of it! . . . Another time!” he said, laughing, and withdrew toward his ashamed friends, who immediately led him off to the other room.
I was rewarded with a deep and miraculous look.
The princess walked up to her mother and told her everything, and the latter sought me in the crowd and thanked me. She declared to me that she knew my mother and was friendly with a half dozen of my aunts.
“I don’t know how it has happened that we haven’t met before now,” she added, “but admit that you alone are to blame: you avoid people as I have never seen a person do. I hope that the air of my drawing room will chase away your spleen . . . will it not?”
I gave her one of those lines which every one of us should have prepared for such circumstances.
The
quadrille
went on for an awfully long time.
At last, the
mazurka
began to thunder from the balcony above; the young princess and I seated ourselves.
I didn’t once allude to the drunken gentleman, nor to my previous behavior, nor to Grushnitsky.
The effect of the unpleasant scene slowly dissipated in her. Her little face became radiant. She made sweet jokes. Her conversation was keen, without the pretension of witticisms, lively and free. Her remarks were sometimes profound . . . I led her to feel, with a very intricate phrase, that I had long ago taken a fancy to her. She bent her head and lightly blushed.
“You are an odd person!” she said then, lifting her velvet eyes to me and forcing a laugh.
“I didn’t want to be introduced to you,” I continued, “because there is too thick a crowd of admirers around you, and I was afraid of disappearing in it.”
“You needn’t have been afraid! They are all very tedious . . .”
“All of them! Not all of them surely?”
She looked at me intently, as though trying to remember something, and then blushed again lightly, and, finally, articulated decisively: “All of them!”
“Even my friend Grushnitsky?”
“Is he your friend?” she said, displaying a certain doubt.
“Yes.”
“He, of course, isn’t included in the ranks of the boring . . .”
“But in the ranks of the unfortunate,” I said, laughing.
“Naturally! Is it funny to you? I wish that you were in his place . . .”
“What? I was once myself a cadet, and, really, that was the best time of my life!”
“Is he a cadet?” she said quickly and then added: “But I thought he was . . .”
“What did you think?”
“Nothing! . . . Who is that lady?”
Here the conversation changed direction and did not return to this again.
Then the
mazurka
finished and we bid each other farewell with hopes to meet anew. The ladies dispersed . . . I went off to dine and encountered Werner.
“Aha!” he said. “There you are! I thought you wanted to become acquainted with the princess only while saving her from certain death?”
“I did better,” I replied to him. “I saved her from fainting at the ball!”
“How is that? Tell me!”
“No, guess—o you who thinks he can guess everything in the world!”
May 23
At around seven o’clock in the evening I was strolling along the boulevard. Grushnitsky, seeing me from a distance, walked up to me: some kind of amusing delight was shining in his eyes. He shook my hand tightly and said in a tragic voice:
“I thank you, Pechorin . . . Do you understand me?”
“No. But in any case, you needn’t thank me,” I replied, not having any good deed on my conscience.
“What? And yesterday? Have you forgotten? . . . Mary told me everything . . .”
“What? Do you now share everything? Gratitude too?”
“Listen,” said Grushnitsky very significantly, “please, don’t mock my love if you want to remain my friend . . . You see: I love her to distraction . . . and I think, I hope, that she loves me similarly . . . I have a request of you: that you will be their guest this evening. And promise me that you will observe everything. I know that you are experienced in these things. You know women better than I do . . . Women! Women! Who can fathom them? Their smiles contradict their gaze, their words promise and beckon, but the tone of their voices pushes you aside . . . Within one minute they can understand and anticipate our most secret thoughts, and then miss the clearest hints . . . Take the princess: yesterday her eyes burned with passion, and they rested on me. Today they are cloudy and cold . . .”
“This might be the effect of the waters,” I responded.
“You always think the worst . . . materialist!” he added disdainfully. “However, let us move on to other matters.”
And, satisfied with his bad pun, he cheered up.
At nine o’clock we went to the Princess Ligovsky together.
I saw Vera at the window when I walked past her windows. We threw each other a fugitive look. Soon after us, she came into the Ligovsky drawing room. The Princess Ligovsky introduced her to me as her relative. We drank tea; there were many guests; the conversation was commonplace. I strove to ingratiate myself to Princess Ligovsky, telling jokes, making her laugh heartily a few times; the young princess also wanted to laugh more than once but held herself back, in order not to depart from her accepted role. She finds that languor suits her—and perhaps she is not wrong. Grushnitsky, it seems, was very pleased that my jollity did not communicate itself to her.
After tea, everyone went to the hall.
 
“Are you satisfied with my obedience, Vera?” I said, walking past her.
She threw me a look, full of love and gratitude. I am used to these looks—they once formed my bliss. The Princess Ligovsky sat the young princess at the piano; everyone asked her to sing something. I stayed quiet and made use of this commotion by going to the window with Vera, who wanted to tell me something very important concerning us both . . . It came out as nonsense . . .
Meanwhile, my indifference was vexing to the young princess, as far as I could tell from one angry, brilliant look . . . Oh, I understand this dialogue marvelously—mute but expressive, short but strong!
She sang: her voice was not bad, but she sings badly . . . though I wasn’t listening. Grushnitsky, however, was leaning his elbows on the piano opposite her, and every minute saying under his breath,
“Charmant! Delicieux!”
“Listen,” Vera said to me, “I don’t want you to become acquainted with my husband, but you must immediately ingratiate yourself with Princess Ligovsky. This will be easy for you: you can do anything you want to do. We will see each other only here . . .”
“Only?”
She blushed and continued: “You know that I am your slave: I was never able to resist you . . . and I will be punished for this: you will cease to love me! At least I want to guard my reputation . . . Not for my own sake: you know that perfectly well! . . . Oh, I beg you: don’t torture me as you did before with empty doubts and feigned coldness. I may soon die, I feel that I am weakening from day to day . . . and despite this, I cannot think about a future life, I think only of you. You men don’t understand the pleasure of a glance, a squeeze of a hand, and, I swear to you, listening to your voice, I feel such a profound, strange bliss, that the hottest kiss could not replace it.”
Meanwhile, Princess Mary stopped singing. A murmur of praise distributed itself around her. I went up to her after everyone and said something to her about her voice that was rather offhand.
“I was even more flattered,” she said, “to see that you didn’t listen to me at all. But maybe you don’t like music?”
“On the contrary . . . after dinner especially.”
“Grushnitsky is right, when he says that you have the most prosaic tastes . . . and I see that you like music in a gastronomical respect . . .”
“You are again mistaken: I am not a gastronome at all. I have a particularly foul gut. But music after dinner lulls me to sleep, and sleep after dinner is especially healthy: therefore, I like music in a medical respect. In the evening, on the other hand, it agitates my nerves too much: it makes me either too sad, or too merry. One and the other are so exhausting, when there isn’t a circumstantial reason to be sad or make merry, and besides, sadness in company is amusing, but an exaggerated merriness is not appropriate . . .”
She didn’t continue listening until I had finished but walked right off and sat next to Grushnitsky, and some kind of sentimental dialogue started between them. It looked as though the princess was responding to his wise phrases rather distractedly and inappropriately, even though she was trying to look as if she were listening to him with attention, for he sometimes looked at her with surprise, striving to guess the cause of the inner anxiety conveying itself occasionally in her uneasy glances . . .
But I have found you out, darling princess, beware! You want to pay me back in my own coin, and prick my vanity—but you won’t succeed! And if you declare war with me, then I will be merciless.
Over the rest of the evening I interfered with their conversation on purpose several times, but she would meet my remarks rather dryly, and with feigned vexation, I finally withdrew. The princess rejoiced in triumph; Grushnitsky did too.
Rejoice, my friends, and hurry . . . you won’t have long to rejoice. What is to be done? I have a premonition . . . Upon becoming acquainted with a woman, I have always guessed, without error, whether she would love me or not . . .
I spent the remaining part of the evening next to Vera and we discussed every single thing about the past . . . Why she loves me so much, really, I don’t know! Furthermore she is the one woman who has understood me completely, with all my small-minded weaknesses, my evil passions . . . Can it be that evil is so very attractive?
I left with Grushnitsky. On the street, he took me by the arm and after a long silence he said:
“Well?”
I wanted to tell him “you’re a fool,” but I held back and only shrugged my shoulders.
May 29
I haven’t once diverted from my plan during all these days. The young princess has started to like my conversation; I have recounted several of my life’s bizarre events to her, and she has started to see a rare person in me. I make fun of everything in the world, especially feelings: this has started to frighten her. She doesn’t dare start up a sentimental debate with Grushnitsky in front of me and has already several times replied to his escapades with a mocking smile. But every time Grushnitsky comes up to her, I adopt a meek attitude and leave them alone. The first time she was glad of this or tried to seem so. The second time she became angry with me, and the third time—with Grushnitsky.

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