TWO HUSSARS

by Leo Tolstoy

Translated from the Original Russian and edited by Leo Wiener

Assittant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

1856

“ Jomini and Jomini

But of brandy not a word.”

— D. Davydov.

In one of the first decades of the nineteenth century, when there were not yet any railways, nor avenues, nor gas, nor stearine candles, nor low spring divans, nor unvarnished furniture, nor disenchanted youths with monocles, nor liberalizing, philosophical women, nor charming dames-aux-camélias, of whom there is such a large brood in our day, — in those naïve times, when leaving St. Petersburg for Moscow, in a wagon or carriage, people took with them a whole kitchen of home-made victuals, and travelled for eight days over a soft, or dusty, or muddy road, and believed in Pozharski cutlets and Val-däy bells and cracknel rings ; when, in the long autumn evenings they burned tallow dips to illumine domestic circles consisting of twenty or thirty members, and at balls they put in candelabra wax tapers or spermaceti candles ; when furniture was placed symmetrically ; when our fathers were young, not only by the absence of wrinkles and gray hair, but were ready to have shooting affrays for women, and to rush forward from the remote corner of the room in order to pick up accidentally or even not accidentally dropped handkerchiefs; while our mothers wore short waists and enormous sleeves, and

decided domestic affairs by the drawing of lottery ; when charming dames - aux - camélias shunned daylight, — in those naïve days of Masonic lodges, Martinists, Tugendbunds, in the days of Milorädovich, Davydov, Pushkin, there was a meeting of the landed proprietors in K–-,

the capital of a government, and the elections of nobility were just coming to an end.

I.

” I don’t care, even if it be in the parlour,” said a young officer, in a fur coat and hussar cap, who had just stepped out of a stage sleigh and was entering the best hotel in K–—.

” There is such an enormous meeting, your Serenity,” said the hotel servant, who had had time to find out from the orderly that the hussar’s name was Count Turbin, and who, therefore, honoured him with ” your Serenity.” ” Proprietress Afrémov with her daughters has promised to leave in the evening : you will occupy it as soon as it is free, — number eleven,” he said, softly stepping through the corridor, in front of the count, and continually looking around.

In the guest-hall, at a small table and near a dulled, full-sized portrait of Emperor Alexander, there sat at some champagne several native gentlemen, so it seemed, and to one side some transient merchants, in blue fur coats.

Walking into the room and calling in Blücher, an immense gray bulldog which had arrived with him, the count threw off his overcoat, from the collar of which the hoarfrost had not yet disappeared, asked for brandy, and, wearing his blue velvet short coat, seated himself at the table and entered into a conversation with the gentlemen who were sitting there ; these, at once favourably disposed toward the handsome newcomer with the frank exterior, offered liim a glass of champagne. The count at first emptied a small glass of brandy, then himself asked for a

bottle iii order to treat the new acquaintances. The driver came in to ask a pourboire.

” Sashka, give him some ! ” exclaimed the count.

The driver went out with Sdshka and returned, holding the money in his hand.

” Your Excellency, I think I have tried as hard as I could for you ! You promised me half a rouble, and he offered me only a quarter ! “

” Sashka, give him a rouble! “

Sashka looked abashed at the driver’s feet.

” It will do for him,” he said, in a bass voice, ” and, besides, I have no more money.”

The count took out of his pocketbook the only two blue bills that were in it, and gave one of these to the driver, who kissed his hand and went out.

” Here I am,” said the count, ” with my last five roubles.”

“In hussar fashion, count,” smiling, remarked one of the noblemen, who, to judge from his moustache, his voice, and a certain energetic agility in his legs, was an ex-cavalryman. ” Do you intend to stay here long, count ? “

” I have to get some money, or else I should not stay here. Besides, they have no rooms — the devil skin them — in this damned dram-shop — “

” Permit me, count,” retorted the cavalryman, ” to offer you my room ? I am here, in number seven. Maybe you will not disdain to stay overnight with me. You had better stay two or three days with us. To-night there is going to be a ball at the marshal’s. He would be so glad to see you ! ”

” Really, count, be our guest,” interposed another of the interlocutors, a handsome young man. ” What is the use in hurrying off ? You know, elections take place but once in three years. You ought to take a look at our young ladies, count!”

” Sashka, let me have clean underwear : I will go to the bath-house,” said the count, getting up. ” From there, maybe, I will actually make for the marshal’s.”

Then he called up the hotel servant to tell him something, to which the servant, smiling, replied that it was ” all the work of human hands,” and went out.

” So, my friend, I will order them to take my portmanteau to your room,” the count called out beyond the door.

” If you please ; you will make me happy,” replied the cavalryman, running up to the door. ” Number seven, don’t forget ! ”

When his steps died away, the cavalryman returned to his seat and, moving up closer to the official, and looking straight at him with his smiling eyes, said :

” That is that very fellow ! ”

“Indeed ?”

” I tell you he is that same duelling hussar, — well, that same Turbin. He recognized me, I will wager, he did. Why, he and I caroused together at Lebedyan for three weeks in succession, when I was connected with the remount department. There was a fine trick we once played together. He is a brick, isn’t he ? “

” He is. How agreeable he is of address ! Nothing of the kind could be suspected,” replied the handsome young man. ” How easily we became acquainted ! — How old is he, twenty-five ? “

” No, he looks so, but he is older. Yrou ought to know the kind of a fellow he is ! Who ravished Miss Migunov ? He. He killed Sablin ; Mätnev he put out of the window by his legs ; he won three hundred thousand of Prince Nésterov. I tell you, he is a desperate chap : a gambler, duellist, seducer, but a soulful hussar, — I tell you he is a dear. It’s really glorious for us ; if people only knew what it means to be a genuine hussar ! Ah, what times those were ! ”

The cavalryman narrated to his companion the Lebedyan carousal with the count, such a one as had never been

nor ever could have been. It could not have been, in the first place, because he had never before seen the count, and because he had left the service two years before the count had entered it, and, in the second, because the cavalryman had really never served in the cavalry, but had for four years been a most modest yunker in the Byélevski regiment, and had left the army just as he had been advanced to the dignity of an ensign. Ten years before he, having received an inheritance, had actually gone to Lebedyan, where he spent seven hundred roubles with the remount officers, and ordered a uhlan uniform with orange facings, as he intended to join the uhlans. His desire to become a cavalryman and the three weeks passed at Lebedyan with the remount officers remained the brightest, happiest period of his life, so that he at first transferred this desire into reality, then into recollection, and finally began firmly to believe himself in his cavalry past, which did not keep him from being a truly worthy man, as regards gentleness and honesty.

” Yes, he who has not served in the cavalry will never be able to understand us fellows.” He bestrode the chair and, thrusting forward his lower jaw, began to speak in a bass voice. ” I would be riding in front of my squadron ; under me a demon, and not a horse, rearing all the time, and I upon it, a demon myself. Up would gallop the commander of the squadron at inspection. ‘ Lieutenant,’ says he, ‘ please, without you there will be nothing, — lead out the squadron in parade fashion.’ Very well, and I would look around and shout at my whiskered fellows — The devil take it, it was a great time ! ”

The count came back, all red and with wet hair, from the bath-house, and walked at once into number seven, where the cavalryman was sitting, in morninggown and smoking a pipe, reflecting with delight and a certain measure of fear on the happiness which had fallen to his share, — to live in the same room with famous Turbin. ” Suppose now,” it occurred to him, ” he will suddenly take and undress me and carry me naked beyond the toll-gate to drop me in the snow, or — he will tar me, or simply — no, he will not do it, as a friend — ” he consoled himself.

” Sashka, feed Blucher ! ” shouted the count.

Sashka made his appearance. He had braced himself from the journey with a glass of brandy and was quite intoxicated.

” You could not stand it any longer, and got drunk, you canaille ! Feed Blucher! ”

” He won’t starve as it is ! How smooth he is ! ” replied Sashka, patting the dog.

” Shut up ! Get out and feed him ! ”

” All you care for is for the dog to be fed ; but if a man takes a dram, you berate him.”

” Look out, I’ll thrash you ! ” shouted the hussar in such a voice that the window-panes rattled and the cavalryman became a little frightened.

” You ought to ask whether Sashka has had anything to eat to-day. All right, strike me, if your dog is more to you than a man,” Sashka muttered, and at the same time received such a terrible blow with the fist in his face that he fell down, struck his head against the partition, and, clutching his nose with both his hands, rushed out of the door and fell in a lump on the clothes-chest in the corridor.

” He has smashed my teeth,” growled Sashka, with one hand wiping his bleeding nose, and with the other scratching the back of Blucher, who was licking himself. ” He has smashed my teeth, Bluch, but still he is my count, do you understand, Bluch ? Do you want to eat ? ”

Having lain awhile, he got up, fed the dog, and, almost sobered up, went in to attend to his master and offer him tea.

” You will simply offend me,” the cavalryman said, timidly, standing in front of the count, who was lying on

his bed, with his feet raised above the partition. ” I am myself an old soldier and a comrade, I may say. What is the use of your borrowing from anybody else, as long as I am only too happy to let you have two hundred roubles ? I have not the sum just now, but only one hundred ; however, I shall get it this very day. You will simply offend me, count ! “

” Thanks, friend,” said the count, immediately perceiving the kind of relations that ought to be established between them and patting the cavalryman’s shoulder, ” thanks ! If so, let us go to the ball ! What are we going to do now ? Tell me what you have in town here. Any pretty girls here ? Any carousers ? Any card-players here ? “

The cavalryman explained that there would be a mass of pretty women at the ball ; that Kolkov, the chief of the rural police, lately elected, was the biggest carouser, but that he lacked the true hussar dash, though he was otherwise a good old fellow ; that Ilyushka’s gipsy choir, with Stéshka for a starter, had been singing in town since the beginning of the elections, and that in the evening everybody would go to hear them after the ball at the marshal’s.

” There is some fine gambling going on, too,” he said. “ Lukhnov, a stranger, is playing for money, and Ilin, who occupies number eight, a cornet of uhlans, has been losing a lot. It has begun there already. They are playing every evening, and I tell you, count, Ilin is a fine fellow : he is not in the least stingy, but will give away his last shirt.”

” So let us go to him ! We shall see what sort of people they are,” said the count.

” Let us go, let us go ! They will be awfully glad ! ”

II.

Cornet Ilin had just wakened. On the previous evening he had sat down to the game at eight o’clock, playing fifteen hours straight, up to eleven o’clock. He had lost quite a sum, but how much he did not know, because he had about three thousand of his own and fifteen thousand of Crown money, — which he had long ago mixed up with his own, and was afraid of counting up, in order not to convince himself that his surmise that a certain amount of the Crown money was gone was just. He had fallen asleep at about noon and slept that heavy, dreamless sleep which only very young men sleep after a great loss.

Upon awakening at six o’clock, just at the time when Count Turbin arrived at the hotel, and seeing cards and chalk all about him on the floor and dusty tables in the middle of the room, he in horror recalled his game of the previous night, and the last jack, which cost him five hundred roubles ; but, not quite sure of the facts, he took the money out from under the pillow and began to count it. He recognized several assignats which at ” corners ” and finals had several times passed from hand to hand, and he recalled the whole progress of the game. His three thousand were gone, and of the Crown money twenty-five hundred were lacking.

The uhlan had been playing four nights straight.

He was travelling from Moscow, where he had received the Crown money. At K–-the station inspector detained

him under the pretext of having no horses, but in reality by an agreement, which he had long before made with the

proprietor of the hotel, to hold all strangers back for one day. The uhlan, a youthful, merry lad, who had just received three thousand from Ins parents in Moscow, with which to fix himself properly in the army, was only too glad to pass several days in K–—during the elections, and

hoped to have a glorious time here. He was acquainted with a landed proprietor, a father of a family, and he had intended to call on him, in order to court his daughters, when the cavalryman came to introduce himself to the uhlan, and that very evening, without any evil thought, made him acquainted in the guest-hall with his friend Luklmov and other gamesters. That very evening the uhlan sat down to play. He not only did not drive out to see the landed proprietor, but did not even ask for horses, and did not leave the room for four days.

Having dressed himself and drunk tea, he walked over to the window. He wanted to take a walk in order to dispel the persistent memories of the game. He put on his overcoat and went out into the street. The sun had already Ind itself belund the white houses with the red roofs ; it was evening twilight. The air felt warm. Moist snow fell in large flakes upon the muddy streets. He was suddenly overcome by inexpressible melancholy at the thought that he had slept through a day such as the one which was now ending had been.

” You can never bring back a day that has passed,” he thought.

“I have ruined my youth,”he suddenly said to himself, not because he actually thought he had mined liis youth, — he was not even thinking of it, — but simply because this phrase had occurred to him.

” What am I going to do now ? ” he reflected. ” Borrow from somebody and get away.” A lady passed along the sidewalk. ” What a stupid lady,” he thought for some reason. ” There is nobody to borrow from. I have ruined my youth.” He walked past the merchants’ row. A merchant in a fox fur coat was standing at the door and inviting purchasers. “ If I had not discarded the eight, I might have won back what I lost.” A beggar woman moaned back of him. ” There is nobody to borrow from.”

A gentleman in a bear fur coat passed by ; a sentry stood near his booth. ” Can’t I do something unusual ? Could I not shoot at them ? No, it is tiresome ! I have ruined my youth. Ah, what fine horse-collars with the trimmings are hanging there ! If I just could get into a sleigh ! Ah, my dear ones ! I will go home. Lukhnov will come soon, and we shall begin to play.”

He returned home, and again counted the money. No, he had not been mistaken the first time : again there was a deficit of twenty-five hundred roubles of the Crown money.

” I will stake twenty-five, then a ‘ corner ’ — then seven, then fifteen, then thirty, then sixty — three thousand. I will buy the collars and get away. The rascals will not let me ! I have ruined my youth.”

That was what was going on in the uhlan’s mind when Lukhnov actually entered in his room.

“ Have you been up long, Mikhaylo Vasilich ?” asked Lukhnov, leisurely taking off his gold spectacles from his lean nose and carefully wiping them with his red silk handkerchief.

“ No, only a moment ago. I slept superbly.”

” A hussar has arrived here. He has stopped with Zavalshévski — have you heard ? ”

” No, I have not. Well, is no one here yet ?”

” I think they have gone to Pryakhin’s. They will be here before long.”

” Indeed, soon there entered an officer of the garrison who always accompanied Lukhnov ; some kind of a Greek merchant with an immense aquiline nose of a cinnamon hue and with sunken black eyes ; a stout, puffed-up landowner, the proprietor of a distillery, who played through the whole night at half-a-rouble stakes. Everybody was anxious for the game to begin at once ; but the chief gamesters said nothing about this subject, while Eu kb no v, more particularly, was in the quietest manner possible telling about highwaymen in Moscow.

“ You must consider,” he said, ” that Moscow is the first city of the realm, a capital, — and they walk about at night dressed as devils, and frighten the stupid rabble, and rob strangers, — and that’s the end of it. What is the police doing ? That’s what I should like to know.”

The uhlan listened attentively to the story about the highwaymen, but when it was over he got up, and in a soft voice ordered the cards. The stout proprietor was the first one to express his thought.

” Gentlemen, why lose the golden time ? Let’s to business ! “

” Yes, you have taken away a lot with your halfroubles, so you like it,” said the Greek.

” That’s so, it is time we should,” said the officer of the garrison.

Ilin looked at Lukhnov. Lukhuov, looking him in the eye, calmly continued his story about the highwaymen dressed as devils, with claws.

” Shall you keep bank ? ” asked the uhlan.

” Is it not too early yet ? “

” Byélov ! ” exclaimed the uhlan, for some reason with a blush. ” Bring me my dinner — I have not had anything to eat, gentlemen — bring champagne and cards ! ”

Just then the count and Zavalshévski entered the room. It turned out that Turbin and Ilin were of the same division. They at once became friends, clinked glasses and drank champagne, and five minutes later addressed each other as ” thou.” It seemed the count took a great liking to Ilin. The count kept smiling, as he looked at him, and making fun of his youth.

” What a brick of a uhlan ! ” he said. ” The whiskers ! Look at the whiskers ! “

Ilin had just a white down on his lips.

” I see you are getting ready for a game,” said the count. ” I wish you good luck, Ilin ! You, I take it, are a master at it,” he added with a smile.

” Yes, we are getting ready for it,” replied Lukhnov, tearing a dozen cards. ” And you, count, won’t you play ? “

” No, not to-day, or else I’ll do you all up. When I begin to lay it on, any bank will crack ! I have no money. I lost everything in a game at Volochok station. I there fell in with an infantry chap with rings, — no doubt a cheat, — and he has scrubbed me out clean.”

” Did you stay long at that station ? ” asked Ilin.

” Twenty-two hours. That damned station will remain memorable to me ! Well, the inspector won’t forget it, either.”

” How so ? “

” I arrived, you know; out jumped the inspector, with the phiz of a thief and highwayman : ‘ I have no horses/ says he ; now it is my rule, I must tell you, that when there are no horses, I do not take off my fur coat, but go at once to the inspector’s room, you know, — not the office, but to Ins private room, — and order at once that all the doors and ventilators be opened, claiming that there is coal-gas in the room. Just so I did there. You will remember what frosts we had last month, — something like twenty degrees. The inspector began to object, and I banged him in his face. Then some kind of an old woman, little girls, and other women raised a howl, grabbed the pots, and began to run to the village — I ran to the door. Says I : ‘ Give me horses, and I will go away ; if not, I will not let you out, and will freeze you all to death ! ‘ “

” That’s a fine way ! ” said the puffed-up proprietor, roaring with laughter. ” That’s the way they freeze out cockroaches.”

” I somehow did not keep a good watch upon them, for the inspector and all the women got away from me. Only an old woman, on the oven, was left as my captive : she did nothing but sneeze all the time, and pray. Then we began to palaver : the inspector came back and, from a distance, begged me to let the old woman go, but I set Bliicher on him, — Blücher is great on inspectors. Still the scoundrel did not give me any horses before the following day. In the meantime that infantry chap came. 1 went into another room, and we began to play. Have you seen Bliicher ? — Bliicher ! — Here ! ”

Bliicher ran in. The gamesters took a condescending interest in him, although, apparently, they were anxious to devote themselves to something quite different.

” But, gentlemen, why don’t you play ? Please don’t let me interfere with you. I am a great talker,” said Turbin. ” Whether you like it or not, it is a good thing.”

III.

Lûkhnov moved two candles up to him, drew out an immense cinnamon-coloured pocketbook, filled with money, leisurely, as though revealing some mystery, opened it on the table, took out from it two one-hundredrouble bills, and put them under his cards.

” Then it is like yesterday, — bank at two hundred,” he said, adjusting his spectacles and breaking the seal of a pack of cards.

” All right,” said Ilin, without looking at him, during the conversation which he was having with Turbin.

The game was started. Lukhnov kept bank in a precise manner, like a machine, occasionally stopping and leisurely noting something down, or sternly looking over his glasses and saying, in a weak voice : ” Send it over ! ”

The stout proprietor spoke louder than the rest, making all kinds of loud observations to himself, putting his chubby finger in his mouth every time he wanted to bend a card. The officer of the garrison wrote in a fine hand under the cards, and bent small corners under the table. The Greek was sitting to the right of the banker, and with his sunken black eyes carefully observed the game, as though waiting for something.

Zavalshévski, who was standing at the table, suddenly came into motion, took a red or a blue bill out of his trousers’ pocket, placed his card on top of it, slapped it with the palm of his hand, and said : ” Fetch it, seven ! ” He bit his moustache, stood now on one foot, now on the other, blushed, and was all in commotion, which lasted until the card came out. 11m ate veal with pickles, which had been placed near him on the divan, and, rapidly wiping his hands on his coat, put down one card after another. Turbin, who at first was sitting on the divan, immediately saw what the matter was. Lukhnov did not look at the uhlan at all ; only occasionally his eyes for a moment were directed over his glasses upon the hands of the uhlan, but most of his cards lost.

” If I just could beat this card,” Lukhnov muttered about a card of the stout proprietor, who was playing at half a rouble.

” You beat Ilin, and not me,” remarked the proprietor.

Indeed, Ilin’s cards were beaten more frequently than the rest. lie nervously tore the losing card under the table, and with trembling hands selected another. Turbin arose from the divan and asked the Greek to let him sit down near the banker. The Greek took another seat, and the count, having taken his chair, did not for a moment take his eyes off Lukhnov’s hands.

” Ilin ! ” he suddenly said in his usual voice, which, quite involuntarily, drowned all the others, ” why do you stick to the routières? You do not know how to play.”

“It makes no difference how you play.”

” This way you will certainly lose. Let me punt for you!”

” No, excuse me : I prefer to do it myself. Play for yourself, if you wish.”

” I said I would not play for myself ; but I would do . it for you. I am annoyed to see you lose.”

” That is, apparently, my fate ! ”

The count grew silent and, leaning on his elbows, again began to look steadily at the banker’s hands.

” It is bad ! ” lie suddenly said, in a loud and drawling voice.

Lukhnov looked at him.

“ It is bad, bad ! ” he said, still louder, looking Lukhnov straight in the eye.

The game went on.

” It — is — not — good ! ” again said Turbin, the moment Lukhnov beat a big card of Ilin’s.

“ What is it you do not like, count ? ” the banker asked, politely and indifferently.

“ That you allow Ilin to win the simples, and yourself take the corners. That’s what is bad.”

Lukhnov made a slight motion with his eyebrows and his shoulders, which expressed an advice to submit to fate in everything, and continued to play.

” Bliicher ! Here ! ” shouted the count, getting up. “ Sick him ! ” he added, swiftly.

Bliicher, hitting his back against the divan and almost upsetting the officer of the garrison, leaped out from underneath it, ran up to his master, and growled, looking at everybody and wagging his tail, as though asking: ” Who is insulting you, eh ? ”

Lukhnov put down his cards and moved his chair away from the table.

” It is impossible to play under these conditions,” he said. ” I despise dogs. What kind of a game will it be, if we are to have a whole kennel here ? ”

” Especially these dogs, — I think they are called bloodsuckers,” interposed the officer of the garrison.

“Well, are we going to play, or not, Mikhaylo Vasilich ? ” Lukhnov asked the host.

” Count, please don’t bother us ! ” Ilin turned to Turbin.

” Come here for a minute,” Turbin said, taking Ilin by the hand, and going with him beyond the partition.

From there could be distinctly heard the words of the count, who was speaking in his habitual voice. Ilis voice was always such that it could be heard three rooms away.

” Have you lost your senses ? Do you not see that that gentleman in the spectacles is a cheat of the first water ? “

” Nonsense ! Don’t say that ! “

” Not nonsense, hut stop playing, I tell yon! It does not make much difference to me. Any other time I would gladly win money from you ; but just now I am somehow sorry for you, because you are going to be cleaned out. And, besides, aren’t you playing on Crown money ? “

“No ! What makes you think that ? “

« My friend, I have myself run on that path, and I know all the tricks of a cheat. 1 tell you, the one in the spectacles is a cheat. Stop playing, I beg you. I ask you as a comrade.”

” I will just finish this one pack.”

” I know how it will be. Well, we shall see.”

They returned. In that one pack Ihn placed on many cards, and he lost a big sum on them.

Turbin put his hand on the centre of the table.

” That will do ! Come ! “

” No, I cannot. Tlease leave me alone,” Ilin said, in anger, shuffling the bent cards, and not looking at Turbin.

” Well, the devil be with you ! Be sure and lose, if that’s what you are after, but I must go. Zavalshévski ! Let us go to the marshal’s ! ”

They went out. All were silent, and Lukhnov did not keep bank until the thud of their steps and of Bliicher’s claws died away in the corridor.

” What a hothead ! ” said the proprietor, smiling.

“ Well, now he will not bother us,” the officer of the garrison added, hurriedly, and in a whisper.

And the game went on.

IV.

The musicians — the marshal’s manorial serfs — were standing in the buffet-room, which had been cleared away for the occasion of the ball, and, rolling up their coat sleeves, at a given signal began to play an old-fashioned Polish ” Alexander, Elizabeth ; ” and, under the bright and soft illumination of wax tapers, there sailed along the large parqueted parlour a governor-general of the reign of Catherine, with a star, linking arms with the haggard marshal’s wife, the marshal with the governor’s wife, and so forth, — all the governmental powers in all possible combinations and permutations, — when Zavalshévski, in blue dress coat with an immense collar and buffs on his shoulders, in stockings and shoes, exhaling around him the odour of jessamine, with which his moustache, his facings, and his handkerchief were copiously besprinkled, and the handsome hussar, in blue tightly fitting riding-trousers and gold-embroidered red dolman, from which hung the cross of St. Vladimir and a medal of the year 1812, entered the parlour.

The count was not tall, but exquisitely built. His light blue and exceedingly sparkling eyes, and his fairly long, thick-locked, dark blond hair gave a peculiar character to his beauty. The count’s arrival at the ball had been expected. The handsome young man, who had seen him in the hotel, had informed the marshal of his coming. The impression produced by this news was various, but, in general, not entirely agreeable. “ That lad will put us to shame,” was the opinion of the old men and women.

“ What if he ravishes me ? ” was more or less the opinion of the young women and maidens.

The moment the Polish came to an end and the pairs made their bows to each other, the women again separating from the men, Zavalshévski, happy and proud, took the guest up to the hostess. The marshal’s wife, experiencing a certain internal trepidation, for fear the hussar might do something scandalous to her in the presence of everybody, turned haughtily and contemptuously away, as she said : ” I am very glad, and hope that you will dance.” She looked doubtfully at him, with an expression which said : ” If, after this, you will insult a woman, you are nothing but a scoundrel.”

However, the count soon vanquished this prejudice by his amiability, attention, and handsome, merry exterior, so that five minutes later the expression of the countenance of the marshal’s wife told all the persons surrounding her: ” I know how to manage these gentlemen. He saw at once with whom he was speaking, and now he will be charming to me all the evening.”

Just then the governor, who had known his father, walked over to the count, very graciously led him to one side, and began to speak to him, which still more reassured the provincial society and in its eyes heightened the reputation of the count. Then Zavalshévski took him over to his sister, a young, plump little widow, who from the moment he had arrived had fastened her black eyes upon him. The count invited the widow to dance a waltz with him, which the musicians had just struck up, and by his elegant dancing completely vanquished the universal prejudice.

” He is great at dancing ! ” said a stout proprietress, watching the legs in the blue riding-trousers, as they gleamed through the parlour, and counting mentally : ” One, two, three ; one, two, three — he is great ! ”

” He is just stitching, just stitching,” said another guest, who was regarded as not belonging to the best provincial society. ” I wonder how it is he does not catch with his spurs ! He is wonderfully agile ! ”

The count, with his artistic dancing, put in the shadow three of the best dancers in the Government : the tall, white-haired adjutant of the governor, famous for his rapidity in dancing and for holding the lady very close to him ; and a cavalryman, famous for his graceful swaying during the waltz, and for a repeated and light thumping of his heel ; and another civilian, of whom all said that, though he had no great amount of brains, he danced superbly, and was the soul of all the balls. Indeed, tins civilian, from the beginning of the ball up to the very last, engaged all the ladies in the order in which they were sitting, and never for a moment stopped dancing, resting just long enough to wipe with his cambric handkerchief his weary but cheerful face, covered with heavy perspiration.

The count overshadowed them all, and danced with three leading ladies: with a tall, beautiful, and stupid lady ; with another, • of middle stature and slender, not very beautiful, but well dressed ; and the third, not a beautiful, but a very clever, lady. He also danced with others, — with all the pretty ones, and there were many of these. But the little widow, Zavalshévski’s sister, was most to the count’s liking ; he danced with her a quadrille, an écossaise, and a mazurka. When they sat down at the quadrille, he began to make her all kinds of compliments, comparing her to Venus, and to Diana, and to a wild rose, and to some other flower. To all these compliments the little widow only bent her white neck, lowered her eyes, looking at her muslin dress, or transferred her fan from one hand to another. But when she said, ” Stop, count, you are only jesting,” and so forth, her slightly guttural voice sounded so naïvely frank and ridiculously foolish, that, looking at her, the thought really occurred to one that she was not a woman, but a flower, and not a wild rose, but a wild, voluptuous, white-rosed, odourless flower, which had all alone grown up amidst a virgin snowdrift, in some very remote land.

This combination of naïveté and of an absence of everything conventional with her fresh beauty produced such a strange impression upon the count that several times, in the intervals of the conversation, when he silently looked into her eyes, or at the beautiful lines of her arms and neck, he was so strongly assailed by the desire to lift her up in his arms and kiss her, that it cost him some effort to repress himself. The little widow was happy when she saw what an impression she produced upon him ; but there was something in the count’s address which began to worry and frighten her, notwithstanding the fact that the young hussar was officiously amiable, and, according to modern conceptions, nauseatingly respectful. He ran to fetch her a glass of orgeat, picked up her handkerchief, tore a chair out of the hands of some scrofulous young landed proprietor, who also wanted to serve her, in order to hand it more quickly to her, and so forth.

When he noticed that that which in those days was regarded as worldly politeness had no effect upon his lady, he tried to amuse lier by telling her funny anecdotes ; he assured her that, if she would order him to do so, he was ready to stand on his head, to crow like a cock, to jump out of the window, or to leap through an icehole. This stratagem succeeded completely: the little widow was amused and laughed in trills, displaying superb white teeth, and was quite satisfied with her cavalier. The count took with each moment a greater liking for her, so that by the end of the quadrille he was genuinely in love with her.

When, after the quadrille, the little widow was approached by her former eighteen-year-old admirer, the non-serving son of a very rich proprietor, the same scrofulous young man from whom Turbin had taken away the chair, she received him very coldly, and not one-tenth part of the embarrassment was visible which she had experienced in the presence of the count.

” You are a nice one,” she said to him, looking all the time at Turbin’s back, and unconsciously reflecting on the amount of gold lace which was used up on the whole dolman. ” You are a good one ! You promised to come for me for a sleigh-ride, and to bring me some confections.”

“But I did come, Anna Fédorovna, and did not find you at home ; the confections I left there,” said the young man, in a very thin voice, in spite of his tall stature.

” You always find excuses ! I do not want your confections. Please, don’t imagine — ”

” I see, Anna Fédorovna, that you have changed toward me, and I know why. But that is not good,” he added, leaving his speech unfinished from some inward agitation, which caused his lips to tremble rapidly and strangely.

Anna Fédorovna was not listening to him, and continued to rivet her eyes on Turbin.

The marshal, the master of the house, a majestically stout, toothless old man, went up to the count and, taking his arm, invited him to the cabinet to smoke and have something to drink, if he so wished. The moment Turbin stepped out, Anna Fédorovna felt that there was nothing to do in the parlour, and so she took the arm of a lean old maid, her friend, and went out with her to the cloak-room.

” Well, is he nice ? ” asked the old maid.

” The only trouble is he is very persistent,” replied Anna Fédorovna, walking over to the mirror and examining herself in it.

Her face shone, her eyes smiled, she even blushed, and suddenly, imitating the ballet-dancers, whom she had seen at these elections, she turned around on one foot, then laughed with her guttural but charming laugh, and even jumped up, bending her knees.

” Think of it, he has asked me for a souvenir,” she said to her friend, “only he sha’n’t ha-a-ave any,” she sang out the last words, and raised one finger in her dogskin glove, which reached up to her elbow.

In the cabinet, whither the marshal took Turbin, there stood all kinds of brandies, liqueurs, appetizers, and champagne. In the tobacco smoke sat and walked noblemen, discussing the elections.

« If the whole worshipful nobility of our county has honoured him with the elections,” said the newly elected chief of the rural police, who had imbibed freely, ” he ought not to have failed before the whole society,— he ought never — “

The arrival of the count interrupted the conversation. Everybody had himself introduced to him, and particularly the chief for a long time waited with, both his hands for his hand, and several times asked him not to refuse his company after the ball at the new restaurant, where he was going to treat the noblemen, and where the gipsies were to sing. The count promised that he certainly would be there, and emptied with him several glasses of champagne.

“ Why do you not dance, gentlemen ? ” he asked, before leaving the room.

” We are no dancers,” replied the chief, laughing. ” Our specialty is more in the line of wine, count— Besides, count, all these young women have grown up under my eyes ! I sometimes will walk like tins in the écossaise, count — I can, count ! ”

“Let us take a walk,” said Turbin, “and amuse ourselves before we go to the gipsies ! ”

“ Come, gentlemen, let us amuse the host ! “

And three or four noblemen, who had been drinking in the cabinet from the very beginning of the ball, with red faces, put on some black gloves, and others silk knit gloves, and with the count were getting ready to go to

the parlour, wnen –—

young man, who, all pale, and with difficulty repi

his tears, went up to Turbin.

“ You think that you are a count, and so you may push one as in the market-place,” he said, barely drawing his breath. ” That is not polite — “

Again the lips that quivered against his will arrested the torrent of his speech.

” What ? ” shouted Turbin, frowning suddenly. ” What, boy ? ” he exclaimed, grasping his hands and compressing them in such a way that the young man’s blood rushed to his head, not so much from anger as from fear. “What? You want to fight ? I am at your service.”

No sooner had Turbin let the hands go, which he had been squeezing so hard, than two noblemen grabbed the young man under his arms and pulled him away to the back door.

” What is the matter with you ? Are you mad ? You must have been drinking. We shall have to tell your papa. What is the matter with you ? ” they said to him.

” No, I have not been drinking, but he has been pushing me, and has not asked to be excused. He is a pig ; that’s what he is ! ” screamed the young man, now bursting out into tears.

But they paid no attention to him and took him home.

” Don’t miud it, count ! ” the chief and Zavalshévski, on their side, tried to soothe Turbin. ” He is a mere boy who gets whipped, — he is only sixteen. We can’t understand what is the matter with him. What flea has bitten him ? His father is such a respectable man, — he is our candidate.”

” Well, the devil take him, if he does not wish to — ”

The count returned to the parlour, and just as before merrily danced the écossaise with the pretty little widow, and laughed from his whole soul, watching the capers which the gentlemen who had come with him from the

cabinet were cutting, and he burst forth into a melodious laughter, winch was heard through the whole parlour, when the chief slipped, and his whole form came down with a crash amidst the dancers.

V.

While the count went into the cabinet, Anna Fedorovna walked over to her brother, and, for some reason or other considering it necessary to be little interested in the count, began to ask him : ” Who is that hussar that has been dancing with me ? Tell me, brother ! ” The cavalryman explained to his sister as best he could what a great man the hussar was, and at the same time told her that the count stayed in town only because he had been robbed of his money on his way, and that he himself had loaned him one hundred roubles, which was not enough, so could she not loan him two hundred roubles more ? Zavalshévski asked her under no consideration to tell this to anybody, more especially to the count. Anna Fedorovna promised to send the sum to him that very day and to keep the affair secret, but for some reason, during the écossaise, she burned herself to offer to the count as much money as he wished. She for a long time tried to say something and blushed, but finally made an effort over herself and approached him in the following manner :

” My brother told me that you had a misfortune on your journey and that you are left without money. If you need any, won’t you take it from me ? I should be ever so glad.”

But, having said this, Anna Fédorovna suddenly became frightened at something and blushed. The whole merriment in a twinkle disappeared from the count’s face.

” Your brother is a fool ! ” he said, bluntly. ” You know that when a man insults another, the result is a duel ; and

do you know what is done when a woman insults a 2 99

Poor Anna Fédorovna’s neck and ears flushed crimson from agitation. She looked abashed and made no reply.

“The woman is kissed in the presence of everybody,” softly said the count, bending over her ear. “You permit me at least to kiss your little hand,” he softly added, after a long silence, taking pity on his lady’s confusion.

“Ab, only not just now,” muttered Anna Fédorovna, drawing a deep breath.

“ When, if not now ? I am going to leave to-morrow morning — And you owe it to me ? ”

“ In that case you can’t,” said Anna Fedorovna, smiling.

“ You just permit me to find an occasion of seeing you to-day, in order to kiss your hand. 1 will find it.”

” How shall you find it ?”

” That is not your affair. In order to see you, everything is possible for me — Is it all right ? ”

“ Yes.”

The écossaise was ended. They danced a mazurka, in which the count did wonders, catching handkerchiefs, standing on one knee, and striking his spurs in a peculiar Warsaw fashion, so that all the old men left their boston for the parlour to watch him, and the cavalryman, the best dancer, acknowledged himself to have been surpassed. Then they ate supper and danced another Grossvater, and began to depart. The count did not for a moment take his eyes off the little widow. He did not at all pretend when he said that he was ready to jump through an icehole for her. Whether it was a mere fancy, or love, or stubbornness, — on that evening all his mental powers were concentrated on the one desire to see and love her. The moment he noticed that Anna Fédorovna was bidding the hostess good-bye, he rushed into the lackey’s room, and from there, without his fur coat, into the yard up to the place where the carriages stood.

“ The carriage of Anna Fédorovna Zaytsov ! ” he shouted. A tall four-seated carriage with lamps started and drove up to the porch. “ Stop ! ” he called out to the coachman, running up to the carriage, knee-deep in the snow.

” What do you wish ? ” said the coachman.

“ I want to get into the carriage,” replied the count, opening the door on the run and trying to climb in. ” Stop, you devil ! Stupid ! ”

“Väska, stop!” the coachman called out to the outrider and stopped the horses. “Don’t climb into other people’s carriages. This is the carriage of the Lady Anna Fédorovna, and not your Excellency’s.”

“ Shut up, blockhead ! Here is a rouble, and get down and close the door,” said the count. But as the coachman did not stir, he himself lifted the steps and, opening the window, managed somehow to slam the door. In the carriage, as in all old carriages, especially in those that were trimmed with yellow gimp, there was an odour of decay and singed bristles. The count’s legs were covered up to his knees with thawing snow, and froze in the thin boots and trousers, and his whole body was chilled by the wintry frost. The coachman on his box growled and, so it seemed, wanted to climb down. But the count neither heard nor felt anything. His face was aflame, his heart beat strongly. He tensely clutched the yellow strap and bent out through the side window. His whole life was concentrated in one expectancy. This expectancy did not last long. Somebody on the porch called out: “ Madame Zaytsov’s carriage ! ” The coachman shook his reins, the body of the carriage swayed on its high springs, and the illuminated windows of the house rushed one after the other past the carriage window.

” Look there, you rascal, if you say a word to the lackey that I am here,” the count said to the coachman, thrusting his head through the front window, “ I’ll thrash you ; but if you don’t, you get ten roubles.”

He had barely let down the window, when the carriage again swayed more violently and stopped. He pressed himself into the corner, and even closed his eyes : he was so very much afraid that for some reason Iris passionate desire would not be fulfilled. The door opened, one after another the steps fell down, a lady’s dress rustled, the odour of jessamine penetrated the close carriage, swift feet ran up the steps, and Anna Fédorovna, the skirt of her opened wrap catching on the count’s foot, dropped silently, but breathing heavily, in the seat near him.

Nobody, not even Anna Fédorovna, could have decided whether she saw him or not ; but when he took her hand and said : ” Now I certainly will kiss your little hand,” she expressed very little fright and gave him her arm, which he covered with kisses, far above the glove. The carriage started.

” Do say something ! Are you angry ? ” he said to her.

She silently pressed into her corner, but suddenly burst into tears and herself dropped her head upon his bosom.

VJ.

The newly elected chief, with his company, the cavalryman, and other noblemen had long been listening to the gipsies and drinking in the new restaurant, when the count, in a bear fur coat covered with blue cloth, which belonged to Anna Fedorovna’s late husband, joined the company.

” Your Serenity ! We did not expect you,” said a crosseyed black gipsy, displaying his sinning teeth, as he met him in the vestibule. He rushed up to him to take off his overcoat. “We have not seen you since Lebedyan — Stéshka has been wasting away longing for you — ”

Stéshka, a slender, young gipsy maiden, with a brick-red blush on her cinnamon-coloured face, with deep, sparkling black eyes, shaded by long lashes, ran out to meet him.

“ Ah, my little count ! Dark ng ! Golden one ! What a joy ! ” she spoke through her teeth, with a merry smile.

Ilyushka himself ran out, pretending to be very happy to see him. The women and girls leaped up from their places and surrounded the guest. They claimed sponsorship with him.

Turbin kissed all the young gipsy maidens on their lips ; the old women and men kissed his shoulder and hand. The noblemen, too, were glad of the arrival of the guest, the more so since the carousal, having reached its apogee, was now beginning to cool off, and everybody was experiencing satiety ; the wine, having lost its stimulating effect upon the nerves, merely weighed heavily on the

stomach. Everybody had discharged his whole ammunition of bluster and had seen all the dash of everybody else ; all the songs had been sung and were mixed up in the head of each, leaving nothing but a loose, noisy impression. No matter what strange or dashing thing one did, it began to occur to them that there was nothing nice or funny in it. The chief, lying in a disgraceful attitude upon the floor, at the feet of some old woman, wriggled his legs and called out :

” Champagne ! The count has arrived ! — Champagne ! — He has arrived ! — Well, the champagne ? — I will make a bath of champagne, and will bathe in it — Gentlemen of the nobility ! I love the worshipful society of noblemen ! — Stéshka, sing * The Road ‘ ! ”

The cavalryman was also jolly, but in a different way. He was sitting in the corner of a divan, very close to a tall, beautiful gipsy maiden, Lyubasha by name. Feeling that the intoxication was dimming his eyes, he flapped them vigorously, shook his head, and, repeating all the time the same words, in a whisper tried to persuade her to run with him somewhere. Lyubasha, smiling, listened to him, as though that which he was telling her was very jolly and, at the same time, sad ; she now and then cast glances at her husband, crosseyed Sashka, who was standing behind a chair opposite her, and, in response to the cavalryman’s declaration of love, bent over his ear and asked him secretly to buy her some perfume and ribbons, which no one should see.

” Hurrah ! ” exclaimed the cavalryman when the count entered.

The beautiful young man, with a careworn face, was walking up and down the room with firm steps, and singing tunes from the ” Rebellion in the Seraglio.”

An old father of a family, who had been enticed into the company of the gipsy girls by the urgent entreaties of the noblemen, who insisted that without him the

chorus. His whole body, from his neck to his heels, began to dance with every muscle — twenty energetic, strong voices, each trying to second the other in the strangest and most unusual manner possible, mingled in the air. The old women leaped about on the chairs, waving their kerchiefs, and, displaying their teeth, shouted in harmony and in time, one louder than the other. The basses bent their heads sidewise and, straining their throats, uttered their deep voices, while standing back of the chairs.

As Stéshka sang out her high notes, Ilyushka carried the guitar up to her, as though wishing to help her, and the handsome young man exclaimed in ecstasy that now began the B minors.

When they started to play a dancing song and Dunyasha, with quivering shoulders and bosom, passed by and, making evolutions before the count, glided on, Turbin jumped up from his seat, threw off his uniform, and, being left in his red shirt, danced around with her in proper time and cut such capers with his feet that the gipsies smiled approvingly and cast glances at each other.

The chief sat down in Turkish fashion, hit his chest ■with his fist, and shouted, ” Hail ! ” Then he seized the count by the leg and began to tell him that he had had two thousand roubles, but that now there were only five hundred left, and that he could do anything he wished, if only the count would let him. The old father of a family awoke and wanted to leave ; but he was not permitted to do so. The handsome young man begged a gipsy maiden to dance a waltz with him. The cavalryman, desiring to brag of his friendship with the count, got up from his corner and embraced Turbin.

” Ah, you darling ! ” he said, ” why did you run away from us? Eh?” The count was silent, apparently thinking of something else. ” Where did you go to ? Oh, you rogue, count, I know where you went.”

Turbin for some reason did not like this hail-fellow-well-met. He looked, without smiling, into the cavalryman’s face, and discharged such a terrible, coarse oath at him that he became offended and for a long time did not know how to accept this insult, whether as a joke or not. Finally he decided to regard it as a joke, and so he smiled and again went to his gipsy maiden, and assured her that he would marry her by all means after Easter.

Another song was started, and a third ; and again they danced and drank healths, and they all continued to think that it was all very jolly. The count drank much. His eyes seemed to be shrouded by moisture ; he did stagger, but he danced even better, spoke firmly, and himself sang with the chorus and seconded Stéshka when she sang ” Friendship’s Gentle Agitation.”

In the middle of the dance the merchant proprietor of the restaurant stepped in to ask the guests to depart, as it was now three o’clock in the morning. The count grabbed the merchant by the collar and commanded him to dance the national jig. The merchant refused. The count grasped a bottle of champagne and, turning the merchant head downward, told them to keep him in that position, while he, under a universal roar of laughter, slowly emptied the whole bottle upon him.

Day was breaking. All were pale and exhausted, except the count.

” Well, I must start for Moscow,” he suddenly said, getting up. ” Boys, come all of you with me ! See me off — and we shall have tea together.”

All consented, except the landed proprietor, who was asleep and was left there. They packed three sleighs that were standing at the entrance, and drove to the hotel.

VII.

“ Hitch up ! ” shouted the count, as he entered the guest-room of the hotel with all the guests and the gipsies. ” Sashka ! — not Gipsy Sdshka, but mine, — tell the inspector that I will thrash him if the horses are not good. Let us have tea ! Zavalshévski, attend to the tea, and I will go to Ilin, to see how he is getting on,” added Turbin. He went out into the corridor and directed his steps to Ilin’s room.

Ilin had just finished playing and, having lost the last kopek of all his money, was lying face downward upon a torn haircloth couch, pulling out one hair after another, putting them into his mouth, cutting them with his teeth, and spitting them out again. Two tallow dips, one of which had burned down to the paper, were standing on the card-covered green table and feebly struggling with the daylight which was penetrating through the windows.

There were no ideas passing through the uhlan’s mind : the dense mist of a gambling passion shrouded all his mental capacities ; there was not even any repentance. He tried just once to think of what he ought to do, how to leave without a kopek, how to pay back the fifteen thousand of Crown money, what the commander of the regiment would say, and what his mother and friends would say, — and he was assailed by such terror and such disgust with himself that, wishing in some way to forget himself, he arose, began to pace through the room, trying to step on the cracks of the deals only, and again recalled all the minutest circumstances of the game which had just taken place. He vividly imagined that he was winning back and taking off the nine and putting down the king of spades on two thousand roubles ; to the right fell a queen, to the left an ace, to the right a king of diamonds, — and everything was lost ; if a six had fallen on the right, and on the left the king of diamonds, he would have won it all back. Then he would have staked everything on p and would have won fifteen thousand clean ; then he would have bought the ambling charger of the commander of the regiment, and another span of horses, and a phaeton. And what else ? Yes, it would have been a glorious, a glorious thing !

He again lay down on the couch and began to chew the hair.

” Why are they singing there, in number seven ? ” he thought. ” It must be at Turbin’s that they are having a jollification. I will go there and take a good drink of something.”

Just then the count entered.

” Well, my friend, are you broke, eh ? ” he shouted.

” I will pretend I am asleep,” thought Ilin, ” or else I shall have to talk with him, and I am sleepy.”

Turbin walked over to him and stroked his head.

” Well, my dear friend, are you broke ? All lost ? Speak ! “

Ilin made no reply.

The count pulled him by the arm.

” I have lost, — what is that to you?” muttered Ilin, in a sleepy, indifferent, and dissatisfied voice, without changing his position.

” Everything ? “

” Well, yes. What of it ? Everything. What is it to you ? “

” Listen. Do tell me the truth, as to a comrade,” said the count, inclined to tenderness under the influence of the wine which he had drunk, and continuing to stroke his hair. “ Really, I have taken a liking to you. Tell me the truth : if you have lost Crown money, I will get you out of trouble ; else it will be too late — Was there any Crown money ? “

Ilin jumped up from his couch.

” If you want me to tell you, you had better not speak with me, because — Please, don’t speak to me — all that there is left for me to do is to send a bullet through my brain I ” he muttered, with genuine despair, dropping his head on his hands and bursting out into tears, although but a minute ago he had been quietly thinking of ambling horses.

” Oh, you are a pretty maiden 1 To whom has such a thing not happened? It is no misfortune: maybe we can mend it. Wait here for me ! “

The count went out of the room.

” Where does Proprietor Lukhnov stop ? ” he asked a hotel servant.

The servant offered to take him there. The count, in spite of the lackey’s remark that his master had only just returned and was undressing himself, entered the room. Lukhnov was sitting at a table, dressed in a morninggown, and was counting several heaps of assignats that were lying before him. On the table stood a bottle of port, of which he was very fond. He permitted himself that pleasure on account of his winning. Lukhnov looked coldly and sternly, above his spectacles, at the count, as though not recognizing him.

” You do not seem to recognize me,” said the count, walking over to the table with determined steps.

Lukhnov recognized the count, and asked :

” What do you wish ? “

” I want to play with you,” said Turbin, sitting down on the couch.

” Now ? “

” Yes.”

” Any other time with pleasure, count ! But now I am tired and am about to retire. Won’t you have some wine ? It is good wine.”

” I want to play now a little.”

” I am not disposed for playing now. Maybe some of the other gentlemen will play with you, but I will not, count! You must excuse me.”

” So you will not ? “

Lukhnov made with his shoulder a gesture which expressed regret at Iris inability to comply with the count’s wish.

” Under no considerations ? ”

Again the same gesture.

” I beg you — Well, will you play ? “

Silence.

” Will you play ? ” the count asked for the second time. “ Hear ! “

The same silence and rapid glance over the spectacles at the count’s face, which was beginning to frown.

” Will you play ? ” the count shouted, in a loud voice, banging the table so hard with his fist that the bottle of port fell down and the wine was spilled. You have not been playing fair ! Will you play ? I ask you for the third time.”

” I told you, no. This is indeed strange, count ! It is not a bit polite to put a knife to a man’s throat,” remarked Lukhnov, without raising his eyes.

There ensued a brief silence, during winch the count’s face grew ever more pale. Suddenly a terrible blow in the head stunned Lukhnov. He fell down on the couch, trying to seize his money, and cried out in a penetrating and despairing voice, such as could not have been expected from this ever calm and imposing figure. Turbin swept up all the money that was left on the table, brushed aside the servant, who had run in to help his master, and with rapid strides left the room.

” If you wish satisfaction, I am at your service. I shall remain in number seven half an hour longer,” added the count, coining back to Lukhnov’s door.

” Scoundrel ! Robber ! ” was the voice that proceeded from within. ” I will have you criminally prosecuted ! “

Ilin, without paying the least attention to the count’s promise to save him, was lying on the couch in his room in the same attitude, and tears of despair choked him.

The consciousness of reality, which the kindness and sympathy of the count had evoked through the strange maze of feelings, thoughts, and recollections that filled his soul, did not leave him. Youth rich in hopes, honour, the respect of society, dreams of love and friendship, — every-tliing was for ever lost. The spring of tears was beginning to run dry ; a much too calm sensation of hopelessness ever more took possession of him, and the thought of suicide, no longer provoking disgust and terror, ever more frequently arrested his attention. Just then were heard the count’s firm steps.

On Turbin’s countenance could still be seen the traces of anger, and his hands trembled a little, but his eyes beamed with kindly merriment and self-satisfaction.

” Here ! I have won it back ! ” he said, throwing several packages of assignats upon the table. “ Count them up and see whether it is all there ! Come directly to the guest-room, — I shall leave at once,” he added, as though not noticing the terrible agitation of joy and gratitude which was expressed in the uhlan’s face, and, whistling some gipsy song, left the room.

VIII.

Sashka, girding on his belt, informed him that the horses were ready, but insisted that it was necessary first to go down and get the count’s overcoat, which, he said, with the collar was worth three hundred roubles, and to return the accursed blue fur coat to the rascal who at the marshal’s had exchanged it for the overcoat. Turbin told him that it was not necessary to look for the overcoat, and went to his room to change his clothes.

The cavalryman incessantly hiccoughed, sitting silently near his gipsy maiden. The chief ordered some brandy, invited all the gentlemen to his house to eat breakfast, and promised them that his wife would certainly come out and dance with the gipsies. The handsome young man thoughtfully explained to Ilyushka that there was more soulfulness in the piano, and that it was not possible to play B minors on a guitar. The official sadly drank tea in a corner, and in the daylight seemed to be ashamed of his debauch. The gipsies disputed among themselves in gipsy language, and insisted that the gentlemen ought to be hailed again, to which Stéshka was opposed, saying that the baroray (in gipsy language it means ” count ” or ” prince,” or, more correctly, ” a great gentleman ”) would be angry. Altogether, the last spark of the riotous debauch was burning low.

” Well, give us another song before parting, and march ! home!” said the count, fresh, merry, beautiful more than ever, as he entered the room in travelling attire.

The gipsies again placed themselves in a circle, and were just getting ready to sing, when Ilin entered with a batch of assignats in his hand and called the count aside.

” I had in all fifteen thousand of Crown money, and you gave me sixteen thousand three hundred,” he said. ” This must be yours.”

” That’s nice ! Let me have it ! “

Ilin gave him the money. He looked timidly at the count and opened his mouth, wishing to say something, but only blushed so that the tears stood in his eyes; then he seized the count’s hand, and began to press it.

” Get away ! Ilyushka ! Listen ! Here is some money for you, if you will take me to the toll-gate with songs.” And he threw down on his guitar one thousand and three hundred roubles, which Ilin had brought him. Still, the count forgot to pay back the hundred roubles which he had borrowed the day before of the cavalryman.

It was ten o’clock of the forenoon. The sun had risen above the roofs ; people were hurrying through the streets ; the merchants had long ago opened their shops ; noblemen and officials were driving through the streets ; ladies were walking through merchants’ row, — when the band of gipsies, the chief, the cavalryman, the handsome young man, Ilin, and the count went out on the porch of the hotel. It was a sunny day and a thaw. Three stage troykas, with shortly tied up tails, plashing ■with their feet in the liquid mud, drove up to the porch, and the whole merry company took their seats. The count, Ilin, Steshka, Ilyushka, and Sashka, the orderly, sat down in the first sleigh. Bliicher was beside himself, and, w’agging his tail, barked at the centre horse. The other gentlemen and the gipsies seated themselves in the other sleighs. The sleighs started abreast at the very hotel, and the gipsies began to sing a choral song.

The sleighs, with their songs and bells, compelling all the passing sleighs to take to the sidewalk, crossed the whole city up to the toll-gate.

The merchants and passers-by, strangers, and especially acquaintances, were surprised when they saw the noblemen driving in daylight through the streets with songs, gipsy women, and drunken gipsy men.

When they reached the toll-gate, the sleighs stopped and all began to bid the count farewell.

Ilin, who had drunk a great deal at parting, and who had all the time handled the horses, suddenly grew sad and began to ask the count to stay there another day ; but when he became convinced that this was impossible, he quite unexpectedly, with tears in his eyes, started to kiss his new friend, and promised him that as soon as he got back, he would ask to be transferred as a hussar to the same regiment in which Turbin served. The count was unusually happy ; he threw the cavalryman, who had persisted since morning in saying ” thou ” to him, into a snowdrift ; he urged Bliicher on the chief ; he caught Stéshka in his arms and wanted to take her to Moscow, and finally leaped into the sleigh and put near him Bliicher, who wanted to stay by all means in the middle. Sashka again asked the cavalryman to get the count’s overcoat from them and to send it to them, and jumped on the box. The count shouted, ” Go ! ” took off his cap and waved it over his head, and in driver’s fashion whistled at the horses. The sleighs parted from each other.

Far in front could be seen a monotonous, snow-covered plain, through which wound the yellowish dirty road. The bright sun, playing, shone on the thawing snow with its transparent crust, and pleasantly warmed both face and back. Steam rose from the perspiring horses. The bell clattered merrily. A peasant, with a hamper on a swaying sleigh, pulled at his rope reins and swiftly took to the side, in his run plashing with his wet bast shoes in the thawing road ; a stout, red peasant woman, with a baby in the bosom of her sheepskin, was sitting in another wagon, urging on a white, scanty-tailed dobbin with the ends of the reins. The count suddenly thought of Anna Fédorovna.

” Turn back ! ” he shouted.

The driver did not understand at first.

” Turn back ! Back to the city ! Lively ! “

The troyka again passed through the toll-gate and briskly drove up to the frame porch of the house of Madame Zaytsov. The count swiftly ran up the stairs, passed through the antechamber and drawing-room, and finding the little widow still asleep, took her in his arms, lifted her out of her bed, kissed her sleepy eyes, and rapidly ran out again. Anna Fédorovna smacked her lips half-asleep, and asked what had happened. The count jumped into his sleigh, shouted to the driver, and, no longer stopping, nor even thinking of Lukhnov, nor of the widow, nor of Stéshka, but only of what awaited him in Moscow, left the city of K–-for ever.

IX.

Twenty years passed. Much water had flowed since then ; many people had died ; many were born ; many had grown up or grown old ; still more thoughts had been born and had died ; many beautiful and many bad old things had perished, and still more half-grown, ugly, and youthful things had made their appearance in God’s world.

Count Fédor Turbin had long been killed in a duel with some foreigner, whom he had flogged with a hunting-whip in the street ; his son, resembling him as two drops of water resemble each other, was at that time a twenty-three-year-old, charming young man, and served in the horse-guard. Morally, young Turbin did not resemble his father in the least. There was not even a shadow left in him of those riotous, impassioned, and, to tell the truth, perverse inclinations of the past generation. Together with his intelligence, culture, and inherited natural talent, love of decency and comfort of life, a practical view of men and affairs, propriety and caution were his distinctive qualities. In the army the young count was very successful ; at twenty-three he was already a lieutenant. At the opening of the war he concluded that it was more profitable for advancement to pass over to the active army, and so he joined a regiment of hussars as a captain, and soon received the command of a squadron.

In the month of May of the year 1848, the S–-

regiment on its march passed through the Government

of K–-, and the squadron under the command of young

Count Turbin had to stay overnight at Mordzovka, Anna Fédorovna’s village. Anna Fédorovna was alive, but so advanced in age that she called herself old, which means a great deal for a woman. She had grown very stout, which, they say, makes a woman look young ; but even on this white obesity could be seen large wrinkles. She never visited the city, and with difficulty climbed into her carriage ; but she was just as good-natured and just as silly, one may now say truly, when she no longer bribed people with her beauty. With her lived her daughter, Liza, a twenty-three-year-old Russian country beauty, and her brother, our friend the cavalryman, who, as a result of his good nature, had gone through with his whole small estate, and in his old age had found a refuge with Anna Fédorovna. His hair was entirely gray, his upper lip drooped, but the moustache was carefully blackened. Wrinkles covered not only his forehead and cheeks, but even his nose and neck ; his back was bent, and yet, in his weak, crooked legs, one could perceive the manner of an old cavalryman.

In the small drawing-room of an old little house, with the open door and windows of the balcony facing an ancient star-shaped linden garden, sat the whole family and the house-folk of Anna Fedorovna. Anna Fédorovna, with gray head, dressed in a lilac jacket, was sitting on a couch at a round red wood table, and laying cards. Iler old brother had taken up a position near the window. He wore white pantaloons and a blue coat, and was braiding a thin strip of white paper on a forked needle, an occupation which his niece had taught him, and which he liked very much, since he was unable to do anything else, and his eyes were too weak for his favourite occupation, the reading of newspapers. Fimochka, Anna Fédorovna’s adopted child, was sitting near him, and learning a lesson under the guidance of Liza, who, at the same time, was knitting stockings of goat wool for her uncle on wooden needles.

The setting sun, as always at that period of the year, was casting its last broken, slanting rays through the linden avenue, and through the farthest window and upon the étagère which was standing near it. In the garden and the room it was so quiet that one could hear the flapping of a swallow’s wings beyond the window, or the soft sigh of Anna Fédorovna in the room, or the light groan of the old man, as he placed one leg over the other.

” How do you lay the cards ? Liza, dear, show me ! I keep forgetting,” said Anna Fédorovna, stopping in the middle of her solitaire.

Liza, without laying aside her work, walked over to her mother and, looking at the cards, she said :

” Ah, you have mixed it all up, mother, dear ! ” and putting the cards right : ” This is the way it ought to be. Still, that which you have in mind will come to pass,” she added, taking away a card so as not to be seen.

” Oh, you are always cheating me ! You always say that it has come out right.”

” Really, I tell you, it will come out. Surely.”

” All right, all right, you joker ! Is it not time for tea ? ”

” I have ordered them to get the samovar ready. I will go at once and see. Shall I have it brought here ? — Well, Fimochka, get through with your lesson, and we will go out running.”

Liza went out through the door.

” Liza, Liza ! ” said the uncle, looking fixedly at his forked needle, ” I think I have again lost a mesh. Catch it for me, darling ! ”

” Directly, directly ! I will only order the sugar chopped.”

Indeed, three minutes later she ran into the room, walked over to her uncle, and took him by the ear.

not serve as a uhlan, uncle ? These people I do not care to know. They are desperate people, they say.”

Liza blushed a little, but again laughed her sonorous laugh.

“ Ustyushka is running this way. I must ask her what she has seen,” she said.

Anna Fédorovna sent for Ustyushka.

” There is no such a thing as sticking to your work. What need was there to run to see the soldiers ? ” said Anna Fédorovna. ” Well, where have the officers been stationed ? ”

” At the Erémkins*, madame. Two of them are so handsome, and one of them, they say, is a count.”

” What is his name ? ”

” I do not remember right whether it was Kazârov or Türbinov, I am sorry to say.”

” Stupid girl, she can’t even tell a thing straight. If she had only found out the name.”

“Well, I’ll run down again.”

” I know that you are a great hand on that. No, let Danilo run down. Tell him, brother, to run down and ask whether the officers need anything. I must be polite, and let him tell them that the lady has asked about them.”

The old people again sat down in the tea-room, and Liza went to the maids’ room to put the chopped sugar into a box. Ustyushka was there telling about the hussars.

” My lady dear, what a beauty that count is ! ” she said. ” He is simply a black-eyed cherub. What a fine pair you and he would be ! ”

The other chambermaids smiled approvingly. The old nurse, who was sitting with a stocking at the window, sighed and pronounced a prayer, drawing in her breath.

” So you like the hussars very much,” said Liza. ” You are clever at telling about them. Ustyushka, bring me

some must, — to give the hussars something sour to drink.”

Liza, smiling, left the room, with the sugar-bowl in her hands.

” I should like to see what kind of a hussar he is,” she thought, ” whether he is dark-complexioned or a blond ? I think he would be glad to become acquainted with us. If he marches off, he will not know that I was here and thought of him. How many such have passed by me ! Nobody sees me but uncle and Ustyushka. It makes no difference how I comb my hair and what sleeves I put on, nobody admires me,” she thought, with a sigh, looking at her white, plump hand. ” He must be tall and he, no doubt, has large eyes and a small black moustache. No, twenty-two years are past, and no one has yet fallen in love with me, except freckled Ivan Ignatych ; and four years ago I was even prettier : my girlish youth has gone without any joy to any one. Oh, I am an unfortunate village maiden.”

Her mother’s voice, calling her to serve the tea, brought the village maiden out of her momentary meditation. She tossed her little head and went into the tea-room.

The best things always happen by accident; but the more you try, the worse they come out. In the country they seldom endeavour to give an education, and thus without premeditation they generally give something beautiful.

This was particularly the case with Liza. Anna Fédorovna, on account of her limited capacity and careless manner, had given Liza no education whatever ; she had taught her no music, nor the so useful French language. She without premeditation bore by her deceased husband a healthy, pretty child, whom she gave to a nurse to feed and bring up ; she dressed her in chintz dresses and kid leather shoes, sent her to pick mushrooms and berries, and had her taught reading and arithmetic by a

9 O v-/ V seminarist hired for the purpose ; she without premeditation found in her, sixteen years later, a friend and an ever cheerful and good-natured soul and an active mistress of the house.

Anna Fédorovna, through the goodness of her heart, always had some girls to bring up, either peasant babes or foundlings. Liza began to busy herself with them in her tenth year : she taught them, dressed them, took them to church, and stopped them when they became too naughty.

Then there appeared the decrepit, good-natured uncle, who had to be attended to like a child. Then there were the servants and peasants, who turned to the young lady with all kinds of requests and in their ailments, which she cured with elderberries, mint, and spirit of camphor. Then the whole house incidentally passed over into her hands. Then there was the unsatisfied need of love, which found its expression in Nature and religion alone. Thus, without premeditation, Liza turned out to be an active, good-natured, independent, pure, and deeply religious woman.

It is true, there were small sufferings of vanity at the sight of neighbours in fashionable hats brought from K–-, who were standing at her side in church ; there

were annoyances, leading to tears, at her old, grumbling mother for her caprices ; there were also dreams of love in the most insipid and at times in coarse forms, — but her useful activity, which had become her second nature, dispersed all these, and at twenty-two years not one spot, not one pang of conscience, had fallen into this bright, calm soul of the girl who had grown up full of physical and moral beauty.

Liza was of medium stature, rather plump than slender ; her eyes were hazel, small, with a slight dark tinge on her lower lid ; her hair was long and blonde. She had a broad and swaying gait, — what is called a duck’s waddle.

The expression of her face, when she was busy working and nothing in particular agitated her, told everybody who looked at it : ” It is a joy to live in the world, if you have some one to love and if your conscience is pure.” Even in moments of vexation, confusion, alarm, or sorrow, there beamed, through a tear, through the frowning left side of her brow, through the compressed lips, — there beamed, as though in spite of her wish, a good, frank heart, un corrupted by reason, and so, too, in the dimples of her cheek, in the corners of her lips, and in her sparkling eyes, which were accustomed to smile and enjoy life.

X.

It was still warm in the air, although the sun was setting, when the squadron entered Mordzovka. In front, along the dusty road of the village, there galloped, looking around and now and then stopping to low, a brindle cow, which had strayed from the herd, without considering that all she had to do was to step to one side. The village old men, women, and children eagerly watched the hussars, crowding on both sides of the road. The hussars moved with a clatter through a dense cloud of smoke, on black horses with bridle-bits, that were snorting now and then. On the right side of the squadron rode two officers, sitting loosely on their black chargers. One of these was the commander, Count Turbin, and the other a very young man, who had lately been promoted from yunkership, Polozov.

From the best hut there issued a hussar in a white blouse. He took off his cap and walked over to the officers.

” Where have we been assigned quarters ? ” asked the count.

” For your Serenity ? ” replied the quartermaster-sergeant, jerking his whole body. ” Here, at the elder’s,— the house has been cleaned. I demanded a place at the manor, but they said there was none. The proprietress is such a cross woman.”

” Very well,” said the count, dismounting and stretching his legs near the elder’s hut. ” Has my carriage arrived ? “

” It has, your Serenity ! ” replied the quartermaster-sergeant, pointing with his cap to the leather body of the carriage, which was visible through the gate, and rushing ahead into the vestibule of the hut, which was filled with a peasant family looking at the officer. He even knocked over a woman, as he dashingly opened the door to the cleaned-up room, and stepped aside before the officer.

The room was quite large and spacious, but not very clean. A German valet, dressed as a gentleman, stood in the room. He had put up an iron bed and had made it up, and was now taking things out of the portmanteau.

” Fie ! What horrible quarters ! ” said the count, in vexation. ” Dyadénko ! Could you not have found anything at the manor ? “

“If your Serenity so order, I will go to the manor,” replied Dyadénko, ” but the house is not much : it does not look much better than a hut.”

” It is too late now. Be gone ! “

The count lay down on his bed, putting his arms back of his head.

“Johann!” he called out to his valet. “You have again made a mound in the middle ! Why can’t you make a bed decently ? ”

Johann wanted to fix it.

“ No, not now. Where is the morninggown ? ” he continued, in a dissatisfied voice.

The servant handed him his morninggown.

Before putting it on, the count looked at the skirt of the morninggown.

“ Precisely : you have not taken out the spot. I wonder whether it is possible for one to be a worse servant than you are,” he added, pulling the morninggown out of his hands, and putting it on. “ Tell me, are you doing it on purpose ? — Is tea ready ? ”

“ I did not have time,” replied Johann.

“ Fool ! “

After that the count took a French novel, which had been placed near him, and for quite awhile read it in silence ; in the meantime, Johann was fanning the samovar on the outside. It was apparent that the count was in bad humour, no doubt, under the influence of fatigue, a dusty face, tight clothing, and a hungry stomach.

“ Johann ! ” he called out again. “ Let me see the account of the ten roubles. What did you buy in town ? ”

The count ran through the account which was handed to him and made dissatisfied remarks in regard to the expensiveness of the purchases.

“ Let me have rum with the tea ! “

“ I have not bought any rum,” said Johann.

“ Very well ! How many times have I told you to have rum ! ”

“ There was not enough money.”

“ Why did Polozov not buy it ? You ought to have taken from his man.”

“ Comet Polozov ? I do not know. He bought tea and sugar.”

“ Beast! Get out! You are the only one that makes me lose my patience : you know that I always drink tea with rum on marches.”

« Here are two letters for you from the staff,” said the valet.

The count remained lying as he opened the letters and began to read them. The comet, who had taken the squadron to quarters, came in with a cheerful countenance.

“ Well, Turbin ? It seems nice here. I am tired, I must confess. It was hot.”

“ Very well ! An accursed, stinking room, and through your kindness there is no mm : your blockhead has not bought any, and this one neither. You ought to have told him.”

He continued reading. Having finished his letter, he crumpled it and threw it on the floor.

« Why did you not buy any rum ? ” the cornet in the meantime asked his orderly in a whisper in the vestibule. ” You did have money ! “

” Why should we be buying all the time? As it is I keep the accounts, while that German in there only smokes his pipe, and that’s all.”

The second letter was evidently not unpleasant, because the count read it with a smile.

” From whom is it ? ” asked Polozov, upon returning to the room and fixing a bed for himself on boards, near the oven.

” From Alina,” merrily replied the count, handing him the letter. ” Do you want to read it ? What a charming woman she is ! Really, much better than our young ladies — Just see how much feeling and sense there is in tliis letter!— There is just one bad thing, — she asks for money.”

” Yes, that is not good,” remarked the cornet.

” It is true, I have promised her ; but now we have the expedition, and — still, if I am going to command the squadron three months longer, I will send her some. I do not begrudge it. What a charming girl ! Isn’t she ? ” he said, smiling, watching the expression of Polozov’s face, as he read the letter.

” Terribly misspelled, but sweet, and, I think, she really loves you,” replied the cornet.

” Hem, I should say so ! These women love genuinely, when they love one.”

” And the other letter, from whom is it ? ” asked the cornet, giving him back the one he had been reading.

” Well — there is a gentleman, a pretty worthless one, to whom I owe at cards, and this is the third time he reminds me of it — I can’t give it to him now — a pretty stupid letter!” answered the count, apparently saddened by this recollection.

The two officers kept silent for quite awhile after this conversation. The cornet, who, obviously, was under the influence of the count, drank tea in silence, occasionally looking at the handsome, clouded countenance of Turbin, who was looking through the window, and could not make up his mind to start a conversation.

” Well, I may turn out pretty well,” the count said, suddenly turning to Polozov and merrily tossing his head. ” If there is any promotion this year along the fine, and we get into action, I may get ahead of the captains of the guard.”

The conversation on the same theme was continued at the second glass of tea, when old Danilo entered and transmitted Anna Fedorovna’s order.

” She has also ordered me to find out whether you were not the son of Count Fédor Ivanovich Turbin ? ” Danilo added on his own account, when he heard the officer’s name, and recalled the stay of the late count at K–—.

” Our lady, Anna Fédorovna, used to be very well acquainted with him.”

” That was my father ; tell your lady that I am very much obliged and that I need nothing, only I should like to have a little cleaner room, in the house, or somewhere.”

” Why are you doing that ? ” said Polozov, when Danilo left. ” What difference does it make ? We might just as well stay here one night, while it will incommode them.”

” I declare ! It seems to me we have had enough of smoky rooms ! One can see at once that you are not a practical man— Why not make use of the opportunity of being housed even one night like decent people ? They, on the contrary, will be very happy themselves. There is just one annoying thing : if this lady really knew father,” continued the count, displaying his white, shining teeth with a smile. ” I shall always have to feel ashamed for papa: it is always some scandal or some debt. For this reason I hate to meet these acquaintances of father. Still, that was such an age,” he added, seriously.

” I have not told you,” said Polozov, “ that I happened to meet Ilin, the commander of a brigade of uhlans. He was very anxious to see you, and was desperately in love with your father.”

” It seems to me this Ilin is a horrible fellow. The main thing is that all these gentlemen who insist that they knew father tell me, in order to gain my favour, as pleasant little stories, such dreadful things about father that I am ashamed to listen to them. It is true, I am not carried away, and I look with an unbiassed mind at things, — he was an exceedingly ardent nature, and sometimes did quite unseemly things. Still, it is all a matter of the times. In our day he, very likely, would have been a very decent kind of a man, because he had enormous capacities, — I must give him justice.”

Fifteen minutes later the servant returned and informed them of the lady’s request to come for the night to the house.

XI.

Having learned that the officer of hussars was the son of Fédor Turbin, Anna Fédorovna was all in a flutter.

“Ah, my dear ones! It is he, the darling! — Danilo! Run fast, and tell him that the lady invites him to the house,” she exclaimed, jumping up and with rapid steps moving toward the maids’ chamber. “Liza! Ustyushka! Your room, Liza, will have to be fixed up. You go to uncle’s room; and you brother — brother! you sleep in the drawing-room. It won’t hurt you just one night.”

” Never mind, sister ! I will sleep on the floor.”

“ He must be a handsome fellow if he is like his father. I would just like to get a look at him, my darling— Look here, Liza! His father was such a handsome man — Where are you taking the table to ? Leave it here,” Anna Fédorovna was all in a flutter, “and bring two beds, — get one from the steward, — and take the crystal candlestick, the one brother gave me on my name-day, down from the étagère, and put into it a Callet candle.”

At last everything was in order. Liza, in spite of her mother’s interference, arranged her room for the two officers according to her own idea. She took out clean, mignonette-scented bedclothes and made the beds, ordered a decanter of water and candles to be placed on a little table near by, lighted the candles with a piece of paper in the maids’ room, and betook herself with her little bed to her uncle’s room.

Anna Fédorovna quieted down a little, again sat down in her chair, even took the cards in her hands, but, without laying them out, leaned on her plump elbow and fell to musing.

” How time flies ! ” she said to herself in a whisper. ” It is but recently, it seems, that I saw him. Ah, what a jester he was !” Tears appeared in her eyes. ” Now it is Liza — but she is not what I was at her age — She is a good girl, but no, not the same — ”

” Liza, you ought to put on your muslin delaine dress for this evening.”

“Are you going to invite them in, mamma? You had better not,” replied Liza, experiencing an insuperable agitation at the thought of seeing the officers. ” You had better not, mamma ! “

Indeed, she was not so desirous of seeing them as she was afraid of a certain agitating happiness which, so it seemed to her, was awaiting her.

” They may themselves wish to become acquainted, Liza ! ” said Anna Fédorovna, stroking her hair and thinking at the same time : ” No, not the air I had at her age. 0 Liza, how I should wish for you — ” She really wanted something for her daughter, but she could not imagine a marriage with the count, nor could she wish for such relations as had existed between her and his father, — still, there was something which she wanted very much for her daughter. Maybe she wanted, through her daughter’s soul, to live over the life which she had lived with the deceased count.

The old cavalryman, too, was somewhat agitated by the arrival of the count. He went to his room and locked himself in. Fifteen minutes later he issued from it in a Hungarian coat and blue pantaloons, and, with an embarrassed and satisfied expression on his countenance, such as a girl has when she for the first time puts on a ball dress, went into the room which was set aside for the guests.

” I will take a look at the hussars of these days, sister ! The late count was, indeed, a genuine hussar. I will take a look at him, I will.”

The officers arrived by the back porch at the room prepared for them.

“ Well, don’t you see,” said the count, throwing himself as he was, in his dusty boots, on the bed made up for them, “is it not better here than in the hut with the cockroaches ? ”

” Of course it is better, but why put yourself under obligation to the hostess — ”

” Nonsense ! You must in everything be a practical man. They are, no doubt, extremely flattered — Servant!” he called out. “Ask for something to hang in front of the window, or it will blow here in the night.”

Just then the old man came in to make the acquaintance of the officers. He blushed a little and, of course, did not fail to say that he was a friend of the late count, that he had enjoyed his favour, and even said that he more than once had been benefited by him. The old man did not stop to explain whether he meant by the benefits that the count had never paid him back the hundred roubles loaned to him, or that he had thrown him into a snowdrift, or that he had berated him. The count was exceedingly polite to the old cavalryman and thanked him for his visit.

“You must pardon us, count, for the absence of luxury ” (he almost addressed him as “ your Serenity,” so unaccustomed had he become to keeping company with important personages). ” Sister’s house is rather small. But we will hang something here, and it will be all right,” added the old man, and, under the pretext of fetching a curtain, but mainly in order to tell all he had found out from the officers, he scraped and left the room.

Pretty Ustyushka came with the lady’s shawl to screen

the window. Besides, the lady ordered her to ask if the gentlemen did not wish any tea.

The good housing apparently affected the count’s disposition favourably : he smiled merrily, jested with Ustyushka, so that Ustyushka called him naughty ; asked her whether the lady was good, and to her question whether they wished any tea replied that it would do no hurt to have some, that above everything else their supper was not yet ready, and that he would be obliged for some brandy, a little lunch, and some sherry if they had any.

The uncle was ecstatic from the young count’s politeness and extolled to the sky the young generation of officers, saying that the men of the present were far superior to those of the past.

Anna Fedorovna did not agree with him, — there could be nothing better than Count Fedor Ivanovich, and finally became angry in earnest, dryly remarking: ” For you, brother, he is best who was the last to show you any favour. Of course, people have now grown much more clever. Still, Count Fedor Ivanovich then danced the écossaise so exquisitely and was so amiable that all, one might say, were beside themselves looking at him, and he paid no attention to anybody else but me. Consequently, in old times there were nice people too.”

At this time came the news of the request for brandy, a lunch, and sherry.

” Just like you, brother ! You always do things wrong. You ought to have ordered a supper,” said Anna Fédorovna. ” Liza, give your order, my dear ! “

Liza ran into the pantry for mushrooms and fresh butter, and the cook was ordered to make forcemeat cutlets.

” But how about the sherry ? Brother, have you any left ? “

” Xo, sister ! I never had any.”

” What, you have none? And what is it you drink with your tea ? ”

XII.

Liza blushed and, lowering her eyes, pretended to be busy filling the teapot, being afraid to look at the officers as they entered the room. Anna Fédorovna, on the contrary, jumped up hurriedly, bowed, and, without taking her eyes off the count’s face, began to talk to him, now finding an extraordinary resemblance to his father, now introducing her daughter, now offering tea, or jam, or country preserves. Nobody paid any attention to the cornet, on account of his modest appearance, and of this he was very glad, because, as far as propriety permitted, he watched and scrutinized in detail the beauty of Liza, which apparently had startled him very much.

The uncle, listening to liis sister’s conversation with the count, was waiting, with a speech ready upon his lips, for a chance of relating to them his cavalry reminiscences. The count at tea lighted a strong cigar, which made it hard for Liza to keep from coughing. He was very talkative and amiable. At first he interposed his stories in the intervals of Anna Fedorovna’s unceasing speeches, and finally himself monopolized the conversation. There was one thing which affected his hearers a little strangely : in his stories he frequently employed words which were not regarded as improper in the society to which he belonged, but which here were somewhat bold, so that Anna Fedorovna was a little afraid, while Liza blushed up to her ears; but the count did not notice it, and was just as simply calm and amiable.

Liza silently filled the glasses. She did not hand the glasses to them, but placed them near. She had not yet overcome her agitation and was eagerly listening to the speeches of the count. His unpretentious stories and the hesitation of his speech slowly calmed her. She did not hear from him the very clever things she had expected to hear from him, nor did she see that elegance in everything which she dimly had expected to find in him. Even at the third glass of tea, after her timid eyes had met his and he did not lower them, but, on the contrary, continued, barely smiling, to look calmly at her, she felt a little hostile toward him, and soon found that there was not only nothing especial in him, but that he in no way differed from all those whom she knew ; that it was not worth while being afraid of him ; that his nails, indeed, were long and clean, but that otherwise he was not at all handsome. Abandoning her dream not without internal sadness, Liza suddenly grew calm, and only the glance of the taciturn cornet, which she felt directed upon her, disquieted her. ” Maybe it is this one and not that one,” she thought.

XIII.

After tea the old lady invited the guests to another room, and again sat down in her seat.

” Don’t you wish to rest yourself, count ? ” she asked. ” What can I do to entertain our dear guests with ? ” she continued, after a negative answer. ” Do you play cards, count ? If you, brother, could join us, we might start some kind of a game.”

” You yourself play preference,” replied the cavalryman, ” so let us play together. Shall you play, count ? And you, too ? ”

The officers expressed their willingness to do anything that would be agreeable to their kind hosts.

Liza brought from her room some old cards, with which she had been divining whether Anna Fedorovna’s cold would soon pass, whether uncle would come back the same day from town, when he was away, whether a neighbour would call, and so forth. These cards, though they had been in service for something like two months, were cleaner than those which Anna Fédorovna had been using for her solitaire.

” Only you, probably, will not play at small stakes,” said the uncle. ” Anna Fédorovna and I play at half a kopek stakes — As it is, she always wins from us.”

” Anything you wish — lam very glad to,” replied the count.

“Well, then at a kopek in assignats! Let it be so much in honour of the dear guests : let them win from me, an old woman,” said Anna Fédorovna, seating herself comfortably in her chair and spreading her mantilla.

” And maybe I shall win a rouble from them,” thought Anna Fédorovna, who in her old age had acquired a small passion for cards.

“If you wish, I shall teach you to play with Tables and Miseres,” said the count. ” It is a jolly game ! ”

Everybody liked the new-fashioned St. Petersburg game. The uncle even assured him that he knew it, that it was the same as in boston, but that he had forgotten it a little. Anna Fédorovna did not understand a thing, and continued so long not understanding it that she felt herself compelled, smiling and approvingly nodding, to affirm that now she would understand, and that everything was at last clear to her. There was no small amount of laughter in the middle of the game, when Anna Fédorovna, with ace and a king blank, said Misere and was left with a six. She became confused, began timidly to smile and hurriedly to assure them that she was not yet quite used to the new game. Still, they scored against her, and a great deal, too, the more so since the count, accustomed to play a big, commercial game, played with reserve, calculated very well, and was entirely unable to understand the cornet’s signs with the foot under the table and his terrible blunders in going whist.

Liza brought some more preserves, three kinds of jam, and Oporto apples of a peculiar pickling. She stopped behind her mother’s back, looking at the game, and now and then watching the officers, especially the count’s white hands, with their thin, pink, well-kept nails, as he firmly, prettily and with agility threw down cards and took in the stakes.

Anna Fédorovna, again hazarding to announce above the others, and, buying in seven, lost without three, and at her brother’s demand, who monstrously represented some kind of a figure, was entirely at a loss and played hastily.

“Never mind, mamma ; you will win back !” smilingly said Liza, wishing to get her mother out of her ridiculous position. ” Let uncle forfeit once, and then he will be caught.”

” If you only helped me, Liza !” said Anna Fédorovna, looking at her daughter in fright. “I do not know how it is — ”

“ I can’t play this way,” said Liza, mentally counting her mother’s forfeits. ” You will lose a great deal in this fashion, mamma ! There will be nothing left for a dress for Timochka,” she added, jestingly.

” In this way one may lose ten roubles in silver,” said the cornet, looking at Liza, and wishing to enter into a conversation with her.

” Are you not playing with assignats ? ” Anna Fedorovna asked, looking at everybody.

” I do not know how it is, — I can’t count by assignats,” said the count. ” How is it ? What is an assignat ? ”

“ Nowadays nobody any longer counts by assignats,” interposed the uncle, who had been winning, playing with the flintstone.

The old woman ordered some frothy drink, herself emptied two beakers, grew red in her face, and, it seemed, submitted to fate. A strand of her gray hair strayed out from under her cap, and she did not even put it back. It evidently seemed to her that she had lost millions, and that she was completely lost.

The cornet ever more frequently pushed the count with his foot. The count noted down the old lady’s forfeits. Finally the game came to an end. No matter how much the old lady, compromising with honesty, tried to add to her marks and to pretend that she was making mistakes in her calculations, and was unable to count it all up ; however much she was horrified at the enormity of her loss, it turned out at the end, when the accounts were squared, that she had lost 920 points.

” Does this mean nine roubles in assignats ? ” Anna Fédorovna asked several times, and failed to grasp the enormity of her loss, until her brother, to her terror, explained to her that she had lost thirty-two roubles and a half in assignats, and that she must by all means pay the amount.

The count did not even figure out his gain, but immediately after the game arose and walked over to the window, where Liza was setting the table for the appetizer, and taking mushrooms out of a jar and putting them on a plate for supper. He did in the calmest and simplest manner that which the cornet had wished to do all the evening, and was unable to do, — he entered into a conversation with her about the weather.

The cornet was, in the meanwhile, in a very unfortunate position. In the absence of the count, and, especially, of Liza, who had sustained her in her cheerful mood, Anna Fédorovna became frankly angry.

” Really it is aggravating to have made you lose so much,” said Polozov, to have something to say. ” It is simply disgraceful.”

” There they have invented Tables and Miseres ! I can’t play with them : how much does it come to in assignats ? ” she asked.

“Thirty-two roubles, thirty-two and a half,” repeated the cavalryman, being, on account of his gain, in a playful mood. “ Give us the money, sister ! Give it to us ! ”

” I will give you all, only you will never catch me again, no ! I sha’n’t win it back in a lifetime.”

Anna Fédorovna went with a rapid waddling gait to her room, came back, and brought with her nine roubles in assignats. Only at the urgent request of the old man did she pay everything she owed.

Polozov was seized with a certain terror lest Anna Fédorovna should berate him if he said something to her. He silently and softly went away from her and joined the count and Liza, who were conversing at the open window.

Two tallow dips stood in the room on the table set for the supper. Their flames occasionally flickered in the fresh, warm breeze of the May night. The window which opened upon the garden was bright, but with a light entirely different from the one in the room. The almost full moon, losing its golden tinge, was swimming out above the tops of the tall lindens and ever more illuminated the white, thin clouds which now and then shrouded it. The frogs croaked in the pond, the surface of which, silvered in one place by the moon, could be seen through the avenue of trees. Some little birds softly hopped about and shook their wings in a fragrant lilac-bush, which occasionally slowly swayed its moist flowers under the very window.

” What charming weather ! ” said the count, walking over to Liza and seating himself on the low window-sill. ” I suppose you walk a great deal ? “

” Yes,” replied Liza, for some reason no longer feeling the least embarrassment in conversing with the count. ” In the morning, about seven o’clock, I walk out to look after the farm, and I go out for pleasure with Timochka, mamma’s protégée.”

” It is a pleasure to live in the country ! ” said the count, putting his monocle in his eye, and looking now at the garden and now at Liza. ” And don’t you walk at night, in the moonlight ? ”

” No. But three years ago uncle and I walked every night when the moon was shining. He had a strange disease — insomnia. Whenever there was a full moon he could not fall asleep. His room is the one over there that faces the garden, and the window is low, so the moon just beat through it.”

” That is strange,” remarked the count. ” But that is your room, I think ? ”

” No, but I shall stay there to-night, because you occupy my room.”

“ Indeed ? 0 Lord, I will not forgive myself in all my life for having disturbed you,” said the count, allowing the monocle to drop out of his eye in token of his genuine feeling. ” If I had known that I was putting you out — ”

” Not at all ! On the contrary, I am very glad : uncle’s room is so charming and cheerful; the window is low, and I will sit there until I fall asleep, or I will climb into the garden, and walk around in the night.”

” What a charming girl ! ” the count thought, again adjusting his monocle. He looked at her, and, pretending to seat himself better on the sill, tried to touch her leg with his. ” How cleverly she has hinted to me that I may see her in the garden near the window, if I wish.” Liza lost the greater part of her charm for him, so easy did his victory over her appear to him.

” What a joy it must be,” he said, thoughtfully looking at the dark avenues of trees, ” to pass such a night in the garden with a being whom you love ! ”

Liza was a little embarrassed by these words, and by the repeated, as it were accidental, touching of her leg. Even before thinking, she said something, only that her embarrassment might not become apparent. She said, ” Yes, it is glorious to walk about in the moonlight.” She felt uncomfortable. She tied up the jar, from which she had taken out the mushrooms, and was getting ready to go away from the window, when the cornet went up to them. She wanted to know what kind of a man he was.

” What a charming night ! ” he said.

“All they talk about is the weather, I see,” thought Liza.

” What a charming view ! ” continued the cornet. ” I suppose you are tired of it,” he added, following his peculiar bent toward telling somewhat unpleasant things to people to whom he took a special liking.

” Do you really think so ? The same food, a dress, one gets tired of, but one will never tire of a garden, when one is fond of walking through it, especially when the moon rises higher. From uncle’s room the whole pond can be seen. I shall look at it to-night.”

” It seems to me you have no nightingales here,” said the count, very much displeased with Polozov’s company, who interfered with his finding out more positively the conditions of the rendezvous.

“We have always had them. Only last year the hunters caught one, and a week ago one sang out beautifully, but the country judge came by with the bells on his vehicle, and scared him away. Three years ago, uncle and I used to sit down in the covered avenue of trees and listen to them for two hours at a time.”

“What is this prattling girl telling you?” asked the uncle, coming up to the speakers. ” Won’t you have a bit of something ? ”

After the supper, during which the count, by the praises bestowed upon the food, and by his appetite, managed somewhat to dispel the gloomy mood of the hostess, the officers bade them good night, and went to their room. The count pressed the uncle’s hand, to the surprise of Anna Fédorovna, and her hand, without kissing it, and even Liza’s hand, looking her straight in the eye and slightly smiling his pleasant smile. This glance again embarrassed the girl.

” He is very nice,” she thought, ” only he is too much interested in himself.”

XIV.

” BeallY, are you not ashamed ? ” said Polozov, when the officers returned to their room. ” I tried on purpose, to lose, and I kept pushing you under the table. Aren’t you ashamed ? The old woman was dreadfully put out about it.”

The count laughed out loud.

” What a funny lady ! How offended she was ! ”

He again laughed so merrily that even Johann, who was standing in front of him, lowered his eyes, and slightly smiled aside.

” And here is the son of the family’s friend ! Ha, ha, ha ! ” the count continued to smile.

” Beally, it is not good. I was sorry for her,” said the cornet.

“ What nonsense ! How young you are ! Did you want me to lose ? Why should I ? I used to lose, when I did not know how to play. Ten roubles will be useful to me. You must look practically at life, or else you will always be left.”

Polozov grew silent. He wanted to think to himself of Liza, who appeared to him an unusually pure and beautiful being. He undressed himself and lay down in the soft and clean bed prepared for him.

” What nonsense these military honours and glory are ! ” he thought, looking at the window curtained with the shawl, through which stole the pale moonbeams. ” It would be happiness to live in a quiet nook with a dear, intelligent, simple wife, — yes, this is a lasting and a true happiness ! “

For some reason or other he did not impart these meditations to his friend ; he did not even mention the country maiden, although he was convinced that the count, too, was thinking of her.

” Why do you not undress yourself ? ” he asked the count, who was walking up and down in the room.

” I do not yet feel like sleeping. Put out the light if you want ; I will find my bed without it.”

He continued to pace up and down.

” I do not yet feel like sleeping,” repeated Polozov, feeling himself, after this evening, more than ever dissatisfied with the count’s influence, and disposed to rebel against it. ” I imagine,” he reflected, mentally, turning to Turbin, ” what thoughts are rummaging through your well-groomed head ! I saw that you took a liking to her. You are not capable of understanding this simple, honest creature: you need a Mina, and the epaulettes of a colonel. Truly I will ask him how he likes her.”

Polozov turned to him, but changed his mind : he felt that he not only should not be able to dispute with him, if the count’s view of Liza was what he expected it to be, but that he should not even have the strength to disagree with him, so accustomed had he become to submit to his influence, which with every day became more oppressive and unjust.

” Where are you going ? ” he asked, when the count put on his cap and went toward the door.

” I will go to the stable to see whether everything is in order.”

“ That is strange,” thought the cornet, but he put out the light, and, trying to dispel his stupidly jealous and hostile thoughts in respect to his friend, which beset him, he turned on his other side.

In the meantime Anna Fedorovna, crossing, and, as usual, tenderly kissing her brother, her daughter, and adopted child, betook herself to her room. The old woman had for a long time not experienced so many impressions in one day, so that she was not able to pray in peace : the whole sadly vivid recollection of the late count and of the young dandy, who had won money from her in such a godless manner, did not leave her mind. Still, undressing herself by habit, and drinking half a glass of kvas, which stood OU a little table near her bed, she lay down to sleep. Her favourite cat softly crept into the room. Anna Fédorovna called her up and began to stroke her ; she listened to her purring, and could not fall asleep.

” The cat is bothering me,” she thought, and drove her away. The cat fell softly to the floor, slowly turning her fluffy tail, and jumped on the bench. The maid who slept on the floor of this room brought her felt blanket, put out the candle, and lighted a small lamp. Soon the maid began to snore; but sleep did not come to Anna Fédorovna and did not soothe her disturbed imagination. Whenever she closed her eyes, the face of the hussar stood before her, and seemed to appear in all kinds of strange shapes every time when she with open eyes looked, in the dim light of the lamp, at the dresser, the table, and the white garments on the wall. Now she felt warm in her feather-bed ; now the clock was striking annoyingly on the table, or the maid snoring dreadfully through her nose. Again her thoughts of her daughter, of the old and the young count, of the preference, became strangely mixed in her head. Now she saw herself dancing a waltz with the old count, saw her full, white shoulders, and felt upon them somebody’s kisses, and then she saw her daughter in the embrace of the young count. Ustyushka began to snore again —

” No, it is not that now, — not the same people. He was ready to go into the fire for me. And there was cause for it. But this one, of course, sleeps like a fool, and is glad that he has won money from me, he does not . even think of running after a woman. How the old count said on his knees : ‘ Ï Anil do anything you wish ; I will kill myself, or I will do anything else you may ask me to ! ‘ and he would have Idlled himself, if I had told him to.”

Suddenly somebody’s bare feet were heard in the corridor, and Liza, with nothing but the kerchief over her, all pale and trembling, ran into the room, and almost fell on her mother’s bed.

After having bid her mother good night, Liza went all alone to her uncle’s room. She put on a jacket, put up her long, thick braid in a kerchief, extinguished the light, raised the window, and sat down with her feet on the chair, resting her dreamy eyes upon the pond, which now was all silvered over by the moon.

All her usual occupations and interests suddenly appeared to her in an entirely new light: her old capricious mother, the unreasoning love for whom had become part of her soul, the decrepit, but amiable uncle, the manorial servants, the peasants, who worshipped the young lady, the milch-cows, and the heifers, — all this so frequently dying and renovated Nature, amidst which she had grown up, loving others and loved by them, all which gave her such a light and pleasant soulful rest, — all this suddenly seemed different to her, — all this seemed dull and unnecessary, as though some one had said to her : ” Foolish girl ! Twenty years you have been acting foolishly, — you have served some one, for some purpose, and you did not know what life and happiness were ! ’’

Peering into the depth of the bright, immovable garden, she now thought of it intently, much more intently than ever before. What was it that had induced these thoughts in her? Not at all a sudden love for the count, as one might be inclined to suppose. On the contrary, she did not like him. The cornet might have interested her much more ; but he was somehow foolish, wretched, taciturn. She involuntarily forgot him, and with anger and vexation evoked in imagination the picture of the count. ” No, it is not that,” she said to herself. Her ideal was so charming ! It was an ideal which, amid tins night, this Nature, without impairing its beauty, could be loved by her, — an ideal which had never been curtailed in order to weld it with some coarse reality.

At first, solitude and the absence of men, who might have attracted her attention, had had the effect of leaving in her heart whole and untarnished the whole power of love, which Providence has placed equally in the hearts of all of us ; now she had been living too long with the melancholy happiness of feeling within her the presence of that something, and, now and then opening the mysterious vessel of the heart, of enjoying the contemplation of its riches, to pour forth unpremeditatedly upon some one all that there was within. God grant that she enjoy to her grave that scant happiness ! Who knows whether it is not better and stronger ? and whether it is not the only true and possible happiness ?

” 0 Lord my God ! ” she thought, ” have I really lost my happiness and youth for nothing ? and will it not be — will it never be ? Is it the truth ? ” and she peered into the high, bright heaven near the moon, covered with white, fleecy clouds, which, shrouding the little stars, were moving up toward the moon. ” If the moon will be caught in this upper white cloudlet, it means that it is the truth,” she thought. A mistlike smoky stripe scudded across the lower half of the bright moon, and slowly the light grew fainter on the grass, on the tops of the lindens, and on the pond : the black shadows of the trees became less noticeable. As though in harmony with the murky shadow, which veiled Nature, a light breeze was borne athwart the leaves and brought to the window the dewy odour of leaves, of the moist earth, and of the blooming lilac.

” No, it is not true,” she consoled herself, ” but if the nightingale will sing to-night, then everything I have been thinking about is nonsense, and there is no cause for despair,” she thought. And she sat for a long time in silence, waiting for some one, although everything was again refreshed and revived, and again cloudlets scudded across the moon several times, and all was merged in darkness. She was falling asleep, sitting at the window, when a nightingale awoke her with his frequent trills, sonorously borne over the surface of the pond. The country maiden opened her eyes. Again all her soul with full enjoyment was renovated in this mysterious union with Nature, which calmly and brightly extended in front of her. She leaned on both her arms. A pining, sweet sensation of sadness compressed her heart, and tears of a pure, broad love, thirsting to be satisfied, — good, consoling tears filled her eyes. She put down her arms upon the window-sill and lowered her head upon them. Her favourite prayer came to her soul of its own accord, and she dozed off with moist eyes.

The touch of somebody’s hand awoke her. But the touch was gentle and agreeable. The hand pressed hers more strongly. She suddenly became conscious of reality, screamed, leaped up, and, assuring herself that she did not recognize the count, who was standing under the window, bathed in moonlight, ran out of the room.

XV.

Indeed, it was the count. Hearing the girl’s scream, and the groan of the watchman beyond the fence, in response to this scream, he rushed headlong, with the sensation of a thief caught, over the damp, dew-covered grass into the depth of the garden. “Ah, what a fool I am ! ” he unconsciously repeated to himself. ” I have frightened her. I ought to have done it more cautiously : I ought to have wakened her with words. Ah, what an awkward beast I am ! “

He stopped to listen : the watchman went through the gate into the garden, trailing a stick over the sandy path. It was necessary for him to conceal himself. He ran down to the pond. The frogs hurriedly leaped into the water from underneath his feet, making him shudder. In spite of his wet feet, he here squatted down and began to recall all that he had done, — how he had climbed over the fence, how he had searched for her window, and how, at last, he espied her white shadow ; how, listening to the least rustling sound, he went up to the window and walked back again ; now it seemed to him beyond any doubt that she was waiting for him, annoyed at his slowness, and now again that it was impossible that she should have so easily appointed a meeting. At last he concluded that she, with the embarrassment of a provincial lady, only pretended to be asleep, and walked over to her with determination and clearly saw her situation, but for some reason rushed headlong back, and, shaming himself for such a display of cowardice, went boldly up to her and touched her hand.

“ No.”

” Shall I tell you what has happened ? ”

” Well ? ”

” No, I had better not tell — or yes, I will. Pull up your legs !”

The count, mentally dismissing the spoiled intrigue, with an animated smile sat down on the bed of his comrade.

” Would you believe it? The young lady appointed a rendezvous with me.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Polozov, jumping up from his bed.

” Well, listen ! “

” How was it? When? Impossible ! ”

” While you people were counting the preference, she told me that she would be sitting at the window in the night, and that one could climb in through the window. You see what it means to be a practical man ! While you were casting accounts with the old woman, I arranged this matter. Did you not hear her say in your presence that she would be sitting in the night at the window and looking at the pond ? ”

” Yes, she did say that.”

” I do not know whether she said that accidentally or not. Maybe she did not want to do it all at once, only it looked like it. It turned out to be a terrible thing. I acted a complete fool ! ” he added, smiling contemptuously at himself.

” How so ? Where were you ? “

The count told everything that had happened, except his preliminary indecisive attempts.

” I spoiled it myself : I ought to have been bolder. She screamed and ran away from the window.”

” So she screamed and ran away,” said the cornet, with an awkward smile, in response to the count’s smile, which made a strong and lasting impression upon him.

” Yes. Now it is time to go to bed.”

The cornet again turned his back to the door and lay for ten minutes in silence. God knows what took place in his soul ; but when he turned around again, his face expressed suffering and determination.

” Count Turbin ! ” he said, in a halting voice.

” What is the matter with you ? Are you delirious ? ” calmly replied the count. ” What is it, Cornet Polozov ? “

” Count Turbin, you are a scoundrel ! ” cried Polozov, and jumped up from his bed.

XVI.

Ox the following day the squadron departed. The officers did not see their hosts and did not bid them farewell. Nor did they speak to each other. Upon arriving at the first day’s halt it was proposed to have a duel. But Captain Schulz, a good fellow, an excellent horseman, the favourite of everybody in the regiment, and having been selected by the count to be his second, so managed to arrange matters that not only was there no duel, but no one in the regiment ever knew anything about the affair. Turbin and Polozov, although no longer abiding in their former amicable relations, kept addressing each other as ” thou ” and met at dinners and at parties.