“I have the honour of speaking to Princess Zasyékin?”
“I am Princess Zasyékin: and you are the son of Mr. B--?”
“Yes, madam. I have come to you with a message from my mother.”
“Pray be seated. Vonifáty! where are my keys? Hast thou seen them?”
I communicated to Madame Zasyékin my mother’s answer to her note. She
listened to me, tapping the window-pane with her thick, red fingers, and
when I had finished she riveted her eyes on me once more.
“Very good; I shall certainly go,”--said she at last.--“But how young
you are still! How old are you, allow me to ask?”
“Sixteen,”--I replied with involuntary hesitation.
The Princess pulled out of her pocket some dirty, written documents,
raised them up to her very nose and began to sort them over.
“‘Tis a good age,”--she suddenly articulated, turning and fidgeting in
her chair.--“And please do not stand on ceremony. We are plain folks.”
“Too plain,”--I thought, with involuntary disgust taking in with a
glance the whole of her homely figure.
At that moment, the other door of the drawing-room was swiftly thrown
wide open, and on the threshold appeared the young girl whom I had seen
in the garden the evening before. She raised her hand and a smile
flitted across her face.
“And here is my daughter,”--said the Princess, pointing at her with her
elbow.--“Zínotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. B--. What is your
name, permit me to inquire?”
“Vladímir,”--I replied, rising and lisping with agitation.
“And your patronymic?”
“Petróvitch.”
“Yes! I once had an acquaintance, a chief of police, whose name was
Vladímir Petróvitch also. Vonifáty! don’t hunt for the keys; the keys
are in my pocket.”
The young girl continued to gaze at me with the same smile as before,
slightly puckering up her eyes and bending her head a little on one
side.
“I have already seen M’sieu Voldemar,”--she began. (The silvery tone of
her voice coursed through me like a sweet chill.)--“Will you permit me
to call you so?”
“Pray do, madam,”--I lisped.
“Where was that?”--asked the Princess.
The young Princess did not answer her mother.
“Are you busy now?”--she said, without taking her eyes off me.
“Not in the least, madam.”
“Then will you help me to wind some wool? Come hither, to me.”
She nodded her head at me and left the drawing-room. I followed her.
In the room which we entered the furniture was a little better and was
arranged with great taste.--But at that moment I was almost unable to
notice anything; I moved as though in a dream and felt a sort of intense
sensation of well-being verging on stupidity throughout my frame.
The young Princess sat down, produced a knot of red wool, and pointing
me to a chair opposite her, she carefully unbound the skein and placed
it on my hands. She did all this in silence, with a sort of diverting
deliberation, and with the same brilliant and crafty smile on her
slightly parted lips. She began to wind the wool upon a card doubled
together, and suddenly illumined me with such a clear, swift glance,
that I involuntarily dropped my eyes. When her eyes, which were
generally half closed, opened to their full extent her face underwent a
complete change; it was as though light had inundated it.
“What did you think of me yesterday, M’sieu Voldemar?”--she asked, after
a brief pause.--“You certainly must have condemned me?”
“I ... Princess ... I thought nothing ... how can I....” I replied, in
confusion.
“Listen,”--she returned.--“You do not know me yet; I want people always
to speak the truth to me. You are sixteen, I heard, and I am twenty-one;
you see that I am a great deal older than you, and therefore you must
always speak the truth to me ... and obey me,”--she added.--“Look at me;
why don’t you look at me?”
I became still more confused; but I raised my eyes to hers,
nevertheless. She smiled, only not in her former manner, but with a
different, an approving smile.--“Look at me,”--she said, caressingly
lowering her voice:--“I don’t like that.... Your face pleases me; I
foresee that we shall be friends. And do you like me?”--she added slyly.
“Princess....” I was beginning....
“In the first place, call me Zinaída Alexándrovna; and in the second
place,--what sort of a habit is it for children”--(she corrected
herself)--“for young men--not to say straight out what they feel? You do
like me, don’t you?”
Although it was very pleasant to me to have her talk so frankly to me,
still I was somewhat nettled. I wanted to show her that she was not
dealing with a small boy, and, assuming as easy and serious a mien as I
could, I said:--“Of course I like you very much, Zinaída Alexándrovna; I
have no desire to conceal the fact.”
She shook her head, pausing at intervals.--“Have you a governor?”--she
suddenly inquired.
“No, I have not had a governor this long time past.”
I lied: a month had not yet elapsed since I had parted with my
Frenchman.
“Oh, yes, I see: you are quite grown up.”
She slapped me lightly on the fingers.--“Hold your hands straight!”--And
she busied herself diligently with winding her ball.
I took advantage of the fact that she did not raise her eyes, and set to
scrutinising her, first by stealth, then more and more boldly. Her face
seemed to me even more charming than on the day before: everything about
it was so delicate, intelligent and lovely. She was sitting with her
back to the window, which was hung with a white shade; a ray of sunlight
making its way through that shade inundated with a flood of light her
fluffy golden hair, her innocent neck, sloping shoulders, and calm,
tender bosom.--I gazed at her--and how near and dear she became to me!
It seemed to me both that I had known her for a long time and that I had
known nothing and had not lived before she came.... She wore a rather
dark, already shabby gown, with an apron; I believe I would willingly
have caressed every fold of that gown and of that apron. The tips of her
shoes peeped out from under her gown; I would have bowed down to those
little boots.... “And here I sit, in front of her,”--I thought.--“I
have become acquainted with her ... what happiness, my God!” I came
near bouncing out of my chair with rapture, but I merely dangled my feet
to and fro a little, like a child who is enjoying dainties.
I felt as much at my ease as a fish does in water, and I would have
liked never to leave that room again as long as I lived.
Her eyelids slowly rose, and again her brilliant eyes beamed caressingly
before me, and again she laughed.
“How you stare at me!”--she said slowly, shaking her finger at me.
I flushed scarlet.... “She understands all, she sees all,”--flashed
through my head. “And how could she fail to see and understand all?”
Suddenly there was a clattering in the next room, and a sword clanked.
“Zína!”--screamed the old Princess from the drawing-room.--“Byelovzóroff
has brought thee a kitten.”
“A kitten!”--cried Zinaída, and springing headlong from her chair, she
flung the ball on my knees and ran out.
I also rose, and, laying the skein of wool on the window-sill, went into
the drawing-room, and stopped short in amazement. In the centre of the
room lay a kitten with outstretched paws; Zinaída was kneeling in front
of it, and carefully raising its snout. By the side of the young
Princess, taking up nearly the entire wall-space between the windows,
was visible a fair-complexioned, curly-haired young man, a hussar, with
a rosy face and protruding eyes.
“How ridiculous!”--Zinaída kept repeating:--“and its eyes are not grey,
but green, and what big ears it has! Thank you, Viktór Egóritch! you are
very kind.”
The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men whom I had seen on
the preceding evening, smiled and bowed, clicking his spurs and clanking
the links of his sword as he did so.
“You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a striped
kitten with large ears ... so I have got it, madam. Your word is my
law.”--And again he bowed.
The kitten mewed faintly, and began to sniff at the floor.
“He is hungry!”--cried Zinaída.--“Vonifáty! Sónya! bring some milk.”
The chambermaid, in an old yellow gown and with a faded kerchief on her
head, entered with a saucer of milk in her hand, and placed it in front
of the kitten. The kitten quivered, blinked, and began to lap.
“What a rosy tongue it has,”--remarked Zinaída, bending her head down
almost to the floor, and looking sideways at it, under its very nose.
The kitten drank its fill, and began to purr, affectedly contracting and
relaxing its paws. Zinaída rose to her feet, and turning to the maid,
said indifferently:--“Take it away.”
“Your hand--in return for the kitten,”--said the hussar, displaying his
teeth, and bending over the whole of his huge body, tightly confined in
a new uniform.
“Both hands,”--replied Zinaída, offering him her hands. While he was
kissing them, she gazed at me over his shoulder.
I stood motionless on one spot, and did not know whether to laugh or to
say something, or to hold my peace. Suddenly, through the open door of
the anteroom, the figure of our footman, Feódor, caught my eye. He was
making signs to me. I mechanically went out to him.
“What dost thou want?”--I asked.
“Your mamma has sent for you,”--he said in a whisper.--“She is angry
because you do not return with an answer.”
“Why, have I been here long?”
“More than an hour.”
“More than an hour!”--I repeated involuntarily, and returning to the
drawing-room, I began to bow and scrape my foot.
“Where are you going?”--the young Princess asked me, with a glance at
the hussar.
“I must go home, madam. So I am to say,”--I added, addressing the old
woman,--“that you will call upon us at two o’clock.”
“Say that, my dear fellow.”
The old Princess hurriedly drew out her snuffbox, and took a pinch so
noisily that I fairly jumped.--“Say that,”--she repeated, tearfully
blinking and grunting.
I bowed once more, turned and left the room with the same sensation of
awkwardness in my back which a very young man experiences when he knows
that people are staring after him.
“Look here, M’sieu Voldemar, you must drop in to see us,”--called
Zinaída, and again burst out laughing.
“What makes her laugh all the time?” I thought, as I wended my way home
accompanied by Feódor, who said nothing to me, but moved along
disapprovingly behind me. My mother reproved me, and inquired, with
surprise, “What could I have been doing so long at the Princess’s?” I
made her no answer, and went off to my own room. I had suddenly grown
very melancholy.... I tried not to weep.... I was jealous of the hussar.
V
The Princess, according to her promise, called on my mother, and did not
please her. I was not present at their meeting, but at table my mother
narrated to my father that that Princess Zasyékin seemed to her a _femme
très vulgaire_; that she had bored her immensely with her requests that
she would intervene on her behalf with Prince Sergyéi; that she was
always having such law-suits and affairs,--_de vilaines affaires
d’argent_,--and that she must be a great rogue. But my mother added that
she had invited her with her daughter to dine on the following day (on
hearing the words “with her daughter,” I dropped my nose into my
plate),--because, notwithstanding, she was a neighbour, and with a name.
Thereupon my father informed my mother that he now recalled who the lady
was: that in his youth he had known the late Prince Zasyékin, a
capitally-educated but flighty and captious man; that in society he was
called “_le Parisien_,” because of his long residence in Paris; that he
had been very wealthy, but had gambled away all his property--and, no
one knew why, though probably it had been for the sake of the
money,--“although he might have made a better choice,”--added my father,
with a cold smile,--he had married the daughter of some clerk in a
chancellery, and after his marriage had gone into speculation, and
ruined himself definitively.
“‘Tis a wonder she did not try to borrow money,”--remarked my mother.
“She is very likely to do it,”--said my father, calmly.--“Does she speak
French?”
“Very badly.”
“M-m-m. However, that makes no difference. I think thou saidst that
thou hadst invited her daughter; some one assured me that she is a very
charming and well-educated girl.”
“Ah! Then she does not take after her mother.”
“Nor after her father,”--returned my father.--“He was also well
educated, but stupid.”
My mother sighed, and became thoughtful. My father relapsed into
silence. I felt very awkward during the course of that conversation.
After dinner I betook myself to the garden, but without my gun. I had
pledged my word to myself that I would not go near the “Zasyékin
garden”; but an irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I
had no sooner approached the fence than I caught sight of Zinaída. This
time she was alone. She was holding a small book in her hands and
strolling slowly along the path. She did not notice me. I came near
letting her slip past; but suddenly caught myself up and coughed.
She turned round but did not pause, put aside with one hand the broad
blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled quietly, and
again riveted her eyes on her book.
I pulled off my cap, and after fidgeting about a while on one spot, I
went away with a heavy heart. “_Que suis-je pour elle?_”--I thought (God
knows why) in French.
Familiar footsteps resounded behind me; I glanced round and beheld my
father advancing toward me with swift, rapid strides.
“Is that the young Princess?”--he asked me.
“Yes.”
“Dost thou know her?”
“I saw her this morning at the Princess her mother’s.”
My father halted and, wheeling abruptly round on his heels, retraced his
steps. As he came on a level with Zinaída he bowed courteously to her.
She bowed to him in return, not without some surprise on her face, and
lowered her book. I saw that she followed him with her eyes. My father
always dressed very elegantly, originally and simply; but his figure had
never seemed to me more graceful, never had his grey hat sat more
handsomely on his curls, which were barely beginning to grow thin.
I was on the point of directing my course toward Zinaída, but she did
not even look at me, but raised her book once more and walked away.