“No, I do not like it at all,” he went on sternly, and with a glance at
his clean-shaven companion, as though inviting him to admire the way in
which he was about to deal with me. “I do not like it, my good sir, nor
do I like people who have the impudence to puff their smoke up one’s
very nose.”
By this time I had gathered that it was myself he was scolding, and at
first felt as though I had been altogether in the wrong.
“I did not mean to inconvenience you,” I said.
“Well, if you did not suppose you were being impertinent, at least I
did! You are a cad, young sir!” he shouted in reply.
“But what right have you to shout at me like that?” I exclaimed, feeling
that it was now HE that was insulting ME, and growing angry accordingly.
“This much right,” he replied, “that I never allow myself to be
overlooked by any one, and that I always teach young fellows like
yourself their manners. What is your name, young sir, and where do you
live?”
At this I felt so hurt that my teeth chattered, and I felt as though I
were choking. Yet all the while I was conscious of being in the wrong,
and so, instead of offering any further rudeness to the offended one,
humbly told him my name and address.
“And MY name, young sir,” he returned, “is Kolpikoff, and I will trouble
you to be more polite to me in future.--However, You will hear from me
again” (“vous aurez de mes nouvelles”--the conversation had been carried
on wholly in French), was his concluding remark.
To this I replied, “I shall be delighted,” with an infusion of as much
hauteur as I could muster into my tone. Then, turning on my heel, I
returned with my cigarette--which had meanwhile gone out--to our own
room.
I said nothing, either to my brother or my friends, about what had
happened (and the more so because they were at that moment engaged in
a dispute of their own), but sat down in a corner to think over the
strange affair. The words, “You are a cad, young sir,” vexed me more and
more the longer that they sounded in my ears. My tipsiness was gone now,
and, in considering my conduct during the dispute, the uncomfortable
thought came over me that I had behaved like a coward.
“Yet what right had he to attack me?” I reflected. “Why did he not
simply intimate to me that I was annoying him? After all, it may have
been he that was in the wrong. Why, too, when he called me a young cad,
did I not say to him, ‘A cad, my good sir, is one who takes offence’? Or
why did I not simply tell him to hold his tongue? That would have been
the better course. Or why did I not challenge him to a duel? No, I did
none of those things, but swallowed his insults like a wretched coward.”
Still the words, “You are a cad, young sir,” kept sounding in my ears
with maddening iteration. “I cannot leave things as they are,” I
at length decided as I rose to my feet with the fixed intention
of returning to the gentleman and saying something outrageous to
him--perhaps, also, of breaking the candelabrum over his head if
occasion offered. Yet, though I considered the advisability of this
last measure with some pleasure, it was not without a good deal of
trepidation that I re-entered the main salon. As luck would have it, M.
Kolpikoff was no longer there, but only a waiter engaged in clearing the
table. For a moment I felt like telling the waiter the whole story, and
explaining to him my innocence in the matter, but for some reason or
another I thought better of it, and once more returned, in the same hazy
condition of mind, to our own room.
“What has become of our DIPLOMAT?” Dubkoff was just saying. “Upon him
now hang the fortunes of Europe.”
“Oh, leave me alone,” I said, turning moodily away. Then, as I paced the
room, something made me begin to think that Dubkoff was not altogether a
good fellow. “There is nothing very much to admire in his eternal jokes
and his nickname of ‘DIPLOMAT,’” I reflected. “All he thinks about is to
win money from Woloda and to go and see his ‘Auntie.’ There is nothing
very nice in all that. Besides, everything he says has a touch of
blackguardism in it, and he is forever trying to make people laugh. In
my opinion he is simply stupid when he is not absolutely a brute.”
I spent about five minutes in these reflections, and felt my enmity
towards Dubkoff continually increasing. For his part, he took no notice
of me, and that angered me the more. I actually felt vexed with Woloda
and Dimitri because they went on talking to him.
“I tell you what, gentlemen: the DIPLOMAT ought to be christened,” said
Dubkoff suddenly, with a glance and a smile which seemed to me derisive,
and even treacherous. “Yet, O Lord, what a poor specimen he is!”
“You yourself ought to be christened, and you yourself are a sorry
specimen!” I retorted with an evil smile, and actually forgetting to
address him as “thou.” [In Russian as in French, the second person
singular is the form of speech used between intimate friends.]
This reply evidently surprised Dubkoff, but he turned away
good-humouredly, and went on talking to Woloda and Dimitri. I tried to
edge myself into the conversation, but, since I felt that I could not
keep it up, I soon returned to my corner, and remained there until we
left.
When the bill had been paid and wraps were being put on, Dubkoff turned
to Dimitri and said: “Whither are Orestes and Pedalion going now? Home,
I suppose, to talk about love. Well, let US go and see my dear Auntie.
That will be far more entertaining than your sour company.”
“How dare you speak like that, and laugh at us?” I burst out as I
approached him with clenched fists. “How dare you laugh at feelings
which you do not understand? I will not have you do it! Hold your
tongue!” At this point I had to hold my own, for I did not know what
to say next, and was, moreover, out of breath with excitement. At first
Dubkoff was taken aback, but presently he tried to laugh it off, and to
take it as a joke. Finally I was surprised to see him look crestfallen,
and lower his eyes.
“I NEVER laugh at you or your feelings. It is merely my way of
speaking,” he said evasively.
“Indeed?” I cried; yet the next moment I felt ashamed of myself and
sorry for him, since his flushed, downcast face had in it no other
expression than one of genuine pain.
“What is the matter with you?” said Woloda and Dimitri simultaneously.
“No one was trying to insult you.”
“Yes, he DID try to insult me!” I replied.
“What an extraordinary fellow your brother is!” said Dubkoff to Woloda.
At that moment he was passing out of the door, and could not have heard
what I said. Possibly I should have flung myself after him and offered
him further insult, had it not been that just at that moment the waiter
who had witnessed my encounter with Kolpikoff handed me my greatcoat,
and I at once quietened down--merely making such a pretence of having
had a difference with Dimitri as was necessary to make my sudden
appeasement appear nothing extraordinary. Next day, when I met Dubkoff
at Woloda’s, the quarrel was not raked up, yet he and I still addressed
each other as “you,” and found it harder than ever to look one another
in the face.
The remembrance of my scene with Kolpikoff--who, by the way, never
sent me “de ses nouvelles,” either the following day or any day
afterwards--remained for years a keen and unpleasant memory. Even so
much as five years after it had happened I would begin fidgeting and
muttering to myself whenever I remembered the unavenged insult, and was
fain to comfort myself with the satisfaction of recollecting the sort
of young fellow I had shown myself to be in my subsequent affair with
Dubkoff. In fact, it was only later still that I began to regard the
matter in another light, and both to recall with comic appreciation my
passage of arms with Kolpikoff, and to regret the undeserved affront
which I had offered my good friend Dubkoff.
When, at a later hour on the evening of the dinner, I told Dimitri of
my affair with Kolpikoff, whose exterior I described in detail, he was
astounded.
“That is the very man!” he cried. “Don’t you know that this precious
Kolpikoff is a known scamp and sharper, as well as, above all things,
a coward, and that he was expelled from his regiment by his brother
officers because, having had his face slapped, he would not fight? But
how came you to let him get away?” he added, with a kindly smile and
glance. “Surely he could not have said more to you than he did when he
called you a cad?”
“No,” I admitted with a blush.
“Well, it was not right, but there is no great harm done,” said Dimitri
consolingly.
Long afterwards, when thinking the matter over at leisure, I suddenly
came to the conclusion that it was quite possible that Kolpikoff took
the opportunity of vicariously wiping off upon me the slap in the face
which he had once received, just as I myself took the opportunity of
vicariously wiping off upon the innocent Dubkoff the epithet “cad” which
Kolpikoff had just applied to me.