This apparently absurd occurrence seemed nevertheless to annoy our
hero considerably. However stupid the words of a fool might be, yet
sometimes they are powerful, enough to disconcert a wise man. He
began to feel uncomfortable and ill-at-ease, like a man who might
have accidentally stepped with a pair of patent leather boots into
a neglected London sewer. In a word, he felt very uncomfortable. He
tried not to think of it any more, attempted to cheer himself up again.
In order to distract himself he sat down to play a game of whist;
nevertheless, all went like a wheel out of repair. He played twice the
wrong colour, and forgetting the rule that you don't cut the third
time, but leave the chance to your partner, he did so to the great
annoyance of his _vis-à-vis_.
The President could not understand at all how his friend, Pavel
Ivanovitch, who understood the rules of the game so well, and who was
even an acute player, could make all these blunders, and put a trump
upon his king of spades, upon which card he had reckoned as upon a wall
of stone.
The President and the Postmaster, and even the Commissioner of Police,
as a matter of course, passed their friendly jokes upon our hero at
these occurrences, and insinuated that Pavel Ivanovitch must be, nay
was, in love, and that they nearly guessed who had caused all his
absence of mind, and drawing attention from the game. But all these
observations made no impression upon him, and do what they like, they
could not succeed in making him even smile or return their jokes.
At supper he was still in the same disposition of mind, and could not
even then rally, notwithstanding that he was placed in very good
company, and that the hateful Nosdrieff had been obliged to leave
the house, because the ladies themselves could not help expressing
themselves scandalised with his conduct. The supper was very excellent,
and seasoned with general gaiety; all the faces which appeared as it
were from under the three branched candelabra, flowers, tarts and
bottles, were illuminated with the most unfeigned pleasure. Military
men and civilians, ladies, dress-coats, all became most amiable, even
to affectation. The gentlemen deserted their chairs and hastened to
take the dishes from the hands of the overburthened servants, with the
intention to present them themselves to their fair partners at table. A
dashing colonel presented a plate with liquid sweets to his lady on the
point of his unsheathed sword. Some gentlemen of a sedate and serious
age, among whom Tchichikoff happened to sit, were discussing politics
most earnestly, whilst eating at the same time some fish and meat
unmercifully seasoned with vinegar and mustard. They were conversing
on a subject in which he generally liked to take a lively part;
nevertheless, he remained silent, and like a man who seemed to be much
fatigued or annoyed from a long journey, who feels a peculiar dulness
of spirit, and who is incapable of taking any interest in anything.
He even did not wait for the end of the supper, but left the company
suddenly, and returned to his hotel much earlier than he was wont to do.
In that small apartment, so well known to to the reader, with the door
barricaded with a chest of drawers, and with the beetles looking out
from the corners occasionally, the disposition of his mind and soul was
so full of uneasiness, in fact as uneasy as the chair upon which he
was sitting. His heart felt sick and oppressed as if from a tiresome
void that was left within it. "I wish the devil had those who imagined
and brought into fashion those infernal balls!" said he, passionately,
within his own heart. "Where-ever did they pick up the silly idea of
dancing and feasting? the whole province has been visited, for three
years running, by bad harvests and general dearth, and they give balls
and festivals! What an ill-timed fancy; to dress themselves up in gaudy
paraphernalia! And as if I had not seen that some of the silly women
had wrapped themselves up in shawls worth, a thousand roubles! And all
that at the expense of their poor serfs, or, what is still worse, at
the expense of men like ourselves. It is but too well known, why a man
takes advantage of his position, and injures his soul and conscience;
simply for the purpose of offering to his wife a shawl or some such
gaudiness for the name of which I do not care a fig.
"And why is this so? for the important reason, that some other
gossiping body should not have occasion to say that the wife of
the Postmaster or Procurator had a handsome dress on, and for such
pretentions you have to pay down often more than a thousand roubles in
hard cash. The hue and cry, is; 'a ball, a ball, let us rejoice!' balls
are really a nuisance, not at all suitable for the Russian genius, not
at all to the taste of our Russian nature, the devil knows for whom
balls are fit; an adult, a perfectly grown up person will suddenly
take it in his head to appear all in black, laced and dressed up like
a young fiend, and begin to fight about with his legs like a madman.
Another again, though standing near his partner, will turn round to
his friend and pretend to speak of things of importance, and still
continue to cut capers like a goat, right and left.
"All this is pure monkeyism, nothing but monkeyism! Because a Frenchman
of forty is as childish as he was in his youth, we Russians ought to
be ashamed to imitate him! No, really, after each ball I cannot help
feeling as if I had committed a sin; and I would fain not even think of
it. My head feels absolutely as empty as after a tedious conversation
with a fashionable, who speaks of everything, touches slightly on a
hundred subjects at the time, he will make use of all that he has been
successful enough to pick up in books, be showy, brilliant; but as for
his own imagination, it is incapable of producing anything original,
and it is then we find, that the simple conversation of a common
tradesman, who knows his business well, is more useful; it is then we
find how empty and foolish the conversation of the man of fashion is.
"And as for their balls? What good can possibly be derived from a ball?
Let us even suppose for an instance that an author was to undertake to
describe all the scenes and occurrences of the ball room, such as they
really are? Even in his book, it would appear as insipid and foolish
as it is in reality. And pray, what is a ball? Is it moral or is it
immoral? The devil take me if I know what to call it! It is with utter
disgust, that one would throw away the book even, that speaks of, or
describes a ball!"
It was thus unfavourably that Tchichikoff expressed himself on balls
in general; but it seemed that another cause of displeasure was
deeply involved in these expressions. His great displeasure was not
principally directed against the ball itself, but rather the occurrence
that took place there, and his sudden breaking down from his enviable
position, which made him appear, Heavens knows in what light in the
opinion of the guests assembled, and that he had been playing a
peculiar, strange, and equivocal _rôle_.
Of course, looking at the matter in the light of a man of the world, he
saw at a glance, that the whole affair was bosh and nonsense, that the
word of a fool could not harm him, especially now, that the business
itself was completely, satisfactorily and legally terminated. But man
is strange: he was exceedingly provoked by the ill feeling of those,
for whom he had no condescension himself, and of whom he had even
spoken in very strong and cutting terms, ridiculing their vanity and
follies.
This aggravated him so much the more, because, after having seriously
reflected upon the subject, he could not deny that he had in a great
measure been the cause of their ill-feeling himself. However, with
himself he was not angry at all, and in this he was right, as a matter of
course. We possess all the indulging weakness to be less severe with
ourselves, and vent our anger in preference upon our neighbour or
servants. And thus it was also with Tchichikoff, who soon managed to
find a fellow-creature who had to talk and bear upon his shoulders all
that his angry mood inspired him with. This victim fellow-creature, was
Nosdrieff, and we must confess, that the poor fellow was unmercifully
abused for his interference and indiscretion; the expressions which our
hero used at the time of his anger, was so very strong indeed that this
English paper--we are convinced--could not bear them, and for this
excellent reason we beg to omit them. Yet we may add that the whole
race of the Nosdrieff's was wished at the bottom of the sea, in which
even his most distant relations were included.
Tchichikoff continued for some considerable time to remain seated
in his uncomfortable chair, tormented by unpleasant recollections,
cursing heartily, Nosdrieff, his ancestors and descendants, whilst the
tallow-candle before him was melting rapidly down, because the wick was
long since covered with a large black cap, and the light threatened
every moment to expire altogether; a dark and gloomy night stared at
him through the window, and was preparing to give precedence to the
break of day, in the distance the hoarse crowing of a few early cocks
became also audible, and in the yet soundly somnolent town, many a poor
and homeless sheep-skin-wearer, might have been seen wandering about
hopelessly and heaving sighs of despair, which unfortunately for old
Russia are threatening to become more and more innumerable.
At this particular time, too, there happened also something unusual
at the other end of the town, and which occurrence threatened to
increase the already very unpleasant position of our hero: namely,
through the distant and narrow streets of Smolensk a peculiarly shaped
and antique-looking carriage was ricketting over the pavement in its
approach to the centre of the town; the name and description of this
carriage would have bewildered the cleverest coach-builder of England.
It was not like any of the carriages we are now accustomed to see in
the streets of large towns; it was neither what we call a britchka
nor a tarantas, nor was it anything like a barouche or a cart, but
the nearest resemblance it presented, was to an immense hollowed
water-melon, placed upon four wheels. The sides of this water-melon,
or rather its cheeks, since they were to represent the doors of that
carriage, still bore a trace of yellow colour about them, opened and
shut very indifferently, because the handles and locks were in a
dilapidated condition, and were not fastened with screws or nails,
but common string. The water-melon (which reminds us forcibly of the
carriage built in five minutes by the clowns at the Haymarket) was
filled up with a variety of pillows of all sizes, bags containing
bread, cakes and pastry. The stand behind was occupied by a sitting
servile creature, in a short grey home-spun cloak, with unshaved beard,
intersected here and there by silvery grey; this servile servant was
known by the name of young Safran.
The noise and creaking of the iron hinges and rusty screws was so loud,
that it awakened a sleeping policeman at the other end of the town,
who, suddenly aroused, seized his halberd and shouted out with all his
might, "Who comes there?" but, seeing that nobody was coming, he easily
understood that he had taken the distant rattling noise for somebody
approaching, at the same time he caught upon his coat an insect, which
he at once took close to the lamp-post and executed on the spot upon
his nail. After having thus punished the invader, he returned to his
post, laid aside his halberd, and fell again asleep, according to the
custom of the Russian police.
The horses before the water-melon kept falling on their fore-legs
continually, because they had never been shod at all, and because
the pavement of a town seemed to them perfectly strange ground. The
old-fashioned vehicle made a few more turnings in and out of a few more
narrow streets, and then turned again into a perfectly dark lane, at
the end of which it passed a dilapidated old church, and then suddenly
stopped before the house next to it, which was inhabited by the
Proto-pope and his wife.
A young girl, with her head wrapped in a large handkerchief, was the
first person that alighted from the old coach; she seized the knocker
of the door with both her hands, and began to make as great a noise
with it as a man (young Safran was dragged by his legs from his seat,
because he had plunged himself in a death-like sleep).
The dogs of the house began barking as loud as they possibly could, and
the gates were soon after thrown open, though it took considerable time
to get the old vehicle through them into the court-yard, which was a
very narrow one indeed, stocked with logs of wood, a poultry-yard, and
other court-yard incumbrances; the second person that now alighted from
out of the water-melon coach was an old lady, and this old lady was no
one else than her ladyship Korobotchka.
The old lady had, soon after the departure of our hero, felt
considerable uneasiness, and, in consequence, remained under the
impression and apprehension that he might have taken an unwarrantable
advantage over her inexperience, and, not having slept during three
consecutive nights, she determined upon coming to town at once,
notwithstanding that her horses were not fit for such a long journey,
in order to ascertain positively what the real market value for dead
serfs was, and to convince herself that she had made no mistake and
sold them perhaps--which heaven forbid--for three times less than their
real value.
What the further consequences of her arrival in town were, the reader
will perhaps glean from a conversation between two ladies only. This
conversation--but I think it will be more amusing to leave the dialogue
for the following chapter.