The old Countess Anna Fedotovna was in her dressing-room, seated before
her looking-glass. Three maids were in attendance. One held her pot of
rouge, another a box of black pins, a third an enormous lace cap, with
flaming ribbons. The Countess had no longer the slightest pretence to
beauty, but she preserved all the habits of her youth. She dressed in
the style of fifty years before, and gave as much time and attention to
her toilet as a fashionable beauty of the last century. Her companion
was working at a frame in a corner of the window.
"Good morning, grandmother," said the young officer, as he entered the
dressing-room. "Good morning, Mademoiselle Lise. Grandmother, I have
come to ask you a favour."
"What is it, Paul?"
"I want to introduce to you one of my friends, and to ask you to give
him an invitation to your ball."
"Bring him to the ball and introduce him to me there. Did you go
yesterday to the Princess's?"
"Certainly. It was delightful! We danced until five o'clock in the
morning. Mademoiselle Eletzki was charming."
"My dear nephew, you are really not difficult to please. As to beauty,
you should have seen her grandmother, the Princess Daria Petrovna. But
she must be very old, the Princess Daria Petrovna!"
"How do you mean old?" cried Tomski thoughtlessly; "she died seven years
ago."
The young lady who acted as companion raised her head and made a sign to
the officer, who then remembered that it was an understood thing to
conceal from the Princess the death of any of her contemporaries. He bit
his lips. The Countess, however, was not in any way disturbed on hearing
that her old friend was no longer in this world.
"Dead!" she said, "and I never knew it! We were maids of honour in the
same year, and when we were presented, the Empress"--and the old
Countess related for the hundredth time an anecdote of her young days.
"Paul," she said, as she finished her story, "help me to get up.
Lisabeta, where is my snuff-box?"
And, followed by the three maids, she went behind a great screen to
finish her toilet. Tomski was now alone with the companion.
"Who is the gentleman you wish to introduce to madame?" asked Lisabeta.
"Naroumoff. Do you know him?"
"No. Is he in the army?"
"Yes."
"In the Engineers?"
"No, in the Horse Guards. Why did you think he was in the Engineers?"
The young lady smiled, but made no answer.
"Paul," cried the Countess from behind the screen, "send me a new novel;
no matter what. Only see that it is not in the style of the present
day."
"What style would you like, grandmother?"
"A novel in which the hero strangles neither his father nor his mother,
and in which no one gets drowned. Nothing frightens me so much as the
idea of getting drowned."
"But how is it possible to find you such a book? Do you want it in
Russian?"
"Are there any novels in Russian? However, send me something or other.
You won't forget?"
"I will not forget, grandmother. I am in a great hurry. Good-bye,
Lisabeta. What made you fancy Naroumoff was in the Engineers?" and
Tomski took his departure.
Lisabeta, left alone, took out her embroidery, and sat down close to the
window. Immediately afterwards, in the street, at the corner of a
neighbouring house, appeared a young officer. The sight of him made the
companion blush to her ears. She lowered her head, and almost concealed
it in the canvas. At this moment the Countess returned, fully dressed.
"Lisabeta," she said, "have the horses put in; we will go out for a
drive."
Lisabeta rose from her chair, and began to arrange her embroidery.
"Well, my dear child, are you deaf? Go and tell them to put the horses
in at once."
"I am going," replied the young lady, as she went out into the
ante-chamber.
A servant now came in, bringing some books from Prince Paul
Alexandrovitch.
"Say, I am much obliged to him. Lisabeta! Lisabeta! Where has she run
off to?"
"I was going to dress."
"We have plenty of time, my dear. Sit down, take the first volume, and
read to me."
The companion took the book and read a few lines.
"Louder," said the Countess. "What is the matter with you? Have you a
cold? Wait a moment, bring me that stool. A little closer; that will
do."
Lisabeta read two pages of the book.
"Throw that stupid book away," said the Countess. "What nonsense! Send
it back to Prince Paul, and tell him I am much obliged to him; and the
carriage, is it never coming?"
"Here it is," replied Lisabeta, going to the window.
"And now you are not dressed. Why do you always keep me waiting? It is
intolerable!"
Lisabeta ran to her room. She had scarcely been there two minutes when
the Countess rang with all her might. Her maids rushed in at one door
and her valet at the other.
"You do not seem to hear me when I ring," she cried. "Go and tell
Lisabeta that I am waiting for her."
At this moment Lisabeta entered, wearing a new walking dress and a
fashionable bonnet.
"At last, miss," cried the Countess. "But what is that you have got on?
and why? For whom are you dressing? What sort of weather is it? Quite
stormy, I believe."
"No, your Excellency," said the valet; "it is exceedingly fine."
"What do you know about it? Open the ventilator. Just what I told you! A
frightful wind, and as icy as can be. Unharness the horses. Lisabeta, my
child, we will not go out to-day. It was scarcely worth while to dress
so much."
"What an existence!" said the companion to herself.
[Illustration: PAUL AND LISABETA.]
Lisabeta Ivanovna was, in fact, a most unhappy creature. "The bread of
the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb."
But who can tell the torments of a poor little companion attached to an
old lady of quality? The Countess had all the caprices of a woman spoilt
by the world. She was avaricious and egotistical, and thought all the
more of herself now that she had ceased to play an active part in
society. She never missed a ball, and she dressed and painted in the
style of a bygone age. She remained in a corner of the room, where she
seemed to have been placed expressly to serve as a scarecrow. Every one
on coming in went to her and made her a low bow, but this ceremony once
at an end no one spoke a word to her. She received the whole city at her
house, observing the strictest etiquette, and never failing to give to
everyone his or her proper name. Her innumerable servants, growing pale
and fat in the ante-chamber, did absolutely as they liked, so that the
house was pillaged as if its owner were really dead. Lisabeta passed her
life in continual torture. If she made tea she was reproached with
wasting the sugar. If she read a novel to the Countess she was held
responsible for all the absurdities of the author. If she went out with
the noble lady for a walk or drive, it was she who was to blame if the
weather was bad or the pavement muddy. Her salary, more than modest, was
never punctually paid, and she was expected to dress "like everyone
else"; that is to say, like very few people indeed. When she went into
society her position was sad. Everyone knew her; no one paid her any
attention. At a ball she sometimes danced, but only when a _vis-à-vis_
was wanted. Women would come up to her, take her by the arm, and lead
her out of the room if their dress required attending to. She had her
portion of self-respect, and felt deeply the misery of her position. She
looked with impatience for a liberator to break her chain. But the young
men, prudent in the midst of their affected giddiness, took care not to
honour her with their attentions; though Lisabeta Ivanovna was a hundred
times prettier than the shameless or stupid girls whom they surrounded
with their homage. More than once she slunk away from the splendour of
the drawing-room, to shut herself up alone in her little bed-room,
furnished with an old screen and a pieced carpet, a chest of drawers, a
small looking-glass, and a wooden bedstead. There she shed tears at her
ease, by the light of a tallow candle in a tin candlestick.
[Illustration: "THERE SHE SHED TEARS."]
One morning--it was two days after the party at Naroumoff's, and a week
before the scene we have just sketched--Lisabeta was sitting at her
embroidery before the window, when, looking carelessly into the street,
she saw an officer, in the uniform of the Engineers, standing motionless
with his eyes fixed upon her. She lowered her head, and applied herself
to her work more attentively than ever. Five minutes afterwards she
looked mechanically into the street, and the officer was still in the
same place. Not being in the habit of exchanging glances with young men
who passed by her window, she remained with her eyes fixed on her work
for nearly two hours, until she was told that lunch was ready. She got
up to put her embroidery away, and, while doing so, looked into the
street, and saw the officer still in the same place. This seemed to her
very strange. After lunch she went to the window with a certain emotion,
but the officer of Engineers was no longer in the street.
She thought no more of him. But two days afterwards, just as she was
getting into the carriage with the Countess, she saw him once more,
standing straight before the door. His face was half concealed by a fur
collar, but his black eyes sparkled beneath his helmet. Lisabeta was
afraid, without knowing why, and she trembled as she took her seat in
the carriage.
On returning home, she rushed with a beating heart towards the window.
The officer was in his habitual place, with his eyes fixed ardently upon
her. She at once withdrew, burning at the same time with curiosity, and
moved by a strange feeling, which she now experienced for the first
time.
No day now passed but the young officer showed himself beneath the
window. Before long a dumb acquaintance was established between them.
Sitting at her work she felt his presence, and when she raised her head
she looked at him for a long time every day. The young man seemed full
of gratitude for these innocent favours.
She observed, with the deep and rapid perceptions of youth, that a
sudden redness covered the officer's pale cheeks as soon as their eyes
met. After about a week she would smile at seeing him for the first
time.
When Tomski asked his grandmother's permission to present one of his
friends, the heart of the poor young girl beat strongly, and when she
heard that it was Naroumoff, she bitterly repented having compromised
her secret by letting it out to a giddy young man like Paul.
Hermann was the son of a German settled in Russia, from whom he had
inherited a small sum of money. Firmly resolved to preserve his
independence, he had made it a principle not to touch his private
income. He lived on his pay, and did not allow himself the slightest
luxury. He was not very communicative; and his reserve rendered it
difficult for his comrades to amuse themselves at his expense.
Under an assumed calm he concealed strong passions and a
highly-imaginative disposition. But he was always master of himself, and
kept himself free from the ordinary faults of young men. Thus, a gambler
by temperament, he never touched a card, feeling, as he himself said,
that his position did not allow him to "risk the necessary in view of
the superfluous." Yet he would pass entire nights before a card-table,
watching with feverish anxiety the rapid changes of the game. The
anecdote of Count St. Germain's three cards had struck his imagination,
and he did nothing but think of it all that night.
"If," he said to himself next day as he was walking along the streets of
St. Petersburg, "if she would only tell me her secret--if she would only
name the three winning cards! I must get presented to her, that I may
pay my court and gain her confidence. Yes! And she is eighty-seven! She
may die this week--to-morrow perhaps. But after all, is there a word of
truth in the story? No! Economy, Temperance, Work; these are my three
winning cards. With them I can double my capital; increase it tenfold.
They alone can ensure my independence and prosperity."
Dreaming in this way as he walked along, his attention was attracted by
a house built in an antiquated style of architecture. The street was
full of carriages, which passed one by one before the old house, now
brilliantly illuminated. As the people stepped out of the carriages
Hermann saw now the little feet of a young woman, now the military boot
of a general. Then came a clocked stocking; then, again, a diplomatic
pump. Fur-lined cloaks and coats passed in procession before a gigantic
porter.
Hermann stopped. "Who lives here?" he said to a watchman in his box.
"The Countess Anna Fedotovna." It was Tomski's grandmother.
Hermann started. The story of the three cards came once more upon his
imagination. He walked to and fro before the house, thinking of the
woman to whom it belonged, of her wealth and her mysterious power. At
last he returned to his den. But for some time he could not get to
sleep; and when at last sleep came upon him, he saw, dancing before his
eyes, cards, a green table, and heaps of roubles and bank-notes. He saw
himself doubling stake after stake, always winning, and then filling his
pockets with piles of coin, and stuffing his pocket-book with countless
bank-notes. When he awoke, he sighed to find that his treasures were but
creations of a disordered fancy; and, to drive such thoughts from him,
he went out for a walk. But he had not gone far when he found himself
once more before the house of the Countess. He seemed to have been
attracted there by some irresistible force. He stopped, and looked up at
the windows. There he saw a girl's head with beautiful black hair,
leaning gracefully over a book or an embroidery-frame. The head was
lifted, and he saw a fresh complexion and black eyes.
[Illustration: "HERMAN SAW THE LITTLE FEET."]
This moment decided his fate.