HALF an hour before the ball, Grushnitski presented himself to me in
the full splendour of the uniform of the Line infantry. Attached to
his third button was a little bronze chain, on which hung a double
lorgnette. Epaulettes of incredible size were bent backwards and upwards
in the shape of a cupid’s wings; his boots creaked; in his left hand he
held cinnamon-coloured kid gloves and a forage-cap, and with his right he
kept every moment twisting his frizzled tuft of hair up into tiny curls.
Complacency and at the same time a certain diffidence were depicted upon
his face. His festal appearance and proud gait would have made me
burst out laughing, if such a proceeding had been in accordance with my
intentions.
He threw his cap and gloves on the table and began to pull down
the skirts of his coat and to put himself to rights before the
looking-glass. An enormous black handkerchief, which was twisted into a
very high stiffener for his cravat, and the bristles of which supported
his chin, stuck out an inch over his collar. It seemed to him to be
rather small, and he drew it up as far as his ears. As a result of
that hard work--the collar of his uniform being very tight and
uncomfortable--he grew red in the face.
“They say you have been courting my princess terribly these last few
days?” he said, rather carelessly and without looking at me.
“‘Where are we fools to drink tea!’” [271] I answered, repeating a pet
phrase of one of the cleverest rogues of past times, once celebrated in
song by Pushkin.
“Tell me, does my uniform fit me well?... Oh, the cursed Jew!... How it
cuts me under the armpits!... Have you got any scent?”
“Good gracious, what more do you want? You are reeking of rose pomade as
it is.”
“Never mind. Give me some”...
He poured half a phial over his cravat, his pocket-handkerchief, his
sleeves.
“You are going to dance?” he asked.
“I think not.”
“I am afraid I shall have to lead off the mazurka with Princess Mary,
and I scarcely know a single figure”...
“Have you asked her to dance the mazurka with you?”
“Not yet”...
“Mind you are not forestalled”...
“Just so, indeed!” he said, striking his forehead. “Good-bye... I will
go and wait for her at the entrance.”
He seized his forage-cap and ran.
Half an hour later I also set off. The street was dark and deserted.
Around the assembly rooms, or inn--whichever you prefer--people were
thronging. The windows were lighted up, the strains of the regimental
band were borne to me on the evening breeze. I walked slowly; I felt
melancholy.
“Can it be possible,” I thought, “that my sole mission on earth is to
destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and to act, it
seems always to have been my fate to play a part in the ending of other
people’s dramas, as if, but for me, no one could either die or fall
into despair! I have been the indispensable person of the fifth act;
unwillingly I have played the pitiful part of an executioner or a
traitor. What object has fate had in this?... Surely, I have not been
appointed by destiny to be an author of middle-class tragedies and family
romances, or to be a collaborator with the purveyor of stories--for the
‘Reader’s Library,’ [272] for example?... How can I tell?... Are there
not many people who, in beginning life, think to end it like Lord Byron
or Alexander the Great, and, nevertheless, remain Titular Councillors
[273] all their days?”
Entering the saloon, I concealed myself in a crowd of men, and began to
make my observations.
Grushnitski was standing beside Princess Mary and saying something with
great warmth. She was listening to him absent-mindedly and looking about
her, her fan laid to her lips. Impatience was depicted upon her face,
her eyes were searching all around for somebody. I went softly behind
them in order to listen to their conversation.
“You torture me, Princess!” Grushnitski was saying. “You have changed
dreadfully since I saw you last”...
“You, too, have changed,” she answered, casting a rapid glance at him,
in which he was unable to detect the latent sneer.
“I! Changed?... Oh, never! You know that such a thing is impossible!
Whoever has seen you once will bear your divine image with him for
ever.”
“Stop”...
“But why will you not let me say to-night what you have so often
listened to with condescension--and just recently, too?”...
“Because I do not like repetitions,” she answered, laughing.
“Oh! I have been bitterly mistaken!... I thought, fool that I was, that
these epaulettes, at least, would give me the right to hope... No,
it would have been better for me to have remained for ever in that
contemptible soldier’s cloak, to which, probably, I was indebted for
your attention”...
“As a matter of fact, the cloak is much more becoming to you”...
At that moment I went up and bowed to Princess Mary. She blushed a
little, and went on rapidly:
“Is it not true, Monsieur Pechorin, that the grey cloak suits Monsieur
Grushnitski much better?”...
“I do not agree with you,” I answered: “he is more youthful-looking
still in his uniform.”
That was a blow which Grushnitski could not bear: like all boys, he
has pretensions to being an old man; he thinks that the deep traces
of passions upon his countenance take the place of the lines scored by
Time. He cast a furious glance at me, stamped his foot, and took himself
off.
“Confess now,” I said to Princess Mary: “that although he has always
been most ridiculous, yet not so long ago he seemed to you to be
interesting... in the grey cloak?”...
She cast her eyes down and made no reply.
Grushnitski followed the Princess about during the whole evening and
danced either with her or vis-a-vis. He devoured her with his eyes,
sighed, and wearied her with prayers and reproaches. After the third
quadrille she had begun to hate him.
“I did not expect this from you,” he said, coming up to me and taking my
arm.
“What?”
“You are going to dance the mazurka with her?” he asked in a solemn
tone. “She admitted it”...
“Well, what then? It is not a secret, is it”?
“Of course not... I ought to have expected such a thing from that
chit--that flirt... I will have my revenge, though!”
“You should lay the blame on your cloak, or your epaulettes, but why
accuse her? What fault is it of hers that she does not like you any
longer?”...
“But why give me hopes?”
“Why did you hope? To desire and to strive after something--that I can
understand! But who ever hopes?”
“You have won the wager, but not quite,” he said, with a malignant
smile.
The mazurka began. Grushnitski chose no one but the Princess, other
cavaliers chose her every minute: obviously a conspiracy against me--all
the better! She wants to talk to me, they are preventing her--she will
want to twice as much.
I squeezed her hand once or twice; the second time she drew it away
without saying a word.
“I shall sleep badly to-night,” she said to me when the mazurka was
over.
“Grushnitski is to blame for that.”
“Oh, no!”
And her face became so pensive, so sad, that I promised myself that I
would not fail to kiss her hand that evening.
The guests began to disperse. As I was handing Princess Mary into her
carriage, I rapidly pressed her little hand to my lips. The night was
dark and nobody could see.
I returned to the saloon very well satisfied with myself.
The young men, Grushnitski amongst them, were having supper at the
large table. As I came in, they all fell silent: evidently they had been
talking about me. Since the last ball many of them have been sulky with
me, especially the captain of dragoons; and now, it seems, a hostile
gang is actually being formed against me, under the command of
Grushnitski. He wears such a proud and courageous air...
I am very glad; I love enemies, though not in the Christian sense. They
amuse me, stir my blood. To be always on one’s guard, to catch every
glance, the meaning of every word, to guess intentions, to crush
conspiracies, to pretend to be deceived and suddenly with one blow
to overthrow the whole immense and laboriously constructed edifice of
cunning and design--that is what I call life.
During supper Grushnitski kept whispering and exchanging winks with the
captain of dragoons.