I
Fifteen years ago--began H.--official duties compelled me to spend a few
days in the principal town of the province of T----. I stopped at a very
fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a
Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish
long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full
splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night;
the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted
floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the
waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to
prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince
G.’s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his
self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers
trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a
multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his
moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He
showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating
his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in
life with a rather disillusioned eye. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said to me
one day; ‘ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying
any day!’ His name was Ardalion.
I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion
procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the
joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an
heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a
country gentleman, an old friend of my father’s, who had been a long
time settled in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had
had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a
widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government
monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at
heavy interest.... ‘There is always honour in risk,’ they say, though
indeed the risk was small.
In the course of our conversation there came into the room with
hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of
about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. ‘Here,’ said my
acquaintance, ‘is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She
takes my poor wife’s place, looks after the house, and takes care of her
brothers and sisters.’ I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in
(she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to
myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after
children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but
immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and
irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though
they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with
the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though
altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender
skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled
nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of
the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed
somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown
fell without folds--like a child’s--to her little feet. The general
impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of
something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial
miss, but a creature of a special type--that I could not make out. This
type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it,
and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity
... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of
this young, serious, keenly alert life--God knows why! ‘Not of this
earth,’ was my thought, though there was nothing exactly ‘ideal’ in the
expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously
come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the
house to which her father had referred.
He began to talk of life in the town of T----, of the social amusements
and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he observed; ‘the
governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a
bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day
after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here.
And you’ll see all our _intelligentsi_ too.’
My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using
learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with
respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with
respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men.
‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my
friend’s daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice.
‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’
Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated
every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled.
‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’
She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile.
I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed
steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked
over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing
she was looking at behind my back.
I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied
‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry,
black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The
subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my
old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my
thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom.
‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our
town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at
the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty
dinner-napkin--a practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to
servants of superior education. ‘Very little!’
He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its
white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words:
‘Ve-ry! ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion
(he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in
Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the
peasants do)--‘nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the
nobility and gentry--there is nothing of the kind whatever.’ (He paused
a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his
diction.) ‘They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits
like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have
simply nowhere to go.’
Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me.
‘But there is one thing,’ he went on, speaking with a drawl, ‘in case
you should feel that way inclined....’
He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did
not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me.
The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came
back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear,
and with a playful smile said:
‘Would you not like to behold the dead?’