IV
The band, composed of serfs of the Marshal’s, standing in the pantry (cleared out for the occasion), with their coat sleeves turned up ready, had, at a given signal, struck up the old polonaise, “Alexander-Elizabeth,” and by the bright, soft light of the wax-candles a Governor-General of Catherine’s days, with a star on his breast, arm-in-arm with the Marshal’s skinny wife, the Marshal arm-in-arm with the Governor’s wife, and the rest of the local grandees with their partners in various combinations and variations, had begun slowly gliding over the parquet floor of the large dancing-room, when Zavalshévsky entered, wearing a blue swallowtail coat with an enormous collar, puffs on the shoulders, stockings and pumps on his feet, and spreading a strong smell of the jasmine perfume with which his moustaches, the facings of his coat, and his handkerchief were abundantly sprinkled. The handsome hussar who came with him wore tight-fitting, light-blue riding breeches, and a gold-embroidered scarlet coat to which a Vladímir cross and a medal of 1812 were fastened. The Count was not tall, but exceedingly well formed. His clear blue and wonderfully brilliant eyes, and rather large, tightly curled, light-brown head of hair, gave a remarkable character to his beauty. His arrival at the ball was expected; the handsome young man who had seen him at the hotel had already prepared the Marshal for it. The impressions created by the news were various, but generally not altogether pleasant.
“It’s not unlikely the youngster will hold one up to ridicule,” was the opinion of the old women and of the men. “What if he should run away with me?” was more or less in the minds of the younger ladies, married or unmarried.
As soon as the polonaise was over, and the couples, after bowing to one another, had separated—the women to the women and the men to the men—Zavalshévsky, proud and happy, introduced the Count to their hostess.
The Marshal’s wife, feeling an inner trepidation lest this hussar should treat her in some scandalous manner before everybody, turned away haughtily and contemptuously as she said: “Very pleased; I hope you will dance,” and then gave him a distrustful look that said, “Now, if you offend a woman it will show me that you are a perfect villain.” The Count, however, soon conquered her prejudices by his amiability, attentive manner, and handsome, gay appearance; so that five minutes later the face of the Marshal’s wife expressed to all present: “I know how to manage such gentlemen; he has at once understood with whom he has to deal. And now he’ll be charming to me for the rest of the evening.” However, at that moment the Governor of the town, who had known the Count’s father, came up to him and very affably took him aside to chat, and this still further calmed the provincial public and raised the Count in its estimation. After that Zavalshévsky introduced the Count to his sister, a plump young widow whose large black eyes had stared at the Count from the moment he entered. The Count asked her to dance the valse which the band had just commenced, and finally dispersed the general prejudice by the masterly way he danced.
“What a splendid dancer!” said a fat landed proprietress, watching the legs in the blue breeches as they fitted across the room, and mentally counting “one, two, three—one, two, three”—“splendid!”
“There he goes—jig, jig, jig,” said another, a visitor in the town whom the local society did not consider genteel; “how does he manage not to entangle his spurs—wonderfully clever!”
The Count eclipsed the three best dancers of the Government by his artistic dancing: the tall, fair Governor’s Adjutant, noted for the rapidity with which he danced, and for holding his partner very close to himself; the cavalryman, famous for the graceful, swaying motion with which he valsed, and for the frequent but light tapping of his heels; and, lastly, a civilian of whom everybody said that, though he was not very deep intellectually, he was a first-rate dancer and the soul of every ball. In fact, from the very beginning of a ball this civilian would ask each lady in turn, in the order in which they sat, to dance, and never stopped for a minute except occasionally to wipe, with a very wet cambric handkerchief, the perspiration from his weary but pleased face. The Count eclipsed them all, and danced with the three principal ladies: the tall one, rich, handsome, and stupid; the middle-sized one, thin and not very pretty, but splendidly dressed; and the little one, plain, but very clever. He danced with others too, with all the pretty ones, and there were many of them. But it was the little widow, Zavalshévsky’s sister, that pleased the Count best. With her he danced a quadrille, an ecossaise, and a mazurka. He began, when they were sitting down during the quadrille, by paying her many compliments and comparing her to Venus and to Diana, and to a rose and to some other flower. But all these compliments only made the widow bend her white neck, cast down her eyes and look at her white muslin dress, or pass her fan from hand to hand. When she said “Don’t, you are only joking, Count,” and other words to that effect, there was a note of such naive simple-mindedness and such funny silliness in her slightly guttural voice that, looking at her, it really seemed that this was not a woman but a flower, and not a rose, but some wild, rosy-white, gorgeous, scentless flower that had grown all alone out of a snowdrift in some very remote land.
The combination of naivete and absence of conventionality, with her fresh beauty, created such a peculiar impression on the Count that several times during the intervals of conversation, when gazing silently into her eyes or at the beautiful outline of her neck and arms, the desire to seize her in his arms and to cover her with kisses came into his mind with such force that he had to make a serious effort to resist it. The widow noticed with pleasure the effect she was producing; yet something in the Count’s behaviour began to frighten and excite her, though the young hussar, in spite of his insinuating amiability, was respectful to a degree which in our days would be considered maudlin. He ran to fetch almond-milk for her, picked up her handkerchief, snatched a chair—to hand it her more quickly—from the hands of a scrofulous young squire who was also dancing attendance on her, and so on.
When he noticed that the society attentions of the day had little effect on the lady, he tried to amuse her by telling her funny stories, and assured her that he was ready to stand on his head, to crow like a cock, to jump out of the window, or to plunge into the water through a hole in the ice, if she ordered him to do so. This proved quite a success. The widow brightened up and burst into peals of laughter, showing lovely white teeth, and was quite satisfied with her partner. The Count liked her more and more every minute, so that by the end of the quadrille, he was seriously in love with her.
When, after the quadrille was over, her eighteen year-old adorer of long standing came up to the widow (it was the same scrofulous young man from whom Toúrbin had snatched the chair, the son of the richest local landed proprietor, and not yet in government service), she received him with extreme coolness, and did not show one-tenth of the confusion she had experienced with the Count.
“Well, you are a fine fellow!” she said, looking all the time at Toúrbin’s back, and unconsciously considering how many yards of gold cord it had taken to trim his whole jacket. “You are a good one: you promised to call and fetch me for a drive and to bring me some comfits.”
“And I did come, Anna Fyódorovna, but you had already gone, and I left some of the very best comfits for you,” said the young man, who, despite his tallness, spoke in a very high-pitched voice.
“You’ll always find excuses! … I don’t want your bonbons. Please don’t imagine—”
“I see, Anna Fyódorovna, that you have changed towards me, and I know why. But it’s not right,” he added, evidently unable to finish his speech because of some strong inward agitation which made his lips quiver in a very rapid and strange manner.
Anna Fyódorovna did not listen to him, but continued to follow Toúrbin with her eyes.
The Marshal, the master of the house, a stately, stout, toothless old man, came up to the Count, took him under the arm, and invited him into the study to smoke and have something to drink. As soon as Toúrbin left the room Anna Fyódorovna felt there was absolutely nothing to do there, and went out into the dressing-room arm-in-arm with a friend of hers, a bony, elderly maiden lady.
“Well, is he nice?” asked the maiden lady.
“Only he bothers so,” Anna Fyódorovna answered, walking up to the glass and looking at herself.
Her face brightened, her eyes laughed, she even blushed, and suddenly, imitating the ballet-dancers she had seen during these elections, she twirled round on one foot, then laughed her guttural but pleasant laugh, and even, bending her knees, gave a jump.
“Just fancy, what a man! He actually asked me for a keepsake,” she said to her friend; “but he will get no-o-o-thing.” She sang the last word, and held up one finger of the kid glove, which reached to her elbow.
In the study, where the Marshal had taken Toúrbin, stood bottles of different sorts of vodka, liqueurs, champagne, and zakoúska. The nobility, walking and sitting in a cloud of tobacco smoke, were talking about the elections.
“When the whole noble society of our aristocracy has honoured him with their choice,” said the newly-elected Captain of Police, who had already drunk a good deal, “he should on no account transgress in the face of the whole society …”
The Count’s entrance interrupted the conversation. Everyone wished to be introduced to him, and the Captain of Police especially kept pressing the Count’s hand with both his own for a long time, and repeatedly asked him not to refuse to accompany him (the Captain) to the new restaurant, where, after the ball, he was going to treat the gentlemen, and where the gipsies were going to sing. The Count promised to go without fail, and drank some glasses of champagne with him.
“But why are you not dancing, gentlemen?” said the Count, as he was about to leave the room.
“We are not dancers,” replied the Captain of Police, laughing, “wine is more in our line, Count. … And besides, I have seen them all grow up—those young ladies, Count! But I can walk through an ecossaise now and then, Count. … I can do it, Count.”
“Then come and walk through one now,” said Toúrbin; “it will brighten us up before going to hear the gipsies.”
“Very well, gentlemen! let’s come and please our host.”
And three of the nobles, who had been drinking in the study since the commencement of the ball, put on black or silk knitted gloves, and with their red faces were just about to follow the Count into the ballroom, when they were stopped by the scrofulous young man, who, pale and hardly restraining his tears, accosted Toúrbin.
“You think that because you are a Count you can jostle people about as if at a fair,” he said, breathing hard, “because that is impolite. …”
And again, do what he would, his quivering lips stopped the flow of his words.
“What?” cried Toúrbin, suddenly frowning. “What? … You brat!” he cried, seizing him by the arms and squeezing them so that the blood rushed to the young man’s head, not so much from vexation as from fear. “What? Do you want to fight? I am at your service!”
Hardly had Toúrbin released the arms he had squeezed so hard when two nobles caught hold of them and dragged the young man towards the back door.
“What! are you out of your mind? You must be tipsy! There now, if one were to tell your papa! What is the matter with you?” said they to him.
“No, I’m not tipsy, but he jostles one and does not apologise. He’s a swine, there now!” squeaked the young man, now quite in tears.
They, however, did not listen to him, but someone drove home with him.
On the other hand, the Captain of Police and Zavalshévsky were exhorting Toúrbin. “Never mind, Count; he’s only a child. He gets flogged still; he’s only sixteen. … What can have happened to him? What bee has stung him? And his father such a respectable man—a candidate of ours.”
“Well, let him go to the devil, if he does not wish …”
And the Count returned to the ballroom and danced the ecossaise with the pretty widow as gaily as before, laughed with all his heart as he watched the steps performed by the gentlemen who had come out of the study with him, and burst into peals of laughter that rang across the room when the Captain of Police slipped and measured his full length in the midst of the dancers.