A Hero of Our Time, page 12
"I say, does this thing fit me well? Oh, damn that Jew[98]! It's tight under the arms!... Have you any perfume at all?"
"For goodness sake, how much more do you want? You already reek of rose pomade."
"Never mind. Let's have some..."
He poured half a bottle on his necktie, handkerchief and sleeves.
"Will you be dancing?" he asked.
"I don't think so."
"I'm afraid the princess and I will have to start the mazurka, and I scarcely know a single figure..."
"Did you ask her for the mazurka?"
"No, not yet...."
"Take care no one gets there before you...".
"You're right, by gad!" he said, slapping his forehead. "Good-bye, I'll go and wait for her at the entrance." He took his cap and ran off.
Half an hour later I too set out. The streets were dark and deserted. Around the club rooms or inn-whichever you want to call it-the crowds were gathering. The windows were ablaze with light, and the strains of the regimental band wafted toward me on the evening wind. I walked slowly, steeped in melancholy. Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances-or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library[99]? who knows? are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives?
On entering the hall I mingled with the crowd of men and began making my observations. Grushnitsky was standing beside Princess Mary and talking with great ardor. She was listening to him absent-mindedly, looking around and pressing her fan to her lips. Her face expressed impatience and her eyes searched for someone. I quietly slipped behind them so as to overhear the conversation.
"You are tormenting me, Princess," Grushnitsky said. "You have changed terribly since I saw you last."
"You too have changed," she replied, throwing him a swift look whose veiled scorn was lost on him.
"I? Changed? Never! You know that is impossible! Whoever has seen you once will carry your divine image with him to the grave..."
"Stop..."
"Why will you not listen now, when you so recently and so often lent a favorable ear?"
"Because I don't like repetition," she replied, laughing.
"Oh, I have been bitterly mistaken! I thought, fool that I am, that at least these epaulets would give me the right to hope... Yes, it would have been better to spend the rest of my life in that despicable soldier's overcoat, to which I perhaps owed your attention."
"In fact, the overcoat made you look far better..."
At that moment I came up and bowed to the princess. She blushed slightly, saying hurriedly: "Don't you think, M'sieu Pechorin, that the gray overcoat suits M'sieu Grushnitsky much better?"
"I don't agree with you," replied I. "He looks even younger in this uniform."
Grushnitsky could not bear this thrust, for like all boys he lays claim to being a man of some years. He thinks that the deep traces of passion on his face can pass for the stamp of age. He threw a furious look at me, stamped his foot, and strode away.
"You must admit," I said to the princess, "that although he has always been very ridiculous he struck you as interesting only a short while ago... in his gray overcoat."
She dropped her eyes and said nothing.
Grushnitsky pursued the princess the whole evening, dancing either with her or vis-а-vis . He devoured her with his eyes, sighed and wearied her with his supplications and reproaches. By the end of the third quadrille she already hated him.
"I didn't expect this of you," he said, coming up to me and taking me by the arm.
"What are you talking about?"
"Are you going to dance the mazurka with her?" he asked me in a solemn tone. "She admitted as much to me..."
"Well, what of it? Is it a secret?"
"Of course... I should have expected it from that hussy, that flirt... Never mind, I'll take my revenge!"
"Blame your overcoat or your epaulets, but why accuse her? Is it her fault that she no longer likes you?"
"Why did she give me reason to hope?"
"Why did you hope? To want something and to strive for it, that I can understand, but whoever hopes?"
"You have won the bet, but not entirely," he said, with a spiteful sneer.
The mazurka began. Grushnitsky invited none but Princess Mary. Other cavaliers chose her every minute. It was obviously a conspiracy against me-but that was all for the better. She wanted to talk with me; she was prevented from doing so-good! She would want to all the more.
I pressed her hand once or twice; the second time she pulled her hand away without a word.
"I will sleep badly tonight," she said to me when the mazurka was over.
"Grushnitsky is to blame for that."
"Oh no!" And her face grew so thoughtful, so sad, that I promised myself I would certainly kiss her hand that night.
Everybody began to disperse. Having helped the princess into her carriage, I quickly pressed her little hand to my lips. It was dark and no one could see.
I returned to the ballroom, highly pleased with myself.
The young gallants were having supper around a large table, Grushnitsky among them. When I entered they all fell silent; they must have been talking about me. Ever since the previous ball many of them, the captain of dragoons in particular, have had a bone to pick with me, and now it seems that a hostile band is being organized against me under Grushnitsky's command. He wears such a cocky air of bravura.
I am very glad of it, for I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me and quicken my pulse. To be always on one's guard, to catch every look and the significance of every word, to guess intentions, foil conspiracies, pretend to be deceived and then to overthrow with a single blow the whole vast edifice of artifice and design raised with so much effort-that is what I call life.
Throughout the meal Grushnitsky spoke in whispers and exchanged winks with the captain of dragoons.
6 June
This morning Vera left for Kislovodsk with her husband. Their carriage passed me as I was on my way to Princess Ligovskaya's. She nodded to me-there was reproach in her eyes.
Who is to blame, after all? Why doesn't she not want to give me an opportunity to see her alone? Love, like fire, dies out without fuel. Perhaps jealousy will succeed where my pleadings have failed.
I stayed a whole hour at the princess's. Mary didn't come down-she was indisposed. In the evening she didn't appear on the boulevard. The newly formed gang had armed itself with eyeglasses with little handles and looked formidable indeed. I am glad that the young princess was ill, for they would have affronted her in some way. Grushnitsky's hair was messed up, and he looked desperate; he actually seems to be embittered, his vanity especially has been wounded. But some people are really amusing even in despair!
On returning home I felt a vague longing. I had not seen her! She was ill! Have I actually fallen in love? What nonsense!
7 June
At eleven o'clock in the morning, at which hour Princess Ligovskaya usually sweats it out at the Yermolov baths, I walked past her house. Princess Mary was sitting at the window lost in thought. On seeing me, she jumped to her feet.
I walked into the waiting room. There was no one around and, taking advantage of the freedom of the local customs, I went straight to the drawing room without being announced.
A dull white had spread over the princess's charming features. She stood by the piano, leaning with one arm on the back of a chair; the hand trembled slightly. Quietly I walked up to her and said: "Are you angry with me?"
She raised her eyes to me with a deep, languorous look and shook her head. Her lips wanted to say something, but could not. Her eyes filled with tears. She sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands.
"What is the matter?" I said, taking her hand.
"You don't respect me! Oh, leave me alone!"
I stepped back a few paces. She stiffened in the chair and her eyes flashed...
I paused, my hand on the door knob, and said: "I beg your pardon, Princess! I acted rashly... it will not happen again, I'll see to it. Why should you know what has been going on in my heart? You'll never know it, which is all the better for you. Farewell."
As I went out I thought I heard her sobbing.
Until evening I wandered about the outskirts of Mashuk, tired myself out thoroughly and, on returning home, flung myself on the bed in utter exhaustion.
Werner dropped in to see me.
"Is it true," he asked, "that you intend to marry the young Princess Ligovskaya?"
"Why do you ask?"
"The whole town is talking about it. All my patients can think of nothing else but this important news, and these watering-place people know everything!"
"This is Grushnitsky's little joke!" thought I.
"To prove to you, doctor, how unfounded these rumors are, I will tell you in confidence that I am moving on to Kislovodsk tomorrow."
"And Princess Mary as well?"
"No, she will remain here another week."
"So you don't intend to marry?"
"Doctor, doctor! Look at me: do I look like a bridegroom or anything of the kind?"
"I am not saying you do... But, you know, it sometimes happens," he added, smiling slyly, "that a man of honor is obliged to marry, and that there are fond mamas who at any rate do not prevent such things from arising... So as a friend, I advise you to be more cautious. The air is highly dangerous here at the waters. How many splendid young men worthy of a better fate have I seen leave here bound straight for the altar. Believe it or not, they even wanted to marry me off too. It was the doing of one provincial mama with a very pale daughter. I had the misfortune to tell her that the girl would regain her color after marriage; whereupon, with tears of gratitude in her eyes, she offered me her daughter's hand and all her property – fifty souls[100], I believe it was. I told her, however, that I was quite unfit for matrimony."
Werner left fully confident that he had given me a timely warning.
From what he had said I gathered that many malicious rumors had been spread all over town about Princess Mary and myself: Grushnitsky will have to pay for this!
10 June
It is three days since I arrived in Kislovodsk. I see Vera every day at the spring or on the promenade. When I wake up in the morning I sit at the window and direct eyeglasses at her balcony. Having dressed long before, she waits for the signal agreed upon, and we meet as if by accident in the garden, which slopes down to the spring from our houses. The invigorating mountain air has brought the color back to her cheeks and given her strength. It is not for nothing that Narzan[101] is called the source of heroes. The local inhabitants claim that the air in Kislovodsk is conducive to love and that all the love affairs that ever began at the foot of Mashuk have invariably reached their ending here. And, indeed, everything here breathes of seclusion. Everything is mysterious-the dense shadows of the lime trees bordering the torrent which, falling noisily and frothily from flag to flag, cuts its way through the green mountains, and the gorges, full of gloom and silence, that branch out from here in all directions. And the freshness of the fragrant air, laden with the aroma of the tall southern grasses and the white acacia[102], and the incessant deliciously drowsy babble of the cool brooks which, mingling at the end of the valley, rush onward to hurl their waters into the Podkumok River. On this side the gorge is wider and spreads out into a green depression, and through it meanders a dusty road. Each time I look at it, I seem to see a carriage approaching and a pretty rosy-cheeked face looking out of its window. Many a carriage has already rolled along that road – but there still is no sign of that particular one. The settlement beyond the fort is now densely populated; from the restaurant, built on a hill a few paces from my apartment, lights have begun to glimmer in the evenings through the double row of poplars, and the noise and the clinking of glasses can be heard until late at night.
Nowhere is there so much Kakhetian wine and mineral water drunk up as here.
To jumble up[103] such various kinds of fun
There's many take delight: for me, I am not one.
Grushnitsky and his gang whoop it up daily in the saloon. He barely acknowledges me now.
He arrived only yesterday, but he's already managed to pick a quarrel with three old men who wanted to take their baths before him. Bad luck's decidedly developing a bellicose spirit in him.
11 June
At last they've arrived. I was sitting at the window when I heard their carriage drive up, and my heart jumped. What does it mean? Could I be in love? So senselessly am I constructed that it might indeed be expected of me.
I had dinner with them. Princess Ligovskaya eyed me very tenderly and did not leave her daughter's side-a bad sign that! But Vera is jealous of Princess Mary. I have managed to bring about that happy state after all! What would a woman not do to hurt a rival! I recall one woman who loved me simply because I was in love with another. Nothing is more paradoxical than the feminine mind. It is hard to convince women of anything-they must be brought to a point where they will convince themselves. The means of supplying evidence by which they finish off their prejudices is highly original, and to get to know their dialectic one must rid the mind of all academic rules of logic. For example, the ordinary method is this:
This man loves me; but I am married; hence, I must not love him.
The feminine method is this:
I must not love him because I am married; but he loves me, and hence...
Here follows a pregnant pause, for reason is now dumb, and all the talking is mainly done by the tongue, eyes, and eventually the heart, if there is one.
What if these notes should fall into a woman's hands some day? "Slander!" she will cry indignantly.
Ever since poets began to write and women to read them (for which they must be heartily thanked), the latter have been called angels so often that in the simplicity of their hearts they have actually come to believe in this compliment, forgetting that for money the very same poets exalted Nero as a semigod.
It might appear not quite right that I should speak of them with such malice-I, who have never loved anything else under the sun-I, who have always been ready to sacrifice my peace of mind, ambition and life for their sake... Yet it is not in a fit of annoyance or injured vanity that I try hard to draw aside that magic veil which only the accustomed eye can penetrate. No, all that I say about them is only the result of
The cold reflections[104] of the mind
And bitter insights of the heart.
Women should wish all men to know them as well as I do, for I have loved them a hundred times more since I overcame my fear of them and discovered their petty frailties.
Incidentally, Werner the other day compared women with the enchanted forest described by Tasso in his Jerusalem Delivered[105].
"You have but to approach it," he said, "to be assaulted from all sides by ungodly terrors: duty, pride, respectability, public opinion, ridicule, contempt... You must not heed them, but go straight on. Little by little the monsters vanish and before you opens a quiet, sunny glade with green myrtle blooming in its midst. But woe to you if your heart quails when you take those first steps and you turn back!"
12 June
This evening was full of many events. Some two miles out of Kislovodsk, in the gorge where the Podkumok flows, there is a crag called The Ring, forming a natural gateway that towers above a high hill. Through it the setting sun casts its last fiery glance at the world. A large cavalcade set out to watch the sunset through the rocky window. To tell the truth, though, none of us was thinking of the sunset. I rode next to Princess Mary. On the way back we had to ford the Podkumok. Even the shallowest mountain streams are dangerous, chiefly because their beds are a perfect kaleidoscope, changing day by day under the action of the current-where there was a rock yesterday, there may be a pit today. I took the princess's horse by the bridle and led it to the water, which did not rise above the knees. We started crossing slowly at an angle against the current. It is a well-known fact that in crossing rapids one should not look down at the water because it makes you dizzy. I forgot to warn Princess Mary of this.
We were already in midstream, where the current is the swiftest, when she suddenly swayed in the saddle. "I feel faint!" she gasped. Quickly I bent over toward her and put my arm around her supple waist.
"Look up!" I whispered to her. "Don't be afraid, it's quite all right; I am with you."
She felt better and wanted to free herself from my arm, but I tightened my embrace about her soft slender waist. My cheek almost touched hers. I could feel a fiery glow from her.
"What are you doing to me? My God!"
I paid no heed to her quivering confusion and my lips touched her soft cheek. She jumped, but said nothing. We were riding behind the others-no one saw us. When we clambered ashore, everyone set off at a trot. The princess, however, reined in her horse, and I remained with her. It was obvious that she was worried by my silence, but I swore to myself not to say a word-out of sheer curiosity. I wanted to see how she would get herself out of this embarrassing situation.
"Either you despise me, or you love me very much," she said at last in a voice that shook with tears. "Perhaps you wish to mock me, to play on my feelings, and then leave me... That would be so vile, so low, that the very thought... Oh no! Surely," she added with an air of tender trustfulness, "there is nothing in me that would preclude respect, is there? Your presumptuous conduct... I must, I must forgive you because I permitted it... Answer me, speak to me, I want to hear your voice!" There was so much feminine impetuosity in her last words that I could not suppress a smile; luckily, it was growing dark. I did not reply.
