I turned and walked in the other direction. For about half an hour I wandered along the grapevine alleys, along the limestone ledge, and among the shrubbery that hung between them. It was becoming hot, and I hurried back. Walking past the sulfurous spring, I stopped at the covered gallery to catch my breath in its shade, and this provided me with the occasion to witness a rather curious scene. The central characters were in this arrangement: the elder princess sat with the Muscovite dandy on a bench in the covered gallery, and both were engaged, it seemed, in a serious conversation. The young princess, probably having drunk her last glass, was strolling pensively by the well. Grushnitsky was standing at the well itself; and there was no one else in the little square.
I approached and hid in a corner of the gallery. At that moment Grushnitsky let his glass fall in the sand and then tried to bend down and pick it up—but his injured leg was in the way. Poor thing! How he was contriving, leaning on his crutch, making vain attempts. His expressive face really did convey suffering.
Princess Mary saw all of this better than I did.
Lighter than a little bird, she ran up to him, bent down, lifted the glass and gave it to him in a motion performed with indescribable charm. Then she blushed terribly, looked back at the gallery and, having reassured herself that her mama hadn’t seen anything, calmed down immediately. By the time Grushnitsky had opened his mouth to thank her, she was already far gone. After a minute she came out of the gallery with her mother and the dandy, but assumed an air of utter propriety and importance as she passed Grushnitsky. She didn’t even turn, didn’t even notice the ardent look with which he long accompanied her, while she descended the hill and was eventually obscured by the linden trees of the boulevard . . . But then, her hat flashed on the other side of the street; she was running into one of the best houses of Pyatigorsk. The elder princess walked in after her and exchanged bows with Rayevich at the threshold.
Only then did the poor ardent cadet notice my presence.
“Did you see that?” he said, squeezing my hand tightly. “She is simply an angel!”
“Why?” I asked with an appearance of the purest sincerity.
“Didn’t you see it?”
“No, I didn’t see it. She picked up your glass. If the sentry had been here, he would have done the same, and even more swiftly in hopes of a tip. However, it’s perfectly understandable that she was sorry for you. You were making such an awful grimace, when you stood on your wounded leg . . .”
“And you weren’t at all moved, looking at her, at the moment when her soul shined through her face?”
“No.”
I was lying, but I wanted to infuriate him. I have a congenital desire to contradict; my whole life is merely a chain of sad and unsuccessful contradictions to heart and mind. When faced with enthusiasm, I am seized by a midwinter freeze, and I suppose that frequent dealings with sluggish phlegmatics would have made a passionate dreamer of me. I will also confess that a feeling, unpleasant yet familiar, lightly ran over my heart at that moment—and this feeling was envy. I say “envy” boldly because I have become accustomed to admitting to everything; and you will rarely find a young man who, upon meeting a pretty girl who has captured his idle attention and discovering that she has suddenly singled out another man, equally unknown to her—you will rarely find, I tell you, a young man (it goes without saying that he lives in
le grande monde,
and is used to indulging his vanity) who would not be struck unpleasantly by this.
Grushnitsky and I descended the hill in silence and walked down the boulevard, past the windows of the house in which our beauty had hidden herself. She was sitting in the window. Grushnitsky, holding me by the arm, threw her one of those cloudy, tender looks, which have so little effect on women. I directed my lorgnette toward her and noticed that she smiled at his look, and that she was not at all amused but vexed by my impertinent lorgnette. How indeed could a Caucasian soldier have dared to point his piece of glass at a princess from Moscow . . .
May 13
Today, in the morning, the doctor came to see me. His name is Werner, though he is Russian. What is surprising about that? I knew a German who was called Ivanov.
Werner was an excellent person for many reasons. He was a skeptic and a materialist, like almost all medics, but furthermore he was a poet—I jest not. Always a poet in deed, and often in word, though he hasn’t written two verses in his life. He has studied every living string of the human heart, like some who study the circulation of a corpse, but he has never been able to profit from his knowledge—like an excellent anatomist who isn’t able to treat a fever! Usually, Werner ridicules his patients when they aren’t looking; but I once saw him weep over a dying soldier . . . He was poor and dreamed of making millions but has not taken one extra step for money’s sake. He once said to me that he would sooner do a favor for an enemy than for a friend, because for a friend it seemed like selling charity, whereas the generosity of an adversary only gives proportional strength to hatred. He has a wicked tongue, expressed through his epigrams; more than one good-natured person has gained the reputation of a vulgar fool as a result. His rivals, envious spa medics, sent out a rumor that he draws caricatures of his patients; the patients became enraged, and almost all of them refused to see him. His acquaintances, all truly decent folk who have served in the Caucasus, then strived in vain to resurrect his fallen credibility.
His appearance was one that strikes you, on first glance, as unpleasant but which subsequently becomes likable, when the eye has learned to read the stamp of an experienced and lofty soul in his irregular features. There have been examples of women falling madly in love with such people, who wouldn’t exchange ugliness like his for the beauty of the most fresh and rosy Endymions. One must do justice to women: they have an instinct for a beautiful soul. That is perhaps why people like Werner love women so passionately.
Werner was short, thin, and as weak as a baby; one of his legs was shorter than the other, like Byron; his head seemed enormous in comparison to his trunk: he cropped his hair close, and the unevenness of his skull, exposed as it was, would have shocked a phrenologist with its strange weavings of opposing inclinations. His small black eyes, always agitated, sought to penetrate your thoughts. It was evident that there was taste and tidiness to his attire; his lean, veined hands stood out vividly in their light-yellow gloves. His frock coat, neck-tie and waistcoat were always black in color. Young men nicknamed him Mephistopheles. He acted as though he was angry at such a nickname but in actual fact, it gratified his vanity. We quickly understood each other and became friendly, because I am not capable of true friendship: one friend is always slave to the other, though often neither of them will admit it. I cannot be a slave, and to dominate in such a situation is an exhausting labor, because you must also lie at the same time. And besides I have a lackey and money! This is how we became friendly: I met Werner at S—in a crowded and noisy circle of young men; the conversation toward the end of the evening took a philosophical and metaphysical direction; we were talking about convictions. Each one of us was convinced of this or that.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m convinced of only one thing . . .” said the doctor.
“And what is that?” I asked, wanting to know the opinion of this person who had not yet spoken.
“Of the fact,” he replied, “that sooner or later, one fine day, I will die.”
“I am richer than you,” I said, “as I have, apart from that, another conviction, which is that one very nasty evening I had the misfortune of being born.”
Everyone found that we were talking nonsense, but, really, not one of them said anything any cleverer than that. From that minute, we had singled each other out in the crowd. The two of us often met and discussed abstract subjects that were very serious, neither of us noticing that we were but pulling the wool over each other’s eyes. Then, having looked meaningfully into each other’s eyes, as did the Roman augurs according to Cicero, we started guffawing and having laughed ourselves out, went our separate ways, satisfied with our evening.
I lay on the divan, aiming my eyes at the ceiling with my hand behind my head, when Werner came into my room. He sat in the armchair, put his walking stick in the corner, yawned and announced that it was becoming hot in the courtyard. I replied that the flies were bothering me, and we both fell silent.
“Note, dear doctor,” I said, “that, without fools, the world would be very boring . . . See, here we are, two intelligent people. We know in advance that we are each capable of debating to eternity, and so we don’t debate. We know nearly all of each other’s innermost thoughts. One word tells a whole story. We could see the kernel of each of our feelings through a three-layered shell. Sad things are funny to us. Funny things are sad to us. And in general, to tell the truth, we are indifferent to everything apart from our selves. And thus, there cannot be an exchange of feelings and thoughts between us. We know everything we wish to know about each other, and don’t wish to know more. One solution remains: to discuss the news. Can you give me any news?”
Tired from my long speech, I closed my eyes and yawned . . .
He thought for a while and replied:
“Well, there is an idea in that nonsense of yours.”
“Two of them!” I replied.
“Tell me one of them and I’ll tell you the other.”
“Good, let’s begin!” I said, continuing to examine the ceiling and smiling inwardly.
“You want details about one of the spa visitors, and I can guess which one you are bothering about, because there have been questions already about you, too.”
“Doctor! We must absolutely not converse: we are reading each other’s souls.”
“And for the second . . . ?”
“The other idea is this: I wanted to make you recount something. Firstly, because listening is less tiring; and secondly, one mustn’t be indiscreet; and thirdly, to learn the secrets of others; and fourthly, because intelligent people such as you like listeners more than they like storytellers. So then, to the matter at hand: what did old Princess Ligovsky say about me?”
“You are very sure that it was the older one . . . and not the young one?”
“Absolutely certain.”
“Why?”
“Because the young one was asking about Grushnitsky.”
“You have a great gift of understanding. The young princess said that she was certain that the young man in the soldier’s greatcoat was reduced to the ranks on account of a duel . . .”
“I hope that you left her with that pleasant delusion.”
“Of course!”
“We have a start!” I cried with rapture. “And we will take some trouble over the start of this comedy! Obviously, fate has taken upon itself to make things interesting for me!”
“I have a premonition,” said the doctor, “that poor Grushnitsky will be your victim . . .”
“Continue, Doctor . . .”
“Princess Ligovsky said that your face is familiar. I remarked to her that she had probably met you in St. Petersburg, somewhere in social circles . . . I told her your name . . . It was familiar to her. It seems that your story has made quite a lot of noise there . . . The princess continued to describe your escapades, adding, in all likelihood, her own observations to society gossip . . . The daughter listened with interest. In her imagination, you grew into the hero of one of those new novels . . . I didn’t contradict the princess, even though I knew that she was talking nonsense.”
“My worthy friend!” I said, offering him my hand.
The doctor shook it with feeling, and continued:
“If you like, I’ll introduce you . . .”
“Good gracious!” I said, raising my hands. “Do heroes really get introduced? Do they not become acquainted as they save their beloved from certain death . . . ?”
“And you really want to court the princess?”
“On the contrary, absolutely on the contrary! Doctor, finally I have triumphed: you don’t understand me!” I continued after a minute of silence: “But this distresses me, Doctor . . . I have never exposed my secrets, but I do awfully like it when they are guessed because, in that case, I can always deny them when something happens. However, you must describe mother and daughter to me. How are they as people?”
“Firstly, the Princess Ligovsky is a lady of forty-five years,” said Werner, “and she has excellent digestion, but her blood is contaminated. She has red dots on her cheeks. She has spent the last half of her life so far in Moscow and now, in retirement, she has grown fat. She loves naughty anecdotes and she herself sometimes speaks of indecent things when her daughter is not in the room. She conveyed to me that her daughter is as innocent as a dove. What was it to me? . . . I was moved to say something in reply—that I wouldn’t tell anyone, to ensure her peace of mind! The Princess Ligovsky is being treated for rheumatism, and the daughter for goodness knows what. I ordered them both to drink two glasses of sulfurous water a day and to bathe in a diluted bath twice a week. The Princess Ligovsky, it seems, is not used to orders. She has a respect for the intelligence and knowledge of her daughter, who has read Byron in English and knows algebra. In Moscow, the young ladies have embarked on learning and it is a good thing, I’d say! Our men are so impolite in general, that to have to flirt with them must be unbearable to a clever woman. The Princess Ligovsky likes young men, but the young Princess Mary looks at them with a certain contempt: a Muscovite habit! In Moscow, they have only forty-year-old wits for their consumption.”