A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [48]
“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.”
“Have you been to Moscow, doctor?”
“Yes, I have practiced there a bit.”
“Continue.”
“Well, I have said everything, it seems . . . Yes! One more thing: the young princess, it seems, loves to discuss feelings, passions, and the like . . . She was in Petersburg for a winter, and it didn’t please her, especially the society there. I suppose they received her coldly.”
“You didn’t see anyone with them today?”
“On the contrary: there was one adjutant, one tense-looking guardsman, and a lady who has just arrived, a relative of the princess by marriage, very pretty, but very poorly, it seems . . . Didn’t you meet her at the well? She is of medium height, fair, with regular features and a consumptive color to her face, and there is a mole on her right cheek. Her expressive face is most striking.”
“A mole!” I muttered through my teeth. “Really?”
The doctor looked at me and