A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [56]
I gave her one of those lines which every one of us should have prepared for such circumstances.
The quadrille went on for an awfully long time.
At last, the mazurka began to thunder from the balcony above; the young princess and I seated ourselves.
I didn’t once allude to the drunken gentleman, nor to my previous behavior, nor to Grushnitsky.
The effect of the unpleasant scene slowly dissipated in her. Her little face became radiant. She made sweet jokes. Her conversation was keen, without the pretension of witticisms, lively and free. Her remarks were sometimes profound . . . I led her to feel, with a very intricate phrase, that I had long ago taken a fancy to her. She bent her head and lightly blushed.
“You are an odd person!” she said then, lifting her velvet eyes to me and forcing a laugh.
“I didn’t want to be introduced to you,” I continued, “because there is too thick a crowd of admirers around you, and I was afraid of disappearing in it.”
“You needn’t have been afraid! They are all very tedious . . .”
“All of them! Not all of them surely?”
She looked at me intently, as though trying to remember something, and then blushed again lightly, and, finally, articulated decisively: “All of them!”
“Even my friend Grushnitsky?”
“Is he your friend?” she said, displaying a certain doubt.
“Yes.”
“He, of course, isn’t included in the ranks of the boring . . .”
“But in the ranks of the unfortunate,” I said, laughing.
“Naturally! Is it funny to you? I wish that you were in his place . . .”
“What? I was once myself a cadet, and, really, that was the best time of my life!”
“Is he a cadet?” she said quickly and then added: “But I thought he was . . .”
“What did you think?”
“Nothing! . . . Who is that lady?”
Here the conversation changed direction and did not return to this again.
Then the mazurka finished and we bid each other farewell with hopes to meet anew. The ladies dispersed . . . I went off to dine and encountered Werner.
“Aha!” he said. “There you are! I thought you wanted to become acquainted with the princess only while saving her from certain death?”
“I did better,” I replied to him. “I saved her from fainting at the ball!”
“How is that? Tell me!”
“No, guess—o you who thinks he can guess everything in the world!”
May 23
At around seven o’clock in the evening I was strolling along the boulevard. Grushnitsky, seeing me from a distance, walked up to me: some kind of amusing delight was shining in his eyes. He shook my hand tightly and said in a tragic voice:
“I thank you, Pechorin . . . Do you understand me?”
“No. But in any case, you needn’t thank me,” I replied, not having any good deed on my conscience.
“What? And yesterday? Have you forgotten? . . . Mary told me everything . . .”
“What? Do you now share everything? Gratitude too?”
“Listen,” said Grushnitsky very significantly, “please, don’t mock my love if you want to remain my friend . . . You see: I love her to distraction . . . and I think, I hope, that she loves me similarly . . . I have a request of you: that you will be their guest this evening. And promise me that you will observe everything. I know that you are experienced in these things. You know women better than I do . . . Women! Women! Who can fathom them? Their smiles contradict their gaze, their words promise and beckon, but the tone of their voices pushes you aside . . . Within one minute they can understand and anticipate our most secret thoughts, and then miss the clearest hints . . . Take the princess: yesterday her eyes burned with passion, and they rested on me. Today they are cloudy and cold . . .”
“This might be the effect of the waters,” I responded.
“You always think the worst . . . materialist!” he added disdainfully. “However, let us move on to other matters.”
And, satisfied with his bad pun, he cheered up.
At nine o’clock we went to the Princess Ligovsky together.