A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [61]
We arrived at the chasm; ladies abandoned their cavaliers, but she didn’t let go of my hand. The witticisms of the local dandies didn’t make her laugh. The steepness of the precipice at which she stood didn’t scare her, while the other young ladies squeaked and closed their eyes.
On the way back I didn’t resume our melancholy conversation, and she responded shortly and distractedly to my empty questions and jokes.
“Have you ever loved?” I asked her toward the end.
She looked at me intently, shook her head—and again fell into reverie: it was obvious that she wanted to say something, but she didn’t know how to start. Her breast was excited . . . What was there to be done? Her muslin sleeves were a weak defense against the electric spark that ran from my arm to hers. Almost all passions begin this way, and we often deceive ourselves, thinking that a woman loves us for our physical or moral attributes. Of course, these things prepare her heart for receiving the holy fire, but it is still the first bite that decides the whole matter.
“Wouldn’t you agree that I was most cordial today?” the princess said to me with a forced smile when we had returned from the excursion.
We parted.
She was dissatisfied with herself: she had accused herself of coldness . . . Oh, this is the first major triumph! Tomorrow she will want to recompense me. I know this all by heart already—that’s what’s so boring!
June 4
Today I saw Vera. She bored me to tears with her jealousy. The princess has taken it into her head, it seems, to trust Vera with her heart’s secrets: it must be said that that is a happy choice!
“I can guess where all this is leading,” Vera was saying to me, “and it would be better if you just simply told me now that you love her.”
“And if I don’t love her?”
“Well, then why are you pursuing her, alarming her, agitating her imagination? . . . Oh, I know you well! Listen, if you want me to trust you, then come to Kislovodsk in a week’s time. The day after tomorrow we will be going there. The Princess Ligovsky will be staying here for the meantime. Take an apartment nearby. We will stay in the mezzanine of a big house near the source; downstairs will be the Princess Ligovsky, and next door there is a house that belongs to the same owner, which is not yet occupied . . . Will you come?”
I promised, and the same day I sent someone to reserve the apartment.
Grushnitsky came to me at six o’clock in the evening and announced that tomorrow his full-dress uniform would be ready, just in time for the ball.
“At last I will dance with her the whole evening . . . then I will say everything that needs saying!”
“When is this ball?”
“Tomorrow! Don’t you know? A big festival, and the local authorities have undertaken to organize it . . .”
“Let’s go down to the boulevard . . .”
“Not on your life, in this ugly greatcoat . . .”
“What, have you ceased to love it?”
I went out alone and encountered Princess Mary, whereupon I invited her to dance the mazurka. She seemed to be surprised and glad.
“I thought that you only dance out of necessity, like the last time,” she said, very sweetly smiling . . .
She, it seems, hadn’t been noticing the absence of Grushnitsky.
“You will be pleasantly surprised tomorrow,” I said to her.
“By what?”
“That is a secret . . . you will find out for yourself at the ball.”
I finished the evening at Princess Ligovsky’s house; there weren’t any guests except Vera and one very amusing old man. I was in high spirits, and improvised various strange stories. The young princess sat opposite me and listened to my nonsense with such deep and strained yet gentle attention that I felt guilty. Where had her vitality gone? Her coquettishness, her caprice, her cheeky mien, her contemptuous smile, her absentminded look . . . ?
Vera noticed all of this: a deep sadness showed itself on her sickly face; she sat in the shadows by the window, sunken in a wide armchair . . . I started to feel sorry for her . . .
Then I recounted the whole dramatic story of our acquaintance, our love—but it goes without saying