A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [63]
“You torture me, princess!” Grushnitsky was saying. “You have changed awfully since I last saw you . . .”
“You have also changed,” she replied, throwing him a quick look, in which he couldn’t discern the hidden mockery.
“Me? I have changed? . . . Oh never! You know that isn’t possible! A person who sees you but once will forever carry your divine image away with him.”
“Don’t . . .”
“Why do you no longer want to hear what not long ago you frequently received so favorably?”
“Because I don’t like repetition . . .” she said, laughing.
“Oh, I have been bitterly mistaken! . . . I thought, like a lunatic, that at least these epaulets would give me the right to hope . . . No, I would have been better off keeping that contemptible soldier’s greatcoat forever, to which I perhaps owed your attention . . .”
“It’s true, the greatcoat suited your face much better . . .” At that moment I went up to the princess and bowed. She blushed slightly and quickly said, “Isn’t it true, Monsieur Pechorin, that the gray greatcoat suited Monsieur Grushnitsky much better?”
“I don’t agree with you,” I replied. “Why, he looks even younger in his uniform.”
Grushnitsky could not endure this blow; like all boys, he makes a pretense of being an old man. He thinks that there are deep traces of passion on his face that substitute for the imprint of years. He threw me a furious look, clicked his heels, and walked off.
“But admit,” I said to the princess, “though he has always been amusing, not long ago you found him interesting too . . . in his gray greatcoat?”
She lowered her eyes and did not reply.
Grushnitsky pursued the princess the whole evening, dancing either with her or vis-à-vis. He devoured her with his eyes, sighed often, and exasperated her with his entreaties and reproaches.
By the third quadrille, she already detested him.
“I didn’t expect this of you,” he said, walking up to me and taking me by the arm.
“What?”
“You are dancing the mazurka with her?” he asked in a solemn voice. “She admitted it to me.”
“And so? Was it a secret?”
“It stands to reason . . . I should have expected this from a girl . . . from a coquette . . . I will have revenge!”
“Blame your greatcoat or your epaulets, but why take against her? What is she guilty of—that she doesn’t like you anymore?”
“Why would she give me hope, then?”
“Why did you have hope? To want and strive for something, I understand, but who entertains hopes?”
“You have lost the bet—only not completely,” he said, smiling spitefully.
The mazurka began. Grushnitsky picked the princess only, and the other cavaliers picked her constantly too; there was obviously a conspiracy against me—all the better. She wants to speak to me, and is being prevented from it—then she will want it twice over.
I pressed her hand twice, and on the second time she snatched it away, not saying a word.
“I will sleep badly tonight,” she said to me when the mazurka had finished.
“Grushnitsky is to blame.”
“Oh no!” and her face became so pensive, so melancholy, that I swore to myself I would kiss her hand this evening without fail.
People started to leave. Having seated the princess in her carriage, I quickly pressed her little hand to my lips. It was dark, and no one could have seen it.
I went back into the hall, satisfied with myself.
Some youths were dining at the big table, and Grushnitsky was with them. When I came in, they all fell silent: they were obviously talking about me. Many had grumbled at me since the previous ball, especially the dragoon captain—but now they had definitely formed an adversarial gang against me, under the command of Grushnitsky. He had such a proud and brave look to him . . . I am very pleased. I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call