Chapter Chapter 1 · 第1章

The old Countess Anna Fedotovna was in her dressing-room, seated before

her looking-glass. Three maids were in attendance. One held her pot of

rouge, another a box of black pins, a third an enormous lace cap, with

flaming ribbons. The Countess had no longer the slightest pretence to

beauty, but she preserved all the habits of her youth. She dressed in

the style of fifty years before, and gave as much time and attention to

her toilet as a fashionable beauty of the last century. Her companion

was working at a frame in a corner of the window.

[Illustrated: "SEATED BEFORE HER LOOKING-GLASS."]

"Good morning, grandmother," said the young officer, as he entered the

dressing-room. "Good morning, Mademoiselle Lise. Grandmother, I have

come to ask you a favour."

"What is it, Paul?"

"I want to introduce to you one of my friends, and to ask you to give

him an invitation to your ball."

"Bring him to the ball and introduce him to me there. Did you go

yesterday to the Princess's?"

"Certainly. It was delightful! We danced until five o'clock in the

morning. Mademoiselle Eletzki was charming."

"My dear nephew, you are really not difficult to please. As to beauty,

you should have seen her grandmother, the Princess Daria Petrovna. But

she must be very old the Princess Daria Petrovna!"

"How do you mean old?" cried Tomski thoughtlessly; "she died seven

years ago."

The young lady who acted as companion raised her head and made a sign

to the officer, who then remembered that it was an understood thing to

conceal from the Princess the death of any of her contemporaries. He

bit his lips. The Countess, however, was not in any way disturbed on

hearing that her old friend was no longer in this world.

"Dead!" she said, "and I never knew it! We were maids of honour in

the same year, and when we were presented, the Empress'"--and the

old Countess related for the hundredth time an anecdote of her young

days. "Paul," she said, as she finished her story, "help me to get up.

Lisaveta, where is my snuff-box?"

And, followed by the three maids, she went behind a great screen to

finish her toilet. Tomski was now alone with the companion.

"Who is the gentleman you wish to introduce to madame?" asked Lisaveta.

"Narumoff. Do you know him?"

"No. Is he in the army?"

"Yes."

"In the Engineers?"

"No, in the Horse Guards. Why did you think he was in the Engineers?"

The young lady smiled, but made no answer.

"Paul," cried the Countess from behind the screen, "send me a new

novel; no matter what. Only see that it is not in the style of the

present day."

"What style would you like, grandmother?"

"A novel in which the hero strangles neither his father nor his mother,

and in which no one gets drowned. Nothing frightens me so much as the

idea of getting drowned."

[Illustration: PAUL AND LISAVETA.]

"But how is it possible to find you such a book? Do you want it in

Russian?"

"Are there any novels in Russian? However, send me something or other.

You won't forget?"

"I will not forget, grandmother. I am in a great hurry. Good-bye,

Lisaveta. What made you fancy Narumoff was in the Engineers?" and

Tomski took his departure.

Lisaveta, left alone, took out her embroidery, and sat down close to

the window. Immediately afterwards, in the street, at the corner of a

neighbouring house, appeared a young officer. The sight of him made the

companion blush to her ears. She lowered her head, and almost concealed

it in the canvas. At this moment the Counters returned, fully dressed.

"Lisaveta," she said "have the horses put in; we will go out for a

drive."

Lisaveta rose from her chair, and began to arrange her embroidery.

"Well, my dear child, are you deaf? Go and tell them to put the horses

in at once."

"I am going," replied the young lady, as she went out into the

ante-chamber.

A servant now came in, bringing some books from Prince Paul

Alexandrovitch.

"Say I am much obliged to him. Lisaveta! Lisaveta! Where has she run

off to?"

"I was going to dress."

"We have plenty of time, my dear. Sit down, take the first volume, and

read to me."

The companion took the book and read a few lines.

"Louder," said the Countess. "What is the matter with you? Have you a

cold? Wait a moment; bring me that stool. A little closer; that will

do."

Lisaveta read two pages of the book.

"Throw that stupid book away," said the Countess. "What nonsense! Send

it back to Prince Paul, and tell him I am much obliged to him; and the

carriage, is it never coming?

"Here it is," replied Lisaveta, going to the window.

"And now you are not dressed. Why do you always keep 'me waiting? It is

intolerable."

Lisaveta ran to her room. She had scarcely been there two minutes when

the Countess rang with all her might. Her maids rushed in at one door

and her valet at the other.

"You do not seem to hear me when I ring," she cried. "Go and tell

Lisaveta that I am waiting for her."

At this moment Lisaveta entered, wearing a new walking dress and a

fashionable bonnet.

"At last, miss," cried the Countess. "But what is that you have got on?

and why? For whom are you dressing? What sort of weather is it? Quite

stormy, I believe."

"No, your Excellency," said the valet; "it is exceedingly fine."

"What do you know about it? Open the ventilator. Just what I told you!

A frightful wind, and as icy as can be. Unharness the horses. Lisaveta,

my child, we will not go out to-day. It was scarcely worth while to

dress so much."

"What an existence!" said the companion to herself.

Lisaveta Ivanovna was, in fact, a most unhappy creature. "The bread of

the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb."

But who can tell the torments of a poor little companion attached to

an old lady of quality? The Countess had all the caprices of a woman

spoilt by the world. She was avaricious and egotistical, and thought

all the more of herself now that she had ceased to play an active part

in society. She never missed a ball, and she dressed and painted in the

style of a bygone age. She remained in a corner of the room, where she

seemed to have been placed expressly to serve as a scarecrow. Every

one on coming in went to her and made her a low bow, but this ceremony

once at an end no one spoke a word to her. She received the whole city

at her house, observing the strictest etiquette, and never failing to

give to everyone his or her proper name. Her innumerable servants,

growing pale and fat in the ante-chamber, did absolutely as they liked,

so that that the house was pillaged as if its owner were really dead.

Lisaveta passed her life in continual torture. If she made tea she was

reproached with wasting the sugar. If she read a novel to the Countess

she was held responsible for all the absurdities of the author. If she

went out with the noble lady for a walk or drive, it was she who was to

blame if the weather was bad or the pavement muddy. Her salary, more

than modest, was never punctually paid, and she was expected to dress

"like every one else," that is to say, like very few people indeed.

When she went into society her position was sad. Everyone knew her; no

one paid her any attention. At a ball she sometimes danced, but only

when a _vis-à-vis_ was wanted. Women would come up to her, take her by

the arm, and lead her out of the room if their dress required attending

to. She had her portion of self-respect, and felt deeply the misery

of her position. She looked with impatience for a liberator to break

her chain. But the young men, prudent in the midst of their affected

giddiness, took care not to honour her with their attentions, though

Lisaveta Ivanovna was a hundred times prettier than the shameless or

stupid girls whom they surrounded with their homage. More than once

she slunk away from the splendour of the drawing-room to shut herself

up alone in her little bed-room, furnished with an old screen and a

pieced carpet, a chest of drawers, a small looking-glass, and a wooden

bedstead. There she shed tears at her ease by the light of a tallow

candle in a tin candlestick.

One morning--it was two days after the party at Narumoff's, and a

week before the scene we have just sketched--Lisaveta was sitting at

her embroidery before the window, when, looking carelessly into the

street, she saw an officer, in the uniform of the Engineers, standing

motionless with his eyes fixed upon her. She lowered her head, and

applied herself to her work more attentively than ever. Five minutes

afterwards she locked mechanically into the street, and the officer was

still in the same place. Not being in the habit of exchanging glances

with young men who passed by her window, she remained with her eyes

fixed on her work for nearly two hours, until she was told that lunch

was ready. She got up to put her embroidery away, and while doing so,

looked into the street, and saw the officer still in the same place.

This seemed to her very strange. After lunch she went to the window

with a certain emotion, but the officer of Engineers was no longer in

the street.

[Illustration: "THERE SHE SHED TEARS."]

She thought no more of him. But two days afterwards, just as she was

getting into the carriage with the Countess, she saw him once more,

standing straight before the door. His face was half concealed by a fur

collar, but his black eyes sparkled beneath his helmet. Lisaveta was

afraid, without knowing why, and she trembled as she took her seat in

the carriage.

On returning home, she rushed with a beating heart towards the

window. The officer was in his habitual place, with his eyes fixed

ardently upon her. She at once withdrew, burning at the same time with

curiosity, and moved by a strange feeling which she now experienced for

the first time.

No day now passed but the young officer showed himself beneath the

window. Before long a dumb acquaintance was established between them.

Sitting at her work she felt his presence, and when she raised her head

she looked at him for a long time every day. The young man seemed full

of gratitude for these innocent favours.

She observed, with the deep and rapid perceptions of youth, that a

sudden redness covered the officer's pale cheeks as soon as their eyes

met. After about a week she would smile at seeing him for the first

time.

When Tomski asked his grandmother's permission to present one of his

friends, the heart of the poor young girl beat strongly, and when she

heard that it was Narumoff, she bitterly repented having compromised

her secret by letting it out to a giddy young man like Paul.

Hermann was the son of a German settled in Russia, from whom he had

inherited a small sum of money. Firmly resolved to preserve his

independence, he had made it a principle not to touch his private

income. He lived on his pay, and did not allow himself the slightest

luxury. He was not very communicative; and his reserve rendered it

difficult for his comrades to amuse themselves at his expense.

Under an assumed calm he concealed strong passions and a

highly-imaginative disposition. But he was always master of himself,

and kept himself free from the ordinary faults of young men. Thus, a

gambler by temperament, he never touched a card, feeling, as he himself

said, that his position did not allow him to "risk the necessary in

view of the superfluous." Yet he would pass entire nights before a

card-table, watching with feverish anxiety the rapid changes of the

game. The anecdote of Count St. Germaines three cards had struck his

imagination, and he did nothing but think of it all that night.

"If," he said to himself next day as he was walking along the streets

of St. Petersburg, "if she would only tell me her secret--if she would

only name the three winning cards! I must get presented to her, that I

may pay my court and gain her confidence. Yes! And she is eighty-seven!

She may die this week--to-morrow perhaps. But after all, is there a

word of truth in the story? No! Economy, Temperance, Work; these are

my three winning cards. With them I can double my capital; increase it

tenfold. They alone can ensure my independence and prosperity."

Dreaming in this way as he walked along, his attention was attracted by

a house built in an antiquated style of architecture. The street was

full of carriages, which passed one by one before the old house, now

brilliantly illuminated. As the people stepped out of the carriages

Hermann saw now the little feet of a young woman, now the military boot

of a general. Then came a clocked stocking; then, again, a diplomatic

pump. Fur-lined cloaks and coats passed in procession before a gigantic

porter.

Hermann stopped. "Who lives here?" he said to a watchman in his box.

"The Countess Anna Fedotovna." It was Tomski's grandmother.

Hermann started. The story of the three cards came once more upon his

imagination. He walked to and fro before the house, thinking of the

woman to whom it belonged, of her wealth and her mysterious power. At

last he returned to his den. But for some time he could not get to

sleep; and when at last sleep came upon him, he saw, dancing before

his eyes, cards, a green table, and heaps of rubles and bank-notes.

He saw himself doubling stake after stake, always winning, and then

filling his pockets with piles of coin, and stuffing his pocket-book

with countless bank-notes. When he awoke, he sighed to find that his

treasures were but creations of a disordered fancy; and, to drive such

thoughts from him, he went out for a walk. But he had not gone far when

he found himself once more before the house of the Countess. He seemed

to have been attracted there by some irresistible force. He stopped,

and looked up at the windows. There he saw a girl's head with beautiful

black hair, leaning gracefully over a book or an embroidery-frame. The

head was lifted, and he saw a fresh complexion and black eyes.

This moment decided his fate.