“My friend, I am terribly tired of even other society than that of Pyatigorsk. So you visit the Ligovskis?”
“Not yet. I have spoken to Princess Mary once or twice, but that is all. You know it is rather awkward to go and visit them without being invited, although that is the custom here... It would be a different matter if I was wearing epaulettes”...
“Good heavens! Why, you are much more interesting as it is! You simply do not know how to avail yourself of your advantageous position... Why, that soldier’s cloak makes a hero and a martyr of you in the eyes of any lady of sentiment!”
Grushnitski smiled complacently.
“What nonsense!” he said.
“I am convinced,” I continued, “that Princess Mary is in love with you already.”
He blushed up to the ears and looked big.
Oh, vanity! Thou art the lever with which Archimedes was to lift the earthly sphere!...
“You are always jesting!” he said, pretending to be angry. “In the first place, she knows so little of me as yet”...
“Women love only those whom they do not know!”
“But I have no pretensions whatsoever to pleasing her. I simply wish to make the acquaintance of an agreeable household; and it would be extremely ridiculous if I were to cherish the slightest hope... With you, now, for instance, it is a different matter! You Petersburg conquerors! You have but to look—and women melt... But do you know, Pechorin, what Princess Mary said of you?”...
“What? She has spoken to you already about me?”...
“Do not rejoice too soon, though. The other day, by chance, I entered into conversation with her at the well; her third word was, ‘Who is that gentleman with such an unpleasant, heavy glance? He was with you when’... she blushed, and did not like to mention the day, remembering her own delightful little exploit. ‘You need not tell me what day it was,’ I answered; ‘it will ever be present to my memory!’... Pechorin, my friend, I cannot congratulate you, you are in her black books... And, indeed, it is a pity, because Mary is a charming girl!”...
It must be observed that Grushnitski is one of those men who, in speaking of a woman with whom they are barely acquainted, call her my Mary, my Sophie, if she has had the good fortune to please them.
I assumed a serious air and answered:
“Yes, she is good-looking... Only be careful, Grushnitski! Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing. Princess Mary seems to be one of those women who want to be amused. If she is bored in your company for two minutes on end—you are lost irrevocably. Your silence ought to excite her curiosity, your conversation ought never to satisfy it completely; you should alarm her every minute; ten times, in public, she will slight people’s opinion for you and will call that a sacrifice, and, in order to requite herself for it, she will torment you. Afterwards she will simply say that she cannot endure you. If you do not acquire authority over her, even her first kiss will not give you the right to a second. She will flirt with you to her heart’s content, and, in two years’ time, she will marry a monster, in obedience to her mother, and will assure herself that she is unhappy, that she has loved only one man—that is to say, you—but that Heaven was not willing to unite her to him because he wore a soldier’s cloak, although beneath that thick, grey cloak beat a heart, passionate and noble”...
Grushnitski smote the table with his fist and fell to walking to and fro across the room.
I laughed inwardly and even smiled once or twice, but fortunately he did not notice. It is evident that he is in love, because he has grown even more confiding than heretofore. Moreover, a ring has made its appearance on his finger, a silver ring with black enamel of local workmanship. It struck me as suspicious... I began to examine it, and what do you think I saw? The name Mary was engraved on the inside in small letters, and in a line with the name was the date on which she had picked up the famous tumbler. I kept my discovery a secret. I do not want to force confessions from him, I want him, of his own accord, to choose me as his confidant—and then I will enjoy myself!...
To-day I rose late. I went to the well. I found nobody there. The day grew hot. White, shaggy cloudlets were flitting rapidly from the snow-clad mountains, giving promise of a thunderstorm; the summit of Mount Mashuk was smoking like a just extinguished torch; grey wisps of cloud were coiling and creeping like snakes around it, arrested in their rapid sweep and, as it were, hooked to its prickly brushwood. The atmosphere was charged with electricity. I plunged into the avenue of the vines leading to the grotto.
I felt low-spirited. I was thinking of the lady with the little mole on her cheek, of whom the doctor had spoken to me... “Why is she here?” I thought. “And is it she? And what reason have I for thinking it is? And why am I so certain of it? Is there not many a woman with a mole on her cheek?” Reflecting in such wise I came right up to the grotto. I looked in and I saw that a woman, wearing a straw hat and wrapped in a black shawl, was sitting on a stone seat in the cold shade of the arch. Her head was sunk upon her breast, and the hat covered her face. I was just about to turn back, in order not to disturb her meditations, when she glanced at me.
“Vera!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
She started and turned pale.
“I knew that you were here,” she said.
I sat down beside her and took her hand. A long-forgotten tremor ran through my veins at the sound of that dear voice. She gazed into my face with her deep, calm eyes. Mistrust and something in the nature of reproach were expressed in her glance.
“We have not seen each other for a long time,” I said.
“A long time, and we have both changed in many ways.”
“Consequently you love me no longer?”...
“I am married!”... she said.
“Again? A few years ago, however, that reason also existed, but, nevertheless”...
She plucked her hand away from mine and her cheeks flamed.
“Perhaps you love your second husband?”...
She made no answer and turned her head away.
“Or is he very jealous?”
She remained silent.
“What then? He is young, handsome and, I suppose, rich—which is the chief thing—and you are afraid?”...
I glanced at her and was alarmed. Profound despair was depicted upon her countenance; tears were glistening in her eyes.
“Tell me,” she whispered at length, “do you find it very amusing to torture me? I ought to hate you. Since we have known each other, you have given me naught but suffering”...
Her voice shook; she leaned over to me, and let her head sink upon my breast.
“Perhaps,” I reflected, “it is for that very reason that you have loved me; joys are forgotten, but sorrows never”...
I clasped her closely to my breast, and so we remained for a long time. At length our lips drew closer and became blent in a fervent, intoxicating kiss. Her hands were cold as ice; her head was burning.
And hereupon we embarked upon one of those conversations which, on paper, have no sense, which it is impossible to repeat, and impossible even to retain in memory. The meaning of the sounds replaces and completes the meaning of the words, as in Italian opera.
She is decidedly averse to my making the acquaintance of her husband, the lame old man of whom I had caught a glimpse on the boulevard. She married him for the sake of her son. He is rich, and suffers