Some two days later, going out with the countess to get into the carriage, she saw him again. He was standing just by the front door, covering his face with his beaver collar: his dark eyes flashed from under his hat. Lizaveta Ivanovna felt frightened, not knowing why herself, and got into the carriage with an inexplicable trembling.
On returning home, she ran to the window—the officer was standing in the former place, his eyes fixed on her: she stepped away, tormented by curiosity and stirred by a feeling that was entirely new to her.
Since then no day went by that the young man did not appear at a certain hour under the windows of their house. Unspoken relations were established between them. Sitting at her place over her work, she felt him approach—raised her head, looked at him longer and longer each day. The young man seemed to be grateful to her for that: with the keen eyes of youth, she saw a quick blush cover his pale cheeks each time their eyes met. After a week she smiled at him…
When Tomsky asked permission to introduce his friend to the countess, the poor girl’s heart leaped. But learning that Narumov was a horse guard and not an engineer, she regretted that an indiscreet question had given away her secret to the featherbrained Tomsky.
Hermann was the son of a Russified German, who had left him a small capital. Being firmly convinced of the necessity of ensuring his independence, Hermann did not even touch the interest, lived on his pay alone, and did not allow himself the slightest whimsy. However, he was secretive and ambitious, and his comrades rarely had the chance to laugh at his excessive frugality. He was a man of strong passions and fiery imagination, but firmness saved him from the usual errors of youth. Thus, for instance, though he was a gambler at heart, he never touched cards, for he reckoned that in his position he could not afford (as he used to say) to sacrifice the necessary in hopes of acquiring the superfluous—and meanwhile he spent whole nights at the card tables and followed with feverish trembling the various turns of the game.
The story of the three cards had a strong effect on his imagination and did not leave his mind the whole night. “What if,” he thought the next evening, roaming about Petersburg, “what if the old countess should reveal her secret to me! Or tell me the names of those three sure cards! Why not try my luck?…Get introduced to her, curry favor with her—maybe become her lover—but all that takes time—and she’s eighty-seven years old—she could die in a week—in two days!…And the story itself…Can you trust it?…No! Calculation, moderation, and diligence: those are my three sure cards, there’s what will triple, even septuple my capital, and provide me with peace and independence!”
Reasoning thus, he found himself on one of the main streets of Petersburg, in front of a house of old-style architecture. The street was crammed with vehicles; carriages, one after another, rolled up to the brightly lit entrance. Every other minute the slim foot of a young beauty, or a jingling jackboot, or a striped stocking and diplomatic shoe extended from a carriage. Fur coats and cloaks flashed past the majestic doorman. Hermann stopped.
“Whose house is this?” he asked the sentry at the corner.
“Countess * * *’s,” replied the sentry.
Hermann trembled. The amazing story arose again in his imagination. He started pacing around near the house, thinking about its mistress and about her wondrous ability. He returned late to his humble corner; for a long time he could not fall asleep, and when sleep did come over him, he dreamed of cards, a green table, stacks of banknotes, and heaps of gold coins. He played one card after another, resolutely bent down corners, kept on winning, raked in the gold, and put the banknotes in his pocket. Waking up late, he sighed at the loss of his phantasmal riches, again went roaming about the city, and again found himself in front of Countess * * *’s house. Some unknown force seemed to draw him to it. He stopped and began to look at the windows. In one of them he saw a dark-haired little head, bent, probably, over a book or some needlework. The head rose. Hermann saw a fresh face and dark eyes. That moment decided his fate.
III
Vous m’écrivez, mon ange, des lettres de quatre pages plus vite que je ne puis les lire.*4
CORRESPONDENCE
Lizaveta Ivanovna had only just taken off her cape and bonnet when the countess sent for her and again ordered the carriage brought. They went out to take their seats. At the same moment as two lackeys picked up the old woman and put her through the door, Lizaveta Ivanovna saw her engineer just by the wheel; he seized her hand; before she could get over her fear, the young man disappeared: a letter remained in her hand. She hid it in her glove and during the whole ride neither heard nor saw anything. The countess had a habit of constantly asking questions as she drove: “Who was that we just passed?” “What’s the name of this bridge?” “What’s written on that signboard?” This time Lizaveta Ivanovna answered randomly and inaptly and made the countess angry.
“What’s the matter with you, old girl! Are you in a stupor or something? Either you don’t hear me or you don’t understand?…Thank God, I don’t mumble and haven’t lost my mind yet!”
Lizaveta Ivanovna was not listening to her. On returning home, she ran to her room, took the letter from her glove: it was not sealed. Lizaveta Ivanovna read it. The letter contained a declaration of love: it was tender, respectful, and taken word for word from a German novel. But Lizaveta Ivanovna did not know German and was very pleased with it.
However, the letter she had accepted troubled her greatly. It was the first time she had entered into secret, close relations with a young man. His boldness horrified her. She reproached herself for her imprudent behavior and did not know what to do: to stop sitting by the window and by her inattention cool the young officer’s desire for further pursuit? To send his letter back? To reply coldly and resolutely? There was no one to advise her, she had neither friend nor preceptress. Lizaveta Ivanovna decided to reply.
She sat down at her little writing table, took a pen, paper—and fell to thinking. Several times she began her letter—and tore it up: the expression seemed to her now too indulgent, now too severe. At last she managed to write a few lines that left her satisfied. “I am sure,” she wrote, “that you have honorable intentions and that you did not wish to insult me by a thoughtless act; but our acquaintance should not begin in such a way. I return your letter to you and hope that in future I will have no reason to complain of undeserved disrespect.”
The next day, seeing Hermann coming, Lizaveta Ivanovna got up from her embroidery, went to the reception room, opened a window, and threw the letter out, trusting in the young officer’s agility. Hermann ran, picked up the letter, and went into a pastry shop. Tearing off the seal, he found his own letter and Lizaveta Ivanovna’s reply. He had expected just that and returned home quite caught up in his intrigue.
Three days after that a sharp-eyed young mam’selle brought Lizaveta Ivanovna a note from a dress shop. Lizaveta Ivanovna opened it with trepidation, anticipating a demand for payment, and suddenly recognized Hermann’s handwriting.
“You’re mistaken, dearest,” she said, “this note isn’t for me.”
“No, it’s precisely for you!” the bold girl answered, not concealing a sly smile. “Kindly read it!”
Lizaveta Ivanovna ran through the note. Hermann demanded a rendezvous.
“It can’t be!” said Lizaveta Ivanovna, frightened both by the hastiness of the demand and by the means employed. “This surely wasn’t written to me!” And she tore the letter into little pieces.
“If the letter wasn’t for you, why did you tear it up?” said the mam’selle. “I would have returned it to the one who sent it.”
“Please, dearest,” said Lizaveta Ivanovna, flaring up at her remark, “in the future don’t bring me any notes! And tell the person who sent you that he ought to be ashamed…”
But Hermann would not quiet down. Lizaveta Ivanovna received letters from him each day, by one means or another. They were no longer translations from the German. Hermann wrote them, inspired by passion, and spoke a l
anguage that was all his own: in them were expressed both the inflexibility of his desires and the disorder of an unbridled imagination. Lizaveta Ivanovna no longer thought of sending them back: she reveled in them; she started replying to them—and her notes grew longer and tenderer by the hour. Finally, she threw the following letter to him from the window:
Tonight there is a ball at the * * * Embassy. The countess will be there. We will stay till about two o’clock. This is your chance to see me alone. As soon as the countess goes out, her servants will probably retire; there will be a doorman in the entryway, but he, too, usually goes to his closet. Come at 11:30. Go straight up the stairs. If you meet someone in the front hall, ask if the countess is at home. The answer will be no—and there will be nothing to do. You will have to go away. But you will probably not meet anyone. The maids stay in their quarters, all in one room. From the front hall turn left and go straight on to the countess’s bedroom. In the bedroom, behind the screen, you will see two small doors: the right one to the study, where the countess never goes; the left one to a corridor, where there is a narrow winding stairway: it leads to my room.
Hermann trembled like a tiger, waiting for the appointed time. By ten o’clock in the evening he was already standing in front of the countess’s house. The weather was awful: wind howled, wet snow fell in big flakes; the streetlamps shone dimly; the streets were deserted. Now and then a cabby dragged by with his scrawny nag, looking for a late customer. Hermann stood in nothing but his frock coat, feeling neither wind nor snow. At last the countess’s carriage was brought. Hermann saw how the lackeys carried the bent old woman out under the arms, wrapped in a sable fur coat, and how, after her, her ward flashed by in a light cloak, her head adorned with fresh flowers. The doors slammed. The carriage rolled off heavily over the loose snow. The doorman shut the front door. The windows went dark. Hermann started pacing around by the now deserted house: he went up to a streetlamp, looked at his watch—it was twenty past eleven. He stayed under the streetlamp, his eyes on the hands of the watch, counting the remaining minutes. At exactly half past eleven, Hermann stepped onto the countess’s porch and went into the brightly lit entryway. The doorman was not there. Hermann ran up the stairs, opened the door to the front hall, and saw a servant sleeping under a lamp in an old, soiled armchair. Hermann walked past him with a light and firm step. The reception room and drawing room were dark. The lamp in the front hall shone faintly on them. Hermann went into the bedroom. Before a stand filled with old icons flickered a golden lamp. Faded damask armchairs and sofas with down cushions and worn-off gilding stood in mournful symmetry against the walls covered with Chinese silk. On the walls hung two portraits painted in Paris by Mme Lebrun.7 One of them portrayed a man of about forty, red-cheeked and portly, in a light green uniform and with a decoration; the other a young beauty with an aquiline nose, her hair brushed back at the temples, powdered and adorned with a rose. Every corner was jammed with porcelain shepherdesses, table clocks made by the famous Leroy, little boxes, bandalores, fans, and various ladies’ knickknacks, invented at the end of the last century along with Montgolfier’s balloon and Mesmer’s magnetism.8 Hermann went behind the screen. There stood a small iron bed; to the right was the door leading to the study; to the left the other, to the corridor. Hermann opened it, saw the narrow winding stairway leading to the poor ward’s room…But he came back and went into the dark study.
Time passed slowly. All was quiet. In the drawing room it struck twelve; in all the rooms one after another the clocks rang twelve—and all fell silent again. Hermann stood leaning against the cold stove. He was calm; his heart beat regularly, as in a man who has ventured upon something dangerous but necessary. The clocks struck one and then two in the morning—and he heard the distant clatter of a carriage. An involuntary agitation came over him. The carriage drove up and stopped. He heard the clatter of the flipped-down steps. There was bustling in the house. Servants ran, voices rang out, and the house lit up. Three elderly maids rushed into the bedroom, and the countess, barely alive, came in and sank into the Voltaire armchair. Hermann watched through a chink: Lizaveta Ivanovna walked past him. Hermann heard her hurrying steps on the stairs. Something like remorse of conscience stirred in his heart and died down again. He turned to stone.
The countess started to undress before the mirror. They unpinned her bonnet, decorated with roses; took the powdered wig from her gray and close-cropped head. Pins poured down like rain around her. The yellow gown embroidered with silver fell at her swollen feet. Hermann witnessed the repulsive mysteries of her toilette; finally, the countess was left in a bed jacket and nightcap; in this attire, more suitable to her old age, she seemed less horrible and ugly.
Like all old people generally, the countess suffered from insomnia. Having undressed, she sat down by the window in the Voltaire armchair and dismissed her maids. The candles were taken away, the room was again lit only by the icon lamp. The countess sat all yellow, moving her pendulous lips, swaying from side to side. Her dull eyes showed a complete absence of thought; looking at her, one might have thought that the frightful old woman’s swaying came not from her will, but from the action of some hidden galvanism.
Suddenly that dead face changed inexplicably. Her lips stopped moving, her eyes came to life: before the countess stood an unknown man.
“Don’t be afraid, for God’s sake, don’t be afraid!” he said in a clear and low voice. “I have no intention of harming you; I’ve come to beg you for a favor.”
The old woman silently looked at him and seemed not to hear him. Hermann thought she might be deaf, and, bending close to her ear, repeated the same words. The old woman was silent as before.
“You can make for the happiness of my life,” Hermann continued, “and it won’t cost you anything: I know that you can guess three cards in a row…”
Hermann stopped. The countess seemed to have understood what was asked of her; it seemed she was seeking words for her reply.
“That was a joke,” she said at last. “I swear to you! It was a joke!”
“This is no joking matter,” Hermann retorted angrily. “Remember Chaplitsky, whom you helped to win back his losses.”
The countess was visibly disconcerted. Her features showed strong emotion, but she soon lapsed into her former insensibility.
“Can you name those three sure cards for me?” Hermann continued.
The countess said nothing; Hermann went on.
“Whom are you keeping your secret for? Your grandchildren? They’re rich without that; and besides, they don’t know the value of money. Your three cards won’t help a squanderer. A man who can’t hold on to his paternal inheritance will die a pauper anyway, for all the devil’s efforts. I’m not a squanderer; I know the value of money. Your three cards won’t be wasted on me. Well?…”
He stopped and waited in trembling for her reply. The countess said nothing; Hermann went on his knees.
“If your heart has ever known the feeling of love,” he said, “if you remember its raptures, if you smiled even once at the cry of your newborn son, if anything human has ever beaten in your breast, I entreat you by the feelings of a wife, a mistress, a mother—by all that is sacred in life—do not refuse my request! Reveal your secret to me! What good is it to you?…Perhaps it’s connected with a terrible sin, with the forfeit of eternal bliss, a pact with the devil…Think: you’re old; you don’t have long to live—I’m ready to take your sin upon my soul. Only reveal your secret to me. Think: a man’s happiness is in your hands; not only I, but my children, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, will bless your memory and revere it as sacred…”
The old woman did not say a word.
Hermann stood up.
“Old witch!” he said, clenching his teeth. “Then I’ll make you answer…”
With those words he took a pistol from his pocket.
At the sight of the pistol, the countess showed strong emotion for the second time. She shook her head and raised her hand as
if to shield herself from the shot…Then she fell backwards and remained motionless.
“Stop being childish,” said Hermann, taking her hand. “I ask you for the last time: will you name your three cards for me—yes or no?”
The countess did not reply. Hermann saw that she had died.
IV
7 Mai 18––
Homme sans moeurs et sans religion!*5
CORRESPONDENCE9
Lizaveta Ivanovna, still in her ball gown, sat in her room deep in thought. On coming home she had hastily dismissed the sleepy maid, who had reluctantly offered her services, saying that she would undress herself, and, trembling, had gone into her room, hoping to find Hermann there and wishing not to find him. With the first glance she was convinced of his absence, and she thanked fate for the obstacle that had prevented their rendezvous. She sat down without undressing and began to think back over all the circumstances that had lured her so far in so short a time. Three weeks had not passed since she first saw the young man from the window—and she was already in correspondence with him, and he had managed to obtain a night rendezvous from her! She knew his name only because some of his letters were signed; she had never spoken with him, nor heard his voice, nor heard anything about him…until that evening. Strange thing! That same evening, at the ball, Tomsky, pouting at the young princess Polina, who, contrary to her usual habit, was flirting with someone else, had wished to revenge himself by a show of indifference: he had invited Lizaveta Ivanovna and danced an endless mazurka with her. He joked all the while about her partiality for engineer officers, assured her that he knew much more than she might suppose, and some of his jokes were so well aimed that Lizaveta Ivanovna thought several times that her secret was known to him.
“Who told you all that?” she asked, laughing.
“A friend of a person known to you,” Tomsky replied, “a very remarkable man!”