First Love

  “What did you think of me yesterday, M’sieu Voldemar?” she asked after a brief pause. “You thought ill of me, I expect?”

  “I … princess … I thought nothing … how can I …?” I answered in confusion.

  “Listen,” she rejoined. “You don’t know me yet. I’m a very strange person; I like always to be told the truth. You, I have just heard, are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I’m a great deal older than you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth … and to do what I tell you,” she added. “Look at me: why don’t you look at me?”

  I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. “Look at me,” she said, dropping her voice caressingly: “I don’t dislike that … I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But do you like me?” she added slyly.

  “Princess …” I was beginning.

  “In the first place, you must call me Zinaïda Alexandrovna, and in the second place it’s a bad habit for children”—(she corrected herself) “for young people—not to say straight out what they feel. That’s all very well for grown-up people. You like me, don’t you?”

  Though I was greatly delighted that she talked so freely to me, still I was a little hurt. I wanted to show her that she had not a mere boy to deal with, and assuming as easy and serious an air as I could, I observed, “Certainly. I like you very much, Zinaïda Alexandrovna; I have no wish to conceal it.”

  She shook her head very deliberately. “Have you a tutor?” she asked suddenly.

  “No; I’ve not had a tutor for a long, long while.”

  I told a lie; it was not a month since I had parted with my Frenchman.

  “Oh! I see then—you are quite grown-up.”

  She tapped me lightly on the fingers. “Hold your hands straight!” And she applied herself busily to winding the ball.

  I seized the opportunity when she was looking down and fell to watching her, at first stealthily, then more and more boldly. Her face struck me as even more charming than on the previous evening; everything in it was so delicate, clever, and sweet. She was sitting with her back to a window covered with a white blind, the sunshine, streaming in through the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy golden curls, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender untroubled bosom. I gazed at her, and how dear and near she was already to me! It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had never known anything nor lived at all till I met her.… She was wearing a dark and rather shabby dress and an apron; I would gladly, I felt, have kissed every fold of that dress and apron. The tips of her little shoes peeped out from under her skirt; I could have bowed down in adoration to those shoes.… “And here I am sitting before her,” I thought; “I have made acquaintance with her … what happiness, my God!” I could hardly keep from jumping up from my chair in ecstasy, but I only swung my legs a little, like a small child who has been given sweetmeats.

  I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that room forever, have never left that place.

  Her eyelids were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone kindly upon me, and again she smiled.

  “How you look at me!” she said slowly, and she held up a threatening finger.

  I blushed.… “She understands it all, she sees all,” flashed through my mind. “And how could she fail to understand and see it all?”

  All at once there was a sound in the next room—the clink of a sabre.

  “Zina!” screamed the princess in the drawing room, “Byelovzorov has brought you a kitten.”

  “A kitten!” cried Zinaïda, and getting up from her chair impetuously, she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.

  I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the window-sill, I went into the drawing room and stood still, hesitating. In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched paws; Zinaïda was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.

  “What a funny little thing!” Zinaïda was saying, “and its eyes are not grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! You are very kind.”

  The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a jingle of the chain of his sabre.

  “You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby kitten with long ears … so I obtained it. Your word is law.” And he bowed again.

  The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.

  “It’s hungry!” cried Zinaïda. “Vonifaty, Sonia! Bring some milk.”

  A maid, in an old yellow gown with a faded kerchief at her neck, came in with a saucer of milk and set it before the kitten. The kitten started, blinked, and began lapping.

  “What a pink little tongue it has!” remarked Zinaïda, putting her head almost on the ground and peeping at it sideways under its very nose.

  The kitten having had enough began to purr and move its paws affectedly. Zinaïda got up, and turning to the maid said carelessly, “Take it away.”

  “For the kitten—your little hand,” said the hussar, with a simper and a shrug of his strongly-built frame, which was tightly buttoned up in a new uniform.

  “Both,” replied Zinaïda, and she held out her hands to him. While he was kissing them, she looked at me over his shoulder.

  I stood stock-still in the same place and did not know whether to laugh, to say something, or to be silent. Suddenly through the open door into the passage I caught sight of our footman, Fyodor. He was making signs to me. Mechanically I went out to him.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Your mamma has sent for you,” he said in a whisper. “She is angry that you have not come back with the answer.”

  “Why, have I been here long?”

  “Over an hour.”

  “Over an hour!” I repeated unconsciously, and going back to the drawing room I began to make bows and scrape with my heels.

  “Where are you off to?” the young princess asked, glancing at me from behind the hussar.

  “I must go home. So I am to say,” I added, addressing the old lady, “that you will come to us about two.”

  “Do you say so, my good sir.”

  The princess hurriedly pulled out her snuff-box and took snuff so loudly that I positively jumped. “Do you say so,” she repeated, blinking tearfully and sneezing.

  I bowed once more, turned, and went out of the room with that sensation of awkwardness in my spine which a very young man feels when he knows he is being looked at from behind.

  “Mind you come and see us again, M’sieu Voldemar,” Zinaïda called, and she laughed again.

  “Why is it she’s always laughing?” I thought, as I went back home escorted by Fyodor, who said nothing to me, but walked behind me with an air of disapprobation. My mother scolded me and wondered what ever I could have been doing so long at the princess’s. I made her no reply and went off to my own room. I felt suddenly very sad.… I tried hard not to cry.… I was jealous of the hussar.

  V

  The princess called on my mother as she had promised and made a disagreeable impression on her. I was not present at their interview, but at table my mother told my father that this Princess Zasyekin struck her as a femme très vulgaire, that she had quite worn her out begging her to interest Prince Sergei in their behalf, that she seemed to have no end of lawsuits and affairs on hand—de vilaines affaires d’argent—and must be a very troublesome and litigious person. My mother added, however, that she had asked her and her daughter to dinner the next day (hearing the word “daughter” I buried my nose in my plate), for after all she was a neighbour and a person of title. Upon this my father informed my mother that he remembered now who this lady was; that he had in his youth known the
deceased Prince Zasyekin, a very well-bred, but frivolous and absurd person; that he had been nicknamed in society “le Parisien,” from having lived a long while in Paris; that he had been very rich, but had gambled away all his property; and for some unknown reason, probably for money, though indeed he might have chosen better, if so, my father added with a cold smile, he had married the daughter of an agent, and after his marriage had entered upon speculations and ruined himself utterly.

  “If only she doesn’t try to borrow money,” observed my mother.

  “That’s exceedingly possible,” my father responded tranquilly. “Does she speak French?”

  “Very badly.”

  “H’m. It’s of no consequence anyway. I think you said you had asked the daughter, too; some one was telling me she was a very charming and cultivated girl.”

  “Ah! Then she can’t take after her mother.”

  “Nor her father either,” rejoined my father. “He was cultivated indeed, but a fool.”

  My mother sighed and sank into thought. My father said no more. I felt very uncomfortable during this conversation.

  After dinner I went into the garden, but without my gun. I swore to myself that I would not go near the Zasyekins’ garden, but an irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had hardly reached the fence when I caught sight of Zinaïda. This time she was alone. She held a book in her hands, and was coming slowly along the path. She did not notice me.

  I almost let her pass by; but all at once I changed my mind and coughed.

  She turned round, but did not stop, pushed back with one hand the broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled slowly, and again bent her eyes on the book.

  I took off my cap, and after hesitating a moment, walked away with a heavy heart. “Que suis-je pour elle?” I thought (God knows why) in French.

  Familiar footsteps sounded behind me; I looked round, my father came up to me with his light, rapid walk.

  “Is that the young princess?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Why, do you know her?”

  “I saw her this morning at the princess’s.”

  My father stopped, and, turning sharply on his heel, went back. When he was on a level with Zinaïda, he made her a courteous bow. She, too, bowed to him, with some astonishment on her face, and dropped her book. I saw how she looked after him. My father was always irreproachably dressed, simple and in a style of his own; but his figure had never struck-me as more graceful, never had his grey hat sat more becomingly on his curls, which were scarcely perceptibly thinner than they had once been.

  I bent my steps toward Zinaïda, but she did not even glance at me; she picked up her book again and went away.

  VI

  The whole evening and the following day I spent in a sort of dejected apathy. I remember I tried to work and took up Keidanov, but the boldly printed lines and pages of the famous text-book passed before my eyes in vain. I read ten times over the words: “Julius Caesar was distinguished by warlike courage.” I did not understand anything and threw the book aside. Before dinner-time I pomaded myself once more, and once more put on my tail-coat and necktie.

  “What’s that for?” my mother demanded. “You’re not a student yet, and God knows whether you’ll get through the examination. And you’ve not long had a new jacket! You can’t throw it away!”

  “There will be visitors,” I murmured almost in despair.

  “What nonsense! Fine visitors indeed!”

  I had to submit. I changed my tail-coat for my jacket, but I did not take off the necktie. The princess and her daughter made their appearance half an hour before dinner-time; the old lady had put on, in addition to the green dress with which I was already acquainted, a yellow shawl, and an old-fashioned cap adorned with flame-coloured ribbons. She began talking at once about her money difficulties, sighing, complaining of her poverty, and imploring assistance, but she made herself at home; she took snuff as noisily, and fidgeted and lolled about in her chair as freely, as ever. It never seemed to have struck her that she was a princess. Zinaïda on the other hand was rigid, almost haughty in her demeanour, every inch a princess. There was a cold immobility and dignity in her face. I should not have recognised it; I should not have known her smiles, her glances, though I thought her exquisite in this new aspect too. She wore a light barége dress with pale blue flowers on it; her hair fell in long curls down her cheek in the English fashion; this style went well with the cold expression of her face. My father sat beside her during dinner, and entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation was carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity of Zinaïda’s accent. The princess, while we were at table, as before made no ceremony; she ate a great deal, and praised the dishes. My mother was obviously bored by her, and answered her with a sort of weary indifference; my father faintly frowned now and then. My mother did not like Zinaïda either. “A conceited minx,” she said next day. “And fancy, what she has to be conceited about, avec sa mine de grisette!”

  “It’s clear you have never seen any grisettes,” my father observed to her.

  “Thank God, I haven’t!”

  “Thank God, to be sure … only how can you form an opinion of them, then?”

  To me Zinaïda had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the princess got up to go.

  “I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr Vassilitch,” she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father. “I’ve no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am, an excellency, and a poor honor it is with nothing to eat!”

  My father made her a respectful bow and escorted her to the door of the hall. I was standing there in my short jacket, staring at the floor, like a man under sentence of death. Zinaïda’s treatment of me had crushed me utterly. What was my astonishment, when, as she passed me, she whispered quickly with her former kind expression in her eyes: “Come to see us at eight, do you hear, be sure.…” I simply threw up my hands, but already she was gone, flinging a white scarf over her head.

  VII

  At eight o’clock precisely, in my tail-coat and with my hair brushed up into a tuft on my head, I entered the passage of the lodge, where the princess lived. The old servant looked crossly at me and got up unwillingly from his bench. There was a sound of merry voices in the drawing room. I opened the door and fell back in amazement. In the middle of the room was the young princess, standing on a chair, holding a man’s hat in front of her; round the chair crowded some half a dozen men. They were trying to put their hands into the hat, while she held it above their heads, shaking it violently. On seeing me, she cried, “Stay, stay, another guest, he must have a ticket too,” and leaping lightly down from the chair she took me by the cuff of my coat. “Come along,” she said, “why are you standing still? Messieurs, let me make you acquainted: This is M’sieu Voldemar, the son of our neighbour. And this,” she went on, addressing me, and indicating her guests in turn, “Count Malevsky, Doctor Lushin, Meidanov the poet, the retired captain Nirmatsky, and Byelovzorov the hussar, whom you’ve seen already. I hope you will be good friends.”

  I was so confused that I did not even bow to anyone; in Doctor Lushin I recognised the dark man who had so mercilessly put me to shame in the garden; the others were unknown to me.

  “Count!” continued Zinaïda, “write M’sieu Voldemar a ticket.”

  “That’s not fair,” was objected in a slight Polish accent by the count, a very handsome and fashionably dressed brunette, with expressive brown eyes, a thin little white nose, and delicate little moustaches over a tiny mouth. “This gentleman has not been playing forfeits with us.”

  “It’s unfair,” repeated in chorus Byelovzorov and the gentleman described as a retired captain, a man of forty, pock-marked to a hideous degree, curly-headed as a negro, round-shouldered,
bandy-legged, and dressed in a military coat without epaulets, worn unbuttoned.

  “Write him a ticket I tell you,” repeated the young princess. “What’s this mutiny? M’sieu Voldemar is with us for the first time, and there are no rules for him yet. It’s no use grumbling—write it, I wish it.”

  The count shrugged his shoulders but bowed submissively, took the pen in his white, ring-bedecked fingers, tore off a scrap of paper and wrote on it.

  “At least let us explain to Mr. Voldemar what we are about,” Lushin began in a sarcastic voice, “or else he will be quite lost. Do you see, young man, we are playing forfeits? The princess has to pay a forfeit, and the one who draws the lucky lot is to have the privilege of kissing her hand. Do you understand what I’ve told you?”

  I simply stared at him, and continued to stand still in bewilderment, while the young princess jumped up on the chair again, and again began waving the hat. They all stretched up to her, and I went after the rest.

  “Meidanov,” said the princess to a tall young man with a thin face, little dim-sighted eyes, and exceedingly long black hair, “you as a poet ought to be magnanimous, and give up your number to M’sieu Voldemar so that he may have two chances instead of one.”

  But Meidanov shook his head in refusal, and tossed his hair. After all the others I put my hand into the hat, and unfolded my lot.… Heavens! what was my condition when I saw on it the word, “Kiss!”

  “Kiss!” I could not help crying aloud.

  “Bravo! he has won it,” the princess said quickly. “How glad I am!” She came down from the chair and gave me such a bright sweet look that my heart bounded. “Are you glad?” she asked me.