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Page 31
"It's no joke, Nikolai Ivanovitch, for you to say such things before
people who don't know me and who see me in this unlined jacket . . .
because--" His voice failed him, and again his small red hands with
their dirty nails went from his jacket to his face, touching his
moustache, his hair, his nose, rubbing his eyes, or needlessly
scratching his cheek.
"As to saying that, everybody knows it, old fellow," continued S.,
thoroughly satisfied with his jest, and not heeding Guskof's complaint.
Guskof was still trying to say something; and placing the palm of his
right hand on his left knee in a most unnatural position, and gazing at
S., he had an appearance of smiling contemptuously.
"No," said I to myself, as I noticed that smile of his, "I have not only
seen him, but have spoken with him somewhere."
"You and I have met somewhere," said I to him when, under the influence
of the common silence, S.'s laughter began to calm down. Guskof's mobile
face suddenly lighted up, and his eyes, for the first time with a truly
joyous expression, rested upon me.
"Why, I recognized you immediately," he replied in French. "In '48 I had
the pleasure of meeting you quite frequently in Moscow at my sister's."
I had to apologize for not recognizing him at first in that costume and
in that new garb. He arose, came to me, and with his moist hand
irresolutely and weakly seized my hand, and sat down by me. Instead of
looking at me, though he apparently seemed so glad to see me, he gazed
with an expression of unfriendly bravado at the officers.
Either because I recognized in him a man whom I had met a few years
before in a dresscoat in a parlor, or because he was suddenly raised in
his own opinion by the fact of being recognized,--at all events it
seemed to me that his face and even his motions completely changed: they
now expressed lively intelligence, a childish self-satisfaction in the
consciousness of such intelligence, and a certain contemptuous
indifference; so that I confess, notwithstanding the pitiable position
in which he found himself, my old acquaintance did not so much excite
sympathy in me as it did a sort of unfavorable sentiment.
I now vividly remembered our first meeting. In 1848, while I was staying
at Moscow, I frequently went to the house of Ivashin, who from childhood
had been an old friend of mine. His wife was an agreeable hostess, a
charming woman, as everybody said; but she never pleased me. . . . The
winter that I knew her, she often spoke with hardly concealed pride of
her brother, who had shortly before completed his course, and promised
to be one of the most fashionable and popular young men in the best
society of Petersburg. As I knew by reputation the father of the
Guskofs, who was very rich and had a distinguished position, and as I
knew also the sister's ways, I felt some prejudice against meeting the
young man. One evening when I was at Ivashin's, I saw a short,
thoroughly pleasant-looking young man, in a black coat, white vest and
necktie. My host hastened to make me acquainted with him. The young man,
evidently dressed for a ball, with his cap in his hand, was standing
before Ivashin, and was eagerly but politely arguing with him about a
common friend of ours, who had distinguished himself at the time of the
Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero
or a man born for war, as was said of him, but was simply a clever and
cultivated man. I recollect, I took part in the argument against Guskof,
and went to the extreme of declaring also that intellect and cultivation
always bore an inverse relation to bravery; and I recollect how Guskof
pleasantly and cleverly pointed out to me that bravery was necessarily
the result of intellect and a decided degree of development,--a
statement which I, who considered myself an intellectual and cultivated
man, could not in my heart of hearts agree with.
I recollect that towards the close of our conversation Madame Ivashina
introduced me to her brother; and he, with a condescending smile,
offered me his little hand on which he had not yet had time to draw his
kid gloves, and weakly and irresolutely pressed my hand as he did now.
Though I had been prejudiced against Guskof, I could not help granting
that he was in the right, and agreeing with his sister that he was
really a clever and agreeable young man, who ought to have great success
in society. He was extraordinarily neat, beautifully dressed, and fresh,
and had affectedly modest manners, and a thoroughly youthful, almost
childish appearance, on account of which you could not help excusing his
expression of self-sufficiency, though it modified the impression of his
high-mightiness caused by his intellectual face and especially his
smile. It is said that he had great success that winter with the high-
born ladies of Moscow. As I saw him at his sister's I could only infer
how far this was true by the feeling of pleasure and contentment
constantly excited in me by his youthful appearance and by his sometimes
indiscreet anecdotes. He and I met half a dozen times, and talked a good
deal; or, rather, he talked a good deal, and I listened. He spoke for
the most part in French, always with a good accent, very fluently and
ornately; and he had the skill of drawing others gently and politely
into the conversation. As a general thing, he behaved toward all, and
toward me, in a somewhat supercilious manner, and I felt that he was
perfectly right in this way of treating people. I always feel that way
in regard to men who are firmly convinced that they ought to treat me
superciliously, and who are comparative strangers to me.
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