Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

collar of which was still covered with hoarfrost, called for vodka, sat down in his blue satin Cossack jacket at the table, and entered into conversation with the gentlemen sitting there.

The handsome, open countenance of the newcomer immediately predisposed them in his favour, and they offered him a glass of champagne. The Count first drank a glass of vodka, and then ordered another bottle of champagne to treat his new acquaintances. The sledge-driver came in to ask for a tip.

“Sáshka!” shouted the Count, “give him something.”

The driver went out with Sáshka, but came back again with the money in his hand.

“Look here, y’r ’xelence, haven’t I done my very best for y’r honour? Didn’t you promise me half a rouble, and he’s only given me a quarter!”

“Sáshka, give him a rouble.”

Sáshka cast down his eyes and looked at the driver’s feet.

“He’s had enough!” he said, in a bass voice. “And besides, I have no more money.”

The Count drew from his pocketbook the two five-rouble notes which were all that was in it, and gave one of them to the driver, who kissed his hand and went off.

“I’ve run it pretty close!” said the Count. “These are my last five roubles.”

“Real hussar fashion, Count,” said one of the nobles, who from his moustache, voice, and a certain energetic freedom about the legs, was evidently a retired cavalryman. “Are you staying here some time, Count?”

“I must get some money. I should not have stayed here at all but for that. And there are no rooms to be had, devil take them, in this cursed pub.”

“Permit me, Count,” said the cavalryman, “will you not join me? My room is No. 7.⁠ ⁠… If you do not mind, just for the night. And then you’ll stay a couple of days with us? It happens that the Maréchal de la Noblesse is just giving a ball tonight. You would make him very happy by going.”

“Yes, Count, do stay,” said another, a handsome young man. “You have surely no reason to hurry away! You know this only comes once in three years⁠—the elections, I mean. You should at least have a look at our young ladies, Count!”

“Sáshka, get my clean linen ready; I am going to the bath,” said the Count, rising, “and from there perhaps I may run in to the Marshal’s.”

Then, having called the waiter and whispered something to him, to which the latter answered with a smile, “That can all be managed,” he went out.

“So I’ll order my trunk to be taken to your room, old fellow,” shouted the Count from the passage.

“Please do, I shall be most happy,” replied the cavalryman, running to the door; “No. 7⁠—don’t forget.”

When the Count’s footsteps could no longer be heard, the cavalryman returned to his place, and sitting close to one of the group, a Government official, and looking him straight in the face with smiling eyes, he said⁠—

“It is the very man, you know.”

“No?”

“I tell you it is; it is the very same duellist hussar⁠—the famous Toúrbin. He knew me⁠—I bet you anything he knew me. Why, he and I went on the spree for three weeks without a break when I was at Lebedyáni184 for remounts. There was one thing⁠—he and I did together.⁠ ⁠… He’s a fine fellow, eh?”

“A splendid fellow. And so pleasant in his manner! Doesn’t show a grain of⁠—what d’you call it?” answered the handsome young man. “How quickly we became intimate.⁠ ⁠… He’s not more than twenty-five, is he?”

“Oh no, that’s what he looks, but he is more than that. One has to get to know him, you know. Who eloped with Migoúnova? He. It was he killed Sáblin. It was he dropped Matnyóf out of the window by the legs. He won 300,000 roubles of Prince Néstorof. He is a regular daredevil, you know: a gambler, a duellist, a seducer, but a jewel of an hussar⁠—a real jewel. The rumours that are afloat about us are nothing⁠—if anyone knew what a true hussar is! Ah yes, those were times!”

And the cavalryman told his interlocutor of such a spree with the Count in Lebedyáni, as not only never had, but never even could have taken place.

It could not have done so, first because he had never seen the Count till that day, and had left the army two years before the Count entered it; and secondly, because the cavalryman had never really served in the cavalry at all, but had for four years been the humblest of cadets in the Beléfsky Regiment, and had retired as soon as ever he became ensign. But ten years ago he had inherited some money and had really been in Lebedyáni, where he squandered 700 roubles with some officers who were there for remounts. He had even gone so far as to have an Uhlan uniform with orange facings made, meaning to enter an Uhlan regiment. This desire to enter the cavalry, and the three weeks spent with the remount officers at Lebedyáni, remained the brightest and happiest memories of his life; so that he transformed the desire, first into a reality and then into a reminiscence, and came to believe firmly in his past as a cavalry officer⁠—all of which did not hinder him from being, both as to gentleness and honesty, a most worthy man.

“Yes, those who have never served in the cavalry will never understand us fellows.”

He sat down astride a chair, and thrusting out his lower jaw began to speak in a bass voice. “One used to ride at the head of one’s squadron: under you not a horse, but the devil incarnate, prancing all about, and you just sit in devil-me-care style. The squadron commander rides up to review: ‘Lieutenant,’ he says, ‘if you please, we can’t get on without you⁠—lead the squadron to parade.’ ‘All right,’ you say, and there you are; you turn round, shout to your moustached fellows.⁠ ⁠… Ah, devil take it, those were times!”

The Count returned from the bath very red and with wet