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

is it when one brings in a whole pack of hounds?”

“And especially dogs like that. I believe they are called ‘leeches,’ ” chimed in the garrison officer.

“Well, are we going to play or not, Michael Vasílitch?” said Loúhnof to their host.

“Please don’t interfere with us, Count,” said Ilyín, turning to Toúrbin.

“Come here a minute,” said Toúrbin, taking Ilyín’s arm and stepping behind the partition with him.

The Count’s words, spoken in his usual tone, were distinctly audible from there. His voice always carried across three rooms.

“Are you daft, eh? Don’t you see that gentleman in spectacles is a sharper of the first water?”

“Oh, enough! What are you saying?”

“No enough about it! Just stop, I tell you. It’s nothing to me. Another time I’d pluck you myself, but somehow I’m sorry you should be fleeced. And maybe you have service-money too?”

“No⁠ ⁠… why do you invent such things?”

“Eh, my lad, I’ve been that way myself, so I know all those sharpers’ tricks. I tell you the chap with the spectacles is a sharper. Stop now! I ask you as a comrade.”

“Well then, I’ll only finish this one deal.”

“I know what ‘one deal’ means. Well, we’ll see.”

They went back. In this one deal Ilyín put down so many cards, and so many of them were beaten, that he lost a large sum.

Toúrbin put his hands in the middle of the table. “Now stop it! Come along.”

“No, I can’t. Leave me alone, do!” said Ilyín, irritably shuffling some bent cards without looking at Toúrbin.

“Well, go to the devil! Go and lose for certain, if that pleases you; it’s time for me to be off. Zavalshévsky, let’s go to the Marshal’s.”

They went out. All remained silent, and Loúhnof dealt no more cards until the sound of their steps and of Blücher’s claws on the passage floor had died away.

“What a devil of a fellow!” said the squire, laughing.

“Well, he’ll not interfere now,” remarked the garrison officer hastily and still in a whisper.

And the play continued.

IV

The band, composed of serfs of the Marshal’s, standing in the pantry (cleared out for the occasion), with their coat sleeves turned up ready, had, at a given signal, struck up the old polonaise, “Alexander-Elizabeth,” and by the bright, soft light of the wax-candles a Governor-General of Catherine’s days, with a star on his breast, arm-in-arm with the Marshal’s skinny wife, the Marshal arm-in-arm with the Governor’s wife, and the rest of the local grandees with their partners in various combinations and variations, had begun slowly gliding over the parquet floor of the large dancing-room, when Zavalshévsky entered, wearing a blue swallowtail coat with an enormous collar, puffs on the shoulders, stockings and pumps on his feet, and spreading a strong smell of the jasmine perfume with which his moustaches, the facings of his coat, and his handkerchief were abundantly sprinkled. The handsome hussar who came with him wore tight-fitting, light-blue riding breeches, and a gold-embroidered scarlet coat to which a Vladímir cross and a medal of 1812189 were fastened. The Count was not tall, but exceedingly well formed. His clear blue and wonderfully brilliant eyes, and rather large, tightly curled, light-brown head of hair, gave a remarkable character to his beauty. His arrival at the ball was expected; the handsome young man who had seen him at the hotel had already prepared the Marshal for it. The impressions created by the news were various, but generally not altogether pleasant.

“It’s not unlikely the youngster will hold one up to ridicule,” was the opinion of the old women and of the men. “What if he should run away with me?” was more or less in the minds of the younger ladies, married or unmarried.

As soon as the polonaise was over, and the couples, after bowing to one another, had separated⁠—the women to the women and the men to the men⁠—Zavalshévsky, proud and happy, introduced the Count to their hostess.

The Marshal’s wife, feeling an inner trepidation lest this hussar should treat her in some scandalous manner before everybody, turned away haughtily and contemptuously as she said: “Very pleased; I hope you will dance,” and then gave him a distrustful look that said, “Now, if you offend a woman it will show me that you are a perfect villain.” The Count, however, soon conquered her prejudices by his amiability, attentive manner, and handsome, gay appearance; so that five minutes later the face of the Marshal’s wife expressed to all present: “I know how to manage such gentlemen; he has at once understood with whom he has to deal. And now he’ll be charming to me for the rest of the evening.” However, at that moment the Governor of the town, who had known the Count’s father, came up to him and very affably took him aside to chat, and this still further calmed the provincial public and raised the Count in its estimation. After that Zavalshévsky introduced the Count to his sister, a plump young widow whose large black eyes had stared at the Count from the moment he entered. The Count asked her to dance the valse which the band had just commenced, and finally dispersed the general prejudice by the masterly way he danced.

“What a splendid dancer!” said a fat landed proprietress, watching the legs in the blue breeches as they fitted across the room, and mentally counting “one, two, three⁠—one, two, three”⁠—“splendid!”

“There he goes⁠—jig, jig, jig,” said another, a visitor in the town whom the local society did not consider genteel; “how does he manage not to entangle his spurs⁠—wonderfully clever!”

The Count eclipsed the three best dancers of the Government by his artistic dancing: the tall, fair Governor’s Adjutant, noted for the rapidity with which he danced, and for holding his partner very close to himself; the cavalryman, famous for the graceful, swaying motion with which he valsed, and for the frequent but light tapping of his heels; and, lastly, a civilian of whom everybody said that, though he was not very deep intellectually, he was