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

“Indeed, Labázov was one of the most remarkable men of that time,” began an intellectual. “In 1819 he was an ensign of the Seménovski regiment, and was sent abroad with messages to Duke Z⁠⸺. Then he returned and in the year ’24 was received in the First Masonic lodge. The Masons of that time used all to gather at the house of D⁠⸺ and at his house. He was very rich. Prince Zh⁠—, Fédor D⁠⸺, Iván P⁠⸺, those were his nearest friends. Then his uncle, Prince Visarión, to remove the young man from that society, took him to Moscow.”

“Pardon me, Nikoláy Stepánovich,” another intellectual interrupted him, “it seems to me that that happened in the year ’23, because Visarión Labázov was appointed a commander of the Third Corps in ’24, and was then in Warsaw. He had offered him an adjutantship, and after his refusal, he was removed. However, pardon me for interrupting you.”

“Not at all. Proceed!”

“Pardon me!”

“Proceed! You ought to know that better than I, and, besides, your memory and knowledge have been sufficiently attested here.”

“In Moscow he against his uncle’s will left the army,” continued the one whose memory and knowledge had been attested, “and there he gathered around him a second society, of which he was the progenitor and the heart, if it be possible so to express it. He was rich, handsome, clever, educated; they say he was exceedingly amiable. My aunt used to tell me that she did not know a more bewitching man. Here he married Miss Krínski, a few months before the revolt broke out.”

“The daughter of Nikoláy Krínski, the one of Borodinó fame, you know,” somebody interrupted him.

“Well, yes. Her immense fortune he still possesses, but his own paternal estate passed over to his younger brother, Prince Iván, who is now Ober-Hof-Kaffermeister” (he gave him some such name) “and was a minister.”

“The best thing is what he did for his brother,” continued the narrator. “When he was arrested, there was one thing which he succeeded in destroying, and that was his brother’s letters and documents.”

“Was his brother mixed up in it, too?”

The narrator did not say “Yes,” but compressed his lips and gave a significant wink.

“Then, during all the inquests Peter Labázov kept denying everything which concerned his brother, and so suffered more than the rest. But the best part of it is that Prince Iván got all the property, and never sent a penny to his brother.”

“They say that Peter Labázov himself declined it,” remarked one of the hearers.

“Yes; but he declined it only because Prince Iván wrote him before the coronation, excusing himself and saying that if he had not taken it, it would have been confiscated, and that he had children and debts, and that now he was unable to return it to him. Peter Labázov replied to him in two lines: ‘Neither I nor my heirs have any right, nor can have any right, to the property legally appropriated by you.’ That was all. How was that? And Prince Iván swallowed it, and in delight locked up that document with the notes in a safe, and showed it to no one.”

One of the peculiarities of the intellectual room was that its visitors knew, whenever they wanted to know, everything that was taking place in the world, no matter how secret the event might have been.

“Still it is a question,” said a new interlocutor, “whether it was just to deprive the children of Prince Iván of the property, with which they have grown up and have been educated, and to which they thought they had a right.”

Thus the conversation was transferred to an abstract sphere, which did not interest Pákhtin.

He felt the necessity of communicating the news to fresh people, and so he rose and, speaking to the right and to the left, walked from one hall to another. One of his fellow officers stopped him to give him the news of Labázov’s arrival.

“Who does not know that?” replied Iván Pávlovich, with a calm smile, turning to the exit. The news had had time to complete its circle, and was again returning to him.

There was nothing else to do in the club, and he went to an evening party. It was not a special entertainment, but a salon where guests were received any evening. There were there eight ladies, and one old colonel, and all found it terribly dull. Pákhtin’s firm gait alone and his smiling face cheered the ladies and maidens. And the news was the more appropriate, since the old Countess Fuks and her daughter were present in the salon. When Pákhtin told nearly word for word what he had heard in the intellectual room, Madame Fuks, shaking her head and marvelling at her old age, began to recall how she used to go out together with Natásha Krínski, the present Princess Labázov.

“Her marriage is a very romantic story, and all that happened under my eyes. Natásha was almost engaged to Myátlin, who was later killed in a duel with Debras. Just then Prince Peter arrived in Moscow, fell in love with her, and proposed to her. But her father, who wanted Myátlin very much⁠—they were, in general, afraid of Labázov because he was a Mason⁠—refused him. The young man continued to see her at balls, everywhere, and became friendly with Myátlin, whom he begged to decline. Myátlin agreed to do so, and he persuaded her to elope. She, too, agreed, but the last repentance⁠—” (the conversation was taking place in French), “and she went to her father and said that everything was ready for the elopement, and she could leave him, but hoped for his magnanimity. And, indeed, her father forgave her⁠—everybody begged for her⁠—and gave his consent. Thus the wedding was celebrated, and it was a jolly wedding! Who of us thought that a year later she would follow him to Siberia! She, an only daughter, the most beautiful, the richest woman of that time. Emperor Alexander always used to notice her at balls, and