‘Yes, but it’s time to go to sleep.’
The cornet again turned his back to the door and lay silent for about ten minutes. Heaven knows what went on in his soul, but when he turned again, his face bore an expression of suffering and resolve.
‘Count Túrbin!’ he said abruptly.
‘Are you delirious?’ quietly replied the count. ‘… What is it, Cornet Pólozov?’
‘Count Túrbin, you are a scoundrel!’ cried Pólozov, and again jumped out of bed.
XVI
THE squadron left next day. The two officers did not see their hosts again and did not bid them farewell. Neither did they speak to one another. They intended to fight a duel at the first halting-place. But Captain Schulz, a good comrade and splendid horseman, beloved by everyone in the regiment and chosen by the count to act as his second, managed to settle the affair so well that not only did they not fight but no one in the regiment knew anything about the matter, and Túrbin and Pólozov, though no longer on the old friendly footing, still continued to speak in familiar terms to one another and to meet at dinners and card-parties.
1 Freemasonry in Russia was a secret association, the original purpose of which was the moral perfecting of people on the basis of equality and universal brotherhood. Commencing as a mystical-religious movement in the eighteenth century, it became political during the reign of Alexander I, and was suppressed in 1822.
2 The Martinists were a society of Russian Freemasons founded in 1780 and named after the French theosophist, Louis Claude Saint-Martin.
3 The Tugenbund (League of Virtue) was a German association founded in 1808 with the acknowledged purpose of cultivating patriotism, reorganizing the army, and encouraging education, and with the secret aim of throwing off the French yoke. Dissolved on Napoleon’s demand in 1809, it continued to exist secretly, and exerted great influence in 1812. It was suspected of having revolutionary tendencies, and was in very bad odour with the Russian government at the time of the Holy Alliance.
4 M. H. Milorádovich (1770–1825) distinguished himself in the Napoleonic war, became Governor-General of Petersburg, and was killed when suppressing the ‘Decembrist’ mutiny in 1825. He appears in War and Peace.
5 D. V. Davýdov (1784–1839), a popular poet, and leader of a guerrilla force in the war of 1812. A. S. Púshkin (1799–1837), the greatest of Russian poets, was his contemporary.
6 The nobility included not merely those who had titles, but all who in England would be called the gentry.
7 For a Russian bath, as for a Turkish bath, one goes to a public establishment and subjects oneself to heat that produces profuse perspiration.
8 It was not unusual at the bath to associate with a woman.
9 A town in the Tambóv province noted for its horse fair.
10 Réaumur = thirteen below zero Fahrenheit.
11 The game referred to was shtos. The players selected cards for themselves from packs on the table, and placed their stakes on or under their cards. The banker had a pack from which he dealt to right and left alternately. Cards dealt to the right won for him, those dealt to the left won for the players. ‘Pass up’ was a reminder to the players to hand up stakes due to the bank. ‘Simples’ were single stakes. By turning down ‘corners’ of his card a player increased his stake two- or three-fold. A ‘transport’ increased it six-fold. Shtos has long gone out of fashion and been replaced by other forms of gambling.
12 Five-ruble notes were blue and ten-ruble notes red.
13 That is to say, a medal gained in the defence of his country against Napoleon.
14 The custom was, not to dance a whole dance with one lady but to take a few turns round the room, conduct her to her seat, bow to her, thank her, and seek a fresh partner.
15 The zakúska (‘little bite’) consists of a choice of snacks: caviare, salt-fish, cheese, radishes, or what not, with small glasses of vodka or other spirits. It is sometimes served alone, but usually forms an appetizer laid out on a side table and partaken of immediately before dinner or supper. It answers somewhat to the hors-d’œuvre of an English dinner.
16 The same word (ruká) stands for hand or arm in Russian.
17 In Russia god-parents and their god-children, and people having the same god-father or god-mother, were considered to be related.
18 Bémol is French for a flat; but in Russia many people knowing nothing of musical technicalities imagined it to have something to do with excellence in music.
19 Tolstóy seems here to antedate Russia’s intervention in the Hungarian insurrection. The Russian army did not enter Hungary till May 1849 and the war lasted till the end of September that year.
20 ‘They will be putting themselves to expense on our account.’
21 ‘If you please, gentlemen.’
22 In préférence partners play together as in whist. There is a method of scoring ‘with tables’ which increases the gains and losses of the players. The players compete in declaring the number of tricks the cards they hold will enable them to make. The highest bidder decides which suit is to be trumps and has to make the number of tricks he has declared, or be fined. A player declaring misère undertakes to make no tricks, and is fined (puts on a remise) for each trick he or she takes. ‘Ace and king blank’ means that a player holds the two highest cards and no others of a given suit.
23 At the time of this story two currencies were in use simultaneously – the depreciated ‘assignats’ and the ‘silver rubles’, which like the ‘assignats’ were usually paper. The assignats had been introduced in Russia in 1768 and by the end of the Napoleonic wars were much depreciated. They fluctuated till 1841, when a new ‘silver ruble’ was introduced, the value of which was about 38 pence. Paper ‘silver rubles’ were exchangeable for coin at par, and it was decreed that the assignats would be redeemed at the rate of 3 1/2 assignats for one ‘silver ruble’. In out-of-the-way provincial districts the assignats were still in general use.
24 Kvas is a non-intoxicating drink usually made from rye-malt and rye-flour.
A LANDLORD’S MORNING
(PART OF AN UNFINISHED NOVEL ‘A RUSSIAN LANDLORD’)
Chapter I
PRINCE NEKHLYÚDOV was nineteen years old when, at the end of his Third Course at the University, he came to his estate for the summer vacation and spent the whole summer there by himself. That autumn, in his unformed boyish hand, he wrote the following letter to his aunt, Countess Belorétski, whom he considered to be his best friend and the cleverest woman in the world. It was in French, and ran as follows:
‘My dear Aunt,
‘I have made a resolution which will affect my destiny for life. I am leaving the university to devote myself to life on my estate, because I feel that I was born for it. For heaven’s sake, dear Aunt, don’t laugh at me. You will say that I am young; perhaps I really am still a child, but that does not prevent me from feeling my vocation – from wishing to do good, and from loving goodness.
‘As I wrote you before, I found affairs here in indescribable disorder. Wishing to put them in order and understand them, I discovered that the chief evil lies in the very pitiable and impoverished condition of the peasants, and that this is an evil that can be remedied only by work and patience. If you could only see two of my peasants, David and Iván, and the way they and their families live, I am sure that the mere sight of those two unfortunates would do more to convince you than anything I can say to explain my intention. Is it not my sacred and direct duty to care for the welfare of these seven hundred men for whom I must be responsible to God? Would it not be a sin, for the sake of pleasure or ambition, to abandon them to the caprice of harsh elders and stewards? And why should I seek other opportunities of being useful and doing good, when such a noble, brilliant, and immediate duty lies at hand? I feel that I am capable of being a good landlord; and to be so, as I understand the word, one needs neither university diplomas nor official rank, such as you desire for me. Dear Aunt, don’t make ambitious plans for me; accustom yourself to the thought that I have chosen quite a special path, but a good one which I feel will yield me happiness. I have thought much, very much, about my future duties, and have written down rules of conduct for myself; and if God only grants me life and strength, I shall succeed in my undertaking.