‘Vot’ numéro?’2
‘Six et demie,’3 he replied, showing her a small, almost femininely delicate hand.
The young man seemed to be in a great hurry to get somewhere: he paced up and down the shop, then started to put on the gloves so carelessly that he managed to split one pair. With a childish movement of annoyance which was also an indication of the energy within him, he flung the offending glove on the floor and began to stretch another one.
‘Is that you, my boy?’ said a pleasant-sounding, confident voice from the next room. ‘Come in here.’
At the sound of the voice, and especially at the appellation ‘my boy’, the young man realized that this was an acquaintance of his, and went into the adjoining room.
His friend was a tall, unusually thin man of about thirty, with ginger side-whiskers extending from mid-cheek to the corners of his mouth and the sharp upturned points of his collar. He had a long, fleshless nose, tranquil, rather deep-set blue eyes expressive of intelligence and humour, and exceptionally thin, pale lips which, except when opening in an appealing smile to reveal a set of fine white teeth, had about them an air of firmness and resolution.
He was sitting, his long legs stretched out, in front of a large pier-glass in which he seemed to be regarding with pleasure the reflection of the young man’s handsome face, and giving Monsieur Charles every opportunity to display his coiffeuring skills. The latter, expertly twirling a pair of curling-tongs in his pomaded hands, shouted for Ernest, who came and took them from him so that he could, in his own words, give ‘un coup de peigne à la plus estimable de ses pratiques’.4
‘Well, is it a ball you are off to, dear boy?’
‘Yes, Prince; and you?’
‘I too have to go out, – as you see,’ he added, indicating his white waistcoat and tie, but still in such a gloomy tone of voice that the young man asked with surprise whether he was in fact unwilling to go, and if so, what he would prefer to spend the evening doing.
‘Sleeping,’ he replied calmly and without the least affectation.
‘That I cannot believe!’
‘Neither would I have believed it, ten years ago: in those days I was ready to gallop three hundred versts by post-chaise and go without sleep for ten nights just to attend one ball; but of course I was young then, and accustomed to falling in love at every ball, and, even more important – I was cheerful then: because I knew that I was good-looking and whichever way they turned me round no one would see a bald patch or a hairpiece or a false tooth …
‘And who is it you are running after, my boy?’ he added, standing in front of the mirror and straightening his shirt collar.
This question, delivered in such a straightforward conversational tone, appeared to take the young man by surprise and to throw him into such confusion that, blushing and stammering, he was scarcely able to get out the words: ‘I’m not … running after … I mean I’ve never … run after … anyone.’
‘Forgive me. I had forgotten that at your time of life you don’t pursue women, you fall in love with them, so do at least tell me, – who are you in love with?’
‘You know, Prince,’ said the young man with a smile, ‘that I really have no idea what it means to pursue someone, to faire la cour …’5
‘Then I will proceed to explain to you. You know what it means to be in love?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well, to pursue a woman means doing the exact opposite of what you would do if you were in love with her – expressing your feelings little by little, trying to make her fall in love with you. You really have to do the opposite of what you do in a relationship with some sweet little débardeur6 with whom you are in love.’
The young man blushed once more.
‘I was talking to your cousin about you only this morning, and she revealed your secret to me. Why haven’t you got yourself presented to her yet?’
‘I have not had an opportunity.’
‘How can there possibly have been no opportunity? No, it would be truer to say that you haven’t been able to make up your mind to do it; I realize that true love, especially if it is first love, is always bashful. That is no good at all.’
‘My cousin promised me not long ago that she would introduce me to her,’ said the young man, with a shy, childlike smile.
‘No, no, you must allow me to introduce you, my dear boy. Believe me, I would do it far better than your cousin would – you see, I shall do it with my own special lightness of touch,’ he added as he put on his overcoat and his hat. ‘Let us go together.’
‘To be sucessful with women,’ he went on in a didactic manner as he headed towards the door, ignoring both Monsieur Charles’ bow and the smile of the demoiselle de comptoir7 who was listening to what he was saying. ‘To be successful with women you need to be enterprising, and to be enterprising you need to be successful with women, particularly in the case of a first love; and to be successful in first love you need to be enterprising. You see, it is a cercle vicieux.’8
II
The young man’s name was Seriozha Ivin. He was a first-rate fellow with a soul as yet unshadowed by the consciousness of mistakes made in life, and thus full of radiant fantasies and noble motives. Having completed his course at the —– College when still a child in mind and body, he had come to Moscow to be with his mother, a deeply gentle woman born in the last century who loved him as any mother does her only son in whom she takes great pride.
Once in Moscow he almost unwittingly and imperceptibly came to feel at ease in the genial, one might even say familial atmosphere of Muscovite society, in which people of an acknowledged pedigree, whatever their outward qualities, are accepted in all respects as kith and kin; and this with particular confidence and enthusiasm when, like Ivin, they do not carry with them any sort of unknown past. It is hard to say whether this was a piece of good fortune for him or not. From one point of view Moscow society gave him many genuine pleasures, and to be able to enjoy oneself at this period of one’s early manhood when every gratifying experience makes its impression on the youthful spirit and sets the fresh strings of happiness vibrating – this is already a great blessing. From the contrary point of view, however, Moscow society developed in him that dreadful moral infection which establishes itself in every department of the soul and which is known by the name of vanity. Not that purely social vanity which is never content with the circle in which it lives, and is constantly seeking and attaining some new one in which it will feel awkward and ill at ease. Moscow society is notably indulgent and agreeable, in that its judgements of people are kindly and independent: once a man finds himself accepted in it, then he is accepted everywhere and considered by everyone in the same light, and there is nothing further for him to aspire to: live as you wish and as it pleases you. No, Seriozha’s vanity, despite the fact that he was a clever and energetic young fellow, was the vanity of youth. Absurdly enough, he who was among the best dancers in Moscow dreamed of how he might get into the tedious social set of G.O. on the cheap, and how he, innocent and bashful as a young girl, could gain an entrée to the scandalous evening parties given by Madame Z., and strike up an intimacy with the debauched and corrupt bachelor Dolgov. Beautiful dreams of love and friendship, and ridiculous dreams of vanity and the power of youthful attraction filled his imagination and became strangely mingled within him.