Varya had gazed at the fibber mistrustfully: she found it absolutely impossible to imagine the titular counsellor in the role of an 'Arabian tornado'.
'What could possibly have brought about such a change?' she had asked, hoping to learn something about Erast Petrovich's mysterious past.
But Zurov had merely shrugged: 'The devil only knows. It's been a year since we last saw each other. It must be a fatal case of love. You think we men are all heartless, insensitive dummies, but in our souls we are ardent and easily wounded.' He lowered his eyes sorrowfully. 'A broken heart can make an old man of you even at twenty.'
Varya had snorted: 'At twenty, indeed! Trying to hide your age does not become you.'
'Why, not me, I meant Fandorin,' the hussar explained. 'He is only twenty-one.'
'Who, Erast Petrovich?' Varya had gasped. 'Oh, come now, even I am twenty-two.'
'That is exactly what I mean,' Zurov had said, brightening up. 'What you need is someone a bit more mature, closer to thirty.'
But she had stopped listening, astounded by what he had told her. Fandorin was only twenty-one? Twenty-one! Incredible! So that was why Kazanzaki had called him a 'wunderkind'. Of course, the titular counsellor had a boyish face, but the way he carried himself, that glance, those greying temples! What chill wind could have frosted your temples so early, Erast Petrovich?
Interpreting her bewilderment in his own way, the hussar had assumed a dignified air and declared: 'What I am leading up to is this: if that rascal Erasmus has beaten me to it, then I withdraw immediately. Whatever his detractors may claim, mademoiselle, Zurov is a man with principles. He will never try to poach anything that belongs to his friend.'
'Are you speaking of me?' Varya had asked in sudden realisation. 'If I am "something that belongs" to Fandorin, you will not try to poach me; but if I am not "something that belongs" to him, you will try. Have I understood you correctly?'
Zurov jiggled his eyebrows diplomatically, but without the slightest sign of embarrassment.
‘I belong and always will belong to nobody but myself, but I do have a fiance,' Varya had reprimanded the insolent lout.
'So I have heard. But I do not count monsieur the detainee among my friends,' the captain had replied in a more cheerful voice, and the reconnaissance was complete.
The full-frontal assault had followed immediately: 'Would you care to wager with me, mademoiselle? If I can guess who will be first to come out of the marquee, you will favour me with a kiss. If I guess wrong, then I shall shave my head, like a Bashi-Bazouk. Make up your mind! Of course, the risk you would be taking is perfectly minimal - there are at least twenty people in the marquee.'
Varya had felt her lips curl into a smile despite herself. 'So who will be first?'
Zurov had pretended to be thinking hard and shaken his head despairingly: 'Aagh, farewell to my curly locks . . . Colonel Sablin. No! McLaughlin. No . . . The bartender Semyon, that's who!'
He had cleared his throat loudly and a second later the bartender had come strolling out of the club, wiping his hands on the hem of his long-waisted silk coat. He had looked up briskly at the sky, muttered: 'Oh, I hope it's not going to rain,' and gone back inside, without even glancing at Zurov.
'It's a miracle, a sign from above!' the count had exclaimed, stroking his moustache as he leaned towards the giggling Varya.
She had expected him to kiss her on the cheek, the way that Petya always did, but Zurov had aimed for her lips and the kiss had proved to be long, quite extraordinary and positively vertiginous.
Eventually, when she felt that she was about to choke, Varya had pushed the impetuous cavalry officer away and clutched at her heart.
'Oh, I'll slap your face so hard,' she had threatened in a feeble voice. 'I was warned by decent people that you don't play fair.'
'For a slap to the face I shall challenge you to a duel. And naturally I shall be vanquished,' the count had purred, goggling at her.
It had been quite impossible to be angry with him . . .
A round face appeared in the door of the tent. It was Lushka, the excitable and muddle-headed girl who performed the duties of maid and cook for the nurses, as well as lending a hand in the hospital when there was a large influx of wounded.
'There's a soldier waiting for you, miss,' Lushka blurted out. 'Dark-haired he is, with a moustache and a bunch of flowers. What shall I tell him?'
Speak of the devil, thought Varya, and smiled to herself again. She found Zurov's siege technology highly amusing.
'Let him wait. I'll be out soon’ she said, throwing off her blanket.
But it was not the hussar strolling up and down beside the hospital tents, where all was in readiness to receive new wounded; it was the fragrantly scented Colonel Lukan, yet another ardent aspirant.
Varya heaved a heavy sigh, but it was too late to withdraw.
'Ravissante comme l'Aurore!' the colonel exclaimed, first dashing to take her hand, then recoiling as he recalled the manners of modern women.
Varya shook her head in rejection of the bouquet, glanced at the gleaming gold braid of the Roumanian ally's uniform and asked coolly: 'What are you doing all decked up in your finery first thing in the morning?'
'I am leaving for Bucharest, for a meeting of His Highness's military council,' the colonel announced grandly. 'I called round to say goodbye and at the same time invite you to breakfast.' He clapped his hands and a foppish barouche hove into view from around the corner. The orderly sitting on the coach box was dressed in a washed-out uniform, but he was wearing white gloves.
'After you,' Lukan said with a bow, and Varya, intrigued despite herself, sat down on the springy seat.
'Where are we going?' she asked. 'To the officers' canteen?'
The Roumanian merely smiled mysteriously in reply, as though he were planning to whisk his companion away to the other side of the world. The colonel had been behaving in a rather mysterious manner just recently. He was still spending night after night without a break at the card table, but whereas during the initial days of his ill-starred acquaintance with Zurov there had been a hounded and downcast air about him, he seemed entirely recovered now, and although he was still throwing away substantial sums of money, he did not seem dispirited in the least.
'How did yesterday's game go?' asked Varya, looking closely at the brown circles under Lukan's eyes.
'Fortune has finally smiled on me,' he replied with a beaming smile of his own. 'Your Zurov's luck has run out. Have you ever heard of the law of large numbers? If you carry on betting large sums day after day, then sooner or later you are bound to win everything back.'
As far as Varya could recall, Petya's exposition of this theory had been rather different, but it was hardly worth arguing about.
'The count has blind luck on his side, but I have mathematical reckoning and a huge fortune on mine. There, look' - he held up his little finger - 'I have won back my family ring. An Indian diamond, eleven carats. Brought back from the Crusades by one of my ancestors.'
'Why, did the Roumanians actually take part in the Crusades?' Varya exclaimed rather too hastily, and had to endure an entire lecture on the colonel's family tree, which proved to go all the way back to the Roman legate Lucian Mauritius Tulla.
Meanwhile the barouche had driven out of the camp and halted in a shady grove. Standing there under an old oak tree was a table covered with a starched white cloth on which such an abundance of tasty things was laid out that Varya immediately began to feel hungry. There were French cheeses, and various fruits, and smoked salmon and pink ham, and crimson crayfish, and reclining elegantly in a little silver bucket was a bottle of Lafite.
It had to be admitted that even Lukan possessed certain positive qualities.
Just as they had raised their first glass, there was a deep rumbling far away in the distance and Varya's heart skipped a beat. How could she have allowed herself to become so distracted? The storming of Plevna had begun! Over there the dead were falling, the wounded were groaning, while she . . .