On the way back he was to meet with a little adventure. At some point he noticed that he was not going where he should. He remembered very well that on the way he should meet three sleepy servants, but he went through five or six rooms and those figures had vanished without a trace. Noticing his mistake, he went a little way back, turned to the right, and wound up in a semi-dark parlor that he had not seen when he went to the billiard room; he stood there for half a minute, then resolutely opened the first door he happened upon and entered a totally dark room. Straight ahead of him he could see a crack in a door through which bright light shone; from behind the door came the muted sounds of a melancholy mazurka. Here, as in the reception room, the windows were wide open and there was a smell of poplars, lilacs, and roses…
Ryabovich paused to reflect…Just then, unexpectedly, he heard hasty footsteps and the rustling of a dress, a breathless feminine voice whispered “At last!” and two soft, fragrant, unquestionably feminine arms embraced his neck; a warm cheek pressed itself to his cheek and simultaneously came the sound of a kiss. But the kissing woman gave a small cry at once and, as it seemed to Ryabovich, recoiled from him in disgust. He, too, all but cried out and dashed for the bright crack in the door…
When he returned to the reception room, his heart was pounding and his hands trembled so visibly that he hurriedly hid them behind his back. At first he suffered from shame and fear that the whole room knew he had just been embraced and kissed by a woman. He fidgeted and looked about anxiously, but, satisfying himself that the people in the room were dancing and chattering as calmly as before, he gave himself entirely to this new sensation, which until then he had never experienced in his life. Something strange was happening to him…It seemed to him that his neck, which had just been embraced by soft, fragrant arms, had been smeared with oil; his cheek, by the left moustache, where the unknown woman had kissed him, trembled with a light, pleasant coolness, as if from menthol drops, and the more he rubbed that spot, the more intensely he felt the coolness, and his whole being from head to foot was filled with a strange new sensation that kept growing, growing…He wanted to dance, to talk, to run out to the garden, to laugh loudly…He completely forgot that he was stoop-shouldered and colorless, and had lynx side-whiskers and an “indefinite appearance” (so his appearance had once been described in a ladies’ conversation, which he accidentally overheard). When Rabbek’s wife walked past him, he gave her such a broad and tender smile that she stopped and looked at him questioningly.
“I like your house terribly!…,” he said, straightening his spectacles.
The general’s wife smiled and told him that this house had belonged to her father, then she asked if his parents were living, if he had been in the service long, why he was so skinny, and so on…Having received answers to her questions, she went on her way, and he, after talking with her, began to smile still more tenderly and to think that he was surrounded by splendid people…
At dinner Ryabovich mechanically ate everything he was offered, drank, and, not listening to anything, tried to explain the recent adventure to himself. This adventure had a mysterious and romantic character, but explaining it was not difficult. Probably some young miss or lady had arranged an assignation with somebody in the dark room, had waited for a long time, and, being in nervous agitation, had taken Ryabovich for her hero; this was the more likely since Ryabovich, as he passed through the dark room, had paused to reflect, that is, had looked like a person who was also expecting something…Thus Ryabovich explained to himself the received kiss.
“But who is she?” he thought, looking around at the women’s faces. “She must be young, because old women don’t go to assignations. Then, too, she must be cultivated, that could be sensed from the rustling of her dress, her fragrance, her voice…”
He rested his gaze on the lilac young lady, and he liked her very much; she had beautiful shoulders and arms, an intelligent face, and a lovely voice. Looking at her, Ryabovich wanted precisely her, and not anyone else, to be his unknown one…But she laughed somehow insincerely and wrinkled her long nose, which made her look old; then he shifted his gaze to the blond girl in the black dress. This one was younger, more simple and sincere, had lovely temples, and drank very prettily from her glass. Ryabovich now wanted her to be the one. But soon he found that her face was flat, and he shifted his gaze to the girl next to her…
“It’s hard to guess,” he thought dreamily. “If you were to take just the shoulders and arms from the lilac one, add the blond one’s temples, and the eyes of the one sitting to the left of Lobytko, then…”
He performed the composition mentally and came up with an image of the girl who had kissed him, the image he wanted but could not find at the table.
After supper the guests, sated and tipsy, started to take their leave and say thank you. The hosts again began to apologize that they could not have them stay the night.
“Very, very glad, gentlemen!” the general was saying, this time sincerely (probably because people are usually much more sincere and kind when seeing guests off than when receiving them). “Very glad! You’re welcome to stop by on your way back! Without ceremony! Which way? You want to go up? No, go through the garden, the lower path—it’s shorter.”
The officers went out into the garden. After the bright light and the noise, the garden seemed very dark and quiet. They went as far as the gate in silence. They were half-drunk, cheerful, content, but the darkness and quiet gave them pause for a moment. Each of them, like Ryabovich, probably had one and the same thought: would there come a time when they, like Rabbek, would have a big house, a family, a garden, and when they would be able, even if insincerely, to regale people, to make them sated, drunk, and content?
After going through the gate, they all immediately started talking and laughing loudly for no reason. Now they were already walking along the path that went down to the river and then ran just by the water, skirting the bushes that grew on the bank, the pools, and the willows hanging over the water. The bank and the path were barely visible, and the opposite bank was all drowned in darkness. Here and there stars were reflected in the dark water; they quivered and blurred—and only by that could one tell that the current was swift. It was quiet. On the opposite bank drowsy snipe moaned, and on this bank, in one of the bushes, a nightingale, paying no attention to the crowd of officers, was trilling loudly. The officers stopped by the bush, touched it, but the nightingale went on singing.
“How about that!” came exclamations of approval. “We stand right here and he ignores us completely! What a rascal!”
Towards the end, the path went uphill and joined the road by the church wall. Here the officers, weary from walking up the hill, sat down and smoked. A dim red light appeared on the opposite bank, and, having nothing better to do, they spent a long time discussing whether it was a bonfire, or a light in a window, or something else…Ryabovich also looked at the light, and it seemed to him that the light smiled and winked at him, as if it knew about the kiss.
On coming to his quarters, Ryabovich quickly undressed and lay down. He shared a cottage with Lobytko and with Lieutenant Merzlyakov, a quiet, taciturn fellow, who in his own circle was considered a well-educated officer, and who, wherever possible, always read The Messenger of Europe,3 which he carried with him everywhere. Lobytko undressed, paced back and forth for a long time, with the look of a man who is dissatisfied, and sent his orderly for beer. Merzlyakov lay down, put a candle by the head of the bed, and immersed himself in reading The Messenger of Europe.