"The gentleman has not seen Polish ladies, and says what is impossible," the Pole with the pipe observed to Maximov.
He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he pretended. If he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form.
"But I was married to a Polish lady myself," t.i.ttered Maximov.
"But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry. Were you a cavalry officer?" put in Kalgonov at once.
"Was he a cavalry officer indeed? Ha ha!" cried Mitya, listening eagerly, and turning his inquiring eyes to each as he spoke, as though there were no knowing what he might hear from each.
"No, you see," Maximov turned to him. "What I mean is that those pretty Polish ladies ... when they danced the mazurka with our Uhlans... when one of them dances a mazurka with a Uhlan she jumps on his knee like a kitten... a little white one... and the pan-father and pan-mother look on and allow it... They allow it... and next day the Uhlan comes and offers her his hand.... That"s how it is... offers her his hand, he he!" Maximov ended, t.i.ttering.
"The pan is a lajdak!"* the tall Pole on the chair growled suddenly and crossed one leg over the other. Mitya"s eye was caught by his huge greased boot, with its thick, dirty sole. The dress of both the Poles looked rather greasy.
* Scoundrel.
"Well, now it"s lajdak! What"s he scolding about?" said Grushenka, suddenly vexed.
"Pani Agrippina, what the gentleman saw in Poland were servant girls, and not ladies of good birth," the Pole with the pipe observed to Grushenka.
"You can reckon on that," the tall Pole snapped contemptuously.
"What next! Let him talk! People talk, why hinder them? It makes it cheerful," Grushenka said crossly.
"I"m not hindering them, pani," said the Pole in the wig, with a long look at Grushenka, and relapsing into dignified silence he sucked his pipe again.
"No, no. The Polish gentleman spoke the truth." Kalgonov got excited again, as though it were a question of vast import. "He"s never been in Poland, so how can he talk about it? I suppose you weren"t married in Poland, were you?"
"No, in the Province of Smolensk. Only, a Uhlan had brought her to Russia before that, my future wife, with her mamma and her aunt, and another female relation with a grown-up son. He brought her straight from Poland and gave her up to me. He was a lieutenant in our regiment, a very nice young man. At first he meant to marry her himself. But he didn"t marry her, because she turned out to be lame."
"So you married a lame woman?" cried Kalganov.
"Yes. They both deceived me a little bit at the time, and concealed it. I thought she was hopping; she kept hopping.... I thought it was for fun."
"So pleased she was going to marry you!" yelled Kalganov, in a ringing, childish voice.
"Yes, so pleased. But it turned out to be quite a different cause. Afterwards, when we were married, after the wedding, that very evening, she confessed, and very touchingly asked forgiveness. "I once jumped over a puddle when I was a child," she said, "and injured my leg." He he!"
Kalgonov went off into the most childish laughter, almost falling on the sofa. Grushenka, too, laughed. Mitya was at the pinnacle of happiness.
"Do you know, that"s the truth, he"s not lying now," exclaimed Kalganov, turning to Mitya; "and do you know, he"s been married twice; it"s his first wife he"s talking about. But his second wife, do you know, ran away, and is alive now."
"Is it possible?" said Mitya, turning quickly to Maximov with an expression of the utmost astonishment.
"Yes. She did run away. I"ve had that unpleasant experience," Maximov modestly a.s.sented, "with a monsieur. And what was worse, she"d had all my little property transferred to her beforehand. "You"re an educated man," she said to me. "You can always get your living." She settled my business with that. A venerable bishop once said to me: "One of your wives was lame, but the other was too light-footed." He he!
"Listen, listen!" cried Kalganov, bubbling over, "if he"s telling lies- and he often is- he"s only doing it to amuse us all. There"s no harm in that, is there? You know, I sometimes like him. He"s awfully low, but it"s natural to him, eh? Don"t you think so? Some people are low from self-interest, but he"s simply so, from nature. Only fancy, he claims (he was arguing about it all the way yesterday) that Gogol wrote Dead Souls about him. Do you remember, there"s a landowner called Maximov in it, whom Nozdryov thrashed. He was charged, do you remember, "for inflicting bodily injury with rods on the landowner Maximov in a drunken condition." Would you believe it, he claims that he was that Maximov and that he was beaten! Now can it be so? Tchitchikov made his journey, at the very latest, at the beginning of the twenties, so that the dates don"t fit. He couldn"t have been thrashed then, he couldn"t, could he?"
It was diffcult to imagine what Kalgonov was excited about, but his excitement was genuine. Mitya followed his lead without protest.
"Well, but if they did thrash him!" he cried, laughing.
"It"s not that they thrashed me exactly, but what I mean is- " put in Maximov.
"What do you mean? Either they thrashed you or they didn"t."
"What o"clock is it, panie?" the Pole, with the pipe, asked his tall friend, with a bored expression. The other shrugged his shoulders in reply. Neither of them had a watch.
"Why not talk? Let other people talk. Mustn"t other people talk because you"re bored?" Grushenka flew at him with evident intention of finding fault. Something seemed for the first time to flash upon Mitya"s mind. This time the Pole answered with unmistakable irritability.
"Pani, I didn"t oppose it. I didn"t say anything."
"All right then. Come, tell us your story," Grushenka cried to Maximov. "Why are you all silent?"
"There"s nothing to tell, it"s all so foolish," answered Maximov at once, with evident satisfaction, mincing a little. "Besides, all that"s by way of allegory in Gogol, for he"s made all the names have a meaning. Nozdryov was really called Nosov, and Kuvshinikov had quite a different name, he was called Shkvornev. Fenardi really was called Fenardi, only he wasn"t an Italian but a Russian, and Mamsel Fenardi was a pretty girl with her pretty little legs in tights, and she had a little short skirt with spangles, and she kept turning round and round, only not for four hours but for four minutes only, and she bewitched everyone..."
"But what were you beaten for?" cried Kalganov.
"For Piron!" answered Maximov.
"What Piron?" cried Mitya.
"The famous French writer, Piron. We were all drinking then, a big party of us, in a tavern at that very fair. They"d invited me, and first of all I began quoting epigrams. "Is that you, Boileau? What a funny get-up!" and Boileau answers that he"s going to a masquerade, that is to the baths, he he! And they took it to themselves, so I made haste to repeat another, very sarcastic, well known to all educated people: Yes, Sappho and Phaon are we!
But one grief is weighing on me.
You don"t know your way to the sea!
"They were still more offended and began abusing me in the most unseemly way for it. And as ill-luck would have it, to set things right, I began telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepted into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph: Ci-git Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas meme academicien,*
* Here lies Piron, who was nothing, not even an Academician.
They seized me and thrashed me."
"But what for? What for?"
"For my education. People can thrash a man for anything," Maximov concluded, briefly and sententiously.
"Eh, that"s enough! That"s all stupid, I don"t want to listen. I thought it would be amusing," Grushenka cut them short, suddenly.
Mitya started, and at once left off laughing. The tall Pole rose upon his feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of his element, began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hands behind his back.
"Ah, he can"t sit still," said Grushenka, looking at him contemptuously. Mitya began to feel anxious. He noticed besides, that the Pole on the sofa was looking at him with an irritable expression.
"Panie!" cried Mitya, "Let"s drink! and the other pan, too! Let us drink."
In a flash he had pulled three gla.s.ses towards him, and filled them with champagne.
"To Poland, Panovie, I drink to your Poland!" cried Mitya.
"I shall be delighted, panie," said the Pole on the sofa, with dignity and affable condescension, and he took his gla.s.s.
"And the other pan, what"s his name? Drink, most ill.u.s.trious, take your gla.s.s!" Mitya urged.
"Pan Vrublevsky," put in the Pole on the sofa.
Pan Vrublevsky came up to the table, swaying as he walked.
"To Poland, Panovie!" cried Mitya, raisin, his gla.s.s. "Hurrah!"
All three drank. Mitya seized the bottle and again poured out three gla.s.ses.
"Now to Russia, Panovie, and let us be brothers!"
"Pour out some for us," said Grushenka; "I"ll drink to Russia, too!"
"So will I," said Kalganov.
"And I would, too... to Russia, the old grandmother!" t.i.ttered Maximov.
"All! All!" cried Mitya. "Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles!"
The other three bottles Mitya had brought with him were put on the table. Mitya filled the gla.s.ses.
"To Russia! Hurrah!" he shouted again. All drank the toast except the Poles, and Grushenka tossed off her whole gla.s.s at once. The Poles did not touch theirs.
"How"s this, Panovie?" cried Mitya, "won"t you drink it?"
Pan Vrublevsky took the gla.s.s, raised it and said with a resonant voice: "To Russia as she was before 1772."
"Come, that"s better!" cried the other Pole, and they both emptied their gla.s.ses at once.
"You"re fools, you Panovie," broke suddenly from Mitya.
"Panie!" shouted both the Poles, menacingly, setting on Mitya like a couple of c.o.c.ks. Pan Vrublevsky was specially furious.
"Can one help loving one"s own country?" he shouted.
"Be silent! Don"t quarrel! I won"t have any quarrelling!" cried Grushenka imperiously, and she stamped her foot on the floor. Her face glowed, her eyes were shining. The effects of the gla.s.s she had just drunk were apparent. Mitya was terribly alarmed.
"Panovie, forgive me! It was my fault, I"m sorry. Vrublevsky, panie Vrublevsky, I"m sorry."
"Hold your tongue, you, anyway! Sit down, you stupid!". Grushenka scolded with angry annoyance.
Everyone sat down, all were silent, looking at one another.
"Gentlemen, I was the cause of it all," Mitya began again, unable to make anything of Grushenka"s words. "Come, why are we sitting here? What shall we do... to amuse ourselves again?"
"Ach, it"s certainly anything but amusing!" Kalgonov mumbled lazily.
"Let"s play faro again, as we did just now," Maximov t.i.ttered suddenly.
"Faro? Splendid!" cried Mitya. "If only the panovie-"
"It"s lite, panovie," the Pole on the sofa responded, as it were unwillingly.
"That"s true," a.s.sented Pan Vrublevsky.
"Lite? What do you mean by "lite"?" asked Grushenka.
"Late, pani! "A late hour" I mean," the Pole on the sofa explained.
"It"s always late with them. They can never do anything!" Grushenka almost shrieked in her anger. "They"re dull themselves, so they want others to be dull. Before came, Mitya, they were just as silent and kept turning up their noses at me."
"My G.o.ddess!" cried the Pole on the sofa, "I see you"re not well-disposed to me, that"s why I"m gloomy. I"m ready, panie," added he, addressing Mitya.
"Begin, panie," Mitya a.s.sented, pulling his notes out of his pocket, and laying two hundred-rouble notes on the table. "I want to lose a lot to you. Take your cards. Make the bank."
"We"ll have cards from the landlord, panie," said the little Pole, gravely and emphatically.
"That"s much the best way," chimed in Pan Vrublevsky.
"From the landlord? Very good, I understand, let"s get them from him. Cards!" Mitya shouted to the landlord.
The landlord brought in a new, unopened pack, and informed Mitya that the girls were getting ready, and that the Jews with the cymbals would most likely be here soon; but the cart with the provisions had not yet arrived. Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room to give orders, but only three girls had arrived, and Marya was not there yet. And he did not know himself what orders to give and why he had run out. He only told them to take out of the box the presents for the girls, the sweets, the toffee and the fondants. "And vodka for Andrey, vodka for Andrey!" he cried in haste. "I was rude to Andrey!"
Suddenly Maximov, who had followed him out, touched him on the shoulder.
"Give me five roubles," he whispered to Mitya. "I"ll stake something at faro, too, he he!"
"Capital! Splendid! Take ten, here!"
Again he took all the notes out of his pocket and picked out one for ten roubles. "And if you lose that, come again, come again."
"Very good," Maximov whispered joyfully, and he ran back again. Mitya, too, returned, apologising for having kept them waiting. The Poles had already sat down, and opened the pack. They looked much more amiable, almost cordial. The Pole on the sofa had lighted another pipe and was preparing to throw. He wore an air of solemnity.
"To your places, gentlemen," cried Pan Vrublevsky.
"No, I"m not going to play any more," observed Kalganov, "I"ve lost fifty roubles to them just now."
"The pan had no luck, perhaps he"ll be lucky this time," the Pole on the sofa observed in his direction.
"How much in the bank? To correspond?" asked Mitya.
"That"s according, panie, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred, as much as you will stake." "A million!" laughed Mitya.
"The Pan Captain has heard of Pan Podvysotsky, perhaps?"
"What Podvysotsky?"