Novels, Tales, Journeys

The Spaniard and the Russian rose. She went up to them and with embarrassment said a few words in Russian. The Spaniard, supposing himself superfluous, left her and went back inside.

The imposing Princess G. followed Volskaya with her eyes and said in a low voice to her neighbor:

“I have never seen the like.”

“She’s terribly flighty,” he replied.

“Flighty? And then some. Her behavior is unforgivable. She can disrespect herself as much as she likes, but society does not deserve such scorn from her. Minsky might let her know that.”

“Il n’en fera rien, trop heureux de pouvoir la compromettre.^*2 Meanwhile, I’ll wager their conversation is quite innocent.”

“I’m sure of it…Since when are you so benevolent?”

“I confess, I’ve taken an interest in that young woman’s fate. There’s a lot of good in her, and much less bad than people think. But passions will be the ruin of her.”

“Passions! That’s a big word! What are these passions? Are you imagining that she has an ardent heart, a romantic head? She’s simply ill-bred…What is this lithograph? A portrait of Hussein Pasha?2 Show it to me.”

The guests were leaving; not one lady was left in the reception room. Only the hostess stood with obvious displeasure by the table at which two diplomats were finishing a last game of écarté.3 Volskaya suddenly noticed the dawn and hastily left the balcony, where she had spent nearly a whole three hours alone with Minsky. The hostess said good-bye to her coldly, and deliberately did not bestow even a glance on Minsky. At the entrance several guests were waiting for their carriages. Minsky helped Volskaya into hers.

“Seems it’s your turn,” a young officer said to him.

“Not at all,” he replied. “She’s taken. I’m simply her confidant, or whatever. But I love her with all my heart—she’s killingly funny.”

—

Zinaida Volskaya lost her mother when she was five years old. Her father, a busy and distracted man, handed her over to a French governess, hired all sorts of teachers, and after that no longer bothered with her. At fourteen she was beautiful and wrote love letters to her dancing master. The father learned of it, fired the dancing master, and brought her out in society, considering her education finished. Zinaida’s coming out caused a great stir. Volsky, a rich young man accustomed to subjecting his feelings to the opinions of others, fell madly in love with her, because the emperor, having met her on the English Embankment,4 spent a whole hour talking with her. He proposed. Her father was glad of the chance to get the fashionable bride off his hands. Zinaida was burning with impatience to marry, so as to see the whole town in her house. Besides which Volsky was not repugnant to her, and so her fate was decided.

Her candor, unexpected pranks, childish frivolity, made a pleasant impression at first, and society was even grateful to the one who kept disrupting the solemn monotony of the aristocratic circle. They laughed at her antics, recounted her strange escapades. But years passed, and Zinaida’s soul was still fourteen years old. Murmuring began. They found that Volskaya had no sense of the decorum proper to her sex. Women began to distance themselves from her, while the men drew closer. Zinaida thought that she was not the loser, and was comforted.

Rumor began to ascribe lovers to her. Scandal, even without proof, leaves almost eternal traces. In the social code, plausibility equals probability, and to be the object of slander humiliates us in our own eyes. Volskaya, in tears of indignation, resolved to rebel against the power of unjust society. A chance soon presented itself.

Among the young men of her surroundings Zinaida singled out Minsky. Evidently a certain similarity of character and circumstances of life was bound to bring them together. In his early youth Minsky’s wantonness of behavior had earned him the censure of society, which punished him with slander. Minsky had abandoned society, feigning indifference. For a time passions stifled in his heart the pangs of amour-propre; but, tamed by experience, he appeared again on the social scene and now brought to it, not the ardor of his imprudent youth, but the indulgence and seemliness of egoism. He did not like society, but he did not scorn it, for he knew the necessity of its approval. With all that, while respecting it in general, he did not spare it in its particulars, and was ready to offer up each of its members in sacrifice to his rancorous amour-propre. He liked Volskaya because she dared to openly despise the conventions he hated. He set her on with encouragements and advice, made himself her confidant, and soon became necessary to her.

B. occupied her imagination for some time.