Novels, Tales, Journeys

“He’s too insignificant for you,” Minsky said to her. “All his intelligence is picked up from Les Liaisons dangereuses, just as all his military theory is stolen from Jomini.5 Get to know him intimately, and you’ll despise his ponderous immorality, just as military men despise his banal pronouncements.”

“I’d like to fall in love with R.,” Zinaida said to him.

“What nonsense!” he replied. “Why on earth would you have anything to do with a man who dyes his hair and rapturously repeats every five minutes: ‘Quand j’étais à Florence…’^*3 They say his insufferable wife is in love with him; leave them alone: they’re made for each other.”

“And Baron W.?”

“He’s a little girl in uniform; what is there in him…but you know what? Fall in love with L. He’ll occupy your imagination: he’s as remarkably intelligent as he is remarkably ugly, et puis c’est un homme à grands sentiments;^*4 he’ll be jealous and passionate, he’ll torment you and make you laugh—what more do you want?”

However, Volskaya did not listen to him. Minsky divined her heart; his amour-propre was touched; not supposing that frivolity could be combined with strong passions, he foresaw a liaison without serious consequences, one more woman on the list of his flighty mistresses, and reflected cold-bloodedly on his victory. Most likely, if he could have imagined the storms awaiting him, he would have renounced his triumph, for a man of society easily sacrifices his pleasures and even his vanity to laziness and respectability.

II

Minsky was still lying in bed when a letter was brought to him. He opened it with a yawn, shrugged his shoulders, unfolded two pages covered all over with a woman’s minute handwriting. The letter began thus:

I was unable to speak out to you everything I have in my heart; in your presence I did not find the thoughts that now pursue me so keenly. Your sophisms do not lull my suspicions, but force me to keep silent; that proves your constant superiority to me, but is not enough for happiness, for the ease of my heart…

Volskaya reproached him for coldness, mistrust, and so on, complained, pleaded, herself not knowing for what; poured out tender, affectionate assurances—and set up an evening rendezvous with him in her theater box. Minsky answered her in a couple of words, excusing himself with boring, necessary errands, and promising to be in the theater without fail.

III

“You are so open and indulgent,” said the Spaniard, “that I venture to ask you to solve a problem for me: I have wandered all over the world, have been presented at all the European courts, have visited high society everywhere, but nowhere have I felt myself so constrained, so awkward, as in your accursed aristocratic circle. Each time I enter Princess V.’s reception room, and see these mute, motionless mummies, reminding me of Egyptian cemeteries, a sort of chill runs through me. Among them there is not a single moral authority, not a single name that fame has repeated to me—what is it that makes me timid?”

“Ill will,” the Russian replied. “It is a trait of our character. Among the people it is expressed by mockery, in high circles by inattention and coldness. Besides, our ladies are very superficially educated, and nothing European occupies their thoughts. Of the men there is even no point in talking. Politics and literature do not exist for them. Wit has long been in disgrace as a sign of frivolity. What have they got to talk about? Themselves? No, they’re much too well bred. What remains for them is some sort of domestic, petty, private conversation, comprehensible only to the few—the chosen. And a man who does not belong to that small flock is received as an outsider—and not only a foreigner, but their own as well.”

“Forgive me my questions,” said the Spaniard, “but I will hardly find satisfactory answers another time, and I hasten to take advantage of you. You have mentioned your aristocracy: what is the Russian aristocracy? Studying your laws, I see that hereditary aristocracy, based on the indivisibility of property, does not exist in Russia. It seems that civic equality exists among your nobility and access to it is not limited in any way. What, then, is your so-called aristocracy based on—can it be on ancient lineage alone?”

The Russian laughed.