Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas. Leo Tolstoy

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      “Now, look here, gentlemen,” said Dubkoff at last. “After dinner we ought to take the DIPLOMAT in hand. How would it be for him to go with us to see Auntie? There we could put him through his paces.”

      “Ah, but Nechludoff will not go there,” objected Woloda.

      “O unbearable, insupportable man of quiet habits that you are!” cried Dubkoff, turning to Dimitri. “Yet come with us, and you shall see what an excellent lady my dear Auntie is.”

      “I will neither go myself nor let him go,” replied Dimitri.

      “Let whom go? The DIPLOMAT? Why, you yourself saw how he brightened up at the very mention of Auntie.”

      “It is not so much that I WILL NOT LET HIM go,” continued Dimitri, rising and beginning to pace the room without looking at me, “as that I neither wish him nor advise him to go. He is not a child now, and if he must go he can go alone — without you. Surely you are ashamed of this, Dubkoff? — ashamed of always wanting others to do all the wrong things that you yourself do?”

      “But what is there so very wrong in my inviting you all to come and take a cup of tea with my Aunt?” said Dubkoff, with a wink at Woloda. “If you don’t like us going, it is your affair; yet we are going all the same. Are you coming, Woloda?”

      “Yes, yes,” assented Woloda. “We can go there, and then return to my rooms and continue our piquet.”

      “Do you want to go with them or not?” said Dimitri, approaching me.

      “No,” I replied, at the same time making room for him to sit down beside me on the divan. “I did not wish to go in any case, and since you advise me not to, nothing on earth will make me go now. Yet,” I added a moment later, “I cannot honestly say that I have NO desire to go. All I say is that I am glad I am not going.”

      “That is right,” he said. “Live your own life, and do not dance to any one’s piping. That is the better way.”

      This little tiff not only failed to mar our hilarity, but even increased it. Dimitri suddenly reverted to the kindly mood which I loved best — so great (as I afterwards remarked on more than one occasion) was the influence which the consciousness of having done a good deed exercised upon him. At the present moment the source of his satisfaction was the fact that he had stopped my expedition to “Auntie’s.” He grew extraordinarily gay, called for another bottle of champagne (which was against his rules), invited some one who was a perfect stranger into our room, plied him with wine, sang “Gaudeamus igitur,” requested every one to join him in the chorus, and proposed that we should and rink at the Sokolniki. [Mews.]

      “Let us enjoy ourselves to-night,” he said with a laugh. “It is in honour of his matriculation that you now see me getting drunk for the first time in my life.”

      Yet somehow this merriment sat ill upon him. He was like some good-natured father or tutor who is pleased with his young charges, and lets himself go for their amusement, yet at the same time tries to show them that one can enjoy oneself decently and in an honourable manner. However, his unexpected gaiety had an infectious influence upon myself and my companions, and the more so because each of us had now drunk about half a bottle of champagne.

      It was in this pleasing frame of mind that I went out into the main salon to smoke a cigarette which Dubkoff had given me. In rising I noticed that my head seemed to swim a little, and that my legs and arms retained their natural positions only when I bent my thoughts determinedly upon them. At other moments my legs would deviate from the straight line, and my arms describe strange gestures. I concentrated my whole attention upon the members in question, forced my hands first to raise themselves and button my tunic, and then to smooth my hair (though they ruffled my locks in doing so), and lastly commanded my legs to march me to the door — a function which they duly performed, though at one time with too much reluctance, and at another with too much ABANDON (the left leg, in particular, coming to a halt every moment on tiptoe). Some one called out to me, “Where are you going to? They will bring you a cigar-light directly,” but I guessed the voice to be Woloda’s, and, feeling satisfied, somehow, that I had succeeded in divining the fact, merely smiled airily in reply, and continued on my way.

Chapter 16 — The Quarrel

      In the main salon I perceived sitting at a small table a short, squat gentleman of the professional type. He had a red moustache, and was engaged in eating something or another, while by his side sat a tall, clean-shaven individual with whom he was carrying on a conversation in French. Somehow the aspect of these two persons displeased me; yet I decided, for all that, to light my cigarette at the candelabrum which was standing before them. Looking from side to side, to avoid meeting their gaze, I approached the table, and applied my cigarette to the flame. When it was fairly alight, I involuntarily threw a glance at the gentleman who was eating, and found his grey eyes fixed upon me with an expression of intense displeasure. Just as I was turning away his red moustache moved a little, and he said in French:

      “I do not like people to smoke when I am dining, my good sir.”

      I murmured something inaudible.

      “No, I do not like it at all,” he went on sternly, and with a glance at his clean-shaven companion, as though inviting him to admire the way in which he was about to deal with me. “I do not like it, my good sir, nor do I like people who have the impudence to puff their smoke up one’s very nose.”

      By this time I had gathered that it was myself he was scolding, and at first felt as though I had been altogether in the wrong,

      “I did not mean to inconvenience you,” I said.

      “Well, if you did not suppose you were being impertinent, at least I did! You are a cad, young sir!” he shouted in reply.

      “But what right have you to shout at me like that?” I exclaimed, feeling that it was now HE that was insulting ME, and growing angry accordingly.

      “This much right,” he replied, “that I never allow myself to be overlooked by any one, and that I always teach young fellows like yourself their manners. What is your name, young sir, and where do you live?”

      At this I felt so hurt that my teeth chattered, and I felt as though I were choking. Yet all the while I was conscious of being in the wrong, and so, instead of offering any further rudeness to the offended one, humbly told him my name and address.

      “And MY name, young sir,” he returned, “is Kolpikoff, and I will trouble you to be more polite to me in future. — However, you will hear from me again” (“vous aurez de mes nouvelles”— the conversation had been carried on wholly in French), was his concluding remark.

      To this I replied, “I shall be delighted,” with an infusion of as much hauteur as I could muster into my tone. Then, turning on my heel, I returned with my cigarette — which had meanwhile gone out — to our own room.

      I said nothing, either to my brother or my friends, about what had happened (and the more so because they were at that moment engaged in a dispute of their own), but sat down in a corner to think over the strange affair. The words, “You are a cad, young sir,” vexed me more and more the longer that they sounded in my ears. My tipsiness was gone now, and, in considering my conduct during the dispute, the uncomfortable thought came over me that I had behaved like a coward.

      “Yet what right had СКАЧАТЬ