by Leo Tolstoy
The injustice affected me so powerfully at the time that if I had been free to do as I liked, I would have gone to no more examinations. I lost all ambition (I could no longer think of being third) and let the rest of the examinations slip by without effort or even anxiety. Even so, my average was four plus, although I no longer cared about that. I had decided on my own behalf, and proved very clearly to myself, that it was quite foolish and even mauvais genre26 to try to be first, that what one needed was to be like Volodya, neither too good nor too bad. I intended to hold to that at the university from then on, even if it did mean departing for the first time from the views of my friend.
I was already thinking only about the uniform, the cocked hat, my own droshky, my own room and – the main thing – my freedom.
THIRTEEN
I’m a Grown-up
Actually, those thoughts had their charm, too.
Coming home on 8 May from my last examination, in religion, I found a familiar apprentice from Rozanov’s,27 who had earlier brought a loosely basted uniform frock coat of lustrous black cloth with the lapels marked in chalk, but this time came with a completely finished garment with shiny gold buttons wrapped in tissue.
Putting on the new clothes and finding them excellent, despite St-Jérôme’s insistence that the coat puckered at the back, I went downstairs to see Volodya with a delighted smile involuntarily spreading across my face, and feeling (but pretending not to notice) the eager gazes directed at me by the servants from the entry room and hallway. Gavrilo, the butler, caught me in the hallway, congratulated me on entering the university, gave me, on Papa’s orders, four white twenty-five-rouble banknotes, and said that the coachman Kuzma, the droshky and the dark-bay Beauty would, again on Papa’s orders, thenceforth be entirely at my disposal. I was so delighted by that unexpected good fortune that it was quite impossible to feign indifference to Gavrilo, and a bit beside myself and breathless, I said the first thing that popped into my mind – that ‘Beauty’s a fine trotter,’ I think it was. Noticing the heads peering out of the doors of the entry room and the hallway, and no longer having the strength to resist, I cantered through the salon in my new frock coat with its shiny gold buttons. As I was going into Volodya’s room, I heard behind me the voices of Dubkov and Nekhlyudov, who had come to congratulate me and propose going somewhere for dinner and champagne in my honour. Dmitry said that even though he didn’t like to drink champagne, he would go with us to drink Bruderschaft28 with me, and Dubkov said that for some reason I looked just like a colonel, while Volodya didn’t congratulate me, but merely said very coldly that we would now be able to leave for the country the day after tomorrow. It was as if he was happy about my matriculation, but also a little put out that I was now as grown-up as he was. St-Jérôme, who had also come in to see us, said with a great flourish that his duties were now at an end, that he didn’t know if they had been carried out well or ill, but that he had done all that he could, and the next day would be moving to the home of his count. In response to everything said to me, I felt the appearance on my face, in spite of myself, of a sweet, happy, rather fatuously self-satisfied smile, and I noticed that it even imparted itself to everyone who talked to me.
And so my tutor was gone, I had my own droshky, my name had been published in the list of new students, I had a sword on my belt and the policemen in the corner booths might sometimes salute me … I was a grown-up and, I think, happy.
We decided to dine at Yar’s29 between four and five, but since Volodya had gone with Dubkov to his place, and Dmitry had, in keeping with his own custom, gone somewhere else after saying that he had business to take care of before dinner, I could spend the remaining two hours as I liked. I walked around the rooms quite a long time, gazing at myself in all the mirrors, first with the frock coat buttoned, then with it completely unbuttoned, then with it buttoned only at the top, and each way seemed excellent to me. And then, ashamed though I was about being too pleased, I still couldn’t resist, and went out to the stable and carriage barn to look at Beauty, Kuzma and the droshky. After that I walked around the rooms again, gazing in the mirrors, counting the money in my pocket and continuing to smile just as happily. But less than an hour passed before I began to feel a certain tedium or regret that no one else was seeing me in that brilliant state, and I wanted movement and activity. I therefore ordered the droshky harnessed, having concluded that the best thing would be a drive to Kuznetsky Most for some shopping.
I remembered that when Volodya entered the university he bought himself some Victor Adam30 lithographs of horses and tobacco and pipes, and it seemed essential to me that I do the same.
Accompanied by glances on every side and by bright sunlight on my buttons, the cockade of my hat and my sword, I arrived at Kuznetsky Most and stopped at Daziaro’s31 picture shop. I went inside and looked around. I didn’t want to buy Adam horses, lest I be twitted for aping Volodya, but, embarrassed about disturbing the obliging shopkeepers, I quickly chose a woman’s head in gouache that had been in the window, and paid twenty roubles for it. But after I had paid, it still seemed a shame to me that I had bothered the two handsomely dressed shopkeepers with such a trifle, and it also seemed that they were regarding me a little too casually. Wishing to give them a sense of who I was, I turned my attention to a little silver article lying in the vitrine, and on being told that it was a porte-crayon32 and cost eighteen roubles, I asked them to wrap it in tissue. After I had paid for it and learned that good tobacco and chibouks could be found at the tobacco shop next door, I bowed graciously to both shopkeepers and went outside with the picture under my arm. In the neighbouring shop, whose street sign depicted a Negro smoking a cigar, I bought, also from a desire not to copy anyone else, not Zhukov’s but some sultan’s tobacco, a Stambouline pipe, and two chibouks33 of linden and rosewood. As I was crossing from the shop to the droshky, I saw Semyonov dressed in an ordinary frock coat pass by at a rapid pace with his head down. It annoyed me that he hadn’t recognized me. I called out ‘Drive up!’ rather loudly, got in the droshky and overtook him.
‘Good day, sir,’ I said.
‘My respects to you,’ he replied, continuing to walk.
‘Why aren’t you wearing your uniform?’ I asked.
Semyonov stopped, squinted at me in silence, while baring his white teeth as if the sun were hurting his eyes, but really to show his indifference to my droshky and uniform, and then continued on his way.
Coming back from Kuznetsky Most I stopped at a pastry shop on Tverskaya Street and, although I meant to give the impression that I was primarily interested in the shop’s newspapers, I couldn’t help myself and started to eat one sweet pastry after another. Despite my embarrassment about the gentleman staring at me in curiosity from behind his paper, I consumed some eight pastries with extraordinary speed, sampling everything in the shop.
I felt a little heartburn after I got home, but I didn’t pay any attention to it and set about examining my purchases. I disliked the picture so much that I not only didn’t frame it and hang it in my room as Volodya had done, but even carefully hid it behind my chest of drawers where no one else could see it. I didn’t like the porte-crayon either. I put it in my desk, consoling myself with the thought that it was a substantial thing made of silver and very useful for a student to have. The smoking supplies, however, I decided to put to use at once.
Unsealing the four-ounce pouch and carefully filling the Stambouline bowl with the reddish-yellow fine-cut sultan’s tobacco, I touched it with burning tinder, took the chibouk between my middle and ring finger (a position that I especially liked) and began to draw in the smoke.
The tobacco had a very pleasant aroma, but it tasted bitter and made me gasp. Bracing myself, however, I drew in the smoke quite a long time, trying to blow rings and inhale. The room was soon completely filled with blue clouds of smoke, the pipe had started to make a wheezing sound and the hot tobacco to bounce up and down, and I felt slightly dizzy
with an acrid taste in my mouth. I was about to stop and see how I looked in the mirror with the pipe, when to my astonishment I began to stagger and the room started to spin, and in the mirror, over to which I had got with difficulty, I saw that my face had turned as white as a sheet. I had barely managed to fall back onto the sofa when I was overcome by such nausea and weakness that I started to imagine that the pipe was a deadly thing for me and that I was dying. I was seriously frightened and about to call the servants for help and send for a doctor.
The terror was short-lived, however. I quickly realized what was wrong and with a terrible headache lay weakly on the sofa a long time, gazing dully at the ‘Bostanjoglo’34 crest on the tobacco pouch and at the pipe lying on the floor among the ashes and what remained of the pastries, and in disappointment sadly thought, ‘I’m probably not completely grown up if I can’t smoke like the others, and, as they do, hold a chibouk between my middle and ring fingers, inhale and blow smoke through my light-brown moustache.’
Dmitry, coming by for me sometime after four, found me in that unpleasant state. After a glass of water, however, I had almost completely recovered and was ready to go with him.
‘Why do you want to smoke?’ he said, looking at the traces of the episode. ‘It’s just silly and a waste of money. I promised myself never to do it … But let’s hurry, since we still have to stop by Dubkov’s.’
FOURTEEN
What Volodya and Dubkov Were Doing
As soon as Dmitry had entered my room I could tell from his face, walk and the characteristic way he had in a bad mood of blinking and jerking his head to the side with a grimace, as if adjusting his cravat, that he was in the coldly obstinate mood that came over him whenever he was upset with himself, and that always had a chilling effect on my feeling for him. I had recently begun to observe and reflect on my friend’s character, but our friendship wasn’t changed in the least by that: it was still so young and strong that however I might regard Dmitry, I still couldn’t help but see him as perfect. There were two different people in him and both were excellent to me. One, of whom I was passionately fond, was kind, affectionate, mild, cheerful and aware of those likeable qualities. When he was in that mood, his whole appearance, the sound of his voice and all of his movements said, ‘I’m mild and virtuous and take pleasure in being mild and virtuous, and you can all see that.’ The other, whom I was only now starting to recognize and whose nobility I admired, was cold, severe with himself and others, proud, fanatically religious and pedantically moral. At the moment he was the second person.
With the candour that was an essential condition of our relationship, I told him after we got into his phaeton that it was sad and painful to see him in such a difficult, unpleasant mood on a day of such happiness for me.
‘You’re probably upset about something. Why don’t you tell me what it is?’ I asked him.
‘Nikolenka!’ he answered without hurrying, while nervously turning his head to the side and blinking. ‘If I gave my word to hide nothing from you, then there’s no reason for you to suspect me of doing so. One can’t always be in the same mood, and if something’s upset me, then I myself am unable to say what it is.’
‘What a remarkably frank and honest character,’ I thought, and said no more.
We arrived at Dubkov’s in silence. His apartment was exceptionally fine, or so it seemed to me. Everywhere were rugs, pictures, curtains, multicoloured wallpapers, portraits, and bentwood and Voltaire armchairs, and on the walls, guns, pistols, tobacco pouches and cardboard wild-animal heads of some kind. Seeing Dubkov’s study, I realized whom Volodya had been imitating in the decoration of his own room. Dubkov and Volodya were playing cards when we came in. Some gentleman unfamiliar to me (and probably unimportant, judging by his self-effacing posture) sat by the table and kept a very close watch on their play. Dubkov was wearing a silk dressing gown and soft shoes. Volodya had removed his frock coat and was sitting across from him on the couch, and was very involved in the game, judging by his flushed face and the discontented glance he shot at us while interrupting his play for a second. Seeing me, he flushed even more.
‘Well, it’s your deal,’ he said to Dubkov. I realized that my learning that he played cards was disagreeable to him. But there was no embarrassment in his expression; rather, it seemed to be saying, ‘Yes, I play, and it only astonishes you because you’re still young. It not only isn’t bad, it’s what we should be doing at our age.’
I sensed that at once and understood.
Dubkov, however, didn’t deal the cards but stood up, shook our hands, sat us down and offered us pipes, which we declined.
‘So, then, he, our Diplomat, is the hero of the festivities,’ he said. ‘My goodness, but he really does look just like a colonel!’
‘Hmm!’ I mooed, feeling the fatuously self-satisfied smile spread across my face again.
I respected Dubkov as only a sixteen-year-old boy could respect a twenty-seven-year-old adjutant who was described by all the grown-ups as an exceptionally decent young man with excellent French and fine dancing abilities, and who, while despising my youth in his heart, was clearly making an effort to hide that.
Despite my respect for him, it was – goodness knows why – difficult and awkward for me to look him in the eye the whole time we were acquainted. I noticed afterwards that it’s hard for me to look three kinds of people in the eye: those who are much worse than I am, those who are much better, and those with whom I’ve been unable to speak about something of which we’re both aware. Dubkov may have been both better and worse than I was, but there was definitely the fact that he often lied without acknowledging it, and that I had noticed that weakness in him and obviously couldn’t bring myself to talk to him about it.
‘How about another hand?’ Volodya said, shrugging his shoulder like Papa and shuffling the cards.
‘He just won’t give up!’ Dubkov said. ‘Let’s finish later. Well, all right, just one more, then.’
I watched their hands as they played. Volodya’s were large and beautiful. The bend of his thumb and the curve of his other fingers as he held the cards were so like Papa’s that it even seemed to me for a while that Volodya was holding his hands that way on purpose in order to look like a grown-up. But it was immediately clear to me from a glance at his face that he wasn’t thinking about anything but the game. Dubkov, by contrast, had small, plump hands whose soft, extraordinarily nimble fingers curled inward – just the sort of hands on which you find rings and that belong to people who like handmade articles and owning beautiful things. Volodya had evidently lost, because, after looking at his cards, the third gentleman observed that ‘Vladimir Petrovich’ was terribly unlucky, and Dubkov got out a portfolio, wrote something in a little notebook and, after showing Volodya what he had written, asked, ‘Correct?’
‘Correct!’ Volodya said, glancing at the notebook with feigned indifference. ‘Now let’s get going.’
Volodya took Dubkov in his droshky, and Dmitry took me in his phaeton.
‘What game were they playing?’ I asked Dmitry.
‘Piquet.35 It’s a stupid game. In fact, all games are stupid.’
‘Do they play for large amounts?’
‘Not really, but it’s still bad.’
‘You don’t play?’
‘No. I promised myself I wouldn’t, whereas Dubkov can’t help trying to win off people.’
‘Then that’s bad of him. Volodya probably doesn’t play as well as he does?’
‘Clearly not. It isn’t good, but there wasn’t anything really wrong going on there. Dubkov loves to play and knows how to, but he’s still a fine person.’
‘Oh, I certainly didn’t mean that … ,’ I said.
‘Right, and you shouldn’t think that there’s anything bad about him, for he is, in fact, an outstanding person. And I’m very fond of him and always will be, despite his weaknesses.’
For some reason it
seemed to me that precisely because Dmitry had stood up for Dubkov so emphatically, he no longer liked or respected him, but that he wouldn’t admit it from stubbornness and a fear of being accused of fickleness. He was one of those people who love their friends their whole lives, not so much because the friends remain forever dear to them, but because once they have, even by mistake, grown fond of someone, they consider it dishonourable to stop caring about him.
FIFTEEN
I Am Feted
Dubkov and Volodya knew everyone at Yar’s by name, and everyone from the doorman to the manager treated them with great respect. We were at once given a special room and served a wonderful dinner selected by Dubkov from the French menu. A bottle of chilled champagne, about which I tried to be as nonchalant as possible, was already waiting. The dinner passed very pleasantly and merrily, even though Dubkov, as was his habit, told the strangest stories, allegedly true, such as the time his grandmother used a blunderbuss to kill three robbers who had attacked her (making me blush and look down and turn away); and even though Volodya noticeably cringed every time I tried to say something (which was unfair, since I don’t recall saying anything particularly embarrassing). After the champagne was poured everyone congratulated me, and I linked arms with Dubkov and Dmitry and drank Bruderschaft with them and kissed them. Since I didn’t know to whom the bottle of champagne belonged (it belonged to everyone, as was later explained) and I wanted to treat my friends with my own money, which I kept fingering in my pocket, I quietly got out a ten-rouble note and, after calling the waiter over, gave it to him and, in a whisper but loud enough for everyone to hear, since they were all looking at me in silence, I told him to bring ‘another half-bottle of champagne, please’. Volodya blushed and writhed so much and looked at me and the others with such dismay that I realized my blunder, but the half-bottle was brought anyway, and we consumed it with great pleasure and continued to enjoy ourselves. Dubkov spun yarns without stopping, and Volodya, too, told such funny stories and told them well, which I had never expected it of him, and we laughed a lot. What made them – that is, Volodya and Dubkov – so amusing was the way they copied and embellished well-known jokes. ‘Were you abroad, then?’ one of them would ask. ‘No, I wasn’t,’ the other would reply, ‘but my brother plays the violin.’ They attained such perfection in that kind of nonsense humour that they would tell the joke itself as ‘My brother never played the violin, either.’ They answered each other’s questions the same way, and sometimes even without the question tried to combine the most disparate things and speak the nonsense with a straight face, which was very funny. I was starting to grasp how it worked and wanted to say something funny, too, but they all winced or looked away when I spoke, and the joke would fall flat. Dubkov said, ‘You aren’t making any sense, brother Diplomat,’ but I was feeling so good from the champagne and the grown-up company that the comment hardly stung me. Although he had drunk as much as the rest of us, Dmitry alone remained in a dour, serious mood, which dampened the general merriment a bit.
