'"You don't know him? Andriusha Kolosov! Come, old boy, let's go to him directly. He came back last night from a holiday engagement." "But what sort of fellow is he?" "An exceptional man, my boy, let me assure you!" "An exceptional man," I answered; "then you go alone. I'll stop at home. I know your exceptional men! A half-tipsy rhymester with an everlastingly ecstatic smile!" … "Oh no! Kolosov's not like that." I was on the point of observing that it was for Mr. Kolosov to call on me; but, I don't know why, I obeyed Bobov and went. Bobov conducted me to one of the very dirtiest, crookedest, and narrowest streets in Moscow…. The house in which Kolosov lodged was built in the old-fashioned style, rambling and uncomfortable. We went into the courtyard; a fat peasant woman was hanging out clothes on a line stretched from the house to the fence…. Children were squalling on the wooden staircase…'
'Get on! get on!' we objected plaintively.
'I see, gentlemen, you don't care for the agreeable, and cling solely to the profitable. As you please! We groped our way through a dark and narrow passage to Kolosov's room; we went in. You have most likely an approximate idea of what a poor student's room is like. Directly facing the door Kolosov was sitting on a chest of drawers, smoking a pipe. He gave his hand to Bobov in a friendly way, and greeted me affably. I looked at Kolosov and at once felt irresistibly drawn to him. Gentlemen! Bobov was right: Kolosov really was a remarkable person. Let me describe a little more in detail…. He was rather tall, slender, graceful, and exceedingly good-looking. His face… I find it very difficult to describe his face. It is easy to describe all the features one by one; but how is one to convey to any one else what constitutes the distinguishing characteristic, the essence of just that face?'
'What Byron calls "the music of the face,"' observed a tightly buttoned-up, pallid gentleman.
'Quite so…. And therefore I will confine myself to a single remark: the especial "something" to which I have just referred consisted in Kolosov's case in a carelessly gay and fearless expression of face, and also in an exceedingly captivating smile. He did not remember his parents, and had had a wretched bringing-up in the house of a distant relative, who had been degraded from the service for taking bribes. Up to the age of fifteen, he had lived in the country; then he found his way into Moscow, and after two years spent in the care of an old deaf priest's wife, he entered the university and began to get his living by lessons. He gave instruction in history, geography, and Russian grammar, though he had only a dim notion of these branches of science; but in the first place, there is an abundance of 'textbooks' among us in Russia, of the greatest usefulness to teachers; and secondly, the requirements of the respectable merchants, who confided their children's education to Kolosov, were exceedingly limited. Kolosov was neither a wit nor a humorist; but you cannot imagine how readily we all fell under that fellow's sway. We felt a sort of instinctive admiration of him; his words, his looks, his gestures were all so full of the charm of youth that all his comrades were head over ears in love with him. The professors considered him as a fairly intelligent lad, but 'of no marked abilities,' and lazy.
Kolosov's presence gave a special harmony to our evening reunions. Before him, our liveliness never passed into vulgar riotousness; if we were all melancholy—this half childlike melancholy, in his presence, led on to quiet, sometimes fairly sensible, conversation, and never ended in dejected boredom. You are smiling, gentlemen—I understand your smile; no doubt, many of us since then have turned out pretty cads! But youth … youth….'
'Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story!
The days of our youth are the days of our glory….'
commented the same pallid gentleman.
'By Jove, what a memory he's got! and all from Byron!' observed the storyteller. 'In one word, Kolosov was the soul of our set. I was attached to him by a feeling stronger than any I have ever felt for any woman. And yet, I don't feel ashamed even now to remember that strange love—yes, love it was, for I recollect I went through at that time all the tortures of that passion, jealousy, for instance. Kolosov liked us all equally, but was particularly friendly with a silent, flaxen-haired, and unobtrusive youth, called Gavrilov. From Gavrilov he was almost inseparable; he would often speak to him in a whisper, and used to disappear with him out of Moscow, no one knew where, for two or three days at a time…. Kolosov did not care to be questioned, and I was lost in surmises. It was not simple curiosity that disturbed me. I longed to become the friend, the attendant squire of Kolosov; I was jealous of Gavrilov; I envied him; I could never find an explanation to satisfy me of Kolosov's strange absences. Meanwhile he had none of that air of mysteriousness about him, which is the proud possession of youths endowed with vanity, pallor, black hair, and 'expressive' eyes, nor had he anything of that studied carelessness under which we are given to understand that vast forces are slumbering; no, he was quite open and free; but when he was possessed by passion, an intense, impulsive energy was apparent in everything about him; only he did not waste his energies in vain, and never under any circumstances became high-flown or affected. By the way … tell me the truth, hasn't it happened to you to sit smoking a pipe with an air of as weary solemnity as if you had just resolved on a grand achievement, while you were simply pondering on what colour to choose for your next pair of trousers?… But the point is, that I was the first to observe in Kolosov, always cheerful and friendly as he was, these instinctive, passionate impulses…. They may well say that love is penetrating. I made up my mind at all hazards to get into his confidence. It was no use for me to lay myself out to please Kolosov; I had such a childlike adoration for him that he could have no doubt of my devotion … but to my indescribable vexation, I had, at last, to yield to the conviction that Kolosov avoided closer intimacy with me, that he was as it were oppressed by my uninvited attachment. Once, when with obvious displeasure he asked me to lend him money—the very next day he returned me the loan with ironical gratitude. During the whole winter my relations with Kolosov were utterly unchanged; I often compared myself with Gavrilov, and could not make out in what respect he was better than I…. But suddenly everything was changed. In the middle of April, Gavrilov fell ill, and died in the arms of Kolosov, who never left his room for an instant, and went nowhere for a whole week afterwards. We were all grieved for poor Gavrilov; the pale, silent lad seemed to have had a foreboding of his end. I too grieved sincerely for him, but my heart ached with expectation of something…. One ever memorable evening … I was alone, lying on the sofa, gazing idly at the ceiling … some one rapidly opened the door of my room and stood still in the doorway; I raised my head; before me stood Kolosov.
He slowly came in and sat down beside me. 'I have come to you,' he began in a rather thick voice, 'because you care more for me than any of the others do…. I have lost my best friend'—his voice shook a little—'and I feel lonely…. None of you knew Gavrilov … none of you knew….' He got up, paced up and down the room, came rapidly towards me again…. 'Will you take his place?' he said, and gave me his hand. I leaped up and flung myself on his breast. My genuine delight touched him…. I did not know what to say, I was choking…. Kolosov looked at me and softly laughed. We had tea. At tea he talked of Gavrilov; I heard that that timid, gentle boy had saved Kolosov's life, and I could not but own to myself that in Gavrilov's place I couldn't have resisted chattering about it—boasting of my luck. It struck eight. Kolosov got up, went to the window, drummed on the panes, turned swiftly round to me, tried to say something … and sat down on a chair without a word. I took his hand. 'Kolosov, truly, truly I deserve your confidence!' He looked straight into my eyes. 'Well, if so,' he brought out at last, 'take your cap and come along.' 'Where to?' 'Gavrilov did not ask me.' I was silent at once. 'Can you play at cards?' 'Yes.'
We went out, took a cab to one of the gates of the town. At the gate we got out. Kolosov went on in front very quickly; I followed him. We walked along the highroad. After we had gone three-quarters of a mile, Kolosov turned off. Meanwhile night had come on. On
the right in the fog were the twinkling lights, the innumerable church-spires of the immense city; on the left, two white horses were grazing in a meadow skirting the forest: before us stretched fields covered with greyish mists. I followed Kolosov in silence. He stopped all at once, stretched his hand out in front of him, and said: 'Here, this is where we are going.' I saw a small dark house; two little windows showed a dim light in the fog. 'In this house,' Kolosov went on, 'lives a man called Sidorenko, a retired lieutenant, with his sister, an old maid, and his daughter. I shall pass you off as a relation of mine—you must sit down and play at cards with him.' I nodded without a word.
I wanted to show Kolosov that I could be as silent as Gavrilov…. But I will own I was suffering agonies of curiosity. As we went up to the steps of the house, I caught sight, at a lighted window, of the slender figure of a girl…. She seemed waiting for us and vanished at once. We went into a dark and narrow passage. A crooked, hunchback old woman came to meet us, and looked at me with astonishment. 'Is Ivan Semyonitch at home?' inquired Kolosov. 'He is at home.'… 'He is at home!' called a deep masculine voice from within. We went into the dining-room, if dining-room one can call the long, rather dirty room; a small old piano huddled unassumingly in a corner beside the stove; a few chairs stood out along the walls which had once been yellow. In the middle of the room stood a tall, stooping man of fifty, in a greasy dressing-gown. I looked at him more attentively: a morose looking countenance, hair standing up like a brush, a low forehead, grey eyes, immense whiskers, thick lips…. 'A nice customer!' I thought. 'It's a longish time since we've seen you, Andrei Nikolaevitch,' he observed, holding out his hideous red hand, 'a longish time it is! And where's Sevastian Sevastianovitch?' 'Gavrilov is dead,' answered Kolosov mournfully. 'Dead! you don't say so! And who's this?' 'My relation—I have the honour to present to you Nikolai Alexei….' 'All right, all right,' Ivan Semyonitch cut him short, 'delighted, delighted. And does he play cards?' 'Play, of course he does!' 'Ah, then, that's capital; we'll sit down directly. Hey! Matrona Semyonovna—where are you? the card-table—quick!… And tea!' With these words Mr. Sidorenko walked into the next room. Kolosov looked at me. 'Listen,' he said, 'you can't think how ashamed I am!'… I shut him up. 'Come, you there, what's your name, this way,' called Ivan Semyonitch. I went into the drawing-room. The drawing-room was even smaller than the dining-room. On the walls hung some monstrosities of portraits; in front of the sofa, of which the stuffing protruded in several places, stood a green table; on the sofa sat Ivan Semyonitch, already shuffling the cards. Near him on the extreme edge of a low chair sat a spare woman in a white cap and a black gown, yellow and wrinkled, with short-sighted eyes and thin cat-like lips. 'Here,' said Ivan Semyonitch, 'let me introduce him; the first man's dead; Andrei Nikolaevitch has brought us another; let's see how he plays!' The old lady bowed awkwardly and cleared her throat. I looked round; Kolosov was no longer in the room. 'Stop that coughing, Matrona Semyonovna; sheep cough,' grumbled Sidorenko. I sat down; the game began. Mr. Sidorenko got fearfully hot and furious at my slightest mistake; he pelted his sister with abusive epithets, but she had apparently had time to get used to her brother's amenities, and only blinked in response. But when he announced to Matrona Semyonovna that she was 'Antichrist,' the poor old woman fired up. 'Ivan Semyonitch,' she protested with heat, 'you were the death of your wife, Anfisa Karpovna, but you shan't worry me into my grave!' 'Indeed?' 'No! you shan't.' 'Indeed?' 'No! you shan't.' They kept it up in this fashion for some time. My position was, as you perceive, not merely an unenviable one: it was positively idiotic. I couldn't conceive what had induced Kolosov to bring me…. I have never been a good card-player; but on that occasion I was aware myself that I was playing excruciatingly badly. 'No!' the retired lieutenant repeated continually,' you can't hold a candle to Sevastianovitch! No! you play carelessly!' I, you may be sure, was inwardly wishing him at the devil. This torture continued for two hours; they beat me hollow. Before the end of the last rubber, I heard a slight sound behind my chair—I looked round and saw Kolosov; beside him stood a girl of seventeen, who was watching me with a scarcely perceptible smile. 'Fill me my pipe, Varia,' muttered Ivan Semyonitch. The girl promptly flew off into the other room. She was not very pretty, rather pale, rather thin; but never before or since have I seen such hair, such eyes. We finished the rubber somehow; I paid up, Sidorenko lighted his pipe and grumbled:
'Well, now it's time for supper!' Kolosov presented me to Varia, that is, to Varvara Ivanovna, the daughter of Ivan Semyonitch. Varia was embarrassed; I too was embarrassed. But in a few minutes Kolosov, as usual, had got everything and everyone into full swing; he sat Varia down to the piano, begged her to play a dance tune, and proceeded to dance a Cossack dance in competition with Ivan Semyonitch. The lieutenant uttered little shrieks, stamped and cut such incredible capers that even Matrona Semyonovna burst out laughing and retreated to her own room upstairs. The hunchback old woman laid the table; we sat down to supper. At supper Kolosov told all sorts of nonsensical stories; the lieutenant's guffaws were deafening; I peeped from under my eyelids at Varia. She never took her eyes off Kolosov … and from the expression of her face alone, I could divine that she both loved him and was loved by him. Her lips were slightly parted, her head bent a little forward, a faint colour kept flitting across her whole face; from time to time she sighed deeply, suddenly dropped her eyes, and softly laughed to herself…. I rejoiced for Kolosov…. But at the same time, deuce take it, I was envious….
After supper, Kolosov and I promptly took up our caps, which did not, however, prevent the lieutenant from saying, with a yawn: 'You've paid us a long visit, gentlemen; it's time to say good-bye.' Varia accompanied Kolosov into the passage: 'When are you coming, Andrei Nikolaevitch?' she whispered to him. 'In a few days, for certain.' 'Bring him too,' she added, with a very sly smile. 'Of course, of course.' … 'Your humble servant!' thought I….
On the way home, I heard the following story. Six months before, Kolosov had become acquainted with Mr. Sidorenko in a rather queer way. One rainy evening, Kolosov was returning home from shooting, and had reached the gate of the city, when suddenly, at no great distance from the highroad, he heard groans, interspersed with curses. He had a gun; without thinking long, he made straight for the sound, and found a man lying on the ground with a dislocated ankle. This man was Mr. Sidorenko. With great difficulty he got him home, handed him over to the care of his frightened sister and his daughter, and ran for the doctor…. Meantime it was nearly morning; Kolosov was almost dropping with fatigue. With the permission of Matrona Semyonovna, he lay down on the sofa in the parlour, and slept till eight o'clock. On waking up he would at once have gone home; but they kept him and gave him some tea. In the night he had twice succeeded in catching a glimpse of the pale face of Varvara Ivanovna; he had not particularly noticed her, but in the morning she made a decidedly agreeable impression on him. Matrona Semyonovna garrulously praised and thanked Kolosov; Varvara sat silent, pouring out the tea, glanced at him now and then, and with timid shame-faced attentiveness handed him first a cup of tea, then the cream, then the sugar-basin. Meanwhile the lieutenant waked up, loudly called for his pipe, and after a short pause bawled: 'Sister! hi, sister!' Matrona Semyonovna went to his bedroom. 'What about that…what the devil's his name? is he gone?' 'No, I'm still here,' answered Kolosov, going up to the door; 'are you better now?' 'Yes,' answered the lieutenant; 'come in here, my good sir.' Kolosov went in. Sidorenko looked at him, and reluctantly observed: 'Well, thanks; come sometimes and see me—what's your name? who the devil's to know?' 'Kolosov,' answered Andrei. 'Well, well, come and see us; but it's no use your sticking on here now, I daresay they're expecting you at home.' Kolosov retreated, said good-bye to Matrona Semyonovna, bowed to Varvara Ivanovna, and returned home. From that day he began to visit Ivan Semyonitch, at first at long intervals, then more and more frequently. The summer came on; he would sometimes take his gun, put on his knapsack, and set off as if he were going shooting. He would g
o to the retired lieutenant's, and stay on there till evening.
Varvara Ivanovna's father had served twenty-five years in the army, had saved a small sum of money, and bought himself a few acres of land a mile and a half from Moscow. He could scarcely read and write; but in spite of his external clumsiness and coarseness, he was shrewd and cunning, and even, on occasion, capable of sharp practice, like many Little Russians. He was a fearful egoist, obstinate as an ox, and in general exceedingly impolite, especially with strangers; I even detected in him something like a contempt for the whole human race. He indulged himself in every caprice, like a spoilt child; would know no one, and lived for his own pleasure. We were once somehow or other talking about marriages with him; 'Marriage … marriage,' said he; 'whom the devil would I let my daughter marry? Eh? what should I do it for? for her husband to knock her about as I used to my wife? Besides, whom should I be left with?' Such was the retired lieutenant, Ivan Semyonitch. Kolosov used to go and see him, not on his account, of course, but for the sake of his daughter. One fine evening, Andrei was sitting in the garden with her, chatting about something; Ivan Semyonitch went up to him, looked sullenly at Varia, and called Andrei away. 'Listen, my dear fellow,' he said to him; 'you find it good fun, I see, gossiping with my only child, but I'm dull in my old age; bring some one with you, or I've nobody to deal a card to; d'ye hear? I shan't give admittance to you by yourself.' The next day Kolosov turned up with Gavrilov, and poor Sevastian Sevastianovitch had for a whole autumn and winter been playing cards in the evenings with the retired lieutenant; that worthy treated him without ceremony, as it is called—in other words, fearfully rudely. You now probably realise why it was that, after Gavrilov's death, Kolosov took me with him to Ivan Semyonitch's. As he communicated all these details, Kolosov added, 'I love Varia, she is the dearest girl; she liked you.'
The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories Page 14
