Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2 полностью

While the choir were singing the first ballad the General listened attentively, sometimes smiling and screwing up his eyes, sometimes frowning and shaking his head in disapproval; then he stopped listening altogether and fell to conversing with Lyubasha, who at one moment was flashing her pearly teeth in a smile as she spoke to him, and the next calling comments and directions to the choir in her powerful alto voice as she glanced severely to left and right among the girl singers and gestured to them with her hands. The Guards officer took a seat near to the pretty Steshka, and turning to N.N., kept repeating ‘Charmant, délicieux!’²² or offering her advice with no great success. This clearly displeased the gypsy girls and set them whispering to one another: one of them even nudged his arm and said ‘Master, if you please.’ N.N. had put his feet up on the divan and was holding a whispered conversation with a pretty dancer named Malushka. Seriozha, his waistcoat unbuttoned, was standing in front of the choir, evidently listening to them with delight. He was also aware that the young gypsy girls were throwing him glances, smiling and whispering among themselves, and he realized that they were not mocking but admiring him, which made him feel that he was a very attractive young fellow. But all of a sudden the General rose to his feet and said to N.N., ‘Non, cela ne va pas sans Mashka, ce choeur ne vaut rien, n’est-ce pas?’²³ N.N., who had appeared sleepy and apathetic since leaving the ball, agreed with him. The General handed the poor old woman some money but did not order them to sing anything in his honour, as was the custom.

‘Partons.’²⁴ N.N., yawning, replied ‘Partons’ The Guards officer alone wanted to argue, but they paid him no attention. They all put on their fur coats and went out.

‘I can’t think of going to sleep now,’ said the General as he invited N.N. to take a seat in his conveyance. ‘Allons au b …’²⁵

‘Ich mache alles mit,’²⁶ said N.N., and once more the two carriages and the sledge sped along the dark and silent streets. Seriozha felt only that his head was spinning and rested it against the padded wall of the carriage as he attempted to set his muddled thoughts in order, and he was not listening when the General said to him in a thoroughly calm and sober voice: ‘Si ma femme savait que je bamboche avec vous …’²⁷

The carriage stopped. Seriozha, the General, N.N. and the Guards officer walked up a reasonably neat and well-lit flight of steps into a clean entrance hall where a footman took their overcoats, and from there they entered a brightly lit room furnished somewhat strangely, but with pretentions to luxury. In this room there was music playing and a few men and ladies were dancing. Some other ladies in low-necked dresses were sitting around the walls. Our friends walked past them and came into another room. Several of the ladies followed them. They were given some more champagne. Seriozha was at first surprised by the strange manner in which his companions addressed these ladies, and still more surprised by the strange language, resembling German, which these ladies used with each other. Seriozha drank several more glasses of wine. N.N., who was sitting on a divan next to one of these women, beckoned him over. Seriozha went up to them and was struck, not so much by the beauty of this woman (she was in fact unusually good-looking) as by her unusual resemblance to the Countess. The same eyes, the same smile, only her expression was different – now too shy, now too pert. Finding himself alongside her, Seriozha spoke to her. Later he had only the vaguest recollection of the content of this conversation. Yet he did recall that the story of the Lady of the Camellias²⁸ was running with all its poetic fascination through his fevered imagination; he remembered N.N. calling her la Dame aux Camélias and saying that he had never seen a more beautiful woman, except for her hands; and that the Dame aux Camélias herself did not speak, but kept smiling at him from time to time, so that Seriozha began to be irritated by the sight of that smile; but the vapours of the wine had gone too powerfully to his young and unaccustomed head.

He remembered further that N.N. said something in her ear and at once moved away to join another group which had formed round the General and the Guards officer, and that this woman took him by the hand, and that they went off somewhere together.—