Fifty-Two Stories

When the quadrille began, the young von Rabbek approached the non-dancers and invited two officers to a game of billiards. The officers accepted and left the reception room with him. Ryabovich, having nothing to do, and wishing to take at least some part in the general activity, trudged after them. From the reception room they went to the drawing room, then down a narrow glass corridor, from there to a room where, when they appeared, three sleepy servants jumped up from the sofas. Finally, having gone through a whole string of rooms, the young Rabbek and the officers entered a small room where the billiard table stood. The game began.

Ryabovich, who had never played anything but cards, stood by the billiard table and looked indifferently at the players, and they, in unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands, walked about, made puns, and shouted unintelligible words. The players did not notice him, and only occasionally one of them, having shoved him with an elbow or caught him accidentally with a cue, would turn and say, “Pardon!” The first game was not yet over, but he was already bored, and it began to seem to him that he was superfluous and a nuisance…He felt drawn back to the reception room, and he left.

On the way back he was to meet with a little adventure. At some point he noticed that he was not going where he should. He remembered very well that on the way he should meet three sleepy servants, but he went through five or six rooms and those figures had vanished without a trace. Noticing his mistake, he went a little way back, turned to the right, and wound up in a semi-dark parlor that he had not seen when he went to the billiard room; he stood there for half a minute, then resolutely opened the first door he happened upon and entered a totally dark room. Straight ahead of him he could see a crack in a door through which bright light shone; from behind the door came the muted sounds of a melancholy mazurka. Here, as in the reception room, the windows were wide open and there was a smell of poplars, lilacs, and roses…

Ryabovich paused to reflect…Just then, unexpectedly, he heard hasty footsteps and the rustling of a dress, a breathless feminine voice whispered “At last!” and two soft, fragrant, unquestionably feminine arms embraced his neck; a warm cheek pressed itself to his cheek and simultaneously came the sound of a kiss. But the kissing woman gave a small cry at once and, as it seemed to Ryabovich, recoiled from him in disgust. He, too, all but cried out and dashed for the bright crack in the door…

When he returned to the reception room, his heart was pounding and his hands trembled so visibly that he hurriedly hid them behind his back. At first he suffered from shame and fear that the whole room knew he had just been embraced and kissed by a woman. He fidgeted and looked about anxiously, but, satisfying himself that the people in the room were dancing and chattering as calmly as before, he gave himself entirely to this new sensation, which until then he had never experienced in his life. Something strange was happening to him…It seemed to him that his neck, which had just been embraced by soft, fragrant arms, had been smeared with oil; his cheek, by the left moustache, where the unknown woman had kissed him, trembled with a light, pleasant coolness, as if from menthol drops, and the more he rubbed that spot, the more intensely he felt the coolness, and his whole being from head to foot was filled with a strange new sensation that kept growing, growing…He wanted to dance, to talk, to run out to the garden, to laugh loudly…He completely forgot that he was stoop-shouldered and colorless, and had lynx side-whiskers and an “indefinite appearance” (so his appearance had once been described in a ladies’ conversation, which he accidentally overheard). When Rabbek’s wife walked past him, he gave her such a broad and tender smile that she stopped and looked at him questioningly.

“I like your house terribly!…,” he said, straightening his spectacles.

The general’s wife smiled and told him that this house had belonged to her father, then she asked if his parents were living, if he had been in the service long, why he was so skinny, and so on…Having received answers to her questions, she went on her way, and he, after talking with her, began to smile still more tenderly and to think that he was surrounded by splendid people…