I will only say that the guests, who after such a dinner must, naturally, have felt themselves as family and brothers to each other, finally got up from the table; then how the oldsters and solid men, after spending a short time in friendly conversation and even certain, to be sure quite decent and polite, confidences, decorously proceeded to the other room and, not to lose precious time, having divided themselves into parties, with a sense of their own dignity sat down at tables covered with green baize; how the ladies, seating themselves in the drawing room, all suddenly became extraordinarily amiable and began talking about various matters; how, finally, the highly esteemed host himself, who had lost the use of his legs from true and faithful service and had been rewarded for it with all the abovementioned things, began to walk about on crutches among his guests, supported by Vladimir Semyonovich and Klara Olsufyevna, and how, also suddenly becoming extraordinarily obliging, he decided to improvise a modest little ball, despite the expense; how, to that end, an efficient youth (the one who at dinner had been more like a state councillor than a youth) was dispatched for musicians; how the musicians then arrived, a whole eleven of them in number; and how, finally, at exactly half-past eight, the inviting strains of a French quadrille and various other dances rang out…Needless to say, my pen is too weak, sluggish, and dull for a proper portrayal of the ball improvised by the extraordinarily obliging gray-haired host.
And how, may I ask, can I, the humble narrator of the adventures of Mr. Goliadkin—highly curious adventures in their way, however—how can I portray this extraordinary and decorous mixture of beauty, brilliance, decency, gaiety, amiable solidity and solid amiability, friskiness, joy, all the games and laughter of all these official ladies, more like fairies than ladies—speaking in a sense advantageous to them—with their lily-and-rose shoulders and faces, their airy waists, and their friskily playful, homeopathic (speaking in high style) little feet? How, finally, shall I portray their brilliant official partners, merry and respectable, youthful and sedate, joyful and decently nebulous, those smoking a pipe during the intervals between dances in a remote little green room and those not smoking in the intervals—partners who, from first to last, were all bearers of a decent rank and name—partners deeply imbued with a sense of elegance and of their own dignity; partners who for the most part spoke French with the ladies, and if they spoke Russian, expressed themselves in the highest tone, in compliments and profound phrases—partners who perhaps only in the smoking room allowed themselves a few amiable departures from language of the highest tone, a few phrases of a friendly and polite brevity, such as, for example: “Thus and so, Petka, you cut some nice capers during the polka” or “Thus and so, Vasya, you really nailed down your little lady the way you wanted!” For all this, as I have already had the honor of explaining to you above, O readers! my pen is inadequate, and therefore I keep silent. Better let us turn to Mr. Goliadkin, the real, the only hero of our quite truthful story.
The thing is that he now finds himself in a quite strange, to say the least, position. He, ladies and gentlemen, is also here, that is, not at the ball, but almost at the ball; never mind him, ladies and gentlemen; he is his own man, but at this moment he is standing on a path that is not entirely straight; he is now standing—it is even strange to say it—he is now standing in the hallway to the back stairs of Olsufy Ivanovich’s apartment. But never mind that he is standing there; he is all right.
He is standing, ladies and gentlemen, in a little corner, huddled in a place not so much warm as dark, hidden partly by an enormous wardrobe and some old screens, among all sorts of litter, trash, and junk, hiding for a time and meanwhile only observing the general course of events in the capacity of an external onlooker. He, ladies and gentlemen, is only observing now; he may also go in, ladies and gentlemen…why not go in? He has only to take a step, and he will go in, and go in rather adroitly. Only just now—while standing, incidentally, for the third hour in the cold, between the wardrobe and the screens, amidst all sorts of trash, litter, and junk—he quoted, in his own justification, a phrase from the French minister Villèle,14 of blessed memory, that “everything will come in its turn, if you have the gumption to wait.”
This phrase Mr. Goliadkin had read once in a completely unrelated book, but now he called it up quite opportunely in his memory. First, the phrase suited his present situation very well, and second, what will not occur to a man who has been waiting for the happy outcome of his circumstances for almost a whole three hours in a hallway, in the dark and cold? Having quite opportunely quoted the phrase of the former French minister Villèle, as has been said, Mr. Goliadkin at once, no one knows why, also recalled the former Turkish vizier Marzimiris, as well as the beautiful Margravine Louise, whose story he had also read once in a book.15 Then it came to his memory that the Jesuits even made it a rule to consider all means appropriate, so long as the end is achieved. Having encouraged himself somewhat with this historical point, Mr. Goliadkin said to himself, well, so what about the Jesuits?
The Jesuits, all to a man, were the greatest fools, that he himself would go them one better, that if only the pantry (that is, the room whose door gave directly onto the hallway and the back stairs, where Mr. Goliadkin now was) stayed empty at least for a moment, then, in spite of all Jesuits, he would up and go straight from the pantry to the morning room, then to the room where they were now playing cards, and then straight into the ballroom where they were now dancing the polka.
And he would go in, he would go in without fail, he would go in despite all, he would slip in, just that, and no one would notice; and once there, he would know what to do. That is the position, ladies and gentlemen, in which we now find the hero of our perfectly truthful story, though, incidentally, it is hard to explain precisely what was happening to him at that moment. The thing was that he had managed to get as far as the hallway and the stairs for the simple reason that, say, why should he not get there, anybody could get there; but he did not dare to penetrate further, did not dare to do it openly…not because he lacked daring, but just so, because he did not want to, because he would have preferred to do it on the quiet. Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, waiting now for this quiet, and he has been waiting exactly two and a half hours for it.
Why should he not wait? Villèle himself waited. “What has Villèle got to do with it?” thought Mr. Goliadkin. “Why Villèle? What if I now sort of…up and penetrate?…Eh, you bit player!” said Mr. Goliadkin, pinching his frozen cheek with his frozen hand. “What a little fool, what a Goliadka—that’s what your name is!…”16 However, this endearment towards his own person at the present moment was just by the way, in passing, with no visible purpose. He now made as if to set out and move forward; the moment had come; the pantry was empty, and there was no one in it; Mr. Goliadkin saw all this through a little window; two steps brought him to the door, and he was already opening it. “To go or not? Well, to go or not?
I’ll go…why shouldn’t I go? The brave man makes his way everywhere!” Having encouraged himself in this way, our hero suddenly and quite unexpectedly retreated behind the screens. “No,” he thought, “what if somebody comes in? There, somebody has; why was I gaping when nobody was there?
I should have upped and penetrated!…No, there’s no penetrating, when a man has such a character! What a mean tendency! I got frightened like a chicken. Getting frightened is what we do, so there! Mucking things up is what we always do: don’t even ask us about it. So I stand here like a block of wood, and that’s that! At home I’d be having a nice cup of tea now…How pleasant it would be to have a nice cup. If I get home late, Petrushka may grumble. Why don’t I go home? Devil take it all! I’m going, and that’s that!”
Having thus resolved his situation, Mr. Goliadkin quickly moved forward, as if someone had touched a spring inside him; in two steps he was in the pantry, he threw off his overcoat, removed his hat, hastily shoved it all into a corner, straightened and smoothed himself out; then…then he moved to the morning room, from there he flitted to yet another room, slipping almost unnoticed among the passionately engrossed gamblers; then…then…here Mr. Goliadkin forgot everything that was going
