When he noticed that the society attentions of the day had little effect on the lady he tried to amuse her by telling her funny stories and assured her that he was ready to stand on his head, to crow like a cock, to jump out of the window or plunge into the water through a hole in the ice, if she ordered him to do so. This proved quite a success. The widow brightened up and burst into peals of laughter, showing her lovely white teeth, and was quite satisfied with her cavalier. The count liked her more and more every minute, so that by the end of the quadrille he was seriously in love with her.
When, after the quadrille, her eighteen-year-old adorer of long standing came up to the widow (he was the same scrofulous young man from whom Turbin had snatched the chair-a son of the richest local landed proprietor and not yet in government service) she received him with extreme coolness and did not show one-tenth of the confusion she had experienced with the count.
“Well, you are a fine fellow!” she said, looking all the time at Turbin’s back and unconsciously considering how many yards of gold cord it had taken to embroider his whole jacket. “You are a good one! You promised to call and fetch me for a drive and bring me some comfits.”
“I did come, Anna Fedorovna, but you had already gone, and I left some of the very best comfits for you,” said the young man, who-despite his tallness-spoke in a very high-pitched voice.
“You always find excuses! . . . I don’t want your bon-bons. Please don’t imagine-”
“I see, Anna Fedorovna, that you have changed towards me and I know why. But it’s not right,” he added, evidently unable to finish his speech because a strong inward agitation caused his lips to quiver in a very strange and rapid manner.
Anna Fedorovna did not listen to him but continued to follow Turbin with her eyes.
The master of the house, the stout, toothless, stately old marshal, came up to the count, took him by the arm, and invited him into the study for a smoke and a drink. As soon as Turbin left the room Anna Fedorovna felt that there was absolutely nothing to do there and went out into the dressing-room arm-in-arm with a friend of hers, a bony, elderly, maiden lady.
“Well, is he nice?” asked the maiden lady.
“Only he bothers so!” Anna Fedorovna replied walking up to the mirror and looking at herself.
Her face brightened, her eyes laughed, she even blushed, and suddenly imitating the ballet-dancers she had seen during the elections, she twirled round on one foot, then laughed her guttural but pleasant laugh and even bent her knees and gave a jump.
“Just fancy, what a man! He actually asked me for a keepsake,” she said to her friend, “but he will get no-o-o-thing.” She sang the last word and held up one finger in her kid glove which reached to her elbow.
In the study, where the marshal had taken Turbin, stood bottles of different sorts of vodka, liqueurs, champagne, and zakuska snacks. The nobility, walking about or sitting in a cloud of tobacco smoke, were talking about the elections.
“When the whole worshipful society of our nobility has honoured him by their choice,” said the newly elected Captain of Police who had already imbibed freely, “he should on no account transgress in the face of the whole society-he ought never . . . “
The count’s entrance interrupted the conversation. Everybody wished to be introduced to him, and the Captain of Police especially kept pressing the count’s hand between his own for a long time and repeatedly asked him not to refuse to accompany him to the new restaurant where he was going to treat the gentlemen after the ball, and where the gipsies were going to sing. The count promised to come without fail, and drank some glasses of champagne with him.
“But why are you not dancing, gentlemen?” said the count, as he was about to leave the room.
“We are not dancers,” replied the Captain of Police, laughing. “Wine is more in our line, Count. . . . And besides, I have seen all those young ladies grow up, Count! But I can walk through an ecossaise now and then, Count . . . I can do it, Count.”
“Then come and walk through one now,” said Turbin. “It will brighten us up before going to hear the gipsies.”
“Very well, gentlemen! Let’s come and gratify our host.”
And three or four of the noblemen who had been drinking in the study since the commencement of the ball, put on gloves of black kid or knitted silk and with red faces were just about to follow the count into the ball-room when they were stopped by the scrofulous young man who, pale and hardly able to restrain his tears, accosted Turbin.
“You think that because you are a count you can jostle people about as if you were in the market-place,” he said, breathing with difficulty, “but that is impolite . . . “
And again, do what he would, his quivering lips checked the flow of his words.
“What?” cried Turbin, suddenly frowning. “What? . . . You brat!” he cried, seizing him by the arms and squeezing them so that the blood rushed to the young man’s head not so much from vexation as from fear. “What? Do you want to fight? I am at your service!”
Hardly had Turbin released the arms he had been squeezing so hard than two nobles caught hold of them and dragged the young man towards the back door.
“What! Are you out of your mind? You must be tipsy! Suppose we were to tell your papa! What’s the matter with you?” they said to him.
“No, I’m not tipsy, but he jostles one and does not apologize. He’s a swine, that’s what he is!” squealed the young man, now quite in tears.
But they did not listen to him and someone took him home.
On the other side the Captain of Police and Zavalshevski were exhorting Turbin: “Never mind him, Count, he’s only a child. He still gets whipped, he’s only sixteen. . . . What can have happened to him? What bee has stung him? And his father such a respectable man-and our candidate.”
“Well, let him go to the devil if he does not wish . . . “
And the count returned to the ball-room and danced the ecossaise with the pretty widow as gaily as before, laughed with all his heart as he watched the steps performed by the gentlemen who had come with him out of the study, and burst into peals of laughter than rang across the room when the Captain of Police slipped and measured his full length in the midst of the dancers.
V
While the count was in the study Anna Fedorovna had approached her brother, and supposing that she ought to pretend to be very little interested in the count, began by asking: “Who is that hussar who was dancing with me? Can you tell me, brother?”
The cavalryman explained to his sister as well as he could what a great man the hussar was and told her at the same time that the count was only stopping in the town because his money had been stolen on the way, and that he himself had lent him a hundred rubles, but that that was not enough, so that perhaps “sister” would lend another couple of hundred. Only Zavalshevski asked her on no account to mention the matter to anyone-especially not to the count. Anna Fedorovna promised to send her brother the money that very day and to keep the affair secret, but somehow during the ecossaise she felt a great longing in herself to offer the count as much money as he wanted. She took a long time making up her mind, and blushed, but at last with a great effort broached the subject as follows.
“My brother tells me that a misfortune befell you on the road, Count, and that you have no money by you. If you need any, won’t you take it from me? I should be so glad.”
But having said this, Anna Fedorovna suddenly felt frightened of something and blushed. All gaiety instantly left the count’s face.
“Your brother is a fool!” he said abruptly. “You know when a man insults another man they fight; but when a woman insults a man, what does he do then-do you know?”
Poor Anna Fedorovna’s neck and ears grew red with confusion. She lowered her eyes and said nothing.
“He kisses the woman in public,” said the count in a low voice, leaning towards her ear. “Allow me at least to kiss your little hand,” he added in a whisper after a prolonged silence, taking pity on his Partner’s confusion.
“But not now!” said Anna Fedorovna, with a deep sigh.
“When then? I am leaving early tomorrow and you owe it me.”
“Well then it’s impossible,” said Anna Fedorovna with a smile.
“Only allow me a chance to meet you
