The count did not even add up his winnings but rose immediately the game was over, went over to the window at which Lisa was arranging the
zakushka* and turning pickled mushrooms out of a jar onto a plate for
supper, and there quite quietly and simply did what the cornet had all that evening so longed, but failed, to do-entered into conversation with her about the weather.
Meanwhile the cornet was in a very unpleasant position. In the absence of the count, and more especially of Lisa, who had been keeping her in good humour, Anna Fedorovna became frankly angry.
“Really, it’s too bad that we should win from you like this,” said Polozov in order to say something. “It is a real shame!”
“Well, of course, if you go and invent some kind of ‘tables’ and ‘miseres’ and I don’t know how to play them. … Well then, how much does it come to in assignats?” she asked.
“Thirty-two rubles, thirty-two and a quarter,” repeated the cavalryman, who under the influence of his success was in a playful mood. “Hand over the money, sister; pay up!”
“I’ll pay it all, but you won’t catch me again. No! … I shall not win this back as long as I live.”
And Anna Fedorovna went off to her room, hurriedly swaying from side to side, and came back bringing nine assignats. It was only on the old man’s insistent demand that she eventually paid the whole amount.
Polozov was seized with fear lest Anna Fedorovna should scold him if he spoke to her. He silently and quietly left her and joined the count and Lisa who were talking at the open window.
On the table spread for supper stood two tallow candles. Now and then the soft fresh breath of the May night caused the flames to flicker. Outside the window, which opened onto the garden, it was also light but it was a quite different light. The moon, which was almost full and already losing its golden tinge, floated above the tops of the tall lindens and more and more lit up the thin white clouds which veiled it at intervals. Frogs were croaking loudly by the pond, the surface of which, silvered in one place by the moon, was visible through the avenue. Some little birds fluttered slightly or lightly hopped from bough to bough in a sweet-scented lilac-bush whose dewy branches occasionally swayed gently close to the window.
“What wonderful weather!” the count said as he approached Lisa and sat down on the low window-sill. “I suppose you walk a good deal?”
“Yes,” said Lisa, not feeling the least shyness in speaking with the count. “In the morning about seven o’clock I look after what has to be attended to on the estate and take my mother’s ward, Pimochka, with me for a walk.”
“It is pleasant to live in the country!” said the count, putting his eye-glass to his eye and looking now at the garden, now at Lisa. “And don’t you ever go out at night, by moonlight?”
“No. But two years ago uncle and I used to walk every moonlight night. He was troubled with a strange complaint-insomnia. When there was a full moon he could not fall asleep. His little room-that one-looks straight out into the garden, the window is low but the moon shines straight into it.”
“That’s strange: I thought that was your room,” said the count.
“No. I only sleep there tonight. You have my room.”
“Is it possible? Dear me, I shall never forgive myself for having disturbed you in such a way!” said the count, letting the monocle fall from his eye in proof of the sincerity of his feelings. “If I had known that I was troubling you … “
“It’s no trouble! On the contrary I am very glad: uncle’s is such a charming room, so bright, and the window is so low. I shall sit there till I fall asleep, or else I shall climb out into the garden and walk about a bit before going to bed.”
“What a splendid girl!” thought the count, replacing his eyeglass and looking at her and trying to touch her foot with his own while pretending to seat himself more comfortably on the window-sill. “And how cleverly she has let me know that I may see her in the garden at the window if I like!” Lisa even lost much of her charm in his eyes-the conquest seemed too easy.
“And how delightful it must be,” he said, looking thoughtfully at the dark avenue of trees, “to spend a night like this in the garden with a beloved one.”
Lisa was embarrassed by these words and by the repeated, seemingly accidental touch of his foot. Anxious to hide her confusion she said without thinking, “Yes, it is nice to walk in the moonlight.” She was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable. She had tied up the jar out of which she had taken the mushrooms and was going away from the window, when the cornet joined them and she felt a wish to see what kind of man he was.
“What a lovely night!” he said.
“Why, they talk of nothing but the weather,” thought Lisa.
“What a wonderful view!” continued the cornet. “But I suppose you are tired of it,” he added, having a curious propensity to say rather unpleasant things to people he liked very much.
“Why do you think so? The same kind of food or the same dress one may get tired of, but not of a beautiful garden if one is fond of walking-especially when the moon is still higher. From uncle’s window the whole pond can be seen. I shall look at it tonight.”
“But I don’t think you have any nightingales?” said the count, much dissatisfied that the cornet had come and prevented his ascertaining more definitely the terms of the rendezvous.
“No, but there always were until last year when some sportsman caught one, and this year one began to sing beautifully only last week but the police-officer came here and his carriage-bells frightened it away. Two years ago uncle and I used to sit in the covered alley and listen to them for two hours or more at a time.”
“What is this chatterbox telling you?” said her uncle, coming up to them. “Won’t you come and have something to eat?”
After supper, during which the count by praising the food and by his appetite has somewhat dispelled the hostess’s ill humour, the officers said good-night and went into their room. The count shook hands with the uncle and to Anna Fedorovna’s surprise shook her hand also without kissing it, and even shook Lisa’s, looking straight into her eyes the while and slightly smiling his pleasant smile. This look again abashed the girl.
“He is very good-looking,” she thought, “but he thinks too much of himself.”
XIV
“I say, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” said Polozov when they were in their room. “I purposely tried to lose and kept touching you under the table. Aren’t you ashamed? The old lady was quite upset, you know.”
The count laughed very heartily.
“She was awfully funny, that old lady. … How offended she was! … “
And he again began laughing so merrily that even Johann, who stood in front of him, cast down his eyes and turned away with a slight smile.
“And with the son of a friend of the family! Ha-ha-ha! … “ the count continued to laugh.
“No, really it was too bad. I was quite sorry for her,” said the cornet.
“What nonsense! How young you still are! Why, did you wish me to lose? Why should one lose? I used to lose before I knew how to play! Ten rubles may come in useful, my dear fellow. You must look at life practically or you’ll always be left in the lurch.”
Polozov was silenced; besides, he wished to be quiet and to think about Lisa, who seemed to him an unusually pure and beautiful creature. He undressed and lay down in the soft clean bed prepared for him.
“What nonsense all this military honour and glory is!” he thought, looking at the window curtained by the shawl through which the white moonbeams stole in. “It would be happiness to live in a quiet nook with a dear, wise, simple-hearted wife-yes, that is true and lasting happiness!”
But for some reason he did not communicate these reflections to his friend and did not even refer to the country lass, though he was convinced that the count too was thinking of her.
“Why don’t you undress?” he asked the count who was walking up and down the room.
“I don’t feel sleepy yet, somehow. You can put out the candle if you like. I shall lie down as I am.”
And he continued to pace up and down.
“Don’t feel sleepy yet somehow,” repeated Polozov, who after this last evening felt more dissatisfied than ever with the count’s influence over him and was inclined to rebel against
