must own that it all struck me suddenly as something quite senseless; and my romantic and heroic dreams took flight com-
pletely at the first contact with reality. Only now, after my conversation with my uncle, I suddenly realised all the incongruity and eccentricity of his proposition, and felt that no one but my uncle would have been capable of making such a proposal and in such circumstances. I realised, too, that I was something not unlike a fool for galloping here full speed at his first word, in high delight at his suggestion. I was dressing hurriedly, absorbed in my agitating doubts, so that I did not at first notice the man who was waiting on me.
“Will your honour wear the Adelaida-coloured tie or the one with the little checks on it?” the man asked suddenly, addressing me with exceptionally mawkish obsequiousness.
I glanced at him, and it seemed to me that he, too, was worthy of attention. He was a man still young, for a flunkey well dressed, quite as well as many a provincial dandy. The brown coat, the white breeches, the straw-coloured waistcoat, the patent-leather boots and the pink tie had evidently been selected with intention. All this was bound at once to attract attention to the young dandy’s refined taste. The watch-chain was undoubtedly displayed with the same object. He was pale, even greenish in fact, and had a long hooked nose, thin and remarkably white, as though it were made of china. The smile on his thin lips expressed melancholy, a refined melancholy, however. His large prominent eyes, which looked as though made of glass, had an extraordinarily stupid expression, and yet there was a gleam of refinement in them. His thin soft ears were stuffed up with cotton-wool — also a refinement. His long, scanty, flaxen hair was curled and pomaded. His hands were white, clean, and might have been washed in rose-water; his fingers ended in extremely long dandified pink nails. All this indicated a spoilt and idle fop. He lisped and mispronounced the letter “r” in fashionable style, raised and dropped his eyes, sighed and gave himself incredibly affected airs. He smelt of scent. He was short, feeble and flabby-looking, and moved about with knees and haunches bent, probably thinking this the height of refinement — in fact he was saturated with refinement, subtlety and an extraordinary sense of his own dignity. This last characteristic displeased me, I don’t know why, and moved me to wrath.
“So that tie is Adelaida colour?” I asked, looking severely at the young valet.
“Yes, Adelaida,” he answered, with undisturbed refinement.
“And is there an Agrafena colour?”
“No, sir, there cannot be such a colour.”
“Why not?”
“Agrafena is not a polite name, sir.”
“Not polite! Why not?”
“Why, Adelaida, we all know, is a foreign name anyway, a ladylike name, but any low peasant woman can be called Agrafena.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“No, sir, I am in my right mind, sir. Of course you are free to call me any sort of name, but many generals and even some counts in Moscow and Petersburg have been pleased with my conversation, sir.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Vidoplyasov.”
“Ah, so you are Vidoplyasov?”
“Just so, sir.”
“Well, wait a bit, my lad, and I will make your acquaintance.”
“It is something like Bedlam here,” I thought to myself as I went downstairs.
CHAPTER IV
AT TEA
TEA was being served in the room that gave on to the veranda where I had that afternoon met Gavrila. I was much perturbed by my uncle’s mysterious warnings in regard to the reception awaiting me. Youth is sometimes excessively vain, and youthful vanity is almost always cowardly. And so it was extremely unpleasant for me when, immediately going in at the door and seeing the whole party round the tea-table, I stumbled over a rug, staggered and, recovering my balance, flew unexpectedly into the middle of the room. As overwhelmed with confusion as though I had at one stroke lost my career, my honour and my good name, I stood without moving, turning as red as a crab and looking with a senseless stare at the company. I mention this incident, in itself so trivial, only because of the effect it had on my state of mind during the whole of that day, and consequently my attitude to some of the personages of my story. I tried to bow, did not fully succeed, turned redder than ever, flew up to my uncle and clutched at his hand.
“How do you do, uncle,” I gasped out breathlessly, intending to say something quite different and much cleverer, but to my own surprise I said nothing but, “how do you do.”
“Glad to see you, glad to see you, my boy,” answered my uncle, distressed on my account. “You know, we have met already. Don’t be nervous, please,” he added in a whisper, “it’s a thing that may happen to anyone, and worse still, one sometimes falls flat! … And now, mother, let me introduce to you: this is our young man; he is a little overcome at the moment, but I am sure you will like him. My nephew, Sergey Alexandrovitch,” he added, addressing the company.
But before going on with my st<pry, allow me, gentle reader, to introduce to you by name the company in which I suddenly found myself. This is essential to the orderly sequence of my narrative.
The party consisted of several ladies and two men besides my uncle and me. Foma Fomitch, whom I was so eager to see, and who — even then I felt it — was absolute monarch in the house, was not there; he was conspicuous by his absence, and seemed to have taken with him all brightness from the room. They all looked gloomy and worried. One could not help noticing it from the first glance; embarrassed and upset as I was at the moment, I yet discerned that my uncle, for instance, was almost as upset as I was, though he was doing his utmost to conceal his anxiety under a show of ease. Something was lying like a heavy weight on his heart. One of the two gentlemen in the room was a young man about five-and-twenty, who turned out to be the Obnoskin my uncle had spoken of that afternoon, praising his intelligence and high principles. I did not take to this gentleman at all, everything about him savoured of vulgar chic; his dress, in spite of its chic, was shabby and common; his face looked, somehow, shabby too. His thin flaxen moustaches like a beetle’s whiskers, and his unsuccessful wisps of beard, were evidently intended to show that he was a man of independent character and perhaps advanced ideas. He was continually screwing up his eyes, smiling with an affectation of malice; he threw himself into attitudes on his chair, and repeatedly stared at me through his eyeglass; but when I turned to him, he immediately dropped his eyeglass and seemed overcome with alarm. The other gentle-
man was young too, being about twenty-eight. He was my cousin, Mizintchikov. He certainly was extremely silent. He did not utter a single word at tea, and did not laugh when eveiyone else laughed; but I saw in him no sign of that “crushed” condition my uncle had detected; on the contrary, the look in his light brown eyes expressed resoluteness and a certain decision of character. Mizintchikov was dark and rather good-looking, with black hair; he was very corrcctly dressed — at my uncle’s expense, as I learned later. Of the ladies the one I noticed first of all from her spiteful anaemic face was Miss Perepelitsyn. She was sitting near Madame la Generale — of whom I will give a special account later — not beside her, but deferentially a little behind; she was continually bending down and whispering something into the ear of her patroness.
