“Well, then, there’s nothing to be done! Another time!” he said, bursting out laughing, and he retired to his abashed companions, who immediately conducted him into another room.
I was rewarded by a deep, wondrous glance.
The Princess went up to her mother and told her the whole story. The latter sought me out among the crowd and thanked me. She informed me that she knew my mother and was on terms of friendship with half a dozen of my aunts.
“I do not know how it has happened that we have not made your acquaintance up to now,” she added; “but confess, you alone are to blame for that. You fight shy of everyone in a positively unseemly way. I hope the air of my drawingroom will dispel your spleen... Do you not think so?”
I uttered one of the phrases which everybody must have ready for such an occasion.
The quadrilles dragged on a dreadfully long time.
At last the music struck up from the gallery, Princess Mary and I took up our places.
I did not once allude to the drunken gentleman, or to my previous behaviour, or to Grushnitski. The impression produced upon her by the unpleasant scene was gradually dispelled; her face brightened up; she jested very charmingly; her conversation was witty, without pretensions to wit, vivacious and spontaneous; her observations were sometimes profound... In a very involved sentence I gave her to understand that I had liked her for a long time. She bent her head and blushed slightly.
“You are a strange man!” she said, with a forced laugh, lifting her velvet eyes upon me.
“I did not wish to make your acquaintance,” I continued, “because you are surrounded by too dense a throng of adorers, in which I was afraid of being lost to sight altogether.”
“You need not have been afraid; they are all very tiresome”...
She looked fixedly at me as if endeavouring to recollect something, then blushed slightly again and finally pronounced with decision:
“But is he your friend?” she said, manifesting some doubt.
“He, of course, does not come into the category of the tiresome”...
“But into that of the unfortunate!” I said, laughing.
“Of course! But do you consider that funny? I should like you to be in his place”...
“Well? I was once a cadet myself, and, in truth, it was the best time of my life!”