A Hero of Our Time

Excerpt: ...strict rules of the best taste-nothing superfluous. The second lady was wearing a high-necked dress of pearl-grey, and a light silk kerchief was wound round her supple neck. Puce-coloured boots clasped her slim little ankle so charmingly, that even those uninitiated into the mysteries of beauty would infallibly have sighed, if only from wonder. There was something maidenly in her easy, but aristocratic gait, something eluding definition yet intelligible to the glance. As she walked past us an indefinable perfume, like that which sometimes breathes from the note of a charming woman, was wafted from her. Look! said Grushnitski, there is Princess Ligovski with her daughter Mary, as she calls her after the English manner. They have been here only three days. You already know her name, though? Yes, I heard it by chance, he answered, with a blush. I confess I do not desire to make their acquaintance. These haughty aristocrats look upon us army men just as they would upon savages. What care they if there is an intellect beneath a numbered forage-cap, and a heart beneath a thick cloak? Poor cloak! I said, with a laugh. But who is the gentleman who is just going up to them and handing them a tumbler so officiously? Oh, that is Raevich, the Moscow dandy. He is a gambler; you can see as much at once from that immense gold chain coiling across his skyblue waistcoat. And what a thick cane he has! Just like Robinson Crusoe's-and so is his beard too, and his hair is done like a peasant's. You are embittered against the whole human race? And I have cause to be. Oh, really? At that moment the ladies left the well and came up to where we were. Grushnitski succeeded in assuming a dramatic pose with the aid of his crutch, and in a loud tone of voice answered me in French: Mon cher, je hais les hommes pour ne pas les mepriser, car autrement la vie serait une farce trop degoutante. The pretty Princess Mary turned round and favoured...