Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (book reader for pc TXT) 📕

there were there many gentlemen who always frequented the club. Among them was Iván Vavílovich Pákhtin. He was a man of about forty years of age, of medium stature, fair-complexioned, with broad shoulders and hips, with a bare head, and a glossy, happy, clean-shaven face. He was not playing at pyramids, but had just sat down beside Prince D⁠⸺, with whom he was on “thou” terms, and had accepted a glass of champagne which had been offered to him. He had located himself so comfortably after the dinner, having quietly unbuckled his trousers at the back, that it looked as though he could sit there all his life, smoking a cigar, drinking champagne, and feeling the proximity of princes, counts, and the children of ministers. The news of the arrival of the Labázovs interfered with his calm.

“Where are you going, Pákhtin,” said a minister’s son, having noticed during the game that Pákhtin had got up, pulled his waistcoat down, and emptied his champagne in a large gulp.

“Syévernikov has invited me,” said Pákhtin, feeling a restlessness in his legs. “Well, will you go there?”

“Anastásya, Anastásya, please unlock the door for me.” That was a well-known gipsy-song, which was in vogue at that time.

“Perhaps. And you?”

“Where shall I, an old married man, go?”

“Well!”

Pákhtin, smiling, went to the glass hall, to join Syévernikov. He was fond of having his last word appear to be a joke. And so it came out at that time, too.

“Well, how is the countess’s health?” he asked, walking over to Syévernikov, who had not called him at all, but who, according to Pákhtin’s surmise, should more than anyone else learn of the arrival of the Labázovs. Syévernikov had somehow been mixed up with the affair of the 14th, and was a friend of the Decembrists. The countess’s health was much better, and Pákhtin was very glad to hear it.

“Do you know, Labázov has arrived; he is staying at Chevalier’s.”

“You don’t say so! We are old friends. How glad I am! How glad! The poor old fellow must have grown old. His wife wrote to my wife⁠—”

But Syévernikov did not finish saying what it was she had written, because his partners, who were playing without trumps, had made some mistake. While speaking with Iván Pávlovich, he kept an eye on them, and now he leaned forward with his whole body against the table, and, thumping it with his hands, he tried to prove that they ought to have played from the seven. Iván Pávlovich got up and, going up to another table, in the middle of a conversation informed another worthy gentleman of his bit of news, again got up, and repeated the same at a third table. The worthy gentlemen were all glad to hear of the arrival of the Labázovs, so that, upon returning to the billiard-room, Iván Pávlovich, who at first had had his misgivings about whether he had to rejoice in the return of the Labázovs, or not, no longer started with an introduction about the ball, about an article in the Messenger, about health, or weather, but approached everybody directly with the enthusiastic announcement of the safe return of the famous Decembrist.

The old man, who was still vainly endeavouring to hit the white ball with his cue, would, in Pákhtin’s opinion, be very much delighted to hear the news. He went up to him.

“Are you playing well, your Excellency?” he said, just as the old man stuck his cue into the marker’s red waistcoat, wishing to indicate that it had to be chalked.

“Your Excellency” was not said, as you might think, from a desire of being subservient (no, that was not the fashion in ’56). Iván Pávlovich was in the habit of calling the old man by his name and patronymic, but this was said partly as a joke on men who spoke that way, partly in order to hint that he knew full well to whom he was talking, and yet was taking liberties, and partly in truth: altogether it was a very delicate jest.

“I have just learned that Peter Labázov has returned. Straight from Siberia, with his whole family.”

These words Pákhtin pronounced just as the old man again missed his ball, for such was his bad luck.

“If he has returned as cracked as he went away, there is no cause for rejoicing,” gruffly said the old man, who was irritated by his incomprehensible failure.

This statement vexed Iván Pávlovich, and again he was at a loss whether there was any cause for rejoicing at Labázov’s return, and, in order fully to settle his doubt, he directed his steps to a room, where generally assembled the clever people, who knew the meaning and value of each thing, and, in short, knew everything. Iván Pávlovich was on the same footing of friendship with the frequenters of the intellectual room as with the gilded youths and with the dignitaries. It is true, he had no special place of his own in the intellectual room, but nobody was surprised to see him enter and seat himself on a divan. They were just discussing in what year and upon what occasion there had taken place a quarrel between two Russian journalists. Waiting for a moment of silence, Iván Pávlovich communicated his bit of news, not as something joyous, nor as an unimportant event, but as though part of the conversation. But immediately, from the way the “intellectuals” (I use the word “intellectuals” as a name for the frequenters of the “intellectual” room) received the news and began to discuss it, Iván Pávlovich understood that it belonged there, and that only there would it receive such an elaboration as to enable him to carry it farther and savoir à quoi s’en tenir.

“Labázov was the only one who was wanting,” said one of the intellectuals; “now all the living Decembrists have returned to Russia.”

“He was one of the herd of the famous⁠—” said Pákhtin, still with an inquisitive glance, prepared to make that quotation both jocular and