Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1856
Source: Text from TheAnarchistLibrary.org
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
The newly elected Captain of Police and his guests the cavalryman and other nobles had long been listening to the gypsies and drinking in the new restaurant when the count, wearing a blue cloth cloak lined with bearskin which had belonged to Anna Fedorovna’s late husband, joined them.
“Sure, your excellency, we have been awaiting you impatiently!” said a dark cross-eyed gypsy, showing his white teeth, as he met the count at the very entrance and rushed to help him off with his cloak. “We have not seen you since the fair at Lebedyani ... Steshka is quite pining away for you.”
Steshka, a young, graceful little gypsy with a brick-red glow on her brown face and deep, sparkling black eyes shaded by long lashes, also ran out to meet him.
“Ah, little Count! Dearest! Jewel! This is a joy!” she murmured between her teeth, smiling merrily.
Ilyushka himself ran out to greet him, pretending to be very glad to see him. The old women, matrons, and maids jumped from their places and surrounded the guest, some claiming him as a fellow godfather, some as brother by baptism.
Turbin kissed all the young gypsy girls on their lips; the old women and the men kissed him on his shoulder or hand. The noblemen were also glad of their visitor’s arrival, especially as the carousal, having reached its zenith, was beginning to flag, and everyone was beginning to feel satiated. The wine having lost its stimulating effect on the nerves merely weighed on the stomach. Each one had already let off his store of swagger, and they were getting tired of one another; the songs had all been sung and had got mixed in everyone’s head, leaving a noisy, dissolute impression behind. No matter what strange or dashing thing anyone did, it began to occur to everyone that there was nothing agreeable or funny in it. The Captain of Police who lay in a shocking state on the floor at the feet of an old woman, began wriggling his legs and shouting: “Champagne ... The Count’s come! ... Champagne! ... He’s come ... now then, champagne! ... I’ll have a champagne bath and bathe in it! Noble gentlemen! ... I love the society of our brave old nobility ... Steshka, sing ‘The Pathway’.”
The cavalryman was also rather tipsy, but in another way. He sat on a sofa in the corner very close to a tall handsome gypsy girl, Lyubasha; and feeling this eyes misty with drink he kept blinking and shaking his head and, repeating the same words over and over again in a whisper, besought the gypsy to fly with him somewhere. Lyubasha, smiling and listening as if what he said were very amusing and yet rather sad, glanced occasionally at her husband — the cross-eyed Sashka who was standing behind the chair opposite her — and in reply to the cavalryman’s declarations of love, stooped and whispering his he ear asked him to buy her some scent and ribbons on the quiet so that the others should not notice.
“Hurrah!” cried the cavalryman when the count entered.
The handsome young man was pacing up and down the room with laboriously steady steps and a careworn expression on his face, warbling an air from Il Seraglio.
An elderly paterfamilias, who had been tempted by the persistent entreaties of the nobles to come and hear the gypsies, as they said that without him the thing would be worthless and it would be better not to go at all, was lying on a sofa where he had sunk as soon as he arrived, and no one was taking any notice of him. Some official or other who was also there had taken off his swallow-tail coat and was sitting up on the table, feet and all, ruffling his hair, and thereby showing that he was very much on the spree. As soon as the count entered, this official unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and got still farther onto the table. In general, on Turbin’s arrival the carousal revived.
The gypsy girls, who had been wandering about the room, again gathered and sat down in a circle. The count took Steshka, the leading singer, on his knee, and ordered more champagne.
Ilyushka came and stood in front of Steshka with his guitar, and the “dance” commenced — that is, the gypsy songs, “When you go along the Street,” “O Hussars!,” “Do you hear, do you know?,” and so on in a definite order. Steshka sang admirably. The flexible sonorous contralto that flowed from her very chest, her smiles while singing, her laughing passionate eyes, and her foot that moved involuntarily in measure with the song, her wild shriek at the commencement of the chorus — all touched some powerful but rarely-reached chord. It was evident that she lived only in the song she was singing. Ilyushka accompanied her on the guitar — his back, legs, smile, and whole being expressing sympathy with the song — and eagerly watching her, raised and lowered his head as attentive and engrossed as though he heard the song for the first time. Then the last melodious note he suddenly drew himself up and, as if feeling himself superior to everyone in the world, proudly and resolutely threw up his guitar with his foot, twirled it about, stamped, tossed back his hair, and looked round at the choir with a frown. His whole body from neck to heels began dancing in every muscle — and twenty energetic, powerful voices each trying to chime in more strongly and more strangely than the rest, rang through the air. The old women bobbed up and down on their chairs waving their handkerchiefs, showing their teeth, can vying with one another in their harmonious and measured shouts. The basses with strained necks and heads bent to one side boomed while standing behind the chairs.
When Steska took a high note Ilyushka brought his guitar closer to her as if wishing to help her, and the handsome young man screamed with rapture, saying that now they were beginning the bemols.
When a dance was struck up and Dunyasha, advancing with quivering shoulders and bosom, twirled round in front of the count and glided onwards, Turbin leaped up, threw off his jacket, and in his red shirt stepped jauntily with her in precise and measured step, accomplishing such things with his legs that the gypsies smiled with approval and glanced at one another.
The Captain of Police sat down like a Turk, beat his breast with his fist and cried “Vivat!” and then, having caught hold of the count’s leg, began to tell him that of two thousand rubles he now had only five hundred left, but that he could do anything he liked if only the count would allow it. The elderly paterfamilias awoke and wished to go away but was not allowed to do so. The handsome young man began persuading a gypsy to waltz with him. The cavalryman, wishing to show off his intimacy with the count, rose and embraced Turbin. “Ah, my dear fellow,” he said, “why didst thou leave us, eh?” The count was silent, evidently thinking of something else. “Where did you go to? Ah, you rogue of a count, I know where you went to!”
For some reason this familiarity displeased Turbin. Without a smile he looked silently into the cavalryman’s face and suddenly launched at him such a terrible and rude abuse that the cavalryman was pained and for a while could not make up his mind whether to take the offense as a joke or seriously. At last he decided to take it as a joke, smiled, and went back to his gypsy, assuring her that he would certainly marry her after Easter. They sang another song and another, danced again, and “hailed the guests,” and everyone continued to imagine that he was enjoying it. There was no end to the champagne. The count drank a great deal. His eyes seemed to grow moist, but he was not unsteady. He danced even better than before, spoke firmly, even joined in the chorus extremely well, and chimed in when Steshka sang “Friendship’s Tender Emotions.” In the midst of a dance the landlord came in to ask the guests to return to their homes as it was getting on for three in the morning.
The count seized the landlord by the scruff of his neck and ordered him to dance the Russian dance. The landlord refused. The count snatched up a bottle of champagne and having stood the landlord on his head and had him held in that position, amid general laughter, slowly emptied the bottle over him.
It was beginning to dawn. Everyone looked pale and exhausted except the count.
“Well, I must be starting for Moscow,” said he, suddenly rising. “Come along, all of you! Come and see me off ... and we’ll have some tea together.”
All agreed except the paterfamilias (who was left behind asleep), and crowding into the three large sledges that stood at the door, they all drove off to the hote.