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Updated: May 9, 2025
This is the position in which the dramatis personae were disposed: Princess Ligovski and the Moscow dandy were sitting on a bench in the covered gallery apparently engaged in serious conversation. Princess Mary, who had doubtless by this time finished her last tumbler, was walking pensively to and fro by the well. Grushnitski was standing by the well itself; there was nobody else on the square.
Surely I have not fallen in love with her in real earnest?... What nonsense! AT eleven o'clock in the morning the hour at which Princess Ligovski is usually perspiring in the Ermolov baths I walked past her house. Princess Mary was sitting pensively at the window; on seeing me she sprang up.
She was saying to her cavalier, a captain of dragoons: "That young Princess Ligovski is a most intolerable creature! Just fancy, she jostled against me and did not apologise, but even turned round and stared at me through her lorgnette!... C'est impayable!... And what has she to be proud of? It is time somebody gave her a lesson"...
Now to business; what did Princess Ligovski tell you about me?" "You are quite sure that it was Princess Ligovski... and not Princess Mary?"... "Quite sure." "Why?" "Because Princess Mary inquired about Grushnitski." "You are gifted with a fine imagination! Princess Mary said that she was convinced that the young man in the soldier's cloak had been reduced to the ranks on account of a duel"...
I was sitting by the window when I heard the clattering of their carriage. My heart throbbed... What does it mean? Can it be that I am in love?... I am so stupidly constituted that such a thing might be expected of me. I dined at their house. Princess Ligovski looked at me with much tenderness, and did not leave her daughter's side... a bad sign!
Grushnitski has assumed an air of mystery; he walks with his arms folded behind his back and does not recognise anyone. His foot has got well all at once, and there is hardly a sign of a limp. He has found an opportunity of entering into conversation with Princess Ligovski and of paying Princess Mary some kind of a compliment.
This is what I have come to tell you: the authorities are suspicious, and, although it is impossible to prove anything positively, I should, all the same, advise you to be cautious. Princess Ligovski told me to-day that she knew that you fought a duel on her daughter's account. That little old man what's his name? has told her everything.
The only Moscow people here this year are Princess Ligovski and her daughter but I am not acquainted with them. My soldier's cloak is like a seal of renunciation. The sympathy which it arouses is as painful as charity." At that moment two ladies walked past us in the direction of the well; one elderly, the other youthful and slender.
She married him for the sake of her son. He is rich, and suffers from attacks of rheumatism. I did not allow myself even a single scoff at his expense. She respects him as a father, and will deceive him as a husband... A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular. Vera's husband, Semyon Vasilevich G v, is a distant relation of Princess Ligovski.
Princess Ligovski is apparently unaccustomed to giving orders. She cherishes respect for the intelligence and attainments of her daughter, who has read Byron in English and knows algebra: in Moscow, evidently, the ladies have entered upon the paths of erudition and a good thing, too! The men here are generally so unamiable, that, for a clever woman, it must be intolerable to flirt with them.
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