The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII | Page 4

that you cannot hear me when I ring for you?" said the
Countess. "Tell Lizaveta Ivanovna that I am waiting for her."
Lizaveta returned with her hat and cloak on.
"At last you are here!" said the Countess. "But why such an elaborate
toilette? Whom do you intend to captivate? What sort of weather is it?
It seems rather windy."
"No, your Ladyship, it is very calm," replied the valet.
"You never think of what you are talking about. Open the window. So
it is; windy and bitterly cold. Unharness the horses, Lizaveta, we won't
go out--there was no need to deck yourself like that."
"What a life is mine!" thought Lizaveta Ivanovna.
And, in truth, Lizaveta Ivanovna was a very unfortunate creature. "The
bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to
climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well
as the poor companion of an old lady of quality? The Countess A----
had by no means a bad heart, but she was capricious, like a woman who
had been spoiled by the world, as well as being avaricious and
egotistical, like all old people, who have seen their best days, and
whose thoughts are with the past, and not the present. She participated
in all the vanities of the great world, went to balls, where she sat in a
corner, painted and dressed in old-fashioned style, like a deformed but
indispensable ornament of the ballroom; all the guests on entering
approached her and made a profound bow, as if in accordance with a
set ceremony, but after that nobody took any further notice of her. She
received the whole town at her house, and observed the strictest

etiquette, although she could no longer recognize the faces of people.
Her numerous domestics, growing fat and old in her antechamber and
servants' hall, did just as they liked, and vied with each other in robbing
the aged Countess in the most bare-faced manner. Lizaveta Ivanovna
was the martyr of the household. She made tea, and was reproached
with using too much sugar; she read novels aloud to the Countess, and
the faults of the author were visited upon her head; she accompanied
the Countess in her walks, and was held answerable for the weather or
the state of the pavement. A salary was attached to the post, but she
very rarely received it, although she was expected to dress like
everybody else, that is to say, like very few indeed. In society she
played the most pitiable role. Everybody knew her, and nobody paid
her any attention. At balls she danced only when a partner was wanted,
and ladies would only take hold of her arm when it was necessary to
lead her out of the room to attend to their dresses. She was very
self-conscious, and felt her position keenly, and she looked about her
with impatience for a deliverer to come to her rescue; but the young
men, calculating in their giddiness, honored her with but very little
attention, although Lizaveta Ivanovna was a hundred times prettier than
the bare-faced, cold-hearted marriageable girls around whom they
hovered. Many a time did she quietly slink away from the glittering,
but wearisome, drawing-room, to go and cry in her own poor little
room, in which stood a screen, a chest of drawers, a looking-glass, and
a painted bedstead, and where a tallow candle burnt feebly in a copper
candle-stick.
One morning--this was about two days after the evening party
described at the beginning of this story, and a week previous to the
scene at which we have just assisted--Lizaveta Ivanovna was seated
near the window at her embroidery frame, when, happening to look out
into the street, she caught sight of a young Engineer officer, standing
motionless with his eyes fixed upon her window. She lowered her head,
and went on again with her work. About five minutes afterwards she
looked out again--the young officer was still standing in the same place.
Not being in the habit of coquetting with passing officers, she did not
continue to gaze out into the street, but went on sewing for a couple of
hours, without raising her head. Dinner was announced. She rose up

and began to put her embroidery away, but glancing casually out of the
window, she perceived the officer again. This seemed to her very
strange. After dinner she went to the window with a certain feeling of
uneasiness, but the officer was no longer there--and she thought no
more about him.
A couple of days afterwards, just as she was stepping into the carriage
with the Countess, she saw him again. He was standing close behind
the door, with his face half-concealed by his fur collar, but his dark
eyes sparkled beneath