The party had long ago broken up. The clock struck
half-past twelve. There was left in the room
only the master of the house and Sergei Nikolaevitch
and Vladimir Petrovitch.
The master of the house rang and ordered the remains
of the supper to be cleared away. ‘And
so it’s settled,’ he observed, sitting
back farther in his easy-chair and lighting a cigar;
’each of us is to tell the story of his first
love. It’s your turn, Sergei Nikolaevitch.’
Sergei Nikolaevitch, a round little man with a plump,
light-complexioned face, gazed first at the master
of the house, then raised his eyes to the ceiling.
‘I had no first love,’ he said at last;
‘I began with the second.’
‘How was that?’
’It’s very simple. I was eighteen
when I had my first flirtation with a charming young
lady, but I courted her just as though it were nothing
new to me; just as I courted others later on.
To speak accurately, the first and last time I was
in love was with my nurse when I was six years old;
but that’s in the remote past. The details
of our relations have slipped out of my memory, and
even if I remembered them, whom could they interest?’
‘Then how’s it to be?’ began the
master of the house. ’There was nothing
much of interest about my first love either; I never
fell in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna,
now my wife,—and everything went as smoothly
as possible with us; our parents arranged the match,
we were very soon in love with each other, and got
married without loss of time. My story can be
told in a couple of words. I must confess, gentlemen,
in bringing up the subject of first love, I reckoned
upon you, I won’t say old, but no longer young,
bachelors. Can’t you enliven us with something,
Vladimir Petrovitch?’
‘My first love, certainly, was not quite an
ordinary one,’ responded, with some reluctance,
Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black hair
turning grey.
‘Ah!’ said the master of the house and
Sergei Nikolaevitch with one voice: ‘So
much the better.... Tell us about it.’
’If you wish it ... or no; I won’t tell
the story; I’m no hand at telling a story; I
make it dry and brief, or spun out and affected.
If you’ll allow me, I’ll write out all
I remember and read it you.’
His friends at first would not agree, but Vladimir
Petrovitch insisted on his own way. A fortnight
later they were together again, and Vladimir Petrovitch
kept his word.
His manuscript contained the following story:—
I was sixteen then. It happened in the summer
of 1833.
I lived in Moscow with my parents. They had taken
a country house for the summer near the Kalouga gate,
facing the Neskutchny gardens. I was preparing
for the university, but did not work much and was in
no hurry.
