me, but at the same time he was a good-natured fellow, even
in his swaggering. In spite of superficial, fantastic and sham notions
of honour and dignity, all but very few of us positively grovelled
before Zverkov, and the more so the more he swaggered. And it was not
from any interested motive that they grovelled, but simply because he
had been favoured by the gifts of nature. Moreover, it was, as it
were, an accepted idea among us that Zverkov was a specialist in regard
to tact and the social graces. This last fact particularly infuriated
me. I hated the abrupt self-confident tone of his voice, his
admiration of his own witticisms, which were often frightfully stupid,
though he was bold in his language; I hated his handsome, but stupid
face (for which I would, however, have gladly exchanged my intelligent
one), and the free-and-easy military manners in fashion in the
"'forties." I hated the way in which he used to talk of his future
conquests of women (he did not venture to begin his attack upon women
until he had the epaulettes of an officer, and was looking forward to
them with impatience), and boasted of the duels he would constantly be
fighting. I remember how I, invariably so taciturn, suddenly fastened
upon Zverkov, when one day talking at a leisure moment with his
schoolfellows of his future relations with the fair sex, and growing as
sportive as a puppy in the sun, he all at once declared that he would
not leave a single village girl on his estate unnoticed, that that was
his DROIT DE SEIGNEUR, and that if the peasants dared to protest he
would have them all flogged and double the tax on them, the bearded
rascals. Our servile rabble applauded, but I attacked him, not from
compassion for the girls and their fathers, but simply because they
were applauding such an insect. I got the better of him on that
occasion, but though Zverkov was stupid he was lively and impudent, and
so laughed it off, and in such a way that my victory was not really
complete; the laugh was on his side. He got the better of me on
several occasions afterwards, but without malice, jestingly, casually.
I remained angrily and contemptuously silent and would not answer him.
When we left school he made advances to me; I did not rebuff them, for
I was flattered, but we soon parted and quite naturally. Afterwards I
heard of his barrack-room success as a lieutenant, and of the fast life
he was leading. Then there came other rumours--of his