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 successes in the service.
By then he had taken to cutting me in the street, and I suspected
that he was afraid of compromising himself by greeting a personage as
insignificant as me. I saw him once in the theatre, in the third tier of
boxes. By then he was wearing shoulder-straps. He was twisting and
twirling about, ingratiating himself with the daughters of an ancient
General. In three years he had gone off considerably, though he was still
rather handsome and adroit. One could see that by the time he was thirty
he would be corpulent. So it was to this Zverkov that my schoolfellows
were going to give a dinner on his departure. They had kept up with him
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