Chapter IV

The name of the young man whom we have just introduced to the reader was Vladimir Nikolaitch Panshin.  He served in Petersburg on special commissions in the department of internal affairs.  He had come to the town of O——­ to carry out some temporary government commissions, and was in attendance on the Governor-General Zonnenberg, to whom he happened to be distantly related.  Panshin’s father, a retired cavalry officer and a notorious gambler, was a man with insinuating eyes, a battered countenance, and a nervous twitch about the mouth.  He spent his whole life hanging about the aristocratic world; frequented the English clubs of both capitals, and had the reputation of a smart, not very trustworthy, but jolly good-natured fellow.  In spite of his smartness, he was almost always on the brink of ruin, and the property he left his son was small and heavily-encumbered.  To make up for that, however, he did exert himself, after his own fashion, over his son’s education.  Vladimir Nikolaitch spoke French very well, English well, and German badly; that is the proper thing; fashionable people would be ashamed to speak German well; but to utter an occasional—­generally a humorous—­phrase in German is quite correct, c’est meme tres chic, as the Parisians of Petersburg express themselves.  By the time he was fifteen, Vladimir knew how to enter any drawing-room without embarrassment, how to move about in it gracefully and to leave it at the appropriate moment.  Panshin’s father gained many connections for his son.  He never lost an opportunity, while shuffling the cards between two rubbers, or playing a successful trump, of dropping a hint about his Volodka to any personage of importance who was a devotee of cards.  And Vladimir, too, during his residence at the university, which he left without a very brilliant degree, formed an acquaintance with several young men of quality, and gained an entry into the best houses.  He was received cordially everywhere:  he was very good-looking, easy in his manners, amusing, always in good health, and ready for everything; respectful, when he ought to be; insolent, when he dared to be; excellent company, un charmant garcon.  The promised land lay before him.  Panshin quickly learnt the secret of getting on in the world; he knew how to yield with genuine respect to its decrees; he knew how to take up trifles with half ironical seriousness, and to appear to regard everything serious as trifling; he was a capital dancer; and dressed in the English style.  In a short time he gained the reputation of being one of the smartest and most attractive young men in Petersburg.