Short Stories
inconceivably ashamed. He succeeded in effacing himself completely, and
remained very melancholy all the rest of the evening.
But to make up for that the young man on the staff of the _Firebrand_ came
up nearer, and seemed to be intending to sit down somewhere close by. Such
free and easy manners struck Ivan Ilyitch as rather shocking.
"Tell me, please, Porfiry," he began, in order to say something, "why--I
have always wanted to ask you about it in person--why you are called
Pseldonimov instead of Pseudonimov? Your name surely must be Pseudonimov."
"I cannot inform you exactly, your Excellency," said Pseldonimov.
"It must have been that when his father went into the service they made a
mistake in his papers, so that he has remained now Pseldonimov," put in
Akim Petrovitch. "That does happen."
"Un-doubted-ly," the general said with warmth, "un-doubted-ly; for only
think, Pseudonimov comes from the literary word pseudonym, while
Pseldonimov means nothing."
"Due to foolishness," added Akim Petrovitch.
"You mean what is due to foolishness?"
"The Russian common people in their foolishness often alter letters, and
sometimes pronounce them in their own way. For instance, they say nevalid
instead of invalid."
"Oh, yes, nevalid, he-he-he...."
"Mumber, too, they say, your Excellency," boomed out the tall officer, who
had long been itching to distinguish himself in some way.
"What do you mean by mumber?"
"Mumber instead of number, your Excellency."
"Oh, yes, mumber ... instead of number.... To be sure, to be sure....
He-he-he!" Ivan Ilyitch had to do a chuckle for the benefit of the officer
too.
The officer straightened his tie.
"Another thing they say is nigh by," the young man on the comic paper put
in. But his Excellency tried not to hear this. His chuckles were not at
everybody's disposal.
"Nigh by, instead of near," the young man on the comic paper persisted, in
evident irritation.
Ivan Ilyitch looked at him sternly.
"Come, why persist?" Pseldonimov whispered to him.
"Why, I was talking. Mayn't one speak?" the latter protested in a whisper;
but he said no more and with secret fury walked out of the room.
He made his way straight to the attractive little back room where, for the
benefit of the dancing gentlemen, vodka of two sorts, salt fish, caviare
into slices and a bottle of very strong sherry of Russian make had been set
early in the evening on a little table, covered with a Yaroslav cloth. With
anger in his heart he was pouring himself out a glass of vodka, when
suddenly the medical student with the dishevelled locks, the foremost
dancer and cutter of capers at Pseldonimov's ball, rushed in. He fell on
the decanter with greedy haste.
"They are just going to begin!" he said rapidly, helping himself. "Come and
look, I am going to dance a solo on my head; after supper I shall risk the
fish dance. It is just the thing for the wedding. So to speak, a friendly
hint to Pseldonimov. She's a jolly creature that Kleopatra Semyonovna, you
can venture on anything you like with her."
"He's a reactionary," said the young man on the comic paper gloomily, as he
tossed off his vodka.
"Who is a reactionary?"
"Why, the personage before whom they set those sweet-meats. He's a
reactionary, I tell you."
"What nonsense!" muttered the student, and he rushed out of the room,
hearing the opening bars of the quadrille.
Left alone, the young man on the comic paper poured himself out another
glass to give himself more assurance and independence; he drank and ate a
snack of something, and never had the actual civil councillor Ivan Ilyitch
made for himself a bitterer foe more implacably bent on revenge than was
the young man on the staff of the _Firebrand_ whom he had so slighted,
especially after the latter had drunk two glasses of vodka. Alas! Ivan
Ilyitch suspected nothing of the sort. He did not suspect another
circumstance of prime importance either, which had an influence on the
mutual relations of the guests and his Excellency. The fact was that though
he had given a proper and even detailed explanation of his presence at his
clerk's wedding, this explanation did not really satisfy any one, and the
visitors were still embarrassed. But suddenly everything was transformed as
though by magic, all were reassured and ready to enjoy themselves, to
laugh, to shriek; to dance, exactly as though the unexpected visitor were
not in the room. The cause of it was a rumour, a whisper, a report which
spread in some unknown way that the visitor was not quite ... it
seemed--was, in fact, "a little top-heavy." And though this seemed at first
a horrible calumny, it began by degrees to appear to be justified; suddenly
everything became clear. What was more, they felt all at once
extraordinarily free. And it was just at this moment that the quadrille for
which the medical student was in such haste, the last before supper, began.
And just as Ivan Ilyitch meant to address the bride again, intending to
provoke her with some innuendo, the tall officer suddenly dashed up to her
and with a flourish dropped on one knee before her. She immediately jumped
up from the sofa, and whisked off with him to take her place in the
quadrille. The officer did not even apologise, and she did not even glance
at the general as she went away; she seemed, in fact, relieved to escape.
"After all she has a right to be,' thought Ivan Ilyitch, 'and of course
they don't know how to behave.' "Hm! Don't you stand on ceremony, friend
Porfiry," he said, addressing Pseldonimov. "Perhaps you have ...
arrangements to make ... or something ... please don't put yourself out."
'Why does he keep guard over me?'" he thought to himself.
Pseldonimov, with his long neck and his eyes fixed intently upon him,
began to be insufferable. In fact, all this was not the thing, not the
thing at all, but Ivan Ilyitch was still far from admitting this.
* * * * *
The quadrille began.
"Will you allow me, your Excellency?" asked Akim Petrovitch, holding the
bottle respectfully in his hands and preparing to pour from it into his
Excellency's glass.
"I ... I really don't know, whether...."
But Akim Petrovitch, with reverent and radiant face, was already filling
the glass. After filling the glass, he proceeded, writhing and wriggling,
as it were stealthily, as it were furtively, to pour himself out some, with
this difference, that he did not fill his own glass to within a finger
length of the top, and this seemed somehow more respectful. He was like a
woman in travail as he sat beside his chief. What could he talk about,
indeed? Yet to entertain his Excellency was an absolute duty since he had
the honour of keeping him company. The champagne served as a resource, and
his Excellency, too, was pleased that he had filled his glass--not for the
sake of the champagne, for it was warm and perfectly abominable, but just
morally pleased.
"The old chap would like to have a drink himself," thought Ivan Ilyitch,
"but he doesn't venture till I do. I mustn't prevent him. And indeed it
would be absurd for the bottle to stand between as untouched."
He took a sip, anyway it seemed better than sitting doing nothing.
"I am here," he said, with pauses and emphasis, "I am here, you know, so to
speak, accidentally, and, of course, it may be ... that some people would
consider ... it unseemly for me to be at such ... a gathering."
Akim Petrovitch said nothing, but listened with timid curiosity.
"But I hope you will understand, with what object I have come.... I
haven't really come simply to drink wine ... he-he!"
Akim Petrovitch tried to chuckle, following the example of his Excellency,
but again he could not get it out, and again he made absolutely no
consolatory answer.
"I am here ... in order, so to speak, to encourage ... to show, so to
speak, a moral aim," Ivan Ilyitch continued, feeling vexed at Akim
Petrovitch's stupidity, but he suddenly subsided into silence himself. He
saw that poor Akim Petrovitch had dropped his eyes as though he were in
fault. The general in some confusion made haste to take another sip from
his glass, and Akim Petrovitch clutched at the bottle as though it were his
only hope of salvation and filled the glass again.
"You haven't many resources," thought Ivan Ilyitch, looking sternly at poor
Akim Petrovitch. The latter, feeling that stern general-like eye upon him,
made up his mind to remain silent for good and not to raise his eyes. So
they sat beside each other for a couple of minutes--two sickly minutes for
Akim Petrovitch.
A couple of words about Akim Petrovitch. He was a man of the old school, as
meek as a hen, reared from infancy to obsequious servility, and at the same
time a good-natured and even honourable man. He was a Petersburg Russian;
that is, his father and his father's father were born, grew up and served
in Petersburg and had never once left Petersburg. That is quite a special
type of Russian. They have hardly any idea of Russia, though that does not
trouble them at all. Their whole interest is confined to Petersburg and
chiefly the place in which they serve. All their thoughts are concentrated
on preference for farthing points, on the shop, and their month's salary.
They don't know a single Russian custom, a single Russian song except
"Lutchinushka," and that only because it is played on the barrel organs.
However, there are two fundamental and invariable signs by which you can
at once distinguish a Petersburg Russian from a real Russian. The first
sign is the fact that Petersburg Russians, all without exception, speak of
the newspaper as the _Academic News_ and never call it the _Petersburg
News_. The second and equally trustworthy sign is that Petersburg Russians
never make use of the word "breakfast," but always call it "Frühstück" with
especial emphasis on the first syllable. By these radical and
distinguishing signs you can tell them apart; in short, this is a humble
type which has been formed during the last thirty-five years. Akim
Petrovitch, however, was by no means a fool. If the general had asked him a
question about anything in his own province he would have answered and kept
up a conversation; as it was, it was unseemly for a subordinate even to
answer such questions as these, though Akim Petrovitch was dying from
curiosity to know something more detailed about his Excellency's real
intentions.
And meanwhile Ivan Ilyitch sank more and more into meditation and a sort of
whirl of ideas; in his absorption he sipped his glass every half-minute.
Akim Petrovitch at once zealously filled it up. Both were silent. Ivan
Ilyitch began looking at the dances, and immediately something attracted
his attention. One circumstance even surprised him....
The dances were certainly lively. Here people danced in the simplicity of
their hearts to amuse themselves and even to romp wildly. Among the dancers
few were really skilful, but the unskilled stamped so vigorously that they
might have been taken for agile ones. The officer was among the foremost;
he particularly liked the figures in which he was left alone, to perform a
solo. Then he performed the most marvellous capers. For instance, standing
upright as a post, he would suddenly bend over to one side, so that one
expected him to fall over; but with the next step he would suddenly bend
over in the opposite direction at the same acute angle to the floor. He
kept the most serious face and danced in the full conviction that every
one was watching him. Another gentleman, who had had rather more than he
could carry before the quadrille, dropped asleep beside his partner so that
his partner had to dance alone. The young registration clerk, who had