Short Stories
finances stated that the reason our financial position was so
unsatisfactory was that we had no middle-class, no big fortunes, no
accommodating proletariat.' Ignaty Prokofyitch speaks well. He is an
orator. He wants to lay a report on the subject before the authorities, and
then to get it published in the _News_. That's something very different
from verses like Ivan Matveitch's...."
"But how about Ivan Matveitch?" I put in, after letting the old man babble
on.
Timofey Semyonitch was sometimes fond of talking and showing that he was
not behind the times, but knew all about things.
"How about Ivan Matveitch? Why, I am coming to that. Here we are, anxious
to bring foreign capital into the country--and only consider: as soon as
the capital of a foreigner, who has been attracted to Petersburg, has been
doubled through Ivan Matveitch, instead of protecting the foreign
capitalist, we are proposing to rip open the belly of his original
capital--the crocodile. Is it consistent? To my mind, Ivan Matveitch, as
the true son of his fatherland, ought to rejoice and to be proud that
through him the value of a foreign crocodile has been doubled and possibly
even trebled. That's just what is wanted to attract capital. If one man
succeeds, mind you, another will come with a crocodile, and a third will
bring two or three of them at once, and capital will grow up about
them--there you have a bourgeoisie. It must be encouraged."
"Upon my word, Timofey Semyonitch!" I cried, "you are demanding almost
supernatural self-sacrifice from poor Ivan Matveitch."
"I demand nothing, and I beg you, before everything--as I have said
already--to remember that I am not a person in authority and so cannot
demand anything of any one. I am speaking as a son of the fatherland, that
is, not as the _Son of the Fatherland_, but as a son of the fatherland.
Again, what possessed him to get into the crocodile? A respectable man, a
man of good grade in the service, lawfully married--and then to behave like
that! Is it consistent?"
"But it was an accident."
"Who knows? And where is the money to compensate the owner to come from?"
"Perhaps out of his salary, Timofey Semyonitch?"
"Would that be enough?"
"No, it wouldn't, Timofey Semyonitch," I answered sadly. "The proprietor
was at first alarmed that the crocodile would burst, but as soon as he was
sure that it was all right, he began to bluster and was delighted to think
that he could double the charge for entry."
"Treble and quadruple perhaps! The public will simply stampede the place
now, and crocodile owners are smart people. Besides, it's not Lent yet, and
people are keen on diversions, and so I say again, the great thing is that
Ivan Matveitch should preserve his incognito, don't let him be in a hurry.
Let everybody know, perhaps, that he is in the crocodile, but don't let
them be officially informed of it. Ivan Matveitch is in particularly
favourable circumstances for that, for he is reckoned to be abroad. It
will be said he is in the crocodile, and we will refuse to believe it. That
is how it can be managed. The great thing is that he should wait; and why
should he be in a hurry?"
"Well, but if ..."
"Don't worry, he has a good constitution...."
"Well, and afterwards, when he has waited?"
"Well, I won't conceal from you that the case is exceptional in the highest
degree. One doesn't know what to think of it, and the worst of it is there
is no precedent. If we had a precedent we might have something to go by.
But as it is, what is one to say? It will certainly take time to settle
it."
A happy thought flashed upon my mind.
"Cannot we arrange," I said, "that if he is destined to remain in the
entrails of the monster and it is the will of Providence that he should
remain alive, that he should send in a petition to be reckoned as still
serving?"
"Hm!... Possibly as on leave and without salary...."
"But couldn't it be with salary?"
"On what grounds?"
"As sent on a special commission."
"What commission and where?"
"Why, into the entrails, the entrails of the crocodile.... So to speak, for
exploration, for investigation of the facts on the spot. It would, of
course, be a novelty, but that is progressive and would at the same time
show zeal for enlightenment."
Timofey Semyonitch thought a little.
"To send a special official," he said at last, "to the inside of a
crocodile to conduct a special inquiry is, in my personal opinion, an
absurdity. It is not in the regulations. And what sort of special inquiry
could there be there?"
"The scientific study of nature on the spot, in the living subject. The
natural sciences are all the fashion nowadays, botany.... He could live
there and report his observations.... For instance, concerning digestion or
simply habits. For the sake of accumulating facts."
"You mean as statistics. Well, I am no great authority on that subject,
indeed I am no philosopher at all. You say 'facts'--we are overwhelmed with
facts as it is, and don't know what to do with them. Besides, statistics
are a danger."
"In what way?"
"They are a danger. Moreover, you will admit he will report facts, so to
speak, lying like a log. And, can one do one's official duties lying like a
log? That would be another novelty and a dangerous one; and again, there is
no precedent for it. If we had any sort of precedent for it, then, to my
thinking, he might have been given the job."
"But no live crocodiles have been brought over hitherto, Timofey
Semyonitch."
"Hm ... yes," he reflected again. "Your objection is a just one, if you
like, and might indeed serve as a ground for carrying the matter further;
but consider again, that if with the arrival of living crocodiles
government clerks begin to disappear, and then on the ground that they are
warm and comfortable there, expect to receive the official sanction for
their position, and then take their ease there ... you must admit it would
be a bad example. We should have every one trying to go the same way to get
a salary for nothing."
"Do your best for him, Timofey Semyonitch. By the way, Ivan Matveitch asked
me to give you seven roubles he had lost to you at cards."
"Ah, he lost that the other day at Nikifor Nikiforitch's. I remember. And
how gay and amusing he was--and now!"
The old man was genuinely touched.
"Intercede for him, Timofey Semyonitch!"
"I will do my best. I will speak in my own name, as a private person, as
though I were asking for information. And meanwhile, you find out
indirectly, unofficially, how much would the proprietor consent to take
for his crocodile?"
Timofey Semyonitch was visibly more friendly.
"Certainly," I answered. "And I will come back to you at once to report."
"And his wife ... is she alone now? Is she depressed?"
"You should call on her, Timofey Semyonitch."
"I will. I thought of doing so before; it's a good opportunity.... And what
on earth possessed him to go and look at the crocodile? Though, indeed, I
should like to see it myself."
"Go and see the poor fellow, Timofey Semyonitch."
"I will. Of course, I don't want to raise his hopes by doing so. I shall go
as a private person.... Well, good-bye, I am going to Nikifor Nikiforitch's
again: shall you be there?"
"No, I am going to see the poor prisoner."
"Yes, now he is a prisoner!... Ah, that's what comes of thoughtlessness!"
I said good-bye to the old man. Ideas of all kinds were straying through my
mind. A good-natured and most honest man, Timofey Semyonitch, yet, as I
left him, I felt pleased at the thought that he had celebrated his fiftieth
year of service, and that Timofey Semyonitchs are now a rarity among us. I
flew at once, of course, to the Arcade to tell poor Ivan Matveitch all the
news. And, indeed, I was moved by curiosity to know how he was getting on
in the crocodile and how it was possible to live in a crocodile. And,
indeed, was it possible to live in a crocodile at all? At times it really
seemed to me as though it were all an outlandish, monstrous dream,
especially as an outlandish monster was the chief figure in it.
III
And yet it was not a dream, but actual, indubitable fact. Should I be
telling the story if it were not? But to continue.
It was late, about nine o'clock, before I reached the Arcade, and I had to
go into the crocodile room by the back entrance, for the German had closed
the shop earlier than usual that evening. Now in the seclusion of
domesticity he was walking about in a greasy old frock-coat, but he seemed
three times as pleased as he had been in the morning. It was evidently that
he had no apprehensions now, and that the public had been coming "many
more." The _Mutter_ came out later, evidently to keep an eye on me. The
German and the _Mutter_ frequently whispered together. Although the shop
was closed he charged me a quarter-rouble! What unnecessary exactitude!
"You will every time pay; the public will one rouble, and you one quarter
pay; for you are the good friend of your good friend; and I a friend
respect...."
"Are you alive, are you alive, my cultured friend?" I cried, as I
approached the crocodile, expecting my words to reach Ivan Matveitch from a
distance and to flatter his vanity.
"Alive and well," he answered, as though from a long way off or from under
the bed, though I was standing close beside him. "Alive and well; but of
that later.... How are things going?"
As though purposely not hearing the question, I was just beginning with
sympathetic haste to question him how he was, what it was like in the
crocodile, and what, in fact, there was inside a crocodile. Both friendship
and common civility demanded this. But with capricious annoyance he
interrupted me.
"How are things going?" he shouted, in a shrill and on this occasion
particularly revolting voice, addressing me peremptorily as usual.
I described to him my whole conversation with Timofey Semyonitch down to
the smallest detail. As I told my story I tried to show my resentment in my
voice.
"The old man is right," Ivan Matveitch pronounced as abruptly as usual in
his conversation with me. "I like practical people, and can't endure
sentimental milk-sops. I am ready to admit, however, that your idea about a
special commission is not altogether absurd. I certainly have a great deal
to report, both from a scientific and from an ethical point of view. But
now all this has taken a new and unexpected aspect, and it is not worth
while to trouble about mere salary. Listen attentively. Are you sitting
down?"
"No, I am standing up."
"Sit down on the floor if there is nothing else, and listen attentively."
Resentfully I took a chair and put it down on the floor with a bang, in my
anger.
"Listen," he began dictatorially. "The public came to-day in masses. There
was no room left in the evening, and the police came in to keep order. At
eight o'clock, that is, earlier than usual, the proprietor thought it
necessary to close the shop and end the exhibition to count the money he
had taken and prepare for to-morrow more conveniently. So I know there will
be a regular fair to-morrow. So we may assume that all the most cultivated
people in the capital, the ladies of the best society, the foreign
ambassadors, the leading lawyers and so on, will all be present. What's
more, people will be flowing here from the remotest provinces of our vast
and interesting empire. The upshot of it is that I am the cynosure of all
eyes, and though hidden to sight, I am eminent. I shall teach the idle
crowd. Taught by experience, I shall be an example of greatness and
resignation to fate! I shall be, so to say, a pulpit from which to instruct
mankind. The mere biological details I can furnish about the monster I am