Short Stories
too humiliating for me. But there is one thing I am afraid of: in a
thousand years the cloth of my coat, unfortunately of Russian make, may
decay, and then, left without clothing, I might perhaps, in spite of my
indignation, begin to be digested; and though by day nothing would induce
me to allow it, at night, in my sleep, when a man's will deserts him, I may
be overtaken by the humiliating destiny of a potato, a pancake, or veal.
Such an idea reduces me to fury. This alone is an argument for the revision
of the tariff and the encouragement of the importation of English cloth,
which is stronger and so will withstand Nature longer when one is swallowed
by a crocodile. At the first opportunity I will impart this idea to some
statesman and at the same time to the political writers on our Petersburg
dailies. Let them publish it abroad. I trust this will not be the only idea
they will borrow from me. I foresee that every morning a regular crowd of
them, provided with quarter-roubles from the editorial office, will be
flocking round me to seize my ideas on the telegrams of the previous day.
In brief, the future presents itself to me in the rosiest light."
"Fever, fever!" I whispered to myself.
"My friend, and freedom?" I asked, wishing to learn his views thoroughly.
"You are, so to speak, in prison, while every man has a right to the
enjoyment of freedom."
"You are a fool," he answered. "Savages love independence, wise men love
order; and if there is no order...."
"Ivan Matveitch, spare me, please!"
"Hold your tongue and listen!" he squealed, vexed at my interrupting him.
"Never has my spirit soared as now. In my narrow refuge there is only one
thing that I dread--the literary criticisms of the monthlies and the hiss
of our satirical papers. I am afraid that thoughtless visitors, stupid and
envious people and nihilists in general, may turn me into ridicule. But I
will take measures. I am impatiently awaiting the response of the public
to-morrow, and especially the opinion of the newspapers. You must tell me
about the papers to-morrow."
"Very good; to-morrow I will bring a perfect pile of papers with me."
"To-morrow it is too soon to expect reports in the newspapers, for it will
take four days for it to be advertised. But from to-day come to me every
evening by the back way through the yard. I am intending to employ you as
my secretary. You shall read the newspapers and magazines to me, and I will
dictate to you my ideas and give you commissions. Be particularly careful
not to forget the foreign telegrams. Let all the European telegrams be here
every day. But enough; most likely you are sleepy by now. Go home, and do
not think of what I said just now about criticisms: I am not afraid of it,
for the critics themselves are in a critical position. One has only to be
wise and virtuous and one will certainly get on to a pedestal. If not
Socrates, then Diogenes, or perhaps both of them together--that is my
future rôle among mankind."
So frivolously and boastfully did Ivan Matveitch hasten to express himself
before me, like feverish weak-willed women who, as we are told by the
proverb, cannot keep a secret. All that he told me about the crocodile
struck me as most suspicious. How was it possible that the crocodile was
absolutely hollow? I don't mind betting that he was bragging from vanity
and partly to humiliate me. It is true that he was an invalid and one must
make allowances for invalids; but I must frankly confess, I never could
endure Ivan Matveitch. I have been trying all my life, from a child up, to
escape from his tutelage and have not been able to! A thousand times over I
have been tempted to break with him altogether, and every time I have been
drawn to him again, as though I were still hoping to prove something to him
or to revenge myself on him. A strange thing, this friendship! I can
positively assert that nine-tenths of my friendship for him was made up of
malice. On this occasion, however, we parted with genuine feeling.
"Your friend a very clever man!" the German said to me in an undertone as
he moved to see me out; he had been listening all the time attentively to
our conversation.
"_À propos_," I said, "while I think of it: how much would you ask for your
crocodile in case any one wanted to buy it?"
Ivan Matveitch, who heard the question, was waiting with curiosity for the
answer; it was evident that he did not want the German to ask too little;
anyway, he cleared his throat in a peculiar way on hearing my question.
At first the German would not listen--was positively angry.
"No one will dare my own crocodile to buy!" he cried furiously, and turned
as red as a boiled lobster. "Me not want to sell the crocodile! I would not
for the crocodile a million thalers take. I took a hundred and thirty
thalers from the public to-day, and I shall to-morrow ten thousand take,
and then a hundred thousand every day I shall take. I will not him sell."
Ivan Matveitch positively chuckled with satisfaction. Controlling
myself--for I felt it was a duty to my friend--I hinted coolly and
reasonably to the crazy German that his calculations were not quite
correct, that if he makes a hundred thousand every day, all Petersburg will
have visited him in four days, and then there will be no one left to bring
him roubles, that life and death are in God's hands, that the crocodile may
burst or Ivan Matveitch may fall ill and die, and so on and so on.
The German grew pensive.
"I will him drops from the chemist's get," he said, after pondering, "and
will save your friend that he die not."
"Drops are all very well," I answered, "but consider, too, that the thing
may get into the law courts. Ivan Matveitch's wife may demand the
restitution of her lawful spouse. You are intending to get rich, but do you
intend to give Elena Ivanovna a pension?"
"No, me not intend," said the German in stern decision.
"No, we not intend," said the _Mutter_, with positive malignancy.
"And so would it not be better for you to accept something now, at once, a
secure and solid though moderate sum, than to leave things to chance? I
ought to tell you that I am inquiring simply from curiosity."
The German drew the _Mutter_ aside to consult with her in a corner where
there stood a case with the largest and ugliest monkey of his collection.
"Well, you will see!" said Ivan Matveitch.
As for me, I was at that moment burning with the desire, first, to give the
German a thrashing, next, to give the _Mutter_ an even sounder one, and,
thirdly, to give Ivan Matveitch the soundest thrashing of all for his
boundless vanity. But all this paled beside the answer of the rapacious
German.
After consultation with the _Mutter_ he demanded for his crocodile fifty
thousand roubles in bonds of the last Russian loan with lottery voucher
attached, a brick house in Gorohovy Street with a chemist's shop attached,
and in addition the rank of Russian colonel.
"You see!" Ivan Matveitch cried triumphantly. "I told you so! Apart from
this last senseless desire for the rank of a colonel, he is perfectly
right, for he fully understands the present value of the monster he is
exhibiting. The economic principle before everything!"
"Upon my word!" I cried furiously to the German. "But what should you be
made a colonel for? What exploit have you performed? What service have you
done? In what way have you gained military glory? You are really crazy!"
"Crazy!" cried the German, offended. "No, a person very sensible, but you
very stupid! I have a colonel deserved for that I have a crocodile shown
and in him a live _hofrath_ sitting! And a Russian can a crocodile not show
and a live _hofrath_ in him sitting! Me extremely clever man and much wish
colonel to be!"
"Well, good-bye, then, Ivan Matveitch!" I cried, shaking with fury, and I
went out of the crocodile room almost at a run.
I felt that in another minute I could not have answered for myself. The
unnatural expectations of these two block-heads were insupportable. The
cold air refreshed me and somewhat moderated my indignation. At last, after
spitting vigorously fifteen times on each side, I took a cab, got home,
undressed and flung myself into bed. What vexed me more than anything was
my having become his secretary. Now I was to die of boredom there every
evening, doing the duty of a true friend! I was ready to beat myself for
it, and I did, in fact, after putting out the candle and pulling up the
bedclothes, punch myself several times on the head and various parts of my
body. That somewhat relieved me, and at last I fell asleep fairly soundly,
in fact, for I was very tired. All night long I could dream of nothing but
monkeys, but towards morning I dreamt of Elena Ivanovna.
IV
The monkeys I dreamed about, I surmise, because they were shut up in the
case at the German's; but Elena Ivanovna was a different story.
I may as well say at once, I loved the lady, but I make
haste--post-haste--to make a qualification. I loved her as a father,
neither more nor less. I judge that because I often felt an irresistible
desire to kiss her little head or her rosy cheek. And though I never
carried out this inclination, I would not have refused even to kiss her
lips. And not merely her lips, but her teeth, which always gleamed so
charmingly like two rows of pretty, well-matched pearls when she laughed.
She laughed extraordinarily often. Ivan Matveitch in demonstrative moments
used to call her his "darling absurdity"--a name extremely happy and
appropriate. She was a perfect sugar-plum, and that was all one could say
of her. Therefore I am utterly at a loss to understand what possessed Ivan
Matveitch to imagine his wife as a Russian Yevgenia Tour? Anyway, my dream,
with the exception of the monkeys, left a most pleasant impression upon me,
and going over all the incidents of the previous day as I drank my morning
cup of tea, I resolved to go and see Elena Ivanovna at once on my way to
the office--which, indeed, I was bound to do as the friend of the family.
In a tiny little room out of the bedroom--the so-called little
drawing-room, though their big drawing-room was little too--Elena Ivanovna
was sitting, in some half-transparent morning wrapper, on a smart little
sofa before a little tea-table, drinking coffee out of a little cup in
which she was dipping a minute biscuit. She was ravishingly pretty, but
struck me as being at the same time rather pensive.
"Ah, that's you, naughty man!" she said, greeting me with an absent-minded
smile. "Sit down, feather-head, have some coffee. Well, what were you doing
yesterday? Were you at the masquerade?"
"Why, were you? I don't go, you know. Besides, yesterday I was visiting our
captive...." I sighed and assumed a pious expression as I took the coffee.
"Whom?... What captive?... Oh, yes! Poor fellow! Well, how is he--bored? Do
you know ... I wanted to ask you.... I suppose I can ask for a divorce
now?"
"A divorce!" I cried in indignation and almost spilled the coffee. "It's
that swarthy fellow," I thought to myself bitterly.
There was a certain swarthy gentleman with little moustaches who was
something in the architectural line, and who came far too often to see
them, and was extremely skilful in amusing Elena Ivanovna. I must confess
I hated him and there was no doubt that he had succeeded in seeing Elena
Ivanovna yesterday either at the masquerade or even here, and putting all
sorts of nonsense into her head.
"Why," Elena Ivanovna rattled off hurriedly, as though it were a lesson she
had learnt, "if he is going to stay on in the crocodile, perhaps not come
back all his life, while I sit waiting for him here! A husband ought to
live at home, and not in a crocodile...."
"But this was an unforeseen occurrence," I was beginning, in very