Short Stories
going to; I shall punish Trifon with words, I shall punish him with
reproaches, he will feel it. As for flogging, h'm! ... it is an open
question, h'm!... What about going to Emerance? Oh, damnation take it, the
cursed pavement!" he cried out, suddenly tripping up. "And this is the
capital. Enlightenment! One might break one's leg. H'm! I detest that
Semyon Ivanovitch; a most revolting phiz. He was chuckling at me just now
when I said they would embrace each other in a moral sense. Well, and they
will embrace each other, and what's that to do with you? I am not going to
embrace you; I'd rather embrace a peasant.... If I meet a peasant, I shall
talk to him. I was drunk, though, and perhaps did not express myself
properly. Possibly I am not expressing myself rightly now.... H'm! I shall
never touch wine again. In the evening you babble, and next morning you are
sorry for it. After all, I am walking quite steadily.... But they are all
scoundrels, anyhow!"
So Ivan Ilyitch meditated incoherently and by snatches, as he went on
striding along the pavement. The fresh air began to affect him, set his
mind working. Five minutes later he would have felt soothed and sleepy. But
all at once, scarcely two paces from the Great Prospect, he heard music. He
looked round. On the other side of the street, in a very
tumble-down-looking long wooden house of one storey, there was a great
fête, there was the scraping of violins, and the droning of a double bass,
and the squeaky tooting of a flute playing a very gay quadrille tune. Under
the windows stood an audience, mainly of women in wadded pelisses with
kerchiefs on their heads; they were straining every effort to see something
through a crack in the shutters. Evidently there was a gay party within.
The sound of the thud of dancing feet reached the other side of the street.
Ivan Ilyitch saw a policeman standing not far off, and went up to him.
"Whose house is that, brother?" he asked, flinging his expensive fur coat
open, just far enough to allow the policeman to see the imposing decoration
on his breast.
"It belongs to the registration clerk Pseldonimov," answered the
policeman, drawing himself up instantly, discerning the decoration.
"Pseldonimov? Bah! Pseldonimov! What is he up to? Getting married?"
"Yes, your Honour, to a daughter of a titular councillor, Mlekopitaev, a
titular councillor ... used to serve in the municipal department. That
house goes with the bride."
"So that now the house is Pseldonimov's and not Mlekopitaev's?"
"Yes, Pseldonimov's, your Honour. It was Mlekopitaev's, but now it is
Pseldonimov's."
"H'm! I am asking you, my man, because I am his chief. I am a general in
the same office in which Pseldonimov serves."
"Just so, your Excellency."
The policeman drew himself up more stiffly than ever, while Ivan Ilyitch
seemed to ponder. He stood still and meditated....
Yes, Pseldonimov really was in his department and in his own office; he
remembered that. He was a little clerk with a salary of ten roubles a
month. As Mr. Pralinsky had received his department very lately he might
not have remembered precisely all his subordinates, but Pseldonimov he
remembered just because of his surname. It had caught his eye from the very
first, so that at the time he had had the curiosity to look with special
attention at the possessor of such a surname. He remembered now a very
young man with a long hooked nose, with tufts of flaxen hair, lean and
ill-nourished, in an impossible uniform, and with unmentionables so
impossible as to be actually unseemly; he remembered how the thought had
flashed through his mind at the time: shouldn't he give the poor fellow ten
roubles for Christmas, to spend on his wardrobe? But as the poor fellow's
face was too austere, and his expression extremely unprepossessing, even
exciting repulsion, the good-natured idea somehow faded away of itself, so
Pseldonimov did not get his tip. He had been the more surprised when this
same Pseldonimov had not more than a week before asked for leave to be
married. Ivan Ilyitch remembered that he had somehow not had time to go
into the matter, so that the matter of the marriage had been settled
offhand, in haste. But yet he did remember exactly that Pseldonimov was
receiving a wooden house and four hundred roubles in cash as dowry with his
bride. The circumstance had surprised him at the time; he remembered that
he had made a slight jest over the juxtaposition of the names Pseldonimov
and Mlekopitaev. He remembered all that clearly.
He recalled it, and grew more and more pensive. It is well known that whole
trains of thought sometimes pass through our brains instantaneously as
though they were sensations without being translated into human speech,
still less into literary language. But we will try to translate these
sensations of our hero's, and present to the reader at least the kernel of
them, so to say, what was most essential and nearest to reality in them.
For many of our sensations when translated into ordinary language seem
absolutely unreal. That is why they never find expression, though every one
has them. Of course Ivan Ilyitch's sensations and thoughts were a little
incoherent. But you know the reason.
"Why," flashed through his mind, "here we all talk and talk, but when it
comes to action--it all ends in nothing. Here, for instance, take this
Pseldonimov: he has just come from his wedding full of hope and excitement,
looking forward to his wedding feast.... This is one of the most blissful
days of his life.... Now he is busy with his guests, is giving a banquet, a
modest one, poor, but gay and full of genuine gladness.... What if he knew
that at this very moment I, I, his superior, his chief, am standing by his
house listening to the music? Yes, really how would he feel? No, what would
he feel if I suddenly walked in? H'm!... Of course at first he would be
frightened, he would be dumb with embarrassment.... I should be in his way,
and perhaps should upset everything. Yes, that would be so if any other
general went in, but not I.... That's a fact, any one else, but not I....
"Yes, Stepan Nikiforovitch! You did not understand me just now, but here is
an example ready for you.
"Yes, we all make an outcry about acting humanely, but we are not capable
of heroism, of fine actions.
"What sort of heroism? This sort. Consider: in the existing relations of
the various members of society, for me, for me, after midnight to go in to
the wedding of my subordinate, a registration clerk, at ten roubles the
month--why, it would mean embarrassment, a revolution, the last days of
Pompeii, a nonsensical folly. No one would understand it. Stepan
Nikiforovitch would die before he understood it. Why, he said we should
break down. Yes, but that's you old people, inert, paralytic people; but I
shan't break down, I will transform the last day of Pompeii to a day of the
utmost sweetness for my subordinate, and a wild action to an action normal,
patriarchal, lofty and moral. How? Like this. Kindly listen....
"Here ... I go in, suppose; they are amazed, leave off dancing, look wildly
at me, draw back. Quite so, but at once I speak out: I go straight up to
the frightened Pseldonimov, and with a most cordial, affable smile, in the
simplest words, I say: 'This is how it is, I have been at his Excellency
Stepan Nikiforovitch's. I expect you know, close here in the
neighbourhood....' Well, then, lightly, in a laughing way, I shall tell him
of my adventure with Trifon. From Trifon I shall pass on to saying how I
walked here on foot.... 'Well, I heard music, I inquired of a policeman,
and learned, brother, that it was your wedding. Let me go in, I thought, to
my subordinate's; let me see how my clerks enjoy themselves and ...
celebrate their wedding. I suppose you won't turn me out?' Turn me out!
What a word for a subordinate! How the devil could he dream of turning me
out! I fancy that he would be half crazy, that he would rush headlong to
seat me in an arm-chair, would be trembling with delight, would hardly know
what he was doing for the first minute!
"Why, what can be simpler, more elegant than such an action? Why did I go
in? That's another question! That is, so to say, the moral aspect of the
question. That's the pith.
"H'm, what was I thinking about, yes!
"Well, of course they will make me sit down with the most important guest,
some titular councillor or a relation who's a retired captain with a red
nose. Gogol describes these eccentrics so capitally. Well, I shall make
acquaintance, of course, with the bride, I shall compliment her, I shall
encourage the guests. I shall beg them not to stand on ceremony. To enjoy
themselves, to go on dancing. I shall make jokes, I shall laugh; in fact, I
shall be affable and charming. I am always affable and charming when I am
pleased with myself.... H'm ... the point is that I believe I am still a
little, well, not drunk exactly, but ...
"Of course, as a gentleman I shall be quite on an equality with them,
and shall not expect any especial marks of.... But morally, morally,
it is a different matter; they will understand and appreciate it....
My actions will evoke their nobler feelings.... Well, I shall stay for
half an hour ... even for an hour; I shall leave, of course, before
supper; but they will be bustling about, baking and roasting, they
will be making low bows, but I will only drink a glass, congratulate
them and refuse supper. I shall say--'business.' And as soon as I
pronounce the word 'business,' all of them will at once have sternly
respectful faces. By that I shall delicately remind them that there is
a difference between them and me. The earth and the sky. It is not
that I want to impress that on them, but it must be done ... it's
even essential in a moral sense, when all is said and done. I shall
smile at once, however, I shall even laugh, and then they will all
pluck up courage again.... I shall jest a little again with the bride;
h'm!... I may even hint that I shall come again in just nine months to
stand godfather, he-he! And she will be sure to be brought to bed by
then. They multiply, you know, like rabbits. And they will all roar
with laughter and the bride will blush; I shall kiss her feelingly on
the forehead, even give her my blessing ... and next day my exploit
will be known at the office. Next day I shall be stern again, next day
I shall be exacting again, even implacable, but they will all know
what I am like. They will know my heart, they will know my essential
nature: 'He is stern as chief, but as a man he is an angel!' And I
shall have conquered them; I shall have captured them by one little
act which would never have entered your head; they would be mine; I
should be their father, they would be my children.... Come now, your
Excellency Stepan Nikiforovitch, go and do likewise....
"But do you know, do you understand, that Pseldonimov will tell his
children how the General himself feasted and even drank at his wedding! Why
you know those children would tell their children, and those would tell
their grandchildren as a most sacred story that a grand gentleman, a
statesman (and I shall be all that by then) did them the honour, and so on,
and so on. Why, I am morally elevating the humiliated, I restore him to
himself.... Why, he gets a salary of ten roubles a month!... If I repeat
this five or ten times, or something of the sort, I shall gain popularity
all over the place.... My name will be printed on the hearts of all, and
the devil only knows what will come of that popularity!..."
These, or something like these, were Ivan Ilyitch's reflections, (a man
says all sorts of things sometimes to himself, gentlemen, especially when
he is in rather an eccentric condition). All these meditations passed