Short Stories
through his mind in something like half a minute, and of course he might
have confined himself to these dreams and, after mentally putting Stepan
Nikiforovitch to shame, have gone very peacefully home and to bed. And he
would have done well. But the trouble of it was that the moment was an
eccentric one.
As ill-luck would have it, at that very instant the self-satisfied faces of
Stepan Nikiforovitch and Semyon Ivanovitch suddenly rose before his heated
imagination.
"We shall break down!" repeated Stepan Nikiforovitch, smiling disdainfully.
"He-he-he," Semyon Ivanovitch seconded him with his nastiest smile.
"Well, we'll see whether we do break down!" Ivan Ilyitch said resolutely,
with a rush of heat to his face.
He stepped down from the pavement and with resolute steps went straight
across the street towards the house of his registration clerk Pseldonimov.
* * * * *
His star carried him away. He walked confidently in at the open gate and
contemptuously thrust aside with his foot the shaggy, husky little
sheep-dog who flew at his legs with a hoarse bark, more as a matter of form
than with any real intention. Along a wooden plank he went to the covered
porch which led like a sentry box to the yard, and by three decaying wooden
steps he went up to the tiny entry. Here, though a tallow candle or
something in the way of a night-light was burning somewhere in a corner, it
did not prevent Ivan Ilyitch from putting his left foot just as it was, in
its galosh, into a galantine which had been stood out there to cool. Ivan
Ilyitch bent down, and looking with curiosity, he saw that there were two
other dishes of some sort of jelly and also two shapes apparently of
blancmange. The squashed galantine embarrassed him, and for one brief
instant the thought flashed through his mind, whether he should not slink
away at once. But he considered this too low. Reflecting that no one would
have seen him, and that they would never think he had done it, he hurriedly
wiped his galosh to conceal all traces, fumbled for the felt-covered door,
opened it and found himself in a very little ante-room. Half of it was
literally piled up with greatcoats, wadded jackets, cloaks, capes, scarves
and galoshes. In the other half the musicians had been installed; two
violins, a flute, and a double bass, a band of four, picked up, of course,
in the street. They were sitting at an unpainted wooden table, lighted by a
single tallow candle, and with the utmost vigour were sawing out the last
figure of the quadrille. From the open door into the drawing-room one could
see the dancers in the midst of dust, tobacco smoke and fumes. There was a
frenzy of gaiety. There were sounds of laughter, shouts and shrieks from
the ladies. The gentlemen stamped like a squadron of horses. Above all the
Bedlam there rang out words of command from the leader of the dance,
probably an extremely free and easy, and even unbuttoned gentleman:
"Gentlemen advance, ladies' chain, set to partners!" and so on, and so on.
Ivan Ilyitch in some excitement cast off his coat and galoshes, and with
his cap in his hand went into the room. He was no longer reflecting,
however.
For the first minute nobody noticed him; all were absorbed in dancing the
quadrille to the end. Ivan Ilyitch stood as though entranced, and could
make out nothing definite in the chaos. He caught glimpses of ladies'
dresses, of gentlemen with cigarettes between their teeth. He caught a
glimpse of a lady's pale blue scarf which flicked him on the nose. After
the wearer a medical student, with his hair blown in all directions on his
head, pranced by in wild delight and jostled violently against him on the
way. He caught a glimpse, too, of an officer of some description, who
looked half a mile high. Some one in an unnaturally shrill voice shouted,
"O-o-oh, Pseldonimov!" as the speaker flew by stamping. It was sticky under
Ivan Ilyitch's feet; evidently the floor had been waxed. In the room, which
was a very small one, there were about thirty people.
But a minute later the quadrille was over, and almost at once the very
thing Ivan Ilyitch had pictured when he was dreaming on the pavement took
place.
A stifled murmur, a strange whisper passed over the whole company,
including the dancers, who had not yet had time to take breath and wipe
their perspiring faces. All eyes, all faces began quickly turning towards
the newly arrived guest. Then they all seemed to draw back a little and
beat a retreat. Those who had not noticed him were pulled by their coats or
dresses and informed. They looked round and at once beat a retreat with the
others. Ivan Ilyitch was still standing at the door without moving a step
forward, and between him and the company there stretched an ever widening
empty space of floor strewn with countless sweet-meat wrappings, bits of
paper and cigarette ends. All at once a young man in a uniform, with a
shock of flaxen hair and a hooked nose, stepped timidly out into that empty
space. He moved forward, hunched up, and looked at the unexpected visitor
exactly with the expression with which a dog looks at its master when the
latter has called him up and is going to kick him.
"Good evening, Pseldonimov, do you know me?" said Ivan Ilyitch, and felt at
the same minute that he had said this very awkwardly; he felt, too, that he
was perhaps doing something horribly stupid at that moment.
"You-our Ex-cel-len-cy!" muttered Pseldonimov.
"To be sure.... I have called in to see you quite by chance, my friend, as
you can probably imagine...."
But evidently Pseldonimov could imagine nothing. He stood with staring eyes
in the utmost perplexity.
"You won't turn me out, I suppose.... Pleased or not, you must make a
visitor welcome...." Ivan Ilyitch went on, feeling that he was confused to
a point of unseemly feebleness; that he was trying to smile and was utterly
unable; that the humorous reference to Stepan Nikiforovitch and Trifon was
becoming more and more impossible. But as ill luck would have it,
Pseldonimov did not recover from his stupefaction, and still gazed at him
with a perfectly idiotic air. Ivan Ilyitch winced, he felt that in another
minute something incredibly foolish would happen.
"I am not in the way, am I?... I'll go away," he faintly articulated, and
there was a tremor at the right corner of his mouth.
But Pseldonimov had recovered himself.
"Good heavens, your Excellency ... the honour...." he muttered, bowing
hurriedly. "Graciously sit down, your Excellency...." And recovering
himself still further, he motioned him with both hands to a sofa before
which a table had been moved away to make room for the dancing.
Ivan Ilyitch felt relieved and sank on the sofa; at once some one flew to
move the table up to him. He took a cursory look round and saw that he was
the only person sitting down, all the others were standing, even the
ladies. A bad sign. But it was not yet time to reassure and encourage them.
The company still held back, while before him, bending double, stood
Pseldonimov, utterly alone, still completely at a loss and very far from
smiling. It was horrid; in short, our hero endured such misery at that
moment that his Haroun al-Raschid-like descent upon his subordinates for
the sake of principle might well have been reckoned an heroic action. But
suddenly a little figure made its appearance beside Pseldonimov, and began
bowing. To his inexpressible pleasure and even happiness, Ivan Ilyitch at
once recognised him as the head clerk of his office, Akim Petrovitch
Zubikov, and though, of course, he was not acquainted with him, he knew him
to be a businesslike and exemplary clerk. He got up at once and held out
his hand to Akim Petrovitch--his whole hand, not two fingers. The latter
took it in both of his with the deepest respect. The general was
triumphant, the situation was saved.
And now indeed Pseldonimov was no longer, so to say, the second person, but
the third. It was possible to address his remarks to the head clerk in his
necessity, taking him for an acquaintance and even an intimate one, and
Pseldonimov meanwhile could only be silent and be in a tremor of reverence.
So that the proprieties were observed. And some explanation was essential,
Ivan Ilyitch felt that; he saw that all the guests were expecting
something, that the whole household was gathered together in the doorway,
almost creeping, climbing over one another in their anxiety to see and hear
him. What was horrid was that the head clerk in his foolishness remained
standing.
"Why are you standing?" said Ivan Ilyitch, awkwardly motioning him to a
seat on the sofa beside him.
"Oh, don't trouble.... I'll sit here." And Akim Petrovitch hurriedly sat
down on a chair, almost as it was being put for him by Pseldonimov, who
remained obstinately standing.
"Can you imagine what happened," addressing himself exclusively to Akim
Petrovitch in a rather quavering, though free and easy voice. He even
drawled out his words, with special emphasis on some syllables, pronounced
the vowel _ah_ like _eh_; in short, felt and was conscious that he was
being affected but could not control himself: some external force was at
work. He was painfully conscious of many things at that moment.
"Can you imagine, I have only just come from Stepan Nikiforovitch
Nikiforov's, you have heard of him perhaps, the privy councillor. You
know ... on that special committee...."
Akim Petrovitch bent his whole person forward respectfully: as much as to
say, "Of course we have heard of him."
"He is your neighbor now," Ivan Ilyitch went on, for one instant for the
sake of ease and good manners addressing Pseldonimov, but he quickly turned
away again, on seeing from the latter's eyes that it made absolutely no
difference to him.
"The old fellow, as you know, has been dreaming all his life of buying
himself a house.... Well, and he has bought it. And a very pretty house
too. Yes.... And to-day was his birthday and he had never celebrated it
before, he used even to keep it secret from us, he was too stingy to keep
it, he-he. But now he is so delighted over his new house, that he invited
Semyon Ivanovitch Shipulenko and me, you know."
Akim Petrovitch bent forward again. He bent forward zealously. Ivan Ilyitch
felt somewhat comforted. It had struck him, indeed, that the head clerk
possibly was guessing that he was an indispensable _point d'appui_ for his
Excellency at that moment. That would have been more horrid than anything.
"So we sat together, the three of us, he gave us champagne, we talked about
problems ... even dis-pu-ted.... He-he!"
Akim Petrovitch raised his eyebrows respectfully.
"Only that is not the point. When I take leave of him at last--he is a
punctual old fellow, goes to bed early, you know, in his old age--I go
out.... My Trifon is nowhere to be seen! I am anxious, I make inquiries.
'What has Trifon done with the carriage?' It comes out that hoping I should
stay on, he had gone off to the wedding of some friend of his, or sister
maybe.... Goodness only knows. Somewhere here on the Petersburg Side. And
took the carriage with him while he was about it."
Again for the sake of good manners the general glanced in the direction of
Pseldonimov. The latter promptly gave a wriggle, but not at all the sort
of wriggle the general would have liked. "He has no sympathy, no heart,"
flashed through his brain.
"You don't say so!" said Akim Petrovitch, greatly impressed. A faint murmur
of surprise ran through all the crowd.
"Can you fancy my position...." (Ivan Ilyitch glanced at them all.) "There
was nothing for it, I set off on foot, I thought I would trudge to the
Great Prospect, and there find some cabby ... he-he!"