can't agree to being inferior to you in depth of understanding," Ivan
Ilyitch observed sarcastically and with excessive sharpness. "However, I
will make so bold as to assert, Stepan Nikiforovitch, that you have not
understood me either...."
"No, I haven't."
"And yet I maintain and everywhere advance the idea that humanity and
nothing else with one's subordinates, from the official in one's department
down to the copying clerk, from the copying clerk down to the house serf,
from the servant down to the peasant--humanity, I say, may serve, so to
speak, as the corner-stone of the coming reforms and the reformation of
things in general. Why? Because. Take a syllogism. I am human, consequently
I am loved. I am loved, so confidence is felt in me. There is a feeling of
confidence, and so there is trust. There is trust, and so there is love ...
that is, no, I mean to say that if they trust me they will believe in the
reforms, they will understand, so to speak, the essential nature of them,
will, so to speak, embrace each other in a moral sense, and will settle the
whole business in a friendly way, fundamentally. What are you laughing at,
Semyon Ivanovitch? Can't you understand?"
Stepan Nikiforovitch raised his eyebrows without speaking; he was
surprised.
"I fancy I have drunk a little too much," said Semyon Ivanovitch
sarcastically, "and so I am a little slow of comprehension. Not quite all
my wits about me."
Ivan Ilyitch winced.
"We should break down," Stepan Nikiforovitch pronounced suddenly, after a
slight pause of hesitation.
"How do you mean we should break down?" asked Ivan Ilyitch, surprised at
Stepan Nikiforovitch's abrupt remark.
"Why, we should break under the strain." Stepan Nikiforovitch evidently did
not care to explain further.
"I suppose you are thinking of new wine in old bottles?" Ivan Ilyitch
replied, not without irony. "Well, I can answer for myself, anyway."
At that moment the clock struck half-past eleven.
"One sits on and on, but one must go at last," said Semyon Ivanovitch,
getting up. But Ivan Ilyitch was before him; he got up from the table and
took his sable cap from the chimney-piece. He looked as though he had been
insulted.
"So how is it to be, Semyon Ivanovitch? Will you think it over?" said
Stepan Nikiforovitch, as he saw the visitors out.
"About the flat, you mean? I'll think it over, I'll think it over."
"Well, when you have made up your mind, let me know as soon as possible."
"Still on business?" Mr. Pralinsky observed affably, in a slightly
ingratiating tone, playing with his hat. It seemed to him as though they
were forgetting him.
Stepan Nikiforovitch raised his eyebrows and remained mute, as a sign that
he would not detain his visitors. Semyon Ivanovitch made haste to bow
himself out.
"Well ... after that what is one to expect ... if you don't understand the
simple rules of good manners...." Mr. Pralinsky reflected to himself, and
held out his hand to Stepan Nikiforovitch in a particularly offhand way.
In the hall Ivan Ilyitch wrapped himself up in his light, expensive fur
coat; he tried for some reason not to notice Semyon Ivanovitch's shabby
raccoon, and they both began descending the stairs.
"The old man seemed offended," said Ivan Ilyitch to the silent Semyon
Ivanovitch.
"No, why?" answered the latter with cool composure.
"Servile flunkey," Ivan Ilyitch thought to himself.
They went out at the front door. Semyon Ivanovitch's sledge with a grey
ugly horse drove up.
"What the devil! What has Trifon done with my carriage?" cried Ivan
Ilyitch, not seeing his carriage.
The carriage was nowhere to be seen. Stepan Nikiforovitch's servant knew
nothing about it. They appealed to Varlam, Semyon Ivanovitch's coachman,
and received the answer that he had been standing there all the time and
that the carriage had been there, but now there was no sign of it.
"An unpleasant predicament," Mr. Shipulenko pronounced. "Shall I take you
home?"
"Scoundrelly people!" Mr. Pralinsky cried with fury. "He asked me, the
rascal, to let him go to a wedding close here in the Petersburg Side; some
crony of his was getting married, deuce take her! I sternly forbade him to
absent himself, and now I'll bet he has gone off there."
"He certainly has gone there, sir," observed Varlam; "but he promised to be
back in a minute, to be here in time, that is."
"Well, there it is! I had a presentiment that this would happen! I'll give
it to him!"
"You'd better give him a good flogging once or twice at the police station,
then he will do what you tell him," said Semyon Ivanovitch, as he wrapped
the rug round him.
"Please don't you trouble, Semyon Ivanovitch!"
"Well, won't you let me take you along?"
"_Merci, bon voyage._"
Semyon Ivanovitch drove off, while Ivan Ilyitch set off on foot along the
wooden pavement, conscious of a rather acute irritation.
* * * * *
"Yes, indeed I'll give it to you now, you rogue! I am going on foot on
purpose to make you feel it, to frighten you! He will come back and hear
that his master has gone off on foot ... the blackguard!"
Ivan Ilyitch had never abused any one like this, but he was greatly
angered, and besides, there was a buzzing in his head. He was not given to
drink, so five or six glasses soon affected him. But the night was
enchanting. There was a frost, but it was remarkably still and there was no
wind. There was a clear, starry sky. The full moon was bathing the earth in
soft silver light. It was so lovely that after walking some fifty paces
Ivan Ilyitch almost forgot his troubles. He felt particularly pleased.
People quickly change from one mood to another when they are a little
drunk. He was even pleased with the ugly little wooden houses of the
deserted street.
"It's really a capital thing that I am walking," he thought; "it's a lesson
to Trifon and a pleasure to me. I really ought to walk oftener. And I shall
soon pick up a sledge on the Great Prospect. It's a glorious night. What
little houses they all are! I suppose small fry live here, clerks,
tradesmen, perhaps.... That Stepan Nikiforovitch! What reactionaries they
all are, those old fogies! Fogies, yes, _c'est le mot_. He is a sensible
man, though; he has that _bon sens_, sober, practical understanding of
things. But they are old, old. There is a lack of ... what is it? There is
a lack of something.... 'We shall break down.' What did he mean by that? He
actually pondered when he said it. He didn't understand me a bit. And yet
how could he help understanding? It was more difficult not to understand it
than to understand it. The chief thing is that I am convinced, convinced in
my soul. Humanity ... the love of one's kind. Restore a man to himself,
revive his personal dignity, and then ... when the ground is prepared, get
to work. I believe that's clear? Yes! Allow me, your Excellency; take a
syllogism, for instance: we meet, for instance, a clerk, a poor,
downtrodden clerk. 'Well ... who are you?' Answer: 'A clerk.' Very good, a
clerk; further: 'What sort of clerk are you?' Answer: 'I am such and such a
clerk,' he says. 'Are you in the service?' 'I am.' 'Do you want to be
happy?' 'I do.' 'What do you need for happiness?' 'This and that.' 'Why?'
'Because....' and there the man understands me with a couple of words, the
man's mine, the man is caught, so to speak, in a net, and I can do what I
like with him, that is, for his good. Horrid man that Semyon Ivanovitch!
And what a nasty phiz he has!... 'Flog him in the police station,' he said
that on purpose. No, you are talking rubbish; you can flog, but I'm not
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
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.