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
inhabiting are of priceless value. And so, far from repining at what has
happened, I confidently hope for the most brilliant of careers."
"You won't find it wearisome?" I asked sarcastically.
What irritated me more than anything was the extreme pomposity of his
language. Nevertheless, it all rather disconcerted me. "What on earth,
what, can this frivolous blockhead find to be so cocky about?" I muttered
to myself. "He ought to be crying instead of being cocky."
"No!" he answered my observation sharply, "for I am full of great ideas,
only now can I at leisure ponder over the amelioration of the lot of
humanity. Truth and light will come forth now from the crocodile. I shall
certainly develop a new economic theory of my own and I shall be proud of
it--which I have hitherto been prevented from doing by my official duties
and by trivial distractions. I shall refute everything and be a new
Fourier. By the way, did you give Timofey Semyonitch the seven roubles?"
"Yes, out of my own pocket," I answered, trying to emphasise that fact in
my voice.
"We will settle it," he answered superciliously. "I confidently expect my
salary to be raised, for who should get a raise if not I? I am of the
utmost service now. But to business. My wife?"
"You are, I suppose, inquiring after Elena Ivanovna?"
"My wife?" he shouted, this time in a positive squeal.
There was no help for it! Meekly, though gnashing my teeth, I told him how
I had left Elena Ivanovna. He did not even hear me out.
"I have special plans in regard to her," he began impatiently. "If I am
celebrated _here_, I wish her to be celebrated _there_. Savants, poets,
philosophers, foreign mineralogists, statesmen, after conversing in the
morning with me, will visit her _salon_ in the evening. From next week
onwards she must have an 'At Home' every evening. With my salary doubled,
we shall have the means for entertaining, and as the entertainment must not
go beyond tea and hired footmen--that's settled. Both here and there they
will talk of me. I have long thirsted for an opportunity for being talked
about, but could not attain it, fettered by my humble position and low
grade in the service. And now all this has been attained by a simple gulp
on the part of the crocodile. Every word of mine will be listened to, every
utterance will be thought over, repeated, printed. And I'll teach them what
I am worth! They shall understand at last what abilities they have allowed
to vanish in the entrails of a monster. 'This man might have been Foreign
Minister or might have ruled a kingdom,' some will say. 'And that man did
not rule a kingdom,' others will say. In what way am I inferior to a
Garnier-Pagesishky or whatever they are called? My wife must be a worthy
second--I have brains, she has beauty and charm. 'She is beautiful, and
that is why she is his wife,' some will say. 'She is beautiful _because_
she is his wife,' others will amend. To be ready for anything let Elena
Ivanovna buy to-morrow the Encyclopædia edited by Andrey Kraevsky, that she
may be able to converse on any topic. Above all, let her be sure to read
the political leader in the _Petersburg News_, comparing it every day with
the _Voice_. I imagine that the proprietor will consent to take me
sometimes with the crocodile to my wife's brilliant _salon_. I will be in a
tank in the middle of the magnificent drawing-room, and I will scintillate
with witticisms which I will prepare in the morning. To the statesmen I
will impart my projects; to the poet I will speak in rhyme; with the ladies
I can be amusing and charming without impropriety, since I shall be no
danger to their husbands' peace of mind. To all the rest I shall serve as a
pattern of resignation to fate and the will of Providence. I shall make my
wife a brilliant literary lady; I shall bring her forward and explain her
to the public; as my wife she must be full of the most striking virtues;
and if they are right in calling Andrey Alexandrovitch our Russian Alfred
de Musset, they will be still more right in calling her our Russian
Yevgenia Tour."
I must confess that although this wild nonsense was rather in Ivan
Matveitch's habitual style, it did occur to me that he was in a fever and
delirious. It was the same, everyday Ivan Matveitch, but magnified twenty
times.
"My friend," I asked him, "are you hoping for a long life? Tell me, in
fact, are you well? How do you eat, how do you sleep, how do you breathe? I
am your friend, and you must admit that the incident is most unnatural, and
consequently my curiosity is most natural."
"Idle curiosity and nothing else," he pronounced sententiously, "but you
shall be satisfied. You ask how I am managing in the entrails of the
monster? To begin with, the crocodile, to my amusement, turns out to be
perfectly empty. His inside consists of a sort of huge empty sack made of
gutta-percha, like the elastic goods sold in the Gorohovy Street, in the
Morskaya, and, if I am not mistaken, in the Voznesensky Prospect.
Otherwise, if you think of it, how could I find room?"
"Is it possible?" I cried, in a surprise that may well be understood. "Can
the crocodile be perfectly empty?"
"Perfectly," Ivan Matveitch maintained sternly and impressively. "And in
all probability, it is so constructed by the laws of Nature. The crocodile
possesses nothing but jaws furnished with sharp teeth, and besides the
jaws, a tail of considerable length--that is all, properly speaking. The
middle part between these two extremities is an empty space enclosed by
something of the nature of gutta-percha, probably really gutta-percha."
"But the ribs, the stomach, the intestines, the liver, the heart?" I
interrupted quite angrily.
"There is nothing, absolutely nothing of all that, and probably there never
has been. All that is the idle fancy of frivolous travellers. As one
inflates an air-cushion, I am now with my person inflating the crocodile.
He is incredibly elastic. Indeed, you might, as the friend of the family,
get in with me if you were generous and self-sacrificing enough--and even
with you here there would be room to spare. I even think that in the last
resort I might send for Elena Ivanovna. However, this void, hollow
formation of the crocodile is quite in keeping with the teachings of
natural science. If, for instance, one had to construct a new crocodile,
the question would naturally present itself. What is the fundamental
characteristic of the crocodile? The answer is clear: to swallow human
beings. How is one, in constructing the crocodile, to secure that he should
swallow people? The answer is clearer still: construct him hollow. It was
settled by physics long ago that Nature abhors a vacuum. Hence the inside
of the crocodile must be hollow so that it may abhor the vacuum, and
consequently swallow and so fill itself with anything it can come across.
And that is the sole rational cause why every crocodile swallows men. It is
not the same in the constitution of man: the emptier a man's head is, for
instance, the less he feels the thirst to fill it, and that is the one
exception to the general rule. It is all as clear as day to me now. I have
deduced it by my own observation and experience, being, so to say, in the
very bowels of Nature, in its retort, listening to the throbbing of its
pulse. Even etymology supports me, for the very word crocodile means
voracity. Crocodile--_crocodillo_--is evidently an Italian word, dating
perhaps from the Egyptian Pharaohs, and evidently derived from the French
verb _croquer_, which means to eat, to devour, in general to absorb
nourishment. All these remarks I intend to deliver as my first lecture in
Elena Ivanovna's _salon_ when they take me there in the tank."
"My friend, oughtn't you at least to take some purgative?" I cried
involuntarily.
"He is in a fever, a fever, he is feverish!" I repeated to myself in alarm.
"Nonsense!" he answered contemptuously. "Besides, in my present position it
would be most inconvenient. I knew, though, you would be sure to talk of
taking medicine."
"But, my friend, how ... how do you take food now? Have you dined to-day?"
"No, but I am not hungry, and most likely I shall never take food again.
And that, too, is quite natural; filling the whole interior of the
crocodile I make him feel always full. Now he need not be fed for some
years. On the other hand, nourished by me, he will naturally impart to me
all the vital juices of his body; it is the same as with some accomplished
coquettes who embed themselves and their whole persons for the night in raw
steak, and then, after their morning bath, are fresh, supple, buxom and
fascinating. In that way nourishing the crocodile, I myself obtain
nourishment from him, consequently we mutually nourish one another. But as
it is difficult even for a crocodile to digest a man like me, he must, no
doubt, be conscious of a certain weight in his stomach--an organ which he
does not, however, possess--and that is why, to avoid causing the creature
suffering, I do not often turn over, and although I could turn over I do
not do so from humanitarian motives. This is the one drawback of my present
position, and in an allegorical sense Timofey Semyonitch was right in
saying I was lying like a log. But I will prove that even lying like a
log--nay, that only lying like a log--one can revolutionise the lot of
mankind. All the great ideas and movements of our newspapers and magazines
have evidently been the work of men who were lying like logs; that is why
they call them divorced from the realities of life--but what does it
matter, their saying that! I am constructing now a complete system of my
own, and you wouldn't believe how easy it is! You have only to creep into a
secluded corner or into a crocodile, to shut your eyes, and you immediately
devise a perfect millennium for mankind. When you went away this afternoon
I set to work at once and have already invented three systems, now I am
preparing the fourth. It is true that at first one must refute everything
that has gone before, but from the crocodile it is so easy to refute it;
besides, it all becomes clearer, seen from the inside of the crocodile....
There are some drawbacks, though small ones, in my position, however; it is
somewhat damp here and covered with a sort of slime; moreover, there is a
smell of india-rubber like the smell of my old galoshes. That is all, there
are no other drawbacks."
"Ivan Matveitch," I interrupted, "all this is a miracle in which I can
scarcely believe. And can you, can you intend never to dine again?"
"What trivial nonsense you are troubling about, you thoughtless, frivolous
creature! I talk to you about great ideas, and you.... Understand that I am
sufficiently nourished by the great ideas which light up the darkness in
which I am enveloped. The good-natured proprietor has, however, after
consulting the kindly _Mutter_, decided with her that they will every
morning insert into the monster's jaws a bent metal tube, something like a
whistle pipe, by means of which I can absorb coffee or broth with bread
soaked in it. The pipe has already been bespoken in the neighbourhood, but
I think this is superfluous luxury. I hope to live at least a thousand
years, if it is true that crocodiles live so long, which, by the way--good
thing I thought of it--you had better look up in some natural history
to-morrow and tell me, for I may have been mistaken and have mixed it up
with some excavated monster. There is only one reflection rather troubles
me: as I am dressed in cloth and have boots on, the crocodile can obviously
not digest me. Besides, I am alive, and so am opposing the process of
digestion with my whole will power; for you can understand that I do not
wish to be turned into what all nourishment turns into, for that would be
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.