On Sunday when Peredonov and Varvara were lunching, someone entered the
hall. Varvara went up to the door stealthily, as was her habit, and
looked out. With the same stealthiness she returned to the table and
whispered:
"The postman. We'd better give him a vodka--he's brought another
letter."
Peredonov silently nodded,--he didn't grudge anyone a glass of vodka.
Varvara shouted:
"Postman! Come in here."
The postman entered the room. He rummaged in his bag and pretended to
be searching for the letter. Varvara filled a large vodka-glass and cut
off a piece of pie. The postman watched her greedily. In the meantime
Peredonov was trying to think whom the postman resembled. At last he
recalled--he was the same red-pimpled knave who had made him lose so
heavily at cards.
"He'll trick me again," thought Peredonov dejectedly, and made a
Koukish[1] in his pocket.
The red-haired knave gave the letter to Varvara.
"It's for you," he said respectfully, thanked them for the vodka, drank
it, grunted with satisfaction, picked up the piece of pie and walked
out.
Varvara turned the letter and without opening it held it out to
Peredonov.
"There, read it--I think it's from the Princess," she said with a
smile. "What's the good of her writing? It would be much better if she
gave you the job instead."
Peredonov's hands trembled. He tore open the envelope and quickly read
the letter. Then he jumped up from his place, waved the letter and
cried out:
"Hurrah! Three inspector's jobs, and I can have which one I want.
Hurrah, Varvara, we've got it at last!"
He began to dance and twirl round the room. With his immovably red face
and dull eyes he seemed like a monstrously large mechanical dancing
doll. Varvara smiled and looked at him happily. He shouted:
"Now it's decided, Varvara--we'll get married."
He caught Varvara by the shoulders and began to whirl her around the
table, stamping with his feet.
"A Russian dance, Varvara!" he shouted.
Varvara put her arms akimbo and glided off into a dance, Peredonov
danced before her in the Russian squat.
Volodin entered and bleated joyously:
"The future inspector is hopping the _trepak!_"[2]
"Dance, Pavloushka!" cried Peredonov.
Klavdia looked in at the door. Volodin shouted at her, laughing and
grimacing:
"Dance, Klavdiusha, you too! All together! We'll make merry with the
future inspector."
Klavdia gave a hoot and glided into the dance, moving her shoulders.
Volodin adroitly whirled round in front of her--now he squatted, now
he whirled round, now he jumped forward, clapping his hands together.
He was especially adroit when he lifted his knee and clapped his hands
underneath the knee. The floor vibrated under their heels. Klavdia was
overjoyed to have such a clever partner.
When they got tired they sat down at the table and Klavdia ran off into
the kitchen laughing gaily. They drank vodka and they drank beer. They
jingled bottles and glasses, they shouted, laughed, waved their arms,
embraced and kissed each other. Afterwards Peredonov and Volodin went
off to the Summer-garden--Peredonov was in a hurry to boast about the
letter.
In the billiard-room they found the usual company. Peredonov showed his
letter to his friends. It created a great impression. Everyone examined
it trustfully. Routilov went pale, muttered something and spat.
"The postman brought it when I was there!" exclaimed Peredonov. "I
unsealed the letter myself. That means that there's no mistake."
His friends looked at him with respect. A letter from a Princess!
Peredonov went impetuously from the Summer-garden to Vershina's. He
walked quickly and evenly, swinging his arms measuredly and mumbling
to himself; his face had no apparent expression of any kind--it was
motionless like that of a wound-up doll--and a sort of avid fire
gleamed dully in his eyes.
* * * * *
The day turned out clear and warm. Marta was knitting a sock. Her
thoughts were confused and devout. At first she thought about sins, but
later she turned her thoughts to something more pleasant and began to
reflect about virtues. Her thoughts became over-clouded with drowsiness
and assumed the forms of definite images, and proportionately at their
comprehensibility ceased to be expressible in words, their chimerical
contours increased in clearness. The virtues stood up before her like
big pretty dolls in white dresses, all shining and fragrant. They
promised her rewards, and keys jingled in their hands, and bridal veils
fluttered on their heads.
One among them was curious and different from the others. She promised
nothing but looked reproachfully, and her lips moved with a noiseless
threat; it seemed that if she spoke a word one would feel terrible.
Marta guessed that this was Conscience. She was in black, this strange
painful visitor, with black eyes, and black hair--and she suddenly
began to talk about something very quickly and glibly. She began to
resemble Vershina. Marta started, answered something to her question,
answered almost unconsciously and then drowsiness again overcame her.
Whether it was Conscience, or whether it was Vershina sitting opposite
her, talking quickly and glibly but incomprehensibly, smoking something
exotic, this person was assertive, quiet and determined that everything
should be as she wanted it. Marta tried to look this tedious visitor
straight in the eyes but somehow she couldn't--the visitor smiled
strangely, grumbled, and her eyes wandered off somewhere and rested on
distant, unknown objects, which Marta found fearful to look at....
Loud talk awakened Marta. Peredonov stood in the summer-house and
greeted Vershina in a loud voice. Marta looked around in fear. Her
heart beat, her eyes were still half-shut, and her thoughts were still
wandering, where was Conscience? Or had she not been there at all? And
ought she to have been there?
"Ah, you've been snoozing there," said Peredonov to her. "You were
snoring in all sorts of ways. Now you're a pine."[3]
Marta did not understand his pun, but smiled, guessing from the smile
on Vershina's lips that something had been said which had to be
accepted as amusing.
"You ought to be called Sofya," continued Peredonov.
"Why?" asked Marta.
"Because you're Sonya[4] and not Marta."
Peredonov sat down on the bench beside Marta and said:
"I have a very important piece of news."
"What sort of news can you have?" said Vershina. "Share it with us."
And Marta immediately envied Vershina because she had such a vast
number of words to express the simple question: "What is it?"
"Guess!" said Peredonov in a morose, solemn voice.
"How can I guess what sort of news you have?" replied Vershina. "You
tell us, and then we shall know what your news is."
Peredonov felt unhappy because they did not want to try and guess his
news. He sat there silently, hunched up awkwardly, dull and heavy,
and looked motionlessly before him. Vershina smoked and smiled wryly,
showing her dark yellow teeth.
"Why should I guess your news this way?" she said after a short
silence. "Let me find it out in the cards. Marta, bring the cards here."
Marta rose but Peredonov gruffly stopped her:
"Sit still, I don't want them. Find out without them, but don't bother
me with the cards. But now you can't do it at my expense. I'll show you
a trick that'll make you open your mouths wide."
Peredonov took his wallet quickly from his pocket and showed Vershina a
letter in an envelope, without letting it go from his hands.
"Do you see?" he said. "Here's the envelope. And here's the letter."
He took out the letter and read it slowly with a dull expression of
gratified spite in his eyes. Vershina was dumbfounded. To the very last
she had not believed in the Princess, but now she understood that the
affair with Marta was conclusively off. She smiled wryly and said:
"Well, you're in luck."
Marta with an astonished and frightened face, smiled in a flustered way.
"Well, what do you think now?" said Peredonov maliciously. "You thought
I was a fool, but I've come out best. You spoke about the envelope.
Well, here's the envelope. No, there's no mistake about it."
He hit the table with his fist, neither violently nor loudly--and his
movement and the sound of his words remained somehow strangely distant,
as if he were foreign and indifferent to his own affairs.
Vershina and Marta exchanged glances in a perplexed way.
"Why are you looking at each other?" said Peredonov crossly. "There's
nothing for you to look at each other about: everything's settled now
and I shall marry Varvara. There were a lot of little girls trying to
catch me here."
Vershina sent Marta for cigarettes and Marta gladly ran from the
summer-house. She felt herself free and light-spirited as she went over
the little sandy paths strewn with the bright-coloured autumn leaves.
Near the house she met Vladya barefoot--and she felt even gayer and
more cheerful.
"He's going to marry Varvara, that's decided," she said happily in a
low voice as she drew her brother into the house.
In the meantime Peredonov, without waiting for Marta, abruptly took his
leave.
"I have no time," he said, "getting married is not making a pair of
_lapti."_[5]
Vershina did not detain him and said good-bye to him coldly. She was
intensely vexed: until now she still had kept the frail hope that she
would marry Marta to Peredonov and keep Mourin for herself. And now the
last hope had vanished.
Marta caught it hot that day! That made her cry.
* * * * *
Peredonov left Vershina and thought he would like to smoke. He suddenly
saw a policeman--standing in the corner of the street, shelling dry
sunflower seeds.[6] Peredonov felt depressed.
"Another spy," he thought, "they're watching so as to have some excuse
for finding fault with me."
He did not dare to light the cigarette which he had taken from his
pocket, but walked up to the policeman and asked timidly:
"Mr. Policeman, is one allowed to smoke here?"
The policeman touched his cap and inquired respectfully:
"Why do you ask me, sir?"
"A cigarette," explained Peredonov, "may one smoke a cigarette here?"
"There's been no law about it," replied the policeman evasively.
"There hasn't been any?" repeated Peredonov in a depressed voice.
"No, there hasn't been any. We aren't ordered to stop gentlemen from
smoking, and if such a rule has been passed I don't know about it."
"If there hasn't been any, then I won't begin," said Peredonov humbly,
"I am a law-abiding person. I will even throw the cigarette away. After
all, I'm a State Councillor."
Peredonov crumpled up the cigarette and threw it on the ground, and
already began to fear that he had said something inadvised, and walked
rapidly home. The policeman looked after him in perplexity and at last
decided that the gentleman "had had a drop too much," and, comforted by
this, recommenced his peaceful shelling of sunflower seeds.
"The street is standing up on end," muttered Peredonov. The hill ran
up a not very steep incline and then went down abruptly on the other
side. At the crest of the street between two hovels was a sharp outline
against the blue, melancholy evening sky. Poor life seemed to have
shut herself in within these quiet narrow limits and suffered keen
torments. The trees thrust their branches over the fences, they peered
over and obstructed the way, and there was a taunt and menace in
their whispering. A ram stood at the cross-roads and looked dully at
Peredonov. Suddenly the sound of bleating laughter came from round a
corner; Volodin appeared and went to greet Peredonov. Peredonov looked
at him gloomily and thought of the ram which had been there a moment
ago and had now disappeared.
"That," he thought, "is certainly because Volodin can turn himself into
a ram. He doesn't resemble a ram for nothing, and it's difficult to
tell whether he's laughing or bleating."
These thoughts so preoccupied him that he did not hear what Volodin was
saying to him.
"Why are you kicking me, Pavloushka?" he said dejectedly.
Volodin smiled and said bleatingly:
"I'm not kicking you, Ardalyon Borisitch, I'm shaking hands with you.
It's possible that in your village they kick with their hands, but in
my village they kick with their feet. And even then it is not people
but, if I may say so, ponies."
"You'll butt me yet," growled Peredonov.
Volodin was offended and said in a trembling voice:
"I haven't grown any horns yet, Ardalyon Borisitch, but it's very
likely you'll grow them before I do."
"You've got a long tongue that babbles nonsense," said Peredonov
angrily.
"If that's your idea of me, Ardalyon Borisitch," said Volodin quickly,
"then I'll be silent."
And his face bore an injured expression and his lips protruded;
nevertheless he walked at Peredonov's side; he had not yet dined and he
counted on having dinner with Peredonov: luckily they had invited him
that morning.
An important piece of news awaited Peredonov at home. While still in
the hall it was easy to guess that something unusual had happened--a
bustling could be heard in the rooms mingled with frightful
exclamations. Peredonov at once thought that the dinner was not ready,
and that when they saw him coming they had been frightened and were now
hurrying. It was pleasant to him to know that they were afraid of him!
But it turned out to be quite another matter. Varvara ran out into the
hall and shouted:
"The cat's been sent back!"
In her excitement she did not notice Volodin at first. As usual,
her dress was untidy--a greasy blouse over a grey dirty skirt and
worn-out house slippers. Her hair was uncombed and tousled. She said to
Peredonov excitedly:
"It's Irishka again! She's played us a new trick out of spite. She sent
a boy here again to throw the cat in here--and the cat has rattles on
its tail and they keep on rattling. The cat has got under the sofa and
won't come out."
Peredonov felt terribly alarmed.
"What's to be done now?" he asked.
"Pavel Vassilyevitch," said Varvara, "you're younger, fetch the cat out
from under the sofa."
"We'll fetch him out, we'll fetch him out," said Volodin with a
snigger, and went into the parlour.
Somehow they managed to drag out the cat from under the sofa and took
the rattles off his tail. Peredonov found some thistle heads and began
to stick them into the cat's fur. The cat spat violently and ran into
the kitchen. Peredonov, tired of his messing about with the cat, sat
down in his usual position--his elbows on the arms of the chair, his
fingers interlaced, his legs crossed, his face motionless and morose.
* * * * *
Peredonov kept the Princess's second letter more zealously than the
first: he always carried it about with him in his wallet and showed it
to everyone, looking mysterious as he did so. He looked vigilantly to
see that no one took the letter away from him. He did not give it into
anyone's hands, and after each showing he put it away in his wallet,
which he put into the side-pocket of his frock-coat, buttoned up his
coat and looked gravely and significantly at his companions.
"Why do you hide it away like that?" Routilov once asked him laughingly.
"As a precaution," said Peredonov morosely, "who can tell? You might
take it from me."
"It'd be a case for Siberia," said Routilov with a contemptuous laugh,
slapping Peredonov on the back.
But Peredonov preserved an imperturbable dignity. In general he had
lately been assuming an air of greater importance. He often boasted:
"I'll be an inspector. You will go sour here, but I shall have two
districts to begin with. And then perhaps three, Oh--ho--ho!"
He was quite convinced that he would receive his inspector's position
very soon. More than once he said to the schoolmaster, Falastov:
"I'll get you too out of here, old chap."
And the schoolmaster, Falastov, was more respectful in his bearing to
Peredonov.
[1] Koukish, a clenched fist with the thumb thrust between the first
and second fingers. This gesture is a great insult in Russia. To make
it is as much as to say, "A fig for you!"
[2] A Russian popular dance.
[3] "Sosna" means "pine" and "so sna" "from sleep." Peredonov puns on
it.
[4] Variation on the pun. "Sonya" is another form of "Sofya."
[5] _Lapti_, rough shoes worn by the peasants.
[6] Russians eat dried sunflower seeds as Americans eat peanuts.