ON the evening of Easter Sunday the actual Civil Councillor, Navagin,
on his return from paying calls, picked up the sheet of paper on
which visitors had inscribed their names in the hall, and went with
it into his study. After taking off his outer garments and drinking
some seltzer water, he settled himself comfortably on a couch and
began reading the signatures in the list. When his eyes reached the
middle of the long list of signatures, he started, gave an ejaculation
of astonishment and snapped his fingers, while his face expressed
the utmost perplexity.
"Again!" he said, slapping his knee. "It's extraordinary! Again!
Again there is the signature of that fellow, goodness knows who he
is! Fedyukov! Again!"
Among the numerous signatures on the paper was the signature of a
certain Fedyukov. Who the devil this Fedyukov was, Navagin had not
a notion. He went over in his memory all his acquaintances, relations
and subordinates in the service, recalled his remote past but could
recollect no name like Fedyukov. What was so strange was that this
_incognito_, Fedyukov, had signed his name regularly every Christmas
and Easter for the last thirteen years. Neither Navagin, his wife,
nor his house porter knew who he was, where he came from or what
he was like.
"It's extraordinary!" Navagin thought in perplexity, as he paced
about the study. "It's strange and incomprehensible! It's like
sorcery!"
"Call the porter here!" he shouted.
"It's devilish queer! But I will find out who he is!"
"I say, Grigory," he said, addressing the porter as he entered,
"that Fedyukov has signed his name again! Did you see him?"
"No, your Excellency."
"Upon my word, but he has signed his name! So he must have been in
the hall. Has he been?"
"No, he hasn't, your Excellency."
"How could he have signed his name without being there?"
"I can't tell."
"Who is to tell, then? You sit gaping there in the hall. Try and
remember, perhaps someone you didn't know came in? Think a minute!"
"No, your Excellency, there has been no one I didn't know. Our
clerks have been, the baroness came to see her Excellency, the
priests have been with the Cross, and there has been no one else. . . ."
"Why, he was invisible when he signed his name, then, was he?"
"I can't say: but there has been no Fedyukov here. That I will swear
before the holy image. . . ."
"It's queer! It's incomprehensible! It's ex-traordinary!" mused
Navagin. "It's positively ludicrous. A man has been signing his
name here for thirteen years and you can't find out who he is.
Perhaps it's a joke? Perhaps some clerk writes that name as well
as his own for fun."
And Navagin began examining Fedyukov's signature.
The bold, florid signature in the old-fashioned style with twirls
and flourishes was utterly unlike the handwriting of the other
signatures. It was next below the signature of Shtutchkin, the
provincial secretary, a scared, timorous little man who would
certainly have died of fright if he had ventured upon such an
impudent joke.
"The mysterious Fedyukov has signed his name again!" said Navagin,
going in to see his wife. "Again I fail to find out who he is."
Madame Navagin was a spiritualist, and so for all phenomena in
nature, comprehensible or incomprehensible, she had a very simple
explanation.
"There's nothing extraordinary about it," she said. "You don't
believe it, of course, but I have said it already and I say it
again: there is a great deal in the world that is supernatural,
which our feeble intellect can never grasp. I am convinced that
this Fedyukov is a spirit who has a sympathy for you . . . If I
were you, I would call him up and ask him what he wants."
"Nonsense, nonsense!"
Navagin was free from superstitions, but the phenomenon which
interested him was so mysterious that all sorts of uncanny devilry
intruded into his mind against his will. All the evening he was
imagining that the incognito Fedyukov was the spirit of some long-dead
clerk, who had been discharged from the service by Navagin's ancestors
and was now revenging himself on their descendant; or perhaps it
was the kinsman of some petty official dismissed by Navagin himself,
or of a girl seduced by him. . . .
All night Navagin dreamed of a gaunt old clerk in a shabby uniform,
with a face as yellow as a lemon, hair that stood up like a brush,
and pewtery eyes; the clerk said something in a sepulchral voice
and shook a bony finger at him. And Navagin almost had an attack
of inflammation of the brain.
For a fortnight he was silent and gloomy and kept walking up and
down and thinking. In the end he overcame his sceptical vanity, and
going into his wife's room he said in a hollow voice:
"Zina, call up Fedyukov!"
The spiritualistic lady was delighted; she sent for a sheet of
cardboard and a saucer, made her husband sit down beside her, and
began upon the magic rites.
Fedyukov did not keep them waiting long. . . .
"What do you want?" asked Navagin.
"Repent," answered the saucer.
"What were you on earth?"
"A sinner. . . ."
"There, you see!" whispered his wife, "and you did not believe!"
Navagin conversed for a long time with Fedyukov, and then called
up Napoleon, Hannibal, Askotchensky, his aunt Klavdya Zaharovna,
and they all gave him brief but correct answers full of deep
significance. He was busy with the saucer for four hours, and fell
asleep soothed and happy that he had become acquainted with a
mysterious world that was new to him. After that he studied
spiritualism every day, and at the office, informed the clerks that
there was a great deal in nature that was supernatural and marvellous
to which our men of science ought to have turned their attention
long ago.
Hypnotism, mediumism, bishopism, spiritualism, the fourth dimension,
and other misty notions took complete possession of him, so that
for whole days at a time, to the great delight of his wife, he read
books on spiritualism or devoted himself to the saucer, table-turning,
and discussions of supernatural phenomena. At his instigation all
his clerks took up spiritualism, too, and with such ardour that the
old managing clerk went out of his mind and one day sent a telegram:
"Hell. Government House. I feel that I am turning into an evil
spirit. What's to be done? Reply paid. Vassily Krinolinsky."
After reading several hundreds of treatises on spiritualism Navagin
had a strong desire to write something himself. For five months he
sat composing, and in the end had written a huge monograph, entitled:
_My Opinion_. When he had finished this essay he determined to send
it to a spiritualist journal.
The day on which it was intended to despatch it to the journal was
a very memorable one for him. Navagin remembers that on that
never-to-be-forgotten day the secretary who had made a fair copy
of his article and the sacristan of the parish who had been sent
for on business were in his study. Navagin's face was beaming. He
looked lovingly at his creation, felt between his fingers how thick
it was, and with a happy smile said to the secretary:
"I propose, Filipp Sergeyitch, to send it registered. It will be
safer. . . ." And raising his eyes to the sacristan, he said: "I
have sent for you on business, my good man. I am putting my youngest
son to the high school and I must have a certificate of baptism;
only could you let me have it quickly?"
"Very good, your Excellency!" said the sacristan, bowing. "Very
good, I understand. . . ."
"Can you let me have it by to-morrow?"
"Very well, your Excellency, set your mind at rest! To-morrow it
shall be ready! Will you send someone to the church to-morrow before
evening service? I shall be there. Bid him ask for Fedyukov. I am
always there. . . ."
"What!" cried the general, turning pale.
"Fedyukov."
"You, . . . you are Fedyukov?" asked Navagin, looking at him with
wide-open eyes.
"Just so, Fedyukov."
"You. . . . you signed your name in my hall?"
"Yes . . ." the sacristan admitted, and was overcome with confusion.
"When we come with the Cross, your Excellency, to grand gentlemen's
houses I always sign my name. . . . I like doing it. . . . Excuse
me, but when I see the list of names in the hall I feel an impulse
to sign mine. . . ."
In dumb stupefaction, understanding nothing, hearing nothing, Navagin
paced about his study. He touched the curtain over the door, three
times waved his hands like a _jeune premier_ in a ballet when he
sees _her_, gave a whistle and a meaningless smile, and pointed
with his finger into space.
"So I will send off the article at once, your Excellency," said the
secretary.
These words roused Navagin from his stupour. He looked blankly at
the secretary and the sacristan, remembered, and stamping, his foot
irritably, screamed in a high, breaking tenor:
"Leave me in peace! Lea-eave me in peace, I tell you! What you want
of me I don't understand."
The secretary and the sacristan went out of the study and reached
the street while he was still stamping and shouting:
"Leave me in peace! What you want of me I don't understand. Lea-eave
me in peace!"