“To the health of those we work for, unserer Kundleute!”*
This proposal, like all the others, was received joyfully and unanimously. The guests began bowing to each other, the tailor to the shoemaker, the shoemaker to the tailor, the baker to them both, all of them to the baker, and so on. Amidst these mutual reverences, Yurko cried out, turning to his neighbor:
“So then, brother? Drink to the health of your dead.”
Everybody laughed loudly, but the coffin-maker considered himself offended and frowned. Nobody noticed it, the guests went on drinking, and the bells were already ringing for vespers when they got up from the table.
The guests went home late, and for the most part tipsy. The fat baker and the bookbinder,
Whose face seemed bound in red morocco,4
took Yurko under the arms to his sentry box, observing in this case the proverb “One good turn deserves another.” The coffin-maker came home drunk and angry.
“What is this, really?” he reasoned aloud. “What makes my trade less honored than others? Is a coffin-maker a hangman’s brother? Why do those heathens laugh? Is a coffin-maker a Yuletide mummer? I was going to invite them to the housewarming, throw them a big feast: there’ll be none of that! I’ll invite the ones I work for: the Orthodox dead.”
“What’s that, dearie?” said his maidservant, who was just taking off his boots. “What’s that drivel? Cross yourself! To invite dead people to a housewarming! It’s frightful!”
“By God, I will,” Adrian went on, “and tomorrow at that. You are welcome, my benefactors, to come and feast with me tomorrow evening; I’ll regale you with what God sends me!” With those words the coffin-maker put himself to bed and was soon snoring away.
It was still dark outside when Adrian was awakened. Tryukhina, the merchant’s wife, had passed away that same night, and a messenger from her steward came galloping to Adrian with the news. For that the coffin-maker tipped him ten kopecks, quickly got dressed, hired a cab, and drove to Razgulyai. Policemen were already standing by the deceased woman’s gate, and merchants were strolling about like crows, sensing a dead body. The deceased woman lay on the table,5 yellow as wax, but not yet disfigured by corruption. Relations, neighbors, and domestics crowded around her. All the windows were open; candles burned; priests were reciting prayers. Adrian went up to Tryukhina’s nephew, a young merchant in a fashionable frock coat, and told him that the coffin, the candles, the shroud, and other funerary accessories would be delivered to him at once all in good order. The heir thanked him distractedly, saying that he was not going to haggle over the price, but would rely on his conscience in everything. The coffin-maker, as was his habit, swore by God that he would not overcharge him; he exchanged significant glances with the steward and got busy. He spent the whole day driving from Razgulyai to the Nikitsky Gate and back; by evening everything was arranged, and he went home on foot, dismissing his cabby. It was a moonlit night. The coffin-maker reached the Nikitsky Gate safely. By the Church of the Ascension our acquaintance Yurko hailed him and, recognizing the coffin-maker, wished him a good night. It was late. The coffin-maker was already nearing his house when it suddenly seemed to him that someone came to his gate, opened it, and disappeared through it.
“What can this mean?” thought Adrian. “Does somebody need me again? Or is it a thief breaking in on me? Or maybe it’s lovers coming to my two fools, for all I know!” And the coffin-maker was already thinking of calling his friend Yurko to help him. Just then someone else approached the gate and was about to go in, but seeing the owner come running, he stopped and doffed his cocked hat. His face seemed familiar to Adrian, but in his haste he did not manage to make it out properly.
“You’ve come to see me,” Adrian said breathlessly. “Go in, if you please.”
“Don’t stand on ceremony, my good man,” the other replied hollowly. “Go on ahead; show your guests the way!”
Adrian had no time to stand on ceremony. The door was open, he went up the stairs, and the man followed him. Adrian fancied there were people walking about his rooms. “What the devil is this!…” he thought and hurriedly went in…Here his legs gave way. The room was filled with dead people. The moonlight coming through the window lit up their yellow and blue faces, sunken mouths, dull, half-closed eyes, and protruding noses…With horror Adrian recognized them as people buried by his best efforts, and in the guest who had come in with him, the brigadier whose funeral had taken place under the pouring rain. All of them, men and ladies, surrounded the coffin-maker with bows and greetings, except for one poor man, recently buried for free, who, aware and ashamed of his rags, did not come near, but stood humbly in the corner. The rest were dressed properly: the dead ladies in bonnets with ribbons, the dead officials in uniforms, but with unshaven beards, the merchants in their holiday kaftans.
“You see, Prokhorov,” the brigadier said on behalf of the whole honorable company, “we all rose up at your invitation; only the really unfit, who have completely fallen apart, or are nothing but skinless bones, stayed home, but even so there was one who couldn’t help himself—he wanted so much to visit you…”
Just then a little skeleton pushed through the crowd and approached Adrian. His skull was smiling sweetly at the coffin-maker. Scraps of light green and red broadcloth and threadbare linen hung on him here and there as on a pole, and his leg bones knocked about loosely in his high boots, like pestles in mortars.
“You don’t recognize me, Prokhorov,” said the skeleton. “Remember the retired sergeant of the guards, Pyotr Petrovich Kurilkin, the one you sold your first coffin to in 1799—a pine one that you passed off for oak?”
With these words the dead man held out a bony embrace to him—but Adrian, summoning all his strength, cried out and pushed him away. Pyotr Petrovich staggered, fell, and broke to pieces. A murmur of indignation arose among the dead people; they all defended the honor of their comrade, came at Adrian with curses and threats, and the poor host, deafened by their cries and nearly crushed, lost his presence of mind, fell himself onto the bones of the retired sergeant of the guards, and passed out.
The sun had long been shining on the bed in which the coffin-maker lay. He finally opened his eyes and saw before him the maidservant, who was blowing on the coals of the samovar. With horror Adrian recalled all of the previous day’s events. Tryukhina, the brigadier, and Sergeant Kurilkin arose vaguely in his imagination. He waited silently for the housekeeper to begin a conversation with him and tell him the consequences of the night’s adventures.
“How long you’ve slept, dear Adrian Prokhorovich,” said Aksinya, handing him his dressing gown. “Our neighbor the tailor came to see you, and the local sentry ran by to announce that today is the police chief’s name day, but you were asleep, and we didn’t want to wake you up.”
“Did anyone come to me from the late Tryukhina?”
“Late? Did she die?”
“You fool! Didn’t you help me arrange her funeral yesterday?”
“What’s got into you, dearie? Have you lost your mind, or has yesterday’s drunkenness still not left you? What kind of funeral was there yesterday? You spent the whole day feasting at the German’s, came home drunk, flopped into bed, and slept right up till now, when they’ve already rung for the morning liturgy.”
“You don’t say!” said the overjoyed coffin-maker.
“Sure enough,” the housekeeper replied.
“Well, in that case serve the tea quickly and call my daughters.”
* * *
* “our clientele”
THE STATIONMASTER
A collegiate registrator,
A post-station dictator.
PRINCE VYAZEMSKY1
Who has not cursed stationmasters, who has not quarreled with them? Who, in a moment of anger, has not demanded the fatal book from them, in order to set down in it his useless complaint about their oppression, rudeness, and negligence? Who does not consider them monsters of the human race, on a par with defunct scrive
ners or, at the very least, the bandits of Murom?2 Let us be fair, however, let us try to enter into their situation, and perhaps we will judge them much more leniently. What is a stationmaster? A veritable martyr of the fourteenth class,3 protected by his rank only from beatings, and that not always (I call my reader’s conscience to witness). What are the duties of this dictator, as Prince Vyazemsky jokingly calls him? Is it not real penal servitude? No peace day or night. It is on the stationmaster that the traveler vents all the vexation accumulated during his boring journey. The weather is unbearable, the road bad, the coachman pig-headed, the horses don’t pull—and it’s the stationmaster’s fault. Going into his poor dwelling, the traveler looks upon him as an enemy; it’s good if he manages to rid himself of the uninvited guest quickly; but if there happen to be no horses?…God, what curses, what threats pour down on his head! In rain and slush he is forced to run around outside; in storm, in midwinter frost, he steps out to the entryway, to rest for at least a moment from the shouting and shoving of an irate wayfarer. A general arrives; the trembling stationmaster gives him the last two troikas, including the one reserved for couriers. The general drives off without even thanking him. Five minutes later—the bell!…and a government messenger throws his travel papers on the table in front of him!…Let us get a good grasp on all of this, and instead of indignation, our hearts will be filled with sincere compassion. A few more words: in the course of twenty years, I have driven over Russia in all directions; I know almost all the post roads; I am acquainted with several generations of coachmen; rare is the stationmaster I don’t know by sight, rare are those I have not dealt with; I hope to publish a curious store of my travel observations before too long; meanwhile I will say only that the stationmasters’ estate is presented to general opinion in a most false guise. These much-maligned stationmasters are generally peaceable people, obliging by nature, inclined to be sociable, modest in their claim to honors, and not overly fond of money. From their conversation (so unduly scorned by gentleman travelers) one can learn much that is curious and instructive. As for me, I confess that I would rather talk with them than with some functionary of the sixth class traveling on official business.
It can easily be guessed that I have friends among the honorable estate of the stationmasters. In fact, the memory of one of them is precious to me. Circumstances once brought us together, and it is of him that I now intend to speak with my gentle readers.
In 1816, in the month of May, I happened to pass through––sky province, by a highway since abandoned. I was of low rank, went by post, and had a traveling allowance for two horses. As a result, stationmasters did not stand on ceremony with me, and I often had to fight for what, in my opinion, was mine by right. Being young and hotheaded, I was indignant at the baseness and pusillanimity of a stationmaster, when the latter had the troika prepared for me hitched to the carriage of a high-ranking gentleman. It took me just as long to get used to being passed over by a discriminating flunkey at a governor’s dinner. Now I find both the one and the other in the order of things. What, in fact, would happen to us if, instead of the all-convenient rule Let rank honor rank, something else were introduced, for instance Let mind honor mind. What arguments would arise! And with whom would the waiters begin their serving? But I return to my story.
It was a hot day. Two miles from the * * * posting station it started to sprinkle, and a moment later a downpour soaked me to the skin. On reaching the station, my first concern was to change my clothes quickly, the second was to ask for tea.
“Hey, Dunya,” shouted the stationmaster, “prepare the samovar and go for cream!”
At these words, a girl of about fourteen came from behind a partition and ran to the front hall. I was struck by her beauty.
“Is that your daughter?” I asked the stationmaster.
“That she is, sir,” he answered with an air of contented pride. “And she’s such a smart one, such a quick one, just like her late mother.”
Here he began to copy out my travel papers, and I set myself to examining the pictures that adorned his humble but well-kept abode. They illustrated the story of the prodigal son.4 In the first a venerable old man in a nightcap and dressing gown is seeing off a restless young man, who hastily receives his blessing and a bag of money. In the next the young man’s dissipated behavior is portrayed in vivid strokes: he sits at a table surrounded by false friends and shameless women. Further on, the ruined young man, in rags and a cocked hat, is tending swine and sharing their meal; his face shows profound sorrow and repentance. Finally, his return to his father is portrayed: the good old man has run out to meet him in the same nightcap and dressing gown; the prodigal son is on his knees; in the background the cook is killing the fatted calf, and the older son is questioning the servants about the cause of such rejoicing. Under each picture I read the appropriate German verses. All of that is preserved in my memory to this day, along with the pots of impatiens, and the bed with the motley canopy, and other objects that surrounded me at that time. I can see, as if it were now, the host himself, a man of about fifty, hale and hearty, and his long green frock coat with three medals on faded ribbons.
No sooner had I paid my old coachman than Dunya returned with the samovar. The little coquette had noticed at second glance the impression she had made on me; she lowered her big blue eyes; I started to converse with her, she replied without any timidity, like a girl who has seen the world. I offered her father a glass of punch, gave Dunya a cup of tea, and the three of us began talking as if we had known each other for ages.
The horses had long been ready, but I still did not feel like parting from the stationmaster and his daughter. At last I took leave of them; the father wished me a good journey, and the daughter saw me off to the carriage. In the entryway I stopped and asked permission to kiss her. Dunya consented…I can count many kisses,
Since I first took up that occupation,
but not one of them left me with so lasting, so pleasant a memory.
Several years passed, and circumstance brought me to that same highway, to those same parts. I remembered the old stationmaster’s daughter and rejoiced to think that I would see her again. But, I reflected, maybe the old stationmaster has been replaced; Dunya is probably already married. The thought of the death of the one or the other also flashed in my mind, and I approached the * * * station with sad foreboding.
The horses stopped by the little station house. On entering the room, I immediately recognized the pictures illustrating the story of the prodigal son; the table and the bed stood in their former places; but there were no plants in the windows now, and everything around had a look of decline and neglect. The stationmaster was asleep under a sheepskin coat; my arrival awakened him; he got up…This was indeed Samson Vyrin; but how he had aged! While he was preparing to copy my travel papers, I kept looking at his gray hair, his deeply wrinkled, long-unshaven face, his bent back—and could not stop marveling at how three or four years could turn a hearty fellow into a feeble old man.
“Do you recognize me?” I asked him. “You and I are old acquaintances.”
“Maybe so,” he answered gloomily. “It’s a big road out there; many travelers have passed my way.”
“Is your Dunya well?” I went on. The old man frowned.
“God knows,” he answered.
“So she’s evidently married?” I said. The old man pretended not to hear my question and went on reading my papers in a whisper. I stopped my questions and asked him to put the kettle on. Curiosity was beginning to stir in me, and I hoped that punch would loosen my old acquaintance’s tongue.
I was not mistaken: the old man did not refuse the offered glass. I noticed that rum brightened his gloominess. At the second glass he became talkative; he remembered me, or made as if he did, and I learned a story from him which at the time greatly interested and moved me.
“So you knew my Dunya?” he began. “Well, who didn’t? Ah, Dunya, Dunya! What a girl she was! It used to be, whoever passed through,
they all praised her, nobody said a bad word about her. Ladies gave her presents, one a little shawl, another a pair of earrings. Gentleman travelers stayed longer on purpose, supposedly to have dinner or supper, but really only so as to go on looking at her. It used to be, however angry a master was, he’d calm down with her there and talk kindly to me. Would you believe it, sir: couriers, government messengers, sat talking to her for half an hour at a time. She ran the household: what to tidy up, what to prepare, she kept it all going. And I, old fool that I am, couldn’t admire her enough, couldn’t rejoice enough. Didn’t I love my Dunya, didn’t I cherish my little one; wasn’t that the life for her? But no, you can’t pray trouble away; what’s fated won’t pass you by.”
Here he began telling me his grief in detail.
Once, three years ago, on a winter evening, when the stationmaster was drawing lines in a new register and his daughter behind the partition was sewing herself a dress, a troika drove up and a traveler in a Circassian hat, a military greatcoat, wrapped in a scarf, came into the room and demanded horses. The horses were all gone. At that news, the traveler raised his voice and his whip; but Dunya, who was used to such scenes, ran out from behind the partition and sweetly addressed him with a question: Wouldn’t he like something to eat? Dunya’s appearance produced its usual effect. The traveler’s anger went away; he agreed to wait for horses and ordered supper. Having taken off the wet, shaggy hat, unwound the scarf, and pulled off the greatcoat, the traveler emerged as a young, trim hussar with a small black moustache. He made himself comfortable at the stationmaster’s and began conversing gaily with him and his daughter. Supper was served. Meanwhile horses arrived, and the stationmaster ordered them hitched to the traveler’s kibitka at once, without being fed; but, on going back inside, he found the young man lying nearly unconscious on a bench: he felt faint, had a headache, it was impossible to go on…What could they do! The stationmaster yielded his bed to him, and it was decided that, if the sick man did not feel better, they would send to S–– the next morning for a doctor.
Novels, Tales, Journeys Page 10