XVI
The doctors said that Fyodor was mentally ill. Laptev didn’t know what was happening at Pyatnitsky Street, but that dark warehouse, where neither the old man nor Fyodor appeared any more, reminded him of a crypt. Whenever his wife told him that he should visit the warehouse and Pyatnitsky Street every day, he either said nothing or talked irritably about his childhood, about his inability to forgive his father the past, about his hatred for Pyatnitsky Street and the warehouse, and so on.
One Sunday morning Julia went to Pyatnitsky Street herself. She found old Fyodor Stepanych in the same room where the service to celebrate her arrival had once been held. Without any tie, in canvas jacket and slippers, he was sitting motionless in an armchair, blinking his blind eyes.
‘It’s me, your daughter-in-law’, she said, going over to him. ‘I’ve come to see how you are.’
He was breathing heavily from excitement. Touched by his unhappiness and loneliness, she kissed his hand, while he felt her face and head. Then, as if having convinced himself that it really was her, he made the sign of the cross over her.
‘Thank you so much’, he said. ‘I’ve lost my sight, I can hardly see a thing. I can just make out the window and the light too, but not people and things. Yes, I’m going blind and Fyodor’s ill. It’s really bad without the boss’s eye on them – if there’s trouble and no one to take charge they’ll just run wild. And what’s wrong with Fyodor? Got a cold, has he? As for me, I’ve never been ill, never been to the doctor’s. No, can’t say I’ve had anything to do with doctors.’
As usual, the old man started boasting. Meanwhile the servants hurriedly began laying the table in that large room, placing savouries and bottles of wine on it. They brought in about a dozen bottles, one of which was the same shape as the Eiffel Tower. Then they brought a whole plateful of hot pies that smelt of boiled rice and fish.
‘Please have something, my dear’, the old man said.
She took his arm, led him to the table and poured him some vodka. ‘I’ll come again tomorrow’, she said, ‘and I’ll bring your granddaughters Sasha and Lida. They’ll pamper and comfort you.’
‘Oh, no, don’t go bringing them here, they’re not legitimate.’
‘What? Not legitimate? Surely their father and mother were married?’
‘Yes, but without my permission. I never blessed them and I don’t want anything to do with them, blast them.’
‘What a strange way to speak, Father’, Julia sighed.
‘According to the Gospels children must honour and fear their parents.’
‘Nothing of the sort. The Gospels say that we must forgive even our enemies.’
‘In our kind of business you can’t forgive anyone. If you started forgiving everyone you’d go bust within three years.’
‘But forgiving, saying a kind, friendly word to someone – even if he’s done wrong – that’s better than business and wealth!’
Julia wanted to mollify the old man, to inspire him with compassion and make him feel repentant, but he listened to what she had to say condescendingly, like a parent listening to a child.
‘Father, you’re an old man’, Julia said decisively. ‘God will soon be calling you to him. He won’t ask what kind of business you had, or if you made a profit. He’ll ask whether you’ve been kind to others. Haven’t you been hard on those weaker than yourself – your servants or clerks, for example?’
‘I’ve always been generous to my staff. They should always mention me in their prayers’, the old man said with great conviction. However, he was touched by Julia’s sincere tone of voice and, to please her, he added, ‘Good, bring my little granddaughters tomorrow. I’ll see they get some presents.’
The old man was untidily dressed and there was cigar ash on his chest and lap. Evidently no one cleaned his shoes or clothes. The rice in the pies was undercooked, the tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants trod noisily. The old man, the whole house on Pyatnitsky Street, had a neglected look. Sensing this, Julia felt ashamed on her own and her husband’s account.
‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow, without fail’, she said.
She walked through the house and ordered the servants to tidy up the old man’s bedroom and light his icon-lamp. Fyodor was sitting in his room looking at an open book without reading. Julia spoke to him and ordered his room to be tidied too. Then she went down to the clerks’ quarters. In the middle of the room where they ate stood an unpainted wooden column, which propped up the ceiling. The ceilings here were low and the walls cheaply papered, and there was a smell of fumes from the stove and cooking. As it was Sunday, all the clerks were at home, sitting on their beds waiting for their meal. When Julia came in they jumped up, timidly answered her questions, lowering at her like convicts.
‘Heavens, what a dreadful place you live in!’ she exclaimed, clasping her hands. ‘Don’t you feel cramped here?’
‘Yes, it’s cramped all right’, Makeichev said, ‘but it don’t do us no harm. We’re very thankful to you and we lift up our prayers to all-merciful God.’
‘Corresponding to the plenitude of the personality’, Pochatkin said.
Noticing that Julia hadn’t understood Pochatkin, Makeichev hastened to explain, ‘We’re humble folk and must live according to our station in life.’
She inspected the boys’ quarters and the kitchen, met the housekeeper and was highly dissatisfied.
At home she told her husband, ‘We must move to Pyatnitsky Street as soon as possible. And you’ll go to the warehouse every day.’
Afterwards they sat next to each other in the study without speaking. Laptev felt miserable and didn’t want to go to Pyatnitsky Street or the warehouse. But he guessed what his wife was thinking and didn’t have the strength to offer any opposition.
‘I feel as if our life’s over and that some dull half-life is just beginning. When I heard that my brother Fyodor is hopelessly ill, I just wept. We spent our childhood and youth together. I once loved him deeply. Now this catastrophe comes along and I feel that losing him is the final break with the past. When you spoke just now about moving to Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, I began to think that I’ve no future either.’
He stood up and went over to the window.
‘Whatever happens, I can say goodbye to any hope of happiness’, he said, looking into the street. ‘It doesn’t exist. I’ve never experienced happiness, so there probably isn’t such a thing. However, I was happy once in my life, when I sat under your umbrella that night. Do you remember leaving your umbrella at my sister Nina’s?’ he asked, turning towards his wife. ‘I was in love with you then and I remember sitting up the whole night under that umbrella in a state of bliss.’
In the study, by the bookcases, stood a mahogany chest of drawers, with bronze handles, where Laptev kept various things that weren’t needed, including the umbrella. He took it out and handed it to his wife.
‘There you are.’
Julia looked at the umbrella for about a minute and recognized it with a sad smile. ‘I remember’, she said. ‘You were holding it when you said you loved me.’
When she saw that he was preparing to leave she added, ‘Please come home early if you can. I miss you.’
Then she went to her room and stared at the umbrella for a long time.
XVII
Despite the complexity of the business and the enormous turnover, there was no accountant at the warehouse and it was impossible to make any sense of the ledger clerk’s books. Every day commission agents – German and English, with whom the clerks discussed politics and religion – called at the warehouse. An alcoholic nobleman (a sick, pathetic man) would come to translate the office’s foreign correspondence. The clerks called him ‘Midget’ and gave him tea with salt in it. On the whole, the business struck Laptev as one vast operation in eccentricity.
Every day he called at the warehouse and tried to introduce a new system. He forbade them to whip the boys or make fun of customers, and he lost his temper whenev
er the clerks laughed as they cheerfully despatched useless old stock to the provinces, trying to pass it off as new and fashionable. Now he was in charge at the warehouse, but he still had no idea how much he was worth, whether the business was prospering or what salary his chief clerks received. Pochatkin and Makeichev thought him young and inexperienced, concealed many things from him, and had mysterious whispering sessions with the blind old man every evening.
One day in early June, Laptev and Pochatkin went to Bubnov’s inn for a business lunch. Pochatkin had been with the Laptevs for ages, having joined the firm when he was eight. He was really part of the place and was trusted implicitly: when he took all the money from the cash-box on his way out and stuffed his pockets this didn’t arouse the least suspicion. He was boss at the warehouse, at home and in church too, where he stood in as warden for the old man. Because of his cruel treatment of his inferiors he had been nicknamed Ivan the Terrible49 by the clerks and boys.
When they arrived at the inn he nodded to the waiter and said, ‘Look here, old chap, bring us half a prodigy and twenty vexations.’
After a short while, the waiter brought them half a bottle of vodka on a tray and various plates of savouries.
‘Now look here, old fellow-me-lad’, Pochatkin said, ‘bring us a portion of the leading expert in slander and scandal with some mashed potatoes.’
The waiter didn’t understand, grew embarrassed and looked as if he wanted to say something. But Pochatkin eyed him sternly and said, ‘Furthermore!’
The waiter racked his brains and then went off to consult his colleagues. Finally he guessed correctly and brought a portion of tongue. When they had each drunk two glasses and eaten, Laptev asked, ‘Tell me, Pochatkin, is it true our business has been in decline over the past few years?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Now, be quite straight with me, don’t equivocate. Tell me how much profit we used to make, how much we’re making now, and how much capital we have. We can’t go around like blind men, can we? The warehouse accounts were done not so long ago, but I’m very sceptical, I’m sorry to say. You feel you must hide something from me and you only tell my father the truth. You’ve been mixed up in shady dealings since you were young and now you can’t do without them. But what’s the use? Now, I’m asking you. Please be open with me. What’s the state of the business?’
‘That depends on oscillation of credit’, Pochatkin replied after pausing for thought.
‘What do you mean, “oscillation of credit”?’
Pochatkin began explaining, but Laptev understood nothing and sent for Makeichev. He came at once, said a short prayer, ate some savouries and, in his rich, pompous baritone expatiated chiefly on the clerks’ duty to pray night and day for their benefactors.
‘Fine, but please don’t include me among your benefactors’, Laptev said.
‘Every man must remember what he is and be conscious of his station in life. By the grace of God you are our father and benefactor and we are your slaves.’
‘I’m just about sick and tired of all this!’ Laptev fumed. ‘Now, you be my benefactor for a change and tell me how the business stands. Please stop treating me like a child or I’ll close down the warehouse tomorrow. My father’s gone blind, my brother’s in a mad-house, my nieces are still very young. I hate the business and I’d love to get out of it. But there’s no one to replace me, you know that too well. So, enough of your fiddling, for God’s sake!’
They went into the warehouse to check the accounts and that evening they were still working on them in the house – the old man himself helped them. As he initiated his son into his business secrets he gave the impression he had been practising black magic, not commerce. It turned out that the profits were increasing yearly by about ten per cent and that the Laptevs’ wealth, in cash and securities alone, amounted to six million roubles.
It was about one o’clock in the morning when Laptev went out into the fresh air after doing the accounts, and he felt hypnotized by those figures. It was a calm, moonlit, fragrant night. The white walls of the houses in Moscow’s suburbs south of the river, the sight of heavy, locked gates, the silence and those black shadows created the general impression of a fortress – only a sentry with rifle was missing. Laptev went into the little garden and sat on a bench near the fence separating it from next door’s garden. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered that this cherry had been just as gnarled and exactly the same height when he was a child – it hadn’t changed at all since then. Every corner of the garden and yard reminded him of the remote past. In his childhood, just as now, the whole yard, flooded in moonlight, had been visible through the sparse trees, with shadows that were as mysterious and menacing as before. And just as then, a black dog lay in the middle of the yard and the clerks’ windows were all wide open. But all these were sombre memories.
Beyond the fence, the sound of footsteps came from next door.
‘My dearest, my darling’, a man’s voice whispered – so close to the fence that Laptev could hear breathing.
Then there was a kiss. Laptev was sure that all those millions of roubles, that business he disliked so much, would ruin his life and turn him into a slave in the end. He imagined gradually settling down in his new position, gradually assuming the role of head of a business house, growing dull and old, and finally dying the way mediocrities usually do – shabbily, miserably, depressing all his associates. But what was stopping him abandoning all those millions and the business, and leaving that garden and yard he had hated since he was a boy?
The whispering and kissing on the other side of the fence disturbed him. He went into the middle of the yard, unbuttoned his shirt and looked at the moon: he felt that he wanted to order the gate to be unlocked immediately so that he could leave and never return. His heart thrilled at the prospect of freedom and he laughed with joy as he imagined how wonderful, idyllic and perhaps even saintly that life might be.
But he did not make a move and asked himself, ‘What in heaven’s name is keeping me here?’ He felt annoyed with himself and with that black dog which lay sprawled over the stones instead of running off into fields and forest where it would be free and happy. Obviously, the same thing was preventing both him and the dog from leaving that yard – the habit of bondage, slavery.
Next day, at noon, he went to his wife’s and invited Yartsev to come along too, in case he got bored. Julia Sergeyevna was living in a villa at Butovo and he hadn’t been there for five days. When they arrived at the station the friends entered a carriage and Yartsev waxed lyrical about the wonderful weather the whole way. The villa was in a park, not far from the station. Julia Sergeyevna was sitting under a poplar waiting for her guests right at the beginning of the main avenue, about twenty yards from the gate. She was wearing a light, elegant, cream-coloured, lace-trimmed dress and was holding that familiar umbrella. Yartsev greeted her and went towards the villa, from which he could make out Sasha and Lida’s voices, while Laptev sat beside her to talk business.
‘Why have you been so long?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been waiting here for days on end. I really miss you!’
She got up, ran her hand through his hair and looked quizzically at his face, shoulders, hat.
‘You know, I do love you’, she said, blushing. ‘You’re very dear to me. You’re here, I can see you now and I’m too happy for words! Well, let’s talk. Tell me something.’
As she declared her love he felt as though he had already been married for ten years; and he wanted his lunch. She put her arms round his neck, tickling his cheek with her silk dress. He carefully removed her hand, stood up and went off towards the villa without a word. The girls came running to meet him.
‘How they’ve grown!’ he thought. ‘There’s been so many changes over these three years. But perhaps I’ve another thirteen, thirty years left. What does the future hold in store? Time will tell.’
He embraced Sasha and Lida, who clung to his neck.
‘Grandfather sends his reg
ards’, he said. ‘Uncle Fyodor is going to die soon. Uncle Kostya has sent us a letter from America and sends his regards. He’s bored with the Exhibition50 and he’ll be back soon. And Uncle Aleksey is hungry.’
Afterwards he sat on the terrace and saw his wife strolling down the path towards the villa. She seemed deep in thought and wore an enchantingly sad expression. Tears glistened in her eyes. She wasn’t the delicate, fragile, pale-faced girl of before, but a mature, beautiful, strong woman. Laptev noticed how rapturously Yartsev was looking at her and how her fresh, beautiful expression was reflected on his face, which displayed a similar sad enchantment. As they had lunch on the terrace Yartsev smiled a somewhat timid, happy smile and he couldn’t take his eyes off Julia and her beautiful neck. Laptev felt compelled to watch him closely as he thought of the thirteen or thirty years he might have left. And what would he have to go through during that time? What does the future hold for us? And he thought, ‘Time will tell.’
The Student
At first the weather was fine and calm. Thrushes sang and in the marshes close by some living creature hummed plaintively, as if blowing into an empty bottle. A woodcock flew over and a shot rang out, echoing cheerfully in the spring air. But when darkness fell on the forest, an unwelcome, bitingly cold wind blew up from the east and everything became quiet. Ice needles formed on puddles and the forest became uninviting, bleak and empty. It smelt of winter.
Ivan Velikopolsky, a theology student and parish priest’s son, was returning home along the path across the water meadows after a shooting expedition. His fingers were numb and his face burned in the wind. It seemed that this sudden onset of cold had destroyed order and harmony in all things, putting Nature herself in fear and making the evening shadows thicken faster than was necessary. All was deserted and somehow particularly gloomy. Only in the widows’ vegetable plots by the river did a light gleam. Far around, though, where the village stood about three miles away, everything was completely submerged in the chill evening mists. The student remembered that when he left home his mother had been sitting barefoot on the floor of the hall, cleaning the samovar, while his father lay coughing on the stove. As it was Good Friday no cooking was done at home and he felt starving. Shrinking from the cold, the student thought of similar winds blowing in the time of Ryurik, Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great1 – during their reigns there had been the same grinding poverty and hunger. There had been the same thatched roofs with holes in them, the same ignorance and suffering, the same wilderness all around, the same gloom and feeling of oppression. All these horrors had been, existed now and would continue to do so. The passing of another thousand years would bring no improvement. He didn’t feel like going home.
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, 1892-1895 Page 38