‘Well, yes … imvalid, he-he-he …’
‘They also say mumber, Your Excellency,’ the tall officer blurted out, who had felt an itch for a long time now to distinguish himself somehow.
‘But what does mumber mean?’
‘Mumber instead of number, Your Excellency.’
‘Ah, yes, mumber … instead of number … Well, yes, yes … he-he-he! …’ Ivan Ilyich was obliged to titter for the officer as well.
The officer straightened his tie.
‘And here’s something else they say: aboot,’ the contributor to the Brand interjected. But His Excellency tried not to hear that. He wasn’t going to titter for everybody.
‘Aboot instead of about,’ pestered the ‘contributor’, visibly irritated.
Ivan Ilyich looked at him sternly.
‘Now why are you pestering him?’ Pseldonimov whispered to the contributor.
‘But what do you mean, I’m making conversation. Talking’s not allowed, is that it?’ the latter began to argue in a whisper, but then he fell silent and walked out of the room, barely concealing his rage.
He stole straight to the tempting little back room, where early in the evening for the dancing gentlemen there had been set out on a little table, covered with a Yaroslavl30 tablecloth, two kinds of vodka, herring, slices of pressed caviar and a bottle of very strong domestic sherry. With fury in his heart, he was about to pour himself some vodka, when suddenly the medical student with the tousled hair, the premier dancer and exponent of the cancan at Pseldonimov’s party, ran in. He rushed to the decanter with greedy haste.
‘They’re going to start now!’ he said, quickly helping himself. ‘Come and watch: I’ll do a solo with my legs in the air, and after supper I’ll risk doing the “fish”.31 That’s just the thing for a wedding. A friendly hint to Pseldonimov, so to speak. That Kleopatra Semyonovna is a splendid woman, you can risk anything you like with her.’
‘He’s a retrograde,’ the contributor answered darkly, as he drank off his glass.
‘Who’s a retrograde?’
‘That one, the person over there by the bonbons. He’s a retrograde, I tell you!’
‘Well, come on now!’ the student mumbled and rushed out of the room upon hearing the ritornello32 of the quadrille.
The contributor, left on his own, poured himself another glass for fortitude and independence, drank it off, had a bite; never before had Actual State Councillor Ivan Ilyich acquired a more fierce enemy and more implacable avenger than the scorned contributor to the Brand, particularly after two glasses of vodka. Alas! Ivan Ilyich didn’t suspect anything of the kind. Nor did he suspect yet another most important circumstance, which would have an effect on all further mutual relations between the guests and His Excellency. The fact of the matter is that even though he had for his part given a decent and even detailed explanation of how he came to be present at the wedding of his subordinate, this explanation really and truly didn’t satisfy anybody, and the guests continued to feel embarrassed. But suddenly everything changed, like magic; everyone calmed down and was ready to enjoy themselves, laugh, scream and dance, just as if there were no unexpected guest in the room. The reason for this was the rumour, whispering and news that suddenly began to circulate, no one knew how, that the guest, it seems … was under the influence. And although at first glance this appeared to be the most awful slander, little by little it seemed to be justified, so that suddenly everything became clear. Besides, they suddenly became unusually relaxed. And then at that very same moment the quadrille began, the last one before supper, the one the medical student had been in such a hurry for.
And just as Ivan Ilyich was about to address the new bride once again, this time trying to engage her with some pun, the tall officer suddenly came running up to her and with a sweeping gesture got down on one knee. She at once jumped up from the sofa and flew away with him to get into line for the quadrille. The officer didn’t even excuse himself, while she didn’t even look at the general as she was leaving, even as if she were happy that she had escaped.
‘However, she’s really within her rights,’ Ivan Ilyich thought, ‘and besides they don’t know the niceties.’
‘Hm … you shouldn’t stand on ceremony, Porfiry, my good man,’ he turned to Pseldonimov. ‘Perhaps you have something … in the way of things to see to … or something there … please, don’t be shy.’ ‘Is he standing guard over me, or what?’ he added to himself.
Pseldonimov with his long neck and eyes intently fixed on him was becoming unbearable. In a word, this was all wrong, quite wrong, but Ivan Ilyich was still far from wanting to admit it.
The quadrille began.
‘May I, Your Excellency?’ Akim Petrovich asked, respectfully holding the bottle in his hands and getting ready to pour a glass for His Excellency.
‘I … I don’t really know if …’
But Akim Petrovich with a reverential, beaming face was already pouring the champagne. Having filled the glass, he also poured himself one as well, almost surreptitiously, almost furtively, cowering and pulling faces, but with this difference – he gave himself an entire finger less, which seemed somehow more respectful. He was like a woman in labour, sitting next to his immediate superior. Indeed, what was he going to talk about? And yet he was obliged to entertain His Excellency, since he had the pleasure of his company. The champagne was a way out, and His Excellency found it pleasing that he had been poured a glass – not on account of the champagne, which was warm and the most ordinary rubbish, but he found it morally pleasing.
‘The old man wants a drink himself,’ Ivan Ilyich thought, ‘but he doesn’t dare have one without me. I shouldn’t hold him back … And it’s ridiculous for the bottle to just stand there between us.’
He took a sip, and at any rate it did seem better than just sitting there.
‘I’m here, you see,’ he began with pauses and emphases, ‘You see, I’m here, so to speak, by chance and of course perhaps some might find … that it was, so to speak … im-prop-er for me to be present at such a … gathering.’
Akim Petrovich kept his silence and listened with timid curiosity.
‘But I hope that you will understand why I’m here … You see, I didn’t as a matter of fact come here to drink wine. He-he!’
Akim Petrovich was about to follow His Excellency’s example and have a titter, but he somehow stopped short and again said absolutely nothing comforting in reply.
‘I’m here … in order, so to speak, to encourage … to show, so to speak, the moral, so to speak, purpose,’ Ivan Ilyich continued, annoyed at Akim Petrovich’s obtuseness, but suddenly he fell silent as well. He saw that poor Akim Petrovich had even lowered his eyes, as if he were guilty of something. Feeling a certain embarrassment, the general hurried to take another sip from his glass, while Akim Petrovich, as if his entire salvation depended upon it, grabbed the bottle and topped it up again.
‘You certainly don’t have much in the way of resources,’ Ivan Ilyich thought, looking sternly at poor Akim Petrovich. The latter, sensing the general’s stern gaze on him, decided to keep completely silent and not raise his eyes. And they sat facing each other like that for about two minutes, two painful minutes for Akim Petrovich.
A couple of words about Akim Petrovich. He was as submissive as a hen, one of the old school, nurtured on servility, and for all that a good man and even a noble one. His people were Petersburg Russians, that is, both his father and his father’s father were born, grew up and served in Petersburg without ever leaving Petersburg even once. This is a quite special type of Russian people. They don’t have even the slightest understanding of Russia, which doesn’t bother them in the least. Their entire interest is confined to Petersburg, and chiefly their place of work. All their cares are centred on preference33 for kopeck stakes, the shops and their monthly salary. They don’t know a single Russian custom, nor a single Russian song, except ‘Luchinushka’,34 and they only know that one because the organ-grinders play it
. However, there are two significant and reliable signs by which you can immediately distinguish a real Russian from a Petersburg Russian. The first sign is that all Petersburg Russians, without exception, never say Petersburg News, but Academic News.35 The second, equally significant sign is that a Petersburg Russian never uses the word ‘breakfast’, but always says Früstück,36 with particular emphasis on the sound frü. By these two fundamental and distinctive signs you can always distinguish them; in a word, this is a humble type that has become fully developed over the last thirty-five years. However, Akim Petrovich was no fool. If the general had asked him about something suitable, he would have answered and kept up the conversation, but otherwise, you see, it was improper for a subordinate to answer such questions, even though Akim Petrovich was dying from curiosity to find out something in more detail about His Excellency’s real intentions …
But meanwhile Ivan Ilyich was sinking deeper and deeper into thought and into a sort of whorl of ideas; with a preoccupied air, he was sipping from his glass imperceptibly, but constantly. Akim Petrovich repeatedly and most diligently would fill up his glass. Both were silent. Ivan Ilyich began to watch the dancing and soon it had somewhat engaged his attention. Suddenly, a certain circumstance even surprised him …
The dancing indeed was merry. They danced in the simplicity of their hearts to be merry and even go wild. There were very few nimble dancers; but those who were not stamped about so loudly that one might have taken them for nimble ones. The first to distinguish himself was the officer: he particularly liked the figures in which he danced alone, as in a solo. Here he would bend himself in an amazing manner, to wit: he would be as straight as a post and then suddenly bend to one side so that you would think that he would fall down, but with the next step he would suddenly bend in the opposite direction, at the same sharp angle to the floor. The expression on his face was most serious and he danced with the full conviction that everybody was amazed by him. Another gentleman, having imbibed quite a bit before the quadrille had begun, had fallen asleep beside his partner during the second figure, so that his partner was forced to dance alone. A young registrator, who had danced with his partner in the blue scarf, had played the same trick in all the figures of each quadrille, namely, he would fall behind his partner somewhat, snatch the end of her scarf, and when they passed one another as they changed positions, he would manage to brush this end of the scarf with a couple dozen kisses. And his partner would sail on in front of him as if she hadn’t noticed anything. The medical student indeed performed his solo with his legs in the air, inciting frenzied delight, stomping of feet and shrieks of pleasure. In a word, there was an extraordinary lack of constraint. Ivan Ilyich, who was feeling the effects of the wine, had started to smile, but little by little a sort of bitter doubt started to creep into his heart: of course, he very much liked relaxed manners and lack of constraint; he had desired them, he had even sincerely invited them, these relaxed manners, when they were all backing away from him; but now these relaxed manners were already exceeding all bounds. One lady, for example, wearing a shabby blue velvet dress, bought fourth-hand, in the sixth figure had pinned up her dress in such a way that it looked like she was wearing bloomers. This was that same Kleopatra Semyonovna, with whom it was possible to risk everything, in the words of her partner, the medical student. And what can be said about the medical student? He was simply Fokine.37 How had this happened? First, they backed away, and then all of a sudden they had become completely emancipated! It would seem to be nothing, but this transition was somehow strange: it portended something. It was as if they had all quite forgotten that there was such a one as Ivan Ilyich on this earth. It goes without saying that he was the first to laugh and even ventured to applaud. Akim Petrovich respectfully tittered with him in unison, although with visible pleasure and not suspecting that His Excellency was already beginning to nourish new doubts in his heart.
‘You dance splendidly, young man,’ Ivan Ilyich was obliged to say to the student, who walked past – the quadrille had just ended.
The student turned sharply towards him, pulled some sort of face, and bringing his face indecently close to His Excellency’s, he crowed like a rooster for all he was worth. This was really too much now. Ivan Ilyich rose from the table. Despite this, a volley of unrestrained laughter followed, because the rooster’s crow was amazingly natural, and his pulling the face so unexpected. Ivan Ilyich was still standing in bewilderment, when suddenly Pseldonimov himself appeared and, bowing, asked him to come to supper. His mother followed him.
‘Your Excellency, sir,’ she said, bowing, ‘please do us the honour, don’t disdain our poverty …’
‘I … I truly don’t know …’ Ivan Ilyich began, ‘you see, I didn’t come for that … I … was already getting ready to go …’
Indeed, he was holding his hat in his hands. Besides, just then, at that very moment, he had promised himself that he would definitely leave, right away, no matter what, and wouldn’t stay for anything and … and he stayed. A minute later he was leading the procession to the table. Pseldonimov and his mother walked in front of him, clearing the way for him. He was seated in the place of honour and once again an untouched bottle of champagne appeared before him. There were zakuski:38 herring and vodka. He reached out his hand, poured himself an enormous glass of vodka and drank it. He had never drunk vodka before. He felt like he was sledding down a hill, flying, flying, flying, that he needed to hold on to something, to grab on to something, but that was impossible.
Indeed, his position was becoming more and more peculiar. More than that – it was some sort of mockery of fate. God only knows what had happened to him in something on the order of an hour. When he came in, he had held out his hands, so to speak, to embrace all of mankind and all of his subordinates; and now, not even an hour later, he sensed and knew with all his aching heart that he hated Pseldonimov, that he cursed him, his wife and his wedding. More than that: he could see by his face and by his eyes that Pseldonimov hated him, that his look practically said: ‘I wish you’d get lost, damn you! Foisting yourself on me! …’ All this he had read a long time ago in his look.
Of course, Ivan Ilyich even now, as he was sitting down at the table, would sooner have had his hand cut off than sincerely acknowledge, not only aloud, but even to himself, that all this was really the case. That moment had not yet quite come; now there was still some sort of moral balance. But his heart, his heart … it ached! It begged for freedom, for air, for rest. You see, Ivan Ilyich was much too good a person.
He knew, you see, he knew very well that he should have left a long time ago, or not merely leave but save himself. That all this had suddenly gone awry, that it had not turned out at all like he had imagined just now on the footway.
‘Why did I come after all? Did I really come to eat and drink here?’ he asked himself, as he was having a bite of herring. He even experienced denial. At moments irony occasioned by his exploit stirred in his soul. He was even beginning not to be able to understand himself why, as a matter of fact, he had come.
But how could he leave? To leave like that, without seeing it to the end, was impossible. ‘What will people say? They’ll say that I hang about indecent places. As a matter of fact, it will turn out just like that if I don’t see it through to the end. What will they be saying tomorrow (because the word will get around everywhere); for example, what will Stepan Nikiforovich or Semyon Ivanych say; or what about at the offices, at the Shembels or the Shubins? No, I must leave so that they all understand why I came, I must bring out into the open the moral purpose …’ But meanwhile, this pathetic moment just would not come. ‘They don’t even respect me,’ he continued. ‘Why are they laughing? They’re so casual, it’s as if they didn’t have feelings! Yes, I have long suspected that the entire younger generation has no feelings! I must stay no matter what happens! … Just now they were dancing, and now they’ll gather round the table … I’ll talk about issues, about the reforms, about Russia’s greatness �
�� I’ll win them over yet! Yes! Perhaps nothing is completely lost yet … Perhaps that’s how it always is in reality. But just what should I start with, to engage them? What method should I devise? I’m at my wits’ end, my wits’ end … And what do they need, what do they want? … I see that they’re smiling to one another over there … I hope it’s not about me, good heavens! But what is it I want … why am I here, why don’t I leave, what am I trying to achieve? …’ He was thinking this, and some sort of shame, some deep, unbearable shame was tearing at his heart more and more.
But everything kept going on in the same way, one thing leading to another.
Exactly two minutes after he sat down at the table, a certain terrifying idea took hold of his whole being. He suddenly felt that he was horribly drunk – that is, not like he had been earlier, but completely drunk. The reason for this was the glass of vodka, drunk after the champagne and which had an immediate effect. He felt, he sensed with his whole being that he was becoming completely weak. Of course, his courage had grown stronger, but his conscience did not abandon him, rather it cried out to him: ‘This is bad, this is very bad, and even quite indecent!’ Of course, his unsteady drunken thoughts could not settle on one point: suddenly there appeared within himself, even palpably, two sides, as it were. In one there was courage, the desire for victory, the overthrow of obstacles and a desperate certainty that he would achieve his goal. The other side let itself be known through an agonizing ache in his soul and some sort of gnawing pain in his heart. ‘What will people say? How will it end? What will tomorrow bring, tomorrow, tomorrow! …’
Earlier he had somehow dimly sensed that he had enemies among the guests. ‘That’s probably because I was drunk before, too,’ he thought with agonizing doubt. Imagine his horror now, when he really became convinced by unmistakable signs that he really did have enemies at the table and that there could no longer be any doubt about that.
‘And for what! For what!’ he thought.
The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.) Page 15