The Beggar and Other Stories

by Gaito Gazdanov

  The following morning Anatoly told him that he had received an invitation to go to England for three weeks and that, if his uncle had no objections…

  “What objection could I possibly have?” said Alexei Stepanovich. “Go wherever your heart desires. Do you need money?”

  Anatoly declined the money. In this respect he was unlike other people, who ordinarily would never have dreamt of declining it. He spent little and, unlike his mother, who could not do without a thousand and one things whose purpose she did not even know several years previously, but which now were absolutely necessary to her—was very undemanding.

  “For the duration of my absence I shall send you a friend of mine, who will stand in for me,” said Anatoly. “It’s all been arranged. Please, don’t worry about a thing, I’m taking the financial burden upon myself and this, too, has been settled.”

  “Whatever are you saying, Anatoly Alexandrovich?” said Alexei Stepanovich quizzically and politely. “You mean to take the cost upon yourself? You think you must come to my rescue to help me overcome financial strains? Have you been so rich for long? Perhaps you could make me an offer of credit?”

  “No, I beg of you…”

  “The devil take you,” said Alexei Stepanovich. “Allow me to see to my own affairs. When do you leave?”

  Anatoly left the following day, and that very morning his proxy arrived. He was a man of around twenty-three or twenty-four, of average height, well and solidly built, and judging by the suppleness and legerity of his movements, which Alexei Stepanovich followed with an involuntary and unconscious envy, it was evident that he was very strong and healthy. His large—womanlike—dark-blue, hungry eyes with deep circles under them did not tally with this appearance and his slicked-back fair hair. In those first moments Alexei Stepanovich wondered whether he was not a drug addict. But afterwards he rejected this theory—the young man’s movements were all much too assured and accurate; everything about him indicated an ideal physical equipoise. “But why these idiotic eyes?” Alexei Stepanovich asked himself. “As though they result from some unsatisfied desire.”

  Before long Alexei Stepanovich became convinced that his temporary secretary was sufficiently well educated and intelligent and possessed a quick mind. However, as he looked at those eyes, he could never quite rid himself of the impression that he was dealing with a man whose whole life was an effort to control himself—an effort, each time crowned with success, like a difficult and dangerous circus act. It happened that several times he caught himself thinking that he was experiencing something akin to physical unease, of the sort that he would feel when watching an acrobat very nearly falling from a trapeze hanging in a high-up and sinister void.

  A few days later, however, Alexei Stepanovich learnt the reason for this strange look about the young man, whom, from the very first day of their acquaintance, he had dubbed privately the Acrobat. He invited him to dine with him. After the repast, the Acrobat told Alexei Stepanovich that the principal and sole misfortune in his life was an absence of money.

  “Money as a means, of course?”

  “Yes, money as a means.”

  “A means to what?”

  “There’s a woman I love…”

  “Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose,”‡ said Alexei Stepanovich with a sigh. The Acrobat said that the woman he loved could not belong to him because he was too poor and had no right to condemn her to an impoverished existence—in a small apartment, without a maid, with cooking and domestic cares, and so forth. According to the Acrobat, this woman was uncommonly beautiful and uncommonly clever.

  “Naturally, naturally,” said Alexei Stepanovich.

  “You doubt it?”

  “No, I’ve just never seen such things in my own life, although I admit they may well exist. But if I follow you correctly, then if you were rich she would live with you?”

  “I believe so.”

  “And you would like to be rich?”

  “Yes.”

  Alexei Stepanovich said nothing. He wanted to ask how much she had demanded, but did not, for fear of offending the Acrobat and having thought, moreover, that it would have been much too conventional.

  “But she loves you?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “And you’re certain that if you had the money everything would be fine?”

  “It seems that way.”

  “And you wouldn’t want for anything?”

  “No. On that point I’m absolutely sure.”

  Three days later, after luncheon, Alexei Stepanovich said to the Acrobat:

  “Just once I’d like to play the role of the fairy-tale magician.”

  The Acrobat’s dark-blue eyes watched him intently.

  “I’m glad that I am able to do this for you, although, truth to tell, it isn’t all that estimable, since it doesn’t cost me much. But I’m old and unhappy. And if my money can at least make someone happy, that’s a very good thing. I have every cause to doubt this,” he said. “In my experience, money can lessen suffering, but it cannot create what is not there. It has no creative power. But that is the philosophy of an old sceptic, which has nothing to do with you. I shall be happy if this conviction of mine proves false. Go now.”

  And when the Acrobat, who was at such a loss that he did not even bother to thank him, had already half-closed the door behind him, he shouted:

  “Telephone tomorrow, at ten o’clock, I’ll give you all the instructions!”

  With a clatter he tossed from the table a box of matches, which landed in his line of sight, and he fell to thinking that wealth had no creative power, that the Acrobat was wrong; yet if one supposed for an instant that a miracle were possible, then that was at least one consolation. Now this last resort had been set in motion; and if it turned out to be just as deceitful and ineffective as everything else, then there would remain only… He shrugged his shoulders, stood up and began to pace about the room. Poor Acrobat! He thinks that now, within this perhaps truly splendid body, within his muscles and his chest, will begin that responsive movement that alone is able to make him happy and only now can materialize and expand; and all this was made possible by that same wealth that had been so powerless in Alexei Stepanovich’s hands and which was now to acquire a magical authority. “But that authority is illusory,” said Alexei Stepanovich aloud, forcefully.

  Anatoly returned from London, the Acrobat vanished entirely without trace, and Alexei Stepanovich’s life continued along much the same lines as before. Winter passed, the air became warmer; on moonlit nights Alexei Stepanovich would gaze out of the window onto the rows of blossoming chestnut trees. According to Anatoly, the Acrobat was travelling either in Italy or else in South America; the days grew longer and longer. Alexei Stepanovich continued to receive treatment, lived in the same solitude and ceased even to think about many things, for whenever one of those questions that seemed most important to him arose, a rebuttal was to hand even prior to its consideration, as if it were clear a priori and in perpetuity that there could be no mistake and that everything had been judged and sentenced to a premature disappearance with the same certainty that several days would pass and nothing would remain of the milky-white, ethereal river of chestnut blossoms. “But next summer there will be others,” Alexei Stepanovich replied to himself and immediately repeated: “Others. These ones, however, will be gone.”

  Then he would enter into another plane of contemplation and convince himself that he had no time for blossoming chestnut trees and that they could not in the slightest degree have any bearing on his life and could not alter anything within him—neither for the better, nor for the worse.

  Later on, he departed for the sea; in the afternoon he felt exhausted from the heat and drank some iced water; in the evening, leaning on his walking stick, he descended to the empty, remote shore to watch the waves. “This would be a good spot to die,” he had once thought. It was evening; at dusk there had been a brief spell of rain. The air had grown fresher, smellin
g more powerfully of the sea. He returned home. Slowly he approached the villa where he was staying, glanced at its dark, open windows, entered, flicked the light switch and suddenly, as though in a distant dream, saw Acrobat’s glaring blue eyes and the black muzzle of a revolver aimed at his chest.

  * Two verbs encompass all the forms that these two causes of death may take: to Will and to Be Able… Willing burns us, and Being Able destroys us.

  † “I don’t give a d—n.”

  ‡ “Nothing ever changes.”

  THE MISTAKE

  (1938)

  VASILY VASILYEVICH had been wandering about the apartment for a whole hour, peering under tables and divans, turning on the lights everywhere—a lazy dusk had already fallen over the city—yet all his investigations had proved fruitless. He had made several tours of all the rooms, rummaging around in the divans and armchairs and poking his hand into their plush recesses, all dust and velvet, where he found scraps of paper, safety pins and the king of spades, which had fallen out of a deck of cards; what he was looking for, however, was nowhere to be seen. Undismayed, he once again set about his explorations; he was about to climb up onto the sideboard, having repositioned the armchair next to it, when suddenly he espied the black corner of his copybook poking out from under a milk-white vase standing on a small end table. He pulled the book towards him. The table shook, but the book remained firmly in place. He gave a sharp tug and then, comically toppling over, both the table and the vase came toppling down, the latter loudly hitting the parquet and shattering into little white pieces that scattered across the floor. Vasily Vasilyevich froze, breath held, listening to the silence, which was all the more surprising after such a resounding crash. It was almost completely dark; the navy-blue divan seemed black, the clock face showed a hazy yellow and the disc of the tail-like pendulum glinted dimly; on the other side of the window—still, like in a painting—were dark trees. Then, a few seconds later, the street lamps lit up and their pale radiance permeated the apartment, illuminating the table on the floor, the milky shards of glass and Vasily Vasilyevich himself, the newly uncovered copybook finally in his grasp. Vasily Vasilyevich was dressed in long breeches and a sailor’s jacket. He stood there as though bewitched, his big, deep-blue eyes wide open, staring at the white, motionless debris on the floor. A long time seemed to pass before the unhurried approach of footsteps could be heard, the light came on, and a voice from the doorway said:

  “What have you broken, Vasily Vasilyevich?”

  Only then did Vasily Vasilyevich begin to cry, covering his face and understanding the irreparability of what he had done.

  “Why ever did you touch it?”

  Sobbing and incoherent with despair, Vasily Vasilyevich tried to explain that he had been searching for his copybook, that his father that morning had drawn in it a wonderful little demon for him, that the book had been under the vase, that he had tugged at it, and then the vase had accidentally fallen.

  “It’s all right,” said his mother. “Now help me to clear up the shards. Just be careful not to cut yourself.”

  “Are they sharp?” asked Vasily Vasilyevich.

  “Very sharp.”

  “But the vase wasn’t sharp.”

  “But Vasily Vasilyevich was a very silly boy.”

  “Was not,” said Vasily Vasilyevich.

  At first there was just an armchair with a firm, well-sprung seat; then flashed a face of a cinematic beauty; next came a memory of the taste of the water in the bathhouse and the marinated fish that Natasha had prepared the previous day; then two lines from an old letter she had received: My faith in you knows no bounds, and I hope that while I live there may be nothing to shake this belief. Now, these lines related to something that mustn’t be thought about, something that had effectively ceased to exist. Thought was to be devoted now to other things, to Italian exhibitions, to art and sculpture; however, none of those wielded its usual persuasiveness or weight any longer. And while they did not quite vanish, still, they failed wholly to engulf the attention; they became tiresome and meaningless, like the classroom exercises of yesteryear. The effort required to avoid thinking about something that has very nearly ceased to exist was akin to a physical strain reaching its limit, when the muscles ache and there is a pounding at the temples, and you want to give it all up and end it. In any case, it was unnecessary and to no avail, for life until then had been joyful, successful and proper, just like a classical schema of some abstract theory, flawless in its execution. Life had been composed—till very recently—of a great succession of sensations, memories and concerns, each of which had been a continuation of that same happy principal that was now lost in time and located somewhere far off in the past, perhaps in childhood, on the seashore. Those beginnings had grown richer, more complex, more profound—with time—and more (it seemed) certain; beyond them was just an insignificant external world, almost unreal and powerless over what constituted the very essence of life. But around eight years prior to this, a spectre of doubt had surfaced and then vanished, a stray feeling of inexplicable emptiness, as if, despite all this, something was still missing—but then Vasily Vasilyevich came along, and there could no longer be any misgivings that everything had been settled once and for all in the best and most agreeable manner possible. The days and weeks during this time were especially memorable, and they were characterized by a powerful new awareness of everything that was going on—right down to the smallest, most insignificant detail—and a recognition of the almost limitless profusion of opportunities to have as many experiences and emotions as possible. And as all this came to an end, the resulting state of happiness seemed unalterable, as did everything now in this apartment, where silence and twilight reigned. It was indeed very quiet and dark, and still; everything, it seemed, had already reverted to that classical schema, enriched by yet another day, yet another effort of imagination amid the silence—when suddenly, sharply and unexpectedly, with a desperate, almighty reverberation, the crash of broken glass tore through the apartment.

  Vasily Vasilyevich had been asleep for some time, his mouth half open and his head resting on his little arm; Natasha was long gone; the armchair had traded places with the divan, at the head of which now shone a lamp with a green shade; the shards of glass had been cleared away; everything else had been dealt with, but there was still the matter of finding, among all those charming everyday objects that constituted life itself, the blind spot, the point de départ, beyond which things sometimes took on new meanings, shedding their former aspect. Where, when and why could this have happened? In the early years there had been cruel intentions, a couple of stolen kisses, but these could be put down to youth, not to depravity or to a lack of understanding right and wrong. Then came love and marriage, the cold stare of a mother who hated all the happy people on this earth, and a blessing from an icon as old as time, so darkened with age that it was impossible to make out the saint depicted on it; the barely distinguishable face, along with its small stern eyes, had turned black, and the nimbus around the head was yellowing, yet all this bore an arbitrary, symbolic meaning, and no one—neither those who gave nor those who received the blessing—so much as looked at the icon, which was returned to its resting place at the end of the ritual, its dried-out verdure, now brown with age, covered over. Still before that, there had been Russia, a bright apartment with enormous windows, school, lessons in foreign languages… “Like all people,” scornfully said her mother, who had spent her whole life in expectation of some terrible personal tragedy or some catastrophe, and who considered her comfortable existence degrading and unworthy. She was forever planning to join a monastery or a revolutionary group and would tell her husband that to go on living as they did was shameful and that it had to stop; but she entered no monastery nor any revolutionary group, and she continued attending the theatre and receiving visitors, all the while deeply resenting this life of privilege. She came alive only when misfortune truly befell someone, when a person was at death’s door; then, c
asting all else aside, she would set off in their direction, urging the driver on, summoning doctors, spending untold sums of money, looking after the children and generally doing a great deal of good. These deeds, however, had to be preceded by death, or at least something so severe that no amount of money or any degree of care could ever hope to cure. She did not love her daughter, or her son, or her husband; but then a constant stream of people from all walks of life would come to her—petitioners, wretched-looking individuals, cripples with their eyelids upturned, drunkards, consumptives, unfortunate and pitiful people, to whom she would give money and clothing and for whom she cared as though they were family. Later, as she entered the dining room, whereupon everyone would fall silent, she would say:

  “Thanks be to God that we can eat well today.”

  Her husband would merely shrug his shoulders, having accustomed himself to this daily comedy over the course of thirty years.

  She hated, indeed despised, everything that exhibited health, happiness, wealth and love; anything favourable would elicit from her no more than a sneer and hostility. When her daughter’s future husband had approached her—this was already abroad, in Berlin, although practically nothing in the house had changed (the same poor wretches would crowd the dark stairwell as before, the only difference being that Germans had started appearing alongside the Russians)—to seek permission to ask for Yekaterina Maximovna’s hand in marriage, she had just stood there, silent, staring at him wrathfully, until finally she replied that she was very happy for them; it rang with such hatred and malice that he left, perplexed and almost frightened by this inexplicable ire. On the day of the wedding, wearing a tight-fitting starched dress, she received messages of congratulation and then summoned her daughter to inform her of certain laws of nature, the reproductive instinct, the plaisirs de la lune de miel,* and that, when all is said and done, what will have taken place, though distressing, is perfectly normal. She advised her daughter to bear in mind the fact that there were tens of thousands of people starving in Berlin.