Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (Penguin Classics)

by Chandler, Robert

  My friend’s right. Something strange is happening to me. My character’s changing, and my head aches. I’m starting to see and hear some very strange things. Not quite voices, but as if someone nearby were going, ‘Bobok, bobok, bobok!’

  What is this bobok? I need to take my mind off things.

  Going out to take my mind off things, I happened across a funeral. A distant relative. All the same, a collegiate councillor.2 A widow, five daughters, all young girls. Think what it must cost just to keep them in shoes! The deceased used to provide for them, but now – just a wretched little pension. They’ll be tightening their belts all right. Not that I ever used to get much of a welcome from them myself. And I wouldn’t have gone along at all if it hadn’t been a sort of special occasion. I followed him to the graveyard along with the rest of them; they kept their distance and looked at me haughtily. My uniform is in truth a bit shabby. It must have been twenty-five years since I was last in a graveyard; a lovely little place – I don’t think!

  First, the smell. About fifteen corpses had shown up. Palls of various prices. Even two catafalques: one for a general and one for some fine lady. A lot of mournful faces, a lot of pretend mourning, and a lot of outright gaiety. The clergy can’t complain; it’s a living. But there was one hell of an odour – not much of a place, really, to be in holy orders.

  Afraid of my own impressionability, I glanced cautiously at the corpses’ faces. There were some gentle expressions, some unpleasant ones. In general the smiles weren’t so very nice, even quite the reverse. Horrible: like in dreams.

  During the Mass I left the church for some air: it was rather a grey day, but dry. Cold too; but it was, after all, October. I had a little walk among the graves. There are various classes. Third class costs thirty roubles: respectable enough, and not too expensive. First and second are inside the church and under the porch; for them, you have to pay through the nose. This time there were around half a dozen people being buried third class, among them the General and the fine lady.

  I peeked into the open graves – horrible! Water – and not just any old water! It was completely green and… well, never mind! The gravedigger was continually bailing it out with a scoop. While the service continued, I went for a walk outside the gate. By the gate there’s an almshouse, and a little further on – a restaurant. Quite a decent little restaurant, not bad at all; you can have a bite to eat, and something with it. There was quite a crowd there, mourners too. I saw a lot of merriment and sincere animation. I had something to eat, and a drink.

  Then, with my own hands, I helped carry the coffin from the church to the grave. What makes these corpses so damned heavy in their coffins? I’ve heard say it’s because of some kind of inertia, that the body somehow loses control over itself. Or some such nonsense that flies in the face of both common sense and the laws of mechanics. I don’t like it when people with only a general education start holding forth on specialist questions; in this country it happens all the time. Civilians love to pronounce on military matters, even ones that could only be decided by a field marshal, while trained engineers prefer to discuss philosophy and political economy.

  I didn’t go to the wake. I have my pride; and if I’m received only on the most special occasions, then why should I drag myself along to one of their dinners? So what if it’s just after a funeral? The only thing I don’t understand is why I stayed behind at the graveyard; I sat on a tombstone and, in an appropriate manner, became lost in thought.

  I began with the Moscow Exhibition and ended up thinking, in the most general of ways, about the theme of astonishment. Here’s the conclusion I reached: ‘Being astonished at everything is, of course, stupid, while not being astonished at anything is a great deal more becoming and is for some reason seen as good form. But I doubt if this is so in reality. To my mind, being astonished at nothing is a great deal more stupid than being astonished at everything. And moreover, to be astonished at nothing is almost the same as to feel respect for nothing. And a stupid man is incapable of respect.’

  ‘What I wish, more than anything, is to feel respect. I yearn to feel respect,’ a friend of mine said to me the other day.

  He yearns to feel respect! ‘Good God!’ I thought. ‘What would happen to you today if you dared publish that?’

  At this point I sank into oblivion. I don’t like reading inscriptions on tombstones: they’re eternally one and the same. Beside me, on the stone, lay a half-eaten sandwich; it looked stupid and out of place. I threw it on to the ground, since it wasn’t bread but merely a sandwich. Anyway, what’s sinful, I think, isn’t throwing crumbs on to the ground, but throwing them on to the floor. Look it up in Suvorin’s Almanac.3

  I suppose I must have sat there a long time, maybe even too long; that is, I even lay down on a long stone shaped like a marble coffin. And how did it happen that I suddenly began to hear one thing after another? At first I paid no attention and adopted an attitude of contempt. But nevertheless, the conversation continued. I listened: the sounds were muffled, as if coming from mouths covered with pillows; all the same, they were distinct, and they seemed to be from close by. I came to, sat up, and began to listen intently.

  ‘It just isn’t possible, Your Excellency. You called hearts, I’m your partner, and all of a sudden you have seven diamonds. We should have agreed on diamonds beforehand.’

  ‘What do you mean – play from memory? Where’s the fun in that?’

  ‘It’s impossible, Your Excellency, without a guarantee it’s quite impossible. There absolutely must be a dummy and a blind open.’

  ‘Well, you won’t find any dummies here.’

  What devil-may-care words! Strange, unexpected. One voice that was weighty and dignified; the other as if slightly sweetened. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. I didn’t appear to be at a wake. Yet how could they be playing card games here – and was this really a general? That the voices were coming from under the gravestones there was no possible doubt. I bent down and read the inscription on the memorial:

  Here rests the body of Major-General Pervoyedov4… Knight of the Orders of This and of That. Hm… Died in August of the year… age of fifty-seven… Rest, beloved dust, until the joyful morning!

  So, damn it, a real general! The neighbouring grave, where the ingratiating voice came from, was still without a headstone; there was just a slab on the ground: a newcomer, no doubt. A court councillor5 by his voice.

  ‘Oh-oh-oh-oh!’ came an entirely new voice, from an absolutely fresh little grave about a dozen yards away from the General’s place – the voice of a man, a common voice, but softened by a touch of sanctimoniousness. ‘Oh-oh-oh-oh!’

  ‘There he is, hiccuping again!’ came the fastidious, haughty voice of an irritable lady apparently from high society. ‘What torment to be next to this shopkeeper!’

  ‘I didn’t hiccup in the least, nor have I even partaken of food. It’s just my nature, that’s all. Anyway, dear lady, if you can’t get any peace here, it’s because of your own whims and caprices.’

  ‘But why did you have to come and lie here?’

  ‘I was laid here, I was laid here by my spouse and my little children. I didn’t come and recline here myself. The mystery of death! And I wouldn’t have chosen to lie down beside you for anything, no, no matter what they paid me. But I’ve paid the price, yes, it was my own capital I laid by so I could lie here. Yes, that’s something we can always do – pay up for a little third-class grave.’

  ‘Did you make a pile by short-changing people?’

  ‘We could hardly have short-changed you. We haven’t had a kopek from you, by my reckoning, since January. You’ve run up quite a nice little bill at the shop.’

  ‘Well, that really is stupid. Trying to collect debts where we are now, in my view, is very stupid indeed! Go upstairs and ask my niece. She’s my heir.’

  ‘There’s no one I can ask now, and nowhere I can go now. We have both reached the end now, and before the judg
ement seat of the Lord we stand equal in our trespasses.’

  ‘In our trespasses!’ the deceased lady scornfully repeated his words. ‘Don’t you dare speak another word to me!’

  ‘Oh-oh-oh-oh!’

  ‘A shopkeeper does, you see, obey a lady, Your Excellency.’

  ‘And why wouldn’t he obey her?’

  ‘Well, Your Excellency, there is, as is generally recognized, a new order here.’

  ‘What sort of new order?’

  ‘Well, Your Excellency, we are, so to speak, all dead.’

  ‘Ah, yes! All the same, order…’

  Very obliged to you, yes indeed! A real comfort you’ve all been to me! If things are this bad down below, why should we expect anything better up above? Quite a to-do, yes indeed! I went on listening, however, even if it was with unbounded indignation.

  ‘No. I could live a little! No… I, you know… I could live a little!’ All of a sudden there was a new voice, from somewhere between the General and the irritable lady.

  ‘Listen, Your Excellency, there’s our friend – harping away again on his usual theme. Not a word for three days on end, and then, all of a sudden: “I could live a little! No. I could live a little!” And with such, you know, gusto, tee-hee!’

  ‘And such frivolity.’

  ‘He’s upset, Your Excellency, and then, you know, he’s falling asleep, he really is falling asleep now. He’s been lying here ever since April – and all of a sudden: “I could live a little!”’

  ‘It is rather boring, though,’ observed His Excellency.

  ‘It is indeed, Your Excellency. What do you think – shall we have a bit of fun with Avdotya Ignatyevna again, tee-hee?’

  ‘No, I beg you, anything but that. I can’t stand that quarrelsome bitch.’

  ‘And I, for my part, cannot stand either of you,’ the woman retorted with disgust. ‘Both of you are utterly boring and quite unable to talk about anything true and ideal. And as for you, Your Excellency, please don’t go putting on airs – I can tell a little story about you, how one morning a footman swept you out with his broom from under a certain married lady’s bed.’

  ‘Foul creature!’ the General muttered through his teeth.

  ‘Avdotya Ignatyevna, dearie,’ the shopkeeper suddenly piped up again. ‘Dear lady, let bygones be bygones and tell me what’s happening: are these the torments we meet after death, or is this something different?’

  ‘Oh, there he goes again. I expected as much. I can smell the odour he gives off – he must be tossing and turning.’

  ‘I’m not tossing and turning, dearie, and I have no particular odour since I have preserved myself in all the fullness of my body, while you, dear lady, really have begun to turn. The odour truly is unbearable, even by the standards of this place. I have remained silent only out of politeness.’

  ‘Filthy slanderer! Stinking away himself – and he blames it on me!’

  ‘Oh-oh-oh-oh! If only my fortieth day6 would come soon! I should hear their tearful voices above me, the wailing of my spouse and my children’s quiet weeping.’

  ‘A fine thing he’s found to weep about: they’ll just stuff their faces and then they’ll be off back home. Oh, if only someone new would wake up!’

  ‘Avdotya Ignatyevna,’ said the obsequious court councillor. ‘Just be a little bit patient – it won’t be long till the new lot start talking.’

  ‘Are there any young men?’

  ‘Yes, Avdotya Ignatyevna. Even some very young men.’

  ‘Just the thing!’

  ‘Oh, haven’t the new lot started yet?’ enquired His Excellency.

  ‘Even the day-before-yesterday’s lot have still to wake up. You know very well, Your Excellency, sometimes they stay silent for a whole week. It’s a good thing a whole new batch has been brought in at once – yesterday, the day before yesterday, and now today! Otherwise almost everyone within twenty-five yards has been here nearly a year.’

  ‘Yes, it will be interesting.’

  ‘Today, Your Excellency, they buried Full Privy Councillor7 Tarasevich. I could tell by the voices. His nephew’s an acquaintance of mine, he was helping to lower the coffin.’

  ‘Hm, where is he?’

  ‘About five yards away from you, Your Excellency, to the left. Almost at your feet, sir. You should really make his acquaintance, Your Excellency.’

  ‘Hm, no… I mean, I can hardly make the first –’

  ‘But he’ll make the first move himself, Your Excellency. He’ll even be flattered. Leave it to me, Your Excellency, and I’ll –’

  ‘Ah, ah… ah, what on earth’s happening to me?’ groaned some frightened, brand new little voice.

  ‘Someone new, Your Excellency, someone brand new, and so soon! Sometimes they stay silent for a whole week.’

  ‘Ah, I think it’s a young man,’ squealed Avdotya Ignatyevna.

  ‘I… I… I… from complications, and so sudden!’ the youth started to babble again. ‘Schultz says to me, only the day before, “You have complications” – and then all of a sudden, towards morning, I’m finished. Ah! Ah!’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing for it, young man,’ the General observed graciously, evidently glad of the new arrival, ‘you must take comfort! Welcome to our, so to speak, Valley of Jehoshaphat.8 We’re good people, you’ll get to know us and like us. Major General Vasily Vasilyevich Pervoyedov, at your service.’

  ‘Ah, no! No, no, I just can’t! I was under Schultz. I developed complications, you see. First it was my chest, and coughing, then I caught a cold: my chest, and influenza… then all of a sudden and quite unexpectedly… above all, quite unexpectedly –’

  ‘You say it was your chest first of all?’ the court councillor gently interrupted, as if wishing to encourage the newcomer.

  ‘Yes, my chest and phlegm, then all of a sudden there was no more phlegm, and my chest – and I can’t breathe… and you know…’

  ‘I know, I know. But if it was your chest, you should really have gone to Eck, not to Schultz.’

  ‘Well, you know, I kept meaning to go to Botkin… and then, all of a sudden…’

  ‘But Botkin really stings you,’ remarked the General.

  ‘No-o, he’s not like that at all. I’ve heard that he’s ever so attentive and that he gives you a complete prognosis.’

  ‘His Excellency was referring to his fees,’ the court councillor corrected him.

  ‘Oh, come now, only three roubles, and his examinations are so… and his prescriptions… and I really wanted to see him, because I’d been told… Well, gentlemen, what do you think: should I go to Eck or to Botkin?’

  ‘What? Where?’ the General’s corpse heaved with good-natured laughter. The court councillor accompanied him, in a falsetto.

  ‘My dear boy, my dear delightful boy, how I love you!’ Avdotya Ignatyevna squealed ecstatically. ‘Oh, if only they’d laid someone like him next to me!’

  No, this is more than I can tolerate! So this is the contemporary corpse! Still, I must listen a bit more and not jump to conclusions. As for this snivelling new arrival, I remember him in his coffin only a moment ago: the expression of a terrified chicken, the most repulsive expression in the world! What next, though?

  But next such a hullabaloo broke out that I have been unable to retain it all in my memory. This was because a great number of them woke up all at once. A civil servant, with the rank of state councillor,9 began there and then, without further ado, to talk to the General about a project for a new subcommittee in the Ministry of —— Affairs and a probable transfer of personnel in connection with this subcommittee – all of which the General found most entertaining. I too, I admit, learned a great deal that was new, and I marvelled at the paths through which, in this capital of ours, administrative news can sometimes be learned. Then some engineer half woke up, but for a long time he went on muttering such complete nonsense that our lot didn’t bother with him at all and simply left him to it. Finally the distinguished lady who had been bro
ught in that morning under a catafalque showed signs of sepulchral animation. Lebezyatnikov10 (for that turned out to be the name of the fawning court councillor, the one I disliked so much and who was lying beside General Pervoyedov) really got quite agitated, astonished that everyone was waking up so quickly this time. I must admit I was astonished too; but then some of them had already been lying there for all of two days – one very young girl, for example, about sixteen years old, who kept on giggling… vilely and lasciviously giggling.

  ‘Your Excellency, Privy Councillor Tarasevich is awakening,’ announced Lebezyatnikov with great haste.

  ‘Eh? What?’ mumbled the Privy Councillor who had so suddenly woken up. He had a fastidious, lisping voice that sounded both capricious and imperious. I listened with curiosity, for I had recently heard something about this Tarasevich, something suggestive and alarming to the highest degree.

  ‘It’s me, Your Excellency. So far, it’s just me, sir.’

  ‘What is your request and how can I oblige you?’

  ‘I was merely inquiring after Your Excellency’s health. Not being used to it here, sir, everyone feels a little cramped when they first… General Pervoyedov would like to have the honour of making Your Excellency’s acquaintance, and he hopes…’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘But surely, Your Excellency – General Pervoyedov, Vasily Vasilyevich…’

  ‘Are you General Pervoyedov?’

  ‘No, Your Excellency, I am only merely Court Councillor Lebezyatnikov, at your service, whereas General Pervoyedov…’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! I beg you to leave me in peace.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said General Pervoyedov with dignity, finally putting a stop to the disgusting haste of this graveyard flunkey.