“Now tell me one last thing: how is it that you’re not afraid either of writing what you write, or of doing what you did to me in church?”
“What I write, I write for myself, and what I did in church had to be committed to protect the tsar’s authority.”
“Why the tsar’s?”
“So that everybody could see his servant showing respect for the people’s faith.”
“But I could have dealt with you quite differently than I’m doing.”
Ryzhov looked at him “with pity” and replied:
“And what harm can be done to a man who is able to live with his family on ten roubles a month?”
“I could have you arrested.”
“They eat better in jail.”
“You could be exiled for this insolence.”
“Where could I be exiled where I’d be worse off and where my God would abandon me? He’s with me everywhere, and besides Him I fear no one.”
The haughty neck bent, and Lanskoy’s left hand reached out to Ryzhov.
“Your character is honorable,” he said and told him to leave.
But apparently he still did not quite trust this biblical socialist and personally asked several simple people about him.
Twirling their hands in the air, they all answered in the same way:
“He’s this-that-and-the-other.”
None of them knew anything more definite about him.
On bidding him farewell, Lanskoy said to Ryzhov:
“I won’t forget you, and I’ll take your advice—I’ll read the Bible.”
“Only that’s not enough, you must also learn to live on ten roubles a month,” Ryzhov added.
But that advice Lanskoy did not promise to take, but only laughed, gave him his hand again, and said:
“An odd fellow, an odd fellow!”
Sergei Stepanovich left, and Ryzhov carried his Singlemind home and went on writing in it whatever poured out from his observations and prophetic inspiration.
XIII
Quite some time had gone by since Lanskoy’s visit, and the events that had accompanied his passing through Soligalich were already largely forgotten and rubbed out by the everyday hurly-burly, when suddenly out of the blue, a wonder of wonders not only for Soligalich but for all enlightened Russia, the inspected town received some absolutely incredible news, even impossible in an orderly system of government: Constable Ryzhov had been awarded the St. Vladimir’s Cross, which confers nobility25—the first St. Vladimir’s Cross ever bestowed on a police constable.
The decoration itself arrived along with instructions for putting it on and wearing it according to the rules. Both the cross and the diploma were handed to Alexander Afanasyevich with an announcement that he had been vouchsafed this honor and this bestowal on the recommendation of Sergei Stepanovich Lanskoy.
Ryzhov took the decoration, looked at it, and said aloud:
“An odd fellow, an odd fellow!” and noted in the Singlemind next to Lanskoy’s name: “Will be made a count,” which, as we know, was fulfilled. As for wearing the decoration, Ryzhov had nothing to wear it on.
The chevalier Ryzhov lived to be almost ninety, noting everything down precisely and originally in his Singlemind, which was probably expended on papering the walls in some local restoration. He died, having carried out all the Christian rites according to the prescriptions of the Orthodox Church, though his Orthodoxy, by general observation, was “questionable.” In his faith, too, Ryzhov was a this-that-and-the-other sort of man, but for all that, it seems to me that we can see in him something besides “mere trash”—for which he should be remembered at the very beginning of a search into “three righteous men.”26
* Low necklines and short sleeves. Trans.
The Devil-Chase
I
It is a rite that can be seen only in Moscow, and then not otherwise than with special luck and patronage.
I saw a devil-chase from beginning to end thanks to a lucky concurrence of circumstances, and want to record it for true connoisseurs and lovers of what is serious and majestic in our national taste.
Though I’m a nobleman on one side, on the other I’m close to “the people”: my mother is from the merchant estate. She left a very wealthy house to marry, but left it by eloping, out of love for my father. My late father had a way with the ladies, and what he intended, he achieved. Thus he also succeeded with my mother, but for that adroitness my mother’s parents gave her nothing except, of course, her wardrobe, linens, and God’s mercy, which were obtained along with forgiveness and the parental blessing, forever inviolable. My old folks lived in Orel, lived in want, but proudly, asked nothing of my mother’s rich relations, and had no contacts with them. However, when it came to my going to university, my mother began to say:
“Please, go to Uncle Ilya Fedoseevich and pay him my respects. It’s not humiliating, one should honor one’s older relations—and he’s my brother, and a pious man at that, and carries great weight in Moscow. At all the official greetings, he always brings the bread and salt … always stands in front of the others with the dish or the icon … is received at the governor general’s and the metropolitan’s …1 He may give you good advice.”
I did not believe in God at that time, having studied Filaret’s catechism,2 but I did love my mother, and one day I thought: “Here I’ve been in Moscow for about a year and still haven’t carried out my mother’s will. Why don’t I go right now to Uncle Ilya Fedoseich, convey my mother’s respects to him, and see what he really has to teach me?”
By childhood habit I was respectful of my elders—especially those who were known to both the metropolitan and the governor general.
I rose, brushed myself off, and went to Uncle Ilya Fedoseich.
II
It was somewhere around six in the evening. The weather was warm, mild, and grayish—in short, very nice. My uncle’s house was well-known—one of the foremost houses in Moscow—everybody knew it. Only I had never gone there, and had never seen my uncle, even from afar.
I boldly went, however, reasoning: if he receives me, good, and if he doesn’t, he doesn’t.
I come to the courtyard; by the porch stand horses, fierce, raven black, their manes flying loose, their hide shining like costly satin, and they are hitched to a carriage.
I go up to the porch and say: thus and so, I’m his nephew, a student, I ask to be announced to Ilya Fedoseich. And the servants reply:
“He’ll be coming down presently—to go for a ride.”
A very simple figure appears, a Russian one, but quite majestic—there is a resemblance to my mother in his eyes, but the expression is different—what’s known as a solid man.
I introduced myself; he heard me out silently, quietly gave me his hand, and said:
“Get in, we’ll go for a ride.”
I was about to decline, but somehow faltered and got in.
“To the park,” he ordered.
The fierce horses galloped off at once, with only the rear of the carriage bouncing, and when we left town, they raced even more swiftly.
We sat there not saying a word, only I could see that the edge of my uncle’s top hat was cutting into his forehead, and on his face there was that sort of wry scowl that comes from boredom.
He looked this way and that, and once cast a glance at me and, out of the blue, said:
“No life at all.”
I didn’t know what to reply, and said nothing.
We rode on and on. I think, “Where’s he taking me?” and I begin to suspect that I’ve landed in some sort of adventure.
And my uncle suddenly seems to have made up his mind about something and starts giving orders to the coachman one after another:
“Turn right, turn left. Here at the Yar—stop!”3
I see many waiters pouring out of the restaurant to meet us, and they all bend almost double before my uncle, but he does not stir from the carriage and summons the owner. They run off. A Frenchman appears—also very respe
ctful, but my uncle does not stir: he taps the ivory knob of his cane against his teeth and says:
“How many superfluous ones are there?”
“Up to thirty in the main rooms,” replies the Frenchman, “and three private rooms are occupied.”
“Out with them all!”
“Very good.”
“It’s now seven,” my uncle says, looking at his watch. “I’ll come back at eight. Will you be ready?”
“No,” he replies, “by eight is difficult … there are many reservations … but by nine, if you please, there won’t be a single stranger in the restaurant.”
“Very well.”
“And what shall we prepare?”
“Gypsies, naturally.”
“What else?”
“An orchestra.”
“One?”
“No, better two.”
“Send for Ryabyka?”
“Naturally.”
“French ladies?”
“No need for them!”
“The cellar?”
“All of it.”
“From the kitchen?”
“The carte!”
They brought the menu for the day.
My uncle glanced and, it seems, did not really see anything, and perhaps did not wish to. He tapped the paper with his stick and said:
“All of it, for a hundred persons.”
And with that he rolled up the menu and put it in his kaftan.
The Frenchman was both glad and hesitant:
“I can’t serve it all to a hundred persons,” he said. “There are very expensive things here, of which there are only five or six portions in the whole restaurant.”
“And how am I to sort out my guests? Whoever wants something should get it. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Otherwise, brother, even Ryabyka won’t help. Drive!”
We left the restaurateur with his lackeys at the entrance and went rolling off.
By then I was fully convinced that this was not for me, and I tried to take my leave, but my uncle didn’t hear me. He was very preoccupied. We drove along, on the way stopping now one person, now another.
“Nine o’clock at the Yar!” my uncle said briefly to each of them. And the people to whom he said this were all such venerable old men, and they all took their hats off and just as briefly answered my uncle:
“Your honored guest, Fedoseich.”
I don’t remember how many people we stopped in that fashion, but I think it was some twenty, and just then it turned nine o’clock, and we rolled up to the Yar again. A whole crowd of waiters poured out to meet us and took my uncle under the arms, and on the porch the Frenchman himself brushed the dust off his trousers with a napkin.
“All clear?” asked my uncle.
“One general,” he said, “is lingering in a private room, he begged to be allowed to finish …”
“Out with him at once!”
“He’ll be finished very soon.”
“I don’t care—I’ve given him enough time—let him go and finish eating on the grass.”
I don’t know how it would have ended, but at that moment the general came out with two ladies, got into his carriage, and left, and the guests my uncle had invited to the park began driving up to the entrance one by one.
III
The restaurant was tidied up, clean, and free of customers. Only in one of the rooms sat a giant, who met my uncle silently and, without saying a word to him, took his stick and hid it away somewhere.
My uncle surrendered the stick without the least protest, and also gave the giant his wallet and change purse.
This massive, gray-haired giant was the same Ryabyka of whom I had heard the incomprehensible order given to the restaurateur. He was some sort of “children’s teacher,” but here he obviously also had some special duties. He was as necessary here as the Gypsies, the orchestra, and the whole get-up, which instantly appeared in full muster. Only I didn’t understand what the teacher’s role was, but that was still early on in my inexperience.
The brightly lit restaurant was in operation: music thundered, Gypsies strolled about and snacked from the buffet, my uncle inspected the rooms, the garden, the grotto, and the galleries. He looked everywhere to see if there were any “non-belongers,” and beside him walked the inseparable teacher; but when they came back to the main dining room, where everyone was gathered, a great difference between them could be noticed. The campaign had not affected them in the same way: the teacher was as sober as when he set out, but my uncle was completely drunk.
How it could have happened so quickly, I don’t know, but he was in excellent spirits; he sat in the chairman’s place, and the show began.
The door was locked, and, as was said of the whole world, “neither could they pass from them to us, nor from us to them.”4 We were separated by a gulf, a gulf of everything—wine, viands, and, above all, a gulf of carousing—I don’t want to say outrageous, but wild, furious, such as I’m unable to describe. And that shouldn’t be asked of me, because, seeing myself squeezed in there and cut off from the world, I grew timid and hastened to get drunk the sooner myself. And therefore I will not give an account of how the night went on, because it is not given to my pen to describe all of it; I remember only two outstanding battle episodes and the finale, but in them was also contained what was most dreadful.
IV
Some Ivan Stepanovich was announced, who, as it turned out later, was a prominent Moscow factory owner and businessman.
That produced a pause.
“But you were told: let nobody in,” my uncle replied.
“He begs very much.”
“Let him take himself off where he came from.”
The man went out, but timidly came back.
“Ivan Stepanovich asked me to tell you,” he says, “that he very humbly begs.”
“Never mind, I don’t want to.”
Others said: “Let him pay a fine.”
“No! Drive him away. No need for a fine.”
But the man reappears and says still more timidly:
“He agrees to pay any fine, because at his age, he says, it’s very sad for him to be excluded from your company.”
My uncle rose and flashed his eyes, but at the same moment Ryabyka rose to his full height between him and the lackey: with his left hand he flung the servant away, somehow with one tweak, like a chicken, and with his right hand he seated my uncle in his place.
From among the guests voices were heard in favor of Ivan Stepanovich, asking to let him in—take a hundred-rouble fine from him for the musicians and let him in.
“He’s one of us, a pious old man, where is he to go now? If he’s driven away, he may make a scandal in front of the small fry. We should take pity on him.”
My uncle heeded them and said:
“If it won’t be my way, it won’t be yours either, it will be God’s way: I grant Ivan Stepanovich admittance, only he must beat the kettledrum.”
The messenger came back:
“He begs to pay a fine instead.”
“Devil take him! If he doesn’t want to drum, he doesn’t have to—let him go wherever he likes.”
A little while later Ivan Stepanovich yielded and sent to tell them he agreed to beat the kettledrum.
“Let him come here.”
A man of great height and respectable appearance enters: stern aspect, extinct eyes, bent spine, and tufty, greenish beard. He tries to joke and greet them all, but is put in his place.
“Later, later, all of that later,” my uncle shouts at him. “Now beat the drum.”
“Beat the drum!” others join in.
“Music! For the kettledrum!”
The orchestra strikes up a loud piece—the staid old man takes the wooden drumsticks and starts banging on the kettledrum in time and out of time.
Infernal noise and shouting; everybody’s pleased and cries out:
“Louder!”
Ivan Stepanovich puts more into it.
“Louder, louder, still louder!”
The old man bangs with all his might, like the Black King in Freiligrath,5 and finally the goal is achieved: the kettledrum gives out a desperate crack, the skin splits, everybody laughs, the noise is unimaginable, and for breaking through the kettledrum Ivan Stepanovich is relieved of a five-hundred-rouble fine to benefit the musicians.
He pays, wipes his sweat, sits down, and while everybody drinks his health, he, to his own no small horror, notices his son-in-law among the guests.
Again laughter, again noise, and so it goes until I lose my senses. In rare moments of lucidity I see Gypsy women dancing, see my uncle pumping his legs while sitting in place; then he gets up in front of someone, but Ryabyka at once appears between them, and somebody goes flying to one side, and my uncle sits down, and before him stand two forks stuck into the table. Now I understand Ryabyka’s role.
But here the freshness of a Moscow morning breathed through the window. Once more I was conscious of something, but as if only so as to doubt my own reason. There was combat and the chopping of wood: I heard crashing, thunder, trees were swaying, virgin, exotic trees, behind them some swarthy faces huddled in a corner, and here, at the roots, terrible axes flashed and my uncle chopped, and old Ivan Stepanovich chopped … Right out of a medieval picture.
This was the “taking captive” of the Gypsy women hiding in the grotto beyond the trees. The Gypsy men did not defend them and left them to their own devices. There was no sorting out joke from seriousness here: plates, chairs, stones from the grotto flew through the air, yet the cutting of trees went on, and Ivan Stepanovich and my uncle performed most valiantly of all.
At last the fortress was taken: the Gypsy women were seized, embraced, kissed, and each of them had a hundred-rouble note stuck behind her corsage,* and that was the end of it …
Yes, all at once everything quieted down … everything ended. No one had interfered, but enough was enough. The feeling was that, as there had been “no life” without it, so now there was enough of it.
There had been enough for everyone, and everyone had had enough. Maybe it was also of importance that the teacher had said it was “time for classes,” but anyhow it was all the same: Walpurgisnacht6 was over, and “life” was beginning again.
The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories Page 35
