The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  So Ivan Ilyich reasoned, in fragments and incoherently, as he continued to walk down the sidewalk. The fresh air was having an effect on him and arousing him, so to speak. Five minutes more and he would have calmed down and wanted to go to bed. But suddenly, just a stone’s throw away from Bolshoy Prospekt, he heard music. He looked around. On the other side of the street in a ramshackle wooden house, which was only one-storeyed but long, a sumptuous feast was being given, the violins hummed, the double bass squeaked and the flute shrilly broke out into a very merry quadrille14 tune. An audience was standing under the windows, mainly women in quilted coats and with kerchiefs on their heads; they were straining with all their might to catch a glimpse of something through the cracks in the shutters. Clearly, the merrymakers were enjoying themselves. The din from the dancers’ stomping reached the other side of the street. Ivan Ilyich noticed that there was a policeman nearby and walked over to him.

  ‘Whose house is that, my good fellow?’ he asked, as he threw open his expensive fur coat a bit, just enough so that the policeman could notice the important decoration on his neck.

  ‘It belongs to the clerk Pseldonimov, the legistrator,’15 the policeman answered, drawing himself up to his full height, after making out the decoration in a flash.

  ‘Pseldonimov? Bah! Pseldonimov! … What’s he doing? Getting married?’

  ‘Getting married, Your Honour, to the titular councillor’s daughter. Titular Councillor Mlekopitayev … He used to serve in the local authority. The house comes with the bride, sir.’

  ‘So now it belongs to Pseldonimov, it’s no longer Mlekopitayev’s house?’

  ‘Pseldonimov’s, Your Honour. It was Mlekopitayev’s and now it’s Pseldonimov’s.’

  ‘Hmm. I’m asking you, my good man, because I’m his superior. I am the general in the very place where Pseldonimov works.’

  ‘Just so, Your Excellency.’ The policeman drew himself up even more, while Ivan Ilyich fell deep in thought, as it were. He stood and pondered …

  Yes, Pseldonimov really was in his department, in his own office; he recalled that. He was a petty clerk, with a salary of about ten roubles a month. Since Mr Pralinsky had only quite recently assumed charge of his office, he might not remember all of his subordinates in great detail, but he remembered Pseldonimov, precisely on account of his surname.16 It had caught his attention the very first time, so that right away his curiosity had been piqued to have a closer look at the owner of such a surname. He recalled now that the man who was still quite young, with a long hooked nose, a shaggy towhead, gaunt and malnourished, wearing an impossible uniform and unmentionables that were even impossibly indecent. He recalled that the idea had occurred to him then to give the poor fellow ten roubles towards the holiday so that he might put himself right. But since the face of this poor fellow was so glum and there was quite an unpleasant, even repellent, look about him, the kind thought somehow vanished of its own accord, so that Pseldonimov remained without a bonus. Less than a week ago this same Pseldonimov amazed him all the more with his request to marry. Ivan Ilyich recalled that for some reason he hadn’t had time to deal with this matter more thoroughly, so that the matter about the wedding was decided lightly, hastily. But nevertheless he remembered with exactitude that Pseldonimov’s bride came with a wooden house and four hundred roubles in cash; this circumstance had surprised him then; he recalled that he had even lightly made a joke about the conjunction of the names Pseldonimov and Mlekopitayev. He remembered it all clearly.

  He was remembering and became more and more lost in his thoughts. We know that entire discourses sometimes take place in our heads in an instant, in the form of some sensations, without translation into human language, much less literary language. But we shall attempt to translate all our hero’s sensations and present to the reader at the very least the essence of these sensations, so to speak, what was most indispensable and plausible in them. Because, you see, many of our sensations, when translated into ordinary language, seem highly unlikely. That’s why they are never brought out into the world, but everybody has them. It goes without saying that Ivan Ilyich’s sensations and thoughts were a bit disjointed. But then you know the reason for that.

  ‘All right!’ flashed through his head, ‘here we all talk and talk, but when it comes to action, then damned all happens. Take, for example, this same Pseldonimov: he’s just come from his wedding, excited and hopeful, anticipating the taste of … It’s one of the most blessed days of his life … Now he’s busy with his guests, throwing a feast – modest, poor, but cheerful, joyful, sincere … What if he were to learn that at this very moment I, I, his superior, his chief superior, were standing right here outside his house and listening to his music! But really what would he think? No, what would he think if I suddenly up and walked in now? Hmm … It goes without saying that at first he would be frightened, become speechless from embarrassment. I might put him out … I might upset everything … Yes, that’s what would happen if any other general were to walk in, but not me … But that’s just it, any other general, but not me …

  ‘Yes, Stepan Nikiforovich! You didn’t understand me earlier, but here’s a ready example for you now.

  ‘Yes, sir. We keep clamouring about humaneness, but we’re incapable of heroism, of performing a great feat.

  ‘What sort of heroism? This sort. Just think: given the present relations between all members of society, for me, for me to walk in after midnight on the wedding of a subordinate of mine, a registrator, who earns ten roubles a month, well that’s an embarrassment, that’s a transposition of ideas, the last day of Pompeii,17 chaos! Nobody will understand it. Stepan Nikiforovich will die without understanding it. After all, it was he who said: we won’t bear it. Yes, but that’s you, you old people, you people with your paralysis and inertia,18 but I will bear it! I will turn the last day of Pompeii into the sweetest day of my subordinate’s life, and a wild act into a normal, patriarchal, lofty and moral one. How? Like this. Kindly be so good as to lend an ear …

  ‘Well … now let’s assume that I walk in: they’re astounded, stop the dancing, look about wildly, back away. All right, sir, but here’s where I show what I’m made of: I walk right up to the frightened Pseldonimov and with the gentlest smile, I say in the simplest words possible: “And so then,” I say, “I was visiting His Excellency Stepan Nikiforovich. I suppose you know he lives here, in this neighbourhood …” Well, and then lightly, in a somewhat comic vein, I’ll tell them about my adventure with Trifon. From Trifon I’ll move on to how I set out on foot … “Well, I hear the music, I satisfy my curiosity by asking a policeman and I learn, brother, that you’re getting married. And so I think to myself, why don’t I drop in on my subordinate and see how my clerks enjoy themselves and … get married. After all, I don’t suppose you’ll throw me out!” Throw me out! What fine words for a subordinate. What the devil do I mean – throw me out! I think he’ll lose his mind, rush as fast as his legs will carry him to sit me down in an armchair, tremble with delight and at first he won’t even grasp what’s happening! …

  ‘Well, what could be simpler, more graceful than conducting oneself like that! Why did I come? That’s another question! That now is the moral side of the matter, so to speak. Now that’s the very essence!

  ‘Hm … Now what was I thinking about? Yes!

  ‘Well, of course, they’ll seat me with the most important guest, some titular councillor or a relative, a retired staff-captain with a red nose … Gogol19 described these originals marvellously. Well, I’ll be introduced to the young bride, it goes without saying, I’ll praise her, put the guests at their ease. I’ll ask them not to be shy, to enjoy themselves, to go on with their dancing, I’ll be witty, I’ll laugh, in a word – I’ll be amiable and kind. I’m always amiable and kind, when I’m pleased with myself … Hm … It’s just that I still seem to be a bit … that is, I’m not drunk, but just …

  ‘… It goes without saying that I, as a gentleman, am on an equal footing with th
em and by no means require any particular signs of … But morally, morally it’s a different thing altogether: they’ll understand and appreciate that … My conduct will resurrect all the nobility in them … Well, I’ll sit for a half an hour. Even an hour. I’ll leave, it goes without saying, before the supper itself, or they’ll start bustling about, baking, roasting, they’ll bow down ever so low, but I’ll only drink a glass, wish them well and decline supper. I’ll say: business. And as soon as I utter this “business”, everyone’s face will become respectfully solemn all at once. In this way I’ll delicately remind them that they and I are different, gentlemen. Earth and sky. It’s not that I want to bring it up, but one needs to … it’s necessary even in the moral sense, no matter what you say. However, I’ll smile right away, I’ll even laugh a bit, perhaps, and everyone will cheer up in a flash … I’ll joke a bit more with the bride; hm … You know, I’ll even hint that I’ll come again in exactly nine months on the dot to stand godfather, he-he! She’ll certainly give birth by then. After all, they breed like rabbits. Well, and everybody will burst out laughing, the bride will blush; I’ll kiss her on the forehead with feeling, I’ll even give her my blessing and … and tomorrow my deed will be known in the office. Tomorrow once again I am stern, tomorrow once again I am exacting, even implacable, but everybody will know what sort of person I am. They will know my soul, they will know my essence: “As a boss he’s stern, but as a person – he’s an angel!” And then I’ve won; I’ve caught them with one small little deed, which would not even occur to you; they’re already mine; I am the father, they’re the children … Well then, Your Excellency, Stepan Nikiforovich, you just try doing something like that …

  ‘… And do you know, do you understand that Pseldonimov will tell his children how the General himself feasted and even drank at his wedding! And, you know, these children will tell their children, and they will tell their grandchildren, as a most sacred story about how a high official, a statesman (and I’ll be all that by then) favoured them … and so on and so forth. And you see, I’ll morally raise up the humiliated, I’ll restore him to himself … You see, he has a salary of ten roubles a month! And you see, if I repeat this or something else like it, five times, or ten times, then I’ll acquire popularity everywhere … I will be imprinted on everybody’s heart, and the devil only knows what might come of it later, this popularity! …’

  This or something like it was how Ivan Ilyich reasoned (gentlemen, what doesn’t a person say to himself sometimes, moreover when he’s in a somewhat unconventional condition). All these debates flashed through his head in about half a minute, and of course he might have limited himself to these dreams and after shaming Stepan Nikiforovich in his thoughts, he might have quietly set out for home and gone to bed. And it would have been splendid if he had done just that! But the whole misfortune stemmed from the fact that the moment was an unconventional one.

  As if on purpose, suddenly, at that very moment, the smug faces of Stepan Nikiforovich and Semyon Ivanovich appeared in his excited imagination.

  ‘We won’t bear it!’ Stepan Nikiforovich repeated, laughing condescendingly.

  ‘He-he-he!’ Semyon Ivanovich echoed him with his nastiest smile.

  ‘Well, let’s just see how we won’t bear it!’ Ivan Ilyich said decisively, and his face even became flushed. He stepped down from the footway and with firm steps made straight for the house across the street that belonged to his subordinate, the registrar Pseldonimov.

  His star carried him along. He boldly walked in the open gate and disdainfully brushed aside with his foot the gruff, shaggy little dog, which more for appearance’s sake than any other concern had rushed at his feet with a wheezy bark. He walked along the wooden plankway to the covered porch, which looked out on to the yard like a sentry box, and walked up the three ramshackle wooden steps to the tiny entrance-way. Even though somewhere in the corner the end of a tallow candle or something in the way of a lampion20 was burning, but this did not prevent Ivan Ilyich just as he was, wearing galoshes, from putting his left foot into the galantine, which had been set out to cool. Ivan Ilyich bent down and, after having a look round to satisfy his curiosity, he saw that there were two other dishes with some sort of jelly, and another two moulds, evidently of blancmange.21 The trampled galantine put him in an embarrassing position, and for just a moment the idea flashed through his head: Shouldn’t I slip away at once? But he considered this to be too base. After reasoning that no one had seen it and that they would certainly not think it was he, he quickly wiped off his galosh in order to hide the traces, groped for the door upholstered in felt, opened it and found himself in the tiniest entrance-hall. One half of it was literally crammed full of overcoats, greatcoats, cloaks, bonnets, scarves and galoshes. The other half had been taken over by the musicians: two violins, flute and double bass; all four men, it goes without saying, brought in right off the street. They sat behind a little unpainted wooden table, with a single tallow candle, and were sawing away with all their might at the final figure of a quadrille. From the opened door one could just make out in the drawing room the dancers in the dust, smoke and fumes. It was somehow deliriously gay. One could hear laughter, shouts and women’s screams. The men stomped like a squadron of horses. Over all this hullabaloo resounded the commands of the man calling the dances, probably an extremely free-and-easy and even unbuttoned person: ‘Gentlemen, step forward, chaîne de dames, balancez!’22 and so on, and so forth. Ivan Ilyich in some agitation threw off his fur coat and galoshes and with his hat in his hands entered the room. However, he was no longer capable of reasoning.

  For the first minute nobody noticed him: everybody was dancing the last steps of the number that was coming to an end. Ivan Ilyich stood as though he were stunned and couldn’t make out anything in this bedlam. Women’s dresses, gentlemen with cigarettes clenched in their teeth flashed past … Some lady’s light-blue scarf, which brushed against his nose, flashed by. After her in mad rapture a medical student tore past, his hair swept by the whirl of the dance, and shoved him hard as he went by. An officer of some detachment who seemed as tall as a signpost flashed by. Somebody in an unnaturally shrill voice shouted out: ‘Eh-h-h, Pseldonimushka!’ There was something sticky under Ivan Ilyich’s feet: evidently the floor had been polished with wax. In the room, which was quite large, by the way, there were some thirty guests.

  But a minute later the quadrille came to an end, and almost at once took place exactly what Ivan Ilyich had pictured to himself when he was still daydreaming on the footway. Some sort of rumbling, some sort of odd whispering made the rounds of the guests and dancers, who had not yet had a chance to catch their breath and wipe the sweat from their faces. All eyes, all faces quickly began to turn in the direction of the guest who had just entered. Then everybody at once began little by little to fall back and retreat. Those who hadn’t noticed were tugged by their clothes and brought to their senses. They looked around and at once beat a retreat with the others. Ivan Ilyich was still standing in the doorway, not taking a single step forward, and the open space between him and the guests, strewn with innumerable sweet wrappers, tickets and cigarette butts, kept growing and growing. Suddenly into this space timidly stepped a young man, wearing a uniform, with wispy flaxen hair and a hooked nose. He moved forward, stooping, and looked at the unexpected guest with the exact same expression as a dog looks at his master, who has called it to give it a kick.

  ‘Hello, Pseldonimov, don’t you recognize me?’ Ivan Ilyich said, at once sensing that he had put it awkwardly; he also sensed at that moment that perhaps he was committing a most terrible act of foolishness.

  ‘Y-y-y-our-r-r Ex-cel-len-cy!’ Pseldonimov mumbled.

  ‘Well, that’s right. Brother, I’ve dropped in on you utterly by chance, as you yourself can probably imagine …’

  But Pseldonimov apparently couldn’t imagine anything. He stood, with his eyes wide open, in terrified bewilderment.

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose that you’re go
ing to throw me out … Happy or not, you must make the guest feel at home! …’ Ivan Ilyich continued, feeling that he was becoming unbearably embarrassed, and wishing to smile, but unable to do so; the humorous story about Stepan Nikiforovich and Trifon was becoming more and more impossible. But Pseldonimov, as if on purpose, didn’t come out of his stupor and continued to look on with an utterly foolish expression. Ivan Ilyich winced; he felt that one more minute like this and unbelievable chaos would break out.

  ‘I hope I’m not disturbing anything … I’ll go!’ he just barely got out, and a nerve in the right corner of his mouth began to twitch …

  But Pseldonimov was already coming to his senses …

  ‘Your Excellency, excuse me, sir … The honour …’ he mumbled, bowing hurriedly, ‘be so kind as to sit down, sir …’ And after coming to his senses even more, he pointed with both hands to the sofa, which they had moved for the dancing …

  His mind at rest, Ivan Ilyich sank down on to the sofa; somebody at once rushed to move over a table. He took a fleeting look around and noticed that he was the only one sitting, while all the others were standing, even the ladies. A bad omen. But it wasn’t time yet to remind and encourage. The guests were still backing away, and Pseldonimov, still understanding nothing and far from smiling, still stood alone in front of them, bent over. In short, it was nasty: at this moment our hero endured such anguish that indeed the invasion of his subordinate in the manner of Harun-al-Rashid,23 for the sake of principle, might be considered an heroic deed. But suddenly another little figure turned up alongside Pseldonimov and began to bow. To his inexpressible satisfaction and even happiness, Ivan Ilyich at once recognized his chief desk officer, Akim Petrovich Zubikov, with whom, of course, he was not acquainted, but whom he knew to be an efficient and quiet official. He immediately stood up and offered his hand – his entire hand and not just two fingers – to Akim Petrovich. The latter embraced it with both his palms with the most profound respect. The General was triumphant; all had been saved.