1
In a certain town, on Bolshaya Prolomnaya Street, there lived a freelance artist—the pianist-for-hire Apollo Semyonovich, surname Perepenchuk.
Perepenchuk is a rare enough name in Russia, and readers might even assume that the hero of this tale is one Fyodor Perepenchuk, a medical attendant at the municipal reception ward, especially since both Perepenchuks lived at the same time and on the same street—and if their characters weren’t exactly similar, we can at least say that, in terms of their somewhat skeptical attitude toward life and their general pattern of thought, the cuts of their jibs resonated.
But the medical attendant Fyodor Perepenchuk was taken from us at an earlier date. Of course, it isn’t so much that he was taken from us as that he hanged himself. This happened just before the Fourth Congress.1
It was all over the papers at the time: Fyodor Perepenchuk, they said, a medical attendant at the municipal reception ward, committed suicide in the line of duty, owing to disillusionment with life…
There you have it, friends—that’s the sort of hogwash our journos serve up these days. Disillusionment with life…Fyodor Perepenchuk and disillusionment with life…What a load of bunk. Pure hokum!
True, superficially speaking, we have here a man, a man who had, on occasion, pondered the senselessness of human existence and who died by his own hand. Sure, at first blush, that may look like disillusionment. But those who were close to Fyodor Perepenchuk, those who really knew him, would never talk such bunk.
Now, in the case of Apollo Perepenchuk, pianist-for-hire and musician—there you have disillusionment. There you have a man who lived in thoughtless enjoyment of his existence, but then, on account of purely material and physical causes, and as a result of various accidents and conflicts, lost his vigor and, in a manner of speaking, his taste for life. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. After all, our tale is about Apollo Perepenchuk.
Whereas Fyodor Perepenchuk…The whole force of his personality lay in the fact that he didn’t arrive at his thoughts as a result of poverty, or of accidents and conflicts. No, his thoughts emerged from the mature, logical mental processes of a significant human being. He’d be a fitting subject for whole volumes of works, not just a single story. But not every writer would undertake that labor. Not every writer could serve as a biographer and, shall we say, a chronicler of the acts and thoughts of this extraordinary human being. The task would require a wordsmith possessed of the highest intelligence and greatest erudition, as well as knowledge of the minutest odds and ends of existence—the origin of man, the formation of the universe, all manner of philosophies, the theory of relativity and a bunch of other theories besides, where this and that star is located, and even the chronology of historical events. That’s what you’d need to get a handle on the personality of Fyodor Perepenchuk.
And in this respect Apollo Perepenchuk is no match for Fyodor Perepenchuk.
Compared to Fyodor Perepenchuk, Apollo Perepenchuk was a trifling man—I’d even say a louse…No offense to his relatives. And anyway, he didn’t leave behind any relatives in the Perepenchuk line, except for Adelaide Perepenchuk, his aunt on his father’s side. And she—well, she doesn’t exactly have a grasp of belles lettres. So let her take all the offense she wants.
Nor did he leave behind any friends. Yes, people like Fyodor and Apollo Perepenchuk aren’t ones for friends. Fyodor never had any to begin with, and Apollo lost the friends he had when he fell into poverty.
How could Fyodor Perepenchuk have had friends? He disliked people—despised them, really—and led a closed-off, one could even say austere, life. And if ever he talked to people, it was in order to express, automatically, the views he had accumulated, not to hear cheers or criticism.
And who, no matter how highly intelligent, could have responded to his proud thoughts?
“Why does man exist? Is there a purpose to man’s life—and if there isn’t, then is life itself not, generally speaking, in part senseless?”
Of course, some assistant or full professor on the state’s gravy train would reply, with unpleasant ease, that man exists in order to further culture and the happiness of the universe. But that’s vague and unclear, and, for the common man, even disgusting. An answer like that gives rise to all sorts of surprising things: why, for example, do beetles or cuckoos exist? They do no good to anyone, least of all to the future of culture. And to what extent is man’s life more important than that of a cuckoo—a bird that could live or not live, without changing the world one bit?
But here you’d need a pen of brilliance and a vast reserve of knowledge to reflect, at least partially, the grand conceptions of Fyodor Perepenchuk.
Perhaps we shouldn’t even have disturbed the shade of this remarkable man. And we wouldn’t have, had his thoughts not been, in later years, the final destination of his spiritual student and distant relative, Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk—pianist-for-hire, musician, and freelance artist who had once resided on Bolshaya Prolomnaya Street.
He had resided on that street a few years before the war and revolution.
2
The term pianist-for-hire isn’t the least bit demeaning. Still, some people—including Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk himself—were reluctant to pronounce it in public, especially in mixed company, wrongly assuming that it might make the ladies blush. On those few occasions when Apollo Semyonovich did call himself a pianist-for-hire, he’d always add the word performer, or freelance artist, or some other qualification.
But this is not fair.
A pianist-for-hire is a musician, a pianist—even if, being in straitened material circumstances, he is forced to serve up his art as entertainment for the jolly crowd.
This profession isn’t as valuable as, say, theater or painting, but it is, nevertheless, an art.
Of course, there are, in this profession, many little blind men, many deaf old women, who reduce the art to the level of an ordinary trade, senselessly hammering away with their fingers, banging out all kinds of polkas, polkettes, and majorettes.
But you couldn’t very well place Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk in that category. His true calling, his artistic temperament, his lyricism, his inspiration—none of these fitted with prevailing notions of the pianist-for-hire’s trade.
On top of that, Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk was sufficiently handsome and even refined. His face exuded inspiration and an unusual air of nobility. His lower lip, perennially bitten in pride, coupled with his haughty artistic profile, lent his figure the look of a sculpture.
Even his Adam’s apple, his plain old Adam’s apple—or, as it’s sometimes called, the laryngeal prominence—which, when glimpsed on other men, is apt to trigger disgust or laughter, looked noble on Apollo Perepenchuk, whose head was invariably thrown proudly back. There was something Greek about that prominence.
And the flowing hair! The velvet blouse! The dark green tie hanging down to his waist! No way around it—the man was endowed with extraordinary beauty.
And those moments when he would arrive at a ball with his rapid gait and freeze like a statue in the doorway, as if surveying the whole of society with his haughty gaze…Yes, the man was irresistible. More than one woman shed copious tears over Apollo Perepenchuk. And how angrily other men shunned him! How they hid their wives from him—on the pretext that it was embarrassing, in their words, for the wife of a government official, say, to run around with some ivory-tickler.
And that unforgettable incident when the senior clerk at the Treasury Chamber received an anonymous letter explaining that his wife was on intimate terms with Apollo Perepenchuk! That hilarious scene—with said clerk lying in wait for Apollo Semyonovich for two hours, ready to pounce, only to be led astray by a flowing mane and mistakenly pummel the Secretary of the City Council…
Oh, there was indeed any amount of funny business! And the funniest thing was that all the scandals, the little notes, the ladies’ tears were completely groundless. Graced with the countenance of a lothario, romancer, and destroyer of families, Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk was, on the contrary, an extremely timid and quiet man.
In fact, he avoided women, kept his distance from them, convinced that a true artist mustn’t tie himself down to anything…
Yes, women wrote him notes and letters, attempting to arrange secret assignations and addressing him with terms of endearment and diminutives, but he was not to be moved.
He kept the notes and letters in a little box, taking them out in his spare time to examine them, number them, and bind them in little packs. But he lived in solitude, and was even, one could say, closed off. He loved to pronounce, at the least provocation: “Art comes first.”
And when it came to art, Apollo Perepenchuk was far from last. There are, of course, virtuosos who can perform all kinds of different motifs using only the black keys. Apollo Perepenchuk couldn’t hold a candle to those fellows. Still, he did have a waltz to his name—“The Dreams that Engulf Me”…
He used to perform this waltz quite successfully before huge audiences within the walls of the Merchants’ Assembly Hall.
That was in the year under discussion—the year of his greatest glory and fame. Another of his works, the unfinished “Fantaisie réale”—composed in major tones, but not deprived thereby of charming lyricism—belongs to the same period. This “Fantaisie réale” was dedicated to a certain Tamara Omelchenko, the maiden who would play so crucial and fatal a role in the life of Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk.
3
But here the author must show his hand to his dear readers. The author assures them that he will in no way distort the events of which he writes. On the contrary, he will reconstruct them exactly as they occurred, with utmost fidelity to the tiniest details, such as the physical appearance of the protagonists, their ways of thinking, and even sentimental motifs, which the author would rather ignore.
The author pledges to his dear readers that when he recalls certain sentimental scenes—say, the heroine crying over a portrait, or the same heroine mending Apollo Perepenchuk’s torn tunic, or, finally, Aunt Adelaide Perepenchuk announcing the sale of Apollo Semyonovich’s wardrobe—he does so with extraordinary sorrow and a painful sense of anxiety.
These descriptions are, so to speak, contrary to the author’s taste, but he offers them for the sake of truth. For the sake of truth, the author even uses his protagonists’ actual names. The reader mustn’t think that the author has graced his protagonists with such rare, exceptional names—Tamara and Apollo—out of aesthetic considerations. No, these people were actually called Tamara and Apollo. And that’s really no surprise. The author happens to know for certain that all the girls of seventeen or eighteen on Bolshaya Prolomnaya Street were without exception Tamaras or Irinas.
And there’s a perfectly good explanation for this coincidence. Seventeen years earlier, a regiment of hussars was stationed in town. And this regiment was so glorious, the hussars so strapping—affecting the citizenry so profoundly from the aesthetic point of view—that all the female babies born at the time were named Tamara or Irina, following the example set by the governor’s wife.
And so, in that happy year of dizzying successes, Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk first met and fell in love with the maiden Tamara Omelchenko.
She wasn’t quite eighteen then. And you couldn’t exactly call her a beauty, but she was better than a beauty—there was such noble roundness to all her shapes, such a floating quality to her gait, and such a charming air of tender youth about her. Any man who walked past her, be it on the street or even at a public gathering, inevitably called her a donut, sweet bun, or cream puff, gazing at her with acute attention and pleasure.
That same year she also fell in love with Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk.
They met at a ball within the walls of the Merchants’ Assembly Hall. This happened at the start of the European worldwide war. She was struck by his unusually noble appearance, the lower lip bitten in pride. He was enraptured by her pristine freshness.
That evening he was in particularly fine form. He pounded on the piano with all the force of his inspiration, so that the foreman finally had to come over and ask him to play a bit more quietly, making out that he was upsetting the club’s full members.
At this moment Apollo Perepenchuk realized just how insignificant and miserable a person he really was. Attached, by virtue of his profession, to a musical instrument, he couldn’t even walk over to the maiden he admired. With these thoughts weighing on his mind, he expressed through sounds all the anguish and despair of a man in bondage.
Tamara, meanwhile, was whirled about in waltzes and mazurkas by many respectable gentlemen, but her eyes always came to rest on the inspired mien of Apollo Perepenchuk.
And at the end of the evening, overcoming her girlish timidity, she herself walked over to the piano and asked him to play one of his favorite tunes. He played the waltz “The Dreams That Engulf Me.”
That waltz sealed the deal. Seized with the trembling of first love, she took his hand and pressed it to her lips.
Vicious gossip about Apollo Perepenchuk’s latest “union” spread like wildfire through the entire premises of the Merchants’ club. No one bothered to conceal their curiosity. People sauntered past the couple, smirking and giggling. Even those who were already pulling on their coats shed their furs and went back upstairs to verify the juicy rumors with their own eyes.
Thus began the love affair.
Apollo Perepenchuk and Tamara took to meeting on holidays at the corner of Prolomnaya and Kirpichny. They would promenade into the evening hours, talking of their love and of that extraordinary, unforgettable evening when they had first met, recalling its every detail, embellishing everything, and admiring each other.
This went on until autumn.
But when Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk, wearing his finest jacket and carrying a bouquet of oleander and a box of Lenten sugar,2 came to ask for Tamara’s hand, she refused him with the prudence of a mature woman who knows her worth, despite the appeals of her mother and of the Omelchenko ménage.
“Mother dearest,” she said, “yes, I love Apollo with all the passion of a maiden’s heart, but I shall not marry him now. When he becomes a famous musician, when glory kneels at his feet, I’ll go to him myself. And I believe that day will come soon. I believe he will be well known, famous, able to provide well for his wife.”
Apollo Perepenchuk was present during these remarks, at first bowing his head.
All evening he wept at her feet, kissing her knees with unspeakable passion and longing. But she was insistent. She was loath to take risks, fearing poverty and insecurity. She didn’t want to drag out her life in misery, as almost all people do.
Then Apollo Perepenchuk dashed off for home. For a few days he dwelled in some kind of fog, some kind of frenzy, trying to devise some way of becoming a famous, renowned musician. But what had once seemed plain and simple now appeared to be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible.
Various plans flashed through his mind: to go to another city, give up music, quit the arts, and seek his fortune and glory in another profession, in another field, becoming, say, a courageous aviator, looping the loop over his hometown, above his beloved’s roof, or perhaps becoming an inventor, an explorer, a surgeon…But these were all merely dreams. Apollo Perepenchuk would puncture each and every one of them, deriding his own imagination.
He sent his composition, the waltz “The Dreams That Engulf Me,” to Petersburg, but the manuscript’s fate remains unknown. Perhaps it got lost in the mail, or maybe someone appropriated it, passing it off as their own composition—we simply don’t know. It was never published or performed.
Today even its motif is all but lost to history. Only Aunt Adelaide Perepenchuk keeps it in her memory. Oh, how she loved to sing that waltz!
Another of Apollo Perepenchuk’s compositions belongs to this period—the unfinished “Fantaisie réale.” It remains unfinished not because of creative ineptitude, but because our poor hero was struck by another blow.
Apollo Semyonovich was drafted into the army as a noncombat soldier.
What he had dreamt of was now a reality: he could leave and seek his fortune elsewhere.
In December of 1916 Apollo Perepenchuk came to say good-bye to his beloved.
Even the most cynical townsfolk, the stoniest hearts wept as they gazed at the couple’s tender parting.
Bidding farewell, Apollo Perepenchuk declared solemnly that he would return either as a renowned, famous man or not at all. He proclaimed that neither war nor anything else would stand in the way of his ambition.
And the maiden, laughing gratefully through her tears, said that she had complete faith in him. She affirmed that she would become his wife when he returned as a man who could ensure their mutual happiness.
And so a few years—a little over four, to be exact—passed since Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk entered the army.
This was a time of enormous changes. Social ideas significantly altered and overturned our former way of life. Many fine people departed the earth to join their ancestors in eternity. Kuzma Lvovich Goryushkin, for example, a former trustee of the school district and a most good-natured, cultured man, was done in by typhus. Semyon Semyonovich Petukhov, another superb fellow who didn’t mind a drink or two, also died. And the death of medical attendant Fyodor Perepenchuk occurred during this same period.
Life in town changed tremendously. The revolution began to fashion a new way of life. But living wasn’t easy. People had to fight for their right to live out their days.
And no one during this time gave a single thought to Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk. Well, maybe Tamara Omelchenko did, once or twice, and maybe his aunt Adelaide Perepenchuk. Of course, perhaps some other maiden thought of him as well—but simply as a romantic hero, not as a pianist-for-hire and musician. No one recalled him as a pianist-for-hire, and no one regretted his absence. There were no more pianists-for-hire in town, nor was there any need of them. Under the new conditions, many professions became obsolete, and pianist-for-hire was one such dying trade.
Maestro Solomon Belenky now provided the entertainment at all gatherings, with his two first violins, cello, and double bass. At all parties, charity balls, weddings, and christenings this man, who had appeared out of nowhere, worked with a success that, we have to admit, was simply dizzying. Everyone loved him. And it’s true: no one could twirl a violin in his hands like Maestro Belenky, turning it around during a rest and hitting its sounding board with his bow. Moreover, he played a medley of favorite motifs and could perform various dances of both domestic and transatlantic origin, such as the “tremutar” and the “bear.” On top of that, the smile that never abandoned his face, in combination with a certain good-natured winking at the dancers, finally conspired to make him a favorite of the jolly public. He was, so to speak, an artist of our time. And he drove Apollo Semenovich Perepenchuk out of the townsfolk’s minds, trampling him into the dust.
And that very year, when Tamara began to forget Apollo Perepenchuk, and when Aunt Adelaide Perepenchuk, thinking her nephew killed in action, hung a notice on her gate announcing to all and sundry the sale of Apollo Perepenchuk’s wardrobe, including: two pairs of lightly worn trousers, a velvet jacket with a dark green tie, a piqué vest, and a few other items—that same year Apollo Perepenchuk returned to his hometown.
He rode in a freight car with other soldiers and lay on his bunk the whole way, his head resting on his bag. He looked sick. He had changed terribly. The soldier’s overcoat, torn and burnt on the back, the army boots, the baggy khaki trousers, the hoarse voice—all these rendered him completely unrecognizable. He was a different man.
Constant contact with a clarinet had even stretched his lip, formerly bitten in pride, into a thin ribbon.
No one ever did learn what disaster had befallen him. Had there even been a disaster? In all likelihood, there hadn’t been any disaster—just life, plain, simple life, from which only two people out of a thousand ever manage to get back on their feet, while others just wait it out.
He never told anyone about his experiences over those five years, of what he had done in the hope of returning in glory and honor.
Only the clarinet he brought back with him gave people reason to suspect that he had, as before, sought glory in the realm of art. He must have been a musician in some regimental band. But nothing is known for certain. He wrote no letters home, apparently not wanting to report on the minor facts of his life.
In other words, a mystery.
We only know that he returned not only without fame but also sick and hungry—a changed man, with wrinkles on his forehead, an elongated nose, faded eyes, and his head bowed low.
He returned to his aunt’s house like a thief. Like a thief, he ran through the streets from the station, lest he be seen. But if anyone had seen him, they wouldn’t have recognized him. There was nothing of the old Apollo Perepenchuk in him. He was a whole other Apollo Perepenchuk.
His return itself was a frightful scene. He had barely crossed the threshold when a new blow came down upon his head. His possessions, his lovely possessions—the velvet jacket, the trousers, the vest—had all perished irrevocably. Aunt Adelaide Perepenchuk had sold everything, down to his safety razor.
Apollo Semyonovich heard out his aunt’s sobs somewhat indifferently, with a measure of disgust. He offered no reproof, only asking once more about the velvet jacket, and then dashed out to see Tamara.
He raced to her along Bolshaya Prolomnaya, panting, without a thought in his head. All the dogs ran out to meet him, barking and snapping at his ragged trousers.
Finally, after one last exertion—her home, Tamara’s home…Apollo Perepenchuk banged his fist on the door.
Tamara took fright at the sight of him, trying to understand—at once, this very minute—what had befallen him. Seeing his tattered tunic and haggard face—she understood.
He gazed intently, piercingly into her eyes, trying to penetrate her thoughts, to understand. But he did not understand.
They stood facing each other for a long time, not saying a word. Then he got down on his knees, and, not knowing what to say, wept quietly. She also began to weep, sobbing and sniffling like a child.
After a while, she sat down in a chair, and Apollo, crouching at her feet, babbled all kinds of nonsense. Tamara stared at him but understood nothing and saw nothing. All she saw was his soiled face, his matted hair, and his torn tunic. Her tender little heart, the heart of a sensible woman, was wrung to the utmost. She brought out her sewing kit and asked him, through her tears, to thread a needle. Then she began to mend his tunic, occasionally shaking her head in reproach.
But here the author must interject and say that he’s no snot-nosed kid, to go on this way, describing sentimental scenes. And although there isn’t much of that stuff left, the author must move on to the hero’s psychology, deliberately omitting two or three intimate, sentimental details, such as: Tamara combing Apollo’s matted hair, wiping his haggard face with a towel, and sprinkling him with Persian Lilac…3 The author states unequivocally that he has no truck with these details and is interested solely in psychology.
And so, thanks to this show of affection on Tamara’s part, Apollo Perepenchuk came to believe that all was as before, that she still loved him. He rushed to her with a cry of delight, attempting to lock her in his embrace.
But, with a frown, she declared:
“Kind Apollo Semyonovich, I believe I said far too much to you in those days…I hope you didn’t take my innocent girlish prattling at face value.”
He remained on his knees, straining to understand her words. She got up, crossed the room, and said testily:
“Perhaps I have wronged you, but I will not be your wife.”
Apollo Perepenchuk went back to his aunt’s house, where he realized that his old life was gone forever—and that it had all been ridiculous and naïve from the start. His desire to become a great musician, a well-known, famous man, had been ridiculous and naïve. And he realized that he had lived his entire life in the wrong way—doing the wrong things, saying the wrong things…But he still hadn’t the faintest idea of what the right things might have been.
As he lay down to sleep, he grinned bitterly—just as medical assistant Fyodor Perepenchuk had grinned bitterly in his time, attempting, at long last, to understand, to penetrate the essence of natural phenomena.
5
Before long Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk sank deep into poverty. Moreover, this was the poverty, even the penury, of a man who had lost all hope of bettering his situation. Of course, he had been totally broke ever since his return, but at first he had refused to confess his abject poverty.
Now he would say to Aunt Adelaide Perepenchuk with an evil grin:
“Auntie, I’m as poor as a Spanish beggar.”
His aunt, feeling great guilt before him, would try to comfort him, calm him, encourage him, saying that all was not lost, that his whole life still lay ahead, that she would replace the dark green tie she had sold with a charming purple one, fashioned from the bodice of her evening dress, and that Ripkin, a ladies’ tailor of her acquaintance, would gladly take up the task of sewing him a velvet jacket on the cheap.
But Apollo Perepenchuk only grinned in response.
He didn’t take a single step, made no attempt whatsoever to change, to restore his earlier way of life about town. To be fair, he only gave up in earnest after he learned that Maestro Solomon Belenky now presided over every urban gathering. Prior to that, all kinds of vague dreams and elusive plans had jostled in his excited mind.
Maestro Solomon Belenky and the disappearance of the velvet jacket conspired to transform Apollo Perepenchuk into a mere will-less contemplator.
He lay in bed all day, going out into the street only to look for a cigarette butt or to ask a passerby for a pinch of tobacco. Aunt Adelaide kept him fed.
Sometimes he would get out of bed, pull his clarinet from its cloth case, and play a bit. But in his music there was no trace of melody, nor even of individual notes—it was like the terrifying demonic howl of an animal.
And every time he would play, a change would come to Aunt Adelaide Perepenchuk’s face. She would retrieve various canisters and jars of drugs and smelling salts from her cupboard, then lie down with a muffled moan.
Apollo Semyonovich would eventually toss aside his clarinet and again seek solace in bed.
He lay in shrewd contemplation, subject to the same thoughts that had formerly troubled Fyodor Perepenchuk. And his other thoughts, in terms of force and depth, were in no way inferior to those of his considerable namesake. He contemplated human existence, the fact that man is as ridiculous and unnecessary as a beetle or a cuckoo, and that all people, the whole world over, must change their lives in order to find peace and happiness, in order to avoid the suffering that had befallen him. At one point it seemed to him he had discovered, at long last, how man ought to live. Some thought touched his mind and disappeared again without quite taking shape.
This started insignificantly enough. Apollo Perepenchuk asked Aunt Adelaide:
“What do you think, Auntie, does man have a soul?”
“Yes,” the aunt said. “Certainly.”
“But what about monkeys? Monkeys are humanlike…No worse than humans. Do you suppose monkeys have souls, Auntie?”
“I suppose that monkeys have souls,” the aunt said, “since they’re humanlike.”
Apollo Perepenchuk suddenly grew agitated. He was stricken by a bold thought.
“Excuse me, Auntie,” he said. “If monkeys have souls, then dogs surely have them. Dogs are no worse than monkeys. And if dogs have souls, then so do cats—and rats, and flies, and even worms…”
“That’s enough!” the aunt demanded. “You’re blaspheming.”
“Not at all, Auntie,” Apollo Perepenchuk replied. “Not in the least. I’m just stating the facts…So, by your logic, worms have souls…Say I take a worm, then, Auntie, and cut it in half, right down the middle…Now imagine, Auntie, that each half goes on living on its own. So? According to you, Auntie, that’s a soul split in two! What kind of soul is that?”
“Leave me be,” the aunt implored and gazed at Apollo Semyonovich with frightened eyes.
“No, let me finish!” cried Perepenchuk. “So there’s no soul. Man has no soul. Man is bone and meat…He dies like the lowest beast, and is born like a beast. Only he lives on fantasies. But he must live differently…”
Except that Apollo Semyonovich couldn’t explain to his aunt how man ought to live—because he simply didn’t know. Yet he had been shaken by his thoughts. It seemed he had begun to understand something. But then his mind grew confused, jumbled. He had to admit that, in fact, he had no idea how a man ought to live in order to avoid feeling what he himself now felt. What did he feel, exactly? He felt his game was up, that life was calmly marching on without him.
For several days he paced the room in a state of extreme agitation. And on the day this agitation reached its highest point of tension, Aunt Adelaide brought in a letter addressed to Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk. The letter was from Tamara.
With the affectations of a flirtatious woman, she wrote in a sad lyric tone that she was preparing to marry a certain foreign merchant named Glob, and that, in taking this step, she did not wish Apollo Perepenchuk to think badly of her. She issued a most humble apology for all the things she had done to him; she was asking forgiveness, knowing what a mortal blow she had struck him.
Apollo Perepenchuk laughed quietly as he read the letter. Yet her unshakable conviction that he, Apollo Perepenchuk, was perishing on her account truly stunned him. Contemplating this, he suddenly realized that he needed nothing, not even her, on whose account he was perishing. And he also realized, clearly and finally, that he was perishing not on her account, but because he hadn’t lived as he ought to have lived. But then his mind grew confused and jumbled again.
And he wanted to go to her immediately, to say that it was not she who was to blame—that he alone was to blame, that he had made some mistake in his life.
But he didn’t go, because he didn’t know what that mistake had been.
6
A week later Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk paid Tamara a visit. It all happened unexpectedly. One night he quietly put on his clothes, told Aunt Adelaide that he had a headache and wanted to take a walk, then left the house. He walked for a long time, wandering aimlessly through the streets, with no intention of going to see Tamara. Extraordinary musings on the meaninglessness of existence gave him no peace. He took off his cap and wandered the streets, occasionally halting beside dark wooden houses and peering into their lighted windows, attempting to understand, to penetrate, to see how people lived—to get at the nature of their existence. Through the lighted windows he saw men in suspenders sitting at tables, women standing near samovars, children…Some men were playing cards; others sat without moving, staring blankly at flames. Some women washed dishes, or sewed—and that was about it. Many ate, opening their mouths wide without making a sound. And despite the double panes, it seemed to Apollo Perepenchuk that he could hear them champ and chew.
Apollo Semyonovich went from house to house and before he knew it, there he was, at Tamara’s residence.
He pressed against the window to her room. Tamara lay on the couch—apparently asleep. Suddenly, to his own surprise, Apollo Semyonovich rapped on the glass with his fingers.
Tamara shivered, leapt up, and listened intently. Then she went to the window, trying to make out in the darkness who it was that had knocked. But she could not, and so she shouted: “Who is it?”
Apollo Semyonovich was silent.
She ran out into the street, recognized him, and brought him into the house. She began to lecture him angrily, telling him that he had no business coming here, that it was all over between them—and hadn’t her written apologies been enough?…
Apollo Perepenchuk gazed at her beautiful face, thinking that there was no point in telling her that she wasn’t to blame, that he alone was to blame, that he had conducted his life in the wrong way. She wouldn’t understand, and wouldn’t want to understand, because this situation seemed to give her some sort of pleasure, and perhaps even boosted her pride.
He wanted to go, but something stopped him. For a long time he stood in the middle of the room, thinking intensely. Then a strange calm came over him. He cast his eyes around Tamara’s room, smiled blankly, and left.
He went out into the street, walked two blocks, put on his cap—and stopped.
“That thought—what had it been?”
At that moment, when he had stood in her room, some happy thought had flashed across his mind. But he had forgotten it…Some thought, some conclusion that had, for a moment, brought him calm and clarity.
Apollo Perepenchuk tried to recollect every detail, every word. Was it that he should leave? No…Become a clerk? No…He had forgotten.
So he raced back to her house. Yes, of course, he must get back inside her home, her room, now, this very minute—there, standing in that same spot, he’d recall that blasted thought.
He went up to her door, intending to knock. But he noticed that the door was open. No one had locked it behind him. He quietly walked down the hall, unnoticed, and stopped on the threshold of Tamara’s room.
Tamara was weeping, her face buried in her pillow. In her hand she held a photograph—a portrait of him, Apollo Perepenchuk.
Let the reader cry all he wants—the author couldn’t care less. He remains unmoved, proceeding impassively to further developments.
Apollo Perepenchuk looked at Tamara, at the photograph in her hand, at the window. He looked at the flower on the table, at the little vase with some dried herbs and grasses, and suddenly it came to him.
“Yes!”
Tamara screamed when she saw him. He raced off, his boots stamping down the hall. Someone from the kitchen rushed after him.
Apollo Semyonovich ran out of the house. He walked quickly down Prolomnaya Street. Then he began running again. He fell in the soft snow. Tripped. Got up. Ran on further.
“I’ve found that thought!”
He ran a long time, gasping for breath. The cap fell from his head, but he raced on without stopping to find it. The city was quiet. It was the dead of night. Perepenchuk kept running.
At last he reached the outskirts of town. The suburbs. Fences. Railroad signal. Huts. Side ditch. Railway bed.
Apollo Perepenchuk collapsed. He crawled a bit farther, reached the rails, then lay still.
“My thought. I’ve found it.”
He lay in the soft snow. His heart kept skipping beats. He felt he was dying.
A man holding a lantern walked past him twice, then came back and nudged him in the ribs with his foot.
“What’s with you?” said the man with the lantern. “Whatcha lyin’ there for?”
Perepenchuk didn’t respond.
“Whatcha lyin’ there for?” the man repeated in a frightened tone. The lantern shook in his hand.
Apollo Semyonovich raised his head and sat up.
“People are good…People are good,” he said.
“What people?” the man said quietly. “Whatcha ramblin’ about? Come on, now, let’s go to my hut. I’m the switchman…”
The man took him by the hand and led him to his hut.
“People are good…People are good,” Perepenchuk kept muttering.
They went into the hut. It was stuffy. A table. A lamp. A samovar. Sitting at the table, a peasant in an unbuttoned coat. A woman crumbling sugar with a pair of tongs.
Perepenchuk sat down on a bench. His teeth were chattering.
“So why’d you go and lie down out there, eh?” the switchman asked again, winking at the man in the coat. “Lookin’ for death, were ya? Or did ya wanna go and tear up them rails?”
“What did he do?” asked the man in the coat. “Lie down on the rails?”
“That’s what he did,” said the switchman. “I’m out there with my lantern, and there he is, the asshole, lyin’ there like a baby, his mug stuck right up against the rail.”
“Hm,” said the man in the coat. “Bastard.”
“You back off,” said the woman. “Don’t you go yellin’ at him. You see the fella’s shakin’. He ain’t shakin’ from joy. Have some tea, fella…”
Apollo Perepenchuk drank, his teeth knocking against the glass.
“People are good…”
“Hold on,” said the switchman, winking at the man in the coat again and, for some reason, elbowing him in the side. “I’m gonna ask ’im some questions, orderly and official-like.”
Apollo Semyonovich sat motionless.
“Answer in order, like on paper,” the switchman said sternly. “Family name.”
“Perepenchuk,” said Apollo Semyonovich.
“Never heard of it. Age?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Prime of life,” the man said with inexplicable satisfaction. “Me, I’m in my fifty-first year…Now that’s an age…Out of work?”
“Out of work…”
The switchman grinned and winked again.
“Not good,” he said. “Well, you got any skill? Know any skill?”
“No…”
“Not good,” the switchman said, shaking his head. “How you gonna live without handi-skills, fella? I tell ya, that ain’t no good at all. A man’s gotta know a handi-skill. Take me—I’m a watchman, a switchman. But say they run me out—cutbacks or some such…Well, that won’t be the end of me. I know how to work boots. I’ll work boots till my arms fall off, and I won’t come to grief. Hell, I’ll twist ropes with my teeth. Yes, that’s me. But you ain’t got no handi-skill. Can’t do a doggone thing…How you gonna live?”
“An aristocrat, this one,” the man in the coat scoffed. “Blood’s too blue…Can’t live. They just go and stick their snouts in rails.”
Apollo Perepenchuk got to his feet. He wanted to leave. But the switchman wouldn’t let him:
“Sit down. I’ll set you up with a splendid job.”
He winked at the man in the coat and said:
“Vasya, why dontcha take the fella on? You do nice, quiet work—anyone can understand. Why let the poor fella croak?”
“All right,” the man said, buttoning his coat. “Listen here, citizen: you come to the Annunciation Cemetery and ask the fella in charge if I’m around.”
“Take ’im with ya now, Vasya,” the woman said. “You never know.”
“All right,” the man said, getting up and putting on his hat. “Well, let’s go, then. So long, now.”
The man left the hut with Apollo Perepenchuk.
7
Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk entered the third and last period of his life—he assumed the position of a freelance gravedigger. For almost a full year Apollo Semyonovich labored at the Annunciation Cemetery. Once again, he underwent a remarkable change.
He went about in yellow leg wrappings, a half-coat, and a brass badge on his chest—No. 3. His calm, thoughtless face exuded quiet bliss. All wrinkles, blemishes, and freckles vanished from his countenance. His nose took on its former shape. It was only that his eyes would occasionally fix without blinking on some object—on a single point on that object—no longer seeing or noticing anything else.
At those moments Apollo would contemplate, or rather, recall his life, the path he had traveled, and then his calm face would grow dark. But these recollections would come over him against his will—he was trying to rid his mind of all thought. He acknowledged that he had no sense of what he ought to have done, of what mistake he had made in his life. And had there really been a mistake? Perhaps there hadn’t. Perhaps it was all just life—simple, stark, and plain—which allows only two or three people out of a thousand to smile and enjoy themselves.
However, all these sorrows were now behind him. A spirit of happy tranquility never again left Apollo Semyonovich. Every morning, at the usual hour, he would come to work with a shovel in his hand, and while digging the earth and straightening the sides of the graves, he’d well up with enthusiasm at the silence and charm of his new life.
On summer days, after working two hours or more without a break, he would lie down on the grass or on the warm, freshly dug earth, and would gaze without moving at the fleecy clouds, or follow the flight of some little birdie, or simply hearken to the rustle of the Annunciation’s pines. Recalling his past, Apollo Perepenchuk reflected that he had never felt such peace in all his life, that he had never lain in the grass and had never known that freshly dug earth was warm and smelled sweeter than French powder or any drawing room. And then he would smile a calm, full smile, happy at being alive and wanting to live on.
But one day Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk spotted Tamara walking arm in arm with some fairly important-looking foreigner. They were strolling down the path of Saint Blessed Xenia, blithely prattling about this or that.
Apollo Perepenchuk snuck after them, crouching behind graves and crosses like an animal. The couple strolled through the cemetery for a long time, then found a dilapidated bench and sat down, squeezing each other’s hands.
Apollo Perepenchuk fled from the scene.
But that was an isolated incident. Life went on as before, calm and quiet. The days followed one another, and nothing disturbed their calm. Apollo Semyonovich worked, ate, lay in the grass, and slept…Occasionally he would stroll through the cemetery, read the touching or clumsy inscriptions on the headstones, sit down on this or that forgotten grave, and stay there for a while, thinking of nothing.
On the nineteenth of September, according to the new calendar, Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk succumbed to a heart rupture while working on one of the graves.
As it happens, Tamara Glob, née Omelchenko, had died in childbirth on the seventeenth of September—that is, two days before his own death.
Alas, Apollo Semyonovich Perepenchuk never heard about this.
March 1923
