1
Strange things are afoot in literature these days! If an author should write a tale about contemporary events—why, that author is lavished with praise from all sides. The critics applaud him, the readers sympathize.
Now say that same author manages to pin some public theme, some precious little social idea onto this tale of his—well, said author lands himself on the receiving end of fame, popularity, all kinds of respect. He gets his picture in all the weekly papers. And the publishers pay him in gold—no less than a hundred rubles a sheet.
Well, in our worthless opinion, this hundred rubles a sheet is clearly and totally unjust.
After all, in order to write a tale about contemporary events, one needs access to the appropriate geography—that is, the author must be located in the major centers or capitals of the republic, where the vast majority of historical events happen to take place.
But not every author has that geography at his disposal—not every author has the material opportunity to reside with his family in the major cities and capitals.
Therein lies the stumbling block and the cause of injustice.
One author resides in Moscow, and, so to speak, witnesses with his own eyes the whole round of events involving his heroes and great leaders, while another, by virtue of family circumstances, drags out a miserable existence in some provincial town where nothing particularly heroic has ever happened or ever will.
So how is our author supposed to get his hands on major world events, contemporary ideas, and significant heroes?
Would you have him tell lies? Or would you have him rely on the absurd, inaccurate rumors his comrades bring back from the capital?
No, no, and no! The author loves and respects belles lettres too much to base his compositions on old wives’ tales and unverified rumors.
Of course, some enlightened critic who can prattle in six foreign tongues may urge the author not to shun the minor heroes and little provincial scenes taking place all around him. Such a critic may even insist that it’s preferable to sketch out little colorful etudes peopled with insignificant provincial types.
Dear critic, keep your silly comments to yourself! The author has thought it all through long before you came along. Yes, he’s traveled down every road and worn out more than a few pairs of boots. He’ll have you know that he’s inscribed every name more or less worthy of attention on a separate piece of paper, adding various comments and a nota bene or two. But he keeps coming up empty! Forget remarkable heroes—there isn’t even a single mediocrity whose story would be the least bit interesting or instructive. Nothing but small fry, piffle, zeroes who have no place in belles lettres, no place in the contemporary heroic scheme of things.
Of course, the author would still rather confine himself to an altogether small scale, to an altogether insignificant hero with all his trifling passions and experiences, rather than letting loose and spinning tall tales about some altogether nonexistent person. The author has neither the insolence nor the imagination for that task.
In addition, the author considers himself a member of the only honest literary school—the naturalists—who will determine the future course of Russian belles lettres. But even if the author didn’t consider himself a member of this school, he would still find it, shall we say, difficult to write about an unfamiliar person. He might overshoot the mark and bungle up his psychological analysis—or he might skip over some little detail, so that the reader hits a dead end and is forced to wonder at the carelessness of contemporary writers.
Hence, by virtue of the reasons outlined above, and also due to certain restrictive material circumstances, the author begins his contemporary tale, but he does so with a warning: the tale’s hero is trifling and unimportant, perhaps unworthy of the attention of today’s pampered public. As the reader might have guessed, this hero is Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov.
The author would never have considered expending his gift for empathy on such a figure, but the demand for contemporary tales has forced his hand. Grudgingly, he takes up the pen and begins the tale of Belokopytov.
This will be a somewhat melancholy tale of the collapse of every possible philosophical system, of man’s destruction, of the essential meaninglessness of human culture, and of how easily that culture can vanish. It will narrate the collapse of idealistic philosophy.
On this plane, Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov may indeed have been a rather curious and significant specimen. The author advises the reader not to attach much importance to any other plane, and certainly not to empathize with the hero’s base, beastly emotions and animal instincts.
And so the author takes up the pen and begins his contemporary tale.
The tale is not so very rich in personae: Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov—lean, thirty-seven years of age, non-Party; his wife, Nina Osipovna Arbuzova—a somewhat dark, gypsylike lady, of the ballerina type; Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin—thirty-two years of age, non-Party, head of the First Municipal Bakery; and, finally, the stationmaster, Comrade Peter Pavlovich Sitnikov, respected by all.
The reader will also encounter a handful of peripheral personae, such as Yekaterina Vasilyevna Kolenkorova, Aunt Pepelyukha, and the station guard and Hero of Labor1 Yeremeyich—but there’s really no sense in discussing them in advance, considering the insignificance of their roles.
In addition to these human characters the tale also features a small dog, about which, needless to say, there’s nothing to say.
2
The Belokopytovs are an old, aristocratic, landowning family. At the time these events took place, however, they were fading away. In fact, there were only two Belokopytovs left: the father, Ivan Petrovich, and his offspring, Ivan Ivanovich.
The father, Ivan Petrovich, a very rich and respectable individual, was a somewhat odd, eccentric gentleman. He was slightly populist in his tendencies but enamored of Western ideas, and would either rail against peasants, calling them swine and human scum, or shut himself in his library to pore over the works of such authors as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and Baudouin de Courtenay, admiring the freedom of their thought and the independence of their views.2
And yet, despite all this, Ivan Petrovich Belokopytov adored the quiet, peaceful country life. He loved raw milk, which he imbibed in staggering quantities, and he was fond of horse riding. Never a day passed that Ivan Petrovich didn’t go out on horseback, so as to admire the beauty of nature or the babbling of one or another forest brook.
Belokopytov the elder died young, in the full flower of his activity. He was crushed by his own horse.
One clear summer day, Ivan Petrovich stood at his dining room window, fully dressed and prepared for his usual ride, waiting impatiently for his horse to be brought round. Looking dashingly handsome in his silver spurs, he stood at the window, testily brandishing his gold-handled riding crop. Meanwhile, his son, youthful Vanya Belokopytov, gamboled about him, prancing blithely and toying with the rowels of his father’s spurs.
Come to think of it, young Belokopytov must have done the gamboling at a much younger age. He was past twenty the year his father died—already a mature young man, with fuzz on his upper lip.
No, he certainly couldn’t have been gamboling that year. He was standing at his father’s side, trying to persuade him not to go riding.
“Don’t go, papa,” urged the young Belokopytov, who was filled with foreboding.
But the dashing father simply twirled his mustache and waved the young man away, as if to say, if my number’s up, so be it. He went down to give the tarrying groom a tongue-lashing.
He stormed into the yard, angrily leapt onto his horse’s back, and, in a fit of extreme irritation and wrath, dug his spurs into its sides.
And this, it seems, was his undoing. The furious animal bolted and, about three miles from the estate, threw Belokopytov, smashing his skull against the rocks.
Young Belokopytov took the news of his father’s death in stride. After first ordering that the horse in question be sold, he withdrew his decision, marched into the stable, and personally shot the animal, placing the revolver directly in its ear. Then he locked himself in the house and bitterly lamented his father’s demise. Only several months later did he again take up his former pursuits. He was a student of Spanish, and, under the guidance of a seasoned instructor, translated the works of Spanish authors. Of course, one should note that he was also a student of Latin, always digging through old books and manuscripts.
Now Ivan Ivanovich was the sole heir to an enormous fortune. Someone else in his position might have chucked all that Spanish stuff, given his instructors the boot, packed up his grief, and taken to wine, women, what have you. Unfortunately, young Belokopytov wasn’t that kind of man. His life went on just as before.
Always rich and secure, he didn’t know the meaning of financial constraints and treated money with indifference and contempt. And having read his fill of liberal books, with his father’s notes in the margins, he even came to disdain his vast fortune.
Catching wind of the elder Belokopytov’s death, all sorts of aunties descended upon the estate from every corner of the globe, each hoping to get a piece of the pie. They flattered Ivan Ivanovich, kissed his hand, and marveled at his wise directives.
Then one day Ivan Ivanovich gathered all his relatives in the dining room and declared that he felt he had no right to his inherited fortune. He thought the very notion of “inheritance” was “utter nonsense,” and believed that human beings ought to make their own way in the world. And so he, Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov, being of sound mind and in full possession of his faculties, would renounce his property, on the condition that he himself could distribute it to various institutions and disadvantaged individuals of his choice.
His relations oohed and aahed in unison, marveling at Ivan Ivanovich’s extraordinary generosity and suggesting that, in essence, they were precisely the disadvantaged individuals and institutions of which he had spoken. After allocating them nearly half his fortune, Ivan Ivanovich bid them a final farewell and set about liquidating the rest of his possessions.
He quickly sold his land for a song and gave away part of his household goods and cattle to the peasants, squandering the rest. Still possessed of a sizable fortune, he moved to the city, renting two little rooms from some simple folk to whom he had no connection.
Some distant relatives of his, who were then living in the city, took offense and broke off all contact with Ivan Ivanovich, finding his behavior to be harmful and dangerous to the life of the nobility.
Settling in the city, Ivan Ivanovich didn’t alter his life or habits one bit. He continued to study Spanish, and, in his spare time, engaged in a wide variety of charity work.
Huge crowds of beggars besieged Ivan Ivanovich’s apartment. Every manner of rogue, scoundrel, and confidence man lined up to plead for his help.
Refusing almost no one and, in addition, sacrificing large sums to various institutions, Ivan Ivanovich soon squandered half his remaining possessions. On top of that, he befriended a certain revolutionary group, supporting and helping them in every possible way. There was even talk that he had given the group nearly all the money he had left, but the author can neither confirm nor deny that rumor. In any case, Belokopytov was involved in one revolutionary cause.
The author, for his part, was then occupied with his poetic and familial affairs, and turned a somewhat blind eye to social developments, so certain details escaped him. That year the author was preparing his first little book of poems for publication, under the title A Bouquet of Mignonette. At the present time, of course, the author would hardly apply so wretched and sentimental a title to his poetic experiments. At the present time, he would attempt to bind his humble verses with some abstract philosophical idea and give the collection a fitting title—just as this tale is bound and titled with that enormous, significant word: “People.” Alas, at that time, the author was young and inexperienced. Still, the book wasn’t so bad. Printed on the finest art paper in three hundred copies, it sold out completely in just over four years, bringing its author a certain degree of celebrity among the citizens of his town.
No, not a bad little book.
But as to Ivan Ivanovich, he really did get tangled up in the course of events. In a fit of generosity, he gave a mink coat to some girl student who had been sentenced to exile.
That coat gave Ivan Ivanovich no end of trouble. He was placed under secret surveillance, suspected of having relations with revolutionaries.
Ivan Ivanovich, a nervous and impressionable man, was terribly anxious about being watched. He literally clutched his head, saying that he refused to remain in Russia, a country of semi-barbarians, where they stalked men as if they were beasts. He promised himself that he would soon sell everything off and go abroad as a political refugee, freeing his legs from this stagnant swamp.
Having made this decision, he began to liquidate his affairs in a hurry, worried that he might be captured, arrested, or denied the right to emigrate. Then, one cloudy autumn day, with his affairs ended and with only a little money left for living expenses, Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov went abroad, cursing his fate and his generosity.
This departure took place in September 1910.
3
No one knows how Ivan Ivanovich lived abroad, what he did there.
Ivan Ivanovich himself never spoke of it, and the author won’t risk spinning yarns about the alien way of life in those lands.
Of course, some experienced writer who has seen foreign parts with his own eyes would gladly lay it on thick, beguiling readers with two or three European tableaux featuring late-night bars, cabaret singers, and American billionaires.
Alas! The author has never traveled to any foreign parts, and European life remains a dark mystery to him.
Hence, with some regret and sadness, and even a degree of guilt before the reader, the author must skip over at least ten or eleven years of Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov’s life abroad, in order not to bungle up any minor details of those alien ways.
But the reader should calm himself. Nothing remarkable happened in our hero’s life over those ten years. I mean, the man lived abroad, married a Russian ballet dancer…What else? Went completely broke, of course. And at the start of the revolution, he returned to Russia. That’s the long and the short of it.
Of course, all this could have been laid out in a better, more attractive manner—but again, for the reasons mentioned above, the author leaves everything as it is. Let other writers make use of their beautiful verbiage. The author isn’t a vain man—if this is how he wrote it, so be it. The author loses no sleep over the laurels of other famed writers.
And so, dear reader, there you have the whole story of Belokopytov’s ten years abroad. Well, not exactly.
In those early years in Europe Ivan Ivanovich conceived of a book. He even put pen to paper, titling his opus The Possibility of Revolution in Russia and the Caucasus. But then the world war and revolution rendered his book unnecessary, nonsensical rubbish.
But Ivan Ivanovich wasn’t too disappointed, and in the third or fourth year of the revolution he returned to Russia, to the town he’d left behind. At this point the author picks up his tale. Here the author is in his element, completely in command. No chance of bungling it now. This isn’t Europe for you. Everything here transpired before the author’s own eyes. Every detail, every incident was either witnessed by the author directly, or was relayed to him by the most reliable of first hands.
And so the author begins his detailed account only from the date of Ivan Ivanovich’s arrival in our dear city.
It was a lovely spring. The snow had almost completely melted away. Birds glided through the air, welcoming the long-awaited season with their cries. Yet it was still too soon to go about without galoshes; in certain places, the mud came up to the knees or higher.
On one such lovely spring day, Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov returned to his native region.
Several passengers were rushing from side to side on the platform, impatiently awaiting the train. Near them stood the stationmaster, Comrade Sitnikov, respected by all.
And when the train arrived, a slender man in a soft hat and pointed-toe boots without galoshes emerged from the front car.
That man was Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov.
Dressed in European fashion, in an excellent broad coat, he casually stepped onto the platform after first tossing down two beautiful suitcases of yellowish leather with nickel-plated locks. Then he turned back and gave his hand to a somewhat dark, gypsy-like lady, helping her off the train.
They stood beside their suitcases. She kept glancing about with some dismay, while he simply smiled softly and breathed deeply, gazing at the departing train.
The train had long since moved away—but they stood motionless. A gang of feral urchins, whistling and slapping the platform with their bare feet, pounced on the suitcases. They pulled at the leather with their dirty paws and offered to drag them as far as the ends of the earth, if need be.
The porter and old Hero of Labor, Yeremeich, drove the boys off and began to eye the now-sullied pale-yellow suitcases reproachfully. Then, hoisting them on his shoulders, Yeremeich moved toward the exit, thereby suggesting that the newly arrived pair follow him and not just stand there like idiots.
Belokopytov followed him, but at the exit, on the porch behind the station, he ordered Yeremeich to stop. He himself stopped, took off his hat, and saluted his hometown, his country, and his return.
Standing on the steps of the station and smiling softly, he gazed at the street that ran off into the distance, at the gutters with their little bridges, and at the little wooden houses with the gray smoke rising from their chimneys…There was a certain quiet joy, a certain salutatory delight on his face.
He stood there a long time with his head uncovered. The mild spring breeze ruffled his slightly graying hair. Reflecting on his wanderings and on the new life that lay before him, Belokopytov stood motionless, drawing the fresh air deep into his chest.
And suddenly he wanted, that very moment, to go somewhere, do something, create something—something important and necessary to all. He felt an extraordinary surge of youthful freshness and strength welling up inside him, along with some kind of delight. And he wanted to bow low to his native land, to his hometown, and to all of mankind.
Meanwhile, his wife, Nina Osipovna Arbuzova, stood behind him, glaring nastily at his figure and impatiently tapping the cobblestones with the tip of her umbrella. A bit farther off stood Yeremeich, bent under the two bags, not knowing whether to put them on the ground and thus soil their dazzling surfaces, or to keep them on his back and wait for the command to move on. But then Ivan Ivanovitch turned to Yeremeich and kindly directed him to unburden himself—setting the bags down in the mud, if necessary. Ivan Ivanovich even walked up to Yeremeich and helped him lower the bags to the ground himself, saying:
“Well, how are things? How’s life?”
Somewhat crude and utterly unimaginative Yeremeich, who wasn’t accustomed to fielding such abstract questions and who had carried as many as fifteen thousand suitcases, baskets, and bindles on his back, replied rather plainly and crudely:
At that point Belokopytov began to question Yremeich about things and events more firmly rooted in reality, enquiring where this or that person now was, and what changes had occurred in town. But Yeremeich, who had lived in this town continuously for fifty-six years, didn’t seem to recognize any of the names Belokopytov mentioned, be they of people or streets.
Blowing his nose and wiping his sweaty face with his sleeve, Yeremeich would first pick up the bags, as if to indicate that it was time to go, then put them back down, worrying that he’d be late to greet the next train.
Nina Osipovna broke into their friendly conversation, asking nastily whether Ivan Ivanovich intended to stay and live right there, in the bosom of nature, or whether he had something else in mind.
As she spoke, Nina Osipovna angrily tapped her shoe against the steps and dolefully pursed her lips.
Ivan Ivanovich was about to respond in some way, but then Comrade Peter Pavlovich Sitnikov, respected by all, emerged from his office. He had heard the hubbub and was accompanied by an agent of the criminal investigation division. However, seeing that all was well, and that the public peace and quiet had in no way been disturbed, and that, in fact, nothing at all had happened, aside from a family dispute involving the tapping of a lady’s shoe against the steps, Peter Pavlovich Sitnikov began to turn back—but then Ivan Ivanovich ran up to him and asked whether he remembered him, gripping him firmly by the hand, shaking it, and rejoicing.
Maintaining his dignity, Sitnikov answered that he did indeed remember something, vaguely, and that there was something familiar about Belokopytov’s countenance, but he could not say or recall anything definitively.
Pleading official business and shaking Belokopytov’s hand, he withdrew, giving a wave to the unfamiliar dark woman.
The agent left as well, after first asking Belokopytov about international politics and events in Germany. He silently listened to Belokopytov’s speech, gave a nod, and walked off, commanding Yeremeich to move the bags as far as possible from the entrance, so that passengers wouldn’t break their legs.
Yeremeich irately shouldered the bags for the final time and started walking, asking where he ought to take them.
“Indeed,” Nina Osipovna asked Belokopytov. “Where were you planning on going?”
With a certain degree of perplexity and concern, Ivan Ivanovich began to think about where he could go, but he simply didn’t know, and so he asked Yeremeich whether there was a room available somewhere in the vicinity, if only on a temporary basis.
Lowering the bags once more, Yeremeich also began to think and try to remember. He finally concluded there was nowhere to go besides Katerina Vasilyevna Kolenkorova’s, and so off he went. But Ivan Ivanovich ran ahead of him, saying that he remembered that most gentle woman Katerina Vasilyevna full well, and remembered full well where she lived, and that he would lead the way.
On he marched, his hands swinging at his sides and his exquisite foreign boots squishing in the mud.
Behind him trudged the completely exhausted Yeremeich. And behind Yeremeich walked Nina Osipovna Arbuzova, holding her skirt high and exposing her skinny, gray-stockinged legs.
The Belokopytovs took a room at Katerina Vasilyevna Kolenkorova’s place.
Katerina Vasilyevna was a simple-hearted, kindly old woman, who was, for some strange reason, interested in anything other than political events.
She welcomed the Belokopytovs warmly, saying that she would assign them the very finest room in the house, right next to that of Comrade Yarkin, head of the First State Bakery.
And she led them to that room with a certain air of solemnity.
With some trepidation, inhaling the familiar odor of old provincial housing, Ivan Ivanovich entered a plain wooden mudroom, with many holes in the walls, a clay washing jug hanging from a rope in the corner, and a pile of rubbish on the floor.
Ivan Ivanovich walked through the mudroom with a kind of rapture, curiously examining the clay washing jug, the likes of which he hadn’t seen in years, and proceeded inside. He liked everything about the place right away—the creaking of the floorboards, the thin partitions between the rooms, the dingy little windows, the low ceilings. He liked his room, too, although it was, in fact, not very good—the author would even say disgusting. And yet, for some reason, Nina Osipovna herself seemed to respond favorably to the room, opining that, as far as temporary arrangements went, it was perfectly reasonable.
The author attributes this exclusively to the couple’s exhaustion. In later years, he had occasion to spend a good deal of time in this room, and he has never seen so tasteless a setup—although he himself lives in rather poor conditions, renting a room from people of modest means. With all due respect to the couple, the author is shocked at their taste. There was nothing the least bit attractive about their room. Its yellow wallpaper was peeling off and warping. Its meager furnishings consisted of a plain kitchen table covered with oilcloth, a few chairs, a couch, and a bed. And its only adornment, as it were, was a pair of antlers hung high on the wall. But you can’t get very far on antlers alone.
And so, the Belokopytovs temporarily settled at Katerina Vasilyevna Kolenkorova’s.
They immediately developed a quiet, measured routine. For the first few days they remained indoors, owing to the mud and terrible road conditions. They spent their time tidying up, admiring the antlers, and sharing their impressions.
Ivan Ivanovich was in a cheerful, jocular mood. He would run up to the window to marvel at some heifer or silly chicken pecking at the rubbish in the street, or race into the mudroom and, laughing like a child, splash about under the wash jug, dousing his hands first from one spout, then from the other.
Nina Osipovna—a delicate, coquettish individual—did not share her husband’s enthusiasm for the clay jug. She would smile squeamishly and comment that she, in any case, preferred a real washstand—you know, the kind with a leg or foot pedal: you press it and water comes out. However, she expressed no specific grievances about the jug. On the contrary, she would often say:
“If it’s only temporary, I’m perfectly fine with it—no complaints. A bad bush is better than an open field.”
After her morning wash, Nina Osipovna’s face would look pink, fresh, ten years younger, and she would hurry happily into the room. There she would put on her ballet costume—those panties, you know, with the gauze skirt—and do her exercises before a mirror, squatting gracefully first on one foot, then on the other, then on both at the same time.
Ivan Ivanovich would gaze tenderly at her—at her trifling undertakings—finding, at the same time, that the provincial air had had a positively favorable effect on his wife. She had grown plumper, and her legs were no longer as skinny as they had been in Berlin.
Tired out by her squats, Nina Osipovna would plop down in some armchair or other, and Ivan Ivanovich would stroke her hand gently, telling her of his former life in these parts, of how he had fled eleven years earlier, pursued by the tsarist gendarmes, and of how he had spent his first years in exile. Nina Osipovna would ask her husband many questions, showing a lively interest in the extent of his former wealth and property. Shocked and horrified at how quickly and rashly he had squandered his fortune, she would reproach him angrily and sharply for his foolish carelessness and eccentricity.
“How could you? How could you throw money to the wind like that?” she would say, holding back her indignation.
Ivan Ivanovich would shrug his shoulders and try to change the subject.
Sometimes Katerina Vasilyevna would interrupt their conversations. She would enter the room, stand near the door, and, swaying from side to side, relay the latest gossip and tell them about all sorts of changes in town.
Ivan Ivanovich would question her eagerly about his distant relatives and few acquaintances. Learning that most of them had died, while others had gone abroad as political refugees, he would begin to pace the room anxiously, shaking his head. Eventually, Nina Osipovna would take him by the hand and sit him down on a chair, saying that he was getting on her nerves, flitting before her eyes like that.
So passed the first few days, without any worries, alarms, or incidents. Only once, in the evening, after knocking on their door, did their neighbor Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin come into their room. After introducing himself, he spent a long time enquiring about life abroad, and in the end asked whether the suitcase standing in the corner was for sale.
Learning that the suitcase was not for sale but was just standing there for no good reason, Yegor Konstantinovich left the room, looking somewhat offended and bowing silently to its inhabitants.
Nina Osipovna stared squeamishly at his broad figure and bull-like neck as he exited the room, thinking dolefully that one was unlikely to find a truly refined gentleman in this provincial backwater.
5
Life proceeded on its usual course.
The mud dried a bit and people began bustling up and down the streets—some hurrying about their business, others simply promenading, cracking sunflower seeds, laughing, and peeping into other people’s windows.
From time to time domestic animals would come out into the street and walk in front of the houses with measured steps, nibbling on some grass or pawing at the earth, so as to store up a little fat for the spring.
The highly educated Ivan Ivanovich, who was fluent in Spanish and knew enough Latin to get by, wasn’t the least bit concerned about his prospects. He hoped that, in a few days’ time, he would find appropriate employment and move to a new and better apartment. Talking the matter over with his wife, he would calmly explain that, although his financial circumstances were, at present, strained, the situation would soon improve. Nina Osipovna would beseech him to hurry up, get down to it, and determine where he stood. Ivan Ivanovich relented, promising to do so the very next day.
His first steps, however, did not meet with success. A bit discouraged, he went to some other establishments the following day, but returned glum and slightly agitated. Shrugging his shoulders, he made excuses. It wasn’t as easy as all that, he explained to his wife—a man who knows Latin and Spanish isn’t just handed a decent position.
Every morning he would go out looking for work, but he was always turned away—either because, these employers claimed, there was no suitable position, or because he had no relevant experience.
It should be said that Ivan Ivanovich was given a friendly and attentive reception everywhere he went. All the employers were endlessly curious about his experiences abroad and the possibility of new global shocks—but whenever the conversation turned to work, they would shake their heads and shrug. Their hands were tied, they’d explain, adding that Spanish, that rare and amusing language, was, unfortunately, not in particularly high demand.
Belokopytov stopped mentioning his Spanish. He now gave greater emphasis to his Latin, banking on its practical applications. But the Latin too fell on deaf ears. Employers were willing to hear him out—and they even took some interest in the Latin, asking him to recite some ditty or phrase, just for the sound of it—but they saw no practical application for it.
And so Ivan Ivanovich stopped emphasizing his Latin. He now looked for any kind of writing work, and would have settled for a job filing papers, but he was always asked about his skills and his professional experience. Upon hearing that Ivan Ivanovich had no skills or professional experience, employers would take offense, saying that it was wrong to waste busy people’s time.
Here and there, Belokopytov was asked to stop by the following month, but he was given no concrete promises.
Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov would now come home in a gloomy, depressed state. After a quick, rather lean dinner, he would collapse on the bed in his trousers and turn to face the wall, hoping to avoid any sort of conversation or row with his wife.
Meanwhile, she’d be jumping around in front of the mirror in her panties and pink gauze like a complete idiot, stamping her feet and throwing her skinny arms in the air, her sharp elbows flying every which way.
Sometimes she would try to start a row, heaping all sorts of unpleasant business on Ivan Ivanovich’s head, and expressing her indignation at the fact that he had brought her here, from abroad, to live such a dull, insipid life. But Ivan Ivanovich, feeling and knowing himself to be guilty, kept silent. Only once did he respond, saying that he didn’t understand a thing, and that he himself had been deluded about the Spanish language and about his whole life. He had counted on getting a decent position, but everything kept falling through—because, as it turned out, he was completely unskilled, unable to do anything. This had simply never occurred to him before. It turned out he had received a foolish and senseless upbringing, preparing him for the rich, prosperous life of a landowner and master of the house. And now, when he had nothing to his name—he was reaping that upbringing’s rewards.
Nina Osipovna burst into tears, saying that things couldn’t go on this way, that something had to give—after all, they owed money to everyone, even to their dear old landlady, Katerina Vasilyevna. Then, asking her not to cry, Ivan Ivanovich suggested that she sell the suitcase, even if they had to sell it to their neighbor Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin.
And that is precisely what she did. She personally took the suitcase to Yarkin’s room, sat there for a long time, and returned with money in hand and a new spring in her step.
From that point on there were no more rows. Or rather, whenever Ivan Ivanovich anticipated a row, he would put on his hat and go out into the street. And every time he passed through the mudroom, he would hear his neighbor Yegor Konstantinovich talking to Nina Osipovna through the wall, offering her a piece of bread or a cheese sandwich.
Ivan Ivanovich would walk through the gate and stand in the ditch by the side of the road, staring sadly down the long street. Sometimes he would sit perfectly still on a bench near the front garden, hugging his knees and glancing anxiously at the passersby.
People would walk down the street, hurrying about their business. Some old woman carrying a basket or a bag would examine Ivan Ivanovich curiously, then move on, looking back ten or fifteen times. A gang of little boys would run past, sticking out their tongues or slapping him on the knee and scurrying off.
Ivan Ivanovich observed all this with a sad smile, reflecting for the hundredth time on one and the same thing—on his own life in comparison with those of others, trying to isolate some kind of difference or some terrible reason for his unhappiness.
Every once in a while a group of workers from the textile factory would saunter past Belokopytov with their harmonica, jokes, and songs. And then Belokopytov would perk up and gaze at them for a long time, listening to their loud, joyous songs, shouts, and cheers.
And on those days—those days of sitting in the ditch—it seemed to Ivan Ivanovich that he shouldn’t have come to this town, to this street. But where should he have gone instead? He had no idea. And so he would make his way home, more worried and stooped than before, dragging his feet along the ground.
6
Ivan Ivanovich lost heart altogether. The ecstasy he had felt upon arrival now gave way to silent anguish and apathy.
He was somehow frightened of life, about which, it turned out, he knew nothing. It now seemed to him that life was some kind of deadly struggle for the right to exist. And so—in mortal anguish, sensing that the very continuation of his life was at stake—he sifted through his store of knowledge and abilities, as well as the means of applying them. Unfortunately, after poring over everything he knew, he came to the sad conclusion that he knew nothing. He spoke Spanish, played the harp, had some familiarity with electricity and could, for example, install an electric bell—but here, in this town, all those skills appeared to be unnecessary, and were even regarded as somewhat odd and amusing. No one laughed in his face, but he would receive smiles of sympathy, as well as sly, mocking glances; and then he would cower, walk away, and try to avoid people.
By sheer force of habit, he still went out every day, at the usual hour, to look for work. Steadily, trying to walk as slowly as possible, he would, just as before, utter his requests in an almost mechanical manner, without the slightest trepidation. He would be told to come back in a month, and was at times simply and curtly denied.
On some occasions, when he was driven to dull despair, Ivan Ivanovich would reproach people angrily, demanding work and assistance posthaste, laying out his services to the state and telling the story of the more-or-less mink coat he had given to the exiled girl student.
He would drag himself around town all day long, and toward evening, half-starved and grimacing, he would wander aimlessly from street to street, house to house, trying to delay, to put off returning home.
Now and then he would cover the whole town on foot, simply going and going without halting anywhere. Passing the outskirts, he would find himself in the open field, cross the “Dog’s Grove,” and walk into the woods, where he would wander around until dusk and only then return home.
He would enter his room with his eyes closed, knowing that Nina Osipovna was sitting motionless to his left, near the mirror, staring at him nastily or through tears.
He avoided conversation, avoided seeing her at all, staying in the house as little as possible and only at night.
But one day he himself broke the silence.
He said that everything had gone to hell, that he was turning himself over to the hands of fate, and that she, Nina Osipovna, could, if necessary, dispose of his property as she saw fit. What he had in mind was the remaining suitcase and a few items of his foreign wardrobe.
Catching wind of this through the thin partition, Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin walked into the couple’s room and announced that he was happy to meet their wishes, but categorically refused to purchase the suitcase.
“Suitcases—nothing but suitcases,” Yegor Konstantinovich complained. “Don’t you have anything else to offer?”
Learning that they had, he began to examine certain items, including a pair of trousers, bringing them close to his eyes. Peering at the trousers against the light, he found fault with them, denigrating their quality.
Nina Osipovna—enlivened and, for some reason, excited—joked with Yegor Konstantinovich, slapping him lightly on the hand or sitting gracefully on the arm of his chair and shaking her skinny leg.
In the end, Yegor Konstantinovich politely bid them good day and stepped out, taking the items of clothing and leaving a sum of money.
The next few days were calm and quiet. But at the end of that week, Ivan Ivanovich, who had left the house early in the morning, returned at noon, quite shaken and aglow. He had found a job. This whole time he had been looking for some kind of silly intellectual writing work, but it turned out there were other options!
At any rate, he happened to run into an old friend in the street. After solicitously inquiring about and learning of Ivan Ivanovich’s maddening situation, the man clutched at his head, pondering what he could do to help his comrade as quickly as possible. Somewhat abashed, he said that he could, at least temporarily, set Ivan Ivanovich up at one of the consumer cooperatives.
But this would only be temporary—for an individual as erudite as Ivan Ivanovich required a position suitable to his stature.
Ivan Ivanovich leapt at the offer with unrestrained joy, saying that he accepted the job sight unseen, that this sort of work was positively to his liking, and that he wouldn’t want any sort of problematic changes. After agreeing to everything, Ivan Ivanovich dashed home. There, tugging at Katerina Vasilyevna’s and his wife’s hands, he spoke breathlessly about his new position.
Quickly, right on the spot, he laid out a whole philosophical system concerning the need to adapt—concerning the straightforward, primitive nature of life, and the fact that every person, endowed with the right to live, is obliged, like any living thing, like any animal, to alter his or her spots with the changing times. What need had he of stupid intellectual work? Here was a wonderful profession, which would furnish him with a new zest for life! Who needs all that Spanish, all those sophisticated minds, and so on.
Babbling in confused, garbled sentences, breaking off in the middle of words and jumping from thought to thought, he sought to prove his theory. Nina Osipovna listened to him without understanding a thing, nervously smoking cigarette after cigarette.
The author surmises that Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov, knocked slightly off balance by strong emotions, had in mind that great scientific theory of protective coloration—of so-called mimicry—in accordance with which a bug crawling on a stem has the same color as the stem, so that some bird doesn’t peck at him, having taken him for a breadcrumb.
This is all perfectly clear and understandable to the author. Yet he isn’t the least bit surprised that Nina Osipovna couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The author doesn’t hold ballet dancers in particularly high esteem.
Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov enrolled in “The Public Good” cooperative.
He would now get up at the crack of dawn, put on his suit—which was by then quite shabby—and, trying not to wake his wife, tiptoe out of the house and hurry to work. He was almost always the first at the door, and would often have to stand there for an hour or more, waiting for the manager to arrive and open the shop. He was also last to leave the shop, along with the manager. He would hurry home, jumping over ditches, carrying whatever eatables he had been issued under his arm.
Back home, babbling breathlessly and interrupting himself, he would tell his wife that the new job was very much to his liking, that he wanted nothing else from life, that being a shop clerk wasn’t so very shameful and humiliating, and that, in the grand scheme of things, the job was quite pleasant and not too difficult.
Nina Osipovna reacted to this change in Ivan Ivanovich’s life rather sympathetically, saying that if this arrangement were merely temporary then it wasn’t as bad as it might seem at first glance, and that in the future they might even be able to open a humble little cooperative of their own. Developing on this notion, Nina Osipovna would go into utter rapture, conjuring a picture of them doing trade: him behind the counter, strong, with his sleeves rolled up and a cleaver in his hand, and herself—graceful, lightly powdered—at the cash register. Yes, she would stand at the register, smile cheerfully at the customers, and count the money, binding the bills into neat little packets. She loved to count money. Even the dirtiest of bills was cleaner than any apron and stack of dishes.
With these thoughts in her head, Nina Osipovna would clap her hands, slip on her pink tights and gauze, and commence her idiotic jumping and curtseying. Meanwhile, Ivan Ivanovich, exhausted by a long day’s work, would tumble into bed and drift off, eagerly looking forward to the morning.
The following day, returning from work, Ivan Ivanovich would share his new experiences with his wife. He would laugh as he told her of how, say, he had weighed some butter—and of how a barely noticeable application of one finger to the scale radically changes an object’s weight, to the considerable advantage of the clerk.
Nina Osipovna would perk up at those moments. She would wonder why Ivan Ivanovich had only applied one finger to the scale, rather than two, saying that two would have reduced the butter’s weight still further. She also deeply regretted that he hadn’t swapped the butter for some worthless yellowish muck, maybe clay.
Ivan Ivanovich would laugh off his wife’s suggestions and beg her not to interfere in his affairs, so as not to go too far over the edge and thus cause him to lose the job. But Nina Osipovna would angrily advise him not to be excessively tenderhearted and dewy-eyed in his practices.
Ivan Ivanovich agreed. He would declare—getting a bit worked up—that cynicism was an absolutely necessary and normal quality, that no beast could get along without cynicism and cruelty, and that, in fact, cynicism and cruelty may be the most proper qualities of all, since they secure the right to live. Ivan Ivanovich would also proclaim that he had once been a foolish, sentimental puppy, but that he had now grown up and understood what it cost to live. He had even realized that his former ideals—compassion, generosity, morality—weren’t worth a rusty kopeck and a rotten egg. They were all pathetic trifles belonging to a false, sentimental era.
Nina Osipovna had no patience for such abstract philosophical ideas. She would peevishly wave her hand, saying that she entirely preferred concrete, visible facts and money to all his words.
And so the days passed.
Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov managed to make several purchases and acquisitions. For instance, he bought a few soup plates with blue rims, two or three pots, and, finally, a kerosene stove.
The purchase of the kerosene stove was cause for celebration—a real moment of triumph. Ivan Ivanovich unpacked it with his own hands and showed Nina Osipovna how to operate it, how to cook lunch and warm up meat.
Ivan Ivanovich became the master of his home and a prudent man. He now deeply regretted having let his neighbor have all his foreign suits for a song. But he would console himself right away, saying that it was only a matter of time—and not much time—before he could buy a good, plain suit, of a color that wouldn’t show dirt.
Alas, Ivan Ivanovich never did get to buy that suit.
One day Ivan Ivanovich left the shop before closing time and, having shoved two pounds of stearin candles and a piece of soap into his briefcase, walked through the courtyard toward the street.
He was stopped at the gate by a guard, who demanded to examine the contents of his briefcase.
Ivan Ivanovich, who suddenly looked rather haggard, stood perfectly still, staring silently at the guard. The guard said he had received strict orders not to let anyone out of the yard without a search, and repeated his demand.
Ivan Ivanovich was completely stunned, and found it hard to understand what was happening. He allowed the guard to open the briefcase. To the joyful shouts of the crowd, the guard extracted the ill-begotten candles and soap.
Belokopytov was invited to the station. The candles were confiscated and he was interrogated. After drawing up a damning report, the guards released him, poking fun at his comic appearance—mocking this figure with the empty, unbuttoned briefcase pressed to its chest.
It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly that Ivan Ivanovich staggered out into the street without a clear sense of his position. At first he set off for home, but then turned left before reaching Saint-Just Street and walked on in a rather odd manner, without moving his hands or head.
He kept going for a few blocks, sat on some little bench for a while, then returned home late at night.
Entering the house, he groped his way through the dark like a blind man, made his way to his room, and lay down on the bed. Turning to the wall, he began to trace the pattern on the wallpaper with his fingers.
He didn’t breathe a word to his wife. Nor did she ask any questions, having already learned of the day’s events. Yegor Konstantinovich had brought her the news after returning from work.
And now, despite Belokopytov’s presence, Yegor Konstantinovich rapped lightly on the wall and asked Nina Osipovna whether she needed anything, whether she’d fancy a glass of tea and a sandwich.
Without so much as glancing at her husband, Nina Osipovna replied in a chesty, melodious voice that she was stuffed to the gills and was going to bed. Yegor Konstantinovich asked something else, courteously and politely, but she responded, undressing and yawning, that she was asleep.
And she did indeed lie down on the couch. Covering her face with her hands, she lay there strangely, without moving a muscle. Ivan Ivanovich got up to put out the light, but, after looking at the sofa, sat down and stared at his wife for a long time. It seemed to him that she was in a desperate state, close to death. And he wanted to go over to her, kneel down, and say something in a calm, cheerful tone. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
8
He stretched out in bed, trying not to move or think. But he couldn’t help thinking—not about what had happened earlier in the day, but about his wife, about her unhappy life, and about the fact that not everyone had the right to exist.
Thinking these thoughts, he began to drift off. Some sort of terrible fatigue fettered his legs, and some sort of weight pressed down on his whole body.
He closed his eyes and lay perfectly still. His breathing grew steady and calm.
But then a cautious shuffling of feet and the creak of the door startled him awake.
He opened his eyes with a shudder, sat up in bed, and gazed around the room nervously. The small kerosene stove was barely burning, casting a few meager long shadows. Ivan Ivanovich looked at the couch—his wife was gone.
Worried and anxious, he jumped to his feet and carefully walked across the room on tiptoes.
Then he ran to the door, opened it, and—frightened, shivering, his teeth chattering in the predawn hours—rushed into the corridor. He dashed into the kitchen and took a quick look in the mudroom. All was quiet and calm—except for the chicken in the mudroom, who was spooked by Ivan Ivanovich and jumped away with a terrible cry.
Belokopytov returned to the kitchen. Katerina Vasilyevna was now sitting up in her bed, yawning and making little signs of the cross over her mouth. She was listening close to the unusual noise. Catching sight of Ivan Ivanovich, she lay down again, assuming that he had gotten up to answer nature’s call.
But Ivan Ivanovich came up to her and began to tug at her hand, begging her to tell him whether his wife had passed through the kitchen.
Making signs of the cross and shrugging her shoulders, Katerina Vasilyevna pled ignorance. Then she began putting on her skirt, saying that if Nina Osipovna had stepped out, well, she’d likely be back.
Once Katerina Vasilyevna was dressed, she walked up to tenant Yarkin’s locked door and told Ivan Ivanovich that his wife hadn’t left the house. If she wasn’t in the Belokopytovs’ room—well, he might want to try the neighbor’s.
Beckoning Belokopytov with her finger, she led him into the corridor and up to Yarkin’s door, where she put her eye to the keyhole.
Ivan Ivanovich also wanted to approach the door, but at that moment the floor beneath him creaked, and he heard a bustle in the neighbor’s room. Yegor Konstantinovich himself came up to the door, his bare feet slapping across the floorboards, and asked hoarsely: “Who’s there? Whaddaya want?”
Ivan Ivanovich wanted to remain silent, but instead he said: “It’s me…Is Nina Osipovna Arbuzova…with you, by any chance?”
“That’s right,” Yarkin answered rudely. “Whaddaya want?”
Receiving no reply, he grabbed the door handle.
A broken whisper sounded in the room. Nina Osipovna was pleading with Yarkin, begging him to hand over some revolver, saying that everything would be fine, just fine. Then she herself approached the door and took hold of the handle, asking softly: “Vanya…Is that you?”
Ivan Ivanovich winced, muttered something vague, then slunk away to his room. There, he sat down on the bed.
The author speculates that Ivan Ivanovich felt no particular despair. Sure, he might have sat down on the bed with evident despair, but that despair only lasted a moment. Once he had the chance to turn it over in his mind, he was probably even delighted.
Indeed, the author can’t imagine why Ivan Ivanovich wouldn’t be delighted. A terrible burden had been lifted from his shoulders. After all, Nina Osipovna’s life had been his constant concern; he had had to provide her with all sorts of entertainment, theater, the best piece of bread. Now that Ivan Ivanovich’s life had deteriorated so dramatically, feeding a little lady of this sort would be all the more difficult. After jumping all day in front of the mirror, the woman ate enough for two.
And so, after sitting on the bed a little while longer and reaching the conclusion that he had nothing to worry about, Ivan Ivanovich stretched out again. He lay there until morning, without closing his eyes. He wasn’t thinking of anything, but his head buzzed and felt as if it were full of lead.
When Ivan Ivanovich got up the next morning, he was a rather different Ivan Ivanovich. The sunken eyes, the sallow, wrinkled skin, the tousled hair—it was an extraordinary change. And even after he had washed up with cold water, the change refused to disappear.
Ivan Ivanovich dressed, combed his hair out of habit, and left the house. He slowly made his way to the cooperative, but suddenly turned aside sharply, winced, and walked away.
On he plodded, step after step—dully, mechanically. Reaching the edge of town, he set off for his favorite spot in the woods, past the “Dog’s Grove.”
He crossed the grove, treading on yellow autumn leaves, and walked out into the clearing.
The whole clearing was pitted with old wartime trenches, dugouts, and bunkers. Scraps of rusty barbed wire hung from small stakes in the ground.
Ivan Ivanovich loved this place. He had often wandered through the trenches, lain at the edge of the woods, and smiled slyly to himself as he gazed at all these military ventures. But now he crossed the clearing somewhat indifferently, as if he noticed nothing. When he reached the woods, he sat down on a half-collapsed dugout, which had been built maybe seven years earlier.
He sat there for a long while, thinking of nothing, then walked farther, and then came back again and lay down on the grass. He lay with his face down for a long time, pulling at the grass with his hands. Then he got up and went back to town.
It was early autumn. Yellow leaves littered the ground. And the earth was warm and dry.
Ivan Ivanovich was now living alone.
Returning home after his wanderings and glumly surveying his barren lodgings, Ivan Ivanovich would sit on his bed, tallying the objects that had vanished along with Nina Osipovna. The number of such objects was, it turned out, nothing to sneeze at: gone were the kerosene stove bought in happier days, the tablecloth, and even the mirror and the small bedside rug.
Ivan Ivanovich wasn’t so very troubled by these losses. “To hell with them!” kind Ivan Ivanovich thought, listening to the chatter on the other side of the wall.
The chatter was all whispers; it was impossible to make out any words. From time to time, he would hear the bass notes of Yegor Konstantinovich. In all likelihood, Yegor Konstantinovich was consoling Nina Osipovna, who was anxious to maintain her new well-being and retain the objects she had taken without her husband’s permission.
But Ivan Ivanovich couldn’t care less about objects. Every morning he would walk to the edge of town, go past the grove and the clearing, and approach the woods.
There he would sit on his dugout or roam the woods, tripping over tree roots, thinking about, or rather, contemplating his new position. He tried to capture what had befallen him—what had happened, why it had happened—in some single thought.
His wife had left him. She had no choice but to leave. He was a man of the old world, unfit for the struggle. Women follow the victor. Well, there it was—clear as day. And now nothing would save him from certain death.
Death was certain. He knew that, but by force of some sort of will he still tried to find a way out—to come up, at least theoretically, with some possible way out, some possible means of prolonging his existence. He didn’t want to die. On the contrary, whenever the idea occurred to him, he would drive it from his mind, dismissing it as absurd and useless. At such moments, he would try to think of something else.
Roaming the woods, Ivan Ivanovich would ask himself why he shouldn’t just make his home right there. He pictured himself living in the half-collapsed dugout, surrounded by mud and dirt, and crawling out on all fours, like an animal, in search of food.
He would laugh it off, of course.
But now he no longer returned home every evening. Sometimes he would stay in the woods. Half-starved, greedily chewing on raw mushrooms, roots, and berries, he would fall asleep under some tree, his hands folded under his head.
If it rained, he would crawl into the dugout. Crouching and hugging his skinny legs, he would listen to the raindrops beating against the trees.
10
It was autumn. The rains never ceased. Once again, it was impossible to go out without galoshes. Once again, the mud came up to one’s knees.
Nina Osipovna’s life with Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin was quiet and carefree. Her exercises in dance had to be laid aside. She was pregnant, and Yegor Konstantinovich, fearing for his posterity, strictly forbade her from dressing up in all that frilly pink rubbish, threatening to burn the rags in the stove if she resisted. After a bit of capriciousness and a few tears, she resigned herself. Now she just sat beside the window, staring blankly at the muddy street. From time to time she would ask Yarkin whether he’d heard anything about her husband. Yegor Konstantinovich would just smile and wave his hand, telling her to avoid thinking about her husband for the sake of their child.
And Nina Osipovna would fall silent, but would still wonder why she heard fewer and fewer footsteps in the next room.
Indeed, Ivan Ivanovich came home less and less, and when he did return to town, he avoided meeting people. Whenever he encountered anyone, he would run across the street, looking terribly embarrassed and trying to hide his soggy, browned suit.
Ivan Ivanovich no longer even set foot in his room. Coming home, he would stop in the mudroom and silently greet Katerina Vasilyevna, always afraid that she might holler, stamp her feet, and chase him away. But Katerina Vasilyevna—never hiding her surprise and pity, and, for some reason, never even inviting him into the kitchen—would bring out a piece of bread, some soup, or whatever was left after dinner. Without so much as trying to hold back her tears, she would cry as she watched Ivan Ivanovich tear at the food with his thin, gray fingers and swallow it, smacking his lips and gnashing his teeth.
After eating everything that had been brought to him and grabbing another piece of bread, Ivan Ivanovich would touch Katerina Vasilyevna’s sleeve and run off again.
He would return to his dugout. There he would sit in his customary position, coughing and spitting on his suit.
But he hadn’t lost his mind, this Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov. The author has reliable information on his meeting with one of his old friends. At this meeting, Ivan Ivanovich spoke about his life in a perfectly rational and even somewhat ironic manner. Shaking the rags of his foreign suit, he laughed loudly, saying that it was all nonsense, that a person shed his possessions—shed everything—as an animal sheds its skin in the fall.
Bidding his friend farewell with a firm handshake, he retreated into his dugout.
Ivan Ivanovich’s new life was strange and hard to understand. He tried to think of nothing and to live just for the sake of living, with no special purpose, but it appears he couldn’t help but think, turning his various plans over in his mind. Each time he came to the conclusion that life in the dugout wasn’t so terribly bad, but that, of all the animals, he was the very worst, with his chronic bronchitis and runny nose. Coming to this conclusion, Ivan Ivanovich would nod sadly.
The thought of certain death now occurred to him ever more frequently, but, just as before, he would reject the idea of suicide with some vexation. It seemed to him that he had neither the will nor the desire to kill himself, and that not a single animal had ever perished by its own hand.
Was this due to the weakness of Ivan Ivanovich’s will, or some vague hope? Impossible to say. At any rate, one day, quite suddenly, Ivan Ivanovich came up with a plan by which he would perish without resorting to self-inflicted violence.
It happened early in the morning. The autumn sun was still below the trees when Ivan Ivanovich awoke with a start in his dugout. It was dreadfully damp. Shivers and chills ran through his whole body. He woke up, opened his eyes, and, all at once, had a perfectly lucid thought about his death. It seemed to him that he had to die that very day. He didn’t know how or why—and he began to think. Suddenly it came to him: he would die like an animal, in some desperate struggle.
Scenes of this struggle began to take shape in his imagination. He saw himself locked in combat with another man, perhaps even Yegor Konstantinovich, for whom his wife had left him. They were biting each other, rolling in the dirt, pressing each other down, tearing at each other’s hair…
Ivan Ivanovich was now wide awake. Trembling all over, he sat on the ground. He contemplated the plan carefully, thought by thought, trying not to miss a single detail.
Here he was, entering the room. He opens the door. Yarkin is sure to be sitting at the table to the right. Nina Osipovna would be sitting at the window, her hands folded on her stomach. Ivan Ivanovich would walk over to Yarkin and shove him, one hand hitting the shoulder, the other his chest. Yarkin would fall backward, banging his head against the wall. Then he would jump up, draw his revolver, and shoot his opponent—Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov.
Once the plan was complete, Ivan Ivanovich leapt to his feet, but, hitting his head on the ceiling, got back down and crawled out of the dugout.
He set out for town at a calm, steady pace, methodically contemplating the details of his plan. But then, wanting to get it over with quickly, in one fell swoop, he took off running, kicking up dirt, leaves, and splashes of mud.
He ran for a long time—almost all the way home. It was only when the house was in sight that he slowed down, proceeding very quietly.
A little white mutt barked at him indifferently.
Ivan Ivanovich bent over, picked up a stone, and launched it with great precision.
The dog squealed and scurried behind a gate, then stuck out its snout and barked fiercely, baring its teeth.
Ivan Ivanovich grabbed a lump of dirt and aimed it at the dog. Then he launched another lump. And then he approached the gate and began to tease the animal with his foot, hopping up and down and trying to kick it in the teeth.
Some kind of rabid fury and fright took hold of the dog. It whined in mortal fear, raising its upper lip and trying to seize the human foot. But, again and again, Ivan Ivanovich managed to pull the foot away deftly, in the nick of time, smacking the animal with his hand or with yet another lump of dirt.
Aunt Pepelyukha ran out of the house as if scalded by boiling water, selecting the most terrible, violent expressions for the foul urchins teasing her dog. But when she saw the large, shaggy man, she gasped. At first she managed to say that a mature citizen ought to be ashamed of himself, teasing dogs like that. But then she again fell silent and stood motionless, her mouth agape, staring at the extraordinary scene before her.
Ivan Ivanovich, now on his knees, was waging battle against the little mutt, trying to tear its jaws asunder with his hands. The dog wheezed frantically, its paws scraping the ground.
Aunt Pepelyukha let out a strange, piercing shriek, ran up to Ivan Ivanovich, barely managed to snatch the dog from his hands, and hurried back into the house.
Ivan Ivanovich wiped his hands, which were bitten all over, and walked on, stepping slowly and heavily.
In describing this incident, the author falls prey to rather strange, unusual feelings. In fact, he is slightly upset by Ivan Ivanovich’s act. Needless to say, the author hasn’t the least bit of sympathy for the Pepelyukha mutt, may it go to the dogs—but he is upset by the uncertainty and absurdity of Ivan Ivanovich’s act. He doesn’t know for a fact whether, at that moment, Ivan Ivanovich had actually gone off his rocker—or whether he hadn’t gone off his rocker. Was the whole thing only a game, an accidental occurrence, an extreme case of nerves? Anyhow, this is all terribly unclear and psychologically incomprehensible.
And mind you, dear readers—this lack of clarity concerns a personage intimately familiar and well known to the author! Now, imagine if the author had gotten mixed up with an unfamiliar character? Why, he’d start fudging it, he’d lie his head off!
Even the famed English author Jack London—he’d lie his head off too. The rumors about this incident were just too damned contradictory.3
Aunt Pepelyukha, for instance, swore up and down that Ivan Ivanovich was stark raving mad, drooling, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Katerina Vasilyevna, no less devout a lady, was, broadly speaking, in agreement. Yet the station guard and Hero of Labor Yeremeyich held the opposite view. He insisted that Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov was fit as a bull, and that the real sickos and loonies are usually put in special homes. Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin, too, had every confidence that Belokopytov was in full possession of his faculties. As for respected Comrade Sitnikov, well, he wasn’t about to weigh in on the matter, saying that, in case of dire need, he could contact a certain psychiatrist in Moscow. But that would drag out indefinitely and, anyway, was far from a sure thing. By the time Comrade Sitnikov got around to writing, and by the time the Moscow psychiatrist got around to replying—no doubt after a few stiff ones…And even though he’s a Moscow psychiatrist, he might dish out such a load of nonsense…If you go and print it, just try and prove you had nothing to do with it. The author had better leave the whole business to the reader’s own conscience and simply move on.
11
Ivan Ivanovich wiped his hands on his suit and proceeded to the house. Blood dripped slowly from his dog-bitten fingers, but Ivan Ivanovich, noticing nothing and feeling no pain, kept going.
He paused for a moment at the gate, cast a backward glance, then slipped into the yard. He dashed up the steps, opened the door, and quietly entered the mudroom.
A strange quiver ran through his body. His heart was pounding and his breathing was ragged.
He stood in the mudroom awhile, then went into the corridor, unobserved. Crossing the creaking floorboards, he approached Yarkin’s room and stopped, listening close.
As usual, everything was quiet.
Ivan Ivanovich suddenly pushed at the door, flinging it wide open, and stepped over the threshold.
The scene was exactly as Ivan Ivanovich had imagined it. Yarkin sat at the table to the right. Nina Osipovna, her hands folded on her stomach, sat in an armchair to the left, near the window. There were glasses on the table, some bread. And a kettle was boiling on the hissing kerosene stove.
Ivan Ivanovich somehow took all this in at a single glance, and, continuing to stand still, gazed at his wife.
She gasped quietly when she saw him and sat up in her chair. But Yegor Konstantinovich waved his hands at her, begging her to stay calm for the sake of their child. Then, after rising to approach his guest, he stopped and sat down again, gesturing for Ivan Ivanovich to enter the room and close the door, so as not to lower the temperature in vain.
And Ivan Ivanovich entered. Slightly lowering his head and raising his shoulders, he walked up to the seated Yegor Konstantinovich and stopped two paces away from him. A deadly pallor suddenly spread across Yegor Konstantinovich’s face. He sat in his chair, leaning back a bit, and moved his lips without budging.
For a few seconds, Ivan Ivanovich stood silent. Then, after quickly glancing at Yarkin—at the very spot he was supposed to strike—he suddenly smiled, stepped aside, and sat down on one of the chairs.
Yegor Konstantinovich now sat up straight and leveled his vexed, angry gaze on Belokopytov. Ivan Ivanovich, for his part, sat with his hands hanging limp, staring invisibly at some point in space. He was reflecting on the fact that he harbored neither anger nor hatred against this man. He could not and did not want to approach Yegor Konstantinovich and strike him. And so he sat there, feeling tired and ill. He didn’t want anything. The only thing he wanted was a bit of hot tea.
Thinking these thoughts, he looked at the kerosene stove, at the kettle on the stove, and at the sliced bread. The lid on the kettle rattled, lifted by billowing steam, and water came boiling over, hissing on the kerosene stove.
Yegor Konstantinovich rose and put out the fire.
And then the room grew completely silent.
Seeing that Ivan Ivanovich was gazing fixedly at the kerosene stove, Nina Osipovna sat up in her chair once more and, dolefully pursing her lips, began to insist in a plaintive tone that she had no intention of keeping the stove for herself—she had only borrowed it, knowing that Ivan Ivanovich had no use for the thing.
But Yegor Konstantinovich waved his hands and begged her not to worry. In a calm, even voice, he told Ivan Ivanovich that he would never take the thing for free—that he would pay him the very next day, in full, at the market price.
“I would pay you today,” Yegor Konstantinovich said, “but I haven’t got the change. Be sure to stop by tomorrow morning.”
“All right,” Ivan Ivanovich replied curtly. “I’ll stop by.”
Then, all of a sudden, Ivan Ivanovich grew anxious, shifting in his seat, and turned to his wife, saying that he was terribly sorry for sitting there like that, covered in dirt, but he was just so tired.
She nodded, looking nervous and dolefully pursing her lips. Sitting up in her chair once again, she said:
“Vanya, don’t be angry…”
“I’m not angry,” Ivan Ivanovich answered plainly.
He rose to his feet and moved one step closer to his wife, then bowed and left the room without saying a word, quietly closing the door behind him.
He went out into the corridor, stood there a moment, and then started for the front door.
Katerina Vasilyevna was waiting for him in the kitchen. Afraid, for some reason, to utter a word, she beckoned him over with gestures, inviting him to have a seat and eat some soup. Ivan Ivanovich—also, for some reason, not saying a word—shook his head, smiled, patted the landlady on her hand, and left the house.
Katerina Vasilyevna ran out after him with a cry, but Ivan Ivanovich turned and waved his hand, indicating that he didn’t wish to be followed, and disappeared through the gate.
12
Ivan Ivanovich didn’t return for the stove money. He vanished from town.
Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin ran through the streets in search of Ivan Ivanovich, stopping at every establishment, money in hand. He kept insisting that he had nothing to do with it, that the money was for the stove—here it was, the money—that he had no desire to use someone else’s goods, and that, if he didn’t find Ivan Ivanovich, he would donate the money to an orphanage.
Yegor Konstantinovich even made it as far as the clearing, past the “Dog’s Grove,” but he never found Ivan Ivanovich.
Like a beast embarrassed to leave its dead body in plain view, Ivan Ivanovich vanished from town.
Comrade Peter Pavlovich Sitnikov and the station guard, Hero of Labor Yeremeyich, unanimously asserted that they had seen Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov jump onto a departing train. But why had he jumped? Where had he gone? No one knew. He was never heard from again.
13
It was a lovely spring.
The snow had already melted away, and the birds were welcoming their new year. On one such day, Nina Osipovna Arbuzova brought forth her gift to the world, a beautiful boy of eight and a half pounds.
Yegor Konstantinovich was remarkably happy and satisfied.
The stove money—twelve gold rubles—did indeed go to the orphanage.
April 1924
