1
No, the author simply can’t plop down in bed, gay and lighthearted, with a Russian writer’s book in his hands.
For his own peace of mind, the author prefers to plop down with a foreign book.
It’s true—these foreigners write mighty pleasant stuff. With them it’s all luck and happiness. Nothing but success. And their characters are real lookers, walking around in silk dresses and powder-blue underpants. They take baths almost every single day. Brave, cheerful, lying through their teeth. And the endings are, of course, happy. In general, you close the book with joy in your heart, totally at peace.
Even a thing as unstable as weather—why, it’s all fine and dandy, from first page to last. The sun’s shining. Scads of greenery, loads of air. Always warm. You’ve got brass bands playing round the clock. I mean, all that stuff just calms the nerves!
Now let’s take a look at our precious Russian literature. First off, the weather’s a mess. It’s either blizzards or storms. You’ve got the wind blowing in the characters’ faces all the time. And they aren’t exactly agreeable folks, these characters. Always flinging curses at each other. Badly dressed. Instead of merry, joyous adventures, you get all sorts of troubles and misfortunes, or stuff that just puts you to sleep.
No, the author doesn’t agree with this kind of literature. Sure, there might be lots of good and brilliant books in it, and who the hell knows how many profound ideas and various words—but the author just can’t find emotional balance and joy in any of it.
I mean, why is it that the French can depict all these excellent, calming aspects of life and we can’t? Come on, comrades—for pity’s sake! What—is there a shortage of good facts in our life? Are we lacking in light and cheerful adventures? Or are we, in your opinion, low on ravishing heroines?
Come on, dear comrades! It’s all right there, if you look close enough. You’ve got your love. Your happiness. Your success. Ravishing characters. Bright cheerfulness. Family legacies. Baths. Powder-blue underpants. Lottery-Loans that could net you ten thousand rubles. It’s all there for the taking.
So why smear our life in print and thicken the black colors? We see enough boring, awful stuff during these transitional days, so why add to it in literature?
No, the author just can’t see eye to eye with our highbrow literature! Of course, he himself came to these decisive thoughts only recently.
Up until very recently, the author too had given himself over to the most desperate and melancholy ideas, attempting to resolve the most unthinkable questions. Enough. Basta! That’s no road to happiness.
Maybe one really ought to write easily and cheerfully. Maybe one ought to write only about good, happy things—so that the dear paying customer can derive cheerfulness and joy from the written word, not gloom and melancholy.
In the author’s opinion, this is indeed the right way forward.
And now, as the author finishes his composition, he comes to the sad conclusion that the whole book has been written the wrong way.
But what can you do? From this point on, the author undertakes to tell only cheerful, merry, and entertaining stories. Going forward, he renounces all his gloomy thoughts and melancholy moods.
Unfortunately, after poring over his memories of all the events and adventures of recent years, the author must admit, with some embarrassment and confusion, that he can’t seem to recall an especially merry story. All he can think of is one more or less suitable little tale—and even that tale isn’t particularly merry…Still, it may draw a quiet chuckle. In any case, it’ll do for a start. Who knows? Later, something a bit more fun might turn up.
Yes, the author knows his reader through and through. All he wants for his money, this reader, are some cheerful, happy experiences.
Now, your literary critic, your highfalutin author, your Rabindranath Tagore—he’s bound to get all jolly and excited. “See?” he’ll say, rubbing his hands. “See there? Just look at that son of a bitch, pandering to the reader like that. Grab ’im and pound his face to a pulp!”
Dear critics, just hold off on the brawling and face-pounding, will ya? Hang fire, fellas. Let a man say his piece. He’s not pandering to the reader—he simply writes as he sees fit, for the sake of a cheerful idea and the general good. In any case, the author’s worldly wisdom and his many years of experience, as well as the weak state of his health, keep him from entering the critical fray.
And so, after poring over about a dozen and a half stories of every sort, the author has decided to linger on a certain merry, entertaining adventure worthy of the pen of some outstanding French writer.
In this merry adventure, there were many joyous and keen experiences, much cheerfulness and struggle. There were amorous encounters. The weather was autumnal—and not too bad, at that. And the whole tragicomic epic was capped off with a happy ending.
The author doubts he can recall a better story for starters.
Of course, at first glance, the reader won’t detect any particular cheerfulness or joy. But you can’t have wall-to-wall joy. You know full well you’d be bored stiff with wall-to-wall joy.
And so, the author will try to narrate, in truthful and cheerful tones, a merry adventure that very recently transpired with Sergey Petrovich Petukhov.
2
Sergey Petrovich Petukhov never went to work on Sundays. On these days of rest and cheerful merriment, Sergey Petrovich would get up late—say, around ten, if not closer to eleven. I mean, just imagine!
Today, however, it wasn’t even ten when Sergey Petrovich awoke sweetly in his bed, turned onto his other side, and smiled happily at the approaching morning.
His was the smile of a young, healthy organism, as yet unpawed by doctors. His was the smile of a youth who had seen wonderful dreams, bright prospects, and cheerful horizons during the night.
And indeed, that night Sergey Petrovich had had the pleasure of seeing himself as some sort of young, wealthy dandy. He didn’t remember exactly what he had witnessed, but some pretty little mugs, prancing little ladies, light, inoffensive conversations, and luminous smiles had woven themselves into his joyous dreams—happy pictures of youth and fortune.
Sergey Petrovich patted his yawning mouth with the palm of his hand and sat up in bed.
A fairly clean nightgown of thin cotton clung tightly to his high chest and strong young shoulders.
Sergey Petrovich sat on the bed for a long time, hugging his knees and contemplating what he had seen in his dream.
And under the sway of this dream, as well as, perhaps, the sun’s shining into the room, Sergey Petrovich began to long for an easy and carefree life, or some kind of fun and merry adventure. He wanted, as it were, to continue his fortunate dream.
He wanted to live in a spacious and cheerful room, no less than seven square meters in size. In his mind, he was already covering the room’s floor with fluffy Persian carpets and furnishing it with expensive grand and not-so-grand pianos.
Now he saw himself with a beautiful, rather comely maiden on his arm. He pictured them entering a cafe, where he would drink thick cocoa with Viennese rusks, pay for everything with his own money, and then stagger out into the street.
Sergey Petrovich sighed, cast a calm gaze round his unimaginative lodgings, and suddenly jumped out of bed with a sharp movement.
He jumped out of bed, splashed some water on his face under the tin washing jug, combed his tousled head, and began to tie his tie in front of a small pocket mirror he had tacked up on the wall.
He spent quite some time fiddling with his tie, then with his boots, polishing them to the most desperate splendor. It took him just as long to get his hat to sit right. At last, fully dressed, combed, and lightly perfumed with mint drops, he went out into the street.
It was a wonderful, calm morning in the middle of an Indian summer. Scads of greenery and air, and the sun was so bright it nearly blinded Sergey Petrovich for a moment. A brass band blasting away in the distance—some public figure’s funeral.
Sergey stood by the house for a while, twirling his walking stick in his hand, and then set off down the avenue with a light dancing step.
Sergey Petukhov was twenty-five years old. He was young and healthy. He had strong, powerful muscles, large, well-turned features, and beautiful gray eyes with lashes and brows to match. The women he passed in the street glanced with obvious pleasure at his bulging figure, his full, round cheeks, and his trousers, which were freshly ironed and not excessively stained. Sergey Petrovich greeted each woman with a screwed-up eye. From time to time he would turn to watch one of them recede down the street, clearly pondering something or other. He walked slowly and breathed deeply. Occasionally he would whistle some cheerful tune. Every once in a while he would stop next to some girl in front of a storefront and look at her sideways, as if appraising and comparing her with the outstanding young ladies he had seen during the night.
Suddenly Sergey turned and followed a certain passing maiden with his eyes.
“Katyusha Chervyakova in the flesh,” thought Sergey Petrovich, and, after standing still a little while, took off after her.
Soon he caught up with the maiden, gasping a bit. He wanted to cover her eyes from behind with a cheerful, playful gesture, and then ask, in a false tone: “Who’s got you by the eyes?” But suddenly he remembered that his hands weren’t especially clean at the moment—that he had spent part of the morning polishing his boots, and that the poisonous, turpentiny odor of blacking could hardly have faded during his five-minute walk. Sergey decided not to go through with his plan. Instead, he merely came up very close to the girl, tugged at her arm, stamped his feet in a jocular fashion, and exclaimed:
“Hey, don’t you move!”
The girl, grown deathly pale, shrank back in fright. She must have assumed that some fool was rolling a cart out from a yard, or that some roughneck had some designs on her. But when she saw Sergey Petrovich, she burst out laughing. Holding hands, the two of them guffawed like children. They literally couldn’t utter a single word for ten whole minutes, on account of these laughing fits.
Then, having calmed down a bit, he asked her where she was going. When he learned that she was merely out for a stroll, he took her by the hand and dragged her along with him.
Sergey Petrovich had encountered this girl often enough, but he had never thought about her or called her to mind. Now, however—under the sway of his light, cheerful dream and the invigorating weather—Sergey felt a certain yearning, a kind of amorous flutter in his breast.
He took firm hold of her hand and led her triumphantly through the town, as if inviting passersby to gaze upon this continuation of his dream.
Katyusha Chervyakova, who was accustomed to seeing Sergey Petrovich in a rather gloomy humor, his lower lip protruding petulantly, was decidedly perplexed. She didn’t know what happy bug had bitten her beau. But, being jolly and joyful by nature, she bolstered his cheerful, playful state of mind. She talked all sorts of nonsense, and he, choking with laughter and youth, grunted like a hog for the whole street to hear.
Youth, beauty, and the wonderful weather had suddenly bound the two into a fine little pair: they both felt the incipient pangs of love, passion, or something to that effect.
And when they were saying their goodbyes at her gate, Sergey Petrovich began to plead excitedly for another meeting, the sooner the better. He told her that his life was passing quickly, without any special experiences or adventures. He said he was extremely lonely. Loneliness was bending him out of shape. He wished to get as close to Katyusha Chervyakova as possible. Would she accompany him to the cinema at the corner of Kirpichny Lane at seven that night? They would go to the first show, where, sitting side by side, they would watch the drama and mull over, to the sound of the music, what they ought to do next—walk around town or drop in somewhere.
After a bit of wavering for the sake of appearances—saying that she needed to hem her mama’s sheets, count her linens, or some such—the girl nevertheless consented quickly, fearing that her beau might change his mind about the movies.
They bid each other a very pleasant, simple goodbye and parted. But Sergey stayed at the gate a moment longer, glanced inside, issued a cheerful snap at the dog that had begun barking at him, and went home to breakfast.
And a hearty breakfast it was. Three scrambled eggs with onions and horseradish. A piece of bologna. Butter. Sergey Petrovich’s appetite for bread was insatiable. His hostess had failed to take that into account.
“A fine thing, life,” Sergey muttered, eating his scrambled eggs.
The author himself doesn’t know what’s most significant, most, so to speak, magnificent in our lives—what, generally speaking, makes existence worthwhile.
Maybe it’s service to the fatherland. Maybe it’s service to the people and all that sort of tempestuous ideology. Maybe that’s it. Yes, that’s probably it. But in the private realm, in the everyday scheme of things, there are, apart from these lofty ideas, other, humbler little notions. And it is these, in large part, that make our lives interesting and attractive.
The author doesn’t know a thing about these little notions and has no intention of confusing simple, undercultured minds with his own foolish pronouncements on that score. No, the author has no clue as to what’s most attractive in our lives.
And yet, on occasion, it seems to the author that, discounting tasks of public significance, love takes center stage. It seems to him that love is the most attractive activity.
I mean, let’s say you’re walking about town. It’s late. Evening time. Streets are empty. And suppose you’re really down in the dumps—maybe you lost your shirt in a card game, or maybe it’s just a bad case of Weltschmerz.
So you’re walking and walking, and everything seems so damned bad, so damned rotten that you’re just about ready to hang yourself on the first street lamp you see, if it’s lit.
And suddenly—a window. The light in it is red or pink. It’s got curtains, too. So now you stand there, staring at this window from afar, and feel all your petty worries and concerns leaving you, and a smile spreads across your face.
And now it all seems like something beautiful and magnificent—the pink light, the little couch in the window, the silly amorous goings-on.
It all seems somehow basic, unshakable—given once and for all.
Ah, reader! Ah, my dear paying customer! Are you familiar with that precious feeling of love, with genuine amorous flutters and heart troubles? Don’t you find that to be the most precious, most attractive element in our lives?
The author asserts once again: he himself does not claim this to be the case. No, he decidedly does not. He hopes that there is something even better and more beautiful in life. It’s just that, from time to time, he can see nothing higher than love.
The author, unfortunately, hasn’t received much love from women. In fact, he can’t even recall whether he’s had a single kiss in pink lighting. In all likelihood, he hasn’t. The young author’s youth passed during those turbulent days of revolution, when there wasn’t much lighting of any kind, except for the rising sun. People ate oats then. Rough food, that—fit for a horse. It certainly doesn’t arouse subtle romantic desires or make you long for a pink lantern.
But none of this depresses the author—none of it weakens his vigorous love of life and his sense that love is, perhaps, a very grand and attractive activity.
Although Sergey Petrovich Petukhov was younger than the author, he had exactly the same thoughts and precisely the same considerations regarding life and love. He had the same understanding of life as the author, who has been schooled by the experience of living.
And on that famous morning, on that clear Sunday, Sergey Petrovich, having enjoyed his hearty breakfast, lolled about on his bed for an hour and a half, indulging in amorous dreams. He was contemplating the amorous adventure upon which he was embarking, repeating in his mind those clever, cheerful, and energetic words he had spoken to the girl earlier that morning. And he was also thinking that love might go a long way toward brightening his boring and lonely life.
Stretching his legs on the back of the bed, Sergey Petrovich impatiently counted the hours remaining until seven o’clock, when he would sit with his young lady at the cinema. There, to the music of the bravura baby grand and the chatter of the projector, he would speak in a quiet and energetic whisper of the unexpected tenderness that had suddenly overcome him.
It had just struck two.
“Almost six hours of waiting,” muttered our impatient hero.
But suddenly, jumping out of bed like a shot, he began to pace quickly about the room, muttering curses and kicking at the chairs and stools that stood in the way of his careless steps.
I mean, really. Why lie about like a son of a bitch? One must act quickly.
At the moment Sergey Petrovich was, in a manner of speaking, without money. The salary he had received a week ago was long gone, expended on all kinds of everyday needs and requirements, and now all our hero had in his pocket were four kopecks of copper and one three-kopeck stamp.
Sergey Petrovich had this firmly in mind when he had spoken to the girl about the cinema. But he hadn’t wished to roil his own blood at the time, wondering where he would borrow this, in effect, petty amount. He had decided to think it over at home. But now he’d been lolling about on his matrasses for two hours straight, without taking a single step!
Without a jacket, in shirtsleeves, Sergey Petrovich rushed into the room next door. He wanted to borrow the money he needed from his neighbor, with whom he really did maintain sort of friendly relations. But the neighbor said that he simply couldn’t lend Sergey Petrovich the money that day. He believed in Sergey Petrovich’s good intentions of returning the money, but, unfortunately, he himself only had two rubles left till payday, and he needed them all. On top of that, he generally refrained from giving loans, considering the practice risky and absolutely stupid.
Sergey Petrovich rushed into the kitchen. He begged the landlady to save him from disaster. But the landlady refused, dryly and obdurately, saying that she herself barely made ends meet, and that, unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten around to buying a machine on which she could print as many rubles and twenty-kopeck pieces as she wanted.
Severely crestfallen and even a little agitated, Sergey Petrovich trudged back to his room and again lay down on the bed. He began to ponder methodically where he could get his hands on the requisite dough. It was, in effect, a small amount—seventy kopecks at most.
Sergey Petrovich was so anxious to get this money that, for a single moment, he even clearly saw it in his hand—three twenty-kopeck pieces with one ten-kopeck coin.
Trying to think through everything calmly, Sergey Petrovich went from acquaintance to acquaintance in his mind, begging them in the strongest terms to lend him the amount he needed. But suddenly he came to the conclusion that, in reality, he wouldn’t manage to borrow the money. Especially before the first of the month.
Then Sergey Petrovich began to ponder other means of wriggling out of this ugly situation. Perhaps he could sell something?
Yes, of course, he would sell something!
Sergey Petrovich quickly rifled through his dresser, his desk, and his trunk. Nothing—absolutely nothing. Worthless rubbish. Couldn’t he hawk his last remaining suit? The landlady’s dresser and couch? His old boots, maybe—but how much would they fetch?
Here’s what he’d do. Yes, Sergey Petrovich would go right out and sell his meat grinder. He’d gotten it from his late mother, and now it just sat there in a basket. I mean, why the hell hadn’t he hawked it earlier?
Sergey quickly knelt beside the bed and pulled out a basket full of dusty domestic junk. Brimming with hope, Sergey removed all kinds of things and objects from the basket, evaluating each of them in his mind. But, yet again, all of it was pure rubbish, of no worth whatsoever. A heap of dusty vials, encrusted bottles, powder boxes with rolled-up recipes. Some sort of heavy counterweight pendant from a pull-down lamp, filled with small shot. A rusty door bolt. Two little hooks. A mousetrap. A shoe tree for boots. A piece of a boot shaft. But then, finally, the meat grinder.
Sergey wiped it clean with a handkerchief and lovingly hefted it in his hand, weighing and evaluating it in his mind.
It was a pretty massive, solid meat grinder with a handle. Back in 1919, they’d used it to grind oats.
Sergey blew the last speck of dust off the thing, wrapped it in a newspaper, and, tossing on his coat, ran headlong to the market.
Sunday’s trade was in full swing. People were standing and walking around the square, muttering and waving their arms. They were hawking trousers, boots, and griddlecakes fried in sunflower oil. The roar was terrible, the smell acrid.
Sergey pushed his way through the crowd and found a place off to the side, in full view. He unwrapped his precious burden and held it in his palm, handle up, inviting all passersby to glance at the goods.
“Meat grinder,” our hero muttered, attempting to speed things along.
Sergey stood there for a fairly long time—but no one approached him. One full-bodied lady did inquire about the price as she walked past. Upon learning that the price was a ruble and a half, she went into such a state of nervous agitation and indescribable rage that she began to scold and reproach Sergey Petrovich for the whole market to hear, calling him a scoundrel and a marauder. In closing, she proclaimed that he, his machine, and his great-grandmother taken together weren’t worth more than a ruble and a quarter.
The crowd that had gathered pressed the expansive lady out of the way.
One enterprising young man immediately separated from the crowd, examined the meat grinder, pulled out his wallet, and, slapping it against his palm, said that a ruble and a half was indeed unheard of these days, and that the meat grinder was decidedly not worth that amount. It was in bad shape. Its blade was dull—I mean, look at that godawful blade. But if the meat grinder’s owner wished, he could receive twenty kopecks in cash that very minute.
Sergey refused, proudly shaking his head.
He stood there for some time after that, perfectly still. No one approached him. The crowd had thinned out long ago.
Sergey Petrovich’s hands were extremely numb and his heart ached.
But then he suddenly glanced at the market clock and flew into total panic. It was already a quarter to four, and he hadn’t made a bit of progress.
At that point Sergey decided, without losing any more precious time, to sell the meat grinder to the first willing customer at any price, so that he could immediately dash off somewhere else and secure the rest of the money.
He sold the meat grinder to some shaggy devil for fifteen kopecks.
The shaggy one took his sweet time counting out the coins into Sergey Petrovich’s outstretched hand, and the expression on his face was especially offensive. After counting out thirteen kopecks, he declared, “That’ll do ya.”
Sergey wanted to cuss the miserable customer in the strongest possible terms, but after glancing at the clock again, he sighed and darted home.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon.
4
Clutching the thirteen kopecks in his fist, Sergey rushed home. Along the way, he pondered various plans and possibilities of acquiring the remaining sum. Alas, his head firmly refused to come up with anything. His forehead was covered with sweat, and his temples throbbed feverishly. The thought that he had less than three hours left prevented him from pondering the situation calmly.
Sergey Petrovich came home and cast a melancholy gaze around his room.
He had decided to hawk some basic element of his bedding—the pillow, perhaps, or a blanket. But now he considered the possibility that, after the cinema, the girl might very well want to visit his humble abode. What would he tell her then? I mean, really—how would he explain the missing blanket? Shame and disgrace. After all, curiosity might drive the young lady to inquire about it herself: “Pray tell, Sergey Petrovich,” she might say, “where’s your blanket?”
At this thought, Sergey Petrovich’s heart bled and pounded furiously, and he decisively rejected this unworthy plan.
But suddenly a new happy thought dawned upon his poor head.
His aunt. His own dear aunt. Aunt Natalya Ivanovna Tupitsyna. Sergey Petrovich’s own dear aunt. I mean, what was he, a total moron? Why hadn’t he thought of her earlier, the hollow-headed idiot?
Sergey Petrovich’s whole being was now seized by the joy and cheer that had abandoned him earlier. He launched into some sort of wild African dance, howling and whipping his coat above his head. Tossing the coat onto his shoulders as he flew down the stairs, Sergey Petrovich set off at a good brisk trot to 4 Gazovaya Street, to see his own dear aunt.
Sergey Petrovich saw his aunt fairly infrequently—no more than twice a year, really, on her birthday and Easter. All the same, she was his own dear aunt. She’d understand. By god, she’d understand. She loved Sergey well enough. You could even say she was mad about her nephew. She had even told him that, after her death, he could have the three men’s suits that once belonged to her late husband, who had died six years earlier from a perfectly noncommunicable disease—typhoid fever.
Surely his own dear aunt would give him a hand in this sticky situation.
Here, at last, was Gazovaya Street. And here was attractive No. 4—two stories, with tiny little windows.
Sergey raced through the gate into the courtyard. He shot up to the second story without pausing for breath. The next moment he was in the kitchen.
Two old women were bustling about at the stove. These were the landladies—the quarrelsome Belousov sisters. The younger and more venomous of the crones was down on her hands and knees in front of the open oven, taking coals out and smothering them out of sheer miserliness. The other crone, the older Belousov, was wiping dishes with a greasy towel. Some little fellow—perhaps an offshoot of the Belousovs—sat on a stool, shamelessly gobbling down boiled potatoes.
A tremendous number of cockroaches scurried on the wall in front of the stove. A metal clock with weights hung near the window. Its pendulum swung with terrible speed, hoarsely, grindingly beating out the rhythm of the cockroaches’ existence.
When Sergey Petrovich entered the kitchen, the women exchanged mysterious glances. They waved their arms at him, as if inviting him to behave more quietly and not spit so much. Droning over each other, they began to report that his aunt, Natalya Ivanovna Tupitsyna, had been seriously ill for two weeks now, and was even, so to speak, at death’s door. A doctor had come out to examine her and didn’t say anything especially terrible. He just shrugged his shoulders and prescribed some powders. The next day, toward evening, the powders made the sick woman’s legs give out and stopped her tongue and stomach from working. If things went on in this way, with god’s help, today or tomorrow, old woman Tupitsyna would move on to another, better world. And as her only legitimate heir, Sergey Petrovich would have to arrange all the coffins and graves on his own, because they certainly didn’t have time to work selflessly for god-knows-whose benefit.
Upon hearing these words about his status as heir, Sergey Petrovich took heart and immediately raised the topic of money, but the crones, shocked by his behavior, began to reprimand him for his impatience. Now, after the old woman croaks—that’s a different matter. But until that happens, he wouldn’t get a kopeck out of this house. Sergey Petrovich’s heart sank. His last hope had collapsed. He could barely make out what the women were saying. He pushed the sniveling crones aside and slowly, somewhat unsteadily, went down the hall to his aunt’s room.
His aunt lay in her bed, perfectly still, breathing hoarsely and heavily. Sergey Petrovich looked around the room, shooting a quick glance at the old woman’s yellow face, with its sharp nose and closed eyes. Sergey Petrovich’s breath caught, and he tiptoed carefully back to the kitchen.
He didn’t pity his dying aunt. At that moment, he wasn’t even thinking of her. His only thought was that he certainly wouldn’t get any money out of her that day.
Sergey Petrovich stood in the kitchen a full five minutes, almost completely still. A terrible pallor spread over his face.
Out of respect for his unbearable grief, the two old women tried not to move either. They just sighed soundlessly and dabbed at their lips and eyes with the corners of their headscarves. The kitchen was almost completely silent. All one could hear was the rude little fellow, still smacking his lips and gobbling down potatoes, and the kitchen clock, still rhythmically beating out the movement of time.
Then Sergey Petrovich sighed noisily, glanced sidelong at the ticking clock, and froze in complete and utter stupefaction.
It was after five o’clock.
The minute hand was rounding its first quarter.
For the second time that day, Sergey Petrovich’s heart bled. He had an ache in his side. His whole head was drenched in sweat, and his throat was dry and coarse.
Suddenly, this draining anxiety gave way to wild, total despair.
Sergey Petrovich was seized by such a profound nervous frenzy that he barely found his way to the stairs. First he stumbled into the closet, then bumbled, twice, into the bathroom, then spooked the little fellow off the stool, aiming to smack him in the mug. At last the old crones, making signs of the cross, helped him to the door.
His arms and legs were in such a tizzy that he barely made it through the courtyard.
It was only out on the street that Sergey Petrovich got some sort of hold of himself. He plodded home, trying to think of nothing. Nevertheless, thoughts of every kind descended upon his head. He attempted to alleviate his predicament with irony.
“There you are, brother Sergey,” he muttered. “Screwed.”
But irony didn’t help.
He came home and dropped into bed, completely exhausted.
“What’s the big deal?” Sergey tried to console himself. “So you’ve got no money! You call that trouble? That ain’t trouble—that’s chicken shit. Why poison your last drop of blood? I’ll just go over there and tell her straight out—I’m broke. Big whoop. Life’s full of little stumbling blocks.”
But some kind of stubbornness, some stupid desire to get the money no matter what, would let him think of nothing else.
It seemed to him that the whole meaning of life rested on this question. Either he, Sergey Petrovich Petukhov, would acquire this pitiful sum and take the girl out, so that they could spend the evening as all normal people do, merry and carefree—or he’d be forced to acknowledge his own weakness and be thrown over the side of life.
Sergey Petrovich lay perfectly still. Grand fantastic plans and scenes began to take shape in his mind.
For example, he’s strolling down the street and finds a wallet. Or he enters a shop, induces panic and fear in the clerks, and absconds with a tidy sum’s worth of goods. Or he walks into the State Bank, hustles the employees into the washroom, and makes off with a bag full of ten-kopeck pieces.
After every such fantasy, Sergey would grin hopelessly and rebuke himself for his impractical approach to events.
He begged himself not to worry, but rather to enumerate—methodically, rigorously, in order, without haste, and without indulging in tempting illusions—all possible solutions to his problem.
But suddenly everything around him—the bed, the room, the pillow—became unbearable. Almost at a run, Sergey Petrovich went out into the street.
Muttering and taking big strides, he walked along the avenue.
Without noticing, he stopped at a watch shop and stared for a long time at the round white face of the clock on display in the window.
He stood there for a long time, watching the minute hand move. It moved very slowly, and Sergey Petrovich’s throat grew drier with its every movement.
It was six o’clock in the evening.
The minute hand had even made it some distance past twelve.
Sergey Petrovich turned abruptly and walked onward. Passing the State Bank, he gave a wry grin and drummed his fingers on the sign.
And on he went, grinning.
He walked for a long time down this street and that. And then he saw his aunt’s house again.
5
After standing in front of his aunt’s house for some time, Sergey Petrovich took a decisive step into the courtyard and began to climb the stairs.
His vague thoughts suddenly took distinct shape.
Sure thing. What’s the big deal? He’ll walk into his aunt’s room and just take something. Or maybe he’ll wake her and ask for it. He’s got no reason to hide anything from her. After all, he’s an heir—he has every right. He has the right, for instance, to open a dresser or some night table and take some petty little trifle. What’s the big deal? I mean, he could even warn those two dumb crones.
Sergey Petrovich climbed to the second story, went up to the door, and stood there for a couple minutes, gripped by indecision.
Then he gently tugged at the handle. The door was closed.
Sergey Petrovich wanted to shake the handle a bit louder, but suddenly he heard footsteps in the kitchen. Someone was walking toward the door.
Without knowing why, Sergey Petrovich took fright and leaped in one bound onto the steps leading to the attic.
Just then the hook rattled, the door opened, and one of the landladies, the elder Belousov, walked out onto the landing with a bucket full of slops. She didn’t notice Sergey Petrovich and began to descend the stairs.
After waiting a bit, Sergey Petrovich quickly and decisively went up to the unlocked door, carefully opened it, and walked into the kitchen.
The kitchen was empty.
Then, tiptoeing gently and quietly, Sergey Petrovich went down the hall and entered his aunt’s room. It was dark.
Sergey was seized by an irrational fear bordering on terror. He took three paces toward his aunt’s bed and froze, having stepped on the old woman’s soft felt slippers. A shudder ran through his body.
Sergey Petrovich was calmed, somewhat, by the regularity of his aunt’s quiet breathing, hoarse though it was. He walked right up to the bed, groped about until he found the night table, and came closer.
Suddenly, with a careless movement of his jittery hand, he knocked some sort of vial off the tabletop. Then, close on the vial’s heels, a tablespoon crashed to the floor with a terrible clatter. The aunt moved her head slightly and mumbled something.
Sergey Petrovich froze, trying not to breathe.
Footsteps sounded in the next room. Someone’s restless, shuffling feet were moving down the hall.
Sergey Petrovich darted about the room. He ran to the window. Then he turned back, threw open the door, and took off down the dark hall. In his haste, he knocked down the younger Belousov crone, leapt over her body, and ran on.
The old woman hollered terribly, and her scream echoed loudly throughout the house.
Sergey Petrovich dashed into the kitchen, put out the light, and rushed out onto the landing.
He wanted to race downstairs in one breath, but suddenly, up from below, came the sound of hurried footsteps. The crone’s terrible scream had roused the whole house, if not the whole street.
Now people of some sort were running up the stairs. Sergey darted about on the landing and again, as before, jumped onto the steps leading to the attic. He sat down—nearly fell down—on the steps at the closed attic door, his heart pounding fiercely. There wasn’t enough air. With mouth agape, Sergey Petrovich sat and listened in horror to what was happening below.
People of some sort rushed into the apartment. Someone or other was squealing desperately.
And someone else was shouting and weeping through tears.
Then ten people or so raced out of the apartment and rushed downstairs.
After waiting a few minutes—or maybe as long as half an hour—Sergey Petrovich began to descend the stairs. He crossed the courtyard slowly, almost thoughtfully, in a state of complete, icy calm, with his hands behind his back. He encountered no one and found himself out on the street.
There, at the gate, a crowd of people had gathered.
“Well?” someone asked Sergey Petrovich. “D’you get ’im?”
Sergey Petrovich muttered something in response and quietly, somewhat unsteadily, set off for home.
He slunk to his room like a shadow. Then he went into the kitchen and glanced at the landlady’s alarm clock.
It was a quarter to nine.
Sergey Petrovich grinned, took off his jacket and trousers, and for a long time paced his room in his underpants. He was trying to determine exactly where he had been at seven o’clock in the evening. He couldn’t.
Suddenly the blood rushed to his head. He pictured in his mind the young lady’s bewildered face as she had waited for him for an hour or more.
Then Sergey Petrovich grinned again and lay down on the bed. He slept restlessly, frequently muttering in his sleep and shifting his pillow.
6
Sergey Petrovich awoke early. It was seven o’clock in the morning.
He was sitting on his bed in his underwear, wistfully lacing his shoes.
At that moment there was a knock at the door and the younger Belousov crone entered his room.
Sergey Petrovich turned terribly pale and rose to his feet. He was shaking and his teeth were chattering in a tattoo. The old woman waved her hands, announcing that he had nothing to be ashamed of, that he was young enough be her great-grandson, and that she’d seen more than her fair share of men over the years, in a wide variety of underpants.
The old woman sat down on a stool, mournfully blew her nose into her headscarf, and solemnly declared that Sergey’s aunt, Natalya Ivanovna Tupitsyna, had died earlier that morning.
At first Sergey Petrovich didn’t quite understand what the old woman was talking about. He had expected to hear various hints and suspicions about the previous night’s incident, but this was something else entirely.
Then, after waiting a few minutes for the sake of basic decency and shedding a few inconsolable tears over the untimely demise of his aunt, the guest launched into a long and detailed account of the horrors of yesterday’s raid.
Sergey Petrovych listened indulgently, but soon began to think about his own affairs.
Of course, thought Sergey, he could go right to Katyusha and explain that his aunt had croaked. It was family circumstances, so to speak, that had kept him from having a nice time last night. He’d had to sit at the bedside of a perishing relative.
He could do that, of course. But yesterday’s excitement—all those terrible shocks—had somewhat dulled Sergey Petrovich’s desires. He turned his attention back to the old woman’s words.
She was still spinning brazen yarns about yesterday’s banditry, never suspecting that the man sitting before her had some knowledge of the case. The crone insisted that it was a gang of three men, led by a woman. And apart from these four, there was a fifth—a finger man—a totally beardless little fellow.
Sergey Petrovich, unable to bite his tongue, suggested that the old woman must have been spooked something awful, mistaking the little Belousov offshoot for a finger man and her dear sister for a gang leader.
The old woman responded bitterly that he ought to keep his useless little pronouncements to himself, and that only her resourcefulness and courage had prevented the bandits from making off with the Belousovs’ belongings, to say nothing of Sergey Petrovich’s.
Here the old woman broached the most pressing and absorbing of subjects. With great delicacy, she began to address Sergey Petrovich’s inheritance.
Yes, of course! In all the excitement, Sergey Petrovich had forgotten about his inheritance. How wonderful!
Sergey Petrovich was once again seized by joy and cheer. Once more, bright prospects and happy horizons opened before him. In his mind, he tried on his aunt’s suits and vests. In his mind, he strolled down the street in a dandy new jacket, with Katyusha Chervyakova on his arm. In his mind, he haggled with a Tatar, trying to foist off his aunt’s useless junk.
Down with gloom! Down with melancholy! Long live cheerful words, cheerful thoughts, and wonderful desires! How good and great it is to be alive in the world. How good it is—what a joy it is—to perceive life as it actually is, and not as it sometimes appears.
Sergey Petrovich felt like a boy of seventeen. He could have whirled off that very minute, sweeping the younger Belousov into a foxtrot, if only it were decent to dance so soon after a relation croaked.
Sergey Petrovich bade the old woman a polite farewell, grandly declaring that he would, without fail, attend the funeral service later that day. He certainly wasn’t going to work. No, first he’d make a beeline to Katyusha Chervyakova’s place and leave her the saddest of letters with the finest apologies. Then he’d pay his last respects to his relation.
Sergey Petrovich was even a little worried. He was afraid that the old crones might, at the last minute, pocket his inheritance.
He quickly sat down at the table. Drumming his fingers, he began to ponder the text of his letter.
Joy and happiness weighed on his chest and ruined his concentration.
Sergey Petrovich glanced out the window and froze in complete awe. It was a positively lovely morning. The blue sky and tranquil treetops heralded a wonderful day.
“How nice to be alive,” Sergey muttered, opening the window. “How nice to breathe the cool morning air. How nice to be in love with some comely young lady.”
Sergey Petrovich sat down again, decisively. He offered Katyusha a few words by way of explanation and requested that she meet him without fail, at seven o’clock, at the appointed place. He sealed the envelope, dressed, and went out into the street.
He walked with his head proudly aloft. Yesterday’s terror and excitement had drifted off into eternity. Yesterday’s minor fear of life had vanished, giving way to vigorous courage.
And really, what’s the big deal? Yes, it’s true—yesterday, he’d lost a little nerve. He’d been a bit jittery. But nothing had changed. His wonderful life went on as before. And so did his merry amorous adventure. Happiness and good fortune were his constant companions.
Sergey Petrovich handed the letter to the yardman, asking him to pass it on to Katyusha Chervyakova. Then, taking deep breaths of the cool morning air, he set off with a light, prancing step to his former aunt’s place.
Sergey arrived just as the funeral service was getting started. The old priest was dragging out his rigmarole, while the Belousov crones were grunting softly, lamenting their last lodger. And yet, at the same time, all this shone with the bright cheerfulness of everyday life.
The late aunt, for her part, was laid out comfortably on a table, atop the best lace pillowcases. Her good-natured face exuded peace and happiness. The old woman looked alive. A certain blush even broke through her yellow skin. It seemed as if she had merely grown tired and lain down on the table for a little shut-eye. She might get up any minute, fully rested, and say, “Here I am, brothers.” Sergey Petrovich stared at her for a long time with his kindly eyes.
“Auntie, auntie,” he thought. “Brother, what an auntie…Finally went and croaked…”
Sergey Petrovich stood motionless, his head bowed. He was contemplating the brevity of life and the fragility of the human body, and thinking that it was necessary to cram one’s life as full as possible with all sorts of wonderful activities and merry adventures. Nor did these thoughts bring grief and melancholy to his heart—they brought peace and calm.
Without waiting for the end of the service, Sergey Petrovich bowed silently to his motionless aunt and left the room.
He went down the hall to her room. It was neat and tidy. Nothing spoke of death.
Sergey Petrovich cast a hasty glance around the room, sizing everything up. Reaching a tidy little sum—a hundred rubles—he smiled gently, left the room, locked the door, and went out into the street.
He walked down the street, laughing happily. Though it was autumn, the sun—despite all its growing spots—burned him with all its impetuous ardor. There wasn’t a hint of wind.
7
That same day, in the evening, Sergey Petrovich met with his little lady.
She showed up a bit later than he did. Worrying and searching for decent words, he took her hands in his and began to explain, right there on the corner, the reasons for his absence the previous night.
Yes, he couldn’t get away for a single minute. His aunt had opted to croak in his arms.
He described his aunt’s death in strong colors. Then he went on to describe his inheritance.
The maiden blinked her eyelashes prettily and said, with a kind smile, that she had indeed been mighty sore the previous night, but that today she had no complaints.
They sat in the theater, locked in a loving embrace. To the chatter of the projector, Sergey Petrovich whispered all sorts of decent words about his feelings and intentions. The maiden squeezed his hand and leg gratefully, saying that she had taken a shine to his symmetrical appearance at first sight.
After the cinema, Sergey Petrovich and his mademoiselle pounded the pavement for a good long time. And a bit later, she visited his humble abode.
Sergey Petrovich escorted her out of the house at half-past eleven that night. Civilian invalid Zhukov saw the whole thing. He was searching for his cat on the stairs at the time, and he heard Sergey Petrovich say: “If push comes to shove, we’ll make it official.”
Two weeks later, they made it official.
And six months after that, Sergey Petrovich and his young spouse won fifty rubles on a Peasant Lottery-Loan they had inherited from his former aunt.
Their joy knew no bounds.
1926
