Once upon a time there was a gentleman who had lived more than half his life, when he suddenly felt that something was lacking in him. He was very much alarmed.
He felt himself; everything seemed to be all right and in its place, his stomach was even protruding. He examined himself in a looking-glass, and saw that he had eyes, ears, and everything else that a serious man should have. He counted his fingers: there were ten right enough, and ten toes on his feet; but still he had an uncomfortable feeling that something was missing.
He was sadly puzzled.
He asked his wife:
“What do you think, Mitrodora? Is everything about me in order?”
She answered reassuringly:
“Everything.”
“But sometimes it seems to me——”
She was a religious woman and advised him:
“Whenever you begin to imagine anything, recite mentally: ‘Let God arise and his enemies will fall.’”
He questioned his friends also, in a roundabout way. They answered evasively, but looked at him suspiciously, as though he merited strong condemnation.
“What can it be?” thought the gentleman, feeling downcast.
He tried to recall his past. Everything seemed to be quite normal. He had been a socialist, had incited youths to revolt; but later on he had renounced everything, and for a long time now had strenuously trampled underfoot the “crops” himself had sown. Generally speaking he had lived like everybody else, in accordance with the spirit and inspirations of the times.
He pondered and pondered and suddenly discovered what it was:
“O Lord, I haven’t got a national face!”
He rushed to the looking-glass and saw that his face really had an indistinct expression, like that of a blind man. It suggested a page of a translation from some foreign language, done carelessly by a more or less illiterate person who had omitted all punctuation, so that it was impossible to make out what was on the page. It might be read as containing either a demand that one’s soul should be sacrificed for the liberty of the people, or that it was necessary to recognise the full sway of absolutism.
“H’m, what a mixture, to be sure,” thought the gentleman; and he decided at once: “No, it is not the thing to live with a face like that.”
So he began to wash it every day with expensive soaps, but this did not help: the skin shone, but the indistinctness remained. He began to lick his face with his tongue—his tongue was long and well adjusted, for at one time the gentleman had been engaged in journalism. But even his tongue was of no avail. He applied Japanese massage to his face, and bumps appeared, as they do after a hard fight, but still he could obtain no definiteness of expression.
He tried and tried, but without success; all that he achieved was to lose a pound and a half in weight. Suddenly to his joy he learned that the head constable of his district, von Judenfresser, was known for his understanding of national problems. He went to him and said:
“Matters stand so-and-so, your Honour. Cannot you help me in my trouble?”
The head constable of course was flattered: here was an educated man, not long since suspected of disloyalty to the throne, now asking advice with confidence on how to change the expression of his face. The constable chuckled, and in his great joy exclaimed:
“There is nothing simpler, my dear friend, my American gem. Rub your face against members of a subject nationality. Your real face will at once be revealed.”
The gentleman was pleased, the weight of a mountain fell from his shoulders. He sniggered loyally and said to himself in some astonishment:
“Why could I not have guessed it myself? The whole matter is so simple.”
They parted very good friends. The gentleman rushed out into the street, planted himself at a comer and waited. Presently a Jew came along; he rushed up to him and began:
“If you,” he said, “are a Jew, you must become a Russian. If you do not want to, then——”
The Jew (as is known from all anecdotes) belongs to a nervous and timid people. But this one was of a capricious character and would not put up with pogroms. He raised his arm, gave the gentleman a blow on the left cheek, and went home to his family.
The gentleman leaned against the wall, rubbing his face, and thinking:
“Well, well, the formation of one’s national face is connected with sensations not always altogether agreeable, but let it be. Nekrassoff, although he was a poor poet, said quite truly:
“Nothing can be got for naught:
Fate demands its victims.”
Suddenly a native of the Caucasus passed by. As proved by all anecdotes they are an uncivilised and hot-headed people. He was singing as he walked along:
“Mitskhales sakles mingrule.”1
The gentleman pounced upon him:
“No,” he said, “be quiet. If you are a Georgian you must become a Russian, and you must not love the hut of a Mingrelian, but what you are ordered to love. You must like prison, even without orders——”
The Georgian left the gentleman in a horizontal position and went and drank Kachetin wine. The gentleman lay on the ground and pondered:
“Well, well, there are also Tartars, Armenians, Bashkirs, Kirghises, Mordva, Lithuanians. O Lord, what a number! And these are not all. There are our own people, the Slavs.”
At this juncture a Little Russian came along, and of course he was singing in a very disloyal manner:
“Our ancestors once led
A happy life in Ukraina.…”
“No,” said the gentleman, rising to his feet. “Will you be kind enough in future to use the letter ‘y’ instead of ‘oo’2; otherwise you undermine the unity of the empire.”
He argued the point at some length, and the Little Russian listened, for, as proved most conclusively by all the collections of Little Russian anecdotes, the Little Russians are a very slow people, and like to do their work without hurrying. Unfortunately this gentleman was somewhat insistent.
Some kind people picked the gentleman up and asked him:
“Where do you live?”
“In Great Russia.”
Of course they took him to the police station. As they were driving along he felt his face, not without pride, though with a certain sense of pain. It seemed to him that it had grown considerably broader and he thought to himself:
“I believe I have acquired…”
He was taken before von Judenfresser, and the latter, like the humane person he was, sent for the police doctor. When the doctor came they began to whisper to each other in surprise, and kept giggling, which seemed a strange thing to do in the circumstances.
“It is the first case in the whole of my practice,” whispered the doctor. “I cannot make it out.”
“What may that mean?” thought the gentleman, and asked:
“Well, how do I look?”
“The old face is quite rubbed off,” answered von Judenfresser.
“And generally speaking has my face changed?”
“Of course it has, only, you know——”
The doctor said consolingly:
“Your face is such, dear sir, that you may just as well put your trousers on it.”
So it remained for the rest of his life. There is no moral here.