Fifty-Two Stories

Having seen his guest off, he strolled through the garden, gesticulating in the darkness and not wishing to believe that such a strange, stupid misunderstanding had just occurred. He was ashamed and annoyed with himself. First, it had been extremely imprudent and tactless on his part to bring up this cursed question of blue blood without having first found out whom he was dealing with; something similar had happened to him before; once on a train he had started to denounce the Germans, and it had turned out that all his fellow travelers were German. Second, he sensed that Meier would never call on them again. These cultivated ones who rise from the common people are painfully touchy, stubborn, and unforgiving.

“Not nice, not nice…,” murmured Rashevich, spitting. He felt embarrassed and disgusted, as if he had eaten soap. “No, not nice!”

From the garden, through the window, he could see Zhenya by the piano in the drawing room, her hair down, extremely pale, frightened, talking very, very quickly about something…Iraida paced up and down, deep in thought; but then she, too, began talking, also quickly, with an indignant look. They talked at the same time. Not a word could be heard, but Rashevich could guess what they were talking about. Zhenya was probably complaining that her father frightened off all decent people with his talk, and today had deprived them of the only acquaintance who might have been a suitor, and now the poor young man had no place in the whole district where he could find rest for his soul. And Iraida, judging by the way she threw up her arms in despair, was probably talking on the theme of their boring life, their ruined youth…

On coming to his room, Rashevich sat on his bed and slowly began to undress. He was in a depressed state of mind, and was tormented by that same feeling of having eaten soap. He was ashamed. He undressed, looked at his long, sinewy, old man’s legs, and recalled that in the district he was known as “the toad,” and that he had been ashamed after every long conversation. In some sort of fatal way it came about that he would begin softly, gently, with good intentions, calling himself an old student, an idealist, a Don Quixote, but, unbeknownst to himself, would gradually go on to abuse and slander and, most surprising of all, would quite sincerely criticize science, art, and morals, though it was already twenty years since he had read a single book or gone further than the provincial capital, and in fact he had no idea of what was happening in the wide world. If he sat down to write anything, be it only a congratulatory letter, abuse would appear in the letter as well. And all this was strange, because in fact he was a sentimental, tearful man. Was it some demon sitting in him, who hated and slandered in him against his will?

“Not nice…,” he sighed, lying under the blanket. “Not nice!”

His daughters also did not sleep. He heard loud laughter and shouting, as if someone were being pursued: it was Zhenya having hysterics. A little later Iraida also began to sob. A barefoot maid ran down the corridor several times…

“Lord, what a mishap…,” Rashevich muttered, sighing and tossing from side to side. “Not nice!”

In sleep he was oppressed by a nightmare. He dreamed that he was standing in the middle of the room, naked, tall as a giraffe, jabbing his finger in front of him and saying:

“In the mug! In the mug! In the mug!”

He woke up in fright and first of all remembered that a misunderstanding had occurred the day before, and that Meier, of course, would not call on them any more. He also remembered that he had to pay the interest to the bank, marry off his daughters, had to eat and drink, and that illness, old age, troubles were near, it would soon be winter, there was no firewood…

It was already past nine in the morning. Rashevich slowly got dressed, had tea, and ate two big slices of bread with butter. His daughters did not come out for tea; they did not want to meet him, and that offended him. He lay on the divan in his study for a while, then sat down at the desk and started writing a letter to his daughters. His hand trembled, and his eyes itched. He wrote that he was already old, nobody needed him, and that nobody loved him, and he asked his daughters to forget him and, when he died, to bury him in a simple pine coffin, without ceremony, or send his body to the anatomical theater in Kharkov. He sensed that his every line breathed out spite and histrionics, but he could no longer stop and kept on writing, writing…

“The toad!” suddenly reached him from the neighboring room; it was the voice of his older daughter, an indignant, rasping voice. “The toad!”

“The toad!” the younger repeated like an echo. “The toad!”

1894

THE PECHENEG