Fifty-Two Stories

“We’ll all die…,” sighs the hunchback, wiping his mouth after the coughing. “Well, move it, move it! Gentlemen, I decidedly cannot ride like this! When will he get us there?”

“Urge him on a little…in the neck!”

“You hear, you old cholera? It’s a real drubbing for you!…No ceremony with your kind, or it’s better to go on foot!…Do you hear, you dragon? Or do you spit on what we say?”

And Iona hears, more than he feels, the sound of a slap.

“Haw-haw…,” he laughs. “Such merry gentlemen…God grant you good health!”

“Are you married, cabby?” asks a tall one.

“Me? Haw-haw…mer-r-ry gentlemen! Nowadays I’ve got one wife—the damp earth…Ha-ho-ho…The grave, that is!…My son’s dead, but I’m alive…It’s a wonder, death mixed up the doors…Instead of coming to me, she went to my son…”

And Iona turns to tell them how his son died, but here the hunchback gives a sigh of relief and announces that, thank God, they have finally arrived. Having received his twenty kopecks, Iona follows the revelers with his eyes for a long time, until they disappear into a dark entryway. Again he is alone, and again silence comes down on him…The anguish that had subsided in him for a short time appears again and swells his chest with still greater force. Iona’s martyred eyes roam anxiously over the crowds flitting by on both sides of the street: might he find among these thousands of people just one who would hear him out? But the crowds rush by, noticing neither him nor his anguish…The anguish is enormous, it knows no bounds. If Iona’s chest were to burst and his anguish to pour out, it would probably flood the whole world, and yet it cannot be seen. It has managed to fit itself into such an insignificant shell that it is invisible in broad daylight…

Iona sees a street sweeper with a sack and decides to strike up a conversation with him.

“What time is it now, my dear fellow?” he asks.

“Going on ten…What are you stopping here for? Drive on!”

Iona drives on a few steps, bends over, and gives himself up to his anguish…By now he considers it useless to reach out to people. But before five minutes go by, he straightens himself, shakes his head, as if feeling a sharp pain, and tugs at the reins…He cannot bear it.

“To the stable,” he thinks. “To the stable!”

And the little nag, as if understanding his thought, sets off at a trot. An hour and a half later, Iona is already sitting by the big, dirty stove. On the stove,² on the floor, on the benches people are snoring. The air is “cooped up” and stuffy…Iona looks at the sleeping people, scratches himself, and is sorry that he has come home so early…

“Didn’t even make enough to buy oats,” he thinks. “That’s where the anguish comes from. A man who knows his business…who has enough to eat himself and whose horse has enough to eat, is always at peace…”

In one corner a young cabby gets up, grunts sleepily, and reaches for the bucket of water.

“Thirsty?” asks Iona.

“Right enough!”

“So…Good health to you…You know, brother, my son died…Did you hear? This week, in the hospital…Some story!”

Iona looks for what effect his words will make, but he sees nothing. The young man has covered his head and is already asleep. The old man sighs and scratches himself…He wanted to talk, as much as the young man wanted to drink. Soon it will be a week since his son died, but he has not yet had a proper talk with anybody…He needs to have a sensible, detailed talk…He needs to tell how his son fell ill, how he suffered, what he said before dying, how he died…To describe the funeral, and going to the hospital to fetch the deceased man’s clothes. He had left his daughter Anisya in the village…He needs to talk about her, too…Does he lack for anything to talk about now? The listener should gasp, sigh, murmur something…It is still better to talk with women. They may be fools, but they howl after a couple of words.

“I’ll go have a look at the horse,” thinks Iona. “There’s always time enough to sleep…I’ll sleep all right…”

He gets dressed and goes to the stable where his horse is standing. He thinks about oats, about hay, about the weather…When he is alone, he cannot think about his son…He could talk about him with somebody, but to think about him and picture his image to himself is unbearably frightening…

“Chewing away?” Iona asks his horse, seeing the gleam of her eyes. “Go on, chew…Since we haven’t earned enough for oats, we’ll eat hay…Yes…I’m too old to be driving…My son should be driving, not me…He was a real true cabby…It was for him to live…”

Iona falls silent for a while, then goes on:

“So it is, my little mare…Kuzma Ionych is no more…Gave up the ghost…Just died for nothing…Now, suppose you have a little colt, and you’re that little colt’s own mother…And suddenly suppose that same little colt gives up the ghost…It’s sad, isn’t it?”

The nag chews, listens, and breathes on her master’s hands…

Iona gets carried away and tells her everything…

1886

A COMMOTION