The Correspondent

There were eight musicians. Their leader, Gury Maximov, had been given notice that if the music did not play without letup, the musicians would not see a single glass of vodka, and their pay for the work would come only with the greatest reluctance. The dancing began at eight o’clock sharp in the evening. By one in the morning the young ladies had taken offense at their partners; the half-drunk partners had taken offense at the young ladies, and the dancing broke up. The guests split into groups. The old men occupied the drawing room, where a table stood with forty-four bottles on it and just as many plates; the young ladies huddled in a corner, whispering about the outrageousness of their partners and trying to settle the question of how it comes about that a bride, from the very first, starts addressing her bridegroom with the familiar “you.” The partners took another corner and all talked at once, each about his own affairs. Gury, first and worst violin and conductor both, struck up the Chernyaev march with his seven players... He played without letup and stopped only to drink his vodka or hitch up his trousers. He was in a temper: the second and very worst violin was drunk beyond all measure and fantasticating outrageously, while the flutist kept dropping his flute on the floor, never looked at the score, and laughed for no reason. A dreadful racket rose up. Bottles kept toppling off a little side table... Someone struck the German, Karl Karlovich Fünf, across the back... With shouts and laughter several people with red faces bolted out of the bedroom; an alarmed footman went chasing after them. deacon-korrespondent/">The deacon Manafuilov, wishing to dazzle the drunken and most respectable public with his wit, stepped on the cat’s tail and held it there until the footman wrenched the hoarse cat out from under his foot and remarked to him that “this is nothing but foolishness.” The mayor took it into his head that his watch had gone missing; he was thrown into a terrible fright, broke out in a sweat, and began swearing, insisting that his watch was worth a hundred rubles. The bride’s head began to ache... Something heavy was dropped in the front hall, and there was a crash. In the drawing room, by the bottles, the old men were behaving in a way not at all becoming to old men. They were recalling their youth and chattering the devil knows what. They told little anecdotes, made remarks about their host’s amorous adventures, cracked jokes, snickered, while the host himself, visibly pleased, sat sprawled in an armchair, saying: “And you’re a fine one too, you sons of bitches; I know you well, and I’ve made you presents for your sweethearts more than once”... Two o’clock struck. Gury, for the seventh time, struck up the Spanish serenade. The old men were getting into the spirit of things.

“Look, Yegory!” one old man mumbled, turning to the host and pointing into the corner. “What’s that little wriggler sitting there?”

In the corner, by the bookshelf, meekly, his legs tucked under him, sat a small old man in a worn dark-green frock coat with light-colored buttons, leafing idly through some little book. The host looked into the corner, thought a moment, and smirked.

“That, my friends,” he said, “is the newspaperman. Don’t you know him? A magnificent fellow! Ivan Nikitich,” he called to the little old man with the light buttons, “what are you sitting there for? Come over here!”

Ivan Nikitich gave a start, raised his little blue eyes, and grew terribly flustered.

“That, gentlemen, is a real writer, a journalist!” the host went on. “Here we are drinking, and he, you see, sits in his corner thinking learned thoughts and casting sly little glances at us. Shame on you, brother. Come have a drink – it’s a sin to refuse!”

Ivan Nikitich rose, walked meekly up to the table, and poured himself a small glass of vodka.

“God grant you...” he muttered, slowly drinking the glass down, “that everything... go so well... so properly.”

“Have a bite, brother! Eat!”

Ivan Nikitich blinked his little eyes and ate a sardine. A fat man with a silver medal round his neck came up behind him and poured a handful of salt over his head.

“That’ll salt you down – no worms’ll take to you!” he said.

The company burst out laughing. Ivan Nikitich shook his head and turned a deep red.

“Now don’t take offense!” said the fat man. “Why take offense? It’s only a joke on my part. What a queer fellow you are! Look, I’ll salt myself too!” – The fat man took the saltcellar off the table and poured salt on his own head.

“And I’ll salt him too, if you like. What’s there to take offense at?” he said, and salted the host’s head. The company burst out laughing. Ivan Nikitich smiled too and ate another sardine.

“Well, politician, why aren’t you drinking?” said the host. “Drink! Come drink with me! No, let’s all drink together!”

The old men got up and surrounded the table. The glasses were filled with cognac. Ivan Nikitich coughed and cautiously took hold of a glass.

“I’ve had quite enough already,” he said, turning to the host. “I’m already drunk as it is, sir. Well, God grant you, Yegor Nikiforych, that... everything... go well and happily. But why is everyone looking at me like that? Am I such a strange fellow? Hee-hee-hee, sir. Well, God grant you! Yegor Nikiforych, my dear sir, be so gracious and indulgent as to tell Gury to make Grigory stop that drumming. He’s quite worn me out, the lout. He drums so that it turns my stomach... To your health!”

“Let him drum,” said the host. “Can music get by without a drum, do you think? You don’t even understand that much, and here you are writing your compositions. Well, now drink with me!”

Ivan Nikitich hiccupped and shuffled his feet. The host filled two glasses.

“Drink, my friend,” he said, “and don’t you dare hide from it. If you go writing that everyone at L—’s was drunk, you’ll be writing about yourself too. Well? Your good health. Come now, be a good fellow! What a bashful one you are! Drink!”

Ivan Nikitich coughed, blew his nose, and clinked glasses with the host.

“I wish you every evil and misfortune... to escape!” the young merchant quipped; the host’s eldest son-in-law roared with laughter.

“Hurrah for the newspaperman!” shouted the fat man, and seized Ivan Nikitich, lifting him into the air. Other old men sprang up, and Ivan Nikitich found himself raised above his own head, upon the hands, heads, and shoulders of the most respectable and drunken intelligentsia/">provincial intelligentsia.

“Toss... to-o-oss him! Toss him, the rascal! Carry the little wriggler! Haul him along, the dark-green rogue!” the old men shouted, and carried Ivan Nikitich into the ballroom. In the ballroom the young men joined the old men and began tossing the poor newspaperman right up to the ceiling. The young ladies clapped their hands, the musicians fell silent and laid down their instruments, and the footmen, hired for show from the club, marveled at the “scandalousness” of it all and tittered stupidly into their aristocratic fists. Two buttons popped off Ivan Nikitich’s frock coat and his belt came undone. He puffed, he groaned, he squeaked, he suffered – but... he smiled a blissful smile. Never in his life had he expected such an honor for himself, “a mere zero,” as he liked to put it, “scarcely visible and hardly noticeable among men.”

“Gaa-ha-ha-ha!” roared the bridegroom, and, drunk as a lord, seized Ivan Nikitich by the legs. Ivan Nikitich swayed, slipped from the hands of the provincial intelligentsia, and grabbed hold of the neck of the fat man with the silver medal.

“I’ll be killed,” he began to mutter, “I’ll be killed! Allow me, sir! Just a moment, sir! There now, sir... Oh, no, not like that, sir!”

The bridegroom let go of his legs, and he hung suspended from the fat man’s neck. The fat man tossed his head, and Ivan Nikitich fell to the floor, groaned, and rose to his feet with a titter. Everyone was roaring with laughter, even the civilized footmen from the uncivilized club condescended to wrinkle their noses and smile. Ivan Nikitich’s face was heavily creased by his blissful smile, sparks flew from his moist blue eyes, and his mouth twisted sideways, so that his upper lip curved to the right while his lower lip stretched and curved to the left.

“Honored guests!” he began in a thin tenor, spreading his arms and adjusting his little belt, “honored guests! God grant you all that you desire of Him. Thanks to Him, the benefactor, to Him... and to him here, Yegor Nikiforovich... who has not scorned a small man. I met him, you know, the day before yesterday in Gryazny Lane, and he says to me: ‘Come along, Ivan Nikitich. Mind you come without fail. The whole town will be there, so you come too, all-Russian gossip that you are!’ He did not scorn me, God grant him health for it. You have made me happy with your sincere kindness, you have not forgotten the newspaperman, the ragged old fellow. Thank you. And do not forget, honored guests, our sort of people. Our sort is a small man, that’s true enough, but his soul is not a wicked one. Do not scorn us, do not disdain us, he will feel it! Small and poor as we are among men, yet we are the salt of the earth all the same, created by God for the nation’s good, teaching the whole universe, extolling the good and denouncing human wickedness...”

“What are you babbling about?” shouted the host. “You’ve run right off the rails, you fool Ivanovich! Give us the speech!”

“The speech, the speech!” the guests clamored.

“The speech? Ekh-ekh-hem. Very well, sir. Allow me a moment to think, sir!”

Ivan Nikitich began to think. Someone thrust a glass of champagne into his hands. After a little thought, he stretched out his neck, suddenly raised the glass, and began in his thin tenor, addressing Yegor Nikiforovich:

“My speech, gracious ladies and gracious gentlemen, will be short, and its brevity will not be equal to the present occasion, so deeply moving to us all. Ekh-ekh-hem. A great poet has said: blessed is he who was young in his youth! I do not doubt the truth of this, and I even venture, without fear of error, to add to it in thought and reproduce with my tongue the following address to the young authors of this present celebration and event: may our young couple be young not only now, when by their very nature they are young in body, but also in their old age, for blessed is he who was young in his youth, but a hundredfold more blessed is he who preserves his youth to the very grave. May they, the authors of this present verbal debauch of mine, be in their old age old in body but young in soul, that is, in a spirit still soaring with life. May their ideals not grow poor even to the gravestone itself, for in this lies the true blessedness of mankind. May their mutual life merge into one pure, good, and most honorable thing, and may the tenderly loving wife... hee-hee-hee, sir... serve, so to speak, as the octave to her husband, a husband firm in his thoughts, and may they together compose a harmonious chord! Vivat, zhivio, and hurrah-h-h!”

Ivan Nikitich drained his champagne, struck his heel against the floor, and looked round at the company like a conqueror.

“Well done, well done, Ivan Nikitich!” the guests shouted.

The bridegroom came up, swaying, to Ivan Nikitich, attempted a bow, failed to complete it, nearly fell, seized the orator by the hand, and said:

“Boku... boku mersi [Much obliged (French merci beaucoup).]. Your speech was very-y-y very good and not lacking in a certain ten-tendency.”

Ivan Nikitich sprang up, embraced the bridegroom, and kissed him on the neck. The bridegroom grew terribly flustered and, to hide his confusion, began embracing his father-in-law.

“How well you can explain the feelings!” said the fat man with the medal. “You’ve got such a talent that... I never expected it! Really... forgive me, sir!”

“Well?” squeaked Ivan Nikitich. “Well done? Heh-heh-heh. There you have it. I know myself it was well done! Only there’s too little fire in it, but where’s one to find fire nowadays? The times aren’t what they were, honored guests! In the old days, whenever you said or wrote something, you’d fall into a state of blessed tenderness yourself and marvel at your own talent. Ah, what times those were! We ought to drink, fra diavolo, to those times! Come, friends, let’s drink! What glorious times those were!”

The guests came up to the table and each took a glass. Ivan Nikitich was transformed. He poured himself not a glass but a full tumbler.

“Let us drink, honored guests,” he went on. “You’ve been kind to an old man; now do honor also to the time when I myself was a great man! What a glorious time that was! Mesdames, my little beauties, clink glasses with the asp and the basilisk who marvels at your beauty! Clink! Heh-heh-heh. My little cupids. There was a time, sacramento! [I swear! (Italian sacramento).] I loved and I suffered, I conquered and was conquered more than once! Hurrah-h-h!”

“There was a time,” Ivan Nikitich went on, sweating now and agitated, “there was a time, my dear friends! And even now the times are good, but for our sort, for the newspaperman, that earlier time was better, for the simple reason that there was more fire and more truth in people then. Before, whoever took up the pen was a hero, a knight without fear or reproach, a martyr, a sufferer, and a man of truth. And now? Look, land of Russia, upon your writing sons and be ashamed! Where are you, true writers, publicists, and other champions and laborers on the field of... ekh... ekh... hem... publicity? Nowhere!!! Nowadays everyone writes. Whoever wants to, writes. Whoever has a soul filthier and blacker than my own boot, whoever has a heart forged not in his mother’s womb but in a smithy, whoever has as much truth in him as I have houses of my own, that very man now dares to tread the path of the illustrious – the path that belongs to prophets, to lovers of truth and haters of silver. My dear sirs! That path is wider now, but there is no one left to walk it. Where are the true talents? Go and look for them: I swear to God, you won’t find them!.. Everything has grown threadbare and gone to seed. Whoever of the old bold fellows and fine lads is still alive has now grown poor in spirit and lost his way in words. Before, men chased after truth, but nowadays it’s a chase after a fine turn of phrase and after the kopek, curse it! A strange spirit is blowing! Grief, my friends! And I too, wretch that I am, have not been ashamed of my gray hairs and have taken to chasing after fine phrases myself! No, no – time and again I try to slip something of the sort into my correspondence. Thank God, the creator of heaven and earth, I am not greedy for gain and do not write out of hunger. Nowadays whoever wants to eat, writes, and writes whatever he likes, so long as it looks something like the truth from the side. Want to get money out of the editorial office? You want it? Well then, if you want it, go right ahead and write that on such-and-such a date there was an earthquake in our town of T., or that some peasant woman, Akulina, forgive me, mesdames, shameless fellow that I am, gave birth to six babies at a single stroke the other day... You’re blushing, my beauties! Forgive an ignoramus, I beg you most humbly! I am a doctor of foul language and have more than once in the old days defended dissertations on the subject in taverns, and triumphed in disputes with all manner of rogues. Forgive me, my dears! Oh-ho-ho... that’s how it is, write what you like, it will all be forgiven you. It wasn’t like that before! If we wrote lies then, it was out of simple-mindedness and stupidity, not because we made a tool of lying, for we held sacred the thing we served, and worshipped it.”

“Why is it you wear those light-colored buttons?” some dandy with four curls on his head broke in on Ivan Nikitich.

“Light buttons? Yes indeed, they are light... Force of habit, sir... Long ago, some twenty years back, I ordered a little frock coat from a tailor; well, the tailor, by mistake, sewed on light buttons instead of black ones. And I grew used to the light buttons, because I wore that same little coat for some seven years... Well now, my dear sirs, that’s how it used to be... The little beauties are listening, my dears, listening to me, an old fellow, my darlings... Hee-hee-hee, sir... God grant you health! My unearthly beauties! If only you had lived forty years ago, when I was young and capable of setting hearts ablaze with a fiery flame. I’d have been your slave, my dears, and worn holes in my knees for you... They’re laughing, my little flowers!.. Ah, my dears... You’ve done an old man honor with your attention.”

“Are you writing anything just now?” broke in a snub-nosed young lady on the increasingly excited Ivan Nikitich.

“Am I writing? How could I not write? I shall not bury my talent in the ground, queen of my soul, not till the very grave! I write! Haven’t you read me? And who, may I ask, placed a piece of correspondence in the Golos in the year seventy-six? Who? Haven’t you read it? A splendid piece of correspondence! In the year seventy-seven I wrote again for that same Golos – the editors of that esteemed paper found my article unsuitable for publication... Heh-heh-heh... Unsuitable... Fancy that!.. My article had a certain odor to it, you know, a certain odor. ‘We have,’ I wrote, ‘patriots one can see, but it is as dark as the waters under the clouds where their patriotism is actually kept: in their hearts or in their pockets?’ Heh-heh-heh... An odor, sir... Further on: ‘Yesterday,’ I wrote, ‘a memorial service was held for those fallen at Plevna. Present at the service were all the officials and citizens, with the exception of the man serving as our town’s chief of police, who was conspicuous by his absence, having found the finishing of his game of preference more interesting than sharing in the whole nation’s grief.’ Right between the eyes! Ho-ho-ho! They didn’t print it! But I gave it my best effort that time, my friends! Last year, seventy-nine, I sent a piece of correspondence to the daily paper Russky Kuryer, published in Moscow. I wrote, my friends, to Moscow about the schools of our district, and my piece was printed, and now I get the Russian Courier free of charge. There, you see! Astonished? Be astonished by geniuses, not by zeros! A zero I am! Ekh-heh-heh! I write seldom, honored guests, very seldom! Our T. is poor in events worth describing, and I have no wish to write nonsense – I am too proud for that, and I fear too for my conscience. All Russia reads the newspapers, and what is our T. to Russia? Why should I trouble her with trifles? Why should she need to know that a dead body was found in our tavern? But in the old days, how I used to write, in the old days, in bygone times, in bygone... I wrote then for the Severnaya Pchela, for the Syn Otechestva, for the Moskovskiye... I was a contemporary of Belinsky’s, I pinched Bulgarin once in parentheses... Heh-heh-heh... Don’t believe me? I swear to God! Once I wrote a poem about martial valor... And what I suffered for it at the time, my friends, only God Sabaoth Himself could tell you... I remember myself as I was then and am moved to tenderness. A fine bold fellow I was then! I suffered and endured for my ideas and my thoughts; I bore torments for my striving after noble labor. In the year forty-six, for a piece of correspondence I placed in the Moskovskiye Vedomosti, I was beaten by the local tradesmen so badly that I lay three months afterward in the hospital on black bread. I daresay my enemy paid dearly to those tradesmen for their hard-heartedness: they thrashed God’s servant so soundly that even now I can point to the consequences. And once, this was in the year fifty-three, the town governor here, Sysoy Petrovich, summoned me... You don’t remember him, and be glad you don’t. The memory of that man is the bitterest of all my memories. He summons me and says: ‘What’s this you’ve been slandering in the Pchela, eh?’ And what had I slandered there? I had simply written, you understand, that a gang of swindlers had turned up among us and had made a den for itself of Guskov’s little tavern... Not a trace of that little tavern remains now; it was pulled down in the year sixty-five and gave up its place to the grocery shop of one Mr. Lubtsovatsky. At the end of my piece I let slip a bit of an odor. I went and wrote, you understand: ‘It would not be amiss, for the reasons mentioned, for the police to turn their attention to the tavern of Mr. G.’ Sysoy Petrovich roared at me and stamped his feet: ‘As if I didn’t know without you! Are you going to teach me my business, you mug? My tutor, are you, eh?’ He shouted and shouted, and then had me locked up, trembling, in the cold cell. Three days and three nights I sat in that cold cell, remembering Jonah and the whale, enduring every sort of humiliation... I shall not forget it till the darkening of my memory! No flea, no louse, if you’ll pardon the word – no insect, however small and scarcely visible, was ever so utterly humiliated as Sysoy Petrovich humiliated me, God rest his soul! And then there was Father Pankraty, the dean, whom I used to call in my thoughts, as a joke, the paper-knife dean, who somewhere read, letter by letter, about some other dean, and took it into his head that it was written about him, and that I had written it out of my own frivolity; whereas it was not written about him at all, and I had not written it. One day, walking past the cathedral, someone suddenly gave me a great crack from behind, across the back and the back of the head, with a stick, you understand; once, and then a second time, and then a third... Devil take it, what’s all this? I turn round, and it’s Father Pankraty, my own confessor... In public!! For what? For what fault? And that too I bore with meekness... I have suffered much, my friends!”

The eminent merchant Gryzhev, standing nearby, smiled and clapped Ivan Nikitich on the shoulder.

“Write,” he said, “write! Why shouldn’t you, if you’re able? And what paper will you write for?”

“For the Golos, Ivan Petrovich!”

“Will you let me read it?”

“Heh-heh-heh... Without fail, sir.”

“We’ll see what sort of master you are at it. Well, and what will you write about?”

“Why, if Ivan Stepanovich were to make some donation to the pro-gymnasium, then I’d write about him!”

Ivan Stepanovich, a clean-shaven merchant not at all of the long-coated kind, smiled and turned red.

“Well, write it!” he said. “I’ll donate. Why shouldn’t I donate? I could manage a thousand rubles...”

“Well then?”

“I could.”

“But could you really?”

“Now then... Of course I could.”

“You’re not joking?.. Ivan Stepanovich!”

“I could... Only there’s this... Hmm... And if I donate, and you don’t write it?”

“How could that be, sir? My word is firm, Ivan Stepanych...”

“Well, that’s all very well... Hm... And when will you write it, then?”

“Very soon, sir, very soon indeed, sir... You’re not joking, Ivan Stepanych?”

“Why should I joke? You won’t pay me money for jokes, will you? Hm... Well, and if you don’t write it?”

“I’ll write it, sir, Ivan Stepanych! Strike me dead, I’ll write it, sir!”

Ivan Stepanovich wrinkled his broad, shining forehead and began to think. Ivan Nikitich shuffled his feet, hiccupped, and fixed his glittering eyes on Ivan Stepanovich.

“Here’s what, Nikita... Nikitich... Ivan, is it? Here’s what. I’ll give... I’ll give two thousand in silver, and then, maybe, something more... something of that sort. Only on this condition, my dear fellow, that you really and truly write it...”

“I swear to God I’ll write it!” squeaked Ivan Nikitich.

“Write it, and before you send it to the paper, give it to me to read, and then I’ll lay out the two thousand, if it’s well written...”

“Very good, sir... Ek... ek-hem... I hear and understand, noble and generous man! Ivan Stepanovich! Be so gracious and so indulgent as not to let your promise pass without effect, let it not be an empty sound! Ivan Stepanovich! Benefactor! Honored guests! I am a drunken man, but I comprehend with my mind! Most humane philanthropist! I bow before you! Take pains! Serve the cause of popular education, pour forth from your abundance... Oh, Lord!”

“All right, all right... We shall see...”

Ivan Nikitich seized hold of the skirt of Ivan Stepanovich’s coat.

“Most generous of men!” he squealed. “Join your right hand to the hands of the great... Pour oil into the lamp that lights the universe! Allow me to drink to your health. I shall drink, most gracious sir, I shall drink! Long li...”

Ivan Nikitich fell into a fit of coughing and drank down a glass of vodka. Ivan Stepanovich looked round at the company, winked at Ivan Nikitich, and went out of the drawing room into the ballroom. Ivan Nikitich stood a moment, thought a little, stroked his bald head, and walked with dignity between the dancers into the drawing room.

“Fare you well,” he said to the host, bowing low. “My thanks for your kindness, Yegor Nikiforovich! I shall not forget it in my lifetime!”

“Farewell, my friend! Come again another time. Come to the shop, if you have the time: you can have a cup of tea with the lads. Come on my wife’s name-day, if you like – you can give a speech.” Well, farewell, my dear fellow!”

Ivan Nikitich shook the offered hand with feeling, bowed low to the guests, and shuffled off into the front hall, where among the multitude of furs and overcoats his own small, worn-out little coat was lost from view.

“Something for a cup of tea, from your honor!” the footman suggested to him amiably, searching out his coat.

“My dear fellow! I could myself use something for a cup of tea, and not give it away...”

“Here it is, your coat! Is this it, your half-honor? You could sift flour through it! In a coat like this one oughtn’t be paying calls, but keeping company with the pigs.”

Flustered, and having put on his coat, Ivan Nikitich hitched up his trousers, went out of the house of the town’s rich man and grandee, Yegor L—, and set off, slopping through the mud, toward his own lodgings.

He lodged on the town’s main street, in a wing of a house, for which he paid sixty rubles a year to the heirs of some merchant’s widow. The wing stood in the corner of an enormous yard overgrown with burdock, and peered out from behind the trees as meekly as only Ivan Nikitich himself could peer out at anything. He bolted the gate and, carefully picking his way around the burdock, made for his little gray wing of a house. A dog somewhere gave a lazy, grumbling bark at him.

“Stameska, Stameska, it’s me... a friend!” he muttered. The door of the wing was not locked. Having cleaned his boots with a little brush, Ivan Nikitich opened the door and stepped into his den. Grunting, and having taken off his coat, he prayed before the icon and went through his rooms, lit by an icon lamp. In the second and last room he prayed to the icon again and tiptoed up to the bed. On the bed slept a pretty girl of about twenty-five.

“Manichka,” Ivan Nikitich began to wake her, “Manichka!”

“Mmmmm...”

“Wake up, my daughter!”

“Uh... mm... mm... mm...”

“Manichka, oh Manichka! Rouse yourself from sleep!”

“Who’s there? Wh...at, eh? Eh?”

“Wake up, my angel! Rise, my nursing mother, my little musician... My daughter! Manichka!”

Manechka turned onto her other side and opened her eyes.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Give me, my dear, please, two sheets of paper!”

“Go to bed!”

“My daughter, don’t refuse your father’s request!”

“What do you need it for?”

“To write a piece of correspondence for the Golos.”

“Leave off... Go to bed! I left your supper out for you!”

“My one and only friend!”

“You’re drunk. Splendid... Don’t keep me from sleeping!”

“Give me the paper! Well, what would it cost you to get up and do your father the honor? My friend! Or must I go down on my knees, is that it?”

“Aaaah... damn it! At once! Get out of here!”

“I hear and obey.”

Ivan Nikitich took two steps back and hid his head behind the screen. Manechka jumped down from the bed and wrapped herself tightly in a blanket.

“He goes wandering about!” she grumbled. “What a punishment this is! Mother of God, when will this ever end! No peace by day or night! And what a shameless man you are, too!..”

“Daughter, do not insult your father!”

“No one’s insulting you! Here!”

Manechka took two sheets of paper out of her portfolio and flung them onto the table.

“Merci, Manichka! Forgive me for troubling you!”

“Fine!”

Manechka dropped onto the bed, pulled up the blanket, curled herself up, and fell asleep at once.

Ivan Nikitich lit a candle and sat down at the table. After a little thought, he dipped his pen in the ink, crossed himself, and began to write.

The next day, at eight o’clock in the morning, Ivan Nikitich already stood at the front door of Ivan Stepanovich, tugging with a trembling hand at the bell. He tugged for a full ten minutes, and in those ten minutes came very near dying of fright at his own boldness.

“What d’you need? Ringing away!” asked Ivan Stepanovich’s footman, opening the door and rubbing his swollen, sleepy eyes with the skirt of his worn brown coat.

“Is Ivan Stepanovich at home?”

“The master? Where else would he be? What d’you need?”

“I’ve come... to see him.”

“From the post office, is it? He’s asleep!”

“No, on my own account... To be precise...”

“One of the officials?”

“No... but... may I wait?”

“Why shouldn’t you? You may! Go into the front room!”

Ivan Nikitich edged his way into the front room and sat down on a divan strewn with the footmen’s cast-off rags.

“Aughrrmm... K’mbrrr... Who’s there?” came from Ivan Stepanovich’s bedroom. “Seryozhka! Come here!”

Seryozhka jumped up and dashed like a madman into his master’s bedroom, while Ivan Nikitich took fright and began fastening every one of his buttons.

“Eh? Who?” reached his ears from the bedroom. “Who is it? Have you lost your tongue, you brute? What? From the bank? Speak up, then! An old man?”

Ivan Nikitich’s heart began to pound, his eyes clouded over, and his legs went cold. The great moment was drawing near!

“Call him in!” came the voice from the bedroom.

Seryozhka appeared, sweating, and, holding his ear, led Ivan Nikitich in to Ivan Stepanovich. Ivan Stepanych had only just woken: he lay on his double bed and peered out from under the chintz blanket. Beside him, under that same blanket, snored the fat man with the silver medal. On going to bed, the fat man had not thought it necessary to undress: the tips of his boots peeped out from under the blanket, and the silver medal had slid from his neck onto the pillow. The bedroom was stuffy, hot, and thick with smoke. On the floor lay the shards of a broken lamp, a puddle of kerosene, and scraps of a woman’s petticoat.

“What do you want?” asked Ivan Stepanovich, looking into Ivan Nikitich’s face and wrinkling his forehead.

“My apologies for the trouble caused,” Ivan Nikitich pronounced, drawing a paper from his pocket. “Most esteemed Ivan Stepanovich, permit me...”

“Now listen, don’t go warbling like a nightingale at me, I’ve nothing to feed them on: get to the point. What do you want?”

“I’ve come, with the purpose, that is, ek... ek-hem, of most respectfully presenting...”

“And who might you be?”

“Me, sir? Ek... ek... hem... Me, sir? You’ve forgotten, sir? I’m the correspondent.”

“You? Ah, yes. Now I remember. What is it, then?”

“I wished to present, for your reading, the piece of correspondence I promised...”

“You’ve written it already?”

“Written, sir.”

“So quickly?”

“Quickly, sir? Why, I’ve been writing right up till just now!”

“Hm... No, that’s... not right. You ought to have taken longer over it. Why the hurry? Go, my friend, and write some more.”

“Ivan Stepanovich! Neither place nor time can constrain a talent... Give me a whole year, and I swear to God I’d write no better!”

“Well then, hand it over!”

Ivan Nikitich unfolded the sheet and, with both hands, raised it up to Ivan Stepanovich’s head.

Ivan Stepanovich took the sheet, narrowed his eyes, and began to read: “Every year in our town of T. several buildings are erected, for which purpose architects are summoned from the capital, building materials are obtained from abroad, and enormous sums of capital are expended – and all this, one must admit, for mercenary ends... A pity! Our population is upward of twenty thousand, T. has existed for several centuries, buildings go up; and yet there is not so much as a hut in which might shelter the force that cuts off the roots which ignorance sinks so deep... Ignorance...” What is this that’s written here?

“This, sir? Horribile dictu... [Terrible to say... (Latin).]”

“And what does that mean?..”

“God knows what it means, Ivan Stepanovich! When something bad or dreadful is written, that expression is written in parentheses right beside it.”

“`Ignorance...’ Mmmm... `lies here in thick layers and enjoys, in every stratum of our society, the fullest rights of citizenship. At last, even upon us has blown the air breathed by all educated Russia. A month ago we received from His Excellency the Minister permission to open a pro-gymnasium in our town. This permission was received among us with unfeigned rapture. There were those who did not confine themselves to a mere expression of rapture, but wished also to show their love in deed. Our merchant class, never one to answer with a refusal an invitation to give financial support to some good undertaking, did not, on this occasion either, shake its head in the negative...’ Devil take it! Written in no time, and how weighty it sounds! Well, well, look at you! `I consider it necessary to name here the chief donors. Here are their names: Gury Petrovich Gryzhev (2000), Pyotr Semyonovich Alebastrov (1500), Aviv Ipokentievich Potroshilov (1000), and Ivan Stepanovich Trambonov (2000). The last-named promised...’ Who’s this ‘last-named’?”

“The last-named, sir? That’s you, sir!”

“So I’m the last-named, according to you?”

“The last-named, sir... That is... ek... ek... hem... in the sense...”

“So I’m last?”

Ivan Stepanych rose and turned purple.

“Who’s last? Me?”

“You, sir, only in what sense?!”

“In the sense that you’re a fool! Understand? A fool! Here’s your piece of correspondence for you!”

“Your high excel... Dear father Ivan... Ivan...”

“So I’m last! You wretched little pimple, you! You goose!” – From Ivan Stepanovich’s mouth poured a stream of choice expressions, each one less fit for print than the last... Ivan Nikitich went out of his mind with fright, fell into a chair, and spun round and round.

“You swine, you! Last, am I?!? Ivan Stepanov Trambonov has never been last and never will be! You’re the one who’s last! Get out of here, and let your foot never cross this threshold again!”

Ivan Stepanovich, in a fury, crumpled the piece of correspondence into a ball and flung it into the face of the correspondent of the Moscow and St. Petersburg newspapers... Ivan Nikitich turned red, rose, and, waving his arms, shuffled out of the bedroom. In the front room Seryozhka met him: with a most foolish smile on his most foolish face he opened the door for him. Finding himself in the street, pale as paper, Ivan Nikitich trudged through the mud toward his lodgings. Some two hours later Ivan Stepanovich, going out of the house, saw in the front room, on the windowsill, a cap that Ivan Nikitich had forgotten.

“Whose cap is this?” he asked Seryozhka.

“Why, that scrap of a fellow’s, the one you had thrown out the other day, sir.”

“Throw it out! What’s it doing lying about here?”

Seryozhka took the cap and, going out into the street, flung it into the very thickest of the mud.