Forty Stories

In the Cemetery

Where be your gibes now?

your gambols? your songs? your

flashes of merriment?

HAMLET

“GENTLEMEN, the wind is rising, and it is growing dark. Wouldn’t it be better all round if we left now?”

The wind was playing among the yellow leaves of the ancient birch trees, and from the leaves heavy raindrops came showering down on us. One of us slipped in the mud, and to prevent himself from falling he grabbed at a large gray cross.

“Titular Councilor and Chevalier Yegor Gryaznorukov,”¹ he read. “I knew that gentleman.… He loved his wife, wore the order of St. Stanislas, and never read a single word.… His stomach punctually digested his food.… Why is he dead? It would appear he had no reason to die, but—alas!—fate watched over him. The poor fellow fell a victim to curiosity. He happened to be listening behind a door when the door opened, and he received a blow on the head which caused a shock to his brain (he had a brain), and so he died. The man who lies beneath this monument abhorred verses and epigrams from the cradle, and so the monument is derisively dotted all over with verses.… Well, someone is coming!”

A man wearing a worn coat, and with a shaved bluish-purple face, came up to where we were standing. There was a bottle under his arm and a sausage in its wrappings was sticking out of his pocket.

“Where is the tomb of the actor Mushkin?” he asked hoarsely.

We led him in the direction of Mushkin’s tomb. The actor died two years ago.

“Are you a government official?” we asked him.

“No, gentlemen, I am an actor. Nowadays it is hard to distinguish actors from ecclesiastical functionaries, as you rightly observed. Quite characteristic, of course, though not altogether flattering to the functionaries.”

We had some difficulty finding the tomb of the actor Mushkin. It had collapsed, weeds grew over it, and it no longer resembled a tomb. The little cheap cross, falling to pieces, coated with green moss and blackened by frost, gazed at us with an old man’s despondent look, and seemed to be ill.

We read: “… forgettable friend Mushkin.” Time had destroyed the “un,” and corrected the human lie.

“Some actors and journalists collected money to buy him a monument, but the dear fellows drank it all up,” the actor sighed, making a low bow, falling to his knees and bending so that his hat touched the damp earth.

“What do you mean—they drank it all up?”

“Very simple. They collected the money, put an announcement in the newspapers, and drank it all up. I’m not standing in judgment over them, but that’s how it was.… Angels, to your health! Here’s to your health, and eternal remembrance!”

“As for that, drinking is bad for the health, and eternal remembrance—there’s grief for you! God gives us temporary memories. Who wants an eternal accounting?”

“True, true! Mushkin was a celebrated man. A dozen wreaths followed his coffin, and already he is forgotten! Those he favored have forgotten him, and those who were ill served by him remember him. Myself, I shall never, never forget him, because I never received anything but harm from him. I have no love for the dead man.”

“What harm did he do you?”

“A great deal of harm,” sighed the actor, and an expression of bitterness and outrage spread over his face. “He was a man who sinned against me, a great malefactor, God have mercy on him! Looking at him and listening to him, I became an actor. His art enticed me from my parental home, seduced me with vain artifices, promised much, and left me in tears, sorrowing. An actor’s lot is a bitter one. I lost my youth, I lost sobriety, I lost the divine image. Without a penny in my pocket, down at heels, wearing trousers frayed and patched like a chessboard, and with a face which looked as though it had been gnawed by dogs … My head filled with wild thoughts and inanities … Yes, that robber robbed me of my faith! Maybe there was some talent in me, but I lost all for something not worth a cent. It is cold, gentlemen. You want none of it, eh? Well, there’s enough for everyone! Brrrr … Let us drink to the dear departed! Though I have no love for him, and though he is dead, he’s all I have left in the world. This is the last time I’ll ever pay him a visit. The doctors say I’ll soon be dead from alcoholism, and so I have come to bid him my last farewell. One should forgive one’s enemies!”

We left the actor holding converse with the dead Mushkin, and went on. A fine cold rain was beginning to fall.

At a turning in the main road through the cemetery, a road entirely strewn with rubbish, we encountered a funeral procession. Four pallbearers with white calico sashes round their waists, dead leaves glued to their muddy boots, were carrying a dark-brown coffin. It was growing dark, and they were hurrying and stumbling under the weight of the coffin.

“We have been walking about here for two hours, gentlemen, and already this is the third funeral we have seen. Shall we go now?”

October 1884

¹ Gryaznorukov means “muddy hands.”