The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

The White Eagle

A Fantastic Story

The dog dreams of bread, of fish the fisherman.

THEOCRITUS (Idyll)¹

I

There are more things in heaven and earth.”² That is how we usually begin such stories, so as to shield ourselves with Shakespeare from the sharp-witted arrows of those for whom there is nothing unknown. I, however, still think that “there are things” that are very strange and incomprehensible, which are sometimes called supernatural, and therefore I listen willingly to such stories. For the same reason, when, two or three years ago, reducing ourselves to childishness, we began to play at spiritualism,³ I willingly sat in on one such circle, the rules of which required that at our evening gatherings we not say a word about the authorities or about the principles of the earthly world, but talk only about incorporeal spirits—about their appearances and participation in the destinies of living people. Not even the “preservation and salvation of Russia” was permitted, because on such occasions many “begin with cheers and end with tears.”

For the same reason, all taking in vain of “great names” of whatever sort was strictly forbidden, with the sole exception of the name of God, which, as we know, is most often used for beauty of style. Breaches occurred, of course, but those, too, with great caution. Two impatient politicians might step over to the window or the fireplace and whisper a little, but even then they would warn each other: “Pas si haut!”^* And the host already has his eye on them and jokingly threatens to fine them.

Each of us in turn had to tell something fantastic from his own life, and since a knack for storytelling is not given to everyone, the story was not picked on from the artistic side. Nor were proofs required. If the storyteller said that the event he told about had actually happened to him, we believed him, or at least pretended to believe. Such was the etiquette.

I was interested most of all in the subjective side of it. That “there are more things than are dreamt of in your philosophy” I do not doubt, but how such things present themselves to someone—that I found extraordinarily interesting. And in fact, the subjectivity here merited great attention. No matter how the storyteller tried to keep to the higher sphere of the incorporeal world, one could not fail to notice that the visitor from beyond the grave comes to earth in color, like a ray of light when it passes through stained glass. And here there is no sorting out lie from truth, and yet it is an interesting thing to follow, and I want to tell you of one such case.

II

The “martyr on duty,” that is, the next storyteller, was a rather highly placed and with that a very original person, Galaktion Ilyich, who was jokingly called an “ill-born dignitary.” This nickname concealed a pun: he was in fact something of a dignitary, and with that was sickly thin, and moreover was of quite undistinguished parentage. Galaktion Ilyich’s father had been a serf butler in a prominent house, then a tax farmer, and, finally, a benefactor and church builder, for which he received a decoration in this mortal life, and in the future life—a place in the kingdom of heaven. He gave his son a university education and set him up in the world, but the “memory eternal” which was sung over his grave in the Nevsky Lavra⁴ remained and weighed upon his heir. This son of a servant reached a certain rank and was admitted in society, but the joke of the title “ill-born” still dragged after him.

Of the mind and abilities of Galaktion Ilyich scarcely anyone had a clear idea. What he could and could not do—that, too, probably no one knew. His work record was short and simple: at the start of his service, through his father’s efforts, he went to work under Viktor Nikitich Panin,⁵ who loved the old man for some merits known to himself, and having taken the son under his wing, rather quickly promoted him beyond that limit at which “entries” begin.

In any case, it must be thought that he had some merits for which Viktor Nikitich could promote him. But in the world, in society, Galaktion Ilyich had no success and generally was not spoiled with regard to the joys of life. He was of very poor, frail health and of fatal appearance. As tall as his late patron, Count Viktor Nikitich, he did not, however, possess the count’s majestic exterior. On the contrary, Galaktion Ilyich inspired horror, mixed with a certain revulsion. He was at one and the same time a typical village lackey and a typical living corpse. His long, skinny frame was barely enclosed in grayish skin, his excessively high brow was dry and yellow, his temples were tinged with a corpselike greenness, his nose was broad and short like a skull’s, there was no trace of eyebrows, his mouth with its long, glittering teeth was eternally half open, and his eyes were dark, dim, totally colorless, set in deep, perfectly black sockets.

To meet him—was to be frightened.

The peculiarity of Galaktion Ilyich’s looks was that in his youth he was much more frightening, and towards old age he was getting better, so that one could bear him without being horrified.

He was of mild character and had a kind, sensitive, and even—as we shall see presently—a sentimental heart. He loved to dream and, like the majority of ugly-looking people, hid his dreams deeply. At heart he was more a poet than an official and had a greedy love of life, which he never enjoyed to his full content.

He endured his misfortune and knew it was eternal and would be with him till the grave. His very rise in the service brought with it a deep cup of bitterness: he suspected that Count Viktor Nikitich had kept him as a receptionist mainly in consideration of the fact that he had an oppressive effect on people. Galaktion Ilyich saw that when people waiting to be received by the count had to inform him of the purpose of their visit—their eyes grew dim and their knees gave way … Galaktion Ilyich’s contribution was that, after seeing him, each of them found a personal conversation with the count easy and even enjoyable.

With the years Galaktion Ilyich went from being an official who announced people to being the one to whom they were announced, and was entrusted with a very serious and ticklish mission in a distant region, where a supernatural event happened to him, his own account of which follows below.

III

About twenty-five years ago (the ill-born dignitary began), rumors started to reach Petersburg about repeated abuses of power by the governor P——v. These abuses were vast and involved almost all parts of the administration. Letters reported that the governor himself supposedly beat and whipped people with his own hands; confiscated, along with the marshal,⁶ all the local supplies of spirits for his own mills; arbitrarily took loans from the treasury; insisted on personally inspecting all postal correspondence—sent what was suitable, and tore up and burned what was unsuitable, and then took revenge on the authors; locked people up and left them to languish. With all that, he was a lover of art, maintained a big and very good orchestra, loved classical music, and was himself an excellent cellist.

For a long time only rumors came of his outrages, but then a little official appeared there, who dragged himself to Petersburg, wrote up the whole épopée very thoroughly and in detail, and delivered it personally into the proper hands.

The story turned out to be such as merited an immediate senatorial inspection. Indeed, that should have been done, but the governor and the marshal were in good standing with the late sovereign, and therefore it was not so simple to get at them. Viktor Nikitich first wanted to verify everything more precisely through his own man, and his choice fell on me.

He summons me and says:

“Thus and so, such and such sad news has come, and unfortunately it seems there’s some substance to it; but before giving this affair the go-ahead, I’d like to verify it more closely, and I’ve decided to employ you for that.”

I bow and say:

“I will be very happy to do it, if I can.”

“I’m sure you can,” the count replied, “and I’m relying on you. You have this special talent, that people won’t go talking nonsense to you, but will lay out the whole truth.”

That talent (the storyteller explained, smiling gently) is my lamentable appearance, which spreads gloom before it; but one must get by with what one is given.

“Your papers are all ready,” the count continued, “and the money as well. But you’re going only for our department alone … Understand? Only!”

“I understand,” I say.

“It’s as if you’re not concerned with any abuses in other departments. But it must only seem not, and in fact you must find out everything. You’ll be accompanied by two capable officials. Go there, get down to business, and make as if you’re most attentively examining the bureaucratic order and forms of legal procedure, but personally look into everything … Summon local officials for clarifications and … look stern. And don’t hurry back. I’ll let you know when to return. What was your last decoration?”

I reply:

“Vladimir, second degree, with coronet.”

The count picked up his famous heavy bronze paperweight, “the slain bird,” in his enormous hand, took an office memorandum book from under it, and with all five fingers of his right hand grasped a fat giant of an ebony pencil, and, not concealing it from me in the least, wrote down my name and beside it “White Eagle.”⁷

Thus I even knew the decoration that would await me for the fulfillment of the mission entrusted to me, and with that I left Petersburg the next day in complete tranquillity.

With me were my servant Egor and two officials from the senate—both adroit men of the world.

IV

We had a safe trip, naturally; having reached the town, we rented an apartment and all settled into it: myself, my two officials, and my servant.

The lodgings were so comfortable that I could perfectly well turn down the more comfortable ones that the governor obligingly offered me.

I, naturally, did not want to owe him the least service, though he and I, of course, not only exchanged visits, but I even went once or twice to his Haydn quartets. However, I’m not a great lover and connoisseur of music, and in general, understandably, I tried not to get closer with him than was necessary—necessary for me to see, not his gallantry, but his dark deeds.

However, the governor was an intelligent and adroit man, and he did not importune me with his attentions. He seemed to leave me in peace to busy myself with incoming and outgoing records and minutes, but nonetheless I kept feeling that something was going on around me, that people were trying to feel out which side to catch me from, and then, probably, to ensnare me.

To the shame of the human race, I must mention that I do not consider even the fair sex totally uninvolved in it. Ladies began to present themselves to me now with complaints, now with petitions, but also, along with that, always with such schemes as could only make me marvel.

However, I remembered Viktor Nikitich’s advice—“look stern”—and the gracious visions vanished from my horizon, which was unsuitable for them. But my officials had successes in that sense. I knew it and did not interfere either with their philandering or with their giving themselves out as very big men, which everyone willingly took them for. It was even useful for me that they move in certain circles and have success with certain hearts. I required only that there be no scandal and that I be informed as to which points of their sociability provincial politics was most interested in.

They were conscientious lads and revealed everything to me. What everyone wanted to learn from them was my weaknesses and my particular likings.

The truth is they would never have gotten to that, because, thank God, I have no particular weaknesses, and my tastes, ever since I can remember, have always been quite simple. All my life I’ve eaten simple food, drunk one glass of simple sherry, and even in sweets, which I’ve been fond of since I was young, I prefer, to all refined jellies and pineapples, an Astrakhan watermelon, a Kursk pear, or, from childhood habit, a honey cake. I’ve never envied anyone’s wealth, or fame, or beauty, or happiness, and if I’ve ever envied anything, then, I may say, perhaps it was health alone. But even the word “envy” does not go towards defining my feeling. The sight of a man blooming with health never called up in me the vexatious thought: why him and not me? On the contrary, I look at him with sheer rejoicing that such a sea of happiness and blessings is accessible to him, and here I may occasionally dream in various ways about the happiness, impossible for me, of enjoying good health, which I have not been granted.

The pleasure afforded me by the sight of a healthy man developed in me a like strangeness in my aesthetic taste: I never ran after Taglioni or Bosio and was generally indifferent to both opera and ballet, where everything is so artificial, and liked more to listen to the Gypsies on Krestovsky Island.⁸ That fire and ardor of theirs, that passionate force of movement, I liked most of all. The man isn’t even handsome, he’s all askew, but once he gets going—it’s as if Satan himself is jerking him, his legs dance, his arms wave, his head twists, his body whirls—it’s all a beating and thrashing. And here am I, who know only infirmity, willy-nilly admiring and dreaming. What can such as I taste of the feast of life?

So I said to one of my officials:

“My friend, if you should be asked again what I like most of all, tell them it’s health, that most of all I like cheerful, happy, and merry people.”

“It seems there’s no great imprudence here?” the storyteller asked, pausing.

His listeners thought a little, and several voices replied:

“Of course not.”

“Well, excellent, I also thought not, and now kindly listen further.”

V

They sent a clerk-on-duty from the office to be at my disposal. He announced visitors, noted down this and that, gave me addresses whenever it was necessary to send for someone or go and inquire about something. This official was my match—elderly, dry, and mournful. The impression he produced was not good, but I paid little attention to him. His name, as I recall, was Ornatsky. A beautiful last name, like a hero from an old novel. But suddenly one day they say: Ornatsky has fallen ill, the executor has sent another official in his place.

“Who’s that?” I asked. “Maybe I’d better wait until Ornatsky gets better.”

“No, sir,” the executor says, “Ornatsky won’t be back soon—he went on a drinking binge, and it will last till Ivan Petrovich’s mother nurses him back to health, but kindly do not worry about the new official: it’s Ivan Petrovich himself who has been appointed in Ornatsky’s place.”

I look at him and don’t quite understand: he’s talking to me about some Ivan Petrovich himself and has mentioned him twice in two lines.

“Who is this Ivan Petrovich?” I say.

“Ivan Petrovich! … the one who sits in the registry—an assistant. I thought you had been pleased to notice him: the handsomest one, everybody notices him.”

“No,” I say, “I haven’t noticed him. What’s his name again?”

“Ivan Petrovich.”

“And his last name?”

“His last name …”

The executor became embarrassed, put three fingers to his forehead in an effort to remember, but instead added with a deferential smile:

“Forgive me, Your Excellency, it was as if a sudden stupor came over me and I couldn’t remember. His last name is Aquilalbov, but we all simply call him Ivan Petrovich, or sometimes, jokingly, ‘the White Eagle,’ for his good looks. An excellent man, in good standing with the authorities, earns a salary of fourteen roubles and fifteen kopecks as an assistant, lives with his mother, who does a bit of fortune-telling and caring for the sick. Allow me to introduce him: Ivan Petrovich is waiting.”

“Yes, if it needs must be, please ask this Ivan Petrovich to come in.”

“The White Eagle!” I think to myself. “What a strange thing! I’m due for the Order of the White Eagle, and not for Ivan Petrovich.”

And the executor half opened the door and called:

“Ivan Petrovich, please come in.”

I cannot describe him for you without falling slightly into caricature and making comparisons that you may consider exaggerations, but I warrant you that no matter how I try to describe Ivan Petrovich, my picture cannot convey even half the beauty of the original.

Before me stood a real “White Eagle,” a downright Aquila alba, as portrayed at the formal receptions of Zeus. A big, tall man, but extremely well proportioned, and of such a healthy look as if he had never ever been ill and knew neither boredom nor fatigue. He was the picture of health, not crudely, but somehow harmoniously and attractively. Ivan Petrovich’s complexion was all tender pink, with ruddy cheeks framed in fair, light down, which, however, was on its way to turning into mature growth. He was exactly twenty-five years old; his hair was fair, slightly wavy, blonde, and his little beard was the same, with delicate reddish highlights; his eyes were blue under dark eyebrows and framed with dark lashes. In short, the folktale hero Churilo Aplenkovich could not have been better. But add to that a bold, very intelligent, and merrily open gaze, and you have before you a truly handsome fellow. He was wearing a uniform, which sat very well on him, and a scarf of a dark pomegranate color tied into a splendid bow.

People wore scarves then.

I stood there admiring Ivan Petrovich and, knowing that the impression I make on people seeing me for the first time is not an easy one, said simply:

“Good day to you, Ivan Petrovich.”

“How do you do, Your Excellency,” he replied in a very heartfelt voice, which also sounded extremely sympathetic to me.

Speaking his phrase of response in the military version, he was nevertheless skillful enough to lend his tone a shade of simple and permissible jocularity, and at the same time this response by itself established a character of familial simplicity for the whole conversation.

I was beginning to understand why “everybody loved” this man.

Seeing no reason for keeping Ivan Petrovich from maintaining this tone, I told him that I was glad to make his acquaintance.

“And I, for my part, also consider it an honor for me and a pleasure,” he replied, standing, but stepping ahead of his executor.

We made our bows—the executor went to his office, and Ivan Petrovich remained in my anteroom.

An hour later I invited him to my office and asked:

“Do you have good handwriting?”

“I have a firm hand,” he replied, and added at once: “Would you like me to write something?”

“Yes, kindly do.”

He sat down at my desk and after a minute handed me a page in the middle of which was written with a “firm hand” in clear cursive: “Life is given us for joy.—Ivan Petrovich Aquilalbov.”

I read it and couldn’t help bursting into laughter: no other expression could have suited him better than what he had written. “Life for joy”—all of life was for him a continuous joy!

A man entirely to my taste! …

I gave him an insignificant document to copy right there at my desk, and he did it very quickly and without the least mistake.

Then we parted. Ivan Petrovich left, and I remained at home alone and gave myself up to my morbid spleen, and I confess—devil knows why, but several times I was carried in thought to him, that is, to Ivan Petrovich. He surely doesn’t sigh and mope. To him life is given for joy. And where does he live it with such joy on his fourteen roubles … I suppose he must be lucky at cards, or a little bribe may come his way … Or maybe merchants’ wives … It’s not for nothing he has such a fresh pomegranate tie …

I’m sitting over a multitude of cases and minutes open before me, and thinking about such pointless trifles, which do not concern me at all, and just then my man announces that the governor has come.

I ask him in.

VI

The governor says:

“I’ll be having a quintet the day after tomorrow—their playing won’t be bad, I hope, and there will be ladies, and you, I hear, are moping in our backwoods, so I’ve come to visit you and invite you for a cup of tea—maybe it won’t hurt to amuse yourself a little.”

“I humbly thank you, but why does it seem to you that I’m moping?”

“From a remark of Ivan Petrovich’s.”

“Ah, Ivan Petrovich! The one who’s on duty with me? So you know him?”

“Of course, of course. He’s our student, singer, actor—only not a malefactor.”

“Not a malefactor?”

“No, he’s as lucky as Polycrates,⁹ he has no need to be a malefactor. He’s the universal town favorite—and an unfailing participant in every sort of merrymaking.”

“Is he a musician?”

“He’s a jack-of-all-trades: he sings, plays, dances, organizes parlor games—it’s all Ivan Petrovich. Where there’s a feast, there’s Ivan Petrovich: if there’s a lottery or a charity performance—again it’s Ivan Petrovich. He appoints the winning lots and displays the articles prettily; he paints the sets himself, and then turns at once from painter to actor ready for any role. The way he plays kings, uncles, ardent lovers—it’s a feast for the eyes, but he’s best at playing old women.”

“Not old women!”

“Yes, it’s astonishing! For the soirée the day after tomorrow, I confess, I’m preparing a little surprise with Ivan Petrovich’s help. There will be tableaux vivants—Ivan Petrovich will stage them. Naturally, some will be the kind put on for women desirous of showing themselves, but there will be three of some interest for a real artist.”

“Done by Ivan Petrovich?”

“Yes. Ivan Petrovich. The tableaux will present ‘Saul and the Witch of Endor.’¹⁰ The subject, as you know, is biblical, and the disposition of the figures is a bit trumped up, what’s known as ‘academic,’ but the whole point is in Ivan Petrovich. He’s the one everybody will be looking at—especially when the second tableau opens and our surprise is revealed. I can tell you the secret. The tableau opens, and you see Saul: this is a king, a king from head to foot! He’ll be dressed like everybody else. Not the slightest distinction, because in the story Saul comes to the witch disguised, so that she won’t recognize him, but it’s impossible not to recognize him. He’s a king, and a real, biblical shepherd-king at that. But the curtain falls, and the figure quickly changes position. Saul lies prostrate before the shade of Samuel, who comes to him. Saul is now as good as gone, but what a sight Samuel is in his shroud! … This is a most inspired prophet, on whose shoulders lie power personified, grandeur, and wisdom. This man could ‘order the king to appear in Bethel and Gilgal.’ ”

“And this will again be Ivan Petrovich?”

“Ivan Petrovich! But that’s not the end. If they ask for an encore—which I’m sure of and will see to myself—we’re not going to weary you with repetitions, but you will see the sequel of the épopée.

“The new scene from the life of Saul will be with no Saul at all. The shade has vanished, the king and his attendants have gone: through the door you can make out only a bit of the cloak of the last figure withdrawing, and on stage there’s the witch alone …”

“And again it’s Ivan Petrovich!”

“Naturally! But what you see won’t be the same as the way they portray witches in Macbeth … No stupefying horror, no affectation or grimacing, but you’ll see a face that knows what philosophy never dreamt of.¹¹ You’ll see how frightening it is to speak to one who comes from the grave.”

“I can imagine,” I said, being infinitely far from the thought that before three days were out, I would have, not to imagine, but to experience that torment myself.

But that came later, while now everything was filled by Ivan Petrovich alone—that merry, lively man, who suddenly popped up from the grass like a mushroom after warm rain, not big yet, but visible from everywhere—and everybody looks at him and smiles: “See what a firm and pretty one.”

VII

I’ve told you what the executor and the governor said of him, but when I expressed curiosity as to whether either of my officials of worldly tendency had heard anything about him, they both began saying at once that they had met him and that he was indeed very nice and sang well to the guitar and the piano. They, too, liked him. The next day the archpriest stopped by. After I’d gone to church once, he brought me blessed bread every Sunday and sacrotattled on everybody. He said nothing good about anyone and in that regard made no exception even of Ivan Petrovich, but on the other hand, this sacrotattler knew not only the nature of all things, but also their origin. About Ivan Petrovich he began himself:

“They’ve switched clerks on you. It’s all with a purpose …”

“Yes,” I said, “they’ve given me some Ivan Petrovich.”

“We know him, indeed, we know him well enough. My brother-in-law, to whose post here I’ve been transferred with the obligation of bringing up the orphans, he baptized him … His father was also a man of the cloth … rose to a clerkship, and his mother … Kira Ippolitovna … that’s her name—she left home and married his father out of passionate love … But soon she also tasted the bitterness of love’s potion, and then was left a widow.”

“She educated him by herself?”

“As if he’s got any education! He went through five grades of school and became a scribe in the criminal court … after a while they made him an assistant … But he’s very lucky: last year he won a horse and saddle at the lottery, and this year he went hunting hares with the governor. A regimental piano left by some transferred officers came as a prize in the lottery, and he took that, too. I bought five tickets and didn’t win, while he had just one and got it. Makes music on it himself, and teaches Tatyana.”

“Who is Tatyana?”

“They took in a little orphan—not bad at all … a swarthy little thing. He teaches her.”

We talked all day about Ivan Petrovich, and in the evening I hear something buzzing in my Egor’s little room. I call him and ask him what it is.

“I’m doing cut-outs,” he replies.

Ivan Petrovich, having noticed that Egor was bored from inactivity, brought him a fretsaw and some little boards from cigar boxes with glued-on designs and taught him to cut out little plaques. Commissioned for the lottery.

VIII

On the morning of the day when Ivan Petrovich was to perform and astonish everybody in tableaux at the governor’s banquet, I did not want to keep him, but he stayed through lunchtime and even made me laugh a lot. I joked that he ought to get married, and he replied that he preferred to remain “in maidenhood.” I invited him to Petersburg.

“No, Your Excellency,” he says, “here everybody loves me, and my mother’s here, and we’ve got the orphan Tanya, I love them, and they’re not suited to Petersburg.”

What a wonderfully harmonious young man! I even embraced him for this love of his mother and the orphan girl, and we parted three hours before the tableaux.

Taking leave of him, I said:

“I’m waiting impatiently to see you in various forms.”

“You’ll get sick of me,” Ivan Petrovich replied.

He left, and I had lunch alone and took a nap in the armchair, to freshen myself up, but Ivan Petrovich did not let me sleep: he soon and somewhat strangely disturbed me. He suddenly came in very hurriedly, noisily shoved the chairs in the middle of the room aside with his foot, and said:

“So here you see me; but I just want to humbly thank you—you gave me the evil eye. I’ll be revenged on you for that.”

I woke up, rang for my man, and ordered him to bring my clothes, and kept marveling to myself: how clearly I had seen Ivan Petrovich in my dream!

I arrived at the governor’s—it was all lit up and there were many guests, but the governor himself, meeting me, whispered:

“The best part of the program fell through: the tableaux can’t take place.”

“What’s happened?”

“Shh … I don’t want to speak loudly and spoil the general impression. Ivan Petrovich is dead.”

“What? … Ivan Petrovich? … dead?!”

“Yes, yes, yes—he’s dead.”

“Merciful heavens—he was at my place three hours ago, as healthy as could be.”

“Well, so he came from your place, lay down on the sofa, and died … And you know … I must tell you, in case his mother … she’s so beside herself that she may come running to you … The unfortunate woman is convinced that you are guilty of her son’s death.”

“How so? Was he poisoned at my place, or what?”

“That she doesn’t say.”

“Then what does she say?”

“That you gave Ivan Petrovich the evil eye.”

“Excuse me …,” I say, “but that’s nonsense!”

“Yes, yes, yes,” replies the governor, “it’s all foolishness, of course, but then this is a provincial town—here foolishness is more readily believed than cleverness. Of course, it’s not worth paying attention to.”

Just then the governor’s wife invited me to play cards.

I sat down, but what I endured during that tormenting game I simply cannot tell you. First, I suffered from the consciousness that this nice young man, whom I had admired so, was now laid out on a table,¹² and, second, I kept imagining that everybody was whispering and pointing at me: “He gave him the evil eye,” I even heard those foolish words “evil eye, evil eye,” and, third, allow me to tell you the truth—I saw Ivan Petrovich himself everywhere! … As if I had acquired an eye for him—wherever I looked—there was Ivan Petrovich … Now he’s walking, strolling about the empty room, to which the doors are open; now two men stand talking—and he’s beside them, listening. Then he suddenly appears right next to me and looks into my cards … Here, naturally, I play whatever my hand falls on, and my vis-à-vis gets offended. Finally, the others began to notice it as well, and the governor whispered in my ear:

“It’s Ivan Petrovich spoiling it for you: he’s having his revenge.”

“Yes,” I say, “I’m indeed upset and feeling very unwell. I beg to be allowed to add up the score and excuse myself.”

This favor was granted me, and I went home at once. But I rode in the sleigh, and Ivan Petrovich was with me—now sitting beside me, now on the box with the driver, but with his face turned to me.

I think: maybe I’m coming down with a fever?

I came home—it was still worse. As soon as I lay down and put the light out—Ivan Petrovich is sitting on the edge of the bed, and he even says:

“You really did give me the evil eye, and I died, and there was no need for me to die so early. That’s the point! … Everybody loved me so, my mother, and Tanyusha—she hasn’t finished her studies yet. What terrible grief it is for them!”

I called for my man and, awkward as it was, told him to lie down and sleep on my rug, but Ivan Petrovich wasn’t afraid; wherever I turned, he stuck up in front of me, and basta!

I could hardly wait till morning, and first off sent one of my officials to the dead man’s mother, to bring three hundred roubles for the funeral and give them to her with all possible delicacy.

The man came back bringing the money with him: they wouldn’t take it, he says.

“What did they say?” I asked.

“They said, ‘No need: good people will bury him.’ ”

Which meant that I was counted among the wicked.

And as soon as I thought of him, Ivan Petrovich was right there.

In the evening I couldn’t keep calm: I took a cab and drove to have a look at Ivan Petrovich and to take leave of him. That is a customary thing, and I thought I wouldn’t disturb anyone. And I put all I could in my pocket—seven hundred roubles—to persuade them to accept it, at least for Tanya.

IX

I saw Ivan Petrovich: the “White Eagle” lies there as if shot down.

Tanya is walking around. A swarthy little thing indeed, about fifteen years old, in cheap cotton mourning, and she keeps putting things right. She smooths the dead man’s hair and kisses him.

What agony to see it!

I asked her if I could talk with Ivan Petrovich’s mother.

The girl replied, “Very well,” and went to the other room, and a moment later she opened the door and asked me to come in, but as soon as I entered the room where the old woman was sitting, she stood up and excused herself:

“No, forgive me—I was wrong to trust myself, I cannot see you,” and with that she left.

I was not offended or embarrassed, but simply dispirited, and I turned to Tanya:

“Well, you’re a young being, maybe you can be kinder to me. For, believe me, I did not and had no reason to wish Ivan Petrovich any misfortune, least of all death.”

“I believe you,” she let fall. “No one could wish him any ill, everybody loved him.”

“Believe me, in the two or three days that I saw him, I, too, came to love him.”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Oh, those terrible two or three days—why did they have to be? My aunt treated you that way out of grief, but I feel sorry for you.”

And she held out both hands to me.

I took them and said:

“Thank you, dear child, for these feelings; they do honor to your heart and your good sense. It really is impossible to believe such nonsense, that I supposedly gave him the evil eye!”

“I know,” she replied.

“Then show me your kindness … do me a favor in his name!”

“What favor?”

“Take this envelope … there’s a bit of money in it … for household needs … for your aunt.”

“She won’t accept it.”

“Well, for you then … for your education, which Ivan Petrovich was looking after. I’m deeply convinced that he would have approved of it.”

“No, thank you, I won’t take it. He never took anything from anyone for nothing. He was very, very noble.”

“But you grieve me by that … it means you’re angry with me.”

“No, I’m not angry. I’ll prove it to you.”

She opened Ollendorff’s manual of French, which was lying on the table, hastily took a photograph of Ivan Petrovich from between the pages and, handing it to me, said:

“He put it there. We had reached this place in our studies yesterday. Take it from me as a memento.”

With that the visit was over. The next day Ivan Petrovich was buried, and afterwards I remained in town for another eight days, still in the same agony. I couldn’t sleep at night; I listened to every little noise, opened the vent window so that at least some fresh human voice might come from outside. But it was of little use: two men go by, talking—I listen—it’s about Ivan Petrovich and me.

“Here,” they say, “lives that devil who gave Ivan Petrovich the evil eye.”

Someone is singing as he returns home in the still of the night: I hear the snow crunching under his feet, I make out the words: “Ah, of old I was bold”—I wait for the singer to come even with my window—I look—it’s Ivan Petrovich himself. And then the father archpriest kindly drops by and whispers:

“There’s such a thing as the evil eye and casting spells, but that works on chickens—no, Ivan Petrovich was poisoned …”

Agonizing!

“Who would poison him and why?”

“They had fears that he’d tell you everything … They should have gutted him. Too bad they didn’t. They’d have found the poison.”

Lord, deliver me at least from this suspicion!

In the end, I suddenly and quite unexpectedly received a confidential letter from the director of the chancery, saying that the count orders me to limit myself to what I have managed to do already and return to Petersburg without the slightest delay.

I was very glad of it, made ready in two days, and left.

On the road Ivan Petrovich did not leave me alone—he appeared every once in a while, but now, whether from the change of place or because a man gets used to everything, I grew bolder and even got used to him. He lingers before my eyes, but it’s nothing to me: sometimes, while I’m dozing, we even exchange jokes. He wags his finger:

“Got you, didn’t I!”

And I reply:

“And you still haven’t learned French!”

And he replies:

“Why should I study: I rattle away nicely now on what I’ve taught myself.”

X

In Petersburg I felt that they were not so much dissatisfied with me, but worse, that they looked at me somehow pityingly, somehow strangely.

Viktor Nikitich himself saw me for just a moment and said nothing, but he told the director, who was married to a kinswoman of mine, that to him I seemed unwell …

There was no explanation. A week later it was Christmas, and then the New Year. Festive turmoil, naturally—the expectation of awards. I was not so greatly concerned, the less so as I knew I would be awarded the White Eagle. On the eve, my kinswoman, the director’s wife, sent me a gift of the medal and ribbon, and I put it in a drawer together with an envelope containing a hundred roubles for the couriers who were to bring me the official order.

But during the night Ivan Petrovich suddenly nudged me in the side and made a fig right under my nose. He had been much more delicate when alive, such a thing did not suit his harmonious nature at all, but now he stuck a fig at me just like a prankster, and said:

“That’s enough for you right now. I must go to poor Tanya,” and he melted away.

I got up in the morning. No couriers with the order. I hastened to my in-law to find out what it meant.

“Can’t fathom it,” he says. “It was there, listed, and suddenly it’s like it got cut at the printer’s. The count crossed it out and said he’d announce it personally … You know, there’s some story that’s harmful to you … Some official, after leaving you, died somehow suspiciously … What was it about?”

“Drop it,” I say, “do me a favor.”

“No, really … the count even asked after your health several times … Various persons wrote from there, including the archpriest, the father confessor of them all … How could you let yourself get mixed up in such a strange business?”

I listen and—like Ivan Petrovich himself from beyond the grave—feel only a desire to stick my tongue out at him or show him a fig.

But Ivan Petrovich, after I was awarded a fig instead of the White Eagle, disappeared and did not show up again for exactly three years, when he paid me his final and most tangible visit.

XI

Again it was Christmas and the New Year and the same expectation of awards. I had already been passed over repeatedly, and did not trouble myself about it. No give, no care. There was a New Year’s party at my cousin’s—very merry—lots of guests. The healthy ones stayed for supper, but I was looking for a chance to slip away before supper, and was edging towards the door, when suddenly, amidst the general talk, I hear these words:

“My wanderings are now over: mama’s with me. Tanyusha has settled down with a good man. I’ll pull my last stunt and zhe mon vay!”^† And then suddenly he sang in a drawl:

Farewell, my own,

Farewell, my native land.

“Aha,” I think, “he’s shown up again, and what’s more he’s speaking French … Well, I’d better wait for somebody, I won’t go downstairs alone.”

And he deigns to walk past me dressed in the same uniform with the splendid pomegranate tie, and he had just passed by when the front door suddenly slammed so that the whole house shook.

The host and servants ran to see whether anyone had gotten to the guests’ fur coats, but everything was in place, and the door was locked … I kept mum, so that no one would say “hallucinations” again and start asking about my health. It slammed, and that’s that—lots of things can slam …

I sat it out so as not to leave alone and returned home safely. My man was no longer the one who had traveled with me and to whom Ivan Petrovich had given lessons in making cut-outs, but another; he met me looking sleepy and lit my way. We passed by the side table and I saw something lying there covered with white paper … I looked: it was my Order of the White Eagle, of which, you remember, my cousin had made me a gift that time … It had always been under lock and key. How could it suddenly appear? Of course, I’ll be told: “He probably took it out himself in a moment of distraction.” I won’t argue about that, but there was something else: on my bedside table there was a small envelope addressed to me, and the hand seemed familiar … It was the same hand that had written: “Life is given us for joy.”

“Who brought it?” I ask.

And my man points straight at the photograph of Ivan Petrovich, which I keep as a memento from Tanyusha, and says: “This gentleman.”

“Surely you’re mistaken.”

“No, sir,” he says, “I recognized him at first glance.”

In the envelope there turned out to be an official stamped copy of the order: I had been awarded the White Eagle. And what was still better, I slept for the rest of the night, though I heard something somewhere singing the stupidest words: “Now’s my chaunce, now’s my chaunce, zhe allay o contradaunce.”^‡

From the experience of the life of spirits taught me by Ivan Petrovich, I realized that this was Ivan Petrovich “rattling away in self-taught French” as he flew off, and that he would never trouble me again. And so it turned out: he took his revenge and then forgave me. That’s clear. But why everything in the world of spirits is so confused and mixed up that human life, which is more valuable than anything, is revenged by frivolous frights and a medal, and flying down from the highest spheres is accompanied by the stupidest singing of “Now’s my chaunce, zhe allay o contradaunce”—that I don’t understand.

* Not so loud! Trans.

† I.e., Je m’en vais, I’m going away. Trans.

‡ I.e., je allais au contredanse, illiterate French for “I’m going to the contradance.” Trans.