“I’m Teffi.”
“I’m Averchenko.”
“The Teffi who used to write for the Russian Word?”
“Yes.”
“Ha-a! I used to read it all the time! And I used to read Averchenko too, in Satirikon.[31] Ha-a! Well this is a miracle! I thought this scoundrel here was lying. And then I thought he might not be. And that this might be my one chance to set eyes on you. I’ve never been in Petersburg and, to be honest, this was a chance I couldn’t let slip. Ha-a! Well, I’m overjoyed. I’ll send you both your travel passes this very day! Where are you staying?”
At this point the old woman’s husband moved away from the door and recited his address, testifying to its authenticity with the words, “So help me God!”
We thanked the officer.
“So we can leave tomorrow, can we?”
“If you want to. Unless you’d like to stay here for a little while. We’ve got everything here and plenty of it. We’ve even got champagne.”
“Now that does sound good,” Averchenko said wistfully. “Almost too good to be true!”
The officer rose to show us out. Only then did we notice the distraught look on Gooskin’s face.
“But you’ve forgotten the most important thing of all!” he said in a tragic whisper. “The most important thing of all! My own travel pass. Mr. Officer! I too am from their company, and there are three others. They can’t possibly get by without me! They’ll tell you that themselves. What will become of them? I tell you, it will be like the last day of Pompeii, right here on your doorstep!”
The officer looked at us questioningly.
“Yes, yes,” said Averchenko. “He’s accompanying us—and there are three others. Everything he says is true.”
“I shall be glad to be of service.”
We said our goodbyes.
Gooskin complained bitterly all the way back: “How could you? Forgetting Gooskin’s pass! The most important thing of all! Wonderful! Ri-ight?”
Back home, calm, content, and sleepy, we sat down around the samovar that had been heated by one of the daughters’ daughters. Now that the intensity of our feelings about the self-sacrificing old woman had subsided a little, Olyonushka and I accepted the offer of fried eggs.
“Well, we can at least get her to allow us to pay for our food, even if she refuses to accept money for anything else. We don’t want to have to starve to death just because she’s such a wonderful person.”
“And that Gooskin’s so unpleasant. Smirking like an oaf and telling us we don’t need to worry on that score. What does he care?.”
Our room was nice and warm. After the cold wind, our cheeks were burning. It was time to go to bed—almost twelve. Then a young man burst in. I think it was the son of the son’s wife.
“Someone from the office is here—asking for Pan Averchenko.”[32]
“They haven’t changed their minds, have they?”
“And we thought everything had been settled!”
Averchenko went out into the kitchen. I followed.
There, surrounded by a frightened crowd of the daughters’ daughters stood a Ukrainian policeman.
“Here are your travel passes. And the officer also wishes to give you this.”
Two bottles of champagne!
Who’d have thought there could be such magic in a visit from a Ukrainian policeman?
We clinked our cups of warm champagne.
How high the wheel of fortune had raised us! Electric lighting, corks flying toward the ceiling, and cups—yes, we were drinking from teacups—foaming with champagne.
“Oufff!” Gooskin let out a sigh of contentment. “I have to admit it, I was scared halfway to death!”
Morning in Klintsy.
The day is somewhat gray, but quiet and reassuringly ordinary—just like any other autumn day. And the rain too is ordinary, not like the despairing rain, the rain as bitter as tears, that only two days before had been watering those bloodied remains by the embankment.
We stay in bed late. Our bodies are worn out, our souls dozing…
But we can hear voices from the kitchen. People bustling about. Plates clattering, somebody being scolded, somebody being told to get out of the way, somebody else defending them, several loud voices all shouting at once… The sweet symphony of simple human life…
“And where are the plates, I ask you. Where are the plates?” a high solo soars above the chorus.
“A vuide Moshke?”[33]
Then an intricate duet, something like “Zoher-boher, zoher-boher!”[34]
And a rich contralto solo:
“A mishigene kopf.”[35]
Ever so cautiously the door begins to open. A small dark eye examines us through the narrow crack. And disappears. A gray eye appears a little lower down, then disappears too. Then, much higher up—another dark eye, enormous and astonished.
The daughters’ daughters were, it seems, waiting for us to awake.
It was time we got up.
Our train wasn’t leaving until the evening. We would have to spend the whole day in Klintsy. This, we feared, would be boring. The town was so very calm—and calm was something we were no longer used to. We could not have complained of boredom two days before this.
One of the daughters’ daughters came and asked us what we would like for lunch.
Olyonushka and I looked at each other and said with one voice, “Fried eggs.”
“Yes, fried eggs and nothing else.”
The daughter’s daughter went out again, looking surprised and maybe even displeased. The kind old woman must have been wanting to spoil us.
“Yes,” said Olyonushka, “for us to abuse her generosity would be unforgivable.”
“Of course. And there’s certainly nothing cheaper than eggs. Although one doesn’t really want fried eggs two days running.”
Olyonushka glanced at me reproachfully, then looked down at the floor.
Averchenko appeared, bringing something wonderful—a whole pile of apples.
Olyonushka then went out for a walk herself. She came back full of excitement and said, “Guess what I’ve brought?”
“Don’t know.”
“Guess!”
“A cow?”
“Don’t be silly. Guess.”
“I can’t. The only thing I can think of is a cow…. Or a candelabra?”
“Nothing of the sort,” she said triumphantly—and placed a bar of chocolate on the table. “There!”
The actress with the little dog went over to the table, her eyes on stalks. Her little dog was no less surprised—it sniffed the chocolate and gave a little yelp.
“Where’s it from?” we began to interrogate her.
“You won’t believe it—you’ll think I’m joking. I simply bought it at a little stall. And nobody asked anything at all. I didn’t need any papers, and I didn’t have to line up. I just saw it in the window, went in and bought it. Real Boreman’s chocolate.[36] Look!”
How strange life can be—someone walks down the street, feels like eating some chocolate, goes into a shop and—“Yes Madame, here Madame, as you wish Madame.” And there are people everywhere. They can see and hear everything that’s going on, yet nobody seems in the least bothered—as if all this is completely normal. Who’d have believed it!
“And it was just an ordinary stall?”
“Yes, just an ordinary little stall.”
“Hmm! And you don’t think it’s some trap? Well, let’s try some of this chocolate. And when we’ve finished it, we can buy some more.”
“Only I probably shouldn’t go there again myself,” said Olyonushka. “Let someone else go—otherwise it might look suspicious…”
32
A Polish form of address, once the equivalent of the English “Sir.” Since the late nineteenth century, it has been closer to “Mr.”
36
George Boreman was the owner of a successful Petersburg chocolate factory, nationalized in 1918.