As if on purpose, suddenly, at that very instant, his susceptible imagination pictured the complacent faces of Stepan Nikiforovich and Semyon Ivanovich.
“We won’t hold out!” Stepan Nikiforovich repeated, smiling superciliously.
“Hee, hee, hee!” echoed Semyon Ivanovich with his nastiest smile.
“And now let’s see how we won’t hold out!” Ivan Ilyich said resolutely, and his face even flushed hotly. He stepped off the planks and with firm tread went straight across the street to the house of his subordinate, the registrar Pseldonymov.
His star drew him on. He walked briskly through the open gate and in disdain shoved aside with his foot the hoarse, shaggy little cur that, more for decency’s sake than meaning any business, rushed at his legs with a rasping bark. By a wooden boardwalk he reached a covered porch, jutting like a booth into the yard, and by three decrepit wooden steps he went up to a tiny entryway. Though a tallow candle-end or something like a lamp was burning somewhere in a corner, that did not prevent Ivan Ilyich, just as he was, in galoshes, from stepping with his left foot into a galantine set out to cool. Ivan Ilyich bent down and, looking with curiosity, saw standing there two more dishes of some sort of aspic, as well as two molds, obviously of blancmange. The squashed galantine embarrassed him a bit, and for one tiny instant the thought flitted through him: shouldn’t I slip away right now? But he considered it too low. Reasoning that no one had seen and that no one was going to suspect him, he quickly wiped off the galosh, so as to conceal all traces, groped for the felt-upholstered door, opened it, and found himself in the tiniest of anterooms. One half of it was literally heaped with overcoats, caftans, cloaks, bonnets, scarves, and galoshes. In the other half the musicians had settled: two fiddles, a flute, and a string bass, four men in all, brought in, naturally, from the street. They were sitting by an unpainted wooden table, with one tallow candle, and sawing away for all they were worth at the last figure of a quadrille. Through the open door to the main room people could be seen dancing, in dust, smoke, and haze. It was somehow furiously merry. Guffaws, shouts, and ladies’ shrieks were heard. The cavaliers were stomping like a squadron of horses. Above this whole pandemonium sounded the commands of the master of ceremonies, probably an extremely unconstrained and even unbuttoned man: “Cavaliers, step out, chaîne de dames, balancez!” 16and so on and so forth. Ivan Ilyich, in some slight agitation, threw off his fur coat and galoshes and, holding his hat, entered the room. Anyhow, he was no longer reasoning …
For the first moment no one noticed him: they were all finishing the end of the dance. Ivan Ilyich stood as if stunned and could make out nothing of this porridge in detail. Ladies’ dresses, cavaliers with cigarettes in their teeth flashed by… some lady’s light blue scarf flashed by and brushed his nose. After her, in furious ecstasy, a medical student swept, his tousled hair all in a whirl, and shoved him hard on his way. Before him also flashed, long as a milepost, an officer of some regiment. Someone shouted in an unnaturally shrill voice as he flew by, stomping, with everyone else: “E-e-eh, Pseldonymushka!” There was something sticky under Ivan Ilyich’s feet: the floor must have been waxed. In the room, not a small one incidentally, there were upward of thirty guests.
But a minute later the quadrille was over, and almost at once the very thing took place which Ivan Ilyich had imagined as he was dreaming on the plank sidewalk. Some sort of hum, some sort of extraordinary whisper passed through the guests and dancers, who had not yet had time to catch their breath and wipe the sweat from their faces. All eyes, all faces quickly began to turn to the newly entered guest. Then at once everyone started slowly retreating and backing away. Those who had not noticed were pulled by the clothes and brought to reason. They would look around and at once start backing away along with the others. Ivan Ilyich went on standing by the door, not taking one step forward, and the open space between him and the guests, the floor strewn with countless candy wrappers, tickets, and cigarette butts, was growing wider and wider. Suddenly a young man in a uniform, with wispy blond hair and a hooked nose, timidly stepped into this space. He moved forward, bending, and looked at the unexpected guest in exactly the same way as a dog looks at its master who has called it in order to give it a kick.
“Hello, Pseldonymov, recognize me?…” said Ivan Ilyich, and in that same instant felt that he had said it terribly awkwardly; he also felt that at that moment he was, perhaps, committing the most frightful foolishness.
“Y-Y-Your Ex-cellency!…” mumbled Pseldonymov.
“Well, so there. I stopped entirely by chance, brother, as you can probably imagine…”
But Pseldonymov obviously could not imagine anything. He stood, goggle-eyed, in terrible bewilderment.
“You won’t drive me out, I suppose… Glad or not, welcome the guest!…” Ivan Ilyich went on, feeling that he was abashed to the point of indecent weakness, that he wished to smile but no longer could; that the humorous story about Stepan Nikiforovich and Trifon was becoming more and more impossible. But Pseldonymov, as if on purpose, would not come out of his stupor and went on staring at him with an utterly foolish look. Ivan Ilyich cringed, he felt that another minute like this and an incredible bedlam would break out.
“Maybe I’ve interfered with something… I’ll go!” he barely uttered, and some nerve twitched at the right corner of his mouth …
But Pseldonymov recovered himself…
“Your Excellency, good heavens, sir… The honor…” he was mumbling, bowing hurriedly, “deign to sit down, sir…” And, still more recovered, he showed him with both hands to the sofa, from which the table had been moved aside for the dancing …
Ivan Ilyich felt relieved and lowered himself onto the sofa; someone rushed at once to move the table back. He glanced around cursorily and noticed that he alone was sitting down, while all the others were standing, even the ladies. A bad sign. But it was not yet time to remind and encourage. The guests still kept backing away, and before him, bent double, there still stood Pseldonymov alone, who still understood nothing and was far from smiling. It was nasty; in short: during this moment our hero endured such anguish that his Harun-al-Rashidian 17invasion of his subordinate, for the sake of principle, could actually have been considered a great deed. But suddenly some little figure turned up beside Pseldonymov and started bowing. To his inexpressible pleasure and even happiness, Ivan Ilyich at once recognized him as a chief clerk from his office, Akim Petrovich Zubikov, with whom he was not, of course, acquainted, but whom he knew to be an efficient and uncomplaining official. He immediately rose and proffered Akim Petrovich his hand, the whole hand, not just two fingers. The man received it in both of his palms with the deepest reverence. The general was triumphant; all was saved.
And actually Pseldonymov was now, so to speak, not the second, but the third person. He could turn directly to the chief clerk with his story, necessarily taking him as an acquaintance and even a close one, and Pseldonymov meanwhile could simply keep silent and tremble with awe. Consequently, decency was observed. And the story was necessary; Ivan Ilyich felt it; he saw that all the guests were expecting something, that even all the domestics were crowding both doorways, almost climbing on one another in order to see and hear him. The nasty thing was that the chief clerk, in his stupidity, still would not sit down.
“Come, come!” said Ivan Ilyich, awkwardly indicating the place beside him on the sofa.
“Good heavens, sir… here’s fine, sir…” and Akim Petrovich quickly sat down on a chair, offered him almost in flight by Pseldonymov, who stubbornly remained on his feet.
“Can you imagine what’s happened,” Ivan Ilyich began, addressing Akim Petrovich exclusively, in a somewhat trembling but now casual voice. He even drew out and separated the words, emphasized their syllables, began to pronounce the letter asomehow like ah—in short, he himself felt and was aware that he was being affected, but was no longer able to control himself; some external force was at work. He was painfully aware of terribly much at that moment.