‘Merci for the favour! I didn’t ask for this very gracious indulgence and as far as I can tell from your expression you’re not telling the truth now, you’re talking idly, not thinking about what you’re saying. And then the fact that I’m a splendid chap didn’t prevent you – on one of your last visits – from suggesting something to Nadenka in the summer-house which wouldn’t have done this “splendid chap” any good, had he married her!’
‘Hold on! How did you find out about my “suggestion”, Screwy? So, things can’t be so bad with you if people can trust you with such secrets! But you’ve turned white with rage and it almost looks as if you’re about to hit me any minute. And just now you agreed to be objective! How funny you are, Screwy! Come, enough of this nonsense… Let’s go to the post office.’
We set off for the post office, which looked gaily onto the market place with its three little windows. Through the grey fence we could see the many-coloured flowerbed of our postmaster Maksim Fyodorovich, famous throughout the district for his expertise in laying out flowerbeds, borders, lawns, etc.
We found Maksim Fyodorovich very pleasantly occupied. Red-faced and beaming with pleasure, he was sitting at his green table leafing through a thick bundle of one-hundred rouble notes as if they were a book. Clearly, even the sight of someone else’s money was capable of lifting his spirits.
‘Hullo, Maksim Fyodorovich!’ I greeted him. ‘Where did you get that pile of money from?’
‘Well now, it’s to be sent to St Petersburg,’ the postmaster replied, smiling sweetly and pointing his chin at the corner where a dark figure was sitting on the only chair in the post office. When it saw me the figure rose and came over to me. I recognized it as my newly created enemy whom I had so deeply offended when getting drunk at the Count’s.
‘My most humble respects,’ he said.
‘Good morning, Kaetan Kazimirovich,’ I replied, pretending not to notice his outstretched hand. ‘How’s the Count?’
‘Well, thank God… but he’s rather in the dumps. He’s expecting you over any minute.’
On Pshekhotsky’s face I could detect a desire to have a little chat with me. What could the reason be for this, seeing that I’d called him ‘pig’ that evening? And why such a change in his attitude?
‘That’s a lot of money you’ve got there,’ I said, looking at the packets of hundred-rouble notes he was preparing for dispatch.
And it was just as if someone had prodded my grey matter! On one of those banknotes I saw charred edges, with one corner completely burnt off. It was that very same one-hundred rouble note that I had wanted to burn on the Shandor candle when the Count refused to accept it from me in payment for the gipsies and which Pshekhotsky had picked up when I had thrown it on the floor.
‘I’d do better giving it to some beggar than consigning it to the flames’ he had said then.
To which ‘beggars’ was he sending it now?
‘Seven thousand five hundred roubles,’ Maksim Fyodorovich said, taking ages to count them. ‘Exactly right!’
It’s awkward prying into someone else’s secrets, but I desperately wanted to know whose money it was and to whom in St Petersburg that black-browed Pole was sending it. In any event, the money wasn’t his – and the Count had no one in St Petersburg to send it to.
He’s cleaned that drunken Count out, I thought. If that stupid, deaf Owlet can rob the Count, then what problem will this goose have thrusting his paw into his pocket?
‘Oh, by the way, I’m sending some money off too,’ Pavel Ivanovich suddenly remembered. ‘Do you know what, gentlemen? You’ll never believe it! For fifteen roubles you can get five items, carriage paid. A telescope, chronometer, calendar and some other things. Maksim Fyodorych, please lend me a sheet of paper and an envelope.’
Screwy sent off his fifteen roubles. I collected my newspapers and letters and we left the post office.
We set off for the church. Screwy strode along behind me, pale and miserable as an autumn day. Contrary to expectations, he was deeply distressed by the conversation in which he had attempted to portray himself as ‘objective’.
In the church they were ringing the bells. A dense and apparently endless crowd was descending the porch steps and above it rose ancient banners and the dark cross that headed the procession. The sun played gaily on the priests’ vestments and the icon of the Holy Virgin gave off dazzling rays.
‘There’s our lot,’ said the doctor, pointing to our local beau monde that had detached itself from the crowd and was standing to one side.
‘Your lot, not mine,’ I said.
‘It’s all the same… let’s go and join them.’
I went up to my friends and exchanged bows. Kalinin the JP, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a grey beard and crab-like, bulging eyes, stood in front of everyone, whispering something in his daughter’s ear. Pretending not to notice me, he did not make one movement in acknowledgement of the ‘general’ salutation I aimed in his direction.
‘Goodbye, my sweet little angel!’ he said tearfully, kissing his daughter’s pale forehead. ‘Drive home on your own – I’ll be back by evening. My visits won’t take very long.’
After kissing his daughter once more and sweetly smiling at the beau monde, he frowned grimly and turned sharply on one heel towards a peasant with a village constable’s badge who was standing behind him.
‘Will I ever get my carriage and horses?’ he said hoarsely.
The constable shuddered and waved his arms.
‘Watch out!’ Kalinin shouted.
The crowd that was following the procession made way and the JP’s carriage drove up to Kalinin in great style, the bells of the horses jingling away. Kalinin climbed in, bowed majestically, alarming the crowd with his ‘Watch out!!’, and disappeared from view without so much as a glance at me.
‘What a majestic swine!’ I whispered in the doctor’s ear. ‘Let’s get out of here!’
‘But surely you want a word with Nadezhda Nikolayevna?’ Pavel Ivanych asked.
‘No, I must be off… I haven’t the time…’
The doctor gave me an angry look, sighed and turned away. I performed a ‘general’ bow and went over to the booths. As I fought my way through the dense crowd I turned round to glance at the JP’s daughter. She followed me with her eyes and seemed to be trying to see if I could bear her pure, penetrating gaze, so full of bitter resentment and reproach.
‘But why?’ her eyes were saying.
Something stirred within me and I felt pained and ashamed of my stupid behaviour. Suddenly I had the urge to go back and, with all the strength of my gentle (and so far not completely corrupted) soul, to caress and fondle that girl who loved me so passionately and whom I had so dreadfully insulted, and to tell her that it was not I who was to blame, but my damned pride, which prevented me from living, from breathing and from taking the decisive step. That stupid, foppish pride of mine, so brimful of vanity! Could such a shallow person as myself hold out an olive branch, when I knew and could see very well that the eyes of the local gossips and sinister old crones34 were watching my every movement? Rather let them shower her with scornful looks and smiles than lose faith in that ‘inflexibility’ and pride of mine, which silly women found so pleasing.