“If...”
“Shut up!”
“If you could... be just a little quieter! If... You don’t scare me! Who do you think you are! You—you’re just an idiot, it’s as simple as that! If my father wishes to throw me to the dogs, then so be it!... Go on, torture me! Beat me!”
“Shut up! No conversation! I can see right through you! Are you a thief? What are you? Shut up! Do you know who I am? No debates!”
“Punishment is inevitable,” the village priest sighs. “When criminals don’t ease their guilt with a confession, then, Kuzma Egorov, flogging is inevitable. My conclusion is: it’s inevitable!”
“Whip him!” Mikhailo the bass says, in such a thundering baritone that everyone jumps.
“For the last time: Was it you, yes or no?”
“If this is what you want... fine... You can flog me! I am ready!”
“You will be flogged!” Kuzma Egorov resolves, and he rises from the table, blood rushing to his neck.
The crowd outside pushes closer to the window. In the hall the sick flock to the door, trying to peek in. Even the old woman with the broken rib is craning her head.
“Bend over!” Kuzma Egorov says.
Seraphion tears off his jacket, crosses himself, and calmly bends over the bench.
“You may flog me,” he says.
Kuzma Egorov picks up the strap, looks into the crowd for a few seconds as if waiting for someone to help him, and then begins.
“One! Two! Three!” Mikhailo counts in a deep bass. “Eight! Nine!”
The village priest stands in the corner, leafing through his book with lowered eyes.
“Twenty! Twenty-one!”
“Enough!” Kuzma Egorov says.
“More!” whispers Fortunatov the policeman. “More! More! Give it to him!”
“My conclusion is: definitely a few more!” the village priest says, looking up from his book.
“He didn’t even wince!” the people outside mutter.
The sick people in the hall make way, and Kuzma Egorov’s wife enters the room, her starched dress crackling.
“Kuzma!” she says to her husband. “What’s this money I found in your pocket? Isn’t it the money you were just looking for?”
“Oh, it is! Seraphion, get up, we’ve found the money! I put it in my pocket yesterday and forgot all about it!”
“More!” Fortunatov mumbles. “He must be beaten! Give it to him!”
“We found the money! Get up!”
Seraphion gets up, puts his jacket on, and sits down at the table. Drawn-out silence. Embarrassed, the village priest blows his nose in his handkerchief.
“Forgive me,” Kuzma Egorov mumbles, turning to his son. “Well, you know, damn! Who would have thought we’d find it just like that?”
“It’s all right. After all it’s not the first time.... Please don’t worry. I am always ready to suffer any torment.”
“Have a drink... it’ll help heal the wounds.”
Seraphion drinks, lifts his bluish nose high into the air, and with a heroic flourish walks out of the hut. For a long time afterward Fortunatov the policeman paces up and down the courtyard, his face red, his eyes goggling, muttering:
“More! More! Give it to him!”
CONFESSION—
OR
OLYA,
ZHENYA,
ZOYA
A
LETTER
MA CHÈRE, YOU ASKED me, among other things, in .your sweet letter, my dear unforgettable friend, why, although I am thirty-nine years old, I have to this day never married.
My dear friend, I hold family life in the highest possible esteem. I never married simply because goddamn Fate was not propitious. I set out to get married a good fifteen times, but did not manage to because everything in this world—and particularly in my life—seems to hinge on chance. Everything depends on it! Chance, that despot! Let me cite a few incidents thanks to which I still lead a contemptibly lonely life.
First Incident
It was a delightful June morning. The sky was as clear as the clearest Prussian blue. The sun played on the waters of the river and brushed the dewy grass with its rays. The river and the meadow were strewn with rich diamonds of light. The birds were singing, as if with one voice. We walked down the path of yellowish sand, and with happy hearts drank in the sweet aromas of the June morning. The trees looked upon us so gently, and whispered all kinds of nice—I’m sure—and tender things. Olya Gruzdofska’s hand (she’s now married to the son of your chief of police) lay in mine, and her tiny little finger kept brushing over my thumb.... Her cheeks glowed, and her eyes... O ma chère, what exquisite eyes! There was so much charm, truth, innocence, joyousness, childish naïveté, in those blue sparkling eyes of hers! I fell in love with her blond braids, and with the little footprints her tiny feet left in the sand.
“I have devoted my life, Olga Maksimovna, to science!” I whispered, terrified that her little finger would slip off my thumb. “The future will bring with it a professorial chair... on my conscience there are questions... scientific ones... my life is filled with hard work, troubles, lofty... I mean... well, basically, I’m going to be a professor... I am an honest man, Olga Maksimovna... I’m not rich, but... I need someone who with her presence... (Olya blushed and shyly lowered her eyes; her little finger was trembling) who with her presence... Olya! Look up at the sky! Look how pure it is... my life is just as boundlessly pure!”
My tongue didn’t have time to scramble out of this quagmire of driveclass="underline" Olya suddenly lifted her head, snatched her hand away from mine, and clapped her palms together. A flock of geese with little goslings was waddling towards us. Olya ran over to them and, laughing out loud, stretched her arms toward them.... O what beauteous arms, ma chere!
“Squawk, squawk, squawk!” the geese called out, craning their necks, peering at Olya from the side.
“Here goosey-goose, here goosey-goose!” Olya shouted, and reached out to touch a little gosling.
The gosling was quite bright for its age. It ran from Olya’s approaching fingers straight to its daddy, a very large foolish- looking gander, and seemed to complain to him. The gander spread his wings. Naughty Olya reached out to touch some other goslings. At that moment something terrible happened: the gander lowered his neck to the ground and, hissing like a snake, marched fiercely toward Olya. Olya squealed and retreated, the gander close at her heels. Olya looked back, squealed even louder, and went completely white. Her pretty, girlish face was twisted with terror and despair. It was as if she were being chased by three hundred devils.
I rushed to help her and banged the gander on the head with my walking stick. The damn gander still managed to quickly snap at the hem of her dress. With wide eyes and terror-stricken face, trembling all over, Olya fell into my arms.
“You’re such a coward!” I said to her.
“Thrash that goose!” she moaned, and burst into tears.
Suddenly I no longer saw naïveté or childishness in her frightened little face—but idiocy! Ma chère, I cannot abide faintheartedness! I cannot imagine being married to a fainthearted, cowardly woman!
The gander ruined everything. After calming Olya down, I went home. I couldn’t get that expression of hers—cowardly to the point of idiocy—out of my mind. In my eyes, Olya had lost all her charm. I dropped her.
Second Incident
As you know, my friend, I am a writer. The gods ignited within my breast the sacred flame, and I have seen it as my duty to take up the pen! I am a high priest of Apollo! Every beat of my heart, every breath I take, in short—I have sacrificed everything on the altar of my muse. I write and I write and I write... take away my pen, and I’m dead! You laugh! You do not believe me! I swear most solemnly that it is true!