answered her questions timidly, looking at her from under their brows like prisoners.
‘‘Lord, what bad living quarters you have!’’ she said, clasping her hands. ‘‘Aren’t you crowded here?’’
‘‘Crowded but content,’’ said Makeichev. ‘‘We’re much pleased with you and offer up our prayers to merciful God.’’
‘‘The correspondence of life to personal ambition,’’ said Pochatkin.
And, noticing that Yulia had not understood Pochatkin, Makeichev hastened to clarify:
‘‘We’re small people and should live according to our rank.’’
She looked at the boys’ living quarters and the kitchen, made the acquaintance of the housekeeper, and remained very displeased.
On returning home, she said to her husband:
‘‘We should move to Pyatnitskaya as soon as possible and live there. And you’ll go to the warehouse every day.’’
Then they both sat side by side in the study and were silent. His heart was heavy, he did not want to go to Pyanitskaya or to the warehouse, but he guessed what his wife was thinking and was unable to contradict her. He stroked her cheek and said:
‘‘I feel as if our life is already over, and what’s beginning is some sort of gray half-life. When I learned that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly ill, I wept; we spent our childhood and youth together, I once loved him with all my heart—and here comes catastrophe, and I think that in losing him, I’ve finally broken with my past. But now, when you said it’s necessary for us to move to Pyatnitskaya, into that prison, I began to think that I no longer have any future.’’
He got up and went to the window.
‘‘Be that as it may, we must bid farewell to thoughts of happiness,’’ he said, looking outside. ‘‘There isn’t any. I’ve never known it, and it must be that it simply doesn’t exist. However, once in my life I was happy, when I sat all night under your parasol. Remember when you forgot your parasol at my sister Nina’s?’’ he asked, turning to his wife. ‘‘I was in love with you then, and I remember sitting all night under that parasol in a state of bliss.’’
In the study next to the bookcase stood a mahogany chest of drawers trimmed with bronze, in which Laptev kept various useless objects, among them the parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife.
‘‘Here it is.’’
Yulia looked at the parasol for a minute, recognized it, and smiled sadly.
‘‘I remember,’’ she said. ‘‘When you declared your love to me, you were holding it in your hands,’’ and, noticing that he was about to leave, she said: ‘‘If you can, please try to come back early. I’m bored without you.’’
And then she went to her room and looked for a long time at the parasol.
XVII
THERE WAS NO accountant at the warehouse, despite the complexity of the business and the enormous turnover, and it was impossible to understand anything from the books kept by the clerk at the counter. Every day, customers, Germans and Englishmen, came to the warehouse, and the salesclerks talked politics and religion with them; a nobleman came, a sick, pathetic drunkard who translated foreign correspondence for the office; the salesclerks called him a piddler and put salt in his tea. And in general, the whole trade appeared to Laptev as some great bizarrerie.
He came to the warehouse every day and tried to introduce a new order; he forbade whipping the boys and scoffing at customers; he was beside himself when salesclerks with a merry laugh disposed of musty, worthless wares somewhere in the provinces in the guise of the freshest and most fashionable. He was now the chief person in the warehouse, yet he still did not know how great his fortune was, whether the business was going well, how much salary the senior salesclerks got, and so on. Pochatkin and Makeichev considered him young and inexperienced, concealed a lot from him, and each evening exchanged mysterious whispers about something with the blind old man.
Once, at the beginning of June, Laptev and Pochatkin went to Bubnov’s tavern to have lunch and, incidentally, to discuss business. Pochatkin had worked for the Laptevs a long time, and had entered the firm when he was only eight years old. He was their own man, was trusted completely, and when, on leaving the warehouse, he took all the day’s earnings from the cash box and stuffed them in his pockets, it did not arouse any suspicion. He was the chief in the warehouse and at home, and also in church, where he fulfilled the duties of the warden in place of the old man. For his cruel treatment of his subordinates, the salesclerks and boys had nicknamed him Malyuta Skuratov.29
When they came to the tavern, he nodded to the waiter and said:
‘‘Well, brother, bring us a half-wonder and twenty-four objectionables.’’
A little later, the waiter brought a tray with a half-bottle of vodka and several plates of various snacks.
‘‘See here, my man,’’ Pochatkin said to him, ‘‘give us a helping of the past master of slander and malignity, with mashed potatoes.’’
The waiter did not understand and became confused and wanted to say something, but Pochatkin looked at him sternly and said:
‘‘Except!’’
The waiter thought with great effort, then went to consult his colleagues, and in the end figured it out and brought a helping of tongue. When they had drunk two glasses each and had some snacks, Laptev said:
‘‘Tell me, Ivan Vassilyich, is it true that our business has begun to fall off in the last few years?’’
‘‘By no means.’’
‘‘Tell me frankly, candidly, how much we’ve been earning, how much we’re earning now, and how great our fortune is. It’s simply impossible to walk in the dark. We recently had an accounting done at the warehouse, but, forgive me, I don’t believe this accounting; you find it necessary to conceal something from me and tell the truth only to my father. From early on, you’ve been accustomed to playing politics, and you can no longer do without it. But what use is it? Well, then, I beg you, be frank. What is the state of our business?’’
