IF I HAD THE desire to order myself a ring, I would choose this inscription: ‘‘Nothing passes.’’ I believe that nothing passes without a trace and that each of our smallest steps has significance for the present and the future.
What I have lived through has not gone in vain. My great misfortunes, my patience, have touched the hearts of the townspeople, and they no longer call me ‘‘Small Profit,’’ they don’t laugh at me, and when I go through the market, they no longer pour water on me. They’ve grown used to my being a workman, and see nothing odd in the fact that I, a nobleman, carry buckets of paint and put in windowpanes; on the contrary, they willingly give me orders, and I’m now considered a good craftsman and the best contractor after Radish, who, though he has recovered from his illness and, as always, paints the cupolas of bell towers without scaffolding, is no longer able to manage his boys; in place of him, I run around town and look for orders, I hire and pay the boys, I borrow money at high interest. And now, having become a contractor, I understand how it’s possible, for the sake of a pennyworth job, to run around town for three days hunting up roofers. People are polite to me, they address me formally, and I’m treated to tea in the houses I work in, and they send to ask if I’d like to have dinner. Children and young girls often come and look at me with curiosity and sadness.
Once I was working in the governor’s garden, painting the gazebo in false marble. The governor, strolling, came into the gazebo and, having nothing to do, began talking to me, and I reminded him of how he had once invited me for a talk. He peered into my face for a moment, then formed his lips into an O, spread his arms, and said:
‘‘I don’t remember!’’
I’ve aged, become silent, stern, severe, I rarely laugh, and they say I’ve come to resemble Radish and, like him, bore the boys with my useless admonitions.
Marya Viktorovna, my former wife, now lives abroad, and her father the engineer is building a railway somewhere in the eastern provinces and buying up estates there. Dr. Blagovo is also abroad. Dubechnya has gone back to Mrs. Cheprakov, who bought it after negotiating with the engineer for a twenty percent discount. Moisei now goes about in a bowler hat; he often comes to town in a racing droshky on business of some sort and stops near the bank. They say he has already bought himself an estate with a transfer of mortgage, and constantly inquires at the bank about Dubechnya, which he also intends to buy. Poor Ivan Cheprakov loitered around town for a long time, doing nothing and drinking. I attempted to introduce him to our work, and for a time he painted roofs with us, put in windowpanes, and even developed a taste for it and, like a real housepainter, stole drying oil, asked for tips, and drank. But he soon got sick of the work and went back to Dubechnya, and later the boys confessed to me that he had incited them to go with him one night to kill Moisei and rob the general’s widow.
My father has aged greatly, become bent, and at night strolls about near his house. I never visit him.
During a cholera epidemic, Prokofy treated the shopkeepers with pepper vodka and tar, and took money for it, and, as I learned from our newspaper, was punished with a flogging because he sat in his butcher shop and spoke badly of doctors. His assistant, Nikolka, died of cholera. Karpovna is still alive and still loves and fears her Prokofy. Seeing me, she shakes her head woefully each time and says with a sigh:
‘‘It’ll be your head!’’
On weekdays I’m usually busy from early morning till evening. But on feast days, if the weather is good, I take my little niece in my arms (my sister had hoped for a boy but gave birth to a girl) and walk unhurriedly to the cemetery. There I stand or sit, and look for a long time at the dear grave, and tell the girl that her mama lies there.
Sometimes I find Anyuta Blagovo by the grave. We greet each other and stand silently, or talk about Cleopatra, about her girl, and about how sad it is to live in this world. Then, leaving the cemetery, we walk silently, and she slows her steps—on purpose, in order to spend a longer time walking with me. The girl, joyful, happy, squinting from the bright daylight, laughs and reaches her little arms out to her, and we stop and together caress the dear girl.
But when we come to town, Anyuta Blagovo, worrying and blushing, takes leave of me and continues walking alone, staid, stern. And none of those we meet, looking at her, would think that she had just been walking beside me and had even caressed the child.
1896
NOTES
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS
RICHARD PEVEAR has published translations of Alain, Yves Bonnefoy, Alberto Savinio, Pavel Florensky, and Henri Volohonsky, as well as two books of poetry. He has received fellowships or grants for translation from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the French Ministry of Culture.
LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY was born in Leningrad. She has translated works by the prominent Orthodox theologians Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff into Russian.
Together, Pevear and Volokhonsky have translated Dead Souls and The Collected Tales by Nikolai Gogol, and The Brothers Karamazov,
TITLES IN EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY
