cheerful mien, though he spoke as little and as seldom as ever. When the expedition, descending to the bridge, came opposite the town hotel, someone suddenly announced that in one of the rooms of the hotel they had just found a guest who had shot himself, and that they were awaiting the police. At once the idea was voiced of having a look at the suicide. The idea met with support: our ladies had never seen a suicide. I remember one of them saying aloud right then that 'everything has become so boring that there's no need to be punctilious about entertainment, as long as it's diverting.' Only a few stood and waited by the porch; the rest went trooping down the dirty corridor, and among them, to my surprise, I noticed Lizaveta Nikolaevna. The room of the man who had shot himself was not locked, and, naturally, they did not dare to keep us from going in. He was a young boy, about nineteen, certainly not more, who must have been very pretty, with thick blond hair, a regular oval face, a pure, beautiful brow. He was already stiff, and his white face looked as if it were made of marble. On the table lay a note, in his handwriting, saying no one was to blame for his death, and that he was shooting himself because he had 'caroused away' four hundred roubles. The phrase 'caroused away' stood just so in the note: in its four lines there were three grammatical errors. A fat landowner, who seemed to be his neighbor and was staying in another room on business of his own, sighed over him especially. From what he said it turned out that the boy had been sent to town from their village by his family, his widowed mother, his sisters and aunts, to purchase, under the supervision of a female relation who lived in town, various things for the trousseau of his eldest sister, who was getting married, and to bring them home. Those four hundred roubles, saved up in the course of decades, had been entrusted to him with fearful sighs and endless admonishing exhortations, prayers, and crosses. The boy had hitherto been modest and trustworthy. Having come to town three days before, he did not go to his relation, he put up at the hotel and went straight to the club—hoping to find somewhere in a back room some traveling gambler, or at least a game of cards. But there was no card game that day, nor any gambler. Returning to his room at around midnight, he asked for champagne, Havana cigars, and ordered a dinner of six or seven courses. But the champagne made him drunk, the cigar made him throw up, so that when the food was brought he did not touch it, but went to bed almost unconscious. He woke up the next day fresh as an apple, went at once to a Gypsy camp in a village across the river, which he had heard about in the club the day before, and did not return to the hotel for two days. Finally, yesterday at five in the afternoon, he arrived drunk, went to bed at once, and slept until ten o'clock in the evening. On waking up, he asked for a cutlet, a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem,[116] and grapes, some notepaper, ink, and the bill. No one noticed anything special about him; he was calm, quiet, and gentle. He must have shot himself at around midnight, though strangely, no one heard the shot, and his absence was noticed only today, at one in the afternoon, when, after knocking in vain, they broke down the door. The bottle of Chateau d'Yquem was half empty; about half a plate of grapes was also left. The shot had come from a small three- chambered revolver, straight into his heart. There was very little blood; the revolver had fallen from his hand onto the carpet. The youth himself was half reclined on a sofa in the corner. Death must have occurred instantly; no mortal agony showed on his face; his expression was calm, almost happy, he need only have lived. Our people all stared with greedy curiosity. Generally, in every misfortune of one's neighbor there is always something that gladdens the outsider's eye—and that even no matter who you are. Our ladies stared silently, their companions distinguished themselves by sharpness of wit and a supreme presence of mind. One of them observed that this was the best solution and that the boy even could not have come up with anything smarter; another concluded that he had lived well, if only for a moment. A third suddenly blurted out: 'Why have we got so many people hanging or shooting themselves—as if we'd jumped off our roots, as if the floor had slipped from under everyone's feet?' The
We arrived at Semyon Yakovlevich's at exactly one o'clock in the afternoon.[117] The gates of the rather large merchant's house stood wide open, giving access to the wing. We learned at once that Semyon Yakovlevich was having his dinner, but was still receiving people. Our whole crowd went in together. The room in which the blessed man received and dined was quite spacious, with three windows, and was divided into two equal parts by a waist-high wooden railing from wall to wall. Ordinary visitors remained outside the railing, but the lucky ones were admitted, on the blessed man's instructions, through the gate of the railing into his part, and there he seated them, if he so desired, on his old leather chairs and sofa; while he invariably installed himself in an ancient, shabby Voltaire armchair. He was a rather big, puffy, sallow-faced man of about fifty-five, blond and bald, with thin hair, a clean-shaven chin, a swollen right cheek, and a mouth somewhat twisted, as it were, with a big wart near his left nostril, narrow little eyes, and a calm, solid, sleepy expression on his face. He was dressed German-fashion in a black frock coat, but with no waistcoat or tie.[118] A rather coarse, though white, shirt peeped out from under the frock coat; on his feet, which I believe were ailing, he wore slippers. I have heard that he was once an official and had some rank. He had just finished dining upon a light fish soup and begun his second course— jacket potatoes with salt. This was all he ever dined upon; he also drank lots of tea, of which he was a great fancier. Three servants, kept by the merchant, scurried about him; one of them wore a tailcoat, the second looked like a shop foreman, the third like a beadle. There was also a lad of about sixteen, quite a frisky one. Besides the servants there was present a venerable gray-haired monk, a bit too corpulent, holding a tin cup. On one of the tables an enormous samovar was boiling, and there stood a tray with as many as two dozen glasses. On another table, across the room, offerings had been placed: several loaves and packets of sugar, about two pounds of tea, a pair of embroidered slippers, a foulard, a length of broadcloth, a piece of linen, and so on. Almost all the money that was donated went into the monk's tin cup. The room was crowded, the visitors alone numbering about a dozen, of whom two sat beyond the railing with Semyon Yakovlevich—one a gray-haired little old man, a pilgrim from 'simple folk,' the other a small, dry monk from elsewhere who sat decorously and looked down. The rest of the visitors stood on this side of the railing, and they, too, were all mainly from simple folk, except for a fat merchant who came from a district town, a bearded fellow and dressed in Russian style, though he was known to be worth a hundred thousand; an elderly and woebegone noblewoman, and one landowner. They were all awaiting their happiness, not daring to begin speaking. Some four of them were on their knees, but it was the landowner who attracted the most attention, a fat man of about forty-five, who knelt right up against the railing where everyone could see him, and waited reverently for a benevolent glance or word from Semyon Yakovlevich. He had already been kneeling there for an hour or so, and the man had still paid him no notice.
Our ladies crowded up to the railing with gay and giggly whispers. The kneeling ones and all the other visitors were pushed aside or screened from view, except for the landowner, who stubbornly kept himself in full view and even grabbed the railing with his hands. Gay and greedily curious eyes turned towards Semyon Yakovlevich, as did lorgnettes, pince-nez, and even opera glasses; Lyamshin at least was observing through opera glasses. Semyon Yakovlevich calmly and lazily glanced around with his small eyes.
'Fairlooks! Fairlooks!' he deigned to utter, in a hoarse bass, with a slight exclamation.
Our people all laughed: 'Fairlooks? What does it mean?' But Semyon Yakovlevich lapsed into silence and went on eating his potatoes. At last he wiped his mouth with a napkin and was served tea.
He usually did not take tea alone, but also had it served to his visitors, though by no means to all of them, usually pointing out himself those upon whom happiness would be bestowed. His instructions were always striking in their unexpectedness. He sometimes passed over rich men and dignitaries and ordered tea served to some peasant or some decrepit little lady; at other times he would pass over the beggarly folk and serve some one fat, wealthy merchant. The way the tea was served also varied: some got it with sugar in it, others with sugar on the side, still others with no sugar at all. This time happiness was bestowed upon the little monk in the form of a glass of tea with sugar in it, and on the old pilgrim, who was served tea without any sugar. But the fat monk with the tin cup from the monastery was for some reason not served at all, though up to then he had had his glass every day.
