The Eternal Husband and Other Stories

with wispy blond hair and a hooked nose, timidly stepped into this space. He moved forward, bending, and looked at the unexpected guest in exactly the same way as a dog looks at its master who has called it in order to give it a kick.

“Hello, Pseldonymov, recognize me?…” said Ivan Ilyich, and in that same instant felt that he had said it terribly awkwardly; he also felt that at that moment he was, perhaps, committing the most frightful foolishness.

“Y-Y-Your Ex-cellency!…” mumbled Pseldonymov.

“Well, so there. I stopped entirely by chance, brother, as you can probably imagine…”

But Pseldonymov obviously could not imagine anything. He stood, goggle-eyed, in terrible bewilderment.

“You won’t drive me out, I suppose… Glad or not, welcome the guest!…” Ivan Ilyich went on, feeling that he was abashed to the point of indecent weakness, that he wished to smile but no longer could; that the humorous story about Stepan Nikiforovich and Trifon was becoming more and more impossible. But Pseldonymov, as if on purpose, would not come out of his stupor and went on staring at him with an utterly foolish look. Ivan Ilyich cringed, he felt that another minute like this and an incredible bedlam would break out.

“Maybe I’ve interfered with something… I’ll go!” he barely uttered, and some nerve twitched at the right corner of his mouth …

But Pseldonymov recovered himself…

“Your Excellency, good heavens, sir… The honor…” he was mumbling, bowing hurriedly, “deign to sit down, sir…” And, still more recovered, he showed him with both hands to the sofa, from which the table had been moved aside for the dancing …

Ivan Ilyich felt relieved and lowered himself onto the sofa; someone rushed at once to move the table back. He glanced around cursorily and noticed that he alone was sitting down, while all the others were standing, even the ladies. A bad sign. But it was not yet time to remind and encourage. The guests still kept backing away, and before him, bent double, there still stood Pseldonymov alone, who still understood nothing and was far from smiling. It was nasty; in short: during this moment our hero endured such anguish that his Harun-al-Rashidian¹⁷ invasion of his subordinate, for the sake of principle, could actually have been considered a great deed. But suddenly some little figure turned up beside Pseldonymov and started bowing. To his inexpressible pleasure and even happiness, Ivan Ilyich at once recognized him as a chief clerk from his office, Akim Petrovich Zubikov, with whom he was not, of course, acquainted, but whom he knew to be an efficient and uncomplaining official. He immediately rose and proffered Akim Petrovich his hand, the whole hand, not just two fingers. The man received it in both of his palms with the deepest reverence. The general was triumphant; all was saved.

And actually Pseldonymov was now, so to speak, not the second, but the third person. He could turn directly to the chief clerk with his story, necessarily taking him as an acquaintance and even a close one, and Pseldonymov meanwhile could simply keep silent and tremble with awe. Consequently, decency was observed. And the story was necessary; Ivan Ilyich felt it; he saw that all the guests were expecting something, that even all the domestics were crowding both doorways, almost climbing on one another in order to see and hear him. The nasty thing was that the chief clerk, in his stupidity, still would not sit down.

“Come, come!” said Ivan Ilyich, awkwardly indicating the place beside him on the sofa.

“Good heavens, sir… here’s fine, sir…” and Akim Petrovich quickly sat down on a chair, offered him almost in flight by Pseldonymov, who stubbornly remained on his feet.

“Can you imagine what’s happened,” Ivan Ilyich began, addressing Akim Petrovich exclusively, in a somewhat trembling but now casual voice. He even drew out and separated the words, emphasized their syllables, began to pronounce the letter a somehow like ah—in short, he himself felt and was aware that he was being affected, but was no longer able to control himself; some external force was at work. He was painfully aware of terribly much at that moment.

“Can you imagine, I’m only just coming from Stepan Nikiforovich Nikiforov’s—you’ve heard of him, perhaps, a privy councillor. Well… on that commission…”

Akim Petrovich leaned his whole body forward deferentially, as if to say: “How could I have not heard, sir.”

“He’s your neighbor now,” Ivan Ilyich went on, momentarily addressing Pseldonymov, for the sake of propriety and naturalness, but quickly turning away, seeing at once from Pseldonymov’s eyes that it made decidedly no difference to him.

“The old man, as you know, was raving all his life about buying himself a house… So now he’s bought it. The prettiest little house. Yes… And today also happened to be his birthday, though he never celebrated it before, even concealed it from us, making excuses out of stinginess, heh, heh! and now he’s so glad of his new house that he invited me and Semyon Ivanovich. You know—Shipulenko.”

Akim Petrovich leaned forward again. Zealously leaned forward! Ivan Ilyich was somewhat comforted. For it had already occurred to him that the chief clerk might perhaps surmise that, at that moment, he was a necessary point of support for His Excellency. That would have been nastiest of all.

“Well, we three sat there, he stood us to some champagne, talked about business… Well, about this and that… about pro-blems… Even had a little dis-pute… Heh, heh!”

Akim Petrovich deferentially raised his eyebrows.

“Only that’s not the thing. I finally say good night to him, he’s a punctual old man, goes to bed early—old age, you know. I go out… my Trifon isn’t there! I worry, I ask: ‘What did Trifon do with the carriage?’ It turns out that, in hopes I’d stay long, he went to the wedding of some female crony of his or else his sister… God knows with him. Somewhere here on the Petersburg side. And incidentally took the carriage.” Again, for propriety’s sake, the general glanced at Pseldonymov. The man bent double instantly, but not at all in the way the general would have liked. “No sympathy, no heart,” flashed in his head.

“You don’t say!” said the deeply struck Akim Petrovich. A little hum of astonishment went through the whole crowd.

“Can you imagine my position…” (Ivan Ilyich glanced at them all.) “No help for it, I set out by foot. I thought I’d toddle along to Bolshoi Prospect, and there find some cabbie… heh, heh!”

“Hee, hee, hee!” Akim Petrovich echoed deferentially. Again a hum, now on a merry note, passed through the crowd. At that moment the glass of a wall lamp cracked with a loud noise. Someone zealously rushed to put it right. Pseldonymov roused himself and gave the lamp a stern look, but the general did not even pay attention, and everything quieted down.