weeks), he had met for the first time, in the street, somewhere at the corner of Podiachesky and Meshchansky Streets, a gentleman with crape on his hat. The gentleman was like everybody else, there was nothing special about him, he had passed by quickly, but he had glanced at Velchaninov somehow much too intently and for some reason had at once greatly attracted his attention. At least his physiognomy had seemed familiar to Velchaninov. He had apparently met it sometime somewhere. “Ah, anyhow, haven’t I met thousands of physiognomies in my life? One can’t remember them all!” Having gone on some twenty paces, he seemed to have forgotten the encounter already, despite his first impression. But the impression nevertheless lingered for the whole day—and a rather original one: in the form of some pointless, peculiar anger. Now, two weeks later, he recalled it all clearly, he also recalled failing completely to understand the source of his anger—to the point of not even once connecting and juxtaposing his nasty state of mind all that evening with the morning’s encounter. But the gentleman hastened to give a reminder of himself, and the next day again ran into Velchaninov on Nevsky Prospect and again looked at him somehow strangely. Velchaninov spat, but, having spat, was at once surprised at his spitting. True, there are physiognomies that instantly provoke a pointless and aimless revulsion. “Yes, I actually met him somewhere,” he muttered pensively, half an hour after the encounter. Then again for the whole evening he was in the nastiest state of mind; he even had some bad dream during the night, and still it did not occur to him that the whole cause of this new and peculiar spleen of his—was just merely the earlier encounter with the mourning gentleman, though that evening he had remembered him more than once. He even had a fleeting fit of anger, that “such trash” dared to get remembered for so long; and he would certainly have considered it humiliating to ascribe all his anxiety to the man, if such a thought had occurred to him. Two days later they met again, in a crowd, getting off some Neva steamer. This third time Velchaninov was ready to swear that the gentleman in the mourning hat recognized him and strained toward him, drawn back and pushed by the crowd; it seemed he even “dared” to reach out his hand to him; perhaps he even cried out and called him by name. This last, however, Velchaninov did not hear clearly, but… “who, however, is this rascal and why doesn’t he approach me, if in fact he recognizes me and would like so much to approach?” he thought spitefully, getting into a cab and going off toward the Smolny monastery. Half an hour later he was arguing loudly with his lawyer, but that evening and night he was again in the vilest and most fantastic anguish. “Is my bile not rising?” he asked himself suspiciously, looking in the mirror.
This was the third encounter. Then for five days in a row he encountered decidedly “no one,” and of the “rascal” there was not a sound. And yet every now and then the gentleman with crape on his hat would be remembered. Velchaninov caught himself at it with some surprise. “Am I pining for him, or what?—Hm!… And it must be that he also has a lot to do in Petersburg—and for whom is this crape of his? He evidently recognized me, but I don’t recognize him. And why do these people wear crape? It somehow doesn’t become them… I suppose if I look at him more closely, I’ll recognize him…”
And something was as if beginning to stir in his memories, like some familiar but for some reason suddenly forgotten word, which you try as hard as you can to remember; you know it perfectly—and you know that you know it; you know precisely what it means, you circle around it; but the word simply refuses to be remembered, no matter how you struggle over it!
“It was… It was long ago… and it was somewhere… There was… there was …—well, devil take it all, whatever there was or wasn’t!…” he suddenly cried out spitefully. “And is it worth befouling and humiliating myself over this rascal!…”
He got terribly angry; but in the evening, when he suddenly recalled that he had gotten angry that day, and “terribly” so—it felt extremely unpleasant to him; as if someone had caught him at something. He was embarrassed and surprised:
“It means, then, that there are reasons for my getting so angry… out of the blue… just from remembering…” He did not finish his thought.
And the next day he got still angrier, but this time it seemed to him that there was a cause and that he was perfectly right; it was “an unheard-of impertinence”: the thing was that a fourth encounter had taken place. The gentleman with the crape had appeared again, as if from under the ground. Velchaninov had only just caught in the street that very state councillor and necessary gentleman whom he was now trying to catch by coming upon him by chance at his country house, because this official, barely acquainted with Velchaninov, but needed for his case, refused to be caught, then as now, and was hiding as well as he could, not wishing for his part to meet with Velchaninov; rejoicing that he had finally run into him, Velchaninov walked beside him, hurrying, peeking into his eyes, and trying as well as he could to guide the gray-haired old fox toward a certain theme, toward a certain conversation in which he might divulge and let drop one much-sought and long-awaited little phrase; but the gray- haired old fox also kept his own counsel, laughed it off, and said nothing—and then, precisely at this extremely tricky moment, Velchaninov’s eye suddenly picked out, across the street, the gentleman with crape on his hat. He was standing there and gazing intently at them both; he was watching them—that was obvious—and even seemed to be chuckling.
“Devil take it!” Velchaninov flew into a rage, having already parted from the official and ascribing all his failure with him to the sudden appearance of this “impudent fellow.” “Devil take it, is he spying on me, or what! He’s obviously keeping watch on me! Has somebody hired him, or what, and… and… and, by God, he was chuckling! I’ll beat him up, by God… Too bad I don’t carry a stick! I’ll buy a stick! I won’t leave it like this! Who is he? I absolutely must know who he is!”
Finally—exactly three days after this (fourth) encounter—we find Velchaninov in his restaurant, as we have already described him, now completely and seriously alarmed, and even somewhat at a loss. He even could not help admitting it himself, despite all his pride. He was forced, finally, to realize, having juxtaposed all the circumstances, that all his spleen, all this
“Granted I’m a hypochondriac,” thought Velchaninov, “and am therefore ready to make an elephant out of a gnat, but, all the same, is it any easier for me if all this
Indeed, in this (fifth) encounter today, which so alarmed Velchaninov, the elephant seemed almost altogether a gnat: the gentleman, as before, whisked past, but this time no longer examining Velchaninov and not making a show, as before, of recognizing him—but, on the contrary, lowering his eyes and seeming to wish very much not to be noticed himself. Velchaninov turned and shouted to him at the top of his voice:
“Hey, you! crape-hat! So now you’re hiding! Wait—who are you?”
The question (and the whole shout) was quite witless. But Velchaninov realized it only after he shouted. At this shout—the gentleman turned, paused for a moment, became flustered, smiled, was about to say something, to do something—for a moment, obviously, was in terrible indecision, and suddenly—turned and ran away without looking back. Velchaninov gazed after him in astonishment.
“And what?” he thought, “what if it’s not in fact he who is bothering me, but, on the contrary, I him, and that’s the whole thing?”
After dinner, he hastened off to the official in his country house. He did not find the official; he was told that “the master has not come back since morning, and is unlikely to come back tonight before three or four o’clock, because he is staying in town for a name-day party.” This was such a “bother” that, in his first fit of rage, Velchaninov decided to go to the name-day party himself and in fact even set off; but, realizing on the way that this
