Poor Folk and Other Stories (35 page)

‘He's gone off his head! He's gone insane!' people shouted all around, and everyone wrung their hands in despair; the landlady
had thrown both of her arms around Mark Ivanovich, for fear he might tear Semyon Ivanovich to pieces.

‘You're a pagan, a pagan soul, you're a man of wisdom!' said Mr Zimoveykin, imploringly. ‘Senya, you're not a man to take offence, you're pleasant and kind! You're simple, you're virtuous… Do you hear? All this has come about because of your goodness; I mean, I'm just a stupid, rough sort of fellow, a beggar, really; but your good self hasn't abandoned me, not likely; just see the honour you and your friends have done me; so here's thanks to you all, and to your landlady; look, I bow down to the ground before you; here, look; it's my duty, I'm only fulfilling my duty, dear lady!' Here Zimoveykin actually did bow down to the ground in a sweeping movement that included everyone, performing the action with a kind of pedantic dignity. After it was over, Semyon Ivanovich wanted to carry on talking, but this time they would not let him; they all intervened, imploring him, assuring him, consoling him, until they had contrived to make Semyon Ivanovich feel thoroughly ashamed of himself and, at length, in a feeble voice he asked to be allowed to explain himself.

‘It's like this,' he said. ‘It's true – I'm pleasant, gentle, and virtuous, do you hear, I'm devoted and loyal; I'd sacrifice the last drop of my blood, you know – do you hear, jackanapes, big shot… all right, so the job's still there; but I mean, I'm poor; and if they take it away from me, do you hear, big shot – be quiet now, and listen to this – if they take it away, it'll… it'll be there, brother, and then it won't be there… do you understand? And then I'll be off begging, brother, do you hear?'

‘Senka!' Zimoveykin wailed frantically, his voice drowning out all the hubbub that had arisen. ‘You're a free-thinker! I'll report you! What are you? Who are you? Are you a common ruffian, a thickhead withno brains? They'd dismiss a stupid ruffian without notice, don't you realize that? What sort of a man are you?'

‘Well, it's just that…'

‘What?'

‘Well, why don't you just go to the devil?'

‘Go to the devil?'

‘Yes, well, he's a subversive, and I'm a subversive; and if a man goes on lying in bed every day, eventually…'

‘What?'

‘He'll turn into a free-thinker…'

‘A free-think-er? Senka, you're a free-thinker!'

‘Wait!' cried Mr Prokharchin, waving his arm to subdue the shouting that was about to begin. ‘I don't mean it that way… Try to grasp this, grasp it, you sheep's head: I'm well-behaved today, I'll be well-behaved tomorrow, but then suddenly I'll stop being well-behaved – I'll be rude to someone; they'll give you the buckle,
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and the free-thinker will get his marching orders!…'

‘What's this you're saying?' Mark Ivanovich thundered at last, leaping up from the chair on which he had sat down in order to rest, and running across to the bed in a state of utter excitement and frenzy, quivering all over with vexation and furious rage. ‘What are you saying? You sheep! You've neither house nor home! What, do you think you're the only person in the world? Do you think the world was made for you? What are you – some kind of Napoleon? What are you? Who are you? Are you a Napoleon, eh? Are you a Napoleon? Answer me, sir, are you a Napoleon?'

But Mr Prokharchin made no reply to this question. Not because he was ashamed of being a Napoleon, or afraid of takingsuch a responsibility upon himself – no, he was no longer capable either of arguing or of pursuing the matter any further… His illness was approaching its crisis. Small, fast tears suddenly streamed from his grey eyes, which glittered with a hectic light. With bony hands that were emaciated from illness he covered his burning face, raised himself on his bed and, sobbing, began to say that he was completely impoverished, that he was an utterly ordinary, miserable man, that he was stupid and ignorant, that people must forgive him, look after him, protect him, give him food and drink, not leave him in his calamity, and God knows what else; thus did Semyon Ivanovich wail. As he did so, he looked around him in wild terror, as though at any moment he expected the ceiling to fall in or the floor to give way. As they looked at the sick man, everyone began to feel sorry for him, and their hearts softened towards him. Sobbing like a peasant woman, the landlady, too, wailed of her own lonely and defenceless plight, and helped the sick man back into bed with her own hands. Mark Ivanovich, perceiving the uselessness of disturbing the memory of Napoleon, at once relapsed into good-nature and proceeded to offer his assistance, too. The others, in order in their turn to have something to do, suggested an infusion of raspberry tea, claiming that it was instantly efficacious in all disorders, and that the sick man would find it most refreshing; but Zimoveykin immediately refuted
this, averring that in a case such as the present one there was nothing better as a remedy than a certain type of pungent camomile. As for Zinovy Prokofyevich, being a good-hearted fellow, he positively dissolved in tears, sobbing his repentance for having frightened Semyon Ivanovich with various cock-and-bull stories and, latching on to the sick man's latest avowal that he was completely impoverished and to his request that he be fed, began to organize a subvention which for the time being was to be limited to the residents of the corners. Everyone oh'd and ah'd, everyone felt sorry and distressed, while at the same time everyone wondered how the man could have got himself into such a state of panic. What could he be so afraid of? They could have understood it if he had occupied an important position, had a wife and children to support; they could have understood it if it were a question of him being hauled before some tribunal or other;but the man was just rubbish; all he owned was a trunk with a German lock; for more than twenty years he had lain behind his screen, never uttering a word, knowing nothing of the world or its cares, hoarding his meagre salary, and now suddenly, all because of someone's trivial, idle remark he had completely lost his wits with fear that life might suddenly become difficult for him… And it did not even seem to occur to the man that everyone found life difficult! ‘If he'd only taken that into account,' Okeanov said later, ‘the fact that life's difficult for us all, he'd have saved his sanity, stopped carrying on that way and somehow lived his life in a decent manner.' All that day Semyon Ivanovich was the sole topic of conversation. People went to talk to him, asked about him, comfortedhim; but by the time it was evening no amount of comforting would have done him any good. The poor man started to hallucinate and developed a fever; he fell into an unconscious stupor, and they nearly thought of sending for a doctor; the lodgers agreed on a course of action and all promised to take turns at watching over Semyon Ivanovich and calming him, and if anything should happen, to waken the others at once. With this aim in mind, in order not to fall asleep, they sat down to play cards, having stationed by the sick man's bedside the drunken friend, who had now spent the entire day in the corners, and had asked to stay the night. Since the game was being played on credit and thus afforded not the slightest interest, they soon grew tired of it. They abandoned it, then started to argue about something, then began to make a noise an bang their fists, and finally dispersed to their separate corners, still continuing
to shout and dispute angrily for a long time after that; indeed, so exhausted did their anger make them that they lost their resolve to sit up on watch, and fell asleep instead. Soon it was silent in the corners as in an empty cellar, an effect intensified by the horrible cold. One of the last to fall asleep was Okeanov. ‘I wasn't sure whether I was dreaming or awake,' he said afterwards, ‘but it seemed to me that near me, just before dawn, I saw two men holding a conversation together.' Okeanov said that he had recognized Zimo-veykin, that Zimoveykin had woken his old friend Remnev, and that they had talked for a long time in a whisper; then Zimoveykin had gone through into the kitchen, where he could be heard trying to unlock the door. The landlady afterwards confirmed that the key to the door, which she usually kept under her pillow, had gone missing that night. Finally, Okeanov testified that he had heard both men go behind the screens to where the sick man lay, and had seen them light a candle there. ‘I don't know any more than that,' he said, ‘for my eyes fell shut.' He woke up later along with all the others, when everyonein the corners suddenly leapt from their beds at the sound of a shriek from behind the screens that would have woken the dead – and it seemed to many of them that at that moment the candle had gone out. A pandemonium ensued; everyone's heart froze; they rushed pell-mell in the direction of the shriek, but at that moment from behind the screens came the sounds of scuffling, shouting, cursing and fighting. Someone struck a light, and they saw Zimoveykin and Remnev fighting together, cursing and rebuking each other; as the light fell on them, one of them shouted, ‘It's not me, it's this bandit!' and the other, who turned out to be Zimoveykin, shouted: ‘Don't touch me, I haven't done anything, I swear it to you!' Neither of them looked like human beings; but in that first moment no one paid any attention to them: for the sick man was not in his previous position behind the screen. They wasted no time inseparating the combatants and hauling them away, and saw that Mr Prokharchin was lying underneath the bed, apparently quite unconscious, having dragged his blanket and pillow with him, for all that remained on the bed itself was the bare, decrepit and greasy mattress (he had never used sheets). They hauled Semyon Ivanovich out, stretched him on the mattress, but immediately saw that there was no need for much further concern over him, that he was utterly done for; his hands had gone rigid, and he was at his last gasp. They stood over him: he was still shuddering and trembling all over, trying to
something with his arms; he articulated no sound, but winked in precisely the way a head, still warm and bleeding, having just bounced from the executioner's axe, is said to wink.

At last everything grew quieter and quieter; the death-tremors and convulsions died away; Mr Prokharchin stretched hislegs and set off, for better or worse, into the unknown. Whether Semyon Ivanovich had been frightened by something, whether he had had a dream of the kind described later by Remnev, or whether something else had been to blame – all that remain unclear; all that is certain is that even if the chief executor himself had entered the apartment and personally served notice on Semyon Ivanovich for free-thinking, drunkenness and rowdy behaviour, even if through the other door some shabby-coated beggarwoman bearing the appellation of Semyon Ivanovich's sister-in-law had made her appearance, even if Semyon Ivanovich had right there and then received a two-hundred-ruble bonus, or even if, finally, the house had caught fire and Semyon Ivanovich's head had begun to burn in earnest, it is unlikely that he would have stirred a finger now at such news. While everyone was getting over their initial stunned surprise, while they were recovering their power of speech and launching themselves into an excited flurry of suggestions, doubts and expostulations, while Ustinya Fyodorovna was dragging the trunk out from under the bed, hastily rummaging under Semyon Ivanovich's pillow, under his mattress and even inside his boots, while they were questioning Remnev and Zimoveykin, the lodger Okeanov, who up until then had beenthe dullest, meekest, and quietest of them all, suddenly acquired some presence of mind, displayed his true mettle, snatched up his cap and, under cover of the general hubbub, slipped out of the apartment. Then, just as the horrors of anarchy were reaching their culminatory phase in the hitherto peaceful corners, the door opened and there suddenly appeared, like abolt from the blue, first a gentleman of highly moral appearance with a stern and displeased expression, then Yaroslav Ilyich, followed by his retinue of staff and functionaries and, bringing up the rear, an embarrassed Mr Okeanov. The stern-looking gentleman went straight up to Semyon Ivanovich, felt his pulse, made a face, shrugged his shoulders and announced what everyone knew already, namely that the deceased man had passed away, merely adding the comment that the same thing had happened only the other day to a certain important and highly respected gentleman who had also died suddenly in his sleep.
Here the gentleman with the highly moral and displeased countenance turned away from the bedside, saying that they hadbothered him for nothing, and left. His place was immediately taken by Yaroslav Ilyich (Remnev and Zimoveykin having beendelivered into the custody of the appropriate authorities), who questioned some of the lodgers, deftly took possession ofthe trunk which the landlady was already trying to open, put Mr Prokharchin's boots back where they had been before, remarking that they were full of holes and of no further use whatever, requested that the pillow be put back, summoned Okeanov, asked for the key to the trunk which was discovered to be in the pocket of the drunken friend, and solemnly, in front of the proper persons, unlocked the personal estate of Semyon Ivanovich. It was all there: two rags, one pair of socks, half a handkerchief, an old hat, several buttons, some old boot-soles and uppers – in short, relics, remnants and refuse; in other words, rubbish, remainders, rests and relicts, which had a fusty smell; the only thing of any value was the German lock. Okeanov was summoned and the matter sternly discussed with him; but Okeanov was ready to swear an oath that he knew nothing. They asked to see the pillow, and examined it: it was dirty, but was in all other respects a perfectly ordinary pillow. They set to work on the mattress, and were lifting it up when they stopped to think for a moment or two; then all of a sudden, quite unexpectedly, something heavy fell with a resonant thud on the floor. They bent down, searched about and discovered a paper roll containing about a dozen rubles. ‘Aha!' Yaroslav Ilyich said, pointing to a tear in the mattress from which hair and stuffing protruded. They examined the tear and ascertained that it had been made very recently with a knife, and was about a foot long; they felt inside it and pulled out the landlady's kitchen knife, which someone had doubtless hidden in there after using it to slit the mattress. Yaroslav Ilyich had hardly had time to retrieve the knife from the tear and say ‘Aha!' again, when another roll of money fell out, followed by two fifty-copeck pieces, a twenty-five-copeck piece, some coins of small value and a large, old-style
pyatak
.
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They immediately picked these up in their hands. They then realized that it might not be a bad idea to cut the mattress completely open with a pair of scissors. Scissors were requested…