‘‘It’s me, your daughter-in-law,’’ she said, going up to him. ‘‘I’ve come to see how you are.’’
He started breathing heavily from excitement. Moved by his misfortune, by his solitude, she kissed his hand, and he felt her face and head and, as if he had assured himself that it was her, made the sign of the cross over her.
‘‘Thank you, thank you,’’ he said. ‘‘And I’ve lost my eyes and don’t see anything... I can just barely see the window, and also the fire, but not people or objects. Yes, I’m going blind, Fyodor’s fallen ill, and it’s bad now without a master’s supervision. If there’s some disorder, nobody’s answerable; people will get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor’s fallen ill? Was it a cold? I’ve never taken sick and never been treated. Never known any doctors.’’
And the old man started boasting as usual. Meanwhile, the servants were hurriedly setting the table in the big room and putting hors d’oeuvres and bottles of wine on it. They put out some ten bottles, and one of them looked like the Eiffel Tower. A dish of hot little pirozhki was served, smelling of boiled rice and fish.
‘‘My dear guest, please have a bite to eat,’’ said the old man.
She took him under the arm, led him to the table, and poured him some vodka.
‘‘I’ll come to see you tomorrow, too,’’ she said, ‘‘and bring along your two granddaughters, Sasha and Lida. They’ll feel sorry and be nice to you.’’
‘‘No need, don’t bring them. They’re illegitimate.’’
‘‘Why illegitimate? Their father and mother were married in church.’’
‘‘Without my permission. I didn’t bless them and don’t want to know them. God be with them.’’
‘‘That’s a strange thing for you to say, Fyodor Stepanych,’’ Yulia said with a sigh.
‘‘In the Gospel it says children should respect and fear their parents.’’
‘‘Nothing of the sort. In the Gospel it says we should even forgive our enemies.’’
‘‘In our business you can’t forgive. If you start forgiving everybody, in three years it’ll all fly up the chimney.’’
‘‘But to forgive, to say an affectionate, friendly word to a man, even if he’s to blame—is higher than business, higher than riches!’’
Yulia wanted to soften the old man, to fill him with a sense of pity, to awaken repentance in him, but everything she said he listened to only with condescension, as adults listen to children.
‘‘Fyodor Stepanych,’’ Yulia said resolutely, ‘‘you’re old, and God will soon call you to Him; He will ask you not about your trade, and whether your business went well, but whether you were merciful to people; weren’t you severe to those weaker than you, for instance, to servants, to salesclerks?’’
‘‘I’ve always been a benefactor to those who worked for me, and they should eternally pray to God for me,’’ the old man said with conviction; but, touched by Yulia’s sincere tone and wishing to give her pleasure, he said: ‘‘Very well, bring the granddaughters tomorrow. I’ll have presents bought for them.’’
The old man was untidily dressed and had cigar ashes on his chest and knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots or clothes. The rice in the pirozhki was undercooked, the tablecloth smelled of soap, the servants stamped their feet loudly. Both the old man and this whole house on Pyatnitskaya had an abandoned air, and Yulia, who felt it, was ashamed of herself and of her husband.
‘‘I’ll be sure to come and see you tomorrow,’’ she said.
She walked through the rooms and ordered the old man’s bedroom tidied up and the icon lamp lighted. Fyodor was sitting in his room and looking into an open book without reading it; Yulia talked to him and ordered his room tidied up as well, then went downstairs to the salesclerks. In the middle of the room where the salesclerks dined stood an unpainted wooden column that propped up the ceiling, keeping it from collapsing; the ceilings here were low, the walls covered with cheap wallpaper; it smelled of fumes and the kitchen. All the salesclerks were at home for Sunday and sat on their beds waiting for dinner. When Yulia came in, they jumped up from their places and answered her questions timidly, looking at her from under their brows like prisoners.
‘‘Lord, what bad living quarters you have!’’ she said, clasping her hands. ‘‘Aren’t you crowded here?’’
‘‘Crowded but content,’’ said Makeichev. ‘‘We’re much pleased with you and offer up our prayers to merciful God.’’
‘‘The correspondence of life to personal ambition,’’ said Pochatkin.
And, noticing that Yulia had not understood Pochatkin, Makeichev hastened to clarify:
‘‘We’re small people and should live according to our rank.’’
She looked at the boys’ living quarters and the kitchen, made the acquaintance of the housekeeper, and remained very displeased.
On returning home, she said to her husband:
‘‘We should move to Pyatnitskaya as soon as possible and live there. And you’ll go to the warehouse every day.’’
Then they both sat side by side in the study and were silent. His heart was heavy, he did not want to go to Pyanitskaya or to the warehouse, but he guessed what his wife was thinking and was unable to contradict her. He stroked her cheek and said:
‘‘I feel as if our life is already over, and what’s beginning is some sort of gray half-life. When I learned that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly ill, I wept; we spent our childhood and youth together, I once loved him with all my heart—and here comes catastrophe, and I think that in losing him, I’ve finally broken with my past. But now, when you said it’s necessary for us to move to Pyatnitskaya, into that prison, I began to think that I no longer have any future.’’
He got up and went to the window.
‘‘Be that as it may, we must bid farewell to thoughts of happiness,’’ he said, looking outside. ‘‘There isn’t any. I’ve never known it, and it must be that it simply doesn’t exist. However, once in my life I was happy, when I sat all night under your parasol. Remember when you forgot your parasol at my sister Nina’s?’’ he asked, turning to his wife. ‘‘I was in love with you then, and I remember sitting all night under that parasol in a state of bliss.’’
In the study next to the bookcase stood a mahogany chest of drawers trimmed with bronze, in which Laptev kept various useless objects, among them the parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife.
‘‘Here it is.’’
Yulia looked at the parasol for a minute, recognized it, and smiled sadly.
‘‘I remember,’’ she said. ‘‘When you declared your love to me, you were holding it in your hands,’’ and, noticing that he was about to leave, she said: ‘‘If you can, please try to come back early. I’m bored without you.’’
And then she went to her room and looked for a long time at the parasol.
XVII
THERE WAS NO accountant at the warehouse, despite the complexity of the business and the enormous turnover, and it was impossible to understand anything from the books kept by the clerk at the counter. Every day, customers, Germans and Englishmen, came to the warehouse, and the salesclerks talked politics and religion with them; a nobleman came, a sick, pathetic drunkard who translated foreign correspondence for the office; the salesclerks called him a piddler and put salt in his tea. And in general, the whole trade appeared to Laptev as some great bizarrerie.
He came to the warehouse every day and tried to introduce a new order; he forbade whipping the boys and scoffing at customers; he was beside himself when salesclerks with a merry laugh disposed of musty, worthless wares somewhere in the provinces in the guise of the freshest and most fashionable. He was now the chief person in the warehouse, yet he still did not know how great his fortune was, whether the business was going well, how much salary the senior salesclerks got, and so on. Pochatkin and Makeichev considered him young and inexperienced, concealed a lot from him, and each evening exchanged mysterious whispers about something with the blind old man.