“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.
“I’m walking… and the night is so beautiful, still. Suddenly I hear music, stomping, dancing. I ask a policeman: Pseldonymov’s getting married. So, brother, you’re throwing a ball for the whole Petersburg side? ha, ha,” he suddenly addressed Pseldonymov again.
“Hee, hee, hee! yes, sir…” echoed Akim Petrovich; the guests stirred again, but the stupidest thing of all was that Pseldonymov, though he did bow again, even now did not smile, just as if he were made of wood. “Is he a fool, or what?” thought Ivan Ilyich. “The ass ought to have smiled now, then everything would go swimmingly.” Impatience raged in his heart. “I thought, why not visit my subordinate. He won’t drive me out… glad or not, welcome the guest. Excuse me, please, brother. If I’m interfering, I’ll go… I only stopped to have a look…”
But little by little a general movement was beginning. Akim Petrovich gazed with a sweetened air, as if to say: “Could Your Excellency possibly interfere?” All the guests were stirring and beginning to show the first tokens of casualness. The ladies almost all sat down. A good and positive sign. Those who were braver fanned themselves with handkerchiefs. One of them, in a shabby velvet dress, said something deliberately loudly. The officer she had addressed also wanted to reply loudly, but since the two of them were the only loud ones, he passed. The men, most of them clerks, plus two or three students, exchanged glances, as if urging each other to loosen up, coughed, and even began making a couple of steps in different directions. Anyhow, none of them was particularly timid, only they were all uncouth and almost all of them looked with animosity at the person who had barged in on them to disrupt their merry-making. The officer, ashamed of his pusillanimity, gradually began to approach the table.
“But listen, brother, allow me to ask your name and patronymic?” Ivan Ilyich asked Pseldonymov.
“Porfiry Petrovich, Your Excellency,” the man replied, goggle-eyed, as if on review.
“Now then, Porfiry Petrovich, introduce me to your young wife… Take me to… I…”
And he made a show of getting up. But Pseldonymov rushed headlong to the drawing room. The young bride, however, had been standing right at the door, but on hearing that the talk was about her, she hid at once. A minute later Pseldonymov led her out by the hand. Everyone made way, letting them pass. Ivan Ilyich rose solemnly and addressed her with a most amiable smile.
“Very, very glad to make your acquaintance,” he said with a most high-society half bow, “and what’s more on such a day…”
He gave a most insidious smile. The ladies got pleasantly excited.
“Sharmay,” the lady in the velvet dress said almost aloud.
The bride was worthy of Pseldonymov. This was a thin little damsel, still only some seventeen years old, pale, with a very small face and a sharp little nose. Her small eyes, quick and furtive, were not at all abashed, but, on the contrary, looked at him intently and even with a certain tinge of spite. Obviously, Pseldonymov had not taken her for her beauty. She was wearing a white muslin dress with pink doubling. Her neck was skinny, her body like a chicken’s, all protruding bones. To the general’s greeting she was able to say precisely nothing.
“Yes, you got yourself a pretty little thing,” he went on in a low voice, as if addressing Pseldonymov alone, but purposely so that the bride heard it, too. But Pseldonymov said precisely nothing here as well, and this time did not even sway. It even seemed to Ivan Ilyich that there was in his eyes something cold, secretive, even something kept to himself, peculiar, malignant. And yet he had at all costs to get at some feeling. It was for that he came.
“A fine pair, though,” he thought. “However…”
And he again addressed himself to the bride, who was placed beside him on the sofa, but all he received to his two or three questions was again only a “yes” or a “no,” and in fact he did not quite receive even that.
“If only she’d get a little embarrassed,” he went on to himself. “Then I could start joking. Otherwise there’s no way out.” And Akim Petrovich, as if on purpose, was also silent, though only out of stupidity, but still it was inexcusable.
“Gentlemen! am I not perhaps interfering with your pleasures?” he tried to address everyone in general. He felt that his palms were even sweating.
“No, sir… Don’t worry, Your Excellency, we’ll get started right away, and for now… we’re cooling our heels, sir,” the officer replied. The bride glanced at him with pleasure: the officer was still young and wore the uniform of some command or other. Pseldonymov stood right there, thrusting himself forward, and seemed to stick his hooked nose out still more than before. He listened and watched, like a lackey who stands holding a fur coat and waiting for the parting words of his masters to come to an end. Ivan Ilyich made this comparison himself; he was at a loss, felt that he was ill at ease, terribly ill at ease, that the ground was slipping from under his feet, that he had gotten somewhere and could not get out, as if in the dark.
Suddenly everyone stepped aside, and a heavyset and not very tall woman appeared, elderly, simply dressed though with some festiveness, a big shawl around her shoulders, pinned at the throat, and wearing a bonnet to which she was obviously not accustomed. In her hands was a small, round tray on which stood a not yet started, but already uncorked, bottle of champagne and two glasses, no more nor less. The bottle was evidently meant for only two guests.
The elderly woman went straight up to the general.
“Don’t find fault, Your Excellency,” she said, bowing, “but since you haven’t disdained us, doing us the honor of coming to my son’s wedding, be so kind as to congratulate the young folk with wine. Don’t disdain it, do us the honor.”