Yes, Pseldonymov actually was from his department, from his own office; he recalled that. He was a petty clerk, with a salary of about ten roubles a month. Since Mr. Pralinsky had taken over his office still very recently, he might not have remembered all his subordinates in too much detail, but Pseldonymov he did remember, precisely apropos of his last name. It had leaped out at him from the very first, so that he had been curious right then to have a closer look at the owner of such a name. He now recalled a man still very young, with a long, hooked nose, with blond and wispy hair, skinny and malnourished, in an impossible uniform, and unmentionables impossible even to the point of indecency. He remembered how the thought had flashed in him right then: should he not award the wretch some ten roubles to fix himself up for the holiday? But since the wretch’s face was all too lenten, and had an extremely unpleasant look, even causing disgust, the good thought somehow evaporated of itself, and so Pseldonymov remained without a bonus. The greater was his amazement when this same Pseldonymov, not more than a week ago, put in a request to get married. 14Ivan Ilyich remembered that he had somehow had no time to occupy himself with the matter more thoroughly, so that the matter of the wedding had been decided lightly, hastily. But all the same he remembered with precision that Pseldonymov was taking his bride together with a wooden house and four hundred roubles in cash; this circumstance had surprised him then; he remembered even cracking a light joke about the encounter of the names Pseldonymov and Mlekopitaev. He clearly recalled it all.
As he went on recollecting, he fell to thinking more and more. It is known that whole trains of thought sometimes pass instantly through our heads, in the form of certain feelings, without translation into human language, still less literary language. But we shall attempt to translate all these feelings of our hero’s and present the reader if only with the essence of these feelings, with what, so to speak, was most necessary and plausible in them. Because many of our feelings, when translated into ordinary language, will seem perfectly implausible. That is why they never come into the world, and yet everybody has them. Naturally, Ivan Ilyich’s feelings and thoughts were a bit incoherent. But you know the reason why.
“What then!” flashed in his head. “So we all talk and talk, but once it gets to business, only a fig comes out. Here’s an example, this very same Pseldonymov: he’s just come from the church, all excited, all hopeful, expecting to taste… This is one of the most blissful days of his life… Now he’s busy with the guests, giving a feast—modest, poor, but merry, joyful, sincere… What, then, if he knew that at this very moment I, I, his superior, his chief superior, am standing right here by his house and listening to his music! But how, in fact, would it be with him? No, how would it be with him if I should suddenly up and walk in now? hm… Naturally, he’d be frightened at first, numb with bewilderment. I’d be interfering with him, I’d probably upset everything… Yes, that’s how it would be if any other general walked in, but not I… Here’s the thing, that any other, only not I…
“Yes, Stepan Nikiforovich! You didn’t understand me just now, but here’s a ready example for you.
“Yes, sir. We all shout about humaneness, but heroism, a great deed, that we’re not capable of.
“What kind of heroism? This kind. Just consider: given the present-day relations between all members of society, for me, for me to come after midnight to the wedding of my subordinate, a registrar, who makes ten roubles—after all, this is bewilderment, this is a turnabout of ideas, the last day of Pompeii, 15bedlam! No one will understand it. Stepan Nikiforovich would die before he understood it. Didn’t he say: we won’t hold out. Yes, but that’s you old people, people of paralysis and stagnation, but I will hold out! I’ll turn the last day of Pompeii into the sweetest day for my subordinate, and a wild act into a normal, patriarchal, lofty and e-thi-cal one. How? Like this. Be so good as to listen …
“Well… here I am, suppose, going in: they’re amazed, interrupt their dancing, stare wildly, back away. Right, sir, but here I show myself: I go straight to the frightened Pseldonymov and, with the tenderest smile, in the simplest words possible, say: ‘Thus and so,’ I say, ‘I was visiting His Excellency Stepan Nikiforovich. I suppose you know, it’s here in the neighborhood …’ Here I tell, lightly, in some amusing way, the adventure with Trifon. From Trifon I pass on to how I went by foot… ‘Well—I hear music, I ask a policeman, and find out that you, brother, are getting married. Why don’t I stop at my subordinate’s, I think, to see how my clerks make merry and… get married. Now, you’re not going to drive me out, I suppose!’ Drive out! What a phrase for a subordinate. The devil he’ll drive me out! I think he’ll lose his mind, he’ll rush headlong to sit me in an armchair, he’ll tremble with delight, he won’t even know what to make of it at first!…
“Well, what could be simpler, more gracious, than such an act! Why did I come? That’s another question! That’s, so to speak, the moral side of the matter. There’s where the juice is!
“Hm… What was I thinking about? Ah, yes!
“So then, of course, they’ll seat me next to the most important guest, some titular councillor, or a relative, a retired staff captain with a red nose… Gogol described these originals nicely. So, naturally, I make the acquaintance of the bride, praise her, encourage the guests. I beg them not to be embarrassed, to make merry, to go on dancing, I joke, I laugh, in short—I’m amiable and charming. I’m always amiable and charming when I’m pleased with myself. Hm… the thing is that I still seem to be a bit… that is, not drunk, but just…
“… Naturally, being a gentleman, I’m on an equal footing with them and by no means demand any special tokens… But morally, morally it’s another matter: they’ll understand and appreciate… My act will resurrect in them all the nobility of… And so I sit there for half an hour… Even an hour. I’ll leave, naturally, just before supper, otherwise they’ll start bustling about, baking, frying, they’ll bow low before me, but I’ll just drink a glass, congratulate them, and decline supper. I’ll say: business. And as soon as I pronounce ‘business,’ their faces will all become respectfully stern at once. By this I’ll delicately give a reminder that they and I are—different, sirs. Earth and sky. Not that I’d want to impose it, but it’s needed… even in the moral sense it’s necessary, whatever you say. However, I’ll smile at once, even laugh, perhaps, and everyone will instantly cheer up… I’ll joke once more with the bride; hm… and even this: I’ll hint that I’ll come again in exactly nine months as a godfather, heh, heh! And she’ll certainly give birth by then. Because they multiply like rabbits. So everyone bursts out laughing, the bride blushes; I kiss her on the forehead with feeling, even bless her, and… tomorrow my deed is already known in the office. Tomorrow I’m stern again, tomorrow I’m demanding again, even implacable, but by now they all know who I am. They know my soul, they know my essence: ‘He’s stern as a superior, but as a man he’s an angel!’ And so I’m victorious; I’ve caught them with some one small act that wouldn’t even occur to you; they’re mine now; I’m the father, they’re the children… Go on, Stepan Nikiforovich, Your Excellency, try doing something like that…
“… But do you know, do you understand, that Pseldonymov will recall for his children how the general himself feasted and even drank at his wedding! And those children will tell their children, and they will tell their grandchildren, like a sacred anecdote, that a dignitary, a statesman (and I’ll be all that by then) deigned… etc., etc. But I’ll raise the humiliated one morally, I’ll restore him to himself… He gets a salary of ten roubles a month! But if I were to repeat this or some such thing five or ten times, I’d win popularity everywhere… I’d be impressed on everybody’s heart, and the devil alone knows what might come of it later, this popularity!…”
Thus or almost thus reasoned Ivan Ilyich (gentlemen, a man sometimes says all sorts of things to himself, and in a somewhat peculiar state besides). All this reasoning flashed through his head in about half a minute, and, of course, he might have limited himself to these little dreams and, having mentally shamed Stepan Nikiforovich, gone quite calmly home and to bed. And it would have been well if he had! But the whole trouble was that the moment was a peculiar one.