Fifty-Two Stories

“After a good dinner, it takes only the most insignificant pretext for devilishly big thoughts to come into my head. For instance, you and I just saw two young men at the buffet, and you heard one of them congratulate the other on becoming a celebrity. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, ‘you’re already a celebrity and are beginning to be famous.’ Obviously actors or microscopic journalists. But they’re not the point. I, sir, am now interested in the question of what, in fact, should be understood by the words ‘fame’ and ‘celebrity.’ What’s your opinion, sir? Pushkin called fame a bright patch on rags;¹ we all understand it Pushkin fashion, that is, more or less subjectively, but no one has yet given a clear, logical definition of this word. I’d give a lot for such a definition.”

“Why do you need it so much?”

“You see, if we knew what fame is, we might also know the ways of winning it,” the first-class passenger said after some thought. “I must point out to you, sir, that when I was younger I strove for celebrity with every fiber of my soul. Popularity was, so to speak, my madness. For the sake of it I studied, worked, didn’t sleep nights, didn’t eat enough, and ruined my health. And it seems, insofar as I can judge impartially, that I had all the qualifications for it. First of all, sir, I am an engineer by profession. In my lifetime I’ve built a couple of dozen splendid bridges in Russia, I’ve constructed water supply systems for three towns, I’ve worked in Russia, in England, in Belgium…Second, I’ve written many specialized articles in my line. Third, my dear sir, I’ve had a weakness for chemistry since childhood; devoting my leisure to this science, I have discovered methods for obtaining certain organic acids, so that you will find my name in all foreign chemistry textbooks. All this while I held a position, rose to the rank of actual state councillor, and have a spotless record. I won’t impose on your attention by listing all my honors and achievements, and will only say that I did much more than some celebrities. And what then? I’m already old, on my last legs, one might say, and I’m as much a celebrity as that black dog running along the embankment.”

“How can you tell? Maybe you are a celebrity.”

“Hm!…We’ll test it right now…Tell me, have you ever heard the name Krikunov?”

The vis-à-vis

looked up at the ceiling, thought a little, and laughed.

“No, never heard it…,” he said.

“It’s my last name. You, an educated and elderly man, have never heard of me—conclusive proof! Obviously, in striving to become a celebrity, I didn’t do what I should have done at all. I didn’t know the proper methods, and, wishing to catch fame by the tail, I started from the wrong end.”

“What are the proper methods?”