Fifty-Two Stories

IN THE ROOM which the innkeeper himself, the Cossack Semyon Spitcleanov, calls “the traveling room,” that is, set aside exclusively for travelers, at a big unpainted table, sat a tall, broad-shouldered man of about forty. He was asleep, his elbow on the table, his head propped on his fist. The stub of a tallow candle, stuck into a jar of pomade, lit up his brown beard, his broad, fat nose, his tanned cheeks, and the thick, black eyebrows hanging over his closed eyes. His nose, his cheeks, his brows, all of his features, taken separately, were crude and heavy, like the furniture and the stove in the “traveling room,” but together they resulted in something harmonious and even handsome. Such is the fortuity, as they say, of the Russian face: the larger and sharper its features, the gentler and kindlier it seems. The man was dressed in a gentleman’s suit jacket, much-worn but trimmed with a wide new band, a velvet waistcoat, and wide black trousers tucked into big boots.

On one of the benches that stood in an unbroken line along the wall, on a fox-fur coat, slept a girl of about eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings. Her face was pale, her hair blond, her shoulders narrow, her whole body thin and frail, but her nose protruded in the same fat and unattractive lump as the man’s. She was fast asleep and did not feel how the curved comb, fallen from her head, was cutting her cheek.

The “traveling room” had a festive look. The air smelled of freshly washed floors, the line that stretched diagonally across the entire room did not have the usual rags hanging on it, and in the corner, over the table, an icon lamp flickered, casting a patch of red light on the icon of St. George. Observing the most strict and careful gradation in the transition from the divine to the secular, from the icon, on both sides of the corner, stretched two rows of popular prints. In the dim light of the candle stub and the red light of the icon lamp, the pictures appeared as continuous strips covered with black blotches. But when the tile stove, wishing to sing in unison with the weather, breathed air into itself with a howl, and the logs, as if awakened, burst brightly into flame and growled angrily, then ruddy patches began to leap on the timber walls, and above the head of the sleeping man one could see now St. Seraphim, now Shah Nasr-Eddin, now a fat brown baby, goggling his eyes and whispering something into the ear of a girl with an extraordinarily dull and indifferent face…²

Outside a storm was raging. Something fierce, malicious, but deeply unhappy was rushing around the inn with savage ferocity, trying to burst inside. Banging on the doors, knocking on the windows and the roof, clawing at the walls, it threatened and then pleaded, then calmed down for a while, then plunged with a gleeful, treacherous howling down the chimney, but here the logs flared up and the fire, like a guard dog, rushed fiercely to meet the enemy; a fight started, followed by sobbing, shrieking, angry roaring. In all of it there was the sound of malicious anguish, and unquenched hatred, and the offended impotence of someone who had been accustomed to winning…

Enchanted by this wild, inhuman music, the “traveling room” seemed to be transfixed forever. But then the door creaked and a servant boy in a new calico shirt came into the room. Limping on one leg and blinking his sleepy eyes, he snuffed the candle with his fingers, added logs to the stove, and left. Just then the bell of the church in Rogachi, which is three hundred paces from the inn, began to strike midnight. The wind played with the ringing as it did with the flakes of snow; chasing after the bell’s sounds, it whirled them around the huge space, so that some strokes broke off or were drawn into a long, wavy sound, while others vanished completely in the general din. One stroke sounded as clearly in the room as if the bells were ringing just outside the window. The girl who was sleeping on the fox fur gave a start and raised her head. For a moment she gazed senselessly at the dark window, at Nasr-Eddin, over whom the crimson light from the stove danced at that moment, then she shifted her gaze to the sleeping man.

“Papa!” she said.

But the man did not move. The girl knitted her brow crossly, lay down, and tucked her legs under. Behind the door in the inn someone yawned loud and long. Soon after that the door-pulley screeched and indistinct voices were heard. Someone came in and softly stamped his felt boots, shaking off the snow.

“What is it?” a woman’s voice asked lazily.

“Miss Ilovaiskaya has arrived,” a bass replied.

Again the door-pulley screeched. The noise of the wind bursting in was heard. Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the door that led to the “traveling room,” coughed deferentially, and touched the latch.

“This way, dear miss, if you please,” said the woman’s singsong voice. “It’s clean here, pretty lady…”