The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“I don’t know myself, somehow very simply: how I got myself home from those Gypsies I don’t remember, nor how I went to bed, only I hear the prince knocking and calling, and I want to get up from my cot, but I simply can’t find the edge and climb off. I crawl one way—no edge; I turn the other way—no edge there either … I’m lost on the cot, of all things! … The prince cries: ‘Ivan Severyanych!’ And I respond: ‘Just a minute!’—and I’m crawling in all directions and still don’t find the edge, and finally I think: ‘Well, if I can’t get off, I’ll jump,’ and I reared back and hurled myself as far as I could, and felt as if I’d been smashed in the mug, and around me something’s jingling and pouring down, and behind me it’s also jingling and pouring down, and the prince’s voice says to his orderly: ‘Quick, bring a light!’

“And I stand there, I don’t move, because I don’t know whether I’m seeing all this awake or in a dream; and I think I still haven’t reached the edge of the cot, but instead, when the orderly brings the light, I see that I’m standing on the floor and that I’ve rammed my mug into the master’s cabinet of crystal and broken it all …”

“How did you lose your bearings like that?”

“Very simply: I thought I was sleeping on my cot, as had always been my habit, but most likely, on coming back from the Gypsies, I lay down on the floor, and crawled all over searching for the edge, and then jumped … and jumped right into the cabinet. I lost my bearings because that … magnetizer, having rid me of the demon of drink, provided me with the demon of straying … I remembered at once the words he had spoken: ‘It may be worse if you stop drinking’—and I went looking for him—I wanted to ask him if he hadn’t better demagnetize me to the old way, but I didn’t find him. He, too, had taken a lot on himself and couldn’t bear it, and right there, in a pot-house across from the Gypsies, had drunk so much that he died.”

“And so you remained magnetized?”

“So I did, sir.”

“And did this magnetism work on you for long?”

“Why for long? Maybe it’s still working.”

“But all the same it would be interesting to learn how things went between you and the prince … Can it be that you never had it out over those swans?”

No, sir, we had it out, only it wasn’t much. The prince also came home having lost at cards and began asking me for money to win it back. I say:

“Forget about that: I have no money at all.”

He thinks I’m joking, but I say:

“No, it’s true, I had a big outing while you were gone.”

He asks:

“What could you have done with five thousand on one outing?”

I say:

“I threw it all to a Gypsy girl …”

He doesn’t believe me.

I say:

“Well, don’t believe me, then; but I’m telling you the truth.”

He got angry and said:

“Lock the door, I’m going to give it to you for throwing my money away”—and then he suddenly cancelled it and said: “No, never mind, I myself am as wayward as you are.”

And he went to his room to finish his night’s sleep, and I also went to sleep again in the hayloft. I came to my senses in a hospital and heard them saying that I had had delirium tremens and had wanted to hang myself, only, thank God, I’d been swaddled in a long shirt. Then I got better and went to the prince on his country estate, because in the meantime he had resigned his commission, and I said:

“Your Serenity, I have to earn the money back for you.”

He says:

“Go to the devil.”

I see he’s very offended at me, go up to him, and bend down:

“What does this mean?” he says.

“At least,” I beg, “give me a good, sound thrashing.”

And he replies:

“And why do you think I’m angry at you? Maybe I don’t consider you guilty at all.”

“For pity’s sake,” I say, “how am I not guilty, when I squandered a whole province of money? I myself know that hanging’s too good for such a scoundrel as me.”

And he replies:

“No help for it, brother, since you’re an artist.”

“How’s that?” I ask.

“It is,” he replies, “that you, dearest Ivan Severyanych, my half-esteemed fellow, are an artist.”

“That,” I say, “I can’t understand.”

“Don’t think anything bad,” he says, “because I’m also an artist myself.”

“Well, that’s clear enough,” I think. “Obviously, I’m not the only one who has made a pursuit of delirium tremens.”

He stood up, flung his pipe on the floor, and said:

“No wonder you threw all you had before her: I, brother, gave for her what I don’t have and never did have.”

I stared at him goggle-eyed.

“Merciful heavens,” I say, “Your Serenity, my dear man, what are you saying? It’s even dreadful for me to hear it.”

“Well,” he replies, “don’t be very frightened: God is merciful, and perhaps I’ll get out of it somehow, only I gave the Gypsy camp fifty thousand for this Grusha.”

I gasped.

“What?” I say. “Fifty thousand? For a Gypsy girl? Can the snake be worth it?”