The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“How do you do, Your Excellency,” he replied in a very heartfelt voice, which also sounded extremely sympathetic to me.

Speaking his phrase of response in the military version, he was nevertheless skillful enough to lend his tone a shade of simple and permissible jocularity, and at the same time this response by itself established a character of familial simplicity for the whole conversation.

I was beginning to understand why “everybody loved” this man.

Seeing no reason for keeping Ivan Petrovich from maintaining this tone, I told him that I was glad to make his acquaintance.

“And I, for my part, also consider it an honor for me and a pleasure,” he replied, standing, but stepping ahead of his executor.

We made our bows—the executor went to his office, and Ivan Petrovich remained in my anteroom.

An hour later I invited him to my office and asked:

“Do you have good handwriting?”

“I have a firm hand,” he replied, and added at once: “Would you like me to write something?”

“Yes, kindly do.”

He sat down at my desk and after a minute handed me a page in the middle of which was written with a “firm hand” in clear cursive: “Life is given us for joy.—Ivan Petrovich Aquilalbov.”

I read it and couldn’t help bursting into laughter: no other expression could have suited him better than what he had written. “Life for joy”—all of life was for him a continuous joy!

A man entirely to my taste! …

I gave him an insignificant document to copy right there at my desk, and he did it very quickly and without the least mistake.

Then we parted. Ivan Petrovich left, and I remained at home alone and gave myself up to my morbid spleen, and I confess—devil knows why, but several times I was carried in thought to him, that is, to Ivan Petrovich. He surely doesn’t sigh and mope. To him life is given for joy. And where does he live it with such joy on his fourteen roubles … I suppose he must be lucky at cards, or a little bribe may come his way … Or maybe merchants’ wives … It’s not for nothing he has such a fresh pomegranate tie …

I’m sitting over a multitude of cases and minutes open before me, and thinking about such pointless trifles, which do not concern me at all, and just then my man announces that the governor has come.

I ask him in.

VI

The governor says:

“I’ll be having a quintet the day after tomorrow—their playing won’t be bad, I hope, and there will be ladies, and you, I hear, are moping in our backwoods, so I’ve come to visit you and invite you for a cup of tea—maybe it won’t hurt to amuse yourself a little.”

“I humbly thank you, but why does it seem to you that I’m moping?”

“From a remark of Ivan Petrovich’s.”

“Ah, Ivan Petrovich! The one who’s on duty with me? So you know him?”

“Of course, of course. He’s our student, singer, actor—only not a malefactor.”

“Not a malefactor?”

“No, he’s as lucky as Polycrates,⁹ he has no need to be a malefactor. He’s the universal town favorite—and an unfailing participant in every sort of merrymaking.”

“Is he a musician?”

“He’s a jack-of-all-trades: he sings, plays, dances, organizes parlor games—it’s all Ivan Petrovich. Where there’s a feast, there’s Ivan Petrovich: if there’s a lottery or a charity performance—again it’s Ivan Petrovich. He appoints the winning lots and displays the articles prettily; he paints the sets himself, and then turns at once from painter to actor ready for any role. The way he plays kings, uncles, ardent lovers—it’s a feast for the eyes, but he’s best at playing old women.”

“Not old women!”

“Yes, it’s astonishing! For the soirée the day after tomorrow, I confess, I’m preparing a little surprise with Ivan Petrovich’s help. There will be tableaux vivants—Ivan Petrovich will stage them. Naturally, some will be the kind put on for women desirous of showing themselves, but there will be three of some interest for a real artist.”

“Done by Ivan Petrovich?”

“Yes. Ivan Petrovich. The tableaux will present ‘Saul and the Witch of Endor.’¹⁰ The subject, as you know, is biblical, and the disposition of the figures is a bit trumped up, what’s known as ‘academic,’ but the whole point is in Ivan Petrovich. He’s the one everybody will be looking at—especially when the second tableau opens and our surprise is revealed. I can tell you the secret. The tableau opens, and you see Saul: this is a king, a king from head to foot! He’ll be dressed like everybody else. Not the slightest distinction, because in the story Saul comes to the witch disguised, so that she won’t recognize him, but it’s impossible not to recognize him. He’s a king, and a real, biblical shepherd-king at that. But the curtain falls, and the figure quickly changes position. Saul lies prostrate before the shade of Samuel, who comes to him. Saul is now as good as gone, but what a sight Samuel is in his shroud! … This is a most inspired prophet, on whose shoulders lie power personified, grandeur, and wisdom. This man could ‘order the king to appear in Bethel and Gilgal.’ ”