The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“And this will again be Ivan Petrovich?”

“Ivan Petrovich! But that’s not the end. If they ask for an encore—which I’m sure of and will see to myself—we’re not going to weary you with repetitions, but you will see the sequel of the épopée.

“The new scene from the life of Saul will be with no Saul at all. The shade has vanished, the king and his attendants have gone: through the door you can make out only a bit of the cloak of the last figure withdrawing, and on stage there’s the witch alone …”

“And again it’s Ivan Petrovich!”

“Naturally! But what you see won’t be the same as the way they portray witches in Macbeth … No stupefying horror, no affectation or grimacing, but you’ll see a face that knows what philosophy never dreamt of.¹¹ You’ll see how frightening it is to speak to one who comes from the grave.”

“I can imagine,” I said, being infinitely far from the thought that before three days were out, I would have, not to imagine, but to experience that torment myself.

But that came later, while now everything was filled by Ivan Petrovich alone—that merry, lively man, who suddenly popped up from the grass like a mushroom after warm rain, not big yet, but visible from everywhere—and everybody looks at him and smiles: “See what a firm and pretty one.”

VII

I’ve told you what the executor and the governor said of him, but when I expressed curiosity as to whether either of my officials of worldly tendency had heard anything about him, they both began saying at once that they had met him and that he was indeed very nice and sang well to the guitar and the piano. They, too, liked him. The next day the archpriest stopped by. After I’d gone to church once, he brought me blessed bread every Sunday and sacrotattled on everybody. He said nothing good about anyone and in that regard made no exception even of Ivan Petrovich, but on the other hand, this sacrotattler knew not only the nature of all things, but also their origin. About Ivan Petrovich he began himself:

“They’ve switched clerks on you. It’s all with a purpose …”

“Yes,” I said, “they’ve given me some Ivan Petrovich.”

“We know him, indeed, we know him well enough. My brother-in-law, to whose post here I’ve been transferred with the obligation of bringing up the orphans, he baptized him … His father was also a man of the cloth … rose to a clerkship, and his mother … Kira Ippolitovna … that’s her name—she left home and married his father out of passionate love … But soon she also tasted the bitterness of love’s potion, and then was left a widow.”

“She educated him by herself?”

“As if he’s got any education! He went through five grades of school and became a scribe in the criminal court … after a while they made him an assistant … But he’s very lucky: last year he won a horse and saddle at the lottery, and this year he went hunting hares with the governor. A regimental piano left by some transferred officers came as a prize in the lottery, and he took that, too. I bought five tickets and didn’t win, while he had just one and got it. Makes music on it himself, and teaches Tatyana.”

“Who is Tatyana?”

“They took in a little orphan—not bad at all … a swarthy little thing. He teaches her.”

We talked all day about Ivan Petrovich, and in the evening I hear something buzzing in my Egor’s little room. I call him and ask him what it is.

“I’m doing cut-outs,” he replies.

Ivan Petrovich, having noticed that Egor was bored from inactivity, brought him a fretsaw and some little boards from cigar boxes with glued-on designs and taught him to cut out little plaques. Commissioned for the lottery.

VIII

On the morning of the day when Ivan Petrovich was to perform and astonish everybody in tableaux at the governor’s banquet, I did not want to keep him, but he stayed through lunchtime and even made me laugh a lot. I joked that he ought to get married, and he replied that he preferred to remain “in maidenhood.” I invited him to Petersburg.

“No, Your Excellency,” he says, “here everybody loves me, and my mother’s here, and we’ve got the orphan Tanya, I love them, and they’re not suited to Petersburg.”

What a wonderfully harmonious young man! I even embraced him for this love of his mother and the orphan girl, and we parted three hours before the tableaux.

Taking leave of him, I said:

“I’m waiting impatiently to see you in various forms.”

“You’ll get sick of me,” Ivan Petrovich replied.

He left, and I had lunch alone and took a nap in the armchair, to freshen myself up, but Ivan Petrovich did not let me sleep: he soon and somewhat strangely disturbed me. He suddenly came in very hurriedly, noisily shoved the chairs in the middle of the room aside with his foot, and said:

“So here you see me; but I just want to humbly thank you—you gave me the evil eye. I’ll be revenged on you for that.”

I woke up, rang for my man, and ordered him to bring my clothes, and kept marveling to myself: how clearly I had seen Ivan Petrovich in my dream!