The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Oh, those terrible two or three days—why did they have to be? My aunt treated you that way out of grief, but I feel sorry for you.”

And she held out both hands to me.

I took them and said:

“Thank you, dear child, for these feelings; they do honor to your heart and your good sense. It really is impossible to believe such nonsense, that I supposedly gave him the evil eye!”

“I know,” she replied.

“Then show me your kindness … do me a favor in his name!”

“What favor?”

“Take this envelope … there’s a bit of money in it … for household needs … for your aunt.”

“She won’t accept it.”

“Well, for you then … for your education, which Ivan Petrovich was looking after. I’m deeply convinced that he would have approved of it.”

“No, thank you, I won’t take it. He never took anything from anyone for nothing. He was very, very noble.”

“But you grieve me by that … it means you’re angry with me.”

“No, I’m not angry. I’ll prove it to you.”

She opened Ollendorff’s manual of French, which was lying on the table, hastily took a photograph of Ivan Petrovich from between the pages and, handing it to me, said:

“He put it there. We had reached this place in our studies yesterday. Take it from me as a memento.”

With that the visit was over. The next day Ivan Petrovich was buried, and afterwards I remained in town for another eight days, still in the same agony. I couldn’t sleep at night; I listened to every little noise, opened the vent window so that at least some fresh human voice might come from outside. But it was of little use: two men go by, talking—I listen—it’s about Ivan Petrovich and me.

“Here,” they say, “lives that devil who gave Ivan Petrovich the evil eye.”

Someone is singing as he returns home in the still of the night: I hear the snow crunching under his feet, I make out the words: “Ah, of old I was bold”—I wait for the singer to come even with my window—I look—it’s Ivan Petrovich himself. And then the father archpriest kindly drops by and whispers:

“There’s such a thing as the evil eye and casting spells, but that works on chickens—no, Ivan Petrovich was poisoned …”

Agonizing!

“Who would poison him and why?”

“They had fears that he’d tell you everything … They should have gutted him. Too bad they didn’t. They’d have found the poison.”

Lord, deliver me at least from this suspicion!

In the end, I suddenly and quite unexpectedly received a confidential letter from the director of the chancery, saying that the count orders me to limit myself to what I have managed to do already and return to Petersburg without the slightest delay.

I was very glad of it, made ready in two days, and left.

On the road Ivan Petrovich did not leave me alone—he appeared every once in a while, but now, whether from the change of place or because a man gets used to everything, I grew bolder and even got used to him. He lingers before my eyes, but it’s nothing to me: sometimes, while I’m dozing, we even exchange jokes. He wags his finger:

“Got you, didn’t I!”

And I reply:

“And you still haven’t learned French!”

And he replies:

“Why should I study: I rattle away nicely now on what I’ve taught myself.”

X

In Petersburg I felt that they were not so much dissatisfied with me, but worse, that they looked at me somehow pityingly, somehow strangely.

Viktor Nikitich himself saw me for just a moment and said nothing, but he told the director, who was married to a kinswoman of mine, that to him I seemed unwell …

There was no explanation. A week later it was Christmas, and then the New Year. Festive turmoil, naturally—the expectation of awards. I was not so greatly concerned, the less so as I knew I would be awarded the White Eagle. On the eve, my kinswoman, the director’s wife, sent me a gift of the medal and ribbon, and I put it in a drawer together with an envelope containing a hundred roubles for the couriers who were to bring me the official order.

But during the night Ivan Petrovich suddenly nudged me in the side and made a fig right under my nose. He had been much more delicate when alive, such a thing did not suit his harmonious nature at all, but now he stuck a fig at me just like a prankster, and said:

“That’s enough for you right now. I must go to poor Tanya,” and he melted away.

I got up in the morning. No couriers with the order. I hastened to my in-law to find out what it meant.

“Can’t fathom it,” he says. “It was there, listed, and suddenly it’s like it got cut at the printer’s. The count crossed it out and said he’d announce it personally … You know, there’s some story that’s harmful to you … Some official, after leaving you, died somehow suspiciously … What was it about?”

“Drop it,” I say, “do me a favor.”

“No, really … the count even asked after your health several times … Various persons wrote from there, including the archpriest, the father confessor of them all … How could you let yourself get mixed up in such a strange business?”