The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

My wanderings abroad did not last long. By the fall I was back in Petersburg, and one day, in one of the passages of a shopping arcade, I unexpectedly ran into Anna Fetisovna with a basket of knitting. We greeted each other, and I asked her about the princess, and Anna Fetisovna replied:

“I know nothing about the princess, sir—we parted from each other.”

“You mean there, abroad?”

“Yes, I came back alone.”

Knowing their long-standing habitude—one might almost say, friendship—I expressed my unfeigned astonishment and asked:

“Why did you part?”

“You know the reason: it was in your presence …”

“You mean on account of the Austrian emperor?”

Anna Fetisovna was silent for a moment, and then suddenly snapped:

“What have I got to tell you: you saw for yourself … He was very polite, and the more honor to him, but I felt pained on account of the princess—on account of her lack of education.”

“What does the princess’s education have to do with it?”

“It’s that he is a king, and he knows how to behave, he went and sat with them all as an equal, while we sat in our carriage like statues put up for show. They all laughed at us.”

“I didn’t see anyone laugh at us there,” I said.

“No, sir, not there, but in the hotel—the porter, and all the people.”

“What did they say to you?”

“They didn’t say anything, because I don’t understand their language, but in their eyes I saw how they had no respect for our lack of education.”

“Well, ma’am, and that was enough to make you part from the princess!”

“Yes … why … what’s surprising, when the Lord is like to have confused our tongues, and we’ve started not understanding each other in anything … It was impossible to stay, when there was disagreement in all our thoughts, so I asked to come back here. I don’t want to serve anymore: I live by my own dim nature.”

In that “nature” a true dignity could be felt, which made lack of education painful for her.

Not for nothing did the princess call her a “flaming patriot.”

* “Where is the kaiser?” Trans.

† “[Raise them] high!” Trans.

‡ “Ever servile! That’s how one gets to heaven.” Trans.

Lefty

The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea

I

When the emperor Alexander Pavlovich finished up the Congress of Vienna,¹ he wanted to travel through Europe and have a look at the wonders in the various states. He traveled around all the countries, and everywhere, owing to his amiability, he always had the most internecine conversations with all sorts of people, and they all astonished him with something and wanted to incline him to their side, but with him was the Don Cossack Platov,² who did not like such inclinations and, longing for his own backyard, kept luring the sovereign homewards. And the moment Platov noticed that the sovereign was getting very interested in something foreign, while his suite all remained silent, Platov would say at once: “Well, so, we’ve got no worse at home,” and would sidetrack him with something.

The Englishmen knew that, and by the sovereign’s arrival they had thought up various ruses so as to charm him with foreignness and distract him from the Russians, and on many occasions they succeeded, especially at large gatherings, where Platov could not speak fully in French; but that was of little interest to him, because he was a married man and regarded all French talk as trifles that were not worth fancying. But when the Englishmen started inviting the sovereign to all sorts of warehouses, ammunition and soap-rope factories, so as to show their advantage over us in everything and glory in it, Platov said to himself:

“Well, that’ll do now. I’ve put up with it so far, but no further. Maybe I can speak or maybe I can’t, but I won’t let our people down.”

And he had only just said these words to himself when the sovereign said to him:

“Well, so, tomorrow you and I will go and have a look at their armory collection. They have such perfections of nature there,” he says, “that, once you’ve seen them, you’ll no longer dispute that we Russians, with all our importance, are good for nothing.”

Platov made no reply to the sovereign, but only lowered his hooked nose into his shaggy cape and, coming to his quarters, told his servant to fetch a flask of Caucasian vodka from the cellaret, tossed off a good glassful, said his prayers before the folding traveling icon, covered himself with his cape, and set up such a snoring that no Englishman in the whole house was able to sleep.

He thought: “Morning’s wiser than evening.”

II

The next day the sovereign and Platov went to the collection. The sovereign took no other Russians with him, because the carriage they gave him was a two-sitter.

They pull up to a very big building—an indescribable entry, endless corridors, rooms one after another, and finally, in the main hall, various henormous blustres, and in the middle under a canoply stands the Apollo Belderear.