the master of the house whispered to me. “He sometimes tells the most curious stories…. Does he interest you?”
I nodded and squeezed myself into the group. The sight of a well-dressed gentleman jumping upon his chair and shouting at the top of his voice did, in fact, draw the attention of all. Many who did not know the queer fellow looked at one another in perplexity, the others roared with laughter.
“I knew Fedosey Nikolaitch. I ought to know Fedosey Nikolaitch better than any one!” cried the queer fellow from his elevation. “Gentlemen, allow me to tell you something. I can tell you a good story about Fedosey Nikolaitch! I know a story — exquisite!”
“Tell it, Osip Mihalitch, tell it.”
“Tell it.”
“Listen.”
“Listen, listen.”
“I begin; but, gentlemen, this is a peculiar story….”
“Very good, very good.”
“It’s a comic story.”
“Very good, excellent, splendid. Get on!”
“It is an episode in the private life of your humble….”
“But why do you trouble yourself to announce that it’s comic?”
“And even somewhat tragic!”
“Eh???!”
“In short, the story which it will afford you all pleasure to hear me now relate, gentlemen — the story, in consequence of which I have come into company so interesting and profitable….”
“No puns!”
“This story.”
“In short the story — make haste and finish the introduction. The story, which has its value,” a fair-haired young man with moustaches pronounced in a husky voice, dropping his hand into his coat pocket and, as though by chance, pulling out a purse instead of his handkerchief.
“The story, my dear sirs, after which I should like to see many of you in my place. And, finally, the story, in consequence of which I have not married.”
“Married! A wife! Polzunkov tried to get married!!”
“I confess I should like to see Madame Polzunkov.”
“Allow me to inquire the name of the would-be Madame Polzunkov,” piped a youth, making his way up to the storyteller.
“And so for the first chapter, gentlemen. It was just six years ago, in spring, the thirty-first of March — note the date, gentlemen — on the eve….”
“Of the first of April!” cried a young man with ringlets.
“You are extraordinarily quick at guessing. It was evening. Twilight was gathering over the district town of N., the moon was about to float out … everything in proper style, in fact. And so in the very late twilight I, too, floated out of my poor lodging on the sly — after taking leave of my restricted granny, now dead. Excuse me, gentlemen, for making use of such a fashionable expression, which I heard for the last time from Nikolay Nikolaitch. But my granny was indeed restricted: she was blind, dumb, deaf, stupid — everything you please…. I confess I was in a tremor, I was prepared for great deeds; my heart was beating like a kitten’s when some bony hand clutches it by the scruff of the neck.”
“Excuse me, Monsieur Polzunkov.”
“What do you want?”
“Tell it more simply; don’t over-exert yourself, please!”
“All right,” said Osip Mihalitch, a little taken aback. “I went into the house of Fedosey Nikolaitch (the house that he had bought). Fedosey Nikolaitch, as you know, is not a mere colleague, but the full-blown head of a department. I was announced, and was at once shown into the study. I can see it now; the room was dark, almost dark, but candles were not brought. Behold, Fedosey Nikolaitch walks in. There he and I were left in the darkness….”
“Whatever happened to you?” asked an officer.
“What do you suppose?” asked Polzunkov, turning promptly, with a convulsively working face, to the young man with ringlets. “Well, gentlemen, a strange circumstance occurred, though indeed there was nothing strange in it: it was what is called an everyday affair — I simply took out of my pocket a roll of paper … and he a roll of paper.”
“Paper notes?”
“Paper notes; and we exchanged.”
“I don’t mind betting that there’s a flavour of bribery about it,” observed a respectably dressed, closely cropped young gentleman.
“Bribery!” Polzunkov caught him up.
“‘Oh, may I be a Liberal, Such as many I have seen!’
If you, too, when it is your lot to serve in the provinces, do not warm your hands at your country’s hearth…. For as an author said: ‘Even the smoke of our native land is sweet to us.’ She is our Mother, gentlemen, our Mother Russia; we are her babes, and so we suck her!”
There was a roar of laughter.
“Only would you believe it, gentlemen, I have never taken bribes?” said Polzunkov, looking round at the whole company distrustfully.
A prolonged burst of Homeric laughter drowned Polzunkov’s words in guffaws.
“It really is so, gentlemen….”
But here he stopped, still looking round at every one with a strange expression of face; perhaps — who knows? — at that moment the thought came into his mind that he was more honest than many of all that honourable company…. Anyway, the serious expression of his face did not pass away till the general merriment was quite over.
“And so,” Polzunkov began again when all was still, “though I never did take bribes, yet that time I transgressed; I put in my pocket a bribe … from a bribe-taker … that is, there were certain papers in my hands which, if I had cared to send to a certain person, it would have gone ill with Fedosey Nikolaitch.”
“So then he bought them from you?”
“He did.”
“Did he give much?”
“He gave as much as many a man nowadays would sell his conscience for complete, with all its variations … if only he could get anything for it. But I felt as though I were scalded when I put the money in my pocket. I really don’t understand what always comes over me, gentlemen — but I was more dead than alive, my lips twitched and my legs trembled; well, I was to blame, to blame, entirely to blame. I was utterly conscience-stricken; I was ready to beg Fedosey Nikolaitch’s forgiveness.”
“Well, what did he do — did he forgive you?”
“But I didn’t ask his forgiveness…. I only mean that that is how I felt. Then I have a sensitive heart, you know.
