Chapter I
It was on the evening of the twenty-second of March last year that a most extraordinary incident happened to me. I had been wandering about the city all that day, looking for an apartment. My old place was terribly damp, and I had already begun to cough badly. I had wanted to move since the autumn but put it off until spring. All day long I couldn’t find anything decent. Firstly, I wanted a special apartment, not one shared with other tenants, and secondly, even if it was just one room, it absolutely had to be large, and, of course, as cheap as possible at the same time. I’ve noticed that even thoughts feel cramped in a tight apartment. I, on the other hand, always liked to pace back and forth when thinking over my future stories. By the way: I always found it more pleasant to think through my compositions and dream about how they would be written than actually writing them, and, truly, this wasn’t due to laziness. Why was that?
I had felt unwell since the morning, and by sunset, I was beginning to feel very bad—something like a fever was starting. Besides, I had been on my feet all day and was tired. In the evening, just before dusk, I was also walking along Voznesensky Prospekt. I love the March sun in Petersburg, especially the sunset, on a clear, frosty evening, of course. The entire street suddenly gleams, bathed in bright light. All the houses seem to flash all at once. Their gray, yellow, and dirty-green colors momentarily lose all their gloom; it’s as if the soul brightens, as if you startle, or someone nudges you with an elbow. A new perspective, new thoughts… It’s amazing what a single ray of sun can do to a person’s soul!
But the sunbeam faded; the frost intensified and began to nip at the nose; the twilight thickened; gas lights flashed from shops and stores. As I drew level with Miller’s confectioner’s shop, I suddenly stopped dead and began to look across the street, as if anticipating that something extraordinary was about to happen to me, and at that very moment, on the opposite side, I saw an old man and his dog. I remember very well that my heart constricted from some extremely unpleasant sensation, and I couldn’t determine the nature of that feeling myself.
I am not a mystic; I barely believe in premonitions and fortune-telling; yet, like perhaps everyone else, several rather inexplicable incidents have happened in my life. For example, take this old man: why, upon meeting him then, did I immediately feel that same evening something not entirely ordinary would happen to me? However, I was ill, and morbid sensations are almost always deceiving.
The old man, with his slow, weak steps, moving his legs as if they were sticks, as if without bending them, hunched over and lightly tapping the sidewalk slabs with his cane, was approaching the confectioner’s. I had never in my life encountered such a strange, absurd figure. Even before this meeting, when we used to cross paths at Miller’s, he always struck me with a morbid feeling. His tall stature, hunched back, the deathly eighty-year-old face, the old coat torn at the seams, the broken, twenty-year-old round hat that covered his bare head, on which a tuft of white-yellow, not gray, hair remained at the very back; all his movements, done somehow senselessly, as if by a wound-up spring—all this involuntarily astonished anyone who saw him for the first time. It was indeed strange to see such an aged man, having lived out his time, alone, unsupervised, especially since he looked like a madman who had escaped from his keepers. His extraordinary thinness also struck me: he had almost no body, and it was as if only skin was glued onto his bones. His large but dull eyes, set in some blue circles, always looked straight ahead, never to the side and never seeing anything—I am sure of this. Even if he looked at you, he walked straight towards you, as if the space before him was empty. I noticed this several times. He had only recently started appearing at Miller’s, coming from no one knew where, and always with his dog. None of the confectioner’s visitors ever dared to speak to him, and he himself never spoke to any of them.
“And why does he drag himself to Miller’s, and what is he doing there?” I thought, standing on the other side of the street and irresistibly staring at him. A kind of annoyance—a consequence of illness and fatigue—was boiling within me. “What is he thinking about?” I continued to myself, “What’s in his head? And does he even think about anything anymore? His face is so lifeless that it expresses absolutely nothing. And where did he get this disgusting dog that doesn’t leave his side, as if it constitutes something whole, inseparable with him, and which looks so much like him?”
That poor dog seemed to be eighty years old too; yes, it absolutely must have been. Firstly, it looked older than any dog ever does, and secondly, why did it immediately occur to me the first time I saw it that this dog couldn’t be like all dogs; that it was an extraordinary dog; that there absolutely had to be something fantastic, enchanted about it; that it might be some Mephistopheles in canine form and that its fate was connected to its master’s fate by some mysterious, unknown paths. Looking at it, you would immediately agree that it had surely been twenty years since it last ate. It was as thin as a skeleton, or (what’s better?) like its master. Almost all its fur had fallen out, including on its tail, which hung like a stick, always tightly tucked under. Its long-eared head hung gloomily down. I had never in my life met such a repulsive dog. When the two of them walked down the street—the master ahead and the dog following right behind—its nose practically touched the skirt of his coat, as if glued to it. And their walk and their entire appearance almost seemed to articulate with every step:
We are old, oh Lord, how old we are!
I remember it once occurred to me that the old man and the dog had somehow clambered out of a page of Hoffmann, illustrated by Gavarni, and were wandering the world as walking posters for the edition. I crossed the street and followed the old man into the confectioner’s.
In the confectioner’s, the old man presented himself most strangely, and Miller, standing behind his counter, had recently begun to make a displeased grimace at the entrance of the uninvited visitor. Firstly, the strange guest never asked for anything. Each time, he walked directly to the corner by the stove and sat there on a chair. If his spot by the stove was occupied, he would stand for a while in senseless perplexity opposite the gentleman occupying his place, then, looking bewildered, would go to the other corner by the window. There, he would choose a chair, slowly sit down on it, take off his hat, place it on the floor beside him, lay his cane next to the hat, and then, leaning back in the chair, would remain motionless for three or four hours. He never picked up a single newspaper, never uttered a single word or sound; he just sat, staring straight ahead with wide-open eyes, but with such a dull, lifeless gaze that one could bet he neither saw nor heard anything of his surroundings. The dog, after circling two or three times in one spot, gloomily settled at his feet, stuck its muzzle between his boots, sighed deeply, and, stretched out full length on the floor, also remained motionless for the entire evening, as if dying for that time. It seemed that these two creatures lay dead somewhere all day long and, as the sun set, suddenly came to life solely to walk to Miller’s confectioner’s and thereby fulfill some mysterious, unknown obligation. After sitting for three or four hours, the old man would finally get up, take his hat, and go off somewhere home. The dog would also rise and, tail again tucked and head lowered, mechanically follow him with the same slow steps. The visitors of the confectioner’s eventually began to avoid the old man in every way and even avoided sitting next to him, as if he inspired disgust in them. He, however, noticed none of this.
The visitors of this confectioner’s were mostly Germans. They gathered here from all over Voznesensky Prospekt—all owners of various establishments: locksmiths, bakers, dyers, hatters, saddlers—all patriarchal people in the German sense of the word. A general sense of patriarchy was observed at Miller’s. The owner often approached familiar guests and sat with them at the table, during which a certain amount of punch was consumed. The owner’s dogs and small children also sometimes came out to the visitors, and the visitors petted the children and the dogs. Everyone was acquainted with each other, and everyone mutually respected one another. And when the guests were engrossed in reading German newspapers, Augustin, played on a rattling piano by the owner’s eldest daughter, a blonde German girl with curls, very much resembling a white mouse, trilled behind the door, in the owner’s apartment. The waltz was received with pleasure. I used to go to Miller’s in the first days of every month to read the Russian journals he received.
Entering the confectioner’s, I saw that the old man was already sitting by the window, and the dog was lying, as before, stretched out at his feet. I silently sat in the corner and mentally asked myself: “Why did I come in here when I have absolutely nothing to do here, when I’m ill, and it would be more necessary to rush home, drink tea, and lie down in bed? Am I really here just to stare at this old man?” Annoyance seized me. “What do I care about him,” I thought, recalling that strange, morbid sensation with which I had looked at him while still on the street. “And what do I care about all these boring Germans? Why this fantastical mood? Why this cheap anxiety over trifles that I’ve noticed in myself lately, which prevents me from living and looking clearly at life, about which one thoughtful critic, indignantly dissecting my last story, has already remarked?” But, reflecting and lamenting, I still remained in my place, while the illness was overcoming me more and more, and I finally regretted having to leave the warm room. I took a Frankfurt newspaper, read two lines, and dozed off. The Germans didn’t bother me. They read, smoked, and only occasionally, once every half hour, shared some news from Frankfurt in fragmented, low voices, or some joke or Scherz (jest) by the famous German wit Saphir; after which they plunged back into reading with renewed national pride.
I dozed for about half an hour and awoke from a strong shiver. I absolutely had to go home. But at that moment, a silent scene taking place in the room stopped me once more. I already said that as soon as the old man sat down in his chair, he immediately fixed his gaze somewhere and did not move it to another object all evening. I, too, happened to fall under that senselessly persistent and undiscriminating gaze: the sensation was extremely unpleasant, even unbearable, and I usually changed my seat as quickly as possible. At this moment, the old man’s victim was a small, round, and extremely neat little German man, with stiff, heavily starched collars and an unusually red face, a visiting guest, a merchant from Riga, Adam Ivanitch Schultz, as I later learned, a close friend of Miller’s, but who did not yet know the old man and many of the visitors. Enjoying reading “Dorfbarbier” (The Village Barber) and sipping his punch, he suddenly raised his head and noticed the old man’s motionless gaze upon him. This perplexed him. Adam Ivanitch was a very touchy and sensitive person, as are all “noble” Germans in general. It seemed strange and insulting to him to be scrutinized so intently and unceremoniously. With suppressed indignation, he turned his eyes away from the indelicate guest, mumbled something under his breath, and silently covered himself with the newspaper. However, he couldn’t stand it and, after two minutes, suspiciously peeked out from behind the newspaper: the same persistent gaze, the same senseless scrutiny. Adam Ivanitch remained silent this time too. But when the same circumstance was repeated for the third time, he flushed and considered it his duty to defend his nobility and not discredit the beautiful city of Riga before the noble public, whose representative he probably considered himself to be. With an impatient gesture, he threw the newspaper onto the table, energetically striking the stick it was attached to, and, blazing with self-importance, all red from the punch and from ambition, he, in turn, fixed his small, inflamed eyes on the annoying old man. It seemed that both of them, the German and his opponent, wanted to overcome each other with the magnetic power of their gazes and waited to see who would be embarrassed first and drop their eyes. The bang of the stick and Adam Ivanitch’s eccentric posture drew the attention of all the visitors. Everyone immediately put aside what they were doing and watched both opponents with grave, silent curiosity. The scene was becoming very comical. But the magnetism of the little red-faced Adam Ivanitch’s challenging eyes was entirely wasted. The old man, unconcerned about anything, continued to stare straight at the enraged Mr. Schultz and decidedly did not notice that he had become the object of general curiosity, as if his head were on the moon and not on earth. Adam Ivanitch’s patience finally snapped, and he burst out.
“Why are you looking at me so attentively?” he shouted in German, with a sharp, piercing voice and a threatening look.
But his opponent continued to remain silent, as if he did not understand and had not even heard the question. Adam Ivanitch decided to speak in Russian.
“I you asked, why you me so diligently look?” he shouted with redoubled fury. “I to the court known, and you not known to the court!” he added, jumping up from his chair.
But the old man did not even stir. A murmur of indignation arose among the Germans. Miller himself, drawn by the noise, entered the room. Upon understanding the matter, he thought the old man was deaf and leaned right up to his ear.
“Mr. Schultz asked you diligently not to look at him,” he spoke as loudly as possible, intently scrutinizing the incomprehensible visitor.
The old man mechanically glanced at Miller, and suddenly signs of some anxious thought, some restless agitation, appeared on his heretofore immobile face. He began to fuss, bent over, groaning, towards his hat, hurriedly grabbed it along with the cane, rose from the chair, and with a kind of pitiful smile—the humbled smile of a poor man being driven away from a place he had mistakenly occupied—prepared to leave the room. In this humble, submissive haste of the poor, decrepit old man, there was so much that evoked pity, so much that sometimes makes the heart seem to turn over in the chest, that the entire company, starting with Adam Ivanitch, immediately changed their view of the matter. It was clear that the old man not only could not offend anyone but also understood every minute that he could be chased away from anywhere like a beggar.
Miller was a kind and compassionate man.
“No, no,” he said, patting the old man encouragingly on the shoulder, “Sit! Aber (But) Mr. Schultz asked you diligently not to look at him. He is known to the court.”
But the poor man did not understand even this; he fussed even more than before, bent down to pick up his handkerchief, an old, ragged blue handkerchief that had fallen out of his hat, and began to call his dog, which lay motionless on the floor and was apparently sound asleep, covering its muzzle with both paws.
“Azorka, Azorka!” he mumbled with a trembling, senile voice, “Azorka!”
Azorka did not stir.
“Azorka, Azorka!” the old man repeated sadly, and nudged the dog with his cane, but it remained in the same position.
The cane fell from his hands. He bent down, knelt on both knees, and lifted Azorka’s muzzle with both hands. Poor Azorka! He was dead. He had died silently, at his master’s feet, perhaps from old age, or perhaps from hunger. The old man stared at him for a minute, stunned, as if not realizing that Azorka was already dead; then he quietly bent down to his former servant and friend and pressed his pale face to his dead muzzle. A minute of silence passed. We were all moved… Finally, the poor man got up. He was very pale and trembling as if in a feverish chill.
“One can a Schuschel (stuffed animal) make,” the compassionate Miller began, wanting to comfort the old man in some way. (Schuschel meant a stuffed animal). “One can a good Schuschel make; Fyodor Karlovitch Kriger will make an excellent Schuschel; Fyodor Karlovitch Kriger is a great master to make a Schuschel,” Miller insisted, picking up the cane from the floor and handing it to the old man.
“Yes, I will excellently make a Schuschel,” Mr. Kriger himself modestly interjected, stepping forward. He was a tall, lean, and virtuous German with reddish, patchy hair and spectacles on a hooked nose.
“Fyodor Karlovitch Kriger has a great talent to make every kind of excellent Schuschel,” Miller added, beginning to be enthusiastic about his idea.
“Yes, I have a great talent to make every kind of excellent Schuschel,” Mr. Kriger confirmed again, “and I will make a Schuschel from your little dog for free,” he added in a fit of magnanimous self-sacrifice.
“No, I will pay you for that you make a Schuschel!” shouted Adam Ivanitch Schultz frantically, red in the face again, burning with magnanimity in his turn and innocently considering himself the cause of all the misfortunes.
The old man listened to all this, visibly not understanding and still trembling all over.
“Wait! Drink one glass of good cognac!” Miller shouted, seeing that the mysterious guest was intent on leaving.
The cognac was served. The old man mechanically took the glass, but his hands shook, and before he brought it to his lips, he spilled half of it and, without drinking a drop, placed it back on the tray. Then, smiling a strange smile, completely inappropriate for the situation, he left the confectioner’s with accelerated, uneven steps, leaving Azorka behind. Everyone stood in astonishment; exclamations were heard.
“Schwerenot! was für eine Geschichte!” (Damn it! What a story!) the Germans said, staring at each other with bulging eyes.
And I rushed after the old man. A few steps from the confectioner’s, turning right, there is a lane, narrow and dark, lined with huge houses. Something prompted me that the old man had definitely turned here. The second house on the right was under construction and was entirely surrounded by scaffolding. The fence surrounding the house jutted out almost into the middle of the lane; a wooden walkway had been attached to the fence for pedestrians. In the dark corner formed by the fence and the house, I found the old man. He was sitting on the wooden sidewalk step, supporting his head with both hands, his elbows resting on his knees. I sat down beside him.
“Listen,” I said, barely knowing where to begin, “don’t grieve about Azorka. Let’s go, I’ll take you home. Calm down. I’ll go get a cab right now. Where do you live?”
The old man did not answer. I didn’t know what to decide. There were no passersby. Suddenly, he started grabbing my arm.
“Stuffy!” he said in a hoarse, barely audible voice, “Stuffy!”
“Let’s go home!” I exclaimed, rising and forcibly raising him, “you’ll drink tea and lie down in bed… I’ll bring a cab right away. I’ll call a doctor… I know a doctor…”
I don’t remember what else I told him. He tried to get up, but, having risen a little, he fell to the ground again and again began to mumble something in the same hoarse, suffocating voice. I leaned in even closer to him and listened.
“On Vasilievsky Island,” the old man wheezed, “in the Sixth Line… in the Six-th Line…” He fell silent.
“You live on Vasilievsky? But you went the wrong way; that would be to the left, not to the right. I’ll take you there right now…”
The old man did not move. I took his hand; the hand fell, dead. I looked at his face, touched him—he was already dead. It seemed to me that all of this was happening in a dream.
This adventure cost me a lot of trouble, during which my fever passed on its own. The old man’s apartment was found. He did not, however, live on Vasilievsky Island, but two steps from the place where he died, in Klugen’s house, right under the roof, on the fifth floor, in a separate apartment consisting of one small entryway and one large, very low room, with three slits instead of windows. He lived terribly poorly. The furniture consisted only of a table, two chairs, and a very old sofa, hard as stone, from which tow stuck out on all sides; and even that turned out to belong to the landlord. The stove had apparently not been lit for a long time; no candles were found either. I now seriously think that the old man invented going to Miller’s solely to sit by the candles and warm up. On the table stood an empty clay mug and lay an old, stale crust of bread. Not a single kopeck was found. There wasn’t even another change of linen to bury him; someone gave their own shirt. It was clear that he could not live this way, completely alone, and surely someone, at least occasionally, visited him. His passport was found in the table. The deceased was a foreigner, but a Russian subject, Jeremiah Smith, a machinist, seventy-eight years old. Two books lay on the table: a short geography and the New Testament in Russian translation, scored with pencil in the margins and marked with a fingernail. I acquired these books for myself. The tenants and the landlord were asked—almost no one knew anything about him. There were many tenants in this house, almost all artisans and German women who ran boarding houses with meals and service. The house manager, a gentleman, could also say little about his former lodger, except perhaps that the apartment cost six rubles a month, that the deceased had lived in it for four months, but had not paid a single kopeck for the last two months, so he was about to be evicted. They asked: did anyone visit him? But no one could give a satisfactory answer. The house was large: many people visit such a Noah’s Ark, and you can’t remember everyone. The janitor, who had served in this house for five years and probably could have clarified something, had gone home on leave two weeks earlier, leaving his nephew, a young fellow who did not yet personally know half the tenants, in his place. I do not know for sure how all these inquiries ended then, but finally the old man was buried. During these days, among other chores, I went to Vasilievsky Island, to the Sixth Line, and, only upon arriving there, smiled to myself: what could I see in the Sixth Line besides a row of ordinary houses? “But why,” I thought, “did the old man, when dying, talk about the Sixth Line and Vasilievsky Island? Was he delirious?”
I inspected Smith’s vacant apartment, and I liked it. I kept it for myself. The main thing was that there was a large room, although very low, so that at first it always seemed to me that I would hit the ceiling with my head. However, I soon got used to it. For six rubles a month, you couldn’t get better. The privacy tempted me; all that remained was to arrange for a servant, as it was impossible to live completely without one. The janitor promised to come once a day for the first while, to serve me in some extreme case. “And who knows,” I thought, “maybe someone will inquire about the old man!” However, five days had already passed since he died, and no one had come yet.
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