Short Fiction - Fyodor Sologub (best romance ebooks .txt) 📗

white button at the gates; and on the brass plate, below, buried under dirt, was the word “porter.”

He pressed the button and entered the gate to look for the directory of the tenants. Before he had got that far he was met by the porter, a man of insinuating appearance, with a black beard.

“Where is apartment No. 57?”

Moshkin asked the question in a careless manner, borrowed from the district official who had caused him to lose his place. He also knew from experience that one must address porters just like this, and not like that. Wandering in strange gates and on strange staircases gives one a certain polish.

The porter asked somewhat suspiciously: “Who do you want?”

Moshkin drawled out his words with artless carelessness: “I don’t exactly know. I’ve come in answer to an announcement. I’ve received a letter, but the name is not signed. Only the address is given. Who lives at No. 57?”

“Madame Engelhardova,” said the porter.

“Engelhardt?” asked Moshkin.

The porter repeated: “Engelhardova.”

Moshkin smiled. “And what’s her Russian name?”

“Elena Petrovna,” the porter answered.

“Is she a bad-tempered hag?” asked Moshkin for some reason or other.

“No-o, she’s a young lady. Quite stylish. Turn to the right of the gate.”

“Only the first numbers are given there,” said Moshkin.

The porter said: “No, you’ll also find 57 there. At the very bottom.”

Moshkin asked: “What does she do? Does she run a business of some sort? A school? Or a journal?”

No. Madame Engelhardova had neither a school, nor a journal.

“She lives on her capital,” explained the porter.

Madame Engelhardova’s maid, who looked like a village girl, led him into the drawing-room, to the right of the dark anteroom, and asked him to wait.

He waited. It was tedious and annoying. He began to examine the contents of the elaborately furnished room. There were armchairs, tables, stools, folding screens, fire-screens, bookshelves, and small columns upon which rested busts, lamps, and artistic gewgaws; there were mirrors, lithographs, and clocks on the walls; while the windows were decorated with hangings and flowers. All these made the room crowded, oppressive and dark. Moshkin paced through this depression over the rugs. He looked at the pictures and the statues with hate.

“I’d like to chuck all this to the devil! To all the devils!”

But when the mistress of the house walked in suddenly he lowered his eyes, and hid his glimmer of hunger.

She was young, pink, and tall and quite good-looking. She walked quickly and with decision, like the mistress of a village house, and swung, not altogether gracefully, her strong, handsome white arms bared from above the elbows.

She came to him and held out her hand, a little high⁠—to be pressed, or to be kissed, as he chose. He kissed it. There was spite in his kiss. He did it with a quick, resounding smack, and one of his teeth scratched her skin slightly, so that she winced. But she said nothing. She walked toward the divan, got behind the table and sat down. She showed him an armchair.

When he had seated himself, she asked him: “Was that your announcement in yesterday’s paper?”

He said: “Mine.”

He reconsidered, and said more politely: “Yes, mine.”

He felt vexed, and he thought to himself: “I’d like to send her to the devil!”

She went on talking. She asked him what he could do, where he had studied, where he had worked. She approached the subject very cautiously, as though afraid to say too much before the proper time.

He gathered that she wished to publish a journal⁠—she had not yet decided what sort. Some sort. A small one. She was negotiating for the purchase of a property. Of the nature of the journal she said nothing.

She needed someone for the office. As he had said in his announcement that he was a pedagogue she thought that he had taught in one of the higher schools.

In any case, she wanted someone to keep the books in the office, to receive subscriptions, to carry on the editorial and the office correspondence, to receive money by post, to put the journals in wrappers, to send them to the post, to read proofs, and something else⁠ ⁠… and still something else.⁠ ⁠…

The young woman spoke for half an hour. She recounted the various duties in an unintelligent way.

“You need several people for all these tasks,” said Moshkin sharply.

The young woman grew red with vexation. She made a wry face as she remarked eagerly: “The journal will be a small one, of a special nature. If I hired several people for such a small undertaking they would have nothing to do.”

He smiled, and observed: “Well, anyhow there’ll be no chance for boredom. How many hours a day will you want me to work?”

“Well, let us say from nine in the morning until seven in the evening. Sometimes, when the work is in a hurry you might remain a little longer, or you might come in on a holiday⁠—I believe you are free?”

“How much do you think of paying?”

“Would eighteen roubles a month be enough for you?”

He reflected a while, then he laughed.

“Too little.”

“I can’t afford more than twenty-two.”

“Very well.”

He rose suddenly in his rage, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out the latchkey to his house, and said quietly but resolutely: “Hands up!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the young woman, and she quickly raised her arms.

She was sitting on the divan. She was pale and trembling.

They formed a contrast⁠—she large and strong; and he small and meagre.

The sleeves of her dress fell to her shoulders, and the two bare white arms, stretching upward, seemed like the plump legs of a woman acrobat practising at home. She was evidently strong enough to hold up her arms for a long time. But her frightened face betrayed the deep terror of her ordeal.

Moshkin, enjoying her plight, uttered slowly and sternly: “Move, if you dare! Or give a single whisper!”

He approached a picture.

“How much does this cost?”

“Two hundred and twenty, without the frame,” said the young woman in a trembling voice.

He searched in his pocket and found a penknife. He cut the picture from top