PART I
THE LION OF STARGOROD
CHAPTER I
BEZENCHUK AND 'THE NYMPHS'
THERE were so many hairdressers and undertakers in a certain Russian provincial town called N——that it looked as if the inhabitants were born for the sole purpose of having a shave, a hair-cut, or a refreshing shampoo, and then of dying immediately after. In actual fact, there were very few births, shaves, or deaths in the town, for life was very quiet there. The evenings in spring were intoxicating, the mud glistened in the moonlight like anthracite, and the young men in the town were so much in love with the secretary of the Union of Communist Youth that she could not collect the subscriptions properly.
The questions of love and death did not affect Hippolyte Matveyevich Vorobianinov, although he was Supposed to be busy with these matters every day from nine in the morning till five at night, with one hour off for lunch.
In the morning, after drinking a glass of hot milk which his mother-in-law gave him, he used to go out of the dingy house into the wide Comrade Gubensky Street, which was flooded with light. It was the pleasantest kind of street you could possibly find in a provincial town. On the left-hand side, behind some green shop windows there were the coffins belonging to Nymphs, the undertakers. On the right-hand side, behind some small windows out of which nearly all the putty had dropped, there were more coffins, dusty and made of oak, belonging to another undertaker, Bezenchuk. Farther on, the hairdressers 'Pierre and Constantine' promised their customers a 'Manicure' or 'Hair Wave in Your Own Home'. A little farther on there was an hotel with another hairdresser's shop on the ground floor, and behind this, on a large open space, stood a pale anaemic-looking calf tenderly licking a rusty shop sign which was propped up at the side of a gate. You could only just read what was written on it: 'The Undertakers Welcome.' Although there were so many undertakers there were very few clients. The Welcomes had gone bankrupt three years ago, just at the time when Hippolyte first settled in the town. As for Bezenchuk, he drank so heavily that one day he tried to pawn his best show coffin.
People did not die so often in the town, and no one knew this better than Hippolyte, for he worked in a Government office where he was in charge of the register of births, marriages, and deaths.
His desk in the office was like the slab off a tombstone. The left-hand corner of it had crumbled away, gnawed by rats, and its jerry legs trembled under the weight of bulging brown files containing entries from which you could gather all the information you might want about the inhabitants and any genealogical trees that had managed to sprout on this poor provincial soil.
On Friday the 15th April 1927 Hippolyte woke up as usual at half-past seven and immediately thrust his nose under a pair of old-fashioned gold-rimmed pince-nez. He never wore spectacles. One day he decided it was unhygienic to wear pince-nez, So he ran off to the optician and bought a pair of rimless glasses with rolled gold sides to them. This happened when his wife was still alive. He liked the spectacles, but as soon as his wife told him he looked the image of a Tsarist Minister he gave them away to the porter in the yard. Although the porter was not at all shortsighted he grew used to the spectacles and wore them with pleasure. 'Bon jour,' Hippolyte mumbled to himself as he dangled his feet over the edge of the bed. Bon jour meant he had wakened up in a good mood. If he grunted 'Guten Morgen' on waking up, then that generally meant his liver was behaving badly, that it was no joke to be fifty-two years old, and that the weather was very muggy these days.
He thrust his scraggy legs into a pair of ready-made trousers bought before the War, fastened them round his ankles with two pieces of tape, and pushed his feet into a pair of low, comfortable boots with square toes. Five minutes later he was dressed in a short black coat and a waistcoat made of grey cloth sprinkled with small silver stars. He shook the last drops of water from his grey head, twitched his moustache, and slowly felt his scrubby chin. Then he rapidly brushed his hair and, smiling politely, walked towards his mother-in-law as she came into his room.
'Hippolyte,' she shouted, 'I had a bad dream last night.'
Hippolyte looked at her from top to toe. He was well over six feet, and from such a height it was easy enough for him to look down scornfully at her.
'I dreamt of poor dear Maria last night,' she continued loudly, 'her hair was down and she was wearing a golden belt.'
She always bellowed when she spoke, and this time the lustres on the dusty chandeher rattled and shook.
'I'm most upset. I'm sure something dreadful will happen.'
She blew out the last words with such force that the tuft of hair on the top of Hippolyte's head rose in the air.
He frowned and said in a matter-of-fact voice:
'Nothing will happen, mother. Have you paid the water-rate yet?'
She had not paid the water-rate and his goloshes had not been cleaned. Hippolyte did not love his mother-in-law. She was stupid, but she was too old to grow any wiser now. She was terribly mean, and it was only because he was so poor that she could not be any meaner. Her voice was so deep and so powerful that even Richard Coeur de Lion would have been envious of it. And, above all, she had dreams. She was always having dreams. She dreamt of maidens in belts, of horses decked out in gold cloth, of porters playing harps, of archangels walking about in sheepskin coats, and of knitting-needles that clicked and jumped about rooms. Clavdia Ivanovna Petukhov was a stupid old woman. Besides, she had whiskers on her upper lip that looked like the bristles in a shaving-brush.
Hippolyte went out of the house in rather a bad temper.
Bezenchuk, the undertaker, was leaning against the door of his shop. He had had so many financial crashes and had soaked so much in drink that his eyes were bright yellow and flashed like a cat’s.
‘Good morning, friend,’ he shouted across to Hippolyte.
Hippolyte politely raised his greasy felt hat.
‘How’s your dear mother-in-law, may I ask?’
‘H’m. H’m,’ answered Hippolyte rather vaguely, and shrugged his shoulders as he passed the undertaker.
‘Ah, well,’ said Bezenchuk, ‘God grant her good health. Business is bad these days. Such losses, my dear sir, such losses!’
He folded his arms again and continued leaning against the door.
Hippolyte was stopped again at the Nymphs’. There were three owners of this shop. They all three bowed to him and asked in a chorus about his mother-in-law’s health.
‘Quite well, quite well,’ he replied. ‘She dreamt last night of a girl with golden hair.’
The three Nymphs looked at each other and sighed deeply.
All this made Hippolyte five minutes late for his office, as he learnt from the clock which hung under the motto, 'Do your work and go your way.'
He took a blue felt cushion out of the drawer in his table, put it on his chair, twisted the ends of his moustache until they were in a line with the edge of his table, and then sat down. Seated, he was slightly higher than the rest of his colleagues.
Two young people—a man and a girl—were shyly following his movements. The man was in a heavy winter overcoat. He seemed to be oppressed by the atmosphere of the room, the smell of ink, the loudticking clock, and the severe motto, 'Do your work and go your way.' Although he had not even started his work he would willingly have gone away. He felt his business to be so insignificant that he was quite ashamed to trouble such an important-looking citizen as Hippolyte. For his part, Hippolyte could see quite easily that the man's business was not important, and that it could very well wait. He therefore opened File Number 2 and got on with his work. The young girl, who was wearing a long coat edged with black braid, whispered something to the man, and blushing Scarlet began to move slowly towards Hippolyte.
'Comrade,' she said, 'where can we——'
The man in the overcoat sighed happily and quite unexpectedly heard himself bark out: 'Get married?'
Hippolyte looked at them through the grille.
'Birth did you say? Death?'
'No, marriage,' said the man, looking foolishly round the room.
'The girl burst out laughing. The matter was soon fixed up. Hippolyte, as nimble as a conjurer, set to work. He entered the names of the newly-married couple into a very thick book, sternly questioned the witnesses, who had been rapidly brought in from the Street by the girl, breathed long and tenderly on to a rubber stamp, and then slightly raising himself from his seat, he pressed the stamp on their rather grubby passports. He took two roubles from the young couple, handed them a receipt, and said with a smile: 'For the completed sacrament.'
Then he drew himself up to his full height. The broad yellow beams of the sun fell on his shoulders like epaulettes. He looked rather absurd, but unusually imposing. His glasses shone. The young people stood in front of him like two lambs.
'Young people,' he said solemnly, 'allow me to congratulate you, as we used to say in the old days, on being legally married. It is very, very pleasant to see young people such as you moving hand in hand towards the attainment of eternal ideals. It is very, very pleasant!'
After this speech Hippolyte shook hands with them, sat down again, and feeling extremely pleased with himself went on reading File Number 2.
His colleagues at the next table tittered over their inkpots.
The ordinary working day began. No one else disturbed the registrar of marriages and deaths. Through the window Hippolyte could see people hurrying past in the cold spring air, and some of the clerks stood at the window and chatted together about what was happening outside. Towards evening Bezenchuk went by. He had been walking about all day trying to discover whether any one had died.
At last it was time for Hippolyte to leave the office. He put his papers away, hid the felt cushion in the drawer, combed his moustache, and smacked his lips at the thought of the hot soup waiting for him at home. Suddenly the door opened and in came Bezenchuk.
'Hallo!' said Hippolyte, smiling, 'what have you got to say for yourself?'
Bezenchuk did not reply.
'Now then,' said Hippolyte more sternly, 'what do you want?' 'Look here,' said Bezenchuk. 'What's your opinion of those fellows the Nymphs? What sort of goods do they supply? D'you think they can satisfy people? Why, a coffin means a deal of trouble. See how much wood it takes!'
'What are you talking about?' said Hippolyte.
'I'm talking about those Nymphs. Three families and all of them living on one business. I can't see how they do it. Their material is poor, the finish is cheap, and the tassels are rotten. Now I—I'm an old firm, I am; founded in 1907. My coffins are like cucumbers, select, the work of a craftsman.'
'You're crazy. What on earth is the matter with you?' said Hippolyte abruptly as he moved towards the door. 'You'll go mad one of these fine days, you and your coffins.'
Bezenchuk darted forward, opened the door, allowed ha to go out first and then followed him.
You see it was different when the Welcomes were going strong. It was no good trying to compete with them. But, I tell you straight, you won't find better a anywhere, so don't waste your time looking for em.
Hippolyte turned his back on him. He was furious with Bezenchuk, and strode rapidly away.
The three Nymphs were at their door, looking as if they had not moved since the morning, looking as if they had not even opened their lips. But there was also a look on their faces as if they knew a thing or two, as if something important had happened.
As soon as Bezenchuk saw his competitors he rushed 'up behind Hippolyte and whispered: 'I'll let you have it cheap'
Hippolyte scowled and walked on faster than ever.
'I'll let you have it on tick!' said Bezenchuk.
The three Nymphs did not say anything. They hag watched Hippolyte pass by and bowed politely to him. Hippolyte was irritated by all these leeches. He ran up the steps of his house, scraped the mud off his boots, and went into the hall feeling ravenous.
Father Theodore, the priest, came out into the hall and without seeing Hippolyte went rapidly down the steps into the street.
Hippolyte noticed that the place looked extra clean, some of the furniture had been moved round, and he smelt a strong smell of medicine. He found Madam Kuznetsov, one of their neighbours, in the sitting-room. She whispered to him: 'Sh! She's worse. She's just been confessing. Don't make such a noise with your boots.'
'I'm not making a noise,' said Hippolyte, 'but what on earth has happened?'
Madam Kuznetsov screwed up her lips and pointed to the bedroom door.
'A dreadful heart attack.' And, obviously repeating some one else's words which sounded important, she added: 'The possibility of a fatal issue is not excluded. I have been on my feet all day long. I came here this morning to borrow the mincer. I see the door open, no one in the kitchen, no one in here either. So I say to myself, Madam Petukhov has probably gone out to buy some flour for her cakes. She said she wanted some the other day." Of course, you know what it is like with flour nowadays. If you don't buy it well in advance then——'
Madam Kuznetsov would have gone on talking for hours about flour and the prices of things, about how she found Madam Petukhov lying unconscious by the stove and all sorts of other details, but a groan from the next room cut her short. Hippolyte crossed himself furtively and crept into his mother-in-law's room.