15. Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream

It’s not hard to guess that the fat man with the crimson physiognomy who was put in room 119 was Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi.

He got to Professor Stravinsky not immediately, however, but after having spent some time beforehand in another place.

From that other place there remained but little in Nikanor Ivanovich’s recollection. There were memories of only a desk, a cupboard and a couch.

A conversation had been entered into there with Nikanor Ivanovich, before whose eyes things had somehow grown dim because of rushes of blood and mental excitement, and the conversation had turned out a strange, muddled sort of one, or to put it more accurately, had not turned out at all.

The very first question that was put to Nikanor Ivanovich was this:

“Are you Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, Chairman of the House Committee of No. 302 bis on Sadovaya?”

To this, laughing a terrible laugh, Nikanor Ivanovich replied literally thus:

“I’m Nikanor, of course I’m Nikanor! But what ever sort of darned Chairman am I?”

“How’s that, then?” Nikanor Ivanovich was asked with a narrowing of the eyes.

“It’s just that if,” he replied, “I’m the Chairman, I should have established straight away that he was an unclean spirit. I mean, what’s all this? The cracked pince-nez… all in rags… How can he be an interpreter for a foreigner!”

“Who are you talking about?” Nikanor Ivanovich was asked.

“Korovyev!” Nikanor Ivanovich exclaimed. “He’s put up in our building in apartment No. 50! Write it down: Korovyev. He must be caught immediately! Write it down: entrance No. 6, that’s where he is.”

“Where did you get the foreign currency?” Nikanor Ivanovich was asked cordially.

“The true God, Almighty God,” Nikanor Ivanovich began, “sees all, and it serves me right. I never held it in my hands and never had an inkling what hard currency was! The Lord will punish me for my iniquity,” Nikanor Ivanovich continued with feeling, now buttoning his shirt, now unbuttoning it, now crossing himself. “I took bribes! I did, but I took them in our Soviet money! I gave out registrations for money, I don’t deny it, it happened. Our secretary Prolezhnev’s a fine one too, he’s a fine one as well! Let’s put it bluntly, we’re all thieves in the House Management Committee. But I didn’t take any foreign currency!”

At the request not to play the fool, but to tell how the dollars had got into the ventilation shaft, Nikanor Ivanovich got down on his knees and rocked forward, opening his mouth wide, as though wishing to swallow a piece of the parquet.

“Do you wish me,” he moaned, “to eat the ground to show I didn’t take it? And Korovyev – he’s a devil!”

All patience has its limits, and the voice at the desk was now raised, and a hint given to Nikanor Ivanovich that it was time for him to start speaking the language of a human being.

At this point the room with the couch was filled with a wild roar from Nikanor Ivanovich, who had leapt up from his knees:

“There he is! There he is behind the cupboard! There he is grinning! And it’s his pince-nez… Hold him! Exorcize the room!”

The blood ebbed away from Nikanor Ivanovich’s face; trembling, he made the sign of the cross in the air, rushed to the door and back again, started chanting some prayer or other and, finally, began spouting complete rubbish.

It had become quite clear that Nikanor Ivanovich was no good for conversation of any kind. He was led out and put in a separate room, where he calmed down somewhat and only prayed and sobbed.

A journey was made, of course, to Sadovaya, and apartment No. 50 was visited. But no Korovyev was found there, and no one in the building either knew or had seen any Korovyev. The apartment occupied by the late Berlioz and Likhodeyev, who had gone away to Yalta, was empty, and in the study the wax seals hung peacefully, unharmed by anyone, on the cabinets. And with that an exit was made from Sadovaya, and along with those exiting, moreover, there went the dismayed and depressed secretary of the House Management Committee, Prolezhnev.

In the evening Nikanor Ivanovich was delivered to Stravinsky’s clinic. There he behaved so restlessly that, in accordance with Stravinsky’s practice, he had to be given an injection, and only after midnight did Nikanor Ivanovich fall asleep in room 119, occasionally emitting a pained moan of suffering.

But the more it went on, the easier his sleep became. He stopped rolling around and groaning; his breathing became easy and even, and he was left on his own.

Then Nikanor Ivanovich was visited by a dream, at the root of which were undoubtedly his difficult experiences of the day. It began with Nikanor Ivanovich dreaming that people of some sort with golden trumpets in their hands were leading him, very ceremoniously too, up to some big, varnished doors. At these doors his companions played what seemed to be a fanfare for Nikanor Ivanovich, and then a booming bass from the heavens said cheerfully:

“Welcome, Nikanor Ivanovich! Hand in the foreign currency!”

Extremely surprised, Nikanor Ivanovich saw above him a black loudspeaker.

Next he found himself for some reason in the auditorium of a theatre, with crystal chandeliers shining beneath the gilt ceiling, and argands on the walls. All was as it should be, as in a theatre small in size but very sumptuous. There was a stage hidden behind a velvet curtain – which had, scattered across its dark-cherry ground like little stars, images of enlarged gold ten-rouble pieces on it – there was a prompt box and even an audience.

Nikanor Ivanovich was surprised at the fact that all of this audience was of the same sex – male – and for some reason all had beards. Apart from that, it was striking that there were no seats in the auditorium, and the whole of the audience was sitting on the floor, which was magnificently polished and slippery.

Confused in the new and numerous company, Nikanor Ivanovich hesitated for a little while, then followed the general example and sat himself down cross-legged on the parquet, finding room between some red-bearded man in the best of health and another citizen, pale and excessively hairy. None of those sitting down paid any attention to the newly arrived spectator.

At this point the soft ringing of a little bell was heard, the light in the auditorium went out, the curtain parted, and a lighted stage was revealed with an armchair, a table – on which was a little gold bell – and a blind, black velvet backdrop.

Out of the wings at this point came an artiste in a dinner jacket, smooth-shaven and with a parting in his hair, young and with very pleasant facial features. The people in the auditorium perked up, and everyone turned towards the stage. The artiste went up to the prompt box and rubbed his hands.

“Are you sitting down?” he asked in a soft baritone, and smiled into the auditorium.

“We are, we are,” a chorus of tenors and basses answered him from the auditorium.

“Hm…” the artiste began pensively, “and how is it you don’t get fed up with it, I don’t understand? Everyone else is acting normally: they’re walking around the streets now, enjoying the spring sunshine and the warmth, while you’re hanging about here on the floor in a stuffy auditorium! Is the programme really so interesting? However, to each his own,” the artiste concluded philosophically.

Then he altered both the timbre of his voice, and the intonations, and announced cheerfully and sonorously:

“And so, the next act in our programme is Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, Chairman of a House Committee and manager of a healthy-eating canteen. Nikanor Ivanovich, please!”

The reply to the artiste was friendly applause. The astonished Nikanor Ivanovich opened his eyes wide, but the compère, shielding himself from the glare of the footlights with his hand, found him with his gaze among the seated men and beckoned him affectionately onto the stage with a finger. And Nikanor Ivanovich, without knowing how, found himself on the stage. The light of coloured lamps struck him in the eyes from below and from the front, which made the auditorium and the audience immediately disappear into the darkness.

“Come on then, Nikanor Ivanovich, set us an example,” the young artiste began cordially, “and hand in your foreign currency.”

Silence fell. Nikanor Ivanovich took a deep breath and began quietly:

“I swear to God that…”

But he had not had time to utter the words before the whole auditorium broke out in cries of indignation. Nikanor Ivanovich grew flustered and fell quiet.

“So far as I’ve understood you,” began the programme’s presenter, “you wanted to swear to God that you have no foreign currency?” And he looked at Nikanor Ivanovich sympathetically.

“Exactly so, I haven’t got any,” replied Nikanor Ivanovich.

“Right,” responded the artiste, “well, forgive my indelicacy: where, then, did the four hundred dollars come from that were discovered in the toilet of the apartment, the sole inhabitants of which are you and your spouse?”

“The magic ones!” someone in the dark auditorium said with evident irony.

“Exactly so, the magic ones,” Nikanor Ivanovich replied timidly to an indeterminate quarter, not exactly to the artiste, not exactly to the dark auditorium, and elucidated: “The unclean spirit, the interpreter in checks left them there deliberately.”

And again the auditorium let out an indignant roar. When silence fell, the artiste said:

“These are the kind of La Fontaine fables I have to listen to! Four hundred dollars were left deliberately! Now all of you here are speculators in foreign currency, and I turn to you as experts: is this something conceivable?”

“We’re not speculators,” individual offended voices rang out in the theatre, “but it is inconceivable.”

“I’m with you completely,” said the artiste firmly, “and I ask you: what might be left deliberately?”

“A baby!” cried someone from the auditorium.

'Absolutely correct,” confirmed the programme’s presenter, “a baby, an anonymous letter, a political leaflet, an infernal machine, all sorts of other things, but four hundred dollars no one would think of leaving deliberately, for no one in the whole of nature is such an idiot.” And, turning to Nikanor Ivanovich, the artiste added reproachfully and sadly: “You’ve distressed me, Nikanor Ivanovich! And I was relying on you. And so our act has been a failure.”

Whistling rang out in the auditorium, directed at Nikanor Ivanovich.

“He’s a foreign-currency speculator!” people in the auditorium were calling out. “Because of the likes of him, we, the innocent, suffer too!”

“Don’t criticize him,” said the compère gently, “he’ll repent.” And, turning blue eyes filled with tears to Nikanor Ivanovich, he added: “Well, go back to your place, Nikanor Ivanovich.”

After that the artiste rang the little bell and announced loudly:

“Interval, scoundrels!”

The shaken Nikanor Ivanovich – who, unexpectedly for himself, had become a participant in some sort of theatrical programme – again found himself in his place on the floor. At this point he dreamt that the auditorium was plunged into total darkness and that burning red words sprang out on the walls: “Hand in foreign currency!” Then the curtain opened again and the compère gave the invitation:

“Please come up onto the stage, Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil.”

Dunchil proved to be a fine-looking but very neglected man of about fifty.

“Sergei Gerardovich,” the compère addressed him, “you’ve been sitting here now for a month and a half, stubbornly refusing to hand in your remaining foreign currency, at a time when the country needs it and it’s of no use whatsoever to you, and yet you won’t budge, all the same. You’re an educated man, you understand all this perfectly well, and still you don’t want to take any conciliatory steps.”

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do, since I don’t have any more foreign currency,” replied Dunchil calmly.

“So you don’t have, at the very least, any diamonds?” asked the artiste.

“No diamonds either.”

The artiste hung his head and fell deep in thought, and then he clapped his hands. A middle-aged lady came out onto the stage from the wings, fashionably dressed – that is, wearing a coat with no collar and a tiny little hat. The lady had an alarmed air, but Dunchil looked at her without twitching an eyebrow.

“Who is this lady?” the programme’s presenter asked Dunchil.

“It’s my wife,” replied Dunchil with dignity, and looked at the lady’s long neck with a certain disgust.

“We’ve disturbed you, Madame Dunchil,” the compère said, addressing himself to the lady, “regarding this: we wanted to ask you if your spouse still has any foreign currency?”

“He handed everything in then,” replied Madame Dunchil anxiously.

“So,” said the artiste, “well then, if that’s so, then so be it. If he handed everything in, then we’re required to part with Sergei Gerardovich immediately, what can one do! If you wish, you can leave the theatre, Sergei Gerardovich,” and the artiste made a regal gesture.

Calmly and with dignity, Dunchil turned and went towards the wings.

“One moment!” the compère stopped him. “Permit me in parting to show you one more act from our programme,” and again he clapped his hands.

The black rear curtain parted, and out onto the stage came a beautiful young girl in a ball gown, holding in her hands a little gold tray, on which there lay a thick wad, tied with a sweet ribbon and a diamond necklace, from which blue, yellow and red lights bounced off in all directions.

Dunchil took a pace backwards, and pallor covered his face. The auditorium froze.

“Eighteen thousand dollars and a necklace worth forty thousand in gold,” the artiste announced triumphantly, “was being kept by Sergei Gerardovich in the town of Kharkov, in the apartment of his mistress, Ida Gerkulanovna Vors, whom we have the pleasure of seeing before us, and who kindly helped to bring to light these treasures – priceless, but pointless in the hands of a private individual. Thank you very much, Ida Gerkulanovna.”

The beauty flashed her teeth in a smile and fluttered her thick eyelashes.

“But beneath your mask of utter dignity,” the artiste said, addressing himself to Dunchil, “is concealed an avaricious spider, a shocking gloom-monger and liar. Over a month and a half you have exasperated everyone with your dull obstinacy. So go home now, and let the hell your wife will give you be your punishment.”

Dunchil rocked and seemed about to fall, but someone’s sympathetic arms caught him up. At this point the front curtain tumbled down and hid all those who were on the stage.

Furious applause shook the auditorium, to such a degree that it seemed to Nikanor Ivanovich as though the lights in the chandeliers had started jumping. And when the front curtain went up, there was no longer anyone on the stage apart from the solitary artiste. He cut short a second volley of applause, bowed and began to speak:

“In the person of that Dunchil, a typical ass appeared before you in our programme. I had the pleasure of saying yesterday, after all, that the secret holding of foreign currency was a senseless business. Nobody can use it, not under any circumstances, I assure you. Take that Dunchil, for example. He gets a magnificent salary and wants for nothing. He has a splendid apartment, a wife and a beautiful mistress. But oh no! Instead of handing in the foreign currency and gems and living quietly and peacefully, without any unpleasantness, that mercenary buffoon has got himself exposed in front of everyone after all, and, as a special treat, has incurred the most major domestic unpleasantness. And so, who’s handing things in? No takers? In that event, the next act in our programme – the well-known dramatic talent, the specially invited actor Savva Potapovich Kurolesov, will perform an extract from The Miserly Knight by the poet Pushkin.”

The promised Kurolesov was not long in appearing on the stage and proved to be a strapping and fleshy, clean-shaven man in a white tie and tails.

Without any words of introduction, he pulled a gloomy face, knitted his brows and began in an unnatural voice, looking askance at the little gold bell:

“Just as a youthful rake awaits his meeting With some debauched and devious young woman…”

And Kurolesov related many bad things about himself. Nikanor Ivanovich heard Kurolesov admit to how some unfortunate widow knelt howling before him in the rain but failed to touch the actor’s hard heart.

Before his dream, Nikanor Ivanovich did not know the works of the poet Pushkin at all, but he knew the man himself very well, and several times daily uttered phrases such as: “And who’s going to pay for the apartment – Pushkin?” or “I suppose it was Pushkin that unscrewed the light bulb on the stairs?” or “Pushkin, I suppose, is going to be buying the oil?”

Now, after becoming acquainted with one of his works, Nikanor Ivanovich grew sad, imagined the woman on her knees with the orphans in the rain and involuntarily thought: “This Kurolesov is a right one, though!”

And the latter, ever raising his voice, continued to repent, and muddled Nikanor Ivanovich up completely, because he suddenly started addressing someone who was not on the stage, and he himself went and answered in place of this absent person, calling himself, in so doing, first “Sire”, then “Baron”, first “father”, then “son”, first using formal terms and then intimate ones.

Nikanor Ivanovich understood only one thing: that the actor died a nasty death, crying: “The keys! My keys!” and after that falling on the floor, wheezing and carefully pulling off his tie.

Having died, Kurolesov rose, shook the dust off the dress-suit trousers, bowed, smiling a false smile, and withdrew to muted applause. And the compère began thus:

“We have listened to The Miserly Knight in a remarkable performance by Savva Potapovich. That knight was hoping that playful nymphs would come running to him, and that a lot of other pleasant things of the same sort would take place. But, as you see, none of it happened, no nymphs came running to him, and the Muses failed to pay tribute to him, and he didn’t erect any edifices, but on the contrary, came to a very unpleasant end – died, damn him, of a stroke on top of his chest of foreign currency and gems. I warn you that something of the sort will happen to you too, if perhaps not worse, unless you hand in your foreign currency!”

Whether it was Pushkin’s poetry that made such an impression or the prosaic speech of the compère, suddenly a shy voice rang out from the auditorium:

“I’m handing in my foreign currency.”

“Please come up onto the stage,” was the compère’s polite invitation as he peered into the dark auditorium.

And on the stage appeared a blond citizen of small stature, who, to judge by his face, had not shaved for about three weeks.

“I’m sorry, what’s your name?” enquired the compère.

“Nikolai Kanavkin,” the man who had appeared responded shyly.

“Ah! Pleased to meet you, Citizen Kanavkin. And so?”

“I’m handing it in.”

“How much?”

“A thousand dollars and twenty gold ten-rouble pieces.”

“Bravo! Is that all there is?”

The presenter of the programme stared straight into Kanavkin’s eyes, and to Nikanor Ivanovich it even seemed that from his eyes spurted rays that pierced right through Kanavkin like X-rays. The audience stopped breathing.

“I believe you!” the artiste finally exclaimed, and extinguished his gaze. “I believe you! Those eyes are not lying. You know, how many times have I told you that your basic error consists in underestimating the significance of a man’s eyes? You must understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes – never! You’re asked a sudden question, you don’t even give a start, in one second you’re in control of yourself and know what needs to be said to cover up the truth, and you speak most convincingly, and not a single line on your face will move, but, alas, stirred up by the question, for an instant the truth springs from the bottom of your soul into your eyes, and it’s all over. It’s noted, and you’re caught!”

After uttering this very convincing speech, with great fervour too, the artiste enquired affectionately of Kanavkin:

“And where is it hidden?”

'At Porokhovnikova’s – she’s my aunt – on Prechistenka…” “Ah! That’s… hang on. that’s at Klavdia Ilyinichna’s, is it?” “Yes.”

“Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes! A little detached house? A little front garden opposite too? Of course, I know it, I know it! And where is it you’ve hidden it away there?”

“In the cellar, in an empty Einem tin.”

The artiste clasped his hands together.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” he exclaimed in distress. “But it’ll get covered in mould there, won’t it? It’ll get damp! Now is it conceivable to entrust foreign currency to such people? Eh? Just like children, honest to God!”

Kanavkin himself realized he was at fault and had made a botch of things, and he hung his tufted head.

“Money,” continued the artiste, “should be kept in the State Bank, in special dry and well-guarded premises, and not under any circumstances in an aunt’s cellar, where it can, in particular, be damaged by rats! Truly, you should be ashamed of yourself, Kanavkin! After all, you’re a grown man.”

Kanavkin just did not know what to do with himself, and merely picked at the breast of his jacket with his finger.

“Oh, all right,” the artiste softened, “we’ll let bygones be bygones…” and he suddenly added unexpectedly: “Yes, by the way. to get it over with all at once… so as not to waste the car journey… this aunt has some as well, doesn’t she, eh?”

Kanavkin, who had not expected such a turn of events at all, hesitated, and silence fell in the theatre.

“Oh, Kanavkin,” said the compère in gentle reproach, “and I’d even praised him! And there you are, without any warning he’s gone and started messing things up! This is ridiculous, Kanavkin! I mean, I was just talking about the eyes. I mean, it’s clear your aunt has some. Well, why are you tormenting us for nothing?”

“She has!” cried Kanavkin recklessly.

“Bravo!” cried the compère.

“Bravo!” the audience let out a terrible roar.

When quiet had fallen, the compère congratulated Kanavkin, shook his hand, offered to have him driven to his home in the city, and ordered someone in the wings to drop by in the same car for the aunt and to ask her to go and be in the programme at the women’s theatre.

“Yes, I meant to ask, did your aunt say where she hides hers?” enquired the compère, cordially offering Kanavkin a cigarette and a lighted match. Lighting up, the latter grinned in a melancholy sort of way.

“I believe you, I believe you,” responded the artiste, sighing, “the old skinflint wouldn’t tell the devil that, let alone her nephew. Well, all right, we’ll try and arouse human feelings in her. Maybe not all the strings have yet rotted in her wretched, moneylender’s heart. All the best, Kanavkin!”

And a happy Kanavkin left. The artiste enquired whether there were any others wishing to hand in foreign currency, but got silence in reply.

“A funny lot, honest to God!” said the artiste, shrugging his shoulders, and he was hidden by the curtain.

The lamps went out, and for some time there was darkness, and in it, from afar, could be heard a nervous tenor voice singing:

“Great piles of gold are lying there, And yes, they all belong to me.”

Then, twice, muffled applause reached them from somewhere.

“Some little lady’s handing it over in the women’s theatre,” Nikanor Ivanovich’s red-bearded neighbour unexpectedly spoke up, and added with a sigh: “Ah, if it weren’t for my geese! I’ve got fighting geese in Lianozov, my dear man… I’m afraid they’ll die without me. A fighting bird’s a delicate thing, it needs looking after… Ah, if it weren’t for the geese! And I’m not going to be impressed by Pushkin,” and again he began sighing.

At this point the auditorium was lit up brightly, and Nikanor Ivanovich started dreaming that chefs in white hats with serving spoons in their hands poured into the auditorium from all the doors. Young chefs dragged a vat of soup and a big tray of sliced black bread into the auditorium. The audience grew animated. The cheery chefs darted in and out among the theatre-goers, pouring the soup into dishes and handing out the bread.

“Have some dinner, lads,” shouted the chefs, “and hand in your foreign currency! Why should you sit here to no purpose? Who wants to eat this skilly! You could go home, have a proper drink, a bite to eat, lovely!”

“Well, here’s an example, what are you stuck here for, Dad?” a fat chef with a crimson neck addressed Nikanor Ivanovich directly, holding out to him a bowl in which a solitary cabbage leaf was floating in some liquid.

“I’ve got none! None! None!” shouted Nikanor Ivanovich in a terrible voice. “Do you understand, none!”

“None?” the chef roared in a threatening bass. “None?” he asked in a gentle female voice. “None, none,” he began muttering reassuringly, turning into the medical attendant, Praskovya Fyodorovna.

She was gently shaking Nikanor Ivanovich, who was moaning in his sleep, by the shoulder. Then the chefs melted away, and the theatre with the curtain fell to pieces. Through his tears Nikanor Ivanovich made out his room in the clinic and two people in white coats, yet not the excessively familiar chefs, thrusting themselves and their advice at people, at all, but rather doctors, and still that same Praskovya Fyodorovna, who held in her hands not a bowl, but a little dish covered with gauze with a syringe lying on it.

“I mean, what is all this,” said Nikanor Ivanovich bitterly while being given the jab, "I’ve got none and that’s that! Let Pushkin hand in his foreign currency to them. I’ve got none!”

“No, you’ve got none,” kind-hearted Praskovya Fyodorovna reassured him, "and what can’t be cured must be endured.”

Nikanor Ivanovich felt better after the injection, and he fell into a sleep without any dreams.

But thanks to his cries, alarm was transmitted to room 120, where the patient woke up and began searching for his head, and to room 118, where the unknown Master became worried and wrung his hands in anguish, gazing at the moon and remembering the last night of his life, bitter and autumnal, the strip of light from under the door and the unwound hair.

Alarm flew from room 118 along the balcony to Ivan, and he woke up and started crying.

But a doctor quickly calmed all who were alarmed, all who were sick in the head, and they started to fall asleep. Ivan dropped off latest of all, when it was already getting light above the river. After medicine that impregnated the whole of his body, sedation came to him like a wave that covered him. His body became lighter, and a warm breeze of drowsiness blew around his head. He fell asleep, and the last thing he heard while awake was the pre-dawn chirping of the birds in the wood. But they soon fell quiet, and he began to dream that the sun was already sinking over Bald Mountain, and the mount was cordoned off by a double cordon…