The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

And we kept meeting in this way over the estuary: the lady with the baby all the time, and me asleep, and occasionally she would start telling me that she was sort of … given in marriage to my master by force … by a wicked stepmother, and this husband of hers she sort of … never could come to love. But … that one … the other … the remount officer … or whatever … that one she loves, and she complained that, against her will, she says, “I’ve given myself to him. Because my husband,” she says, “as you know yourself, leads an irregular life, but this one with the—well, how is it called?—the little mustache, or whatever, deuce knows, is very clean,” she says, “he’s always well dressed, and he pities me, only once again,” she says, “for all that I still can’t be happy, because I’m sorry about this baby. And now,” she says, “he and I have come here and are staying in one of his friends’ lodgings, but I live in great fear that my husband will find out, and we’ll leave soon, and again I’ll suffer over the baby.”

“Well,” I say, “what’s to be done? If you’ve scorned law and relidgin, and changed your ritual, then you ought to suffer.”

And she began to weep, and from one day to the next she started weeping more and more pitifully, and she bothered me with her complaints, and suddenly, out of the blue, she started offering me money. And finally she came for the last time, to say good-bye, and said:

“Listen, Ivan”—by then she knew my name—“listen to what I tell you,” she says. “Today,” she says, “he himself will come to us here.”

I ask:

“Who’s that?”

She replies:

“The remount officer.”

I say:

“Well, what’s that got to do with me?”

And she tells me that the night before he supposedly won a lot of money at cards and said he wanted to please her by giving me a thousand roubles—that is, provided I give her her daughter.

“Well, that,” I say, “will never happen.”

“Why not, Ivan? Why not?” she insists. “Aren’t you sorry for both of us that we’re separated?”

“Well,” I say, “sorry or not, I’ve never sold myself either for big money or for small, and I won’t do it now, and therefore let all the remounter’s thousands stay with him, and your daughter with me.”

She began to weep, and I said:

“You’d better not weep, because it’s all the same to me.”

She says:

“You’re heartless, you’re made of stone.”

And I reply:

“I’m not made of stone at all, I’m the same as everybody else, made of bones and sinews, but I’m a trustworthy and loyal man: I undertook to keep the baby, so I’m looking after her.”

She tries to convince me, says, “Judge for yourself, the baby will be better off with me.”

“Once again,” I reply, “that’s not my business.”

“Can it be,” she cries out, “can it be that I must part with my baby again?”

“What else,” I say, “since you’ve scorned law and relidgin …”

But I didn’t finish what I wanted to say, because I saw a light uhlan coming towards us across the steppe. Back then regimental officers went about as they ought, swaggering, in real military uniform, not as nowadays like some sort of clerks. This remount uhlan walks towards us, so stately, arms akimbo, and his greatcoat thrown over his shoulders—there may not be any strength in him, but he’s full of swagger … I look at this visitor and think: “It would be an excellent thing to have some fun with him out of boredom.” And I decided that the moment he said so much as a word to me, I’d be as rude as possible to him, and maybe, God willing, we’d have the satisfaction of a good fight. That, I exulted, would be wonderful, and I no longer listened to what my little lady was saying and tearfully babbling to me, I only wanted to have fun.

V

Once I had decided to provide myself with such amusement, I thought: how can I best tease this officer into attacking me? And I sat myself down, took the comb out of my pocket, and started combing my hair; and the officer walks straight up to this little lady of his.

She goes blah, blah, blah—that is, all about me not giving her the baby.

But he strokes her head and says:

“It’s nothing, dear heart, nothing: I’ll find a means against him right now. We’ll spread out the money for him, he’ll be dazzled; and if that means has no effect, then we’ll simply take the baby from him”—and with those words, he comes over to me and hands me a wad of banknotes.

“Here,” he says, “this is exactly a thousand roubles—give us the baby, take the money, and go wherever you like.”

But I was being deliberately impolite, I didn’t answer him at once: first I slowly got to my feet; then I hung the comb on my belt, cleared my throat, and finally said:

“No, Your Honor, this means of yours has no effect”—and I tore the money from his hand, spat on it, threw it down, and said:

“Here, boy, here, good doggy, come fetch!”

He got angry, turned all red, and flew at me; but me, you can see how I’m built—dealing with a uniformed officer takes me no time: I just gave him a little shove and that was it: he went sprawling, spurs up, and his saber stuck out sideways. I stamp my foot down on the saber.