Great Russian Short Stories (16 page)

WHAT A silly custom it is to wish everyone new happiness in the new year, yet sometimes something of the sort does come true. On this subject allow me to tell you of a little episode having a perfectly Yuletide character.

During one of my stays in Moscow in times long gone by, I was held up longer than I had expected and got fed up with living in a hotel. The psalmodist of one of the Court churches heard me complain to a friend of mine, a priest of that church, about the discomforts I had to put up with and said:

“Why shouldn't the gentleman stay with my gossip, father? Just now he has a room free, facing the street.”

“What gossip?” asks the priest.

“Vasily Konych.”

“Ah, that's the maître tailleur Lepoutant!”

“Just so.”

“Well, that is really a very good idea.”

And the priest explained to me that he knew those people and that the room was excellent, while the psalmodist mentioned one additional advantage:

“If,” he says, “something gets torn, or the bottoms of your trousers get frayed, everything will be put right, and invisible to the eye.”

I thought all further inquiries superfluous and did not even go to see the room, but gave the psalmodist the key to my hotel room with a note of authorization on my card, and entrusted him with the settling of my hotel bill, collecting my things from there and taking them all to his gossip. Then I asked him to call for me where I was and conduct me to my new quarters.

The psalmodist managed to carry out my commission very quickly, and within a little more than an hour called for me at the priest's.

“Let's go,” says he, “all your possessions are already unpacked and set out there, and we've unshuttered the windows for you and opened the door on the little balcony to the garden, and my gossip and I even had some tea on that same balcony. It's nice there,” he goes on, “flowers all around, birds nesting in the gooseberries and a nightingale trilling away in a cage under the window. Better than in the country, because it's green, and yet all household affairs are in order, and if some button of yours gets loose or your trouser bottoms get frayed, it'll be fixed up in no time.”

The psalmodist was a tidy fellow and a great dandy and therefore kept stressing this particular advantage of my new quarters.

The priest supported him, too.

“Yes,” says he, “tailleur Lepoutant is an artist in that line the like of whom you won't find, whether in Moscow or in Petersburg.”

“An expert,” gravely chimed in the psalmodist as he helped me into my coat.

Who was this Lepoutant—I couldn't make out; moreover, it didn't concern me.

We set off on foot.

The psalmodist assured me that it wasn't worth taking a cab since it was supposedly just “two steps of promenage.”

In actual fact, however, it turned out to be about half an hour's walk, but the psalmodist seemed to want a “promenage,” perhaps not without an intention of displaying the cane with a purple silk tassel which he had in his hand.

The district where Lepoutant's house was located was beyond the Moscow river, toward the Yauza, somewhere on its banks. I no longer remember in what parish it was nor what the street was called. Strictly speaking, it wasn't a street but rather a sort of dead-end alley, something like an old churchyard. A little church stood there, and at a right angle to it, there was a close and in it six or seven little cottages, all very small, grey, wooden, one of them on a stone semi-basement. This one was more showy and bigger than all the others, and along the whole length of its façade was fixed a large iron signboard on which, in big and clear letters of gold on a black background, was inscribed:

Apparently, my new quarters were here, but it appeared strange to me: why did my landlord, whose name was Vasily Konych, call himself ‘maitr taileur Lepoutant'? When the priest called him that, I thought it was no more than a joke and did not attach any importance to it, but now, seeing the sign, I had to change my mind. Apparently this was in all earnest, and I therefore asked my guide:

“Is Vasily Konych a Russian or a Frenchman?”

The psalmodist even looked surprised and seemed not to have understood my question at once. But then he answered:

“What are you saying? Why should he be a Frenchman? He's as Russian as they come. Even the clothes he makes for sale are all Russian: poddyovkas and suchlike. But he is most famous all over Moscow for his mending: ever so much old clothing that passes through his hands is sold for new.”

“But all the same,” I persisted in my curiosity, “he must be of French descent?”

Again the psalmodist was surprised.

“No,” said he, “why French? He is of the regular local breed, Russian that is, and godfather to my children, and after all we of the clerical calling, we all belong to the Orthodox Church. And why should you really imagine that he has any connection with the French nation?”

“The name on his signboard is French.”

“Oh, that,” says he, “that's nothing at all, that's sheer formality. And anyhow, the main sign is in French, but right here, by the gate, you see, there is another sign, in Russian, that's the correct one.”

I look and indeed by the gate there is another sign on which are painted an armyak and a poddyovka and two black waistcoats with silver buttons shining like stars in darkness, and, underneath, the inscription:

Under this second sign the name of the maker of “garments, turning out and repairs” was not indicated; there were only the two initials “V. L.”

Accommodation and landlord turned out indeed to be above all praise and description bestowed upon them, so that I immediately felt at home there and soon grew fond of my good host, Vasily Konych. Before long we took to joining one another for tea and conversing peaceably on diverse subjects. Thus, one day, sitting at tea on the little balcony, we began discoursing on the royal themes of the Koheleth about the vanity of all things under the sun and about our inherent propensity to succumb to all vanity. That is how we came upon the subject of Lepoutant.

I do not remember how it actually happened but it so came about that Vasily Konych signified his desire to tell me the odd story of how and why he had assumed a “French title.”

This has some relation to social mores and to literature, even though it is written on a sign.

Konych began in a simple but very interesting fashion:

“My family name, sir,” said he, “is not Lepoutant at all but something else, and it is fate itself which endowed me with a French title.

I am a native, true-blue Muscovite, of the poorest class. Our grandfather used to sell insoles outside the Rogozhsky Gate to venerable Old Believers. An excellent old man he was, saintlike—all greyish, like a faded little rabbit; but until his very death he lived by his own labor. He would buy a bit of felt, cut it into pieces for soles, tack them into pairs with a bit of thread and go “among the Christians,” chanting affectionately: “Little insoles, little insoles, who needs little insoles?” Thus he would make the round of Moscow, and though he had but a pennys-worth of merchandise, he made a living. My father was a tailor in the old style. He made old-fashioned coats with three pleats for the most faithful Old Believers, and he taught me his craft. But from childhood on I had a special gift for darning. My cutting is not stylish, but darning is my first love. I've got such a knack for it that I could darn over the most conspicuous place and it would be very hard to notice.

The old men said to my father:

“This youngster has a Godsent talent, and where there is talent there will be good fortune.”

And so it came about; but to attain good fortune, you know, you have to show humble patience, and I was also sent two major trials: first, my parents died, leaving me when I was still young in years, and secondly, the place where I lived burned down the night before Christmas while I was in church at matins, and with it all my equipment was burnt—my iron, and my tailor's dummy, and the customers' clothes I had taken in to darn. I found myself at the time in great distress, but it was from that that I took my first step toward my good fortune.

One customer whose fur-lined coat burned in my disaster came to me and said: “My loss is great, and it's awkward to be left without a coat just before the holidays, yet I can see that there's no claim to make against you but rather you must be helped. If you're a sensible lad, I'll put you on the right path provided you will eventually repay me.”

I answered:

“If only God pleases, with the greatest of pleasure. I'll deem it my first duty to repay my debt.”

He told me to dress and took me to the hotel opposite the Governor-General's house, to the assistant barman, and said to him in my presence: “Here,” he says, “is that same apprentice who, I told you, could be very useful in your line of trade.”

Their trade consisted in pressing all kinds of clothing as it would come wrinkled from the suitcases, and doing all kinds of necessary repairs for the newly arrived guests.

The assistant barman gave me one piece to do by way of trial, saw that I could do a good job, and told me to stay.

“Now,” he says, “it is Christ's feast, and a great many gentlemen have come and are drinking and making merry, and there are still the New Year and the Twelfth Night to come, there will be still more goings-on, so you stay here. . . .”

I answer:

“I am willing.”

And the one who brought me says: “Well, mind you, get going—here one can make a good pile. But just listen to him (that is, the assistant barman) as to a shepherd. God will provide a shelter and give you a shepherd.”

I was given a little corner by the window in the back passage and I got going. A great many were the gentlemen—I daresay I couldn't even count them—whom I fixed up, but it would be a sin to complain, I got myself pretty well fixed up, too, for there was an awful lot of work to do and the pay was good. Ordinary men did not stop there, only the big shots who liked the idea of staying in the same location as the Governor-General, window to window with him.

The pay for patching and darning was particularly good when the damage was unexpectedly discovered in clothes which had to be worn right away. Sometimes I felt even ashamed—the hole was the size of a dime, but mend it invisibly—you get a gold piece.

Less than ten rubles was never paid for darning a tiny hole. But naturally real skill was demanded, so that the piece would be pieced in as two drops of water run together and you can't tell them apart.

Of the money that was paid each time, I was given one third; one third was taken by the assistant barman, and the other by the room servants who unpack the gentlemen's suitcases and brush their clothes. It is they really who matter most because it is they who crumple the things and scuff them, and pick a little hole, and that's why they got two parts and the rest went to me. But even so my share was more than enough, so that I moved from my corner in the passage and rented a quieter room in the same yard, and a year later the sister of the assistant barman came from her village and I married her. My present spouse, as you see her—that's her, she has reached old age with honor, and it was for her sake perhaps that God gave us all this. And as for marrying, it was simply like this: the assistant barman said: “She's an orphan and you must make her happy, and then through her you will have good luck.” And she also said: “I bring luck,” says she, “God will reward you on my behalf,” and suddenly, as if because of this, an astonishing surprise really happened.

Christmas came again, and again New Year's Eve. I am sitting in the evening in my room, darning something or other, and already thinking of stopping work and going to bed when one of the room servants runs in and said:

“Run quickly, a terrible Big Shot is staying in Room One. I reckon he's beaten everybody and whomever he strikes he tips ten rubles. Now he's demanding you.”

“What does he want from me?” I ask.

“He started dressing to go to a ball,” says he, “and at the very last moment noticed a hole burnt in his tailcoat in a conspicuous place. He gave a thrashing and three gold pieces to the man who had brushed it. Run as quickly as you can, he's so furious he looks like all the wild beasts put together.”

I just shook my head, for I knew how they purposely ruined the clothes of their hotel guests, to derive profit from the mending; nevertheless I dressed and went to see the Big Shot who resembled all the wild beasts put together.

The pay certainly would be high because Room One in any hotel is considered to be a room for Big Shots, and none but luxury trade stops there; and in our hotel the price for Room One per day was what is now fifteen rubles and in those days was figured in paper money, amounting to fifty-two fifty, and whoever stopped there was known as the Big Shot.

The one to whom I was brought now was really fearful to look upon—of enormous stature, swarthy-faced and wild, and truly looking like all the wild beasts.

“You,” he asks me in a fierce voice, “can you mend a hole so well that it can't be noticed?”

I answer:

“Depends on what kind of thing it is. If the stuff is napped then it can be done very well, but if it's shiny satin or silky mauvais-stuff, then I won't undertake it.”

“Mauvais yourself,” says he, “but some bastard, who was probably sitting behind me yesterday, burnt a hole in my tailcoat with his cigarette: Here, look it over and tell me.”

I looked it over and said:

“This can be done well.”

“And how long will it take?”

“Well, in an hour's time,” I answer, “it will be ready.”

“Do it,” says he, “and if you do it well, you'll get a pot of money, and if you don't you'll get a knock on the head. Go and ask the lads here how I thrashed them, and you can be sure that I'll thrash you a hundred times worse.”