Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

his Sunday boots for the third time, and with such energy that his spitting and the noise of the shoe brush could be heard in all the rooms.
    “What else shall I write to the scoundrel?” Nevyrazimov reflected, raising his eyes to the sooty ceiling.
    On the ceiling he saw a dark circle—the shadow of the lampshade. Further down were dusty cornices; still further down—walls that had once been painted a bluish-brown color. And the duty-room looked like such a wasteland to him that he felt pity not only for himself but even for the cockroach …
    “I’ll finish my duty and leave, but he’ll spend his whole cockroach life on duty here,” he thought, stretching. “Agony! Shall I polish my boots, or what?”
    And, stretching once more, Nevyrazimov trudged lazily to the porter’s lodge. Paramon was no longer polishing his boots … Holding the brush in one hand and crossing himself with the other, he was standing by the open vent window, 3 listening …
    “They’re ringing!” he whispered to Nevyrazimov, looking at him with fixed, wide-open eyes. “Already, sir!”
    Nevyrazimov put his ear to the vent and listened. Through the vent, together with the fresh spring air, the ringing of the Easter bells came bursting into the room. The booming of the bells mingled with the noise of carriages, and all that stood out from the chaos of sounds was a pert tenor ringing in the nearest church and someone’s loud, shrill laughter.
    “So many people!” sighed Nevyrazimov, looking down the street, where human shadows flitted one after another past the lighted lamps. “Everybody’s running to church … Our fellows must’ve had a drink by now and be hanging around the city. All that laughter and talking! I’m the only one so wretched as to have to sit here on such a day. And every year I have to do it!”
    “Who tells you to get yourself hired? You weren’t on duty today, it was Zastupov hired you to replace him. Whenever there’s a holiday, you get yourself hired … It’s greed!”
    “The devil it’s greed! What’s there to be greedy about: two roubles in cash, plus a necktie … It’s need, not greed! And, you know, it would be nice to go with them all to church now, and then break the fast 4 … Have a drink, a bite to eat, then hit the sack … You sit at the table, the kulich 5 has been blessed, and there’s a hissing samovar, and some little object beside you … You drink a glass, chuck her under the chin, and it feels good … you feel you’re a human being … Ehh … life’s gone to hell! There’s some rogue driving by in a carriage, and you just sit here thinking your thoughts …”
    “To each his own, Ivan Danilych. God willing, you’ll get promoted, too, and drive around in carriages.”
    “Me? No, brother, that I won’t. I’ll never get beyond titular councillor, 6 even if I burst… I’m uneducated.”
    “Our general hasn’t got any education either, and yet …”
    “Well, the general, before he amounted to all that, stole a hundred thousand. And his bearing is nothing like mine, brother … With my bearing you don’t get far! And my name is so scoundrelly: Nevyrazimov! In short, brother, the situation’s hopeless. Live like that if you want, and if you don’t—go hang yourself…”
    Nevyrazimov left the vent window and began pacing the rooms in anguish. The booming of the bells grew louder and louder … It was no longer necessary to stand by the window in order to hear it.And the clearer the sound of the ringing, the noisier the clatter of the carriages, the darker seemed the brownish walls and sooty cornices, and the worse the smoking of the lamp.
    “Maybe I’ll skip work?” thought Nevyrazimov.
    But escape did not promise anything worthwhile … After leaving the office and loitering around town, Nevyrazimov would go to his place, and his place was still grayer and worse than the duty-room … Suppose he spent that day nicely, in comfort, what then? The same gray walls, the