“ ‘We both felt pain,’ the doctor said. ‘Therefore, we are experiencing reality. And the coffins which we saw were not illusions, but really exist. What can we do now, dear friend?’
“We talked for almost an hour on the dark stairs, discussing what we should do. Then it became too cold to stay there, so we determined to overcome our shameful fear, and to go up to the doctor’s room. We turned on the light as soon as we entered the apartment.
“In the center of the room stood a coffin covered in a luxurious golden velvet cloth. Dr. Gravedigger, a religious man, whispered a prayer.
“ ‘Let us find out,’ said the doctor, trembling all over from fear, ‘whether this coffin is empty, or there is someone inside.’
“After a rather lengthy hesitation, the doctor bent down, pressed his lips tightly together, and resolutely snatched the cover from the coffin. I came closer, and we both saw that the coffin was empty; there was no dead body inside.
“Instead, we found a letter, which read as follows:
“My dear friend, Dr. Gravedigger,
“You are well aware of the fact that my father-in-law owns a business. Now he is completely in debt, and the time has come for him to give it up.
“Tomorrow, or at the latest, the day after tomorrow, people from the bank will come here to assess his estate. This will completely destroy his and my family; and my financial state will be in ruins. This will also destroy the good name of our family, which is most precious to me.
“ ‘Yesterday,’ we held a family council and decided to hide the most precious and expensive family valuables. As you know, my father-in-law’s major financial assets are his coffins. As the owner of a funeral home, he is well-known for making the best-quality coffins in this town. Therefore, we have decided to hide the most expensive models. I ask you, as a friend, to help us save our money and honor! I hope you will help me in saving my estate, and I am sending you one coffin, which I ask you to hide in your house for some time until we ask it back. We could be completely ruined without the help of our good friends. I hope you will not refuse me, and I promise you that this coffin will not remain in your apartment for more than one week. I have also sent coffins to several others whom I consider to be my real and closest friends. I hope that you all possess a great and noble nature.
“Sincerely yours,
“Jack Blackman.’
“After the events of that day, I spent three months in the care of psychiatrists, recovering from a serious nervous breakdown. But my friend, the coffin-maker, managed to save both his honor and his financial assets. Now he has his own business, a funeral home.
“He also has a second business, selling granite monuments and bronze markers. Actually, this business is not doing so well. Every evening, when I return to my apartment, I expect to find a white marble monument, a cemetery plaque, or a tombstone in my humble apartment.”
WILLOW
Have you ever traveled from B to C along the highway? If you have, you should remember the Andreevka mill that stands on the Kozavka River. It’s a small mill with only two millstones. It was built over a hundred years ago. It has not been operational for a long time, and reminds one of an old woman with a hunchback, who is going to fall over at any moment. This woman would have fallen to the ground a long time ago, except that an old willow tree supports her.
The willow is so old and so wide that it takes two people to embrace it. Its shining leaves fall onto the roof and the bridge, and the lower branches fall onto the water and the ground. The willow is so old that it looks like a hunchback as well. The trunk of the tree is distorted by a huge dark hole. You can put your hand into the hole, and there you will find dark, wild honey. Wild bees start flying around your head, stinging you.
How old is this tree? Arkhip, my friend, told me that the tree was already old when he was working as “a French servant” for the local landlord. After that, he served as “a black servant” for the old landlady. That means it was a very long time ago.
The willow tree supports another old creature. That is the old man, Arkhip, who sits at its trunk, fishing all day. He is old, and he also has a hunchback, like the tree. And, like the willow tree, his mouth has no teeth and looks like the hole. He fishes during the day, and at night he sits next to the tree, lost in dreams. Both of these creatures, Arkhip and the old willow, whisper day and night. They have lived for a long time, and they know many things. Just listen to them.
Thirty years ago, on a Sunday morning the old man was sitting under the tree, looking at the water and fishing. It was quiet, as usual. You could hear only the whisper of the willow tree and the jumping of the fish, splashing in the water. He fished until noon. At noon he started cooking fish soup under the tree. When the shadow from the willow left the bank of the river, it was midday. Arkhip also measured time by postal delivery. Exactly at noon, a postal carriage would cross the bridge.
On that Sunday, Arkhip heard the bells ringing. He put his fishing rod aside and looked at the bridge. The troika moved up the hill, then down, and then slowly went up to the bridge. The postman was asleep. When the troika came to the bridge, it stopped for no obvious reason. Arkhip was never surprised, but he was surprised this time. Something odd happened. The groom looked around, took the kerchief from the postman’s face and hit him with a stick. The postman did not move. There was a red spot on his blond head. The driver jumped from the cart and struck another blow. In a moment, Arkhip heard somebody’s footsteps. The driver was coming directly toward him, down to the river. His sunburned face was pale, and his eyes were glassy. He was trembling all over, and, without noticing Arkhip, he put the mailbag into the hole in the tree. Then he ran up the hill, jumped into the cart, and did something that to Arkhip seemed very strange. He hit himself on the temple; then, his face covered with blood, he whipped the horses.
“Help, robbers!” His words echoed across the valley for a long time.
About six days later, police inspectors came to the bridge. They made a plan of the mill, a plan of the bridge; they measured the depth of the river for some unknown reason, then they had dinner under the willow and left.
All this time, Arkhip was sitting under the wheel of his mill trembling and looking at the bag. There, in the bag, he saw several envelopes with five seals each. He looked at the seals and checked them day and night. Looking at the willow tree, he thought that it was quiet by day and cried by night. “You willow, you are a stupid old woman,” said Arkhip to himself, listening to her cries. A week later, Arkhip went to the nearest town, with a bag on his shoulder.
“Where is the police station around here?” he asked the first officers he met in the street.
They showed him a big yellow building with a guard at the door. He went inside, and in the corridor he saw a man in a uniform with bright buttons. The man was smoking a pipe and scolding a guard who had done something wrong. Arkhip came up to the man and, trembling all over, told him about the episode by the old willow tree. The official took the bag in his hands, opened it, blanched, and then blushed.
“Wait,” he said, and went into another room. Suddenly, other officials surrounded him They were running around, making noises, and whispering. Ten minutes later, the official brought the bag to Arkhip and said,
“You have come to the wrong place, brother. You have to go to the Lower Street. This is the government accounting building. You have to go to the police.”
Arkhip took the bag and left.
“The bag is much lighter now,” he thought. “It’s only about half the weight.”
At the Lower Street, they told him to go to another yellow house. Arkhip came in. There was no entrance hall, just the office room, with many desks. He came to one of the desks, and told his story.
They tore the bag from his hands and called the senior official. A fat man with a mustache came. He interrogated Arkhip briefly, took the bag, and locked himself in his office.
“Where is the money?” he heard from behind the door. “The bag is emp
ty! Tell the old man he can go. No, tell him to stay. Let him in. Take him to Ivan Markovich. No, better let him go.”
The old man bowed, said good-bye, and left.
The next day, he went fishing, his gray beard reflected in the river. He caught perches and snappers.
Soon it was fall. The old man was sitting with his fishing rod. His face was as grim as the yellow willow tree. He did not like fall. His face became even darker after he saw the driver. The driver, without noticing the old man, came to the willow and put his hand into the hole in the trunk. The wet, lazy bees climbed up his sleeve. He moved his hand here and there, and some time later he was sitting at the bank of the river, looking listlessly into the water.
“Where is it?” he asked Arkhip.
At first, Arkhip was silent. He looked gloomy and pretended not to notice the killer. But then he took pity on him.
“I brought it to the officers,” he said. “But don’t be afraid, fool. I told them that I found it next to the willow tree, by accident.”
The driver jumped to his feet, howled, and started beating Arkhip. He beat the old man for a long time. He struck him in the face, and after the old man fell to the ground, he kicked him. After he finished the beating, he did not go away, but stayed. And they lived at the mill together, Arkhip and the driver.
During the day, the driver slept and was silent, and at night he walked on the bridge. The shadow of the postman also walked on the bridge, and he spoke to the shadow.
Spring came, and the driver was still silent during the day and still walked on the bridge at night. One night, the old man came to him.
“Stop walking about and loitering, you fool! Get a life! Get out of here!” he said to the driver, looking at the shadow of the postman, who was standing nearby.
The postman said the same, and the willow whispered the same.
“I can’t do that,” said the driver. “I would like to go away, but my soul is in pain and my feet are shaking; they are too weak.”
Then the old man took the driver by the hand and brought him to the city. When he brought the driver to the same building at the Lower Street, where he had returned the bag, the driver knelt in front of the chief and confessed his sin. Then the man with the mustache looked at him in surprise and said,
“Why are you accusing yourself of this? You fool! Are you drunk? Do you want me to lock you in? You are a fool, making things up. We could not find the murderer, and that’s that. What do you want? Get out of here! Get lost!”
When the old man reminded them of the bag, the mustached men started laughing, and all the other officers sitting in the room expressed their surprise. They had conveniently forgotten about the bag.
The driver could not confess his sins at the police station on Lower Street, so he had to go back to the willow.
He was tortured by his conscience, and therefore he jumped from the bridge into the water, exactly where Arkhip used to fish. The driver drowned himself. Now, at night the old man and the willow can see two shadows walking across the bridge. Do they whisper anything to each other?
A THIEF
The clock struck twelve. Fyodor Stepanovich put his fur coat onto his shoulders, and went outside. He felt the damp night air; a cold wind was blowing. It was drizzling. Fyodor Stepanovich stepped above the remains of a fence and went quietly along the street. It was a wide street, almost as wide as a square. He saw few streets so wide in the European part of Russia. There were no lights and no sidewalks, no signs of such luxuries.
Next to the fences and the walls he saw the dark figures of people in a hurry to get to the church. Fyodor Stepanovich saw two of these figures in front of him, walking in the mud. In the first figure, he recognized the old doctor—a short man with a curved back, the only educated man in town. The old doctor was very friendly to him, and every time he met Fyodor Stepanovich, he sighed deeply. This time the old man was wearing a triangular uniform hat, which looked like two duck heads glued together. The end of his sword could be seen from under his long coat. Next to him was a tall thin man with the same kind of triangular hat.
“Happy Easter, Gury Ivanovich,” Fyodor Stepanovich said to the doctor.
The doctor shook his hand in silence and revealed the medal that hung from the front of his jacket, beneath his fur coat.
“Doctor, I would like to talk to you later today,” Fyodor Stepanovich said. “I would like to share a holiday dinner with you; we always had dinner in my family. And it will give me some good memories.”
“It isn’t convenient. You know I have a wife and family. But I am not prejudiced, so if you want to come—hmm. Sorry, I am coughing, I have a sore throat.”
“What about Barabaev?” Fyodor Stepanovich added with a sour grin on his face. “Barabaev was sentenced with me, but he has dinner with you every day and drinks tea. He stole more money, that’s why.”
Fyodor Stepanovich stopped and pressed himself against the wet picket fence. Very far away he saw small lights. They were flickering in the darkness and moving in one direction.
“This is the holiday procession, with the lights,” thought the exile. “It looks exactly the same as in the place I used to live.”
There were sounds of distant bells and voices: the tenors were barely audible, and the singers seemed to be in a hurry.
“This is my first Easter in this cold, and it is not the last one,” Fyodor Stepanovich thought. “It is so bad here. And, at home, it is probably completely different.” He tried to imagine how life looked there, in his hometown. “They do not have dark dirty snow and sleet underfoot in the streets, and in the pools of water. Instead, there are fresh green leaves on the trees. Instead of this sharp wet wind, there is a breath of spring. The sky is different there. It is darker, and there are more stars, with a white stripe across the sky in the east. There is a green picket fence instead of this shabby, dirty fence, in front of my little cozy house with its three windows. And there are warm, well-lit rooms behind those windows. In one of these rooms, there is a table covered with a nice, white, clean tablecloth with bread, appetizers, and vodka.
It would be nice to have some vodka from home. The local vodka is terrible; you can’t drink it.
In the morning you feel refreshed after a good night’s sleep, then you visit your friends and then you can have some more to drink.
And he remembered his wife Olya, her catlike face that looked as if she were about to cry. She is probably asleep now, not dreaming about him. This sort of woman forgets things quickly. If there had been no Olya, he would not be here. It was she who gave him an idea to steal. She had wanted the money. She had wanted it terribly; she had wanted to spend it on fashionable clothes. She could neither live nor love without money; she would suffer without it.
“And if they send me to Siberia, will you follow me there?” he asked her one day.
“Of course! I will go with you to the ends of the earth!”
When he stole the money, he was caught, and was sent to Siberia. Olya did not go with him; she felt too weak. Now her silly head is lying on a clean, white lace pillow, and his feet are shuffling through this dirty snow and sleet.
“She came into the courtroom in a fashionable dress, and she did not even look at me,” he thought. “She laughed when the lawyer made jokes during his speech. I think I’m ready to kill her.”
All these memories made Fyodor Stepanovich tired. He felt sick and weary, as if he were thinking with his whole body. His feet became weak, and he had no energy to walk. He went home and, without removing his fur coat or heavy boots, simply fell onto his bed.
A cage with a songbird was affixed above his bed. Both cage and bird belonged to the landlord. The bird was very thin, strange, with a long beak, and he did not know its name. Her wings were clipped, and her head had lost its feathers. The owner fed her some disgusting sour stuff, which filled the room with a terrible smell. The bird was moving around the cage kicking her water-dish, and singing different songs, like a blackbird.
&nb
sp; “I can’t sleep because of this bird,” Fyodor Stepanovich thought. “Damn it!”
He stood up and shook the cage with his hand. The bird fell silent. The exile lay down and took off his boots. After a moment, the bird started making noise again. A piece of the sour food fell on his head and became tangled in his hair.
“Can’t you stop singing? Can’t you sleep in silence? Shut up!”
Fyodor Stepanovich jumped on his feet, picked up the cage in a fit of rage, and threw it into a corner of the room. The bird fell silent.
Ten minutes later, it seemed to the exile, the bird appeared from the corner of the room, and flew at him with its long beak, and then started picking up something from the floor. To him, there was only a long endless beak and flapping wings, and then it seemed to him that he was lying on the floor, and the bird was flapping her wing at his temples. Then the bird’s beak was broken, and a bunch of feathers was all that remained of the bird. The exile fell asleep.
“Why did you kill the animal, you filthy criminal!” He heard moaning.
Fyodor Stepanovich opened his eyes and saw the face of the landlord, an unpleasant-looking old man.
The landlord was trembling with rage, and tears were flowing down his face.
“Why did you kill my bird, you villain? Why did you kill my singer, you devil? Why? You wretch, get out of my house! You dirty dog! Get out of my sight! This instant! Get out!”
Fyodor Stepanovich put on his coat and went out into the street. It was a gray and windy morning. The sky was overcast. He saw the solid gray sky and could not believe there was a sun somewhere above the clouds. The rain was drizzling.
“Hello! Happy holiday, my dear fellow!” The man heard a familiar voice as he stepped into the street.
Barabaev, with whom he used to live in the same hometown, was passing him by in a carriage. He wore a top hat, and held an umbrella.