Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow Irina Reyfman (snow like ashes .TXT) 📖

had a debt by bill of exchange to someone—who I don’t know—for 1000 rubles. In 1780 Karp Dementich purchased the bill of exchange, somewhere, and initiated a complaint for forfeiture on an obligation. He and an experienced legal fixer came to me, and at that time they graciously got off me only the interest payments for 50 years, and made a gift of all the capital that had been borrowed.—Karp Dementich is a grateful fellow. “Daughter-in law, some vodka for our unexpected guest.” “I do not drink vodka.” “Well, at least have a sip.” “Health to the newlyweds …” and we sat down to eat.

On my one side sat the host’s son, and on the other Karp Dementich seated his young daughter-in-law…. Let us interrupt the account, reader. Give me a pencil and sheet of paper. I shall draw to your satisfaction the entire honorable company and that way I shall make you a participant in the wedding feast even if you happen to be on the Aleutian Islands catching beavers. Even if I do not copy out exact portraits I shall be contented with their silhouettes. Lavater teaches how to use them to recognize who is intelligent and who stupid.50

Karp Dementich has a grey beard of eight vershok* counting down from his lower lip. His nose is like a stubby stick, eyes grey, sunken, a pitch-black brow, he bows deeply from the waist, he smooths his beard, he greets all flatteringly as “my benefactor.”—His dear wife is Aksinya Parfentyevna. At sixty years of age, white as snow, and ruddy as a poppy flower, she always purses her lips in a circle, before supper drinks half a cup of Rhine wine in the presence of guests and also a glass of vodka in the pantry. Her husband’s domestic manager keeps track…. At the request of Aksinya Parfentyevna, the annual store of three poods† of ceruse from Rzhev and 30 pounds of myrtle for rouge is purchased. The husband’s domestic managers are Aksinya’s chamberlains.—Alexei Karpovich is my neighbor at the table. Not a whisker nor yet a beard but his nose is already crimson, his brows twitch, his hair is cropped round, he bows like a goose, shaking his head and primping his hair. In Petersburg he was a shopkeeper’s boy. He deducts a vershok* from every arshin† of fabric he sells. For that reason, his father loves him like himself. When he was fourteen going on fifteen, he gave his mother a slap.—Paraskovya Denisovna, his newlywedded wife, is white and rosy. Teeth like coal.51 Eyebrows are thread-thin, blacker than soot. In company, she keeps her eyes lowered, but entire days she spends at the window and stares at every man. In the evening she stands by the gate.—She has one black eye. The gift of her darling little husband on their first day—your guess as good as mine for what.

But dear reader, you yawn already. Enough of my taking silhouettes, clearly. You are right: there will be nothing more than noses and lips, lips and noses. And for that matter I have no idea how you distinguish ceruse and rouge on a silhouette.

“Karp Dementich, what are you trading in nowadays? You don’t travel to Petersburg, do not transport flax, and you are buying neither sugar nor coffee nor pigments. It seems to me that your business was not unprofitable.” “I almost went bust from it. God saved us by a narrow squeak. In the one year in which I received adequate revenue I built this very house for my wife. The next year there was no harvest in flax and I was unable to deliver what my contract required. That’s why I ceased to trade.” “I recall, Karp Dementich, that in return for the thirty thousand rubles collected in advance you sent your creditors a thousand poods* of flax to be distributed among them.” “By God, more was impossible, trust my conscience.” “Of course, in the very same year the failed crop affected the trade in imported goods. You collected about twenty thousand worth of … Yes, I recall: that was some headache.” “Truly, my benefactor, my head ached so I thought it would burst. Yet what complaints could creditors have against me? I gave them my entire estate.” “At about three kopecks on the ruble.” “No way, not at all, it was about fifteen.” “And your wife’s house?” “How could I touch it? It’s not mine.” “Tell me then, what business are you doing?” “Nothing, swear to God, nothing. Since I entered a state of bankruptcy my boy has been doing the business. This summer, thank God, he delivered flax to the value of about twenty thousand.” “In future, of course, he will sign contracts for fifty thousand, will take half the money up front and will build his young wife a house….” Alexei Karpovich just smiles. “You are an old joker, my benefactor. Enough shooting the breeze: let’s get down to business.” “I don’t drink, you know.” “Well, just have a sip.”

Have a sip, have a sip—I sensed that my cheeks had begun to redden and that toward the end of the feast I would, like the others, be completely sozzled. But fortunately, one cannot sit at the table forever just as it’s impossible to be clever all the time. And for the very same reason I sometimes play the fool and rave I was sober at a wedding feast.

After leaving my acquaintance Karp Dementich, I fell to thinking. I had reckoned until then that the law of the promissory note introduced everywhere, that is the rigorous and expedient indemnification of commercial obligations, was a protection guaranteeing trust; I considered it a fortunate invention of modern times that had not occurred to the minds of ancient peoples for the enhancement of rapid turnover in commerce. But if the one who issues the credit note is less than honest, why is this little scrap of paper worthless? If the rigorous settlement of debt did not exist would trade vanish?