“Ah, here you are.” He held out his hand to me amicably, without getting up from his seat. “Sit down with us. Pyotr Ippolitovich tells the most interesting story about this stone, near the Pavlovsky barracks . . . or somewhere there . . .”
“Yes, I know that stone,” I answered quickly, lowering myself into a chair beside them. They were sitting at the table. The whole room was precisely two hundred square feet. I took a deep breath.
A spark of pleasure flashed in Versilov’s eyes: it seemed he had doubts and thought I might want to make gestures. He calmed down.
“Start again from the beginning, Pyotr Ippolitovich.” They were already addressing each other by first name and patronymic.
“So, this happened under the late sovereign,3 sir,” Pyotr Ippolitovich addressed me, nervously and somewhat painfully, as if suffering ahead of time over the success of the effect. “You know that stone—a stupid stone in the street, why, what for, it’s in everybody’s way, right, sir? The sovereign drove by many times, and each time there was this stone. In the end, the sovereign didn’t like it, and indeed, a whole mountain, a mountain is standing in the street, ruining the street: ‘The stone must not be!’ Well, he said it must not be—you understand what ‘it must not be’ means? Remember the late tsar? What to do with the stone? Everybody’s at their wit’s end, including the Duma,4 and mainly, I don’t remember who precisely, but it was one of the foremost courtiers of the time who was charged with it. So this courtier listens: they say it would cost fifteen thousand, not less, in silver, sir (because paper banknotes had just been converted to silver under the late sovereign). ‘How come fifteen thousand, that’s wild!’ First the Englishmen wanted to bring rails up to it, put it on rails, and take it away by steam; but what would that have cost? There were no railroads yet then, except for the one to Tsarskoe Selo5 . . .”
“Well, look, they could have sawed it in pieces.” I was beginning to frown; I was terribly vexed and ashamed in front of Versilov, but he listened with visible pleasure. I understood that he, too, was glad of the landlord, because he also felt abashed with me, I could see it; for me, I remember, that even seemed touching in him.
“Precisely saw it in pieces, sir, they precisely hit upon that idea, and it was precisely Montferrand; he was then building St. Isaac’s Cathedral.6 Saw it up, he says, and then take it away. Yes, sir, but what will that cost?”
“It won’t cost anything. Simply saw it up and take it away.”
“No, pardon me, but here you’d have to set up a machine, a steam engine, and then again, take it away where? And then again, such a mountain? Ten thousand, they say, you won’t get away with less, ten or twelve thousand.”
“Listen, Pyotr Ippolitovich, that’s nonsense, it wasn’t like that . . .” But just then Versilov winked at me inconspicuously, and in that wink I saw such delicate compassion for the landlord, even commiseration with him, that I liked it terribly much, and I burst out laughing.
“Well, so, so,” rejoiced the landlord, who hadn’t noticed anything and was terribly afraid, as such storytellers always are, that he would be thrown off by questions, “only just then some tradesman comes up to them, still a young man, well, you know, a Russian, wedge-shaped beard, in a long-skirted kaftan, and on the verge of being a little drunk . . . though, no, not drunk, sir. So this tradesman stands there while they’re talking about it, the Englishmen and Montferrand, and this person who’s in charge also drives up in a carriage, listens, and gets angry: how is it they keep deciding and can’t decide? And suddenly he notices this little tradesman standing some distance away and smiling sort of falsely, that is, not falsely, I got it wrong, but how should I say . . .”
“Mockingly,” Versilov put in cautiously.
“Mockingly, sir, that is, slightly mockingly, with this kindly Russian smile, you know; well, the person, of course, takes it with vexation, you know: ‘You in the beard, what are you waiting here for? Who are you?’
“‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I’m just looking at this little stone, Your Highness.’ Precisely, I believe, ‘Your Highness’—it was all but Prince Suvorov of Italy, a descendant of the generalissimo7 . . . Though, no, not Suvorov, and it’s a pity I’ve forgotten precisely who, only you know, though he’s a highness, he’s such a pure Russian man, this Russian type, a patriot, a developed Russian heart, so he guessed it: ‘What are you going to do,’ he says, ‘take the stone away? What are you grinning at?’ ‘More at the Englishmen, Your Highness, the price they’re asking is way out of proportion, sir, because the Russian purse is fat, and they’ve got nothing to eat at home. Allot me a hundred little roubles, Your Highness, and by tomorrow night we’ll remove this little stone.’ Well, can you imagine such an offer? The Englishmen, of course, want to eat him up; Montferrand laughs; only this highness prince, he’s a Russian heart: ‘Give him a hundred roubles!’ he says. ‘So,’ he says, ‘you’ll really take it away?’ ‘By tomorrow night it’ll be to your satisfaction, Your Highness.’ ‘And how will you do it?’ ‘That—no offense to Your Highness—is our secret, sir,’ he says, and you know, in such Russian language. This was liked: ‘Eh, give him everything he asks for!’ Well, so they left him there; and what do you think he did?”
The landlord paused and began looking at us with a sweet gaze.
“I don’t know,” Versilov smiled. I was frowning deeply.
“Here’s what he did, sir,” the landlord said with such triumph as if he had done it himself. “He hired some peasants with spades, simple Russian ones, and started digging a hole right by the stone, at the very edge; they dug all night, made an enormous hole, exactly the size of the stone, only a couple of inches deeper, and when they were done, he told them to gradually and carefully dig the ground from under the stone. Well, naturally, when they dug away under it, the stone had no support, and the balance got tipsy; and once the balance got tipsy, they pushed the stone from the other side with their hands, with a hurrah, Russian-style: the stone plopped right into the hole! They straight away shoveled the dirt back over it, tamped it down with a tamper, paved it over—smooth, the stone vanished!”
“Fancy that!” said Versilov.
“I mean, people, people come running, untold numbers of them; those Englishmen, who had guessed long ago, stand there angry. Montferrand arrives: This is a peasant job, he says, it’s too simple, he says. But that’s the whole trick, that it’s simple, and it didn’t occur to you fools! And I’ll tell you, that superior, that state personage, he just gasped, hugged him, kissed him: ‘And where might the likes of you be from?’ ‘Yaroslavl province, Your Highness, myself I’m a tailor by trade, but in summer I come to the capital to sell fruit, sir.’ Well, it reached the authorities; the authorities ordered a medal hung on him; he went around like that with the medal on his neck, and later they say he drank himself up; you know, a Russian man, can’t help himself! That’s why the foreigners prey on us to this day, yes, sir, so there, sir!”
“Yes, of course, the Russian mind . . .” Versilov began.
But here, fortunately for him, the storyteller was summoned by his ailing wife, and he ran off, otherwise I couldn’t have stood it. Versilov was laughing.
“My dear, he entertained me for a whole hour before you came. That stone . . . that’s everything there is of the most patriotically indecent among such stories, but how interrupt him? You saw him, he was melting with pleasure. And besides, the stone, it seems, is still standing there, unless I’m mistaken, and isn’t buried in a hole at all . . .”
“Ah, my God!” I cried, “but that’s true. How did he dare! . . .”
“What’s with you? No, come now, it seems you’re quite indignant. And he actually got it confused: I heard some such story about a stone back in the time of my childhood, only, naturally, it wasn’t the same and wasn’t about that stone. Good heavens, ‘it reached the authorities.’ His whole soul sang at that moment when it ‘reached the authorities.’ In this sorry milieu, it’s impossible to do without such anecdotes. They have a host of them— above all from their lack of restraint. They haven’t studied anything, they don’t know anything precisely, well, and besides cards and promotions, they want to talk about something generally human, poetic . . . What is he, who is he, this Pyotr Ippolitovich?”
“The poorest of beings, and also unfortunate.”
“Well, so you see, maybe he doesn’t even play cards! I repeat, while telling this rubbish, he satisfies his love for his neighbor: you see, he wanted to make us happy as well. The feeling of patriotism is also satisfied; for instance, they also have an anecdote that the English offered Zavyalov8 a million only so that he wouldn’t stamp his brand on his products . . .”
“Ah, my God, I’ve
