The End of Everything (New Yiddish Library Series) (8 page)

—She wasn’t there … Not that it made any difference to him … But she was definitely not there.

From various corners of the town, early evening fires gazed pensively at his passing buggy. They reminded him of how much time had elapsed since he’d been here even once, intensified his longing for his former fiancée, and made dearer the remembrance of her sorrowful features, so long unseen.

Thoughts arose:

Now she was undoubtedly sitting over there, in one of those brightly lit town houses, sad and indifferent to the people surrounding her, her blue eyes fixed on the lamp, saying nothing.

And were there to be some talk of Velvl Burnes, were someone over there to say,

“He’ll earn a considerable sum this year … without doubt a considerable sum …” she would, for a moment, tear her sad eyes away from the lamp and ask, “Who? Velvl Burnes?” and then she’d go on staring sadly at the lamp for a long time and in silence, and no one would know whether she regretted returning the betrothal contract or not.

Unexpectedly, someone stopped his buggy near the first of the town’s houses and began yelling out to him:

—They weren’t at home, his father and mother … Very early yesterday morning they’d gone off to the provincial capital.

He turned round swiftly and saw:

A young man who worked as a steward, a commonplace steward, on one of his father’s estates who was returning to the village for the night.

And for some reason there seemed something disrespectful in the fact that over some triviality this young man in the high boots had stopped him here at the very edge of town; in the fact that, without his knowledge, his parents had for motives of their own gone off to the provincial capital very early the day before.

One person among the strolling couples seemed to pause and laugh at his discomfiture, so in annoyance he yelled back at the steward:

—So what? Does it matter that they’re not at home?

And he immediately poked his driver in the back and ordered him to drive on faster. He was agitated and distracted, and as his buggy drew steadily nearer the center of town, he continued to brood:

—What a fool that steward was … What a stupid idiot of a steward …

But approaching his father’s house, which was situated opposite the marketplace, he saw all the windows of the salon brightly illuminated and beaming festively out into the night. All at once forgetting his own agitation, he was astonished:

—Could there really be guests there? … What kind of guests could possibly be calling now?

Thinking immediately of Mirele, he stole a glance at her father’s house, the darkened windows of which looked out in this direction from the opposite side of the street, and felt his heart pounding within him:

—Mirele was capable of anything! Even now she might’ve called on his sisters.

In the brightly lit entrance hall he slowly took off his dust coat. He was in no rush, and even had time to smile at the elderly woman, their cook, who was hurrying through the dining room. He felt personally very satisfied with this smile.

—Whatever the case, it behooved him now to be composed and cautious, and the main thing … the main thing was to be in no rush, and to give no indication that he was pleased at her coming.

Various voices carried from the salon into the dining room, which he finally entered. Much theorizing and disagreement was going on there, and the crippled student, who was also present, was trying to shout above everyone else:

—Just a minute: how much have the metaphysicians given us up until now?

A child, one of Velvl’s little brothers, coming out of the salon into the dining room by chance, caught sight of him, rushed over and threw his arms around his knees; Velvl lifted him up and smilingly stood him on a chair:

—You’re running around, eh? Running around?

But the door of the salon had been left open behind the little boy, and from time to time Velvl’s eyes were stealthily drawn in that direction where they saw:

Apart from the crippled Lipkis, also seated there were the big-city university student whom his father had employed as a tutor to the children not long before, one of his younger sisters, and a large, unknown young woman. His sister and this young woman were sitting on the soft divan while the two students were standing opposite each other with flushed faces, deeply absorbed in their dispute.

He finally went in, learned something from his sister about his parents’ departure, crossed over to the big-city student and, offering him his hand, politely inquired:

—How was he? How was life treating him?

The student, however, was so carried away by his own theorizing that he made no reply, continuing to shout at the crippled Lipkis instead:

—What about love, then? … What about every thought that’s transmuted into
oshchushchenie
, into sensation, into feeling?

Here in his father’s house these two students didn’t notice him, spent the whole evening theorizing about matters he didn’t understand, and even forgot that he was hovering about near them. For his own part, he was obliged to stay the night there and, returning to his farm at nine o’clock the next morning, had to pass through the western end of the town and see:

Mirele, dressed for an outing, sitting in a phaeton
*
hired from the capital and waiting near a neighboring house for the crippled student Lipkis, waiting in pleasurable anticipation and smiling. And he, the crippled Lipkis …

He was limping in great haste toward the phaeton with a highly distracted, freshly washed face, paying no attention to that fact that his widowed mother was shouting after him from the open front door:

—Lipe, I beg you: take your thick overcoat … What’s the matter with you, Lipe? … Take your overcoat.

Returning to his farm, Velvl felt deeply upset, and finally decided:

—From now on he’d seldom go into town … very, very seldom …

And he did indeed seldom go into town, very, very seldom.

He even told one of the brokers, who proposed some buyers for the rest of the grain:

—It might be more appropriate for these merchants to come down here, to me … It’s perfectly all right; I never turn anyone out of my house.

As he made this remark, he was convinced that the broker would repeat what he’d said in the home of his former fiancée’s father; that in the end merchants from the town would politely and respectfully start calling on him here, as politely and respectfully as they called on the Gentile landowners around him.

Every day he went calmly and in quiet expectation to the low-roofed sheds in which he stored his grain before moving beyond, where large numbers of peasant men and women had spread out over his farthermost fields and were hurriedly digging out his beets. In the evenings he lay all alone on the sofa in his well-lit cottage thinking about himself, about the money he’d earned, and about the fact that there in the shtetl Mirele, wearing a warm autumn jacket, was now wandering through the chilly, darkened streets. He reminded himself of his six thousand rubles which, together with Mirele’s three thousand, were still invested with the old Count of Kashperivke, and took pleasure from the new furniture with which he’d only recently fitted out his well-to-do cottage:

—All things considered, had he done well to have thrown away a whole three hundred rubles on this furniture, eh? Certainly, he’d done well.

Outside at such times everything around his brightly lit cottage was lifeless and silent. An unusually expansive star-studded sky spread out over the darkened village, always so early asleep, and only in the priest’s enclosed courtyard did the vicious dogs go on baying as soon as night fell, making a fearful disturbance in response to the slightest noise whether close by or far off, or for no reason at all simply raising their snouts in the direction of the sleeping town to fill the chill autumnal night air with their bewildered howling.

Around eight o’clock the dogs would suddenly start barking even more angrily and ferociously as the heavy tread of a peasant made itself heard at the kitchen door. Then from his place on the sofa Velvl would raise his head, listen attentively, and start calling out in the direction of the open door:

—Aleksey, has something come in the post, Aleksey?

He knew quite well that there would be nothing more than a copy of
Birzhevye vedomosti,
the Russian stock exchange gazette, yet every evening he’d shout out the same words to his manservant because they pleased him and because they were frequently shouted out by the well-bred Gentile landowners with whom he had neighborly dealings.

Then for a long while, with the comfortable consciousness of being his own master, he’d settle himself expansively next to the blue-shaded lamp and attentively peruse every page of the outspread newspaper.

Several times he’d read aloud those passages he didn’t understand and unfailingly check the interest rate on annuities in the stock market listings. He already had a considerable amount of ready cash with which he could easily buy an annuity for himself and keep it locked up in his dresser as his landowning neighbors did. Besides, annuities of this kind were always to be found in the possession of the diminutive, perpetually jolly and perpetually busy Nokhem Tarabay, that same Nokhem Tarabay who lived eighteen versts
*
farther on at the prosperous sugar refinery where he ran his wealthy household in the style of a nobleman and sent his children to be educated somewhere in the huge, distant city. Meeting this Nokhem Tarabay at a gathering somewhere, he’d once even taken the opportunity to show him that he, Velvl Burnes, was by no means totally uninformed, and had felt able to ask him cheerfully and loudly:

—
Pani
Tarabay, how are the four percents doing this week? Last week, the paper reports, the four percents were virtually worthless.

At the time, Tarabay had jokingly widened his enormous, lively eyes and gaped in feigned astonishment:

—Eh? … Was he really starting to talk about annuities already?

He stood for a while in seemingly open-mouthed incredulity and made no answer whatever.

This astonished expression meant something quite different, however. Not without reason did the broker who, in his horse and buggy, often called on Velvl tell him a short time later:

—On his life, a short while before Nokhem Tarabay had praised him, Velvl Burnes, to a large group of merchants.

The broker swore that, as he hoped for a fortunate and prosperous year, he’d heard Nokhem Tarabay himself say:

—Mark my words: Avrom-Moyshe Burnes is raising a jewel of a young man, I’m telling you: he has all the potential of a great landowner.

On one occasion this Nokhem Tarabay honored him with a visit. Driving past his farm, Tarabay turned his new phaeton into the courtyard and cheerfully inquired in Polish of Velvl’s driver Aleksey:

—
Czy Pan Burnes w domu?
Is Pan Burnes at home?

This was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

From the window he noticed Tarabay springing down from his phaeton, was overcome with confusion, immediately opened the door of the front verandah which was normally kept locked, and with great respect led his visitor inside.

He had such sharp, lively little eyes, this diminutive millionaire who lived like a nobleman; he even noticed the brass plate affixed to the verandah door and praised his host as he entered his home:

—That’s the way! … Absolutely the way! … I mean, why not? Why else are we living in the world?

This Nokhem had the habit of chattering a great deal about himself, about his extensive business affairs and his equally extensive house, of pointing a finger at his starched collar as he spoke and of repeatedly shooting his starched cuffs from under coat sleeves that were slightly too short.

All he really needed from Velvl’s farm were some two or three hundred bales of straw for his oxen stables at the sugar refinery, but this merited only a mention in passing outside as he seated himself back in his phaeton. In the meanwhile Tarabay was able to chatter merrily away about his elder son who was working in a big bank somewhere, about his younger son who was studying at the polytechnic, and about his twenty-three-year-old daughter who was devoted to the village and her home and had delayed her education as a result of spending far too much time there:

—Recently, this daughter had told him:

“She wanted to travel to Odessa.”

So he’d answered:

“Go to Odessa, then.”

And three weeks later she’d returned from Odessa with the proof in black and white to inform him:

“You see, Father, I’ve passed the examinations in six grades.”

And for quite some time after that, a great many odd thoughts about both Tarabay’s daughter and his former fiancée filled the dull mind of this twenty-seven-year-old bachelor, Velvl. It seemed to him that this daughter’s achievement in passing her examinations in six grades had some connection with him and with the fact that Mirele had returned their betrothal contract and was now keeping regular company with the crippled student Lipkis; that all of this mortified and humiliated him, that he couldn’t permit it to continue and was obliged to put a stop to it.

And then something happened to him that actually shouldn’t have happened.

He began fraternizing with the village schoolmaster, a Gentile who came daily to tutor the priest’s too long unmarried daughters,
*
finally invited him over, and began secretly taking lessons from him.

On one occasion he even remarked to this Gentile:

—These fractions are a clever thing … really, a very clever thing to study.

And the Gentile schoolmaster went off and mockingly made this remark known everywhere.

As a result, the priest’s daughters almost choked with laughter every time they saw Velvl passing their front verandah. And in town one day Mirele stopped his sisters to ask sarcastically:

—Apparently your Velvl is planning to enter university—is this true?

He met Nokhem Tarabay once more.

This was at the sugar refinery, where he was collecting what he was owed for the sugar beets that had been ordered from him.