Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov

Author:Nikolai Leskov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2020-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

12

“My first action, after flying out of the inn, was to put my hand inside my shirt and check that my wallet was still there. It was. ‘Now,’ I thought, ‘all I have to worry about is getting home safe with the money.’ The night was as dark as you can imagine. You know, around Kursk summer nights can be dark, but very warm and soft; the stars are like lanterns hanging in the sky, but on the ground the darkness is so impenetrable that you imagine someone is groping and touching you . . . At the fairs there are masses of bad people of all sorts, and very often people are robbed or killed. Even though I felt I had my strength, I still knew that, first, I was drunk and, second, that if ten or more men attacked me, then even a lot of strength would be useless against them: I’d be robbed. I was certainly tipsy, but I remembered that every time I went to pay for drinks, got up, and sat down, my drinking companion, the little lord, could see that I had a great pile of cash on me. That was why it suddenly occurred to me that I might fall victim to some underhanded tricks on his part. Where was he now, actually? We’d been thrown out together; how had he managed to hide so quickly?

“I stood there, furtively looking around; I didn’t know his name, so I quietly called out, ‘Can you hear me, magnetizer? Where are you?’

“He suddenly loomed up in front of my eyes, like a devil, and said, ‘It’s me.’

“The voice seemed different to me, and it was so dark I couldn’t even make out his ugly mug. ‘Come a bit closer,’ I said. When he was close, I grabbed his shoulders and started examining him: I couldn’t work out who he was. The moment I touched him my memory was entirely wiped out. All I could hear was him babbling in French, ‘Di-ka-ti-li-ka-ti-pé,’ and I didn’t understand a word.

“ ‘What are you babbling?’ I asked.

“ ‘Di-ka-ti-li-ka-ti-pé.’

“ ‘Just stop it, idiot: tell me in Russian who you are, because I’ve forgotten.’

“ ‘Di-ka-ti-li-ka-ti-pé: I’m the magnetizer,’ he replied.

“ ‘Ugh, you rogue!’ I thought for a minute that I could recognize him, but when I took a good look, I saw he had two noses. Two noses, nothing else. While I was puzzling that out, I forgot again who he was . . . ‘Oh, to hell with you,’ I thought. ‘How did a crook like you hook onto me?’ I asked him again, ‘Who are you?’

“ ‘The magnetizer,’ he repeated.

“ ‘Get away from me. Perhaps you’re the devil, are you?’

“ ‘Not really, but something like it.’

“I hit him on the forehead; he took offense. ‘Why hit me? I’m doing you a favor and relieving you of your urge to drink, yet you’re hitting me.’

“Try as I might, again I forgot who he was, and said, ‘But who are you?’

“ ‘I’m your eternal friend,’ he said.

“ ‘Fine, then, if you’re my

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