A Compatriot by Ivan Bunin — Read

This muzhik of Briansk had been brought from the village to Moscow when he was a little boy; he had run errands at a merchant's warehouse in Iliyinka; he used to fly like an arrow to taverns to get hot water for tea: seizing the tea kettle, he would dash through the galleries of the Stariya Riyady -- the Old Shops -- drawing, with a dark jet of water, the figure eight upon the gray floor. On a brisk winter day, perhaps with a light snow falling, the Iliyinka thoroughfare would be black with people; the horses of the cabbies would be shufflingly trotting along -- but he, in just his shirt and without a cap (his head resembling a rusty hedgehog), would jump out of the house, dart off the sidewalk, and start sliding on his soles upon the ice in the gutter.

Imagine, then, how strange it is to see this muzhik in the tropics, at the equator! He is sitting in his office in an old-fashioned house of Dutch architecture. Beyond the window lies the white city in the blaze of the sun; there are naked black rickshaw-men, shops of Australian wares and of precious stones, hotels filled with tourists from all the ends of the world; in the warm green water of the harbour float American and Japanese steamers; beyond the harbour, along the lowlands of the shores, grow coconut groves. Clad all in white, tall, knotty, with flaming red hair, with a blueish freckled skin, pale, energetically exhilarated (or, to put it more simply, just daft) from the heat, from nervousness, from constant tipsiness and from business activity -- he is, to look at him, either a Swede or an Englishman. His desk is all cluttered with papers, with bills. The air is filled with the crisp rattling of typewriters. An old Hindu, barefooted, in robe and turban, noiselessly and rapidly changes with his dark, exquisite, silver-ringed hands little bottles of cold soda water, and every minute, with a mysterious expression on his face, announces the visitors, adding "Sir" at every word. But the "Sir" is completely absorbed in conversation with his friend from Russia, before whom he is playing the role of the affable lord of this tropical island. Upon the table are several open boxes of the most expensive cigars; of Turkish, Egyptian, English and Havana cigarettes. He is a connoisseur of tobaccos -- as well as of everything else, by the way. He regales his guest now with this brand, now with the other, saying, as though in passing: "This, I think isn't at all bad. " Throwing a casual glance at some paper submitted to him, he, in the midst of the conversation, firmly and abruptly dashes off his signature upon it. Upon seeing a visitor enter, he changes the expression on his face, disposes of the matter in hand in two or three phrases, and again renews the interrupted conversation. When receiving some dispatch, his manner of opening it is especially negligent; for a moment, as he runs through it, he frowns: "What idiots! " he will say vehemently, in vexation; and throwing the dispatch to one side, immediately forgets about it -- or pretends that he does so. All are idiots to him. He has already succeeded in astonishing his guest with his self-assurance, his decisive and sceptical mind, his enormous worldly experience and his wide acquaintance with people of the most diverse classes and stations. No matter who among the celebrities of Moscow is named -- merchants, administrators, physicians, journalists -- he knows them all, and knows well, besides, the price of each and all. And what information does he not possess concerning backstage mysteries, exceptional careers, and shady histories!