R. Morris - The Gentle Axe

In the farthest corner, so that he had to cross the extent of the market to reach it, was the flea market, which had its own atmosphere of fustiness and must. And in the farthest corner of the flea market was Lyamshin’s Pawnbroker’s.

A querulous bell announced his entry. From the gloom of the shop’s interior came the mingled smells of mothballs and unwashed bodies. A crowd of objects pressed in on Porfiry. He ducked the musical instruments and weaponry hanging from the ceiling. His eye was drawn equally by the precious and the worthless, the jewelry locked behind glass, the shelves of chipped and cracked pots. There were rails of secondhand clothes, from luxuriant furs to threadbare petticoats. Some men had even pawned their shirtfronts and collars. He dipped his fingers into barrels of shoes and crates of spectacles and stroked the snuffboxes and thimbles laid out on trays. It was as if these objects, left to their own devices, demonstrated some natural law of affinity, the magnetism of the abandoned. And of course, there was the fact that everything in the shop had once been part of someone’s life; behind each object, however mundane in itself, was a story of despair and even tragedy.

As soon as he entered, Porfiry was aware of a booming male voice. There was something artificial about this voice and excited too: an edge of premeditated hilarity. Porfiry identified the speaker immediately, a middle-aged man with a massive paunch, his eyes shrunk by the ballooning of his ruddy-complexioned face. The man’s gesticulations drew the attention as much as the delivery of his words. His face seemed almost paralyzed into joviality, and it seemed he felt the need to compensate by making the rest of his substantial body as expressive as possible. Porfiry realized the man was reciting a speech from a play, for the benefit of the pawnbroker. The actor, for Porfiry had him down as a professional of the boards, kept his eyes cast down. He was capable of achieving a curious effect in his vocal performance. The speech had the character of a surly mumble, yet every word was clearly enunciated. More than that, his voice filled the shop. The pawnbroker, a skeletally thin individual who evidently believed it bad taste to appear too prosperous or well fed before his customers, waited for the recital to finish with his head on one side, a strained smile frozen on his features. His hands, in fingerless gloves, rested on a seven-stringed gypsy guitar that lay on the counter in front of him.

At last the speech came to its end with “Holy God, what I wouldn’t do for a bowl of cabbage soup! I’m so hungry I could eat a carthorse. Whoops-someone coming, must be his lordship.”

Porfiry clapped his hands four or five times and called, “Bravo!” The pawnbroker, however, merely grimaced and turned the guitar over.

“Osip’s monologue, from The Government Inspector, ” said Porfiry. The theatrical type acknowledged the applause with a bow, his face gratified and friendly. There was a waft of vodka about him.

“I played the part in ’fifty-six, in the revival at the original Mariinsky Theater. You are an aficionado of the dramatic arts?”

“I am an admirer of Gogol.”

“Twenty rubles,” growled the pawnbroker, setting the guitar resonating as he put it down sharply.

“Twenty! You thief! You bloodsucker! You Jew! It cost me ten times that. It belonged to Sarenko.”

“Twenty rubles.”

“The speech alone was worth twenty rubles.”

“I can’t sell the speech. If you can prove it belonged to Sarenko, I’ll give you twenty-five.”

“You have my word.”

“Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two! The man has a heart of stone,” cried the actor, appealing to Porfiry.

“You know how it works,” said the pawnbroker. “I can only give you what I think I’ll get for it.”

“You’ll get more than twenty-two for this. One hundred at least.”

“Twenty-two. Take it or leave it.”

“Very well. Be warned. He will suck the blood from you,” said the actor in a loud aside to Porfiry. The actor took his money and withdrew a step but did not leave. It was as though he were waiting for something. Porfiry was aware of his presence behind him as he handed the ticket to the pawnbroker.

The gaunt face across the counter regarded him suspiciously. “You have the money?”

Porfiry laid down a red ten-ruble note. He looked over his shoulder to see the actor watching him intently. The other man gave a reflex smile and made his face bland. The pawnbroker came back with a bundle of books, tied together with string.

“You’re not Virginsky,” said the pawnbroker.

“Could you cut the string for me, please? I wish to examine the books more closely.”

“You’re not Virginsky,” repeated the pawnbroker.

“Who is Virginsky?”

“The man who pawned these books.”

“Does it matter? I’m paying his debt. I have the money to redeem the pledge on his behalf. Please cut the string.”

The pawnbroker hesitated, sucking in even farther the cheeks of his death’s-head face. All his vitality was concentrated in his eyes, which were locked on Porfiry as he slipped a penknife under the string.

The first four books were Russian translations of, in turn, Moleschott’s The Cycle of Life, Büchner’s Force and Matter, Vogt’s Superstition and Science, and Dühring’s Natural Dialectics. The fifth book, in maroon cloth binding, bore the title One Thousand and One Maidenheads.

“Ah,” came the voice at Porfiry’s shoulder as he investigated this last one, “I see you are an acolyte of Priapos.” Porfiry closed the book hurriedly. He gave the actor a stern, questioning glance. “Priapos,” his new friend explained, “my favorite publishing house.” Porfiry saw that this was the name of the book’s imprint. “There is nothing quite like the thrill of cutting the pages of the latest Priapos. If ever, my friend, you feel the need of another’s hand to guide your blade, I have much experience in such mutually advantageous manipulations.”

“Sir, I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension.”

“What’s wrong with two gentlemen enjoying a gentlemanly pursuit together? It is the same as if we were to share a bottle of fine wine or, as the redskins do, a pipe. But why stop at breaching virgin paper when there is virgin flesh to be sundered? There are girls, sir, yes, fresh, sweet, compliant girls…You have only to say. These things can be arranged.”

“I have no wish.”

“Of course, I understand. The unique pleasure of the solitary method, if I may put it like that. There is the question too of hygiene, not to mention speed. It is the rational choice. But still, a helping hand would not go amiss, I venture to suggest. Between friends, it is often the most civilized way, I find.”

“Sir, I am outraged.”

“And I am at a loss. From your other reading matter, I took you to be a rationalist and a materialist. With such an outlook, what objection could there be?”

“I have not come so far in my freethinking.”

“Then I am sorry for you.”

“And I for you.”

“Please do not be.”

“I am a magistrate.”

“Ah!”

“I am here on police business.”

“I bid you-” But the theatrical gentleman flew the shop without completing the farewell.

Feeling strangely compromised by the encounter, Porfiry turned back to the pawnbroker. The man met him with a look of open impertinence. Those eyes, intense, dark, and fiercely alive, seemed momentarily more obscene than anything in One Thousand and One Maidenheads.

“This Virginsky,” began Porfiry.

“Pavel Pavlovich.”

“You understand now that it is a police matter.”