It was midday.
The landowner Voldirev, a tall, fattish farmer with a close-cropped head and bulging eyes, took off his overcoat and wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief, then entered the office somewhat diffidently.
The clerks’ pens were squeaking…
“Where might I make an enquiry?” he asks the hall porter who is carrying glasses on a tray from somewhere in the depth of the establishment. “I need to make an enquiry and get hold of a copy from the register of judgements.”
“This way Sir, please!
Go to that one, over there, the one sitting by the window!” replies the porter, pointing with the tray towards a distant window.
Voldirev coughed and made for the window.
There, behind a green baize table spotted like someone with typhus, sat a young man with four tufts of hair on his head, a long pimply nose and a faded uniform.
With his long nose pushed down towards the paper he was busy writing.
Beside his right nostril a fly was taking a stroll, and the young man frequently shoved forward his lower lip and directed a puff of air under his nose, an action which endowed his face with an extremely care-worn expression.
“Perhaps I may, here . . . from you, that is,” Voldirev addressed him, “make an enquiry about some business of mine?
My name is Voldirev. . . And I need also to obtain a copy from the register of judgements of the second of March.”
The clerk dipped his pen in the inkwell, then examined it to see if it had taken on too much ink.
Having assured himself that the pen would not blotch, he started scratching away.
His lower lip had stretched forward, but a puff was no longer necessary - the fly had settled on his ear.
“May I make an enquiry here?” - Voldirev repeated his request.
“My name is Voldirev, a landowner.”
“Ivan Alexeyich!” shouted the clerk into the air, as if he had not noticed Voldirev. “Will you tell the merchant Yalikov when he comes that he must witness the copy of the affidavit to the police!
I’ve told him a thousand times!”
“I’m enquiring in relation to a difficulty I have with the inheritors of Princess Gugulina,” mumbled Voldirev.
“It’s a well known case.
I do earnestly ask you to look at it for me.” Still not noticing Voldirev, the clerk seized the fly from his lip, examined it attentively, then chucked it aside.
The landowner coughed and blew his nose into his chequered handkerchief, but it produced no effect.
He was still ignored.
The silence dragged on for two more minutes.
Then Voldirev took from his pocket a one rouble note and placed it in front of the clerk on an open book.
The clerk frowned, pulled the book towards him with an anxious look, then covered it.
“I have a small request. . . I simply would like to know on what basis the inheritors of Princess Gugulina. . . Might I disturb you in this matter?”
But the clerk, pre-occupied with his own thoughts, stood up, scratched his elbow, and then went to the cupboard for something or other.
On returning to his desk a minute later he again busied himself with a book. Lying upon it was a one rouble note.
“I will trouble you only for a minute. It’s a small enquiry, only…”
The clerk did not hear him. He started to copy something.
Voldirev frowned and helplessly looked round at the entire scribbling fraternity.
“They scribble away,” he thought, with a sigh, “They scribble away here, damn the lot of them!”
He left the desk and stood in the middle of the room, his arms hanging down in dejection.
The porter, going past again with some glasses, noticed, in all probability, the helpless expression on his face, because he went up to him and asked quietly:
“Well, how was it?
Have you made your enquiry?”
“I made my enquiry, but nobody wants to talk to me.”
“Well just give him three roubles,” whispered the porter.
“I’ve already given him two.”
“Give him another then.”
Voldirev returned to the desk and laid on an open book a green one rouble note.
The clerk again drew the book towards himself and busily went on copying. Then suddenly, as if by accident, he lifted up his eyes and saw Voldirev.
His nose shone, he reddened and frowned as he smiled.
“Ahh… How can I help you?” he asked.
“I would like to make an enquiry relative to some business of mine. My name is Voldirev.”
“Very pleased to meet you!
Concerning the Gugulina affair?
Excellent, Sir!