Albert: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Next morning when he was awakened to go to his office, Delesov with a feeling of unpleasant surprise saw around him his old screen, his old valet, and his watch lying on the small side-table. "But what did I expect to see if not what is always around me?" he asked himself. Then he remembered the musician's black eyes and happy smile, the motif of Melancolie, and all the strange experiences of the previous night passed through his mind.

He had no time however to consider whether he had acted well or badly by taking the musician into his house. While dressing he mapped out the day, took his papers, gave the necessary household orders, and hurriedly put on his overcoat and overshoes.

Passing the dining-room door he looked in. Albert, after tossing about, had sunk his face in the pillow, and lay in his dirty ragged shirt, dead asleep on the leather sofa where he had been deposited unconscious the night before. "There's something wrong!" thought Delesov involuntarily.

"Please go to Boryuzovski and ask him to lend me a violin for a couple of days," he said to his manservant. "When he wakes up, give him coffee and let him have some underclothing and old clothes of mine. In general, make him comfortable - please!"

On returning late in the evening Delesov was surprised not to find Albert.

"Where is he?" he asked his man.

"He went away immediately after dinner," replied the servant. "He took the violin and went away. He promised to be back in an hour, but he's not here yet."

"Tut, tut! How provoking!" muttered Delesov. "Why did you let him go, Zakhar?"

Zakhar was a Petersburg valet who had been in Delesov's service for eight years. Delesov, being a lonely bachelor, could not help confiding his ntentions to him, and liked to know his opinions about all his undertakings.

"How could I dare not to let him?" Zakhar replied, toying with the fob of his watch. "If you had told me to keep him in I might have amused him at home. But you only spoke to me about clothes."

"Pshaw! How provoking! Well, and what was he doing here without me?"

Zakhar smiled.

"One can well call him an 'artist', sir. [Note: In addition to its proper meaning, the word "artist" was used in Russian to denote a thief, or a man dextrous at anything, good or bad.] As soon as he woke he asked for Madeira, and then he amused himself with the cook and with the neighbours manservant. He is so funny. However, he is good-natured. I gave him tea and brought him dinner. He would not eat anything himself, but kept inviting me to do so. But when it comes to playing the violin, even Izler has few artists like him. One may well befriend such a man. When he played Down the Little Mother Volga to us it was as if a man were weeping. It was too beautiful. Even the servants from all the flats came to our back entrance to hear him."

"Well, and did you get him dressed?" his master interrupted him.

"Of course. I gave him a night-shirt of yours and put my own paletot on him. A man like that is worth helping - he really is a dear fellow!" Zakhar smiled.

"He kept asking me what your rank is, whether you have influential acquaintances, and how many serfs you own."

"Well, all right, but now he must be found, and in future don't let him have anything to drink, or it'll be worse for him."

"That's true," Zakhar interjected. "He is evidently feeble; our old master had a clerk like that..."

But Delesov who had long known the story of the clerk who took hopelessly to drink, did not let Zakhar finish, and telling him to get everything ready for the night, sent him out to find Albert and bring him back.

He then went to bed and put out the light, but could not fall asleep for a long time, thinking about Albert. "Though it may seem strange to many of my acquaintances," he thought, "yet one so seldom does anything for others that one ought to thank God when such an opportunity presents itself, and I will not miss it. I will do anything - positively anything in my power - to help him. He may not be mad at all, but only under the influence of drink. It won't cost me very much. Where there's enough for one there's enough for two. Let him live with me awhile, then we'll find him a place or arrange a concert for him and pull him out of the shallows, and then see what happens."

He experienced a pleasant feeling of self-satisfaction after this reflection. "Really I'm not altogether a bed fellow," he thought. "Not at all bad even - when I compare myself with others."

He was already falling asleep when the sound of opening doors and of footsteps in the hall roused him.

"Well, I'll be stricter with him," he thought, "that will be best; and I must do it."

He rang.

"Have you brought him back?" he asked when Zakhar entered.

"A pitiable man, sir," said Zakhar, shaking his head significantly and closing his eyes.

"Is he drunk?"

"He is very weak."

"And has he the violin?"

"I've brought it back. The lady gave it me."

"Well, please don't let him in here now. Put him to bed, and tomorrow be sure not to let him leave the house on any account."

But before Zakhar was out of the room Albert entered it.

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