JoyIt was midnight. Mitya Kuldarov, flushed with excitement and with his hair in disarray, burst into his parents’ flat and dashed from one room to the next. His parents had already retired for the night. His sister lay in bed, turning the last page of a novel, while his schoolboy brothers were fast asleep. “Where on earth have you come from?” his astonished parents cried. “Whatever is the matter with you?” “Oh, don’t ask! I never expected it, I never dreamed of it! It’s… it’s simply incredible!” Laughing, Mitya sank into an armchair, so overwhelmed with happiness that his legs would no longer hold him. “It’s incredible! You can’t imagine! Look!” His sister jumped out of bed and, wrapping a quilt around herself, went in to her brother. The schoolboys woke. “What’s the matter? You’re not yourself!” “It’s because I’m so delighted, Mamma! Do you realize that all Russia knows about me now? All Russia! Until today only you knew that there existed a registration clerk by the name of Dmitry Kuldarov, and now the whole of Russia knows it! Mamma! Good Lord!” Mitya jumped to his feet, raced up and down through every room, and then sat down again. “But what has happened? Tell us properly!” “You live like wild animals: you never read the newspapers or pay any attention to what is published, and yet the papers are full of interesting things. Whatever happens, everyone knows about it at once; nothing stays hidden! How happy I am! Only celebrated people have their names printed in the papers, you know, and now they’ve gone and printed mine!” “What do you mean? Where?” The father went pale. The mother glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. The schoolboys climbed out of bed and, just as they were, in their short nightshirts, came up to their brother. “Yes! My name is in print! Now all Russia knows who I am! Keep the paper, Mamma, as a souvenir. We’ll read it now and then. Look!” Mitya drew a copy of the newspaper from his pocket, handed it to his father and pointed to a passage marked in blue pencil. His father put on his spectacles, cleared his throat and began to read aloud, while the mother once again glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. The report stated that at eleven o’clock on the evening of the 29th of December, a registration clerk named Dmitry Kuldarov, leaving a beer shop in Little Bronnaia in a state of intoxication, had slipped and fallen under a horse belonging to Ivan Drotov, a peasant sledge-driver from the village of Durikino. The frightened animal had stepped over Kuldarov and dragged the sledge across him, together with its passenger, a Moscow merchant named Stepan Lukov, before racing down the street, where it was finally caught by some house-porters. Mitya broke in: “That’s me and Semyon Petrovitch! It’s all described exactly! Go on! Listen!” Kuldarov, the report continued, had at first been unconscious and was taken to the police station, where a doctor examined him. The blow he had received on the back of his head turned out not to be serious. Medical aid had been given to the injured man, and the incident had been duly reported. “It was the shaft that hit me, Papa. And they told me to bathe the back of my head in cold water. There, you’ve read it now? So you see! Now it’s all over Russia! Give it here!” Mitya seized the paper, folded it and thrust it into his pocket. “I’ll run round to the Makarovs and show it to them, and then to the Ivanitskys, and to Natasya Ivanovna and Anisim Vassilyitch too. I must run! Goodbye!” And pulling on his cap with its cockade, Mitya ran out into the street, joyful and triumphant.
