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A Mystery
Anton Chekhov
ON the evening of Easter Sunday the actual Civil Councillor, Navagin, on his return from
paying calls, picked up the sheet of paper on which visitors had inscribed their names in the
hall, and went with it into his study. After taking off his outer garments and drinking some
seltzer water, he settled himself comfortably on a couch and began reading the signatures in
the list. When his eyes reached the middle of the long list of signatures, he started, gave an
ejaculation of astonishment and snapped his fingers, while his face expressed the utmost
perplexity.
"Again!" he said, slapping his knee. "It's extraordinary! Again! Again there is the signature
of that fellow, goodness knows who he is! Fedyukov! Again!"
Among the numerous signatures on the paper was the signature of a certain Fedyukov. Who
the devil this Fedyukov was, Navagin had not a notion. He went over in his memory all his
acquaintances, relations and subordinates in the service, recalled his remote past but could
recollect no name like Fedyukov. What was so strange was that this incognito, Fedyukov,
had signed his name regularly every Christmas and Easter for the last thirteen years. Neither
Navagin, his wife, nor his house porter knew who he was, where he came from or what he
was like.
"It's extraordinary!" Navagin thought in perplexity, as he paced about the study. "It's strange
and incomprehensible! It's like sorcery!"
"Call the porter here!" he shouted.
"It's devilish queer! But I will find out who he is!"
"I say, Grigory," he said, addressing the porter as he entered, "that Fedyukov has signed his
name again! Did you see him?"
"No, your Excellency."
"Upon my word, but he has signed his name! So he must have been in the hall. Has he
been?"
"No, he hasn't, your Excellency."
"How could he have signed his name without being there?"
"I can't tell."
"Who is to tell, then? You sit gaping there in the hall. Try and remember, perhaps someone
you didn't know came in? Think a minute!"
"No, your Excellency, there has been no one I didn't know. Our clerks have been, the
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baroness came to see her Excellency, the priests have been with the Cross, and there has
been no one else. . . ."
"Why, he was invisible when he signed his name, then, was he?"
"I can't say: but there has been no Fedyukov here. That I will swear before the holy
image. . . ."
"It's queer! It's incomprehensible! It's ex-traordinary!" mused Navagin. "It's positively
ludicrous. A man has been signing his name here for thirteen years and you can't find out
who he is. Perhaps it's a joke? Perhaps some clerk writes that name as well as his own for
fun."
And Navagin began examining Fedyukov's signature.
The bold, florid signature in the old-fashioned style with twirls and flourishes was utterly
unlike the handwriting of the other signatures. It was next below the signature of
Shtutchkin, the provincial secretary, a scared, timorous little man who would certainly have
died of fright if he had ventured upon such an impudent joke.
"The mysterious Fedyukov has signed his name again!" said Navagin, going in to see his
wife. "Again I fail to find out who he is."
Madame Navagin was a spiritualist, and so for all phenomena in nature, comprehensible or
incomprehensible, she had a very simple explanation.
"There's nothing extraordinary about it," she said. "You don't believe it, of course, but I
have said it already and I say it again: there is a great deal in the world that is supernatural,
which our feeble intellect can never grasp. I am convinced that this Fedyukov is a spirit
who has a sympathy for you . . . If I were you, I would call him up and ask him what he
wants."
"Nonsense, nonsense!"
Navagin was free from superstitions, but the phenomenon which interested him was so
mysterious that all sorts of uncanny devilry intruded into his mind against his will. All the
evening he was imagining that the incognito Fedyukov was the spirit of some long-dead
clerk, who had been discharged from the service by Navagin's ancestors and was now
revenging himself on their descendant; or perhaps it was the kinsman of some petty official
dismissed by Navagin himself, or of a girl seduced by him. . . .
All night Navagin dreamed of a gaunt old clerk in a shabby uniform, with a face as yellow
as a lemon, hair that stood up like a brush, and pewtery eyes; the clerk said something in a
sepulchral voice and shook a bony finger at him. And Navagin almost had an attack of
inflammation of the brain.
For a fortnight he was silent and gloomy and kept walking up and down and thinking. In the
end he overcame his sceptical vanity, and going into his wife's room he said in a hollow
voice:
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"Zina, call up Fedyukov!"
The spiritualistic lady was delighted; she sent for a sheet of cardboard and a saucer, made
her husband sit down beside her, and began upon the magic rites.
Fedyukov did not keep them waiting long. . . .
"What do you want?" asked Navagin.
"Repent," answered the saucer.
"What were you on earth?"
"A sinner. . . ."
"There, you see!" whispered his wife, "and you did not believe!"
Navagin conversed for a long time with Fedyukov, and then called up Napoleon, Hannibal,
Askotchensky, his aunt Klavdya Zaharovna, and they all gave him brief but correct answers
full of deep significance. He was busy with the saucer for four hours, and fell asleep
soothed and happy that he had become acquainted with a mysterious world that was new to
him. After that he studied spiritualism every day, and at the office, informed the clerks that
there was a great deal in nature that was supernatural and marvellous to which our men of
science ought to have turned their attention long ago.
Hypnotism, mediumism, bishopism, spiritualism, the fourth dimension, and other misty
notions took complete possession of him, so that for whole days at a time, to the great
delight of his wife, he read books on spiritualism or devoted himself to the saucer, table-
turning, and discussions of supernatural phenomena. At his instigation all his clerks took up
spiritualism, too, and with such ardour that the old managing clerk went out of his mind and
one day sent a telegram: "Hell. Government House. I feel that I am turning into an evil
spirit. What's to be done? Reply paid. Vassily Krinolinsky."
After reading several hundreds of treatises on spiritualism Navagin had a strong desire to
write something himself. For five months he sat composing, and in the end had written a
huge monograph, entitled: My Opinion. When he had finished this essay he determined to
send it to a spiritualist journal.
The day on which it was intended to despatch it to the journal was a very memorable one
for him. Navagin remembers that on that never-to-be-forgotten day the secretary who had
made a fair copy of his article and the sacristan of the parish who had been sent for on
business were in his study. Nayagin's face was beaming. He looked lovingly at his creation,
felt between his fingers how thick it was, and with a happy smile said to the secretary:
"I propose, Filipp Sergeyitch, to send it registered. It will be safer. . . ." And raising his eyes
to the sacristan, he said: "I have sent for you on business, my good man. I am putting my
youngest son to the high school and I must have a certificate of baptism; only could you let
me have it quickly?"
"Very good, your Excellency!" said the sacristan, bowing. "Very good, I understand. . . ."
"Can you let me have it by to-morrow?"
"Very well, your Excellency, set your mind at rest! To-morrow it shall be ready! Will you
send someone to the church to-morrow before evening service? I shall be there. Bid him ask
for Fedyukov. I am always there. . . ."
"What!" cried the general, turning pale.
"Fedyukov."
"You, . . . you are Fedyukov?" asked Navagin, looking at him with wide-open eyes.
"Just so, Fedyukov."
"You. . . . you signed your name in my hall?"
"Yes . . ." the sacristan admitted, and was overcome with confusion. "When we come with
the Cross, your Excellency, to grand gentlemen's houses I always sign my name. . . . I like
doing it. . . . Excuse me, but when I see the list of names in the hall I feel an impulse to sign
mine. . . ."
In dumb stupefaction, understanding nothing, hearing nothing, Navagin paced about his
study. He touched the curtain over the door, three times waved his hands like a jeune
premier in a ballet when he sees her, gave a whistle and a meaningless smile, and pointed
with his finger into space.
"So I will send off the article at once, your Excellency," said the secretary.
These words roused Navagin from his stupour. He looked blankly at the secretary and the
sacristan, remembered, and stamping, his foot irritably, screamed in a high, breaking tenor:
"Leave me in peace! Lea-eave me in peace, I tell you! What you want of me I don't
understand."
The secretary and the sacristan went out of the study and reached the street while he was
still stamping and shouting:
"Leave me in peace! What you want of me I don't understand. Lea-eave me in peace!"
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