[A] Russian shops are often given fantastic names which are printed above the windows instead of the names of the owners.
At first Anna Nikolaevna thought she could find distraction in reading. She got as many novels and old magazines as she could, and read them conscientiously through page by page. But she mixed up the names of the heroes in the novels, and she could never understand why they wrote about the various imaginary Jeans and Blanches, and why they described beautiful mornings, all of them exactly like one another. Reading was for her labour and not relaxation, so she gave up books. Young men did not unduly pester her with their attentions, for they did not find her interesting. If one of the customers stayed too long talking amiabilities to her, she went away into the little room behind the shop and sent Fedka out. If any one tried to speak to her on her way home, she would say no word, but either hasten her steps or just run as fast as she could to her own door. She had no friends, she did not keep up a correspondence with any of her schoolfellows, she only spoke to her aunt about two words a day. And in this way the weeks and months went by.
Then Anna Nikolaevna began to make friends with the world which lay around her—the world of paper, envelopes, postcards, pencils, pens, the world of pictures, pictures in sets, pictures in relief, pictures for cutting out. This world was to her more comprehensible than that of books and was more friendly to her than the world of people. She soon learned to know all the kinds of paper and pens, all the series of postcards, and she named them all instead of calling them by numbers; she began to love some of them and to count others as her enemies. To her favourites she allotted the best places in the shop. She kept the very newest boxes, those with an edging of gold paper, for the writing-paper from a certain factory in Riga having the watermark of a fish. The sets of pictures representing types of ancient Egyptians were arranged in a special drawer in which she kept only these and some penholders with little doves at the end of the holder. The postcards on which were drawn “The Way to the Stars” she wrapped up separately in rose-coloured paper and sealed them with a wafer like a forget-me-not. But she hated the thick bloated-looking glass inkstands, hated the lined transparent paper which would never keep straight and seemed always to be laughing at her, hated the rolls of crinkled paper for lampshades, proud and sumptuous looking. These things she would hide away in the remotest corner of the shop.
Anna Nikolaevna rejoiced when she sold any of her favourite articles. It was only when her store of this or that kind of thing began to run short that she would get anxious and even dare to beg Carolina Gustavovna to obtain a new supply as soon as possible. Once she unexpectedly got sold out of the parts of the little letter-weights which acted badly and of which she had grown fond because of their misfortune, the proprietor herself sold the last one evening and would not order any more. Anna Nikolaevna wept for two whole days after. When she sold the articles she did not care for she felt vexed. When a customer took whole dozens of ugly exercise books with blue flowers on the covers, or highly coloured postcards with the portraits of actors, it seemed to her that her favourites had been insulted. On such occasions she so stubbornly dissuaded the customers from buying that many of them went out of the shop without purchasing anything at all.
Anna Nikolaevna was convinced that everything in the shop understood her. When she turned over the leaves of the quires of her beloved paper they rustled so welcomingly. When she kissed the little doves on the ends of the penholders they fluttered their little wooden wings. In the quiet wintry days when it was snowing outside the hoar-frosted window-pane with its ugly circles made by the warmth of the lamps, when for whole hours no one came into the shop, she would hold long conversations with all the things standing on the shelves or lying in the drawers and boxes. She would listen to their unuttered speech and exchange smiles and glances with the things she knew. In a rapture she would spread out on the counter her favourite pictures—of angels, flowers, Egyptians—and tell them fairy tales and listen to their stories. Sometimes they all sang to her in a hardly audible chorus, a soothing lullaby. Anna Nikolaevna would listen to this until an entering customer would smile unkindly, thinking he had awakened her from sleep.
Before Christmas Anna Nikolaevna had a bad time. Customers were unusually frequent. The shop was filled up with a pile of gaudy eye-offending cards, with ugly crackers and gilt Christmas-tree decorations, exposed in flimsy boxes. On the walls hung pull-off calendars with portraits of great men. The shop was full of people and there was no escape from them. But all the summer Anna Nikolaevna had a complete rest. There was hardly any trade, very often the day passed without a copeck being taken. The proprietor went away from Moscow for whole months. In the shop it was dusty and suffocating, but quiet. Anna Nikolaevna distributed her favourite pictures all over the shop, placed her favourite pencils, pens and erasers in the best positions in the glass cases. She cut out narrow ribbons from coloured cigarette-paper and wreathed them round the stiff columns of the cupboards. She spoke in loud whispers to her beloved objects, telling them about her own childhood, about her mother, and weeping as she did so. And it seemed to her that they comforted her. And so months and years went by.
Anna Nikolaevna never dreamed that her life might change. But one autumn day Carolina Gustavovna, having come back to Moscow in a particularly bad and quarrelsome mood, declared that there would be a general stock-taking. The following Sunday a notice was pasted on the door: “This shop is closed to-day.” Anna Nikolaevna looked on mournfully while the proprietor’s fat fingers turned over the leaves of her best notepaper, those delicate and elegant sheets, crumpling the edges; carelessly flinging on to the counter her cherished penholders with the doves. In the trade-book, where Anna Nikolaevna had written in her timid pale handwriting, the proprietor scrawled rude remarks with flourishes and ink-blots. Carolina Gustavovna found many things missing—whole stacks of paper, some gross of pencils, and various separate articles—a stereoscope, magnifying glasses, frames. Anna Nikolaevna felt sure she had never seen them in the shop. Then Carolina Gustavovna calculated that the takings had been growing less every month. This she brought to the notice of Anna Nikolaevna and blamed her for it, called her a thief, said she had no further use for her services, and dismissed her from her post.
Anna Nikolaevna burst into tears, but did not dare to utter a word of protest. When she got home, of course, she had to listen to her aunt’s reproaches, who at first called her a good-for-nothing, and then changed her tone and threatened to prosecute the German woman, saying she couldn’t allow her niece to be insulted. But Anna Nikolaevna was not so much afraid of losing her place nor troubled by the injustice of Carolina Gustavovna; she could not bear to be separated from the beloved things in the shop. She thought of the pictured angels balancing on the clouds, of the heads of Marie Stuart, of the paper bearing the watermark of a fish, of the familiar boxes and drawers, and sobbed unceasingly. She remembered that happy evening hour when the lamps had just been lighted, remembered her silent conversations with her friends and the almost inaudible chorus sounding from the shelves, and her heart was rent with despair. At the thought that never, never should she see her loved ones again, she threw herself down upon her little bed and prayed that she might die.
After about six weeks her aunt was happy to find her a new situation, once more in a stationery shop, but in a much-frequented and busy street. Anna Nikolaevna entered upon her new duties with a pang at her heart. There were two others beside herself in the shop, another girl and a young man. The master also spent the greater part of the day there. There were many customers, for the shop was near several educational institutions. All day Anna Nikolaevna was under the eyes of the others, and they laughed at her and despised her. She did not find her former beloved objects in the new shop. All the things were ordered through other agents from different firms. Paper, pencils, pens—nothing here seemed to be alive. And if there were any things like those in “Bemol,” they did not recognise Anna Nikolaevna and it was useless for her when she had a moment to whisper to them their tenderest names.