Читать книгу A Man from the Future. 1856 - Евгений Платонов - Страница 32

Now he needed to buy proper clothes. Rodion led him to another merchant – a fat man with a red face, selling secondhand clothes.

“Need a frock coat?” the merchant asked. “Look there, a good one, almost new. The previous owner died, the heirs are selling. Only five rubles.”

Died, Dmitry shuddered. I’ll be wearing the clothes of a dead man.

But again – there was no choice. He tried on the frock coat – long, dark blue, with buttons. It fit well enough, though it was a bit large in the shoulders.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

“What about pants? A shirt?” The merchant already sensed a customer. Dmitry selected gray pants, a white shirt (also secondhand, with yellow sweat stains under the armpits), a black vest, and a pair of boots.

“Eight rubles total,” the merchant announced.

Eight rubles, Dmitry calculated. I only have three. Damn.

“I only have three rubles,” he admitted.

The merchant frowned:

“Then pick something else. Either the frock coat or the pants with the shirt.”

“I’ll pay for it,” Rodion suddenly said.

Dmitry turned to him:

“What? No, I can’t accept…”

“You can,” Rodion answered curtly. “I have five rubles. I’ll lend them to you. Pay me back when you can.”

Five rubles, Dmitry thought. For him, that’s probably enormous money. Maybe all he has. And he’s willing to give it to a stranger. Why?

“Rodion Romanovich,” he began, “I don’t know how to thank you…”

“Don’t thank me,” Rodion cut him off. “Just later, when you get rich, help someone else. That’s how the world works – good produces good. Although…” he smiled bitterly, “sometimes good only produces pain.”

He took some crumpled bills from his pocket and gave them to the merchant. Dmitry received his clothes.

Right there, on the square, behind a cart, he changed. He stripped off the t-shirt, put on the shirt – rough, prickly, reeking of someone else’s sweat. He pulled on the pants – wide, with suspenders. He put on the vest and the frock coat. He put on the boots – heavy, uncomfortable, but at least warm.

Rodion examined him critically:

“Now you look like a man. A poor man, true, but that’s all right. The main thing is you don’t stand out.”

Dmitry looked at his reflection in a shop window. Yes, now he looked like a nineteenth-century resident. A worn frock coat, a wrinkled shirt, old boots. One of the thousands of minor clerks, students, and common people who populated St. Petersburg.

I’ve merged into the crowd, he thought. Become part of this time. Now I’m not a stranger here.

But inside there remained a strange feeling – as if he were an actor who had put on a costume for a play. An unreal person in unreal clothes, playing a role.

Or is it the opposite? he suddenly thought. Maybe back there in the twenty-first century I was playing a role? And here – I’m real?