a merchant brought Senka out in a sweat. You needed real brains for a deal like this! For the first time he regretted he hadn’t done more studying. He couldn’t even work out the future takings properly.
So what did that mean?
Yes, it meant he had to catch up. Squeeze all that ignorance and bad manners out of himself, learn how to make fancy small talk, and it would be no bad thing if he could banter in foreign as well, so he could trade over in Europe.
The very thought of it took his breath away.
And that was only the earthly dream, not the most important one. The other dream, the heavenly one, set Senka’s head spinning good and proper.
Of course, if you thought about it, this was an earthly dream too, maybe even more earthly than the other, only it warmed his heart as well as his head, and the heart was where the soul was. Then again, it made Senka’s belly – and other parts of his body – feel hot too.
Before, he was a nobody, just a young pup, no kind of match for Death. But now, if he didn’t mess things up, he could be the richest man in Moscow. And then, Senka dreamed, he’d throw all those thousands and thousands at her feet and save her from the Prince and the Ghoul, cure her of the candy-cane sickness and carry her off to somewhere far, far away – to Tver (they said it was a fine town) or somewhere else. Maybe even all the way to Paris.
It didn’t matter that she was older. The fluff on his cheeks would sprout into a beard and moustache soon enough, and then he’d really come into his own. And he could touch up his temples with grey, like Erast Petrovich – and why not, it was very impressive.
Only when Senka and Death went to get married, it would have to be well away from any embankment where you could fall in and drown. God takes care of those as take care of themselves.
So there was Senka, already picturing the wedding, and the feast in the Hermitage dining hall, but he knew the money on its own wouldn’t be enough. Death had had beaus and lovers with huge fortunes before, that was nothing new for her. And he couldn’t win her over with presents. He had to turn himself from a grey sparrow into a white falcon and go soaring way up high before he could fly close to a swan like her.
His thoughts turned to education and cultured manners. He had no chance of being a falcon without them, even if he did have the riches.
There was a bookstall out on the square – Senka could see it from the window. He went out and bought a clever book that was called Life in Society, at Home and at Court – how to behave in decent society so you they wouldn’t boot you out.
When he started reading, he came out in a cold sweat. Holy saints, it was all so complicated! How to bow to who, how to kiss a woman’s hand – a lady’s, that is – how to give compliments, how to dress when and where, how to walk into a room and how to walk out. If he spent his whole life studying, he still wouldn’t remember it all!
‘One should never pay a visit earlier than two o’clock or later than five or six,’ Senka read, moving his lips and ruffling up his French coiffure. ‘Before two o’clock, one risks finding the master and mistress of the house engaged in domestic activities or arranging their toilette; at a later hour, one may appear to be angling for an invitation to dinner.’
Or there was this: ‘On arriving to pay a visit and not finding the master and mistress of the house at home, a well-bred individual leaves a card, creased at the upper left side; if the visit is on the occasion of a death or other sad event, the card is creased at the lower right, with the fold slightly torn.’
Blimey!
But the most frightening thing of all was reading about clothes. If you were poor, it was easy: just one shirt and one pair of trousers –nothing to rack your brains over. But oh, the hassle if you were rich! When to wear a jacket, when to wear a frock coat, when to wear tails: when you should take your gloves off, when you shouldn’t; what