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diff --git a/old/13412.txt b/old/13412.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1aa3ee0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13412.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7376 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Schoolmaster and Other Stories, +by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Schoolmaster and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13412] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCHOOLMASTER *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 11 + +THE SCHOOLMASTER AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + +CONTENTS + + + THE SCHOOLMASTER + ENEMIES + THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE + BETROTHED + FROM THE DIARY OF A VIOLENT-TEMPERED MAN + IN THE DARK + A PLAY + A MYSTERY + STRONG IMPRESSIONS + DRUNK + THE MARSHAL'S WIDOW + A BAD BUSINESS + IN THE COURT + BOOTS + JOY + LADIES + A PECULIAR MAN + AT THE BARBER'S + AN INADVERTENCE + THE ALBUM + OH! THE PUBLIC + A TRIPPING TONGUE + OVERDOING IT + THE ORATOR + MALINGERERS + IN THE GRAVEYARD + HUSH! + IN AN HOTEL + IN A STRANGE LAND + + + + +THE SCHOOLMASTER + +FYODOR LUKITCH SYSOEV, the master of the factory school maintained +at the expense of the firm of Kulikin, was getting ready for the +annual dinner. Every year after the school examination the board +of managers gave a dinner at which the inspector of elementary +schools, all who had conducted the examinations, and all the managers +and foremen of the factory were present. In spite of their official +character, these dinners were always good and lively, and the guests +sat a long time over them; forgetting distinctions of rank and +recalling only their meritorious labours, they ate till they were +full, drank amicably, chattered till they were all hoarse and parted +late in the evening, deafening the whole factory settlement with +their singing and the sound of their kisses. Of such dinners Sysoev +had taken part in thirteen, as he had been that number of years +master of the factory school. + +Now, getting ready for the fourteenth, he was trying to make himself +look as festive and correct as possible. He had spent a whole hour +brushing his new black suit, and spent almost as long in front of +a looking-glass while he put on a fashionable shirt; the studs would +not go into the button-holes, and this circumstance called forth a +perfect storm of complaints, threats, and reproaches addressed to +his wife. + +His poor wife, bustling round him, wore herself out with her efforts. +And indeed he, too, was exhausted in the end. When his polished +boots were brought him from the kitchen he had not strength to pull +them on. He had to lie down and have a drink of water. + +"How weak you have grown!" sighed his wife. "You ought not to go +to this dinner at all." + +"No advice, please!" the schoolmaster cut her short angrily. + +He was in a very bad temper, for he had been much displeased with +the recent examinations. The examinations had gone off splendidly; +all the boys of the senior division had gained certificates and +prizes; both the managers of the factory and the government officials +were pleased with the results; but that was not enough for the +schoolmaster. He was vexed that Babkin, a boy who never made a +mistake in writing, had made three mistakes in the dictation; +Sergeyev, another boy, had been so excited that he could not remember +seventeen times thirteen; the inspector, a young and inexperienced +man, had chosen a difficult article for dictation, and Lyapunov, +the master of a neighbouring school, whom the inspector had asked +to dictate, had not behaved like "a good comrade"; but in dictating +had, as it were, swallowed the words and had not pronounced them +as written. + +After pulling on his boots with the assistance of his wife, and +looking at himself once more in the looking-glass, the schoolmaster +took his gnarled stick and set off for the dinner. Just before the +factory manager's house, where the festivity was to take place, he +had a little mishap. He was taken with a violent fit of coughing +. . . . He was so shaken by it that the cap flew off his head and the +stick dropped out of his hand; and when the school inspector and +the teachers, hearing his cough, ran out of the house, he was sitting +on the bottom step, bathed in perspiration. + +"Fyodor Lukitch, is that you?" said the inspector, surprised. "You +. . . have come?" + +"Why not?" + +"You ought to be at home, my dear fellow. You are not at all well +to-day. . . ." + +"I am just the same to-day as I was yesterday. And if my presence +is not agreeable to you, I can go back." + +"Oh, Fyodor Lukitch, you must not talk like that! Please come in. +Why, the function is really in your honour, not ours. And we are +delighted to see you. Of course we are! . . ." + +Within, everything was ready for the banquet. In the big dining-room +adorned with German oleographs and smelling of geraniums and varnish +there were two tables, a larger one for the dinner and a smaller +one for the hors-d'oeuvres. The hot light of midday faintly percolated +through the lowered blinds. . . . The twilight of the room, the +Swiss views on the blinds, the geraniums, the thin slices of sausage +on the plates, all had a naive, girlishly-sentimental air, and it +was all in keeping with the master of the house, a good-natured +little German with a round little stomach and affectionate, oily +little eyes. Adolf Andreyitch Bruni (that was his name) was bustling +round the table of hors-d'oeuvres as zealously as though it were a +house on fire, filling up the wine-glasses, loading the plates, and +trying in every way to please, to amuse, and to show his friendly +feelings. He clapped people on the shoulder, looked into their eyes, +chuckled, rubbed his hands, in fact was as ingratiating as a friendly +dog. + +"Whom do I behold? Fyodor Lukitch!" he said in a jerky voice, on +seeing Sysoev. "How delightful! You have come in spite of your +illness. Gentlemen, let me congratulate you, Fyodor Lukitch has +come!" + +The school-teachers were already crowding round the table and eating +the hors-d'oeuvres. Sysoev frowned; he was displeased that his +colleagues had begun to eat and drink without waiting for him. He +noticed among them Lyapunov, the man who had dictated at the +examination, and going up to him, began: + +"It was not acting like a comrade! No, indeed! Gentlemanly people +don't dictate like that!" + +"Good Lord, you are still harping on it!" said Lyapunov, and he +frowned. "Aren't you sick of it?" + +"Yes, still harping on it! My Babkin has never made mistakes! I +know why you dictated like that. You simply wanted my pupils to be +floored, so that your school might seem better than mine. I know +all about it! . . ." + +"Why are you trying to get up a quarrel?" Lyapunov snarled. "Why +the devil do you pester me?" + +"Come, gentlemen," interposed the inspector, making a woebegone +face. "Is it worth while to get so heated over a trifle? Three +mistakes . . . not one mistake . . . does it matter?" + +"Yes, it does matter. Babkin has never made mistakes." + +"He won't leave off," Lyapunov went on, snorting angrily. "He takes +advantage of his position as an invalid and worries us all to death. +Well, sir, I am not going to consider your being ill." + +"Let my illness alone!" cried Sysoev, angrily. "What is it to do +with you? They all keep repeating it at me: illness! illness! +illness! . . . As though I need your sympathy! Besides, where have +you picked up the notion that I am ill? I was ill before the +examinations, that's true, but now I have completely recovered, +there is nothing left of it but weakness." + +"You have regained your health, well, thank God," said the scripture +teacher, Father Nikolay, a young priest in a foppish cinnamon-coloured +cassock and trousers outside his boots. "You ought to rejoice, but +you are irritable and so on." + +"You are a nice one, too," Sysoev interrupted him. "Questions ought +to be straightforward, clear, but you kept asking riddles. That's +not the thing to do!" + +By combined efforts they succeeded in soothing him and making him +sit down to the table. He was a long time making up his mind what +to drink, and pulling a wry face drank a wine-glass of some green +liqueur; then he drew a bit of pie towards him, and sulkily picked +out of the inside an egg with onion on it. At the first mouthful +it seemed to him that there was no salt in it. He sprinkled salt +on it and at once pushed it away as the pie was too salt. + +At dinner Sysoev was seated between the inspector and Bruni. After +the first course the toasts began, according to the old-established +custom. + +"I consider it my agreeable duty," the inspector began, "to propose +a vote of thanks to the absent school wardens, Daniel Petrovitch +and . . . and . . . and . . ." + +"And Ivan Petrovitch," Bruni prompted him. + +"And Ivan Petrovitch Kulikin, who grudge no expense for the school, +and I propose to drink their health. . . ." + +"For my part," said Bruni, jumping up as though he had been stung, +"I propose a toast to the health of the honoured inspector of +elementary schools, Pavel Gennadievitch Nadarov!" + +Chairs were pushed back, faces beamed with smiles, and the usual +clinking of glasses began. + +The third toast always fell to Sysoev. And on this occasion, too, +he got up and began to speak. Looking grave and clearing his throat, +he first of all announced that he had not the gift of eloquence and +that he was not prepared to make a speech. Further he said that +during the fourteen years that he had been schoolmaster there had +been many intrigues, many underhand attacks, and even secret reports +on him to the authorities, and that he knew his enemies and those +who had informed against him, and he would not mention their names, +"for fear of spoiling somebody's appetite"; that in spite of these +intrigues the Kulikin school held the foremost place in the whole +province not only from a moral, but also from a material point of +view." + +"Everywhere else," he said, "schoolmasters get two hundred or three +hundred roubles, while I get five hundred, and moreover my house +has been redecorated and even furnished at the expense of the firm. +And this year all the walls have been repapered. . . ." + +Further the schoolmaster enlarged on the liberality with which the +pupils were provided with writing materials in the factory schools +as compared with the Zemstvo and Government schools. And for all +this the school was indebted, in his opinion, not to the heads of +the firm, who lived abroad and scarcely knew of its existence, but +to a man who, in spite of his German origin and Lutheran faith, was +a Russian at heart. + +Sysoev spoke at length, with pauses to get his breath and with +pretensions to rhetoric, and his speech was boring and unpleasant. +He several times referred to certain enemies of his, tried to drop +hints, repeated himself, coughed, and flourished his fingers +unbecomingly. At last he was exhausted and in a perspiration and +he began talking jerkily, in a low voice as though to himself, and +finished his speech not quite coherently: "And so I propose the +health of Bruni, that is Adolf Andreyitch, who is here, among us +. . . generally speaking . . . you understand . . ." + +When he finished everyone gave a faint sigh, as though someone had +sprinkled cold water and cleared the air. Bruni alone apparently +had no unpleasant feeling. Beaming and rolling his sentimental eyes, +the German shook Sysoev's hand with feeling and was again as friendly +as a dog. + +"Oh, I thank you," he said, with an emphasis on the _oh_, laying +his left hand on his heart. "I am very happy that you understand +me! I, with my whole heart, wish you all things good. But I ought +only to observe; you exaggerate my importance. The school owes its +flourishing condition only to you, my honoured friend, Fyodor +Lukitch. But for you it would be in no way distinguished from other +schools! You think the German is paying a compliment, the German +is saying something polite. Ha-ha! No, my dear Fyodor Lukitch, I +am an honest man and never make complimentary speeches. If we pay +you five hundred roubles a year it is because you are valued by us. +Isn't that so? Gentlemen, what I say is true, isn't it? We should +not pay anyone else so much. . . . Why, a good school is an honour +to the factory!" + +"I must sincerely own that your school is really exceptional," said +the inspector. "Don't think this is flattery. Anyway, I have never +come across another like it in my life. As I sat at the examination +I was full of admiration. . . . Wonderful children! They know a +great deal and answer brightly, and at the same time they are somehow +special, unconstrained, sincere. . . . One can see that they love +you, Fyodor Lukitch. You are a schoolmaster to the marrow of your +bones. You must have been born a teacher. You have all the gifts +--innate vocation, long experience, and love for your work. . . . +It's simply amazing, considering the weak state of your health, +what energy, what understanding . . . what perseverance, do you +understand, what confidence you have! Some one in the school committee +said truly that you were a poet in your work. . . . Yes, a poet you +are!" + +And all present at the dinner began as one man talking of Sysoev's +extraordinary talent. And as though a dam had been burst, there +followed a flood of sincere, enthusiastic words such as men do not +utter when they are restrained by prudent and cautious sobriety. +Sysoev's speech and his intolerable temper and the horrid, spiteful +expression on his face were all forgotten. Everyone talked freely, +even the shy and silent new teachers, poverty-stricken, down-trodden +youths who never spoke to the inspector without addressing him as +"your honour." It was clear that in his own circle Sysoev was a +person of consequence. + +Having been accustomed to success and praise for the fourteen years +that he had been schoolmaster, he listened with indifference to the +noisy enthusiasm of his admirers. + +It was Bruni who drank in the praise instead of the schoolmaster. +The German caught every word, beamed, clapped his hands, and flushed +modestly as though the praise referred not to the schoolmaster but +to him. + +"Bravo! bravo!" he shouted. "That's true! You have grasped my +meaning! . . . Excellent! . . ." He looked into the schoolmaster's +eyes as though he wanted to share his bliss with him. At last he +could restrain himself no longer; he leapt up, and, overpowering +all the other voices with his shrill little tenor, shouted: + +"Gentlemen! Allow me to speak! Sh-h! To all you say I can make only +one reply: the management of the factory will not be forgetful of +what it owes to Fyodor Lukitch! . . ." + +All were silent. Sysoev raised his eyes to the German's rosy face. + +"We know how to appreciate it," Bruni went on, dropping his voice. +"In response to your words I ought to tell you that . . . Fyodor +Lukitch's family will be provided for and that a sum of money was +placed in the bank a month ago for that object." + +Sysoev looked enquiringly at the German, at his colleagues, as +though unable to understand why his family should be provided for +and not he himself. And at once on all the faces, in all the +motionless eyes bent upon him, he read not the sympathy, not the +commiseration which he could not endure, but something else, something +soft, tender, but at the same time intensely sinister, like a +terrible truth, something which in one instant turned him cold all +over and filled his soul with unutterable despair. With a pale, +distorted face he suddenly jumped up and clutched at his head. For +a quarter of a minute he stood like that, stared with horror at a +fixed point before him as though he saw the swiftly coming death +of which Bruni was speaking, then sat down and burst into tears. + +"Come, come! . . . What is it?" he heard agitated voices saying. +"Water! drink a little water!" + +A short time passed and the schoolmaster grew calmer, but the party +did not recover their previous liveliness. The dinner ended in +gloomy silence, and much earlier than on previous occasions. + +When he got home Sysoev first of all looked at himself in the glass. + +"Of course there was no need for me to blubber like that!" he +thought, looking at his sunken cheeks and his eyes with dark rings +under them. "My face is a much better colour to-day than yesterday. +I am suffering from anemia and catarrh of the stomach, and my cough +is only a stomach cough." + +Reassured, he slowly began undressing, and spent a long time brushing +his new black suit, then carefully folded it up and put it in the +chest of drawers. + +Then he went up to the table where there lay a pile of his pupils' +exercise-books, and picking out Babkin's, sat down and fell to +contemplating the beautiful childish handwriting. . . . + +And meantime, while he was examining the exercise-books, the district +doctor was sitting in the next room and telling his wife in a whisper +that a man ought not to have been allowed to go out to dinner who +had not in all probability more than a week to live. + + +ENEMIES + +BETWEEN nine and ten on a dark September evening the only son of +the district doctor, Kirilov, a child of six, called Andrey, died +of diphtheria. Just as the doctor's wife sank on her knees by the +dead child's bedside and was overwhelmed by the first rush of despair +there came a sharp ring at the bell in the entry. + +All the servants had been sent out of the house that morning on +account of the diphtheria. Kirilov went to open the door just as +he was, without his coat on, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, without +wiping his wet face or his hands which were scalded with carbolic. +It was dark in the entry and nothing could be distinguished in the +man who came in but medium height, a white scarf, and a large, +extremely pale face, so pale that its entrance seemed to make the +passage lighter. + +"Is the doctor at home?" the newcomer asked quickly. + +"I am at home," answered Kirilov. "What do you want?" + +"Oh, it's you? I am very glad," said the stranger in a tone of +relief, and he began feeling in the dark for the doctor's hand, +found it and squeezed it tightly in his own. "I am very . . . very +glad! We are acquainted. My name is Abogin, and I had the honour +of meeting you in the summer at Gnutchev's. I am very glad I have +found you at home. For God's sake don't refuse to come back with +me at once. . . . My wife has been taken dangerously ill. . . . And +the carriage is waiting. . . ." + +From the voice and gestures of the speaker it could be seen that +he was in a state of great excitement. Like a man terrified by a +house on fire or a mad dog, he could hardly restrain his rapid +breathing and spoke quickly in a shaking voice, and there was a +note of unaffected sincerity and childish alarm in his voice. As +people always do who are frightened and overwhelmed, he spoke in +brief, jerky sentences and uttered a great many unnecessary, +irrelevant words. + +"I was afraid I might not find you in," he went on. "I was in a +perfect agony as I drove here. Put on your things and let us go, +for God's sake. . . . This is how it happened. Alexandr Semyonovitch +Paptchinsky, whom you know, came to see me. . . . We talked a little +and then we sat down to tea; suddenly my wife cried out, clutched +at her heart, and fell back on her chair. We carried her to bed and +. . . and I rubbed her forehead with ammonia and sprinkled her with +water . . . she lay as though she were dead. . . . I am afraid it +is aneurism . . . . Come along . . . her father died of aneurism." + +Kirilov listened and said nothing, as though he did not understand +Russian. + +When Abogin mentioned again Paptchinsky and his wife's father and +once more began feeling in the dark for his hand the doctor shook +his head and said apathetically, dragging out each word: + +"Excuse me, I cannot come . . . my son died . . . five minutes ago!" + +"Is it possible!" whispered Abogin, stepping back a pace. "My God, +at what an unlucky moment I have come! A wonderfully unhappy day . . . +wonderfully. What a coincidence. . . . It's as though it were +on purpose!" + +Abogin took hold of the door-handle and bowed his head. He was +evidently hesitating and did not know what to do--whether to go +away or to continue entreating the doctor. + +"Listen," he said fervently, catching hold of Kirilov's sleeve. "I +well understand your position! God is my witness that I am ashamed +of attempting at such a moment to intrude on your attention, but +what am I to do? Only think, to whom can I go? There is no other +doctor here, you know. For God's sake come! I am not asking you for +myself. . . . I am not the patient!" + +A silence followed. Kirilov turned his back on Abogin, stood still +a moment, and slowly walked into the drawing-room. Judging from his +unsteady, mechanical step, from the attention with which he set +straight the fluffy shade on the unlighted lamp in the drawing-room +and glanced into a thick book lying on the table, at that instant +he had no intention, no desire, was thinking of nothing and most +likely did not remember that there was a stranger in the entry. The +twilight and stillness of the drawing-room seemed to increase his +numbness. Going out of the drawing-room into his study he raised +his right foot higher than was necessary, and felt for the doorposts +with his hands, and as he did so there was an air of perplexity +about his whole figure as though he were in somebody else's house, +or were drunk for the first time in his life and were now abandoning +himself with surprise to the new sensation. A broad streak of light +stretched across the bookcase on one wall of the study; this light +came together with the close, heavy smell of carbolic and ether +from the door into the bedroom, which stood a little way open. . . . +The doctor sank into a low chair in front of the table; for a +minute he stared drowsily at his books, which lay with the light +on them, then got up and went into the bedroom. + +Here in the bedroom reigned a dead silence. Everything to the +smallest detail was eloquent of the storm that had been passed +through, of exhaustion, and everything was at rest. A candle standing +among a crowd of bottles, boxes, and pots on a stool and a big lamp +on the chest of drawers threw a brilliant light over all the room. +On the bed under the window lay a boy with open eyes and a look of +wonder on his face. He did not move, but his open eyes seemed every +moment growing darker and sinking further into his head. The mother +was kneeling by the bed with her arms on his body and her head +hidden in the bedclothes. Like the child, she did not stir; but +what throbbing life was suggested in the curves of her body and in +her arms! She leaned against the bed with all her being, pressing +against it greedily with all her might, as though she were afraid +of disturbing the peaceful and comfortable attitude she had found +at last for her exhausted body. The bedclothes, the rags and bowls, +the splashes of water on the floor, the little paint-brushes and +spoons thrown down here and there, the white bottle of lime water, +the very air, heavy and stifling--were all hushed and seemed +plunged in repose. + +The doctor stopped close to his wife, thrust his hands in his trouser +pockets, and slanting his head on one side fixed his eyes on his +son. His face bore an expression of indifference, and only from the +drops that glittered on his beard it could be seen that he had just +been crying. + +That repellent horror which is thought of when we speak of death +was absent from the room. In the numbness of everything, in the +mother's attitude, in the indifference on the doctor's face there +was something that attracted and touched the heart, that subtle, +almost elusive beauty of human sorrow which men will not for a long +time learn to understand and describe, and which it seems only music +can convey. There was a feeling of beauty, too, in the austere +stillness. Kirilov and his wife were silent and not weeping, as +though besides the bitterness of their loss they were conscious, +too, of all the tragedy of their position; just as once their youth +had passed away, so now together with this boy their right to have +children had gone for ever to all eternity! The doctor was forty-four, +his hair was grey and he looked like an old man; his faded and +invalid wife was thirty-five. Andrey was not merely the only child, +but also the last child. + +In contrast to his wife the doctor belonged to the class of people +who at times of spiritual suffering feel a craving for movement. +After standing for five minutes by his wife, he walked, raising his +right foot high, from the bedroom into a little room which was half +filled up by a big sofa; from there he went into the kitchen. After +wandering by the stove and the cook's bed he bent down and went by +a little door into the passage. + +There he saw again the white scarf and the white face. + +"At last," sighed Abogin, reaching towards the door-handle. "Let +us go, please." + +The doctor started, glanced at him, and remembered. . . . + +"Why, I have told you already that I can't go!" he said, growing +more animated. "How strange!" + +"Doctor, I am not a stone, I fully understand your position . . . +I feel for you," Abogin said in an imploring voice, laying his hand +on his scarf. "But I am not asking you for myself. My wife is dying. +If you had heard that cry, if you had seen her face, you would +understand my pertinacity. My God, I thought you had gone to get +ready! Doctor, time is precious. Let us go, I entreat you." + +"I cannot go," said Kirilov emphatically and he took a step into +the drawing-room. + +Abogin followed him and caught hold of his sleeve. + +"You are in sorrow, I understand. But I'm not asking you to a case +of toothache, or to a consultation, but to save a human life!" he +went on entreating like a beggar. "Life comes before any personal +sorrow! Come, I ask for courage, for heroism! For the love of +humanity!" + +"Humanity--that cuts both ways," Kirilov said irritably. "In the +name of humanity I beg you not to take me. And how queer it is, +really! I can hardly stand and you talk to me about humanity! I am +fit for nothing just now. . . . Nothing will induce me to go, and +I can't leave my wife alone. No, no. . ." + +Kirilov waved his hands and staggered back. + +"And . . . and don't ask me," he went on in a tone of alarm. "Excuse +me. By No. XIII of the regulations I am obliged to go and you have +the right to drag me by my collar . . . drag me if you like, but . . . +I am not fit . . . I can't even speak . . . excuse me." + +"There is no need to take that tone to me, doctor!" said Abogin, +again taking the doctor by his sleeve. "What do I care about No. +XIII! To force you against your will I have no right whatever. If +you will, come; if you will not--God forgive you; but I am not +appealing to your will, but to your feelings. A young woman is +dying. You were just speaking of the death of your son. Who should +understand my horror if not you?" + +Abogin's voice quivered with emotion; that quiver and his tone were +far more persuasive than his words. Abogin was sincere, but it was +remarkable that whatever he said his words sounded stilted, soulless, +and inappropriately flowery, and even seemed an outrage on the +atmosphere of the doctor's home and on the woman who was somewhere +dying. He felt this himself, and so, afraid of not being understood, +did his utmost to put softness and tenderness into his voice so +that the sincerity of his tone might prevail if his words did not. +As a rule, however fine and deep a phrase may be, it only affects +the indifferent, and cannot fully satisfy those who are happy or +unhappy; that is why dumbness is most often the highest expression +of happiness or unhappiness; lovers understand each other better +when they are silent, and a fervent, passionate speech delivered +by the grave only touches outsiders, while to the widow and children +of the dead man it seems cold and trivial. + +Kirilov stood in silence. When Abogin uttered a few more phrases +concerning the noble calling of a doctor, self-sacrifice, and so +on, the doctor asked sullenly: "Is it far?" + +"Something like eight or nine miles. I have capital horses, doctor! +I give you my word of honour that I will get you there and back in +an hour. Only one hour." + +These words had more effect on Kirilov than the appeals to humanity +or the noble calling of the doctor. He thought a moment and said +with a sigh: "Very well, let us go!" + +He went rapidly with a more certain step to his study, and afterwards +came back in a long frock-coat. Abogin, greatly relieved, fidgeted +round him and scraped with his feet as he helped him on with his +overcoat, and went out of the house with him. + +It was dark out of doors, though lighter than in the entry. The +tall, stooping figure of the doctor, with his long, narrow beard +and aquiline nose, stood out distinctly in the darkness. Abogin's +big head and the little student's cap that barely covered it could +be seen now as well as his pale face. The scarf showed white only +in front, behind it was hidden by his long hair. + +"Believe me, I know how to appreciate your generosity," Abogin +muttered as he helped the doctor into the carriage. "We shall get +there quickly. Drive as fast as you can, Luka, there's a good fellow! +Please!" + +The coachman drove rapidly. At first there was a row of indistinct +buildings that stretched alongside the hospital yard; it was dark +everywhere except for a bright light from a window that gleamed +through the fence into the furthest part of the yard while three +windows of the upper storey of the hospital looked paler than the +surrounding air. Then the carriage drove into dense shadow; here +there was the smell of dampness and mushrooms, and the sound of +rustling trees; the crows, awakened by the noise of the wheels, +stirred among the foliage and uttered prolonged plaintive cries as +though they knew the doctor's son was dead and that Abogin's wife +was ill. Then came glimpses of separate trees, of bushes; a pond, +on which great black shadows were slumbering, gleamed with a sullen +light--and the carriage rolled over a smooth level ground. The +clamour of the crows sounded dimly far away and soon ceased altogether. + +Kirilov and Abogin were silent almost all the way. Only once Abogin +heaved a deep sigh and muttered: + +"It's an agonizing state! One never loves those who are near one +so much as when one is in danger of losing them." + +And when the carriage slowly drove over the river, Kirilov started +all at once as though the splash of the water had frightened him, +and made a movement. + +"Listen--let me go," he said miserably. "I'll come to you later. +I must just send my assistant to my wife. She is alone, you know!" + +Abogin did not speak. The carriage swaying from side to side and +crunching over the stones drove up the sandy bank and rolled on its +way. Kirilov moved restlessly and looked about him in misery. Behind +them in the dim light of the stars the road could be seen and the +riverside willows vanishing into the darkness. On the right lay a +plain as uniform and as boundless as the sky; here and there in the +distance, probably on the peat marshes, dim lights were glimmering. +On the left, parallel with the road, ran a hill tufted with small +bushes, and above the hill stood motionless a big, red half-moon, +slightly veiled with mist and encircled by tiny clouds, which seemed +to be looking round at it from all sides and watching that it did +not go away. + +In all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. +The earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and +trying not to think of the past, was brooding over memories of +spring and summer and apathetically waiting for the inevitable +winter. Wherever one looked, on all sides, nature seemed like a +dark, infinitely deep, cold pit from which neither Kirilov nor +Abogin nor the red half-moon could escape. . . . + +The nearer the carriage got to its goal the more impatient Abogin +became. He kept moving, leaping up, looking over the coachman's +shoulder. And when at last the carriage stopped before the entrance, +which was elegantly curtained with striped linen, and when he looked +at the lighted windows of the second storey there was an audible +catch in his breath. + +"If anything happens . . . I shall not survive it," he said, going +into the hall with the doctor, and rubbing his hands in agitation. +"But there is no commotion, so everything must be going well so +far," he added, listening in the stillness. + +There was no sound in the hall of steps or voices and all the house +seemed asleep in spite of the lighted windows. Now the doctor and +Abogin, who till then had been in darkness, could see each other +clearly. The doctor was tall and stooped, was untidily dressed and +not good-looking. There was an unpleasantly harsh, morose, and +unfriendly look about his lips, thick as a negro's, his aquiline +nose, and listless, apathetic eyes. His unkempt head and sunken +temples, the premature greyness of his long, narrow beard through +which his chin was visible, the pale grey hue of his skin and his +careless, uncouth manners--the harshness of all this was suggestive +of years of poverty, of ill fortune, of weariness with life and +with men. Looking at his frigid figure one could hardly believe +that this man had a wife, that he was capable of weeping over his +child. Abogin presented a very different appearance. He was a +thick-set, sturdy-looking, fair man with a big head and large, soft +features; he was elegantly dressed in the very latest fashion. In +his carriage, his closely buttoned coat, his long hair, and his +face there was a suggestion of something generous, leonine; he +walked with his head erect and his chest squared, he spoke in an +agreeable baritone, and there was a shade of refined almost feminine +elegance in the manner in which he took off his scarf and smoothed +his hair. Even his paleness and the childlike terror with which he +looked up at the stairs as he took off his coat did not detract +from his dignity nor diminish the air of sleekness, health, and +aplomb which characterized his whole figure. + +"There is nobody and no sound," he said going up the stairs. "There +is no commotion. God grant all is well." + +He led the doctor through the hall into a big drawing-room where +there was a black piano and a chandelier in a white cover; from +there they both went into a very snug, pretty little drawing-room +full of an agreeable, rosy twilight. + +"Well, sit down here, doctor, and I . . . will be back directly. I +will go and have a look and prepare them." + +Kirilov was left alone. The luxury of the drawing-room, the agreeably +subdued light and his own presence in the stranger's unfamiliar +house, which had something of the character of an adventure, did +not apparently affect him. He sat in a low chair and scrutinized +his hands, which were burnt with carbolic. He only caught a passing +glimpse of the bright red lamp-shade and the violoncello case, and +glancing in the direction where the clock was ticking he noticed a +stuffed wolf as substantial and sleek-looking as Abogin himself. + +It was quiet. . . . Somewhere far away in the adjoining rooms someone +uttered a loud exclamation: + +"Ah!" There was a clang of a glass door, probably of a cupboard, +and again all was still. After waiting five minutes Kirilov left +off scrutinizing his hands and raised his eyes to the door by which +Abogin had vanished. + +In the doorway stood Abogin, but he was not the same as when he had +gone out. The look of sleekness and refined elegance had disappeared +--his face, his hands, his attitude were contorted by a revolting +expression of something between horror and agonizing physical pain. +His nose, his lips, his moustache, all his features were moving and +seemed trying to tear themselves from his face, his eyes looked as +though they were laughing with agony. . . . + +Abogin took a heavy stride into the drawing-room, bent forward, +moaned, and shook his fists. + +"She has deceived me," he cried, with a strong emphasis on the +second syllable of the verb. "Deceived me, gone away. She fell ill +and sent me for the doctor only to run away with that clown +Paptchinsky! My God!" + +Abogin took a heavy step towards the doctor, held out his soft white +fists in his face, and shaking them went on yelling: + +"Gone away! Deceived me! But why this deception? My God! My God! +What need of this dirty, scoundrelly trick, this diabolical, snakish +farce? What have I done to her? Gone away!" + +Tears gushed from his eyes. He turned on one foot and began pacing +up and down the drawing-room. Now in his short coat, his fashionable +narrow trousers which made his legs look disproportionately slim, +with his big head and long mane he was extremely like a lion. A +gleam of curiosity came into the apathetic face of the doctor. He +got up and looked at Abogin. + +"Excuse me, where is the patient?" he said. + +"The patient! The patient!" cried Abogin, laughing, crying, and +still brandishing his fists. "She is not ill, but accursed! The +baseness! The vileness! The devil himself could not have imagined +anything more loathsome! She sent me off that she might run away +with a buffoon, a dull-witted clown, an Alphonse! Oh God, better +she had died! I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it!" + +The doctor drew himself up. His eyes blinked and filled with tears, +his narrow beard began moving to right and to left together with +his jaw. + +"Allow me to ask what's the meaning of this?" he asked, looking +round him with curiosity. "My child is dead, my wife is in grief +alone in the whole house. . . . I myself can scarcely stand up, I +have not slept for three nights. . . . And here I am forced to play +a part in some vulgar farce, to play the part of a stage property! +I don't . . . don't understand it!" + +Abogin unclenched one fist, flung a crumpled note on the floor, and +stamped on it as though it were an insect he wanted to crush. + +"And I didn't see, didn't understand," he said through his clenched +teeth, brandishing one fist before his face with an expression as +though some one had trodden on his corns. "I did not notice that +he came every day! I did not notice that he came today in a closed +carriage! What did he come in a closed carriage for? And I did not +see it! Noodle!" + +"I don't understand . . ." muttered the doctor. "Why, what's the +meaning of it? Why, it's an outrage on personal dignity, a mockery +of human suffering! It's incredible. . . . It's the first time in +my life I have had such an experience!" + +With the dull surprise of a man who has only just realized that he +has been bitterly insulted the doctor shrugged his shoulders, flung +wide his arms, and not knowing what to do or to say sank helplessly +into a chair. + +"If you have ceased to love me and love another--so be it; but +why this deceit, why this vulgar, treacherous trick?" Abogin said +in a tearful voice. "What is the object of it? And what is there +to justify it? And what have I done to you? Listen, doctor," he +said hotly, going up to Kirilov. "You have been the involuntary +witness of my misfortune and I am not going to conceal the truth +from you. I swear that I loved the woman, loved her devotedly, like +a slave! I have sacrificed everything for her; I have quarrelled +with my own people, I have given up the service and music, I have +forgiven her what I could not have forgiven my own mother or sister +. . . I have never looked askance at her. . . . I have never gainsaid +her in anything. Why this deception? I do not demand love, but why +this loathsome duplicity? If she did not love me, why did she not +say so openly, honestly, especially as she knows my views on the +subject? . . ." + +With tears in his eyes, trembling all over, Abogin opened his heart +to the doctor with perfect sincerity. He spoke warmly, pressing +both hands on his heart, exposing the secrets of his private life +without the faintest hesitation, and even seemed to be glad that +at last these secrets were no longer pent up in his breast. If he +had talked in this way for an hour or two, and opened his heart, +he would undoubtedly have felt better. Who knows, if the doctor had +listened to him and had sympathized with him like a friend, he might +perhaps, as often happens, have reconciled himself to his trouble +without protest, without doing anything needless and absurd. . . . +But what happened was quite different. While Abogin was speaking +the outraged doctor perceptibly changed. The indifference and wonder +on his face gradually gave way to an expression of bitter resentment, +indignation, and anger. The features of his face became even harsher, +coarser, and more unpleasant. When Abogin held out before his eyes +the photograph of a young woman with a handsome face as cold and +expressionless as a nun's and asked him whether, looking at that +face, one could conceive that it was capable of duplicity, the +doctor suddenly flew out, and with flashing eyes said, rudely rapping +out each word: + +"What are you telling me all this for? I have no desire to hear it! +I have no desire to!" he shouted and brought his fist down on the +table. "I don't want your vulgar secrets! Damnation take them! Don't +dare to tell me of such vulgar doings! Do you consider that I have +not been insulted enough already? That I am a flunkey whom you can +insult without restraint? Is that it?" + +Abogin staggered back from Kirilov and stared at him in amazement. + +"Why did you bring me here?" the doctor went on, his beard quivering. +"If you are so puffed up with good living that you go and get married +and then act a farce like this, how do I come in? What have I to +do with your love affairs? Leave me in peace! Go on squeezing money +out of the poor in your gentlemanly way. Make a display of humane +ideas, play (the doctor looked sideways at the violoncello case) +play the bassoon and the trombone, grow as fat as capons, but don't +dare to insult personal dignity! If you cannot respect it, you might +at least spare it your attention!" + +"Excuse me, what does all this mean?" Abogin asked, flushing red. + +"It means that it's base and low to play with people like this! I +am a doctor; you look upon doctors and people generally who work +and don't stink of perfume and prostitution as your menials and +_mauvais ton_; well, you may look upon them so, but no one has given +you the right to treat a man who is suffering as a stage property!" + +"How dare you say that to me!" Abogin said quietly, and his face +began working again, and this time unmistakably from anger. + +"No, how dared you, knowing of my sorrow, bring me here to listen +to these vulgarities!" shouted the doctor, and he again banged on +the table with his fist. "Who has given you the right to make a +mockery of another man's sorrow?" + +"You have taken leave of your senses," shouted Abogin. "It is +ungenerous. I am intensely unhappy myself and . . . and . . ." + +"Unhappy!" said the doctor, with a smile of contempt. "Don't utter +that word, it does not concern you. The spendthrift who cannot raise +a loan calls himself unhappy, too. The capon, sluggish from +over-feeding, is unhappy, too. Worthless people!" + +"Sir, you forget yourself," shrieked Abogin. "For saying things +like that . . . people are thrashed! Do you understand?" + +Abogin hurriedly felt in his side pocket, pulled out a pocket-book, +and extracting two notes flung them on the table. + +"Here is the fee for your visit," he said, his nostrils dilating. +"You are paid." + +"How dare you offer me money?" shouted the doctor and he brushed +the notes off the table on to the floor. "An insult cannot be paid +for in money!" + +Abogin and the doctor stood face to face, and in their wrath continued +flinging undeserved insults at each other. I believe that never in +their lives, even in delirium, had they uttered so much that was +unjust, cruel, and absurd. The egoism of the unhappy was conspicuous +in both. The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and +less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness +does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where +one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their +sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in +comparatively placid surroundings. + +"Kindly let me go home!" shouted the doctor, breathing hard. + +Abogin rang the bell sharply. When no one came to answer the bell +he rang again and angrily flung the bell on the floor; it fell on +the carpet with a muffled sound, and uttered a plaintive note as +though at the point of death. A footman came in. + +"Where have you been hiding yourself, the devil take you?" His +master flew at him, clenching his fists. "Where were you just now? +Go and tell them to bring the victoria round for this gentleman, +and order the closed carriage to be got ready for me. Stay," he +cried as the footman turned to go out. "I won't have a single traitor +in the house by to-morrow! Away with you all! I will engage fresh +servants! Reptiles!" + +Abogin and the doctor remained in silence waiting for the carriage. +The first regained his expression of sleekness and his refined +elegance. He paced up and down the room, tossed his head elegantly, +and was evidently meditating on something. His anger had not cooled, +but he tried to appear not to notice his enemy. . . . The doctor +stood, leaning with one hand on the edge of the table, and looked +at Abogin with that profound and somewhat cynical, ugly contempt +only to be found in the eyes of sorrow and indigence when they are +confronted with well-nourished comfort and elegance. + +When a little later the doctor got into the victoria and drove off +there was still a look of contempt in his eyes. It was dark, much +darker than it had been an hour before. The red half-moon had sunk +behind the hill and the clouds that had been guarding it lay in +dark patches near the stars. The carriage with red lamps rattled +along the road and soon overtook the doctor. It was Abogin driving +off to protest, to do absurd things. . . . + +All the way home the doctor thought not of his wife, nor of his +Andrey, but of Abogin and the people in the house he had just left. +His thoughts were unjust and inhumanly cruel. He condemned Abogin +and his wife and Paptchinsky and all who lived in rosy, subdued +light among sweet perfumes, and all the way home he hated and +despised them till his head ached. And a firm conviction concerning +those people took shape in his mind. + +Time will pass and Kirilov's sorrow will pass, but that conviction, +unjust and unworthy of the human heart, will not pass, but will +remain in the doctor's mind to the grave. + + +THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE + +A DISTRICT doctor and an examining magistrate were driving one fine +spring day to an inquest. The examining magistrate, a man of five +and thirty, looked dreamily at the horses and said: + +"There is a great deal that is enigmatic and obscure in nature; and +even in everyday life, doctor, one must often come upon phenomena +which are absolutely incapable of explanation. I know, for instance, +of several strange, mysterious deaths, the cause of which only +spiritualists and mystics will undertake to explain; a clear-headed +man can only lift up his hands in perplexity. For example, I know +of a highly cultured lady who foretold her own death and died without +any apparent reason on the very day she had predicted. She said +that she would die on a certain day, and she did die." + +"There's no effect without a cause," said the doctor. "If there's +a death there must be a cause for it. But as for predicting it +there's nothing very marvellous in that. All our ladies--all our +females, in fact--have a turn for prophecies and presentiments." + +"Just so, but my lady, doctor, was quite a special case. There was +nothing like the ladies' or other females' presentiments about her +prediction and her death. She was a young woman, healthy and clever, +with no superstitions of any sort. She had such clear, intelligent, +honest eyes; an open, sensible face with a faint, typically Russian +look of mockery in her eyes and on her lips. There was nothing of +the fine lady or of the female about her, except--if you like-- +her beauty! She was graceful, elegant as that birch tree; she had +wonderful hair. That she may be intelligible to you, I will add, +too, that she was a person of the most infectious gaiety and +carelessness and that intelligent, good sort of frivolity which is +only found in good-natured, light-hearted people with brains. Can +one talk of mysticism, spiritualism, a turn for presentiment, or +anything of that sort, in this case? She used to laugh at all that." + +The doctor's chaise stopped by a well. The examining magistrate and +the doctor drank some water, stretched, and waited for the coachman +to finish watering the horses. + +"Well, what did the lady die of?" asked the doctor when the chaise +was rolling along the road again. + +"She died in a strange way. One fine day her husband went in to her +and said that it wouldn't be amiss to sell their old coach before +the spring and to buy something rather newer and lighter instead, +and that it might be as well to change the left trace horse and to +put Bobtchinsky (that was the name of one of her husband's horses) +in the shafts. + +"His wife listened to him and said: + +"'Do as you think best, but it makes no difference to me now. +Before the summer I shall be in the cemetery.' + +"Her husband, of course, shrugged his shoulders and smiled. + +"'I am not joking,' she said. 'I tell you in earnest that I shall +soon be dead.' + +"'What do you mean by soon?' + +"'Directly after my confinement. I shall bear my child and die.' + +"The husband attached no significance to these words. He did not +believe in presentiments of any sort, and he knew that ladies in +an interesting condition are apt to be fanciful and to give way to +gloomy ideas generally. A day later his wife spoke to him again of +dying immediately after her confinement, and then every day she +spoke of it and he laughed and called her a silly woman, a +fortune-teller, a crazy creature. Her approaching death became an +_idee fixe_ with his wife. When her husband would not listen to her +she would go into the kitchen and talk of her death to the nurse +and the cook. + +"'I haven't long to live now, nurse,' she would say. 'As soon as +my confinement is over I shall die. I did not want to die so early, +but it seems it's my fate.' + +"The nurse and the cook were in tears, of course. Sometimes the +priest's wife or some lady from a neighbouring estate would come +and see her and she would take them aside and open her soul to them, +always harping on the same subject, her approaching death. She spoke +gravely with an unpleasant smile, even with an angry face which +would not allow any contradiction. She had been smart and fashionable +in her dress, but now in view of her approaching death she became +slovenly; she did not read, she did not laugh, she did not dream +aloud. What was more she drove with her aunt to the cemetery and +selected a spot for her tomb. Five days before her confinement she +made her will. And all this, bear in mind, was done in the best of +health, without the faintest hint of illness or danger. A confinement +is a difficult affair and sometimes fatal, but in the case of which +I am telling you every indication was favourable, and there was +absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Her husband was sick of the +whole business at last. He lost his temper one day at dinner and +asked her: + +"'Listen, Natasha, when is there going to be an end of this +silliness?' + +"'It's not silliness, I am in earnest.' + +"'Nonsense, I advise you to give over being silly that you may not +feel ashamed of it afterwards.' + +"Well, the confinement came. The husband got the very best midwife +from the town. It was his wife's first confinement, but it could +not have gone better. When it was all over she asked to look at her +baby. She looked at it and said: + +"'Well, now I can die.' + +"She said good-bye, shut her eyes, and half an hour later gave up +her soul to God. She was fully conscious up to the last moment. +Anyway when they gave her milk instead of water she whispered softly: + +"'Why are you giving me milk instead of water?' + +"So that is what happened. She died as she predicted." + +The examining magistrate paused, gave a sigh and said: + +"Come, explain why she died. I assure you on my honour, this is not +invented, it's a fact." + +The doctor looked at the sky meditatively. + +"You ought to have had an inquest on her," he said. + +"Why?" + +"Why, to find out the cause of her death. She didn't die because +she had predicted it. She poisoned herself most probably." + +The examining magistrate turned quickly, facing the doctor, and +screwing up his eyes, asked: + +"And from what do you conclude that she poisoned herself?" + +"I don't conclude it, but I assume it. Was she on good terms with +her husband?" + +"H'm, not altogether. There had been misunderstandings soon after +their marriage. There were unfortunate circumstances. She had found +her husband on one occasion with a lady. She soon forgave him +however." + +"And which came first, her husband's infidelity or her idea of +dying?" + +The examining magistrate looked attentively at the doctor as though +he were trying to imagine why he put that question. + +"Excuse me," he said, not quite immediately. "Let me try and +remember." The examining magistrate took off his hat and rubbed his +forehead. "Yes, yes . . . it was very shortly after that incident +that she began talking of death. Yes, yes." + +"Well, there, do you see? . . . In all probability it was at that +time that she made up her mind to poison herself, but, as most +likely she did not want to kill her child also, she put it off till +after her confinement." + +"Not likely, not likely! . . . it's impossible. She forgave him at +the time." + +"That she forgave it quickly means that she had something bad in +her mind. Young wives do not forgive quickly." + +The examining magistrate gave a forced smile, and, to conceal his +too noticeable agitation, began lighting a cigarette. + +"Not likely, not likely," he went on. "No notion of anything of the +sort being possible ever entered into my head. . . . And besides +. . . he was not so much to blame as it seems. . . . He was unfaithful +to her in rather a queer way, with no desire to be; he came home +at night somewhat elevated, wanted to make love to somebody, his +wife was in an interesting condition . . . then he came across a +lady who had come to stay for three days--damnation take her-- +an empty-headed creature, silly and not good-looking. It couldn't +be reckoned as an infidelity. His wife looked at it in that way +herself and soon . . . forgave it. Nothing more was said about +it. . . ." + +"People don't die without a reason," said the doctor. + +"That is so, of course, but all the same . . . I cannot admit that +she poisoned herself. But it is strange that the idea has never +struck me before! And no one thought of it! Everyone was astonished +that her prediction had come to pass, and the idea . . . of such a +death was far from their mind. And indeed, it cannot be that she +poisoned herself! No!" + +The examining magistrate pondered. The thought of the woman who had +died so strangely haunted him all through the inquest. As he noted +down what the doctor dictated to him he moved his eyebrows gloomily +and rubbed his forehead. + +"And are there really poisons that kill one in a quarter of an hour, +gradually, without any pain?" he asked the doctor while the latter +was opening the skull. + +"Yes, there are. Morphia for instance." + +"H'm, strange. I remember she used to keep something of the sort +. . . . But it could hardly be." + +On the way back the examining magistrate looked exhausted, he kept +nervously biting his moustache, and was unwilling to talk. + +"Let us go a little way on foot," he said to the doctor. "I am tired +of sitting." + +After walking about a hundred paces, the examining magistrate seemed +to the doctor to be overcome with fatigue, as though he had been +climbing up a high mountain. He stopped and, looking at the doctor +with a strange look in his eyes, as though he were drunk, said: + +"My God, if your theory is correct, why it's. . . it was cruel, +inhuman! She poisoned herself to punish some one else! Why, was the +sin so great? Oh, my God! And why did you make me a present of this +damnable idea, doctor!" + +The examining magistrate clutched at his head in despair, and went +on: + +"What I have told you was about my own wife, about myself. Oh, my +God! I was to blame, I wounded her, but can it have been easier to +die than to forgive? That's typical feminine logic--cruel, merciless +logic. Oh, even then when she was living she was cruel! I recall +it all now! It's all clear to me now!" + +As the examining magistrate talked he shrugged his shoulders, then +clutched at his head. He got back into the carriage, then walked +again. The new idea the doctor had imparted to him seemed to have +overwhelmed him, to have poisoned him; he was distracted, shattered +in body and soul, and when he got back to the town he said good-bye +to the doctor, declining to stay to dinner though he had promised +the doctor the evening before to dine with him. + + +BETROTHED + +I + +IT was ten o'clock in the evening and the full moon was shining +over the garden. In the Shumins' house an evening service celebrated +at the request of the grandmother, Marfa Mihalovna, was just over, +and now Nadya--she had gone into the garden for a minute--could +see the table being laid for supper in the dining-room, and her +grandmother bustling about in her gorgeous silk dress; Father Andrey, +a chief priest of the cathedral, was talking to Nadya's mother, +Nina Ivanovna, and now in the evening light through the window her +mother for some reason looked very young; Andrey Andreitch, Father +Andrey's son, was standing by listening attentively. + +It was still and cool in the garden, and dark peaceful shadows lay +on the ground. There was a sound of frogs croaking, far, far away +beyond the town. There was a feeling of May, sweet May! One drew +deep breaths and longed to fancy that not here but far away under +the sky, above the trees, far away in the open country, in the +fields and the woods, the life of spring was unfolding now, mysterious, +lovely, rich and holy beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man. +And for some reason one wanted to cry. + +She, Nadya, was already twenty-three. Ever since she was sixteen +she had been passionately dreaming of marriage and at last she was +engaged to Andrey Andreitch, the young man who was standing on the +other side of the window; she liked him, the wedding was already +fixed for July 7, and yet there was no joy in her heart, she was +sleeping badly, her spirits drooped. . . . She could hear from the +open windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurrying +servants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door; +there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and for +some reason it seemed to her that it would be like that all her +life, with no change, no end to it. + +Some one came out of the house and stood on the steps; it was +Alexandr Timofeitch, or, as he was always called, Sasha, who had +come from Moscow ten days before and was staying with them. Years +ago a distant relation of the grandmother, a gentleman's widow +called Marya Petrovna, a thin, sickly little woman who had sunk +into poverty, used to come to the house to ask for assistance. She +had a son Sasha. It used for some reason to be said that he had +talent as an artist, and when his mother died Nadya's grandmother +had, for the salvation of her soul, sent him to the Komissarovsky +school in Moscow; two years later he went into the school of painting, +spent nearly fifteen years there, and only just managed to scrape +through the leaving examination in the section of architecture. He +did not set up as an architect, however, but took a job at a +lithographer's. He used to come almost every year, usually very +ill, to stay with Nadya's grandmother to rest and recover. + +He was wearing now a frock-coat buttoned up, and shabby canvas +trousers, crumpled into creases at the bottom. And his shirt had +not been ironed and he had somehow all over a look of not being +fresh. He was very thin, with big eyes, long thin fingers and a +swarthy bearded face, and all the same he was handsome. With the +Shumins he was like one of the family, and in their house felt he +was at home. And the room in which he lived when he was there had +for years been called Sasha's room. Standing on the steps he saw +Nadya, and went up to her. + +"It's nice here," he said. + +"Of course it's nice, you ought to stay here till the autumn." + +"Yes, I expect it will come to that. I dare say I shall stay with +you till September." + +He laughed for no reason, and sat down beside her. + +"I'm sitting gazing at mother," said Nadya. "She looks so young +from here! My mother has her weaknesses, of course," she added, +after a pause, "but still she is an exceptional woman." + +"Yes, she is very nice . . ." Sasha agreed. "Your mother, in her +own way of course, is a very good and sweet woman, but . . . how +shall I say? I went early this morning into your kitchen and there +I found four servants sleeping on the floor, no bedsteads, and rags +for bedding, stench, bugs, beetles . . . it is just as it was twenty +years ago, no change at all. Well, Granny, God bless her, what else +can you expect of Granny? But your mother speaks French, you know, +and acts in private theatricals. One would think she might understand." + +As Sasha talked, he used to stretch out two long wasted fingers +before the listener's face. + +"It all seems somehow strange to me here, now I am out of the habit +of it," he went on. "There is no making it out. Nobody ever does +anything. Your mother spends the whole day walking about like a +duchess, Granny does nothing either, nor you either. And your Andrey +Andreitch never does anything either." + +Nadya had heard this the year before and, she fancied, the year +before that too, and she knew that Sasha could not make any other +criticism, and in old days this had amused her, but now for some +reason she felt annoyed. + +"That's all stale, and I have been sick of it for ages," she said +and got up. "You should think of something a little newer." + +He laughed and got up too, and they went together toward the house. +She, tall, handsome, and well-made, beside him looked very healthy +and smartly dressed; she was conscious of this and felt sorry for +him and for some reason awkward. + +"And you say a great deal you should not," she said. "You've just +been talking about my Andrey, but you see you don't know him." + +"My Andrey. . . . Bother him, your Andrey. I am sorry for your +youth." + +They were already sitting down to supper as the young people went +into the dining-room. The grandmother, or Granny as she was called +in the household, a very stout, plain old lady with bushy eyebrows +and a little moustache, was talking loudly, and from her voice and +manner of speaking it could be seen that she was the person of most +importance in the house. She owned rows of shops in the market, and +the old-fashioned house with columns and the garden, yet she prayed +every morning that God might save her from ruin and shed tears as +she did so. Her daughter-in-law, Nadya's mother, Nina Ivanovna, a +fair-haired woman tightly laced in, with a pince-nez, and diamonds +on every finger, Father Andrey, a lean, toothless old man whose +face always looked as though he were just going to say something +amusing, and his son, Andrey Andreitch, a stout and handsome young +man with curly hair looking like an artist or an actor, were all +talking of hypnotism. + +"You will get well in a week here," said Granny, addressing Sasha. +"Only you must eat more. What do you look like!" she sighed. "You +are really dreadful! You are a regular prodigal son, that is what +you are." + +"After wasting his father's substance in riotous living," said +Father Andrey slowly, with laughing eyes. "He fed with senseless +beasts." + +"I like my dad," said Andrey Andreitch, touching his father on the +shoulder. "He is a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow." + +Everyone was silent for a space. Sasha suddenly burst out laughing +and put his dinner napkin to his mouth. + +"So you believe in hypnotism?" said Father Andrey to Nina Ivanovna. + +"I cannot, of course, assert that I believe," answered Nina Ivanovna, +assuming a very serious, even severe, expression; "but I must own +that there is much that is mysterious and incomprehensible in +nature." + +"I quite agree with you, though I must add that religion distinctly +curtails for us the domain of the mysterious." + +A big and very fat turkey was served. Father Andrey and Nina Ivanovna +went on with their conversation. Nina Ivanovna's diamonds glittered +on her fingers, then tears began to glitter in her eyes, she grew +excited. + +"Though I cannot venture to argue with you," she said, "you must +admit there are so many insoluble riddles in life!" + +"Not one, I assure you." + +After supper Andrey Andreitch played the fiddle and Nina Ivanovna +accompanied him on the piano. Ten years before he had taken his +degree at the university in the Faculty of Arts, but had never held +any post, had no definite work, and only from time to time took +part in concerts for charitable objects; and in the town he was +regarded as a musician. + +Andrey Andreitch played; they all listened in silence. The samovar +was boiling quietly on the table and no one but Sasha was drinking +tea. Then when it struck twelve a violin string suddenly broke; +everyone laughed, bustled about, and began saying good-bye. + +After seeing her fiance out, Nadya went upstairs where she and her +mother had their rooms (the lower storey was occupied by the +grandmother). They began putting the lights out below in the +dining-room, while Sasha still sat on drinking tea. He always spent +a long time over tea in the Moscow style, drinking as much as seven +glasses at a time. For a long time after Nadya had undressed and +gone to bed she could hear the servants clearing away downstairs +and Granny talking angrily. At last everything was hushed, and +nothing could be heard but Sasha from time to time coughing on a +bass note in his room below. + +II + +When Nadya woke up it must have been two o'clock, it was beginning +to get light. A watchman was tapping somewhere far away. She was +not sleepy, and her bed felt very soft and uncomfortable. Nadya sat +up in her bed and fell to thinking as she had done every night in +May. Her thoughts were the same as they had been the night before, +useless, persistent thoughts, always alike, of how Andrey Andreitch +had begun courting her and had made her an offer, how she had +accepted him and then little by little had come to appreciate the +kindly, intelligent man. But for some reason now when there was +hardly a month left before the wedding, she began to feel dread and +uneasiness as though something vague and oppressive were before +her. + +"Tick-tock, tick-tock . . ." the watchman tapped lazily. ". . . +Tick-tock." + +Through the big old-fashioned window she could see the garden and +at a little distance bushes of lilac in full flower, drowsy and +lifeless from the cold; and the thick white mist was floating softly +up to the lilac, trying to cover it. Drowsy rooks were cawing in +the far-away trees. + +"My God, why is my heart so heavy?" + +Perhaps every girl felt the same before her wedding. There was no +knowing! Or was it Sasha's influence? But for several years past +Sasha had been repeating the same thing, like a copybook, and when +he talked he seemed naive and queer. But why was it she could not +get Sasha out of her head? Why was it? + +The watchman left off tapping for a long while. The birds were +twittering under the windows and the mist had disappeared from the +garden. Everything was lighted up by the spring sunshine as by a +smile. Soon the whole garden, warm and caressed by the sun, returned +to life, and dewdrops like diamonds glittered on the leaves and the +old neglected garden on that morning looked young and gaily decked. + +Granny was already awake. Sasha's husky cough began. Nadya could +hear them below, setting the samovar and moving the chairs. The +hours passed slowly, Nadya had been up and walking about the garden +for a long while and still the morning dragged on. + +At last Nina Ivanovna appeared with a tear-stained face, carrying +a glass of mineral water. She was interested in spiritualism and +homeopathy, read a great deal, was fond of talking of the doubts +to which she was subject, and to Nadya it seemed as though there +were a deep mysterious significance in all that. + +Now Nadya kissed her mother and walked beside her. + +"What have you been crying about, mother?" she asked. + +"Last night I was reading a story in which there is an old man and +his daughter. The old man is in some office and his chief falls in +love with his daughter. I have not finished it, but there was a +passage which made it hard to keep from tears," said Nina Ivanovna +and she sipped at her glass. "I thought of it this morning and shed +tears again." + +"I have been so depressed all these days," said Nadya after a pause. +"Why is it I don't sleep at night!" + +"I don't know, dear. When I can't sleep I shut my eyes very tightly, +like this, and picture to myself Anna Karenin moving about and +talking, or something historical from the ancient world. . . ." + +Nadya felt that her mother did not understand her and was incapable +of understanding. She felt this for the first time in her life, and +it positively frightened her and made her want to hide herself; and +she went away to her own room. + +At two o'clock they sat down to dinner. It was Wednesday, a fast +day, and so vegetable soup and bream with boiled grain were set +before Granny. + +To tease Granny Sasha ate his meat soup as well as the vegetable +soup. He was making jokes all through dinner-time, but his jests +were laboured and invariably with a moral bearing, and the effect +was not at all amusing when before making some witty remark he +raised his very long, thin, deathly-looking fingers; and when one +remembered that he was very ill and would probably not be much +longer in this world, one felt sorry for him and ready to weep. + +After dinner Granny went off to her own room to lie down. Nina +Ivanovna played on the piano for a little, and then she too went +away. + +"Oh, dear Nadya!" Sasha began his usual afternoon conversation, "if +only you would listen to me! If only you would!" + +She was sitting far back in an old-fashioned armchair, with her +eyes shut, while he paced slowly about the room from corner to +corner. + +"If only you would go to the university," he said. "Only enlightened +and holy people are interesting, it's only they who are wanted. The +more of such people there are, the sooner the Kingdom of God will +come on earth. Of your town then not one stone will be left, +everything will he blown up from the foundations, everything will +be changed as though by magic. And then there will be immense, +magnificent houses here, wonderful gardens, marvellous fountains, +remarkable people. . . . But that's not what matters most. What +matters most is that the crowd, in our sense of the word, in the +sense in which it exists now--that evil will not exist then, +because every man will believe and every man will know what he is +living for and no one will seek moral support in the crowd. Dear +Nadya, darling girl, go away! Show them all that you are sick of +this stagnant, grey, sinful life. Prove it to yourself at least!" + +"I can't, Sasha, I'm going to be married." + +"Oh nonsense! What's it for!" + +They went out into the garden and walked up and down a little. + +"And however that may be, my dear girl, you must think, you must +realize how unclean, how immoral this idle life of yours is," Sasha +went on. "Do understand that if, for instance, you and your mother +and your grandmother do nothing, it means that someone else is +working for you, you are eating up someone else's life, and is that +clean, isn't it filthy?" + +Nadya wanted to say "Yes, that is true"; she wanted to say that she +understood, but tears came into her eyes, her spirits drooped, and +shrinking into herself she went off to her room. + +Towards evening Andrey Andreitch arrived and as usual played the +fiddle for a long time. He was not given to much talk as a rule, +and was fond of the fiddle, perhaps because one could be silent +while playing. At eleven o'clock when he was about to go home and +had put on his greatcoat, he embraced Nadya and began greedily +kissing her face, her shoulders, and her hands. + +"My dear, my sweet, my charmer," he muttered. "Oh how happy I am! +I am beside myself with rapture!" + +And it seemed to her as though she had heard that long, long ago, +or had read it somewhere . . . in some old tattered novel thrown +away long ago. In the dining-room Sasha was sitting at the table +drinking tea with the saucer poised on his five long fingers; Granny +was laying out patience; Nina Ivanovna was reading. The flame +crackled in the ikon lamp and everything, it seemed, was quiet and +going well. Nadya said good-night, went upstairs to her room, got +into bed and fell asleep at once. But just as on the night before, +almost before it was light, she woke up. She was not sleepy, there +was an uneasy, oppressive feeling in her heart. She sat up with her +head on her knees and thought of her fiance and her marriage. . . . +She for some reason remembered that her mother had not loved her +father and now had nothing and lived in complete dependence on her +mother-in-law, Granny. And however much Nadya pondered she could +not imagine why she had hitherto seen in her mother something special +and exceptional, how it was she had not noticed that she was a +simple, ordinary, unhappy woman. + +And Sasha downstairs was not asleep, she could hear him coughing. +He is a queer, naive man, thought Nadya, and in all his dreams, in +all those marvellous gardens and wonderful fountains one felt there +was something absurd. But for some reason in his naivete, in this +very absurdity there was something so beautiful that as soon as she +thought of the possibility of going to the university, it sent a +cold thrill through her heart and her bosom and flooded them with +joy and rapture. + +"But better not think, better not think . . ." she whispered. "I +must not think of it." + +"Tick-tock," tapped the watchman somewhere far away. "Tick-tock +. . . tick-tock. . . ." + +III + +In the middle of June Sasha suddenly felt bored and made up his +mind to return to Moscow. + +"I can't exist in this town," he said gloomily. "No water supply, +no drains! It disgusts me to eat at dinner; the filth in the kitchen +is incredible. . . ." + +"Wait a little, prodigal son!" Granny tried to persuade him, speaking +for some reason in a whisper, "the wedding is to be on the seventh." + +"I don't want to." + +"You meant to stay with us until September!" + +"But now, you see, I don't want to. I must get to work." + +The summer was grey and cold, the trees were wet, everything in the +garden looked dejected and uninviting, it certainly did make one +long to get to work. The sound of unfamiliar women's voices was +heard downstairs and upstairs, there was the rattle of a sewing +machine in Granny's room, they were working hard at the trousseau. +Of fur coats alone, six were provided for Nadya, and the cheapest +of them, in Granny's words, had cost three hundred roubles! The +fuss irritated Sasha; he stayed in his own room and was cross, but +everyone persuaded him to remain, and he promised not to go before +the first of July. + +Time passed quickly. On St. Peter's day Andrey Andreitch went with +Nadya after dinner to Moscow Street to look once more at the house +which had been taken and made ready for the young couple some time +before. It was a house of two storeys, but so far only the upper +floor had been furnished. There was in the hall a shining floor +painted and parqueted, there were Viennese chairs, a piano, a violin +stand; there was a smell of paint. On the wall hung a big oil +painting in a gold frame--a naked lady and beside her a purple +vase with a broken handle. + +"An exquisite picture," said Andrey Andreitch, and he gave a +respectful sigh. "It's the work of the artist Shismatchevsky." + +Then there was the drawing-room with the round table, and a sofa +and easy chairs upholstered in bright blue. Above the sofa was a +big photograph of Father Andrey wearing a priest's velvet cap and +decorations. Then they went into the dining-room in which there was +a sideboard; then into the bedroom; here in the half dusk stood two +bedsteads side by side, and it looked as though the bedroom had +been decorated with the idea that it would always be very agreeable +there and could not possibly be anything else. Andrey Andreitch led +Nadya about the rooms, all the while keeping his arm round her +waist; and she felt weak and conscience-stricken. She hated all the +rooms, the beds, the easy chairs; she was nauseated by the naked +lady. It was clear to her now that she had ceased to love Andrey +Andreitch or perhaps had never loved him at all; but how to say +this and to whom to say it and with what object she did not understand, +and could not understand, though she was thinking about it all day +and all night. . . . He held her round the waist, talked so +affectionately, so modestly, was so happy, walking about this house +of his; while she saw nothing in it all but vulgarity, stupid, +naive, unbearable vulgarity, and his arm round her waist felt as +hard and cold as an iron hoop. And every minute she was on the point +of running away, bursting into sobs, throwing herself out of a +window. Andrey Andreitch led her into the bathroom and here he +touched a tap fixed in the wall and at once water flowed. + +"What do you say to that?" he said, and laughed. "I had a tank +holding two hundred gallons put in the loft, and so now we shall +have water." + +They walked across the yard and went out into the street and took +a cab. Thick clouds of dust were blowing, and it seemed as though +it were just going to rain. + +"You are not cold?" said Andrey Andreitch, screwing up his eyes at +the dust. + +She did not answer. + +"Yesterday, you remember, Sasha blamed me for doing nothing," he +said, after a brief silence. "Well, he is right, absolutely right! +I do nothing and can do nothing. My precious, why is it? Why is it +that the very thought that I may some day fix a cockade on my cap +and go into the government service is so hateful to me? Why do I +feel so uncomfortable when I see a lawyer or a Latin master or a +member of the Zemstvo? O Mother Russia! O Mother Russia! What a +burden of idle and useless people you still carry! How many like +me are upon you, long-suffering Mother!" + +And from the fact that he did nothing he drew generalizations, +seeing in it a sign of the times. + +"When we are married let us go together into the country, my precious; +there we will work! We will buy ourselves a little piece of land +with a garden and a river, we will labour and watch life. Oh, how +splendid that will be!" + +He took off his hat, and his hair floated in the wind, while she +listened to him and thought: "Good God, I wish I were home!" + +When they were quite near the house they overtook Father Andrey. + +"Ah, here's father coming," cried Andrey Andreitch, delighted, and +he waved his hat. "I love my dad really," he said as he paid the +cabman. "He's a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow." + +Nadya went into the house, feeling cross and unwell, thinking that +there would be visitors all the evening, that she would have to +entertain them, to smile, to listen to the fiddle, to listen to all +sorts of nonsense, and to talk of nothing but the wedding. + +Granny, dignified, gorgeous in her silk dress, and haughty as she +always seemed before visitors, was sitting before the samovar. +Father Andrey came in with his sly smile. + +"I have the pleasure and blessed consolation of seeing you in +health," he said to Granny, and it was hard to tell whether he was +joking or speaking seriously. + +IV + +The wind was beating on the window and on the roof; there was a +whistling sound, and in the stove the house spirit was plaintively +and sullenly droning his song. It was past midnight; everyone in +the house had gone to bed, but no one was asleep, and it seemed all +the while to Nadya as though they were playing the fiddle below. +There was a sharp bang; a shutter must have been torn off. A minute +later Nina Ivanovna came in in her nightgown, with a candle. + +"What was the bang, Nadya?" she asked. + +Her mother, with her hair in a single plait and a timid smile on +her face, looked older, plainer, smaller on that stormy night. Nadya +remembered that quite a little time ago she had thought her mother +an exceptional woman and had listened with pride to the things she +said; and now she could not remember those things, everything that +came into her mind was so feeble and useless. + +In the stove was the sound of several bass voices in chorus, and +she even heard "O-o-o my G-o-od!" Nadya sat on her bed, and suddenly +she clutched at her hair and burst into sobs. + +"Mother, mother, my own," she said. "If only you knew what is +happening to me! I beg you, I beseech you, let me go away! I beseech +you!" + +"Where?" asked Nina Ivanovna, not understanding, and she sat down +on the bedstead. "Go where?" + +For a long while Nadya cried and could not utter a word. + +"Let me go away from the town," she said at last. "There must not +and will not be a wedding, understand that! I don't love that man +. . . I can't even speak about him." + +"No, my own, no!" Nina Ivanovna said quickly, terribly alarmed. +"Calm yourself--it's just because you are in low spirits. It will +pass, it often happens. Most likely you have had a tiff with Andrey; +but lovers' quarrels always end in kisses!" + +"Oh, go away, mother, oh, go away," sobbed Nadya. + +"Yes," said Nina Ivanovna after a pause, "it's not long since you +were a baby, a little girl, and now you are engaged to be married. +In nature there is a continual transmutation of substances. Before +you know where you are you will be a mother yourself and an old +woman, and will have as rebellious a daughter as I have." + +"My darling, my sweet, you are clever you know, you are unhappy," +said Nadya. "You are very unhappy; why do you say such very dull, +commonplace things? For God's sake, why?" + +Nina Ivanovna tried to say something, but could not utter a word; +she gave a sob and went away to her own room. The bass voices began +droning in the stove again, and Nadya felt suddenly frightened. She +jumped out of bed and went quickly to her mother. Nina Ivanovna, +with tear-stained face, was lying in bed wrapped in a pale blue +quilt and holding a book in her hands. + +"Mother, listen to me!" said Nadya. "I implore you, do understand! +If you would only understand how petty and degrading our life is. +My eyes have been opened, and I see it all now. And what is your +Andrey Andreitch? Why, he is not intelligent, mother! Merciful +heavens, do understand, mother, he is stupid!" + +Nina Ivanovna abruptly sat up. + +"You and your grandmother torment me," she said with a sob. "I want +to live! to live," she repeated, and twice she beat her little fist +upon her bosom. "Let me be free! I am still young, I want to live, +and you have made me an old woman between you!" + +She broke into bitter tears, lay down and curled up under the quilt, +and looked so small, so pitiful, so foolish. Nadya went to her room, +dressed, and sitting at the window fell to waiting for the morning. +She sat all night thinking, while someone seemed to be tapping on +the shutters and whistling in the yard. + +In the morning Granny complained that the wind had blown down all +the apples in the garden, and broken down an old plum tree. It was +grey, murky, cheerless, dark enough for candles; everyone complained +of the cold, and the rain lashed on the windows. After tea Nadya +went into Sasha's room and without saying a word knelt down before +an armchair in the corner and hid her face in her hands. + +"What is it?" asked Sasha. + +"I can't . . ." she said. "How I could go on living here before, I +can't understand, I can't conceive! I despise the man I am engaged +to, I despise myself, I despise all this idle, senseless existence." + +"Well, well," said Sasha, not yet grasping what was meant. "That's +all right . . . that's good." + +"I am sick of this life," Nadya went on. "I can't endure another +day here. To-morrow I am going away. Take me with you for God's +sake!" + +For a minute Sasha looked at her in astonishment; at last he +understood and was delighted as a child. He waved his arms and began +pattering with his slippers as though he were dancing with delight. + +"Splendid," he said, rubbing his hands. "My goodness, how fine that +is!" + +And she stared at him without blinking, with adoring eyes, as though +spellbound, expecting every minute that he would say something +important, something infinitely significant; he had told her nothing +yet, but already it seemed to her that something new and great was +opening before her which she had not known till then, and already +she gazed at him full of expectation, ready to face anything, even +death. + +"I am going to-morrow," he said after a moment's thought. "You come +to the station to see me off. . . . I'll take your things in my +portmanteau, and I'll get your ticket, and when the third bell rings +you get into the carriage, and we'll go off. You'll see me as far +as Moscow and then go on to Petersburg alone. Have you a passport?" + +"Yes." + +"I can promise you, you won't regret it," said Sasha, with conviction. +"You will go, you will study, and then go where fate takes you. +When you turn your life upside down everything will be changed. The +great thing is to turn your life upside down, and all the rest is +unimportant. And so we will set off to-morrow?" + +"Oh yes, for God's sake!" + +It seemed to Nadya that she was very much excited, that her heart +was heavier than ever before, that she would spend all the time +till she went away in misery and agonizing thought; but she had +hardly gone upstairs and lain down on her bed when she fell asleep +at once, with traces of tears and a smile on her face, and slept +soundly till evening. + +V + +A cab had been sent for. Nadya in her hat and overcoat went upstairs +to take one more look at her mother, at all her belongings. She +stood in her own room beside her still warm bed, looked about her, +then went slowly in to her mother. Nina Ivanovna was asleep; it was +quite still in her room. Nadya kissed her mother, smoothed her hair, +stood still for a couple of minutes . . . then walked slowly +downstairs. + +It was raining heavily. The cabman with the hood pulled down was +standing at the entrance, drenched with rain. + +"There is not room for you, Nadya," said Granny, as the servants +began putting in the luggage. "What an idea to see him off in such +weather! You had better stop at home. Goodness, how it rains!" + +Nadya tried to say something, but could not. Then Sasha helped Nadya +in and covered her feet with a rug. Then he sat down beside her. + +"Good luck to you! God bless you!" Granny cried from the steps. +"Mind you write to us from Moscow, Sasha!" + +"Right. Good-bye, Granny." + +"The Queen of Heaven keep you!" + +"Oh, what weather!" said Sasha. + +It was only now that Nadya began to cry. Now it was clear to her +that she certainly was going, which she had not really believed +when she was saying good-bye to Granny, and when she was looking +at her mother. Good-bye, town! And she suddenly thought of it all: +Andrey, and his father and the new house and the naked lady with +the vase; and it all no longer frightened her, nor weighed upon +her, but was naive and trivial and continually retreated further +away. And when they got into the railway carriage and the train +began to move, all that past which had been so big and serious +shrank up into something tiny, and a vast wide future which till +then had scarcely been noticed began unfolding before her. The rain +pattered on the carriage windows, nothing could be seen but the +green fields, telegraph posts with birds sitting on the wires flitted +by, and joy made her hold her breath; she thought that she was going +to freedom, going to study, and this was just like what used, ages +ago, to be called going off to be a free Cossack. + +She laughed and cried and prayed all at once. + +"It's a-all right," said Sasha, smiling. "It's a-all right." + +VI + +Autumn had passed and winter, too, had gone. Nadya had begun to be +very homesick and thought every day of her mother and her grandmother; +she thought of Sasha too. The letters that came from home were kind +and gentle, and it seemed as though everything by now were forgiven +and forgotten. In May after the examinations she set off for home +in good health and high spirits, and stopped on the way at Moscow +to see Sasha. He was just the same as the year before, with the +same beard and unkempt hair, with the same large beautiful eyes, +and he still wore the same coat and canvas trousers; but he looked +unwell and worried, he seemed both older and thinner, and kept +coughing, and for some reason he struck Nadya as grey and provincial. + +"My God, Nadya has come!" he said, and laughed gaily. "My darling +girl!" + +They sat in the printing room, which was full of tobacco smoke, and +smelt strongly, stiflingly of Indian ink and paint; then they went +to his room, which also smelt of tobacco and was full of the traces +of spitting; near a cold samovar stood a broken plate with dark +paper on it, and there were masses of dead flies on the table and +on the floor. And everything showed that Sasha ordered his personal +life in a slovenly way and lived anyhow, with utter contempt for +comfort, and if anyone began talking to him of his personal happiness, +of his personal life, of affection for him, he would not have +understood and would have only laughed. + +"It is all right, everything has gone well," said Nadya hurriedly. +"Mother came to see me in Petersburg in the autumn; she said that +Granny is not angry, and only keeps going into my room and making +the sign of the cross over the walls." + +Sasha looked cheerful, but he kept coughing, and talked in a cracked +voice, and Nadya kept looking at him, unable to decide whether he +really were seriously ill or whether it were only her fancy. + +"Dear Sasha," she said, "you are ill." + +"No, it's nothing, I am ill, but not very . . ." + +"Oh, dear!" cried Nadya, in agitation. "Why don't you go to a doctor? +Why don't you take care of your health? My dear, darling Sasha," +she said, and tears gushed from her eyes and for some reason there +rose before her imagination Andrey Andreitch and the naked lady +with the vase, and all her past which seemed now as far away as her +childhood; and she began crying because Sasha no longer seemed to +her so novel, so cultured, and so interesting as the year before. +"Dear Sasha, you are very, very ill . . . I would do anything to +make you not so pale and thin. I am so indebted to you! You can't +imagine how much you have done for me, my good Sasha! In reality +you are now the person nearest and dearest to me." + +They sat on and talked, and now, after Nadya had spent a winter in +Petersburg, Sasha, his works, his smile, his whole figure had for +her a suggestion of something out of date, old-fashioned, done with +long ago and perhaps already dead and buried. + +"I am going down the Volga the day after tomorrow," said Sasha, +"and then to drink koumiss. I mean to drink koumiss. A friend and +his wife are going with me. His wife is a wonderful woman; I am +always at her, trying to persuade her to go to the university. I +want her to turn her life upside down." + +After having talked they drove to the station. Sasha got her tea +and apples; and when the train began moving and he waved his +handkerchief at her, smiling, it could be seen even from his legs +that he was very ill and would not live long. + +Nadya reached her native town at midday. As she drove home from the +station the streets struck her as very wide and the houses very +small and squat; there were no people about, she met no one but the +German piano-tuner in a rusty greatcoat. And all the houses looked +as though they were covered with dust. Granny, who seemed to have +grown quite old, but was as fat and plain as ever, flung her arms +round Nadya and cried for a long time with her face on Nadya's +shoulder, unable to tear herself away. Nina Ivanovna looked much +older and plainer and seemed shrivelled up, but was still tightly +laced, and still had diamonds flashing on her fingers. + +"My darling," she said, trembling all over, "my darling!" + +Then they sat down and cried without speaking. It was evident that +both mother and grandmother realized that the past was lost and +gone, never to return; they had now no position in society, no +prestige as before, no right to invite visitors; so it is when in +the midst of an easy careless life the police suddenly burst in at +night and made a search, and it turns out that the head of the +family has embezzled money or committed forgery--and goodbye then +to the easy careless life for ever! + +Nadya went upstairs and saw the same bed, the same windows with +naive white curtains, and outside the windows the same garden, gay +and noisy, bathed in sunshine. She touched the table, sat down and +sank into thought. And she had a good dinner and drank tea with +delicious rich cream; but something was missing, there was a sense +of emptiness in the rooms and the ceilings were so low. In the +evening she went to bed, covered herself up and for some reason it +seemed to her to be funny lying in this snug, very soft bed. + +Nina Ivanovna came in for a minute; she sat down as people who feel +guilty sit down, timidly, and looking about her. + +"Well, tell me, Nadya," she enquired after a brief pause, "are you +contented? Quite contented?" + +"Yes, mother." + +Nina Ivanovna got up, made the sign of the cross over Nadya and the +windows. + +"I have become religious, as you see," she said. "You know I am +studying philosophy now, and I am always thinking and thinking. . . . +And many things have become as clear as daylight to me. It seems +to me that what is above all necessary is that life should pass as +it were through a prism." + +"Tell me, mother, how is Granny in health?" + +"She seems all right. When you went away that time with Sasha and +the telegram came from you, Granny fell on the floor as she read +it; for three days she lay without moving. After that she was always +praying and crying. But now she is all right again." + +She got up and walked about the room. + +"Tick-tock," tapped the watchman. "Tick-tock, tick-tock. . . ." + +"What is above all necessary is that life should pass as it were +through a prism," she said; "in other words, that life in consciousness +should be analyzed into its simplest elements as into the seven +primary colours, and each element must be studied separately." + +What Nina Ivanovna said further and when she went away, Nadya did +not hear, as she quickly fell asleep. + +May passed; June came. Nadya had grown used to being at home. Granny +busied herself about the samovar, heaving deep sighs. Nina Ivanovna +talked in the evenings about her philosophy; she still lived in the +house like a poor relation, and had to go to Granny for every +farthing. There were lots of flies in the house, and the ceilings +seemed to become lower and lower. Granny and Nina Ivanovna did not +go out in the streets for fear of meeting Father Andrey and Andrey +Andreitch. Nadya walked about the garden and the streets, looked +at the grey fences, and it seemed to her that everything in the +town had grown old, was out of date and was only waiting either for +the end, or for the beginning of something young and fresh. Oh, if +only that new, bright life would come more quickly--that life in +which one will be able to face one's fate boldly and directly, to +know that one is right, to be light-hearted and free! And sooner +or later such a life will come. The time will come when of Granny's +house, where things are so arranged that the four servants can only +live in one room in filth in the basement--the time will come +when of that house not a trace will remain, and it will be forgotten, +no one will remember it. And Nadya's only entertainment was from +the boys next door; when she walked about the garden they knocked +on the fence and shouted in mockery: "Betrothed! Betrothed!" + +A letter from Sasha arrived from Saratov. In his gay dancing +handwriting he told them that his journey on the Volga had been a +complete success, but that he had been taken rather ill in Saratov, +had lost his voice, and had been for the last fortnight in the +hospital. She knew what that meant, and she was overwhelmed with a +foreboding that was like a conviction. And it vexed her that this +foreboding and the thought of Sasha did not distress her so much +as before. She had a passionate desire for life, longed to be in +Petersburg, and her friendship with Sasha seemed now sweet but +something far, far away! She did not sleep all night, and in the +morning sat at the window, listening. And she did in fact hear +voices below; Granny, greatly agitated, was asking questions rapidly. +Then some one began crying. . . . When Nadya went downstairs Granny +was standing in the corner, praying before the ikon and her face +was tearful. A telegram lay on the table. + +For some time Nadya walked up and down the room, listening to +Granny's weeping; then she picked up the telegram and read it. + +It announced that the previous morning Alexandr Timofeitch, or more +simply, Sasha, had died at Saratov of consumption. + +Granny and Nina Ivanovna went to the church to order a memorial +service, while Nadya went on walking about the rooms and thinking. +She recognized clearly that her life had been turned upside down +as Sasha wished; that here she was, alien, isolated, useless and +that everything here was useless to her; that all the past had been +torn away from her and vanished as though it had been burnt up and +the ashes scattered to the winds. She went into Sasha's room and +stood there for a while. + +"Good-bye, dear Sasha," she thought, and before her mind rose the +vista of a new, wide, spacious life, and that life, still obscure +and full of mysteries, beckoned her and attracted her. + +She went upstairs to her own room to pack, and next morning said +good-bye to her family, and full of life and high spirits left the +town--as she supposed for ever. + + +FROM THE DIARY OF A VIOLENT-TEMPERED MAN + +I AM a serious person and my mind is of a philosophic bent. My +vocation is the study of finance. I am a student of financial law +and I have chosen as the subject of my dissertation--the Past and +Future of the Dog Licence. I need hardly point out that young ladies, +songs, moonlight, and all that sort of silliness are entirely out +of my line. + +Morning. Ten o'clock. My _maman_ pours me out a cup of coffee. I +drink it and go out on the little balcony to set to work on my +dissertation. I take a clean sheet of paper, dip the pen into the +ink, and write out the title: "The Past and Future of the Dog +Licence." + +After thinking a little I write: "Historical Survey. We may deduce +from some allusions in Herodotus and Xenophon that the origin of +the tax on dogs goes back to . . . ." + +But at that point I hear footsteps that strike me as highly suspicious. +I look down from the balcony and see below a young lady with a long +face and a long waist. Her name, I believe, is Nadenka or Varenka, +it really does not matter which. She is looking for something, +pretends not to have noticed me, and is humming to herself: + +"Dost thou remember that song full of tenderness?" + +I read through what I have written and want to continue, but the +young lady pretends to have just caught sight of me, and says in a +mournful voice: + +"Good morning, Nikolay Andreitch. Only fancy what a misfortune I +have had! I went for a walk yesterday and lost the little ball off +my bracelet!" + +I read through once more the opening of my dissertation, I trim up +the tail of the letter "g" and mean to go on, but the young lady +persists. + +"Nikolay Andreitch," she says, "won't you see me home? The Karelins +have such a huge dog that I simply daren't pass it alone." + +There is no getting out of it. I lay down my pen and go down to +her. Nadenka (or Varenka) takes my arm and we set off in the direction +of her villa. + +When the duty of walking arm-in-arm with a lady falls to my lot, +for some reason or other I always feel like a peg with a heavy cloak +hanging on it. Nadenka (or Varenka), between ourselves, of an ardent +temperament (her grandfather was an Armenian), has a peculiar art +of throwing her whole weight on one's arm and clinging to one's +side like a leech. And so we walk along. + +As we pass the Karelins', I see a huge dog, who reminds me of the +dog licence. I think with despair of the work I have begun and sigh. + +"What are you sighing for?" asks Nadenka (or Varenka), and heaves +a sigh herself. + +Here I must digress for a moment to explain that Nadenka or Varenka +(now I come to think of it, I believe I have heard her called +Mashenka) imagines, I can't guess why, that I am in love with her, +and therefore thinks it her duty as a humane person always to look +at me with compassion and to soothe my wound with words. + +"Listen," said she, stopping. "I know why you are sighing. You are +in love, yes; but I beg you for the sake of our friendship to believe +that the girl you love has the deepest respect for you. She cannot +return your love; but is it her fault that her heart has long been +another's?" + +Mashenka's nose begins to swell and turn red, her eyes fill with +tears: she evidently expects some answer from me, but, fortunately, +at this moment we arrive. Mashenka's mamma, a good-natured woman +but full of conventional ideas, is sitting on the terrace: glancing +at her daughter's agitated face, she looks intently at me and sighs, +as though saying to herself: "Ah, these young people! they don't +even know how to keep their secrets to themselves!" + +On the terrace with her are several young ladies of various colours +and a retired officer who is staying in the villa next to ours. He +was wounded during the last war in the left temple and the right +hip. This unfortunate man is, like myself, proposing to devote the +summer to literary work. He is writing the "Memoirs of a Military +Man." Like me, he begins his honourable labours every morning, but +before he has written more than "I was born in . . ." some Varenka +or Mashenka is sure to appear under his balcony, and the wounded +hero is borne off under guard. + +All the party sitting on the terrace are engaged in preparing some +miserable fruit for jam. I make my bows and am about to beat a +retreat, but the young ladies of various colours seize my hat with +a squeal and insist on my staying. I sit down. They give me a plate +of fruit and a hairpin. I begin taking the seeds out. + +The young ladies of various colours talk about men: they say that +So-and-So is nice-looking, that So-and-So is handsome but not nice, +that somebody else is nice but ugly, and that a fourth would not +have been bad-looking if his nose were not like a thimble, and so +on. + +"And you, _Monsieur Nicolas_," says Varenka's mamma, turning to me, +"are not handsome, but you are attractive. . . . There is something +about your face. . . . In men, though, it's not beauty but intelligence +that matters," she adds, sighing. + +The young ladies sigh, too, and drop their eyes . . . they agree +that the great thing in men is not beauty but intelligence. I steal +a glance sideways at a looking-glass to ascertain whether I really +am attractive. I see a shaggy head, a bushy beard, moustaches, +eyebrows, hair on my cheeks, hair up to my eyes, a perfect thicket +with a solid nose sticking up out of it like a watch-tower. Attractive! +h'm! + +"But it's by the qualities of your soul, after all, that you will +make your way, _Nicolas_," sighs Nadenka's mamma, as though affirming +some secret and original idea of her own. + +And Nadenka is sympathetically distressed on my account, but the +conviction that a man passionately in love with her is sitting +opposite is obviously a source of the greatest enjoyment to her. + +When they have done with men, the young ladies begin talking about +love. After a long conversation about love, one of the young ladies +gets up and goes away. Those that remain begin to pick her to pieces. +Everyone agrees that she is stupid, unbearable, ugly, and that one +of her shoulder-blades sticks out in a shocking way. + +But at last, thank goodness! I see our maid. My _maman_ has sent +her to call me in to dinner. Now I can make my escape from this +uncongenial company and go back to my work. I get up and make my +bows. + +Varenka's _maman_, Varenka herself, and the variegated young ladies +surround me, and declare that I cannot possibly go, because I +promised yesterday to dine with them and go to the woods to look +for mushrooms. I bow and sit down again. My soul is boiling with +rage, and I feel that in another moment I may not be able to answer +for myself, that there may be an explosion, but gentlemanly feeling +and the fear of committing a breach of good manners compels me to +obey the ladies. And I obey them. + +We sit down to dinner. The wounded officer, whose wound in the +temple has affected the muscles of the left cheek, eats as though +he had a bit in his mouth. I roll up little balls of bread, think +about the dog licence, and, knowing the ungovernable violence of +my temper, try to avoid speaking. Nadenka looks at me sympathetically. + +Soup, tongue and peas, roast fowl, and compote. I have no appetite, +but eat from politeness. + +After dinner, while I am standing alone on the terrace, smoking, +Nadenka's mamma comes up to me, presses my hand, and says breathlessly: + +"Don't despair, _Nicolas!_ She has such a heart, . . . such a heart! +. . ." + +We go towards the wood to gather mushrooms. Varenka hangs on my arm +and clings to my side. My sufferings are indescribable, but I bear +them in patience. + +We enter the wood. + +"Listen, Monsieur Nicolas," says Nadenka, sighing. "Why are you so +melancholy? And why are you so silent?" + +Extraordinary girl she is, really! What can I talk to her about? +What have we in common? + +"Oh, do say something!" she begs me. + +I begin trying to think of something popular, something within the +range of her understanding. After a moment's thought I say: + +"The cutting down of forests has been greatly detrimental to the +prosperity of Russia. . . ." + +"Nicolas," sighs Nadenka, and her nose begins to turn red, "Nicolas, +I see you are trying to avoid being open with me. . . . You seem +to wish to punish me by your silence. Your feeling is not returned, +and you wish to suffer in silence, in solitude . . . it is too +awful, Nicolas!" she cries impulsively seizing my hand, and I see +her nose beginning to swell. "What would you say if the girl you +love were to offer you her eternal friendship?" + +I mutter something incoherent, for I really can't think what to say +to her. + +In the first place, I'm not in love with any girl at all; in the +second, what could I possibly want her eternal friendship for? and, +thirdly, I have a violent temper. + +Mashenka (or Varenka) hides her face in her hands and murmurs, as +though to herself: + +"He will not speak; . . . it is clear that he will have me make the +sacrifice! I cannot love him, if my heart is still another's . . . +but . . . I will think of it. . . . Very good, I will think of it +. . . I will prove the strength of my soul, and perhaps, at the +cost of my own happiness, I will save this man from suffering!" . . . + +I can make nothing out of all this. It seems some special sort of +puzzle. + +We go farther into the wood and begin picking mushrooms. We are +perfectly silent the whole time. Nadenka's face shows signs of +inward struggle. I hear the bark of dogs; it reminds me of my +dissertation, and I sigh heavily. Between the trees I catch sight +of the wounded officer limping painfully along. The poor fellow's +right leg is lame from his wound, and on his left arm he has one +of the variegated young ladies. His face expresses resignation to +destiny. + +We go back to the house to drink tea, after which we play croquet +and listen to one of the variegated young ladies singing a song: +"No, no, thou lovest not, no, no." At the word "no" she twists her +mouth till it almost touches one ear. + +"_Charmant!_" wail the other young ladies, "_Charmant!_" + +The evening comes on. A detestable moon creeps up behind the bushes. +There is perfect stillness in the air, and an unpleasant smell of +freshly cut hay. I take up my hat and try to get away. + +"I have something I must say to you!" Mashenka whispers to me +significantly, "don't go away!" + +I have a foreboding of evil, but politeness obliges me to remain. +Mashenka takes my arm and leads me away to a garden walk. By this +time her whole figure expresses conflict. She is pale and gasping +for breath, and she seems absolutely set on pulling my right arm +out of the socket. What can be the matter with her? + +"Listen!" she mutters. "No, I cannot! No! . . ." She tries to say +something, but hesitates. Now I see from her face that she has come +to some decision. With gleaming eyes and swollen nose she snatches +my hand, and says hurriedly, "_Nicolas_, I am yours! Love you I +cannot, but I promise to be true to you!" + +Then she squeezes herself to my breast, and at once springs away. + +"Someone is coming," she whispers. "Farewell! . . . To-morrow at +eleven o'clock I will be in the arbour. . . . Farewell!" + +And she vanishes. Completely at a loss for an explanation of her +conduct and suffering from a painful palpitation of the heart, I +make my way home. There the "Past and Future of the Dog Licence" +is awaiting me, but I am quite unable to work. I am furious. . . . +I may say, my anger is terrible. Damn it all! I allow no one to +treat me like a boy, I am a man of violent temper, and it is not +safe to trifle with me! + +When the maid comes in to call me to supper, I shout to her: "Go +out of the room!" Such hastiness augurs nothing good. + +Next morning. Typical holiday weather. Temperature below freezing, +a cutting wind, rain, mud, and a smell of naphthaline, because my +_maman_ has taken all her wraps out of her trunks. A devilish +morning! It is the 7th of August, 1887, the date of the solar +eclipse. I may here remark that at the time of an eclipse every one +of us may, without special astronomical knowledge, be of the greatest +service. Thus, for example, anyone of us can (1) take the measurement +of the diameters of the sun and the moon; (2) sketch the corona of +the sun; (3) take the temperature; (4) take observations of plants +and animals during the eclipse; (5) note down his own impressions, +and so on. + +It is a matter of such exceptional importance that I lay aside the +"Past and Future of the Dog Licence" and make up my mind to observe +the eclipse. + +We all get up very early, and I divide the work as follows: I am +to measure the diameter of the sun and moon; the wounded officer +is to sketch the corona; and the other observations are undertaken +by Mashenka and the variegated young ladies. + +We all meet together and wait. + +"What is the cause of the eclipse?" asks Mashenka. + +I reply: "A solar eclipse occurs when the moon, moving in the plane +of the ecliptic, crosses the line joining the centres of the sun +and the earth." + +"And what does the ecliptic mean?" + +I explain. Mashenka listens attentively. + +"Can one see through the smoked glass the line joining the centres +of the sun and the earth?" she enquires. + +I reply that this is only an imaginary line, drawn theoretically. + +"If it is only an imaginary line, how can the moon cross it?" Varenka +says, wondering. + +I make no reply. I feel my spleen rising at this naive question. + +"It's all nonsense," says Mashenka's _maman_. "Impossible to tell +what's going to happen. You've never been in the sky, so what can +you know of what is to happen with the sun and moon? It's all fancy." + +At that moment a black patch begins to move over the sun. General +confusion follows. The sheep and horses and cows run bellowing about +the fields with their tails in the air. The dogs howl. The bugs, +thinking night has come on, creep out of the cracks in the walls +and bite the people who are still in bed. + +The deacon, who was engaged in bringing some cucumbers from the +market garden, jumped out of his cart and hid under the bridge; +while his horse walked off into somebody else's yard, where the +pigs ate up all the cucumbers. The excise officer, who had not slept +at home that night, but at a lady friend's, dashed out with nothing +on but his nightshirt, and running into the crowd shouted frantically: +"Save yourself, if you can!" + +Numbers of the lady visitors, even young and pretty ones, run out +of their villas without even putting their slippers on. Scenes occur +which I hesitate to describe. + +"Oh, how dreadful!" shriek the variegated young ladies. "It's really +too awful!" + +"Mesdames, watch!" I cry. "Time is precious!" + +And I hasten to measure the diameters. I remember the corona, and +look towards the wounded officer. He stands doing nothing. + +"What's the matter?" I shout. "How about the corona?" + +He shrugs his shoulders and looks helplessly towards his arms. The +poor fellow has variegated young ladies on both sides of him, +clinging to him in terror and preventing him from working. I seize +a pencil and note down the time to a second. That is of great +importance. I note down the geographical position of the point of +observation. That, too, is of importance. I am just about to measure +the diameter when Mashenka seizes my hand, and says: + +"Do not forget to-day, eleven o'clock." + +I withdraw my hand, feeling every second precious, try to continue +my observations, but Varenka clutches my arm and clings to me. +Pencil, pieces of glass, drawings--all are scattered on the grass. +Hang it! It's high time the girl realized that I am a man of violent +temper, and when I am roused my fury knows no bounds, I cannot +answer for myself. + +I try to continue, but the eclipse is over. + +"Look at me!" she whispers tenderly. + +Oh, that is the last straw! Trying a man's patience like that can +but have a fatal ending. I am not to blame if something terrible +happens. I allow no one to make a laughing stock of me, and, God +knows, when I am furious, I advise nobody to come near me, damn it +all! There's nothing I might not do! One of the young ladies, +probably noticing from my face what a rage I am in, and anxious to +propitiate me, says: + +"I did exactly what you told me, Nikolay Andreitch; I watched the +animals. I saw the grey dog chasing the cat just before the eclipse, +and wagging his tail for a long while afterwards." + +So nothing came of the eclipse after all. + +I go home. Thanks to the rain, I work indoors instead of on the +balcony. The wounded officer has risked it, and has again got as +far as "I was born in . . ." when I see one of the variegated young +ladies pounce down on him and bear him off to her villa. + +I cannot work, for I am still in a fury and suffering from palpitation +of the heart. I do not go to the arbour. It is impolite not to, +but, after all, I can't be expected to go in the rain. + +At twelve o'clock I receive a letter from Mashenka, a letter full +of reproaches and entreaties to go to the arbour, addressing me as +"thou." At one o'clock I get a second letter, and at two, a third +. . . . I must go. . . . But before going I must consider what I am +to say to her. I will behave like a gentleman. + +To begin with, I will tell her that she is mistaken in supposing +that I am in love with her. That's a thing one does not say to a +lady as a rule, though. To tell a lady that one's not in love with +her, is almost as rude as to tell an author he can't write. + +The best thing will be to explain my views of marriage. + +I put on my winter overcoat, take an umbrella, and walk to the +arbour. + +Knowing the hastiness of my temper, I am afraid I may be led into +speaking too strongly; I will try to restrain myself. + +I find Nadenka still waiting for me. She is pale and in tears. On +seeing me she utters a cry of joy, flings herself on my neck, and +says: + +"At last! You are trying my patience. . . . Listen, I have not slept +all night. . . . I have been thinking and thinking. . . . I believe +that when I come to know you better I shall learn to love you. . . ." + +I sit down, and begin to unfold my views of marriage. To begin with, +to clear the ground of digressions and to be as brief as possible, +I open with a short historical survey. I speak of marriage in ancient +Egypt and India, then pass to more recent times, a few ideas from +Schopenhauer. Mashenka listens attentively, but all of a sudden, +through some strange incoherence of ideas, thinks fit to interrupt +me: + +"Nicolas, kiss me!" she says. + +I am embarrassed and don't know what to say to her. She repeats her +request. There seems no avoiding it. I get up and bend over her +long face, feeling as I do so just as I did in my childhood when I +was lifted up to kiss my grandmother in her coffin. Not content +with the kiss, Mashenka leaps up and impulsively embraces me. At +that instant, Mashenka's _maman_ appears in the doorway of the +arbour. . . . She makes a face as though in alarm, and saying "sh-sh" +to someone with her, vanishes like Mephistopheles through the +trapdoor. + +Confused and enraged, I return to our villa. At home I find Varenka's +_maman_ embracing my _maman_ with tears in her eyes. And my _maman_ +weeps and says: + +"I always hoped for it!" + +And then, if you please, Nadenka's _maman_ comes up to me, embraces +me, and says: + +"May God bless you! . . . Mind you love her well. . . . Remember +the sacrifice she is making for your sake!" + +And here I am at my wedding. At the moment I write these last words, +my best man is at my side, urging me to make haste. These people +have no idea of my character! I have a violent temper, I cannot +always answer for myself! Hang it all! God knows what will come of +it! To lead a violent, desperate man to the altar is as unwise as +to thrust one's hand into the cage of a ferocious tiger. We shall +see, we shall see! + + * * * * * + +And so, I am married. Everybody congratulates me and Varenka keeps +clinging to me and saying: + +"Now you are mine, mine; do you understand that? Tell me that you +love me!" And her nose swells as she says it. + +I learn from my best man that the wounded officer has very cleverly +escaped the snares of Hymen. He showed the variegated young lady a +medical certificate that owing to the wound in his temple he was +at times mentally deranged and incapable of contracting a valid +marriage. An inspiration! I might have got a certificate too. An +uncle of mine drank himself to death, another uncle was extremely +absent-minded (on one occasion he put a lady's muff on his head in +mistake for his hat), an aunt of mine played a great deal on the +piano, and used to put out her tongue at gentlemen she did not like. +And my ungovernable temper is a very suspicious symptom. + +But why do these great ideas always come too late? Why? + + +IN THE DARK + +A FLY of medium size made its way into the nose of the assistant +procurator, Gagin. It may have been impelled by curiosity, or have +got there through frivolity or accident in the dark; anyway, the +nose resented the presence of a foreign body and gave the signal +for a sneeze. Gagin sneezed, sneezed impressively and so shrilly +and loudly that the bed shook and the springs creaked. Gagin's wife, +Marya Mihalovna, a full, plump, fair woman, started, too, and woke +up. She gazed into the darkness, sighed, and turned over on the +other side. Five minutes afterwards she turned over again and shut +her eyes more firmly but she could not get to sleep again. After +sighing and tossing from side to side for a time, she got up, crept +over her husband, and putting on her slippers, went to the window. + +It was dark outside. She could see nothing but the outlines of the +trees and the roof of the stables. There was a faint pallor in the +east, but this pallor was beginning to be clouded over. There was +perfect stillness in the air wrapped in slumber and darkness. Even +the watchman, paid to disturb the stillness of night, was silent; +even the corncrake--the only wild creature of the feathered tribe +that does not shun the proximity of summer visitors--was silent. + +The stillness was broken by Marya Mihalovna herself. Standing at +the window and gazing into the yard, she suddenly uttered a cry. +She fancied that from the flower garden with the gaunt, clipped +poplar, a dark figure was creeping towards the house. For the first +minute she thought it was a cow or a horse, then, rubbing her eyes, +she distinguished clearly the outlines of a man. + +Then she fancied the dark figure approached the window of the kitchen +and, standing still a moment, apparently undecided, put one foot +on the window ledge and disappeared into the darkness of the window. + +"A burglar!" flashed into her mind and a deathly pallor overspread +her face. + +And in one instant her imagination had drawn the picture so dreaded +by lady visitors in country places--a burglar creeps into the +kitchen, from the kitchen into the dining-room . . . the silver in +the cupboard . . . next into the bedroom . . . an axe . . . the +face of a brigand . . . jewelry. . . . Her knees gave way under her +and a shiver ran down her back. + +"Vassya!" she said, shaking her husband, "_Basile!_ Vassily Prokovitch! +Ah! mercy on us, he might be dead! Wake up, _Basile_, I beseech +you!" + +"W-well?" grunted the assistant procurator, with a deep inward +breath and a munching sound. + +"For God's sake, wake up! A burglar has got into the kitchen! I was +standing at the window looking out and someone got in at the window. +He will get into the dining-room next . . . the spoons are in the +cupboard! _Basile!_ They broke into Mavra Yegorovna's last year." + +"Wha--what's the matter?" + +"Heavens! he does not understand. Do listen, you stupid! I tell you +I've just seen a man getting in at the kitchen window! Pelagea will +be frightened and . . . and the silver is in the cupboard!" + +"Stuff and nonsense!" + +"_Basile_, this is unbearable! I tell you of a real danger and you +sleep and grunt! What would you have? Would you have us robbed and +murdered?" + +The assistant procurator slowly got up and sat on the bed, filling +the air with loud yawns. + +"Goodness knows what creatures women are!" he muttered. "Can't leave +one in peace even at night! To wake a man for such nonsense!" + +"But, _Basile_, I swear I saw a man getting in at the window!" + +"Well, what of it? Let him get in. . . . That's pretty sure to be +Pelagea's sweetheart, the fireman." + +"What! what did you say?" + +"I say it's Pelagea's fireman come to see her." + +"Worse than ever!" shrieked Marya Mihalovna. "That's worse than a +burglar! I won't put up with cynicism in my house!" + +"Hoity-toity! We are virtuous! . . . Won't put up with cynicism? +As though it were cynicism! What's the use of firing off those +foreign words? My dear girl, it's a thing that has happened ever +since the world began, sanctified by tradition. What's a fireman +for if not to make love to the cook?" + +"No, _Basile!_ It seems you don't know me! I cannot face the idea +of such a . . . such a . . . in my house. You must go this minute +into the kitchen and tell him to go away! This very minute! And +to-morrow I'll tell Pelagea that she must not dare to demean herself +by such proceedings! When I am dead you may allow immorality in +your house, but you shan't do it now! . . . Please go!" + +"Damn it," grumbled Gagin, annoyed. "Consider with your microscopic +female brain, what am I to go for?" + +"_Basile_, I shall faint! . . ." + +Gagin cursed, put on his slippers, cursed again, and set off to the +kitchen. It was as dark as the inside of a barrel, and the assistant +procurator had to feel his way. He groped his way to the door of +the nursery and waked the nurse. + +"Vassilissa," he said, "you took my dressing-gown to brush last +night--where is it?" + +"I gave it to Pelagea to brush, sir." + +"What carelessness! You take it away and don't put it back--now +I've to go without a dressing-gown!" + +On reaching the kitchen, he made his way to the corner in which on +a box under a shelf of saucepans the cook slept. + +"Pelagea," he said, feeling her shoulder and giving it a shake, +"Pelagea! Why are you pretending? You are not asleep! Who was it +got in at your window just now?" + +"Mm . . . m . . . good morning! Got in at the window? Who could get +in?" + +"Oh come, it's no use your trying to keep it up! You'd better tell +your scamp to clear out while he can! Do you hear? He's no business +to be here!" + +"Are you out of your senses, sir, bless you? Do you think I'd be +such a fool? Here one's running about all day long, never a minute +to sit down and then spoken to like this at night! Four roubles a +month . . . and to find my own tea and sugar and this is all the +credit I get for it! I used to live in a tradesman's house, and +never met with such insult there!" + +"Come, come--no need to go over your grievances! This very minute +your grenadier must turn out! Do you understand?" + +"You ought to be ashamed, sir," said Pelagea, and he could hear the +tears in her voice. "Gentlefolks . . . educated, and yet not a +notion that with our hard lot . . . in our life of toil"--she +burst into tears. "It's easy to insult us. There's no one to stand +up for us." + +"Come, come . . . I don't mind! Your mistress sent me. You may let +a devil in at the window for all I care!" + +There was nothing left for the assistant procurator but to acknowledge +himself in the wrong and go back to his spouse. + +"I say, Pelagea," he said, "you had my dressing-gown to brush. Where +is it?" + +"Oh, I am so sorry, sir; I forgot to put it on your chair. It's +hanging on a peg near the stove." + +Gagin felt for the dressing-gown by the stove, put it on, and went +quietly back to his room. + +When her husband went out Marya Mihalovna got into bed and waited. +For the first three minutes her mind was at rest, but after that +she began to feel uneasy. + +"What a long time he's gone," she thought. "It's all right if he +is there . . . that immoral man . . . but if it's a burglar?" + +And again her imagination drew a picture of her husband going into +the dark kitchen . . . a blow with an axe . . . dying without +uttering a single sound . . . a pool of blood! . . . + +Five minutes passed . . . five and a half . . . at last six. . . . +A cold sweat came out on her forehead. + +"_Basile!_" she shrieked, "_Basile!_" + +"What are you shouting for? I am here." She heard her husband's +voice and steps. "Are you being murdered?" + +The assistant procurator went up to the bedstead and sat down on +the edge of it. + +"There's nobody there at all," he said. "It was your fancy, you +queer creature. . . . You can sleep easy, your fool of a Pelagea +is as virtuous as her mistress. What a coward you are! What a . . . ." + +And the deputy procurator began teasing his wife. He was wide awake +now and did not want to go to sleep again. + +"You are a coward!" he laughed. "You'd better go to the doctor +to-morrow and tell him about your hallucinations. You are a neurotic!" + +"What a smell of tar," said his wife--"tar or something . . . +onion . . . cabbage soup!" + +"Y-yes! There is a smell . . . I am not sleepy. I say, I'll light +the candle. . . . Where are the matches? And, by the way, I'll show +you the photograph of the procurator of the Palace of Justice. He +gave us all a photograph when he said good-bye to us yesterday, +with his autograph." + +Gagin struck a match against the wall and lighted a candle. But +before he had moved a step from the bed to fetch the photographs +he heard behind him a piercing, heartrending shriek. Looking round, +he saw his wife's large eyes fastened upon him, full of amazement, +horror, and wrath. . . . + +"You took your dressing-gown off in the kitchen?" she said, turning +pale. + +"Why?" + +"Look at yourself!" + +The deputy procurator looked down at himself, and gasped. + +Flung over his shoulders was not his dressing-gown, but the fireman's +overcoat. How had it come on his shoulders? While he was settling +that question, his wife's imagination was drawing another picture, +awful and impossible: darkness, stillness, whispering, and so on, +and so on. + + +A PLAY + +"PAVEL VASSILYEVITCH, there's a lady here, asking for you," Luka +announced. "She's been waiting a good hour. . . ." + +Pavel Vassilyevitch had only just finished lunch. Hearing of the +lady, he frowned and said: + +"Oh, damn her! Tell her I'm busy." + +"She has been here five times already, Pavel Vassilyevitch. She +says she really must see you. . . . She's almost crying." + +"H'm . . . very well, then, ask her into the study." + +Without haste Pavel Vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen in +one hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though he +were very busy he went into the study. There the visitor was awaiting +him--a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles. +She looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable +(she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with a +reddish bird in it). On seeing him she turned up her eyes and folded +her hands in supplication. + +"You don't remember me, of course," she began in a high masculine +tenor, visibly agitated. "I . . . I have had the pleasure of meeting +you at the Hrutskys. . . . I am Mme. Murashkin. . . ." + +"A. . . a . . . a . . . h'm . . . Sit down! What can I do for you?" + +"You . . . you see . . . I . . . I . . ." the lady went on, sitting +down and becoming still more agitated. "You don't remember me. . . . +I'm Mme. Murashkin. . . . You see I'm a great admirer of your +talent and always read your articles with great enjoyment. . . . +Don't imagine I'm flattering you--God forbid!--I'm only giving +honour where honour is due. . . . I am always reading you . . . +always! To some extent I am myself not a stranger to literature-- +that is, of course . . . I will not venture to call myself an +authoress, but . . . still I have added my little quota . . . I +have published at different times three stories for children. . . . +You have not read them, of course. . . . I have translated a good +deal and . . . and my late brother used to write for _The Cause_." + +"To be sure . . . er--er--er----What can I do for you?" + +"You see . . . (the lady cast down her eyes and turned redder) I +know your talents . . . your views, Pavel Vassilyevitch, and I have +been longing to learn your opinion, or more exactly . . . to ask +your advice. I must tell you I have perpetrated a play, my first-born +--_pardon pour l'expression!_--and before sending it to the +Censor I should like above all things to have your opinion on it." + +Nervously, with the flutter of a captured bird, the lady fumbled +in her skirt and drew out a fat manuscript. + +Pavel Vassilyevitch liked no articles but his own. When threatened +with the necessity of reading other people's, or listening to them, +he felt as though he were facing the cannon's mouth. Seeing the +manuscript he took fright and hastened to say: + +"Very good, . . . leave it, . . . I'll read it." + +"Pavel Vassilyevitch," the lady said languishingly, clasping her +hands and raising them in supplication, "I know you're busy. . . . +Your every minute is precious, and I know you're inwardly cursing +me at this moment, but . . . Be kind, allow me to read you my play +. . . . Do be so very sweet!" + +"I should be delighted . . ." faltered Pavel Vassilyevitch; "but, +Madam, I'm . . . I'm very busy . . . . I'm . . . I'm obliged to set +off this minute." + +"Pavel Vassilyevitch," moaned the lady and her eyes filled with +tears, "I'm asking a sacrifice! I am insolent, I am intrusive, but +be magnanimous. To-morrow I'm leaving for Kazan and I should like +to know your opinion to-day. Grant me half an hour of your attention +. . . only one half-hour . . . I implore you!" + +Pavel Vassilyevitch was cotton-wool at core, and could not refuse. +When it seemed to him that the lady was about to burst into sobs +and fall on her knees, he was overcome with confusion and muttered +helplessly. + +"Very well; certainly . . . I will listen . . . I will give you +half an hour." + +The lady uttered a shriek of joy, took off her hat and settling +herself, began to read. At first she read a scene in which a footman +and a house maid, tidying up a sumptuous drawing-room, talked at +length about their young lady, Anna Sergyevna, who was building a +school and a hospital in the village. When the footman had left the +room, the maidservant pronounced a monologue to the effect that +education is light and ignorance is darkness; then Mme. Murashkin +brought the footman back into the drawing-room and set him uttering +a long monologue concerning his master, the General, who disliked +his daughter's views, intended to marry her to a rich _kammer +junker_, and held that the salvation of the people lay in unadulterated +ignorance. Then, when the servants had left the stage, the young +lady herself appeared and informed the audience that she had not +slept all night, but had been thinking of Valentin Ivanovitch, who +was the son of a poor teacher and assisted his sick father gratuitously. +Valentin had studied all the sciences, but had no faith in friendship +nor in love; he had no object in life and longed for death, and +therefore she, the young lady, must save him. + +Pavel Vassilyevitch listened, and thought with yearning anguish of +his sofa. He scanned the lady viciously, felt her masculine tenor +thumping on his eardrums, understood nothing, and thought: + +"The devil sent you . . . as though I wanted to listen to your tosh! +It's not my fault you've written a play, is it? My God! what a thick +manuscript! What an infliction!" + +Pavel Vassilyevitch glanced at the wall where the portrait of his +wife was hanging and remembered that his wife had asked him to buy +and bring to their summer cottage five yards of tape, a pound of +cheese, and some tooth-powder. + +"I hope I've not lost the pattern of that tape," he thought, "where +did I put it? I believe it's in my blue reefer jacket. . . . Those +wretched flies have covered her portrait with spots already, I must +tell Olga to wash the glass. . . . She's reading the twelfth scene, +so we must soon be at the end of the first act. As though inspiration +were possible in this heat and with such a mountain of flesh, too! +Instead of writing plays she'd much better eat cold vinegar hash +and sleep in a cellar. . . ." + +"You don't think that monologue's a little too long?" the lady asked +suddenly, raising her eyes. + +Pavel Vassilyevitch had not heard the monologue, and said in a voice +as guilty as though not the lady but he had written that monologue: + +"No, no, not at all. It's very nice. . . ." + +The lady beamed with happiness and continued reading: + +ANNA: You are consumed by analysis. Too early you have ceased to +live in the heart and have put your faith in the intellect. + +VALENTIN: What do you mean by the heart? That is a concept of +anatomy. As a conventional term for what are called the feelings, +I do not admit it. + +ANNA _(confused)_: And love? Surely that is not merely a product +of the association of ideas? Tell me frankly, have you ever loved? + +VALENTIN _(bitterly)_: Let us not touch on old wounds not yet healed. +_(A pause.)_ What are you thinking of? + +ANNA: I believe you are unhappy. + +During the sixteenth scene Pavel Vassilyevitch yawned, and accidently +made with his teeth the sound dogs make when they catch a fly. He +was dismayed at this unseemly sound, and to cover it assumed an +expression of rapt attention. + +"Scene seventeen! When will it end?" he thought. "Oh, my God! If +this torture is prolonged another ten minutes I shall shout for the +police. It's insufferable." + +But at last the lady began reading more loudly and more rapidly, +and finally raising her voice she read _"Curtain."_ + +Pavel Vassilyevitch uttered a faint sigh and was about to get up, +but the lady promptly turned the page and went on reading. + +ACT II.--_Scene, a village street. On right, School. On left, +Hospital._ Villagers, _male and female, sitting on the hospital +steps._ + +"Excuse me," Pavel Vassilyevitch broke in, "how many acts are there?" + +"Five," answered the lady, and at once, as though fearing her +audience might escape her, she went on rapidly. + +VALENTIN _is looking out of the schoolhouse window. In the background_ +Villagers _can be seen taking their goods to the Inn._ + +Like a man condemned to be executed and convinced of the impossibility +of a reprieve, Pavel Vassilyevitch gave up expecting the end, +abandoned all hope, and simply tried to prevent his eyes from +closing, and to retain an expression of attention on his face. . . . +The future when the lady would finish her play and depart seemed +to him so remote that he did not even think of it. + +"Trooo--too--too--too . . ." the lady's voice sounded in his ears. +"Troo--too--too . . . sh--sh--sh--sh . . ." + +"I forgot to take my soda," he thought. "What am I thinking about? +Oh--my soda. . . . Most likely I shall have a bilious attack. . . . +It's extraordinary, Smirnovsky swills vodka all day long and +yet he never has a bilious attack. . . . There's a bird settled on +the window . . . a sparrow. . . ." + +Pavel Vassilyevitch made an effort to unglue his strained and closing +eyelids, yawned without opening his mouth, and stared at Mme. +Murashkin. She grew misty and swayed before his eyes, turned into +a triangle and her head pressed against the ceiling. . . . + +VALENTIN No, let me depart. + +ANNA _(in dismay)_: Why? + +VALENTIN _(aside)_: She has turned pale! _(To her)_ Do not force +me to explain. Sooner would I die than you should know the reason. + +ANNA _(after a pause)_: You cannot go away. . . . + +The lady began to swell, swelled to an immense size, and melted +into the dingy atmosphere of the study--only her moving mouth was +visible; then she suddenly dwindled to the size of a bottle, swayed +from side to side, and with the table retreated to the further end +of the room . . . + +VALENTIN _(holding ANNA in his arms)_: You have given me new life! +You have shown me an object to live for! You have renewed me as the +Spring rain renews the awakened earth! But . . . it is too late, +too late! The ill that gnaws at my heart is beyond cure. . . . + +Pavel Vassilyevitch started and with dim and smarting eyes stared +at the reading lady; for a minute he gazed fixedly as though +understanding nothing. . . . + +SCENE XI.--_The same. The_ BARON _and the_ POLICE INSPECTOR _with +assistants._ + +VALENTIN: Take me! + +ANNA: I am his! Take me too! Yes, take me too! I love him, I love +him more than life! + +BARON: Anna Sergyevna, you forget that you are ruining your father +. . . . + +The lady began swelling again. . . . Looking round him wildly Pavel +Vassilyevitch got up, yelled in a deep, unnatural voice, snatched +from the table a heavy paper-weight, and beside himself, brought +it down with all his force on the authoress's head. . . . + + * * * * * + +"Give me in charge, I've killed her!" he said to the maidservant +who ran in, a minute later. + +The jury acquitted him. + + +A MYSTERY + +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 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: + +"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. Navagin'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!" + + +STRONG IMPRESSIONS + +IT happened not so long ago in the Moscow circuit court. The jurymen, +left in the court for the night, before lying down to sleep fell +into conversation about strong impressions. They were led to this +discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun +to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen +decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack +among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. +Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that +there have been terrible moments in his past. + +One juryman told the story of how he was nearly drowned; another +described how, in a place where there were neither doctors nor +chemists, he had one night poisoned his own son through giving him +zinc vitriol by mistake for soda. The child did not die, but the +father nearly went out of his mind. A third, a man not old but in +bad health, told how he had twice attempted to commit suicide: the +first time by shooting himself and the second time by throwing +himself before a train. + +The fourth, a foppishly dressed, fat little man, told us the following +story: + +"I was not more than twenty-two or twenty-three when I fell head +over ears in love with my present wife and made her an offer. Now +I could with pleasure thrash myself for my early marriage, but at +the time, I don't know what would have become of me if Natasha had +refused me. My love was absolutely the real thing, just as it is +described in novels--frantic, passionate, and so on. My happiness +overwhelmed me and I did not know how to get away from it, and I +bored my father and my friends and the servants, continually talking +about the fervour of my passion. Happy people are the most sickening +bores. I was a fearful bore; I feel ashamed of it even now. . . . + +"Among my friends there was in those days a young man who was +beginning his career as a lawyer. Now he is a lawyer known all over +Russia; in those days he was only just beginning to gain recognition +and was not rich and famous enough to be entitled to cut an old +friend when he met him. I used to go and see him once or twice a +week. We used to loll on sofas and begin discussing philosophy. + +"One day I was lying on his sofa, arguing that there was no more +ungrateful profession than that of a lawyer. I tried to prove that +as soon as the examination of witnesses is over the court can easily +dispense with both the counsels for the prosecution and for the +defence, because they are neither of them necessary and are only +in the way. If a grown-up juryman, morally and mentally sane, is +convinced that the ceiling is white, or that Ivanov is guilty, to +struggle with that conviction and to vanquish it is beyond the power +of any Demosthenes. Who can convince me that I have a red moustache +when I know that it is black? As I listen to an orator I may perhaps +grow sentimental and weep, but my fundamental conviction, based for +the most part on unmistakable evidence and fact, is not changed in +the least. My lawyer maintained that I was young and foolish and +that I was talking childish nonsense. In his opinion, for one thing, +an obvious fact becomes still more obvious through light being +thrown upon it by conscientious, well-informed people; for another, +talent is an elemental force, a hurricane capable of turning even +stones to dust, let alone such trifles as the convictions of artisans +and merchants of the second guild. It is as hard for human weakness +to struggle against talent as to look at the sun without winking, +or to stop the wind. One simple mortal by the power of the word +turns thousands of convinced savages to Christianity; Odysseus was +a man of the firmest convictions, but he succumbed to the Syrens, +and so on. All history consists of similar examples, and in life +they are met with at every turn; and so it is bound to be, or the +intelligent and talented man would have no superiority over the +stupid and incompetent. + +"I stuck to my point, and went on maintaining that convictions are +stronger than any talent, though, frankly speaking, I could not +have defined exactly what I meant by conviction or what I meant by +talent. Most likely I simply talked for the sake of talking. + +"'Take you, for example,' said the lawyer. 'You are convinced at +this moment that your fiancee is an angel and that there is not a +man in the whole town happier than you. But I tell you: ten or +twenty minutes would be enough for me to make you sit down to this +table and write to your fiancee, breaking off your engagement. + +"I laughed. + +"'Don't laugh, I am speaking seriously,' said my friend. 'If I +choose, in twenty minutes you will be happy at the thought that you +need not get married. Goodness knows what talent I have, but you +are not one of the strong sort.' + +"'Well, try it on!' said I. + +"'No, what for? I am only telling you this. You are a good boy and +it would be cruel to subject you to such an experiment. And besides +I am not in good form to-day.' + +"We sat down to supper. The wine and the thought of Natasha, my +beloved, flooded my whole being with youth and happiness. My happiness +was so boundless that the lawyer sitting opposite to me with his +green eyes seemed to me an unhappy man, so small, so grey. . . . + +"'Do try!' I persisted. 'Come, I entreat you! + +"The lawyer shook his head and frowned. Evidently I was beginning +to bore him. + +"'I know,' he said, 'after my experiment you will say, thank you, +and will call me your saviour; but you see I must think of your +fiancee too. She loves you; your jilting her would make her suffer. +And what a charming creature she is! I envy you.' + +"The lawyer sighed, sipped his wine, and began talking of how +charming my Natasha was. He had an extraordinary gift of description. +He could knock you off a regular string of words about a woman's +eyelashes or her little finger. I listened to him with relish. + +"'I have seen a great many women in my day,' he said, 'but I give +you my word of honour, I speak as a friend, your Natasha Andreyevna +is a pearl, a rare girl. Of course she has her defects--many of +them, in fact, if you like--but still she is fascinating.' + +"And the lawyer began talking of my fiancee's defects. Now I +understand very well that he was talking of women in general, of +their weak points in general, but at the time it seemed to me that +he was talking only of Natasha. He went into ecstasies over her +turn-up nose, her shrieks, her shrill laugh, her airs and graces, +precisely all the things I so disliked in her. All that was, to his +thinking, infinitely sweet, graceful, and feminine. + +"Without my noticing it, he quickly passed from his enthusiastic +tone to one of fatherly admonition, and then to a light and derisive +one. . . . There was no presiding judge and no one to check the +diffusiveness of the lawyer. I had not time to open my mouth, +besides, what could I say? What my friend said was not new, it was +what everyone has known for ages, and the whole venom lay not in +what he said, but in the damnable form he put it in. It really was +beyond anything! + +"As I listened to him then I learned that the same word has thousands +of shades of meaning according to the tone in which it is pronounced, +and the form which is given to the sentence. Of course I cannot +reproduce the tone or the form; I can only say that as I listened +to my friend and walked up and down the room, I was moved to +resentment, indignation, and contempt together with him. I even +believed him when with tears in his eyes he informed me that I was +a great man, that I was worthy of a better fate, that I was destined +to achieve something in the future which marriage would hinder! + +"'My friend!' he exclaimed, pressing my hand. 'I beseech you, I +adjure you: stop before it is too late. Stop! May Heaven preserve +you from this strange, cruel mistake! My friend, do not ruin your +youth!' + +"Believe me or not, as you choose, but the long and the short of +it was that I sat down to the table and wrote to my fiancee, breaking +off the engagement. As I wrote I felt relieved that it was not yet +too late to rectify my mistake. Sealing the letter, I hastened out +into the street to post it. The lawyer himself came with me. + +"'Excellent! Capital!' he applauded me as my letter to Natasha +disappeared into the darkness of the box. 'I congratulate you with +all my heart. I am glad for you.' + +"After walking a dozen paces with me the lawyer went on: + +"'Of course, marriage has its good points. I, for instance, belong +to the class of people to whom marriage and home life is everything.' + +"And he proceeded to describe his life, and lay before me all the +hideousness of a solitary bachelor existence. + +"He spoke with enthusiasm of his future wife, of the sweets of +ordinary family life, and was so eloquent, so sincere in his ecstasies +that by the time we had reached his door, I was in despair. + +"'What are you doing to me, you horrible man?' I said, gasping. +'You have ruined me! Why did you make me write that cursed letter? +I love her, I love her!' + +"And I protested my love. I was horrified at my conduct which now +seemed to me wild and senseless. It is impossible, gentlemen, to +imagine a more violent emotion than I experienced at that moment. +Oh, what I went through, what I suffered! If some kind person had +thrust a revolver into my hand at that moment, I should have put a +bullet through my brains with pleasure. + +"'Come, come . . .' said the lawyer, slapping me on the shoulder, +and he laughed. 'Give over crying. The letter won't reach your +fiancee. It was not you who wrote the address but I, and I muddled +it so they won't be able to make it out at the post-office. It will +be a lesson to you not to argue about what you don't understand.' + +"Now, gentlemen, I leave it to the next to speak." + +The fifth juryman settled himself more comfortably, and had just +opened his mouth to begin his story when we heard the clock strike +on Spassky Tower. + +"Twelve . . ." one of the jurymen counted. "And into which class, +gentlemen, would you put the emotions that are being experienced +now by the man we are trying? He, that murderer, is spending the +night in a convict cell here in the court, sitting or lying down +and of course not sleeping, and throughout the whole sleepless night +listening to that chime. What is he thinking of? What visions are +haunting him?" + +And the jurymen all suddenly forgot about strong impressions; what +their companion who had once written a letter to his Natasha had +suffered seemed unimportant, even not amusing; and no one said +anything more; they began quietly and in silence lying down to +sleep. + + +DRUNK + +A MANUFACTURER called Frolov, a handsome dark man with a round +beard, and a soft, velvety expression in his eyes, and Almer, his +lawyer, an elderly man with a big rough head, were drinking in one +of the public rooms of a restaurant on the outskirts of the town. +They had both come to the restaurant straight from a ball and so +were wearing dress coats and white ties. Except them and the waiters +at the door there was not a soul in the room; by Frolov's orders +no one else was admitted. + +They began by drinking a big wine-glass of vodka and eating oysters. + +"Good!" said Almer. "It was I brought oysters into fashion for the +first course, my boy. The vodka burns and stings your throat and +you have a voluptuous sensation in your throat when you swallow an +oyster. Don't you?" + +A dignified waiter with a shaven upper lip and grey whiskers put a +sauceboat on the table. + +"What's that you are serving?" asked Frolov. + +"Sauce Provencale for the herring, sir. . . ." + +"What! is that the way to serve it?" shouted Frolov, not looking +into the sauceboat. "Do you call that sauce? You don't know how to +wait, you blockhead!" + +Frolov's velvety eyes flashed. He twisted a corner of the table-cloth +round his finger, made a slight movement, and the dishes, the +candlesticks, and the bottles, all jingling and clattering, fell +with a crash on the floor. + +The waiters, long accustomed to pot-house catastrophes, ran up to +the table and began picking up the fragments with grave and unconcerned +faces, like surgeons at an operation. + +"How well you know how to manage them!" said Almer, and he laughed. +"But . . . move a little away from the table or you will step in +the caviare." + +"Call the engineer here!" cried Frolov. + +This was the name given to a decrepit, doleful old man who really +had once been an engineer and very well off; he had squandered all +his property and towards the end of his life had got into a restaurant +where he looked after the waiters and singers and carried out various +commissions relating to the fair sex. Appearing at the summons, he +put his head on one side respectfully. + +"Listen, my good man," Frolov said, addressing him. "What's the +meaning of this disorder? How queerly you fellows wait! Don't you +know that I don't like it? Devil take you, I shall give up coming +to you!" + +"I beg you graciously to excuse it, Alexey Semyonitch!" said the +engineer, laying his hand on his heart. "I will take steps immediately, +and your slightest wishes shall be carried out in the best and +speediest way." + +"Well, that'll do, you can go. . . ." + +The engineer bowed, staggered back, still doubled up, and disappeared +through the doorway with a final flash of the false diamonds on his +shirt-front and fingers. + +The table was laid again. Almer drank red wine and ate with relish +some sort of bird served with truffles, and ordered a matelote of +eelpouts and a sterlet with its tail in its mouth. Frolov only drank +vodka and ate nothing but bread. He rubbed his face with his open +hands, scowled, and was evidently out of humour. Both were silent. +There was a stillness. Two electric lights in opaque shades flickered +and hissed as though they were angry. The gypsy girls passed the +door, softly humming. + +"One drinks and is none the merrier," said Frolov. "The more I pour +into myself, the more sober I become. Other people grow festive +with vodka, but I suffer from anger, disgusting thoughts, sleeplessness. +Why is it, old man, that people don't invent some other pleasure +besides drunkenness and debauchery? It's really horrible!" + +"You had better send for the gypsy girls." + +"Confound them!" + +The head of an old gypsy woman appeared in the door from the passage. + +"Alexey Semyonitch, the gypsies are asking for tea and brandy," +said the old woman. "May we order it?" + +"Yes," answered Frolov. "You know they get a percentage from the +restaurant keeper for asking the visitors to treat them. Nowadays +you can't even believe a man when he asks for vodka. The people are +all mean, vile, spoilt. Take these waiters, for instance. They have +countenances like professors, and grey heads; they get two hundred +roubles a month, they live in houses of their own and send their +girls to the high school, but you may swear at them and give yourself +airs as much as you please. For a rouble the engineer will gulp +down a whole pot of mustard and crow like a cock. On my honour, if +one of them would take offence I would make him a present of a +thousand roubles." + +"What's the matter with you?" said Almer, looking at him with +surprise. "Whence this melancholy? You are red in the face, you +look like a wild animal. . . . What's the matter with you?" + +"It's horrid. There's one thing I can't get out of my head. It seems +as though it is nailed there and it won't come out." + +A round little old man, buried in fat and completely bald, wearing +a short reefer jacket and lilac waistcoat and carrying a guitar, +walked into the room. He made an idiotic face, drew himself up, and +saluted like a soldier. + +"Ah, the parasite!" said Frolov, "let me introduce him, he has made +his fortune by grunting like a pig. Come here!" He poured vodka, +wine, and brandy into a glass, sprinkled pepper and salt into it, +mixed it all up and gave it to the parasite. The latter tossed it +off and smacked his lips with gusto. + +"He's accustomed to drink a mess so that pure wine makes him sick," +said Frolov. "Come, parasite, sit down and sing." + +The old man sat down, touched the strings with his fat fingers, and +began singing: + + "Neetka, neetka, Margareetka. . . ." + +After drinking champagne Frolov was drunk. He thumped with his fist +on the table and said: + +"Yes, there's something that sticks in my head! It won't give me a +minute's peace!" + +"Why, what is it?" + +"I can't tell you. It's a secret. It's something so private that I +could only speak of it in my prayers. But if you like . . . as a +sign of friendship, between ourselves . . . only mind, to no one, +no, no, no, . . . I'll tell you, it will ease my heart, but for +God's sake . . . listen and forget it. . . ." + +Frolov bent down to Almer and for a minute breathed in his ear. + +"I hate my wife!" he brought out. + +The lawyer looked at him with surprise. + +"Yes, yes, my wife, Marya Mihalovna," Frolov muttered, flushing +red. "I hate her and that's all about it." + +"What for?" + +"I don't know myself! I've only been married two years. I married +as you know for love, and now I hate her like a mortal enemy, like +this parasite here, saving your presence. And there is no cause, +no sort of cause! When she sits by me, eats, or says anything, my +whole soul boils, I can scarcely restrain myself from being rude +to her. It's something one can't describe. To leave her or tell her +the truth is utterly impossible because it would be a scandal, and +living with her is worse than hell for me. I can't stay at home! I +spend my days at business and in the restaurants and spend my nights +in dissipation. Come, how is one to explain this hatred? She is not +an ordinary woman, but handsome, clever, quiet." + +The old man stamped his foot and began singing: + +"I went a walk with a captain bold, And in his ear my secrets told." + +"I must own I always thought that Marya Mihalovna was not at all +the right person for you," said Almer after a brief silence, and +he heaved a sigh. + +"Do you mean she is too well educated? . . . I took the gold medal +at the commercial school myself, I have been to Paris three times. +I am not cleverer than you, of course, but I am no more foolish +than my wife. No, brother, education is not the sore point. Let me +tell you how all the trouble began. It began with my suddenly +fancying that she had married me not from love, but for the sake +of my money. This idea took possession of my brain. I have done all +I could think of, but the cursed thing sticks! And to make it worse +my wife was overtaken with a passion for luxury. Getting into a +sack of gold after poverty, she took to flinging it in all directions. +She went quite off her head, and was so carried away that she used +to get through twenty thousand every month. And I am a distrustful +man. I don't believe in anyone, I suspect everybody. And the more +friendly you are to me the greater my torment. I keep fancying I +am being flattered for my money. I trust no one! I am a difficult +man, my boy, very difficult!" + +Frolov emptied his glass at one gulp and went on. + +"But that's all nonsense," he said. "One never ought to speak of +it. It's stupid. I am tipsy and I have been chattering, and now you +are looking at me with lawyer's eyes--glad you know some one +else's secret. Well, well! . . . Let us drop this conversation. Let +us drink! I say," he said, addressing a waiter, "is Mustafa here? +Fetch him in!" + +Shortly afterwards there walked into the room a little Tatar boy, +aged about twelve, wearing a dress coat and white gloves. + +"Come here!" Frolov said to him. "Explain to us the following fact: +there was a time when you Tatars conquered us and took tribute from +us, but now you serve us as waiters and sell dressing-gowns. How +do you explain such a change?" + +Mustafa raised his eyebrows and said in a shrill voice, with a +sing-song intonation: "The mutability of destiny!" + +Almer looked at his grave face and went off into peals of laughter. + +"Well, give him a rouble!" said Frolov. "He is making his fortune +out of the mutability of destiny. He is only kept here for the sake +of those two words. Drink, Mustafa! You will make a gre-eat rascal! +I mean it is awful how many of your sort are toadies hanging about +rich men. The number of these peaceful bandits and robbers is beyond +all reckoning! Shouldn't we send for the gypsies now? Eh? Fetch the +gypsies along!" + +The gypsies, who had been hanging about wearily in the corridors +for a long time, burst with whoops into the room, and a wild orgy +began. + +"Drink!" Frolov shouted to them. "Drink! Seed of Pharaoh! Sing! +A-a-ah!" + +"In the winter time . . . o-o-ho! . . . the sledge was flying . . ." + +The gypsies sang, whistled, danced. In the frenzy which sometimes +takes possession of spoilt and very wealthy men, "broad natures," +Frolov began to play the fool. He ordered supper and champagne for +the gypsies, broke the shade of the electric light, shied bottles +at the pictures and looking-glasses, and did it all apparently +without the slightest enjoyment, scowling and shouting irritably, +with contempt for the people, with an expression of hatred in his +eyes and his manners. He made the engineer sing a solo, made the +bass singers drink a mixture of wine, vodka, and oil. + +At six o'clock they handed him the bill. + +"Nine hundred and twenty-five roubles, forty kopecks," said Almer, +and shrugged his shoulders. "What's it for? No, wait, we must go +into it!" + +"Stop!" muttered Frolov, pulling out his pocket-book. "Well! . . . +let them rob me. That's what I'm rich for, to be robbed! . . . You +can't get on without parasites! . . . You are my lawyer. You get +six thousand a year out of me and what for? But excuse me, . . . I +don't know what I am saying." + +As he was returning home with Almer, Frolov murmured: + +"Going home is awful to me! Yes! . . . There isn't a human being I +can open my soul to. . . . They are all robbers . . . traitors +. . . . Oh, why did I tell you my secret? Yes . . . why? Tell me why?" + +At the entrance to his house, he craned forward towards Almer and, +staggering, kissed him on the lips, having the old Moscow habit of +kissing indiscriminately on every occasion. + +"Good-bye . . . I am a difficult, hateful man," he said. "A horrid, +drunken, shameless life. You are a well-educated, clever man, but +you only laugh and drink with me . . . there's no help from any of +you. . . . But if you were a friend to me, if you were an honest +man, in reality you ought to have said to me: 'Ugh, you vile, hateful +man! You reptile!'" + +"Come, come," Almer muttered, "go to bed." + +"There is no help from you; the only hope is that, when I am in the +country in the summer, I may go out into the fields and a storm +come on and the thunder may strike me dead on the spot. . . . +Good-bye." + +Frolov kissed Almer once more and muttering and dropping asleep as +he walked, began mounting the stairs, supported by two footmen. + + +THE MARSHAL'S WIDOW + +ON the first of February every year, St. Trifon's day, there is an +extraordinary commotion on the estate of Madame Zavzyatov, the widow +of Trifon Lvovitch, the late marshal of the district. On that day, +the nameday of the deceased marshal, the widow Lyubov Petrovna has +a requiem service celebrated in his memory, and after the requiem +a thanksgiving to the Lord. The whole district assembles for the +service. There you will see Hrumov the present marshal, Marfutkin, +the president of the Zemstvo, Potrashkov, the permanent member of +the Rural Board, the two justices of the peace of the district, the +police captain, Krinolinov, two police-superintendents, the district +doctor, Dvornyagin, smelling of iodoform, all the landowners, great +and small, and so on. There are about fifty people assembled in +all. + +Precisely at twelve o'clock, the visitors, with long faces, make +their way from all the rooms to the big hall. There are carpets on +the floor and their steps are noiseless, but the solemnity of the +occasion makes them instinctively walk on tip-toe, holding out their +hands to balance themselves. In the hall everything is already +prepared. Father Yevmeny, a little old man in a high faded cap, +puts on his black vestments. Konkordiev, the deacon, already in his +vestments, and as red as a crab, is noiselessly turning over the +leaves of his missal and putting slips of paper in it. At the door +leading to the vestibule, Luka, the sacristan, puffing out his +cheeks and making round eyes, blows up the censer. The hall is +gradually filled with bluish transparent smoke and the smell of +incense. + +Gelikonsky, the elementary schoolmaster, a young man with big pimples +on his frightened face, wearing a new greatcoat like a sack, carries +round wax candles on a silver-plated tray. The hostess, Lyubov +Petrovna, stands in the front by a little table with a dish of +funeral rice on it, and holds her handkerchief in readiness to her +face. There is a profound stillness, broken from time to time by +sighs. Everybody has a long, solemn face. . . . + +The requiem service begins. The blue smoke curls up from the censer +and plays in the slanting sunbeams, the lighted candles faintly +splutter. The singing, at first harsh and deafening, soon becomes +quiet and musical as the choir gradually adapt themselves to the +acoustic conditions of the rooms. . . . The tunes are all mournful +and sad. . . . The guests are gradually brought to a melancholy +mood and grow pensive. Thoughts of the brevity of human life, of +mutability, of worldly vanity stray through their brains. . . . +They recall the deceased Zavzyatov, a thick-set, red-cheeked man +who used to drink off a bottle of champagne at one gulp and smash +looking-glasses with his forehead. And when they sing "With Thy +Saints, O Lord," and the sobs of their hostess are audible, the +guests shift uneasily from one foot to the other. The more emotional +begin to feel a tickling in their throat and about their eyelids. +Marfutkin, the president of the Zemstvo, to stifle the unpleasant +feeling, bends down to the police captain's ear and whispers: + +"I was at Ivan Fyodoritch's yesterday. . . . Pyotr Petrovitch and +I took all the tricks, playing no trumps. . . . Yes, indeed. . . . +Olga Andreyevna was so exasperated that her false tooth fell out +of her mouth." + +But at last the "Eternal Memory" is sung. Gelikonsky respectfully +takes away the candles, and the memorial service is over. Thereupon +there follows a momentary commotion; there is a changing of vestments +and a thanksgiving service. After the thanksgiving, while Father +Yevmeny is disrobing, the visitors rub their hands and cough, while +their hostess tells some anecdote of the good-heartedness of the +deceased Trifon Lvovitch. + +"Pray come to lunch, friends," she says, concluding her story with +a sigh. + +The visitors, trying not to push or tread on each other's feet, +hasten into the dining-room. . . . There the luncheon is awaiting +them. The repast is so magnificent that the deacon Konkordiev thinks +it his duty every year to fling up his hands as he looks at it and, +shaking his head in amazement, say: + +"Supernatural! It's not so much like human fare, Father Yevmeny, +as offerings to the gods." + +The lunch is certainly exceptional. Everything that the flora and +fauna of the country can furnish is on the table, but the only thing +supernatural about it, perhaps, is that on the table there is +everything except . . . alcoholic beverages. Lyubov Petrovna has +taken a vow never to have in her house cards or spirituous liquors +--the two sources of her husband's ruin. And the only bottles +contain oil and vinegar, as though in mockery and chastisement of +the guests who are to a man desperately fond of the bottle, and +given to tippling. + +"Please help yourselves, gentlemen!" the marshal's widow presses +them. "Only you must excuse me, I have no vodka. . . . I have none +in the house." + +The guests approach the table and hesitatingly attack the pie. But +the progress with eating is slow. In the plying of forks, in the +cutting up and munching, there is a certain sloth and apathy. . . . +Evidently something is wanting. + +"I feel as though I had lost something," one of the justices of the +peace whispers to the other. "I feel as I did when my wife ran away +with the engineer. . . . I can't eat." + +Marfutkin, before beginning to eat, fumbles for a long time in his +pocket and looks for his handkerchief. + +"Oh, my handkerchief must be in my greatcoat," he recalls in a loud +voice, "and here I am looking for it," and he goes into the vestibule +where the fur coats are hanging up. + +He returns from the vestibule with glistening eyes, and at once +attacks the pie with relish. + +"I say, it's horrid munching away with a dry mouth, isn't it?" he +whispers to Father Yevmeny. "Go into the vestibule, Father. There's +a bottle there in my fur coat. . . . Only mind you are careful; +don't make a clatter with the bottle." + +Father Yevmeny recollects that he has some direction to give to +Luka, and trips off to the vestibule. + +"Father, a couple of words in confidence," says Dvornyagin, overtaking +him. + +"You should see the fur coat I've bought myself, gentlemen," Hrumov +boasts. "It's worth a thousand, and I gave . . . you won't believe +it . . . two hundred and fifty! Not a farthing more." + +At any other time the guests would have greeted this information +with indifference, but now they display surprise and incredulity. +In the end they all troop out into the vestibule to look at the fur +coat, and go on looking at it till the doctor's man Mikeshka carries +five empty bottles out on the sly. When the steamed sturgeon is +served, Marfutkin remembers that he has left his cigar case in his +sledge and goes to the stable. That he may not be lonely on this +expedition, he takes with him the deacon, who appropriately feels +it necessary to have a look at his horse. . . . + +On the evening of the same day, Lyubov Petrovna is sitting in her +study, writing a letter to an old friend in Petersburg: + +"To-day, as in past years," she writes among other things, "I had +a memorial service for my dear husband. All my neighbours came to +the service. They are a simple, rough set, but what hearts! I gave +them a splendid lunch, but of course, as in previous years, without +a drop of alcoholic liquor. Ever since he died from excessive +drinking I have vowed to establish temperance in this district and +thereby to expiate his sins. I have begun the campaign for temperance +at my own house. Father Yevmeny is delighted with my efforts, and +helps me both in word and deed. Oh, _ma chere_, if you knew how +fond my bears are of me! The president of the Zemstvo, Marfutkin, +kissed my hand after lunch, held it a long while to his lips, and, +wagging his head in an absurd way, burst into tears: so much feeling +but no words! Father Yevmeny, that delightful little old man, sat +down by me, and looking tearfully at me kept babbling something +like a child. I did not understand what he said, but I know how to +understand true feeling. The police captain, the handsome man of +whom I wrote to you, went down on his knees to me, tried to read +me some verses of his own composition (he is a poet), but . . . his +feelings were too much for him, he lurched and fell over . . . that +huge giant went into hysterics, you can imagine my delight! The day +did not pass without a hitch, however. Poor Alalykin, the president +of the judges' assembly, a stout and apoplectic man, was overcome +by illness and lay on the sofa in a state of unconsciousness for +two hours. We had to pour water on him. . . . I am thankful to +Doctor Dvornyagin: he had brought a bottle of brandy from his +dispensary and he moistened the patient's temples, which quickly +revived him, and he was able to be moved. . . ." + + +A BAD BUSINESS + +"WHO goes there?" + +No answer. The watchman sees nothing, but through the roar of the +wind and the trees distinctly hears someone walking along the avenue +ahead of him. A March night, cloudy and foggy, envelopes the earth, +and it seems to the watchman that the earth, the sky, and he himself +with his thoughts are all merged together into something vast and +impenetrably black. He can only grope his way. + +"Who goes there?" the watchman repeats, and he begins to fancy that +he hears whispering and smothered laughter. "Who's there?" + +"It's I, friend . . ." answers an old man's voice. + +"But who are you?" + +"I . . . a traveller." + +"What sort of traveller?" the watchman cries angrily, trying to +disguise his terror by shouting. "What the devil do you want here? +You go prowling about the graveyard at night, you ruffian!" + +"You don't say it's a graveyard here?" + +"Why, what else? Of course it's the graveyard! Don't you see it +is?" + +"O-o-oh . . . Queen of Heaven!" there is a sound of an old man +sighing. "I see nothing, my good soul, nothing. Oh the darkness, +the darkness! You can't see your hand before your face, it is dark, +friend. O-o-oh. . ." + +"But who are you?" + +"I am a pilgrim, friend, a wandering man." + +"The devils, the nightbirds. . . . Nice sort of pilgrims! They are +drunkards . . ." mutters the watchman, reassured by the tone and +sighs of the stranger. "One's tempted to sin by you. They drink the +day away and prowl about at night. But I fancy I heard you were not +alone; it sounded like two or three of you." + +"I am alone, friend, alone. Quite alone. O-o-oh our sins. . . ." + +The watchman stumbles up against the man and stops. + +"How did you get here?" he asks. + +"I have lost my way, good man. I was walking to the Mitrievsky Mill +and I lost my way." + +"Whew! Is this the road to Mitrievsky Mill? You sheepshead! For the +Mitrievsky Mill you must keep much more to the left, straight out +of the town along the high road. You have been drinking and have +gone a couple of miles out of your way. You must have had a drop +in the town." + +"I did, friend . . . Truly I did; I won't hide my sins. But how am +I to go now?" + +"Go straight on and on along this avenue till you can go no farther, +and then turn at once to the left and go till you have crossed the +whole graveyard right to the gate. There will be a gate there. . . . +Open it and go with God's blessing. Mind you don't fall into the +ditch. And when you are out of the graveyard you go all the way by +the fields till you come out on the main road." + +"God give you health, friend. May the Queen of Heaven save you and +have mercy on you. You might take me along, good man! Be merciful! +Lead me to the gate." + +"As though I had the time to waste! Go by yourself!" + +"Be merciful! I'll pray for you. I can't see anything; one can't +see one's hand before one's face, friend. . . . It's so dark, so +dark! Show me the way, sir!" + +"As though I had the time to take you about; if I were to play the +nurse to everyone I should never have done." + +"For Christ's sake, take me! I can't see, and I am afraid to go +alone through the graveyard. It's terrifying, friend, it's terrifying; +I am afraid, good man." + +"There's no getting rid of you," sighs the watchman. "All right +then, come along." + +The watchman and the traveller go on together. They walk shoulder +to shoulder in silence. A damp, cutting wind blows straight into +their faces and the unseen trees murmuring and rustling scatter big +drops upon them. . . . The path is almost entirely covered with +puddles. + +"There is one thing passes my understanding," says the watchman +after a prolonged silence--"how you got here. The gate's locked. +Did you climb over the wall? If you did climb over the wall, that's +the last thing you would expect of an old man." + +"I don't know, friend, I don't know. I can't say myself how I got +here. It's a visitation. A chastisement of the Lord. Truly a +visitation, the evil one confounded me. So you are a watchman here, +friend?" + +"Yes." + +"The only one for the whole graveyard?" + +There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute. +Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers: + +"There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the +other's asleep. He and I take turns about." + +"Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! It +howls like a wild beast! O-o-oh." + +"And where do you come from?" + +"From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I go +from one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me and +have mercy upon me, O Lord." + +The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops down +behind the traveller's back and lights several matches. The gleam +of the first match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenue +on the right, a white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross; +the light of the second match, flaring up brightly and extinguished +by the wind, flashes like lightning on the left side, and from the +darkness nothing stands out but the angle of some sort of trellis; +the third match throws light to right and to left, revealing the +white tombstone, the dark cross, and the trellis round a child's +grave. + +"The departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!" the stranger mutters, +sighing loudly. "They all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise and +foolish, good and wicked. They are of the same value now. And they +will sleep till the last trump. The Kingdom of Heaven and peace +eternal be theirs." + +"Here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shall +be lying here ourselves," says the watchman. + +"To be sure, to be sure, we shall all. There is no man who will not +die. O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful! +Sins, sins! My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and +lustful! I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me +in this world and the next. I am deep in sins like a worm in the +earth." + +"Yes, and you have to die." + +"You are right there." + +"Death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us," says the +watchman. + +"There are pilgrims of different sorts. There are the real ones who +are God-fearing men and watch over their own souls, and there are +such as stray about the graveyard at night and are a delight to the +devils. . . Ye-es! There's one who is a pilgrim could give you a +crack on the pate with an axe if he liked and knock the breath out +of you." + +"What are you talking like that for?" + +"Oh, nothing . . . Why, I fancy here's the gate. Yes, it is. Open +it, good man." + +The watchman, feeling his way, opens the gate, leads the pilgrim +out by the sleeve, and says: + +"Here's the end of the graveyard. Now you must keep on through the +open fields till you get to the main road. Only close here there +will be the boundary ditch--don't fall in. . . . And when you +come out on to the road, turn to the right, and keep on till you +reach the mill. . . ." + +"O-o-oh!" sighs the pilgrim after a pause, "and now I am thinking +that I have no cause to go to Mitrievsky Mill. . . . Why the devil +should I go there? I had better stay a bit with you here, sir. . . ." + +"What do you want to stay with me for?" + +"Oh . . . it's merrier with you! . . . ." + +"So you've found a merry companion, have you? You, pilgrim, are +fond of a joke I see. . . ." + +"To be sure I am," says the stranger, with a hoarse chuckle. "Ah, +my dear good man, I bet you will remember the pilgrim many a long +year!" + +"Why should I remember you?" + +"Why I've got round you so smartly. . . . Am I a pilgrim? I am not +a pilgrim at all." + +"What are you then?" + +"A dead man. . . . I've only just got out of my coffin. . . . Do +you remember Gubaryev, the locksmith, who hanged himself in carnival +week? Well, I am Gubaryev himself! . . ." + +"Tell us something else!" + +The watchman does not believe him, but he feels all over such a +cold, oppressive terror that he starts off and begins hurriedly +feeling for the gate. + +"Stop, where are you off to?" says the stranger, clutching him by +the arm. "Aie, aie, aie . . . what a fellow you are! How can you +leave me all alone?" + +"Let go!" cries the watchman, trying to pull his arm away. + +"Sto-op! I bid you stop and you stop. Don't struggle, you dirty +dog! If you want to stay among the living, stop and hold your tongue +till I tell you. It's only that I don't care to spill blood or you +would have been a dead man long ago, you scurvy rascal. . . . Stop!" + +The watchman's knees give way under him. In his terror he shuts his +eyes, and trembling all over huddles close to the wall. He would +like to call out, but he knows his cries would not reach any living +thing. The stranger stands beside him and holds him by the arm. . . . +Three minutes pass in silence. + +"One's in a fever, another's asleep, and the third is seeing pilgrims +on their way," mutters the stranger. "Capital watchmen, they are +worth their salary! Ye-es, brother, thieves have always been cleverer +than watchmen! Stand still, don't stir. . . ." + +Five minutes, ten minutes pass in silence. All at once the wind +brings the sound of a whistle. + +"Well, now you can go," says the stranger, releasing the watchman's +arm. "Go and thank God you are alive!" + +The stranger gives a whistle too, runs away from the gate, and the +watchman hears him leap over the ditch. + +With a foreboding of something very dreadful in his heart, the +watchman, still trembling with terror, opens the gate irresolutely +and runs back with his eyes shut. + +At the turning into the main avenue he hears hurried footsteps, and +someone asks him, in a hissing voice: "Is that you, Timofey? Where +is Mitka?" + +And after running the whole length of the main avenue he notices a +little dim light in the darkness. The nearer he gets to the light +the more frightened he is and the stronger his foreboding of evil. + +"It looks as though the light were in the church," he thinks. "And +how can it have come there? Save me and have mercy on me, Queen of +Heaven! And that it is." + +The watchman stands for a minute before the broken window and looks +with horror towards the altar. . . . A little wax candle which the +thieves had forgotten to put out flickers in the wind that bursts +in at the window and throws dim red patches of light on the vestments +flung about and a cupboard overturned on the floor, on numerous +footprints near the high altar and the altar of offerings. + +A little time passes and the howling wind sends floating over the +churchyard the hurried uneven clangs of the alarm-bell. . . . + + +IN THE COURT + +AT the district town of N. in the cinnamon-coloured government house +in which the Zemstvo, the sessional meetings of the justices of the +peace, the Rural Board, the Liquor Board, the Military Board, and +many others sit by turns, the Circuit Court was in session on one +of the dull days of autumn. Of the above-mentioned cinnamon-coloured +house a local official had wittily observed: + +"Here is Justitia, here is Policia, here is Militia--a regular +boarding school of high-born young ladies." + +But, as the saying is, "Too many cooks spoil the broth," and probably +that is why the house strikes, oppresses, and overwhelms a fresh +unofficial visitor with its dismal barrack-like appearance, its +decrepit condition, and the complete absence of any kind of comfort, +external or internal. Even on the brightest spring days it seems +wrapped in a dense shade, and on clear moonlight nights, when the +trees and the little dwelling-houses merged in one blur of shadow +seem plunged in quiet slumber, it alone absurdly and inappropriately +towers, an oppressive mass of stone, above the modest landscape, +spoils the general harmony, and keeps sleepless vigil as though it +could not escape from burdensome memories of past unforgiven sins. +Inside it is like a barn and extremely unattractive. It is strange +to see how readily these elegant lawyers, members of committees, +and marshals of nobility, who in their own homes will make a scene +over the slightest fume from the stove, or stain on the floor, +resign themselves here to whirring ventilation wheels, the disgusting +smell of fumigating candles, and the filthy, forever perspiring +walls. + +The sitting of the circuit court began between nine and ten. The +programme of the day was promptly entered upon, with noticeable +haste. The cases came on one after another and ended quickly, like +a church service without a choir, so that no mind could form a +complete picture of all this parti-coloured mass of faces, movements, +words, misfortunes, true sayings and lies, all racing by like a +river in flood. . . . By two o'clock a great deal had been done: +two prisoners had been sentenced to service in convict battalions, +one of the privileged class had been sentenced to deprivation of +rights and imprisonment, one had been acquitted, one case had been +adjourned. + +At precisely two o'clock the presiding judge announced that the +case "of the peasant Nikolay Harlamov, charged with the murder of +his wife," would next be heard. The composition of the court remained +the same as it had been for the preceding case, except that the +place of the defending counsel was filled by a new personage, a +beardless young graduate in a coat with bright buttons. The president +gave the order--"Bring in the prisoner!" + +But the prisoner, who had been got ready beforehand, was already +walking to his bench. He was a tall, thick-set peasant of about +fifty-five, completely bald, with an apathetic, hairy face and a +big red beard. He was followed by a frail-looking little soldier +with a gun. + +Just as he was reaching the bench the escort had a trifling mishap. +He stumbled and dropped the gun out of his hands, but caught it at +once before it touched the ground, knocking his knee violently +against the butt end as he did so. A faint laugh was audible in the +audience. Either from the pain or perhaps from shame at his awkwardness +the soldier flushed a dark red. + +After the customary questions to the prisoner, the shuffling of the +jury, the calling over and swearing in of the witnesses, the reading +of the charge began. The narrow-chested, pale-faced secretary, far +too thin for his uniform, and with sticking plaster on his check, +read it in a low, thick bass, rapidly like a sacristan, without +raising or dropping his voice, as though afraid of exerting his +lungs; he was seconded by the ventilation wheel whirring indefatigably +behind the judge's table, and the result was a sound that gave a +drowsy, narcotic character to the stillness of the hall. + +The president, a short-sighted man, not old but with an extremely +exhausted face, sat in his armchair without stirring and held his +open hand near his brow as though screening his eyes from the sun. +To the droning of the ventilation wheel and the secretary he +meditated. When the secretary paused for an instant to take breath +on beginning a new page, he suddenly started and looked round at +the court with lustreless eyes, then bent down to the ear of the +judge next to him and asked with a sigh: + +"Are you putting up at Demyanov's, Matvey Petrovitch?" + +"Yes, at Demyanov's," answered the other, starting too. + +"Next time I shall probably put up there too. It's really impossible +to put up at Tipyakov's! There's noise and uproar all night! Knocking, +coughing, children crying. . . . It's impossible!" + +The assistant prosecutor, a fat, well-nourished, dark man with gold +spectacles, with a handsome, well-groomed beard, sat motionless as +a statue, with his cheek propped on his fist, reading Byron's "Cain." +His eyes were full of eager attention and his eyebrows rose higher +and higher with wonder. . . . From time to time he dropped back in +his chair, gazed without interest straight before him for a minute, +and then buried himself in his reading again. The council for the +defence moved the blunt end of his pencil about the table and mused +with his head on one side. . . . His youthful face expressed nothing +but the frigid, immovable boredom which is commonly seen on the +face of schoolboys and men on duty who are forced from day to day +to sit in the same place, to see the same faces, the same walls. +He felt no excitement about the speech he was to make, and indeed +what did that speech amount to? On instructions from his superiors +in accordance with long-established routine he would fire it off +before the jurymen, without passion or ardour, feeling that it was +colourless and boring, and then--gallop through the mud and the +rain to the station, thence to the town, shortly to receive +instructions to go off again to some district to deliver another +speech. . . . It was a bore! + +At first the prisoner turned pale and coughed nervously into his +sleeve, but soon the stillness, the general monotony and boredom +infected him too. He looked with dull-witted respectfulness at the +judges' uniforms, at the weary faces of the jurymen, and blinked +calmly. The surroundings and procedure of the court, the expectation +of which had so weighed on his soul while he was awaiting them in +prison, now had the most soothing effect on him. What he met here +was not at all what he could have expected. The charge of murder +hung over him, and yet here he met with neither threatening faces +nor indignant looks nor loud phrases about retribution nor sympathy +for his extraordinary fate; not one of those who were judging him +looked at him with interest or for long. . . . The dingy windows +and walls, the voice of the secretary, the attitude of the prosecutor +were all saturated with official indifference and produced an +atmosphere of frigidity, as though the murderer were simply an +official property, or as though he were not being judged by living +men, but by some unseen machine, set going, goodness knows how or +by whom. . . . + +The peasant, reassured, did not understand that the men here were +as accustomed to the dramas and tragedies of life and were as blunted +by the sight of them as hospital attendants are at the sight of +death, and that the whole horror and hopelessness of his position +lay just in this mechanical indifference. It seemed that if he were +not to sit quietly but to get up and begin beseeching, appealing +with tears for their mercy, bitterly repenting, that if he were to +die of despair--it would all be shattered against blunted nerves +and the callousness of custom, like waves against a rock. + +When the secretary finished, the president for some reason passed +his hands over the table before him, looked for some time with his +eyes screwed up towards the prisoner, and then asked, speaking +languidly: + +"Prisoner at the bar, do you plead guilty to having murdered your +wife on the evening of the ninth of June?" + +"No, sir," answered the prisoner, getting up and holding his gown +over his chest. + +After this the court proceeded hurriedly to the examination of +witnesses. Two peasant women and five men and the village policeman +who had made the enquiry were questioned. All of them, mud-bespattered, +exhausted with their long walk and waiting in the witnesses' room, +gloomy and dispirited, gave the same evidence. They testified that +Harlamov lived "well" with his old woman, like anyone else; that +he never beat her except when he had had a drop; that on the ninth +of June when the sun was setting the old woman had been found in +the porch with her skull broken; that beside her in a pool of blood +lay an axe. When they looked for Nikolay to tell him of the calamity +he was not in his hut or in the streets. They ran all over the +village, looking for him. They went to all the pothouses and huts, +but could not find him. He had disappeared, and two days later came +of his own accord to the police office, pale, with his clothes torn, +trembling all over. He was bound and put in the lock-up. + +"Prisoner," said the president, addressing Harlamov, "cannot you +explain to the court where you were during the three days following +the murder?" + +"I was wandering about the fields. . . . Neither eating nor drinking +. . . ." + +"Why did you hide yourself, if it was not you that committed the +murder?" + +"I was frightened. . . . I was afraid I might be judged guilty. . . ." + +"Aha! . . . Good, sit down!" + +The last to be examined was the district doctor who had made a +post-mortem on the old woman. He told the court all that he remembered +of his report at the post-mortem and all that he had succeeded in +thinking of on his way to the court that morning. The president +screwed up his eyes at his new glossy black suit, at his foppish +cravat, at his moving lips; he listened and in his mind the languid +thought seemed to spring up of itself: + +"Everyone wears a short jacket nowadays, why has he had his made +long? Why long and not short?" + +The circumspect creak of boots was audible behind the president's +back. It was the assistant prosecutor going up to the table to take +some papers. + +"Mihail Vladimirovitch," said the assistant prosecutor, bending +down to the president's ear, "amazingly slovenly the way that +Koreisky conducted the investigation. The prisoner's brother was +not examined, the village elder was not examined, there's no making +anything out of his description of the hut. . . ." + +"It can't be helped, it can't be helped," said the president, sinking +back in his chair. "He's a wreck . . . dropping to bits!" + +"By the way," whispered the assistant prosecutor, "look at the +audience, in the front row, the third from the right . . . a face +like an actor's . . . that's the local Croesus. He has a fortune +of something like fifty thousand." + +"Really? You wouldn't guess it from his appearance. . . . Well, +dear boy, shouldn't we have a break?" + +"We will finish the case for the prosecution, and then. . . ." + +"As you think best. . . . Well?" the president raised his eyes to +the doctor. "So you consider that death was instantaneous?" + +"Yes, in consequence of the extent of the injury to the brain +substance. . . ." + +When the doctor had finished, the president gazed into the space +between the prosecutor and the counsel for the defence and suggested: + +"Have you any questions to ask?" + +The assistant prosecutor shook his head negatively, without lifting +his eyes from "Cain"; the counsel for the defence unexpectedly +stirred and, clearing his throat, asked: + +"Tell me, doctor, can you from the dimensions of the wound form any +theory as to . . . as to the mental condition of the criminal? That +is, I mean, does the extent of the injury justify the supposition +that the accused was suffering from temporary aberration?" + +The president raised his drowsy indifferent eyes to the counsel for +the defence. The assistant prosecutor tore himself from "Cain," and +looked at the president. They merely looked, but there was no smile, +no surprise, no perplexity--their faces expressed nothing. + +"Perhaps," the doctor hesitated, "if one considers the force with +which . . . er--er--er . . . the criminal strikes the blow. . . . +However, excuse me, I don't quite understand your question. . . ." + +The counsel for the defence did not get an answer to his question, +and indeed he did not feel the necessity of one. It was clear even +to himself that that question had strayed into his mind and found +utterance simply through the effect of the stillness, the boredom, +the whirring ventilator wheels. + +When they had got rid of the doctor the court rose to examine the +"material evidences." The first thing examined was the full-skirted +coat, upon the sleeve of which there was a dark brownish stain of +blood. Harlamov on being questioned as to the origin of the stain +stated: + +"Three days before my old woman's death Penkov bled his horse. I +was there; I was helping to be sure, and . . . and got smeared with +it. . . ." + +"But Penkov has just given evidence that he does not remember that +you were present at the bleeding. . . ." + +"I can't tell about that." + +"Sit down." + +They proceeded to examine the axe with which the old woman had been +murdered. + +"That's not my axe," the prisoner declared. + +"Whose is it, then?" + +"I can't tell . . . I hadn't an axe. . . ." + +"A peasant can't get on for a day without an axe. And your neighbour +Ivan Timofeyitch, with whom you mended a sledge, has given evidence +that it is your axe. . . ." + +"I can't say about that, but I swear before God (Harlamov held out +his hand before him and spread out the fingers), before the living +God. And I don't remember how long it is since I did have an axe +of my own. I did have one like that only a bit smaller, but my son +Prohor lost it. Two years before he went into the army, he drove +off to fetch wood, got drinking with the fellows, and lost it. . . ." + +"Good, sit down." + +This systematic distrust and disinclination to hear him probably +irritated and offended Harlamov. He blinked and red patches came +out on his cheekbones. + +"I swear in the sight of God," he went on, craning his neck forward. +"If you don't believe me, be pleased to ask my son Prohor. Proshka, +what did you do with the axe?" he suddenly asked in a rough voice, +turning abruptly to the soldier escorting him. "Where is it?" + +It was a painful moment! Everyone seemed to wince and as it were +shrink together. The same fearful, incredible thought flashed like +lightning through every head in the court, the thought of possibly +fatal coincidence, and not one person in the court dared to look +at the soldier's face. Everyone refused to trust his thought and +believed that he had heard wrong. + +"Prisoner, conversation with the guards is forbidden . . ." the +president made haste to say. + +No one saw the escort's face, and horror passed over the hall unseen +as in a mask. The usher of the court got up quietly from his place +and tiptoeing with his hand held out to balance himself went out +of the court. Half a minute later there came the muffled sounds and +footsteps that accompany the change of guard. + +All raised their heads and, trying to look as though nothing had +happened, went on with their work. . . . + + +BOOTS + +A PIANO-TUNER called Murkin, a close-shaven man with a yellow face, +with a nose stained with snuff, and cotton-wool in his ears, came +out of his hotel-room into the passage, and in a cracked voice +cried: "Semyon! Waiter!" + +And looking at his frightened face one might have supposed that the +ceiling had fallen in on him or that he had just seen a ghost in +his room. + +"Upon my word, Semyon!" he cried, seeing the attendant running +towards him. "What is the meaning of it? I am a rheumatic, delicate +man and you make me go barefoot! Why is it you don't give me my +boots all this time? Where are they?" + +Semyon went into Murkin's room, looked at the place where he was +in the habit of putting the boots he had cleaned, and scratched his +head: the boots were not there. + +"Where can they be, the damned things?" Semyon brought out. "I fancy +I cleaned them in the evening and put them here. . . . H'm! . . . +Yesterday, I must own, I had a drop. . . . I must have put them in +another room, I suppose. That must be it, Afanasy Yegoritch, they +are in another room! There are lots of boots, and how the devil is +one to know them apart when one is drunk and does not know what one +is doing? . . . I must have taken them in to the lady that's next +door . . . the actress. . . ." + +"And now, if you please, I am to go in to a lady and disturb her +all through you! Here, if you please, through this foolishness I +am to wake up a respectable woman." + +Sighing and coughing, Murkin went to the door of the next room and +cautiously tapped. + +"Who's there?" he heard a woman's voice a minute later. + +"It's I!" Murkin began in a plaintive voice, standing in the attitude +of a cavalier addressing a lady of the highest society. "Pardon my +disturbing you, madam, but I am a man in delicate health, rheumatic +. . . . The doctors, madam, have ordered me to keep my feet warm, +especially as I have to go at once to tune the piano at Madame la +Generale Shevelitsyn's. I can't go to her barefoot." + +"But what do you want? What piano?" + +"Not a piano, madam; it is in reference to boots! Semyon, stupid +fellow, cleaned my boots and put them by mistake in your room. Be +so extremely kind, madam, as to give me my boots!" + +There was a sound of rustling, of jumping off the bed and the +flapping of slippers, after which the door opened slightly and a +plump feminine hand flung at Murkin's feet a pair of boots. The +piano-tuner thanked her and went into his own room. + +"Odd . . ." he muttered, putting on the boots, "it seems as though +this is not the right boot. Why, here are two left boots! Both are +for the left foot! I say, Semyon, these are not my boots! My boots +have red tags and no patches on them, and these are in holes and +have no tags." + +Semyon picked up the boots, turned them over several times before +his eyes, and frowned. + +"Those are Pavel Alexandritch's boots," he grumbled, squinting at +them. He squinted with the left eye. + +"What Pavel Alexandritch?" + +"The actor; he comes here every Tuesday. . . . He must have put on +yours instead of his own. . . . So I must have put both pairs in +her room, his and yours. Here's a go!" + +"Then go and change them!" + +"That's all right!" sniggered Semyon, "go and change them. . . . +Where am I to find him now? He went off an hour ago. . . . Go and +look for the wind in the fields!" + +"Where does he live then?" + +"Who can tell? He comes here every Tuesday, and where he lives I +don't know. He comes and stays the night, and then you may wait +till next Tuesday. . . ." + +"There, do you see, you brute, what you have done? Why, what am I +to do now? It is time I was at Madame la Generale Shevelitsyn's, +you anathema! My feet are frozen!" + +"You can change the boots before long. Put on these boots, go about +in them till the evening, and in the evening go to the theatre. . . . +Ask there for Blistanov, the actor. . . . If you don't care to +go to the theatre, you will have to wait till next Tuesday; he only +comes here on Tuesdays. . . ." + +"But why are there two boots for the left foot?" asked the piano-tuner, +picking up the boots with an air of disgust. + +"What God has sent him, that he wears. Through poverty . . . where +is an actor to get boots? I said to him 'What boots, Pavel Alexandritch! +They are a positive disgrace!' and he said: 'Hold your peace,' says +he, 'and turn pale! In those very boots,' says he, 'I have played +counts and princes.' A queer lot! Artists, that's the only word for +them! If I were the governor or anyone in command, I would get all +these actors together and clap them all in prison." + +Continually sighing and groaning and knitting his brows, Murkin +drew the two left boots on to his feet, and set off, limping, to +Madame la Generale Shevelitsyn's. He went about the town all day +long tuning pianos, and all day long it seemed to him that everyone +was looking at his feet and seeing his patched boots with heels +worn down at the sides! Apart from his moral agonies he had to +suffer physically also; the boots gave him a corn. + +In the evening he was at the theatre. There was a performance of +_Bluebeard_. It was only just before the last act, and then only +thanks to the good offices of a man he knew who played a flute in +the orchestra, that he gained admittance behind the scenes. Going +to the men's dressing-room, he found there all the male performers. +Some were changing their clothes, others were painting their faces, +others were smoking. Bluebeard was standing with King Bobesh, showing +him a revolver. + +"You had better buy it," said Bluebeard. "I bought it at Kursk, a +bargain, for eight roubles, but, there! I will let you have it for +six. . . . A wonderfully good one!" + +"Steady. . . . It's loaded, you know!" + +"Can I see Mr. Blistanov?" the piano-tuner asked as he went in. + +"I am he!" said Bluebeard, turning to him. "What do you want?" + +"Excuse my troubling you, sir," began the piano-tuner in an imploring +voice, "but, believe me, I am a man in delicate health, rheumatic. +The doctors have ordered me to keep my feet warm . . ." + +"But, speaking plainly, what do you want?" + +"You see," said the piano-tuner, addressing Bluebeard. "Er . . . +you stayed last night at Buhteyev's furnished apartments . . . No. +64 . . ." + +"What's this nonsense?" said King Bobesh with a grin. "My wife is +at No. 64." + +"Your wife, sir? Delighted. . . ." Murkin smiled. "It was she, your +good lady, who gave me this gentleman's boots. . . . After this +gentleman--" the piano-tuner indicated Blistanov--"had gone away +I missed my boots. . . . I called the waiter, you know, and he said: +'I left your boots in the next room!' By mistake, being in a state +of intoxication, he left my boots as well as yours at 64," said +Murkin, turning to Blistanov, "and when you left this gentleman's +lady you put on mine." + +"What are you talking about?" said Blistanov, and he scowled. "Have +you come here to libel me?" + +"Not at all, sir--God forbid! You misunderstand me. What am I +talking about? About boots! You did stay the night at No. 64, didn't +you?" + +"When?" + +"Last night!" + +"Why, did you see me there?" + +"No, sir, I didn't see you," said Murkin in great confusion, sitting +down and taking off the boots. "I did not see you, but this gentleman's +lady threw out your boots here to me . . . instead of mine." + +"What right have you, sir, to make such assertions? I say nothing +about myself, but you are slandering a woman, and in the presence +of her husband, too!" + +A fearful hubbub arose behind the scenes. King Bobesh, the injured +husband, suddenly turned crimson and brought his fist down upon the +table with such violence that two actresses in the next dressing-room +felt faint. + +"And you believe it?" cried Bluebeard. "You believe this worthless +rascal? O-oh! Would you like me to kill him like a dog? Would you +like it? I will turn him into a beefsteak! I'll blow his brains +out!" + +And all the persons who were promenading that evening in the town +park by the Summer theatre describe to this day how just before the +fourth act they saw a man with bare feet, a yellow face, and +terror-stricken eyes dart out of the theatre and dash along the +principal avenue. He was pursued by a man in the costume of Bluebeard, +armed with a revolver. What happened later no one saw. All that is +known is that Murkin was confined to his bed for a fortnight after +his acquaintance with Blistanov, and that to the words "I am a man +in delicate health, rheumatic" he took to adding, "I am a wounded +man. . . ." + + +JOY + +IT was twelve o'clock at night. + +Mitya Kuldarov, with excited face and ruffled hair, flew into his +parents' flat, and hurriedly ran through all the rooms. His parents +had already gone to bed. His sister was in bed, finishing the last +page of a novel. His schoolboy brothers were asleep. + +"Where have you come from?" cried his parents in amazement. "What +is the matter with you? + +"Oh, don't ask! I never expected it; no, I never expected it! It's +. . . it's positively incredible!" + +Mitya laughed and sank into an armchair, so overcome by happiness +that he could not stand on his legs. + +"It's incredible! You can't imagine! Look!" + +His sister jumped out of bed and, throwing a quilt round her, went +in to her brother. The schoolboys woke up. + +"What's the matter? You don't look like yourself!" + +"It's because I am so delighted, Mamma! Do you know, now all Russia +knows of me! All Russia! Till now only you knew that there was a +registration clerk called Dmitry Kuldarov, and now all Russia knows +it! Mamma! Oh, Lord!" + +Mitya jumped up, ran up and down all the rooms, and then sat down +again. + +"Why, what has happened? Tell us sensibly!" + +"You live like wild beasts, you don't read the newspapers and take +no notice of what's published, and there's so much that is interesting +in the papers. If anything happens it's all known at once, nothing +is hidden! How happy I am! Oh, Lord! You know it's only celebrated +people whose names are published in the papers, and now they have +gone and published mine!" + +"What do you mean? Where?" + +The papa turned pale. The mamma glanced at the holy image and crossed +herself. The schoolboys jumped out of bed and, just as they were, +in short nightshirts, went up to their brother. + +"Yes! My name has been published! Now all Russia knows of me! Keep +the paper, mamma, in memory of it! We will read it sometimes! Look!" + +Mitya pulled out of his pocket a copy of the paper, gave it to his +father, and pointed with his finger to a passage marked with blue +pencil. + +"Read it!" + +The father put on his spectacles. + +"Do read it!" + +The mamma glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. The papa +cleared his throat and began to read: "At eleven o'clock on the +evening of the 29th of December, a registration clerk of the name +of Dmitry Kuldarov . . ." + +"You see, you see! Go on!" + +". . . a registration clerk of the name of Dmitry Kuldarov, coming +from the beershop in Kozihin's buildings in Little Bronnaia in an +intoxicated condition. . ." + +"That's me and Semyon Petrovitch. . . . It's all described exactly! +Go on! Listen!" + +". . . intoxicated condition, slipped and fell under a horse belonging +to a sledge-driver, a peasant of the village of Durikino in the +Yuhnovsky district, called Ivan Drotov. The frightened horse, +stepping over Kuldarov and drawing the sledge over him, together +with a Moscow merchant of the second guild called Stepan Lukov, who +was in it, dashed along the street and was caught by some house-porters. +Kuldarov, at first in an unconscious condition, was taken to the +police station and there examined by the doctor. The blow he had +received on the back of his head. . ." + +"It was from the shaft, papa. Go on! Read the rest!" + +". . . he had received on the back of his head turned out not to +be serious. The incident was duly reported. Medical aid was given +to the injured man. . . ." + +"They told me to foment the back of my head with cold water. You +have read it now? Ah! So you see. Now it's all over Russia! Give +it here!" + +Mitya seized the paper, folded it up and put it into his pocket. + +"I'll run round to the Makarovs and show it to them. . . . I must +show it to the Ivanitskys too, Natasya Ivanovna, and Anisim +Vassilyitch. . . . I'll run! Good-bye!" + +Mitya put on his cap with its cockade and, joyful and triumphant, +ran into the street. + + +LADIES + +FYODOR PETROVITCH the Director of Elementary Schools in the N. +District, who considered himself a just and generous man, was one +day interviewing in his office a schoolmaster called Vremensky. + +"No, Mr. Vremensky," he was saying, "your retirement is inevitable. +You cannot continue your work as a schoolmaster with a voice like +that! How did you come to lose it?" + +"I drank cold beer when I was in a perspiration. . ." hissed the +schoolmaster. + +"What a pity! After a man has served fourteen years, such a calamity +all at once! The idea of a career being ruined by such a trivial +thing. What are you intending to do now?" + +The schoolmaster made no answer. + +"Are you a family man?" asked the director. + +"A wife and two children, your Excellency . . ." hissed the +schoolmaster. + +A silence followed. The director got up from the table and walked +to and fro in perturbation. + +"I cannot think what I am going to do with you!" he said. "A teacher +you cannot be, and you are not yet entitled to a pension. . . . To +abandon you to your fate, and leave you to do the best you can, is +rather awkward. We look on you as one of our men, you have served +fourteen years, so it is our business to help you. . . . But how +are we to help you? What can I do for you? Put yourself in my place: +what can I do for you?" + +A silence followed; the director walked up and down, still thinking, +and Vremensky, overwhelmed by his trouble, sat on the edge of his +chair, and he, too, thought. All at once the director began beaming, +and even snapped his fingers. + +"I wonder I did not think of it before!" he began rapidly. "Listen, +this is what I can offer you. Next week our secretary at the Home +is retiring. If you like, you can have his place! There you are!" + +Vremensky, not expecting such good fortune, beamed too. + +"That's capital," said the director. "Write the application to-day." + +Dismissing Vremensky, Fyodor Petrovitch felt relieved and even +gratified: the bent figure of the hissing schoolmaster was no longer +confronting him, and it was agreeable to recognize that in offering +a vacant post to Vremensky he had acted fairly and conscientiously, +like a good-hearted and thoroughly decent person. But this agreeable +state of mind did not last long. When he went home and sat down to +dinner his wife, Nastasya Ivanovna, said suddenly: + +"Oh yes, I was almost forgetting! Nina Sergeyevna came to see me +yesterday and begged for your interest on behalf of a young man. I +am told there is a vacancy in our Home. . . ." + +"Yes, but the post has already been promised to someone else," said +the director, and he frowned. "And you know my rule: I never give +posts through patronage." + +"I know, but for Nina Sergeyevna, I imagine, you might make an +exception. She loves us as though we were relations, and we have +never done anything for her. And don't think of refusing, Fedya! +You will wound both her and me with your whims." + +"Who is it that she is recommending?" + +"Polzuhin!" + +"What Polzuhin? Is it that fellow who played Tchatsky at the party +on New Year's Day? Is it that gentleman? Not on any account!" + +The director left off eating. + +"Not on any account!" he repeated. "Heaven preserve us!" + +"But why not?" + +"Understand, my dear, that if a young man does not set to work +directly, but through women, he must be good for nothing! Why doesn't +he come to me himself?" + +After dinner the director lay on the sofa in his study and began +reading the letters and newspapers he had received. + +"Dear Fyodor Petrovitch," wrote the wife of the Mayor of the town. +"You once said that I knew the human heart and understood people. +Now you have an opportunity of verifying this in practice. K. N. +Polzuhin, whom I know to be an excellent young man, will call upon +you in a day or two to ask you for the post of secretary at our +Home. He is a very nice youth. If you take an interest in him you +will be convinced of it." And so on. + +"On no account!" was the director's comment. "Heaven preserve me!" + +After that, not a day passed without the director's receiving letters +recommending Polzuhin. One fine morning Polzuhin himself, a stout +young man with a close-shaven face like a jockey's, in a new black +suit, made his appearance. . . . + +"I see people on business not here but at the office," said the +director drily, on hearing his request. + +"Forgive me, your Excellency, but our common acquaintances advised +me to come here." + +"H'm!" growled the director, looking with hatred at the pointed +toes of the young man's shoes. "To the best of my belief your father +is a man of property and you are not in want," he said. "What induces +you to ask for this post? The salary is very trifling!" + +"It's not for the sake of the salary. . . . It's a government post, +any way . . ." + +"H'm. . . . It strikes me that within a month you will be sick of +the job and you will give it up, and meanwhile there are candidates +for whom it would be a career for life. There are poor men for whom +. . ." + +"I shan't get sick of it, your Excellency," Polzuhin interposed. +"Honour bright, I will do my best!" + +It was too much for the director. + +"Tell me," he said, smiling contemptuously, "why was it you didn't +apply to me direct but thought fitting instead to trouble ladies +as a preliminary?" + +"I didn't know that it would be disagreeable to you," Polzuhin +answered, and he was embarrassed. "But, your Excellency, if you +attach no significance to letters of recommendation, I can give you +a testimonial. . . ." + +He drew from his pocket a letter and handed it to the director. At +the bottom of the testimonial, which was written in official language +and handwriting, stood the signature of the Governor. Everything +pointed to the Governor's having signed it unread, simply to get +rid of some importunate lady. + +"There's nothing for it, I bow to his authority. . . I obey . . ." +said the director, reading the testimonial, and he heaved a sigh. + +"Send in your application to-morrow. . . . There's nothing to be +done. . . ." + +And when Polzuhin had gone out, the director abandoned himself to +a feeling of repulsion. + +"Sneak!" he hissed, pacing from one corner to the other. "He has +got what he wanted, one way or the other, the good-for-nothing +toady! Making up to the ladies! Reptile! Creature!" + +The director spat loudly in the direction of the door by which +Polzuhin had departed, and was immediately overcome with embarrassment, +for at that moment a lady, the wife of the Superintendent of the +Provincial Treasury, walked in at the door. + +"I've come for a tiny minute . . . a tiny minute. . ." began the +lady. "Sit down, friend, and listen to me attentively. . . . Well, +I've been told you have a post vacant. . . . To-day or to-morrow +you will receive a visit from a young man called Polzuhin. . . ." + +The lady chattered on, while the director gazed at her with lustreless, +stupefied eyes like a man on the point of fainting, gazed and smiled +from politeness. + +And the next day when Vremensky came to his office it was a long +time before the director could bring himself to tell the truth. He +hesitated, was incoherent, and could not think how to begin or what +to say. He wanted to apologize to the schoolmaster, to tell him the +whole truth, but his tongue halted like a drunkard's, his ears +burned, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with vexation and resentment +that he should have to play such an absurd part--in his own office, +before his subordinate. He suddenly brought his fist down on the +table, leaped up, and shouted angrily: + +"I have no post for you! I have not, and that's all about it! Leave +me in peace! Don't worry me! Be so good as to leave me alone!" + +And he walked out of the office. + + +A PECULIAR MAN + +BETWEEN twelve and one at night a tall gentleman, wearing a top-hat +and a coat with a hood, stops before the door of Marya Petrovna +Koshkin, a midwife and an old maid. Neither face nor hand can be +distinguished in the autumn darkness, but in the very manner of his +coughing and the ringing of the bell a certain solidity, positiveness, +and even impressiveness can be discerned. After the third ring the +door opens and Marya Petrovna herself appears. She has a man's +overcoat flung on over her white petticoat. The little lamp with +the green shade which she holds in her hand throws a greenish light +over her sleepy, freckled face, her scraggy neck, and the lank, +reddish hair that strays from under her cap. + +"Can I see the midwife?" asks the gentleman. + +"I am the midwife. What do you want?" + +The gentleman walks into the entry and Marya Petrovna sees facing +her a tall, well-made man, no longer young, but with a handsome, +severe face and bushy whiskers. + +"I am a collegiate assessor, my name is Kiryakov," he says. "I came +to fetch you to my wife. Only please make haste." + +"Very good . . ." the midwife assents. "I'll dress at once, and I +must trouble you to wait for me in the parlour." + +Kiryakov takes off his overcoat and goes into the parlour. The +greenish light of the lamp lies sparsely on the cheap furniture in +patched white covers, on the pitiful flowers and the posts on which +ivy is trained. . . . There is a smell of geranium and carbolic. +The little clock on the wall ticks timidly, as though abashed at +the presence of a strange man. + +"I am ready," says Marya Petrovna, coming into the room five minutes +later, dressed, washed, and ready for action. "Let us go." + +"Yes, you must make haste," says Kiryakov. "And, by the way, it is +not out of place to enquire--what do you ask for your services?" + +"I really don't know . . ." says Marya Petrovna with an embarrassed +smile. "As much as you will give." + +"No, I don't like that," says Kiryakov, looking coldly and steadily +at the midwife. "An arrangement beforehand is best. I don't want +to take advantage of you and you don't want to take advantage of +me. To avoid misunderstandings it is more sensible for us to make +an arrangement beforehand." + +"I really don't know--there is no fixed price." + +"I work myself and am accustomed to respect the work of others. I +don't like injustice. It will be equally unpleasant to me if I pay +you too little, or if you demand from me too much, and so I insist +on your naming your charge." + +"Well, there are such different charges." + +"H'm. In view of your hesitation, which I fail to understand, I am +constrained to fix the sum myself. I can give you two roubles." + +"Good gracious! . . . Upon my word! . . ." says Marya Petrovna, +turning crimson and stepping back. "I am really ashamed. Rather +than take two roubles I will come for nothing . . . . Five roubles, +if you like." + +"Two roubles, not a kopeck more. I don't want to take advantage of +you, but I do not intend to be overcharged." + +"As you please, but I am not coming for two roubles. . . ." + +"But by law you have not the right to refuse." + +"Very well, I will come for nothing." + +"I won't have you for nothing. All work ought to receive remuneration. +I work myself and I understand that. . . ." + +"I won't come for two roubles," Marya Petrovna answers mildly. "I'll +come for nothing if you like." + +"In that case I regret that I have troubled you for nothing. . . . +I have the honour to wish you good-bye." + +"Well, you are a man!" says Marya Petrovna, seeing him into the +entry. "I will come for three roubles if that will satisfy you." + +Kiryakov frowns and ponders for two full minutes, looking with +concentration on the floor, then he says resolutely, "No," and goes +out into the street. The astonished and disconcerted midwife fastens +the door after him and goes back into her bedroom. + +"He's good-looking, respectable, but how queer, God bless the man! +. . ." she thinks as she gets into bed. + +But in less than half an hour she hears another ring; she gets up +and sees the same Kiryakov again. + +"Extraordinary the way things are mismanaged. Neither the chemist, +nor the police, nor the house-porters can give me the address of a +midwife, and so I am under the necessity of assenting to your terms. +I will give you three roubles, but . . . I warn you beforehand that +when I engage servants or receive any kind of services, I make an +arrangement beforehand in order that when I pay there may be no +talk of extras, tips, or anything of the sort. Everyone ought to +receive what is his due." + +Marya Petrovna has not listened to Kiryakov for long, but already +she feels that she is bored and repelled by him, that his even, +measured speech lies like a weight on her soul. She dresses and +goes out into the street with him. The air is still but cold, and +the sky is so overcast that the light of the street lamps is hardly +visible. The sloshy snow squelches under their feet. The midwife +looks intently but does not see a cab. + +"I suppose it is not far?" she asks. + +"No, not far," Kiryakov answers grimly. + +They walk down one turning, a second, a third. . . . Kiryakov strides +along, and even in his step his respectability and positiveness is +apparent. + +"What awful weather!" the midwife observes to him. + +But he preserves a dignified silence, and it is noticeable that he +tries to step on the smooth stones to avoid spoiling his goloshes. +At last after a long walk the midwife steps into the entry; from +which she can see a big decently furnished drawing-room. There is +not a soul in the rooms, even in the bedroom where the woman is +lying in labour. . . . The old women and relations who flock in +crowds to every confinement are not to be seen. The cook rushes +about alone, with a scared and vacant face. There is a sound of +loud groans. + +Three hours pass. Marya Petrovna sits by the mother's bedside and +whispers to her. The two women have already had time to make friends, +they have got to know each other, they gossip, they sigh together. . . . + +"You mustn't talk," says the midwife anxiously, and at the same +time she showers questions on her. + +Then the door opens and Kiryakov himself comes quietly and stolidly +into the room. He sits down in the chair and strokes his whiskers. +Silence reigns. Marya Petrovna looks timidly at his handsome, +passionless, wooden face and waits for him to begin to talk, but +he remains absolutely silent and absorbed in thought. After waiting +in vain, the midwife makes up her mind to begin herself, and utters +a phrase commonly used at confinements. + +"Well now, thank God, there is one human being more in the world!" + +"Yes, that's agreeable," said Kiryakov, preserving the wooden +expression of his face, "though indeed, on the other hand, to have +more children you must have more money. The baby is not born fed +and clothed." + +A guilty expression comes into the mother's face, as though she had +brought a creature into the world without permission or through +idle caprice. Kiryakov gets up with a sigh and walks with solid +dignity out of the room. + +"What a man, bless him!" says the midwife to the mother. "He's so +stern and does not smile." + +The mother tells her that _he_ is always like that. . . . He is +honest, fair, prudent, sensibly economical, but all that to such +an exceptional degree that simple mortals feel suffocated by it. +His relations have parted from him, the servants will not stay more +than a month; they have no friends; his wife and children are always +on tenterhooks from terror over every step they take. He does not +shout at them nor beat them, his virtues are far more numerous than +his defects, but when he goes out of the house they all feel better, +and more at ease. Why it is so the woman herself cannot say. + +"The basins must be properly washed and put away in the store +cupboard," says Kiryakov, coming into the bedroom. "These bottles +must be put away too: they may come in handy." + +What he says is very simple and ordinary, but the midwife for some +reason feels flustered. She begins to be afraid of the man and +shudders every time she hears his footsteps. In the morning as she +is preparing to depart she sees Kiryakov's little son, a pale, +close-cropped schoolboy, in the dining-room drinking his tea. . . . +Kiryakov is standing opposite him, saying in his flat, even voice: + +"You know how to eat, you must know how to work too. You have just +swallowed a mouthful but have not probably reflected that that +mouthful costs money and money is obtained by work. You must eat +and reflect. . . ." + +The midwife looks at the boy's dull face, and it seems to her as +though the very air is heavy, that a little more and the very walls +will fall, unable to endure the crushing presence of the peculiar +man. Beside herself with terror, and by now feeling a violent hatred +for the man, Marya Petrovna gathers up her bundles and hurriedly +departs. + +Half-way home she remembers that she has forgotten to ask for her +three roubles, but after stopping and thinking for a minute, with +a wave of her hand, she goes on. + + +AT THE BARBER'S + +MORNING. It is not yet seven o'clock, but Makar Kuzmitch Blyostken's +shop is already open. The barber himself, an unwashed, greasy, but +foppishly dressed youth of three and twenty, is busy clearing up; +there is really nothing to be cleared away, but he is perspiring +with his exertions. In one place he polishes with a rag, in another +he scrapes with his finger or catches a bug and brushes it off the +wall. + +The barber's shop is small, narrow, and unclean. The log walls are +hung with paper suggestive of a cabman's faded shirt. Between the +two dingy, perspiring windows there is a thin, creaking, rickety +door, above it, green from the damp, a bell which trembles and gives +a sickly ring of itself without provocation. Glance into the +looking-glass which hangs on one of the walls, and it distorts your +countenance in all directions in the most merciless way! The shaving +and haircutting is done before this looking-glass. On the little +table, as greasy and unwashed as Makar Kuzmitch himself, there is +everything: combs, scissors, razors, a ha'porth of wax for the +moustache, a ha'porth of powder, a ha'porth of much watered eau de +Cologne, and indeed the whole barber's shop is not worth more than +fifteen kopecks. + +There is a squeaking sound from the invalid bell and an elderly man +in a tanned sheepskin and high felt over-boots walks into the shop. +His head and neck are wrapped in a woman's shawl. + +This is Erast Ivanitch Yagodov, Makar Kuzmitch's godfather. At one +time he served as a watchman in the Consistory, now he lives near +the Red Pond and works as a locksmith. + +"Makarushka, good-day, dear boy!" he says to Makar Kuzmitch, who +is absorbed in tidying up. + +They kiss each other. Yagodov drags his shawl off his head, crosses +himself, and sits down. + +"What a long way it is!" he says, sighing and clearing his throat. +"It's no joke! From the Red Pond to the Kaluga gate." + +"How are you?" + +"In a poor way, my boy. I've had a fever." + +"You don't say so! Fever!" + +"Yes, I have been in bed a month; I thought I should die. I had +extreme unction. Now my hair's coming out. The doctor says I must +be shaved. He says the hair will grow again strong. And so, I +thought, I'll go to Makar. Better to a relation than to anyone else. +He will do it better and he won't take anything for it. It's rather +far, that's true, but what of it? It's a walk." + +"I'll do it with pleasure. Please sit down." + +With a scrape of his foot Makar Kuzmitch indicates a chair. Yagodov +sits down and looks at himself in the glass and is apparently pleased +with his reflection: the looking-glass displays a face awry, with +Kalmuck lips, a broad, blunt nose, and eyes in the forehead. Makar +Kuzmitch puts round his client's shoulders a white sheet with yellow +spots on it, and begins snipping with the scissors. + +"I'll shave you clean to the skin!" he says. + +"To be sure. So that I may look like a Tartar, like a bomb. The +hair will grow all the thicker." + +"How's auntie?" + +"Pretty middling. The other day she went as midwife to the major's +lady. They gave her a rouble." + +"Oh, indeed, a rouble. Hold your ear." + +"I am holding it. . . . Mind you don't cut me. Oy, you hurt! You +are pulling my hair." + +"That doesn't matter. We can't help that in our work. And how is +Anna Erastovna?" + +"My daughter? She is all right, she's skipping about. Last week on +the Wednesday we betrothed her to Sheikin. Why didn't you come?" + +The scissors cease snipping. Makar Kuzmitch drops his hands and +asks in a fright: + +"Who is betrothed?" + +"Anna." + +"How's that? To whom?" + +"To Sheikin. Prokofy Petrovitch. His aunt's a housekeeper in +Zlatoustensky Lane. She is a nice woman. Naturally we are all +delighted, thank God. The wedding will be in a week. Mind you come; +we will have a good time." + +"But how's this, Erast Ivanitch?" says Makar Kuzmitch, pale, +astonished, and shrugging his shoulders. "It's . . . it's utterly +impossible. Why, Anna Erastovna . . . why I . . . why, I cherished +sentiments for her, I had intentions. How could it happen?" + +"Why, we just went and betrothed her. He's a good fellow." + +Cold drops of perspiration come on the face of Makar Kuzmitch. He +puts the scissors down on the table and begins rubbing his nose +with his fist. + +"I had intentions," he says. "It's impossible, Erast Ivanitch. I +. . . I am in love with her and have made her the offer of my heart +. . . . And auntie promised. I have always respected you as though +you were my father. . . . I always cut your hair for nothing. . . . +I have always obliged you, and when my papa died you took the +sofa and ten roubles in cash and have never given them back. Do you +remember?" + +"Remember! of course I do. Only, what sort of a match would you be, +Makar? You are nothing of a match. You've neither money nor position, +your trade's a paltry one." + +"And is Sheikin rich?" + +"Sheikin is a member of a union. He has a thousand and a half lent +on mortgage. So my boy . . . . It's no good talking about it, the +thing's done. There is no altering it, Makarushka. You must look +out for another bride. . . . The world is not so small. Come, cut +away. Why are you stopping?" + +Makar Kuzmitch is silent and remains motionless, then he takes a +handkerchief out of his pocket and begins to cry. + +"Come, what is it?" Erast Ivanitch comforts him. "Give over. Fie, +he is blubbering like a woman! You finish my head and then cry. +Take up the scissors!" + +Makar Kuzmitch takes up the scissors, stares vacantly at them for +a minute, then drops them again on the table. His hands are shaking. + +"I can't," he says. "I can't do it just now. I haven't the strength! +I am a miserable man! And she is miserable! We loved each other, +we had given each other our promise and we have been separated by +unkind people without any pity. Go away, Erast Ivanitch! I can't +bear the sight of you." + +"So I'll come to-morrow, Makarushka. You will finish me to-morrow." + +"Right." + +"You calm yourself and I will come to you early in the morning." + +Erast Ivanitch has half his head shaven to the skin and looks like +a convict. It is awkward to be left with a head like that, but there +is no help for it. He wraps his head in the shawl and walks out of +the barber's shop. Left alone, Makar Kuzmitch sits down and goes +on quietly weeping. + +Early next morning Erast Ivanitch comes again. + +"What do you want?" Makar Kuzmitch asks him coldly. + +"Finish cutting my hair, Makarushka. There is half the head left +to do." + +"Kindly give me the money in advance. I won't cut it for nothing." + +Without saying a word Erast Ivanitch goes out, and to this day his +hair is long on one side of the head and short on the other. He +regards it as extravagance to pay for having his hair cut and is +waiting for the hair to grow of itself on the shaven side. + +He danced at the wedding in that condition. + + +AN INADVERTENCE + +PYOTR PETROVITCH STRIZHIN, the nephew of Madame Ivanov, the colonel's +widow--the man whose new goloshes were stolen last year,--came +home from a christening party at two o'clock in the morning. To +avoid waking the household he took off his things in the lobby, +made his way on tiptoe to his room, holding his breath, and began +getting ready for bed without lighting a candle. + +Strizhin leads a sober and regular life. He has a sanctimonious +expression of face, he reads nothing but religious and edifying +books, but at the christening party, in his delight that Lyubov +Spiridonovna had passed through her confinement successfully, he +had permitted himself to drink four glasses of vodka and a glass +of wine, the taste of which suggested something midway between +vinegar and castor oil. Spirituous liquors are like sea-water and +glory: the more you imbibe of them the greater your thirst. And now +as he undressed, Strizhin was aware of an overwhelming craving for +drink. + +"I believe Dashenka has some vodka in the cupboard in the right-hand +corner," he thought. "If I drink one wine-glassful, she won't notice +it." + +After some hesitation, overcoming his fears, Strizhin went to the +cupboard. Cautiously opening the door he felt in the right-hand +corner for a bottle and poured out a wine-glassful, put the bottle +back in its place, then, making the sign of the cross, drank it +off. And immediately something like a miracle took place. Strizhin +was flung back from the cupboard to the chest with fearful force +like a bomb. There were flashes before his eyes, he felt as though +he could not breathe, and all over his body he had a sensation as +though he had fallen into a marsh full of leeches. It seemed to him +as though, instead of vodka, he had swallowed dynamite, which blew +up his body, the house, and the whole street. . . . His head, his +arms, his legs--all seemed to be torn off and to be flying away +somewhere to the devil, into space. + +For some three minutes he lay on the chest, not moving and scarcely +breathing, then he got up and asked himself: + +"Where am I?" + +The first thing of which he was clearly conscious on coming to +himself was the pronounced smell of paraffin. + +"Holy saints," he thought in horror, "it's paraffin I have drunk +instead of vodka." + +The thought that he had poisoned himself threw him into a cold +shiver, then into a fever. That it was really poison that he had +taken was proved not only by the smell in the room but also by the +burning taste in his mouth, the flashes before his eyes, the ringing +in his head, and the colicky pain in his stomach. Feeling the +approach of death and not buoying himself up with false hopes, he +wanted to say good-bye to those nearest to him, and made his way +to Dashenka's bedroom (being a widower he had his sister-in-law +called Dashenka, an old maid, living in the flat to keep house for +him). + +"Dashenka," he said in a tearful voice as he went into the bedroom, +"dear Dashenka!" + +Something grumbled in the darkness and uttered a deep sigh. + +"Dashenka." + +"Eh? What?" A woman's voice articulated rapidly. "Is that you, Pyotr +Petrovitch? Are you back already? Well, what is it? What has the +baby been christened? Who was godmother?" + +"The godmother was Natalya Andreyevna Velikosvyetsky, and the +godfather Pavel Ivanitch Bezsonnitsin. . . . I . . . I believe, +Dashenka, I am dying. And the baby has been christened Olimpiada, +in honour of their kind patroness. . . . I . . . I have just drunk +paraffin, Dashenka!" + +"What next! You don't say they gave you paraffin there?" + +"I must own I wanted to get a drink of vodka without asking you, +and . . . and the Lord chastised me: by accident in the dark I took +paraffin. . . . What am I to do?" + +Dashenka, hearing that the cupboard had been opened without her +permission, grew more wide-awake. . . . She quickly lighted a candle, +jumped out of bed, and in her nightgown, a freckled, bony figure +in curl-papers, padded with bare feet to the cupboard. + +"Who told you you might?" she asked sternly, as she scrutinized the +inside of the cupboard. "Was the vodka put there for you?" + +"I . . . I haven't drunk vodka but paraffin, Dashenka . . ." muttered +Strizhin, mopping the cold sweat on his brow. + +"And what did you want to touch the paraffin for? That's nothing +to do with you, is it? Is it put there for you? Or do you suppose +paraffin costs nothing? Eh? Do you know what paraffin is now? Do +you know?" + +"Dear Dashenka," moaned Strizhin, "it's a question of life and +death, and you talk about money!" + +"He's drunk himself tipsy and now he pokes his nose into the +cupboard!" cried Dashenka, angrily slamming the cupboard door. "Oh, +the monsters, the tormentors! I'm a martyr, a miserable woman, no +peace day or night! Vipers, basilisks, accursed Herods, may you +suffer the same in the world to come! I am going to-morrow! I am a +maiden lady and I won't allow you to stand before me in your +underclothes! How dare you look at me when I am not dressed!" + +And she went on and on. . . . Knowing that when Dashenka was enraged +there was no moving her with prayers or vows or even by firing a +cannon, Strizhin waved his hand in despair, dressed, and made up +his mind to go to the doctor. But a doctor is only readily found +when he is not wanted. After running through three streets and +ringing five times at Dr. Tchepharyants's, and seven times at Dr. +Bultyhin's, Strizhin raced off to a chemist's shop, thinking possibly +the chemist could help him. There, after a long interval, a little +dark and curly-headed chemist came out to him in his dressing gown, +with drowsy eyes, and such a wise and serious face that it was +positively terrifying. + +"What do you want?" he asked in a tone in which only very wise and +dignified chemists of Jewish persuasion can speak. + +"For God's sake . . . I entreat you . . ." said Strizhin breathlessly, +"give me something. I have just accidentally drunk paraffin, I am +dying!" + +"I beg you not to excite yourself and to answer the questions I am +about to put to you. The very fact that you are excited prevents +me from understanding you. You have drunk paraffin. Yes?" + +"Yes, paraffin! Please save me!" + +The chemist went coolly and gravely to the desk, opened a book, +became absorbed in reading it. After reading a couple of pages he +shrugged one shoulder and then the other, made a contemptuous grimace +and, after thinking for a minute, went into the adjoining room. The +clock struck four, and when it pointed to ten minutes past the +chemist came back with another book and again plunged into reading. + +"H'm," he said as though puzzled, "the very fact that you feel +unwell shows you ought to apply to a doctor, not a chemist." + +"But I have been to the doctors already. I could not ring them up." + +"H'm . . . you don't regard us chemists as human beings, and disturb +our rest even at four o'clock at night, though every dog, every +cat, can rest in peace. . . . You don't try to understand anything, +and to your thinking we are not people and our nerves are like +cords." + +Strizhin listened to the chemist, heaved a sigh, and went home. + +"So I am fated to die," he thought. + +And in his mouth was a burning and a taste of paraffin, there were +twinges in his stomach, and a sound of boom, boom, boom in his ears. +Every moment it seemed to him that his end was near, that his heart +was no longer beating. + +Returning home he made haste to write: "Let no one be blamed for +my death," then he said his prayers, lay down and pulled the +bedclothes over his head. He lay awake till morning expecting death, +and all the time he kept fancying how his grave would be covered +with fresh green grass and how the birds would twitter over it. . . . + +And in the morning he was sitting on his bed, saying with a smile +to Dashenka: + +"One who leads a steady and regular life, dear sister, is unaffected +by any poison. Take me, for example. I have been on the verge of +death. I was dying and in agony, yet now I am all right. There is +only a burning in my mouth and a soreness in my throat, but I am +all right all over, thank God. . . . And why? It's because of my +regular life." + +"No, it's because it's inferior paraffin!" sighed Dashenka, thinking +of the household expenses and gazing into space. "The man at the +shop could not have given me the best quality, but that at three +farthings. I am a martyr, I am a miserable woman. You monsters! May +you suffer the same, in the world to come, accursed Herods. . . ." + +And she went on and on. . . . + + +THE ALBUM + +KRATEROV, the titular councillor, as thin and slender as the Admiralty +spire, stepped forward and, addressing Zhmyhov, said: + +"Your Excellency! Moved and touched to the bottom of our hearts by +the way you have ruled us during long years, and by your fatherly +care. . . ." + +"During the course of more than ten years. . ." Zakusin prompted. + +"During the course of more than ten years, we, your subordinates, +on this so memorable for us . . . er . . . day, beg your Excellency +to accept in token of our respect and profound gratitude this album +with our portraits in it, and express our hope that for the duration +of your distinguished life, that for long, long years to come, to +your dying day you may not abandon us. . . ." + +"With your fatherly guidance in the path of justice and progress. . ." +added Zakusin, wiping from his brow the perspiration that had +suddenly appeared on it; he was evidently longing to speak, and in +all probability had a speech ready. "And," he wound up, "may your +standard fly for long, long years in the career of genius, industry, +and social self-consciousness." + +A tear trickled down the wrinkled left cheek of Zhmyhov. + +"Gentlemen!" he said in a shaking voice, "I did not expect, I had +no idea that you were going to celebrate my modest jubilee. . . . +I am touched indeed . . . very much so. . . . I shall not forget +this moment to my dying day, and believe me . . . believe me, +friends, that no one is so desirous of your welfare as I am . . . +and if there has been anything . . . it was for your benefit." + +Zhmyhov, the actual civil councillor, kissed the titular councillor +Kraterov, who had not expected such an honour, and turned pale with +delight. Then the chief made a gesture that signified that he could +not speak for emotion, and shed tears as though an expensive album +had not been presented to him, but on the contrary, taken from him +. . . . Then when he had a little recovered and said a few more words +full of feeling and given everyone his hand to shake, he went +downstairs amid loud and joyful cheers, got into his carriage and +drove off, followed by their blessings. As he sat in his carriage +he was aware of a flood of joyous feelings such as he had never +known before, and once more he shed tears. + +At home new delights awaited him. There his family, his friends, +and acquaintances had prepared him such an ovation that it seemed +to him that he really had been of very great service to his country, +and that if he had never existed his country would perhaps have +been in a very bad way. The jubilee dinner was made up of toasts, +speeches, and tears. In short, Zhmyhov had never expected that his +merits would be so warmly appreciated. + +"Gentlemen!" he said before the dessert, "two hours ago I was +recompensed for all the sufferings a man has to undergo who is the +servant, so to say, not of routine, not of the letter, but of duty! +Through the whole duration of my service I have constantly adhered +to the principle;--the public does not exist for us, but we for +the public, and to-day I received the highest reward! My subordinates +presented me with an album . . . see! I was touched." + +Festive faces bent over the album and began examining it. + +"It's a pretty album," said Zhmyhov's daughter Olya, "it must have +cost fifty roubles, I do believe. Oh, it's charming! You must give +me the album, papa, do you hear? I'll take care of it, it's so +pretty." + +After dinner Olya carried off the album to her room and shut it up +in her table drawer. Next day she took the clerks out of it, flung +them on the floor, and put her school friends in their place. The +government uniforms made way for white pelerines. Kolya, his +Excellency's little son, picked up the clerks and painted their +clothes red. Those who had no moustaches he presented with green +moustaches and added brown beards to the beardless. When there was +nothing left to paint he cut the little men out of the card-board, +pricked their eyes with a pin, and began playing soldiers with them. +After cutting out the titular councillor Kraterov, he fixed him on +a match-box and carried him in that state to his father's study. + +"Papa, a monument, look!" + +Zhmyhov burst out laughing, lurched forward, and, looking tenderly +at the child, gave him a warm kiss on the cheek. + +"There, you rogue, go and show mamma; let mamma look too." + + +OH! THE PUBLIC + +"HERE goes, I've done with drinking! Nothing. . . n-o-thing shall +tempt me to it. It's time to take myself in hand; I must buck up +and work. . . You're glad to get your salary, so you must do your +work honestly, heartily, conscientiously, regardless of sleep and +comfort. Chuck taking it easy. You've got into the way of taking a +salary for nothing, my boy--that's not the right thing . . . not +the right thing at all. . . ." + +After administering to himself several such lectures Podtyagin, the +head ticket collector, begins to feel an irresistible impulse to +get to work. It is past one o'clock at night, but in spite of that +he wakes the ticket collectors and with them goes up and down the +railway carriages, inspecting the tickets. + +"T-t-t-ickets . . . P-p-p-please!" he keeps shouting, briskly +snapping the clippers. + +Sleepy figures, shrouded in the twilight of the railway carriages, +start, shake their heads, and produce their tickets. + +"T-t-t-tickets, please!" Podtyagin addresses a second-class passenger, +a lean, scraggy-looking man, wrapped up in a fur coat and a rug and +surrounded with pillows. "Tickets, please!" + +The scraggy-looking man makes no reply. He is buried in sleep. The +head ticket-collector touches him on the shoulder and repeats +impatiently: "T-t-tickets, p-p-please!" + +The passenger starts, opens his eyes, and gazes in alarm at Podtyagin. + +"What? . . . Who? . . . Eh?" + +"You're asked in plain language: t-t-tickets, p-p-please! If you +please!" + +"My God!" moans the scraggy-looking man, pulling a woebegone face. +"Good Heavens! I'm suffering from rheumatism. . . . I haven't slept +for three nights! I've just taken morphia on purpose to get to +sleep, and you . . . with your tickets! It's merciless, it's inhuman! +If you knew how hard it is for me to sleep you wouldn't disturb me +for such nonsense. . . . It's cruel, it's absurd! And what do you +want with my ticket! It's positively stupid!" + +Podtyagin considers whether to take offence or not--and decides +to take offence. + +"Don't shout here! This is not a tavern!" + +"No, in a tavern people are more humane. . ." coughs the passenger. +"Perhaps you'll let me go to sleep another time! It's extraordinary: +I've travelled abroad, all over the place, and no one asked for my +ticket there, but here you're at it again and again, as though the +devil were after you. . . ." + +"Well, you'd better go abroad again since you like it so much." + +"It's stupid, sir! Yes! As though it's not enough killing the +passengers with fumes and stuffiness and draughts, they want to +strangle us with red tape, too, damn it all! He must have the ticket! +My goodness, what zeal! If it were of any use to the company--but +half the passengers are travelling without a ticket!" + +"Listen, sir!" cries Podtyagin, flaring up. "If you don't leave off +shouting and disturbing the public, I shall be obliged to put you +out at the next station and to draw up a report on the incident!" + +"This is revolting!" exclaims "the public," growing indignant. +"Persecuting an invalid! Listen, and have some consideration!" + +"But the gentleman himself was abusive!" says Podtyagin, a little +scared. "Very well. . . . I won't take the ticket . . . as you like +. . . . Only, of course, as you know very well, it's my duty to do +so. . . . If it were not my duty, then, of course. . . You can ask +the station-master . . . ask anyone you like. . . ." + +Podtyagin shrugs his shoulders and walks away from the invalid. At +first he feels aggrieved and somewhat injured, then, after passing +through two or three carriages, he begins to feel a certain uneasiness +not unlike the pricking of conscience in his ticket-collector's +bosom. + +"There certainly was no need to wake the invalid," he thinks, "though +it was not my fault. . . .They imagine I did it wantonly, idly. +They don't know that I'm bound in duty . . . if they don't believe +it, I can bring the station-master to them." A station. The train +stops five minutes. Before the third bell, Podtyagin enters the +same second-class carriage. Behind him stalks the station-master +in a red cap. + +"This gentleman here," Podtyagin begins, "declares that I have no +right to ask for his ticket and . . . and is offended at it. I ask +you, Mr. Station-master, to explain to him. . . . Do I ask for +tickets according to regulation or to please myself? Sir," Podtyagin +addresses the scraggy-looking man, "sir! you can ask the station-master +here if you don't believe me." + +The invalid starts as though he had been stung, opens his eyes, and +with a woebegone face sinks back in his seat. + +"My God! I have taken another powder and only just dozed off when +here he is again. . . again! I beseech you have some pity on me!" + +"You can ask the station-master . . . whether I have the right to +demand your ticket or not." + +"This is insufferable! Take your ticket. . . take it! I'll pay for +five extra if you'll only let me die in peace! Have you never been +ill yourself? Heartless people!" + +"This is simply persecution!" A gentleman in military uniform grows +indignant. "I can see no other explanation of this persistence." + +"Drop it . . ." says the station-master, frowning and pulling +Podtyagin by the sleeve. + +Podtyagin shrugs his shoulders and slowly walks after the station-master. + +"There's no pleasing them!" he thinks, bewildered. "It was for his +sake I brought the station-master, that he might understand and be +pacified, and he . . . swears!" + +Another station. The train stops ten minutes. Before the second +bell, while Podtyagin is standing at the refreshment bar, drinking +seltzer water, two gentlemen go up to him, one in the uniform of +an engineer, and the other in a military overcoat. + +"Look here, ticket-collector!" the engineer begins, addressing +Podtyagin. "Your behaviour to that invalid passenger has revolted +all who witnessed it. My name is Puzitsky; I am an engineer, and +this gentleman is a colonel. If you do not apologize to the passenger, +we shall make a complaint to the traffic manager, who is a friend +of ours." + +"Gentlemen! Why of course I . . . why of course you . . ." Podtyagin +is panic-stricken. + +"We don't want explanations. But we warn you, if you don't apologize, +we shall see justice done to him." + +"Certainly I . . . I'll apologize, of course. . . To be sure. . . ." + +Half an hour later, Podtyagin having thought of an apologetic phrase +which would satisfy the passenger without lowering his own dignity, +walks into the carriage. "Sir," he addresses the invalid. "Listen, +sir. . . ." + +The invalid starts and leaps up: "What?" + +"I . . . what was it? . . . You mustn't be offended. . . ." + +"Och! Water . . ." gasps the invalid, clutching at his heart. "I'd +just taken a third dose of morphia, dropped asleep, and . . . again! +Good God! when will this torture cease!" + +"I only . . . you must excuse . . ." + +"Oh! . . . Put me out at the next station! I can't stand any more +. . . . I . . . I am dying. . . ." + +"This is mean, disgusting!" cry the "public," revolted. "Go away! +You shall pay for such persecution. Get away!" + +Podtyagin waves his hand in despair, sighs, and walks out of the +carriage. He goes to the attendants' compartment, sits down at the +table, exhausted, and complains: + +"Oh, the public! There's no satisfying them! It's no use working +and doing one's best! One's driven to drinking and cursing it all +. . . . If you do nothing--they're angry; if you begin doing your +duty, they're angry too. There's nothing for it but drink!" + +Podtyagin empties a bottle straight off and thinks no more of work, +duty, and honesty! + + +A TRIPPING TONGUE + +NATALYA MIHALOVNA, a young married lady who had arrived in the +morning from Yalta, was having her dinner, and in a never-ceasing +flow of babble was telling her husband of all the charms of the +Crimea. Her husband, delighted, gazed tenderly at her enthusiastic +face, listened, and from time to time put in a question. + +"But they say living is dreadfully expensive there?" he asked, among +other things. + +"Well, what shall I say? To my thinking this talk of its being so +expensive is exaggerated, hubby. The devil is not as black as he +is painted. Yulia Petrovna and I, for instance, had very decent and +comfortable rooms for twenty roubles a day. Everything depends on +knowing how to do things, my dear. Of course if you want to go up +into the mountains . . . to Aie-Petri for instance . . . if you +take a horse, a guide, then of course it does come to something. +It's awful what it comes to! But, Vassitchka, the mountains there! +Imagine high, high mountains, a thousand times higher than the +church. . . . At the top--mist, mist, mist. . . . At the bottom +--enormous stones, stones, stones. . . . And pines. . . . Ah, I +can't bear to think of it!" + +"By the way, I read about those Tatar guides there, in some magazine +while you were away . . . . such abominable stories! Tell me is +there really anything out of the way about them?" + +Natalya Mihalovna made a little disdainful grimace and shook her +head. + +"Just ordinary Tatars, nothing special . . ." she said, "though +indeed I only had a glimpse of them in the distance. They were +pointed out to me, but I did not take much notice of them. You know, +hubby, I always had a prejudice against all such Circassians, Greeks +. . . Moors!" + +"They are said to be terrible Don Juans." + +"Perhaps! There are shameless creatures who . . . ." + +Natalya Mihalovna suddenly jumped up from her chair, as though she +had thought of something dreadful; for half a minute she looked +with frightened eyes at her husband and said, accentuating each +word: + +"Vassitchka, I say, the im-mo-ral women there are in the world! Ah, +how immoral! And it's not as though they were working-class or +middle-class people, but aristocratic ladies, priding themselves +on their _bon-ton!_ It was simply awful, I could not believe my own +eyes! I shall remember it as long as I live! To think that people +can forget themselves to such a point as . . . ach, Vassitchka, I +don't like to speak of it! Take my companion, Yulia Petrovna, for +example. . . . Such a good husband, two children . . . she moves +in a decent circle, always poses as a saint--and all at once, +would you believe it. . . . Only, hubby, of course this is _entre +nous_. . . . Give me your word of honour you won't tell a soul?" + +"What next! Of course I won't tell." + +"Honour bright? Mind now! I trust you. . . ." + +The little lady put down her fork, assumed a mysterious air, and +whispered: + +"Imagine a thing like this. . . . That Yulia Petrovna rode up into +the mountains . . . . It was glorious weather! She rode on ahead +with her guide, I was a little behind. We had ridden two or three +miles, all at once, only fancy, Vassitchka, Yulia cried out and +clutched at her bosom. Her Tatar put his arm round her waist or she +would have fallen off the saddle. . . . I rode up to her with my +guide. . . . 'What is it? What is the matter?' 'Oh,' she cried, 'I +am dying! I feel faint! I can't go any further' Fancy my alarm! +'Let us go back then,' I said. 'No, _Natalie_,' she said, 'I can't +go back! I shall die of pain if I move another step! I have spasms.' +And she prayed and besought my Suleiman and me to ride back to the +town and fetch her some of her drops which always do her good." + +"Stay. . . . I don't quite understand you," muttered the husband, +scratching his forehead. "You said just now that you had only seen +those Tatars from a distance, and now you are talking of some +Suleiman." + +"There, you are finding fault again," the lady pouted, not in the +least disconcerted. "I can't endure suspiciousness! I can't endure +it! It's stupid, stupid!" + +"I am not finding fault, but . . . why say what is not true? If you +rode about with Tatars, so be it, God bless you, but . . . why +shuffle about it?" + +"H'm! . . . you are a queer one!" cried the lady, revolted. "He is +jealous of Suleiman! as though one could ride up into the mountains +without a guide! I should like to see you do it! If you don't know +the ways there, if you don't understand, you had better hold your +tongue! Yes, hold your tongue. You can't take a step there without +a guide." + +"So it seems!" + +"None of your silly grins, if you please! I am not a Yulia. . . . +I don't justify her but I . . . ! Though I don't pose as a saint, +I don't forget myself to that degree. My Suleiman never overstepped +the limits. . . . No-o! Mametkul used to be sitting at Yulia's all +day long, but in my room as soon as it struck eleven: 'Suleiman, +march! Off you go!' And my foolish Tatar boy would depart. I made +him mind his p's and q's, hubby! As soon as he began grumbling about +money or anything, I would say 'How? Wha-at? Wha-a-a-t?' And his +heart would be in his mouth directly. . . . Ha-ha-ha! His eyes, you +know, Vassitchka, were as black, as black, like coals, such an +amusing little Tatar face, so funny and silly! I kept him in order, +didn't I just!" + +"I can fancy . . ." mumbled her husband, rolling up pellets of +bread. + +"That's stupid, Vassitchka! I know what is in your mind! I know +what you are thinking . . . But I assure you even when we were on +our expeditions I never let him overstep the limits. For instance, +if we rode to the mountains or to the U-Chan-Su waterfall, I would +always say to him, 'Suleiman, ride behind! Do you hear!' And he +always rode behind, poor boy. . . . Even when we . . . even at the +most dramatic moments I would say to him, 'Still, you must not +forget that you are only a Tatar and I am the wife of a civil +councillor!' Ha-ha. . . ." + +The little lady laughed, then, looking round her quickly and assuming +an alarmed expression, whispered: + +"But Yulia! Oh, that Yulia! I quite see, Vassitchka, there is no +reason why one shouldn't have a little fun, a little rest from the +emptiness of conventional life! That's all right, have your fling +by all means--no one will blame you, but to take the thing +seriously, to get up scenes . . . no, say what you like, I cannot +understand that! Just fancy, she was jealous! Wasn't that silly? +One day Mametkul, her _grande passion_, came to see her . . . she +was not at home. . . . Well, I asked him into my room . . . there +was conversation, one thing and another . . . they're awfully +amusing, you know! The evening passed without our noticing it. . . . +All at once Yulia rushed in. . . . She flew at me and at Mametkul +--made such a scene . . . fi! I can't understand that sort of +thing, Vassitchka." + +Vassitchka cleared his throat, frowned, and walked up and down the +room. + +"You had a gay time there, I must say," he growled with a disdainful +smile. + +"How stu-upid that is!" cried Natalya Mihalovna, offended. "I know +what you are thinking about! You always have such horrid ideas! I +won't tell you anything! No, I won't!" + +The lady pouted and said no more. + + +OVERDOING IT + +GLYEB GAVRILOVITCH SMIRNOV, a land surveyor, arrived at the station +of Gnilushki. He had another twenty or thirty miles to drive before +he would reach the estate which he had been summoned to survey. (If +the driver were not drunk and the horses were not bad, it would +hardly be twenty miles, but if the driver had had a drop and his +steeds were worn out it would mount up to a good forty.) + +"Tell me, please, where can I get post-horses here?" the surveyor +asked of the station gendarme. + +"What? Post-horses? There's no finding a decent dog for seventy +miles round, let alone post-horses. . . . But where do you want to +go?" + +"To Dyevkino, General Hohotov's estate." + +"Well," yawned the gendarme, "go outside the station, there are +sometimes peasants in the yard there, they will take passengers." + +The surveyor heaved a sigh and made his way out of the station. + +There, after prolonged enquiries, conversations, and hesitations, +he found a very sturdy, sullen-looking pock-marked peasant, wearing +a tattered grey smock and bark-shoes. + +"You have got a queer sort of cart!" said the surveyor, frowning +as he clambered into the cart. "There is no making out which is the +back and which is the front." + +"What is there to make out? Where the horse's tail is, there's the +front, and where your honour's sitting, there's the back." + +The little mare was young, but thin, with legs planted wide apart +and frayed ears. When the driver stood up and lashed her with a +whip made of cord, she merely shook her head; when he swore at her +and lashed her once more, the cart squeaked and shivered as though +in a fever. After the third lash the cart gave a lurch, after the +fourth, it moved forward. + +"Are we going to drive like this all the way?" asked the surveyor, +violently jolted and marvelling at the capacity of Russian drivers +for combining a slow tortoise-like pace with a jolting that turns +the soul inside out. + +"We shall ge-et there!" the peasant reassured him. "The mare is +young and frisky. . . . Only let her get running and then there is +no stopping her. . . . No-ow, cur-sed brute!" + +It was dusk by the time the cart drove out of the station. On the +surveyor's right hand stretched a dark frozen plain, endless and +boundless. If you drove over it you would certainly get to the other +side of beyond. On the horizon, where it vanished and melted into +the sky, there was the languid glow of a cold autumn sunset. . . . +On the left of the road, mounds of some sort, that might be last +year's stacks or might be a village, rose up in the gathering +darkness. The surveyor could not see what was in front as his whole +field of vision on that side was covered by the broad clumsy back +of the driver. The air was still, but it was cold and frosty. + +"What a wilderness it is here," thought the surveyor, trying to +cover his ears with the collar of his overcoat. "Neither post nor +paddock. If, by ill-luck, one were attacked and robbed no one would +hear you, whatever uproar you made. . . . And the driver is not one +you could depend on. . . . Ugh, what a huge back! A child of nature +like that has only to move a finger and it would be all up with +one! And his ugly face is suspicious and brutal-looking." + +"Hey, my good man!" said the surveyor, "What is your name?" + +"Mine? Klim." + +"Well, Klim, what is it like in your parts here? Not dangerous? Any +robbers on the road?" + +"It is all right, the Lord has spared us. . . . Who should go robbing +on the road?" + +"It's a good thing there are no robbers. But to be ready for anything +I have got three revolvers with me," said the surveyor untruthfully. +"And it doesn't do to trifle with a revolver, you know. One can +manage a dozen robbers. . . ." + +It had become quite dark. The cart suddenly began creaking, squeaking, +shaking, and, as though unwillingly, turned sharply to the left. + +"Where is he taking me to?" the surveyor wondered. "He has been +driving straight and now all at once to the left. I shouldn't wonder +if he'll take me, the rascal, to some den of thieves . . . and. . . . +Things like that do happen." + +"I say," he said, addressing the driver, "so you tell me it's not +dangerous here? That's a pity. . . I like a fight with robbers. . . . +I am thin and sickly-looking, but I have the strength of a bull +. . . . Once three robbers attacked me and what do you think? I gave +one such a dressing that. . . that he gave up his soul to God, you +understand, and the other two were sent to penal servitude in +Siberia. And where I got the strength I can't say. . . . One grips +a strapping fellow of your sort with one hand and . . . wipes him +out." + +Klim looked round at the surveyor, wrinkled up his whole face, and +lashed his horse. + +"Yes . . ." the surveyor went on. "God forbid anyone should tackle +me. The robber would have his bones broken, and, what's more, he +would have to answer for it in the police court too. . . . I know +all the judges and the police captains, I am a man in the Government, +a man of importance. Here I am travelling and the authorities know +. . . they keep a regular watch over me to see no one does me a +mischief. There are policemen and village constables stuck behind +bushes all along the road. . . . Sto . . . sto . . . . stop!" the +surveyor bawled suddenly. "Where have you got to? Where are you +taking me to?" + +"Why, don't you see? It's a forest!" + +"It certainly is a forest," thought the surveyor. "I was frightened! +But it won't do to betray my feelings. . . . He has noticed already +that I am in a funk. Why is it he has taken to looking round at me +so often? He is plotting something for certain. . . . At first he +drove like a snail and now how he is dashing along!" + +"I say, Klim, why are you making the horse go like that?" + +"I am not making her go. She is racing along of herself. . . . Once +she gets into a run there is no means of stopping her. It's no +pleasure to her that her legs are like that." + +"You are lying, my man, I see that you are lying. Only I advise you +not to drive so fast. Hold your horse in a bit. . . . Do you hear? +Hold her in!" + +"What for?" + +"Why . . . why, because four comrades were to drive after me from +the station. We must let them catch us up. . . . They promised to +overtake us in this forest. It will be more cheerful in their +company. . . . They are a strong, sturdy set of fellows. . . . And +each of them has got a pistol. Why do you keep looking round and +fidgeting as though you were sitting on thorns? eh? I, my good +fellow, er . . . my good fellow . . . there is no need to look +around at me . . . there is nothing interesting about me. . . . +Except perhaps the revolvers. Well, if you like I will take them +out and show you. . . ." + +The surveyor made a pretence of feeling in his pockets and at that +moment something happened which he could not have expected with all +his cowardice. Klim suddenly rolled off the cart and ran as fast +as he could go into the forest. + +"Help!" he roared. "Help! Take the horse and the cart, you devil, +only don't take my life. Help!" + +There was the sound of footsteps hurriedly retreating, of twigs +snapping--and all was still. . . . The surveyor had not expected +such a _denouement_. He first stopped the horse and then settled +himself more comfortably in the cart and fell to thinking. + +"He has run off . . . he was scared, the fool. Well, what's to be +done now? I can't go on alone because I don't know the way; besides +they may think I have stolen his horse. . . . What's to be done?" + +"Klim! Klim," he cried. + +"Klim," answered the echo. + +At the thought that he would have to sit through the whole night +in the cold and dark forest and hear nothing but the wolves, the +echo, and the snorting of the scraggy mare, the surveyor began to +have twinges down his spine as though it were being rasped with a +cold file. + +"Klimushka," he shouted. "Dear fellow! Where are you, Klimushka?" + +For two hours the surveyor shouted, and it was only after he was +quite husky and had resigned himself to spending the night in the +forest that a faint breeze wafted the sound of a moan to him. + +"Klim, is it you, dear fellow? Let us go on." + +"You'll mu-ur-der me!" + +"But I was joking, my dear man! I swear to God I was joking! As +though I had revolvers! I told a lie because I was frightened. For +goodness sake let us go on, I am freezing!" + +Klim, probably reflecting that a real robber would have vanished +long ago with the horse and cart, came out of the forest and went +hesitatingly up to his passenger. + +"Well, what were you frightened of, stupid? I . . . I was joking +and you were frightened. Get in!" + +"God be with you, sir," Klim muttered as he clambered into the cart, +"if I had known I wouldn't have taken you for a hundred roubles. I +almost died of fright. . . ." + +Klim lashed at the little mare. The cart swayed. Klim lashed once +more and the cart gave a lurch. After the fourth stroke of the whip +when the cart moved forward, the surveyor hid his ears in his collar +and sank into thought. + +The road and Klim no longer seemed dangerous to him. + + +THE ORATOR + +ONE fine morning the collegiate assessor, Kirill Ivanovitch Babilonov, +who had died of the two afflictions so widely spread in our country, +a bad wife and alcoholism, was being buried. As the funeral procession +set off from the church to the cemetery, one of the deceased's +colleagues, called Poplavsky, got into a cab and galloped off to +find a friend, one Grigory Petrovitch Zapoikin, a man who though +still young had acquired considerable popularity. Zapoikin, as many +of my readers are aware, possesses a rare talent for impromptu +speechifying at weddings, jubilees, and funerals. He can speak +whenever he likes: in his sleep, on an empty stomach, dead drunk +or in a high fever. His words flow smoothly and evenly, like water +out of a pipe, and in abundance; there are far more moving words +in his oratorical dictionary than there are beetles in any restaurant. +He always speaks eloquently and at great length, so much so that +on some occasions, particularly at merchants' weddings, they have +to resort to assistance from the police to stop him. + +"I have come for you, old man!" began Poplavsky, finding him at +home. "Put on your hat and coat this minute and come along. One of +our fellows is dead, we are just sending him off to the other world, +so you must do a bit of palavering by way of farewell to him. . . . +You are our only hope. If it had been one of the smaller fry it +would not have been worth troubling you, but you see it's the +secretary . . . a pillar of the office, in a sense. It's awkward +for such a whopper to be buried without a speech." + +"Oh, the secretary!" yawned Zapoikin. "You mean the drunken one?" + +"Yes. There will be pancakes, a lunch . . . you'll get your cab-fare. +Come along, dear chap. You spout out some rigmarole like a regular +Cicero at the grave and what gratitude you will earn!" + +Zapoikin readily agreed. He ruffled up his hair, cast a shade of +melancholy over his face, and went out into the street with Poplavsky. + +"I know your secretary," he said, as he got into the cab. "A cunning +rogue and a beast--the kingdom of heaven be his--such as you +don't often come across." + +"Come, Grisha, it is not the thing to abuse the dead." + +"Of course not, _aut mortuis nihil bene_, but still he was a rascal." + +The friends overtook the funeral procession and joined it. The +coffin was borne along slowly so that before they reached the +cemetery they were able three times to drop into a tavern and imbibe +a little to the health of the departed. + +In the cemetery came the service by the graveside. The mother-in-law, +the wife, and the sister-in-law in obedience to custom shed many +tears. When the coffin was being lowered into the grave the wife +even shrieked "Let me go with him!" but did not follow her husband +into the grave probably recollecting her pension. Waiting till +everything was quiet again Zapoikin stepped forward, turned his +eyes on all present, and began: + +"Can I believe my eyes and ears? Is it not a terrible dream this +grave, these tear-stained faces, these moans and lamentations? Alas, +it is not a dream and our eyes do not deceive us! He whom we have +only so lately seen, so full of courage, so youthfully fresh and +pure, who so lately before our eyes like an unwearying bee bore his +honey to the common hive of the welfare of the state, he who . . . +he is turned now to dust, to inanimate mirage. Inexorable death has +laid his bony hand upon him at the time when, in spite of his bowed +age, he was still full of the bloom of strength and radiant hopes. +An irremediable loss! Who will fill his place for us? Good government +servants we have many, but Prokofy Osipitch was unique. To the +depths of his soul he was devoted to his honest duty; he did not +spare his strength but worked late at night, and was disinterested, +impervious to bribes. . . . How he despised those who to the detriment +of the public interest sought to corrupt him, who by the seductive +goods of this life strove to draw him to betray his duty! Yes, +before our eyes Prokofy Osipitch would divide his small salary +between his poorer colleagues, and you have just heard yourselves +the lamentations of the widows and orphans who lived upon his alms. +Devoted to good works and his official duty, he gave up the joys +of this life and even renounced the happiness of domestic existence; +as you are aware, to the end of his days he was a bachelor. And who +will replace him as a comrade? I can see now the kindly, shaven +face turned to us with a gentle smile, I can hear now his soft +friendly voice. Peace to thine ashes, Prokofy Osipitch! Rest, honest, +noble toiler!" + +Zapoikin continued while his listeners began whispering together. +His speech pleased everyone and drew some tears, but a good many +things in it seemed strange. In the first place they could not make +out why the orator called the deceased Prokofy Osipitch when his +name was Kirill Ivanovitch. In the second, everyone knew that the +deceased had spent his whole life quarelling with his lawful wife, +and so consequently could not be called a bachelor; in the third, +he had a thick red beard and had never been known to shave, and so +no one could understand why the orator spoke of his shaven face. +The listeners were perplexed; they glanced at each other and shrugged +their shoulders. + +"Prokofy Osipitch," continued the orator, looking with an air of +inspiration into the grave, "your face was plain, even hideous, you +were morose and austere, but we all know that under that outer husk +there beat an honest, friendly heart!" + +Soon the listeners began to observe something strange in the orator +himself. He gazed at one point, shifted about uneasily and began +to shrug his shoulders too. All at once he ceased speaking, and +gaping with astonishment, turned to Poplavsky. + +"I say! he's alive," he said, staring with horror. + +"Who's alive?" + +"Why, Prokofy Osipitch, there he stands, by that tombstone!" + +"He never died! It's Kirill Ivanovitch who's dead." + +"But you told me yourself your secretary was dead." + +"Kirill Ivanovitch was our secretary. You've muddled it, you queer +fish. Prokofy Osipitch was our secretary before, that's true, but +two years ago he was transferred to the second division as head +clerk." + +"How the devil is one to tell?" + +"Why are you stopping? Go on, it's awkward." + +Zapoikin turned to the grave, and with the same eloquence continued +his interrupted speech. Prokofy Osipitch, an old clerk with a +clean-shaven face, was in fact standing by a tombstone. He looked +at the orator and frowned angrily. + +"Well, you have put your foot into it, haven't you!" laughed his +fellow-clerks as they returned from the funeral with Zapoikin. +"Burying a man alive!" + +"It's unpleasant, young man," grumbled Prokofy Osipitch. "Your +speech may be all right for a dead man, but in reference to a living +one it is nothing but sarcasm! Upon my soul what have you been +saying? Disinterested, incorruptible, won't take bribes! Such things +can only be said of the living in sarcasm. And no one asked you, +sir, to expatiate on my face. Plain, hideous, so be it, but why +exhibit my countenance in that public way! It's insulting." + + +MALINGERERS + +MARFA PETROVNA PETCHONKIN, the General's widow, who has been +practising for ten years as a homeopathic doctor, is seeing patients +in her study on one of the Tuesdays in May. On the table before her +lie a chest of homeopathic drugs, a book on homeopathy, and bills +from a homeopathic chemist. On the wall the letters from some +Petersburg homeopath, in Marfa Petrovna's opinion a very celebrated +and great man, hang under glass in a gilt frame, and there also is +a portrait of Father Aristark, to whom the lady owes her salvation +--that is, the renunciation of pernicious allopathy and the knowledge +of the truth. In the vestibule patients are sitting waiting, for +the most part peasants. All but two or three of them are barefoot, +as the lady has given orders that their ill-smelling boots are to +be left in the yard. + +Marfa Petrovna has already seen ten patients when she calls the +eleventh: "Gavrila Gruzd!" + +The door opens and instead of Gavrila Gruzd, Zamuhrishen, a +neighbouring landowner who has sunk into poverty, a little old man +with sour eyes, and with a gentleman's cap under his arm, walks +into the room. He puts down his stick in the corner, goes up to the +lady, and without a word drops on one knee before her. + +"What are you about, Kuzma Kuzmitch?" cries the lady in horror, +flushing crimson. "For goodness sake!" + +"While I live I will not rise," says Zamuhrishen, bending over her +hand. "Let all the world see my homage on my knees, our guardian +angel, benefactress of the human race! Let them! Before the good +fairy who has given me life, guided me into the path of truth, and +enlightened my scepticism I am ready not merely to kneel but to +pass through fire, our miraculous healer, mother of the orphan and +the widowed! I have recovered. I am a new man, enchantress!" + +"I . . . I am very glad . . ." mutters the lady, flushing with +pleasure. "It's so pleasant to hear that. . . Sit down please! Why, +you were so seriously ill that Tuesday." + +"Yes indeed, how ill I was! It's awful to recall it," says Zamuhrishen, +taking a seat. "I had rheumatism in every part and every organ. I +have been in misery for eight years, I've had no rest from it . . . +by day or by night, my benefactress. I have consulted doctors, +and I went to professors at Kazan; I have tried all sorts of +mud-baths, and drunk waters, and goodness knows what I haven't +tried! I have wasted all my substance on doctors, my beautiful lady. +The doctors did me nothing but harm. They drove the disease inwards. +Drive in, that they did, but to drive out was beyond their science. +All they care about is their fees, the brigands; but as for the +benefit of humanity--for that they don't care a straw. They +prescribe some quackery, and you have to drink it. Assassins, that's +the only word for them. If it hadn't been for you, our angel, I +should have been in the grave by now! I went home from you that +Tuesday, looked at the pilules that you gave me then, and wondered +what good there could be in them. Was it possible that those little +grains, scarcely visible, could cure my immense, long-standing +disease? That's what I thought--unbeliever that I was!--and I +smiled; but when I took the pilule--it was instantaneous! It was +as though I had not been ill, or as though it had been lifted off +me. My wife looked at me with her eyes starting out of her head and +couldn't believe it. 'Why, is it you, Kolya?' 'Yes, it is I,' I +said. And we knelt down together before the ikon, and fell to praying +for our angel: 'Send her, O Lord, all that we are feeling!'" + +Zamuhrishen wipes his eyes with his sleeve gets up from his chair, +and shows a disposition to drop on one knee again; but the lady +checks him and makes him sit down. + +"It's not me you must thank," she says, blushing with excitement +and looking enthusiastically at the portrait of Father Aristark. +"It's not my doing. . . . I am only the obedient instrument . . +It's really a miracle. Rheumatism of eight years' standing by one +pilule of scrofuloso!" + +"Excuse me, you were so kind as to give me three pilules. One I +took at dinner and the effect was instantaneous! Another in the +evening, and the third next day; and since then not a touch! Not a +twinge anywhere! And you know I thought I was dying, I had written +to Moscow for my son to come! The Lord has given you wisdom, our +lady of healing! Now I am walking, and feel as though I were in +Paradise. The Tuesday I came to you I was hobbling, and now I am +ready to run after a hare. . . . I could live for a hundred years. +There's only one trouble, our lack of means. I'm well now, but +what's the use of health if there's nothing to live on? Poverty +weighs on me worse than illness. . . . For example, take this . . . +It's the time to sow oats, and how is one to sow it if one has +no seed? I ought to buy it, but the money . . . everyone knows how +we are off for money. . . ." + +"I will give you oats, Kuzma Kuzmitch. . . . Sit down, sit down. +You have so delighted me, you have given me so much pleasure that +it's not you but I that should say thank you!" + +"You are our joy! That the Lord should create such goodness! Rejoice, +Madam, looking at your good deeds! . . . While we sinners have no +cause for rejoicing in ourselves. . . . We are paltry, poor-spirited, +useless people . . . a mean lot. . . . We are only gentry in name, +but in a material sense we are the same as peasants, only worse. . . . +We live in stone houses, but it's a mere make-believe . . . for +the roof leaks. And there is no money to buy wood to mend it with." + +"I'll give you the wood, Kuzma Kuzmitch." + +Zamuhrishen asks for and gets a cow too, a letter of recommendation +for his daughter whom he wants to send to a boarding school, and +. . . touched by the lady's liberality he whimpers with excess of +feeling, twists his mouth, and feels in his pocket for his handkerchief +. . . . + +Marfa Petrovna sees a red paper slip out of his pocket with his +handkerchief and fall noiselessly to the floor. + +"I shall never forget it to all eternity . . ." he mutters, "and I +shall make my children and my grandchildren remember it . . . from +generation to generation. 'See, children,' I shall say, 'who has +saved me from the grave, who . . .'" + +When she has seen her patient out, the lady looks for a minute at +Father Aristark with eyes full of tears, then turns her caressing, +reverent gaze on the drug chest, the books, the bills, the armchair +in which the man she had saved from death has just been sitting, +and her eyes fall on the paper just dropped by her patient. She +picks up the paper, unfolds it, and sees in it three pilules--the +very pilules she had given Zamuhrishen the previous Tuesday. + +"They are the very ones," she thinks puzzled. ". . . The paper is +the same. . . . He hasn't even unwrapped them! What has he taken +then? Strange. . . . Surely he wouldn't try to deceive me!" + +And for the first time in her ten years of practice a doubt creeps +into Marfa Petrovna's mind. . . . She summons the other patients, +and while talking to them of their complaints notices what has +hitherto slipped by her ears unnoticed. The patients, every one of +them as though they were in a conspiracy, first belaud her for their +miraculous cure, go into raptures over her medical skill, and abuse +allopath doctors, then when she is flushed with excitement, begin +holding forth on their needs. One asks for a bit of land to plough, +another for wood, a third for permission to shoot in her forests, +and so on. She looks at the broad, benevolent countenance of Father +Aristark who has revealed the truth to her, and a new truth begins +gnawing at her heart. An evil oppressive truth. . . . + +The deceitfulness of man! + + +IN THE GRAVEYARD + +"THE wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning to get dark. +Hadn't we better take ourselves off before it gets worse?" + +The wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of the old birch +trees, and a shower of thick drops fell upon us from the leaves. +One of our party slipped on the clayey soil, and clutched at a big +grey cross to save himself from falling. + +"Yegor Gryaznorukov, titular councillor and cavalier . ." he read. +"I knew that gentleman. He was fond of his wife, he wore the Stanislav +ribbon, and read nothing. . . . His digestion worked well . . . . +life was all right, wasn't it? One would have thought he had no +reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him. . . . The poor +fellow fell a victim to his habits of observation. On one occasion, +when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head +from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had a +brain), and died. And here, under this tombstone, lies a man who +from his cradle detested verses and epigrams. . . . As though to +mock him his whole tombstone is adorned with verses. . . . There +is someone coming!" + +A man in a shabby overcoat, with a shaven, bluish-crimson countenance, +overtook us. He had a bottle under his arm and a parcel of sausage +was sticking out of his pocket. + +"Where is the grave of Mushkin, the actor?" he asked us in a husky +voice. + +We conducted him towards the grave of Mushkin, the actor, who had +died two years before. + +"You are a government clerk, I suppose?" we asked him. + +"No, an actor. Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish actors from +clerks of the Consistory. No doubt you have noticed that. . . . +That's typical, but it's not very flattering for the government +clerk." + +It was with difficulty that we found the actor's grave. It had +sunken, was overgrown with weeds, and had lost all appearance of a +grave. A cheap, little cross that had begun to rot, and was covered +with green moss blackened by the frost, had an air of aged dejection +and looked, as it were, ailing. + +". . . forgotten friend Mushkin . . ." we read. + +Time had erased the _never_, and corrected the falsehood of man. + +"A subscription for a monument to him was got up among actors and +journalists, but they drank up the money, the dear fellows . . ." +sighed the actor, bowing down to the ground and touching the wet +earth with his knees and his cap. + +"How do you mean, drank it?" + +That's very simple. They collected the money, published a paragraph +about it in the newspaper, and spent it on drink. . . . I don't say +it to blame them. . . . I hope it did them good, dear things! Good +health to them, and eternal memory to him." + +"Drinking means bad health, and eternal memory nothing but sadness. +God give us remembrance for a time, but eternal memory--what +next!" + +"You are right there. Mushkin was a well-known man, you see; there +were a dozen wreaths on the coffin, and he is already forgotten. +Those to whom he was dear have forgotten him, but those to whom he +did harm remember him. I, for instance, shall never, never forget +him, for I got nothing but harm from him. I have no love for the +deceased." + +"What harm did he do you?" + +"Great harm," sighed the actor, and an expression of bitter resentment +overspread his face. "To me he was a villain and a scoundrel--the +Kingdom of Heaven be his! It was through looking at him and listening +to him that I became an actor. By his art he lured me from the +parental home, he enticed me with the excitements of an actor's +life, promised me all sorts of things--and brought tears and +sorrow. . . . An actor's lot is a bitter one! I have lost youth, +sobriety, and the divine semblance. . . . I haven't a half-penny +to bless myself with, my shoes are down at heel, my breeches are +frayed and patched, and my face looks as if it had been gnawed by +dogs. . . . My head's full of freethinking and nonsense. . . . He +robbed me of my faith--my evil genius! It would have been something +if I had had talent, but as it is, I am ruined for nothing. . . . +It's cold, honoured friends. . . . Won't you have some? There is +enough for all. . . . B-r-r-r. . . . Let us drink to the rest of +his soul! Though I don't like him and though he's dead, he was the +only one I had in the world, the only one. It's the last time I +shall visit him. . . . The doctors say I shall soon die of drink, +so here I have come to say good-bye. One must forgive one's enemies." + +We left the actor to converse with the dead Mushkin and went on. +It began drizzling a fine cold rain. + +At the turning into the principal avenue strewn with gravel, we met +a funeral procession. Four bearers, wearing white calico sashes and +muddy high boots with leaves sticking on them, carried the brown +coffin. It was getting dark and they hastened, stumbling and shaking +their burden. . . . + +"We've only been walking here for a couple of hours and that is the +third brought in already. . . . Shall we go home, friends?" + + +HUSH! + +IVAN YEGORITCH KRASNYHIN, a fourth-rate journalist, returns home +late at night, grave and careworn, with a peculiar air of concentration. +He looks like a man expecting a police-raid or contemplating suicide. +Pacing about his rooms he halts abruptly, ruffles up his hair, and +says in the tone in which Laertes announces his intention of avenging +his sister: + +"Shattered, soul-weary, a sick load of misery on the heart . . . +and then to sit down and write. And this is called life! How is it +nobody has described the agonizing discord in the soul of a writer +who has to amuse the crowd when his heart is heavy or to shed tears +at the word of command when his heart is light? I must be playful, +coldly unconcerned, witty, but what if I am weighed down with misery, +what if I am ill, or my child is dying or my wife in anguish!" + +He says this, brandishing his fists and rolling his eyes. . . . +Then he goes into the bedroom and wakes his wife. + +"Nadya," he says, "I am sitting down to write. . . . Please don't +let anyone interrupt me. I can't write with children crying or cooks +snoring. . . . See, too, that there's tea and . . . steak or +something. . . . You know that I can't write without tea. . . . Tea +is the one thing that gives me the energy for my work." + +Returning to his room he takes off his coat, waistcoat, and boots. +He does this very slowly; then, assuming an expression of injured +innocence, he sits down to his table. + +There is nothing casual, nothing ordinary on his writing-table, +down to the veriest trifle everything bears the stamp of a stern, +deliberately planned programme. Little busts and photographs of +distinguished writers, heaps of rough manuscripts, a volume of +Byelinsky with a page turned down, part of a skull by way of an +ash-tray, a sheet of newspaper folded carelessly, but so that a +passage is uppermost, boldly marked in blue pencil with the word +"disgraceful." There are a dozen sharply-pointed pencils and several +penholders fitted with new nibs, put in readiness that no accidental +breaking of a pen may for a single second interrupt the flight of +his creative fancy. + +Ivan Yegoritch throws himself back in his chair, and closing his +eyes concentrates himself on his subject. He hears his wife shuffling +about in her slippers and splitting shavings to heat the samovar. +She is hardly awake, that is apparent from the way the knife and +the lid of the samovar keep dropping from her hands. Soon the hissing +of the samovar and the spluttering of the frying meat reaches him. +His wife is still splitting shavings and rattling with the doors +and blowers of the stove. + +All at once Ivan Yegoritch starts, opens frightened eyes, and begins +to sniff the air. + +"Heavens! the stove is smoking!" he groans, grimacing with a face +of agony. "Smoking! That insufferable woman makes a point of trying +to poison me! How, in God's Name, am I to write in such surroundings, +kindly tell me that?" + +He rushes into the kitchen and breaks into a theatrical wail. When +a little later, his wife, stepping cautiously on tiptoe, brings him +in a glass of tea, he is sitting in an easy chair as before with +his eyes closed, absorbed in his article. He does not stir, drums +lightly on his forehead with two fingers, and pretends he is not +aware of his wife's presence. . . . His face wears an expression +of injured innocence. + +Like a girl who has been presented with a costly fan, he spends a +long time coquetting, grimacing, and posing to himself before he +writes the title. . . . He presses his temples, he wriggles, and +draws his legs up under his chair as though he were in pain, or +half closes his eyes languidly like a cat on the sofa. At last, not +without hesitation, he stretches out his hand towards the inkstand, +and with an expression as though he were signing a death-warrant, +writes the title. . . . + +"Mammy, give me some water!" he hears his son's voice. + +"Hush!" says his mother. "Daddy's writing! Hush!" + +Daddy writes very, very quickly, without corrections or pauses, he +has scarcely time to turn over the pages. The busts and portraits +of celebrated authors look at his swiftly racing pen and, keeping +stock still, seem to be thinking: "Oh my, how you are going it!" + +"Sh!" squeaks the pen. + +"Sh!" whisper the authors, when his knee jolts the table and they +are set trembling. + +All at once Krasnyhin draws himself up, lays down his pen and +listens. . . . He hears an even monotonous whispering. . . . It is +Foma Nikolaevitch, the lodger in the next room, saying his prayers. + +"I say!" cries Krasnyhin. "Couldn't you, please, say your prayers +more quietly? You prevent me from writing!" + +"Very sorry. . . ." Foma Nikolaevitch answers timidly. + +After covering five pages, Krasnyhin stretches and looks at his +watch. + +"Goodness, three o'clock already," he moans. "Other people are +asleep while I . . . I alone must work!" + +Shattered and exhausted he goes, with his head on one side, to the +bedroom to wake his wife, and says in a languid voice: + +"Nadya, get me some more tea! I . . . feel weak." + +He writes till four o'clock and would readily have written till six +if his subject had not been exhausted. Coquetting and posing to +himself and the inanimate objects about him, far from any indiscreet, +critical eye, tyrannizing and domineering over the little anthill +that fate has put in his power are the honey and the salt of his +existence. And how different is this despot here at home from the +humble, meek, dull-witted little man we are accustomed to see in +the editor's offices! + +"I am so exhausted that I am afraid I shan't sleep . . ." he says +as he gets into bed. "Our work, this cursed, ungrateful hard labour, +exhausts the soul even more than the body. . . . I had better take +some bromide. . . . God knows, if it were not for my family I'd +throw up the work. . . . To write to order! It is awful." + +He sleeps till twelve or one o'clock in the day, sleeps a sound, +healthy sleep. . . . Ah! how he would sleep, what dreams he would +have, how he would spread himself if he were to become a well-known +writer, an editor, or even a sub-editor! + +"He has been writing all night," whispers his wife with a scared +expression on her face. "Sh!" + +No one dares to speak or move or make a sound. His sleep is something +sacred, and the culprit who offends against it will pay dearly for +his fault. + +"Hush!" floats over the flat. "Hush!" + + +IN AN HOTEL + +"LET me tell you, my good man," began Madame Nashatyrin, the colonel's +lady at No. 47, crimson and spluttering, as she pounced on the +hotel-keeper. "Either give me other apartments, or I shall leave +your confounded hotel altogether! It's a sink of iniquity! Mercy +on us, I have grown-up daughters and one hears nothing but abominations +day and night! It's beyond everything! Day and night! Sometimes he +fires off such things that it simply makes one's ears blush! +Positively like a cabman. It's a good thing that my poor girls don't +understand or I should have to fly out into the street with them. . . +He's saying something now! You listen!" + +"I know a thing better than that, my boy," a husky bass floated in +from the next room. "Do you remember Lieutenant Druzhkov? Well, +that same Druzhkov was one day making a drive with the yellow into +the pocket and as he usually did, you know, flung up his leg. . . . +All at once something went crrr-ack! At first they thought he had +torn the cloth of the billiard table, but when they looked, my dear +fellow, his United States had split at every seam! He had made such +a high kick, the beast, that not a seam was left. . . . Ha-ha-ha, +and there were ladies present, too . . . among others the wife of +that drivelling Lieutenant Okurin. . . . Okurin was furious. . . . +'How dare the fellow,' said he, 'behave with impropriety in the +presence of my wife?' One thing led to another . . . you know our +fellows! . . . Okurin sent seconds to Druzhkov, and Druzhkov said +'don't be a fool' . . . ha-ha-ha, 'but tell him he had better send +seconds not to me but to the tailor who made me those breeches; it +is his fault, you know.' Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha. . . ." + +Lilya and Mila, the colonel's daughters, who were sitting in the +window with their round cheeks propped on their fists, flushed +crimson and dropped their eyes that looked buried in their plump +faces. + +"Now you have heard him, haven't you?" Madame Nashatyrin went on, +addressing the hotel-keeper. "And that, you consider, of no +consequence, I suppose? I am the wife of a colonel, sir! My husband +is a commanding officer. I will not permit some cabman to utter +such infamies almost in my presence!" + +"He is not a cabman, madam, but the staff-captain Kikin. . . . A +gentleman born." + +"If he has so far forgotten his station as to express himself like +a cabman, then he is even more deserving of contempt! In short, +don't answer me, but kindly take steps!" + +"But what can I do, madam? You are not the only one to complain, +everybody's complaining, but what am I to do with him? One goes to +his room and begins putting him to shame, saying: 'Hannibal Ivanitch, +have some fear of God! It's shameful! and he'll punch you in the +face with his fists and say all sorts of things: 'there, put that +in your pipe and smoke it,' and such like. It's a disgrace! He wakes +up in the morning and sets to walking about the corridor in nothing, +saving your presence, but his underclothes. And when he has had a +drop he will pick up a revolver and set to putting bullets into the +wall. By day he is swilling liquor and at night he plays cards like +mad, and after cards it is fighting. . . . I am ashamed for the +other lodgers to see it!" + +"Why don't you get rid of the scoundrel?" + +"Why, there's no getting him out! He owes me for three months, but +we don't ask for our money, we simply ask him to get out as a favour +. . . . The magistrate has given him an order to clear out of the +rooms, but he's taking it from one court to another, and so it drags +on. . . . He's a perfect nuisance, that's what he is. And, good +Lord, such a man, too! Young, good-looking and intellectual. . . . +When he hasn't had a drop you couldn't wish to see a nicer gentleman. +The other day he wasn't drunk and he spent the whole day writing +letters to his father and mother." + +"Poor father and mother!" sighed the colonel's lady. + +"They are to be pitied, to be sure! There's no comfort in having +such a scamp! He's sworn at and turned out of his lodgings, and not +a day passes but he is in trouble over some scandal. It's sad!" + +"His poor unhappy wife!" sighed the lady. + +"He has no wife, madam. A likely idea! She would have to thank God +if her head were not broken. . . ." + +The lady walked up and down the room. + +"He is not married, you say?" + +"Certainly not, madam." + +The lady walked up and down the room again and mused a little. + +"H'm, not married . . ." she pronounced meditatively. "H'm. Lilya +and Mila, don't sit at the window, there's a draught! What a pity! +A young man and to let himself sink to this! And all owing to what? +The lack of good influence! There is no mother who would. . . . Not +married? Well . . . there it is. . . . Please be so good," the lady +continued suavely after a moment's thought, "as to go to him and +ask him in my name to . . . refrain from using expressions. . . . +Tell him that Madame Nashatyrin begs him. . . . Tell him she is +staying with her daughters in No. 47 . . . that she has come up +from her estate in the country. . . ." + +"Certainly." + +"Tell him, a colonel's lady and her daughters. He might even come +and apologize. . . . We are always at home after dinner. Oh, Mila, +shut the window!" + +"Why, what do you want with that . . . black sheep, mamma?" drawled +Lilya when the hotel-keeper had retired. "A queer person to invite! +A drunken, rowdy rascal!" + +"Oh, don't say so, ma chere! You always talk like that; and there +. . . sit down! Why, whatever he may be, we ought not to despise +him. . . . There's something good in everyone. Who knows," sighed +the colonel's lady, looking her daughters up and down anxiously, +"perhaps your fate is here. Change your dresses anyway. . . ." + + +IN A STRANGE LAND + +SUNDAY, midday. A landowner, called Kamyshev, is sitting in his +dining-room, deliberately eating his lunch at a luxuriously furnished +table. Monsieur Champoun, a clean, neat, smoothly-shaven, old +Frenchman, is sharing the meal with him. This Champoun had once +been a tutor in Kamyshev's household, had taught his children good +manners, the correct pronunciation of French, and dancing: afterwards +when Kamyshev's children had grown up and become lieutenants, +Champoun had become something like a _bonne_ of the male sex. The +duties of the former tutor were not complicated. He had to be +properly dressed, to smell of scent, to listen to Kamyshev's idle +babble, to eat and drink and sleep--and apparently that was all. +For this he received a room, his board, and an indefinite salary. + +Kamyshev eats and as usual babbles at random. + +"Damnation!" he says, wiping away the tears that have come into his +eyes after a mouthful of ham thickly smeared with mustard. "Ough! +It has shot into my head and all my joints. Your French mustard +would not do that, you know, if you ate the whole potful." + +"Some like the French, some prefer the Russian. . ." Champoun assents +mildly. + +"No one likes French mustard except Frenchmen. And a Frenchman will +eat anything, whatever you give him--frogs and rats and black +beetles. . . brrr! You don't like that ham, for instance, because +it is Russian, but if one were to give you a bit of baked glass and +tell you it was French, you would eat it and smack your lips. . . . +To your thinking everything Russian is nasty." + +"I don't say that." + +"Everything Russian is nasty, but if it's French--o say tray +zholee! To your thinking there is no country better than France, +but to my mind. . . Why, what is France, to tell the truth about +it? A little bit of land. Our police captain was sent out there, +but in a month he asked to be transferred: there was nowhere to +turn round! One can drive round the whole of your France in one +day, while here when you drive out of the gate--you can see no +end to the land, you can ride on and on. . ." + +"Yes, monsieur, Russia is an immense country." + +"To be sure it is! To your thinking there are no better people than +the French. Well-educated, clever people! Civilization! I agree, +the French are all well-educated with elegant manners. . . that is +true. . . . A Frenchman never allows himself to be rude: he hands +a lady a chair at the right minute, he doesn't eat crayfish with +his fork, he doesn't spit on the floor, but . . . there's not the +same spirit in him! not the spirit in him! I don't know how to +explain it to you but, however one is to express it, there's nothing +in a Frenchman of . . . something . . . (the speaker flourishes his +fingers) . . . of something . . . fanatical. I remember I have read +somewhere that all of you have intelligence acquired from books, +while we Russians have innate intelligence. If a Russian studies +the sciences properly, none of your French professors is a match +for him." + +"Perhaps," says Champoun, as it were reluctantly. + +"No, not perhaps, but certainly! It's no use your frowning, it's +the truth I am speaking. The Russian intelligence is an inventive +intelligence. Only of course he is not given a free outlet for it, +and he is no hand at boasting. He will invent something--and break +it or give it to the children to play with, while your Frenchman +will invent some nonsensical thing and make an uproar for all the +world to hear it. The other day Iona the coachman carved a little +man out of wood, if you pull the little man by a thread he plays +unseemly antics. But Iona does not brag of it. . . . I don't like +Frenchmen as a rule. I am not referring to you, but speaking +generally. . . . They are an immoral people! Outwardly they look +like men, but they live like dogs. Take marriage for instance. With +us, once you are married, you stick to your wife, and there is no +talk about it, but goodness knows how it is with you. The husband +is sitting all day long in a cafe, while his wife fills the house +with Frenchmen, and sets to dancing the can-can with them." + +"That's not true!" Champoun protests, flaring up and unable to +restrain himself. "The principle of the family is highly esteemed +in France." + +"We know all about that principle! You ought to be ashamed to defend +it: one ought to be impartial: a pig is always a pig. . . . We must +thank the Germans for having beaten them. . . . Yes indeed, God +bless them for it." + +"In that case, monsieur, I don't understand. . ." says the Frenchman +leaping up with flashing eyes, "if you hate the French why do you +keep me?" + +"What am I to do with you?" + +"Let me go, and I will go back to France." + +"Wha-at? But do you suppose they would let you into France now? +Why, you are a traitor to your country! At one time Napoleon's your +great man, at another Gambetta. . . . Who the devil can make you +out?" + +"Monsieur," says Champoun in French, spluttering and crushing up +his table napkin in his hands, "my worst enemy could not have thought +of a greater insult than the outrage you have just done to my +feelings! All is over!" + +And with a tragic wave of his arm the Frenchman flings his dinner +napkin on the table majestically, and walks out of the room with +dignity. + +Three hours later the table is laid again, and the servants bring +in the dinner. Kamyshev sits alone at the table. After the preliminary +glass he feels a craving to babble. He wants to chatter, but he has +no listener. + +"What is Alphonse Ludovikovitch doing?" he asks the footman. + +"He is packing his trunk, sir." + +"What a noodle! Lord forgive us!" says Kamyshev, and goes in to the +Frenchman. + +Champoun is sitting on the floor in his room, and with trembling +hands is packing in his trunk his linen, scent bottles, prayer-books, +braces, ties. . . . All his correct figure, his trunk, his bedstead +and the table--all have an air of elegance and effeminacy. Great +tears are dropping from his big blue eyes into the trunk. + +"Where are you off to?" asks Kamyshev, after standing still for a +little. + +The Frenchman says nothing. + +"Do you want to go away?" Kamyshev goes on. "Well, you know, but +. . . I won't venture to detain you. But what is queer is, how are +you going to travel without a passport? I wonder! You know I have +lost your passport. I thrust it in somewhere between some papers, +and it is lost. . . . And they are strict about passports among us. +Before you have gone three or four miles they pounce upon you." + +Champoun raises his head and looks mistrustfully at Kamyshev. + +"Yes. . . . You will see! They will see from your face you haven't +a passport, and ask at once: Who is that? Alphonse Champoun. We +know that Alphonse Champoun. Wouldn't you like to go under police +escort somewhere nearer home!" + +"Are you joking?" + +"What motive have I for joking? Why should I? Only mind now; it's +a compact, don't you begin whining then and writing letters. I won't +stir a finger when they lead you by in fetters!" + +Champoun jumps up and, pale and wide-eyed, begins pacing up and +down the room. + +"What are you doing to me?" he says in despair, clutching at his +head. "My God! accursed be that hour when the fatal thought of +leaving my country entered my head! . . ." + +"Come, come, come . . . I was joking!" says Kamyshev in a lower +tone. "Queer fish he is; he doesn't understand a joke. One can't +say a word!" + +"My dear friend!" shrieks Champoun, reassured by Kamyshev's tone. +"I swear I am devoted to Russia, to you and your children. . . . +To leave you is as bitter to me as death itself! But every word you +utter stabs me to the heart!" + +"Ah, you queer fish! If I do abuse the French, what reason have you +to take offence? You are a queer fish really! You should follow the +example of Lazar Isaakitch, my tenant. I call him one thing and +another, a Jew, and a scurvy rascal, and I make a pig's ear out of +my coat tail, and catch him by his Jewish curls. He doesn't take +offence." + +"But he is a slave! For a kopeck he is ready to put up with any +insult!" + +"Come, come, come . . . that's enough! Peace and concord!" + +Champoun powders his tear-stained face and goes with Kamyshev to +the dining-room. The first course is eaten in silence, after the +second the same performance begins over again, and so Champoun's +sufferings have no end. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Schoolmaster and Other Stories, +by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCHOOLMASTER *** + +***** This file should be named 13412.txt or 13412.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13412/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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