Part 14

“Why don’t you sell it?” he finally asked the actor. “A neighbor of mine, an old lady, deals in such things, and she will pay you a good price for it. An old woman by the name of Smirnoff, the whole town knows her.”

Shashkin obeyed.

* * * * *

Two days later Dr. Koshelkoff sat peacefully in his study, enjoying his pipe and thinking of things medical, when suddenly the door of his room flew open, and Alexander Smirnoff burst upon his sight. His face beamed with joy, he fairly shone, and his whole body breathed inexpressible content.

In his hands he held an object wrapped in a newspaper.

“Doctor,” he began breathlessly, “imagine my joy! What good fortune! Luckily for you my mother has succeeded in obtaining a companion piece to your candelabrum. You now have the pair complete. Mother is so happy. I am her only son, you know. You saved my life.”

Trembling with joy and with excess of gratitude, young Smirnoff placed the candelabrum before the doctor. The physician opened his mouth, attempted to say something, but the power of speech failed him--and he said nothing.

THE SLANDERER BY ANTON CHEKHOV

Translated by Herman Bernstein. Copyright, 1901, by the Globe and Commercial Advertiser.

Sergey Kapitonich Akhineyev, the teacher of calligraphy, gave his daughter Natalya in marriage to the teacher of history and geography, Iván Petrovich Loshadinikh. The wedding feast went on swimmingly. They sang, played, and danced in the parlor. Waiters, hired for the occasion from the club, bustled about hither and thither like madmen, in black frock coats and soiled white neckties. A loud noise of voices smote the air. From the outside people looked in at the windows--their social standing gave them no right to enter.

Just at midnight the host, Akhineyev, made his way to the kitchen to see whether everything was ready for the supper. The kitchen was filled with smoke from the floor to the ceiling; the smoke reeked with the odors of geese, ducks, and many other things. Victuals and beverages were scattered about on two tables in artistic disorder. Marfa, the cook, a stout, red-faced woman, was busying herself near the loaded tables.

“Show me the sturgeon, dear,” said Akhineyev, rubbing his hands and licking his lips. “What a fine odor! I could just devour the whole kitchen! Well, let me see the sturgeon!”

Marfa walked up to one of the benches and carefully lifted a greasy newspaper. Beneath that paper, in a huge dish, lay a big fat sturgeon, amid capers, olives, and carrots. Akhineyev glanced at the sturgeon and heaved a sigh of relief. His face became radiant, his eyes rolled. He bent down, and, smacking his lips, gave vent to a sound like a creaking wheel. He stood a while, then snapped his fingers for pleasure, and smacked his lips once more.

“Bah! The sound of a hearty kiss. Whom have you been kissing there, Marfusha?” some one’s voice was heard from the adjoining room, and soon the closely cropped head of Vankin, the assistant school instructor, appeared in the doorway. “Whom have you been kissing here? A-a-ah! Very good! Sergey Kapitonich! A fine old man indeed! With the female sex tête-à-tête!”

“I wasn’t kissing at all,” said Akhineyev, confused; “who told you, you fool? I only--smacked my lips on account of--in consideration of my pleasure--at the sight of the fish.”

“Tell that to some one else, not to me!” exclaimed Vankin, whose face expanded into a broad smile as he disappeared behind the door. Akhineyev blushed.

“The devil knows what may be the outcome of this!” he thought. “He’ll go about tale-bearing now, the rascal. He’ll disgrace me before the whole town, the brute!”

Akhineyev entered the parlor timidly and cast furtive glances to see what Vankin was doing. Vankin stood near the piano and, deftly bending down, whispered something to the inspector’s sister-in-law, who was laughing.

“That’s about me!” thought Akhineyev. “About me, the devil take him! She believes him, she’s laughing. My God! No, that mustn’t be left like that. No. I’ll have to fix it so that no one shall believe him. I’ll speak to all of them, and he’ll remain a foolish gossip in the end.”

Akhineyev scratched his head, and, still confused, walked up to Padekoi.

“I was in the kitchen a little while ago, arranging things there for the supper,” he said to the Frenchman. “You like fish, I know, and I have a sturgeon just so big. About two yards. Ha, ha, ha! Yes, by the way, I have almost forgotten. There was a real anecdote about that sturgeon in the kitchen. I entered the kitchen a little while ago and wanted to examine the food. I glanced at the sturgeon and for pleasure, I smacked my lips--it was so piquant! And just at that moment the fool Vankin entered and says--ha, ha, ha--and says: ‘A-a! A-a-ah! You have been kissing here?’--with Marfa; just think of it--with the cook! What a piece of invention, that blockhead. The woman is ugly, she looks like a monkey, and he says we were kissing. What a queer fellow!”

“Who’s a queer fellow?” asked Tarantulov, as he approached them.

“I refer to Vankin. I went out into the kitchen--”

The story of Marfa and the sturgeon was repeated.

“That makes me laugh. What a queer fellow he is. In my opinion it is more pleasant to kiss the dog than to kiss Marfa,” added Akhineyev, and, turning around, he noticed Mzda.

“We have been speaking about Vankin,” he said to him. “What a queer fellow. He entered the kitchen and noticed me standing beside Marfa, and immediately he began to invent different stories. ‘What?’ he says, ‘you have been kissing each other!’ He was drunk, so he must have been dreaming. ‘And I,’ I said, ‘I would rather kiss a duck than kiss Marfa. And I have a wife,’ said I, ‘you fool.’ He made me appear ridiculous.”

“Who made you appear ridiculous?” inquired the teacher of religion, addressing Akhineyev.

“Vankin. I was standing in the kitchen, you know, and looking at the sturgeon--” And so forth. In about half an hour all the guests knew the story about Vankin and the sturgeon.

“Now let him tell,” thought Akhineyev, rubbing his hands. “Let him do it. He’ll start to tell them, and they’ll cut him short: ‘Don’t talk nonsense, you fool! We know all about it.’”

And Akhineyev felt so much appeased that, for joy, he drank four glasses of brandy over and above his fill. Having escorted his daughter to her room, he went to his own and soon slept the sleep of an innocent child, and on the following day he no longer remembered the story of the sturgeon. But, alas! Man proposes and God disposes. The evil tongue does its wicked work, and even Akhineyev’s cunning did not do him any good. One week later, on a Wednesday, after the third lesson, when Akhineyev stood in the teachers’ room and discussed the vicious inclinations of the pupil Visyekin, the director approached him, and, beckoning to him, called him aside.

“See here, Sergey Kapitonich,” said the director. “Pardon me. It isn’t my affair, yet I must make it clear to you, nevertheless. It is my duty--You see, rumors are on foot that you are on intimate terms with that woman--with your cook--It isn’t my affair, but--You may be on intimate terms with her, you may kiss her--You may do whatever you like, but, please, don’t do it so openly! I beg of you. Don’t forget that you are a pedagogue.”

Akhineyev stood as though frozen and petrified. Like one stung by a swarm of bees and scalded with boiling water, he went home. On his way it seemed to him as though the whole town stared at him as at one besmeared with tar--At home new troubles awaited him.

“Why don’t you eat anything?” asked his wife at their dinner. “What are you thinking about? Are you thinking about Cupid, eh? You are longing for Marfushka. I know everything already, you Mahomet. Kind people have opened my eyes, you barbarian!”

And she slapped him on the cheek.

He rose from the table, and staggering, without cap or coat, directed his footsteps toward Vankin. The latter was at home.

“You rascal!” he said to Vankin. “Why have you covered me with mud before the whole world? Why have you slandered me?”

“How; what slander? What are you inventing?”

“And who told everybody that I was kissing Marfa? Not you, perhaps? Not you, you murderer?”

Vankin began to blink his eyes, and all the fibres of his face began to quiver. He lifted his eyes toward the image and ejaculated:

“May God punish me, may I lose my eyesight and die, if I said even a single word about you to any one! May I have neither house nor home!”

Vankin’s sincerity admitted of no doubt. It was evident that it was not he who had gossiped.

“But who was it? Who?” Akhineyev asked himself, going over in his mind all his acquaintances, and striking his chest. “Who was it?”

FAUST

BY EUGENE NIKOLAIEVITCH CHIRIKOV

_Chirikov was born in 1864. He comes of a noble family from the Province of Smibirsk. Though he began to write while still a law student and worked a long time for the provincial press, his real literary career dates from 1893._

_In later years Chirikov abandoned his didactic themes and devoted himself entirely to purely psychological studies of provincial life which he knows so well and of which “Faust” is a good example._

_One of his plays, “The Chosen People,” was produced in America by the Orleniev Company of Russian actors, of which Mme. Nazimova was a member._

FAUST BY EUGENE CHIRIKOV

Translated by Lizzie B. Gorin. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.

When Iván Mikhailovich awoke one morning, the whole household was already long up, and from the distance came the ringing voices of the children, the rattling of the breakfast dishes, the commanding voice of Maria Petrovna, his mother-in-law, and from the drawing-room the chirping of the canary, which sounded to his ears like a policeman’s whistle. He did not feel like getting up--he felt like lying a bit longer, too lazy to dress, therefore he smoked a few cigarettes before getting up strength for the ordeal.

He usually rose dissatisfied and out of sorts, because he did not much fancy the rules of life by which one had to hurry with ablutions, toilet, breakfast, and then go to the bank.

“Go and see if papa has awakened yet!” he heard his wife’s voice, and a moment afterward a round, little head was thrust through the doorway, and a child’s treble chimed in:

“Papa! Are you up?”

“I am, I am!” Iván Mikhailovich replied, ill-pleased, and angrily rinsed his mouth, gurgling, sputtering, and groaning.

At the breakfast table he sat sulky and preoccupied, as if wholly taken up with some very important thoughts, and did not deign to pay the least attention to any one. His wife, casually glancing up at him, thought: “He must have lost at cards at the club last night, and does not know now where to get the money to pay up.”

At ten, Iván Mikhailovich went to the bank, from which he returned at four, tired, hungry, and out of sorts. Sitting down to the table, he tucked his napkin under his chin, and ate with a loud smacking of the lips; after he had filled himself, he invariably grew good-natured, and said: “Well, now we shall take a little nap,” and went into his study, in which were displayed a bearskin, a pair of reindeer antlers, and a rifle from which he had never fired a shot. There he coughed and spat for a long time, and afterward snored so loudly that the children feared to approach too near the door of the study, and when the nurse wished to stop a fight or a quarrel between them, she would say: “There--the bear is asleep in papa’s room--I will let the bear out after you!”

Iván Mikhailovich was usually awakened about eight in the evening, when he would once more grow angry and shout: “Yes, yes, I hear,” immediately falling asleep again. Afterward he came out of the study puffy and heavy-eyed, looking indeed very much like a bear, and began to shout in a husky voice:

“I would like to know why I was not awakened in time?”

“You were, and you replied, ‘I hear!’”

“I did! Well, what of it? A person is not supposed to be responsible for what he says when half asleep. Is the samovár ready?”

Then he went into the dining-room, and sat down to the tea-table with his paper--and again with the appearance of a man whose thoughts are wholly occupied with very serious and important matters. His wife, Xenia Pavlovna, poured out the tea, and he could hardly see her face from behind the samovár. Maria Petrovna sat at the other end of the table, with a child’s stocking in her hand, which she was forever darning.

They were generally silent, only rarely exchanging laconic questions and answers: “More tea?”--“Please”--“Again there is no lemon?”--“Why, it is lying before your very nose!”

After tea Iván Mikhailovich went to his club, where he played cards, after which he had his supper there, and coming home about two past midnight, he found his wife already sleeping. Only Maria Petrovna was still up, and she usually met him in déshabillé, with an old wrap thrown over her shoulders, her hair in disorder, and with sighs. Iván Mikhailovich understood but too well the hidden meaning of these sighs: they expressed silent reproaches and indirect disapproval of his conduct. Therefore, while taking off his rubbers, Iván Mikhailovich said: “Please spare me your sighs!”

Xenia Pavlovna never reproached her husband. She had long ago become accustomed to either Iván Mikhailovich’s snoring or being away. Only Maria Petrovna could not become resigned to it.

“What kind of a husband is he! All you see of him is his dressing-gown on the peg,” she said.

“Oh, don’t say that, mother. All husbands are like that,” remarked Xenia Pavlovna, but her face became sad and clouded, and at last a sort of concentrated musing settled upon it. Walking up and down the salon in the twilight, she would keep thinking about something or other, and sing in a low, sweet voice: “Beyond the distant horizon there is a happy land.”

Then she shook her head with a jerk and went into the nursery. Here she played dolls with the children, romped about with them, and told them fairy-tales about Sister Alenushka and Brother Ivanushka.

The older boy was very like his father before the latter got into the habit of snoring and spitting and appearing before Xenia Pavlovna in his shirt-sleeves. Gazing at this boy of hers, Xenia Pavlovna was carried away into the past, and the dreams of her far-away youth, dimmed and partly obscured by time, drove out of her heart the feeling of emptiness, oppressive ennui, and dissatisfaction.

“Mama! Mamochka! Now tell us about Baba Yaga! Good?”

“Well, very good. Once there was a Baba Yaga, with a bony leg--”

“Did she snore?” asked the little girl, and her blue eyes opened wide, resting with fear and expectation on her mother’s face. Xenia Pavlovna broke out in a hearty laugh, caught her girlie in her arms, and, kissing her, forgot everything else in the world.

About twice a month they received. All their guests were sedate, respectable, and dull; people whose whole life ran smoothly, monotonously, without a hitch, through the same deep rut; they were all very tiresome, and loved to tell the same things over and over, and behave and act as if by long-established rule. First they sat in the drawing-room and spoke of their dwellings, of the weather, and while Xenia Pavlovna entertained them with conversation, her mother set the tea things, and while she filled the dishes with preserves she looked apprehensively into the jars and muttered: “It’s lasting so well that fresh fruit is not even to be thought of. The Lord grant it lasts till Easter.” And putting the sugar from the large paper bag into the cut-glass sugar-bowl, she thought aloud: “Twenty pounds, indeed! Why, even forty would not suffice!”

“Please come and have some tea!” she said invitingly, with an amiable, pleasant smile on her face. In the dining-room, where tea was served, they all took their places in a staid and dignified manner, making fun of those who were unlucky enough to get places at the table corners, telling them that they would not marry for seven years; and playing with their teaspoons, they said: “Merci,” and “Ach, if you will be so kind!” And then they once more returned to the talk about their apartments, the high price of provisions, and the ailments of the little ones. Tea finished, they repaired to the drawing-room, in which the little card-tables had already been placed, and provided with candles, cards, and chalk; everybody became livelier, and the oppressive frame of mind, under which people always labor when they are called upon to do something they had not come to do, was dispelled.

The gentlemen and ladies sat down at the tables, quarreled, disputed, reproached one another, and broke out simultaneously into peals of merriment; in the main, they all seemed now the most happy people in the world. They were so much engrossed with the play that they resembled maniacs, who could with difficulty understand if an outsider, there by some chance, not playing cards, and therefore suffering with ennui, spoke to them about some outside matter.

Xenia Pavlovna did not play: she and her mother were wholly taken up with the preparations for supper, while the guests were occupied with the whist-tables. She and Maria Petrovna quarreled a little on such occasions, but always managed to hide their differences from their guests.

When supper was announced all the guests sprang from their seats, pushed back their chairs, and laughingly went to the table. Only two of the most enthusiastic would remain in their places, and continue to wrangle and to gesticulate over the Knave of Spades, seeming not to care whether they had their supper or not, if only they could prove to each other the truth of their own assertions. The master of the house would put his arm about the waist of each and carry them off.

“Well, let us have a tiny one!” Iván Mikhailovich generally began. A few “tiny” ones were drunk without any well-wishing, then they drank the health of Xenia Pavlovna and the other ladies present. Their faces reddened, their eyes became languishing, and from across the table was continually heard: “Please pass the caviar this way, Peter Vasilievich!” or “Please send those delicious herrings our way, Nicolai Gregorievich!”

Bon mots, jests, and anecdotes were incessantly exchanged, some of them very stale and told for the fiftieth time at that very table. On these occasions Iván Mikhailovich never failed to recount with evident pride that he and Xenia had married for love. “Ours was a love match. I can almost say that I abducted Xenia Pavlovna.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, just so! I remember it as if it happened to-day. I nearly committed suicide! Yes! We had an appointment in the garden (a luxurious garden it was! They very foolishly sold both the house and garden!) Well, so I stand there in the old arbor, stand and wait. And my heart is beating so loudly that it seems to me that a train must be passing somewhere--tock-tock-tock!” Here Iván Mikhailovich began to tell in detail how it all happened, and Xenia Pavlovna listened to his narrative from where she sat, slightly blushing, with half-closed eyes, and a little shiver. “At last she arrived in a carriage!”

“Came on foot, not in a carriage!” Xenia Pavlovna unexpectedly corrected him, because every stroke, every detail of these far-away recollections was inexpressibly dear to her.

“Well, in a carriage or on foot. What material difference does it make!” angrily remarked Iván Mikhailovich, greatly displeased at being interrupted, and continued his story, totally ignoring the correction as well as Xenia Pavlovna herself, as if this Xenia Pavlovna and--that other one--about whom he was telling his guests had nothing whatsoever in common.

After supper they once more drank tea, yawned, covering the mouth with the hand, or with the napkin, and breathed hard, looking at their watches, and exchanging glances with their wives. “Yes, it is about time!” replied the wives, and the guests began to take their leave, the women kissed good-by, the men looked for their rubbers and hats, and again joked.

After the guests had gone, leaving behind them tobacco smoke, glasses half-full of undrunk tea, and the scraps of the supper, the house suddenly subsided into quiet and peace, and Xenia Pavlovna sank into a chair, and remained motionless in a silent antipathy to her surroundings. She rested from the idle talk, noise, amiable smiles, and entertaining, and felt as if she were just recovering from a serious illness or had had to go through some severe penance. The mother, passing through the drawing-room, quickly threw open the ventilators, and remarked: “Just like a barrack,” pulling out of the jardinieres the cigarette-stubs which had been stuck into the earth by the smokers, and, waxing angry: “I purposely placed two ash-trays on each card-table, but no! they must go and stick their cigarette-stubs into the flower-pots!” Then she began to set the house to rights and clear the tables; and all this she did with irritation. Iván Mikhailovich threw off his coat, opened his vest, and, walking through the rooms, yawned, opening his mouth wide and displaying his teeth. Then he went into the bedroom, undressed, and stretched himself comfortably on the soft mattress of the splendid, wide bed.

“Can’t you leave off putting the things in order till morning! Eh, how cleanliness has suddenly taken hold of them!” he shouted through the whole house, and listened: “Well, now the babes have revolted!”

From the nursery came the crying of the children and the soothing voice of his wife. Well, now he knew that the racket would go on for a long time--she would not get away from them so soon. And, turning to the wall, he pulled the coverlet higher.

Once or twice during the month they went visiting. And there the same story was repeated: conversations about the health of the little ones, the dwelling-houses, servants, the green tables, cigarette smoke, disputes about the Knave of Spades, and a supper with vodka, cheap wine, caviar, pickled herrings, and the indispensable cutlets and green pease. And after they left here, too, no doubt, was an opening of ventilators, and a perfect enjoyment of the ensuing quiet and peace.

And so their life went on from day to day, monotonous and tiresome, like a rainy evening, when everything is wet, gray, and cloudy--an oppressive, colorless life. “We live just as if we were turning over the pages of a cook-book. One day only differs from another in so far as that yesterday we had rice soup and cutlets for dinner, and to-day cabbage soup and cutlets,” sometimes thought Xenia Pavlovna, and a kind of despair suddenly took possession of all her being, and it seemed to her that she must decide on something, do something. But what should she do? And in reply to this a sad smile appeared on her lips--gentle and helpless--and her eyes filled with unbidden tears.

Then she would get a fit of the blues. Everything suddenly began to bore her, she did not care to see any one, nor talk to any one; it seemed to her that people spoke not of what they thought, nor of what interested them, but were, on the contrary, doing their best to hide their real thoughts; that they laughed at things not because they thought them laughable, but simply from politeness and wishing to appear amiable. And that all of them were only pretending to be good and clever, while in reality they were trivial, stupid, and unbearably tiresome.