all over his face. "It's a real affliction!"
"It's healthy," said the governor; "frost strengthens a man and makes
him vigorous. . . ."
"Though it may be healthy, it would be better without it at all," said
the mayor, wiping his wedge-shaped beard with a red handkerchief. "It
would be a good riddance! To my thinking, your Excellency, the Lord
sends it us as a punishment--the frost, I mean. We sin in the summer and
are punished in the winter. . . . Yes!"
Yegor Ivanitch looked round him quickly and flung up his hands.
"Why, where's the needful . . . to warm us up?" he asked, looking in
alarm first at the governor and then at the bishop. "Your Excellency!
Your Holiness! I'll be bound, the ladies are frozen too! We must have
something, this won't do!"
Everyone began gesticulating and declaring that they had not come to the
skating to warm themselves, but the mayor, heeding no one, opened the
door and beckoned to someone with his crooked finger. A workman and a
fireman ran up to him.
"Here, run off to Savatin," he muttered, "and tell him to make haste and
send here . . . what do you call it? . . . What's it to be? Tell him to
send a dozen glasses . . . a dozen glasses of mulled wine, the very
hottest, or punch, perhaps. . . ."
There was laughter in the pavilion.
"A nice thing to treat us to!"
"Never mind, we will drink it," muttered the mayor; "a dozen glasses,
then . . . and some Benedictine, perhaps . . . and tell them to warm two
bottles of red wine. . . . Oh, and what for the ladies? Well, you tell
them to bring cakes, nuts . . . sweets of some sort, perhaps. . . .
There, run along, look sharp!"
The mayor was silent for a minute and then began again abusing the
frost, banging his arms across his chest and thumping with his golosh
boots.
"No, Yegor Ivanitch," said the governor persuasively, "don't be unfair,
the Russian frost has its charms. I was reading lately that many of the
good qualities of the Russian people are due to the vast expanse of
their land and to the climate, the cruel struggle for existence . . .
that's perfectly true!"
"It may be true, your Excellency, but it would be better without it. The
frost did drive out the French, of course, and one can freeze all sorts
of dishes, and the children can go skating--that's all true! For the man
who is well fed and well clothed the frost is only a pleasure, but for
the working man, the beggar, the pilgrim, the crazy wanderer, it's the
greatest evil and misfortune. It's misery, your Holiness! In a frost
like this poverty is twice as hard, and the thief is more cunning and
evildoers more violent. There's no gainsaying it! I am turned seventy,
I've a fur coat now, and at home I have a stove and rums and punches of
all sorts. The frost means nothing to me now; I take no notice of it, I
don't care to know of it, but how it used to be in old days, Holy
Mother! It's dreadful to recall it! My memory is failing me with years
and I have forgotten everything; my enemies, and my sins and troubles of
all sorts--I forget them all, but the frost--ough! How I remember it! When
my mother died I was left a little devil--this high--a homeless orphan . .
. no kith nor kin, wretched, ragged, little clothes, hungry, nowhere to
sleep--in fact, 'we have here no abiding city, but seek the one to come.'
In those days I used to lead an old blind woman about the town for five
kopecks a day . . . the frosts were cruel, wicked. One would go out with
the old woman and begin suffering torments. My Creator! First of all you
would be shivering as in a fever, shrugging and dancing about. Then your
ears, your fingers, your feet, would begin aching. They would ache as
though someone were squeezing them with pincers. But all that would have
been nothing, a trivial matter, of no great consequence. The trouble was
when your whole body was chilled. One would walk for three blessed hours
in the frost, your Holiness, and lose all human semblance. Your legs are
drawn up, there is a weight on your chest, your stomach is pinched;
above all, there is a pain in your heart that is worse than anything.
Your heart aches beyond all endurance, and there is a wretchedness all
over your body as though you were leading Death by the hand instead of
an old woman. You are numb all over, turned to stone like a statue; you
go on and feel as though it were not you walking, but someone else
moving your legs instead of you. When your soul is frozen you don't know
what you are doing: you are ready to leave the old woman with no one to
guide her, or to pull a hot roll from off a hawker's tray, or to fight
with someone. And when you come to your night's lodging into the warmth
after the frost, there is not much joy in that either! You lie awake
till midnight, crying, and don't know yourself what you are crying for.
. . ."
"We must walk about the skating-ground before it gets dark," said the
governor's wife, who was bored with listening. "Who's coming with me?"
The governor's wife went out and the whole company trooped out of the
pavilion after her. Only the governor, the bishop, and the mayor
remained.
"Queen of Heaven! and what I went through when I was a shopboy in a
fish-shop!" Yegor Ivanitch went on, flinging up his arms so that his
fox-lined coat fell open. "One would go out to the shop almost before it
was light . . . by eight o'clock I was completely frozen, my face was
blue, my fingers were stiff so that I could not fasten my buttons nor
count the money. One would stand in the cold, turn numb, and think,
'Lord, I shall have to stand like this right on till evening!' By
dinner-time my stomach was pinched and my heart was aching. . . . Yes!
And I was not much better afterwards when I had a shop of my own. The
frost was intense and the shop was like a mouse-trap with draughts
blowing in all directions; the coat I had on was, pardon me, mangy, as
thin as paper, threadbare. . . . One would be chilled through and
through, half dazed, and turn as cruel as the frost oneself: I would
pull one by the ear so that I nearly pulled the ear off; I would smack
another on the back of the head; I'd glare at a customer like a ruffian,
a wild beast, and be ready to fleece him; and when I got home in the
evening and ought to have gone to bed, I'd be ill-humoured and set upon
my family, throwing it in their teeth that they were living upon me; I
would make a row and carry on so that half a dozen policemen couldn't
have managed me. The frost makes one spiteful and drives one to drink."
Yegor Ivanitch clasped his hands and went on:
"And when we were taking fish to Moscow in the winter, Holy Mother!" And
spluttering as he talked, he began describing the horrors he endured
with his shopmen when he was taking fish to Moscow. . . .
"Yes," sighed the governor, "it is wonderful what a man can endure! You
used to take wagon-loads of fish to Moscow, Yegor Ivanitch, while I in
my time was at the war. I remember one extraordinary instance. . . ."
And the governor described how, during the last Russo-Turkish War, one
frosty night the division in which he was had stood in the snow without
moving for thirteen hours in a piercing wind; from fear of being
observed the division did not light a fire, nor make a sound or a
movement; they were forbidden to smoke. . . .
Reminiscences followed. The governor and the mayor grew lively and good-
humoured, and, interrupting each other, began recalling their
experiences. And the bishop told them how, when he was serving in
Siberia, he had travelled in a sledge drawn by dogs; how one day, being
drowsy, in a time of sharp frost he had fallen out of the sledge and
been nearly frozen; when the Tunguses turned back and found him he was
barely alive. Then, as by common agreement, the old men suddenly sank
into silence, sat side by side, and mused.
"Ech!" whispered the mayor; "you'd think it would be time to forget, but
when you look at the water-carriers, at the schoolboys, at the convicts
in their wretched gowns, it brings it all back! Why, only take those
musicians who are playing now. I'll be bound, there is a pain in their
hearts; a pinch at their stomachs, and their trumpets are freezing to
their lips. . . . They play and think: 'Holy Mother! we have another
three hours to sit here in the cold.'"
The old men sank into thought. They thought of that in man which is
higher than good birth, higher than rank and wealth and learning, of
that which brings the lowest beggar near to God: of the helplessness of
man, of his sufferings and his patience. . . .
Meanwhile the air was turning blue . . . the door opened and two waiters
from Savatin's walked in, carrying trays and a big muffled teapot. When
the glasses had been filled and there was a strong smell of cinnamon and
clove in the air, the door opened again, and there came into the
pavilion a beardless young policeman whose nose was crimson, and who was
covered all over with frost; he went up to the governor, and, saluting,
said: "Her Excellency told me to inform you that she has gone home."
Looking at the way the policeman put his stiff, frozen fingers to his
cap, looking at his nose, his lustreless eyes, and his hood covered with
white frost near the mouth, they all for some reason felt that this
policeman's heart must be aching, that his stomach must feel pinched,
and his soul numb. . . .
"I say," said the governor hesitatingly, "have a drink of mulled wine!"
"It's all right . . . it's all right! Drink it up!" the mayor urged him,
gesticulating; "don't be shy!"
The policeman took the glass in both hands, moved aside, and, trying to
drink without making any sound, began discreetly sipping from the glass.
He drank and was overwhelmed with embarrassment while the old men looked
at him in silence, and they all fancied that the pain was leaving the
young policeman's heart, and that his soul was thawing. The governor
heaved a sigh.
"It's time we were at home," he said, getting up. "Good-bye! I say," he
added, addressing the policeman, "tell the musicians there to . . .
leave off playing, and ask Pavel Semyonovitch from me to see they are
given . . . beer or vodka."
The governor and the bishop said good-bye to the mayor and went out of
the pavilion.
Yegor Ivanitch attacked the mulled wine, and before the policeman had
finished his glass succeeded in telling him a great many interesting
things. He could not be silent.
A SLANDER
SERGE KAPITONICH AHINEEV, the writing master, was marrying his daughter
to the teacher of history and geography. The wedding festivities were
going off most successfully. In the drawing room there was singing,
playing, and dancing. Waiters hired from the club were flitting
distractedly about the rooms, dressed in black swallow-tails and dirty
white ties. There was a continual hubbub and din of conversation.
Sitting side by side on the sofa, the teacher of mathematics,
Tarantulov, the French teacher, Pasdequoi, and the junior assessor of
taxes, Mzda, were talking hurriedly and interrupting one another as they
described to the guests cases of persons being buried alive, and gave
their opinions on spiritualism. None of them believed in spiritualism,
but all admitted that there were many things in this world which would
always be beyond the mind of man. In the next room the literature
master, Dodonsky, was explaining to the visitors the cases in which a
sentry has the right to fire on passers-by. The subjects, as you
perceive, were alarming, but very agreeable. Persons whose social
position precluded them from entering were looking in at the windows
from the yard.
Just at midnight the master of the house went into the kitchen to see
whether everything was ready for supper. The kitchen from floor to
ceiling was filled with fumes composed of goose, duck, and many other
odours. On two tables the accessories, the drinks and light
refreshments, were set out in artistic disorder. The cook, Marfa, a red-
faced woman whose figure was like a barrel with a belt around it, was
bustling about the tables.
"Show me the sturgeon, Marfa," said Ahineev, rubbing his hands and
licking his lips. "What a perfume! I could eat up the whole kitchen.
Come, show me the sturgeon."
Marfa went up to one of the benches and cautiously lifted a piece of
greasy newspaper. Under the paper on an immense dish there reposed a
huge sturgeon, masked in jelly and decorated with capers, olives, and
carrots. Ahineev gazed at the sturgeon and gasped. His face beamed, he
turned his eyes up. He bent down and with his lips emitted the sound of
an ungreased wheel. After standing a moment he snapped his fingers with
delight and once more smacked his lips.
"Ah-ah! the sound of a passionate kiss. . . . Who is it you're kissing
out there, little Marfa?" came a voice from the next room, and in the
doorway there appeared the cropped head of the assistant usher, Vankin.
"Who is it? A-a-h! . . . Delighted to meet you! Sergei Kapitonich!
You're a fine grandfather, I must say! Tête-à-tête with the fair
sex--tette!"
"I'm not kissing," said Ahineev in confusion. "Who told you so, you
fool? I was only . . . I smacked my lips . . . in reference to . . . as
an indication of . . . pleasure . . . at the sight of the fish."
"Tell that to the marines!" The intrusive face vanished, wearing a broad
grin.
Ahineev flushed.
"Hang it!" he thought, "the beast will go now and talk scandal. He'll
disgrace me to all the town, the brute."
Ahineev went timidly into the drawing-room and looked stealthily round
for Vankin. Vankin was standing by the piano, and, bending down with a
jaunty air, was whispering something to the inspector's sister-in-law,
who was laughing.
"Talking about me!" thought Ahineev. "About me, blast him! And she
believes it . . . believes it! She laughs! Mercy on us! No, I can't let
it pass . . . I can't. I must do something to prevent his being
believed. . . . I'll speak to them all, and he'll be shown up for a fool
and a gossip."
Ahineev scratched his head, and still overcome with embarrassment, went
up to Pasdequoi.
"I've just been in the kitchen to see after the supper," he said to the
Frenchman. "I know you are fond of fish, and I've a sturgeon, my dear
fellow, beyond everything! A yard and a half long! Ha, ha, ha! And, by
the way . . . I was just forgetting. . . . In the kitchen just now, with
that sturgeon . . . quite a little story! I went into the kitchen just
now and wanted to look at the supper dishes. I looked at the sturgeon
and I smacked my lips with relish . . . at the piquancy of it. And at
the very moment that fool Vankin came in and said: . . . 'Ha, ha, ha! .
. . So you're kissing here!' Kissing Marfa, the cook! What a thing to
imagine, silly fool! The woman is a perfect fright, like all the beasts
put together, and he talks about kissing! Queer fish!"
"Who's a queer fish?" asked Tarantulov, coming up.
"Why he, over there--Vankin! I went into the kitchen . . ."
And he told the story of Vankin. ". . . He amused me, queer fish! I'd
rather kiss a dog than Marfa, if you ask me," added Ahineev. He looked
round and saw behind him Mzda.
"We were talking of Vankin," he said. "Queer fish, he is! He went into
the kitchen, saw me beside Marfa, and began inventing all sorts of silly
stories. 'Why are you kissing?' he says. He must have had a drop too
much. 'And I'd rather kiss a turkeycock than Marfa,' I said, 'And I've a
wife of my own, you fool,' said I. He did amuse me!"
"Who amused you?" asked the priest who taught Scripture in the school,
going up to Ahineev.
"Vankin. I was standing in the kitchen, you know, looking at the
sturgeon. . . ."
And so on. Within half an hour or so all the guests knew the incident of
the sturgeon and Vankin.
"Let him tell away now!" thought Ahineev, rubbing his hands. "Let him!
He'll begin telling his story and they'll say to him at once, 'Enough of
your improbable nonsense, you fool, we know all about it!'"
And Ahineev was so relieved that in his joy he drank four glasses too
many. After escorting the young people to their room, he went to bed and
slept like an innocent babe, and next day he thought no more of the
incident with the sturgeon. But, alas! man proposes, but God disposes.
An evil tongue did its evil work, and Ahineev's strategy was of no
avail. Just a week later--to be precise, on Wednesday after the third
lesson--when Ahineev was standing in the middle of the teacher's room,
holding forth on the vicious propensities of a boy called Visekin, the
head master went up to him and drew him aside:
"Look here, Sergei Kapitonich," said the head master, "you must excuse
me. . . . It's not my business; but all the same I must make you
realize. . . . It's my duty. You see, there are rumors that you are
romancing with that . . . cook. . . . It's nothing to do with me, but .
. . flirt with her, kiss her . . . as you please, but don't let it be so
public, please. I entreat you! Don't forget that you're a schoolmaster."
Ahineev turned cold and faint. He went home like a man stung by a whole
swarm of bees, like a man scalded with boiling water. As he walked home,
it seemed to him that the whole town was looking at him as though he
were smeared with pitch. At home fresh trouble awaited him.
"Why aren't you gobbling up your food as usual?" his wife asked him at
dinner. "What are you so pensive about? Brooding over your amours?
Pining for your Marfa? I know all about it, Mohammedan! Kind friends
have opened my eyes! O-o-o! . . . you savage!"
And she slapped him in the face. He got up from the table, not feeling
the earth under his feet, and without his hat or coat, made his way to
Vankin. He found him at home.
"You scoundrel!" he addressed him. "Why have you covered me with mud
before all the town? Why did you set this slander going about me?"
"What slander? What are you talking about?"
"Who was it gossiped of my kissing Marfa? Wasn't it you? Tell me that.
Wasn't it you, you brigand?"
Vankin blinked and twitched in every fibre of his battered countenance,
raised his eyes to the icon and articulated, "God blast me! Strike me
blind and lay me out, if I said a single word about you! May I be left
without house and home, may I be stricken with worse than cholera!"
Vankin's sincerity did not admit of doubt. It was evidently not he who
was the author of the slander.
"But who, then, who?" Ahineev wondered, going over all his acquaintances
in his mind and beating himself on the breast. "Who, then?"
Who, then? We, too, ask the reader.
MINDS IN FERMENT (FROM THE ANNALS OF A TOWN)
THE earth was like an oven. The afternoon sun blazed with such energy
that even the thermometer hanging in the excise officer's room lost its
head: it ran up to 112.5 and stopped there, irresolute. The inhabitants
streamed with perspiration like overdriven horses, and were too lazy to
mop their faces.
Two of the inhabitants were walking along the market-place in front of
the closely shuttered houses. One was Potcheshihin, the local treasury
clerk, and the other was Optimov, the agent, for many years a
correspondent of the Son of the Fatherland newspaper. They walked in
silence, speechless from the heat. Optimov felt tempted to find fault
with the local authorities for the dust and disorder of the market-
place, but, aware of the peace-loving disposition and moderate views of
his companion, he said nothing.
In the middle of the market-place Potcheshihin suddenly halted and began
gazing into the sky.
"What are you looking at?"
"Those starlings that flew up. I wonder where they have settled. Clouds
and clouds of them. . . . If one were to go and take a shot at them, and
if one were to pick them up . . . and if . . . They have settled in the
Father Prebendary's garden!"
"Oh no! They are not in the Father Prebendary's, they are in the Father
Deacon's. If you did have a shot at them from here you wouldn't kill
anything. Fine shot won't carry so far; it loses its force. And why
should you kill them, anyway? They're birds destructive of the fruit,
that's true; still, they're fowls of the air, works of the Lord. The
starling sings, you know. . . . And what does it sing, pray? A song of
praise. . . . 'All ye fowls of the air, praise ye the Lord.' No. I do
believe they have settled in the Father Prebendary's garden."
Three old pilgrim women, wearing bark shoes and carrying wallets, passed
noiselessly by the speakers. Looking enquiringly at the gentlemen who
were for some unknown reason staring at the Father Prebendary's house,
they slackened their pace, and when they were a few yards off stopped,
glanced at the friends once more, and then fell to gazing at the house
themselves.
"Yes, you were right; they have settled in the Father Prebendary's,"
said Optimov. "His cherries are ripe now, so they have gone there to
peck them."
From the garden gate emerged the Father Prebendary himself, accompanied
by the sexton. Seeing the attention directed upon his abode and
wondering what people were staring at, he stopped, and he, too, as well
as the sexton, began looking upwards to find out.
"The father is going to a service somewhere, I suppose," said
Potcheshihin. "The Lord be his succour!"
Some workmen from Purov's factory, who had been bathing in the river,
passed between the friends and the priest. Seeing the latter absorbed in
contemplation of the heavens and the pilgrim women, too, standing
motionless with their eyes turned upwards, they stood still and stared
in the same direction.
A small boy leading a blind beggar and a peasant, carrying a tub of
stinking fish to throw into the market-place, did the same.
"There must be something the matter, I should think," said Potcheshihin,
"a fire or something. But there's no sign of smoke anywhere. Hey!
Kuzma!" he shouted to the peasant, "what's the matter?"
The peasant made some reply, but Potcheshihin and Optimov did not catch
it. Sleepy-looking shopmen made their appearance at the doors of all the
shops. Some plasterers at work on a warehouse near left their ladders
and joined the workmen.
The fireman, who was describing circles with his bare feet, on the
watch-tower, halted, and, after looking steadily at them for a few
minutes, came down. The watch-tower was left deserted. This seemed
suspicious.
"There must be a fire somewhere. Don't shove me! You damned swine!"
"Where do you see the fire? What fire? Pass on, gentlemen! I ask you
civilly!"
"It must be a fire indoors!"
"Asks us civilly and keeps poking with his elbows. Keep your hands to
yourself! Though you are a head constable, you have no sort of right to
make free with your fists!"
"He's trodden on my corn! Ah! I'll crush you!"
"Crushed? Who's crushed? Lads! a man's been crushed!
"What's the meaning of this crowd? What do you want?"
"A man's been crushed, please your honour!"
"Where? Pass on! I ask you civilly! I ask you civilly, you blockheads!"
"You may shove a peasant, but you daren't touch a gentleman! Hands off!"
"Did you ever know such people? There's no doing anything with them by
fair words, the devils! Sidorov, run for Akim Danilitch! Look sharp!
It'll be the worse for you, gentlemen! Akim Danilitch is coming, and
he'll give it to you! You here, Parfen? A blind man, and at his age too!
Can't see, but he must be like other people and won't do what he's told.
Smirnov, put his name down!"
"Yes, sir! And shall I write down the men from Purov's? That man there
with the swollen cheek, he's from Purov's works."
"Don't put down the men from Purov's. It's Purov's birthday to-morrow."
The starlings rose in a black cloud from the Father Prebendary's garden,
but Potcheshihin and Optimov did not notice them. They stood staring
into the air, wondering what could have attracted such a crowd, and what
it was looking at.
Akim Danilitch appeared. Still munching and wiping his lips, he cut his
way into the crowd, bellowing:
"Firemen, be ready! Disperse! Mr. Optimov, disperse, or it'll be the
worse for you! Instead of writing all kinds of things about decent
people in the papers, you had better try to behave yourself more
conformably! No good ever comes of reading the papers!"
"Kindly refrain from reflections upon literature!" cried Optimov hotly.
"I am a literary man, and I will allow no one to make reflections upon
literature! though, as is the duty of a citizen, I respect you as a
father and benefactor!"
"Firemen, turn the hose on them!"
"There's no water, please your honour!"
"Don't answer me! Go and get some! Look sharp!"
"We've nothing to get it in, your honour. The major has taken the fire-
brigade horses to drive his aunt to the station."