him down, the devil!"
"I've lost my pencil, please your honour!"
The crowd grew larger and larger. There is no telling what proportions
it might have reached if the new organ just arrived from Moscow had not
fortunately begun playing in the tavern close by. Hearing their
favourite tune, the crowd gasped and rushed off to the tavern. So nobody
ever knew why the crowd had assembled, and Potcheshihin and Optimov had
by now forgotten the existence of the starlings who were innocently
responsible for the proceedings.
An hour later the town was still and silent again, and only a solitary
figure was to be seen--the fireman pacing round and round on the watch-
tower.
The same evening Akim Danilitch sat in the grocer's shop drinking
limonade gaseuse and brandy, and writing:
"In addition to the official report, I venture, your Excellency, to
append a few supplementary observations of my own. Father and
benefactor! In very truth, but for the prayers of your virtuous spouse
in her salubrious villa near our town, there's no knowing what might not
have come to pass. What I have been through to-day I can find no words
to express. The efficiency of Krushensky and of the major of the fire
brigade are beyond all praise! I am proud of such devoted servants of
our country! As for me, I did all that a weak man could do, whose only
desire is the welfare of his neighbour; and sitting now in the bosom of
my family, with tears in my eyes I thank Him Who spared us bloodshed! In
absence of evidence, the guilty parties remain in custody, but I propose
to release them in a week or so. It was their ignorance that led them
astray!"
GONE ASTRAY
A COUNTRY village wrapped in the darkness of night. One o'clock strikes
from the belfry. Two lawyers, called Kozyavkin and Laev, both in the
best of spirits and a little unsteady on their legs, come out of the
wood and turn towards the cottages.
"Well, thank God, we've arrived," says Kozyavkin, drawing a deep breath.
"Tramping four miles from the station in our condition is a feat. I am
fearfully done up! And, as ill-luck would have it, not a fly to be
seen."
"Petya, my dear fellow. . . . I can't. . . . I feel like dying if I'm
not in bed in five minutes."
"In bed! Don't you think it, my boy! First we'll have supper and a glass
of red wine, and then you can go to bed. Verotchka and I will wake you
up. . . . Ah, my dear fellow, it's a fine thing to be married! You don't
understand it, you cold-hearted wretch! I shall be home in a minute,
worn out and exhausted. . . . A loving wife will welcome me, give me
some tea and something to eat, and repay me for my hard work and my love
with such a fond and loving look out of her darling black eyes that I
shall forget how tired I am, and forget the burglary and the law courts
and the appeal division . . . . It's glorious!"
"Yes--I say, I feel as though my legs were dropping off, I can scarcely
get along. . . . I am frightfully thirsty. . . ."
"Well, here we are at home."
The friends go up to one of the cottages, and stand still under the
nearest window.
"It's a jolly cottage," said Kozyavkin. "You will see to-morrow what
views we have! There's no light in the windows. Verotchka must have gone
to bed, then; she must have got tired of sitting up. She's in bed, and
must be worrying at my not having turned up." (He pushes the window with
his stick, and it opens.) "Plucky girl! She goes to bed without bolting
the window." (He takes off his cape and flings it with his portfolio in
at the window.) "I am hot! Let us strike up a serenade and make her
laugh!" (He sings.) "The moon floats in the midnight sky. . . . Faintly
stir the tender breezes . . . . Faintly rustle in the treetops. . . .
Sing, sing, Alyosha! Verotchka, shall we sing you Schubert's Serenade?"
(He sings.)
His performance is cut short by a sudden fit of coughing. "Tphoo!
Verotchka, tell Aksinya to unlock the gate for us!" (A pause.)
"Verotchka! don't be lazy, get up, darling!" (He stands on a stone and
looks in at the window.) "Verotchka, my dumpling; Verotchka, my poppet .
. . my little angel, my wife beyond compare, get up and tell Aksinya to
unlock the gate for us! You are not asleep, you know. Little wife, we
are really so done up and exhausted that we're not in the mood for
jokes. We've trudged all the way from the station! Don't you hear? Ah,
hang it all!" (He makes an effort to climb up to the window and falls
down.) "You know this isn't a nice trick to play on a visitor! I see you
are just as great a schoolgirl as ever, Vera, you are always up to
mischief!"
"Perhaps Vera Stepanovna is asleep," says Laev.
"She isn't asleep! I bet she wants me to make an outcry and wake up the
whole neighbourhood. I'm beginning to get cross, Vera! Ach, damn it all!
Give me a leg up, Alyosha; I'll get in. You are a naughty girl, nothing
but a regular schoolgirl. . . Give me a hoist."
Puffing and panting, Laev gives him a leg up, and Kozyavkin climbs in at
the window and vanishes into the darkness within.
"Vera!" Laev hears a minute later, "where are you? . . . D--damnation!
Tphoo! I've put my hand into something! Tphoo!"
There is a rustling sound, a flapping of wings, and the desperate
cackling of a fowl.
"A nice state of things," Laev hears. "Vera, where on earth did these
chickens come from? Why, the devil, there's no end of them! There's a
basket with a turkey in it. . . . It pecks, the nasty creature."
Two hens fly out of the window, and cackling at the top of their voices,
flutter down the village street.
"Alyosha, we've made a mistake!" says Kozyavkin in a lachrymose voice.
"There are a lot of hens here. . . . I must have mistaken the house.
Confound you, you are all over the place, you cursed brutes!"
"Well, then, make haste and come down. Do you hear? I am dying of
thirst!"
"In a minute. . . . I am looking for my cape and portfolio."
"Light a match."
"The matches are in the cape. . . . I was a crazy idiot to get into this
place. The cottages are exactly alike; the devil himself couldn't tell
them apart in the dark. Aie, the turkey's pecked my cheek, nasty
creature!"
"Make haste and get out or they'll think we are stealing the chickens."
"In a minute. . . . I can't find my cape anywhere. . . . There are lots
of old rags here, and I can't tell where the cape is. Throw me a match."
"I haven't any."
"We are in a hole, I must say! What am I to do? I can't go without my
cape and my portfolio. I must find them."
"I can't understand a man's not knowing his own cottage," says Laev
indignantly. "Drunken beast. . . . If I'd known I was in for this sort
of thing I would never have come with you. I should have been at home
and fast asleep by now, and a nice fix I'm in here. . . . I'm fearfully
done up and thirsty, and my head is going round."
"In a minute, in a minute. . . . You won't expire."
A big cock flies crowing over Laev's head. Laev heaves a deep sigh, and
with a hopeless gesture sits down on a stone. He is beset with a burning
thirst, his eyes are closing, his head drops forward. . . . Five minutes
pass, ten, twenty, and Kozyavkin is still busy among the hens.
"Petya, will you be long?"
"A minute. I found the portfolio, but I have lost it again."
Laev lays his head on his fists, and closes his eyes. The cackling of
the fowls grows louder and louder. The inhabitants of the empty cottage
fly out of the window and flutter round in circles, he fancies, like
owls over his head. His ears ring with their cackle, he is overwhelmed
with terror.
"The beast!" he thinks. "He invited me to stay, promising me wine and
junket, and then he makes me walk from the station and listen to these
hens. . . ."
In the midst of his indignation his chin sinks into his collar, he lays
his head on his portfolio, and gradually subsides. Weariness gets the
upper hand and he begins to doze.
"I've found the portfolio!" he hears Kozyavkin cry triumphantly. "I
shall find the cape in a minute and then off we go!"
Then through his sleep he hears the barking of dogs. First one dog
barks, then a second, and a third. . . . And the barking of the dogs
blends with the cackling of the fowls into a sort of savage music.
Someone comes up to Laev and asks him something. Then he hears someone
climb over his head into the window, then a knocking and a shouting. . .
. A woman in a red apron stands beside him with a lantern in her hand
and asks him something.
"You've no right to say so," he hears Kozyavkin's voice. "I am a lawyer,
a bachelor of laws--Kozyavkin--here's my visiting card."
"What do I want with your card?" says someone in a husky bass. "You've
disturbed all my fowls, you've smashed the eggs! Look what you've done.
The turkey poults were to have come out to-day or to-morrow, and you've
smashed them. What's the use of your giving me your card, sir?"
"How dare you interfere with me! No! I won't have it!"
"I am thirsty," thinks Laev, trying to open his eyes, and he feels
somebody climb down from the window over his head.
"My name is Kozyavkin! I have a cottage here. Everyone knows me."
"We don't know anyone called Kozyavkin."
"What are you saying? Call the elder. He knows me."
"Don't get excited, the constable will be here directly. . . . We know
all the summer visitors here, but I've never seen you in my life."
"I've had a cottage in Rottendale for five years."
"Whew! Do you take this for the Dale? This is Sicklystead, but
Rottendale is farther to the right, beyond the match factory. It's three
miles from here."
"Bless my soul! Then I've taken the wrong turning!"
The cries of men and fowls mingle with the barking of dogs, and the
voice of Kozyavkin rises above the chaos of confused sounds:
"You shut up! I'll pay. I'll show you whom you have to deal with!"
Little by little the voices die down. Laev feels himself being shaken by
the shoulder. . . .
AN AVENGER
SHORTLY after finding his wife in flagrante delicto Fyodor Fyodorovitch
Sigaev was standing in Schmuck and Co.'s, the gunsmiths, selecting a
suitable revolver. His countenance expressed wrath, grief, and
unalterable determination.
"I know what I must do," he was thinking. "The sanctities of the home
are outraged, honour is trampled in the mud, vice is triumphant, and
therefore as a citizen and a man of honour I must be their avenger.
First, I will kill her and her lover and then myself."
He had not yet chosen a revolver or killed anyone, but already in
imagination he saw three bloodstained corpses, broken skulls, brains
oozing from them, the commotion, the crowd of gaping spectators, the
post-mortem. . . . With the malignant joy of an insulted man he pictured
the horror of the relations and the public, the agony of the traitress,
and was mentally reading leading articles on the destruction of the
traditions of the home.
The shopman, a sprightly little Frenchified figure with rounded belly
and white waistcoat, displayed the revolvers, and smiling respectfully
and scraping with his little feet observed:
". . . I would advise you, M'sieur, to take this superb revolver, the
Smith and Wesson pattern, the last word in the science of firearms:
triple-action, with ejector, kills at six hundred paces, central sight.
Let me draw your attention, M'sieu, to the beauty of the finish. The
most fashionable system, M'sieu. We sell a dozen every day for burglars,
wolves, and lovers. Very correct and powerful action, hits at a great
distance, and kills wife and lover with one bullet. As for suicide,
M'sieu, I don't know a better pattern."
The shopman pulled and cocked the trigger, breathed on the barrel, took
aim, and affected to be breathless with delight. Looking at his ecstatic
countenance, one might have supposed that he would readily have put a
bullet through his brains if he had only possessed a revolver of such a
superb pattern as a Smith-Wesson.
"And what price?" asked Sigaev.
"Forty-five roubles, M'sieu."
"Mm! . . . that's too dear for me."
"In that case, M'sieu, let me offer you another make, somewhat cheaper.
Here, if you'll kindly look, we have an immense choice, at all prices. .
. . Here, for instance, this revolver of the Lefaucher pattern costs
only eighteen roubles, but . . ." (the shopman pursed up his face
contemptuously) ". . . but, M'sieu, it's an old-fashioned make. They are
only bought by hysterical ladies or the mentally deficient. To commit
suicide or shoot one's wife with a Lefaucher revolver is considered bad
form nowadays. Smith-Wesson is the only pattern that's correct style."
"I don't want to shoot myself or to kill anyone," said Sigaev, lying
sullenly. "I am buying it simply for a country cottage . . . to frighten
away burglars. . . ."
"That's not our business, what object you have in buying it." The
shopman smiled, dropping his eyes discreetly. "If we were to investigate
the object in each case, M'sieu, we should have to close our shop. To
frighten burglars Lefaucher is not a suitable pattern, M'sieu, for it
goes off with a faint, muffled sound. I would suggest Mortimer's, the
so-called duelling pistol. . . ."
"Shouldn't I challenge him to a duel?" flashed through Sigaev's mind.
"It's doing him too much honour, though. . . . Beasts like that are
killed like dogs. . . ."
The shopman, swaying gracefully and tripping to and fro on his little
feet, still smiling and chattering, displayed before him a heap of
revolvers. The most inviting and impressive of all was the Smith and
Wesson's. Sigaev picked up a pistol of that pattern, gazed blankly at
it, and sank into brooding. His imagination pictured how he would blow
out their brains, how blood would flow in streams over the rug and the
parquet, how the traitress's legs would twitch in her last agony. . . .
But that was not enough for his indignant soul. The picture of blood,
wailing, and horror did not satisfy him. He must think of something more
terrible.
"I know! I'll kill myself and him," he thought, "but I'll leave her
alive. Let her pine away from the stings of conscience and the contempt
of all surrounding her. For a sensitive nature like hers that will be
far more agonizing than death."
And he imagined his own funeral: he, the injured husband, lies in his
coffin with a gentle smile on his lips, and she, pale, tortured by
remorse, follows the coffin like a Niobe, not knowing where to hide
herself to escape from the withering, contemptuous looks cast upon her
by the indignant crowd.
"I see, M'sieu, that you like the Smith and Wesson make," the shopman
broke in upon his broodings. "If you think it too dear, very well, I'll
knock off five roubles. . . . But we have other makes, cheaper."
The little Frenchified figure turned gracefully and took down another
dozen cases of revolvers from the shelf.
"Here, M'sieu, price thirty roubles. That's not expensive, especially as
the rate of exchange has dropped terribly and the Customs duties are
rising every hour. M'sieu, I vow I am a Conservative, but even I am
beginning to murmur. Why, with the rate of exchange and the Customs
tariff, only the rich can purchase firearms. There's nothing left for
the poor but Tula weapons and phosphorus matches, and Tula weapons are a
misery! You may aim at your wife with a Tula revolver and shoot yourself
through the shoulder-blade."
Sigaev suddenly felt mortified and sorry that he would be dead, and
would miss seeing the agonies of the traitress. Revenge is only sweet
when one can see and taste its fruits, and what sense would there be in
it if he were lying in his coffin, knowing nothing about it?
"Hadn't I better do this?" he pondered. "I'll kill him, then I'll go to
his funeral and look on, and after the funeral I'll kill myself. They'd
arrest me, though, before the funeral, and take away my pistol. . . .
And so I'll kill him, she shall remain alive, and I . . . for the time,
I'll not kill myself, but go and be arrested. I shall always have time
to kill myself. There will be this advantage about being arrested, that
at the preliminary investigation I shall have an opportunity of exposing
to the authorities and to the public all the infamy of her conduct. If I
kill myself she may, with her characteristic duplicity and impudence,
throw all the blame on me, and society will justify her behaviour and
will very likely laugh at me. . . . If I remain alive, then . . ."
A minute later he was thinking:
"Yes, if I kill myself I may be blamed and suspected of petty feeling. .
. . Besides, why should I kill myself? That's one thing. And for
another, to shoot oneself is cowardly. And so I'll kill him and let her
live, and I'll face my trial. I shall be tried, and she will be brought
into court as a witness. . . . I can imagine her confusion, her disgrace
when she is examined by my counsel! The sympathies of the court, of the
Press, and of the public will certainly be with me."
While he deliberated the shopman displayed his wares, and felt it
incumbent upon him to entertain his customer.
"Here are English ones, a new pattern, only just received," he prattled
on. "But I warn you, M'sieu, all these systems pale beside the Smith and
Wesson. The other day--as I dare say you have read--an officer bought from
us a Smith and Wesson. He shot his wife's lover, and-would you believe
it?--the bullet passed through him, pierced the bronze lamp, then the
piano, and ricochetted back from the piano, killing the lap-dog and
bruising the wife. A magnificent record redounding to the honour of our
firm! The officer is now under arrest. He will no doubt be convicted and
sent to penal servitude. In the first place, our penal code is quite out
of date; and, secondly, M'sieu, the sympathies of the court are always
with the lover. Why is it? Very simple, M'sieu. The judges and the jury
and the prosecutor and the counsel for the defence are all living with
other men's wives, and it'll add to their comfort that there will be one
husband the less in Russia. Society would be pleased if the Government
were to send all the husbands to Sahalin. Oh, M'sieu, you don't know how
it excites my indignation to see the corruption of morals nowadays. To
love other men's wives is as much the regular thing to-day as to smoke
other men's cigarettes and to read other men's books. Every year our
trade gets worse and worse--it doesn't mean that wives are more faithful,
but that husbands resign themselves to their position and are afraid of
the law and penal servitude."
The shopman looked round and whispered: "And whose fault is it, M'sieu?
The Government's."
"To go to Sahalin for the sake of a pig like that--there's no sense in
that either," Sigaev pondered. "If I go to penal servitude it will only
give my wife an opportunity of marrying again and deceiving a second
husband. She would triumph. . . . And so I will leave her alive, I won't
kill myself, him . . . I won't kill either. I must think of something
more sensible and more effective. I will punish them with my contempt,
and will take divorce proceedings that will make a scandal."
"Here, M'sieu, is another make," said the shopman, taking down another
dozen from the shelf. "Let me call your attention to the original
mechanism of the lock."
In view of his determination a revolver was now of no use to Sigaev, but
the shopman, meanwhile, getting more and more enthusiastic, persisted in
displaying his wares before him. The outraged husband began to feel
ashamed that the shopman should be taking so much trouble on his account
for nothing, that he should be smiling, wasting time, displaying
enthusiasm for nothing.
"Very well, in that case," he muttered, "I'll look in again later on . .
. or I'll send someone."
He didn't see the expression of the shopman's face, but to smooth over
the awkwardness of the position a little he felt called upon to make
some purchase. But what should he buy? He looked round the walls of the
shop to pick out something inexpensive, and his eyes rested on a green
net hanging near the door.
"That's . . . what's that?" he asked.
"That's a net for catching quails."
"And what price is it?"
"Eight roubles, M'sieu."
"Wrap it up for me. . . ."
The outraged husband paid his eight roubles, took the net, and, feeling
even more outraged, walked out of the shop.
THE JEUNE PREMIER
YEVGENY ALEXEYITCH PODZHAROV, the jeune premier, a graceful, elegant
young man with an oval face and little bags under his eyes, had come for
the season to one of the southern towns of Russia, and tried at once to
make the acquaintance of a few of the leading families of the place.
"Yes, signor," he would often say, gracefully swinging his foot and
displaying his red socks, "an artist ought to act upon the masses, both
directly and indirectly; the first aim is attained by his work on the
stage, the second by an acquaintance with the local inhabitants. On my
honour, parole d'honneur, I don't understand why it is we actors avoid
making acquaintance with local families. Why is it? To say nothing of
dinners, name-day parties, feasts, soirées fixes, to say nothing of
these entertainments, think of the moral influence we may have on
society! Is it not agreeable to feel one has dropped a spark in some
thick skull? The types one meets! The women! Mon Dieu, what women! they
turn one's head! One penetrates into some huge merchant's house, into
the sacred retreats, and picks out some fresh and rosy little peach--it's
heaven, parole d'honneur!"
In the southern town, among other estimable families he made the
acquaintance of that of a manufacturer called Zybaev. Whenever he
remembers that acquaintance now he frowns contemptuously, screws up his
eyes, and nervously plays with his watch-chain.
One day--it was at a name-day party at Zybaev's--the actor was sitting in
his new friends' drawing-room and holding forth as usual. Around him
"types" were sitting in armchairs and on the sofa, listening affably;
from the next room came feminine laughter and the sounds of evening tea.
. . . Crossing his legs, after each phrase sipping tea with rum in it,
and trying to assume an expression of careless boredom, he talked of his
stage triumphs.
"I am a provincial actor principally," he said, smiling condescendingly,
"but I have played in Petersburg and Moscow too. . . . By the way, I
will describe an incident which illustrates pretty well the state of
mind of to-day. At my benefit in Moscow the young people brought me such
a mass of laurel wreaths that I swear by all I hold sacred I did not
know where to put them! Parole d'honneur! Later on, at a moment when
funds were short, I took the laurel wreaths to the shop, and . . . guess
what they weighed. Eighty pounds altogether. Ha, ha! you can't think how
useful the money was. Artists, indeed, are often hard up. To-day I have
hundreds, thousands, tomorrow nothing. . . . To-day I haven't a crust of
bread, to-morrow I have oysters and anchovies, hang it all!"
The local inhabitants sipped their glasses decorously and listened. The
well-pleased host, not knowing how to make enough of his cultured and
interesting visitor, presented to him a distant relative who had just
arrived, one Pavel Ignatyevitch Klimov, a bulky gentleman about forty,
wearing a long frock-coat and very full trousers.
"You ought to know each other," said Zybaev as he presented Klimov; "he
loves theatres, and at one time used to act himself. He has an estate in
the Tula province."
Podzharov and Klimov got into conversation. It appeared, to the great
satisfaction of both, that the Tula landowner lived in the very town in
which the jeune premier had acted for two seasons in succession.
Enquiries followed about the town, about common acquaintances, and about
the theatre. . . .
"Do you know, I like that town awfully," said the jeune premier,
displaying his red socks. "What streets, what a charming park, and what
society! Delightful society!"
"Yes, delightful society," the landowner assented.
"A commercial town, but extremely cultured. . . . For instance, er-er-er
. . . the head master of the high school, the public prosecutor . . .
the officers. . . . The police captain, too, was not bad, a man, as the
French say, enchanté, and the women, Allah, what women!"
"Yes, the women . . . certainly. . . ."
"Perhaps I am partial; the fact is that in your town, I don't know why,
I was devilishly lucky with the fair sex! I could write a dozen novels.
To take this episode, for instance. . . . I was staying in Yegoryevsky
Street, in the very house where the Treasury is. . . ."
"The red house without stucco?"
"Yes, yes . . . without stucco. . . . Close by, as I remember now, lived
a local beauty, Varenka. . . ."