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!"