choir practice every day, morning and evening. The choir practice was
held at the school. It did not interfere much with the school work.
During the practice the schoolmaster, Sergey Makaritch, set the children
writing copies while he joined the tenors as an amateur.
This is how the choir practice was conducted. Alexey Alexeitch would
come into the school-room, slamming the door and blowing his nose. The
trebles and altos extricated themselves noisily from the school-tables.
The tenors and basses, who had been waiting for some time in the yard,
came in, tramping like horses. They all took their places. Alexey
Alexeitch drew himself up, made a sign to enforce silence, and struck a
note with the tuning fork.
"To-to-li-to-tom . . . Do-mi-sol-do!"
"Adagio, adagio. . . . Once more."
After the "Amen" there followed "Lord have mercy upon us" from the Great
Litany. All this had been learned long ago, sung a thousand times and
thoroughly digested, and it was gone through simply as a formality. It
was sung indolently, unconsciously. Alexey Alexeitch waved his arms
calmly and chimed in now in a tenor, now in a bass voice. It was all
slow, there was nothing interesting. . . . But before the "Cherubim"
hymn the whole choir suddenly began blowing their noses, coughing and
zealously turning the pages of their music. The sacristan turned his
back on the choir and with a mysterious expression on his face began
tuning his violin. The preparations lasted a couple of minutes.
"Take your places. Look at your music carefully. . . . Basses, don't
overdo it . . . rather softly."
Bortnyansky's "Cherubim" hymn, No. 7, was selected. At a given signal
silence prevailed. All eyes were fastened on the music, the trebles
opened their mouths. Alexey Alexeitch softly lowered his arm.
"Piano . . . piano. . . . You see 'piano' is written there. . . . More
lightly, more lightly."
When they had to sing "piano" an expression of benevolence and
amiability overspread Alexey Alexeitch's face, as though he was dreaming
of a dainty morsel.
"Forte . . . forte! Hold it!"
And when they had to sing "forte" the sacristan's fat face expressed
alarm and even horror.
The "Cherubim" hymn was sung well, so well that the school-children
abandoned their copies and fell to watching the movements of Alexey
Alexeitch. People stood under the windows. The school-watchman, Vassily,
came in wearing an apron and carrying a dinner-knife in his hand and
stood listening. Father Kuzma, with an anxious face appeared suddenly as
though he had sprung from out of the earth. . . . After 'Let us lay
aside all earthly cares' Alexey Alexeitch wiped the sweat off his brow
and went up to Father Kuzma in excitement.
"It puzzles me, Father Kuzma," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "why is
it that the Russian people have no understanding? It puzzles me, may the
Lord chastise me! Such an uncultured people that you really cannot tell
whether they have a windpipe in their throats or some other sort of
internal arrangement. Were you choking, or what?" he asked, addressing
the bass Gennady Semitchov, the innkeeper's brother.
"Why?"
"What is your voice like? It rattles like a saucepan. I bet you were
boozing yesterday! That's what it is! Your breath smells like a tavern.
. . . E-ech! You are a clodhopper, brother! You are a lout! How can you
be a chorister if you keep company with peasants in the tavern? Ech, you
are an ass, brother!"
"It's a sin, it's a sin, brother," muttered Father Kuzma. "God sees
everything . . . through and through . . . ."
"That's why you have no idea of singing--because you care more for vodka
than for godliness, you fool."
"Don't work yourself up," said Father Kuzma. "Don't be cross. . . . I
will persuade him."
Father Kuzma went up to Gennady Semitchov and began "persuading" him:
"What do you do it for? Try and put your mind to it. A man who sings
ought to restrain himself, because his throat is . . . er . . tender."
Gennady scratched his neck and looked sideways towards the window as
though the words did not apply to him.
After the "Cherubim" hymn they sang the Creed, then "It is meet and
right"; they sang smoothly and with feeling, and so right on to "Our
Father."
"To my mind, Father Kuzma," said the sacristan, "the old 'Our Father' is
better than the modern. That's what we ought to sing before the Count."
"No, no. . . . Sing the modern one. For the Count hears nothing but
modern music when he goes to Mass in Petersburg or Moscow. . . . In the
churches there, I imagine . . . there's very different sort of music
there, brother!"
After "Our Father" there was again a great blowing of noses, coughing
and turning over of pages. The most difficult part of the performance
came next: the "concert." Alexey Alexeitch was practising two pieces,
"Who is the God of glory" and "Universal Praise." Whichever the choir
learned best would be sung before the Count. During the "concert" the
sacristan rose to a pitch of enthusiasm. The expression of benevolence
was continually alternating with one of alarm.
"Forte!" he muttered. "Andante! let yourselves go! Sing, you image!
Tenors, you don't bring it off! To-to-ti-to-tom. . . . Sol . . . si . .
. sol, I tell you, you blockhead! Glory! Basses, glo . . . o . . . ry."
His bow travelled over the heads and shoulders of the erring trebles and
altos. His left hand was continually pulling the ears of the young
singers. On one occasion, carried away by his feelings he flipped the
bass Gennady under the chin with his bent thumb. But the choristers were
not moved to tears or to anger at his blows: they realised the full
gravity of their task.
After the "concert" came a minute of silence. Alexey Alexeitch, red,
perspiring and exhausted, sat down on the window-sill, and turned upon
the company lustreless, wearied, but triumphant eyes. In the listening
crowd he observed to his immense annoyance the deacon Avdiessov. The
deacon, a tall thick-set man with a red pock-marked face, and straw in
his hair, stood leaning against the stove and grinning contemptuously.
"That's right, sing away! Perform your music!" he muttered in a deep
bass. "Much the Count will care for your singing! He doesn't care
whether you sing with music or without. . . . For he is an atheist."
Father Kuzma looked round in a scared way and twiddled his fingers.
"Come, come," he muttered. "Hush, deacon, I beg."
After the "concert" they sang "May our lips be filled with praise," and
the choir practice was over. The choir broke up to reassemble in the
evening for another practice. And so it went on every day.
One month passed and then a second. . . . The steward, too, had by then
received a notice that the Count would soon be coming. At last the dusty
sun-blinds were taken off the windows of the big house, and Yefremovo
heard the strains of the broken-down, out-of-tune piano. Father Kuzma
was pining, though he could not himself have said why, or whether it was
from delight or alarm. . . . The deacon went about grinning.
The following Saturday evening Father Kuzma went to the sacristan's
lodgings. His face was pale, his shoulders drooped, the lilac of his
cassock looked faded.
"I have just been at his Excellency's," he said to the sacristan,
stammering. "He is a cultivated gentleman with refined ideas. But . . .
er . . . it's mortifying, brother. . . . 'At what o'clock, your
Excellency, do you desire us to ring for Mass to-morrow?' And he said:
'As you think best. Only, couldn't it be as short and quick as possible
without a choir.' Without a choir! Er . . . do you understand, without,
without a choir. . . ."
Alexey Alexeitch turned crimson. He would rather have spent two hours on
his knees again than have heard those words! He did not sleep all night.
He was not so much mortified at the waste of his labours as at the fact
that the deacon would give him no peace now with his jeers. The deacon
was delighted at his discomfiture. Next day all through the service he
was casting disdainful glances towards the choir where Alexey Alexeitch
was booming responses in solitude. When he passed by the choir with the
censer he muttered:
"Perform your music! Do your utmost! The Count will give a ten-rouble
note to the choir!"
After the service the sacristan went home, crushed and ill with
mortification. At the gate he was overtaken by the red-faced deacon.
"Stop a minute, Alyosha!" said the deacon. "Stop a minute, silly, don't
be cross! You are not the only one, I am in for it too! Immediately
after the Mass Father Kuzma went up to the Count and asked: 'And what
did you think of the deacon's voice, your Excellency. He has a deep
bass, hasn't he?' And the Count--do you know what he answered by way of
compliment? 'Anyone can bawl,' he said. 'A man's voice is not as
important as his brains.' A learned gentleman from Petersburg! An
atheist is an atheist, and that's all about it! Come, brother in
misfortune, let us go and have a drop to drown our troubles!"
And the enemies went out of the gate arm-in-arm.
NERVES
DMITRI OSIPOVITCH VAXIN, the architect, returned from town to his
holiday cottage greatly impressed by the spiritualistic séance at which
he had been present. As he undressed and got into his solitary bed
(Madame Vaxin had gone to an all-night service) he could not help
remembering all he had seen and heard. It had not, properly speaking,
been a séance at all, but the whole evening had been spent in
terrifying conversation. A young lady had begun it by talking, apropos
of nothing, about thought-reading. From thought-reading they had passed
imperceptibly to spirits, and from spirits to ghosts, from ghosts to
people buried alive. . . . A gentleman had read a horrible story of a
corpse turning round in the coffin. Vaxin himself had asked for a saucer
and shown the young ladies how to converse with spirits. He had called
up among others the spirit of his deceased uncle, Klavdy Mironitch, and
had mentally asked him:
"Has not the time come for me to transfer the ownership of our house to
my wife?"
To which his uncle's spirit had replied:
"All things are good in their season."
"There is a great deal in nature that is mysterious and . . . terrible .
. ." thought Vaxin, as he got into bed. "It's not the dead but the
unknown that's so horrible."
It struck one o'clock. Vaxin turned over on the other side and peeped
out from beneath the bedclothes at the blue light of the lamp burning
before the holy ikon. The flame flickered and cast a faint light on the
ikon-stand and the big portrait of Uncle Klavdy that hung facing his
bed.
"And what if the ghost of Uncle Klavdy should appear this minute?"
flashed through Vaxin's mind. "But, of course, that's impossible."
Ghosts are, we all know, a superstition, the offspring of undeveloped
intelligence, but Vaxin, nevertheless, pulled the bed-clothes over his
head, and shut his eyes very tight. The corpse that turned round in its
coffin came back to his mind, and the figures of his deceased mother-in-
law, of a colleague who had hanged himself, and of a girl who had
drowned herself, rose before his imagination. . . . Vaxin began trying
to dispel these gloomy ideas, but the more he tried to drive them away
the more haunting the figures and fearful fancies became. He began to
feel frightened.
"Hang it all!" he thought. "Here I am afraid in the dark like a child!
Idiotic!"
Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . he heard the clock in the next room.
The church-bell chimed the hour in the churchyard close by. The bell
tolled slowly, depressingly, mournfully. . . . A cold chill ran down
Vaxin's neck and spine. He fancied he heard someone breathing heavily
over his head, as though Uncle Klavdy had stepped out of his frame and
was bending over his nephew. . . . Vaxin felt unbearably frightened. He
clenched his teeth and held his breath in terror.
At last, when a cockchafer flew in at the open window and began buzzing
over his bed, he could bear it no longer and gave a violent tug at the
bellrope.
"Dmitri Osipitch, was wollen Sie?" he heard the voice of the German
governess at his door a moment later.
"Ah, it's you, Rosalia Karlovna!" Vaxin cried, delighted. "Why do you
trouble? Gavrila might just . . ."
"Yourself Gavrila to the town sent. And Glafira is somewhere all the
evening gone. . . . There's nobody in the house. . . . Was wollen Sie
doch?"
"Well, what I wanted . . . it's . . . but, please, come in . . . you
needn't mind! . . . it's dark."
Rosalia Karlovna, a stout red-cheeked person, came in to the bedroom and
stood in an expectant attitude at the door.
"Sit down, please . . . you see, it's like this. . . . What on earth am
I to ask her for?" he wondered, stealing a glance at Uncle Klavdy's
portrait and feeling his soul gradually returning to tranquility.
"What I really wanted to ask you was . . . Oh, when the man goes to
town, don't forget to tell him to . . . er . . . er . . . to get some
cigarette-papers. . . . But do, please sit down."
"Cigarette-papers? good. . . . Was wollen Sie noch?"
"Ich will . . . there's nothing I will, but. . . But do sit down! I
shall think of something else in a minute."
"It is shocking for a maiden in a man's room to remain. . . . Mr. Vaxin,
you are, I see, a naughty man. . . . I understand. . . . To order
cigarette-papers one does not a person wake. . . . I understand you. . .
."
Rosalia Karlovna turned and went out of the room.
Somewhat reassured by his conversation with her and ashamed of his
cowardice, Vaxin pulled the bedclothes over his head and shut his eyes.
For about ten minutes he felt fairly comfortable, then the same nonsense
came creeping back into his mind. . . . He swore to himself, felt for
the matches, and without opening his eyes lighted a candle.
But even the light was no use. To Vaxin' s excited imagination it seemed
as though someone were peeping round the corner and that his uncle's
eyes were moving.
"I'll ring her up again . . . damn the woman!" he decided. "I'll tell
her I'm unwell and ask for some drops."
Vaxin rang. There was no response. He rang again, and as though
answering his ring, he heard the church-bell toll the hour.
Overcome with terror, cold all over, he jumped out of bed, ran headlong
out of his bedroom, and making the sign of the cross and cursing himself
for his cowardice, he fled barefoot in his night-shirt to the
governess's room.
"Rosalia Karlovna!" he began in a shaking voice as he knocked at her
door, "Rosalia Karlovna! . . . Are you asleep? . . . I feel . . . so . .
. er . . . er . . . unwell. . . . Drops! . . ."
There was no answer. Silence reigned.
"I beg you . . . do you understand? I beg you! Why this squeamishness, I
can't understand . . . especially when a man . . . is ill . . . How
absurdly zierlich manierlich you are really . . . at your age. . . ."
"I to your wife shall tell. . . . Will not leave an honest maiden in
peace. . . . When I was at Baron Anzig's, and the baron try to come to
me for matches, I understand at once what his matches mean and tell to
the baroness. . . . I am an honest maiden."
"Hang your honesty! I am ill I tell you . . . and asking you for drops.
Do you understand? I'm ill!"
"Your wife is an honest, good woman, and you ought her to love! Ja! She
is noble! . . . I will not be her foe!"
"You are a fool! simply a fool! Do you understand, a fool?"
Vaxin leaned against the door-post, folded his arms and waited for his
panic to pass off. To return to his room where the lamp flickered and
his uncle stared at him from his frame was more than he could face, and
to stand at the governess's door in nothing but his night-shirt was
inconvenient from every point of view. What could he do?
It struck two o'clock and his terror had not left him. There was no
light in the passage and something dark seemed to be peeping out from
every corner. Vaxin turned so as to face the door-post, but at that
instant it seemed as though somebody tweaked his night-shirt from behind
and touched him on the shoulder.
"Damnation! . . . Rosalia Karlovna!"
No answer. Vaxin hesitatingly opened the door and peeped into the room.
The virtuous German was sweetly slumbering. The tiny flame of a night-
light threw her solid buxom person into relief. Vaxin stepped into the
room and sat down on a wickerwork trunk near the door. He felt better in
the presence of a living creature, even though that creature was asleep.
"Let the German idiot sleep," he thought, "I'll sit here, and when it
gets light I'll go back. . . . It's daylight early now."
Vaxin curled up on the trunk and put his arm under his head to await the
coming of dawn.
"What a thing it is to have nerves!" he reflected. "An educated,
intelligent man! . . . Hang it all! . . . It's a perfect disgrace!"
As he listened to the gentle, even breathing of Rosalia Karlovna, he
soon recovered himself completely.
At six o'clock, Vaxin's wife returned from the all-night service, and
not finding her husband in their bedroom, went to the governess to ask
her for some change for the cabman.
On entering the German's room, a strange sight met her eyes.
On the bed lay stretched Rosalia Karlovna fast asleep, and a couple of
yards from her was her husband curled up on the trunk sleeping the sleep
of the just and snoring loudly.
What she said to her husband, and how he looked when he woke, I leave to
others to describe. It is beyond my powers.
A WORK OF ART
SASHA SMIRNOV, the only son of his mother, holding under his arm,
something wrapped up in No. 223 of the Financial News, assumed a
sentimental expression, and went into Dr. Koshelkov's consulting-room.
"Ah, dear lad!" was how the doctor greeted him. "Well! how are we
feeling? What good news have you for me?"
Sasha blinked, laid his hand on his heart and said in an agitated
voice: "Mamma sends her greetings to you, Ivan Nikolaevitch, and told me
to thank you. . . . I am the only son of my mother and you have saved my
life . . . you have brought me through a dangerous illness and . . . we
do not know how to thank you."
"Nonsense, lad!" said the doctor, highly delighted. "I only did what
anyone else would have done in my place."
"I am the only son of my mother . . . we are poor people and cannot of
course repay you, and we are quite ashamed, doctor, although, however,
mamma and I . . . the only son of my mother, earnestly beg you to accept
in token of our gratitude . . . this object, which . . . An object of
great value, an antique bronze. . . . A rare work of art."
"You shouldn't!" said the doctor, frowning. "What's this for!"
"No, please do not refuse," Sasha went on muttering as he unpacked the
parcel. "You will wound mamma and me by refusing. . . . It's a fine
thing . . . an antique bronze. . . . It was left us by my deceased
father and we have kept it as a precious souvenir. My father used to buy
antique bronzes and sell them to connoisseurs . . . Mamma and I keep on
the business now."
Sasha undid the object and put it solemnly on the table. It was a not
very tall candelabra of old bronze and artistic workmanship. It
consisted of a group: on the pedestal stood two female figures in the
costume of Eve and in attitudes for the description of which I have
neither the courage nor the fitting temperament. The figures were
smiling coquettishly and altogether looked as though, had it not been
for the necessity of supporting the candlestick, they would have skipped
off the pedestal and have indulged in an orgy such as is improper for
the reader even to imagine.
Looking at the present, the doctor slowly scratched behind his ear,
cleared his throat and blew his nose irresolutely.
"Yes, it certainly is a fine thing," he muttered, "but . . . how shall I
express it? . . . it's . . . h'm . . . it's not quite for family
reading. It's not simply decolleté but beyond anything, dash it all. .
. ."
"How do you mean?"
"The serpent-tempter himself could not have invented anything worse . .
. . Why, to put such a phantasmagoria on the table would be defiling the
whole flat."
"What a strange way of looking at art, doctor!" said Sasha, offended.
"Why, it is an artistic thing, look at it! There is so much beauty and
elegance that it fills one's soul with a feeling of reverence and brings
a lump into one's throat! When one sees anything so beautiful one
forgets everything earthly. . . . Only look, how much movement, what an
atmosphere, what expression!"
"I understand all that very well, my dear boy," the doctor interposed,
"but you know I am a family man, my children run in here, ladies come
in."
"Of course if you look at it from the point of view of the crowd," said
Sasha, "then this exquisitely artistic work may appear in a certain
light. . . . But, doctor, rise superior to the crowd, especially as you
will wound mamma and me by refusing it. I am the only son of my mother,
you have saved my life. . . . We are giving you the thing most precious
to us and . . . and I only regret that I have not the pair to present to
you. . . ."
"Thank you, my dear fellow, I am very grateful . . . Give my respects to
your mother but really consider, my children run in here, ladies come. .
. . However, let it remain! I see there's no arguing with you."
"And there is nothing to argue about," said Sasha, relieved. "Put the
candlestick here, by this vase. What a pity we have not the pair to it!
It is a pity! Well, good-bye, doctor."
After Sasha's departure the doctor looked for a long time at the
candelabra, scratched behind his ear and meditated.
"It's a superb thing, there's no denying it," he thought, "and it would
be a pity to throw it away. . . . But it's impossible for me to keep it.
. . . H'm! . . . Here's a problem! To whom can I make a present of it,
or to what charity can I give it?"
After long meditation he thought of his good friend, the lawyer Uhov, to
whom he was indebted for the management of legal business.
"Excellent," the doctor decided, "it would be awkward for him as a
friend to take money from me, and it will be very suitable for me to
present him with this. I will take him the devilish thing! Luckily he is
a bachelor and easy-going."
Without further procrastination the doctor put on his hat and coat, took
the candelabra and went off to Uhov's.
"How are you, friend!" he said, finding the lawyer at home. "I've come
to see you . . . to thank you for your efforts. . . . You won't take
money so you must at least accept this thing here. . . . See, my dear
fellow. . . . The thing is magnificent!"
On seeing the bronze the lawyer was moved to indescribable delight.
"What a specimen!" he chuckled. "Ah, deuce take it, to think of them
imagining such a thing, the devils! Exquisite! Ravishing! Where did you
get hold of such a delightful thing?"
After pouring out his ecstasies the lawyer looked timidly towards the
door and said: "Only you must carry off your present, my boy . . . . I
can't take it. . . ."
"Why?" cried the doctor, disconcerted.
"Why . . . because my mother is here at times, my clients . . . besides
I should be ashamed for my servants to see it."
"Nonsense! Nonsense! Don't you dare to refuse!" said the doctor,
gesticulating. "It's piggish of you! It's a work of art! . . . What
movement . . . what expression! I won't even talk of it! You will offend
me!"
"If one could plaster it over or stick on fig-leaves . . ."
But the doctor gesticulated more violently than before, and dashing out
of the flat went home, glad that he had succeeded in getting the present
off his hands.
When he had gone away the lawyer examined the candelabra, fingered it
all over, and then, like the doctor, racked his brains over the question
what to do with the present.
"It's a fine thing," he mused, "and it would be a pity to throw it away
and improper to keep it. The very best thing would be to make a present
of it to someone. . . . I know what! I'll take it this evening to
Shashkin, the comedian. The rascal is fond of such things, and by the
way it is his benefit tonight."
No sooner said than done. In the evening the candelabra, carefully
wrapped up, was duly carried to Shashkin's. The whole evening the comic
actor's dressing-room was besieged by men coming to admire the present;
the dressing-room was filled with the hum of enthusiasm and laughter
like the neighing of horses. If one of the actresses approached the door
and asked: "May I come in?" the comedian's husky voice was heard at
once: "No, no, my dear, I am not dressed!"
After the performance the comedian shrugged his shoulders, flung up his
hands and said: "Well what am I to do with the horrid thing? Why, I live
in a private flat! Actresses come and see me! It's not a photograph that
you can put in a drawer!"