actor advised him. "There's an old woman living about here who buys
antique bronzes. Go and enquire for Madame Smirnov . . . everyone knows
her."
The actor followed his advice. . . . Two days later the doctor was
sitting in his consulting-room, and with his finger to his brow was
meditating on the acids of the bile. All at once the door opened and
Sasha Smirnov flew into the room. He was smiling, beaming, and his whole
figure was radiant with happiness. In his hands he held something
wrapped up in newspaper.
"Doctor!" he began breathlessly, "imagine my delight! Happily for you we
have succeeded in picking up the pair to your candelabra! Mamma is so
happy. . . . I am the only son of my mother, you saved my life. . . ."
And Sasha, all of a tremor with gratitude, set the candelabra before the
doctor. The doctor opened his mouth, tried to say something, but said
nothing: he could not speak.
A JOKE
IT was a bright winter midday. . . . There was a sharp snapping frost
and the curls on Nadenka's temples and the down on her upper lip were
covered with silvery frost. She was holding my arm and we were standing
on a high hill. From where we stood to the ground below there stretched
a smooth sloping descent in which the sun was reflected as in a looking-
glass. Beside us was a little sledge lined with bright red cloth.
"Let us go down, Nadyezhda Petrovna!" I besought her. "Only once! I
assure you we shall be all right and not hurt."
But Nadenka was afraid. The slope from her little goloshes to the bottom
of the ice hill seemed to her a terrible, immensely deep abyss. Her
spirit failed her, and she held her breath as she looked down, when I
merely suggested her getting into the sledge, but what would it be if
she were to risk flying into the abyss! She would die, she would go out
of her mind.
"I entreat you!" I said. "You mustn't be afraid! You know it's poor-
spirited, it's cowardly!"
Nadenka gave way at last, and from her face I saw that she gave way in
mortal dread. I sat her in the sledge, pale and trembling, put my arm
round her and with her cast myself down the precipice.
The sledge flew like a bullet. The air cleft by our flight beat in our
faces, roared, whistled in our ears, tore at us, nipped us cruelly in
its anger, tried to tear our heads off our shoulders. We had hardly
strength to breathe from the pressure of the wind. It seemed as though
the devil himself had caught us in his claws and was dragging us with a
roar to hell. Surrounding objects melted into one long furiously racing
streak . . . another moment and it seemed we should perish.
"I love you, Nadya!" I said in a low voice.
The sledge began moving more and more slowly, the roar of the wind and
the whirr of the runners was no longer so terrible, it was easier to
breathe, and at last we were at the bottom. Nadenka was more dead than
alive. She was pale and scarcely breathing. . . . I helped her to get
up.
"Nothing would induce me to go again," she said, looking at me with wide
eyes full of horror. "Nothing in the world! I almost died!"
A little later she recovered herself and looked enquiringly into my
eyes, wondering had I really uttered those four words or had she fancied
them in the roar of the hurricane. And I stood beside her smoking and
looking attentively at my glove.
She took my arm and we spent a long while walking near the ice-hill. The
riddle evidently would not let her rest. . . . Had those words been
uttered or not? . . . Yes or no? Yes or no? It was the question of
pride, or honour, of life--a very important question, the most important
question in the world. Nadenka kept impatiently, sorrowfully looking
into my face with a penetrating glance; she answered at random, waiting
to see whether I would not speak. Oh, the play of feeling on that sweet
face! I saw that she was struggling with herself, that she wanted to say
something, to ask some question, but she could not find the words; she
felt awkward and frightened and troubled by her joy. . . .
"Do you know what," she said without looking at me.
"Well?" I asked.
"Let us . . . slide down again."
We clambered up the ice-hill by the steps again. I sat Nadenka, pale and
trembling, in the sledge; again we flew into the terrible abyss, again
the wind roared and the runners whirred, and again when the flight of
our sledge was at its swiftest and noisiest, I said in a low voice:
"I love you, Nadenka!"
When the sledge stopped, Nadenka flung a glance at the hill down which
we had both slid, then bent a long look upon my face, listened to my
voice which was unconcerned and passionless, and the whole of her little
figure, every bit of it, even her muff and her hood expressed the utmost
bewilderment, and on her face was written: "What does it mean? Who
uttered those words? Did he, or did I only fancy it?"
The uncertainty worried her and drove her out of all patience. The poor
girl did not answer my questions, frowned, and was on the point of
tears.
"Hadn't we better go home?" I asked.
"Well, I . . . I like this tobogganning," she said, flushing. "Shall we
go down once more?"
She "liked" the tobogganning, and yet as she got into the sledge she
was, as both times before, pale, trembling, hardly able to breathe for
terror.
We went down for the third time, and I saw she was looking at my face
and watching my lips. But I put my handkerchief to my lips, coughed, and
when we reached the middle of the hill I succeeded in bringing out:
"I love you, Nadya!"
And the mystery remained a mystery! Nadenka was silent, pondering on
something. . . . I saw her home, she tried to walk slowly, slackened her
pace and kept waiting to see whether I would not say those words to her,
and I saw how her soul was suffering, what effort she was making not to
say to herself:
"It cannot be that the wind said them! And I don't want it to be the
wind that said them!"
Next morning I got a little note:
"If you are tobogganning to-day, come for me.--N."
And from that time I began going every day tobogganning with Nadenka,
and as we flew down in the sledge, every time I pronounced in a low
voice the same words: "I love you, Nadya!"
Soon Nadenka grew used to that phrase as to alcohol or morphia. She
could not live without it. It is true that flying down the ice-hill
terrified her as before, but now the terror and danger gave a peculiar
fascination to words of love--words which as before were a mystery and
tantalized the soul. The same two--the wind and I were still suspected. .
. . Which of the two was making love to her she did not know, but
apparently by now she did not care; from which goblet one drinks matters
little if only the beverage is intoxicating.
It happened I went to the skating-ground alone at midday; mingling with
the crowd I saw Nadenka go up to the ice-hill and look about for me . .
. then she timidly mounted the steps. . . . She was frightened of going
alone--oh, how frightened! She was white as the snow, she was trembling,
she went as though to the scaffold, but she went, she went without
looking back, resolutely. She had evidently determined to put it to the
test at last: would those sweet amazing words be heard when I was not
there? I saw her, pale, her lips parted with horror, get into the
sledge, shut her eyes and saying good-bye for ever to the earth, set
off. . . . "Whrrr!" whirred the runners. Whether Nadenka heard those
words I do not know. I only saw her getting up from the sledge looking
faint and exhausted. And one could tell from her face that she could not
tell herself whether she had heard anything or not. Her terror while she
had been flying down had deprived of her all power of hearing, of
discriminating sounds, of understanding.
But then the month of March arrived . . . the spring sunshine was more
kindly. . . . Our ice-hill turned dark, lost its brilliance and finally
melted. We gave up tobogganning. There was nowhere now where poor
Nadenka could hear those words, and indeed no one to utter them, since
there was no wind and I was going to Petersburg--for long, perhaps for
ever.
It happened two days before my departure I was sitting in the dusk in
the little garden which was separated from the yard of Nadenka's house
by a high fence with nails in it. . . . It was still pretty cold, there
was still snow by the manure heap, the trees looked dead but there was
already the scent of spring and the rooks were cawing loudly as they
settled for their night's rest. I went up to the fence and stood for a
long while peeping through a chink. I saw Nadenka come out into the
porch and fix a mournful yearning gaze on the sky. . . . The spring wind
was blowing straight into her pale dejected face. . . . It reminded her
of the wind which roared at us on the ice-hill when she heard those four
words, and her face became very, very sorrowful, a tear trickled down
her cheek, and the poor child held out both arms as though begging the
wind to bring her those words once more. And waiting for the wind I said
in a low voice:
"I love you, Nadya!"
Mercy! The change that came over Nadenka! She uttered a cry, smiled all
over her face and looking joyful, happy and beautiful, held out her arms
to meet the wind.
And I went off to pack up. . . .
That was long ago. Now Nadenka is married; she married--whether of her
own choice or not does not matter--a secretary of the Nobility Wardenship
and now she has three children. That we once went tobogganning together,
and that the wind brought her the words "I love you, Nadenka," is not
forgotten; it is for her now the happiest, most touching, and beautiful
memory in her life. . . .
But now that I am older I cannot understand why I uttered those words,
what was my motive in that joke. . . .
A COUNTRY COTTAGE
Two young people who had not long been married were walking up and down
the platform of a little country station. His arm was round her waist,
her head was almost on his shoulder, and both were happy.
The moon peeped up from the drifting cloudlets and frowned, as it
seemed, envying their happiness and regretting her tedious and utterly
superfluous virginity. The still air was heavy with the fragrance of
lilac and wild cherry. Somewhere in the distance beyond the line a
corncrake was calling.
"How beautiful it is, Sasha, how beautiful!" murmured the young wife.
"It all seems like a dream. See, how sweet and inviting that little
copse looks! How nice those solid, silent telegraph posts are! They add
a special note to the landscape, suggesting humanity, civilization in
the distance. . . . Don't you think it's lovely when the wind brings the
rushing sound of a train?"
"Yes. . . . But what hot little hands you've got. . . That's because
you're excited, Varya. . . . What have you got for our supper to-night?"
"Chicken and salad. . . . It's a chicken just big enough for two . . . .
Then there is the salmon and sardines that were sent from town."
The moon as though she had taken a pinch of snuff hid her face behind a
cloud. Human happiness reminded her of her own loneliness, of her
solitary couch beyond the hills and dales.
"The train is coming!" said Varya, "how jolly!"
Three eyes of fire could be seen in the distance. The stationmaster came
out on the platform. Signal lights flashed here and there on the line.
"Let's see the train in and go home," said Sasha, yawning. "What a
splendid time we are having together, Varya, it's so splendid, one can
hardly believe it's true!"
The dark monster crept noiselessly alongside the platform and came to a
standstill. They caught glimpses of sleepy faces, of hats and shoulders
at the dimly lighted windows.
"Look! look!" they heard from one of the carriages. "Varya and Sasha
have come to meet us! There they are! . . . Varya! . . . Varya. . . .
Look!"
Two little girls skipped out of the train and hung on Varya's neck. They
were followed by a stout, middle-aged lady, and a tall, lanky gentleman
with grey whiskers; behind them came two schoolboys, laden with bags,
and after the schoolboys, the governess, after the governess the
grandmother.
"Here we are, here we are, dear boy!" began the whiskered gentleman,
squeezing Sasha's hand. "Sick of waiting for us, I expect! You have been
pitching into your old uncle for not coming down all this time, I
daresay! Kolya, Kostya, Nina, Fifa . . . children! Kiss your cousin
Sasha! We're all here, the whole troop of us, just for three or four
days. . . . I hope we shan't be too many for you? You mustn't let us put
you out!"
At the sight of their uncle and his family, the young couple were
horror-stricken. While his uncle talked and kissed them, Sasha had a
vision of their little cottage: he and Varya giving up their three
little rooms, all the pillows and bedding to their guests; the salmon,
the sardines, the chicken all devoured in a single instant; the cousins
plucking the flowers in their little garden, spilling the ink, filled
the cottage with noise and confusion; his aunt talking continually about
her ailments and her papa's having been Baron von Fintich. . . .
And Sasha looked almost with hatred at his young wife, and whispered:
"It's you they've come to see! . . . Damn them!"
"No, it's you," answered Varya, pale with anger. "They're your
relations! they're not mine!"
And turning to her visitors, she said with a smile of welcome: "Welcome
to the cottage!"
The moon came out again. She seemed to smile, as though she were glad
she had no relations. Sasha, turning his head away to hide his angry
despairing face, struggled to give a note of cordial welcome to his
voice as he said:
"It is jolly of you! Welcome to the cottage!"
A BLUNDER
ILYA SERGEITCH PEPLOV and his wife Kleopatra Petrovna were standing at
the door, listening greedily. On the other side in the little drawing-
room a love scene was apparently taking place between two persons: their
daughter Natashenka and a teacher of the district school, called
Shchupkin.
"He's rising!" whispered Peplov, quivering with impatience and rubbing
his hands. "Now, Kleopatra, mind; as soon as they begin talking of their
feelings, take down the ikon from the wall and we'll go in and bless
them. . . . We'll catch him. . . . A blessing with an ikon is sacred and
binding. . . He couldn't get out of it, if he brought it into court."
On the other side of the door this was the conversation:
"Don't go on like that!" said Shchupkin, striking a match against his
checked trousers. "I never wrote you any letters!"
"I like that! As though I didn't know your writing!" giggled the girl
with an affected shriek, continually peeping at herself in the glass. "I
knew it at once! And what a queer man you are! You are a writing master,
and you write like a spider! How can you teach writing if you write so
badly yourself?"
"H'm! . . . That means nothing. The great thing in writing lessons is
not the hand one writes, but keeping the boys in order. You hit one on
the head with a ruler, make another kneel down. . . . Besides, there's
nothing in handwriting! Nekrassov was an author, but his handwriting's a
disgrace, there's a specimen of it in his collected works."
"You are not Nekrassov. . . ." (A sigh). "I should love to marry an
author. He'd always be writing poems to me."
"I can write you a poem, too, if you like."
"What can you write about?"
"Love--passion--your eyes. You'll be crazy when you read it. It would draw
a tear from a stone! And if I write you a real poem, will you let me
kiss your hand?"
"That's nothing much! You can kiss it now if you like."
Shchupkin jumped up, and making sheepish eyes, bent over the fat little
hand that smelt of egg soap.
"Take down the ikon," Peplov whispered in a fluster, pale with
excitement, and buttoning his coat as he prodded his wife with his
elbow. "Come along, now!"
And without a second's delay Peplov flung open the door.
"Children," he muttered, lifting up his arms and blinking tearfully,
"the Lord bless you, my children. May you live--be fruitful--and
multiply."
"And--and I bless you, too," the mamma brought out, crying with
happiness. "May you be happy, my dear ones! Oh, you are taking from me
my only treasure!" she said to Shchupkin. "Love my girl, be good to her.
. . ."
Shchupkin's mouth fell open with amazement and alarm. The parents'
attack was so bold and unexpected that he could not utter a single word.
"I'm in for it! I'm spliced!" he thought, going limp with horror. "It's
all over with you now, my boy! There's no escape!"
And he bowed his head submissively, as though to say, "Take me, I'm
vanquished."
"Ble-blessings on you," the papa went on, and he, too, shed tears.
"Natashenka, my daughter, stand by his side. Kleopatra, give me the
ikon."
But at this point the father suddenly left off weeping, and his face was
contorted with anger.
"You ninny!" he said angrily to his wife. "You are an idiot! Is that the
ikon?"
"Ach, saints alive!"
What had happened? The writing master raised himself and saw that he was
saved; in her flutter the mamma had snatched from the wall the portrait
of Lazhetchnikov, the author, in mistake for the ikon. Old Peplov and
his wife stood disconcerted in the middle of the room, holding the
portrait aloft, not knowing what to do or what to say. The writing
master took advantage of the general confusion and slipped away.
FAT AND THIN
Two friends--one a fat man and the other a thin man--met at the
Nikolaevsky station. The fat man had just dined in the station and his
greasy lips shone like ripe cherries. He smelt of sherry and fleur
d'orange. The thin man had just slipped out of the train and was laden
with portmanteaus, bundles, and bandboxes. He smelt of ham and coffee
grounds. A thin woman with a long chin, his wife, and a tall schoolboy
with one eye screwed up came into view behind his back.
"Porfiry," cried the fat man on seeing the thin man. "Is it you? My dear
fellow! How many summers, how many winters!"
"Holy saints!" cried the thin man in amazement. "Misha! The friend of my
childhood! Where have you dropped from?"
The friends kissed each other three times, and gazed at each other with
eyes full of tears. Both were agreeably astounded.
"My dear boy!" began the thin man after the kissing. "This is
unexpected! This is a surprise! Come have a good look at me! Just as
handsome as I used to be! Just as great a darling and a dandy! Good
gracious me! Well, and how are you? Made your fortune? Married? I am
married as you see. . . . This is my wife Luise, her maiden name was
Vantsenbach . . . of the Lutheran persuasion. . . . And this is my son
Nafanail, a schoolboy in the third class. This is the friend of my
childhood, Nafanya. We were boys at school together!"
Nafanail thought a little and took off his cap.
"We were boys at school together," the thin man went on. "Do you
remember how they used to tease you? You were nicknamed Herostratus
because you burned a hole in a schoolbook with a cigarette, and I was
nicknamed Ephialtes because I was fond of telling tales. Ho--ho! . . . we
were children! . . . Don't be shy, Nafanya. Go nearer to him. And this
is my wife, her maiden name was Vantsenbach, of the Lutheran persuasion.
. . ."
Nafanail thought a little and took refuge behind his father's back.
"Well, how are you doing my friend?" the fat man asked, looking
enthusiastically at his friend. "Are you in the service? What grade have
you reached?"
"I am, dear boy! I have been a collegiate assessor for the last two
years and I have the Stanislav. The salary is poor, but that's no great
matter! The wife gives music lessons, and I go in for carving wooden
cigarette cases in a private way. Capital cigarette cases! I sell them
for a rouble each. If any one takes ten or more I make a reduction of
course. We get along somehow. I served as a clerk, you know, and now I
have been transferred here as a head clerk in the same department. I am
going to serve here. And what about you? I bet you are a civil
councillor by now? Eh?"
"No dear boy, go higher than that," said the fat man. "I have risen to
privy councillor already . . . I have two stars."
The thin man turned pale and rigid all at once, but soon his face
twisted in all directions in the broadest smile; it seemed as though
sparks were flashing from his face and eyes. He squirmed, he doubled
together, crumpled up. . . . His portmanteaus, bundles and cardboard
boxes seemed to shrink and crumple up too. . . . His wife's long chin
grew longer still; Nafanail drew himself up to attention and fastened
all the buttons of his uniform.
"Your Excellency, I . . . delighted! The friend, one may say, of
childhood and to have turned into such a great man! He--he!"
"Come, come!" the fat man frowned. "What's this tone for? You and I were
friends as boys, and there is no need of this official obsequiousness!"
"Merciful heavens, your Excellency! What are you saying. . . ?"
sniggered the thin man, wriggling more than ever. "Your Excellency's
gracious attention is like refreshing manna. . . . This, your
Excellency, is my son Nafanail, . . . my wife Luise, a Lutheran in a
certain sense."
The fat man was about to make some protest, but the face of the thin man
wore an expression of such reverence, sugariness, and mawkish
respectfulness that the privy councillor was sickened. He turned away
from the thin man, giving him his hand at parting.
The thin man pressed three fingers, bowed his whole body and sniggered
like a Chinaman: "He--he--he!" His wife smiled. Nafanail scraped with his
foot and dropped his cap. All three were agreeably overwhelmed.
THE DEATH OF A GOVERNMENT CLERK
ONE fine evening, a no less fine government clerk called Ivan Dmitritch
Tchervyakov was sitting in the second row of the stalls, gazing through
an opera glass at the Cloches de Corneville. He gazed and felt at the
acme of bliss. But suddenly. . . . In stories one so often meets with
this "But suddenly." The authors are right: life is so full of
surprises! But suddenly his face puckered up, his eyes disappeared, his
breathing was arrested . . . he took the opera glass from his eyes, bent
over and . . . "Aptchee!!" he sneezed as you perceive. It is not
reprehensible for anyone to sneeze anywhere. Peasants sneeze and so do
police superintendents, and sometimes even privy councillors. All men
sneeze. Tchervyakov was not in the least confused, he wiped his face
with his handkerchief, and like a polite man, looked round to see
whether he had disturbed any one by his sneezing. But then he was
overcome with confusion. He saw that an old gentleman sitting in front
of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head
and his neck with his glove and muttering something to himself. In the
old gentleman, Tchervyakov recognised Brizzhalov, a civilian general
serving in the Department of Transport.
"I have spattered him," thought Tchervyakov, "he is not the head of my
department, but still it is awkward. I must apologise."
Tchervyakov gave a cough, bent his whole person forward, and whispered
in the general's ear.
"Pardon, your Excellency, I spattered you accidentally. . . ."
"Never mind, never mind."
"For goodness sake excuse me, I . . . I did not mean to."
"Oh, please, sit down! let me listen!"
Tchervyakov was embarrassed, he smiled stupidly and fell to gazing at
the stage. He gazed at it but was no longer feeling bliss. He began to
be troubled by uneasiness. In the interval, he went up to Brizzhalov,
walked beside him, and overcoming his shyness, muttered:
"I spattered you, your Excellency, forgive me . . . you see . . . I
didn't do it to . . . ."
"Oh, that's enough . . . I'd forgotten it, and you keep on about it!"
said the general, moving his lower lip impatiently.
"He has forgotten, but there is a fiendish light in his eye," thought
Tchervyakov, looking suspiciously at the general. "And he doesn't want
to talk. I ought to explain to him . . . that I really didn't intend . .
. that it is the law of nature or else he will think I meant to spit on
him. He doesn't think so now, but he will think so later!"
On getting home, Tchervyakov told his wife of his breach of good
manners. It struck him that his wife took too frivolous a view of the
incident; she was a little frightened, but when she learned that
Brizzhalov was in a different department, she was reassured.
"Still, you had better go and apologise," she said, "or he will think
you don't know how to behave in public."
"That's just it! I did apologise, but he took it somehow queerly . . .
he didn't say a word of sense. There wasn't time to talk properly."