Forty Stories (6 page)

“Shut up, Karpushka. He has to tell us a story first. Now, my boy, do as you are told!”

“I don’t know any stories.”

“What do you mean—you don’t know any stories! You know how to steal! How does the Eighth Commandment go?”

“Why are you asking me, sir? How should I know! God is my witness, we only took one apple, and we took it off the ground.”

“Tell me a story!”

Karpushka began to gather nettles. The boy knew very well why the nettles were being gathered. Like all his tribe, Trifon Semyonovich had beautiful ways of taking the law into his own hands. If he found thieves, he shut them up in a cellar for twenty-four hours, or flogged them with nettles, or sent them away after stripping them stark naked. Is this news for you? There are people with whom such behavior is as stale and commonplace as a farm cart. Gregory gazed at the nettles out of the corner of his eyes, hesitated, coughed a little, and instead of telling a story he began to give vent to completely nonsensical statements. Groaning, sweating, choking, blowing his nose ever so often, he began to make up some sort of tale about the days when the Russian knights cut down the evil ogres and married beautiful maidens. Trifon Semyonovich stood there listening, never taking his eyes from the storyteller.

“That’s enough!” he said, when the boy finally lost the thread of his story and uttered driveling nonsense. “You’re good at telling tales, but you’re better at stealing. And now, my pretty one—” He turned to the girl. “Say the Lord’s Prayer.”

The pretty one blushed and recited the Lord’s Prayer in a muffled voice, scarcely breathing.

“Now recite the Eighth Commandment.”

“You think we took a lot of apples, don’t you?” the boy said, throwing up his arms in despair. “I’ll swear it on the cross, if you don’t believe me.”

“It’s a sad thing, my dears, that you don’t know the Eighth Commandment. I’ll have to give you a lesson. Did he teach you
to steal, my beauty? Why so silent, my little cherub? You have to answer! Speak! Keep your mouth shut—that means you agree. And now, my little beauty, I’ll have to ask you to give your sweetheart a beating because he taught you to steal!”

“I won’t!” the girl whispered.

“Oh, just beat him a little bit! He’s a fool, and has to be taught a lesson! Give him a beating, my dear. You don’t want to? Then I’ll have to order Karpushka and Matvey to give you a taste of the nettles.… You still don’t want to?”

“No, I don’t!”

“Karpushka, come here!”

At that moment the girl flew headlong at the boy and gave him a box on the ears. The boy smiled stupidly, while tears came to his eyes.

“Wonderful, my dear! Now pull his hair out! Go at it, my darling! You don’t want to? Karpushka, come here!”

The girl clutched at her sweetheart’s hair.

“Don’t stand still! Make it hurt! Pull harder!”

The girl really began to pull at her sweetheart’s hair. Karpushka was in ecstasies, bubbling over with good humor and roaring away.

“That’s enough now!” Trifon Semyonovich said. “Thank you, my dear, for having given wickedness its due. And now”—he turned to the boy—“you must teach your girl a lesson. She gave it to you, and now you must give it to her!”

“Dear God, how could you think of such a thing? Why must I beat her?”

“Why? Well, she gave you a beating, didn’t she? Now beat her! It will do her a lot of good! You don’t want to? Well, it won’t help you! Karpushka, call for Matvey!”

The boy spat on the ground, hawked, grabbed his sweetheart’s hair in his fist, and began to give wickedness its due. As he was punishing her, without realizing it he was carried away, and in his transports of joy he forgot that he was thrashing his sweetheart: he thought he was thrashing Trifon Semyonovich.
The girl was screaming at the top of her voice. He kept on beating her for a long time. I don’t know how this story would ever have come to an end if Sashenka, Trifon Semyonovich’s charming daughter, had not at that moment popped up from behind the bushes.

“Papa, come and have tea!” she exclaimed, and when she saw what was happening she burst out into peals of laughter.

“That’s enough!” said Trifon Semyonovich. “You may go now, my dears. Good-by! I’ll send you some little apples for the wedding.”

And Trifon Semyonovich bowed low to the offenders.

The boy and the girl recovered their composure and went away. The boy went to the right, the girl to the left, and to this day they have never seen each other. If Sashenka had not suddenly appeared out of the bushes, they would probably have been whipped with the nettles. This is how Trifon Semyonovich amuses himself in his old age. His family is not far behind him. His daughters are in the habit of sewing onions into the caps of visitors “belonging to the lower orders,” while drunks belonging to the same category have “Ass” and “Fool” chalked on their backs in enormous letters. His son, Mitya, a retired lieutenant, outdid his own father last winter. With the help of Karpushka he smeared the gates of a former private soldier with tar because the soldier refused to give him a wolf cub, and also because he was thought to have warned his daughters against accepting candy and gingerbread from the hands of the retired lieutenant.

After this, call Trifon Semyonovich—Trifon Semyonovich.

August 1880

CAME the long-awaited morning, the long-dreamed-of day — Tallyho! — Came June 29 — Came the day when all debts, dung beetles, delicacies, mothers-in-law, and even young wives are forgotten — Came the day when you are free to thumb your nose a dozen times at the village constable, who forbids you to go hunting!

The stars paled and grew misty. Somewhere voices could be heard. From the village chimneys poured pungent dark-blue smoke. To the gray bell tower came the drowsy sexton, tolling the bell for mass. From the night watchman stretched out beneath a tree came a snore. The finches woke, stirred, flew from one end of the garden to the other, and filled the air with their tedious and insufferable chirping. An oriole sang from a thorn brake. Starlings and hoopoes hurried over the kitchens. The free morning concert had begun.

Two troikas drove up to the house of the retired Cornet of the Guards Yegor Yegorich Optemperansky. The tumble-down steps of his house were picturesquely overgrown with thorn nettles. A fearful uproar arose, both inside and outside the house. Every living thing in the neighborhood of Yegor Yegorich began to walk, rush, and stomp up and down the stairs and through the barns and stables. They changed one of the shaft horses. The coachmen’s caps flew off; a red lantern of a boil appeared under the nose of the footman who haunted the housemaids;
someone called the cooks “carrion,” and the names of Satan and his angels were overheard.… In five minutes the carriages were loaded with furs, rugs, gun cases, and sacks full of food.

“It’s all ready, sir!” Avvakum thundered.

“Well, thank you. Ready, eh?” Yegor Yegorich squeaked in his thin, syrupy voice, while a mob gathered on the house steps.

The first to jump into the carriage was the young doctor, followed by old Kuzma Bolva, a small trader of Archangel, who wore boots without heels, a carrot-colored top hat, and yellow-green spots on his neck. He was carrying a twenty-five-pound double-barreled shotgun. Bolva was a plebeian, but out of respect for his advanced years (he was born at the turn of the century), and because he could shoot down a twenty-kopeck piece in midair, the gentry were not overly squeamish about his origins, and they took him out hunting.

“Be so good as to get in, Your Excellency!” said Yegor Yegorich to a small stout gray-haired man, who was wearing his white summer uniform with its glittering buttons, and the Cross of Anna round his neck. “Move over, Doctor!”

The retired general groaned, stood with one foot on the carriage step, while Yegor Yegorich lifted him up. With his stomach the general pushed the doctor over and sat down heavily beside Bolva. Then the general’s puppy Idler, and Yegor Yegorich’s setter Music Maker, jumped in after him.

“Vanya! Hey, there, young fellow!” the general addressed his nephew, a schoolboy with a long single-barreled shotgun slung over his back. “You can sit here beside me! Come here! That’s right! Sit right here! Don’t play any tricks, my friend! You might frighten the horse!”

After once more blowing cigarette smoke up the nose of the shaft horse, Vanya jumped into the carriage, pushed Bolva and the general to one side, looked round, and finally sat down. Yegor Yegorich crossed himself and sat down beside the doctor.
On the coachman’s box beside Avvakum sat a tall man who taught physics and mathematics at Vanya’s school. His name was Mange.

When they had filled the first carriage, they began loading up the second.

“Are we ready?” Yegor Yegorich shouted when, after long arguments and much running around and about, eight more men and three dogs were loaded onto the second carriage.

“Ready!” shouted the guests.

“Shall we start now, Your Excellency? Well, God save our souls! Let’s get going, Avvakum!”

The first carriage swayed, lurched, and drove on. The second, which contained the most ardent hunters, swayed, lurched, gave an awful scream, swerved slightly to one side, and then overtook the first and drove to the gate. The hunters were all smiles, clapping their hands in an access of joy. They were in their seventh heaven when … Oh, cruel fate!—they had no sooner left the courtyard than a ghastly accident occurred.

“Stop! Wait for me! Halt!” a piercing tenor voice called from somewhere behind.

The hunters looked back, and turned pale. Stumbling after the carriages was the most insufferable man in the world, a brawler and roughneck, as was well known to everyone in the entire province, a certain Mikhey Yegorich Optemperansky, brother of Yegor Yegorich, and a retired naval captain, second class. He waved his hands wildly. The carriage came to a halt.

“Well, what’s up?” asked Yegor Yegorich.

Mikhey Yegorich hurled himself at the carriage, climbed the step, and shook his fists at his brother. The hunters were all shouting at once.

“What’s going on?” Yegor Yegorich shouted, his face turning crimson.

“What’s going on?” shouted Mikhey Yegorich. “I’ll tell you what’s going on! You’re a Judas, a beast, a swine! Yes, a swine, Your Excellency! Why didn’t you wake me, you fool? What a
scoundrel you are! Why didn’t you wake me? Excuse me, gentlemen, I never … I only want to teach him a lesson! Why didn’t he wake me? Don’t you want your brother to come with you? Would I be in the way? You purposely made me drunk yesterday evening, thought I would sleep till noon! Fine fellow you are! Excuse me, Your Excellency … I only want to hit him once … only once!… Excuse me!”

“You mustn’t come in!” the general said, spreading out his hands. “Don’t you see there is no room? It’s really too much!”

“You won’t get anywhere by cursing, Mikhey!” Yegor Yegorich said. “I didn’t wake you because there’s no reason why you should come with us!… You don’t know how to shoot! So what’s the point of coming? You’ll only get in the way! You just don’t know how to shoot!”

“I don’t know how to shoot, eh?” Mikhey Yegorich shouted so loud that Bolva flung his hands up to his ears. “If that’s so, then why the devil is the doctor going? He doesn’t know how to shoot either! So you think he’s a better shot than I am?”

“He’s right, gentlemen,” said the doctor. “I don’t know how to shoot. I don’t know how to handle a gun. I can’t stand shooting!… I don’t know why you take me with you. The hell with it! Let him take my place! I’ll stay behind. Here’s a place for you, Mikhey!”

“Did you hear that? Why should we take him along?”

The doctor rose with the evident intention of climbing out of the carriage. Yegor Yegorich tugged at his coat-tails and pulled him down.

“Don’t tear my coat! It cost thirty rubles! Let go! Really, gentlemen, I must ask you to spare me your conversation today! I’m not in a good mood, and might do something unwise, even something I didn’t want to do! Let go, Yegor Yegorich! I’m going home to get some sleep!”

“No, you’ve got to come with us,” Yegor Yegorich said, not letting go of the coat. “You gave me your word you would come!”

“That’s right. I gave you my word—you forced it out of me! Why do I have to come?”

“Why?” squeaked Mikhey Yegorich. “Why? Because otherwise you would be left behind with his wife, that’s why! He’s jealous of you, Doctor! Don’t go, dear fellow. Don’t go, in spite of him! Lord God, he’s jealous, that’s what it is!”

Yegor Yegorich turned a thick scarlet and clenched his fists.

“Hey, you!” voices shouted from the other carriage. “Mikhey Yegorich, stop all that fiddle-daddle! Come over here! We’ve got a place for you!”

Mikhey Yegorich smiled his malicious smile.

“Listen, you swine!” he said. “What’s come over you? Didn’t you hear them? They’ve found a place for me, so I’m coming to spite you! I’ll get in your way! I give my word I’ll get in your way! Devil take you, you won’t shoot anything! And don’t you come, doctor. Let him crack wide open with his jealousy!”

Yegor Yegorich got up and shook his fists. His eyes were bloodshot.

“You good-for-nothing!” he said, turning to his brother. “You’re no brother of mine! Our poor dead mother was right to put a curse on your head! Our poor dead father died before his time, because of all the things you did!”

“Gentlemen,” interrupted the general. “I think it can be said we have all had enough! Remember, you are brothers both born from the same mother!”

“He’s the brother of an ass, Your Excellency—no brother of mine! Don’t come, doctor, don’t come!”

“Let’s get going!” the general shouted, thumping Avvakum in the back with his fist. “Devil take you all! God knows what it is all about! Come on! Let’s go!”

Avvakum lashed out at the horses and the troika drove on. In the second carriage Captain Kardamonov, a writer, took the two dogs on his knees and made room for the explosive Mikhey Yegorich.