The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Plays, Novellas, Short Stories, Diary & Letters. Anton Chekhov
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didn’t unscrew it; Ignashka, the son of one-eyed Semyon, gave it me. I mean the one which was under the box, but the one which was in the sledge in the yard Mitrofan and I unscrewed together.”
“What Mitrofan?”
“Mitrofan Petrov…. Haven’t you heard of him? He makes nets in our village and sells them to the gentry. He needs a lot of those nuts. Reckon a matter of ten for each net.”
“Listen. Article 1081 of the Penal Code lays down that every wilful damage of the railway line committed when it can expose the traffic on that line to danger, and the guilty party knows that an accident must be caused by it… (Do you understand? Knows! And you could not help knowing what this unscrewing would lead to …) is liable to penal servitude.”
“Of course, you know best…. We are ignorant people…. What do we understand?”
“You understand all about it! You are lying, shamming!”
“What should I lie for? Ask in the village if you don’t believe me. Only a bleak is caught without a weight, and there is no fish worse than a gudgeon, yet even that won’t bite without a weight.”
“You’d better tell me about the shillisper next,” said the magistrate, smiling.
“There are no shillispers in our parts…. We cast our line without a weight on the top of the water with a butterfly; a mullet may be caught that way, though that is not often.”
“Come, hold your tongue.”
A silence follows. Denis shifts from one foot to the other, looks at the table with the green cloth on it, and blinks his eyes violently as though what was before him was not the cloth but the sun. The magistrate writes rapidly.
“Can I go?” asks Denis after a long silence.
“No. I must take you under guard and send you to prison.”
Denis leaves off blinking and, raising his thick eyebrows, looks inquiringly at the magistrate.
“How do you mean, to prison? Your honour! I have no time to spare, I must go to the fair; I must get three roubles from Yegor for some tallow! …”
“Hold your tongue; don’t interrupt.”
“To prison…. If there was something to go for, I’d go; but just to go for nothing! What for? I haven’t stolen anything, I believe, and I’ve not been fighting…. If you are in doubt about the arrears, your honour, don’t believe the elder…. You ask the agent… he’s a regular heathen, the elder, you know.”
“Hold your tongue.”
I am holding my tongue, as it is,” mutters Denis; “but that the elder has lied over the account, I’ll take my oath for it…. There are three of us brothers: Kuzma Grigoryev, then Yegor Grigoryev, and me, Denis Grigoryev.”
“You are hindering me…. Hey, Semyon,” cries the magistrate, “take him away!”
“There are three of us brothers,” mutters Denis, as two stalwart soldiers take him and lead him out of the room. “A brother is not responsible for a brother. Kuzma does not pay, so you, Denis, must answer for it…. Judges indeed! Our master the general is dead — the Kingdom of Heaven be his — or he would have shown you judges…. You ought to judge sensibly, not at random…. Flog if you like, but flog someone who deserves it, flog with conscience.”
THE FATHER OF A FAMILY
[trans. by Marian Fell]
THIS is what generally follows a grand loss at cards or a drinking-bout, when his indigestion begins to make itself felt. Stepan Jilin wakes up in an uncommonly gloomy frame of mind. He looks sour, ruffled, and peevish, and his grey face wears an expression partly discontented, partly offended, and partly sneering. He dresses deliberately, slowly drinks his vichy water, and begins roaming about the house.
“I wish to goodness I knew what br-rute goes through here leaving all the doors open!” he growls angrily, wrapping his dressing-gown about him and noisily clearing his throat. “Take this paper away! What is it lying here for? Though we keep twenty servants, this house is more untidy than a hovel! Who rang the bell? Who’s there?”
“Aunty Anfisa, who nursed our Fedia,” answers his wife.
“Yes, loafing about, eating the bread of idleness!”
“I don’t understand you, Stepan; you invited her here yourself and now you are abusing her!”
“I’m not abusing her. I’m talking! And you ought to find something to do, too, good woman, instead of sitting there with your hands folded, picking quarrels with your husband! I don’t understand a woman like you, upon my word I don’t! How can you let day after day go by without working? Here’s your husband toiling and moiling like an ox, like a beast of burden, and there you are, his wife, his life’s companion, sitting about like a doll without ever turning your hand to a thing, so bored that you must seize every opportunity of quarrelling with him. It’s high time for you to drop those schoolgirlish airs, madam! You’re not a child nor a young miss any longer. You’re a woman, a mother! You turn away, eh? Aha! You don’t like disagreeable truths, do you?”
“It’s odd you only speak disagreeable truths when you have indigestion!”
“That’s right, let’s have a scene; go ahead!”
“Did you go to town yesterday or did you play cards somewhere?”
“Well, and what if I did? Whose business is it? Am I accountable to any one? Don’t I lose my own money? All that I spend and all that is spent in this house is mine, do you hear that? Mine!”
And so he persists in the same strain. But Jilin is never so crotchety, so stern, so bristling with virtue and justice, as he is when sitting at dinner with his household gathered about him. It generally begins with the soup. Having swallowed his first spoonful, Jilin suddenly scowls and stops eating.
“What the devil—” he mutters. “So I’ll have to go to the café for lunch—”
“What is it?” asks his anxious wife. “Isn’t the soup good?”
“I can’t conceive the swinish tastes a person must have to swallow this mess! It is too salty, it smells of rags, it is flavoured with bugs and not onions! Anfisa Pavlovna!” he cries to his guest. “It is shocking! I give them oceans of money every day to buy food with, I deny myself everything, and this is what they give me to eat! No doubt they would like me to retire from business into the kitchen and do the cooking myself!”
“The soup is good to-day,” the governess timidly ventures.
“Is it? Do you find it so?” inquires Jilin scowling angrily at her. “Every one to his taste, but I must confess that yours and mine differ widely, Varvara Vasilievna. You, for instance, admire the behavior of that child there (Jilin points a tragic forefinger at his son) . You are in ecstasies over him, but I — I am shocked! Yes, I am—”
Fedia, a boy of seven with a delicate, pale face, stops eating and lowers his eyes. His cheeks grow paler than ever.
“Yes, you are in ecstasies, and I am shocked. I don’t know which of us is right, but I venture to think that I, as his father, know my own son better than you do. Look at the way he is sitting! Is that how well-behaved children should hold themselves? Sit up!”
Fedia raises his chin and sticks out his neck and thinks he is sitting up straighter. his eyes are filling with tears.
“Eat your dinner! Hold your spoon properly! Don’t dare to snuffle! Look me in the face!”
Fedia tries to look at him, but his lips are quivering and the tears are trickling down his cheeks.