Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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pale. The mamma glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. The schoolboys jumped out of bed and, just as they were, in short nightshirts, went up to their brother.
“Yes! My name has been published! Now all Russia knows of me! Keep the paper, mamma, in memory of it! We will read it sometimes! Look!”
Mitya pulled out of his pocket a copy of the paper, gave it to his father, and pointed with his finger to a passage marked with blue pencil.
“Read it!”
The father put on his spectacles.
“Do read it!”
The mamma glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. The papa cleared his throat and began to read: “At eleven o’clock on the evening of the 29th of December, a registration clerk of the name of Dmitry Kuldarov …”
“You see, you see! Go on!”
“… a registration clerk of the name of Dmitry Kuldarov, coming from the beershop in Kozihin’s buildings in Little Bronnaia in an intoxicated condition…”
“That’s me and Semyon Petrovitch…. It’s all described exactly! Go on! Listen!”
“… intoxicated condition, slipped and fell under a horse belonging to a sledge-driver, a peasant of the village of Durikino in the Yuhnovsky district, called Ivan Drotov. The frightened horse, stepping over Kuldarov and drawing the sledge over him, together with a Moscow merchant of the second guild called Stepan Lukov, who was in it, dashed along the street and was caught by some house-porters. Kuldarov, at first in an unconscious condition, was taken to the police station and there examined by the doctor. The blow he had received on the back of his head…”
“It was from the shaft, papa. Go on! Read the rest!”
“… he had received on the back of his head turned out not to be serious. The incident was duly reported. Medical aid was given to the injured man… .”
“They told me to foment the back of my head with cold water. You have read it now? Ah! So you see. Now it’s all over Russia! Give it here!”
Mitya seized the paper, folded it up and put it into his pocket.
“I’ll run round to the Makarovs and show it to them…. I must show it to the Ivanitskys too, Natasya Ivanovna, and Anisim Vassilyitch…. I’ll run! Goodbye!”
Mitya put on his cap with its cockade and, joyful and triumphant, ran into the street.
AT THE BARBER’S
MORNING. It is not yet seven o’clock, but Makar Kuzmitch Blyostken’s shop is already open. The barber himself, an unwashed, greasy, but foppishly dressed youth of three and twenty, is busy clearing up; there is really nothing to be cleared away, but he is perspiring with his exertions. In one place he polishes with a rag, in another he scrapes with his finger or catches a bug and brushes it off the wall.
The barber’s shop is small, narrow, and unclean. The log walls are hung with paper suggestive of a cabman’s faded shirt. Between the two dingy, perspiring windows there is a thin, creaking, rickety door, above it, green from the damp, a bell which trembles and gives a sickly ring of itself without provocation. Glance into the looking-glass which hangs on one of the walls, and it distorts your countenance in all directions in the most merciless way! The shaving and haircutting is done before this looking-glass. On the little table, as greasy and unwashed as Makar Kuzmitch himself, there is everything: combs, scissors, razors, a ha’porth of wax for the moustache, a ha’porth of powder, a ha’porth of much watered eau de Cologne, and indeed the whole barber’s shop is not worth more than fifteen kopecks.
There is a squeaking sound from the invalid bell and an elderly man in a tanned sheepskin and high felt overboots walks into the shop. His head and neck are wrapped in a woman’s shawl.
This is Erast Ivanitch Yagodov, Makar Kuzmitch’s godfather. At one time he served as a watchman in the Consistory, now he lives near the Red Pond and works as a locksmith.
“Makarushka, good-day, dear boy!” he says to Makar Kuzmitch, who is absorbed in tidying up.
They kiss each other. Yagodov drags his shawl off his head, crosses himself, and sits down.
“What a long way it is!” he says, sighing and clearing his throat. “It’s no joke! From the Red Pond to the Kaluga gate.”
“How are you?”
“In a poor way, my boy. I’ve had a fever.”
“You don’t say so! Fever!”
“Yes, I have been in bed a month; I thought I should die. I had extreme unction. Now my hair’s coming out. The doctor says I must be shaved. He says the hair will grow again strong. And so, I thought, I’ll go to Makar. Better to a relation than to anyone else. He will do it better and he won’t take anything for it. It’s rather far, that’s true, but what of it? It’s a walk.”
“I’ll do it with pleasure. Please sit down.”
With a scrape of his foot Makar Kuzmitch indicates a chair. Yagodov sits down and looks at himself in the glass and is apparently pleased with his reflection: the looking-glass displays a face awry, with Kalmuck lips, a broad, blunt nose, and eyes in the forehead. Makar Kuzmitch puts round his client’s shoulders a white sheet with yellow spots on it, and begins snipping with the scissors.
“I’ll shave you clean to the skin!” he says.
“To be sure. So that I may look like a Tartar, like a bomb. The hair will grow all the thicker.”
“How’s auntie?”
“Pretty middling. The other day she went as midwife to the major’s lady. They gave her a rouble.”
“Oh, indeed, a rouble. Hold your ear.”
“I am holding it…. Mind you don’t cut me. Oy, you hurt! You are pulling my hair.”
“That doesn’t matter. We can’t help that in our work. And how is Anna Erastovna?”
“My daughter? She is all right, she’s skipping about. Last week on the Wednesday we betrothed her to Sheikin. Why didn’t you come?”
The scissors cease snipping. Makar Kuzmitch drops his hands and asks in a fright:
“Who is betrothed?”
“Anna.”
“How’s that? To whom?”
“To Sheikin. Prokofy Petrovitch. His aunt’s a housekeeper in Zlatoustensky Lane. She is a nice woman. Naturally we are all delighted, thank God. The wedding will be in a week. Mind you come; we will have a good time.”
“But how’s this, Erast Ivanitch?” says Makar Kuzmitch, pale, astonished, and shrugging his shoulders. “It’s… it’s utterly impossible. Why, Anna Erastovna… why I… why, I cherished sentiments for her, I had intentions. How could it happen?”
“Why, we just went and betrothed her. He’s a good fellow.”
Cold drops of perspiration come on the face of Makar Kuzmitch. He puts the scissors down on the table and begins rubbing his nose with his fist.
“I had intentions,” he says. “It’s impossible, Erast Ivanitch. I… I am in love with her and have made her the offer of my heart…. And auntie promised. I have always respected you as though you were my father…. I always cut your hair for nothing…. I have always obliged you, and when my papa died you took the sofa and ten roubles in cash and have never given them back. Do you remember?”
“Remember! of course I do. Only, what sort of a match would you be, Makar? You are nothing of a match. You’ve neither money nor position, your trade’s a