Tales of Chekhov 09- The Schoolmistress and other stories Page 13

  "'I am told the town council has sent for an engineer to plan such and such a work!' I said to my neighbor, so loudly that all the tram could hear. 'Do you know the name of the engineer?'

  "My neighbor shook his head. The rest of the public took a cursory glance at me, and in all their eyes I read: 'I don't know.'

  "'I am told that there is someone giving lectures in such and such a museum?' I persisted, trying to get up a conversation. 'I hear it is interesting.'

  "No one even nodded. Evidently they had not all of them heard of the lectures, and the ladies were not even aware of the existence of the museum. All that would not have mattered, but imagine, my dear sir, the people suddenly leaped to their feet and struggled to the windows. What was it? What was the matter?

  "'Look, look!' my neighbor nudged me. 'Do you see that dark man getting into that cab? That's the famous runner, King!'

  "And the whole tram began talking breathlessly of the runner who was then absorbing the brains of Moscow.

  "I could give you ever so many other examples, but I think that is enough. Now let us assume that I am mistaken about myself, that I am a wretchedly boastful and incompetent person; but apart from myself I might point to many of my contemporaries, men remarkable for their talent and industry, who have nevertheless died unrecognized. Are Russian navigators, chemists, physicists, mechanicians, and agriculturists popular with the public? Do our cultivated masses know anything of Russian artists, sculptors, and literary men? Some old literary hack, hard-working and talented, will wear away the doorstep of the publishers' offices for thirty-three years, cover reams of paper, be had up for libel twenty times, and yet not step beyond his ant-heap. Can you mention to me a single representative of our literature who would have become celebrated if the rumor had not been spread over the earth that he had been killed in a duel, gone out of his mind, been sent into exile, or had cheated at cards?"

  The first-class passenger was so excited that he dropped his cigar out of his mouth and got up.

  "Yes," he went on fiercely, "and side by side with these people I can quote you hundreds of all sorts of singers, acrobats, buffoons, whose names are known to every baby. Yes!"

  The door creaked, there was a draught, and an individual of forbidding aspect, wearing an Inverness coat, a top-hat, and blue spectacles, walked into the carriage. The individual looked round at the seats, frowned, and went on further.

  "Do you know who that is?" there came a timid whisper from the furthest corner of the compartment.

  "That is N. N., the famous Tula cardsharper who was had up in connection with the Y. bank affair."

  "There you are!" laughed the first-class passenger. "He knows a Tula cardsharper, but ask him whether he knows Semiradsky, Tchaykovsky, or Solovyov the philosopher—he'll shake his head.... It swinish!"

  Three minutes passed in silence.

  "Allow me in my turn to ask you a question," said the vis-a-vis timidly, clearing his throat. "Do you know the name of Pushkov?"

  "Pushkov? H'm! Pushkov.... No, I don't know it!"

  "That is my name,..." said the vis-a-vis,, overcome with embarrassment. "Then you don't know it? And yet I have been a professor at one of the Russian universities for thirty-five years,... a member of the Academy of Sciences,... have published more than one work...."

  The first-class passenger and the vis-a-vis looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  A TRAGIC ACTOR

  IT was the benefit night of Fenogenov, the tragic actor. They were acting "Prince Serebryany." The tragedian himself was playing Vyazemsky; Limonadov, the stage manager, was playing Morozov; Madame Beobahtov, Elena. The performance was a grand success. The tragedian accomplished wonders indeed. When he was carrying off Elena, he held her in one hand above his head as he dashed across the stage. He shouted, hissed, banged with his feet, tore his coat across his chest. When he refused to fight Morozov, he trembled all over as nobody ever trembles in reality, and gasped loudly. The theatre shook with applause. There were endless calls. Fenogenov was presented with a silver cigarette-case and a bouquet tied with long ribbons. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs and urged their men to applaud, many shed tears.... But the one who was the most enthusiastic and most excited was Masha, daughter of Sidoretsky the police captain. She was sitting in the first row of the stalls beside her papa; she was ecstatic and could not take her eyes off the stage even between the acts. Her delicate little hands and feet were quivering, her eyes were full of tears, her cheeks turned paler and paler. And no wonder—she was at the theatre for the first time in her life.

  "How well they act! how splendidly!" she said to her papa the police captain, every time the curtain fell. "How good Fenogenov is!"

  And if her papa had been capable of reading faces he would have read on his daughter's pale little countenance a rapture that was almost anguish. She was overcome by the acting, by the play, by the surroundings. When the regimental band began playing between the acts, she closed her eyes, exhausted.

  "Papa!" she said to the police captain during the last interval, "go behind the scenes and ask them all to dinner to-morrow!"

  The police captain went behind the scenes, praised them for all their fine acting, and complimented Madame Beobahtov.

  "Your lovely face demands a canvas, and I only wish I could wield the brush!"

  And with a scrape, he thereupon invited the company to dinner.

  "All except the fair sex," he whispered. "I don't want the actresses, for I have a daughter."

  Next day the actors dined at the police captain's. Only three turned up, the manager Limonadov, the tragedian Fenogenov, and the comic man Vodolazov; the others sent excuses. The dinner was a dull affair. Limonadov kept telling the police captain how much he respected him, and how highly he thought of all persons in authority; Vodolazov mimicked drunken merchants and Armenians; and Fenogenov (on his passport his name was Knish), a tall, stout Little Russian with black eyes and frowning brow, declaimed "At the portals of the great," and "To be or not to be." Limonadov, with tears in his eyes, described his interview with the former Governor, General Kanyutchin. The police captain listened, was bored, and smiled affably. He was well satisfied, although Limonadov smelt strongly of burnt feathers, and Fenogenov was wearing a hired dress coat and boots trodden down at heel. They pleased his daughter and made her lively, and that was enough for him. And Masha never took her eyes off the actors. She had never before seen such clever, exceptional people!

  In the evening the police captain and Masha were at the theatre again. A week later the actors dined at the police captain's again, and after that came almost every day either to dinner or supper. Masha became more and more devoted to the theatre, and went there every evening.

  She fell in love with the tragedian. One fine morning, when the police captain had gone to meet the bishop, Masha ran away with Limonadov's company and married her hero on the way. After celebrating the wedding, the actors composed a long and touching letter and sent it to the police captain.

  It was the work of their combined efforts.

  "Bring out the motive, the motive!" Limonadov kept saying as he dictated to the comic man. "Lay on the respect.... These official chaps like it. Add something of a sort... to draw a tear."

  The answer to this letter was most discomforting. The police captain disowned his daughter for marrying, as he said, "a stupid, idle Little Russian with no fixed home or occupation."

  And the day after this answer was received M asha was writing to her father.

  "Papa, he beats me! Forgive us!"

  He had beaten her, beaten her behind the scenes, in the presence of Limonadov, the washerwoman, and two lighting men. He remembered how, four days before the wedding, he was sitting in the London Tavern with the whole company, and all were talking about Masha. The company were advising him to "chance it," and Limonadov, with tears in his eyes urged: "It would be stupid and irrational to let slip such an opportunity! Why, for a sum like that one would go to Siberia, let alo
ne getting married! When you marry and have a theatre of your own, take me into your company. I shan't be master then, you'll be master."

  Fenogenov remembered it, and muttered with clenched fists:

  "If he doesn't send money I'll smash her! I won't let myself be made a fool of, damn my soul!"

  At one provincial town the company tried to give Masha the slip, but Masha found out, ran to the station, and got there when the second bell had rung and the actors had all taken their seats.

  "I've been shamefully treated by your father," said the tragedian; "all is over between us!"

  And though the carriage was full of people, she went down on her knees and held out her hands, imploring him:

  "I love you! Don't drive me away, Kondraty Ivanovitch," she besought him. "I can't live without you!"

  They listened to her entreaties, and after consulting together, took her into the company as a "countess"—the name they used for the minor actresses who usually came on to the stage in crowds or in dumb parts. To begin with Masha used to play maid-servants and pages, but when Madame Beobahtov, the flower of Limonadov's company, eloped, they made her ingenue. She acted badly, lisped, and was nervous. She soon grew used to it, however, and began to be liked by the audience. Fenogenov was much displeased.

  "To call her an actress!" he used to say. "She has no figure, no deportment, nothing whatever but silliness."

  In one provincial town the company acted Schiller's "Robbers." Fenogenov played Franz, Masha, Amalie. The tragedian shouted and quivered. Masha repeated her part like a well-learnt lesson, and the play would have gone off as they generally did had it not been for a trifling mishap. Everything went well up to the point where Franz declares his love for Amalie and she seizes his sword. The tragedian shouted, hissed, quivered, and squeezed Masha in his iron embrace. And Masha, instead of repulsing him and crying "Hence!" trembled in his arms like a bird and did not move,... she seemed petrified.

  "Have pity on me!" she whispered in his ear. "Oh, have pity on me! I am so miserable!"

  "You don't know your part! Listen to the prompter!" hissed the tragedian, and he thrust his sword into her hand.

  After the performance, Limonadov and Fenogenov were sitting in the ticket box-office engaged in conversation.

  "Your wife does not learn her part, you are right there," the manager was saying. "She doesn't know her line.... Every man has his own line,... but she doesn't know hers...."

  Fenogenov listened, sighed, and scowled and scowled.

  Next morning, Masha was sitting in a little general shop writing:

  "Papa, he beats me! Forgive us! Send us some money!"

  A TRANSGRESSION

  A COLLEGIATE assessor called Miguev stopped at a telegraph-post in the course of his evening walk and heaved a deep sigh. A week before, as he was returning home from his evening walk, he had been overtaken at that very spot by his former housemaid, Agnia, who said to him viciously:

  "Wait a bit! I'll cook you such a crab that'll teach you to ruin innocent girls! I'll leave the baby at your door, and I'll have the law of you, and I'll tell your wife, too...."

  And she demanded that he should put five thousand roubles into the bank in her name. Miguev remembered it, heaved a sigh, and once more reproached himself with heartfelt repentance for the momentary infatuation which had caused him so much worry and misery.

  When he reached his bungalow, he sat down to rest on the doorstep. It was just ten o'clock, and a bit of the moon peeped out from behind the clouds. There was not a soul in the street nor near the bungalows; elderly summer visitors were already going to bed, while young ones were walking in the wood. Feeling in both his pockets for a match to light his cigarette, Miguev brought his elbow into contact with something soft. He looked idly at his right elbow, and his face was instantly contorted by a look of as much horror as though he had seen a snake beside him. On the step at the very door lay a bundle. Something oblong in shape was wrapped up in something—judging by the feel of it, a wadded quilt. One end of the bundle was a little open, and the collegiate assessor, putting in his hand, felt something damp and warm. He leaped on to his feet in horror, and looked about him like a criminal trying to escape from his warders....

  "She has left it!" he muttered wrathfully through his teeth, clenching his fists. "Here it lies.... Here lies my transgression! O Lord!"

  He was numb with terror, anger, and shame... What was he to do now? What would his wife say if she found out? What would his colleagues at the office say? His Excellency would be sure to dig him in the ribs, guffaw, and say: "I congratulate you!... He-he-he! Though your beard is gray, your heart is gay.... You are a rogue, Semyon Erastovitch!" The whole colony of summer visitors would know his secret now, and probably the respectable mothers of families would shut their doors to him. Such incidents always get into the papers, and the humble name of Miguev would be published all over Russia....

  The middle window of the bungalow was open and he could distinctly hear his wife, Anna Filippovna, laying the table for supper; in the yard close to the gate Yermolay, the porter, was plaintively strumming on the balalaika. The baby had only to wake up and begin to cry, and the secret would be discovered. Miguev was conscious of an overwhelming desire to make haste.

  "Haste, haste!..." he muttered, "this minute, before anyone sees. I'll carry it away and lay it on somebody's doorstep...."

  Miguev took the bundle in one hand and quietly, with a deliberate step to avoid awakening suspicion, went down the street....

  "A wonderfully nasty position!" he reflected, trying to assume an air of unconcern. "A collegiate assessor walking down the street with a baby! Good heavens! if anyone sees me and understands the position, I am done for.... I'd better put it on this doorstep.... No, stay, the windows are open and perhaps someone is looking. Where shall I put it? I know! I'll take it to the merchant Myelkin's.... Merchants are rich people and tenderhearted; very likely they will say thank you and adopt it."

  And Miguev made up his mind to take the baby to Myelkin's, although the merchant's villa was in the furthest street, close to the river.

  "If only it does not begin screaming or wriggle out of the bundle," thought the collegiate assessor. "This is indeed a pleasant surprise! Here I am carrying a human being under my arm as though it were a portfolio. A human being, alive, with soul, with feelings like anyone else.... If by good luck the Myelkins adopt him, he may turn out somebody.... Maybe he will become a professor, a great general, an author.... Anything may happen! Now I am carrying him under my arm like a bundle of rubbish, and perhaps in thirty or forty years I may not dare to sit down in his presence...."

  As Miguev was walking along a narrow, deserted alley, beside a long row of fences, in the thick black shade of the lime trees, it suddenly struck him that he was doing something very cruel and criminal.

  "How mean it is really!" he thought. "So mean that one can't imagine anything meaner.... Why are we shifting this poor baby from door to door? It's not its fault that it's been born. It's done us no harm. We are scoundrels.... We take our pleasure, and the innocent babies have to pay the penalty. Only to think of all this wretched business! I've done wrong and the child has a cruel fate before it. If I lay it at the Myelkins' door, they'll send it to the foundling hospital, and there it will grow up among strangers, in mechanical routine,... no love, no petting, no spoiling.... And then he'll be apprenticed to a shoemaker,... he'll take to drink, will learn to use filthy language, will go hungry. A shoemaker! and he the son of a collegiate assessor, of good family.... He is my flesh and blood,... "

  Miguev came out of the shade of the lime trees into the bright moonlight of the open road, and opening the bundle, he looked at the baby.

  "Asleep!" he murmured. "You little rascal! why, you've an aquiline nose like your father's.... He sleeps and doesn't feel that it's his own father looking at him!... It's a drama, my boy... Well, well, you must forgive me. Forgive me, old boy.... It seems it's your fate...."

  The colleg
iate assessor blinked and felt a spasm running down his cheeks.... He wrapped up the baby, put him under his arm, and strode on. All the way to the Myelkins' villa social questions were swarming in his brain and conscience was gnawing in his bosom.

  "If I were a decent, honest man," he thought, "I should damn everything, go with this baby to Anna Filippovna, fall on my knees before her, and say: 'Forgive me! I have sinned! Torture me, but we won't ruin an innocent child. We have no children; let us adopt him!' She's a good sort, she'd consent.... And then my child would be with me.... Ech!"

  He reached the Myelkins' villa and stood still hesitating. He imagined himself in the parlor at home, sitting reading the paper while a little boy with an aquiline nose played with the tassels of his dressing gown. At the same time visions forced themselves on his brain of his winking colleagues, and of his Excellency digging him in the ribs and guffawing.... Besides the pricking of his conscience, there was something warm, sad, and tender in his heart....

  Cautiously the collegiate assessor laid the baby on the verandah step and waved his hand. Again he felt a spasm run over his face....

  "Forgive me, old fellow! I am a scoundrel," he muttered. "Don't remember evil against me."

  He stepped back, but immediately cleared his throat resolutely and said:

  "Oh, come what will! Damn it all! I'll take him, and let people say what they like!"

  Miguev took the baby and strode rapidly back.

  "Let them say what they like," he thought. "I'll go at once, fall on my knees, and say: 'Anna Filippovna!' Anna is a good sort, she'll understand.... And we'll bring him up.... If it's a boy we'll call him Vladimir, and if it's a girl we'll call her Anna! Anyway, it will be a comfort in our old age."