Little Apples: And Other Early Stories Read online

  One wonderful morning, wonderful in every sense (for the incident occurred in late summer), Trifon Semyonovich was strolling down the long paths and the short paths of his sumptuous orchard. Everything that might inspire a lofty poet lay scattered about in great abundance, and seemed to be saying and singing: “Partake, O man, partake in the bounty! Rejoice while the sweet days of summer last!” But Trifon Semyonovich did not rejoice, for he is not a poet, and that morning his soul, as Pushkin said, “did yearn so keenly for quenching sleep” (which it always did whenever that soul’s owner had had a particularly bad evening at cards). Behind Trifon Semyonovich marched his lackey Karpushka, a little man of about sixty, his eyes darting from side to side. Old Karpushka’s virtues almost surpass those of Trifon Semyonovich. He is a master at shining boots, even more of a master at hanging stray dogs, spying into other people’s business, and stealing anything that isn’t nailed down. The village clerk had dubbed him “the Oprichnik,”7 which is what the whole village now calls him. Hardly a day passes without the neighbors or the local peasantry complaining to Trifon Semyonovich about Karpushka, but the complaints fall on deaf ears since Karpushka is irreplaceable in his master’s household. When Trifon Semyonovich goes for a stroll he always takes faithful Karpushka with him: it is safer that way and much more fun. Karpushka is a fountain of tall tales, jingles, and yarns, and an expert at not being able to hold his tongue. He is always relating this or that, and only falls silent when something interesting catches his ear. On this particular morning he was walking behind his master, telling him a long tale about how two schoolboys wearing white caps had ridden past the orchard with hunting rifles, and begged him to let them in so they could take a few shots at some birds. They had tried to sway him with a fifty-kopeck coin, but he, knowing full well where his allegiance lay, had indignantly refused the coin and even set Kashtan and Serka loose on the boys. Having ended this story, Karpushka began portraying in vivid colors the shameful behavior of the village medical orderly, but before he could add the finishing touches to this portrayal his ears suddenly caught a suspicious rustle coming from behind some apple and pear trees. Karpushka held his tongue, pricked up his ears, and listened. Certain that this rustle was indeed suspicious, he tugged at his master’s jacket, and then shot off toward the trees like an arrow. Trifon Semyonovich, sensing a brouhaha, shuddered with excitement, shuffled his elderly legs, and ran after Karpushka. It was worth the effort.

  At the edge of the orchard, beneath an old, gnarled apple tree, stood a young peasant girl, chewing something. A broad-shouldered young man was crawling on his hands and knees nearby, gathering up apples the wind had knocked off the branches. The unripe ones he threw into the bushes, but the ripe apples he lovingly held out to his Dulcinea in his large, dirty hands. It was clear that Dulcinea had no fear for her stomach; she was devouring one apple after another with gusto, while the young man crawled and gathered more and only had eyes for his Dulcinea.

  “Get me one from off the tree,” the girl urged him in a whisper.

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Too dangerous? Don’t worry about the Oprichnik, he’ll be down at the tavern.”

  The boy got up, jumped in the air, tore an apple off the tree, and handed it to the girl. But the boy and the girl, like Adam and Eve in days of old, did not fare well with this apple. No sooner had she bitten off a little piece and handed it to the boy, and they felt its cruel tartness on their tongues, than their faces blanched, puckered up, and then fell. Not because the apple was sour, but because they saw before them the grim countenance of Trifon Semyonovich, and beside it the gloating face of Karpushka.

  “Well hello,” Trifon Semyonovich said, walking up to them. “Eating apples, are we? I do hope that I am not disturbing you.”

  The boy took off his cap and hung his head. The girl began eyeing her apron.

  “And how have you been keeping, Grigory?” Trifon Semyonovich said to the boy. “Is everything going well?”

  “I only took one,” the boy mumbled. “And it was lying on the ground.”

  “And how have you been keeping, my dear?” Trifon Semyonovich asked the girl.

  The girl studied her apron more intensely.

  “The two of you not married yet?”

  “Not yet, Your Lordship . . . but I swear, we only took one, and it was . . . um . . . lying—”

  “I see, I see. Good fellow. Do you know how to read?”

  “No . . . but I swear, Your Lordship, it was only one, and it was lying on the ground.”

  “So you don’t know how to read, but you do know how to steal. Well, at least that’s something. Knowledge is a heavy burden. And have you been stealing for a long time?”

  “But I wasn’t stealing.”

  “What about your sweet little bride here?” Karpushka asked the boy. “Why is she so sad? Don’t you love her enough?”

  “No more of that, Karpushka!” Trifon Semyonovich snapped. “Well, Grigory, I want you to tell us a story.”

  The boy cleared his throat nervously and smiled.

  “I don’t know any stories, Your Lordship,” he said. “And it’s not like I need your apples. If I want some, I can buy some.”

  “My dear fellow, I am delighted that you have so much money. Come, tell us a story. I am all ears, Karpushka is all ears, and your pretty little bride is all ears. Don’t be shy. Be brave! A thief’s heart must be brave! Is that not so, my friend?”

  Trifon Semyonovich rested his venomous eyes on the crestfallen boy. Beads of sweat gathered on the boy’s forehead.

  “Why don’t you tell him to sing a song instead?” Karpushka piped up in his tinny tenor. “You can’t expect a fool like that to come up with a story.”

  “Quiet, Karpushka! Let him tell us a story! Well, go on, my dear fellow.”

  “I don’t know any stories.”

  “So you can’t tell a story, but you can steal. What does the Eighth Commandment say?”

  “I don’t know, Your Lordship, but I swear we only ate one apple, and it was lying on the ground.”

  “Tell me a story!”

  Karpushka began gathering nettles. The boy knew perfectly well why. Trifon Semyonovich, like all his kind, is a master at taking the law into his own hands. He will lock a thief up in his cellar for a day and a night, or flog him with nettles, or let him go right away—but not before stripping him naked and keeping his clothes. This surprises you? There are people for whom this is as commonplace as an old cart. Grigory peered sheepishly at the nettles, hesitated, cleared his throat, and launched into what was more a tangle of nonsense than anything resembling a story. Gasping, sweating, clearing his throat, blowing his nose, he muttered something about ancient Russian heroes fighting ogres and marrying beautiful maidens. Trifon Semyonovich stood listening, his eyes fixed on the storyteller.

  “That’ll do,” he said when the young man’s tale finally fell apart completely. “You are an excellent storyteller, but an even better thief. As for you, my pretty little thing,” he said, turning to the girl, “say the Lord’s Prayer.”

  The girl blushed and said the Lord’s Prayer, barely audibly and with hardly a breath.

  “Now, how about the Eighth Commandment?”

  “We didn’t take a lot,” the boy replied, desperately waving his arms. “I swear by the Holy Cross!”

  “It is very bad, my dear children, that you don’t know this commandment. I will have to teach it to you. Tell me, my pretty one, did this fellow teach you how to steal? Why so silent, my little angel? You must answer me. Answer me! You are silent? Your silence means you obviously agree. Since this is the case, my pretty one, you will have to beat your fiancé for having taught you how to steal!”

  “I won’t,” the girl whispered.

  “Just a little. Fools must be taught a lesson. Go on, beat him, my pretty one. You won’t? Well, in that case I shall have to ask
Karpushka and Matvei to give you a little beating with those nettles over there. Shall I?”

  “I won’t,” the girl repeated.

  “Karpushka, come over here, will you?”

  The girl flew at the boy and slapped him. The boy smiled foolishly and began to cry.

  “That was excellent, my dear. Now pull his hair. Go to it, my dear. What, you won’t? Karpushka, can you come here, please?”

  The girl grabbed her betrothed by the hair.

  “Don’t hold back, I want it to hurt! Pull harder!”

  The girl began pulling. Karpushka bubbled over with delight.

  “That will do,” Trifon Semyonovich said to the girl. “Thank you for doing your bit to punish evil, my pretty one. And now,” he said, turning to the young man, “I want you to teach your fiancée a lesson. I want you to do to her what she has done to you.”

  “Please, Your Lordship, by God . . . why should I beat her?”

  “Why? Didn’t she just beat you? Now beat her! It will do her a world of good. You won’t? Well, there’s nothing for it. Karpushka, go get Matvei, will you?”

  The boy spat, gasped, seized his fiancée’s braid, and began doing his bit to punish evil. Without realizing it he fell into a trance, got carried away, and forgot that it was not Trifon Semyonovich he was beating, but his betrothed. The girl shrieked. The beating went on for a long time. God knows where it would have ended if Trifon Semyonovich’s pretty daughter Sashenka had not appeared through the bushes.

  “Papa dear, do come and have some tea!” she called, and seeing her dear papa’s little caper, burst into peals of laughter.

  “That’ll do, you can go now,” Trifon Semyonovich said to the girl and boy with a low bow. “Goodbye. I’ll send you some nice little apples for your wedding.”

  The girl and the boy went off—the boy to the right, the girl to the left. From that day on they never met again. Had Sashenka not appeared when she did, they might have been whipped with nettles too. This is how Trifon Semyonovich amuses himself in his old age. And his family isn’t far behind. His daughters have a habit of sewing onions onto the hats of guests whom they “outrank socially,” and should these outranked guests have had a drink or two too many, the girls take a piece of chalk and write “Donkey” or “Fool” in thick letters on their backs. Last winter, Trifon Semyonovich’s son Mitya, a retired lieutenant, even managed to outdo his papa. He and Karpushka smeared the gates of a retired soldier with tar because the soldier wouldn’t give Mitya a wolf cub he wanted, and because the soldier had warned his daughters against accepting cakes and candy from the lieutenant.

  And after this you want to call Trifon Semyonovich, Trifon Semyonovich and not something worse?

  * * *

  7A member of a sinister private army devoted to the service of Czar Ivan the Terrible.

  À L’AMÉRICAINE

  I,experiencing the urgent whim to enter a thoroughly lawful marriage, and realizing that no marriage can be entered into without a female of the species, have the honor and pleasure of asking all young maidens and widows to cast a favorable eye on the following:

  First and foremost, I am a man. Needless to say, this is a point of some importance to the ladies. I stand one yard and twenty-seven inches tall. I am young. Indeed, I am as far from middle age as a flock of sandpipers would be from Novosibirsk on St. Peter’s Day. I am of noble lineage. I might not be much to look at, but am not that bad either, so much so that I have been repeatedly mistaken for handsome, albeit only on moonless nights. My eyes are hazel. My cheeks (alas!) are undimpled. Two of my back teeth are rotten. I have a hard time assuming graceful manners, but no one should doubt the strength of my muscles. (My glove size is 7¾.) I have nothing to my name but my poor though wellborn parents. I do, however, have an illustrious future before me. I am a devotee of pretty women in general and parlor maids in particular. I believe in everything. I am a man of letters—so much so that I am above shedding tears when rejection slips come pouring in. I see a novel in my future, whose heroine (a wanton but exquisite beauty) will be modeled on my wife-to-be. I sleep twelve hours a night. I eat mountains of food. I drink vodka only in company. I have a commendable circle of friends: I know two literati, a ditty-writer, and two men about town who have dedicated their lives to the betterment of mankind by writing articles for The Russian Gazette. My favorite poets are Pushkarev and, at times, myself. I am amorous, but not in the least jealous. I wish to marry for reasons known only to myself and my creditors. That, in a nutshell, is who I am!

  Now as to what I am looking for in a wife. She must be either a maiden or a widow, whichever she prefers, not older than thirty nor younger than fifteen. She must not be Catholic—in other words not one of those women who believe that there is such a thing as a man who is infallible—and definitely not a Jewess. A Jewess would never tire of badgering me: “Oy, is that all those magazines are paying you for a line? You should go to my papa and learn one or two things about making rubles!” I would not like that. I would like a blonde with blue eyes and, please, if at all possible, dark eyebrows. She must not be pale, flushed, thin, plump, tall, or squat, but pleasant, and not possessed by demons, or have her hair cut short, or be garrulous, or never want to go anywhere.

  She must have good handwriting, because I need someone to copy out my pieces. Not that there’s much to copy out.

  She must love the magazines I write for, and follow the mode of life they advocate.

  She must not read The Playful Tattler, The New Daily, or that dreadful book Nana, and she should not be moved by the feature articles of The Moscow News, or swoon at the poetry that keeps appearing in Berega.

  She must be able to sing, dance, read, write, boil, roast, fry, be sweet and tender, grill (but without raking me over the coals), be good at borrowing money for her husband, have a knack for dressing elegantly using her own financial resources (N.B.!), and be absolutely obedient.

  She must not niggle, hiss, squawk, yell, bite, bare her teeth, throw plates, or bat her eyelashes at friends of the family.

  It is important that she remember that horns do not adorn a man’s head, and that the shorter they are the safer is he who will be made to pay for them.

  She must not be called Matryonna, Akulina, Avdoteya, or other such provincial names, but have a nobler name, such as Olya, Lenochka, Maruska, Katya, Lipa.

  She must at all times keep her dear mama, my highly esteemed mother-in-law, well away from me, somewhere at the back of beyond, otherwise I cannot be held accountable for my actions, and—

  She must have a minimum of two hundred thousand rubles in silver.

  This stipulation, however, is negotiable at the discretion of my creditors.

  THE TEMPERAMENTS

  (According to the Latest Science)

  The Sanguine Man. Impressions work on him easily and quickly. This, according to Hufeland, leads to his being frivolous. In his young years he is a prankster and a ne’er-do-well. He talks back to his teachers, will not cut his hair, does not shave, wears glasses, and scribbles on walls. He is not good in class, but graduates. He is disrespectful to his parents. If he is wealthy, he is a dandy; if poor, he lives in squalor. He sleeps until noon, and goes to bed at all hours. His spelling leaves much to be desired. Nature has made him for love alone; consequently he will only occupy himself with what he loves. He is not above drinking himself to kingdom come. Drinking late into the night until little green devils dance before his eyes, he rises the following day somewhat bedraggled, but with only a slight dullness in his head, and without the urge to similia similibus curantur.8 He marries by mistake, and is forever engaged in battle with his mother-in-law and at war with his wife. He lies to beat the band. He is drawn to brawling and sentimental plays. In an orchestra he is the first violin. Being flighty, he is a liberal. The sanguine man will either read nothing all his life or read himself into oblivion. When it comes
to newspapers, he loves editorials and is not above editorializing. The readers’ page of humorous magazines was expressly invented for him. He is constant in his inconstancy. In the government, he is an official for special matters or the like. If he is an instructor, he instructs literature. He will rarely work his way up to the rank of state councilor, but if he should reach that highest of ranks in our civil service he turns into a phlegmatic man, sometimes even a choleric one. Freeloaders, crooks, and beer-swillers are sanguine individuals. Sleeping in the same room as the sanguine man is not to be recommended as he will tell jokes all night, and, when he has run out of jokes, will begin criticizing his friends or telling lies. He succumbs to illnesses of the digestive system and premature exhaustion.