Forty Stories

  “Christ knows! Maybe he was murdered, maybe he just died.”

  “Yes, yes. So it is! And who knows, dear brethren, even now his soul may be tasting the delights of Paradise.”

  “No, his soul is still clinging close to his body,” the young man said. “It doesn’t leave the body for three days.”

  “Hm, yes! How cold it is, eh? My teeth are chattering.… How do I go? Straight ahead, eh?”

  “Till you reach the village, and then you turn to the right, by the river.”

  “By the river, eh? Why am I standing here? I must get going. Good-by, dear brethren!”

  The man in the cassock took four or five steps along the path, and then stood still.

  “I forgot to give a kopeck for the funeral,” he said. “You are good religious people. May I—is it right for me to leave the money?”

  “You should know best, since you go about from one monastery to another. Suppose he died a natural death—then it will go for the good of his soul. If he didn’t, then it’s a sin.”

  “That’s true. Maybe he killed himself, and so I had better keep the money. Oh, so much evil in the world! Even if you gave me a thousand rubles, I wouldn’t stay here.… Farewell, brothers!”

  Slowly the man in the cassock moved away, and again he stood still.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he muttered. “It’s terrible to be staying here by the fire and waiting for daybreak, and it’s terrible to be going along the road. I’ll be haunted by him—he’ll come out of the shadows! God is punishing me! I’ve walked for four hundred miles, and nothing ever happened to me, and now I am close to home, and there’s all this misery. I can’t go on.…”

  “You’re right. It’s terrible.”

  “I’m not afraid of wolves. I’m not afraid of robbers, or the dark, but I’m afraid of the dead. I’m terrified, and that’s the truth! Dear good religious brethren, I beg you on my knees to see me to the village.”

  “We have to stay with the body.”

  “Dear brethren, no one will ever know. Truly, no one will see you coming with me. God will reward you a hundredfold. You with a beard—come with me! Do me that kindness! Why doesn’t he talk?”

  “He hasn’t got much sense,” the young man said.

  “Come with me, friend. I’ll give you five kopecks!”

  “I might, for five kopecks,” the young man said, scratching the back of his head. “It’s against orders, though. If Syoma, the poor fool, will stay here, then I’ll come. Syoma, do you mind staying here alone?”

  “I don’t mind,” the fool said.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  So the young man rose and went with the man wearing a cassock, and soon the sound of their steps and the talk died away into the night.

  Syoma closed his eyes and fell into a gentle sleep. The fire gradually went out, and soon the dead body was lost among great shadows.

  September 1885

  Sergeant Prishibeyev

  “SERGEANT Prishibeyev! You are charged with using insulting language and committing assault and battery upon the persons of Police Officer Zhigin, the village elder Alyapov, Patrolman Yefimov, the witnesses Ivanov and Gavrilov, and six other villagers on the third of September. The three first-named were insulted by you during the performance of their official duties. Do you plead guilty?”

  Prishibeyev, a shriveled-up non-commissioned officer, whose face was all bristles, came to attention and replied in a hoarse, choked-up voice, forming each word as though he were on the parade ground:

  “Your Honor, Mr. Justice of the Peace!… In accordance with the articles of the law it stands to reason that testimony must be taken mutually and severally with regard to all the circumstances of any and every case. No, it’s not me that’s guilty—it’s the rest of them. I may say the whole business started with that dead body—may God give him rest! On the third day of the aforesaid month I was quietly and respectably taking a promenade with my wife Anfisa. Then what do I observe but a mob of people standing there on the shore. I ask myself: Do they possess a legal right of assembly? I ask myself: What on earth are they up to? Is it permissible for people to crowd around like cattle? So I shout at them: ‘Break it up there, all of you!’ Then I barge into them and send them off packing to their homes, and I order the patrolman to give them a taste of the stick!”

  “Listen to me. You are not the village elder, nor the patrolman—is it your business to break up crowds?”

  “It’s not his business—no, it isn’t!” people shouted from all over the room. “No one can live in the same world with him, Your Honor! Fifteen years we’ve had to endure him! Ever since he came back from the Army, we’ve felt like running away from the village. He only torments us—that’s all he ever does!”

  “Just so, Your Honor,” says the village elder. “The whole village—everyone—complains about him. No one can breathe while he’s around. Whenever we march in procession with the icons, or there’s a wedding, or any kind of occasion, he’s always there shouting, making noises, and ordering everyone about. He pulls the children’s ears, and spies on the womenfolk in case they are up to mischief—he’s like a father-in-law.… The other day he went round all the houses ordering us not to sing songs and not to burn lights!”

  “Wait a bit,” said the magistrate. “You’ll be given an opportunity to testify later. For the present Prishibeyev may proceed. Proceed, Prishibeyev!”

  “Oh yes, sir!” the sergeant croaked. “Your Honor, you’ve been pleased to say it’s not my business to disperse the crowd. Very good, sir. But supposing there is a breach of the peace. You can’t permit people to behave in an unbecoming manner. What law says people can be free? I won’t permit it. If I don’t run after them and punish them, who will? No one here knows anything about law and order, and in the whole village, Your Honor, there’s only me who knows how to deal with the common folk, and, Your Honor, there isn’t anything I don’t know. I’m not a peasant. I’m a non-commissioned officer, a retired quartermaster sergeant! I did my service in Warsaw attached to headquarters, and later on, may it please Your Honor, upon receiving an honorable discharge I was seconded into the fire brigade, and then, seeing as how I was retired from the fire brigade due to infirmities consequent to illness, I served for two years as doorkeeper in a junior high school for boys.… I know all the rules and regulations, sir. Take an ignorant peasant who doesn’t understand anything—he has to do what I tell him to do, because it’s for his own good. Then there’s this little trouble we’re talking about. Well, it is quite true I broke up the crowd, but right there on the shore, lying on the sands, there was a dead body, see. Man drowned. So I says to myself: What right does he have to lie there? What’s right and proper about it? What’s the officer doing there, gaping away? So I address myself to the officer, and I say: ‘You ought to notify the authorities. Maybe the drowned fellow drowned himself, or maybe there’s a smell of Siberia about the business. Maybe it’s a question of criminal homicide.…’ Well, Officer Zhigin didn’t pay any attention to me; he only went on smoking a cigarette. ‘Who’s giving orders here?’ he says. ‘Where does he come from, eh? Don’t we know how to behave without him butting in?’ ‘You’re a damned fool!’ says I. ‘The truth is you don’t know what you’re doing. You just stand there and don’t pay attention to anything.’ Says he: ‘I notified the district police inspector yesterday.’ Why,’ says I, ‘did you notify the district police inspector? Under what article of what code of law? In such cases, when it’s a matter of drowning or hanging or something of the sort, what is the inspector expected to do? Here we have what is properly speaking a criminal matter,’ says I. ‘A matter for the civil courts,’ I says. ‘Best thing you can do is to send an express to His Honor the examining magistrate and the judges. And then,’ says I, ‘before you do anything else, you have to draw up a charge and send it to the justice of the peace.’ And would you believe it, the officer hears me quite well and bursts out laughing. And the peasants laughed, too. They
were all laughing, Your Honor. I testify to my aforesaid statement under oath. See that fellow over there—he was laughing. And that fellow, too. And Zhigin. All laughing. ‘So why do you show me the color of your teeth?’ says I. ‘Cases of this sort,’ says the officer, ‘don’t come under the jurisdiction of justices of the peace.’ That made my blood boil. ‘Didn’t you say those very words, Officer?’ ” the sergeant said, turning and confronting Officer Zhigin.

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  “Of course you did! The whole mob of people heard you. You said: ‘Cases like this don’t come under the jurisdiction of the justices of the peace.…’ Your Honor, my blood boiled! I was stunned. ‘Say that again, you so-and-so,’ says I. ‘Just you repeat it.…’ And so I said to him: ‘How can you bring yourself to say those words about His Honor? You, a police officer, dare to set yourself in opposition to constituted authority? Do you realize,’ says I, ‘that for speaking in that fashion His Honor can have you brought up before the provincial gendarmerie on the grounds of gross misconduct? Do you realize,’ says I, ‘that for those political observations His Honor could have you summarily dismissed?’ And then the village elder interfered and said: ‘His Honor can’t settle anything outside his powers—only minor cases come within his jurisdiction.’ That’s what he said, and everybody heard him. ‘How dare you set the authorities at nought?’ says I. ‘Don’t go playing jokes on me, brother, or you’ll come to grief. Why, when I was at Warsaw and later when I was appointed doorkeeper at the junior high school for boys, as soon as I heard about anything that wasn’t quite proper, I’d take a look down the street and see whether there was a policeman in sight. ‘Come along here, Officer,’ I’d say, and I’d make a full report to him. But here in the village, who does one report to? So my blood was boiling. I was outraged by the way people nowadays assert their rights and commit acts of insubordination. So I belted him—oh, I didn’t use undue force, just a gentle tap, you understand, to remind him not to talk about Your Honor in that way. The officer jumped to the side of the village elder. So, of course, I belted him, too.… That’s how it all began. I was in a rage, Your Honor. It’s understandable. You have to belt people sometimes. If you don’t sometimes belt one of those mugwumps, why, you have a sin on your conscience. Especially when, as it happens, he deserves it, and there’s a disturbance of the public peace.”

  “Wait a moment. There are some people charged with the duty of keeping public order. The officer, the patrolman, the village elder …”

  “The officer can’t keep an eye on everything. The officer just doesn’t understand things as I do.”

  “Does it occur to you that it is none of your business?”

  “What’s that, sir? None of my business? Why, that’s a queer thing to say. People can go on a rampage, and it’s none of my business! Am I supposed to pat them on the head? They are complaining because I won’t let them sing songs.… What’s the good of songs? Instead of getting on with something useful, they sing songs. And recently they’ve been sitting up at night, keeping the lights burning. They should be in bed. Instead of that they’re sitting up and talking and joking. I made a report about that.”

  “What did you say in the report?”

  “They sit up and keep their lights burning.”

  Prishibeyev removed a greasy scrap of paper from his pocket, put on his spectacles, and read:

  “The following peasants were seen sitting up with the lights on—Ivan Prokhorov, Savva Mikiphorov, Pyotr Petrov. The soldier’s widow Shustrova lives in sin with Semyon Kisslov. Ignat Sverchok practices witchcraft, and his wife Mavra is a witch who goes out milking other people’s cows at night.”

  “That will do!” said the judge, and he began to examine the witnesses.

  Sergeant Prishibeyev pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and gazed with amazement at the justice of the peace, who plainly was not on his side. The sergeant’s protruding eyes gleamed, and his nose began to turn scarlet. He looked at the judge, at the witnesses, and he could not understand why the judge was so perturbed or why there was so much suppressed laughter, so many whispers coming from all corners of the courtroom. And the verdict, too, was incomprehensible: one month in jail.

  “Why? Why?” he asked, flinging out his hands in bewilderment. “What law said so?”

  And it was clear to him that the world had changed, and it was utterly impossible for him to go on living. He was oppressed by melancholy thoughts. When he left the courtroom and saw the peasants wandering about and talking about nothing in particular, he drew himself to attention and barked in his hoarse, ill-tempered voice:

  “Move along there! Stop crowding! Go on back to your homes!”

  October 1885

  A Blunder

  ILYA SERGEICH PEPLOV and his wife Cleopatra Petrovna stood outside the door, listening closely. In the small room on the other side of the door someone was quite obviously making a declaration of love: this declaration was being made by the district schoolmaster Shupkin to their daughter Natasha.

  “Well, he’s hooked now,” Peplov whispered, shuddering with impatience and rubbing his hands together. “Listen, Petrovna, as soon as they start talking about their feelings for one another, take the icon from the wall and we’ll go in and give them our blessing.… A blessing with an icon is sacred and can’t be broken.… Also, he won’t be able to wriggle out of it, even if he goes to court!”

  On the other side of the door the following conversation was taking place:

  “Really you’ll have to change your character,” Shupkin was saying as he struck a match on his checkered trousers. “I’ve never written you any letters in my life!”

  “What a thing to say! As though I didn’t know your handwriting!” The young woman laughed in an affected manner while gazing at herself in a mirror. “I recognized it at once! How funny you are! A teacher of handwriting, and your handwriting is nothing but a scrawl! How can you teach handwriting when you yourself write so badly?”

  “Hm. That’s not important. The really important thing in handwriting is that the children don’t drop off to sleep. Of course, you can give them a little rap on the head with a ruler, or a rap on the knees.… That’s handwriting!… Quite simple, really. Nekrasov was a writer, but it is shameful to see how he wrote. There are examples of his handwriting in his collected works.”

  “Nekrasov is one thing, and you are another.” Here she gave a sigh. “I would marry a writer with the greatest pleasure. He would be continually writing poems in my honor.”

  “I would write poems for you, if you wanted me to.”

  “What would you write about?”

  “About love … about my feelings for you … about your eyes.… When you read them, you would be out of your mind.… You would be moved to tears! And if I really wrote some poetical verses for you, would you allow me to kiss your little hand?”

  “What a lot of fuss! Here, kiss it!”

  Shupkin jumped up, his eyeballs protruding, and he took her plump little hand, which smelled of scented soap.

  “Take down the icon!” Peplov whispered, turning pale with emotion. He jostled his wife with his elbow, and buttoned up his coat. “Well, here we go!”

  And without any further delay he threw open the door.

  “Children!” he muttered, raising his hands and screwing up his eyes tearfully. “May God bless you, my children.… Live … be fruitful … multiply …”

  “I, too, bless you,” the girl’s mother repeated, weeping with joy. “Be happy, my dears. Oh, you are taking away my only treasure!” she added, turning to Shupkin. “Love my daughter, and be good to her!”

  Shupkin gaped in astonishment and fright. The sudden descent of the parents was so unexpected and so awesome that he was unable to utter a single word.

  “I’m caught! I’m trapped!” he thought, near fainting with terror. “The roofs falling in on you, brother! No use to run!”

  And he lowered his head in humility, as though he were saying: “
Take me! I have been vanquished!”

  “Bless you, bless you!” the father went on, and tears filled his eyes. “Natasha, my daughter, stand beside him.… Petrovna, hand me the icon.”

  Suddenly there was an end to his tears, and his face became contorted with rage.

  “Idiot!” he shouted angrily at his wife. “Stupid blockhead! Is this an icon?”

  “Oh, God in heaven …!”

  What had happened? The writing master cautiously looked up and saw that he was saved. In her haste, instead of the icon, the mother had taken from the wall the picture of the writer Lazhechnikov. Cleopatra Petrovna stood there with the portrait in her hands, and she and old Peplov presented an appearance of utter confusion, for they had no idea what to do or say. The writing master profited from their confusion by taking to his heels.

  January 1886

  Heartache

  To whom shall I tell my sorrow?

  EVENING twilight. Thick flakes of wet snow were circling lazily round the newly lighted street lamps, settling in thin soft layers on rooftops, on the horses’ backs, and on people’s shoulders and caps. The cabdriver Iona Potapov was white as a ghost, and bent double as much as any human body can be bent double, sitting very still on his box. Even if a whole snowdrift had fallen on him, he would have found no need to shake it off. The little mare, too, was white, and quite motionless. Her immobility, and the fact that she was all sharp angles and sticklike legs, gave her a resemblance to one of those gingerbread horses which can be bought for a kopeck. No doubt the mare was plunged in deep thought. So would you be if you were torn from the plow, snatched away from familiar, gray surroundings, and thrown into a whirlpool of monstrous illuminations, ceaseless uproar, and people scrambling hither and thither.

  For a long while neither Iona nor the little mare had made the slightest motion. They had driven out of the stableyard before dinner, and so far not a single fare had come to them. The evening mist fell over the city. The pale glow of the street lamps grew brighter, more intense, as the street noises grew louder.