Short Stories by Chekhov
A honied smile overspreads all the faces. A minute passes in silent
contemplation.
"A famous eel-pout," mutters Yefim, scratching under his shoulder-
blades. "I'll be bound it weighs ten pounds."
"Mm! . . . Yes," the master assents. "The liver is fairly swollen! It
seems to stand out! A-ach!"
The fish makes a sudden, unexpected upward movement with its tail and
the fishermen hear a loud splash . . . they all put out their hands, but
it is too late; they have seen the last of the eel-pout.
ART A GLOOMY winter morning.
On the smooth and glittering surface of the river Bystryanka, sprinkled
here and there with snow, stand two peasants, scrubby little Seryozhka
and the church beadle, Matvey. Seryozhka, a short-legged, ragged, mangy-
looking fellow of thirty, stares angrily at the ice. Tufts of wool hang
from his shaggy sheepskin like a mangy dog. In his hands he holds a
compass made of two pointed sticks. Matvey, a fine-looking old man in a
new sheepskin and high felt boots, looks with mild blue eyes upwards
where on the high sloping bank a village nestles picturesquely. In his
hands there is a heavy crowbar.
"Well, are we going to stand like this till evening with our arms
folded?" says Seryozhka, breaking the silence and turning his angry eyes
on Matvey. "Have you come here to stand about, old fool, or to work?"
"Well, you . . . er . . . show me . . ." Matvey mutters, blinking
mildly.
"Show you. . . . It's always me: me to show you, and me to do it. They
have no sense of their own! Mark it out with the compasses, that's
what's wanted! You can't break the ice without marking it out. Mark it!
Take the compass."
Matvey takes the compasses from Seryozhka's hands, and, shuffling
heavily on the same spot and jerking with his elbows in all directions,
he begins awkwardly trying to describe a circle on the ice. Seryozhka
screws up his eyes contemptuously and obviously enjoys his awkwardness
and incompetence.
"Eh-eh-eh!" he mutters angrily. "Even that you can't do! The fact is you
are a stupid peasant, a wooden-head! You ought to be grazing geese and
not making a Jordan! Give the compasses here! Give them here, I say!"
Seryozhka snatches the compasses out of the hands of the perspiring
Matvey, and in an instant, jauntily twirling round on one heel, he
describes a circle on the ice. The outline of the new Jordan is ready
now, all that is left to do is to break the ice. . .
But before proceeding to the work Seryozhka spends a long time in airs
and graces, whims and reproaches. . .
"I am not obliged to work for you! You are employed in the church, you
do it!"
He obviously enjoys the peculiar position in which he has been placed by
the fate that has bestowed on him the rare talent of surprising the
whole parish once a year by his art. Poor mild Matvey has to listen to
many venomous and contemptuous words from him. Seryozhka sets to work
with vexation, with anger. He is lazy. He has hardly described the
circle when he is already itching to go up to the village to drink tea,
lounge about, and babble. . .
"I'll be back directly," he says, lighting his cigarette, "and meanwhile
you had better bring something to sit on and sweep up, instead of
standing there counting the crows."
Matvey is left alone. The air is grey and harsh but still. The white
church peeps out genially from behind the huts scattered on the river
bank. Jackdaws are incessantly circling round its golden crosses. On one
side of the village where the river bank breaks off and is steep a
hobbled horse is standing at the very edge, motionless as a stone,
probably asleep or deep in thought.
Matvey, too, stands motionless as a statue, waiting patiently. The
dreamily brooding look of the river, the circling of the jackdaws, and
the sight of the horse make him drowsy. One hour passes, a second, and
still Seryozhka does not come. The river has long been swept and a box
brought to sit on, but the drunken fellow does not appear. Matvey waits
and merely yawns. The feeling of boredom is one of which he knows
nothing. If he were told to stand on the river for a day, a month, or a
year he would stand there.
At last Seryozhka comes into sight from behind the huts. He walks with a
lurching gait, scarcely moving. He is too lazy to go the long way round,
and he comes not by the road, but prefers a short cut in a straight line
down the bank, and sticks in the snow, hangs on to the bushes, slides on
his back as he comes--and all this slowly, with pauses.
"What are you about?" he cries, falling on Matvey at once. "Why are you
standing there doing nothing! When are you going to break the ice?"
Matvey crosses himself, takes the crowbar in both hands, and begins
breaking the ice, carefully keeping to the circle that has been drawn.
Seryozhka sits down on the box and watches the heavy clumsy movements of
his assistant.
"Easy at the edges! Easy there!" he commands. "If you can't do it
properly, you shouldn't undertake it, once you have undertaken it you
should do it. You!"
A crowd collects on the top of the bank. At the sight of the spectators
Seryozhka becomes even more excited.
"I declare I am not going to do it . . ." he says, lighting a stinking
cigarette and spitting on the ground. "I should like to see how you get
on without me. Last year at Kostyukovo, Styopka Gulkov undertook to make
a Jordan as I do. And what did it amount to--it was a laughing-stock. The
Kostyukovo folks came to ours --crowds and crowds of them! The people
flocked from all the villages."
"Because except for ours there is nowhere a proper Jordan . . ."
"Work, there is no time for talking. . . . Yes, old man . . . you won't
find another Jordan like it in the whole province. The soldiers say you
would look in vain, they are not so good even in the towns. Easy, easy!"
Matvey puffs and groans. The work is not easy. The ice is firm and
thick; and he has to break it and at once take the pieces away that the
open space may not be blocked up.
But, hard as the work is and senseless as Seryozhka's commands are, by
three o'clock there is a large circle of dark water in the Bystryanka.
"It was better last year," says Seryozhka angrily. "You can't do even
that! Ah, dummy! To keep such fools in the temple of God! Go and bring a
board to make the pegs! Bring the ring, you crow! And er . . . get some
bread somewhere . . . and some cucumbers, or something."
Matvey goes off and soon afterwards comes back, carrying on his
shoulders an immense wooden ring which had been painted in previous
years in patterns of various colours. In the centre of the ring is a red
cross, at the circumference holes for the pegs. Seryozhka takes the ring
and covers the hole in the ice with it.
"Just right . . . it fits. . . . We have only to renew the paint and it
will be first-rate. . . . Come, why are you standing still? Make the
lectern. Or--er--go and get logs to make the cross . . ."
Matvey, who has not tasted food or drink all day, trudges up the hill
again. Lazy as Seryozhka is, he makes the pegs with his own hands. He
knows that those pegs have a miraculous power: whoever gets hold of a
peg after the blessing of the water will be lucky for the whole year.
Such work is really worth doing.
But the real work begins the following day. Then Seryozhka displays
himself before the ignorant Matvey in all the greatness of his talent.
There is no end to his babble, his fault-finding, his whims and fancies.
If Matvey nails two big pieces of wood to make a cross, he is
dissatisfied and tells him to do it again. If Matvey stands still,
Seryozhka asks him angrily why he does not go; if he moves, Seryozhka
shouts to him not to go away but to do his work. He is not satisfied
with his tools, with the weather, or with his own talent; nothing
pleases him.
Matvey saws out a great piece of ice for a lectern.
"Why have you broken off the corner?" cries Seryozhka, and glares at him
furiously. "Why have you broken off the corner? I ask you."
"Forgive me, for Christ's sake."
"Do it over again!"
Matvey saws again . . . and there is no end to his sufferings. A lectern
is to stand by the hole in the ice that is covered by the painted ring;
on the lectern is to be carved the cross and the open gospel. But that
is not all. Behind the lectern there is to be a high cross to be seen by
all the crowd and to glitter in the sun as though sprinkled with
diamonds and rubies. On the cross is to be a dove carved out of ice. The
path from the church to the Jordan is to be strewn with branches of fir
and juniper. All this is their task.
First of all Seryozhka sets to work on the lectern. He works with a
file, a chisel, and an awl. He is perfectly successful in the cross on
the lectern, the gospel, and the drapery that hangs down from the
lectern. Then he begins on the dove. While he is trying to carve an
expression of meekness and humility on the face of the dove, Matvey,
lumbering about like a bear, is coating with ice the cross he has made
of wood. He takes the cross and dips it in the hole. Waiting till the
water has frozen on the cross he dips it in a second time, and so on
till the cross is covered with a thick layer of ice. It is a difficult
job, calling for a great deal of strength and patience.
But now the delicate work is finished. Seryozhka races about the village
like one possessed. He swears and vows he will go at once to the river
and smash all his work. He is looking for suitable paints.
His pockets are full of ochre, dark blue, red lead, and verdigris;
without paying a farthing he rushes headlong from one shop to another.
The shop is next door to the tavern. Here he has a drink; with a wave of
his hand he darts off without paying. At one hut he gets beetroot
leaves, at another an onion skin, out of which he makes a yellow colour.
He swears, shoves, threatens, and not a soul murmurs! They all smile at
him, they sympathise with him, call him Sergey Nikititch; they all feel
that his art is not his personal affair but something that concerns them
all, the whole people. One creates, the others help him. Seryozhka in
himself is a nonentity, a sluggard, a drunkard, and a wastrel, but when
he has his red lead or compasses in his hand he is at once something
higher, a servant of God.
Epiphany morning comes. The precincts of the church and both banks of
the river for a long distance are swarming with people. Everything that
makes up the Jordan is scrupulously concealed under new mats. Seryozhka
is meekly moving about near the mats, trying to control his emotion. He
sees thousands of people. There are many here from other parishes; these
people have come many a mile on foot through the frost and the snow
merely to see his celebrated Jordan. Matvey, who had finished his
coarse, rough work, is by now back in the church, there is no sight, no
sound of him; he is already forgotten . . . . The weather is lovely. . .
. There is not a cloud in the sky. The sunshine is dazzling.
The church bells ring out on the hill . . . Thousands of heads are
bared, thousands of hands are moving, there are thousands of signs of
the cross!
And Seryozhka does not know what to do with himself for impatience. But
now they are ringing the bells for the Sacrament; then half an hour
later a certain agitation is perceptible in the belfry and among the
people. Banners are borne out of the church one after the other, while
the bells peal in joyous haste. Seryozhka, trembling, pulls away the mat
. . . and the people behold something extraordinary. The lectern, the
wooden ring, the pegs, and the cross in the ice are iridescent with
thousands of colors. The cross and the dove glitter so dazzlingly that
it hurts the eyes to look at them. Merciful God, how fine it is! A