Short Stories by Chekhov
to look the people in the face. One is ashamed not to officiate, as you
know. Besides, I have business here, Fyodor Ilyitch. To-morrow after
breaking the fast I want to talk things over thoroughly with the Father
charged with the inquiry."
"Ah! . . ." yawned his Reverence, "and where are you staying?"
"At Zyavkin's."
Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his Reverence
had to take the Easter-night service, and he felt so ashamed of his
unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his mind to go away at
once and let the exhausted man rest. And the old man got up to go. But
before he began saying good-bye he stood clearing his throat for a
minute and looking searchingly at his Reverence's back, still with the
same expression of vague expectation in his whole figure; his face was
working with shame, timidity, and a pitiful forced laugh such as one
sees in people who do not respect themselves. Waving his hand as it were
resolutely, he said with a husky quavering laugh:
"Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at leave-
taking . . . one little glass of vodka."
"It's not the time to drink vodka now," said his Reverence sternly. "One
must have some regard for decency."
Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed,
and, forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his chair.
His Reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and his bent
figure and he felt sorry for the old man.
"Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow," he said, wishing to soften
his stem refusal. "Everything is good in due season."
His Reverence believed in people's reforming, but now when a feeling of
pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced, worn-
out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses, was
hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could
straighten out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain the
unpleasant timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe over to
some slight extent the repulsive impression he made on people.
The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not guilty and not vicious, but
humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his Reverence thought of his wife,
his nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin's; he thought
for some reason of the people who are glad to see priests drunk and
persons in authority detected in crimes; and thought that the very best
thing Father Anastasy could do now would be to die as soon as possible
and to depart from this world for ever.
There were a sound of footsteps.
"Father Fyodor, you are not resting?" a bass voice asked from the
passage.
"No, deacon; come in."
Orlov's colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly man with a big bald
patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black and he was
still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like a Georgian's,
walked in. He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
"What good news have you?" asked his Reverence.
"What good news?" answered the deacon, and after a pause he went on with
a smile: "When your children are little, your trouble is small; when
your children are big, your trouble is great. Such goings on, Father
Fyodor, that I don't know what to think of it. It's a regular farce,
that's what it is."
He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
"Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling me
about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me."
"What has he been telling you, then?"
"He has upset me, God bless him. He meant to please me but when I came
to think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at. I ought
to grieve rather than be pleased. . . 'Your Petrushka,' said he, 'lives
in fine style. He is far above us now,' said he. 'Well thank God for
that,' said I. 'I dined with him,' said he, 'and saw his whole manner of
life. He lives like a gentleman,' he said; 'you couldn't wish to live
better.' I was naturally interested and I asked, 'And what did you have
for dinner?' 'First,' he said, 'a fish course something like fish soup,
then tongue and peas,' and then he said, 'roast turkey.' 'Turkey in
Lent? that is something to please me,' said I. 'Turkey in Lent? Eh?'"
"Nothing marvellous in that," said his Reverence, screwing up his eyes
ironically. And sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew himself up and
said in the tone in which he usually delivered discourses or gave his
Scripture lessons to the pupils in the district school: "People who do
not keep the fasts are divided into two different categories: some do
not keep them through laxity, others through infidelity. Your Pyotr does
not keep them through infidelity. Yes."
The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor's stern face and said:
"There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and discussed one thing and
another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living with some
madame, another man's wife. She takes the place of wife and hostess in
his flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and all the rest of it,
as though she were his lawful wife. For over two years he has been
keeping up this dance with this viper. It's a regular farce. They have
been living together for three years and no children."
"I suppose they have been living in chastity!" chuckled Father Anastasy,
coughing huskily. "There are children, Father Deacon-- there are, but
they don't keep them at home! They send them to the Foundling! He-he-he!
. . ." Anastasy went on coughing till he choked.
"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy," said his Reverence sternly.
"Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, 'What madame is this helping the soup at
your table?'" the deacon went on, gloomily scanning Anastasy's bent
figure. "'That is my wife,' said he. 'When was your wedding?' Nikolay
Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered, 'We were married at Kulikov's
restaurant.'"
His Reverence's eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into his
temples. Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he liked.
Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He remembered him
a boy at school--he remembered him distinctly, because even then the boy
had seemed to him not normal. As a schoolboy, Petrushka had been ashamed
to serve at the altar, had been offended at being addressed without
ceremony, had not crossed himself on entering the room, and what was
still more noteworthy, was fond of talking a great deal and with
heat--and, in Father Fyodor's opinion, much talking was unseemly in
children and pernicious to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a
contemptuous and critical attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both
his Reverence and the deacon were greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr
had not gone to church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on
people, and had been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions
with a peculiarly provoking zest.
"What would you have?" his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon and
looking at him angrily. "What would you have? This was to be expected! I
always knew and was convinced that nothing good would come of your
Pyotr! I told you so, and I tell you so now. What you have sown, that
now you must reap! Reap it!"
"But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?" the deacon asked softly, looking
up at his Reverence.
"Why, who is to blame if not you? You're his father, he is your
offspring! You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the fear of
God into him. A child must be taught! You have brought him into the
world, but you haven't trained him up in the right way. It's a sin! It's
wrong! It's a shame!"
His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on
talking. Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon's bald head and
forehead. He raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of guilt, and
said:
"But didn't I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord have mercy on us, haven't I
been a father to my children? You know yourself I spared nothing for his
good; I have prayed and done my best all my life to give him a thorough
education. He went to the high school and I got him tutors, and he took
his degree at the University. And as to my not being able to influence
his mind, Father Fyodor, why, you can judge for yourself that I am not
qualified to do so! Sometimes when he used to come here as a student, I
would begin admonishing him in my way, and he wouldn't heed me. I'd say
to him, 'Go to church,' and he would answer, 'What for?' I would begin
explaining, and he would say, 'Why? what for?' Or he would slap me on
the shoulder and say, 'Everything in this world is relative, approximate
and conditional. I don't know anything, and you don't know anything
either, dad.'"
Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his
fingers in the air as though preparing to say something. His Reverence
glanced at him and said sternly:
"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy."
The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure to the
deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons in this
world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, with an aching heart,
and tears actually came into his eyes. Father Fyodor felt sorry for him.
"You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame," he said, but not so
sternly and heatedly as before. "If you could beget him, you ought to
know how to instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his
childhood; it's no good trying to correct a student."
A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a sigh:
"But you know I shall have to answer for him!"
"To be sure you will!"
After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and sighed at the same moment
and asked:
"Who is reading the 'Acts'?"
"Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them."
The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his Reverence, asked:
"Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?"
"Do as you please; you are his father, not I. You ought to know best."
"I don't know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell me what to do, for goodness'
sake! Would you believe it, I am sick at heart! I can't sleep now, nor
keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to me. Tell me what to
do, Father Fyodor!"
"Write him a letter."
"What am I to write to him?"
"Write that he mustn't go on like that. Write shortly, but sternly and
circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt. It is
your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your duty and will
be at peace."
"That's true. But what am I to write to him, to what effect? If I write
to him, he will answer, 'Why? what for? Why is it a sin?'"
Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers.
"Why? what for? why is it a sin?" he began shrilly. "I was once
confessing a gentleman, and I told him that excessive confidence in the
Divine Mercy is a sin; and he asked, 'Why?' I tried to answer him,
but----" Anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. "I had nothing here.
He-he-he-he! . . ."
Anastasy's words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable,
had an unpleasant effect on his Reverence and on the deacon. The former
was on the point of saying, "Don't interfere" again, but he did not say
it, he only frowned.
"I can't write to him," sighed the deacon.
"If you can't, who can?"
"Father Fyodor!" said the deacon, putting his head on one side and
pressing his hand to his heart. "I am an uneducated slow-witted man,
while the Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. You know
everything and understand everything. You can master anything, while I
don't know how to put my words together sensibly. Be generous. Instruct
me how to write the letter. Teach me what to say and how to say it. . .
."
"What is there to teach? There is nothing to teach. Sit down and write."