Short Stories by Chekhov
the lamp, it was possible to see his smile distinctly; it was very
complex, and expressed a variety of emotions, but the predominant
element in it was undisguised contempt. He seemed to be thinking of
something ludicrous and silly, to be feeling contempt and dislike, to be
pleased at something and waiting for the favourable moment to turn
something into ridicule and to burst into laughter. His long nose, his
thick lips, and his sly prominent eyes seemed tense with the desire to
laugh. Looking at his face, Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:
"Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and act
some Jewish scenes?"
Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the
booths at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of Jewish
life, and his acting had been a great success. The allusion to this made
no impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer, he went out and
returned a little later with the samovar.
When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little aside,
and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one leg, fixed
his sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was something defiant,
haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and at the same time it was
comic and pitiful in the extreme, because the more impressive his
attitude the more vividly it showed up his short trousers, his bobtail
coat, his caricature of a nose, and his bird-like plucked-looking little
figure.
Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat down a
little way from the table.
"I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!" he began, trying to
entertain his visitors. "I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests,
such rare ones; it is years since I last saw Father Christopher. And
will no one tell me who is this nice little gentleman?" he asked,
looking tenderly at Yegorushka.
"He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna," answered Kuzmitchov.
"And where is he going?"
"To school. We are taking him to a high school."
In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and wagged
his head expressively.
"Ah, that is a fine thing," he said, shaking his finger at the samovar.
"That's a fine thing. You will come back from the high school such a
gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you. You will be
wealthy and wise and so grand that your mamma will be delighted. Oh,
that's a fine thing!"
He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose and
deferential tone.
"You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing to
the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their living. I
shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I suppose Father
Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up with trade and begun
selling wool."
"H'm, yes . . . it's a queer notion in my old age," said Father
Christopher, and he laughed. "I have turned from priest to merchant,
brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of
galloping about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . .
Vanity!"
"But it will mean a lot of pence!"
"Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The
wool's not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail's!"
"Why doesn't he go himself?"
"Why, because . . . His mother's milk is scarcely dry upon his lips. He
can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no sense;
he is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to grow rich and
cut a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one would give him his
price. And so the lad went on like that for a year, and then he came to
me and said, 'Daddy, you sell the wool for me; be kind and do it! I am
no good at the business!' And that is true enough. As soon as there is
anything wrong then it's 'Daddy,' but till then they could get on
without their dad. When he was buying he did not consult me, but now
when he is in difficulties it's Daddy's turn. And what does his dad know
about it? If it were not for Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I
have a lot of worry with them."
"Yes; one has a lot of worry with one's children, I can tell you that,"
sighed Moisey Moisevitch. "I have six of my own. One needs schooling,
another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and when they grow
up they are more trouble still. It is not only nowadays, it was the same
in Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little children he wept, and when they
grew up he wept still more bitterly."
"H'm, yes . . ." Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at his
glass. "I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have lived to
the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live. . . . I have
married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set up in life, and now
I am free; I have done my work and can go where I like. I live in peace
with my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and rejoice in my grandchildren,
and say my prayers and want nothing more. I live on the fat of the land,
and don't need to curry favour with anyone. I have never had any trouble
from childhood, and now suppose the Tsar were to ask me, 'What do you
need? What would you like?' why, I don't need anything. I have
everything I want and everything to be thankful for. In the whole town
there is no happier man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many
sins, but there --only God is without sin. That's right, isn't it?"
"No doubt it is."
"I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one thing
and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I ache. . . .
The flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in the eighties! One
can't go on for ever; one mustn't outstay one's welcome."
Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into his
glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too, from
politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.
"So funny!" said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. "My eldest
son Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical line, and is a
district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . . 'Very well . . .' I
said to him, 'here I have asthma and one thing and another. . . . You
are a doctor; cure your father!' He undressed me on the spot, tapped me,
listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . . kneaded my stomach, and then he
said, 'Dad, you ought to be treated with compressed air.'" Father
Christopher laughed convulsively, till the tears came into his eyes, and
got up.
"And I said to him, 'God bless your compressed air!'" he brought out
through his laughter, waving both hands. "God bless your compressed
air!"
Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach, went
off into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.
"God bless the compressed air!" repeated Father Christopher, laughing.
Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that he
could hardly stand on his feet.
"Oh dear!" he moaned through his laughter. "Let me get my breath . . . .
You'll be the death of me."
He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting timorous
and suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing in the same
attitude and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and his smile, his
contempt and hatred were genuine, but that was so out of keeping with
his plucked-looking figure that it seemed to Yegorushka as though he
were putting on his defiant attitude and biting sarcastic smile to play
the fool for the entertainment of their honoured guests.
After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a space
before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept under his
head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string and shook it.
Rolls of paper notes were scattered out of the bag on the table.
"While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up," said
Kuzmitchov.
Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got up,
and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other people's
secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his arms. Solomon
remained where he was.
"How many are there in the rolls of roubles?" Father Christopher began.
"The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble notes
in nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands. You count
out seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will count out for
Gusevitch. And mind you don't make a mistake. . ."
Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying on the
table before him. There must have been a great deal of money, for the
roll of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher put aside
for Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole heap. At any
other time such a mass of money would have impressed Yegorushka, and
would have moved him to reflect how many cracknels, buns and poppy-cakes
could be bought for that money. Now he looked at it listlessly, only
conscious of the disgusting smell of kerosene and rotten apples that
came from the heap of notes. He was exhausted by the jolting ride in the
chaise, tired out and sleepy. His head was heavy, his eyes would hardly
keep open and his thoughts were tangled like threads. If it had been
possible he would have been relieved to lay his head on the table, so as
not to see the lamp and the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and
to have let his tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he
tried to keep awake, the light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers
grew double, the samovar heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed
even more acrid and disgusting.
"Ah, money, money!" sighed Father Christopher, smiling. "You bring
trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am going
to bring him a heap of money like this."
"Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn't understand business,"
said Kuzmitchov in an undertone; "he undertakes what isn't his work, but
you understand and can judge. You had better hand over your wool to me,
as I have said already, and I would give you half a rouble above my own
price--yes, I would, simply out of regard for you. . . ."
"No, Ivan Ivanitch." Father Christopher sighed. "I thank you for your
kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I shouldn't
think twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine, as you know. .
. ."
Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to look at
the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled at his shirt
from behind.
"Come along, little gentleman," he said in an undertone, "come and see
the little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear. Oo-oo!"
The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey
Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where, before he
saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell of something
sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than in the big room and
probably spread from this room all over the house. One part of the room
was occupied by a big bed, covered with a greasy quilt and another by a
chest of drawers and heaps of rags of all kinds from a woman's stiff
petticoat to children's little breeches and braces. A tallow candle
stood on the chest of drawers.
Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with her
hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs on it; she
turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the bed and the chest
of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though she had toothache. On
seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful, woe-begone face, heaved a long
drawn-out sigh, and before he had time to look round, put to his lips a
slice of bread smeared with honey.
"Eat it, dearie, eat it!" she said. "You are here without your mamma,