Short Stories by Chekhov
and no one to look after you. Eat it up."
Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he had
every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey, which was
mixed with wax and bees' wings. He ate while Moisey Moisevitch and the
Jewess looked at him and sighed.
"Where are you going, dearie?" asked the Jewess.
"To school," answered Yegorushka.
"And how many brothers and sisters have you got?"
"I am the only one; there are no others."
"O-oh!" sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. "Poor mamma, poor
mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send our Nahum to
school in a year. O-oh!"
"Ah, Nahum, Nahum!" sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his pale
face twitched nervously. "And he is so delicate."
The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child's curly
head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared with
curiosity at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and the Jewess
went to the chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish. Moisey
Moisevitch spoke in a low bass undertone, and altogether his talk in
Yiddish was like a continual "ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . ." while his
wife answered him in a shrill voice like a turkeycock's, and the whole
effect of her talk was something like "Too-too-too-too!" While they were
consulting, another little curly head on a thin neck peeped out of the
greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth. . . . If Yegorushka had had a
fertile imagination he might have imagined that the hundred-headed hydra
was hiding under the quilt.
"Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!" said Moisey Moisevitch.
"Too-too-too-too!" answered the Jewess.
The consultation ended in the Jewess's diving with a deep sigh into the
chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there, she took
out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.
"Take it, dearie," she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; "you have no
mamma now--no one to give you nice things."
Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door, as he
could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the innkeeper and
his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled himself more
comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check his straying
thoughts.
As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put them
back into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and stuffed
them into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently as though
they had not been money but waste paper.
Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.
"Well, Solomon the Wise!" he said, yawning and making the sign of the
cross over his mouth. "How is business?"
"What sort of business are you talking about?" asked Solomon, and he
looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on his part.
"Oh, things in general. What are you doing?"
"What am I doing?" Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders. "The
same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my brother's
servant; my brother's the servant of the visitors; the visitors are
Varlamov's servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov would be my
servant."
"Why would he be your servant?"
"Why, because there isn't a gentleman or millionaire who isn't ready to
lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck. Now, I am
a scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though I were a dog,
but if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before me just as Moisey
does before you."
Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of them
understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly, and
asked:
"How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?"
"I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,"
answered Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. "Though Varlamov
is a Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain are all he
lives for, but I threw my money in the stove! I don't want money, or
land, or sheep, and there is no need for people to be afraid of me and
to take off their hats when I pass. So I am wiser than your Varlamov and
more like a man!"
A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse hollow
voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases, talking about
the Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian, then he fell into the
tone of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking as he had done at the
fair with an exaggerated Jewish accent.
"Stop! . . ." Father Christopher said to him. "If you don't like your
religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a sin; it is
only the lowest of the low who will make fun of his religion."
"You don't understand," Solomon cut him short rudely. "I am talking of
one thing and you are talking of something else. . . ."
"One can see you are a foolish fellow," sighed Father Christopher. "I
admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I speak to
you like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock: 'Bla---
bla---bla!' You really are a queer fellow. . . ."
Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at his
visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously. Yegorushka
shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing glimpse of
Solomon's face at the very moment when it was turned three-quarters
towards him and when the shadow of his long nose divided his left cheek
in half; the contemptuous smile mingled with that shadow; the gleaming
sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression, and the whole plucked-looking
little figure, dancing and doubling itself before Yegorushka's eyes,
made him now not like a buffoon, but like something one sometimes dreams
of, like an evil spirit.
"What a ferocious fellow you've got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God bless
him!" said Father Christopher with a smile. "You ought to find him a
place or a wife or something. . . . There's no knowing what to make of
him. . . ."
Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and
inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.
"Solomon, go away!" he said shortly. "Go away!" and he added something
in Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.
"What was it?" Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.
"He forgets himself," answered Kuzmitchov. "He's rude and thinks too
much of himself."
"I knew it!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands. "Oh
dear, oh dear!" he muttered in a low voice. "Be so kind as to excuse it,
and don't be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a queer fellow! Oh
dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have never had anything but
trouble from him. You know he's. . ."
Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:
"He is not in his right mind; . . . he's hopeless. And I don't know what
I am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody, and is
afraid of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he says silly
things, speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn't believe it, Varlamov
came here one day and Solomon said such things to him that he gave us
both a taste of his whip. . . . But why whip me? Was it my fault? God
has robbed him of his wits, so it is God's will, and how am I to blame?"
Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an
undertone and sighing:
"He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking and
thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you go to him
at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn't like me either . . . . And
there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left us each six
thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and now I have
children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such a pity, such a
pity! Why burn it? If he didn't want it he could give it to me, but why
burn it?"
Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.
Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as though
some big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its wings close
in his face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was standing by the
sofa with his sack in his hands ready for departure; Father Christopher,
holding his broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing to someone and smiling--not
his usual soft kindly smile, but a respectful forced smile which did not
suit his face at all--while Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body
had been broken into three parts, and he were balancing and doing his
utmost not to drop to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his
arms folded, as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously
as before.
"Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy," moaned Moisey
Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice of
Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person so as to
avoid dropping to pieces. "We are plain folks, your Excellency."
Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really was
standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very beautiful
woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka had time to
examine her features the image of the solitary graceful poplar he had
seen that day on the hill for some reason came into his mind.
"Has Varlamov been here to-day?" a woman's voice inquired.
"No, your Excellency," said Moisey Moisevitch.
"If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute."
All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from his
eyes velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine cheeks
with dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over the face like
sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.
"What a pretty boy!" said the lady. "Whose boy is it? Kazimir
Mihalovitch, look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is asleep!"
And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled and,
thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked, and
there was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going out.
"Yegorushka, Yegorushka!" he heard two bass voices whisper. "Get up; it
is time to start."
Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him by
the arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw the
beautiful lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was standing
in the middle of the room and watched him go out, smiling at him and
nodding her head in a friendly way. As he got near the door he saw a
handsome, stoutly built, dark man in a bowler hat and in leather
gaiters. This must have been the lady's escort.
"Woa!" he heard from the yard.
At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair of
black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip in his
hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off. His face was
tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he were waiting
impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he might laugh at them
without restraint.
"The Countess Dranitsky," whispered Father Christopher, clambering into
the chaise.
"Yes, Countess Dranitsky," repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.
The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably very
great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured to lash
his bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of a mile away
and nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light. IV
Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so much,
whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess needed?
Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep, thought
about this person. He had never seen him. But he had often heard of him
and pictured him in his imagination. He knew that Varlamov possessed