Short Stories by Chekhov
"Oh, I don't care for it, . . ." answered Vassya.
"How is it your chin is swollen?"
"It's bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir. . . .
The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air is not
healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their jaws
swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether."
Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already
turning blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but they
set about fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place beside the
reeds; there Dymov was up to his neck, while the water went over squat
Kiruha's head. The latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while Dymov
stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and got caught in the net;
both flopped about in the water, and made a noise, and nothing but
mischief came of their fishing.
"It's deep," croaked Kiruha. "You won't catch anything."
"Don't tug, you devil!" shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the
proper position. "Hold it up."
"You won't catch anything here," Panteley shouted from the bank. "You
are only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the left! It's
shallower there!"
Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and Dymov
struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his face
expressed vexation.
"Ugh!" cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. "You've let the perch
slip! It's gone!"
Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower place,
and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off some hundred
paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently trying to go as deep
as they could and as near the reeds, moving their legs a little at a
time, drawing out the nets, beating the water with their fists to drive
them towards the nets. From the reeds they got to the further bank; they
drew the net out, then, with a disappointed air, lifting their knees
high as they walked, went back into the reeds. They were talking about
something, but what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching
their backs, the flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned
from purple to crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in
his hands; he had tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and was
holding it up by the hem with his teeth. After every successful catch he
lifted up some fish, and letting it shine in the sun, shouted:
"Look at this perch! We've five like that!"
Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could be
seen fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into the pail
and throwing other things away; sometimes they passed something that was
in the net from hand to hand, examined it inquisitively, then threw
that, too, away.
"What is it?" they shouted to them from the bank.
Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words. Then he
climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both hands, forgetting
to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
"It's full!" he shouted, breathing hard. "Give us another!"
Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked its
ugly nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish and little
fish round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the bottom and
stirred up the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish and a perch
and a tench swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya, too, looked into
the pail. His eyes grew moist and his face looked as caressing as before
when he saw the fox. He took something out of the pail, put it to his
mouth and began chewing it.
"Mates," said Styopka in amazement, "Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
Phoo!"
"It's not a gudgeon, but a minnow," Vassya answered calmly, still
munching.
He took a fish's tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly, and
put it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his teeth it
seemed to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not human.
Vassya's swollen chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary sharp
sight, the fish's tail in his mouth, and the caressing friendliness with
which he crunched the gudgeon made him like an animal.
Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too. He
walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling bored,
strolled off to the village.
Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his forehead
leaning on somebody's back, listened to the singing of the choir. The
service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not understand church
singing and did not care for it. He listened a little, yawned, and began
looking at the backs and heads before him. In one head, red and wet from
his recent bathe, he recognized Emelyan. The back of his head had been
cropped in a straight line higher than is usual; the hair in front had
been cut unbecomingly high, and Emelyan's ears stood out like two dock
leaves, and seemed to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back
of his head and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that
Emelyan was probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted
with his hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and
felt intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
"I am here, too," he said, putting out his hand.
People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who have at
any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look with a stern
and unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this habit, even when
they leave off being in a choir. Turning to Yegorushka, Emelyan looked
at him from under his brows and said:
"Don't play in church!"
Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he saw
interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a lady and
a gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs behind them.
The gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers; he stood as
motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his bluish shaven chin.
There was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his
blue chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so
strained from excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely,
that it looked as though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards
any minute. The lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk
shawl, held her head on one side and looked as though she had done
someone a favour, and wanted to say: "Oh, don't trouble yourself to
thank me; I don't like it . . . ." A thick wall of Little Russian heads
stood all round the carpet.
Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local ikons.
Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without getting
up, looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed the ikon.
The contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded him great
satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a pair of long
snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up quickly from the
floor and ran up to him.
"Have they given out the holy bread?" he asked.
"There is none; there is none," the beadle muttered gruffly. "It is no
use your. . ."
The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a leisurely
way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had seen a good many
villages, market-places, and peasants in his time, and everything that
met his eyes was entirely without interest for him. At a loss for
something to do, he went into a shop over the door of which hung a wide
strip of red cotton. The shop consisted of two roomy, badly lighted
parts; in one half they sold drapery and groceries, in the other there
were tubs of tar, and there were horse-collars hanging from the ceiling;
from both came the savoury smell of leather and tar. The floor of the
shop had been watered; the man who watered it must have been a very
whimsical and original person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and
mysterious symbols. The shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad
face and round beard, apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning
his person over the counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he
drank his tea, and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed
complete indifference, but each sigh seemed to be saying:
"Just wait a minute; I will give it you."
"Give me a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds," Yegorushka said,
addressing him.
The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter,
and poured a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka's
pocket, using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not want
to go away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes, thought
a little and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered with the
mildew of age:
"How much are these cakes?"
"Two for a farthing."
Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before by
the Jewess, and asked him:
"And how much do you charge for cakes like this?"
The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides, and
raised one eyebrow.
"Like that?" he asked.
Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
"Two for three farthings. . . ."
A silence followed.
"Whose boy are you?" the shopman asked, pouring himself out some tea
from a red copper teapot.
"The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch."
"There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs," the shopkeeper sighed. He
looked over Yegorushka's head towards the door, paused a minute and
asked:
"Would you like some tea?"
"Please. . . ." Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he felt an
intense longing for his usual morning tea.
The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit of
sugar that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat down on
the folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask the price of a
pound of sugar almonds, and had just broached the subject when a
customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea,
attended to his business. He led the customer into the other half, where
there was a smell of tar, and was there a long time discussing something
with him. The customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed,
was continually shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and
retreating towards the door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of
something and began pouring some oats into a big sack for him.
"Do you call those oats?" the customer said gloomily. "Those are not
oats, but chaff. It's a mockery to give that to the hens; enough to make
the hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko."
When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking on
the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was standing
in the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched spoon. A little
on one side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened from the smoke, were
sitting cleaning the fish. Before them lay the net covered with slime
and water weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish and crawling crayfish.
Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting beside
Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky voice: "To
Thee we sing. . . ." Dymov was moving about by the horses.
When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the fish and
the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail
poured them all into the boiling water.
"Shall I put in some fat?" asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
"No need. The fish will make its own gravy," answered Kiruha.
Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the water
three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally he tried
it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a self-satisfied grunt,