Short Stories by Chekhov
hairdresser of the company, came into the room. He too, like the tragic
man, stared at Shtchiptsov for a long time, then sighed like a steam-
engine, and slowly and deliberately began untying a parcel he had
brought with him. In it there were twenty cups and several little
flasks.
"You should have sent for me and I would have cupped you long ago," he
said, tenderly baring Shtchiptsov's chest. "It is easy to neglect
illness."
Thereupon Rigoletto stroked the broad chest of the "heavy father" and
covered it all over with suction cups.
"Yes . . ." he said, as after this operation he packed up his
paraphernalia, crimson with Shtchiptsov's blood. "You should have sent
for me, and I would have come. . . . You needn't trouble about payment.
. . . I do it from sympathy. Where are you to get the money if that idol
won't pay you? Now, please take these drops. They are nice drops! And
now you must have a dose of this castor-oil. It's the real thing. That's
right! I hope it will do you good. Well, now, good-bye. . . ."
Rigoletto took his parcel and withdrew, pleased that he had been of
assistance to a fellow-creature.
The next morning Sigaev, the comic man, going in to see Shtchiptsov,
found him in a terrible condition. He was lying under his coat,
breathing in gasps, while his eyes strayed over the ceiling. In his
hands he was crushing convulsively the crumpled quilt.
"To Vyazma!" he whispered, when he saw the comic man. "To Vyazma."
"Come, I don't like that, old man!" said the comic man, flinging up his
hands. "You see . . . you see . . . you see, old man, that's not the
thing! Excuse me, but . . . it's positively stupid. . . ."
"To go to Vyazma! My God, to Vyazma!"
"I . . . I did not expect it of you," the comic man muttered, utterly
distracted. "What the deuce do you want to collapse like this for? Aie .
. . aie . . . aie! . . . that's not the thing. A giant as tall as a
watch-tower, and crying. Is it the thing for actors to cry?"
"No wife nor children," muttered Shtchiptsov. "I ought not to have gone
for an actor, but have stayed at Vyazma. My life has been wasted,
Semyon! Oh, to be in Vyazma!"
"Aie . . . aie . . . aie! . . . that's not the thing! You see, it's
stupid . . . contemptible indeed!"
Recovering his composure and setting his feelings in order, Sigaev began
comforting Shtchiptsov, telling him untruly that his comrades had
decided to send him to the Crimea at their expense, and so on, but the
sick man did not listen and kept muttering about Vyazma . . . . At last,
with a wave of his hand, the comic man began talking about Vyazma
himself to comfort the invalid.
"It's a fine town," he said soothingly, "a capital town, old man! It's
famous for its cakes. The cakes are classical, but--between
ourselves--h'm!--they are a bit groggy. For a whole week after eating them
I was . . . h'm! . . . But what is fine there is the merchants! They are
something like merchants. When they treat you they do treat you!"
The comic man talked while Shtchiptsov listened in silence and nodded
his head approvingly.
Towards evening he died.
The Schoolmaster and Other Stories
THE SCHOOLMASTER
FYODOR LUKITCH SYSOEV, the master of the factory school maintained at
the expense of the firm of Kulikin, was getting ready for the annual
dinner. Every year after the school examination the board of managers
gave a dinner at which the inspector of elementary schools, all who had
conducted the examinations, and all the managers and foremen of the
factory were present. In spite of their official character, these
dinners were always good and lively, and the guests sat a long time over
them; forgetting distinctions of rank and recalling only their
meritorious labours, they ate till they were full, drank amicably,
chattered till they were all hoarse and parted late in the evening,
deafening the whole factory settlement with their singing and the sound
of their kisses. Of such dinners Sysoev had taken part in thirteen, as
he had been that number of years master of the factory school.
Now, getting ready for the fourteenth, he was trying to make himself
look as festive and correct as possible. He had spent a whole hour
brushing his new black suit, and spent almost as long in front of a
looking-glass while he put on a fashionable shirt; the studs would not
go into the button-holes, and this circumstance called forth a perfect
storm of complaints, threats, and reproaches addressed to his wife.
His poor wife, bustling round him, wore herself out with her efforts.
And indeed he, too, was exhausted in the end. When his polished boots
were brought him from the kitchen he had not strength to pull them on.
He had to lie down and have a drink of water.
"How weak you have grown!" sighed his wife. "You ought not to go to this
dinner at all."
"No advice, please!" the schoolmaster cut her short angrily.
He was in a very bad temper, for he had been much displeased with the
recent examinations. The examinations had gone off splendidly; all the
boys of the senior division had gained certificates and prizes; both the
managers of the factory and the government officials were pleased with
the results; but that was not enough for the schoolmaster. He was vexed
that Babkin, a boy who never made a mistake in writing, had made three
mistakes in the dictation; Sergeyev, another boy, had been so excited
that he could not remember seventeen times thirteen; the inspector, a
young and inexperienced man, had chosen a difficult article for
dictation, and Lyapunov, the master of a neighbouring school, whom the
inspector had asked to dictate, had not behaved like "a good comrade";
but in dictating had, as it were, swallowed the words and had not
pronounced them as written.
After pulling on his boots with the assistance of his wife, and looking
at himself once more in the looking-glass, the schoolmaster took his
gnarled stick and set off for the dinner. Just before the factory
manager's house, where the festivity was to take place, he had a little
mishap. He was taken with a violent fit of coughing . . . . He was so
shaken by it that the cap flew off his head and the stick dropped out of
his hand; and when the school inspector and the teachers, hearing his
cough, ran out of the house, he was sitting on the bottom step, bathed
in perspiration.
"Fyodor Lukitch, is that you?" said the inspector, surprised. "You . . .
have come?"
"Why not?"
"You ought to be at home, my dear fellow. You are not at all well to-
day. . . ."
"I am just the same to-day as I was yesterday. And if my presence is not
agreeable to you, I can go back."
"Oh, Fyodor Lukitch, you must not talk like that! Please come in. Why,
the function is really in your honour, not ours. And we are delighted to
see you. Of course we are! . . ."
Within, everything was ready for the banquet. In the big dining-room
adorned with German oleographs and smelling of geraniums and varnish
there were two tables, a larger one for the dinner and a smaller one for
the hors-d'oeuvres. The hot light of midday faintly percolated through
the lowered blinds. . . . The twilight of the room, the Swiss views on
the blinds, the geraniums, the thin slices of sausage on the plates, all
had a naïve, girlishly-sentimental air, and it was all in keeping with
the master of the house, a good-natured little German with a round
little stomach and affectionate, oily little eyes. Adolf Andreyitch
Bruni (that was his name) was bustling round the table of hors-d'oeuvres
as zealously as though it were a house on fire, filling up the wine-
glasses, loading the plates, and trying in every way to please, to
amuse, and to show his friendly feelings. He clapped people on the
shoulder, looked into their eyes, chuckled, rubbed his hands, in fact
was as ingratiating as a friendly dog.
"Whom do I behold? Fyodor Lukitch!" he said in a jerky voice, on seeing
Sysoev. "How delightful! You have come in spite of your illness.
Gentlemen, let me congratulate you, Fyodor Lukitch has come!"
The school-teachers were already crowding round the table and eating the
hors-d'oeuvres. Sysoev frowned; he was displeased that his colleagues
had begun to eat and drink without waiting for him. He noticed among
them Lyapunov, the man who had dictated at the examination, and going up
to him, began:
"It was not acting like a comrade! No, indeed! Gentlemanly people don't
dictate like that!"
"Good Lord, you are still harping on it!" said Lyapunov, and he frowned.
"Aren't you sick of it?"
"Yes, still harping on it! My Babkin has never made mistakes! I know why
you dictated like that. You simply wanted my pupils to be floored, so
that your school might seem better than mine. I know all about it! . .
."
"Why are you trying to get up a quarrel?" Lyapunov snarled. "Why the
devil do you pester me?"
"Come, gentlemen," interposed the inspector, making a woebegone face.
"Is it worth while to get so heated over a trifle? Three mistakes . . .
not one mistake . . . does it matter?"
"Yes, it does matter. Babkin has never made mistakes."
"He won't leave off," Lyapunov went on, snorting angrily. "He takes
advantage of his position as an invalid and worries us all to death.
Well, sir, I am not going to consider your being ill."
"Let my illness alone!" cried Sysoev, angrily. "What is it to do with
you? They all keep repeating it at me: illness! illness! illness! . . .
As though I need your sympathy! Besides, where have you picked up the
notion that I am ill? I was ill before the examinations, that's true,
but now I have completely recovered, there is nothing left of it but
weakness."
"You have regained your health, well, thank God," said the scripture
teacher, Father Nikolay, a young priest in a foppish cinnamon-coloured
cassock and trousers outside his boots. "You ought to rejoice, but you
are irritable and so on."
"You are a nice one, too," Sysoev interrupted him. "Questions ought to
be straightforward, clear, but you kept asking riddles. That's not the
thing to do!"
By combined efforts they succeeded in soothing him and making him sit
down to the table. He was a long time making up his mind what to drink,
and pulling a wry face drank a wine-glass of some green liqueur; then he
drew a bit of pie towards him, and sulkily picked out of the inside an
egg with onion on it. At the first mouthful it seemed to him that there
was no salt in it. He sprinkled salt on it and at once pushed it away as
the pie was too salt.
At dinner Sysoev was seated between the inspector and Bruni. After the
first course the toasts began, according to the old-established custom.
"I consider it my agreeable duty," the inspector began, "to propose a
vote of thanks to the absent school wardens, Daniel Petrovitch and . . .
and . . . and . . ."
"And Ivan Petrovitch," Bruni prompted him.
"And Ivan Petrovitch Kulikin, who grudge no expense for the school, and
I propose to drink their health. . . ."
"For my part," said Bruni, jumping up as though he had been stung, "I
propose a toast to the health of the honoured inspector of elementary
schools, Pavel Gennadievitch Nadarov!"
Chairs were pushed back, faces beamed with smiles, and the usual
clinking of glasses began.
The third toast always fell to Sysoev. And on this occasion, too, he got
up and began to speak. Looking grave and clearing his throat, he first
of all announced that he had not the gift of eloquence and that he was
not prepared to make a speech. Further he said that during the fourteen
years that he had been schoolmaster there had been many intrigues, many
underhand attacks, and even secret reports on him to the authorities,
and that he knew his enemies and those who had informed against him, and