Short Stories by Chekhov
"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've come to
see how you are."
He began breathing heavily with excitement.
Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; and
he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied himself
that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her.
"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and can see
nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but people and
things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and Fyodor has fallen
ill, and without the master's eye things are in a bad way now. If there
is any irregularity there's no one to look into it; and folks soon get
spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen ill? Did he catch cold? Here I
have never ailed in my life and never taken medicine. I never saw
anything of doctors."
And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the
servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles of
wine.
Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of the
Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of jam, rice,
and fish.
"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man.
She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out a
glass of vodka.
"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring your
grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and fondle
you."
"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate."
"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were married."
"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to know
them. Let them be."
"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh.
"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their
parents."
"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even our
enemies."
"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every one,
you would come to ruin in three years."
"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a sinner,
is something far above business, far above wealth."
Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion in
him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly to
all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child.
"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, and
God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you managed your
business, and whether you were successful in it, but whether you were
gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to those who were weaker
than you, such as your servants, your clerks."
"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought to
remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with
conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious to
give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren to-
morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for them."
The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on his
breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, or brushed
his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the tablecloth smelt
of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the room. And the old man
and the whole house had a neglected look, and Yulia, who felt this, was
ashamed of herself and of her husband.
"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said.
She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's bedroom
to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the ikons in it.
Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an open book without
reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the servants to tidy his room,
too; then she went downstairs to the clerks. In the middle of the room
where the clerks used to dine, there was an unpainted wooden post to
support the ceiling and to prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the
basement were low, the walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a
smell of charcoal fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks
were at home, sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia
went in they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up
at her from under their brows like convicts.
"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up her
hands. "Aren't you crowded here?"
"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly indebted
to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our Heavenly Father."
"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said
Potchatkin.
And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev
hastened to explain:
"We are humble people and must live according to our position."
She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made
acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied.
When she got home she said to her husband:
"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for good as
soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse."
Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His heart
was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street or to go
into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was thinking, and could
not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said:
"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life is
beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly ill,
I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when I loved
him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, and it seems,
too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away from my past. And when
you said just now that we must move into the house in Pyatnitsky Street,
to that prison, it began to seem to me that there was no future for me
either."
He got up and walked to the window.
"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," he
said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have had any,
and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once in my life,
though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you remember how you
left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning to his wife. "I was in
love with you then, and I remember I spent all night sitting under your
parasol, and was perfectly blissful."
Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze
fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the
parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife.
"Here it is."
Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled
mournfully.
"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in your
hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: "Please
come back early if you can. I am dull without you."
And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at the
parasol.
XVII
In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover,
there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible to
make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. Every
day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, with whom
the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble birth, ruined by
drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come to translate the
foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks used to call him a
midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether the whole concern struck
Laptev as a very queer business.
He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new order of
things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at the buyers,
and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully despatched to the
provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though they were new and
fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the warehouse, but still, as
before, he did not know how large his fortune was, whether his business
was doing well, how much the senior clerks were paid, and so on.
Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked upon him as young and inexperienced,
concealed a great deal from him, and whispered mysteriously every
evening with his blind old father.
It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into the
Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him over
lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and had
entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong to them--
they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse he gathered up
all the takings from the till and thrust them into his pocket, it never
aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the head man in the business and
in the house, and also in the church, where he performed the duties of
churchwarden in place of his old master. He was nicknamed Malyuta
Skuratov on account of his cruel treatment of the boys and clerks under
him.
When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said:
"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries."
After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of vodka
and some plates of various kinds of savouries.
"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful of the
source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes."
The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said
something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said:
"Except."
The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues,
and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue.
When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev asked:
"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been
dropping off for the last year?"
"Not a bit of it."
"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and are
making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. We had a
balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, excuse me, I
don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something from me and only
tell the truth to my father. You have been used to being diplomatic from
your childhood, and now you can't get on without it. And what's the use
of it? So I beg you to be open. What is our position?"
"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered
after a moment's pause.
"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?"
Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, and
sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, had some
lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone began
saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to pray night and
day for their benefactors.
"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor,"
said Laptev.
"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his
station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, and
we are your slaves."
"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a
benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. Give
up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the business. My
father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces are only
children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, but there's
no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' sake, drop your
diplomacy!"
They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went on
with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting.
Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke as
though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared that
the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten per cent.