Short Stories by Chekhov
New Year's Day? Is it that gentleman? Not on any account!"
The director left off eating.
"Not on any account!" he repeated. "Heaven preserve us!"
"But why not?"
"Understand, my dear, that if a young man does not set to work directly,
but through women, he must be good for nothing! Why doesn't he come to
me himself?"
After dinner the director lay on the sofa in his study and began reading
the letters and newspapers he had received.
"Dear Fyodor Petrovitch," wrote the wife of the Mayor of the town. "You
once said that I knew the human heart and understood people. Now you
have an opportunity of verifying this in practice. K. N. Polzuhin, whom
I know to be an excellent young man, will call upon you in a day or two
to ask you for the post of secretary at our Home. He is a very nice
youth. If you take an interest in him you will be convinced of it." And
so on.
"On no account!" was the director's comment. "Heaven preserve me!"
After that, not a day passed without the director's receiving letters
recommending Polzuhin. One fine morning Polzuhin himself, a stout young
man with a close-shaven face like a jockey's, in a new black suit, made
his appearance. . . .
"I see people on business not here but at the office," said the director
drily, on hearing his request.
"Forgive me, your Excellency, but our common acquaintances advised me to
come here."
"H'm!" growled the director, looking with hatred at the pointed toes of
the young man's shoes. "To the best of my belief your father is a man of
property and you are not in want," he said. "What induces you to ask for
this post? The salary is very trifling!"
"It's not for the sake of the salary. . . . It's a government post, any
way . . ."
"H'm. . . . It strikes me that within a month you will be sick of the
job and you will give it up, and meanwhile there are candidates for whom
it would be a career for life. There are poor men for whom . . ."
"I shan't get sick of it, your Excellency," Polzuhin interposed. "Honour
bright, I will do my best!"
It was too much for the director.
"Tell me," he said, smiling contemptuously, "why was it you didn't apply
to me direct but thought fitting instead to trouble ladies as a
preliminary?"
"I didn't know that it would be disagreeable to you," Polzuhin answered,
and he was embarrassed. "But, your Excellency, if you attach no
significance to letters of recommendation, I can give you a testimonial.
. . ."
He drew from his pocket a letter and handed it to the director. At the
bottom of the testimonial, which was written in official language and
handwriting, stood the signature of the Governor. Everything pointed to
the Governor's having signed it unread, simply to get rid of some
importunate lady.
"There's nothing for it, I bow to his authority. . . I obey . . ." said
the director, reading the testimonial, and he heaved a sigh.
"Send in your application to-morrow. . . . There's nothing to be done. .
. ."
And when Polzuhin had gone out, the director abandoned himself to a
feeling of repulsion.
"Sneak!" he hissed, pacing from one corner to the other. "He has got
what he wanted, one way or the other, the good-for-nothing toady! Making
up to the ladies! Reptile! Creature!"
The director spat loudly in the direction of the door by which Polzuhin
had departed, and was immediately overcome with embarrassment, for at
that moment a lady, the wife of the Superintendent of the Provincial
Treasury, walked in at the door.
"I've come for a tiny minute . . . a tiny minute. . ." began the lady.
"Sit down, friend, and listen to me attentively. . . . Well, I've been
told you have a post vacant. . . . To-day or to-morrow you will receive
a visit from a young man called Polzuhin. . . ."
The lady chattered on, while the director gazed at her with lustreless,
stupefied eyes like a man on the point of fainting, gazed and smiled
from politeness.
And the next day when Vremensky came to his office it was a long time
before the director could bring himself to tell the truth. He hesitated,
was incoherent, and could not think how to begin or what to say. He
wanted to apologize to the schoolmaster, to tell him the whole truth,
but his tongue halted like a drunkard's, his ears burned, and he was
suddenly overwhelmed with vexation and resentment that he should have to
play such an absurd part--in his own office, before his subordinate. He
suddenly brought his fist down on the table, leaped up, and shouted
angrily:
"I have no post for you! I have not, and that's all about it! Leave me
in peace! Don't worry me! Be so good as to leave me alone!"
And he walked out of the office.
A PECULIAR MAN
BETWEEN twelve and one at night a tall gentleman, wearing a top-hat and
a coat with a hood, stops before the door of Marya Petrovna Koshkin, a
midwife and an old maid. Neither face nor hand can be distinguished in
the autumn darkness, but in the very manner of his coughing and the
ringing of the bell a certain solidity, positiveness, and even
impressiveness can be discerned. After the third ring the door opens and
Marya Petrovna herself appears. She has a man's overcoat flung on over
her white petticoat. The little lamp with the green shade which she
holds in her hand throws a greenish light over her sleepy, freckled
face, her scraggy neck, and the lank, reddish hair that strays from
under her cap.
"Can I see the midwife?" asks the gentleman.
"I am the midwife. What do you want?"
The gentleman walks into the entry and Marya Petrovna sees facing her a
tall, well-made man, no longer young, but with a handsome, severe face
and bushy whiskers.
"I am a collegiate assessor, my name is Kiryakov," he says. "I came to
fetch you to my wife. Only please make haste."
"Very good . . ." the midwife assents. "I'll dress at once, and I must
trouble you to wait for me in the parlour."
Kiryakov takes off his overcoat and goes into the parlour. The greenish
light of the lamp lies sparsely on the cheap furniture in patched white
covers, on the pitiful flowers and the posts on which ivy is trained. .
. . There is a smell of geranium and carbolic. The little clock on the
wall ticks timidly, as though abashed at the presence of a strange man.
"I am ready," says Marya Petrovna, coming into the room five minutes
later, dressed, washed, and ready for action. "Let us go."
"Yes, you must make haste," says Kiryakov. "And, by the way, it is not
out of place to enquire--what do you ask for your services?"
"I really don't know . . ." says Marya Petrovna with an embarrassed
smile. "As much as you will give."
"No, I don't like that," says Kiryakov, looking coldly and steadily at
the midwife. "An arrangement beforehand is best. I don't want to take
advantage of you and you don't want to take advantage of me. To avoid
misunderstandings it is more sensible for us to make an arrangement
beforehand."
"I really don't know--there is no fixed price."
"I work myself and am accustomed to respect the work of others. I don't
like injustice. It will be equally unpleasant to me if I pay you too
little, or if you demand from me too much, and so I insist on your
naming your charge."
"Well, there are such different charges."
"H'm. In view of your hesitation, which I fail to understand, I am
constrained to fix the sum myself. I can give you two roubles."
"Good gracious! . . . Upon my word! . . ." says Marya Petrovna, turning
crimson and stepping back. "I am really ashamed. Rather than take two
roubles I will come for nothing . . . . Five roubles, if you like."
"Two roubles, not a kopeck more. I don't want to take advantage of you,
but I do not intend to be overcharged."
"As you please, but I am not coming for two roubles. . . ."
"But by law you have not the right to refuse."
"Very well, I will come for nothing."
"I won't have you for nothing. All work ought to receive remuneration. I
work myself and I understand that. . . ."
"I won't come for two roubles," Marya Petrovna answers mildly. "I'll
come for nothing if you like."
"In that case I regret that I have troubled you for nothing. . . . I
have the honour to wish you good-bye."
"Well, you are a man!" says Marya Petrovna, seeing him into the entry.
"I will come for three roubles if that will satisfy you."
Kiryakov frowns and ponders for two full minutes, looking with
concentration on the floor, then he says resolutely, "No," and goes out
into the street. The astonished and disconcerted midwife fastens the
door after him and goes back into her bedroom.
"He's good-looking, respectable, but how queer, God bless the man! . .
." she thinks as she gets into bed.
But in less than half an hour she hears another ring; she gets up and
sees the same Kiryakov again.
"Extraordinary the way things are mismanaged. Neither the chemist, nor
the police, nor the house-porters can give me the address of a midwife,
and so I am under the necessity of assenting to your terms. I will give
you three roubles, but . . . I warn you beforehand that when I engage
servants or receive any kind of services, I make an arrangement
beforehand in order that when I pay there may be no talk of extras,
tips, or anything of the sort. Everyone ought to receive what is his
due."
Marya Petrovna has not listened to Kiryakov for long, but already she
feels that she is bored and repelled by him, that his even, measured
speech lies like a weight on her soul. She dresses and goes out into the
street with him. The air is still but cold, and the sky is so overcast
that the light of the street lamps is hardly visible. The sloshy snow
squelches under their feet. The midwife looks intently but does not see
a cab.
"I suppose it is not far?" she asks.
"No, not far," Kiryakov answers grimly.
They walk down one turning, a second, a third. . . . Kiryakov strides
along, and even in his step his respectability and positiveness is
apparent.
"What awful weather!" the midwife observes to him.
But he preserves a dignified silence, and it is noticeable that he tries
to step on the smooth stones to avoid spoiling his goloshes. At last
after a long walk the midwife steps into the entry; from which she can
see a big decently furnished drawing-room. There is not a soul in the
rooms, even in the bedroom where the woman is lying in labour. . . . The
old women and relations who flock in crowds to every confinement are not
to be seen. The cook rushes about alone, with a scared and vacant face.
There is a sound of loud groans.
Three hours pass. Marya Petrovna sits by the mother's bedside and
whispers to her. The two women have already had time to make friends,
they have got to know each other, they gossip, they sigh together. . . .
"You mustn't talk," says the midwife anxiously, and at the same time she
showers questions on her.
Then the door opens and Kiryakov himself comes quietly and stolidly into
the room. He sits down in the chair and strokes his whiskers. Silence
reigns. Marya Petrovna looks timidly at his handsome, passionless,
wooden face and waits for him to begin to talk, but he remains
absolutely silent and absorbed in thought. After waiting in vain, the
midwife makes up her mind to begin herself, and utters a phrase commonly
used at confinements.
"Well now, thank God, there is one human being more in the world!"
"Yes, that's agreeable," said Kiryakov, preserving the wooden expression
of his face, "though indeed, on the other hand, to have more children
you must have more money. The baby is not born fed and clothed."
A guilty expression comes into the mother's face, as though she had
brought a creature into the world without permission or through idle
caprice. Kiryakov gets up with a sigh and walks with solid dignity out
of the room.