“Well, thank God!” said Sixwingsky, coming into the office after the sentence was read. “Thank God the case ended that way…A thousand pounds off my shoulders. Pay Grishka ten roubles and you can be at peace.”
“Me…pay Grishka…ten roubles?!” Slopsov was stunned. “Are you crazy?”
“Well, all right, all right, I’ll pay it for you,” Sixwingsky waved his hand, wincing. “I’m ready to give a hundred roubles, only so as to avoid unpleasantness. And God save us from having acquaintances in court. I’ll tell you, brother, instead of beating Grishkas, come each time and give me a thrashing! It’s a thousand times easier. Let’s go to Natasha and eat!”
Ten minutes later the friends were sitting in the justice’s apartment and lunching on fried carp.
“Very well, then,” Slopsov began, downing his third glass, “you fined me ten roubles, but for how many days are you going to keep Grishka in the lockup?”
“I’m not going to lock him up at all. Why should I?”
“Why should you?” Slopsov rolled his eyes. “So he’ll stop lodging complaints! How did he dare lodge a complaint against me?”
The justice and Nitkin started explaining to Slopsov, but he did not understand and stood his ground.
“Say what you like, but Petka’s unfit to be a judge!” he sighed, conversing with Nitkin on the way home. “He’s a good man, educated, ever so obliging, but…unfit! He doesn’t really know about judging…It’s a pity, but we’ll have to unelect him for the next three-year term! We’ll have to!…”
1885
A SLIP-UP
ILYA SERGEICH PEPLOV AND HIS WIFE, Kleopatra Petrovna, were standing by the door and greedily eavesdropping. Behind the door, in a small parlor, a declaration of love seemed to be going on; a declaration beween their daughter Natashenka and the local schoolteacher Gropekin.
“He’s nibbling,” whispered Peplov, trembling with impatience and rubbing his hands. “Watch out, Petrovna. As soon as they start talking about their feelings, take the icon off the wall at once and we’ll go in to bless them…We’ll catch them…A blessing with an icon is sacred and inviolable…He won’t wriggle out of it then, even if he takes it to court.”
Behind the door the following conversation was going on:
“Leave your character out of it,” Gropekin was saying, striking a match on his checkered trousers. “I never wrote you any letters.”
“Oh, no? As if I don’t know your handwriting!” The girl giggled with affected little shrieks, glancing at herself in the mirror now and then. “I recognized it at once! And what a strange one you are! You teach penmanship, and your handwriting’s like chicken scratches! How can you teach anyone to write, if you write so badly yourself?”
“Humph!…That doesn’t mean anything, miss. In penmanship the main thing isn’t handwriting, the main thing is that the pupils shouldn’t doze off. One gets it on the head with a ruler, another’s made to stand in the corner…What’s handwriting! A waste of time! Nekrasov was a writer, but it’s a shame to see how he wrote.1 They give a sample of his handwriting in his collected works.”
“Nekrasov’s one thing, and you’re…” (a sigh). “I’d gladly marry a writer. He’d never stop writing verses as mementos for me!”
“I can also write verses for you, if you wish.”
“What can you write about?”
“About love…about feelings…about your eyes…You’d read them and go out of your mind…Get all teary! And if I wrote poetical verses for you, would you let me kiss your little hand?”
“Big deal!…You can kiss it even now!”
Gropekin jumped up and, goggle-eyed, bent over the plump little hand, which smelled of egg soap.
“Take the icon,” Peplov said hurriedly to his wife, nudging her with his elbow, turning pale with excitement, and buttoning his jacket. “Come on! Let’s go!”
And without a second’s delay, Peplov threw the door open.
“Children…,” he started muttering, raising his hands and blinking tearfully. “The Lord will bless you, my children…Live…be fruitful…multiply…”2
“And…and I, too, bless you…” said the mama, weeping with happiness. “Be happy, my dears! Oh, you’re taking from me my only treasure!” she said to Gropekin. “Love my daughter, be good to her…”
Gropekin stood gaping with amazement and fright. The parents’ assault was so sudden and bold that he was unable to utter a single word.
“I’m caught! Hitched!” he thought, going numb with terror. “That’s it for you, brother! You won’t get out of it!”
And he obediently lowered his head, as if wishing to say: “Take me, I’m vanquished!”
“I ble…bless you…,” the papa went on and also wept. “Natashenka, my daughter…stand beside…Petrovna, give me the icon…”
But here the parent suddenly stopped weeping, and his face became distorted with wrath.
“Blockhead!” he said angrily to his wife. “Addlepate! Is this an icon?”
“Ah, saints alive!”
What had happened? The teacher of penmanship timorously raised his eyes and saw that he was saved: the mama in her hurry had taken the portrait of the writer Lazhechnikov3 from the wall instead of the icon. Old man Peplov and his spouse, Kleopatra Petrovna, stood with the portrait in their hands, embarrassed, not knowing what to do or say. The teacher of penmanship took advantage of the confusion and fled.
1886
ANGUISH
To whom will I impart my sorrow?1
EVENING TWILIGHT. Large, wet snowflakes swirl lazily around the just-lit streetlamps and cover in a thin layer the roofs, the horses’ backs, shoulders, hats. The cabby Iona Potapov is all white as a ghost. He is bent over as much as a living body can bend, and he sits on the box without stirring. If a whole snowdrift were to fall on him, even then it seems he would feel no need to shake the snow off…His little nag is also white and motionless. She is so motionless, so angular, her stick-like legs are so straight that even up close she looks like a penny gingerbread horse. Most likely she is sunk in thought. Someone who has been taken away from the plow, from accustomed gray pictures, and thrown here into this whirlpool, full of monstrous lights, of incessant clamor and running people, cannot help thinking…
Iona and his nag have not budged from their place for a long time now. They set out from the stable before lunch, and there were still no passengers. Now evening darkness is descending on the city. The paleness of the lamps’ flames gives way to bright colors, and the street commotion becomes noisier.
“Cabby, to Vyborgskaya!” Iona hears. “Cabby!”
Iona gives a start and sees through his snow-crusted eyelashes an officer in a greatcoat with a hood.
“To Vyborgskaya!” the officer repeats. “Are you asleep, or what? To Vyborgskaya!”
As a sign of agreement Iona gives a tug at the reins, which makes layers of snow pour down from the horse’s back and his own shoulders…The officer gets into the sledge. The cabby smacks his lips, stretches his neck like a swan, rises a little, and, more from habit than from need, brandishes his whip. The little nag also stretches her neck, bends her stick-like legs, and hesitantly sets off…
“Watch out, you spook!” Iona at once hears a shout from the dark swaying mass behind him. “Where the hell are you going? Keep r-r-right!”
“You don’t know how to drive! Keep right!” the officer says angrily. A carriage driver curses; a passerby, who was crossing the street and bumped into the nag’s muzzle with his shoulder, glares spitefully and brushes the snow from his sleeve. Iona fidgets on the box, as if on pins and needles, his elbows stick out in all directions, and he rolls his eyes crazily, as if he does not understand where he is or why.
“What scoundrels they all are!” the officer jokes. “They try so hard to bump into you or fall under the horse. It’s a conspiracy.”