“Well hello,” Trifon Semyonovich said, walking up to them. “Eating apples, are we? I do hope that I am not disturbing you.”
The boy took off his cap and hung his head. The girl began eyeing her apron.
“And how have you been keeping, Grigory?” Trifon Semyonovich said to the boy. “Is everything going well?”
“I only took one,” the boy mumbled. “And it was lying on the ground.”
“And how have you been keeping, my dear?” Trifon Semyonovich asked the girl.
The girl studied her apron more intensely.
“The two of you not married yet?”
“Not yet, Your Lordship . . . but I swear, we only took one, and it was . . . um . . . lying—”
“I see, I see. Good fellow. Do you know how to read?”
“No . . . but I swear, Your Lordship, it was only one, and it was lying on the ground.”
“So you don’t know how to read, but you do know how to steal. Well, at least that’s something. Knowledge is a heavy burden. And have you been stealing for a long time?”
“But I wasn’t stealing.”
“What about your sweet little bride here?” Karpushka asked the boy. “Why is she so sad? Don’t you love her enough?”
“No more of that, Karpushka!” Trifon Semyonovich snapped. “Well, Grigory, I want you to tell us a story.”
The boy cleared his throat nervously and smiled.
“I don’t know any stories, Your Lordship,” he said. “And it’s not like I need your apples. If I want some, I can buy some.”
“My dear fellow, I am delighted that you have so much money. Come, tell us a story. I am all ears, Karpushka is all ears, and your pretty little bride is all ears. Don’t be shy. Be brave! A thief’s heart must be brave! Is that not so, my friend?”
Trifon Semyonovich rested his venomous eyes on the crestfallen boy. Beads of sweat gathered on the boy’s forehead.
“Why don’t you tell him to sing a song instead?” Karpushka piped up in his tinny tenor. “You can’t expect a fool like that to come up with a story.”
“Quiet, Karpushka! Let him tell us a story! Well, go on, my dear fellow.”
“I don’t know any stories.”
“So you can’t tell a story, but you can steal. What does the Eighth Commandment say?”
“I don’t know, Your Lordship, but I swear we only ate one apple, and it was lying on the ground.”
“Tell me a story!”
Karpushka began gathering nettles. The boy knew perfectly well why. Trifon Semyonovich, like all his kind, is a master at taking the law into his own hands. He will lock a thief up in his cellar for a day and a night, or flog him with nettles, or let him go right away—but not before stripping him naked and keeping his clothes. This surprises you? There are people for whom this is as commonplace as an old cart. Grigory peered sheepishly at the nettles, hesitated, cleared his throat, and launched into what was more a tangle of nonsense than anything resembling a story. Gasping, sweating, clearing his throat, blowing his nose, he muttered something about ancient Russian heroes fighting ogres and marrying beautiful maidens. Trifon Semyonovich stood listening, his eyes fixed on the storyteller.
“That’ll do,” he said when the young man’s tale finally fell apart completely. “You are an excellent storyteller, but an even better thief. As for you, my pretty little thing,” he said, turning to the girl, “say the Lord’s Prayer.”
The girl blushed and said the Lord’s Prayer, barely audibly and with hardly a breath.
“Now, how about the Eighth Commandment?”
“We didn’t take a lot,” the boy replied, desperately waving his arms. “I swear by the Holy Cross!”
“It is very bad, my dear children, that you don’t know this commandment. I will have to teach it to you. Tell me, my pretty one, did this fellow teach you how to steal? Why so silent, my little angel? You must answer me. Answer me! You are silent? Your silence means you obviously agree. Since this is the case, my pretty one, you will have to beat your fiancé for having taught you how to steal!”
“I won’t,” the girl whispered.
“Just a little. Fools must be taught a lesson. Go on, beat him, my pretty one. You won’t? Well, in that case I shall have to ask Karpushka and Matvei to give you a little beating with those nettles over there. Shall I?”
“I won’t,” the girl repeated.
“Karpushka, come over here, will you?”
The girl flew at the boy and slapped him. The boy smiled foolishly and began to cry.
“That was excellent, my dear. Now pull his hair. Go to it, my dear. What, you won’t? Karpushka, can you come here, please?”
The girl grabbed her betrothed by the hair.
“Don’t hold back, I want it to hurt! Pull harder!”
The girl began pulling. Karpushka bubbled over with delight.
“That will do,” Trifon Semyonovich said to the girl. “Thank you for doing your bit to punish evil, my pretty one. And now,” he said, turning to the young man, “I want you to teach your fiancée a lesson. I want you to do to her what she has done to you.”
“Please, Your Lordship, by God . . . why should I beat her?”
“Why? Didn’t she just beat you? Now beat her! It will do her a world of good. You won’t? Well, there’s nothing for it. Karpushka, go get Matvei, will you?”
The boy spat, gasped, seized his fiancée’s braid, and began doing his bit to punish evil. Without realizing it he fell into a trance, got carried away, and forgot that it was not Trifon Semyonovich he was beating, but his betrothed. The girl shrieked. The beating went on for a long time. God knows where it would have ended if Trifon Semyonovich’s pretty daughter Sashenka had not appeared through the bushes.
“Papa dear, do come and have some tea!” she called, and seeing her dear papa’s little caper, burst into peals of laughter.
“That’ll do, you can go now,” Trifon Semyonovich said to the girl and boy with a low bow. “Goodbye. I’ll send you some nice little apples for your wedding.”
The girl and the boy went off—the boy to the right, the girl to the left. From that day on they never met again. Had Sashenka not appeared when she did, they might have been whipped with nettles too. This is how Trifon Semyonovich amuses himself in his old age. And his family isn’t far behind. His daughters have a habit of sewing onions onto the hats of guests whom they “outrank socially,” and should these outranked guests have had a drink or two too many, the girls take a piece of chalk and write “Donkey” or “Fool” in thick letters on their backs. Last winter, Trifon Semyonovich’s son Mitya, a retired lieutenant, even managed to outdo his papa. He and Karpushka smeared the gates of a retired soldier with tar because the soldier wouldn’t give Mitya a wolf cub he wanted, and because the soldier had warned his daughters against accepting cakes and candy from the lieutenant.
And after this you want to call Trifon Semyonovich, Trifon Semyonovich and not something worse?
7 A member of a sinister private army devoted to the service of Czar Ivan the Terrible.
À L’AMÉRICAINE
I,experiencing the urgent whim to enter a thoroughly lawful marriage, and realizing that no marriage can be entered into without a female of the species, have the honor and pleasure of asking all young maidens and widows to cast a favorable eye on the following:
First and foremost, I am a man. Needless to say, this is a point of some importance to the ladies. I stand one yard and twenty-seven inches tall. I am young. Indeed, I am as far from middle age as a flock of sandpipers would be from Novosibirsk on St. Peter’s Day. I am of noble lineage. I might not be much to look at, but am not that bad either, so much so that I have been repeatedly mistaken for handsome, albeit only on moonless nights. My eyes are hazel. My cheeks (alas!) are undimpled. Two of my back teeth are rotten. I have a hard time assuming graceful manners, but no one should doubt the strength of my muscles. (My glove size is 7¾.) I have nothing to my name but my poor though wellborn parents. I do, however, have an illustrious future before me. I am a devotee of pretty women in general and parlor maids in particular. I believe in everything. I am a man of letters—so much so that I am above shedding tears when rejection slips come pouring in. I see a novel in my future, whose heroine (a wanton but exquisite beauty) will be modeled on my wife-to-be. I sleep twelve hours a night. I eat mountains of food. I drink vodka only in company. I have a commendable circle of friends: I know two literati, a ditty-writer, and two men about town who have dedicated their lives to the betterment of mankind by writing articles for The Russian Gazette. My favorite poets are Pushkarev and, at times, myself. I am amorous, but not in the least jealous. I wish to marry for reasons known only to myself and my creditors. That, in a nutshell, is who I am!