2. Abram Yakovlevich Lipskerov (1851–1910), editor of the popular Moscow daily, News of the Day, from 1883 to 1894, and Russian Satirical Leaflet (1882–4; 1886–9). In his memoirs, Around Chekhov, Mikhail Chekhov records that News of the Day had very humble beginnings in a one-room office in Tversky Street in Moscow. The newspaper prospered (as did Lipskerov), printing cheap novels – and even forecasting winners at the races. Chekhov echoes his brother’s remarks in his uninhibitedly satirical Fragments of Moscow Life, stating: ‘since he [Lipskerov] started publishing his News of the Day [elsewhere Chekhov called it Filth of the Day] he wears double-soled shoes, drinks tea with sugar and goes to the Gentlemen’s Baths’. And in a letter of 8 March 1896 to his brother Aleksandr, Chekhov later writes: ‘Lipskerov is no longer a Yid but an English gentleman and lives near the Red Gates in a luxurious palazzo, like a duke. Tempora mutantur – and no one supposed such a genius would emerge from a latrine.’ (The six months of imprisonment mentioned were imposed because Lipskerov, in a feuilleton in News of the Day, accused a choirmaster, N. P. Bystrov, of not paying his choristers. Although this was true, Lipskerov was nonetheless sent to prison.) That Lipskerov was a journalistic shark, quite unprincipled and exploitative, can be seen in his treatment of Chekhov regarding payment for The Shooting Party. Lipskerov also printed some stories of Chekhov’s under his full name – not with the pseudonym ‘Antosha Chekhonte’ that he used at this time, but without the author’s permission and obviously to win more readers.
3. For Gaboriau, see note 3 in Notes.
4. V. A. Prokhorov (1858?–97) also wrote under the pseudonym Voldemar Valentinochkin. His Parricide, printed in News of the Day (1884), includes chapters entitled Vampires, The Bloody Eye and so on!
5. ‘Evil Spirit’ – a pseudonym of V. A. Prokhorov. ‘Dominoes’ alludes to Blue Domino, the pen-name of A. I. Sokolova (1836–1914), authoress of detective novels. The ‘Dramas’ mentioned below refer to her Contemporary Drama, published in News of the Day (1884).
6. Reference to Lermontov’s Trust Not Thyself (1839).
The Shooting Party
THE SHOOTING PARTY
(A True Event)
One April afternoon in 1880 Andrey the janitor came into my room and announced in hushed tones that a certain gentleman had turned up at the editorial offices and was persistently requesting an interview with the Editor.
‘A civil servant, by the look of him, sir,’ added Andrey, ‘with a badge in his cap.’
‘Ask him to call some other time,’ I said. ‘I’m really tied up today. Tell him that the Editor sees visitors on Saturdays only.’
‘But he came asking for you the day before yesterday too. It’s most important, he says. Keeps on and on, he does, and he’s close to tears! Says he’s not free on Saturdays. Shall I ask him to come in?’
I sighed, put down my pen and settled myself to wait for the gentleman with the badge. Writers who are mere beginners, and everyone, in fact, who hasn’t yet been initiated into the secrets of publishing and who is overcome with fear and trembling at the words ‘Editor’s Office’, keep you waiting for ages. After the Editor’s ‘show him in’, they’re inclined to cough and blow their noses interminably, after which they slowly open the door and enter even more slowly, consequently wasting a lot of your time. But this gentleman with the badge didn’t keep me waiting. Hardly had the door closed behind Andrey than I saw in my office a tall, broad-shouldered man with a bundle of papers in one hand and a cap with a badge in the other.
This gentleman, who had thus managed to grab an interview with me, plays a leading part in my story, so I must describe his appearance.
As I have said already, he was tall, broad-shouldered, and as solidly built as a handsome carthorse. His whole body radiated health and strength. His face was rosy, his hands large, his chest broad and muscular, his hair as thick and curly as a young healthy boy’s. He was about forty, tastefully dressed in the latest fashion, in a tweed suit fresh from the tailor’s. Across his chest was a large gold chain with charms dangling from it; a diamond ring sparkled with tiny flashing stars on his little finger. And – what is essential, what is most important of all for the hero of any novel or short story who is in the slightest degree respectable – he was extraordinarily handsome. I am neither woman nor artist, I don’t have much idea about male beauty, but the appearance of that gentleman with the badge in his cap really impressed me. His large, muscular face has remained forever engraved on my memory. In that face you could see a truly Grecian, slightly hooked nose, fine lips and handsome blue eyes that glowed with kindness – and with something else for which it is hard to find a suitable name. This ‘something’ is noticeable in the eyes of small animals when they are miserable or feeling pain – it is something imploring, childlike, silently suffering. Cunning and very clever people don’t have such eyes.
His entire face simply radiated ingenuousness, an expansive, simple character, truth. If it isn’t a lie that the face is the mirror of the soul, I could have sworn from the very first day of my meeting with the gentleman with the badge that he was incapable of lying. I might even have laid a bet on it. Whether I would have lost or won the reader will discover later.
His chestnut hair and beard were thick and as soft as silk. They say that soft hair is a sign of a gentle, sensitive, ‘meek and mild’ souclass="underline" criminals and evil desperadoes tend to have wiry hair. Whether that’s true or not the reader will in any event find out later. But neither his facial expression nor his beard – nothing about that gentleman with the badge was so gentle and delicate as the movements of his huge, heavy body. In those movements you could detect good breeding, ease, grace and even – forgive the expression – a certain effeminacy. It would have cost my hero only a slight effort to bend a horseshoe or crush a sardine tin in his fist. However, not one movement revealed any sign of physical strength. He grasped the door handle or his cap as if they were butterflies – delicately, carefully, barely touching them with his fingers. His steps were noiseless, his handshake feeble. Looking at him you forgot he was as strong as Goliath and that with one hand he could lift what five editorial Andreys could never have budged. As I watched his delicate movements it was hard to believe that he was so strong and heavily built. Spencer1 would have hailed him as the very model of grace.
When he entered my office he became confused. Most likely my sullen, disgruntled look came as a shock to his gentle, sensitive nature.
‘Heavens, I’m sorry!’ he began in a soft, rich baritone. ‘Seems I’ve chosen a rotten time to come barging in here and forcing you to make an exception in my case. I can see you’re up to your eyes! Well now, this is what I’ve come about, Mr Editor. Tomorrow I have to go to Odessa on a very important business matter. Had I been able to postpone my trip until Saturday then, believe me, I wouldn’t have asked you to make an exception in my case. Normally I abide by the rules, because I like to do things the right way…’
‘God, how he goes on and on!’ I thought, stretching my hand towards my pen to show that I was terribly busy. At such times visitors really got on my nerves!
‘I’ll take only one minute of your time,’ my hero continued in an apologetic tone. ‘But first allow me to introduce myself… Ivan Petrovich Kamyshev, LL.B, former investigating magistrate. I don’t have the honour of belonging to the writing fraternity. All the same, my purpose in coming here is purely literary. Before you there stands a person who wants to make a start, despite his forty-odd years. Better late than never!’