Chapter II

Once again, when I was a student in college, I was on my way south by train. It was May. At one of the stations between Byelogorod and Kharkoff, I think it was, I got out of the train to walk up and down the platform.

The evening shadows were already lying on the little garden, the platform, and the distant fields. The sunlight had faded from the station, but by the rosy glow that shone on the highest puffs of steam from our engine we could tell that the sun had not yet sunk beneath the horizon.

As I strolled along the platform I noticed that most of the passengers had gathered round one of the second-class carriages as if there were some well-known person inside. In that inquisitive crowd I found my travelling companion, a bright young artillery officer, warm-hearted and sympathetic as people are with whom one strikes up a chance acquaintanceship for a few hours on a journey.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

He did not answer, but motioned me with his eyes toward a female figure standing alongside the train. She was a young girl of seventeen or eighteen, dressed in Russian costume, bareheaded, with a kerchief thrown carelessly over one shoulder. She was not a passenger on the train, but probably the daughter or the sister of the station superintendent. She was chatting at a window with an elderly woman. Before I could realise exactly what I was looking at, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the same sensation that I had experienced in the Armenian village.

The girl was extraordinarily beautiful, of this neither I nor any one of those who were looking at her could have the slightest doubt.

Were I to describe her lineaments in detail, as the custom is, the only really beautiful point I could ascribe to her would be her thick, curly, blond hair, caught up with a black ribbon. Her other features were either irregular or frankly commonplace. Whether from coquetry or short-sightedness, she kept her eyes half-closed; her nose was vaguely tip-tilted; her mouth was small; her profile was weak and ill-defined; her shoulders were too narrow for her years. Nevertheless, the girl gave one the impression of being a great beauty, and as I looked at her I grew convinced that the Russian physiognomy does not demand severe regularity of feature to be beautiful; on the contrary, it seemed to me that, had this girl’s nose been straight and classic as the Armenian’s was, her face would have lost all its comeliness.

As she stood at the window chatting and shrinking from the evening chill, the girl now glanced back at us, now stuck her arms akimbo, now raised her hands to catch up a stray lock of hair, and, as she laughed and talked, the expression on her face varied between surprise and mimic horror. I do not remember one second when her features and body were at rest. The very mystery and magic of her loveliness lay in those indescribably graceful little motions of hers; in her smile; in the play of her features; in her swift glances at us; in the union of delicate grace, youth, freshness, and purity that rang in her voice and laughter. The charm of her was the frailty which we love in children, birds, fawns, and slender saplings.

Hers was the beauty of the butterfly that accords so well with waltzes, with flutterings about a garden, with laughter, and the merriment that admits neither thought, nor sadness, nor repose. It seemed that, should a strong gust of wind blow along the platform, or a shower of rain fall, this fragile figure must crumple to nothing, and this wayward beauty dissolve like the pollen of a flower.

“Well, well, well!” murmured the officer, sighing as we walked toward our compartment after the second starting-bell had rung.

What he meant by that “Well, well, well,” I shall not attempt to decide.

Perhaps he was sad at leaving the lovely girl and the spring evening, and returning to the stuffy train, or perhaps he was sorry, as I was, for her, and for himself, and for me, and for all the passengers that were languidly and unwillingly creeping toward their several compartments. As we walked past a window at which a pale, red-haired telegraph operator was sitting over his instrument, the officer, seeing his pompadour curls, and his faded, bony face, sighed again, and said:

“I’ll bet you that operator is in love with the little beauty. To live among these lonely fields, under the same roof with that lovely little creature, and not to fall in love with her would be superhuman. And, oh, my friend, what a misfortune, what a mockery, to be a round-shouldered, threadbare, colourless, earnest, sensible man and to fall in love with that beautiful, foolish child, who is not worth a thought from any one! Or, worse still, supposing this operator is in love with her, and at the same time married to a woman as round-shouldered, and threadbare, and colourless, and sensible as himself! What misery!”

Near our compartment the train conductor was leaning against the platform railing, gazing in the direction of the beautiful girl. His flabby, dissipated, wrinkled face, haggard with the weariness of sleepless nights and the motion of the train, wore an expression of profoundest melancholy, as if in this girl he saw the spectre of his youth, his happiness, his sober ways, his wife, and his children. His heart was full of repentance, and he felt with his whole being that this girl was not for him and that, with his premature old age, his awkwardness, and his bloated face, every day, human happiness was as far beyond his reach as was the sky.

The third bell clanged, the whistle blew, and the train moved slowly away. Past our windows flashed the conductor, the station superintendent, the garden, and at last the beautiful girl herself with her sweet, childishly cunning smile.

By leaning out of the window and looking back, I could see her walking up and down the platform in front of the window where the telegraph operator was sitting, watching the train and pinning up a stray lock of hair. Then she ran into the garden. The station was no longer kindled by the western light; though the fields were level and bare, the sun’s rays had faded from them, and the smoke from our engine lay in black, rolling masses upon the green velvet of the winter wheat. A sense of sadness pervaded the spring air, the darkling sky, and the railway-carriage.

Our friend the conductor came into our compartment and lit the lamp.

LIGHT AND SHADOW

THE CHORUS GIRL

One day while she was still pretty and young and her voice was sweet, Nikolai Kolpakoff, an admirer of hers, was sitting in a room on the second floor of her cottage. The afternoon was unbearably sultry and hot. Kolpakoff, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of vile port, felt thoroughly ill and out of sorts. Both he and she were bored, and were waiting for the heat to abate so that they might go for a stroll.

Suddenly a bell rang in the hall. Kolpakoff, who was sitting in his slippers without a coat, jumped up and looked at Pasha with a question in his eyes.

“It is probably the postman or one of the girls,” said the singer.

Kolpakoff was not afraid of the postman or of Pasha’s girl friends, but nevertheless he snatched up his coat and disappeared into the next room while Pasha ran to open the door. What was her astonishment when she saw on the threshold, not the postman nor a girl friend, but an unknown woman, beautiful and young! Her dress was distinguished and she was evidently a lady.

The stranger was pale and was breathing heavily as if she were out of breath from climbing the stairs.

“What can I do for you?” Pasha inquired.

The lady did not reply at once. She took a step forward, looked slowly around the room, and sank into a chair as if her legs had collapsed under her from faintness or fatigue. Her pale lips moved silently, trying to utter words which would not come.

“Is my husband here?” she asked at last, raising her large eyes with their red and swollen lids to Pasha’s face.

“What husband do you mean?” Pasha whispered, suddenly taking such violent fright that her hands and feet grew as cold as ice. “What husband?” she repeated beginning to tremble.

“My husband—Nikolai Kolpakoff.”

“N-no, my lady. I don’t know your husband.”

A minute passed in silence. The stranger drew her handkerchief several times across her pale lips, and held her breath in an effort to subdue an inward trembling, while Pasha stood before her as motionless as a statue, gazing at her full of uncertainty and fear.

“So you say he is not here?” asked the lady. Her voice was firm now and a strange smile had twisted her lips.

“I—I—don’t know whom you mean!”

“You are a revolting, filthy, vile creature!” muttered the stranger looking at Pasha with hatred and disgust. “Yes, yes, you are revolting. I am glad indeed that an opportunity has come at last for me to tell you this!”

Pasha felt that she was producing the effect of something indecent and foul on this lady in black, with the angry eyes and the long, slender fingers, and she was ashamed of her fat, red cheeks, the pock-mark on her nose, and the lock of hair on her forehead that would never stay up. She thought that if she were thin and her face were not powdered, and she had not that curl on her forehead, she would not feel so afraid and ashamed standing there before this mysterious, unknown lady.

“Where is my husband?” the lady went on. “However it makes no difference to me whether he is here or not, I only want you to know that he has been caught embezzling funds intrusted to him, and that the police are looking for him. He is going to be arrested. Now see what you have done!”

The lady rose and began to walk up and down in violent agitation. Pasha stared at her; fear rendered her uncomprehending.

“He will be found to-day and arrested,” the lady repeated with a sob full of bitterness and rage. “I know who has brought this horror upon him! Disgusting, abominable woman! Horrible, bought creature! (Here the lady’s lips curled and her nose wrinkled with aversion.) I am impotent. Listen to me, you low woman. I am impotent and you are stronger than I, but there is One who will avenge me and my children. God’s eyes see all things. He is just. He will call you to account for every tear I have shed, every sleepless night I have passed. The time will come when you will remember me!”

Once more silence fell. The lady walked to and fro wringing her hands. Pasha continued to watch her dully, uncomprehendingly, dazed with doubt, waiting for her to do something terrible.

“I don’t know what you mean, my lady!” she suddenly cried, and burst into tears.

“That’s a lie!” screamed the lady, her eyes flashing with anger. “I know all about it! I have known about you for a long time. I know that he has been coming here every day for the last month.”

“Yes—and what if he has? Is it my fault? I have a great many visitors, but I don’t force any one to come. They are free to do as they please.”

“I tell you he is accused of embezzlement! He has taken money that didn’t belong to him, and for the sake of a woman like you—for your sake, he has brought himself to commit a crime! Listen to me,” the lady said sternly, halting before Pasha. “You are an unprincipled woman, I know. You exist to bring misfortune to men, that is the object of your life, but I cannot believe that you have fallen so low as not to have one spark of humanity left in your breast. He has a wife, he has children, oh, remember that! There is one means of saving us from poverty and shame; if I can find nine hundred roubles to-day he will be left in peace. Only nine hundred roubles!”

“What nine hundred roubles?” asked Pasha feebly. “I—I don’t know—I didn’t take——”

“I am not asking you to give me nine hundred roubles, you have no money, and I don’t want anything that belongs to you. It is something else that I ask. Men generally give presents of jewellery to women like you. All I ask is that you should give me back the things that my husband has given you.”

“My lady, he has never given me anything!” wailed Pasha beginning to understand.

“Then where is the money he has wasted? He has squandered in some way his own fortune, and mine, and the fortunes of others. Where has the money gone? Listen, I implore you! I was excited just now and said some unpleasant things, but I ask you to forgive me! I know you must hate me, but if pity exists for you, oh, put yourself in my place! I implore you to give me the jewellery!”

“H’m—” said Pasha shrugging her shoulders. “I should do it with pleasure, only I swear before God he never gave me a thing. He didn’t, indeed. But, no, you are right,” the singer suddenly stammered in confusion. “He did give me two little things. Wait a minute, I’ll fetch them for you if you want them.”

Pasha pulled out one of the drawers of her bureau, and took from it a bracelet of hollow gold, and a narrow ring set with a ruby.

“Here they are!” she said, handing them to her visitor.

The lady grew angry and a spasm passed over her features. She felt that she was being insulted.

“What is this you are giving me?” she cried. “I’m not asking for alms, but for the things that do not belong to you, for the things that you have extracted from my weak and unhappy husband by your position. When I saw you on the wharf with him on Thursday you were wearing costly brooches and bracelets. Do you think you can play the innocent baby with me? I ask you for the last time: will you give me those presents or not?”

“You are strange, I declare,” Pasha exclaimed, beginning to take offence. “I swear to you that I have never had a thing from your Nikolai, except this bracelet and ring. He has never given me anything, but these and some little cakes.”

“Little cakes!” the stranger laughed suddenly. “His children are starving at home, and he brings you little cakes! So you won’t give up the things?”

Receiving no answer, the lady sat down, her eyes grew fixed, and she seemed to be debating something.

“What shall I do?” she murmured. “If I can’t get nine hundred roubles he will be ruined as well as the children and myself. Shall I kill this creature, or shall I go down on my knees to her?”

The lady pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and burst into tears.

“Oh, I beseech you!” she sobbed. “It is you who have disgraced and ruined my husband; now save him! You can have no pity for him, I know; but the children, remember the children! What have they done to deserve this?”

Pasha imagined his little children standing on the street corner weeping with hunger, and she, too, burst into tears.

“What can I do, my lady?” she cried. “You say I am a wicked creature who has ruined your husband, but I swear to you before God I have never had the least benefit from him! Mota is the only girl in our chorus who has a rich friend, the rest of us all live on bread and water. Your husband is an educated, pleasant gentleman, that’s why I received him. We can’t pick and choose.”

“I want the jewellery; give me the jewellery! I am weeping, I am humiliating myself; see, I shall fall on my knees before you!”

Pasha screamed with terror and waved her arms. She felt that this pale, beautiful lady, who spoke the same refined language that people did in plays, might really fall on her knees before her, and for the very reason that she was so proud and high-bred, she would exalt herself by doing this, and degrade the little singer.

“Yes, yes, I’ll give you the jewellery!” Pasha cried hastily, wiping her eyes. “Take it, but it did not come from your husband! I got it from other visitors. But take it, if you want it!”

Pasha pulled out an upper drawer of the bureau, and took from it a diamond brooch, a string of corals, two or three rings, and a bracelet. These she handed to the lady.

“Here is the jewellery, but I tell you again your husband never gave me a thing. Take it, and may you be the richer for having it!” Pasha went on, offended by the lady’s threat that she would go down on her knees. “You are a lady and his lawful wife—keep him at home then! The idea of it! As if I had asked him to come here! He came because he wanted to!”

The lady looked through her tears at the jewellery that Pasha had handed her and said:

“This isn’t all. There is scarcely five hundred roubles’ worth here.”

Pasha violently snatched a gold watch, a cigarette-case, and a set of studs out of the drawer and flung up her arms, exclaiming:

“Now I am cleaned out! Look for yourself!”

Her visitor sighed. With trembling hands she wrapped the trinkets in her handkerchief, and went out without a word, without even a nod.

The door of the adjoining room opened and Kolpakoff came out. His face was pale and his head was shaking nervously, as if he had just swallowed a very bitter draught. His eyes were full of tears.

“I’d like to know what you ever gave me!” Pasha attacked him vehemently. “When did you ever give me the smallest present?”

“Presents—they are a detail, presents!” Kolpakoff cried, his head still shaking. “Oh, my God, she wept before you, she abased herself!”

“I ask you again: what have you ever given me?” screamed Pasha.

“My God, she—a respectable, a proud woman, was actually ready to fall on her knees before—before this—wench! And I have brought her to this! I allowed it!”

He seized his head in his hands.

“No,” he groaned out, “I shall never forgive myself for this—never! Get away from me, wretch!” he cried, backing away from Pasha with horror, and keeping her off with outstretched, trembling hands. “She was ready to go down on her knees, and before whom?—Before you! Oh, my God!”

He threw on his coat and, pushing Pasha contemptuously aside, strode to the door and went out.

Pasha flung herself down on the sofa and burst into loud wails. She already regretted the things she had given away so impulsively, and her feelings were hurt. She remembered that a merchant had beaten her three years ago for nothing, yes, absolutely for nothing, and at that thought she wept louder than ever.

THE FATHER OF A FAMILY

This is what generally follows a grand loss at cards or a drinking-bout, when his indigestion begins to make itself felt. Stepan Jilin wakes up in an uncommonly gloomy frame of mind. He looks sour, ruffled, and peevish, and his grey face wears an expression partly discontented, partly offended, and partly sneering. He dresses deliberately, slowly drinks his vichy water, and begins roaming about the house.

“I wish to goodness I knew what br-rute goes through here leaving all the doors open!” he growls angrily, wrapping his dressing-gown about him and noisily clearing his throat. “Take this paper away! What is it lying here for? Though we keep twenty servants, this house is more untidy than a hovel! Who rang the bell? Who’s there?”

“Aunty Anfisa, who nursed our Fedia,” answers his wife.

“Yes, loafing about, eating the bread of idleness!”

“I don’t understand you, Stepan; you invited her here yourself and now you are abusing her!”

“I’m not abusing her. I’m talking! And you ought to find something to do, too, good woman, instead of sitting there with your hands folded, picking quarrels with your husband! I don’t understand a woman like you, upon my word I don’t! How can you let day after day go by without working? Here’s your husband toiling and moiling like an ox, like a beast of burden, and there you are, his wife, his life’s companion, sitting about like a doll without ever turning your hand to a thing, so bored that you must seize every opportunity of quarrelling with him. It’s high time for you to drop those schoolgirlish airs, madam! You’re not a child nor a young miss any longer. You’re a woman, a mother! You turn away, eh? Aha! You don’t like disagreeable truths, do you?”

“It’s odd you only speak disagreeable truths when you have indigestion!”

“That’s right, let’s have a scene; go ahead!”

“Did you go to town yesterday or did you play cards somewhere?”

“Well, and what if I did? Whose business is it? Am I accountable to any one? Don’t I lose my own money? All that I spend and all that is spent in this house is mine, do you hear that? Mine!”

And so he persists in the same strain. But Jilin is never so crotchety, so stern, so bristling with virtue and justice, as he is when sitting at dinner with his household gathered about him. It generally begins with the soup. Having swallowed his first spoonful, Jilin suddenly scowls and stops eating.

“What the devil—” he mutters. “So I’ll have to go to the café for lunch——”

“What is it?” asks his anxious wife. “Isn’t the soup good?”

“I can’t conceive the swinish tastes a person must have to swallow this mess! It is too salty, it smells of rags, it is flavoured with bugs and not onions! Anfisa Pavlovna!” he cries to his guest. “It is shocking! I give them oceans of money every day to buy food with, I deny myself everything, and this is what they give me to eat! No doubt they would like me to retire from business into the kitchen and do the cooking myself!”

“The soup is good to-day,” the governess timidly ventures.

“Is it? Do you find it so?” inquires Jilin scowling angrily at her. “Every one to his taste, but I must confess that yours and mine differ widely, Varvara Vasilievna. You, for instance, admire the behavior of that child there (Jilin points a tragic forefinger at his son). You are in ecstasies over him, but I—I am shocked! Yes, I am!”

Fedia, a boy of seven with a delicate, pale face, stops eating and lowers his eyes. His cheeks grow paler than ever.

“Yes, you are in ecstasies, and I am shocked. I don’t know which of us is right, but I venture to think that I, as his father, know my own son better than you do. Look at the way he is sitting! Is that how well-behaved children should hold themselves? Sit up!”

Fedia raises his chin and sticks out his neck and thinks he is sitting up straighter. His eyes are filling with tears.

“Eat your dinner! Hold your spoon properly! Don’t dare to snuffle! Look me in the face!”

Fedia tries to look at him, but his lips are quivering and the tears are trickling down his cheeks.

“Aha, so you’re crying? You’re naughty and that makes you cry, eh? Leave the table and go and stand in the corner, puppy!”

“But—do let him finish his dinner first!” his wife intercedes for the boy.

“No—no dinner! Such a—such a naughty brat has no right to eat dinner!”

Fedia makes a wry face, slides down from his chair, and takes his stand in a corner.

“That’s the way to treat him,” his father continues. “If no one else will take charge of his education I must do it myself. I won’t have you being naughty and crying at dinner, sir! Spoiled brat! You ought to work, do you hear me? Your father works, and you must work, too! No one may sponge on others. Be a man, a M-A-N!”

“For Heaven’s sake, hush!” his wife beseeches him in French. “At least don’t bite our heads off in public! The old lady is listening to every word, and the whole town will know of this, thanks to her.”

“I’m not afraid of the public!” retorts Jilin in Russian. “Anfisa Pavlovna can see for herself that I’m speaking the truth. What, do you think I ought to be satisfied with that youngster there? Do you know how much he costs me? Do you know, you worthless boy, how much you cost me? Or do you think I can create money and that it falls into my lap of its own accord? Stop bawling! Shut up! Do you hear me or not? Do you want me to thrash you, little wretch?”

Fedia breaks into piercing wails and begins sobbing.

“Oh, this is absolutely unbearable!” exclaims his mother, throwing down her napkin and getting up from the table. “He never lets us have our dinner in peace. That’s where that bread of yours sticks!”

She points to her throat and, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, leaves the dining-room.

“Her feelings are hurt,” mutters Jilin, forcing a smile. “She has been too gently handled, Anfisa Pavlovna, and that’s why she doesn’t like to hear the truth. We are to blame!”

Several minutes elapse in silence. Jilin catches sight of the dinner-plates and notices that the soup has not been touched. He sighs deeply and glares at the flushed and agitated face of the governess.

“Why don’t you eat your dinner, Varvara Vasilievna?” he demands. “You’re offended, too, are you? I see, you don’t like the truth either. Forgive me, but it is my nature never to be hypocritical. I always hit straight from the shoulder. (A sigh.) I see, though, that my company is distasteful to you. No one can speak or eat in my presence. You ought to have told me that sooner so that I could have left you to yourselves. I am going now.”

Jilin rises and walks with dignity toward the door. He stops as he passes the weeping Fedia.

“After what has happened just now you are fr-ee!” he says to him with a lofty toss of the head. “I shall no longer concern myself with your education. I wash my hands of it. Forgive me if, out of sincere fatherly solicitude for your welfare, I interfered with you and your preceptresses. At the same time, I renounce forever all responsibility for your future.”

Fedia wails and sobs more loudly than ever. Jilin turns toward the door with a stately air and walks off into his bedroom.

After his noonday nap Jilin is tormented by the pangs of conscience. He is ashamed of his behaviour to his wife, his son, and Anfisa Pavlovna, and feels extremely uncomfortable on remembering what happened at dinner. But his egotism is too strong for him and he is not man enough to be truthful, so he continues to grumble and sulk.

When he wakes up the following morning he feels in the gayest of moods and whistles merrily at his ablutions. On entering the dining-room for breakfast he finds Fedia. The boy rises at the sight of his father and gazes at him with troubled eyes.

“Well, how goes it, young man?” Jilin asks cheerfully as he sits down to table. “What’s the news, old fellow? Are you all right, eh? Come here, you little roly-poly, and give papa a kiss.”

Fedia approaches his father with a pale, serious face and brushes his cheek with trembling lips. Then he silently retreats and resumes his place at the table.

THE ORATOR

One Sunday morning they were burying the Collegiate Assessor Kiril Ivanovitch, who had died from the two ailments so common amongst us: drink and a scolding wife. While the funeral procession was crawling from the church to the cemetery, a certain Poplavski, a colleague of the defunct civil servant, jumped into a cab, and galloped off to fetch his friend Gregory Zapoikin, a young but already popular man. As many of my readers know, Zapoikin was the possessor of a remarkable talent for making impromptu orations at weddings, jubilee celebrations, and funerals. Whether he was half-asleep, or fasting, or dead drunk, or in a fever, he was always ready to make a speech. His words always flowed from his lips as smoothly and evenly and abundantly as water out of a rain-pipe, and there were more heartrending expressions in his oratorical vocabulary than there are black beetles in an inn. His speeches were always eloquent and long, so long that sometimes, especially at the weddings of merchants, the aid of the police had to be summoned to put a stop to them.

“I have come to carry you off with me, old chap,” began Poplavski. “Put on your things this minute and come along. One of our colleagues has kicked the bucket and we are about to despatch him into the next world. We must have some sort of folderol to see him off with, you know! All our hopes are centred on you! If one of our little fellows had died, we shouldn’t have troubled you; but, after all, this one was an Assessor, a pillar of the state, one might say. It wouldn’t do to bury a big fish like him without some kind of an oration!”

“Ah, the Assessor is it?” yawned Zapoikin. “What, that old soak?”

“Yes, that old soak! There will be pancakes and caviar, you know, and you will get your cab-fare paid. Come along, old man! Spout some of your Ciceronian hyperboles over his grave and you’ll see the thanks you’ll get from us all!”

Zapoikin consented to go with alacrity. He ruffled his hair, veiled his features in gloom, and stepped out with Poplavski into the street.

“I know that Assessor of yours!” he said, as he took his seat in the cab. “He was a rare brute of a rascal, God bless his soul!”

“Come, let dead men alone, Grisha!”

“Oh, of course, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_, but that doesn’t make him any less a rascal!”

The friends overtook the funeral cortège. It was travelling so slowly that before it reached its destination they had time to dash into a café three times to drink a drop to the peace of the dead man’s soul.

At the cemetery the litany had already been sung. The mother-in-law, the wife, and the sister-in-law of the departed were weeping in torrents. The wife even shrieked as the coffin was lowered into the grave: “Oh, let me go with him!” But she did not follow her husband, probably because she remembered his pension in time. Zapoikin waited until every sound had ceased and then stepped forward, embraced the whole crowd at a glance and began:

“Can we believe our eyes and our ears? Is this not a terrible dream? What is this grave here? What are these tear-stained faces, these sobs, these groans? Alas, they are not a dream! He whom, but a short time since we saw before us so valiant and brave, endowed still with all the freshness of youth; he whom, before our eyes, like the untiring bee, we saw carrying his burden of honey to the universal hive of the sovereign good, he whom—this man has now become dust, a mirage! Pitiless death has laid his bony hand upon him at a time when, notwithstanding the weight of his years, he was still in the very bloom of his powers, and radiant with hope. We have many a good servant of the state here, but Prokofi Osipitch stood alone among them all. He was devoted body and soul to the accomplishment of his honourable duties; he spared not his strength, and it may well be said of him that he was always without fear and without reproach. Ah, how he despised those who desired to buy his soul at the expense of the public good; those who, with the seductive blessings of earth, would fain have enticed him into a betrayal of the trusts confided to him! Yea, before our very eyes we could see Prokofi Osipitch giving his mite, his all, to comrades poorer than himself, and you have heard for yourselves, but a few moments since, the cries of the widows and orphans who lived by the kindness of his great heart. Engrossed in the duties of his post and in deeds of charity, he knew no joy in this world. Yea, he even forswore the happiness of family life. You know that he remained a bachelor to the end of his days. Who will take the place of this comrade of ours? I can see at this moment his gentle, clean-shaven face turned toward us with a benevolent smile. I seem to hear the soft, friendly tones of his voice. Eternal repose be to your soul, Prokofi Osipitch! Rest in peace, noble, honourable toiler of ours!”

Zapoikin continued his oration, but his audience had begun to whisper among themselves. The speech pleased every one and called forth numerous tears, but it seemed a little strange to many who heard it. In the first place, they could not understand why the speaker had referred to the dead man as “Prokofi Osipitch” when his real name had been Kiril Ivanovitch. In the second place, they all knew that the departed and his wife had fought like cat and dog, and that therefore he could hardly have been called a bachelor. In the third place, he had worn a thick red beard, and had never shaved in his life, therefore they could not make out why their Demosthenes had spoken of him as being clean-shaven. They wondered and looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders.

“Prokofi Osipitch!” the speaker continued with a rapt look at the grave. “Prokofi Osipitch! You were ugly of face, it is true, yea, you were almost uncouth; you were gloomy and stern, but well we knew that beneath that deceitful exterior of yours there beat a warm and affectionate heart!”

The crowd was now beginning to notice something queer about the orator himself. He was glaring intently at some object near him and was shifting his position uneasily. At last he suddenly stopped, his jaw dropped with amazement, and he turned to Poplavski.

“Look here, that man’s alive!” he cried, his eyes starting out of his head with horror.

“Who’s alive?”

“Why, Prokofi Osipitch! There he is now, standing by that monument!”

“Of course he is! It was Kiril Ivanovitch that died, not he!”

“But you said yourself it was the Assessor!”

“I know! And wasn’t Kiril Ivanovitch the Assessor? Oh, you moon-calf! You have got them mixed up! Of course Prokofi Osipitch used to be the Assessor, but that was two years ago. He has been chief of a table in chancery now for two years!”

“It’s simply the devil to keep up with all you chaps!”

“What are you stopping for? Go on! This is getting too awkward!”

Zapoikin turned toward the grave, and continued his oration with all his former eloquence. Yes, and there near the monument stood Prokofi Osipitch, an old civil servant with a clean-shaven face, frowning and glaring furiously at the speaker.

“How in the world did you manage to do that?” laughed the officials as they and Zapoikin drove home from the cemetery together. “Ha! Ha! Ha! A funeral oration for a live man!”

“You made a great mistake, young man!” growled Prokofi Osipitch. “Your speech may have been appropriate enough for a dead man, but for a live one it was—it was simply a joke. Allow me to ask you, what was it you said? ‘Without fear and without reproach; he never took a bribe!’ Why, you _couldn’t_ say a thing like that about a live man unless you were joking! And no one asked you to dwell upon my personal appearance, young gentleman! ‘Ugly and uncouth,’ eh! That may be quite true, but why did you drag it in before every one in the city? I call it an insult!”

IONITCH

If newcomers to the little provincial city of S. complained that life there was monotonous and dull, its inhabitants would answer that, on the contrary, S. was a very amusing place, indeed, that it had a library and a club, that balls were given there, and finally, that very pleasant families lived there with whom one might become acquainted. And they always pointed to the Turkins as the most accomplished and most enlightened family of all.

These Turkins lived in a house of their own, on Main Street, next door to the governor. Ivan Turkin, the father, was a stout, handsome, dark man with side-whiskers. He often organized amateur theatricals for charity, playing the parts of the old generals in them and coughing most amusingly. He knew a lot of funny stories, riddles, and proverbs, and loved to joke and pun with, all the while, such a quaint expression on his face that no one ever knew whether he was serious or jesting. His wife Vera was a thin, rather pretty woman who wore glasses and wrote stories and novels which she liked to read aloud to her guests. Katherine, the daughter, played the piano. In short, each member of the family had his or her special talent. The Turkins always welcomed their guests cordially and showed off their accomplishments to them with cheerful and genial simplicity. The interior of their large stone house was spacious, and, in summer, delightfully cool. Half of its windows looked out upon a shady old garden where, on spring evenings, the nightingales sang. Whenever there were guests in the house a mighty chopping would always begin in the kitchen, and a smell of fried onions would pervade the courtyard. These signs always foretold a sumptuous and appetising supper.

So it came to pass that when Dimitri Ionitch Startseff received his appointment as government doctor, and went to live in Dialij, six miles from S., he too, as an intelligent man, was told that he must not fail to make the Turkins’ acquaintance. Turkin was presented to him on the street one winter’s day; they talked of the weather and the theatre and the cholera, and an invitation from Turkin followed. Next spring, on Ascension Day, after he had received his patients, Startseff went into town for a little holiday, and to make some purchases. He strolled along at a leisurely pace (he had no horse of his own yet), and as he walked he sang to himself:

“Before I had drunk those tears from Life’s cup——”

After dining in town he sauntered through the public gardens, and the memory of Turkin’s invitation somehow came into his mind. He decided to go to their house and see for himself what sort of people they were.

“Be welcome, if you please!” cried Turkin, meeting him on the front steps. “I am delighted, delighted to see such a welcome guest! Come, let me introduce you to the missus. I told him, Vera,” he continued, presenting the doctor to his wife, “I told him that no law of the Medes and Persians allows him to shut himself up in his hospital as he does. He ought to give society the benefit of his leisure hours, oughtn’t he, dearest?”

“Sit down here,” said Madame Turkin, beckoning him to a seat at her side. “You may flirt with me, if you like. My husband is jealous, a regular Othello, but we’ll try to behave so that he shan’t notice anything.”

“Oh, you little wretch, you!” murmured Turkin, tenderly kissing her forehead. “You have come at a very opportune moment,” he went on, addressing his guest. “My missus has just written a splendiferous novel and is going to read it aloud to-day.”

“Jean,” said Madame Turkin to her husband. “Dites que l’on nous donne du thé.”

Startseff next made the acquaintance of Miss Katherine, an eighteen-year old girl who much resembled her mother. Like her, she was pretty and slender; her expression was childlike still, and her figure delicate and supple, but her full, girlish chest spoke of spring and of the loveliness of spring. They drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats and ate delicious cakes that melted in the mouth. When evening came other guests began to arrive, and Turkin turned his laughing eyes on each one in turn exclaiming:

“Be welcome, if you please!”

When all had assembled, they took their seats in the drawing-room, and Madame Turkin read her novel aloud. The story began with the words: “The frost was tightening its grasp.” The windows were open wide, and sounds of chopping could be heard in the kitchen, while the smell of fried onions came floating through the air. Every one felt very peaceful sitting there in those deep, soft armchairs, while the friendly lamplight played tenderly among the shadows of the drawing-room. On that evening of summer, with the sound of voices and laughter floating up from the street, and the scent of lilacs blowing in through the open windows, it was hard to imagine the frost tightening its grasp, and the setting sun illuminating with its bleak rays a snowy plain and a solitary wayfarer journeying across it. Madame Turkin read of how a beautiful princess had built a school, and hospital, and library in the village where she lived, and had fallen in love with a strolling artist. She read of things that had never happened in this world, and yet it was delightfully comfortable to sit there and listen to her, while such pleasant and peaceful dreams floated through one’s fancy that one wished never to move again.

“Not baddish!” said Turkin softly. And one of the guests, who had allowed his thoughts to roam far, far afield, said almost inaudibly:

“Yes—it is indeed!”

One hour passed, two hours passed. The town band began playing in the public gardens, and a chorus of singers struck up “The Little Torch.” After Madame Turkin had folded her manuscript, every one sat silent for five minutes, listening to the old folk-song telling of things that happen in life and not in story-books.

“Do you have your stories published in the magazines?” asked Startseff.

“No,” she answered. “I have never had anything published. I put all my manuscripts away in a closet. Why should I publish them?” she added by way of explanation. “We don’t need the money.”

And for some reason every one sighed.

“And now, Kitty, play us something,” said Turkin to his daughter.

Some one raised the top of the piano, and opened the music which was already lying at hand. Katherine struck the keys with both hands. Then she struck them again with all her might, and then again and again. Her chest and shoulders quivered, and she obstinately hammered the same place, so that it seemed as if she were determined not to stop playing until she had beaten the keyboard into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with thunder; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture, everything rumbled. Katherine played a long, monotonous piece, interesting only for its intricacy, and as Startseff listened, he imagined he saw endless rocks rolling down a high mountainside. He wanted them to stop rolling as quickly as possible, and at the same time Katherine pleased him immensely, she looked so energetic and strong, all rosy from her exertions, with a lock of hair hanging down over her forehead. After his winter spent among sick people and peasants in Dialij, it was a new and agreeable sensation to be sitting in a drawing-room watching that graceful, pure young girl and listening to those noisy, monotonous but cultured sounds.

“Well, Kitty, you played better than ever to-day!” exclaimed Turkin, with tears in his eyes when his daughter had finished and risen from the piano-stool. “Last the best, you know!”

The guests all surrounded her exclaiming, congratulating, and declaring that they had not heard such music for ages. Kitty listened in silence, smiling a little, and triumph was written all over her face.

“Wonderful! Beautiful!”

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Startseff, abandoning himself to the general enthusiasm. “Where did you study music? At the conservatory?” he asked Katherine.

“No, I haven’t been to the conservatory, but I am going there very soon. So far I have only had lessons here from Madame Zakivska.”

“Did you go to the high-school?”

“Oh, dear no!” the mother answered for her daughter. “We had teachers come to the house for her. She might have come under bad influences at school, you know. While a girl is growing up she should be under her mother’s influence only.”

“I’m going to the conservatory all the same!” declared Katherine.

“No, Kitty loves her mamma too much for that; Kitty would not grieve her mamma and papa!”

“Yes, I am going!” Katherine insisted, playfully and wilfully stamping her little foot.

At supper it was Turkin who showed off his accomplishments. With laughing eyes, but with a serious face he told funny stories, and made jokes, and asked ridiculous riddles which he answered himself. He spoke a language all his own, full of laboured, acrobatic feats of wit, in the shape of such words as “splendiferous,” “not baddish,” “I thank you blindly,” which had clearly long since become a habit with him.

But this was not the end of the entertainment. When the well-fed, well-satisfied guests had trooped into the front hall to sort out their hats and canes they found Pava the footman, a shaven-headed boy of fourteen, bustling about among them.

“Come now, Pava! Do your act!” cried Turkin to the lad.

Pava struck an attitude, raised one hand, and said in a tragic voice:

“Die, unhappy woman!”

At which every one laughed.

“Quite amusing!” thought Startseff, as he stepped out into the street.

He went to a restaurant and had a glass of beer, and then started off on foot for his home in Dialij. As he walked he sang to himself:

“Your voice so languorous and soft——”

He felt no trace of fatigue after his six-mile walk, and as he went to bed he thought that, on the contrary, he would gladly have walked another fifteen miles.

“Not baddish!” he remembered as he fell asleep, and laughed aloud at the recollection.