SERGE KAPITONICH AHINEEV, the
writing master, was marrying his daughter to the teacher of history and
geography. The wedding festivities were going off most successfully. In the
drawing room there was singing, playing, and dancing. Waiters hired from the
club were flitting distractedly about the rooms, dressed in black swallowtails
and dirty white ties. There was a continual hubub and din of conversation.
Sitting side by side on the sofa, the teacher of mathematics, the French
teacher, and the junior assessor of taxes were talking hurriedly and
interrupting one another as they described to the guests cases of persons being
buried alive, and gave their opinions on spiritualism. None of them believed in
spiritualism, but all admitted that there were many things in this world which
would always be beyond the mind of man. In the next room the literature master
was explaining to the visitors the cases in which a sentry has the right to
fire on passers-by. The subjects, as you perceive, were alarming, but very
agreeable. Persons whose social position precluded them from entering were
looking in at the windows from the yard.
Just at midnight the master of
the house went into the kitchen to see whether everything was ready for supper.
The kitchen from floor to ceiling was filled with fumes composed of goose,
duck, and many other odors. On two tables the accessories, the drinks and light
refreshments, were set out in artistic disorder. The cook, Marfa, a red-faced
woman whose figure was like a barrel with a belt around it, was bustling about
the tables.
"Show me the sturgeon,
Marfa," said Ahineev, rubbing his hands and licking his lips. "What a
perfume! I could eat up the whole kitchen. Come, show me the sturgeon."
Marfa went up to one of the
benches and cautiously lifted a piece of greasy newspaper. Under the paper on
an immense dish there reposed a huge sturgeon, masked in jelly and decorated
with capers, olives, and carrots. Ahineev gazed at the sturgeon and gasped. His
face beamed, he turned his eyes up. He bent down and with his lips emitted the
sound of an ungreased wheel. After standing a moment he snapped his fingers
with delight and once more smacked his lips.
"Ah-ah! the sound of a
passionate kiss. . . . Who is it you're kissing out there, little Marfa?"
came a voice from the next room, and in the doorway there appeared the cropped
head of the assistant usher, Vankin. "Who is it? A-a-h! . . . Delighted to
meet you! Sergei Kapitonich! You're a fine grandfather, I must say!"
"I'm not kissing," said
Ahineev in confusion. "Who told you so, you fool? I was only . . . I
smacked my lips . . . in reference to . . . as an indication of. . . pleasure .
. . at the sight of the fish."
"Tell that to the
marines!" The intrusive face vanished, wearing a broad grin.
Ahineev flushed.
"Hang it!" he thought,
"the beast will go now and talk scandal. He'll disgrace me to all the
town, the brute."
Ahineev went timidly into the
drawing room and looked stealthily round for Vankin. Vankin was standing by the
piano, and, bending down with a jaunty air, was whispering something to the
inspector's sister-in-law, who was laughing.
"Talking about me!"
thought Ahineev. "About me, blast him! And she believes it . . . believes
it! She laughs! Mercy on us! No, I can't let it pass . . . I can't. I must do
something to prevent his being believed. . . . I'll speak to them all, and
he'll be shown up for a fool and a gossip."
Ahineev scratched his head, and
still overcome with embarrassment, went up to the French teacher.
"I've just been in the
kitchen to see after the supper," he said to the Frenchman. "I know
you are fond of fish, and I've a sturgeon, my dear fellow, beyond everything! A
yard and a half long! Ha, ha, ha! And, by the way . . . I was just forgetting.
. . . In the kitchen just now, with that sturgeon . . . quite a little story! I
went into the kitchen just now and wanted to look at the supper dishes. I
looked at the sturgeon and I smacked my lips with relish . . . at the piquancy
of it. And at the very moment that fool Vankin came in and said: . . . 'Ha, ha,
ha! . . . So you're kissing here!' Kissing Marfa, the cook! What a thing to
imagine, silly fool! The woman is a perfect fright, like all the beasts put
together, and he talks about kissing! Queer fish!"
"Who's a queer fish?"
asked the mathematics teacher, coming up.
"Why he, over there--Vankin!
I went into the kitchen . . ."
And he told the story of Vankin.
". . . He amused me, queer fish! I'd rather kiss a dog than Marfa, if you
ask me," added Ahineev. He looked round and saw behind him the junior
assessor of taxes.
"We were talking of
Vankin," he said. "Queer fish, he is! He went into the kitchen, saw
me beside Marfa, and began inventing all sorts of silly stories. 'Why are you
kissing?' he says. He must have had a drop too much. 'And I'd rather kiss a
turkeycock than Marfa,' I said, 'And I've a wife of my own, you fool,' said I.
He did amuse me!"
"Who amused you?" asked
the priest who taught Scripture in the school, going up to Ahineev.
"Vankin. I was standing in
the kitchen, you know, looking at the sturgeon. . . ."
And so on. Within half an hour or
so all the guests knew the incident of the sturgeon and Vankin.
"Let him tell away
now!" thought Ahineev, rubbing his hands. "Let him! He'll begin
telling his story and they'll say to him at once, 'Enough of your improbable
nonsense, you fool, we know all about it!"
And Ahineev was so relieved that
in his joy he drank four glasses too many. After escorting the young people to
their room, he went to bed and slept like an innocent babe, and next day he
thought no more of the incident with the sturgeon. But, alas! man proposes, but
God disposes. An evil tongue did its evil work, and Ahineev's strategy was of
no avail. Just a week later--to be precise, on Wednesday after the third
lesson--when Ahineev was standing in the middle of the teacher's room, holding
forth on the vicious propensities of a boy called Visekin, the headmaster went
up to him and drew him aside:
"Look here, Sergei
Kapitonich," said the headmaster, "you must excuse me. . . . It's not
my business; but all the same I must make you realize. . . . It's my duty. You
see, there are rumors that you are romancing with that . . . cook. . . . It's nothing
to do with me, but . . . flirt with her, kiss her . . . as you please, but
don't let it be so public, please. I entreat you! Don't forget that you're a
schoolmaster."
Ahineev turned cold and faint. He
went home like a man stung by a whole swarm of bees, like a man scalded with
boiling water. As he walked home, it seemed to him that the whole town was
looking at him as though he were smeared with pitch. At home fresh trouble
awaited him.
"Why aren't you gobbling up
your food as usual?" his wife asked him at dinner. "What are you so
pensive about? Brooding over your amours? Pining for your Marfa? I know all
about it, Mohammedan! Kind friends have opened my eyes! O-o-o! . . . you savage
!"
And she slapped him in the face.
He got up from the table, not feeling the earth under his feet, and without his
hat or coat, made his way to Vankin. He found him at home.
"You scoundrel!" he
addressed him. "Why have you covered me with mud before all the town? Why
did you set this slander going about me?"
"What slander? What are you
talking about?"
"Who was it gossiped of my
kissing Marfa? Wasn't it you? Tell me that. Wasn't it you, you brigand?"
Vankin blinked and twitched in
every fiber of his battered countenance, raised his eyes to the icon and
articulated, "God blast me! Strike me blind and lay me out, if I said a
single word about you! May I be left without house and home, may I be stricken
with worse than cholera!"
Vankin's sincerity did not admit
of doubt. It was evidently not he who was the author of the slander.
"But who, then, who?"
Ahineev wondered, going over all his acquaintances in his mind and beating
himself on the breast. "Who, then?"
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