Forty Stories

I gave her the eleven rubles. With trembling fingers she took them and slipped them into her pocket.

“Merci,” she whispered.

I jumped up, and began pacing up and down the room. I was in a furious temper.

“Why did you say ‘merci’?” I asked.

“For the money.”

“Dammit, don’t you realize I’ve been cheating you? I steal your money, and all you can say is ‘merci’!”

“In my other places they gave me nothing.”

“They gave you nothing! Well, no wonder! I was playing a trick on you—a dirty trick.… I’ll give you your eighty rubles, they are all here in an envelope made out for you. Is it possible for anyone to be such a nitwit? Why didn’t you protest? Why did you keep your mouth shut? Is it possible that there is anyone in this world who is so spineless? Why are you such a ninny?”

She gave me a bitter little smile. On her face I read the words: “Yes, it is possible.”

I apologized for having played this cruel trick on her, and to her great surprise gave her the eighty rubles. And then she said “merci” again several times, always timidly, and went out. I gazed after her, thinking how very easy it is in this world to be strong.

February 1883

The Highest Heights

The Height of Credulity

A FEW days ago K., a man of considerable local importance, rich and well connected, shot himself in the town of T. The bullet entered his mouth and lodged in his brain.

In the poor man’s side pocket a letter was found, with the following contents:

“I read in the Almanac today there will be a bad harvest this year. For me a bad harvest can only mean bankruptcy. Having no desire to fall victim to dishonor, I have decided to put an end to my life in advance. It is my desire, accordingly, that no one should be held responsible for my death.”

The Height of Absent-mindedness

We have received from authentic sources the following distressing item from a local clinic:

“The well-known surgeon M., while amputating both legs of a railway switchman, absent-mindedly cut off one of his own legs, together with one of the legs of his assistant. Both are now receiving medical care.”

The Height of Citizenship

“I, the son of a former honorary citizen, being a reader of The Citizen,¹ wearing the clothes of a citizen, contracted a civil marriage with my Anyuta.…”²

The Height of Conformity

We are informed that a certain T., one of the contributors to Kievlyanin,³ having read the greater portion of the Moscow newspapers, suffered an attack of self-doubt and searched his own home for illegal literature. Finding none, he nevertheless gave himself up to the police.

April 1883

¹ The Citizen was a conservative St. Petersburg newspaper, owned by Prince Meshchersky and edited for a while by Dostoyevsky. Chekhov loathed The Citizen and pilloried it on many occasions.

² This is a joke. There were no civil marriages in Russia before 1917.

³ A conservative newspaper published in Kiev.

Death of a Government Clerk

ON a beautiful night the no less beautiful government clerk Ivan Dmitrich Chervyakov¹ sat in the second row of the stalls watching Les Cloches de Corneville through opera glasses. He was gazing at the stage and thinking himself the most blessed among mortals when suddenly … (Very often in stories you come upon this word “suddenly,” and this is all very proper, since authors must always concern themselves with the unexpectedness of life.) Suddenly, then, his face puckered up, he rolled his eyes, his breathing stopped, the opera glasses fell from his eyes, he collapsed into his seat, and … at-choo! As the reader has observed, he sneezed.

There are, of course, no laws promulgated against sneezing. It is done by peasants, police inspectors, even by privy councilors. Everyone sneezes. Chervyakov was not in the least embarrassed. He wiped his nose with a handkerchief, and like any well-behaved man, he looked round to see whether he had inconvenienced anyone. He was acutely embarrassed when he saw, sitting in the front row of the stalls just in front of him, an old man who was carefully wiping his bald head and neck with a pair of gloves and muttering something under his breath. The old man, as Chervyakov recognized, was General Brizzhalov, a very high official in the Ministry of Communications.

“I splashed him!” thought Chervyakov. “He’s not my boss, but still—it’s devilishly awkward! I shall have to apologize.”

Chervyakov coughed, leaned forward, and whispered in the general’s ear: “I’m afraid, Your Excellency, I sneezed … quite unintentionally.…”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Forgive me, for God’s sake. I really didn’t intend …”

“Sit down and keep quiet! Let me listen!”

Chervyakov was embarrassed. He smiled stupidly, and began to turn his attention to the stage. Watching the