'Crushed? Who's crushed? Lads! a man's been crushed!
'What's the meaning of this crowd? What do you want?'
'A man's been crushed, please your honour!'
'Where? Pass on! I ask you civilly! I ask you civilly, you blockheads!'
'You may shove a peasant, but you daren't touch a gentleman! Hands off!'
'Did you ever know such people? There's no doing anything with them by fair words, the devils! Sidorov, run for Akim Danilitch! Look sharp! It'll be the worse for you, gentlemen! Akim Danilitch is coming, and he'll give it to you! You here, Parfen? A blind man, and at his age too! Can't see, but he must be like other people and won't do what he's told. Smirnov, put his name down!'
'Yes, sir! And shall I write down the men from Purov's? That man there with the swollen cheek, he's from Purov's works.'
'Don't put down the men from Purov's. It's Purov's birthday to-morrow.'
The starlings rose in a black cloud from the Father Prebendary's garden, but Potcheshihin and Optimov did not notice them. They stood staring into the air, wondering what could have attracted such a crowd, and what it was looking at.
Akim Danilitch appeared. Still munching and wiping his lips, he cut his way into the crowd, bellowing:
'Firemen, be ready! Disperse! Mr. Optimov, disperse, or it'll be the worse for you! Instead of writing all kinds of things about decent people in the papers, you had better try to behave yourself more conformably! No good ever comes of reading the papers!'
'Kindly refrain from reflections upon literature!' cried Optimov hotly. 'I am a literary man, and I will allow no one to make reflections upon literature! though, as is the duty of a citizen, I respect you as a father and benefactor!'
'Firemen, turn the hose on them!'
'There's no water, please your honour!'
'Don't answer me! Go and get some! Look sharp!'
'We've nothing to get it in, your honour. The major has taken the fire-brigade horses to drive his aunt to the station.
'Disperse! Stand back, damnation take you! Is that to your taste? Put him down, the devil!'
'I've lost my pencil, please your honour!'
The crowd grew larger and larger. There is no telling what proportions it might have reached if the new organ just arrived from Moscow had not fortunately begun playing in the tavern close by. Hearing their favourite tune, the crowd gasped and rushed off to the tavern. So nobody ever knew why the crowd had assembled, and Potcheshihin and Optimov had by now forgotten the existence of the starlings who were innocently responsible for the proceedings.
An hour later the town was still and silent again, and only a solitary figure was to be seen -- the fireman pacing round and round on the watch-tower.
The same evening Akim Danilitch sat in the grocer's shop drinking
'In addition to the official report, I venture, your Excellency, to append a few supplementary observations of my own. Father and benefactor! In very truth, but for the prayers of your virtuous spouse in her salubrious villa near our town, there's no knowing what might not have come to pass. What I have been through to-day I can find no words to express. The efficiency of Krushensky and of the major of the fire brigade are beyond all praise! I am proud of such devoted servants of our country! As for me, I did all that a weak man could do, whose only desire is the welfare of his neighbour; and sitting now in the bosom of my family, with tears in my eyes I thank Him Who spared us bloodshed! In absence of evidence, the guilty parties remain in custody, but I propose to release them in a week or so. It was their ignorance that led them astray!'
NOTES
All ye fowls of the air, praise ye the Lord!: Although similar to Job 12:7, this is does not appear to be a quote from the Bible (another translation of this story offers Psalm 150:6, 'Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord')
IN THE GRAVEYARD
by Anton Chekhov
'THE wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning to get dark. Hadn't we better take ourselves off before it gets worse?'
The wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of the old birch trees, and a shower of thick drops fell upon us from the leaves. One of our party slipped on the clayey soil, and clutched at a big grey cross to save himself from falling.
'Yegor Gryaznorukov, titular councillor and cavalier . .' he read. 'I knew that gentleman. He was fond of his wife, he wore the Stanislav ribbon, and read nothing. . . . His digestion worked well . . . . life was all right, wasn't it? One would have thought he had no reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him. . . . The poor fellow fell a victim to his habits of observation. On one occasion, when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had a brain), and died. And here, under this tombstone, lies a man who from his cradle detested verses and epigrams. . . . As though to mock him his whole tombstone is adorned with verses. . . . There is someone coming!'
A man in a shabby overcoat, with a shaven, bluish-crimson countenance, overtook us. He had a bottle under his arm and a parcel of sausage was sticking out of his pocket.
'Where is the grave of Mushkin, the actor?' he asked us in a husky voice.
We conducted him towards the grave of Mushkin, the actor, who had died two years before.
'You are a government clerk, I suppose?' we asked him.
'No, an actor. Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish actors from clerks of the Consistory. No doubt you have noticed that. . . . That's typical, but it's not very flattering for the government clerk.'
It was with difficulty that we found the actor's grave. It had sunken, was overgrown with weeds, and had lost all appearance of a grave. A cheap, little cross that had begun to rot, and was covered with green moss blackened by the frost, had an air of aged dejection and looked, as it were, ailing.
'. . . forgotten friend Mushkin . . .' we read.
Time had erased the
'A subscription for a monument to him was got up among actors and journalists, but they drank up the money, the dear fellows . . .' sighed the actor, bowing down to the ground and touching the wet earth with his knees and his cap.
'How do you mean, drank it?'
That's very simple. They collected the money, published a paragraph about it in the newspaper, and spent it on drink. . . . I don't say it to blame them. . . . I hope it did them good, dear things! Good health to them, and eternal memory to him.'
'Drinking means bad health, and eternal memory nothing but sadness. God give us remembrance for a time, but eternal memory -- what next!'
'You are right there. Mushkin was a well-known man, you see; there were a dozen wreaths on the coffin, and he is already forgotten. Those to whom he was dear have forgotten him, but those to whom he did harm remember him. I, for instance, shall never, never forget him, for I got nothing but harm from him. I have no love for the deceased.'
'What harm did he do you?'
'Great harm,' sighed the actor, and an expression of bitter resentment overspread his face. 'To me he was a villain and a scoundrel -- the Kingdom of Heaven be his! It was through looking at him and listening to him that I
