prodded his wife with his elbow. 'Come along, now!'
And without a second's delay Peplov flung open the door.
'Children,' he muttered, lifting up his arms and blinking tearfully, 'the Lord bless you, my children. May you live -- be fruitful -- and multiply.'
'And -- and I bless you, too,' the mamma brought out, crying with happiness. 'May you be happy, my dear ones! Oh, you are taking from me my only treasure!' she said to Shchupkin. 'Love my girl, be good to her. . . .'
Shchupkin's mouth fell open with amazement and alarm. The parents' attack was so bold and unexpected that he could not utter a single word.
'I'm in for it! I'm spliced!' he thought, going limp with horror. 'It's all over with you now, my boy! There's no escape!'
And he bowed his head submissively, as though to say, 'Take me, I'm vanquished.'
'Ble-blessings on you,' the papa went on, and he, too, shed tears. 'Natashenka, my daughter, stand by his side. Kleopatra, give me the ikon.'
But at this point the father suddenly left off weeping, and his face was contorted with anger.
'You ninny!' he said angrily to his wife. 'You are an idiot! Is that the ikon?'
'Ach, saints alive!'
What had happened? The writing master raised himself and saw that he was saved; in her flutter the mamma had snatched from the wall the portrait ofLazhetchnikov, the author, in mistake for the ikon. Old Peplov and his wife stood disconcerted in the middle of the room, holding the portrait aloft, not knowing what to do or what to say. The writing master took advantage of the general confusion and slipped away.
NOTES
title: lit., Failure
Shchupkin: the name suggests 'to grope'
Nekrassov: Nikolay A. Nekrasov (1821-1878) poet and radical
be fruitful and multiply: Genesis 9:1
I'm in for it! I'm spliced!: I'm done for, I'm caught
Lazhetchnikov: Ivan I. Lazhechnikov (1792-1869) historical novelist
AN UPHEAVAL
by Anton Chekhov
MASHENKA PAVLETSKY, a young girl who had only just finished her studies at a boarding school, returning from a walk to the house of the Kushkins, with whom she was living as a governess, found the household in a terrible turmoil. Mihailo, the porter who opened the door to her, was excited and red as a crab.
Loud voices were heard from upstairs.
'Madame Kushkin is in a fit, most likely, or else she has quarrelled with her husband,' thought Mashenka.
In the hall and in the corridor she met maid-servants. One of them was crying. Then Mashenka saw, running out of her room, the master of the house himself, Nikolay Sergeitch, a little man with a flabby face and a bald head, though he was not old. He was red in the face and twitching all over. He passed the governess without noticing her, and throwing up his arms, exclaimed:
'Oh, how horrible it is! How tactless! How stupid! How barbarous! Abominable!'
Mashenka went into her room, and then, for the first time in her life, it was her lot to experience in all its acuteness the feeling that is so familiar to persons in dependent positions, who eat the bread of the rich and powerful, and cannot speak their minds. There was a search going on in her room. The lady of the house, Fedosya Vassilyevna, a stout, broad-shouldered, uncouth woman with thick black eyebrows, a faintly perceptible moustache, and red hands, who was exactly like a plain, illiterate cook in face and manners, was standing, without her cap on, at the table, putting back into Mashenka's workbag balls of wool, scraps of materials, and bits of paper. . . . Evidently the governess's arrival took her by surprise, since, on looking round and seeing the girl's pale and astonished face, she was a little taken aback, and muttered:
'
And saying something more, Madame Kushkin rustled her long skirts and went out. Mashenka looked round her room with wondering eyes, and, unable to understand it, not knowing what to think, shrugged her shoulders, and turned cold with dismay. What had Fedosya Vassilyevna been looking for in her work-bag? If she really had, as she said, caught her sleeve in it and upset everything, why had Nikolay Sergeitch dashed out of her room so excited and red in the face? Why was one drawer of the table pulled out a little way? The money-box, in which the governess put away ten kopeck pieces and old stamps, was open. They had opened it, but did not know how to shut it, though they had scratched the lock all over. The whatnot with her books on it, the things on the table, the bed -- all bore fresh traces of a search. Her linen-basket, too. The linen had been carefully folded, but it was not in the same order as Mashenka had left it when she went out. So the search had been thorough, most thorough. But what was it for? Why? What had happened? Mashenka remembered the excited porter, the general turmoil which was still going on, the weeping servant-girl; had it not all some connection with the search that had just been made in her room? Was not she mixed up in something dreadful? Mashenka turned pale, and feeling cold all over, sank on to her linen-basket.
A maid-servant came into the room.
'Liza, you don't know why they have been rummaging in my room?' the governess asked her.
'Mistress has lost a brooch worth two thousand,' said Liza.
'Yes, but why have they been rummaging in my room?'
'They've been searching every one, miss. They've searched all my things, too. They stripped us all naked and searched us. . . . God knows, miss, I never went near her toilet-table, let alone touching the brooch. I shall say the same at the police-station.'
'But . . . why have they been rummaging here?' the governess still wondered.
'A brooch has been stolen, I tell you. The mistress has been rummaging in everything with her own hands. She even searched Mihailo, the porter, herself. It's a perfect disgrace! Nikolay Sergeitch simply looks on and cackles like a hen. But you've no need to tremble like that, miss. They found nothing here. You've nothing to be afraid of if you didn't take the brooch.'
'But, Liza, it's vile . . . it's insulting,' said Mashenka, breathless with indignation. 'It's so mean, so low! What right had she to suspect me and to rummage in my things?'
'You are living with strangers, miss,' sighed Liza. 'Though you are a young lady, still you are . . . as it were . . . a servant. . . . It's not like living with your papa and mamma.'
Mashenka threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly. Never in her life had she been subjected to such an outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted. . . . She, well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was suspected of theft; she had been searched like a street-walker! She could not imagine a greater insult. And to this feeling of resentment was added an oppressive dread of what would come next. All sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind. If they could suspect her of theft, then they might arrest her, strip her naked, and search her, then lead her through the street with an escort of soldiers, cast her into a cold, dark cell with mice and woodlice, exactly like the dungeon in which Princess Tarakanov was imprisoned. Who would stand up for her? Her parents lived far away in the provinces; they had not the money to come to her. In the capital she was as solitary as in a desert, without friends or kindred. They could do what they liked with her.
'I will go to all the courts and all the lawyers,' Mashenka thought, trembling. 'I will explain to them, I will take an oath. . . . They will believe that I could not be a thief!'
Mashenka remembered that under the sheets in her basket she had some sweetmeats, which, following the habits of her schooldays, she had put in her pocket at dinner and carried off to her room. She felt hot all over, and
