Selected early short stories 1886

were! Men who would not permit the very winds to touch them! I've beaten two celebrated authors and one painter!'

'What are you crying for?'

'At Kherson I killed a horse with my fists. And at Taganrog some roughs fell upon me at night, fifteen of them. I took off their caps and they followed me, begging: 'Uncle, give us back our caps.' That's how I used to go on.'

'What are you crying for, then, you silly?'

'But now it's all over . . . I feel it. If only I could go to Vyazma!'

A pause followed. After a silence Shtchiptsov suddenly jumped up and seized his cap. He looked distraught.

'Good-bye! I am going to Vyazma!' he articulated, staggering.

'And the money for the journey?'

'H'm! . . . I shall go on foot!'

'You are crazy. . . .'

The two men looked at each other, probably because the same thought -- of the boundless plains, the unending forests and swamps --struck both of them at once.

'Well, I see you have gone off your head,' the jeune premier commented. 'I'll tell you what, old man. . . . First thing, go to bed, then drink some brandy and tea to put you into a sweat. And some castor-oil, of course. Stay, where am I to get some brandy?'

Brama-Glinsky thought a minute, then made up his mind to go to a shopkeeper called Madame Tsitrinnikov to try and get it from her on tick: who knows? perhaps the woman would feel for them and let them have it. The jeune premier went off, and half an hour later returned with a bottle of brandy and some castor-oil. Shtchiptsov was sitting motionless, as before, on the bed, gazing dumbly at the floor. He drank the castor-oil offered him by his friend like an automaton, with no consciousness of what he was doing. Like an automaton he sat afterwards at the table, and drank tea and brandy; mechanically he emptied the whole bottle and let the jeune premier put him to bed. The latter covered him up with a quilt and an overcoat, advised him to get into a perspiration, and went away.

The night came on; Shtchiptsov had drunk a great deal of brandy, but he did not sleep. He lay motionless under the quilt and stared at the dark ceiling; then, seeing the moon looking in at the window, he turned his eyes from the ceiling towards the companion of the earth, and lay so with open eyes till the morning. At nine o'clock in the morning Zhukov, the manager, ran in.

'What has put it into your head to be ill, my angel?' he cackled, wrinkling up his nose. 'Aie, aie! A man with your physique has no business to be ill! For shame, for shame! Do you know, I was quite frightened. 'Can our conversation have had such an effect on him?' I wondered. My dear soul, I hope it's not through me you've fallen ill! You know you gave me as good . . . er . . . And, besides, comrades can never get on without words. You called me all sorts of names . . . and have gone at me with your fists too, and yet I am fond of you! Upon my soul, I am. I respect you and am fond of you! Explain, my angel, why I am so fond of you. You are neither kith nor kin nor wife, but as soon as I heard you had fallen ill it cut me to the heart.'

Zhukov spent a long time declaring his affection, then fell to kissing the invalid, and finally was so overcome by his feelings that he began laughing hysterically, and was even meaning to fall into a swoon, but, probably remembering that he was not at home nor at the theatre, put off the swoon to a more convenient opportunity and went away.

Soon after him Adabashev, the tragic actor, a dingy, short-sighted individual who talked through his nose, made his appearance. . . . For a long while he looked at Shtchiptsov, for a long while he pondered, and at last he made a discovery.

'Do you know what, Mifa?' he said, pronouncing through his nose 'f' instead of 'sh,' and assuming a mysterious expression. 'Do you know what? You ought to have a dose of castor-oil!'

Shtchiptsov was silent. He remained silent, too, a little later as the tragic actor poured the loathsome oil into his mouth. Two hours later Yevlampy, or, as the actors for some reason called him, Rigoletto, the hairdresser of the company, came into the room. He too, like the tragic man, stared at Shtchiptsov for a long time, then sighed like a steam-engine, and slowly and deliberately began untying a parcel he had brought with him. In it there were twenty cups and several little flasks.

'You should have sent for me and I would have cupped you long ago,' he said, tenderly baring Shtchiptsov's chest. 'It is easy to neglect illness.'

Thereupon Rigoletto stroked the broad chest of the 'heavy father' and covered it all over with suction cups.

'Yes . . .' he said, as after this operation he packed up his paraphernalia, crimson with Shtchiptsov's blood. 'You should have sent for me, and I would have come. . . . You needn't trouble about payment. . . . I do it from sympathy. Where are you to get the money if that idol won't pay you? Now, please take these drops. They are nice drops! And now you must have a dose of this castor-oil. It's the real thing. That's right! I hope it will do you good. Well, now, good-bye. . . .'

Rigoletto took his parcel and withdrew, pleased that he had been of assistance to a fellow-creature.

The next morning Sigaev, the comic man, going in to see Shtchiptsov, found him in a terrible condition. He was lying under his coat, breathing in gasps, while his eyes strayed over the ceiling. In his hands he was crushing convulsively the crumpled quilt.

'To Vyazma!' he whispered, when he saw the comic man. 'To Vyazma.'

'Come, I don't like that, old man! ' said the comic man, flinging up his hands. 'You see . . . you see . . . you see, old man, that's not the thing! Excuse me, but . . . it's positively stupid. . . .'

'To go to Vyazma! My God, to Vyazma!'

'I . . . I did not expect it of you,' the comic man muttered, utterly distracted. 'What the deuce do you want to collapse like this for? Aie . . . aie . . . aie! . . . that's not the thing. A giant as tall as a watch-tower, and crying. Is it the thing for actors to cry?'

'No wife nor children,' muttered Shtchiptsov. 'I ought not to have gone for an actor, but have stayed at Vyazma. My life has been wasted, Semyon! Oh, to be in Vyazma!'

'Aie . . . aie . . . aie! . . . that's not the thing! You see, it's stupid . . . contemptible indeed!'

Recovering his composure and setting his feelings in order, Sigaev began comforting Shtchiptsov, telling him untruly that his comrades had decided to send him to the Crimea at their expense, and so on, but the sick man did not listen and kept muttering about Vyazma. . . . At last, with a wave of his hand, the comic man began talking about Vyazma himself to comfort the invalid.

'It's a fine town,' he said soothingly, 'a capital town, old man! It's famous for its cakes. The cakes are classical, but -- between ourselves --h'm! -- they are a bit groggy. For a whole week after eating them I was . . . h'm! . . . But what is fine there is the merchants! They are something like merchants. When they treat you they do treat you!'

The comic man talked while Shtchiptsov listened in silence and nodded his head approvingly.

Towards evening he died.

NOTES

chemist's: the pharmacist's

jeune premier: young lead player

prunella: a strong, heavy fabric of worsted twill

heliotrope: a plant with small, highly fragrant purple flowers

passport: Russians had to have passports even for travel within Russia itself

on tick: on credit

Rigoletto: a hunchbacked jester who is the main character in Giuseppe Verdi's 1851 opera Rigoletto, based on an earlier play by Victor Hugo

cupped you: an outdated medical treatment in which blood is removed by placing evacuated glass cups on the skin; bleeding the patient by cupping, applying leeches, or cutting was accepted medical practice from the