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 Tarantulov, 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 Mzda.
'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 head master went up to him and drew him aside:
'Look here, Sergei Kapitonich,' said the head master, '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 fibre 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?'
Who, then? We, too, ask the reader.
MINDS IN FERMENT
THE earth was like an oven. The afternoon sun blazed with such energy that even the thermometer hanging in the excise officer's room lost its head: it ran up to 112.5 and stopped there, irresolute. The inhabitants streamed with perspiration like overdriven horses, and were too lazy to mop their faces.
Two of the inhabitants were walking along the market-place in front of the closely shuttered houses. One was Potcheshihin, the local treasury clerk, and the other was Optimov, the agent, for many years a correspondent of the
In the middle of the market-place Potcheshihin suddenly halted and began gazing into the sky.
'What are you looking at?'
'Those starlings that flew up. I wonder where they have settled. Clouds and clouds of them. . . . If one were to go and take a shot at them, and if one were to pick them up . . . and if . . . They have settled in the Father Prebendary's garden!'
'Oh no! They are not in the Father Prebendary's, they are in the Father Deacon's. If you did have a shot at them from here you wouldn't kill anything. Fine shot won't carry so far; it loses its force. And why should you kill them, anyway? They're birds destructive of the fruit, that's true; still, they're fowls of the air, works of the Lord. The starling sings, you know. . . . And what does it sing, pray? A song of praise. . . . 'All ye fowls of the air, praise ye the Lord.' No. I do believe they have settled in the Father Prebendary's garden.'
Three old pilgrim women, wearing bark shoes and carrying wallets, passed noiselessly by the speakers. Looking enquiringly at the gentlemen who were for some unknown reason staring at the Father Prebendary's house, they slackened their pace, and when they were a few yards off stopped, glanced at the friends once more, and then fell to gazing at the house themselves.
'Yes, you were right; they have settled in the Father Prebendary's,' said Optimov. 'His cherries are ripe now, so they have gone there to peck them.'
From the garden gate emerged the Father Prebendary himself, accompanied by the sexton. Seeing the attention directed upon his abode and wondering what people were staring at, he stopped, and he, too, as well as the sexton, began looking upwards to find out.
'The father is going to a service somewhere, I suppose,' said
Potcheshihin. 'The Lord be his succour!'
Some workmen from Purov's factory, who had been bathing in the river, passed between the friends and the priest. Seeing the latter absorbed in contemplation of the heavens and the pilgrim women, too, standing motionless with their eyes turned upwards, they stood still and stared in the same direction.
A small boy leading a blind beggar and a peasant, carrying a tub of stinking fish to throw into the market- place, did the same.
'There must be something the matter, I should think,' said Potcheshihin, 'a fire or something. But there's no sign of smoke anywhere. Hey! Kuzma!' he shouted to the peasant, 'what's the matter?'
The peasant made some reply, but Potcheshihin and Optimov did not catch it. Sleepy-looking shopmen made their appearance at the doors of all the shops. Some plasterers at work on a warehouse near left their ladders and joined the workmen.
The fireman, who was describing circles with his bare feet, on the watch-tower, halted, and, after looking steadily at them for a few minutes, came down. The watch-tower was left deserted. This seemed suspicious.
'There must be a fire somewhere. Don't shove me! You damned swine!'
'Where do you see the fire? What fire? Pass on, gentlemen! I ask you civilly!'
'It must be a fire indoors!'
