Short Fiction, Anton Chekhov [websites to read books for free .TXT] 📗

the windowsill, and turned upon the company lustreless, wearied, but triumphant eyes. In the listening crowd he observed to his immense annoyance the deacon Avdiessov. The deacon, a tall thickset man with a red pockmarked face, and straw in his hair, stood leaning against the stove and grinning contemptuously.

“That’s right, sing away! Perform your music!” he muttered in a deep bass. “Much the Count will care for your singing! He doesn’t care whether you sing with music or without.⁠ ⁠… For he is an atheist.”

Father Kuzma looked round in a scared way and twiddled his fingers.

“Come, come,” he muttered. “Hush, deacon, I beg.”

After the “concert” they sang “May our lips be filled with praise,” and the choir practice was over. The choir broke up to reassemble in the evening for another practice. And so it went on every day.

One month passed and then a second.⁠ ⁠… The steward, too, had by then received a notice that the Count would soon be coming. At last the dusty sunblinds were taken off the windows of the big house, and Yefremovo heard the strains of the broken-down, out-of-tune piano. Father Kuzma was pining, though he could not himself have said why, or whether it was from delight or alarm.⁠ ⁠… The deacon went about grinning.

The following Saturday evening Father Kuzma went to the sacristan’s lodgings. His face was pale, his shoulders drooped, the lilac of his cassock looked faded.

“I have just been at his Excellency’s,” he said to the sacristan, stammering. “He is a cultivated gentleman with refined ideas. But⁠ ⁠… er⁠ ⁠… it’s mortifying, brother.⁠ ⁠… ‘At what o’clock, your Excellency, do you desire us to ring for Mass tomorrow?’ And he said: ‘As you think best. Only, couldn’t it be as short and quick as possible without a choir.’ Without a choir! Er⁠ ⁠… do you understand, without, without a choir.⁠ ⁠…”

Alexey Alexeitch turned crimson. He would rather have spent two hours on his knees again than have heard those words! He did not sleep all night. He was not so much mortified at the waste of his labours as at the fact that the deacon would give him no peace now with his jeers. The deacon was delighted at his discomfiture. Next day all through the service he was casting disdainful glances towards the choir where Alexey Alexeitch was booming responses in solitude. When he passed by the choir with the censer he muttered:

“Perform your music! Do your utmost! The Count will give a ten-rouble note to the choir!”

After the service the sacristan went home, crushed and ill with mortification. At the gate he was overtaken by the red-faced deacon.

“Stop a minute, Alyosha!” said the deacon. “Stop a minute, silly, don’t be cross! You are not the only one, I am in for it too! Immediately after the Mass Father Kuzma went up to the Count and asked: ‘And what did you think of the deacon’s voice, your Excellency. He has a deep bass, hasn’t he?’ And the Count⁠—do you know what he answered by way of compliment? ‘Anyone can bawl,’ he said. ‘A man’s voice is not as important as his brains.’ A learned gentleman from Petersburg! An atheist is an atheist, and that’s all about it! Come, brother in misfortune, let us go and have a drop to drown our troubles!”

And the enemies went out of the gate arm-in-arm.

The Album

Kraterov, the titular councillor, as thin and slender as the Admiralty spire, stepped forward and, addressing Zhmyhov, said:

“Your Excellency! Moved and touched to the bottom of our hearts by the way you have ruled us during long years, and by your fatherly care.⁠ ⁠…”

“During the course of more than ten years⁠ ⁠…” Zakusin prompted.

“During the course of more than ten years, we, your subordinates, on this so memorable for us⁠ ⁠… er⁠ ⁠… day, beg your Excellency to accept in token of our respect and profound gratitude this album with our portraits in it, and express our hope that for the duration of your distinguished life, that for long, long years to come, to your dying day you may not abandon us.⁠ ⁠…”

“With your fatherly guidance in the path of justice and progress⁠ ⁠…” added Zakusin, wiping from his brow the perspiration that had suddenly appeared on it; he was evidently longing to speak, and in all probability had a speech ready. “And,” he wound up, “may your standard fly for long, long years in the career of genius, industry, and social self-consciousness.”

A tear trickled down the wrinkled left cheek of Zhmyhov.

“Gentlemen!” he said in a shaking voice, “I did not expect, I had no idea that you were going to celebrate my modest jubilee.⁠ ⁠… I am touched indeed⁠ ⁠… very much so.⁠ ⁠… I shall not forget this moment to my dying day, and believe me⁠ ⁠… believe me, friends, that no one is so desirous of your welfare as I am⁠ ⁠… and if there has been anything⁠ ⁠… it was for your benefit.”

Zhmyhov, the actual civil councillor, kissed the titular councillor Kraterov, who had not expected such an honour, and turned pale with delight. Then the chief made a gesture that signified that he could not speak for emotion, and shed tears as though an expensive album had not been presented to him, but on the contrary, taken from him.⁠ ⁠… Then when he had a little recovered and said a few more words full of feeling and given everyone his hand to shake, he went downstairs amid loud and joyful cheers, got into his carriage and drove off, followed by their blessings. As he sat in his carriage he was aware of a flood of joyous feelings such as he had never known before, and once more he shed tears.

At home new delights awaited him. There his family, his friends, and acquaintances had prepared him such an ovation that it seemed to him that he really had been of very great service to his country, and that if he had never existed his country would perhaps have been in a very bad way. The jubilee dinner was made up of