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

lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">promenage and grinned politely. Then they both put on their coats and went out of the room. Downstairs near the door leading to the restaurant of the Japan, Kutsyn reflected that it would not be amiss to entertain the Persian. He stopped and indicating the tables, said:

“By Russian custom it wouldn’t be amiss⁠ ⁠… puree, entrekot, champagne and so on, kompreney.”

The illustrious visitor understood, and a little later they were both sitting in the very best room of the restaurant, eating, and drinking champagne.

“Let us drink to the prosperity of Persia!” said Kutsyn. “We Russians love the Persians. Though we are of another faith, yet there are common interests, mutual, so to say, sympathies⁠ ⁠… progress⁠ ⁠… Asiatic markets.⁠ ⁠… The campaigns of peace so to say.⁠ ⁠…”

The illustrious Persian ate and drank with an excellent appetite, he stuck his fork into a slice of smoked sturgeon, and wagging his head, enthusiastically said: “Goot, bien.”

“You like it?” said the mayor delighted. “Bien, that’s capital.” And turning to the waiter he said: “Luka, my lad, see that two pieces of smoked sturgeon, the best you have, are sent up to his Highness’s room!”

Then the mayor and the Persian magnate went to look at the menagerie. The townspeople saw their Stepan Ivanovitch, flushed with champagne, gay and very well pleased, leading the Persian about the principal streets and the bazaar, showing him the points of interest of the town, and even taking him to the fire tower.

Among other things the townspeople saw him stop near some stone gates with lions on it, and point out to the Persian first the lion, then the sun overhead, and then his own breast; then again he pointed to the lion and to the sun while the Persian nodded his head as though in sign of assent, and smiling showed his white teeth. In the evening they were sitting in the London Hotel listening to the harp-players, and where they spent the night is not known.

Next day the mayor was at the Town Hall in the morning; the officials there apparently already knew something and were making their conjectures, for the secretary went up to him and said with an ironical smile:

“It is the custom of the Persians when an illustrious visitor comes to visit you, you must slaughter a sheep with your own hands.”

And a little later an envelope that had come by post was handed to him. The mayor tore it open and saw a caricature in it. It was a drawing of Rahat-Helam with the mayor on his knees before him, stretching out his hands and saying:

“To prove our Russian friendship
For Persia’s mighty realm,
And show respect for you, her envoy,
Myself I’d slaughter like a lamb,
But, pardon me, for I’m a⁠—donkey!”

The mayor was conscious of an unpleasant feeling like a gnawing in the pit of the stomach, but not for long. By midday he was again with the illustrious Persian, again he was regaling him and showing him the points of interest in the town. Again he led him to the stone gates, and again pointed to the lion, to the sun and to his own breast. They dined at the Japan; after dinner, with cigars in their teeth, both, flushed and blissful, again mounted the fire tower, and the mayor, evidently wishing to entertain the visitor with an unusual spectacle, shouted from the top to a sentry walking below:

“Sound the alarm!”

But the alarm was not sounded as the firemen were at the baths at the moment.

They supped at the London and, after supper, the Persian departed. When he saw him off, Stepan Ivanovitch kissed him three times after the Russian fashion, and even grew tearful. And when the train started, he shouted:

“Give our greeting to Persia! Tell her that we love her!”

A year and four months had passed. There was a bitter frost, thirty-five degrees, and a piercing wind was blowing. Stepan Ivanovitch was walking along the street with his fur coat thrown open over his chest, and he was annoyed that he met no one to see the Lion and the Sun upon his breast. He walked about like this till evening with his fur coat open, was chilled to the bone, and at night tossed from side to side and could not get to sleep.

He felt heavy at heart.

There was a burning sensation inside him, and his heart throbbed uneasily; he had a longing now to get a Serbian order. It was a painful, passionate longing.

In Trouble

Pyotr Semyonitch, the bank manager, together with the bookkeeper, his assistant, and two members of the board, were taken in the night to prison. The day after the upheaval the merchant Avdeyev, who was one of the committee of auditors, was sitting with his friends in the shop saying:

“So it is God’s will, it seems. There is no escaping your fate. Here today we are eating caviar and tomorrow, for aught we know, it will be prison, beggary, or maybe death. Anything may happen. Take Pyotr Semyonitch, for instance.⁠ ⁠…”

He spoke, screwing up his drunken eyes, while his friends went on drinking, eating caviar, and listening. Having described the disgrace and helplessness of Pyotr Semyonitch, who only the day before had been powerful and respected by all, Avdeyev went on with a sigh:

“The tears of the mouse come back to the cat. Serve them right, the scoundrels! They could steal, the rooks, so let them answer for it!”

“You’d better look out, Ivan Danilitch, that you don’t catch it too!” one of his friends observed.

“What has it to do with me?”

“Why, they were stealing, and what were you auditors thinking about? I’ll be bound, you signed the audit.”

“It’s all very well to talk!” laughed Avdeyev: “Signed it, indeed! They used to bring the accounts to my shop and I signed them. As though I understood! Give me anything you like, I’ll scrawl my name to it. If you were to write that I murdered someone I’d sign