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

I was driving a merchant from Morshansk. The merchant was a jolly handsome fellow, with money, too⁠ ⁠… the merchant was⁠ ⁠… a nice man, no harm in him.⁠ ⁠… So we put up for the night at an inn. And in Russia the inns are not what they are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in and look like the ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. Only a barn would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all right. My merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and everything was as it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going to sleep and began walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I couldn’t see anything; it was no good trying. So I walked about a bit up to the wagons, or nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What could it mean? I thought the people of the inn had gone to bed long ago, and besides the merchant and me there were no other guests in the inn.⁠ ⁠… Where could the light have come from? I felt suspicious.⁠ ⁠… I went closer⁠ ⁠… towards the light.⁠ ⁠… The Lord have mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked and there was a little window with a grating,⁠ ⁠… close to the ground, in the house⁠ ⁠… I lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I looked in a cold chill ran all down me.⁠ ⁠…”

Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into the fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing, the old man went on:

“I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark.⁠ ⁠… There was a lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were about a dozen men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up, sharpening long knives.⁠ ⁠… Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of robbers.⁠ ⁠… What’s to be done? I ran to the merchant, waked him up quietly, and said: ‘Don’t be frightened, merchant,’ said I, ‘but we are in a bad way. We have fallen into a nest of robbers,’ I said. He turned pale and asked: ‘What are we to do now, Panteley? I have a lot of money that belongs to orphans. As for my life,’ he said, ‘that’s in God’s hands. I am not afraid to die, but it’s dreadful to lose the orphans’ money,’ said he.⁠ ⁠… What were we to do? The gates were locked; there was no getting out. If there had been a fence one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up!⁠ ⁠… ‘Come, don’t be frightened, merchant,’ said I; ‘but pray to God. Maybe the Lord will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still.’ said I, ‘and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of something.⁠ ⁠…’ Right!⁠ ⁠… I prayed to God and the Lord put the thought into my mind.⁠ ⁠… I clambered up on my chaise and softly,⁠ ⁠… softly so that no one should hear, began pulling out the straw in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out.⁠ ⁠… Then I jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I could. I ran and ran till I was nearly dead.⁠ ⁠… I ran maybe four miles without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I ran up to a hut and began tapping at a window. ‘Good Christian people,’ I said, and told them all about it, ‘do not let a Christian soul perish.⁠ ⁠…’ I waked them all up.⁠ ⁠… The peasants gathered together and went with me,⁠ ⁠… one with a cord, one with an oak-stick, others with pitchforks.⁠ ⁠… We broke in the gates of the inn-yard and went straight to the cellar.⁠ ⁠… And the robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and were going to kill the merchant. The peasants took them, every one of them, bound them and carried them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred roubles in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down. They said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps and heaps of them.⁠ ⁠… Bones!⁠ ⁠… So they robbed people and then buried them, so that there should be no traces.⁠ ⁠… Well, afterwards they were punished at Morshansk.”

Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners. They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now and Styopka was skimming off the froth.

“Is the fat ready?” Kiruha asked him in a whisper.

“Wait a little.⁠ ⁠… Directly.”

Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that the latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the wagons; soon he came back with a little wooden bowl and began pounding some lard in it.

“I went another journey with a merchant, too,⁠ ⁠…” Panteley went on again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking eyes. “His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a nice man,⁠ ⁠… the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an inn.⁠ ⁠… He indoors and me with the horses.⁠ ⁠… The people of the house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly good sort of people; the labourers, too, seemed all right; but yet, lads, I couldn’t sleep. I had a queer feeling in my heart,⁠ ⁠… a queer feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and there were plenty of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself. Everyone had been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it would soon be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could not close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard this sound, ‘Toop! toop! toop!’ Someone was creeping up to the chaise. I poke my head