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

danger, and the guilty party knows that an accident must be caused by it⁠ ⁠… (Do you understand? Knows! And you could not help knowing what this unscrewing would lead to⁠ ⁠…) is liable to penal servitude.”

“Of course, you know best.⁠ ⁠… We are ignorant people.⁠ ⁠… What do we understand?”

“You understand all about it! You are lying, shamming!”

“What should I lie for? Ask in the village if you don’t believe me. Only a bleak is caught without a weight, and there is no fish worse than a gudgeon, yet even that won’t bite without a weight.”

“You’d better tell me about the shillisper next,” said the magistrate, smiling.

“There are no shillispers in our parts.⁠ ⁠… We cast our line without a weight on the top of the water with a butterfly; a mullet may be caught that way, though that is not often.”

“Come, hold your tongue.”

A silence follows. Denis shifts from one foot to the other, looks at the table with the green cloth on it, and blinks his eyes violently as though what was before him was not the cloth but the sun. The magistrate writes rapidly.

“Can I go?” asks Denis after a long silence.

“No. I must take you under guard and send you to prison.”

Denis leaves off blinking and, raising his thick eyebrows, looks inquiringly at the magistrate.

“How do you mean, to prison? Your honour! I have no time to spare, I must go to the fair; I must get three roubles from Yegor for some tallow!⁠ ⁠…”

“Hold your tongue; don’t interrupt.”

“To prison.⁠ ⁠… If there was something to go for, I’d go; but just to go for nothing! What for? I haven’t stolen anything, I believe, and I’ve not been fighting.⁠ ⁠… If you are in doubt about the arrears, your honour, don’t believe the elder.⁠ ⁠… You ask the agent⁠ ⁠… he’s a regular heathen, the elder, you know.”

“Hold your tongue.”

“I am holding my tongue, as it is,” mutters Denis; “but that the elder has lied over the account, I’ll take my oath for it.⁠ ⁠… There are three of us brothers: Kuzma Grigoryev, then Yegor Grigoryev, and me, Denis Grigoryev.”

“You are hindering me.⁠ ⁠… Hey, Semyon,” cries the magistrate, “take him away!”

“There are three of us brothers,” mutters Denis, as two stalwart soldiers take him and lead him out of the room. “A brother is not responsible for a brother. Kuzma does not pay, so you, Denis, must answer for it.⁠ ⁠… Judges indeed! Our master the general is dead⁠—the Kingdom of Heaven be his⁠—or he would have shown you judges.⁠ ⁠… You ought to judge sensibly, not at random.⁠ ⁠… Flog if you like, but flog someone who deserves it, flog with conscience.”

A Dead Body

A still August night. A mist is rising slowly from the fields and casting an opaque veil over everything within eyesight. Lighted up by the moon, the mist gives the impression at one moment of a calm, boundless sea, at the next of an immense white wall. The air is damp and chilly. Morning is still far off. A step from the byroad which runs along the edge of the forest a little fire is gleaming. A dead body, covered from head to foot with new white linen, is lying under a young oak tree. A wooden icon is lying on its breast. Beside the corpse almost on the road sits the “watch”⁠—two peasants performing one of the most disagreeable and uninviting of peasants’ duties. One, a tall young fellow with a scarcely perceptible moustache and thick black eyebrows, in a tattered sheepskin and bark shoes, is sitting on the wet grass, his feet stuck out straight in front of him, and is trying to while away the time with work. He bends his long neck, and breathing loudly through his nose, makes a spoon out of a big crooked bit of wood; the other⁠—a little scraggy, pockmarked peasant with an aged face, a scanty moustache, and a little goat’s beard⁠—sits with his hands dangling loose on his knees, and without moving gazes listlessly at the light. A small campfire is lazily burning down between them, throwing a red glow on their faces. There is perfect stillness. The only sounds are the scrape of the knife on the wood and the crackling of damp sticks in the fire.

“Don’t you go to sleep, Syoma⁠ ⁠…” says the young man.

“I⁠ ⁠… I am not asleep⁠ ⁠…” stammers the goat-beard.

“That’s all right.⁠ ⁠… It would be dreadful to sit here alone, one would be frightened. You might tell me something, Syoma.”

“You are a queer fellow, Syomushka! Other people will laugh and tell a story and sing a song, but you⁠—there is no making you out. You sit like a scarecrow in the garden and roll your eyes at the fire. You can’t say anything properly⁠ ⁠… when you speak you seem frightened. I dare say you are fifty, but you have less sense than a child. Aren’t you sorry that you are a simpleton?”

“I am sorry,” the goat-beard answers gloomily.

“And we are sorry to see your foolishness, you may be sure. You are a good-natured, sober peasant, and the only trouble is that you have no sense in your head. You should have picked up some sense for yourself if the Lord has afflicted you and given you no understanding. You must make an effort, Syoma.⁠ ⁠… You should listen hard when anything good’s being said, note it well, and keep thinking and thinking.⁠ ⁠… If there is any word you don’t understand, you should make an effort and think over in your head in what meaning the word is used. Do you see? Make an effort! If you don’t gain some sense for yourself you’ll be a simpleton and of no account at all to your dying day.”

All at once a long drawn-out, moaning sound is heard in the forest. Something rustles in the leaves as though torn from the very top of the tree and falls to the ground. All this is faintly repeated by the echo. The young man shudders and looks enquiringly at his companion.

“It’s an