Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [24]
The general observed that Latin shared many remarkable similarities with French. Yegor Yegorich agreed, and observed that anyone who wanted to learn French should absolutely know Latin, which was a very similar language. Mange did not agree with Yegor Yegorich. He emphasized that this was not the proper occasion for discourses on languages, since there was a physics and mathematics teacher present, and a goodly number of bottles; and he added that his own gun had cost a fortune when he bought it some time ago, and now you couldn’t buy a gun like that for love or money.…
“An eighth round, gentlemen?”
“Wouldn’t that be a bit too much?”
“Get on with you! Eight too much? It’s clear to me you’ve never done any drinking!”
They drank their eighth round.
“Young fellow!”
Vanya shook his head.
“Drink it down, boy, like a soldier! I see you shoot well.…”
“Drink up, Amphiteatrov!” said Mange.
“It’s all right when I’m here, but when I’m not here … Well, let’s have a little drink.…”
Vanya put his beer aside and drank another shot of vodka.
“A ninth round, gentlemen? What did you say? I hate the number eight. My father died on the eighth day.… I mean Ivan … Fyodor … Yegor Yegorich! Fill the glasses!”
So they drank a ninth round.
“You might say it is a hot day.…”
“So it is, but it’s not going to prevent us from drinking a tenth round, is it?”
“But …”
“I spit on the heat! Gentlemen, let us show the elements we are not afraid of them. Young fellow! Make us ashamed of ourselves. Put your old uncle to shame! We’re not afraid of the heat or the cold!”
Vanya drank down a glass of wine. The hunters shouted “Hurrah!” and followed his example.
“This way we might get sunstroke,” the general observed.
“Quite impossible!”
“Impossible! In our climate? Hm …”
“Still, cases have been known. My godfather, for example, died of sunstroke.…”
“Well, doctor, what do you think? Can a man get sunstroke, eh, in our climate? Eh, doctor?”
There was no response.
“You haven’t had to treat any cases, eh? We’re discussing sunstroke. Doctor! Where’s the doctor?”
“Where the devil is the doctor?”
The hunters looked all round: the doctor had gone.
“Where’s the doctor? Faded away? Like wax in the presence of flame! Ha-ha-ha!”
“He’s gone to see Yegor’s wife,” Mikhey Yegorich said maliciously.
Yegor Yegorich turned pale and let the bottle fall to the ground.
“Yes, gone to see his wife,” Mikhey Yegorich went on, nibbling on some sturgeon.
“Why do you have to tell lies?” Mange asked. “Did you see him go?”
“Of course I saw him! A peasant went by in a cart, and he jumped on and drove away. I swear to God! Shall we have an eleventh round now, gentlemen?”
Yegor Yegorich jumped up and shook his fists.
“That’s right,” Mikhey Yegorich went on. “I asked him where he was going. ‘I’m going after strawberries,’ he said, ‘and to sweeten the horns of a cuckold. I planted ’em, and now I’m going to sweeten ’em.’ And then he said: Good-by, Mikhey Yegorich, dear boy. Give my love to Yegor Yegorich!’ and then he winked at me. Well, here’s to your health, hee-hee-hee!”
“Horses!” shouted Yegor Yegorich, and he ran staggering in the direction of the carriage.
“Hurry, or you’ll be too late!” Mikhey Yegorich shouted after him.
Yegor Yegorich dragged Avvakum onto the box, jumped in the carriage, and drove home, shaking his fists at the other hunters.
“What’s the meaning of this, gentlemen?” the general asked when Yegor Yegorich’s white cap had vanished out of sight. “He’s gone, devil take it, but how am I to get home? He went off in my carriage. Not in mine, of course, but in the one I’m supposed to go home in. Strange behavior! III-mannered of him!”
Vanya felt ill. Vodka and beer conspired to act as an emetic. They had to take him home. After the fifteenth round, they decided to let the general