Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [34]
Mitya jumped up and once more ran through all the rooms, and then he fell into a chair.
“Well, tell us what happened! Please get some sense into your head!”
“You—you live like wild animals! You don’t read the newspapers, and popular fame has no meaning for you! Very remarkable things are recorded in newspapers! Whenever anything important happens, everyone knows about it: nothing is left out. I’m so happy. Oh, Lord! You know newspapers only print things about celebrities! Well, they’ve printed something about me!”
“How? Where?”
Papa turned pale. Mama glanced at the icon, and crossed herself. The brothers jumped out of bed and ran to their elder brother as they were, in their attenuated nightshirts.
“Yes, indeed! They have printed something about me! Now all of Russia knows about me! Mama, please keep this number as a souvenir! You can look at it from time to time. Just look!”
Mitya pulled a newspaper from his pocket and handed it to his father. He pointed to a place marked with a blue pencil.
“Read that!”
His father put on his spectacles.
“Go on! Read it!”
Mama gazed at the icon and crossed herself. Papa cleared his throat and began to read:
“December 29, at eleven o’clock in the evening, the collegiate registrar Dmitry Kuldarov …”
“See? See? Go on!”
“… the collegiate registrar Dmitry Kuldarov, coming out of the tavern situated at the Kozikhin house on Little Armorer Street, being in an intoxicated condition …”
“That’s right! I was with Semyon Petrovich.… It’s absolutely correct! Go on! Read the next line! Listen, all of you!”
“… being in an intoxicated condition, slipped and fell under a horse belonging to the cabman Ivan Drotov, a peasant from the village of Durikina in the Yuknovsky district. The terrified horse jumped over Kuldarov, dragging the sleigh after it: in which sleigh sat Stepan Lukov, merchant in the Second Guild of Moscow Merchants. The horse galloped down the street until brought to a halt by house porters. Kuldarov, after being unconscious for some moments, was removed to a police station for examination by the appropriate medical officers. A blow sustained by him at the back of the neck …”
“That was from the shaft, Papa. Go on! Read further down!”
“… A blow sustained by him at the back of the neck was pronounced to be slight. The victim was given medical assistance.”
“They put bandages soaked in cold water round my neck. Read it! There you are! All of Russia knows about it! Give me the newspaper!”
Mitya took the newspaper, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket.
“I’ll have to run to the Makarovs and show it to them.… And then the Ivanitskys. Natalia Ivanovna and Anisim Vasilich must see it, too.… I must run now! Good-by!”
Then Mitya crammed the cap with the cockade on his head, and ran joyously, triumphantly, down the street.
January 1883
The Ninny
JUST a few days ago I invited Yulia Vassilyevna, the governess of my children, to come to my study. I wanted to settle my account with her.
“Sit down, Yulia Vassilyevna,” I said to her. “Let’s get our accounts settled. I’m sure you need some money, but you kept standing on ceremony and never ask for it. Let me see. We agreed to give you thirty rubles a month, didn’t we?”
“Forty.”
“No, thirty. I made a note of it. I always pay the governess thirty. Now, let me see. You have been with us for two months?”
“Two months and five days.”
“Two months exactly. I made a note of it. So you have sixty rubles coming to you. Subtract nine Sundays. You know you don’t tutor Kolya on Sundays, you just go out for a walk. And then the three holidays …”
Yulia Vassilyevna blushed and picked at the trimmings of her dress, but said not a word.
“Three holidays. So we take off twelve rubles. Kolya was sick for four days—those days you didn’t look after him. You looked after Vanya, only Vanya. Then there were the three days you had toothache, when my wife gave you permission to