Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [40]
For a brief moment Vonmiglasov sat motionless, as though all feeling had gone from him. He was stunned.… His eyes gazed blankly into space, and his face became pale and covered with sweat.
“Perhaps I should have used the pincers,” the orderly murmured. “What a horrible mess!”
Coming to himself, the sexton explored his mouth with his fingers, and in the place of the diseased tooth he found two sharp stumps.
“You rotten devil!” he exploded. “You Satan, sent on earth to destroy us!”
“Curse as much as you like!” the orderly murmured, putting the forceps back in the cupboard. “Poor little innocent lamb! They should have given you more strokes of the birch rod in the seminary!… Mr. Yegipetsky—Alexander Ivanich Yegipetsky—spent seven years in Petersburg … a cultured man … he didn’t mind spending a hundred rubles on a suit of clothes … and he didn’t swear.… What a little peacock you are! Nothing to worry about! You won’t die!”
The sexton took up the communion bread from the table, and holding his hand to his cheek, he went on his way.
August 1884
1 Vonmiglasov means “Listen-to-my-voice.”
In the Cemetery
Where be your gibes now?
your gambols? your songs? your
flashes of merriment?
HAMLET
“GENTLEMEN, the wind is rising, and it is growing dark. Wouldn’t it be better all round if we left now?”
The wind was playing among the yellow leaves of the ancient birch trees, and from the leaves heavy raindrops came showering down on us. One of us slipped in the mud, and to prevent himself from falling he grabbed at a large gray cross.
“Titular Councilor and Chevalier Yegor Gryaznorukov,”1 he read. “I knew that gentleman.… He loved his wife, wore the order of St. Stanislas, and never read a single word.… His stomach punctually digested his food.… Why is he dead? It would appear he had no reason to die, but—alas!—fate watched over him. The poor fellow fell a victim to curiosity. He happened to be listening behind a door when the door opened, and he received a blow on the head which caused a shock to his brain (he had a brain), and so he died. The man who lies beneath this monument abhorred verses and epigrams from the cradle, and so the monument is derisively dotted all over with verses.… Well, someone is coming!”
A man wearing a worn coat, and with a shaved bluish-purple face, came up to where we were standing. There was a bottle under his arm and a sausage in its wrappings was sticking out of his pocket.
“Where is the tomb of the actor Mushkin?” he asked hoarsely.
We led him in the direction of Mushkin’s tomb. The actor died two years ago.
“Are you a government official?” we asked him.
“No, gentlemen, I am an actor. Nowadays it is hard to distinguish actors from ecclesiastical functionaries, as you rightly observed. Quite characteristic, of course, though not altogether flattering to the functionaries.”
We had some difficulty finding the tomb of the actor Mushkin. It had collapsed, weeds grew over it, and it no longer resembled a tomb. The little cheap cross, falling to pieces, coated with green moss and blackened by frost, gazed at us with an old man’s despondent look, and seemed to be ill.
We read: “… forgettable friend Mushkin.” Time had destroyed the “un,” and corrected the human lie.
“Some actors and journalists collected money to buy him a monument, but the dear fellows drank it all up,” the actor sighed, making a low bow, falling to his knees and bending so that his hat touched the damp earth.
“What do you mean—they drank it all up?”
“Very simple. They collected the money, put an announcement in the newspapers, and drank it all up. I’m not standing in judgment over them, but that’s how it was.… Angels, to your health! Here’s to your health, and eternal remembrance!”