Produced by David Widger





THE SLANDERER

By Anton Chekhov

Translated by Herman Bernstein.

Copyright, 1901, by the Globe and Commercial Advertiser


Sergey Kapitonlch Akhineyev, the teacher of calligraphy, gave his
daughter Natalya in marriage to the teacher of history and geography,
Ivan Petrovich Loshadinikh. The wedding feast went on swimmingly. They
sang, played, and danced in the parlor. Waiters, hired for the occasion
from the club, bustled about hither and thither like madmen, in black
frock coats and soiled white neckties. A loud noise of voices smote the
air. From the outside people looked in at the windows;--their social
standing gave them no right to enter.

Just at midnight the host, Akhineyev, made his way to the kitchen to see
whether everything was ready for the supper. The kitchen was filled with
smoke from the floor to the ceiling; the smoke reeked with the odors
of geese, ducks, and many other things. Victuals and beverages were
scattered about on two tables in artistic disorder. Marfa, the cook, a
stout, red-faced woman, was busying herself near the loaded tables.

“Show me the sturgeon, dear,” said Akhineyev, rubbing his hands and
licking his lips. “What a fine odor! I could just devour the whole
kitchen! Well, let me see the sturgeon!”

Marfa walked up to one of the benches and carefully lifted a greasy
newspaper. Beneath that paper, in a huge dish, lay a big fat sturgeon,
amid capers, olives, and carrots. Akhineyev glanced at the sturgeon and
heaved a sigh of relief. His face became radiant, his eyes rolled. He
bent down, and, smacking his lips, gave vent to a sound like a creaking
wheel. He stood a while, then snapped his fingers for pleasure, and
smacked his lips once more.

“Bah! The sound of a hearty kiss. Whom have you been kissing there,
Marfusha?” some one’s voice was heard from the adjoining room, and soon
the closely cropped head of Vankin, the assistant school instructor,
appeared in the doorway. “Whom have you been kissing here? A-a-ah! Very
good! Sergey Kapitonich! A fine old man indeed! With the female sex
tête-à-tête!”

“I wasn’t kissing at all,” said Akhineyev, confused; “who told you,
you fool? I only--smacked my lips on account of--in consideration of my
pleasure--at the sight of the fish.”

“Tell that to some one else, not to me!” exclaimed Vankin, whose face
expanded into a broad smile as he disappeared behind the door. Akhineyev
blushed.

“The devil knows what may be the outcome of this!” he thought. “He’ll go
about tale-bearing now, the rascal. He’ll disgrace me before the whole
town, the brute!”

Akhineyev entered the parlor timidly and cast furtive glances to see
what Vankin was doing. Vankin stood near the piano and, deftly bending
down, whispered something to the inspector’s sister-in-law, who was
laughing.

“That’s about me!” thought Akhineyev. “About me, the devil take him!
She believes him, she’s laughing. My God! No, that mustn’t be left like
that. No. I’ll have to fix it so that no one shall believe him. I’ll
speak to all of them, and he’ll remain a foolish gossip in the end.”

Akhineyev scratched his head, and, still confused, walked up to Padekoi.

“I was in the kitchen a little while ago, arranging things there for the
supper,” he said to the Frenchman. “You like fish, I know, and I have
a sturgeon just so big. About two yards. Ha, ha, ha! Yes, by the way, I
have almost forgotten. There was a real anecdote about that sturgeon
in the kitchen. I entered the kitchen a little while ago and wanted to
examine the food. I glanced at the sturgeon and for pleasure, I smacked
my lips--it was so piquant! And just at that moment the fool Vankin
entered and says--ha, ha, ha--and says: ‘A-a! A-a-ah! You have been
kissing here?’--with Marfa; just think of it--with the cook! What a
piece of invention, that blockhead. The woman is ugly, she looks like a
monkey, and he says we were kissing. What a queer fellow!”

“Who’s a queer fellow?” asked Tarantulov, as he approached them.

“I refer to Vankin. I went out into the kitchen--”

The story of Marfa and the sturgeon was repeated.

“That makes me laugh. What a queer fellow he is. In my opinion it is
more pleasant to kiss the dog than to kiss Marfa,” added Akhineyev, and,
turning around, he noticed Mzda.

“We have been speaking about Vankin,” he said to him. “What a queer
fellow. He entered the kitchen and noticed me standing beside Marfa, and
immediately he began to invent different stories. ‘What?’ he says,
‘you have been kissing each other!’ He was drunk, so he must have been
dreaming. And I,’ I said, ‘I would rather kiss a duck than kiss Marfa.
And I have a wife,’ said I, ‘you fool.’ He made me appear ridiculous.”

“Who made you appear ridiculous?” inquired the teacher of religion,
addressing Akhineyev.

“Vankin. I was standing in the kitchen, you know, and looking at the
sturgeon--” And so forth. In about half an hour all the guests knew the
story about Vankin and the sturgeon.

“Now let him tell,” thought Akhineyev, rubbing his hands. “Let him do
it. He’ll start to tell them, and they’ll cut him short: ‘Don’t talk
nonsense, you fool! We know all about it.’”

And Akhineyev felt so much appeased that, for joy, he drank four glasses
of brandy over and above his fill. Having escorted his daughter to her
room, he went to his own and soon slept the sleep of an innocent child,
and on the following day he no longer remembered the story of the
sturgeon. But, alas! Man proposes and God disposes. The evil tongue does
its wicked work, and even Akhineyev’s cunning did not do him any good.
One week later, on a Wednesday, after the third lesson, when Akhineyev
stood in the teachers’ room and discussed the vicious inclinations of
the pupil Visyekin, the director approached him, and, beckoning to him,
called him aside.

“See here, Sergey Kapitonich,” said the director. “Pardon me. It isn’t
my affair, yet I must make it clear to you, nevertheless. It is my
duty--You see, rumors are on foot that you are on intimate terms with
that woman--with your cook--It isn’t my affair, but--You may be on
intimate terms with her, you may kiss her--You may do whatever you like,
but, please, don’t do it so openly! I beg of you. Don’t forget that you
are a pedagogue.”

Akhineyev stood as though frozen and petrified. Like one stung by a
swarm of bees and scalded with boiling water, he went home. On his
way it seemed to him as though the whole town stared at him as at one
besmeared with tar--At home new troubles awaited him.

“Why don’t you eat anything?” asked his wife at their dinner. “What are
you thinking about? Are you thinking about Cupid, eh? You are longing
for Marfushka. I know everything already, you Mahomet. Kind people have
opened my eyes, you barbarian!”

And she slapped him on the cheek.

He rose from the table, and staggering, without cap or coat, directed
his footsteps toward Vankin. The latter was at home.

“You rascal!” he said to Vankin. “Why have you covered me with mud
before the whole world? Why have you slandered me?”

“How; what slander? What are you inventing?”

“And who told everybody that I was kissing Marfa? Not you, perhaps? Not
you, you murderer?”

Vankin began to blink his eyes, and all the fibres of his face began to
quiver. He lifted his eyes toward the image and ejaculated:

“May God punish me, may I lose my eyesight and die, if I said even a
single word about you to any one! May I have neither house nor home!”

Vankin’s sincerity admitted of no doubt. It was evident that it was not
he who had gossiped.

“But who was it? Who?” Akhineyev asked himself, going over in his mind
all his acquaintances, and striking his chest. “Who was it?”