A.P. Chekhov -
A Troublesome Visitor
IN the low-pitched, crooked little hut of
Artyom, the forester, two men were sitting under the big dark
ikon--Artyom himself, a short and lean peasant with a wrinkled,
aged-looking face and a little beard that grew out of his neck,
and a well-grown young man in a new crimson shirt and big wading
boots, who had been out hunting and come in for the night. They
were sitting on a bench at a little three-legged table on which
a tallow candle stuck into a bottle was lazily burning.
Outside the window the darkness of the night was full of the
noisy uproar into which nature usually breaks out before a
thunderstorm. The wind howled angrily and the bowed trees moaned
miserably. One pane of the window had been pasted up with paper,
and leaves torn off by the wind could be heard pattering against
the paper.
"I tell you what, good Christian," said Artyom in a hoarse
little tenor half-whisper, staring with unblinking,
scared-looking eyes at the hunter. "I am not afraid of wolves or
bears, or wild beasts of any sort, but I am afraid of man. You
can save yourself from beasts with a gun or some other weapon,
but you have no means of saving yourself from a wicked man."
"To be sure, you can fire at a beast, but if you shoot at a
robber you will have to answer for it: you will go to Siberia."
"I've been forester, my lad, for thirty years, and I couldn't
tell you what I have had to put up with from wicked men. There
have been lots and lots of them here. The hut's on a track, it's
a cart-road, and that brings them, the devils. Every sort of
ruffian turns up, and without taking off his cap or making the
sign of the cross, bursts straight in upon one with: 'Give us
some bread, you old so-and-so.' And where am I to get bread for
him? What claim has he? Am I a millionaire to feed every
drunkard that passes? They are half-blind with spite. . . . They
have no cross on them, the devils. . . . They'll give you a
clout on the ear and not think twice about it: 'Give us bread!'
Well, one gives it. . . . One is not going to fight with them,
the idols! Some of them are two yards across the shoulders, and
a great fist as big as your boot, and you see the sort of figure
I am. One of them could smash me with his little finger. . . .
Well, one gives him bread and he gobbles it up, and stretches
out full length across the hut with not a word of thanks. And
there are some that ask for money. 'Tell me, where is your
money?' As though I had money! How should I come by it?"
"A forester and no money!" laughed the hunter. "You get wages
every month, and I'll be bound you sell timber on the sly."
Artyom took a timid sideway glance at his visitor and twitched
his beard as a magpie twitches her tail.
"You are still young to say a thing like that to me," he said.
"You will have to answer to God for those words. Whom may your
people be? Where do you come from?"
"I am from Vyazovka. I am the son of Nefed the village elder."
"You have gone out for sport with your gun. I used to like
sport, too, when I was young. H'm! Ah, our sins are grievous,"
said Artyom, with a yawn. "It's a sad thing! There are few good
folks, but villains and murderers no end--God have mercy upon
us."
"You seem to be frightened of me, too. . . ."
"Come, what next! What should I be afraid of you for? I see. . .
. I understand. . . . You came in, and not just anyhow, but you
made the sign of the cross, you bowed, all decent and proper. .
. . I understand. . . . One can give you bread. . . . I am a
widower, I don't heat the stove, I sold the samovar. . . . I am
too poor to keep meat or anything else, but bread you are
welcome to."
At that moment something began growling under the bench: the
growl was followed by a hiss. Artyom started, drew up his legs,
and looked enquiringly at the hunter.
"It's my dog worrying your cat," said the hunter. "You devils!"
he shouted under the bench. "Lie down. You'll be beaten. I say,
your cat's thin, mate! She is nothing but skin and bone."
"She is old, it is time she was dead. . . . So you say you are
from Vyazovka?"
"I see you don't feed her. Though she's a cat she's a creature .
. . every breathing thing. You should have pity on her!"
"You are a queer lot in Vyazovka," Artyom went on, as though not
listening. "The church has been robbed twice in one year. . . To
think that there are such wicked men! So they fear neither man
nor God! To steal what is the Lord's! Hanging's too good for
them! In old days the governors used to have such rogues
flogged."
"However you punish, whether it is with flogging or anything
else, it will be no good, you will not knock the wickedness out
of a wicked man."
"Save and preserve us, Queen of Heaven!" The forester sighed
abruptly. "Save us from all enemies and evildoers. Last week at
Volovy Zaimishtchy, a mower struck another on the chest with his
scythe . . . he killed him outright! And what was it all about,
God bless me! One mower came out of the tavern . . . drunk. The
other met him, drunk too."
The young man, who had been listening attentively, suddenly
started, and his face grew tense as he listened.
"Stay," he said, interrupting the forester. "I fancy someone is
shouting."
The hunter and the forester fell to listening with their eyes
fixed on the window. Through the noise of the forest they could
hear sounds such as the strained ear can always distinguish in
every storm, so that it was difficult to make out whether people
were calling for help or whether the wind was wailing in the
chimney. But the wind tore at the roof, tapped at the paper on
the window, and brought a distinct shout of "Help!"
"Talk of your murderers," said the hunter, turning pale and
getting up. "Someone is being robbed!"
"Lord have mercy on us," whispered the forester, and he, too,
turned pale and got up.
The hunter looked aimlessly out of window and walked up and down
the hut.
"What a night, what a night!" he muttered. "You can't see your
hand before your face! The very time for a robbery. Do you hear?
There is a shout again."
The forester looked at the ikon and from the ikon turned his
eyes upon the hunter, and sank on to the bench, collapsing like
a man terrified by sudden bad news.
"Good Christian," he said in a tearful voice, "you might go into
the passage and bolt the door. And we must put out the light."
"What for?"
"By ill-luck they may find their way here. . . . Oh, our sins!"
"We ought to be going, and you talk of bolting the door! You are
a clever one! Are you coming?"
The hunter threw his gun over his shoulder and picked up his
cap.
"Get ready, take your gun. Hey, Flerka, here," he called to his
dog. "Flerka!"
A dog with long frayed ears, a mongrel between a setter and a
house-dog, came out from under the bench. He stretched himself
by his master's feet and wagged his tail.
"Why are you sitting there?" cried the hunter to the forester.
"You mean to say you are not going?"
"Where?"
"To help!"
"How can I?" said the forester with a wave of his hand,
shuddering all over. "I can't bother about it!"
"Why won't you come?"
"After talking of such dreadful things I won't stir a step into
the darkness. Bless them! And what should I go for?"
"What are you afraid of? Haven't you got a gun? Let us go,
please do. It's scaring to go alone; it will be more cheerful,
the two of us. Do you hear? There was a shout again. Get up!"
"Whatever do you think of me, lad?" wailed the forester. "Do you
think I am such a fool to go straight to my undoing?"
"So you are not coming?"
The forester did not answer. The dog, probably hearing a human
cry, gave a plaintive whine.
"Are you coming, I ask you?" cried the hunter, rolling his eyes
angrily.
"You do keep on, upon my word," said the forester with
annoyance. "Go yourself."
"Ugh! . . . low cur," growled the hunter, turning towards the
door. "Flerka, here!"
He went out and left the door open. The wind flew into the hut.
The flame of the candle flickered uneasily, flared up, and went
out.
As he bolted the door after the hunter, the forester saw the
puddles in the track, the nearest pine-trees, and the retreating
figure of his guest lighted up by a flash of lightning. Far away
he heard the rumble of thunder.
"Holy, holy, holy," whispered the forester, making haste to
thrust the thick bolt into the great iron rings. "What weather
the Lord has sent us!"
Going back into the room, he felt his way to the stove, lay
down, and covered himself from head to foot. Lying under the
sheepskin and listening intently, he could no longer hear the
human cry, but the peals of thunder kept growing louder and more
prolonged. He could hear the big wind-lashed raindrops pattering
angrily on the panes and on the paper of the window.
"He's gone on a fool's errand," he thought, picturing the hunter
soaked with rain and stumbling over the tree-stumps. "I bet his
teeth are chattering with terror!"
Not more than ten minutes later there was a sound of footsteps,
followed by a loud knock at the door.
"Who's there?" cried the forester.
"It's I," he heard the young man's voice. "Unfasten the door."
The forester clambered down from the stove, felt for the candle,
and, lighting it, went to the door. The hunter and his dog were
drenched to the skin. They had come in for the heaviest of the
downpour, and now the water ran from them as from washed clothes
before they have been wrung out.
"What was it?" asked the forester.
"A peasant woman driving in a cart; she had got off the road . .
." answered the young man, struggling with his breathlessness.
"She was caught in a thicket."
"Ah, the silly thing! She was frightened, then. . . . Well, did
you put her on the road?"
"I don't care to talk to a scoundrel like you."
The young man flung his wet cap on the bench and went on:
"I know now that you are a scoundrel and the lowest of men. And
you a keeper, too, getting a salary! You blackguard!"
The forester slunk with a guilty step to the stove, cleared his
throat, and lay down. The young man sat on the bench, thought a
little, and lay down on it full length. Not long afterwards he
got up, put out the candle, and lay down again. During a
particularly loud clap of thunder he turned over, spat on the
floor, and growled out:
"He's afraid. . . . And what if the woman were being murdered?
Whose business is it to defend her? And he an old man, too, and
a Christian. . . . He's a pig and nothing else."
The forester cleared his throat and heaved a deep sigh.
Somewhere in the darkness Flerka shook his wet coat vigorously,
which sent drops of water flying about all over the room.
"So you wouldn't care if the woman were murdered?" the hunter
went on. "Well--strike me, God--I had no notion you were that
sort of man. . . ."
A silence followed. The thunderstorm was by now over and the
thunder came from far away, but it was still raining.
"And suppose it hadn't been a woman but you shouting 'Help!'?"
said the hunter, breaking the silence. "How would you feel, you
beast, if no one ran to your aid? You have upset me with your
meanness, plague take you!"
After another long interval the hunter said:
"You must have money to be afraid of people! A man who is poor
is not likely to be afraid. . . ."
"For those words you will answer before God," Artyom said
hoarsely from the stove. "I have no money."
"I dare say! Scoundrels always have money. . . . Why are you
afraid of people, then? So you must have! I'd like to take and
rob you for spite, to teach you a lesson! . . ."
Artyom slipped noiselessly from the stove, lighted a candle, and
sat down under the holy image. He was pale and did not take his
eyes off the hunter.
"Here, I'll rob you," said the hunter, getting up. "What do you
think about it? Fellows like you want a lesson. Tell me, where
is your money hidden?"
Artyom drew his legs up under him and blinked. "What are you
wriggling for? Where is your money hidden? Have you lost your
tongue, you fool? Why don't you answer?"
The young man jumped up and went up to the forester.
"He is blinking like an owl! Well? Give me your money, or I will
shoot you with my gun."
"Why do you keep on at me?" squealed the forester, and big tears
rolled from his eyes. "What's the reason of it? God sees all!
You will have to answer, for every word you say, to God. You
have no right whatever to ask for my money."
The young man looked at Artyom's tearful face, frowned, and
walked up and down the hut, then angrily clapped his cap on his
head and picked up his gun.
"Ugh! . . . ugh! . . . it makes me sick to look at you," he
filtered through his teeth. "I can't bear the sight of you. I
won't sleep in your house, anyway. Good-bye! Hey, Flerka!"
The door slammed and the troublesome visitor went out with his
dog. . . . Artyom bolted the door after him, crossed himself,
and lay down.
NOTES
making the sign of the cross: in every peasant's house there was
an icon, and a visitor who did not cross himself and bow to it
was distrusted
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