Fifty-Two Stories

“Very simple, sir. This gentleman, kindly see, employed me as a lackey, or, it might be argued, as a valet…Of course, our duties are a sort of hard labor, Your Excellency…Himself gets up past eight, but you’ve got to be on your feet with the first light…God only knows, will himself put on boots, or shoeses, or maybe go around the whole day in slippers, but you polish up everything: boots, and shoeses, and ankle boots…Right, sir…So himself calls me one morning to dress him. Of course, I go…I put his shirt on him, his britches, his boots…all good and proper…I start putting on his waistcoat…Here’s what himself says: ‘Give me my comb, Grishka. It’s in the side pocket of my frock coat,’ he says. Right, sir…I rummage in this side pocket, but the devil must have gobbled it up—there’s no comb. I dig and dig and say: ‘There’s no comb here, Arkhip Eliseich!’ Himself frowns, goes over to the frock coat, and takes out the comb, only not from the side pocket, as he told me, but from the front one. ‘And what’s this? Not a comb?’ he says, and shoves the comb at my nose. All the teeth went over my nose. The whole rest of the day my nose kept bleeding. Kindly see, it’s all swollen…I’ve got witnesses. Everybody saw it.”

“What can you say in your defense?” The justice raised his eyes to Slopsov.

Slopsov looked questioningly at the justice, then at Grishka, then again at the justice, and turned purple.

“How am I to take this?” he muttered. “As mockery?”

“There is no mockery of you here, sir,” observed Grishka, “I say it with a clear conscience. You oughtn’t to make so free with your hands.”

“Shut up!” Slopsov struck the floor with his walking stick. “Fool! Trash!”

The justice quickly took off his chain, jumped up from the bench, and rushed to his office.

“A five-minute break in the proceedings,” he called out on the way.

Slopsov followed after him.

“Listen,” the justice began, clasping his hands, “what do you want, to arrange a scandal for me? Or do you like hearing how your cooks and lackeys polish you up in their testimony, ass that you are? What did you come for? I can’t settle the case without you, is that it?”

“So it’s all my fault!” Slopsov spread his arms. “You arranged this comedy and now you’re angry with me! Arrest this Grishka, and…and it’s done!”

“Arrest Grishka! Pah! You’re still the same fool you always were! And just how am I going to arrest Grishka?”

“Arrest him, that’s all! You’re not going to lock me up!”

“So it’s still the good old days, is that it? You beat Grishka, and Grishka should be arrested! Amazing logic! Do you have any notion of today’s legal procedures?”

“In all my born days I’ve never gone to court or been on trial, but as I see it, if this same Grishka came to me to complain about you, I’d have chucked him down the stairs, and forbidden even his grandchildren to complain, to say nothing of allowing him to make his boorish remarks. Say simply that you wanted to make fun of me, to show your mettle…that’s all! My wife was surprised when she read through the summonses and saw that you had subpoenaed all the cooks and cowgirls to the trial. She didn’t expect such a stunt from you. It’s not right, Petya! Friends don’t do such things.”

“But understand my position!”

And Sixwingsky started explaining his position to Slopsov.

“You sit here,” he concluded, “and I’ll go and make a decision in absentia. For God’s sake don’t show your face! With your antediluvian notions, you’ll blurt something out so that, for all I know, I’ll have to draw up a protocol.”

Sixwingsky returned to the courtroom and went on with the proceedings. Slopsov, sitting in the office at one of the desks and, having nothing better to do, reading through some of the recently completed executive orders, heard the justice persuading Grishka to make peace. Grishka bristled for a long time, but finally accepted, demanding ten roubles for the offense.

“Well, thank God!” said Sixwingsky, coming into the office after the sentence was read. “Thank God the case ended that way…A thousand pounds off my shoulders. Pay Grishka ten roubles and you can be at peace.”

“Me…pay Grishka…ten roubles?!” Slopsov was stunned. “Are you crazy?”

“Well, all right, all right, I’ll pay it for you,” Sixwingsky waved his hand, wincing. “I’m ready to give a hundred roubles, only so as to avoid unpleasantness. And God save us from having acquaintances in court. I’ll tell you, brother, instead of beating Grishkas, come each time and give me a thrashing! It’s a thousand times easier. Let’s go to Natasha and eat!”

Ten minutes later the friends were sitting in the justice’s apartment and lunching on fried carp.

“Very well, then,” Slopsov began, downing his third glass, “you fined me ten roubles, but for how many days are you going to keep Grishka in the lockup?”

“I’m not going to lock him up at all. Why should I?”

“Why should you?” Slopsov rolled his eyes. “So he’ll stop lodging complaints! How did he dare lodge a complaint against me?”