Fifty-Two Stories

“Yes, sir!” the secretary went on. “After smoking, you pick up the skirts of your dressing gown, and it’s off to bed! You lie down on your back, belly up, and take a newspaper in your hands. When your eyes start closing and your whole body is filled with drowsiness, it’s a pleasure to read about politics: here Austria made a slip-up, there France failed to hit it off with somebody, here the pope of Rome was at cross-purposes—you read, and it’s a pleasure.”

The chairman jumped up, flung his pen away, and grabbed his hat with both hands. The assistant prosecutor, who forgot about his catarrh and was swooning with impatience, also jumped up.

“Let’s go!” he cried.

“Pyotr Nikolaich, my benefactor, what about the particular opinion?” The secretary was alarmed. “When will you write it? You have to go to town at six o’clock!”

The chairman waved his hand and rushed to the door. The assistant prosecutor also waved his hand and, grabbing his briefcase, disappeared along with the chairman. The secretary sighed, followed them with a reproachful gaze, and began to gather up the papers.

1887

THE SHEPHERD’S PIPE

SLUGGISH FROM THE SULTRINESS of the dense firs, covered with cobwebs and pine needles, the steward of the Dementyevs’ farmstead, Meliton Shishkin, carrying his gun, was making his way to the edge of the forest. His Damka—a cross between a mutt and a setter—extraordinarily skinny and pregnant, her wet tail between her legs, trudged after her master, trying her best not to prick her nose. The morning was unpleasant, overcast. From the trees, enveloped in light mist, and from the ferns heavy spatters fell, and the forest dampness gave off a pungent smell of rot.

Ahead, where the forest ended, stood birches, and through their trunks and branches the misty distance could be seen. Beyond the birches someone was playing a homemade shepherd’s pipe. The player hit no more than five or six notes, lazily drawing them out, not trying to connect them into a tune, but nonetheless something stern and extremely mournful could be heard in his piping.

When the forest thinned out and the firs mixed with young birches, Meliton saw the herd. Hobbled horses, cows, and sheep wandered among the bushes, making the twigs crackle, and sniffing at the forest grass. At the edge of the forest, leaning against a wet birch, stood an old shepherd, skinny, in tattered homespun and without a hat. He looked at the ground, thought about something, and played his pipe as if mechanically.

“Good day, grandpa! God be with you!” Meliton greeted him in a high, husky little voice, which was not at all suited to his enormous height and big, fleshy face. “And you play the pipe so nicely! Whose herd are you tending?”

“The Artamonovs’,” the shepherd replied reluctantly and put the pipe into his bosom.

“So the forest is also the Artamonovs’?” Meliton asked, looking around. “And in fact it is, mercy me…I was completely lost. My mug’s all scratched up from the brush.”

He sat down on the wet ground and began to roll a cigarette from a scrap of newspaper.

Like his feeble little voice, everything about this man was small and out of proportion with his height, breadth, and fleshy face: his smile, his eyes, his buttons, his little visored cap, which barely clung to his fat, close-cropped head. When he spoke and smiled, his plump, clean-shaven face and his whole figure had the feeling of something womanish, timid, and humble.

“What weather, God help us!” he said and shook his head. “The oats haven’t been harvested yet, and the rain’s like it’s been hired full time, God help it.”

The shepherd glanced at the sky, where the drizzle was coming from, at the forest, at the steward’s wet clothes, thought a moment, and said nothing.

“It’s been like this all summer…” Meliton sighed. “Bad for the peasants and no pleasure for the masters.”

The shepherd glanced once more at the sky, thought a moment, and said measuredly, as if chewing over each word:

“It’s all headed the same way…Don’t expect anything good.”

“How is it with you here?” Meliton asked, lighting up his cigarette. “Have you seen any coveys of black grouse in the Artamonovs’ clearing?”

The shepherd did not reply at once. He glanced again at the sky and to both sides, thought a moment, blinked his eyes…Apparently he attached no little significance to his words, and in order to increase their value, he tried to utter them in a drawn-out way, with a certain solemnity. The expression of his old face was keen, grave, and his nose, crossed by a saddle-shaped groove and with upturned nostrils, gave it a sly and mocking look.

“No, seems I haven’t,” he replied. “Our hunter, Eremka, did say he scared off a covey by Empty Lot on St. Elijah’s day,¹ but it must be he’s lying. There’s few birds.”

“Yes, brother, few…Few everywhere! Hunting, if we reason soberly, is insignificant and unprofitable. There’s almost no game, and whatever there is right now isn’t worth dirtying your hands for—it hasn’t grown yet. So small it’s shameful to look at!”