The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Plays, Novellas, Short Stories, Diary & Letters. Anton Chekhov
do you mean, drank it?”
That’s very simple. They collected the money, published a paragraph about it in the newspaper, and spent it on drink…. I don’t say it to blame them…. I hope it did them good, dear things! Good health to them, and eternal memory to him.”
“Drinking means bad health, and eternal memory nothing but sadness. God give us remembrance for a time, but eternal memory — what next!”
“You are right there. Mushkin was a well-known man, you see; there were a dozen wreaths on the coffin, and he is already forgotten. Those to whom he was dear have forgotten him, but those to whom he did harm remember him. I, for instance, shall never, never forget him, for I got nothing but harm from him. I have no love for the deceased.”
“What harm did he do you?”
“Great harm,” sighed the actor, and an expression of bitter resentment overspread his face. “To me he was a villain and a scoundrel — the Kingdom of Heaven be his! It was through looking at him and listening to him that I became an actor. By his art he lured me from the parental home, he enticed me with the excitements of an actor’s life, promised me all sorts of things — and brought tears and sorrow…. An actor’s lot is a bitter one! I have lost youth, sobriety, and the divine semblance…. I haven’t a halfpenny to bless myself with, my shoes are down at heel, my breeches are frayed and patched, and my face looks as if it had been gnawed by dogs…. My head’s full of freethinking and nonsense…. He robbed me of my faith — my evil genius! It would have been something if I had had talent, but as it is, I am ruined for nothing…. It’s cold, honoured friends…. Won’t you have some? There is enough for all…. B-r-r-r…. Let us drink to the rest of his soul! Though I don’t like him and though he’s dead, he was the only one I had in the world, the only one. It’s the last time I shall visit him…. The doctors say I shall soon die of drink, so here I have come to say goodbye. One must forgive one’s enemies.”
We left the actor to converse with the dead Mushkin and went on. It began drizzling a fine cold rain.
At the turning into the principal avenue strewn with gravel, we met a funeral procession. Four bearers, wearing white calico sashes and muddy high boots with leaves sticking on them, carried the brown coffin. It was getting dark and they hastened, stumbling and shaking their burden….
“We’ve only been walking here for a couple of hours and that is the third brought in already…. Shall we go home, friends?”
OYSTERS [trans. by Robert Crozier Long]
It needs no straining of memory to recall the rainy twilight autumn evening when I stood with my father in a crowded Moscow street and felt overtaken by a strange illness. I suffered no pain, but my legs gave way, my head hung helplessly on one side, and words stuck in my throat. I felt that I should soon fall on the pаvement and swoon away.
Had I been taken to hospital at the moment, the doctor would have written above my bed the word: “Fames” — a complaint not usually dealt with in medical text-books.
Beside me on the pavement stood my father in a threadbare summer overcoat and a check cap from which projected a piece of white cotton-wool. On his feet were big, clumsy goloshes. The vain man, fearing that people might see that the big goloshes covered neither boots nor stockings, had cased his legs in old gaiters.
This poor, unintelligent man, whom I loved all the more, the more tattered and dirty became his once smart summer overcoat, had come to the capital five months before to seek work as a clerk. Five months he had tramped the city, seeking employment; only to-day for the first time he had screwed up his courage to beg for alms in the street.
In front of us rose a big, three-storied house with a blue signboard “Restaurant.” My head hung helplessly back, and on one side. Involuiitarily I looked upward at the bright, restaurant windows. Behind them glimmered human figures. To the right were an orchestrion, two oleographs, and hanging lamps. While trying to pierce the obscurity my eyes fell on a white patch. The patch was motionless; its rectangular contour stood out sharply against the universal background of dark brown. When I strained my eyes I could see that the patch was a notice on the wall, and it was plain that something was printed upon it, but what that something was I could not see.
I must have kept my eyes on the notice at least half an hour. Its whiteness beckoned to me, and, it seemed, almost hypnotised my brain. I tried to read it, and my attempts were fruitless.
But at last the strange sickness entered into its rights.
The roar of the trafiic rose to thunder; in the smell of the street I could distinguish a thousand smells; and the restaurant lights and street lamps seemed to flash like lightning. And I began to mate out things that I could not make out before. “Oysters,” I read on the notice.
A strange word. I had lived in the world already eight years and three months, and had never heard this word. What did it mean? Was it the proprietor's surname? No, for signboards with innkeepers' names hang outside the doors, and not on the walls inside.
“Father, what are oysters?” I asked hoarsely, trying to turn my face towards his.
My father did not hear me. He was looking at the flow of the crowd, and following every passer-by with his eyes. From his face I judged that he dearly longed to speak to the passers, but the fatal, leaden words hung on his trembling lips, and would not tear themselves off. One passer-by he even stopped and touched on the sleeve, but when the man turned to him my father stammered, “I beg your pardon,” and fell back in confusion.
“Papa, what does ‘oysters’ mean?” I repeated.
“It is a kind of animal. . . . It lives in the sea. . . .”
And in a wink I visualised this mysterious animal. Something between a fish and a crab, it must be, I concluded; and as it came from the sea, of course it made up into delightful dishes, hot bouillabaisse with fragrant peppercorns and bay leaves, or sour solianka with gristle, crab-sauce, or cold with horse-radish. . . . I vividly pictured to myself how this fish is brought from the market, cleaned, and thrust quickly into a pot . . . quickly, quickly, because every one is hungry . . . frightfully hungry. From the restaurant kitchen came the smell of boiled fish and crab soup.
This smell began to tickle my palate and nostrils; I felt it permeating my whole body. The restaurant, my father, the white notice, my sleeve, all exhaled it so strongly that I began to chew. I chewed and swallowed as if my mouth were really full of the strange animal that lives in the sea. . .
The pleasure was too much for my strength, and to prevent myself falling I caught my father's cuff, and leaned against his wet summer overcoat. My father shuddered. He was cold. . . .
“Father, can you eat oysters on fast days?” I asked.
“You eat them alive . . .” he answered. “They are in shells . . . like tortoises, only in double shells.”
The seductive smell suddenly ceased to tickle my nostrils, and the illusion faded. Now I understood!
“How horrible !” I exclaimed. “How hideous!”
So that was the meaning of oysters! However, hideous as they were, my imagination could paint them. I imagined an animal like a frog. The frog sat in the shell, looked out with big, bright eyes, and moved its disgusting jaws. What on earth could be more horrible to a hoy who had lived in the world just eight years and three months? Frenchmen, they said, ate frogs. But children — never! And I saw this fish being carried from market in its shell, with claws, bright eyes, and shiny tail. . . . The children all hide themselves, and the cook, blinking squeamishly, takes the animal by the claws, puts it on a dish, and carries it to the dining-room. The grown-ups take it, and eat . . . eat it alive, eyes, teeth, claws. And it hisses, and tries to bite their lips.
I