Forty Stories by ANTON CHEKHOV Read Free Book Online Page A

acid flavor of the apple than their faces became contorted and they turned pale … not because the apple was sour, but because they had observed the stern features of Trifon Semyonovich and Karpushka’s little snout lit with a smile of pure malignance.
    “Good day to you, my dears,” Trifon Semyonovich said, advancing on them. “So you’re enjoying the little apples, eh? I hope I am not disturbing you.”
    The boy took off his cap and his head hung low. The girl looked down at her apron.
    “Well, Gregory, how are you these days?” Trifon Semyonovich went on, addressing himself to the boy. “How are things going, me lad?”
    “I only took one,” the boy muttered. “I picked it off the ground.”
    Trifon Semyonovich turned his attention to the girl.
    “How are you, my little darling?”
    She found herself paying even more passionate attention to her apron.
    “Well now, we haven’t celebrated your wedding yet, have we?”
    “No, sir, we haven’t.… I swear to God we only took one apple, and that one wasn’t …”
    He turned to the boy.
    “Good, good. Fine fellow. Learned how to read yet?”
    “No, sir. We only took one apple, sir, and we found it on the ground.…”
    “You don’t know how to read, but you do know how to steal, eh? Well, that’s fine! You’re not burdened down with the weight of learning. When did you start stealing?”
    “I wasn’t stealing, sir.”
    “Then what about your pretty little sweetheart?” Karpushka interrupted his master, and turned to the boy. “Why is she looking so down-in-the-mouth? Is it because you are not showing her enough love?”
    “Shut up, Karpushka!” Trifon Semyonovich exclaimed. “Gregory, I want you to tell me a story.”
    Gregory coughed and gave an odd smile.
    “I don’t know any stories, sir. I don’t need your apples either. When I want apples, I’ll go and buy them!”
    “It’s a great joy to me that you’re rich, my boy. But still—I want you to tell me a story. I’ll listen, and Karpushka will listen. Your little sweetheart will listen, too. Don’t be shy. Be brave. ‘Brave is the heart of a thief.’ Isn’t that true, my dear fellow?”
    Trifon Semyonovich let his malicious eyes rest on the boy, who had fallen into the trap. On the boy’s forehead sweat was dripping down.
    “Sir, sir—” Karpushka interrupted in his unpleasantly thin tenor voice. “Why don’t you let him sing a song instead? He’s too much of a silly fool to tell us a story!”
    “Shut up, Karpushka. He has to tell us a story first. Now, my boy, do as you are told!”
    “I don’t know any stories.”
    “What do you mean—you don’t know any stories! You know how to steal! How does the Eighth Commandment go?”
    “Why are you asking me, sir? How should I know! God is my witness, we only took one apple, and we took it off the ground.”
    “Tell me a story!”
    Karpushka began to gather nettles. The boy knew very well why the nettles were being gathered. Like all his tribe, Trifon Semyonovich had beautiful ways of taking the law into his own hands. If he found thieves, he shut them up in a cellar for twenty-four hours, or flogged them with nettles, or sent them away after stripping them stark naked. Is this news for you? There are people with whom such behavior is as stale and commonplace as a farm cart. Gregory gazed at the nettles out of the corner of his eyes, hesitated, coughed a little, and instead of telling a story he began to give vent to completely nonsensical statements. Groaning, sweating, choking, blowing his nose ever so often, he began to make up some sort of tale about the days when the Russian knights cut down the evil ogres and married beautiful maidens. Trifon Semyonovich stood there listening, never taking his eyes from the storyteller.
    “That’s enough!” he said, when the boy finally lost the thread of his story and uttered driveling nonsense. “You’re good at telling tales, but you’re better at stealing. And now, my