Stories by ANTON CHEKHOV Read Free Book Online Page B

the village of Verkhnie Zaprudy, the morning liturgy has just ended. People have begun moving and pouring out of the church. The only one who does not stir is the shopkeeper Andrei Andreich, the Verkhnie Zaprudy intellectual and old-timer. He leans his elbow on the railing of the choir to the right and waits. His clean-shaven, fat face, bumpy from former pimples, on this occasion expresses two opposite feelings: humility before inscrutable destiny, and a dumb, boundless haughtiness before all those passing kaftans and motley kerchiefs. He is smartly dressed for Sunday. He is wearing a flannel coat with yellow ivory buttons, dark blue, straight-legged trousers, and stout galoshes, the same huge, clumsy galoshes that are met with only on the feet of people who are positive, sensible, and have firm religious convictions.
    His swollen, lazy eyes are turned to the iconostasis. 2 He sees the long-familiar faces of the saints, the caretaker Matvei puffing his cheeks to blow out the candles, the darkened icon stands, the worn rug, the beadle Lopukhov, who rushes from the sanctuary and brings the warden a prosphora 3 … All this he has seen over and over again, like his own five fingers … One thing, however, is somewhat strange and unusual: Father Grigory is standing by the north door, still in his vestments, blinking angrily with his thick eyebrows.
    “Who is he blinking at, God be with him?” thinks theshopkeeper. “Ah, now he’s beckoning with his finger! And, mercy me, stamping his foot … Holy Mother, what a thing! Who is it at?”
    Andrei Andreich turns around and sees that the church is already quite empty There are about a dozen people crowding at the door, and with their backs turned to the sanctuary
    “Come when you’re called! Why are you standing there like a statue?” he hears the angry voice of Father Grigory “It’s you I’m calling!”
    The shopkeeper looks at the red, wrathful face of Father Grigory and only now realizes that the blinking of the eyebrows and beckoning of the finger may be addressed to him. He gives a start, separates himself from the choir, and, stamping his stout galoshes, goes hesitantly towards the sanctuary.
    “Andrei Andreich, was it you who sent in a note about the departed Maria?” the priest asks, angrily looking up at his fat, sweaty face.
    “It was.”
    “So, then, it was you who wrote this? You?”
    And Father Grigory angrily thrusts a little note into his eyes. And in this note, which Andrei Andreich sent in with a prosphora for the proskomedia, 4 there is written in big, unsteady-looking letters:
    “For the departed servant of God, the harlot Maria.”
    “It was … I wrote it, sir …” the shopkeeper replies.
    “But how did you dare to write that?” the priest draws out in a whisper, and in his hoarse whisper both wrath and fear can be heard.
    The shopkeeper gazes at him in dumb astonishment, becomes perplexed and frightened himself: never before has Father Grigory spoken in that tone with the Verkhnie Zaprudy intellectual! For a moment the two are silent, peering into each other’s eyes. The shopkeeper’s perplexity is so great that his fat face spreads in all directions like spilled batter.
    “How did you dare?” the priest repeats.
    “Wh … what, sir?” Andrei Andreich’s perplexity continues.
    “You don’t understand?!” Father Grigory whispers, stepping back in amazement and clasping his hands. “What’s that on your shoulders—a head, or some other object? You send a note in to the sanctuary and write a word on it that is even indecent to say in thestreet! Why are you goggling your eyes? Don’t you know the meaning of this word?”
    “That is, concerning the harlot, sir?” murmurs the shopkeeper, blushing and blinking his eyes. “But the Lord, in his goodness, I mean … that is, he forgave the harlot … and prepared a place for her, and from the life of the blessed Mary of Egypt 5 we can see, in that same sense of the word, begging your