An Adventure by Anton Chekhov
(A Driver's Story)
It was in that wood yonder,
behind the creek, that it happened, sir. My father, the kingdom of Heaven be
his, was taking five hundred roubles to the master; in those days our fellows
and the Shepelevsky peasants used to rent land from the master, so father was
taking money for the half-year. He was a God-fearing man, he used to read the
scriptures, and as for cheating or wronging anyone, or defrauding --God forbid,
and the peasants honoured him greatly, and when someone had to be sent to the
town about taxes or such-like, or with money, they used to send him. He was a
man above the ordinary, but, not that I'd speak ill of him, he had a weakness.
He was fond of a drop. There was no getting him past a tavern: he would go in,
drink a glass, and be completely done for! He was aware of this weakness in
himself, and when he was carrying public money, that he might not fall asleep
or lose it by some chance, he always took me or my sister Anyutka with him.
To tell the truth, all our
family have a great taste for vodka. I can read and write, I served for six
years at a tobacconist's in the town, and I can talk to any educated gentleman,
and can use very fine language, but, it is perfectly true, sir, as I read in a
book, that vodka is the blood of Satan. Through vodka my face has darkened. And
there is nothing seemly about me, and here, as you may see, sir, I am a
cab-driver like an ignorant, uneducated peasant.
And so, as I was telling
you, father was taking the money to the master, Anyutka was going with him, and
at that time Anyutka was seven or maybe eight--a silly chit, not that high. He
got as far as Kalantchiko successfully, he was sober, but when he reached
Kalantchiko and went into Moiseika's tavern, this same weakness of his came
upon him. He drank three glasses and set to bragging before people:
"I am a plain humble
man," he says, "but I have five hundred roubles in my pocket; if I
like," says he, "I could buy up the tavern and all the crockery and
Moiseika and his Jewess and his little Jews. I can buy it all out and
out," he said. That was his way of joking, to be sure, but then he began
complaining: "It's a worry, good Christian people," said he, "to
be a rich man, a merchant, or anything of that kind. If you have no money you
have no care, if you have money you must watch over your pocket the whole time
that wicked men may not rob you. It's a terror to live in the world for a man
who has a lot of money."
The drunken people listened
of course, took it in, and made a note of it. And in those days they were
making a railway line at Kalantchiko, and there were swarms and swarms of
tramps and vagabonds of all sorts like locusts. Father pulled himself up
afterwards, but it was too late. A word is not a sparrow, if it flies out you
can't catch it. They drove, sir, by the wood, and all at once there was someone
galloping on horseback behind them. Father was not of the chicken-hearted
brigade--that I couldn't say--but he felt uneasy; there was no regular road
through the wood, nothing went that way but hay and timber, and there was no
cause for anyone to be galloping there, particularly in working hours. One
wouldn't be galloping after any good.
"It seems as though
they are after someone," said father to Anyutka, "they are galloping
so furiously. I ought to have kept quiet in the tavern, a plague on my tongue.
Oy, little daughter, my heart misgives me, there is something wrong!"
He did not spend long in
hesitation about his dangerous position, and he said to my sister Anyutka:
"Things don't look very
bright, they really are in pursuit. Anyway, Anyutka dear, you take the money,
put it away in your skirts, and go and hide behind a bush. If by ill-luck they
attack me, you run back to mother, and give her the money. Let her take it to
the village elder. Only mind you don't let anyone see you; keep to the wood and
by the creek, that no one may see you. Run your best and call on the merciful
God. Christ be with you!"
Father thrust the parcel of
notes on Anyutka, and she looked out the thickest of the bushes and hid
herself. Soon after, three men on horseback galloped up to father. One a
stalwart, big-jawed fellow, in a crimson shirt and high boots, and the other
two, ragged, shabby fellows, navvies from the line. As my father feared, so it
really turned out, sir. The one in the crimson shirt, the sturdy, strong
fellow, a man above the ordinary, left his horse, and all three made for my
father.
"Halt you, so-and-so!
Where's the money!"
"What money? Go to the
devil!"
"Oh, the money you are
taking the master for the rent. Hand it over, you bald devil, or we will
throttle you, and you'll die in your sins."
And they began to practise
their villainy on father, and, instead of beseeching them, weeping, or anything
of the sort, father got angry and began to reprove them with the greatest
severity.
"What are you pestering
me for?" said he. "You are a dirty lot. There is no fear of God in
you, plague take you! It's not money you want, but a beating, to make your
backs smart for three years after. Be off, blockheads, or I shall defend
myself. I have a revolver that takes six bullets, it's in my bosom!"
But his words did not deter
the robbers, and they began beating him with anything they could lay their
hands on.
They looked through
everything in the cart, searched my father thoroughly, even taking off his
boots; when they found that beating father only made him swear at them the
more, they began torturing him in all sorts of ways. All the time Anyutka was
sitting behind the bush, and she saw it all, poor dear. When she saw father
lying on the ground and gasping, she started off and ran her hardest through
the thicket and the creek towards home. She was only a little girl, with no
understanding; she did not know the way, just ran on not knowing where she was
going. It was some six miles to our home. Anyone else might have run there in
an hour, but a little child, as we all know, takes two steps back for one
forwards, and indeed it is not everyone who can run barefoot through the prickly
bushes; you want to be used to it, too, and our girls used always to be
crowding together on the stove or in the yard, and were afraid to run in the
forest.
Towards evening Anyutka
somehow reached a habitation, she looked, it was a hut. It was the forester's
hut, in the Crown forest; some merchants were renting it at the time and
burning charcoal. She knocked. A woman, the forester's wife, came out to her.
Anyutka, first of all, burst out crying, and told her everything just as it
was, and even told her about the money. The forester's wife was full of pity
for her.
"My poor little dear!
Poor mite, God has preserved you, poor little one! My precious! Come into the
hut, and I will give you something to eat."
She began to make up to
Anyutka, gave her food and drink, and even wept with her, and was so attentive
to her that the girl, only think, gave her the parcel of notes.
"I will put it away,
darling, and to-morrow morning I will give it you back and take you home,
dearie."
The woman took the money,
and put Anyutka to sleep on the stove where at the time the brooms were drying.
And on the same stove, on the brooms, the forester's daughter, a girl as small
as our Anyutka, was asleep. And Anyutka used to tell us afterwards that there
was such a scent from the brooms, they smelt of honey! Anyutka lay down, but
she could not get to sleep, she kept crying quietly; she was sorry for father,
and terrified. But, sir, an hour or two passed, and she saw those very three
robbers who had tortured father walk into the hut; and the one in the crimson
shirt, with big jaws, their leader, went up to the woman and said:
"Well, wife, we have
simply murdered a man for nothing. To-day we killed a man at dinner-time, we
killed him all right, but not a farthing did we find."
So this fellow in the
crimson shirt turned out to be the forester, the woman's husband.
"The man's dead for
nothing," said his ragged companions. "In vain we have taken a sin on
our souls."
The forester's wife looked
at all three and laughed.
"What are you laughing
at, silly?"
"I am laughing because
I haven't murdered anyone, and I have not taken any sin on my soul, but I have
found the money."
"What money? What
nonsense are you talking!"
"Here, look whether I
am talking nonsense."
The forester's wife untied
the parcel and, wicked woman, showed them the money. Then she described how
Anyutka had come, what she had said, and so on. The murderers were delighted
and began to divide the money between them, they almost quarrelled, then they
sat down to the table, you know, to drink. And Anyutka lay there, poor child,
hearing every word and shaking like a Jew in a frying-pan. What was she to do?
And from their words she learned that father was dead and lying across the
road, and she fancied, in her foolishness, that the wolves and the dogs would
eat father, and that our horse had gone far away into the forest, and would be
eaten by wolves too, and that she, Anyutka herself, would be put in prison and
beaten, because she had not taken care of the money. The robbers got drunk and
sent the woman for vodka. They gave her five roubles for vodka and sweet wine.
They set to singing and drinking on other people's money. They drank and drank,
the dogs, and sent the woman off again that they might drink beyond all bounds.
"We will keep it up
till morning," they cried. "We have plenty of money now, there is no
need to spare! Drink, and don't drink away your wits."
And so at midnight , when they were all fairly fuddled, the woman ran
off for vodka the third time, and the forester strode twice up and down the
cottage, and he was staggering.
"Look here, lads,"
he said, "we must make away with the girl, too! If we leave her, she will
be the first to bear witness against us."
They talked it over and
discussed it, and decided that Anyutka must not be left alive, that she must be
killed. Of course, to murder an innocent child's a fearful thing, even a man
drunken or crazy would not take such a job on himself. They were quarrelling
for maybe an hour which was to kill her, one tried to put it on the other, they
almost fought again, and no one would agree to do it; then they cast lots. It
fell to the forester. He drank another full glass, cleared his throat, and went
to the outer room for an axe.
But Anyutka was a sharp
wench. For all she was so simple, she thought of something that, I must say,
not many an educated man would have thought of. Maybe the Lord had compassion
on her, and gave her sense for the moment, or perhaps it was the fright
sharpened her wits, anyway when it came to the test it turned out that she was
cleverer than anyone. She got up stealthily, prayed to God, took the little
sheepskin, the one the forester's wife had put over her, and, you understand,
the forester's little daughter, a girl of the same age as herself, was lying on
the stove beside her. She covered this girl with the sheepskin, and took the
woman's jacket off her and threw it over herself. Disguised herself, in fact.
She put it over her head, and so walked across the hut by the drunken men, and
they thought it was the forester's daughter, and did not even look at her.
Luckily for her the woman was not in the hut, she had gone for vodka, or maybe
she would not have escaped the axe, for a woman's eyes are as far-seeing as a
buzzard's. A woman's eyes are sharp.
Anyutka came out of the hut,
and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. All night she was lost in the
forest, but towards morning she came out to the edge and ran along the road. By
the mercy of God she met the clerk Yegor Danilitch, the kingdom of Heaven
They got there, and all the
murderers were lying side by side, dead drunk, each where he had fallen; the
woman, too, was drunk. First thing they searched them; they took the money and
then looked on the stove--the Holy Cross be with us! The forester's child was
lying on the brooms, under the sheepskin, and her head was in a pool of blood,
chopped off by the axe. They roused the peasants and the woman, tied their
hands behind them, and took them to the district court; the woman howled, but
the forester only shook his head and asked:
"You might give me a
drop, lads! My head aches!"
Afterwards they were tried
in the town in due course, and punished with the utmost rigour of the law.
So that's what happened,
sir, beyond the forest there, that lies behind the creek. Now you can scarcely
see it, the sun is setting red behind it. I have been talking to you, and the
horses have stopped, as though they were listening too. Hey there, my beauties!
Move more briskly, the good gentleman will give us something extra. Hey, you darlings!
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