Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,17

who to pray for. People do write different titles for commemoration, like, say, the child Ioann, the drowned Pelageya, the warrior Yegor, the murdered Pavel, and such like … That’s what I wanted.”

“None too bright, Andrei! God will forgive you, but next time watch out. Above all, don’t get clever, just think as others do. Make ten bows and go.”

“Yes, sir,” says the shopkeeper, happy that the admonishment is over, and again giving his face an expression of gravity and importance. “Ten bows? Very good, sir, I understand. And now, Father, allow me to make a request … Because, since I’m her father, after all … you know, and she, whatever she was, she’s my daughter, after all, I sort of… begging your pardon, I’d like to ask you to serve a panikhida6 today And I’d like to ask you, too, Father Deacon!”

“Now, that’s good!” says Father Grigory, taking off his vestments. “I praise you for it. Meets my approval … Well, go! We’ll come out at once.”

Andrei Andreich gravely walks away from the sanctuary and stops in the middle of the church, flushed, with a solemnly panikhidal expression on his face. The caretaker Matvei places a little table with kolivo7 before him, and in a short time the panikhida begins.

The church is quiet. There is only the metallic sound of the censer and the drawn-out singing … Beside Andrei Andreich stands the caretaker Matvei, the midwife Makaryevna, and her boy Mitka with the paralyzed arm. There is no one else. The beadle sings poorly, in an unpleasant, hollow bass, but the melody and the words are so sad that the shopkeeper gradually loses his grave expression and is plunged in sorrow. He remembers his little Mashutka. He recalls that she was born while he was still working as a servant for the master of Verkhnie Zaprudy Owing to the bustle of his servant’s life, he did not notice his girl growing up. For him the long period during which she formed into a graceful being with a blond little head and pensive eyes as big as kopecks went unnoticed. She was brought up, like all children of favorite servants, pampered, together with the young ladies. The gentlefolk, having nothing to do, taught her to read, write, and dance, and he did not interfere with her upbringing. Only rarely, accidentally, meeting her somewhere by the gate or on the landing of the stairs, did he remember that she was his daughter, and he began, as far as his time allowed, to teach her prayers and sacred history. Oh, even then he had a reputation for knowing the services and the holy scriptures! The girl, however grim and solemn her father’s face, listened to him willingly. She yawned repeating prayers after him, but on the other hand, when he began telling her stories, stammering and adding flowery embellishments, she turned all ears. At Esau’s mess of pottage, the punishment of Sodom, and the ordeals of the little boy Joseph,8 she grew pale and opened her blue eyes wide.

Later, when he quit being a servant and opened a village shop with the money he had saved, Mashutka left for Moscow with the master’s family.

Three years before her death, she came to see her father. He barely recognized her. She was a slender young woman with the manners of a lady and dressed like gentlefolk. She spoke cleverly, as if from a book, smoked tobacco, slept till noon. When Andrei Andreich asked her what she was, she boldly looked him straight in the eye and said: “I am an actress!” Such frankness seemed to the former servant the height of cynicism. Mashutka began boasting of her successes and of her artistic life, but seeing that her father only turned purple and spread his arms, she fell silent. And thus silently, without looking at each other, they spent some two weeks, until she left. Before leaving, she persuaded her father to go for a stroll with her along the embankment. Terrified though he was of going for a stroll with his actress daughter in broad daylight, in front of all honest people, he yielded to her entreaties …

“What wonderful places you have here!” she admired as they strolled. “Such dells and marshes! God, how beautiful my birthplace is!”

And she wept.

“These places only take up room …” thought Andrei Andreich, gazing stupidly at the dells and failing to understand his daughter’s admiration. “They’re about as useful as teats on a bull.”

But she wept, wept and