The Slanderer | Page 2

Vankin," he said to him. "What a queer fellow. He entered the kitchen and noticed me standing beside Marfa, and immediately he began to invent different stories. 'What?' he says, 'you have been kissing each other!' He was drunk, so he must have been dreaming. And I,' I said, 'I would rather kiss a duck than kiss Marfa. And I have a wife,' said I, 'you fool.' He made me appear ridiculous."
"Who made you appear ridiculous?" inquired the teacher of religion, addressing Akhineyev.
"Vankin. I was standing in the kitchen, you know, and looking at the sturgeon--" And so forth. In about half an hour all the guests knew the story about Vankin and the sturgeon.
"Now let him tell," thought Akhineyev, rubbing his hands. "Let him do it. He'll start to tell them, and they'll cut him short: 'Don't talk nonsense, you fool! We know all about it.'"
And Akhineyev felt so much appeased that, for joy, he drank four glasses of brandy over and above his fill. Having escorted his daughter to her room, he went to his own and soon slept the sleep of an innocent child, and on the following day he no longer remembered the story of the sturgeon. But, alas! Man proposes and God disposes. The evil tongue does its wicked work, and even Akhineyev's cunning did not do him any good. One week later, on a Wednesday, after the third lesson, when Akhineyev stood in the teachers' room and discussed the vicious inclinations of the pupil Visyekin, the director approached him, and, beckoning to him, called him aside.
"See here, Sergey Kapitonich," said the director. "Pardon me. It isn't my affair, yet I must make it clear to you, nevertheless. It is my duty--You see, rumors are on foot that you are on intimate terms with that woman--with your cook--It isn't my affair, but--You may be on intimate terms with her, you may kiss her--You may do whatever you like, but, please, don't do it so openly! I beg of you. Don't forget that you are a pedagogue."
Akhineyev stood as though frozen and petrified. Like one stung by a swarm of bees and scalded with boiling water, he went home. On his way it seemed to him as though the whole town stared at him as at one besmeared with tar--At home new troubles awaited him.
"Why don't you eat anything?" asked his wife at their dinner. "What are you thinking about? Are you thinking about Cupid, eh? You are longing for Marfushka. I know everything already, you Mahomet. Kind people have opened my eyes, you barbarian!"
And she slapped him on the cheek.
He rose from the table, and staggering, without cap or coat, directed his footsteps toward Vankin. The latter was at home.
"You rascal!" he said to Vankin. "Why have you covered me with mud before the whole world? Why have you slandered me?"
"How; what slander? What are you inventing?"
"And who told everybody that I was kissing Marfa? Not you, perhaps? Not you, you murderer?"
Vankin began to blink his eyes, and all the fibres of his face began to quiver. He lifted his eyes toward the image and ejaculated:
"May God punish me, may I lose my eyesight and die, if I said even a single word about you to any one! May I have neither house nor home!"
Vankin's sincerity admitted of no doubt. It was evident that it was not he who had gossiped.
"But who was it? Who?" Akhineyev asked himself, going over in his mind all his acquaintances, and striking his chest. "Who was it?"

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