The Slanderer | Page 2

he is. In my opinion it is
more pleasant to kiss the dog than to kiss Marfa," added Akhineyev,
and, turning around, he noticed Mzda.
"We have been speaking about 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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