The Bishop and Other StoriesChekhov, Anton Pavlovich
General
The Bishop and Other Stories
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904 -- Translations into English; Russia -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
"It's a nuisance," muttered his uncle. "You are sticking to me like
a burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding
and I have nothing but worry with you both. . . ."
When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not
there. They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In
a far-off dark corner of the yard stood the chaise.
"Good-bye, chaise!" thought Yegorushka.
At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then
they had to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a
policeman for Little Lower Street.
"I say," said the policeman, with a grin, "it's a long way off, out
that way towards the town grazing ground."
They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such
a weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets,
then along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides
and no pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were
neither planks nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had
brought them to Little Lower Street they were both red in the face,
and taking off their hats, wiped away the perspiration.
"Tell me, please," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting
on a little bench by a gate, "where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's
house?"
"There is no one called Toskunov here," said the old man, after
pondering a moment. "Perhaps it's Timoshenko you want."
"No, Toskunov. . . ."
"Excuse me, there's no one called Toskunov. . . ."
Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
"You needn't look," the old man called after them. "I tell you there
isn't, and there isn't."
"Listen, auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who
was sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds,
"where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
"Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried.
"Lord! it is eight years since she married her daughter and gave
up the house to her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there
now."
And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing
like that, you fools?"
"And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.
"Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise.
"She moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her
house to her son-in-law! Upon my word!"
She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to
exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
"Where does she live now?"
The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare
arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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