The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

his mind. He fidgets as though he were sitting on thorns. When he wins, he snatches up the money greedily, and instantly puts it in his pocket. His sister, Anya, a girl of eight, with a sharp chin and clever shining eyes, is also afraid that someone else may win. She flushes and turns pale, and watches the players keenly. The kopecks do not interest her. Success in the game is for her a question of vanity. The other sister, Sonya, a child of six with a curly head, and a complexion such as is seen only in very healthy children, expensive dolls, and the faces on bonbon boxes, is playing loto for the process of the game itself. There is bliss all over her face. Whoever wins, she laughs and claps her hands. Alyosha, a chubby, spherical little figure, gasps, breathes hard through his nose, and stares open-eyed at the cards. He is moved neither by covetousness nor vanity. So long as he is not driven out of the room, or sent to bed, he is thankful. He looks phlegmatic, but at heart he is rather a little beast. He is not there so much for the sake of the loto, as for the sake of the misunderstandings which are inevitable in the game. He is greatly delighted if one hits another, or calls him names. He ought to have run off somewhere long ago, but he won't leave the table for a minute, for fear they should steal his counters or his kopecks. As he can only count the units and numbers which end in nought, Anya covers his numbers for him. The fifth player, the cook's son, Andrey, a dark-skinned and sickly looking boy in a cotton shirt, with a copper cross on his breast, stands motionless, looking dreamily at the numbers. He takes no interest in winning, or in the success of the others, because he is entirely engrossed by the arithmetic of the game, and its far from complex theory; "How many numbers there are in the world," he is thinking, "and how is it they don't get mixed up?"

      They all shout out the numbers in turn, except Sonya and Alyosha. To vary the monotony, they have invented in the course of time a number of synonyms and comic nicknames. Seven, for instance, is called the "ovenrake," eleven the "sticks," seventy-seven "Semyon Semyonitch," ninety "grandfather," and so on. The game is going merrily.

      "Thirty-two," cries Grisha, drawing the little yellow cylinders out of his father's cap. "Seventeen! Ovenrake! Twenty-eight! Lay them straight.."

      Anya sees that Andrey has let twenty-eight slip. At any other time she would have pointed it out to him, but now when her vanity lies in the saucer with the kopecks, she is triumphant.

      "Twenty-three!" Grisha goes on, "Semyon Semyonitch! Nine!"

      "A beetle, a beetle," cries Sonya, pointing to a beetle running across the table. "Aie!"

      "Don't kill it," says Alyosha, in his deep bass, "perhaps it's got children.."

      Sonya follows the black beetle with her eyes and wonders about its children: what tiny little beetles they must be!

      "Forty-three! One!" Grisha goes on, unhappy at the thought that

      Anya has already made two fours. "Six!"

      "Game! I have got the game!" cries Sonya, rolling her eyes coquettishly and giggling.

      The players' countenances lengthen.

      "Must make sure!" says Grisha, looking with hatred at Sonya.

      Exercising his rights as a big boy, and the cleverest, Grisha takes upon himself to decide. What he wants, that they do. Sonya's reckoning is slowly and carefully verified, and to the great regret of her fellow players, it appears that she has not cheated. Another game is begun.

      "I did see something yesterday!" says Anya, as though to herself. "Filipp Filippitch turned his eyelids inside out somehow and his eyes looked red and dreadful, like an evil spirit's."

      "I saw it too," says Grisha. "Eight! And a boy at our school can move his ears. Twenty-seven!"

      Andrey looks up at Grisha, meditates, and says:

      "I can move my ears too.."

      "Well then, move them."

      Andrey moves his eyes, his lips, and his fingers, and fancies that his ears are moving too. Everyone laughs.

      "He is a horrid man, that Filipp Filippitch," sighs Sonya. "He came into our nursery yesterday, and I had nothing on but my chemise.. And I felt so improper!"

      "Game!" Grisha cries suddenly, snatching the money from the saucer.

      "I've got the game! You can look and see if you like."

      The cook's son looks up and turns pale.

      "Then I can't go on playing any more," he whispers.

      "Why not?"

      "Because.. because I have got no more money."

      "You can't play without money," says Grisha.

      Andrey ransacks his pockets once more to make sure. Finding nothing in them but crumbs and a bitten pencil, he drops the corners of his mouth and begins blinking miserably. He is on the point of crying..

      "I'll put it down for you!" says Sonya, unable to endure his look of agony. "Only mind you must pay me back afterwards."

      The money is brought and the game goes on.

      "I believe they are ringing somewhere," says Anya, opening her eyes wide.

      They all leave off playing and gaze open-mouthed at the dark window.

      The reflection of the lamp glimmers in the darkness.

      "It was your fancy."

      "At night they only ring in the cemetery," says Andrey.

      "And what do they ring there for?"

      "To prevent robbers from breaking into the church. They are afraid of the bells."

      "And what do robbers break into the church for?" asks Sonya.

      "Everyone knows what for: to kill the watchmen."

      A minute passes in silence. They all look at one another, shudder, and go on playing. This time Andrey wins.

      "He has cheated," Alyosha booms out, apropos of nothing.

      "What a lie, I haven't cheated."

      Andrey turns pale, his mouth works, and he gives Alyosha a slap on the head! Alyosha glares angrily, jumps up, and with one knee on the table, slaps Andrey on the cheek! Each gives the other a second blow, and both howl. Sonya, feeling such horrors too much for her, begins crying too, and the dining-room resounds with lamentations on various notes. But do not imagine that that is the end of the game. Before five minutes are over, the children are laughing and talking peaceably again. Their faces are tear-stained, but that does not prevent them from smiling; Alyosha is positively blissful, there has been a squabble!

      Vasya, the fifth form schoolboy, walks into the dining-room. He looks sleepy and disillusioned.

      "This is revolting!" he thinks, seeing Grisha feel in his pockets in which the kopecks are jingling. "How can they give children money? And how can they let them play games of chance? A nice way to bring them up, I must say! It's revolting!"

      But the children's play is so tempting that he feels an inclination to join them and to try his luck.

      "Wait a minute and I'll sit down to a game," he says.

      "Put down a kopeck!"

      "In a minute," he says, fumbling in his pockets. "I haven't a kopeck, but here is a rouble. I'll stake a rouble."

      "No, no, no… You must put down a kopeck."

      "You stupids. A rouble is worth more than a kopeck anyway," the schoolboy explains. "Whoever wins can give me change."

      "No, please! Go away!"

      The fifth form schoolboy shrugs his shoulders, and goes into the kitchen to get change from the servants. It appears there is not a single kopeck in the kitchen.

      "In that case, you give me change," he urges Grisha, coming back from the kitchen. "I'll pay you for the change. Won't you? Come, give me ten kopecks for a rouble."

      Grisha looks suspiciously at Vasya, wondering whether it isn't some trick, a swindle.

      "I won't," he says, holding his pockets.

      Vasya begins to get cross, and abuses them, calling them idiots and blockheads.

      "I'll put down a stake for