 The Lottery Ticket by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, translated by Constance Gardner. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Lottery Ticket by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Ivan Dmitrić, a middle-class man who lived with his family on an income of twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa after supper and began reading the newspaper. I forgot to look at the newspaper today, his wife said to him as she cleared the table. Look and see whether the list of drawings is there. Yes it is, said Ivan Dmitrić, but hasn't your ticket lapsed? No, I took the interest on Tuesday. What is the number? Series 9499, number 26. All right, we will look. 9499 and 26. Ivan Dmitrić had no faith in Lottery luck and would not, as a rule, have consented to look at the lists of winning numbers. But now, as he had nothing else to do, and as the newspaper was before his eyes, he passed his finger downwards along the column of numbers, and immediately, as though in mockery of his skepticism, no further than the second line from the top, his eye was caught by the figure 9499. Unable to believe his eyes, he hurriedly dropped the paper on his knees without looking to see the number of the ticket. And, just as though someone had given him a douche of cold water, he felt an agreeable chill in the pit of the stomach, tingling and terrible and sweet. Masha, 9499 is there, he said, in a hollow voice. His wife looked at his astonished and panic-stricken face, and realised that he was not joking. 9499, she asked, turning pale and dropping the folded tablecloth on the table. Yes, yes, it really is there. And the number of the ticket? Oh, yes, there's the number of the ticket too. But stay, wait, no, I say, anyway, the number of our series is there. Anyway, you understand? Looking at his wife, Ivan Dmitrić gave a broad, senseless smile, like a baby when a bright object has shown it. His wife smiled too. It was as pleasant to her as to him that he only mentioned the series, and did not try to find out the number of the winning ticket. To torment and tantalise oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so thrilling. It is our series, said Ivan Dmitrić, after a long silence. So there is a probability that we have won. It's only a probability, but there it is. Well, now look. Wait a little, we have plenty of time to be disappointed. It's on the second line from the top, so the prize is 75,000. That's not money, but power, capital. And in a minute, I shall look at the list, and there, 26A, I say, what if we really have won? The husband and wife began laughing, and staring at one another in silence. The possibility of winning bewildered them. They could not have said, could not have dreamed what they both needed, that 75,000 for, what they would buy, where they would go. They thought only of the figures 9499 and 75,000, and pictured them in their imagination. Well, somehow they could not think of the happiness itself which was so possible. Ivan Dmitrić, holding the paper in his hand, walked several times from corner to corner, and only when he had recovered from the first impression began dreaming a little. And if we have won, he said, why it will be a new life, it will be a transformation. The ticket is yours, but if it were mine, I should first of all, of course, spend 25,000 on real property, in the shape of an estate, 10,000 on immediate expenses, new furnishings, travelling, paying debts and so on. The other 40,000 I would put in the bank and get interest on it. Yes, an estate, that would be nice, said his wife, sitting down and dropping her hands in her lap. Somewhere in the Tula, or Oriole provinces. In the first place, we shouldn't need a summer villa, and besides, it would always bring in an income. And pictures came crowding on his imagination, each more gracious and poetical than the last, and in all these pictures he saw himself well fed, serene, healthy, felt warm, even hot. Here, after eating a summer soup, cold as ice, he lay on his back on the burning sand, close to a stream, or in the garden under a lime tree, at his heart, his little boy and girl are crawling about near him, digging in the sand, or catching ladybirds in the grass. He dozes sweetly, thinking of nothing, and feeling all over that he need not go to the office today, tomorrow, or the day after. Or, tired of lying still, he goes to the hay field, or to the forest for mushrooms, or watches the peasants catching fish with a net. When the sun sets, he takes a towel and soap and saunters to the bathing shed, where he undresses at his leisure, slowly rubs his bare chest with his hands, and goes into the water. And in the water, near the opaque soapy circles, little fish, flit, to and fro, and green water weeds nod their heads. After bathing, there is tea with cream and milk rolls. Does evening a walk or a vint with the neighbours? Yes, it would be nice to buy an estate, said his wife, also dreaming. And from her face, it was evident that she was enchanted by her thoughts. Ivan Dimitrić pictured to himself autumn, with its rains, its cold evenings, and its St. Martin's summer. At that season, he would have to take longer walks about the garden, and beside the river, so as to get thoroughly chilled, and then drink a big glass of vodka, and eat a salted mushroom, or a sourced cucumber, and then drink another. The children would come running from the kitchen garden, bringing a carrot and a radish, smelling of fresh earth. And then he would lie stretched full length on the sofa, and in leisurely fashion turn over the pages of some illustrated magazine, before covering his face with it and unbuttoning his waistcoat, give himself up to slumber. The St. Martin's summer is followed by cloudy, gloomy weather. It rains day and night, the bare trees weep, the wind is damp and cold, the dogs, the horses, the fowls all are wet, depressed, downcast. There is nowhere to walk, one can't go out for days together, one has to pace up and down the room, looking despondently at the grey window. It is dreary. Ivan Dmitrych stopped and looked at his wife. I should go abroad, you know Masha, he said, and he began thinking how nice it would be in late autumn to go abroad somewhere, to the south of France, to Italy, to India. I should certainly go abroad too, his wife said. But look at the number of the ticket. Wait, wait! He walked about the room and went on thinking. It occurred to him, what if his wife really did go abroad? It is pleasant to travel alone, or in the society of light careless women, who live in the present, and not such as think and talk or the journey about nothing but their children, sigh and tremble with dismay over every farthing. Ivan Dmitrych imagined his wife in the train with a multitude of parcels, baskets and bags. She would be sighing over something, complaining that the train made her headache, that she had spent so much money. At the stations he would continually be having to run for boiling water, bread and butter. She wouldn't have dinner because of its being too dear. She would begrudge me every farthing he thought with a glance at his wife. The lottery ticket is hers, not mine. Besides, what is the use of her going abroad? What does she want there? She would shut herself up in the hotel and not let me out of her sight, I know. And for the first time in his life his mind dwelt on the fact that his wife had grown elderly and plain, and that she was saturated through and through with the smell of cooking, while he was still young, fresh and healthy, and might well have got married again. Of course, all that is silly nonsense, he thought. But why should she go abroad? What would she make of it? And yet she would go, of course. I can fancy, in reality, it is all one to her whether it is Naples or Cleen. She would only be in my way. I should be dependent upon her. I can fancy how, like a regular woman, she will lock the money up as soon as she gets it. She will hide it from me. She will look after her relations and grudge me every farthing. Ivan Dimitrić thought of her relations. All those wretched brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles would come crawling about as soon as they heard of the winning ticket. Would begin whining like beggars and falling upon them with oily, hypocritical smiles. Wretched, detestable people. If they were given anything they would ask for more, while if they were refused they would swear at them, slander them and wish them every kind of misfortune. Ivan Dimitrić remembered his own relations and their faces, at which he had looked impartially in the past, struck him now as repulsive and hateful. They are such reptiles, he thought. And his wife's face, too, struck him as repulsive and hateful. Anger surged up in his heart against her and he thought malignantly. She knows nothing about money and so she is stingy. If she won it she would give me a hundred rubles and put the rest away under lock and key. And he looked at his wife, not with a smile now, but with hatred. She glanced at him, too, and also with hatred and anger. She had her own daydreams, her own plans, her own reflections. She understood perfectly well what her husband's dream were. She knew who would be the first to try and grab her winnings. It's very nice making daydreams at other people's expense, is what her eyes expressed. No, don't you dare! Her husband understood her look. Hatred began stirring again in his breast, and in order to annoy his wife he glanced quickly, to spite her at the fourth page on the newspaper and read out triumphantly, series 9499, number 46, not 26. Hatred and hope both disappeared at once, and it began immediately to seem to Ivan Dimitrit and his wife that their rooms were dark and small and low-pitched, that the supper they had been eating was not doing them good. But lying heavily on their stomachs, that the evenings were long and wearisome. What the devil's the meaning of it, said Ivan Dimitrit, beginning to be ill-humoured, where ever one steps there are bits of paper under one's feet, crumbs, husks. The rooms are never swept, one is simply forced to go out. Damnation, take my soul entirely! Hello and hang myself on the first aspen tree! Or the heart of a country girl, by Percy Simple Chapter 1 A Simple Rustic Maid Irmingard Stubbs was the beauteous blonde daughter of Hyrum Stubbs, a poor but honest farmer bootleger of Hogdon, Vermont. Her name was originally Ethel Irmingard, but her father persuaded her to drop the prenumen after the passage of the 18th Amendment, a verring that it made him thirsty by reminding him of Ethel alcohol, C-2-H-5-OH. His own products contained mostly methyl or wood alcohol, C-H-3-OH. Irmingard confessed to 16 summers, and branded as mendacious all reports of the fact that she was 30. She had large black eyes, a prominent Roman nose, light hair which was never dark at the roots, except when the local drugstore was short on supplies, and a beautiful but inexpensive complexion. She was about 5'3.33 inches tall, weighed 115.47 pounds on her father's copiescales, also often, and was adjudged most lovely by all the village swans who admired her father's farm and liked his liquid crops. Irmingard's hand was sought in matrimony by two ardent lovers. Squire Hardman, who had a mortgage on his old home, was very rich and elderly. He was dark and cruelly handsome, and always rode horseback and carried a riding crop. Long had he sought the raid in Irmingard, and now his ardor was fanned to a fever-heat by a secret known to him alone. For upon the humble acres of farmer's stubs, he discovered a vein of rich gold. Aha! said he. I will win the maiden heir her parent knows of his unexpected wealth, and join to my fortune a greater fortune still. And so he began to call twice a week instead of once as before. But alas for the sinister designs of a villain, Squire Hardman was not the only suitor for the fair one. Close by the village dwelt another, the handsome Jack Manley, whose cruelly yellow hair had won the sweet Irmingard's affection when both were toddling youngsters at the village school. Jack had long been too bashful to declare his passion, but one day while strolling along a shady lane by the old mill with Irmingard, he found the courage to utter which was within his heart. O light of my life! said he. My soul is so overburdened that I must speak. Irmingard, my ideal. He pronounced it. Ideal. Life has become an empty thing without you. Beloved of my spirit, behold our supplicant kneeling in the dust before thee. Irmingard, O Irmingard, raise me to a heaven of joy and say that you will someday be mine. It is true that I am poor, but have I not youth and strength to fight my way to fame? This can I only do for you, dear Ethel. Pardon me, Irmingard, my only, my most precious. But here he paused to wipe his eyes and mop his brow, and the fair responded. Jack, my angel, at last. I mean this is so unexpected and quite unprecedented. I had never dreamed that you entertained sentiments of affection in connection with one so lowly as Farmer Stubbs' child, for I am still but a child. Such is your natural nobility that I feared, I mean thought, that you would be blind to such slight charms as I possess, that you would seek your fortune in the great city where meeting and wedding one of those more commonly damsels whose splendor we observe in fashion books. But Jack, since it is really I who you adore, let us waive all needless circumlocation. Jack, my darling, my heart has long been susceptible to your manly graces. I cherish an affection for thee. Consider me thy own own, and be sure to buy the ring at Perkins Hardware Store, where they have the nice indentation diamonds in the window. I regard my love, Jack, my precious, my darling, my own, my God! Curtain. Chapter 2 And the villain still pursued her. But these tender passages, sacred though their fervor, did not pass unobserved by profane eyes, for crouched in the bushes and gritting his teeth was his dastardly squire-hardman. When the lovers had finally strolled away, he leapt out into the lane, viciously twirling his mustache as a riding-crop, and kicking an unquestionably innocent cat who was also outstrolling. Curses, he cried. Hardman, not the cat. I am foiled in my plot to get the farm and the girl, but Jack manly shall never succeed. I am a man of power, and we shall see. Thereupon he repaired the humble stub's cottage, where he found the fond father in the still cellar washing bottles under the supervision of the gentle wife and mother, Hannah Stubbs. Coming directly to the point the villain spoke. Farmer Stubbs, I cherish a tender affection of longstanding for your lovely offspring, Ethel Ermengard. I am consumed with love, and wish her hand in matrimony. I always amount a few words. I shall not descend to euphemism. Gave me the girl, I will foreclose the mooridge and take the old home. But sir pleaded the distracted subs while his stricken spouse merely glowered. I am sure the child's affection are elsewhere placed. She must be mine. Sturnly snapped the sinister squire. I will make her love me, none shall resist my will. Either she must become my wife, or the old homestead goes. And with the sneer and flick of his riding crop, Squire Hardman strode out into the night. Scarce said he departed. When there entered by the back door the radiant lovers, eager to tell the senior Stubbs's of their new fond happiness. Imagine the universal consternation which reigned when all was known. Fears flowed like white ale, till suddenly Jack remembers that he was the hero and raised his head, declaiming in appropriately virile accents. Never shall the fair Ermigrad be offered up to this beast as a sacrifice while I live. I shall protect her. She is mine, mine, mine, and then some. Fear not, dear father and mother, to be. I will defend you all. You shall have the old farm still. Adverb, not noun. Although Jack was in a by and no means out of sympathy for Stubbs's kind of form produce. I shall lead to the altar of the beautest Ermigrad, loveliest of her sex, to perdition with the cruel Squire and his ill-gotten gold. The right shall always win, and the hero is always in the right. I will go to the great city and there make a fortune to save you all ere the mortgage fall due. Farewell, my love. I leave you now in tears, but I shall return to pay off the mortgage and claim you as my bride. Jack, my protector. Ermy, my sweet role. Dearest darling, don't forget the ring at Perkins. Oh. Ah. Curtain. Chapter 3. A Dastardly Act. By the resourceful Squire Hardman was not so easily to be foiled. Close by the village lay a disreputable settlement of unkempt shacks, populated by a shiftless scum who lived by thieving in other odd jobs. Here the devilish villains secured two accomplices, ill-favored fellows who were very clearly no gentlemen. And in the night, the evil three broke into Stubbs' cottage and adopted the frail Ermingard, taking her to a wretched hobble in the settlement and placing her there under the charge of Mother Maria, a hideous old hag. Farmer Stubbs was quite distracted and would have advertised in the papers if the cost had been less than a cent a word for each insertion. Ermingard was firm and never wavered in refusal to wed the villain. Aha, my proud beauty, Quothee. I have ye in my power, and sooner or later I will break that will of thine. Meanwhile, think of your poor old father and mother as turned out of hearth and home and wandering as helpless to the meadows. Oh, spare them, spare them, say the maiden. Never, hahahaha, leered the brute. And so the cruel days sped on, while all in ignorance young Jack Manley was seeking fame and fortune in the great city. Chapter 4. Subtle Villainy One day a squire-hardman sat in the front pallor of his expensive and palatial home. Indulging in his favorite pastime of gnashing his teeth and swishing his riding-crop, a great thought came to him, and he cursed aloud at the statue of Satan on the honest mantelpiece. Fool that I am, he cried. Why would I ever waste all this trouble on the girl when I can get the farm by simply foreclosing? I never thought of that. I'll let the girl go, take the farm, and be freed to wed some fair city maid, like the leading lady of the burlesque troop that played last week at Town Hall. And so he went down to the settlement, and said to Irmingard, let her go home, and went home himself to plot new crimes and invent new modes of villainy. The days wore on, and the stubses grew very sad over the coming loss of their home, and still, but nobody seemed to be able to do anything about it. One day a party of hunters from the city chanced astray over the old farm, and one of them found gold. Hiding his discovery from his companions, he feigned rattlesnake bite and went to the stubs' cottage to buy him. He also saw her, and in that moment resolved to win her and the gold. For my old mother's sake I must, he cried loudly to himself, no sacrifice is too great. Chapter 5 The City Chap Algernon Reginald Jones was a polished man of the world from the great city, and in his sophisticated hands our poor little Irmingard was as a mere child. Algernon was a fast worker and never crude. He could have taught Hardman a thing or two about finesse and shrieking. Thus only a week after his advent to the stubs' family circle, where he lurked like a vile serpent that he was, he had persuaded the heroine to elope. It was in the night that she went leaving a note to her parents. Sniffing the familiar mash the last time and kissing the cat goodbye, touching stuff. Allowing a paper to fall out of his pocket by accident. Irmingard, taking advantage of her supposed position as bright elect, picked up the folded sheet and read its perfumed expanse when low she almost fainted. It was a love letter from another woman. Perfidious deceiver she whispered to this sleeping Algernon. So this is all that you were boasted fidelity amounts to. I am done with you for all eternity. So saying, she pushed him out the window and settled down for a much needed rest. Chapter 6. Alone in the great city. When the noisy train pulled out into the dark station at the city, poor helpless Irmingard was all alone without money to get back to Hogdon. Oh, why, she sighed in innocent regret. Didn't I take his pocketbook before I pushed him out? Oh, well, I should worry. He told me all about this city so I can easily earn enough to get home if not pay off the mortgage. But alas for our little heroine, work is not easy for a greenhorn to secure. So for a week she was forced to sleep on park benches and obtain food from the bread line. Once a wily and wicked person perceiving her helplessness offered her a position as a dishwasher in a fashionable and depraved cabaret. But our heroine was true to her rustic ideals and refused to work in such a gilded and glittering prowse of frivolity especially since she was only offered three dollars a week with meals but no board. She tried to look up Jack Manley, her one-time lover but he was nowhere to be found. Per chance, too, he would not have known her for in her poverty she had perforce become a brunette again and Jack had not beheld her in such dates since school days. One day she found a neat but costly purse in the dark and after seeing there was not much in it took it to the rich lady whose card proclaimed her ownership. Delighted beyond words at her honesty of this forlorn waif, the aristocratic Miss Van Idi adopted Irmingrad the little one who had been stolen from her so many years ago. Had like my precious Ma she sighed as she watched the fair brunette return to blondness and so silver weeks passed with the old folks at home tearing their hair and the wicked squire hardman chuckling devilishly. Chapter 7 Happily Ever Afterward One day the wealthy heiress Irmingrad, S. Van Idi hired a new second assistant chauffeur struck by something familiar in his face. She looked again and gasped, low. It was none other than the perfidious Algernon Reginald Jones whom she had pushed from a car window on that fateful day he had survived. This much was almost immediately evident. Also he had wed the other woman who had run away with his milkman and all the money in the house. Now wholly humbled he asked forgiveness of our heroine and confided to her the whole tale of the gold of her father's farm. Finally on words, she raised her salary a dollar a month and resolved to gratify at last that always unquenchable anxiety to relieve the worry of the old folks. So one bright day Irmingrad motored back to Hogden and arrived at the farm just to squire hardman was foreclosing the mortgage and ordering the old folks out. Stay villain she cried flashing a colossal roll of bills you are foiled at last here is your money now go and never darken our humble door again. We are in the union whilst the squire twisted his mustache and riding crop in bafflement and dismay but hark what is this footsteps sound on the old gravel walk and who should appear but our hero Jack Manley worn in seedy but radiant of face seeking at once the downcast villain he said squire lend me a 10 spot will you I just come back from the city with my beautiest bride the Fair Bridget Goldstein I need something to start things off on the old farm then turning to the stubs as he apologized for his inability to pay off the mortgage as agreed don't mention it said Irmingrad prosperity has come to us and I will consider it sufficient payment if you will forget forever the foolish fancies of our childhood all this time Miss Van Iddy had been sitting in the motor waiting for Irmingrad but as she lazily eyed the sharp faced Hannah Stubs a vague memory startled from the back of her brain then it all came to her like the agrestic matron you, you Hannah Smith I know you now 28 years ago when you were my baby mods nurse and you stole her from the cradle where oh where is my child then a thought came as the lightning in a murky sky Irmingrad you say she is your daughter she is mine faders restored to me my old shield my tiny moddy Irmingrad mother's loving arms but Irmingrad was doing some tall thinking how could she get away with the 16 year old stuff that she had been stolen 28 years ago and if she was not Stubs's daughter the gold would never be hers but Miss Van Iddy was rich but Squire Hardman was richer so approaching the dejected villain she afflicted upon him the last terrible punishment Squire dear she murmured I have reconsidered all I love you and your naive strength marry me at once or I will have you prosecuted for kidnapping me last year for close your mortgage and enjoy with me the gold your cleverness discovered come dear and the poor dub did the end the young man came into an ordinate restaurant at eight o'clock in London he was alone but two places had been laid at the table which was reserved for him he had chosen the dinner very carefully by letter a week before a waiter asked him about the other guest you probably won't see him till the coffee comes the young man told him so he was served alone those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man continually addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue with it throughout his elaborate dinner I think you knew my father he said to it over the soup I sent for you this evening he continued because I want you to do me a good turn in fact I must insist on it there was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit of addressing an empty chair certainly he was eating as good a dinner as any sane man could wish for after the burgundy had been served he became more valuable in his monologue not that he spoiled his wand by drinking excessively we have several acquaintances in common he said I met King Setai a year ago in Thebes I think he has altered very little since you knew him I thought his far had a little low for kings Cheops has left the house that he built for your reception he must have prepared for you for years and years I suppose you have seldom been entertained like that I ordered this dinner over a week ago I ordered this dinner over a week ago I thought then that a lady might have come with me but as she wouldn't I've asked you she may not ask for all be as lovely as Helen of Troy was Helen very lovely not when you knew her perhaps you were lucky in Cleopatra you must have known her when she was in her prime you never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely goddesses of long ago that's where we have the best of you he was silent when the waiters came to his table but rambled merrily on as soon as they left still turned to the empty chair you know I saw you here in London only the other day you were on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill it was going much too fast London is a good place but I should be glad enough to leave it it was in London that I met the lady that I was speaking about if it hadn't been for London I probably shouldn't have met her and if it hadn't been for London I wouldn't have had so much besides me to amuse her it cuts both ways he paused once to order coffee gazing earnestly at the waiter and putting a sovereign in his hand don't let it be chicory said he the waiter brought the coffee and the young man dropped a tabloid of some sort into his cup I don't suppose you come here very often he went on well you probably want to be going I haven't taken you much out of your way there is plenty for you to do in London then having drunk his coffee he fell on the floor by a foot of the empty chair and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over him and announced to the access manager the visible presence of the young man's guest end of the guest by Baron Edward John Morton Drax Plunkett Donsani A work of art by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov translated by Constance Garnett this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Sasha Smirnov the only son of his mother holding under his arm something wrapped up in number 223 of the financial news assumed a sentimental expression and went into Dr. Kosherkov's consulting room ah, dear lad was how the doctor greeted him well, how are we feeling what good news have you for me Sasha blinked laid his hand on his heart and said in an agitated voice Mama sends her greetings to you Ivan Nikolaevich and told me to thank you I am the only son of my mother and you have saved my life you have brought me through a dangerous illness and we do not know how to thank you nonsense lad said the doctor, highly delighted I only did what anyone else would have done in my place I am the only son of my mother we are poor people and cannot of course repay you and we are quite a shame doctor although, however Mama and I the only son of my mother I beg you to accept in token of our gratitude this object which an object of great value an antique bronze a rare work of art you shouldn't said the doctor frowning what's this for no, please do not refuse Sasha went on muttering as he unpacked the parcel you were wounded Mama and me by refusing it's a fine thing an antique bronze it was left us by my deceased father and we have kept it as a precious souvenir my father used to buy antique bronzes and sell them to connoisseurs Mama and I keep on the business now Sasha undid the object and put it solemnly on the table it was a not very tall candelabra of old bronze and artistic workmanship it consisted of a group on the pedestal stood two female figures in the costume of Eve and in attitudes for the description of which I have neither the courage nor the fitting temperament the figures were smiling coquettishly and all together looked as though had it not been for the necessity of supporting the candlestick they would have skipped off the pedestal and have indulged in an orgy such as proper for the reader even to imagine looking at the present the doctor slowly scratched behind his ear cleared his throat and blew his nose irresolutely ah yes it is certainly a fine thing he muttered but how shall I express it it's not quite for family reading it's not simply deco-let but beyond anything that's it all how do you mean the serpent tempter himself could not have invented anything worse why to put such a phantasmagoria on the table would be defiling the whole flat what a strange way of looking at art doctor said Sasha offended why it is an artistic thing look at it there is so much beauty and elegance one's soul with a feeling of reverence and brings a lump into one's throat when one sees anything so beautiful one forgets everything earthly only look how much movement what an atmosphere what expression I understand all that very well my dear boy the doctor interposed but you know I am a family man my children run in here ladies come in of course if you look at it from the point of view of the crowd said Sasha then this exquisitely artistic work may appear in a certain light but doctor rise superior to the crowd especially as you will wound mama and me by refusing it I am the only son of my mother you have saved my life we are giving you the thing most precious to us and I only regret that I have not the pair to present to you thank you my dear fellow I am very grateful give my respects to your mother but really consider my children run in here ladies come however let it remain I see there's no arguing with you and there is nothing to argue about said Sasha relieved put the candlestick here what a pity we have not the pair to it it is a pity well goodbye doctor after Sasha's departure the doctor looked for a long time at the candelabra scratched behind his ear and meditated it's a superb thing there's no denying it he thought and it would be a pity to throw it away but it's impossible for me to keep it hmm here's a problem to whom can I make a present of it or to what charity can I give it after long meditation he thought of his good friend the lawyer Uhov to whom he was indebted for the management of legal business excellent the doctor decided it would be awkward for him as a friend to take money from me and it would be very suitable for me to present him with this I will take him the devilish thing luckily he is a bachelor and easygoing without further procrastination the doctor put on his hat and coat took his candelabra and went off to Uhov's how are you friend he said finding the lawyer at home I've come to see you to thank you for your efforts you won't take money so you must at least accept this thing here see my dear fellow the thing is magnificent on seeing the bronze the lawyer was moved to indescribable delight what a specimen he chuckled juice take it to think of them imagining such a thing the devils exquisite ravishing where did you get hold of such a delightful thing after pouring out his ecstasies the lawyer looked timidly toward the door and said only you must carry off your present my boy I can't take it why cried the doctor disconcerted why because my mother is here at times my clients besides I should be ashamed for my servants to see it nonsense, nonsense don't you dare to refuse said the doctor just articulating it's pigish of you it's a work of art what movement, what expression I won't even talk of it you will offend me if one could plaster over it or stick on fig leaves but the doctor just articulated more violently than before and dashing out of the flat went home glad that he had succeeded in getting the present off his hands the lawyer examined the candelabra fingered it all over and then, like the doctor wracked his brains over the question what to do with the present it's a fine thing he mused and it would be a pity to throw it away and improper to keep it the very best thing would be to make a present of it to someone I know what I'll take it this evening to Shashkin the rascal is fond of such things and by the way it is his benefit tonight no sooner said than done in the evening the candelabra carefully wrapped up was duly carried to Shashkin's the whole evening the comic actors dressing room was besieged by men coming to admire the present the dressing room was filled with the hum of enthusiasm and laughter like the neighing of horses if one of the actresses approached the door and asked, now I come in the comedian's husky voice was heard at once no, no my dear, I'm not dressed after the performance the comedian shrugged his shoulders flung up his hands and said well, what am I to do with the horrid thing why, I live in a private flat actresses come and see me it's not a photograph that you can put in a drawer you had better sell it sir the hairdresser who was disrobing the actor advised him there's an old woman living about here who buys antique bronzes go and inquire for madame smirnov everyone knows her the actor followed his advice two days later the doctor was sitting in his consulting room and with his finger to his brow was meditating on the acids of the bile all at once the door opened and Sasha Smirnov flew into the room he was smiling beaming and his whole figure was radiant with happiness in his hands he held something wrapped up in newspaper doctor he began breathlessly imagine my delight happily for you we have succeeded in picking up the pair to your candelabra mama is so happy I am the only son of my mother you saved my life and Sasha all of a tremor with gratitude set the candelabra before the doctor the doctor opened his mouth tried to say something but said nothing he could not speak end of a work of art by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov