Little Apples

BECAUSE OF LITTLE APPLES

Between the Black Sea and the White Sea, at a certain longitude and latitude, the landowner Trifon Semyonovich has resided since time out of mind. His family name is as long as the word “Overnumerousnesses,” and derives from a sonorous Latin word referring to one of the countless human virtues. He owns eight thousand acres of black earth. His estate—because it is an estate, and he is a landowner—is mortgaged to the hilt and has been foreclosed and put up for sale. The sale was initiated in the days before the first signs of Trifon Semyonovich’s bald spot, and has been drawn out all these years. As a result of the bank’s credulity and Trifon Semyonovich’s resourcefulness, things have been moving very slowly indeed. The bank will one day fail because Trifon Semyonovich and others like him, whose names are legion, have taken the bank’s rubles but refuse to pay the interest. In the rare cases that Trifon Semyonovich does make an interest payment, he does so with the piety of an upright man donating a kopeck for the souls of the dead or the building of a church. Were this world not this world, and were we to call things by their real names, Trifon Semyonovich would not be called Trifon Semyonovich but something else; he would be called what a horse or a cow might be called. To put it bluntly, Trifon Semyonovich is a swine. I invite him to challenge this. If my invitation reaches him (he sometimes reads this magazine), I doubt that he will be angry, as he is a man of intelligence. In fact, I’m sure he will agree with me completely, and in the autumn might even send me a dozen Antonov apples from his orchards as a thank-you for only having revealed his Christian name and patronymic, and hence not utterly ruining his lengthy family name. I shall not catalogue Trifon Semyonovich’s many virtues: the list is too long. For me to present him—arms, legs, and all—I would have to spend as much time at my desk as Eugène Sue did with his ten-volume Wandering Jew. I will not touch upon the tricks Trifon Semyonovich resorts to when playing cards, nor upon his wheeling and dealing, by dint of which he has avoided paying any debts or interest, nor will I list the pranks he plays on the priest and the sexton, nor how he rides through the village in a getup from the era of Cain and Abel. I shall limit myself to describing a single scene that characterizes his attitude toward mankind, an attitude beautifully summed up in the tongue twister he composed, prompted by his seventy-five-year experience of the human race: “Foolish fools fooled foolishly by foolish fools.”

One wonderful morning, wonderful in every sense (for the incident occurred in late summer), Trifon Semyonovich was strolling down the long paths and the short paths of his sumptuous orchard. Everything that might inspire a lofty poet lay scattered about in great abundance, and seemed to be saying and singing: “Partake, O man, partake in the bounty! Rejoice while the sweet days of summer last!” But Trifon Semyonovich did not rejoice, for he is not a poet, and that morning his soul, as Pushkin said, “did yearn so keenly for quenching sleep” (which it always did whenever that soul’s owner had had a particularly bad evening at cards). Behind Trifon Semyonovich marched his lackey Karpushka, a little man of about sixty, his eyes darting from side to side. Old Karpushka’s virtues almost surpass those of Trifon Semyonovich. He is a master at shining boots, even more of a master at hanging stray dogs, spying into other people’s business, and stealing anything that isn’t nailed down. The village clerk had dubbed him “the Oprichnik,”7 which is what the whole village now calls him. Hardly a day passes without the neighbors or the local peasantry complaining to Trifon Semyonovich about Karpushka, but the complaints fall on deaf ears since Karpushka is irreplaceable in his master’s household. When Trifon Semyonovich goes for a stroll he always takes faithful Karpushka with him: it is safer that way and much more fun. Karpushka is a fountain of tall tales, jingles, and yarns, and an expert at not being able to hold his tongue. He is always relating this or that, and only falls silent when something interesting catches his ear. On this particular morning he was walking behind his master, telling him a long tale about how two schoolboys wearing white caps had ridden past the orchard with hunting rifles, and begged him to let them in so they could take a few shots at some birds. They had tried to sway him with a fifty-kopeck coin, but he, knowing full well where his allegiance lay, had indignantly refused the coin and even set Kashtan and Serka loose on the boys. Having ended this story, Karpushka began portraying in vivid colors the shameful behavior of the village medical orderly, but before he could add the finishing touches to this portrayal his ears suddenly caught a suspicious rustle coming from behind some apple and pear trees. Karpushka held his tongue, pricked up his ears, and listened. Certain that this rustle was indeed suspicious, he tugged at his master’s jacket, and then shot off toward the trees like an arrow. Trifon Semyonovich, sensing a brouhaha, shuddered with excitement, shuffled his elderly legs, and ran after Karpushka. It was worth the effort.

At the edge of the orchard, beneath an old, gnarled apple tree, stood a young peasant girl, chewing something. A broad-shouldered young man was crawling on his hands and knees nearby, gathering up apples the wind had knocked off the branches. The unripe ones he threw into the bushes, but the ripe apples he lovingly held out to his Dulcinea in his large, dirty hands. It was clear that Dulcinea had no fear for her stomach; she was devouring one apple after another with gusto, while the young man crawled and gathered more and only had eyes for his Dulcinea.

“Get me one from off the tree,” the girl urged him in a whisper.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Too dangerous? Don’t worry about the Oprichnik, he’ll be down at the tavern.”

The boy got up, jumped in the air, tore an apple off the tree, and handed it to the girl. But the boy and the girl, like Adam and Eve in days of old, did not fare well with this apple. No sooner had she bitten off a little piece and handed it to the boy, and they felt its cruel tartness on their tongues, than their faces blanched, puckered up, and then fell. Not because the apple was sour, but because they saw before them the grim countenance of Trifon Semyonovich, and beside it the gloating face of Karpushka.

“Well hello,” Trifon Semyonovich said, walking up to them. “Eating apples, are we? I do hope that I am not disturbing you.”

The boy took off his cap and hung his head. The girl began eyeing her apron.

“And how have you been keeping, Grigory?” Trifon Semyonovich said to the boy. “Is everything going well?”

“I only took one,” the boy mumbled. “And it was lying on the ground.”

“And how have you been keeping, my dear?” Trifon Semyonovich asked the girl.

The girl studied her apron more intensely.

“The two of you not married yet?”

“Not yet, Your Lordship . . . but I swear, we only took one, and it was . . . um . . . lying—”

“I see, I see. Good fellow. Do you know how to read?”

“No . . . but I swear, Your Lordship, it was only one, and it was lying on the ground.”

“So you don’t know how to read, but you do know how to steal. Well, at least that’s something. Knowledge is a heavy burden. And have you been stealing for a long time?”

“But I wasn’t stealing.”

“What about your sweet little bride here?” Karpushka asked the boy. “Why is she so sad? Don’t you love her enough?”

“No more of that, Karpushka!” Trifon Semyonovich snapped. “Well, Grigory, I want you to tell us a story.”

The boy cleared his throat nervously and smiled.

“I don’t know any stories, Your Lordship,” he said. “And it’s not like I need your apples. If I want some, I can buy some.”

“My dear fellow, I am delighted that you have so much money. Come, tell us a story. I am all ears, Karpushka is all ears, and your pretty little bride is all ears. Don’t be shy. Be brave! A thief’s heart must be brave! Is that not so, my friend?”

Trifon Semyonovich rested his venomous eyes on the crestfallen boy. Beads of sweat gathered on the boy’s forehead.

“Why don’t you tell him to sing a song instead?” Karpushka piped up in his tinny tenor. “You can’t expect a fool like that to come up with a story.”

“Quiet, Karpushka! Let him tell us a story! Well, go on, my dear fellow.”

“I don’t know any stories.”

“So you can’t tell a story, but you can steal. What does the Eighth Commandment say?”

“I don’t know, Your Lordship, but I swear we only ate one apple, and it was lying on the ground.”

“Tell me a story!”

Karpushka began gathering nettles. The boy knew perfectly well why. Trifon Semyonovich, like all his kind, is a master at taking the law into his own hands. He will lock a thief up in his cellar for a day and a night, or flog him with nettles, or let him go right away—but not before stripping him naked and keeping his clothes. This surprises you? There are people for whom this is as commonplace as an old cart. Grigory peered sheepishly at the nettles, hesitated, cleared his throat, and launched into what was more a tangle of nonsense than anything resembling a story. Gasping, sweating, clearing his throat, blowing his nose, he muttered something about ancient Russian heroes fighting ogres and marrying beautiful maidens. Trifon Semyonovich stood listening, his eyes fixed on the storyteller.

“That’ll do,” he said when the young man’s tale finally fell apart completely. “You are an excellent storyteller, but an even better thief. As for you, my pretty little thing,” he said, turning to the girl, “say the Lord’s Prayer.”

The girl blushed and said the Lord’s Prayer, barely audibly and with hardly a breath.

“Now, how about the Eighth Commandment?”

“We didn’t take a lot,” the boy replied, desperately waving his arms. “I swear by the Holy Cross!”

“It is very bad, my dear children, that you don’t know this commandment. I will have to teach it to you. Tell me, my pretty one, did this fellow teach you how to steal? Why so silent, my little angel? You must answer me. Answer me! You are silent? Your silence means you obviously agree. Since this is the case, my pretty one, you will have to beat your fiancé for having taught you how to steal!”

“I won’t,” the girl whispered.

“Just a little. Fools must be taught a lesson. Go on, beat him, my pretty one. You won’t? Well, in that case I shall have to ask Karpushka and Matvei to give you a little beating with those nettles over there. Shall I?”

“I won’t,” the girl repeated.

“Karpushka, come over here, will you?”

The girl flew at the boy and slapped him. The boy smiled foolishly and began to cry.

“That was excellent, my dear. Now pull his hair. Go to it, my dear. What, you won’t? Karpushka, can you come here, please?”

The girl grabbed her betrothed by the hair.

“Don’t hold back, I want it to hurt! Pull harder!”

The girl began pulling. Karpushka bubbled over with delight.

“That will do,” Trifon Semyonovich said to the girl. “Thank you for doing your bit to punish evil, my pretty one. And now,” he said, turning to the young man, “I want you to teach your fiancée a lesson. I want you to do to her what she has done to you.”

“Please, Your Lordship, by God . . . why should I beat her?”

“Why? Didn’t she just beat you? Now beat her! It will do her a world of good. You won’t? Well, there’s nothing for it. Karpushka, go get Matvei, will you?”

The boy spat, gasped, seized his fiancée’s braid, and began doing his bit to punish evil. Without realizing it he fell into a trance, got carried away, and forgot that it was not Trifon Semyonovich he was beating, but his betrothed. The girl shrieked. The beating went on for a long time. God knows where it would have ended if Trifon Semyonovich’s pretty daughter Sashenka had not appeared through the bushes.

“Papa dear, do come and have some tea!” she called, and seeing her dear papa’s little caper, burst into peals of laughter.

“That’ll do, you can go now,” Trifon Semyonovich said to the girl and boy with a low bow. “Goodbye. I’ll send you some nice little apples for your wedding.”

The girl and the boy went off—the boy to the right, the girl to the left. From that day on they never met again. Had Sashenka not appeared when she did, they might have been whipped with nettles too. This is how Trifon Semyonovich amuses himself in his old age. And his family isn’t far behind. His daughters have a habit of sewing onions onto the hats of guests whom they “outrank socially,” and should these outranked guests have had a drink or two too many, the girls take a piece of chalk and write “Donkey” or “Fool” in thick letters on their backs. Last winter, Trifon Semyonovich’s son Mitya, a retired lieutenant, even managed to outdo his papa. He and Karpushka smeared the gates of a retired soldier with tar because the soldier wouldn’t give Mitya a wolf cub he wanted, and because the soldier had warned his daughters against accepting cakes and candy from the lieutenant.

And after this you want to call Trifon Semyonovich, Trifon Semyonovich and not something worse?

7 A member of a sinister private army devoted to the service of Czar Ivan the Terrible.