The Complete Plays

AN IDEAL EXAMINATION¹

И‰eaльньiй эkзaмeн

(A Short Answer to All Long Questions)

Conditio sine qua non:² a very learned teacher and a very clever pupil. The former is malicious and persistent, the latter is invulnerable. Just as an ideal fire brigade should arrive half an hour before the fire, so an ideal student has answers ready half an hour before the question. For brevity’s sake and to avoid a large fee,* I’ve put the gist in dramatic form.

TEACHER. You have just said that earth can be represented as a ball. But you forget that it contains high mountains, deep valleys, Moscow carriage ways, which prevent it from being round!

PUPIL. They no more prevent it from being round than do little indentations on an orange or pimples on a face.

TEACHER. And what does face mean?

PUPIL. The face is the mirror of the soul, and can get smashed as easily as any other mirror.

TEACHER. And what does mirror mean?

PUPIL. A mirror is a piece of furniture on which a woman hangs her weapons ten times a day. A mirror is a woman’s experimental laboratory.

TEACHER (sarcastically). Goodness me, aren’t you clever! (After a moment’s thought.) Now I’m going to ask you a certain question . . . (Quickly.) What is life?

PUPIL. Life is a fee paid not to authors but to their works.

TEACHER. And how large is that fee?

PUPIL. It is equal to the fee which bad editors pay for very bad translations.

TEACHER. Well, sir . . . Now, can you tell me something about railroads?

PUPIL (rapidly and distinctly).The railroad, in the general acceptance of that word, is the name of an instrument which serves to transport fortunes, let blood and provide persons of low income powerful sensations. It consists properly of the rails and the railroad regulations. The latter are the following. Railroad stations are subject to hygiene inspections equivalent to those of slaughter-houses, the railroad to those of cemeteries: With a view to preserving the cleanliness of the air both of them must be kept at a respectable distance from residential areas. An individual, transported by the railroad, will be referred to as the passenger, but once he has arrived at his place of destination, he will be renamed the deceased. In case a man, on his way to visit his auntie in Tambov or his cousin in Saratov, is reluctant to submit to the will of the Fates and join his ancestors, he must state his reluctance, but no later than six months after the crash. Those wishing to write a will shall receive pen and ink from the chief conductor for a set fee. In case of a collision, derailment and the like, the passengers are obligated to keep silent and hug the ground. In case two trains collide, a third must not get involved . . .

TEACHER. That’ll do, hold on . . . Now then, what is justice?

PUPIL. Justice is the railroad fines, hung up on the inside wall of every carriage: for a broken window two rubles, for a torn curtain three rubles, for slashed upholstery on the seat five rubles, for breakage of one’s own person in case of a crash the passenger will not be fined.

TEACHER. Who cleans the Moscow streets?

PUPIL. Rain.

TEACHER. And who gets paid for it?

PUPIL. (Name a river.)

TEACHER. Well now . . . And what can you tell me about the horse-drawn railroad?

PUPIL. The horse-drawn tramway or, to put it more simply, the horse-and-equine-drawn transit system, consists of an inside, an outside, and the transit system regulations. The inside costs five kopeks, the outside three kopeks, the transit system regulations nothing. The first was given to mankind for the most comfortable contemplation of the conductors’ morals, the second for peeping in the morning into second-floor windows with low necklines, the third to be obeyed. These rules are as follows. The horse-drawn tram does not exist for the public, but the public for the horse-drawn tram. On the conductor’s entrance into the carriage the public must smile pleasantly. Movement forward, movement backward, and absolute stillness are synonymous. Speed is equal in negative proportion to size, now and then zero, and on major holidays one and a half miles per hour. If a car should be derailed, the passenger pays nothing.

TEACHER. Tell me, please, what is the reason that two cars on meeting one another ring a bell and what’s the reason the ticket-collectors tear off corners of the tickets?

PUPIL. They both constitute a trade secret of the inventors.

TEACHER. Which writer do you like the most?

PUPIL. The one who knows how to end a sentence with a period at the right moment.

TEACHER. Makes sense . . . But do you know who is responsible for the exaggerations, which are plaguing the reader at this very moment?

PUPIL. That constitutes a trade secret of the editorial board . . . However, just for you, I can probably . . . If you like, I’ll reveal that secret to you . . . (In a whisper). These exaggerations were committed in his old age by

A. Chekhonte

*I don’t understand what this is for! Author.

NOTES

1 Published in Splinters (Oskolki) 24 (June 16, 1884), pp. 277–280.

2 Latin, the indispensable condition.