The Complete Plays

HONORABLE TOWNSFOLK¹

Ґocпo‰a O·ы‚aтeли

A Play in Two Acts

ACT ONE

The Town Council. In session.

CITY MANAGER (after smacking his lips and slowly digging into his ear). On this matter, gentlemen, will you please attend to the opinion of Fire Chief Semyon Vavilych, who is a specialist in this sort of thing? Let him explain, and then we’ll deliberate on it!

FIRE CHIEF. This is the way I figure it . . . (Blows his nose into a checkered handkerchief.) The ten thousand allotted to the fire department may be a lot of money, but . . . (passes a hand over his bald spot) it only looks that way. It isn’t money so much as a dream, a mirage. Of course, ten thousand will get you a fire brigade, but what kind? Just a joke! Don’t you see . . . The most important object in human life is a look-out tower for fires, and any scientist will tell you the same thing. Now our municipal lookout tower is, to put it categorically, quite unsuitable, because it’s low. The buildings are tall (he lifts up his arms), they hem in the lookout tower on all sides, and it’s not only a fire you can’t see, but, God forbid, the sky. The firemen are my responsibility, firemen, but is it their fault that they can’t see it? Next, as to horses and concerning water casks . . . (Unbuttons his waistcoat, exhales, and proceeds with his speech in the same spirit. )

COUNCILMEN (unanimously). Add another two thousand to the estimate!

The CITY MANAGER takes a momentary pause to expel the journalists from the council chamber.

FIRE CHIEF. Very good, sir. Now, perhaps, you will decide that the lookout tower should be raised six feet . . . Very good. But if you look at it from the viewpoint and in the sense that the governmental interests of, so to speak, society are involved, then I have to note, honorable councilmen, that if a contractor is hired to handle this, then I have to point out that this will cost the town twice as much, because the contractor will look out for his own interests, and not society’s. If it were to be built in an economic way, in no particular hurry, if bricks, say, cost fifty rubles a thousand and were carted by the fire horses and if (turns his eyes to the ceiling, as if mentally calculating) and if fifteen beams, forty-five feet long and ten inches wide . . . (Calculates.)

COUNCILMEN (voting in the majority). Entrust the rebuilding of the watch-tower to Semyon Vavilych, for which purpose at the earliest opportunity assign a thousand five hundred and twenty-three rubles forty-four kopeks!

FIRE CHIEF’S WIFE (sitting amongst the public, whispers to the lady next to her). I don’t know why my Senya is making such a fuss! With his health to get involved in rebuilding? Then too, it’s ridiculous—all day long up to your eyebrows in workmen! He’ll earn a pittance for the repairs, five hundred rubles or so, but he’ll ruin a thousand rubles’ worth of his health. His good nature is killing him, the fool!

FIRE CHIEF. Very good, sir. Now let’s talk about the working staff. Of course, as, you might say, an interested party (embarrassed), I can only remark that I . . . I really don’t care . . . I’m no longer a young man, I’m ill, I could die any day now. The doctor said that I’ve got hardening of the intestines and if I don’t look after my health, then my veins will burst and I’ll die before the priest gets there . . .

WHISPER IN THE PUBLIC. Live like a dog, die like a dog.

FIRE CHIEF. But I’m not concerned about myself. I have lived my life, thank God. I need nothing . . . Only I’m surprised and . . . and even offended . . . (Waves his hand in hopelessness.) You work for a mere salary, honorably, blamelessly . . . no rest day or night, no concern for your health and . . . and you wonder what it’s all for? Why am I getting involved? What’s my interest? I’m not discussing myself, but in general . . . No one else would live on such pay . . . A drunkard might take on a job like this, but a businesslike man of substance would rather starve to death than get involved with horses and firemen for such a salary . . . (Shrugs his shoulders.) What’s my interest? If foreigners were to see us, the way we’re set up, I think we’d get raked over the coals in the all the European newspapers. In Western Europe, take at least Paris, for instance, on every street there’s a lookout tower and every year they give the fire chief a bonus based on a percentage of his annual salary. A person can work in a place like that!

COUNCILMEN. Give Semyon Vavilych for his many long years of service a bonus of two hundred rubles!

FIRE CHIEF’S WIFE (whispers to the lady next to her). It’s a good thing he asked . . . Clever fellow. The other day we were at Father Archpriest’s, lost a hundred rubles to him at poker² and now, don’t you know, we’re in a bad way! (Yawns.) Ah, such a bad way! It should be time to go home and have some tea.

ACT TWO

The scene is at the lookout tower. WATCHMEN.

SENTRY ON THE LOOKOUT TOWER (shouts down). Hey! There’s a fire at the lumber yard! Sound the alarm!

LOWER SENTRY. You spotted it just now? People have been running around for half an hour, and you, you freak, suddenly get a glimmer of it now? (Sententiously. ) Set a fool high or low—it makes no difference (sounds the alarm).

Within three minutes, in a window of his apartment which is opposite the lookout tower, the FIRE CHIEF appears, in a state of undress and with sleepy eyes.

FIRE CHIEF. Where’s the fire, Denis?

LOWER SENTRY (comes to attention and salutes). At the lumberyard, yer washup!

FIRE CHIEF (shakes his head). God save us! The wind is blowing, there’s such a dry spell . . . (Waves his hand.) God preserve us! Nothing good ever comes of these calamities! . . . (Rubs his hand over his face.) Tell you what, Denis . . . Tell them, my good friend, to harness the horses and drive over there, and right away I’ll . . . I’ll show up in a little while . . . Have to get dressed, one thing and another . . .

LOWER SENTRY. There’s no one to go, yer washup! They’ve all gorn away, only Andrey’s home.

FIRE CHIEF (alarmed). Where are they, the bastards?

LOWER SENTRY. Makar was nailing on new soles, now he’s taking the boots to the subbubs, to the deacon. Mikhail, yer washup, you your own self were pleased to send to sell the oats . . . Yegor’s took the fire horses down to the river to your sister-in-law’s farm manager. Nikita’s plastered.

FIRE CHIEF. What about Aleksey?

LOWER SENTRY. Aleksey went to catch crayfish, because you was pleased to order him to a while back, you said you’ve having a dinner party tomorrow.

FIRE CHIEF (shaking his head in contempt). I ask you, how are you to work with people like this! Ignorance, illiteracy . . . drunkenness . . . If foreigners were to see this, you’d be raked over the coals in the European newspapers! There, take Paris at least, the fire brigade is always riding through the streets, running over people: whether there’s a fire or not, merrily they roll along! A fire’s broken out at the lumber yard, a real danger, but not one of them is at home, it’s like . . . devils mash ‘em flat! No, we’re a far cry from Europe! (Turns his face back to the room, tenderly.) Mashenka, get out my uniform!

A. Chekhonte

NOTES

1 Published in Splinters (Oskolki) 50 (December 15, 1884), p. 4.

2 Poker for profit was forbidden by law.