The Complete Plays

THE CASE OF THE YEAR 1884¹

(From Our Correspondent)

Дeлo o 1884 ro‰e

(oт нaшero koррecпoн‰eнтa)

Today is now the sixth day at N. courthouse of the trial of the secular year 1884, accused of dereliction of duty. The court is perceptibly weary. The accused weeps and now and then whispers to its defense lawyer. This very day there began the examination of the material evidence . . . When, at the request of the public prosecutor, The Citizen² was read aloud and an issue of The Ray appeared with a portrait of Okreits,³ the public was excluded from the courtroom, so that the subjects mentioned might not lead them into temptation . . . After this the pleas began on both sides.

“Please, your —nor,” the defense attorney concluded his speech, “enter into the record that the whole time I was speaking the Public Prosecutor coughed, blew his nose and thumped the water bottle . . . “

PRESIDENT OF THE COURT. Accused, your last word!

THE ACCUSED (weeps). I would like to say something, although it is pointless, if you’ve already made up your mind to rake me over the coals. I am accused, in the first place, of inertia — the fact that I’ve done nothing, that in my time the economic situation did not improve, the exchange rate hasn’t risen, manufacturing is stuck in the mud and so on . . . That is not my fault . . . Remember that when I was appointed to the post of new year, I found, . . . (Tells in detail what he found.)

PRESIDENT. This has nothing to do with the case! Please speak to the matter at hand!

THE ACCUSED (panicking). Yes, sir, your —nor! The Public Prosectuor accuses me of wasting my time on trivia, of twiddling my thumbs . . . True, during my existence on earth I have done nothing sensible. A new form of label for bottles was put on sale, rags were patched, fools were made to pray to God, and they bashed their foreheads against the ground . . .

PRESIDENT. Accused, if you refer to individuals, I shall bar you from speaking.

ACCUSED. What am I to say then? (After a moment’s thought.) Fine, I’ll move to the press . . . They say that all the newspapers are vacuous, dull, that the press only insults people behind their backs, that talented people are literally shoved under water . . . What can I do about it, if . . .

PRESIDENT. Bailiff! Remove the accused from the courtroom!

On the accused being led from the courtroom, the jury was presented with the questionnaire.

The court pronounced sentence: the secular year 1884, after being deprived of all civil rights, is to be exiled and deported to Lethe⁴ forever.

The Man without a Spleen

NOTES

1 Published in Fragments (Oskolki) 1 (January 5, 1884), p. 6.

2 A conservative paper published by V. I. Meshchersky.

3 The Ray, a weekly illustrated magazine, bore a portrait of its anti-Semitic publisher, S. S. Okreits, on its cover. Chekhov considered Okreits to be on the lowest rung of the literary ladder.

4 The river of oblivion that flowed through the ancient Greek underworld.