AN EDUCATED BLOCKHEAD by Anton Chekhov

ARKHIP ELISEICH SLOPSOV, a retired second lieutenant, put on his spectacles, frowned, and read out: “The justice of the peace of the…circuit,…district, invites you, etc., etc., in the capacity of the accused in a case of assault and battery of the peasant Grigory Vlasov…Justice of the Peace P. Sixwingsky.”1

“Who is this from?” Slopsov raised his eyes to the messenger.

“From mister justice of the peace, sir, Pyotr Sergeich…Sixwingsky, sir…”

“Hmm…From Pyotr Sergeich? What is he inviting me for?”

“Must be for a trial…It’s written there, sir.”

Slopsov read the summons over again, looked at the messenger in surprise, and shrugged his shoulders…

“Pah…in the capacity of the accused…He’s a funny one, this Pyotr Sergeich! Ah, well, tell him: all right! Only he should prepare a good lunch…Tell him I’ll be there! My greetings to Natalya Egorovna and the little ones!”

Slopsov signed and went to the room where his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Nitkin, who had come on vacation, was staying.

“Take a look at what sort of missive Petka Sixwingsky has sent me,” he said, handing Nitkin the summons. “He’s inviting me for Thursday…Will you come with me?”

“But he’s not asking you as a guest,” said Nitkin, having read the summons. “He’s summoning you to court as the accused…He’s putting you on trial.”

“Me, is it? Pss…The milk hasn’t dried on his lips yet, who is he to put me on trial…Small fry…He’s just doing it as a joke…”

“He’s not joking at all! Don’t you understand? It says here clearly: a case of assault and battery…You gave Grishka a beating, so now there’s a trial.”

“You’re a funny one, by God! How can he put me on trial, if we’re what you might call friends? How can he judge me, if we’ve played cards, and drunk, and done devil knows what else together? What kind of judge is he anyway? Ha-ha! Petka—a judge! Ha-ha!”

“Go on, laugh, but he may well put you behind bars, not out of friendship, but on legal grounds, which will be nothing to laugh at!”

“You’re cuckoo, brother! What are the legal grounds here, if he’s my Vanya’s godfather? Come along with me on Thursday and you’ll see what kind of grounds there are…”

“And I’d advise you not to go at all, or you’ll put him and yourself in an awkward position…Let him decide in absentia…”

“No, why in absentia? I’ll go and see how he’s going to judge it…I’m curious to see what kind of judge Petka’s become…Incidentally, I haven’t visited him for a long time…it’s embarrassing…”

On Thursday Slopsov and Nitkin went to see Sixwingsky. They found the justice of the peace at proceedings in the courtroom.

“Greetings, Petyukha!” said Slopsov, going up to the judge’s bench and holding out his hand. “Doing a bit of judging? Pettifoggery? Go on, go on…I’ll wait, I’ll watch…Let me introduce my brother-in-law…Is your wife well?”

“Yes…she is…Go sit there…with the public…”

Having muttered that, the judge blushed. Generally, beginning judges always get embarrassed when they see acquaintances in the courtroom; when they happen to have an acquaintance on trial, they give the impression of people about to fall through the floor from embarrassment. Slopsov stepped away from the bench and sat down in the front row beside Nitkin.

“Such importance in the rogue!” he whispered in Nitkin’s ear. “You wouldn’t recognize him! And he won’t smile! Wearing a gold chain! Phooey on you! As if it wasn’t him who daubed my kitchen maid Agafya with ink while she slept. What a laugh! Can such people judge anything? I ask you: Can such people judge anything? Here you need a man of rank, substance…so that, you know, he instills fear, but they just perched some nobody up there—go on, judge! Heh-heh…”

“Grigory Vlasov!” the justice called out. “Mr. Slopsov!”

Slopsov smiled and went up to the bench. A fellow in a shabby frock coat with a high waist and striped britches tucked into short reddish boots emerged from the public and stood beside Slopsov.

“Mr. Slopsov,” the justice began, looking down. “You are accu-u-used…of assault and battery of your serving man…Grigory Vlasov here. Do you plead guilty?”

“What else! When did you turn so serious? Heh-heh…”

“Not guilty?” the justice interrupted him, fidgeting in his chair from embarrassment. “Vlasov, tell us what happened!”

“Very simple, sir. This gentleman, kindly see, employed me as a lackey, or, it might be argued, as a valet…Of course, our duties are a sort of hard labor, Your Excellency…Himself gets up past eight, but you’ve got to be on your feet with the first light…God only knows, will himself put on boots, or shoeses, or maybe go around the whole day in slippers, but you polish up everything: boots, and shoeses, and ankle boots…Right, sir…So himself calls me one morning to dress him. Of course, I go…I put his shirt on him, his britches, his boots…all good and proper…I start putting on his waistcoat…Here’s what himself says: ‘Give me my comb, Grishka. It’s in the side pocket of my frock coat,’ he says. Right, sir…I rummage in this side pocket, but the devil must have gobbled it up—there’s no comb. I dig and dig and say: ‘There’s no comb here, Arkhip Eliseich!’ Himself frowns, goes over to the frock coat, and takes out the comb, only not from the side pocket, as he told me, but from the front one. ‘And what’s this? Not a comb?’ he says, and shoves the comb at my nose. All the teeth went over my nose. The whole rest of the day my nose kept bleeding. Kindly see, it’s all swollen…I’ve got witnesses. Everybody saw it.”

“What can you say in your defense?” The justice raised his eyes to Slopsov.

Slopsov looked questioningly at the justice, then at Grishka, then again at the justice, and turned purple.

“How am I to take this?” he muttered. “As mockery?”

“There is no mockery of you here, sir,” observed Grishka, “I say it with a clear conscience. You oughtn’t to make so free with your hands.”

“Shut up!” Slopsov struck the floor with his walking stick. “Fool! Trash!”

The justice quickly took off his chain, jumped up from the bench, and rushed to his office.

“A five-minute break in the proceedings,” he called out on the way.

Slopsov followed after him.

“Listen,” the justice began, clasping his hands, “what do you want, to arrange a scandal for me? Or do you like hearing how your cooks and lackeys polish you up in their testimony, ass that you are? What did you come for? I can’t settle the case without you, is that it?”

“So it’s all my fault!” Slopsov spread his arms. “You arranged this comedy and now you’re angry with me! Arrest this Grishka, and…and it’s done!”

“Arrest Grishka! Pah! You’re still the same fool you always were! And just how am I going to arrest Grishka?”

“Arrest him, that’s all! You’re not going to lock me up!”

“So it’s still the good old days, is that it? You beat Grishka, and Grishka should be arrested! Amazing logic! Do you have any notion of today’s legal procedures?”

“In all my born days I’ve never gone to court or been on trial, but as I see it, if this same Grishka came to me to complain about you, I’d have chucked him down the stairs, and forbidden even his grandchildren to complain, to say nothing of allowing him to make his boorish remarks. Say simply that you wanted to make fun of me, to show your mettle…that’s all! My wife was surprised when she read through the summonses and saw that you had subpoenaed all the cooks and cowgirls to the trial. She didn’t expect such a stunt from you. It’s not right, Petya! Friends don’t do such things.”

“But understand my position!”

And Sixwingsky started explaining his position to Slopsov.

“You sit here,” he concluded, “and I’ll go and make a decision in absentia. For God’s sake don’t show your face! With your antediluvian notions, you’ll blurt something out so that, for all I know, I’ll have to draw up a protocol.”

Sixwingsky returned to the courtroom and went on with the proceedings. Slopsov, sitting in the office at one of the desks and, having nothing better to do, reading through some of the recently completed executive orders, heard the justice persuading Grishka to make peace. Grishka bristled for a long time, but finally accepted, demanding ten roubles for the offense.

“Well, thank God!” said Sixwingsky, coming into the office after the sentence was read. “Thank God the case ended that way…A thousand pounds off my shoulders. Pay Grishka ten roubles and you can be at peace.”

“Me…pay Grishka…ten roubles?!” Slopsov was stunned. “Are you crazy?”

“Well, all right, all right, I’ll pay it for you,” Sixwingsky waved his hand, wincing. “I’m ready to give a hundred roubles, only so as to avoid unpleasantness. And God save us from having acquaintances in court. I’ll tell you, brother, instead of beating Grishkas, come each time and give me a thrashing! It’s a thousand times easier. Let’s go to Natasha and eat!”

Ten minutes later the friends were sitting in the justice’s apartment and lunching on fried carp.

“Very well, then,” Slopsov began, downing his third glass, “you fined me ten roubles, but for how many days are you going to keep Grishka in the lockup?”

“I’m not going to lock him up at all. Why should I?”

“Why should you?” Slopsov rolled his eyes. “So he’ll stop lodging complaints! How did he dare lodge a complaint against me?”

The justice and Nitkin started explaining to Slopsov, but he did not understand and stood his ground.

“Say what you like, but Petka’s unfit to be a judge!” he sighed, conversing with Nitkin on the way home. “He’s a good man, educated, ever so obliging, but…unfit! He doesn’t really know about judging…It’s a pity, but we’ll have to unelect him for the next three-year term! We’ll have to!…”

1885