id to him. "What a queer
fellow. He entered the kitchen and noticed me standing beside Marfa, and
immediately he began to invent different stories. 'What?' he says,
'you have been kissing each other!' He was drunk, so he must have been
dreaming. And I,' I said, 'I would rather kiss a duck than kiss Marfa.
And I have a wife,' said I, 'you fool.' He made me appear ridiculous."

"Who made you appear ridiculous?" inquired the teacher of religion,
addressing Akhineyev.

"Vankin. I was standing in the kitchen, you know, and looking at the
sturgeon--" And so forth. In about half an hour all the guests knew the
story about Vankin and the sturgeon.

"Now let him tell," thought Akhineyev, rubbing his hands. "Let him do
it. He'll start to tell them, and they'll cut him short: 'Don't talk
nonsense, you fool! We know all about it.'"

And Akhineyev felt so much appeased that, for joy, he drank four glasses
of brandy over and above his fill. Having escorted his daughter to her
room, he went to his own and soon slept the sleep of an innocent child,
and on the following day he no longer remembered the story of the
sturgeon. But, alas! Man proposes and God disposes. The evil tongue does
its wicked work, and even Akhineyev's cunning did not do him any good.
One week later, on a Wednesday, after the third lesson, when Akhineyev
stood in the teachers' room and discussed the vicious inclinations of
the pupil Visyekin, the director approached him, and, beckoning to him,
called him aside.

"See here, Sergey Kapitonich," said the director. "Pardon me. It isn't
my affair, yet I must make it clear to you, nevertheless. It is my
duty--You see, rumors are on foot that you are on intimate terms with
that woman--with your cook--It isn't my affair, but--You may be on
intimate terms with her, you may kiss her--You may do whatever you like,
but, please, don't do it so openly! I beg of you. Don't forget that you
are a pedagogue."

Akhineyev stood as though frozen and petrified. Like one stung by a
swarm of bees and scalded with boiling water, he went home. On his
way it seemed to him as though the whole town stared at him as at one
besmeared with tar--At home new troubles awaited him.

"Why don't you eat anything?" asked his wife at their dinner. "What are
you thinking about? Are you thinking about Cupid, eh? You are longing
for Marfushka. I know everything already, you Mahomet. Kind people have
opened my eyes, you barbarian!"

And she slapped