ys nothing.

"Do you want to go away?" Kamyshev goes on. "Well, you know, but
. . . I won't venture to detain you. But what is queer is, how are
you going to travel without a passport? I wonder! You know I have
lost your passport. I thrust it in somewhere between some papers,
and it is lost. . . . And they are strict about passports among us.
Before you have gone three or four miles they pounce upon you."

Champoun raises his head and looks mistrustfully at Kamyshev.

"Yes. . . . You will see! They will see from your face you haven't
a passport, and ask at once: Who is that? Alphonse Champoun. We
know that Alphonse Champoun. Wouldn't you like to go under police
escort somewhere nearer home!"

"Are you joking?"

"What motive have I for joking? Why should I? Only mind now; it's
a compact, don't you begin whining then and writing letters. I won't
stir a finger when they lead you by in fetters!"

Champoun jumps up and, pale and wide-eyed, begins pacing up and
down the room.

"What are you doing to me?" he says in despair, clutching at his
head. "My God! accursed be that hour when the fatal thought of
leaving my country entered my head! . . ."

"Come, come, come . . . I was joking!" says Kamyshev in a lower
tone. "Queer fish he is; he doesn't understand a joke. One can't
say a word!"

"My dear friend!" shrieks Champoun, reassured by Kamyshev's tone.
"I swear I am devoted to Russia, to you and your children. . . .
To leave you is as bitter to me as death itself! But every word you
utter stabs me to the heart!"

"Ah, you queer fish! If I do abuse the French, what reason have you
to take offence? You are a queer fish really! You should follow the
example of Lazar Isaakitch, my tenant. I call him one thing and
another, a Jew, and a scurvy rascal, and I make a pig's ear out of
my coat tail, and catch him by his Jewish curls. He doesn't take
offence."

"But he is a slave! For a kopeck he is ready to put up with any
insult!"

"Come, come, come . . . that's enough! Peace and concord!"

Champoun powders his tear-stained face and goes with Kamyshev to
the dining-room. The first course is eaten in silence, after the
second the same performance begins over again, and so Champoun's
sufferings have no end.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Schoolmaster and Other Stories,
by Anton Chekhov

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCHOOLMASTER ***

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