The Big Book of Christmas

by Anton Chekhov

  * * *

  "But how did you come to have the holly sprig, if this boy earned it?" asked Colin.

  * * *

  "Oh, the first thing I told him to do, after his bargain was made, was to give me back that holly. We have to do that, or else we couldn't keep on hiring boys."

  * * *

  "I call that cheating," said Colin.

  * * *

  "Yes, indeed," said little Dora.

  * * *

  "I suppose it is," said the dwarf, "if you look at it in a certain light. But we won't talk about that now. You have the holly-sprig, and I have no right to ask you to give it back to me. You can take it home, and I shall never see it again. Hurrah! Good-bye!"

  * * *

  And he made one jump backward, behind the big tree, and was gone.

  * * *

  Colin and Dora now hurried home, very happy, indeed, for no such sprig of holly had they ever seen as this which the dwarf had given them. It would look splendidly over the fire-place!

  * * *

  The two little dwarfs ran after them as fast as they could.

  * * *

  "Where had we got to?" said one to the other, just as they caught up to Colin and Dora.

  * * *

  "We were at 'nothing,'" said the other.

  * * *

  "All right, then, we won't go back on the bargain."

  * * *

  Then they both ran in front of the children, and holding up the doll between them, they called out:

  * * *

  "Little girl! will you have this doll for nothing?"

  * * *

  Colin and Dora stopped short. This was truly a most astonishing sight.

  * * *

  "Look at its legs and arms," said the larger dwarf. "See how they wiggle! You can make it sit down. Will you take it for nothing?"

  * * *

  Dora did not hesitate.

  * * *

  "Yes, indeed," said she.

  * * *

  Thrusting the doll into her hands, the two little dwarfs gave a wild shout, and rushed away, with the long tails which they had to their bonnets waving in the wind as they ran.

  * * *

  The children then hurried home as fast as they could, and when they had told their story and shown their gifts, great was the surprise and delight of everybody; for no one had ever seen such a large-leaved and bright-berried sprig of holly as the one the dwarf gave Colin, or so fine a doll, with such remarkably wiggle-y arms and legs, as the one the little dwarfs gave Dora.

  * * *

  "The thing that pleases me most about it all," said their father, "is Colin's steady refusal to make a rash bargain, even for a very short time. Colin, my boy, I think you are to be trusted."

  * * *

  "Yes, indeed," said little Dora, hugging her doll, and looking proudly into her brother's face.

  A Christmas Tree and a Wedding

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  A Christmas Tree and a Wedding

  The other day I saw a wedding . . . but no, I had better tell you about the Christmas tree. The wedding was nice, I liked it very much; but the other incident was better. I don’t know how it was that, looking at that wedding, I thought of that Christmas tree. This was what happened. Just five years ago, on New Year’s Eve, I was invited to a children’s party. The giver of the party was a well-known and business-like personage, with connections, with a large circle of acquaintances, and a good many schemes on hand, so that it may be supposed that this party was an excuse for getting the parents together and discussing various interesting matters in an innocent, casual way. I was an outsider; I had no interesting matter to contribute, and so I spent the evening rather independently. There was another gentleman present who was, I fancied, of no special rank or family, and who, like me, had simply turned up at this family festivity. He was the first to catch my eye. He was a tall, lanky man, very grave and very correctly dressed. But one could see that he was in no mood for merrymaking and family festivity; whenever he withdrew into a corner he left off smiling and knitted his bushy black brows. He had not a single acquaintance in the party except his host. One could see that he was fearfully bored, but that he was valiantly keeping up the part of a man perfectly happy and enjoying himself. I learned afterwards that this was a gentleman from the provinces, who had a critical and perplexing piece of business in Petersburg, who had brought a letter of introduction to our host, for whom our host was, by no means con amore, using his interest, and whom he had invited, out of civility, to his children’s party. He did not play cards, cigars were not offered him, every one avoided entering into conversation with him, most likely recognizing the bird from its feathers; and so my gentleman was forced to sit the whole evening stroking his whiskers simply to have something to do with his hands. His whiskers were certainly very fine. But he stroked them so zealously that, looking at him, one might have supposed that the whiskers were created first and the gentleman only attached to them in order to stroke them.

  * * *

  In addition to this individual who assisted in this way at our host’s family festivity (he had five fat, well-fed boys), I was attracted, too, by another gentleman. But he was quite of a different sort. He was a personage. He was called Yulian Mastakovitch. From the first glance one could see that he was an honoured guest, and stood in the same relation to our host as our host stood in relation to the gentleman who was stroking his whiskers. Our host and hostess said no end of polite things to him, waited on him hand and foot, pressed him to drink, flattered him, brought their visitors up to be introduced to him, but did not take him to be introduced to any one else. I noticed that tears glistened in our host’s eyes when he remarked about the party that he had rarely spent an evening so agreeably. I felt as it were frightened in the presence of such a personage, and so, after admiring the children, I went away into a little parlour, which was quite empty, and sat down in an arbour of flowers which filled up almost half the room.

  * * *

  The children were all incredibly sweet, and resolutely refused to model themselves on the “grown-ups,” regardless of all the admonitions of their governesses and mammas. They stripped the Christmas tree to the last sweetmeat in the twinkling of an eye, and had succeeded in breaking half the playthings before they knew what was destined for which. Particularly charming was a black-eyed, curly-headed boy, who kept trying to shoot me with his wooden gun. But my attention was still more attracted by his sister, a girl of eleven, quiet, dreamy, pale, with big, prominent, dreamy eyes, exquisite as a little Cupid. The children hurt her feelings in some way, and so she came away from them to the same empty parlour in which I was sitting, and played with her doll in the corner. The visitors respectfully pointed out her father, a wealthy contractor, and some one whispered that three hundred thousand roubles were already set aside for her dowry. I turned round to glance at the group who were interested in such a circumstance, and my eye fell on Yulian Mastakovitch, who, with his hands behind his back and his head on one side, was listening with the greatest attention to these gentlemen’s idle gossip. Afterwards I could not help admiring the discrimination of the host and hostess in the distribution of the children’s presents. The little girl, who had already a portion of three hundred thousand roubles, received the costliest doll. Then followed presents diminishing in value in accordance with the rank of the parents of these happy children; finally, the child of lowest degree, a thin, freckled, red-haired little boy of ten, got nothing but a book of stories about the marvels of nature and tears of devotion, etc., without pictures or even woodcuts. He was the son of a poor widow, the governess of the children of the house, an oppressed and scared little boy. He was dressed in a short jacket of inferior nankin. After receiving his book he walked round the other toys for a long time; he longed to play with the other children, but did not dare; it was evident that he already felt and understood his position. I love watching children. Their first independent approaches to life are extremely interest
ing. I noticed that the red-haired boy was so fascinated by the costly toys of the other children, especially by a theatre in which he certainly longed to take some part, that he made up his mind to sacrifice his dignity. He smiled and began playing with the other children, he gave away his apple to a fat-faced little boy who had a mass of goodies tied up in a pocket-handkerchief already, and even brought himself to carry another boy on his back, simply not to be turned away from the theatre, but an insolent youth gave him a heavy thump a minute later. The child did not dare to cry. Then the governess, his mother, made her appearance, and told him not to interfere with the other children’s playing. The boy went away to the same room in which was the little girl. She let him join her, and the two set to work very eagerly dressing the expensive doll.

  * * *

  I had been sitting more than half an hour in the ivy arbour, listening to the little prattle of the red-haired boy and the beauty with the dowry of three hundred thousand, who was nursing her doll, when Yulian Mastakovitch suddenly walked into the room. He had taken advantage of the general commotion following a quarrel among the children to step out of the drawing-room. I had noticed him a moment before talking very cordially to the future heiress’s papa, whose acquaintance he had just made, of the superiority of one branch of the service over another. Now he stood in hesitation and seemed to be reckoning something on his fingers.

  * * *

  “Three hundred . . . three hundred,” he was whispering. “Eleven . . . twelve . . . thirteen,” and so on. “Sixteen — five years! Supposing it is at four per cent. — five times twelve is sixty; yes, to that sixty . . . well, in five years we may assume it will be four hundred. Yes! . . . But he won’t stick to four per cent., the rascal. He can get eight or ten. Well, five hundred, let us say, five hundred at least . . . that’s certain; well, say a little more for frills. H’m! . . . ”

  * * *

  His hesitation was at an end, he blew his nose and was on the point of going out of the room when he suddenly glanced at the little girl and stopped short. He did not see me behind the pots of greenery. It seemed to me that he was greatly excited. Either his calculations had affected his imagination or something else, for he rubbed his hands and could hardly stand still. This excitement reached its utmost limit when he stopped and bent another resolute glance at the future heiress. He was about to move forward, but first looked round, then moving on tiptoe, as though he felt guilty, he advanced towards the children. He approached with a little smile, bent down and kissed her on the head. The child, not expecting this attack, uttered a cry of alarm.

  * * *

  “What are you doing here, sweet child?” he asked in a whisper, looking round and patting the girl’s cheek.

  * * *

  “We are playing.”

  * * *

  “Ah! With him?” Yulian Mastakovitch looked askance at the boy. “You had better go into the drawing-room, my dear,” he said to him.

  * * *

  The boy looked at him open-eyed and did not utter a word. Yulian Mastakovitch looked round him again, and again bent down to the little girl.

  * * *

  “And what is this you’ve got — a dolly, dear child?” he asked.

  * * *

  “Yes, a dolly,” answered the child, frowning, and a little shy.

  * * *

  “A dolly . . . and do you know, dear child, what your dolly is made of?”

  * * *

  “I don’t know . . . ” the child answered in a whisper, hanging her head.

  * * *

  “It’s made of rags, darling. You had better go into the drawing-room to your playmates, boy,” said Yulian Mastakovitch, looking sternly at the boy. The boy and girl frowned and clutched at each other. They did not want to be separated.

  * * *

  “And do you know why they gave you that doll?” asked Yulian Mastakovitch, dropping his voice to a softer and softer tone.

  * * *

  “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  “Because you have been a sweet and well-behaved child all the week.”

  * * *

  At this point Yulian Mastakovitch, more excited than ever, speaking in most dulcet tones, asked at last, in a hardly audible voice choked with emotion and impatience —

  * * *

  “And will you love me, dear little girl, when I come and see your papa and mamma?”

  * * *

  Saying this, Yulian Mastakovitch tried once more to kiss “the dear little girl,” but the red-haired boy, seeing that the little girl was on the point of tears, clutched her hand and began whimpering from sympathy for her. Yulian Mastakovitch was angry in earnest.

  * * *

  “Go away, go away from here, go away!” he said to the boy. “Go into the drawing-room! Go in there to your playmates!”

  * * *

  “No, he needn’t, he needn’t! You go away,” said the little girl. “Leave him alone, leave him alone,” she said, almost crying.

  * * *

  Some one made a sound at the door. Yulian Mastakovitch instantly raised his majestic person and took alarm. But the red-haired boy was even more alarmed than Yulian Mastakovitch; he abandoned the little girl and, slinking along by the wall, stole out of the parlour into the dining-room. To avoid arousing suspicion, Yulian Mastakovitch, too, went into the dining-room. He was as red as a lobster, and, glancing into the looking-glass, seemed to be ashamed at himself. He was perhaps vexed with himself for his impetuosity and hastiness. Possibly, he was at first so much impressed by his calculations, so inspired and fascinated by them, that in spite of his seriousness and dignity he made up his mind to behave like a boy, and directly approach the object of his attentions, even though she could not be really the object of his attentions for another five years at least. I followed the estimable gentleman into the dining-room and there beheld a strange spectacle. Yulian Mastakovitch, flushed with vexation and anger, was frightening the red-haired boy, who, retreating from him, did not know where to run in his terror.

  * * *

  “Go away; what are you doing here? Go away, you scamp; are you after the fruit here, eh? Get along, you naughty boy! Get along, you sniveller, to your playmates!”

  * * *

  The panic-stricken boy in his desperation tried creeping under the table. Then his persecutor, in a fury, took out his large batiste handkerchief and began flicking it under the table at the child, who kept perfectly quiet. It must be observed that Yulian Mastakovitch was a little inclined to be fat. He was a sleek, red-faced, solidly built man, paunchy, with thick legs; what is called a fine figure of a man, round as a nut. He was perspiring, breathless, and fearfully flushed. At last he was almost rigid, so great was his indignation and perhaps — who knows? — his jealousy. I burst into loud laughter. Yulian Mastakovitch turned round and, in spite of all his consequence, was overcome with confusion. At that moment from the opposite door our host came in. The boy crept out from under the table and wiped his elbows and his knees. Yulian Mastakovitch hastened to put to his nose the handkerchief which he was holding in his hand by one end.

  * * *

  Our host looked at the three of us in some perplexity; but as a man who knew something of life, and looked at it from a serious point of view, he at once availed himself of the chance of catching his visitor by himself.

  * * *

  “Here, this is the boy,” he said, pointing to the red-haired boy, “for whom I had the honour to solicit your influence.”

  * * *

  “Ah!” said Yulian Mastakovitch, who had hardly quite recovered himself.

  * * *

  “The son of my children’s governess,” said our host, in a tone of a petitioner, “a poor woman, the widow of an honest civil servant; and therefore . . . and therefore, Yulian Mastakovitch, if it were possible . . . ”

  * * *

  “Oh, no, no!” Yulian Mastakovitch made haste to answer; “no, excuse me, Filip Alexyevitch, it’s quite impossible. I’ve ma
de inquiries; there’s no vacancy, and if there were, there are twenty applicants who have far more claim than he. . . . I am very sorry, very sorry. . . . ”

  * * *

  “What a pity,” said our host. “He is a quiet, well-behaved boy.”

  * * *