The Big Book of Christmas

by Anton Chekhov

  * * *

  They were talking of old times evidently. "What had become of Irvine and Smith?"--"Where was Bill Harris and Jones: not Squinny Jones, but Cocky Jones?"--and so forth. The gentleman was no stranger; he was an old pupil evidently, come to see if any of his old comrades remained, and revisit the cari luoghi of his youth.

  * * *

  Champion was evidently proud of his arm-fellow, he espied his brother, young Champion, and introduced him. "Come here, sir," he called. "The young 'un wasn't here in your time, Davison." "Pat, sir," said he, "this is Captain Davison, one of Birch's boys. Ask him who was among the first in the lines at Sobraon?"

  * * *

  Pat's face kindled up as he looked Davison full in the face, and held out his hand. Old Champion and Davison both blushed. The infantry set up a "Hurray, hurray, hurray," Champion leading, and waving his wide-awake. I protest that the scene did one good to witness. Here was the hero and cock of the school come back to see his old haunts and cronies. He had always remembered them. Since he had seen them last, he had faced death and achieved honor. But for my dignity I would have shied up my hat too.

  * * *

  With a resolute step, and his arm still linked in Champion's, Captain Davison now advanced, followed by a wake of little boys, to that corner of the green where Mrs. Ruggles has her tart stand.

  * * *

  "Hullo, Mother Ruggles! don't you remember me?" he said, and shook her by the hand.

  * * *

  "Lor, if it ain't Davison Major!" she said. "Well, Davison Major, you owe me fourpence for two sausage-rolls from when you went away."

  * * *

  Davison laughed, and all the little crew of boys set up a similar chorus.

  * * *

  "I buy the whole shop," he said. "Now, young 'uns--eat away!"

  * * *

  Then there was such a "Hurray! hurray!" as surpassed the former cheer in loudness. Everybody engaged in it except Piggy Duff, who made an instant dash at the three-cornered puffs, but was stopped by Champion, who said there should be a fair distribution. And so there was, and no one lacked, neither of raspberry, open tarts, nor of mellifluous bulls'-eyes, nor of polonies, beautiful to the sight and taste.

  * * *

  The hurraying brought out the old Doctor himself, who put his hand up to his spectacles and started when he saw the old pupil. Each blushed when he recognized the other; for seven years ago they had parted not good friends.

  * * *

  "What--Davison?" the Doctor said, with a tremulous voice. "God bless you, my dear fellow!"--and they shook hands. "A half holiday, of course, boys," he added, and there was another hurray: there was to be no end to the cheering that day.

  * * *

  "How's--how's the family, sir?" Captain Davison asked.

  * * *

  "Come in and see. Rosa's grown quite a lady. Dine with us, of course. Champion Major, come to dinner at five. Mr. Titmarsh, the pleasure of your company?" The Doctor swung open the garden gate: the old master and pupil entered the house reconciled.

  * * *

  I thought I would first peep into Miss Raby's room, and tell her of this event. She was working away at her linen there, as usual quiet and cheerful.

  * * *

  "You should put up," I said with a smile; "the Doctor has given us a half-holiday."

  * * *

  "I never have holidays," Miss Raby replied.

  * * *

  Then I told her of the scene I had just witnessed, of the arrival of the old pupil, the purchase of the tarts, the proclamation of the holiday, and the shouts of the boys of "Hurray, Davison!"

  * * *

  "Who is it?" cried out Miss Raby, starting and turning as white as a sheet.

  * * *

  I told her it was Captain Davison from India; and described the appearance and behavior of the Captain. When I had finished speaking, she asked me to go and get her a glass of water; she felt unwell. But she was gone when I came back with the water.

  * * *

  I know all now. After sitting for a quarter of an hour with the Doctor, who attributed his guest's uneasiness no doubt to his desire to see Miss Rosa Birch, Davison started up and said he wanted to see Miss Raby. "You remember, sir, how kind she was to my little brother, sir?" he said. Whereupon the Doctor, with a look of surprise, that anybody should want to see Miss Raby, said she was in the little school-room; whither the Captain went, knowing the way from old times.

  * * *

  A few minutes afterwards, Miss B. and Miss Z. returned from a drive with Plantagenet Gaunt in their one-horse fly, and being informed of Davison's arrival, and that he was closeted with Miss Raby in the little school-room, of course made for that apartment at once. I was coming into it from the other door. I wanted to know whether she had drunk the water.

  * * *

  This is what both parties saw. The two were in this very attitude. "Well, upon my word!" cries out Miss Zoe; but Davison did not let go his hold; and Miss Raby's head only sank down on his hand.

  * * *

  "You must get another governess, sir, for the little boys," Frank Davison said to the Doctor. "Anny Raby has promised to come with me."

  * * *

  You may suppose I shut to the door on my side. And when I returned to the little school-room, it was black and empty. Everybody was gone. I could hear the boys shouting at play in the green outside. The glass of water was on the table where I had placed it. I took it and drank it myself, to the health of Anny Raby and her husband. It was rather a choker.

  * * *

  But of course I wasn't going to stop on at Birch's. When his young friends reassemble on the 1st of February next, they will have two new masters. Prince resigned too, and is at present living with me at my old lodgings at Mrs. Cammysole's. If any nobleman or gentleman wants a private tutor for his son, a note to the Rev. F. Prince will find him there.

  * * *

  Miss Clapperclaw says we are both a couple of old fools; and that she knew when I set off last year to Rodwell Regis, after meeting the two young ladies at a party at General Champion's house in our street, that I was going on a goose's errand. I shall dine there on Christmas-day; and so I wish a merry Christmas to all young and old boys.

  Epilogue

  The play is done; the curtain drops,

  Slow falling, to the prompter's bell:

  A moment yet the actor stops,

  And looks around, to say farewell.

  It is an irksome word and task;

  And when he's laughed and said his say,

  He shows, as he removes the mask,

  A face that's anything but gay.

  * * *

  One word, ere yet the evening ends,

  Let's close it with a parting rhyme,

  And pledge a hand to all young friends,

  As fits the merry Christmas time.

  On life's wide scene you, too, have parts,

  That Fate ere long shall bid you play;

  Good night! with honest gentle hearts

  A kindly greeting go alway!

  * * *

  Good night! I'd say the griefs, the joys,

  Just hinted in this mimic page,

  The triumphs and defeats of boys,

  Are but repeated in our age.

  I'd say, your woes were not less keen,

  Your hopes more vain, than those of men,

  Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen,

  At forty-five played o'er again.

  * * *

  I'd say, we suffer and we strive

  Not less nor more as men than boys;

  With grizzled beards at forty-five,

  As erst at twelve, in corduroys.

  And if, in time of sacred youth,

  We learned at home to love and pray,

  Pray heaven, that early love and truth

  May never wholly pass away.

  * * *

  And in the world, as in the school,

  I'd say, how fate may change and sh
ift;

  The prize be sometimes with the fool,

  The race not always to the swift.

  The strong may yield, the good may fall,

  The great man be a vulgar clown,

  The knave be lifted over all,

  The kind cast pitilessly down.

  * * *

  Who knows the inscrutable design?

  Blessed be He who took and gave:

  Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,

  Be weeping at her darling's grave?*

  We bow to heaven that will'd it so,

  That darkly rules the fate of all,

  That sends the respite or the blow,

  That's free to give or to recall.

  * * *

  This crowns his feast with wine and wit:

  Who brought him to that mirth and state?

  His betters, see, below him sit,

  Or hunger hopeless at the gate.

  Who bade the mud from Dives' Wheel

  To spurn the rags of Lazarus?

  Come, brother, in that dust we'll kneel,

  Confessing heaven that ruled it thus.

  * * *

  So each shall mourn in life's advance,

  Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed;

  Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance,

  A longing passion unfulfilled.

  Amen: whatever Fate be sent,--Pray God the heart may kindly glow,

  Although the head with cares be bent,

  And whitened with the winter snow.

  * * *

  Come wealth or want, come good or ill,

  Let young and old accept their part,

  And bow before the Awful Will,

  And bear it with an honest heart.

  Who misses, or who wins the prize?

  Go, lose or conquer as you can.

  But if you fail, or if you rise,

  Be each, pray God, a gentleman,

  * * *

  A gentleman, or old or young:

  (Bear kindly with my humble lays,)

  The sacred chorus first was sung

  Upon the first of Christmas days.

  The shepherds heard it overhead--The joyful angels raised it then:

  Glory to heaven on high, it said,

  And peace on earth to gentle men.

  * * *

  My song, save this, is little worth;

  I lay the weary pen aside,

  And wish you health, and love, and mirth,

  As fits the solemn Christmas tide.

  As fits the holy Christmas birth,

  Be this, good friends, our carol still--Be peace on earth, be

  peace on earth,

  To men of gentle will.

  Mrs Perkins’s Ball

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Mrs Perkins’s Ball

  The Mulligan (Of Bally Mulligan), And How We Went To Mrs. Perkins's Ball.

  I do not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew anybody who did. Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke of "Saxon curiawsitee" in a tone of such evident displeasure, that, as after all it can matter very little to me whereabouts lies the Celtic principality in question, I have never pressed the inquiry any farther.

  I don't know even the Mulligan's town residence. One night, as he bade us adieu in Oxford Street,--"I live there," says he, pointing down towards Oxbridge, with the big stick he carries--so his abode is in that direction at any rate. He has his letters addressed to several of his friends' houses, and his parcels, &c. are left for him at various taverns which he frequents. That pair of checked trousers, in which you see him attired, he did me the favor of ordering from my own tailor, who is quite as anxious as anybody to know the address of the wearer. In like manner my hatter asked me, "Oo was the Hirish gent as 'ad ordered four 'ats and a sable boar to be sent to my lodgings?" As I did not know (however I might guess) the articles have never been sent, and the Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the "infernal four-and-nine-penny scoundthrel," as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in consequence.

  * * *

  I became acquainted with the Mulligan through a distinguished countryman of his, who, strange to say, did not know the chieftain himself. But dining with my friend Fred Clancy, of the Irish bar, at Greenwich, the Mulligan came up, "inthrojuiced" himself to Clancy as he said, claimed relationship with him on the side of Brian Boroo, and drawing his chair to our table, quickly became intimate with us. He took a great liking to me, was good enough to find out my address and pay me a visit: since which period often and often on coming to breakfast in the morning I have found him in my sitting-room on the sofa engaged with the rolls and morning papers: and many a time, on returning home at night for an evening's quiet reading, I have discovered this honest fellow in the arm-chair before the fire, perfuming the apartment with my cigars and trying the quality of such liquors as might be found on the sideboard. The way in which he pokes fun at Betsy, the maid of the lodgings, is prodigious. She begins to laugh whenever he comes; if he calls her a duck, a divvle, a darlin', it is all one. He is just as much a master of the premises as the individual who rents them at fifteen shillings a week; and as for handkerchiefs, shirt-collars, and the like articles of fugitive haberdashery, the loss since I have known him is unaccountable. I suspect he is like the cat in some houses: for, suppose the whiskey, the cigars, the sugar, the tea-caddy, the pickles, and other groceries disappear, all is laid upon that edax-rerum of a Mulligan.

  * * *

  The greatest offence that can be offered to him is to call him Mr. Mulligan. "Would you deprive me, sir," says he, "of the title which was bawrun be me princelee ancestors in a hundred thousand battles? In our own green valleys and fawrests, in the American savannahs, in the sierras of Speen and the flats of Flandthers, the Saxon has quailed before me war-cry of Mulligan Aboo! Mr. Mulligan! I'll pitch anybody out of the window who calls me Mr. Mulligan." He said this, and uttered the slogan of the Mulligans with a shriek so terrific, that my uncle (the Rev. W. Gruels, of the Independent Congregation, Bungay), who had happened to address him in the above obnoxious manner, while sitting at my apartments drinking tea after the May meetings, instantly quitted the room, and has never taken the least notice of me since, except to state to the rest of the family that I am doomed irrevocably to perdition.

  * * *

  Well, one day last season, I had received from my kind and most estimable friend, Mrs. Perkins of Pocklington Square (to whose amiable family I have had the honor of giving lessons in drawing, French, and the German flute), an invitation couched in the usual terms, on satin gilt-edged note-paper, to her evening-party; or, as I call it, "Ball."

  * * *

  Besides the engraved note sent to all her friends, my kind patroness had addressed me privately as follows:--

  * * *

  Mr Dear Mr. Titmarsh,

  * * *

  If you know any very eligible young man, we give you leave to bring him. You Gentlemen love your clubs so much now, and care so little for dancing, that it is really quite a scandal. Come early, and before everybody, and give us the benefit of all your taste and continental skill.

  * * *

  "Your sincere

  "Emily Perkins."

  * * *

  "Whom shall I bring?" mused I, highly flattered by this mark of confidence; and I thought of Bob Trippett; and little Fred Spring, of the Navy Pay Office; Hulker, who is rich, and I knew took lessons in Paris; and a half-score of other bachelor friends, who might be considered as very eligible--when I was roused from my meditation by the slap of a hand on my shoulder; and looking up, there was the Mulligan, who began, as usual, reading the papers on my desk.

  * * *

  "Hwhat's this?" says he. "Who's Perkins? Is it a supper-ball, or only a tay-ball?"

  * * *

  "The Perkinses of Pocklington Square, Mulligan, are tiptop people," says I, with a tone of dignity. "Mr. Perkins's sister is married to a b
aronet, Sir Giles Bacon, of Hogwash, Norfolk. Mr. Perkins's uncle was Lord Mayor of London; and he was himself in Parliament, and may be again any day. The family are my most particular friends. A tay-ball indeed! why, Gunter . . ." Here I stopped: I felt I was committing myself.

  * * *

  "Gunter!" says the Mulligan, with another confounded slap on the shoulder. "Don't say another word: I'll go widg you, my boy."

  * * *

  "You go, Mulligan?" says I: "why, really--I--it's not my party."

  * * *

  "Your hwhawt? hwhat's this letter? a'n't I an eligible young man?--Is the descendant of a thousand kings unfit company for a miserable tallow-chandthlering cockney? Are ye joking wid me? for, let me tell ye, I don't like them jokes. D'ye suppose I'm not as well bawrun and bred as yourself, or any Saxon friend ye ever had?"