A Slander
Anton Chekhov

The penmanship teacher Sergei Kapitonich Ahineyev was marrying his daughter Natalia to the history and geography teacher. The wedding gaiety was at its height. People sang, played, and danced in the ballroom. Hired waiters, dressed in balck tails and dirty white ties, scurried back and forth like madmen. Noise filled the air. The mathematics teacher, the French teacher, and the tax assessor, sitting side by side on the sofa, talked hurriedly, interrupting each other to tell the guests about cases of people buried alive, and expressing their opinions of spiritualism. None of the three believed in spiritualism, but all admitted that there are many things in this world which a human mind will never understand. In the next room the literature teacher was explaining the cases in which a sentry has the right to shoot at passers –by. As you can see, the conversations were terrifying but highly pleasant. From the yard, people whose social standing did not give them the right to enter looked through the windows.
Exactly at midnight, Ahineyev, the host, walked into the kitchen to see whether everything was ready for supper. The kitchen was full of fumes from the goose and duck, mixed with many other smells. Appetizers and drinks were spread in artistic disorder on two tables. Marfa, the cook, a red-faced woman whose figure was like a balloon with a belt around it, bustled near the tables.
“Show me the sturgeon, Marfa,” said Ahineyev, rubbing his hands and licking his lips. “What an aroma! I could eat up the whole kitchen. Now then, show me the sturgeon!”
Marfa went to a bench and carefully lifted a greasy newspaper. Under the paper, on an enormous platter, rested a big jellied sturgeon, dazzling with olives and carrots. Ahineyev looked at the sturgeon and gasped. His face beamed, his eyes rolled up. He bent over and made a sound like an ungreased wheel. After a while he snapped his finger with pleasure and smacked his lips once more.
“Oh, the sound of a passionate kiss!... Who are you kissing in there, little Marfa?” aske a voice from the next room, and Vankin, an assistant teacher, stuck his cropped head through the door. “Who are you with? Ah, ah, ah… very nice! With Sergei Kapitonich! You’re a fine grandfather, alone here with a woman!”
“Not at all, I am not kissing her,” said Ahineyev with embarrassment. “Who told you that, you fool? I just … smacked my lips because of… my pleasure… at the sight of the fish.”
“Tell me another one!” Vankin’s head smiled broadly and disappeared behind the door. Ahineyev blushed.
“What now?” he thought. “The scoundrel will go now and gossip. He will put me to shame before the whole town , the beast…”
Ahineyev timidly entered the ballroom and looked around: where was Vanin? Vankin was standing at the piano and dashingly bent over to whisper something to the laughing sister – in – law of the inspector.
“It is about me,” thought Ahineyeve,” about me. He should be torn apart! And she believes… believes! She’s laughing. I can’t let this go on… no… I must arrange it so that no one will believe him… I will talk to everybody and show what a fool and gossip he is.”
Ahineyeve scratched himself and, still embarrassing, approached the French teacher.
“I was jut in the kitchen, arranging the supper,” he told the Frenchman. “I know you love fish and I have sturgeon, old chap. Two yards long. Ha, ha, ha… oh, yes, I almost forgot… in the kitchen now, with the sturgeon… it was real joke! I went to the kitchen and wanted to examine the food… I looked at the sturgeon and from the pleasure, the aroma of it, I smacked my lips! But at this moment suddenly this fool Vankin came in and said… ha, ha, ha… and said…” Ah are you kissing in here?” Kissing Marfa, he cook! He made it all up, the fool. The woman looks like a beast, such a face, such skin… and he… kissing! Funny man!”
“Who is funny?” asked the mathematics teacher coming over.
“That one there, Vankin! I came into the kitchen…” and he told the story of Vankin.
“He made me laugh, he’s so funny! I think I’d rather kiss a stray dog than Marfa,” added Ahineyev, turning around and seeing the tax assessor behind him.
“We are talking about Vankin,” said he. “Such a funny man! He came in the kitchen, saw me near Marfa… well, he started to invent all kinds of stories. “Why,” he says, “are you kissing?” He was drunk and made it up. And I said, ‘ I would rather kiss a turkey than Marfa. I have a wife,’ I told him, ‘ you are such a fool.’ He made me laugh.’
‘Who made you laugh? asked the priest who taught Scripture in the school, coming to Ahineyev.
‘ Vankin. I was, you know, standing in the kitchen and looking at the sturgeon…’
And so forth. In half an hour all the guests knew the story of the sturgeon and Vanin.
“Let him tell the stories now! thought Ahineyeve, rubbing his hands. ‘Let him! He’ll start telling stories, and everyone will say right away: ‘Stop talking nonsense, you fool! We know all about it.’
And Ahineyev was so reassured that he drank four glasses too much from joy. After supper he saw the newlyweds to their room, went home, and slept like an innocent child, and the next day he had already forgotten the story of the sturgeon. But, alas! Man supposes, but God disposes. Wicked tongues will wag, and Ahineyev’s cunning did not help him. Exactly a week later, after the third lesson on Wednesday, when Ahineyev was standing in the staff room discussing the evil ways of one his students, the principal came to him and called him aside.
“Well Sergei Kapitonich,” said the principal, ‘ excuse me… it’s not my business, but still I must explain… my duty. You see, there is talk that you have kissed this… cook. It is not my business, but … kiss her… anything you want but, please, not so publicly. Please! Don’t forget, you are a teacher.’
Ahineyev got chilly and faint. He felt as if he had been stung by a swarm of bees and scalded in boiling water. As he walked home, it seemed to him that the whole town was looking at him as if he were smeared with tar. New trouble awaited him at home.
‘Why don’t you eat anything?” his wife asked him during dinner. ‘ What are you thinking about? Your love life? Lonesome without little people opened my eyes! O-o-oh, barbarian!’
And she slapped him on the cheek. He left the table in a daze, without his hat and coat, and wandered to Vankin. Vankin was home.
‘You scoundrel!’ Ahineyev addressed Vankin. ‘Why did you smear with mud before the entire world? Why did you slander me?’
“What slander? What are you inventing?’
“Who gossiped that I kissed Marfa? Not you? Not you, robber?”
Vankin blinked and winked with all his worn face, raised his eyes to the icon, and said, “Let God punish me! Let my eyes burst, let me die, if I ever said one words about you! Bad luck to me! Cholera is not enough!’
The sincerity of Vankin could not be doubted. Evidently he had not gossiped.
“But who? Who?” thought Ahineyev, turning over in his mind all his acquaintances and beating his breast. “Who else?’
“Who else? we will also ask the reader…