THE FORGED COUPON(伪券)

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THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

THE FORGED

COUPON And Other

Stories

BY LEO TOLSTOY

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

PART FIRST

FEDOR MIHAILOVICH SMOKOVNIKOV, the president of the local

Income Tax Department, a man of unswerving honesty--and proud of it,

too-- a gloomy Liberal, a free-thinker, and an enemy to every

manifestation of religious feeling, which he thought a relic of superstition,

came home from his office feeling very much annoyed. The Governor of

the province had sent him an extraordinarily stupid minute, almost

assuming that his dealings had been dishonest.

Fedor Mihailovich felt embittered, and wrote at once a sharp answer.

On his return home everything seemed to go contrary to his wishes.

It was five minutes to five, and he expected the dinner to be served at

once, but he was told it was not ready. He banged the door and went to

his study. Somebody knocked at the door. "Who the devil is that?" he

thought; and shouted,--"Who is there?"

The door opened and a boy of fifteen came in, the son of Fedor

Mihailovich, a pupil of the fifth class of the local school.

"What do you want?"

"It is the first of the month to-day, father."

"Well! You want your money?"

It had been arranged that the father should pay his son a monthly

allowance of three roubles as pocket money. Fedor Mihailovich frowned,

took out of his pocket-book a coupon of two roubles fifty kopeks which he

found among the bank-notes, and added to it fifty kopeks in silver out of

the loose change in his purse. The boy kept silent, and did not take the

money his father proffered him.

"Father, please give me some more in advance."

"What?"

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

"I would not ask for it, but I have borrowed a small sum from a friend,

and promised upon my word of honour to pay it off. My honour is dear to

me, and that is why I want another three roubles. I don't like asking you;

but, please, father, give me another three roubles."

"I have told you--"

"I know, father, but just for once."

"You have an allowance of three roubles and you ought to be content. I

had not fifty kopeks when I was your age."

"Now, all my comrades have much more. Petrov and Ivanitsky have

fifty roubles a month."

"And I tell you that if you behave like them you will be a scoundrel.

Mind that."

"What is there to mind? You never understand my position. I shall be

disgraced if I don't pay my debt. It is all very well for you to speak as

you do."

"Be off, you silly boy! Be off!"

Fedor Mihailovich jumped from his seat and pounced upon his son.

"Be off, I say!" he shouted. "You deserve a good thrashing, all you

boys!"

His son was at once frightened and embittered. The bitterness was

even greater than the fright. With his head bent down he hastily turned to

the door. Fedor Mihailovich did not intend to strike him, but he was glad

to vent his wrath, and went on shouting and abusing the boy till he had

closed the door.

When the maid came in to announce that dinner was ready, Fedor

Mihailovich rose.

"At last!" he said. "I don't feel hungry any longer."

He went to the dining-room with a sullen face. At table his wife made

some remark, but he gave her such a short and angry answer that she

abstained from further speech. The son also did not lift his eyes from his

plate, and was silent all the time. The trio finished their dinner in silence,

rose from the table and separated, without a word.

After dinner the boy went to his room, took the coupon and the change

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

out of his pocket, and threw the money on the table. After that he took off

his uniform and put on a jacket.

He sat down to work, and began to study Latin grammar out of a

dog's-eared book. After a while he rose, closed and bolted the door,

shifted the money into a drawer, took out some cigarette papers, rolled one

up, stuffed it with cotton wool, and began to smoke.

He spent nearly two hours over his grammar and writing books

without understanding a word of what he saw before him; then he rose and

began to stamp up and down the room, trying to recollect all that his father

had said to him. All the abuse showered upon him, and worst of all his

father's angry face, were as fresh in his memory as if he saw and heard

them all over again. "Silly boy! You ought to get a good thrashing!"

And the more he thought of it the angrier be grew. He remembered also

how his father said: "I see what a scoundrel you will turn out. I know

you will. You are sure to become a cheat, if you go on like that. "He had

certainly forgotten how he felt when he was young! "What crime have I

committed, I wonder? I wanted to go to the theatre, and having no

money borrowed some from Petia Grouchetsky. Was that so very wicked

of me? Another father would have been sorry for me; would have asked

how it all happened; whereas he just called me names. He never thinks of

anything but himself. When it is he who has not got something he wants-

-that is a different matter! Then all the house is upset by his shouts. And

I--I am a scoundrel, a cheat, he says. No, I don't love him, although he is

my father. It may be wrong, but I hate him."

There was a knock at the door. The servant brought a letter-- a

message from his friend. "They want an answer," said the servant.

The letter ran as follows: "I ask you now for the third time to pay me

back the six roubles you have borrowed; you are trying to avoid me. That

is not the way an honest man ought to behave. Will you please send the

amount by my messenger? I am myself in a frightful fix. Can you not get

the money somewhere?--Yours, according to whether you send the money

or not, with scorn, or love, Grouchetsky."

"There we have it! Such a pig! Could he not wait a while? I will

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

have another try."

Mitia went to his mother. This was his last hope. His mother was

very kind, and hardly ever refused him anything. She would probably have

helped him this time also out of his trouble, but she was in great anxiety:

her younger child, Petia, a boy of two, had fallen ill. She got angry with

Mitia for rushing so noisily into the nursery, and refused him almost

without listening to what he had to say. Mitia muttered something to

himself and turned to go. The mother felt sorry for him. "Wait, Mitia,"

she said; "I have not got the money you want now, but I will get it for you

to-morrow."

But Mitia was still raging against his father.

"What is the use of having it to-morrow, when I want it to-day? I am

going to see a friend. That is all I have got to say."

He went out, banging the door. . . .

"Nothing else is left to me. He will tell me how to pawn my watch,"

he thought, touching his watch in his pocket.

Mitia went to his room, took the coupon and the watch from the

drawer, put on his coat, and went to Mahin.

MAHIN was his schoolfellow, his senior, a grown-up young man with

a moustache. He gambled, had a large feminine acquaintance, and

always had ready cash. He lived with his aunt. Mitia quite realised that

Mahin was not a respectable fellow, but when he was in his company he

could not help doing what he wished. Mahin was in when Mitia called,

and was just preparing to go to the theatre. His untidy room smelt of

scented soap and eau-de-Cologne.

"That's awful, old chap," said Mahin, when Mitia telling him about his

troubles, showed the coupon and the fifty kopeks, and added that he

wanted nine roubles more. "We might, of course, go and pawn your

watch. But we might do something far better." And Mahin winked an

eye.

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

"What's that?"

"Something quite simple." Mahin took the coupon in his hand. " Put

ONE before the 2.50 and it will be 12.50."

"But do such coupons exist?"

"Why, certainly; the thousand roubles notes have coupons of 12.50. I

have cashed one in the same way."

"You don't say so?"

"Well, yes or no?" asked Mahin, taking the pen and smoothing the

coupon with the fingers of his left hand.

"But it is wrong."

"Nonsense!"

"Nonsense, indeed," thought Mitia, and again his father's hard words

came back to his memory. "Scoundrel! As you called me that, I might

as well be it." He looked into Mahin's face. Mahin looked at him,

smiling with perfect ease.

"Well?" he said.

"All right. I don't mind."

Mahin carefully wrote the unit in front of 2.50.

"Now let us go to the shop across the road; they sell photographers'

materials there. I just happen to want a frame--for this young person here

"He took out of his pocket a photograph of a young lady with large eyes,

luxuriant hair, and an uncommonly well-developed bust.

"Is she not sweet? Eh?"

"Yes, yes. . .of course. . ."

"Well, you see.--But let us go."

Mahin took his coat, and they left the house.

III

THE two boys, having rung the door-bell, entered the empty shop,

which had shelves along the walls and photographic appliances on them,

together with show-cases on the counters. A plain woman, with a kind face,

came through the inner door and asked from behind the counter what they

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

required.

"A nice frame, if you please, madam."

"At what price?" asked the woman; she wore mittens on her swollen

fingers with which she rapidly handled picture-frames of different shapes.

"These are fifty kopeks each; and these are a little more expensive.

There is rather a pretty one, of quite a new style; one rouble and twenty

kopeks."

"All right, I will have this. But could not you make it cheaper? Let

us say one rouble."

"We don't bargain in our shop," said the shopkeeper with a dignified

air. "Well, I will take it," said Mahin, and put the coupon on the counter.

"Wrap up the frame and give me change. But please be quick. We must

be off to the theatre, and it is getting late."

"You have plenty of time," said the shopkeeper, examining the coupon

very closely because of her shortsightedness.

"It will look lovely in that frame, don't you think so?" said Mahin,

turning to Mitia.

"Have you no small change?" asked the shop-woman.

"I am sorry, I have not. My father gave me that, so I have to cash it."

"But surely you have one rouble twenty?"

"I have only fifty kopeks in cash. But what are you afraid of? You

don't think, I suppose, that we want to cheat you and give you bad

money?"

"Oh, no; I don't mean anything of the sort."

"You had better give it to me back. We will cash it somewhere else."

"How much have I to pay you back? Eleven and something."

She made a calculation on the counter, opened the desk, took out a ten-

roubles note, looked for change and added to the sum six twenty-kopeks

coins and two five-kopek pieces.

"Please make a parcel of the frame," said Mahin, taking the money in a

leisurely fashion.

"Yes, sir." She made a parcel and tied it with a string.

Mitia only breathed freely when the door bell rang behind them, and

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

they were again in the street.

"There are ten roubles for you, and let me have the rest. I will give it

back to you."

Mahin went off to the theatre, and Mitia called on Grouchetsky to

repay the money he had borrowed from him.

AN hour after the boys were gone Eugene Mihailovich, the owner of

the shop, came home, and began to count his receipts.

"Oh, you clumsy fool! Idiot that you are!" he shouted, addressing his

wife, after having seen the coupon and noticed the forgery.

"But I have often seen you, Eugene, accepting coupons in payment,

and precisely twelve rouble ones," retorted his wife, very humiliated,

grieved, and all but bursting into tears. "I really don't know how they

contrived to cheat me," she went on. "They were pupils of the school, in

uniform. One of them was quite a handsome boy, and looked so comme il

faut."

"A comme il faut fool, that is what you are!" The husband went on

scolding her, while he counted the cash. . . . When I accept coupons, I see

what is written on them. And you probably looked only at the boys' pretty

faces. "You had better behave yourself in your old age."

His wife could not stand this, and got into a fury.

"That is just like you men! Blaming everybody around you. But

when it is you who lose fifty-four roubles at cards-- that is of no

consequence in your eyes."

"That is a different matter

"I don't want to talk to you," said his wife, and went to her room.

There she began to remind herself that her family was opposed to her

marriage, thinking her present husband far below her in social rank, and

that it was she who insisted on marrying him. Then she went on thinking

of the child she had lost, and how indifferent her husband had been to their

loss. She hated him so intensely at that moment that she wished for his

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

death. Her wish frightened her, however, and she hurriedly began to

dress and left the house. When her husband came from the shop to the

inner rooms of their flat she was gone. Without waiting for him she had

dressed and gone off to friends-- a teacher of French in the school, a

Russified Pole, and his wife-- who had invited her and her husband to a

party in their house that evening.

THE guests at the party had tea and cakes offered to them, and sat

down after that to play whist at a number of card-tables.

The partners of Eugene Mihailovich's wife were the host himself, an

officer, and an old and very stupid lady in a wig, a widow who owned a

music-shop; she loved playing cards and played remarkably well. But it

was Eugene Mihailovich's wife who was the winner all the time. The best

cards were continually in her hands. At her side she had a plate with

grapes and a pear and was in the best of spirits.

"And Eugene Mihailovich? Why is he so late?" asked the hostess,

who played at another table.

"Probably busy settling accounts," said Eugene Mihailovich's wife.

"He has to pay off the tradesmen, to get in firewood." The quarrel she

had with her husband revived in her memory; she frowned, and her hands,

from which she had not taken off the mittens, shook with fury against him.

"Oh, there he is.--We have just been speaking of you," said the hostess

to Eugene Mihailovich, who came in at that very moment. "Why are you

so late?"

"I was busy," answered Eugene Mihailovich, in a gay voice, rubbing

his hands. And to his wife's surprise he came to her side and said,--"You

know, I managed to get rid of the coupon."

"No! You don't say so!"

"Yes, I used it to pay for a cartload of firewood I bought from a

peasant."

And Eugene Mihailovich related with great indignation to the

THE FORGED COUPONAnd Other Stories

company present-- his wife adding more details to his narrative--how his

wife had been cheated by two unscrupulous schoolboys.

"Well, and now let us sit down to work," he said, taking his place at

one of the whist-tables when his turn came, and beginning to shuffle the

cards.

EUGENE MIHAILOVICH had actually used the coupon to buy

firewood from the peasant Ivan Mironov, who had thought of setting up in

business on the seventeen roubles he possessed. He hoped in this way to

earn another eight roubles, and with the twenty-five roubles thus amassed

he intended to buy a good strong horse, which he would want in the spring

for work in the fields and for driving on the roads, as his old horse was

almost played out.

Ivan Mironov's commercial method consisted in buying from the

stores a cord of wood and dividing it into five cartloads, and then driving

about the town, selling each of these at the price the stores charged for a

quarter of a cord. That unfortunate day Ivan Mironov drove out very early

with half a cartload, which he soon sold. He loaded up again with

another cartload which he hoped to sell, but he looked in vain for a

customer; no one would buy it. It was his bad luck all that day to come

across experienced towns-people, who knew all the tricks of the peasants

in selling firewood, and would not believe that he had actually brought the

wood from the country as he assured them. He got hungry, and felt cold in

his ragged woollen coat. It was nearly below zero when evening came on;

his horse which he had treated without mercy, hoping soon to sell it to the

knacker's yard, refused to move a step. So Ivan Mironov was quite ready

to sell his firewood at a loss when he met Eugene Mihailovich, who was

on his way home from the tobacconist.

"Buy my cartload of firewood, sir. I will give it to you cheap. My

poor horse is tired, and can't go any farther."

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THEFORGEDCOUPONAndOtherStories1THEFORGEDCOUPONAndOtherStoriesBYLEOTOLSTOYTHEFORGEDCOUPONAndOtherStories2PARTFIRSTIFEDORMIHAILOVICHSMOKOVNIKOV,thepresidentofthelocalIncomeTaxDepartment,amanofunswervinghonesty--andproudofit,too--agloomyLiberal,afree-thinker,andanenemytoeverymanifestationofreligiousfee...

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