I just experienced a first on the Tube. I was on my way home from Natalie Dessay's Barbican recital, when I noticed that the carriage I was in was beginning to smell a bit smoky. This happens from time to time when a chain smoker plops down nearby and emits a heady residual cigarette aroma, but this case was different. The smell quickly got stronger, and it became apparent that somebody was sucking one down on the train. The culprit turned out to be a homeless looking man, who could have come direct from Central Casting. He had on the requisite toque, sported a wiry snow-coloured beard and fine set of blackened fingernails, and spoke with a well-developed slur that was incomprehensible to everyone save his neighbour, a sinewy man of similar description who nodded in approval of his friend's loftier statements. What was truly remarkable about the scene was that although the car was nearly full, nobody said anything. A few people shot the man an old-fashioned look, and a few more jumped ship when the train made its first stop, but all who remained aboard did so with tacit displeasure and in mild disbelief.
I'm not sure if the lack of confrontation is attributable to English culture -- I can hardly imagine such an act going unchallenged on the New York Subway -- or if everyone independently decided that any objection, however gently or sensibly delivered, would likely fall on uncaring ears. All I can say is that I was reminded of Chekhov's story The Ninny, particularly its last line, which is possessed of a different, but undoubtedly tangential theme to the one found tonight on the Tube, and is so short a tale that I'm going to throw copyright caution to the wind and reproduce it here:
The Ninny
Just a few days ago I invited Yulia Vasilyevna, the governess of my children, to come to my study. I wanted to settle my account with her.
“Sit down, Yulia Vasilyevna,” I said to her. “ Let’s get our accounts settled. I’m sure you need some money, but you keep standing on ceremony and never ask for it. Let me see. We agreed to give you thirty rubles a month, didn’t we?”
“Forty.”
“No, thirty. I made a note of it. I always pay the governess thirty. Now, let me see. You have been with us for two months?”
“Two months and five days.”
“Two months exactly. I made a note of it. So you have sixty rubles coming to you. Subtract nine Sundays. You know you don’t tutor Kolya on Sundays, you just go out for a walk. And then the three holidays...”
Yulia Vasilyevna blushed and picked at the trimmings of her dress, but said not a word.
“Three holidays. So we take off twelve rubles. Kolya was sick for four days – those days you didn’t look after him. You looked after Vanya, only Vanya. Then there were the three days you had toothache, when my wife gave you permission to stay away from the children after dinner. Twelve and seven makes nineteen. Subtract... That leaves... hm... forty-one rubles. Correct?”
Yulia Vasilyevna’s left eye reddened and filled with tears. Her chin trembled. She began to cough nervously, blew her nose, and said nothing.
“Then around New Year’s Day you broke a cup and a saucer. Subtract two rubles. The cup cost more than that – it was an heirloom, but we won’t bother about that. We’re the ones who pay. Another matter. Due to your carelessness Kolya climbed a tree and tore his coat. Subtract ten. Also, due to your carelessness, the chambermaid ran off with Vanya’s boots. You ought to have kept your eyes open. You get a good salary. So we dock off five more... On the tenth of January you took ten rubles from me.”
“I didn’t,” Yulia Vasilyevna whispered.
“But I made a note of it.”
“Well, yes – perhaps...”
“From forty-one we take twenty-seven. That leaves fourteen.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and her thin, pretty little nose was shining with perspiration. Poor little child!
“I only took money once,” she said in a trembling voice. “I took three rubles from your wife... never anything more.”
“Did you now? You see, I never made a note of it. Take three from fourteen. That leaves eleven. Here’s your money, my dear. Three, three, three... one and one. Take it, my dear.”
I gave her the eleven rubles. With trembling fingers she took them and slipped them into her pocket.
“Merci,” she whispered.
I jumped up, and began pacing up and down the room. I was in a furious temper.
“Why did you say ‘merci?” I asked.
“For the money.”
“Don’t you realize I’ve been cheating you? I steal your money, and all you can say is ‘merci’!”
“In my other places they gave me nothing.”
“They gave you nothing! Well, no wonder! I was playing a trick on you – a dirty trick... I’ll give you your eighty rubles, they are all here in an envelope made out for you. Is it possible for anyone to be such a nitwit? Why didn’t you protest? Why did you keep your mouth shut? It is possible that there is anyone in this world who is so spineless? Why are you such a ninny?”
She gave me a bitter little smile. On her face I read the words: “Yes, it is possible.”
I apologized for having played this cruel trick on her, and to her great surprise gave her the eighty rubles. And then she said “merci” again several times, always timidly, and went out. I gazed after her, thinking how very easy it is in this world to be strong.
