An Avenger

Anton Chekhov

SHORTLY after finding his wife in flagrante delicto Fyodor Fyodorovitch Sigaev was

standing in Schmuck and Co.'s, the gunsmiths, selecting a suitable revolver. His

countenance expressed wrath, grief, and unalterable determination.

"I know what I must do," he was thinking. "The sanctities of the home are outraged, honour

is trampled in the mud, vice is triumphant, and therefore as a citizen and a man of honour I

must be their avenger. First, I will kill her and her lover and then myself."

He had not yet chosen a revolver or killed anyone, but already in imagination he saw three

bloodstained corpses, broken skulls, brains oozing from them, the commotion, the crowd of

pattern, the last word in the science of firearms: triple-action, with ejector, kills at six

hundred paces, central sight. Let me draw your attention, M'sieu, to the beauty of the finish.

The most fashionable system, M'sieu. We sell a dozen every day for burglars, wolves, and

lovers. Very correct and powerful action, hits at a great distance, and kills wife and lover

with one bullet. As for suicide, M'sieu, I don't know a better pattern."

The shopman pulled and cocked the trigger, breathed on the barrel, took aim, and affected

to be breathless with delight. Looking at his ecstatic countenance, one might have supposed

that he would readily have put a bullet through his brains if he had only possessed a

revolver of such a superb pattern as a Smith-Wesson.

"And what price?" asked Sigaev.

hysterical ladies or the mentally deficient. To commit suicide or shoot one's wife with a

Lefaucher revolver is considered bad form nowadays. Smith-Wesson is the only pattern

that's correct style."

"I don't want to shoot myself or to kill anyone," said Sigaev, lying sullenly. "I am buying it

simply for a country cottage . . . to frighten away burglars. . . ."

"That's not our business, what object you have in buying it." The shopman smiled, dropping

his eyes discreetly. "If we were to investigate the object in each case, M'sieu, we should

have to close our shop. To frighten burglars Lefaucher is not a suitable pattern, M'sieu, for

it goes off with a faint, muffled sound. I would suggest Mortimer's, the so-called duelling

pistol. . . ."

"Shouldn't I challenge him to a duel?" flashed through Sigaev's mind. "It's doing him too

much honour, though. . . . Beasts like that are killed like dogs. . . ."

The shopman, swaying gracefully and tripping to and fro on his little feet, still smiling and

chattering, displayed before him a heap of revolvers. The most inviting and impressive of

"I know! I'll kill myself and him," he thought, "but I'll leave her alive. Let her pine away

from the stings of conscience and the contempt of all surrounding her. For a sensitive nature

like hers that will be far more agonizing than death."

And he imagined his own funeral: he, the injured husband, lies in his coffin with a gentle

smile on his lips, and she, pale, tortured by remorse, follows the coffin like a Niobe, not

knowing where to hide herself to escape from the withering, contemptuous looks cast upon

her by the indignant crowd.

"I see, M'sieu, that you like the Smith and Wesson make," the shopman broke in upon his

broodings. "If you think it too dear, very well, I'll knock off five roubles. . . . But we have

other makes, cheaper."

Tula weapons and phosphorus matches, and Tula weapons are a misery! You may aim at

your wife with a Tula revolver and shoot yourself through the shoulder-blade."

Sigaev suddenly felt mortified and sorry that he would be dead, and would miss seeing the

agonies of the traitress. Revenge is only sweet when one can see and taste its fruits, and

what sense would there be in it if he were lying in his coffin, knowing nothing about it?

"Hadn't I better do this?" he pondered. "I'll kill him, then I'll go to his funeral and look on,

and after the funeral I'll kill myself. They'd arrest me, though, before the funeral, and take

away my pistol. . . . And so I'll kill him, she shall remain alive, and I . . . for the time, I'll not

kill myself, but go and be arrested. I shall always have time to kill myself. There will be this

advantage about being arrested, that at the preliminary investigation I shall have an

opportunity of exposing to the authorities and to the public all the infamy of her conduct. If

I kill myself she may, with her characteristic duplicity and impudence, throw all the blame

on me, and society will justify her behaviour and will very likely laugh at me. . . . If I

remain alive, then . . ."

A minute later he was thinking:

"Yes, if I kill myself I may be blamed and suspected of petty feeling. . . . Besides, why

should I kill myself? That's one thing. And for another, to shoot oneself is cowardly. And so

I'll kill him and let her live, and I'll face my trial. I shall be tried, and she will be brought

"Here are English ones, a new pattern, only just received," he prattled on. " But I warn you,

M'sieu, all these systems pale beside the Smith and Wesson. The other day-as I dare say you

have read-an officer bought from u~ a Smith and Wesson. He shot his wife's lover, and-

would you believe it?-the bullet passed through him, pierced the bronze lamp, then the

piano, and ricochetted back from the piano, killing the lap-dog and bruising the wife. A

magnificent record redounding to the honour of our firm! The officer is now under arrest.

He will no doubt be convicted and sent to penal servitude. In the first place, our penal code

is quite out of date; and, secondly, M'sieu, the sympathies of the court are always with the

counsel for the defence are all living with other men's wives, and it'll add to their comfort

that there will be one husband the less in Russia. Society would be pleased if the

Government were to send all the husbands to Sahalin. Oh, M'sieu, you don't know how it

"To go to Sahalin for the sake of a pig like that -- there's no sense in that either," Sigaev

again and deceiving a second husband. She would triumph. . . . And so I will leave her

alive, I won't kill myself, him . . . I won't kill either. I must think of something more

sensible and more effective. I will punish them with my contempt, and will take divorce

"Here, M'sieu, is another make," said the shopman, taking down another dozen from the

shelf. "Let me call your attention to the original mechanism of the lock."

In view of his determination a revolver was now of no use to Sigaev, but the shopman,

meanwhile, getting more and more enthusiastic, persisted in displaying his wares before

him. The outraged husband began to feel ashamed that the shopman should be taking so

much trouble on his account for nothing, that he should be smiling, wasting time,

displaying enthusiasm for nothing.

Very well, in that case," he muttered, "I'll look in again later on . . . or I'll send someone."

He didn't see the expression of the shopman's face, but to smooth over the awkwardness of

the position a little he felt called upon to make some purchase. But what should he buy? He

looked round the walls of the shop to pick out something inexpensive, and his eyes rested

"Eight roubles, M'sieu."

"Wrap it up for me. . . ."

The outraged husband paid his eight roubles, took the net, and, feeling even more outraged,

walked out of the shop.

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