Short Stories by Chekhov
Towards midday, all three sit down on the river bank. Danilka takes out
of his bag a piece of bread, soaked and reduced to a mash, and they
begin to eat. Terenty says a prayer when he has eaten the bread, then
stretches himself on the sandy bank and falls asleep. While he is
asleep, the boy gazes at the water, pondering. He has many different
things to think of. He has just seen the storm, the bees, the ants, the
train. Now, before his eyes, fishes are whisking about. Some are two
inches long and more, others are no bigger than one's nail. A viper,
with its head held high, is swimming from one bank to the other.
Only towards the evening our wanderers return to the village. The
children go for the night to a deserted barn, where the corn of the
commune used to be kept, while Terenty, leaving them, goes to the
tavern. The children lie huddled together on the straw, dozing.
The boy does not sleep. He gazes into the darkness, and it seems to him
that he is seeing all that he has seen in the day: the storm-clouds, the
bright sunshine, the birds, the fish, lanky Terenty. The number of his
impressions, together with exhaustion and hunger, are too much for him;
he is as hot as though he were on fire, and tosses from, side to side.
He longs to tell someone all that is haunting him now in the darkness
and agitating his soul, but there is no one to tell. Fyokla is too
little and could not understand.
"I'll tell Terenty to-morrow," thinks the boy.
The children fall asleep thinking of the homeless cobbler, and, in the
night, Terenty comes to them, makes the sign of the cross over them, and
puts bread under their heads. And no one sees his love. It is seen only
by the moon which floats in the sky and peeps caressingly through the
holes in the wall of the deserted barn.
BOYS "VOLODYA'S come!" someone shouted in the yard.
"Master Volodya's here!" bawled Natalya the cook, running into the
dining-room. "Oh, my goodness!"
The whole Korolyov family, who had been expecting their Volodya from
hour to hour, rushed to the windows. At the front door stood a wide
sledge, with three white horses in a cloud of steam. The sledge was
empty, for Volodya was already in the hall, untying his hood with red
and chilly fingers. His school overcoat, his cap, his snowboots, and the
hair on his temples were all white with frost, and his whole figure from
head to foot diffused such a pleasant, fresh smell of the snow that the
very sight of him made one want to shiver and say "brrr!"
His mother and aunt ran to kiss and hug him. Natalya plumped down at his
feet and began pulling off his snowboots, his sisters shrieked with
delight, the doors creaked and banged, and Volodya's father, in his
waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, ran out into the hall with scissors in his
hand, and cried out in alarm:
"We were expecting you all yesterday? Did you come all right? Had a good
journey? Mercy on us! you might let him say 'how do you do' to his
father! I am his father after all!"
"Bow-wow!" barked the huge black dog, Milord, in a deep bass, tapping
with his tail on the walls and furniture.
For two minutes there was nothing but a general hubbub of joy. After the
first outburst of delight was over the Korolyovs noticed that there was,
besides their Volodya, another small person in the hall, wrapped up in
scarves and shawls and white with frost. He was standing perfectly still
in a corner, in the shadow of a big fox-lined overcoat.
"Volodya darling, who is it?" asked his mother, in a whisper.
"Oh!" cried Volodya. "This is--let me introduce my friend Lentilov, a
schoolfellow in the second class. . . . I have brought him to stay with
us."
"Delighted to hear it! You are very welcome," the father said cordially.
"Excuse me, I've been at work without my coat. . . . Please come in!
Natalya, help Mr. Lentilov off with his things. Mercy on us, do turn
that dog out! He is unendurable!"
A few minutes later, Volodya and his friend Lentilov, somewhat dazed by
their noisy welcome, and still red from the outside cold, were sitting
down to tea. The winter sun, making its way through the snow and the
frozen tracery on the window-panes, gleamed on the samovar, and plunged
its pure rays in the tea-basin. The room was warm, and the boys felt as
though the warmth and the frost were struggling together with a tingling
sensation in their bodies.
"Well, Christmas will soon be here," the father said in a pleasant sing-
song voice, rolling a cigarette of dark reddish tobacco. "It doesn't
seem long since the summer, when mamma was crying at your going . . .
and here you are back again. . . . Time flies, my boy. Before you have
time to cry out, old age is upon you. Mr. Lentilov, take some more,
please help yourself! We don't stand on ceremony!"
Volodya's three sisters, Katya, Sonya, and Masha (the eldest was
eleven), sat at the table and never took their eyes off the newcomer.
Lentilov was of the same height and age as Volodya, but not as round-
faced and fair-skinned. He was thin, dark, and freckled; his hair stood
up like a brush, his eyes were small, and his lips were thick. He was,
in fact, distinctly ugly, and if he had not been wearing the school
uniform, he might have been taken for the son of a cook. He seemed
morose, did not speak, and never once smiled. The little girls, staring
at him, immediately came to the conclusion that he must be a very clever
and learned person. He seemed to be thinking about something all the
time, and was so absorbed in his own thoughts, that, whenever he was
spoken to, he started, threw his head back, and asked to have the
question repeated.
The little girls noticed that Volodya, who had always been so merry and
talkative, also said very little, did not smile at all, and hardly
seemed to be glad to be home. All the time they were at tea he only once
addressed his sisters, and then he said something so strange. He pointed
to the samovar and said:
"In California they don't drink tea, but gin."
He, too, seemed absorbed in his own thoughts, and, to judge by the looks
that passed between him and his friend Lentilov, their thoughts were the
same.
After tea, they all went into the nursery. The girls and their father
took up the work that had been interrupted by the arrival of the boys.
They were making flowers and frills for the Christmas tree out of paper
of different colours. It was an attractive and noisy occupation. Every
fresh flower was greeted by the little girls with shrieks of delight,
even of awe, as though the flower had dropped straight from heaven;
their father was in ecstasies too, and every now and then he threw the
scissors on the floor, in vexation at their bluntness. Their mother kept
running into the nursery with an anxious face, asking:
"Who has taken my scissors? Ivan Nikolaitch, have you taken my scissors
again?"
"Mercy on us! I'm not even allowed a pair of scissors!" their father
would respond in a lachrymose voice, and, flinging himself back in his
chair, he would pretend to be a deeply injured man; but a minute later,
he would be in ecstasies again.
On his former holidays Volodya, too, had taken part in the preparations
for the Christmas tree, or had been running in the yard to look at the
snow mountain that the watchman and the shepherd were building. But this
time Volodya and Lentilov took no notice whatever of the coloured paper,
and did not once go into the stable. They sat in the window and began
whispering to one another; then they opened an atlas and looked
carefully at a map.
"First to Perm . . ." Lentilov said, in an undertone, "from there to
Tiumen, then Tomsk . . . then . . . then . . . Kamchatka. There the
Samoyedes take one over Behring's Straits in boats . . . . And then we
are in America. . . . There are lots of furry animals there. . . ."
"And California?" asked Volodya.
"California is lower down. . . . We've only to get to America and
California is not far off. . . . And one can get a living by hunting and
plunder."
All day long Lentilov avoided the little girls, and seemed to look at
them with suspicion. In the evening he happened to be left alone with
them for five minutes or so. It was awkward to be silent.
He cleared his throat morosely, rubbed his left hand against his right,
looked sullenly at Katya and asked:
"Have you read Mayne Reid?"
"No, I haven't. . . . I say, can you skate?"
Absorbed in his own reflections, Lentilov made no reply to this
question; he simply puffed out his cheeks, and gave a long sigh as
though he were very hot. He looked up at Katya once more and said:
"When a herd of bisons stampedes across the prairie the earth trembles,
and the frightened mustangs kick and neigh."
He smiled impressively and added:
"And the Indians attack the trains, too. But worst of all are the
mosquitoes and the termites."
"Why, what's that?"
"They're something like ants, but with wings. They bite fearfully. Do
you know who I am?"
"Mr. Lentilov."
"No, I am Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw, Chief of the Ever Victorious."
Masha, the youngest, looked at him, then into the darkness out of window
and said, wondering:
"And we had lentils for supper yesterday."
Lentilov's incomprehensible utterances, and the way he was always
whispering with Volodya, and the way Volodya seemed now to be always
thinking about something instead of playing . . . all this was strange
and mysterious. And the two elder girls, Katya and Sonya, began to keep
a sharp look-out on the boys. At night, when the boys had gone to bed,
the girls crept to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were
saying. Ah, what they discovered! The boys were planning to run away to
America to dig for gold: they had everything ready for the journey, a
pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve instead of
matches, a compass, and four roubles in cash. They learned that the boys
would have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight
tigers and savages on the road: then they would get gold and ivory, slay
their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and finally marry beautiful
maidens, and make a plantation.
The boys interrupted each other in their excitement. Throughout the
conversation, Lentilov called himself "Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw," and
Volodya was "my pale-face brother!"
"Mind you don't tell mamma," said Katya, as they went back to bed.
"Volodya will bring us gold and ivory from America, but if you tell
mamma he won't be allowed to go."
The day before Christmas Eve, Lentilov spent the whole day poring over
the map of Asia and making notes, while Volodya, with a languid and
swollen face that looked as though it had been stung by a bee, walked
about the rooms and ate nothing. And once he stood still before the holy
image in the nursery, crossed himself, and said:
"Lord, forgive me a sinner; Lord, have pity on my poor unhappy mamma!"
In the evening he burst out crying. On saying good-night he gave his
father a long hug, and then hugged his mother and sisters. Katya and
Sonya knew what was the matter, but little Masha was puzzled, completely
puzzled. Every time she looked at Lentilov she grew thoughtful and said
with a sigh:
"When Lent comes, nurse says we shall have to eat peas and lentils."
Early in the morning of Christmas Eve, Katya and Sonya slipped quietly
out of bed, and went to find out how the boys meant to run away to
America. They crept to their door.
"Then you don't mean to go?" Lentilov was saying angrily. "Speak out:
aren't you going?"
"Oh dear," Volodya wept softly. "How can I go? I feel so unhappy about
mamma."
"My pale-face brother, I pray you, let us set off. You declared you were
going, you egged me on, and now the time comes, you funk it!"