Short Stories by Chekhov
sleeve shakes it with his teeth as a dog does a hare. His eyes are
frantic, and his face is distorted with despair. Looking at him, his
granny all at once takes the shawl off her head, and she too makes queer
movements with her arms and legs in silence, with her eyes fixed on a
point in the distance. And at that moment I believe there is a definite
certainty in the minds of the boy and the old woman that their life is
ruined, that there is no hope. . . .
Putohin hears no crying, but he can see it all from his room. When, half
an hour later, Vassya sets off to school, wrapped in his grandmother's
shawl, he goes out with a face I will not undertake to describe, and
walks after him. He longs to call the boy, to comfort him, to beg his
forgiveness, to promise him on his word of honour, to call his dead
mother to witness, but instead of words, sobs break from him. It is a
grey, cold morning. When he reaches the town school Vassya untwists his
granny's shawl, and goes into the school with nothing over his jacket
for fear the boys should say he looks like a woman. And when he gets
home Putohin sobs, mutters some incoherent words, bows down to the
ground before his mother and Yegoritch, and the locksmith's table. Then,
recovering himself a little, he runs to me and begs me breathlessly, for
God's sake, to find him some job. I give him hopes, of course.
"At last I am myself again," he said. "It's high time, indeed, to come
to my senses. I've made a beast of myself, and now it's over."
He is delighted and thanks me, while I, who have studied these gentry
thoroughly during the years I have owned the house, look at him, and am
tempted to say:
"It's too late, dear fellow! You are a dead man already."
From me, Putohin runs to the town school. There he paces up and down,
waiting till his boy comes out.
"I say, Vassya," he says joyfully, when the boy at last comes out, "I
have just been promised a job. Wait a bit, I will buy you a splendid
fur-coat. . . . I'll send you to the high school! Do you understand? To
the high school! I'll make a gentleman of you! And I won't drink any
more. On my honour I won't."
And he has intense faith in the bright future. But the evening comes on.
The old woman, coming back from the Jews with twenty kopecks, exhausted
and aching all over, sets to work to wash the children's clothes. Vassya
is sitting doing a sum. Yegoritch is not working. Thanks to Putohin he
has got into the way of drinking, and is feeling at the moment an
overwhelming desire for drink. It's hot and stuffy in the room. Steam
rises in clouds from the tub where the old woman is washing.
"Are we going?" Yegoritch asks surlily.
My lodger does not answer. After his excitement he feels insufferably
dreary. He struggles with the desire to drink, with acute depression and
. . . and, of course, depression gets the best of it. It is a familiar
story.
Towards night, Yegoritch and Putohin go out, and in the morning Vassya
cannot find granny's shawl.
That is the drama that took place in that flat. After selling the shawl
for drink, Putohin did not come home again. Where he disappeared to I
don't know. After he disappeared, the old woman first got drunk, then
took to her bed. She was taken to the hospital, the younger children
were fetched by relations of some sort, and Vassya went into the wash-
house here. In the day-time he handed the irons, and at night fetched
the beer. When he was turned out of the wash-house he went into the
service of one of the young ladies, used to run about at night on
errands of some sort, and began to be spoken of as "a dangerous
customer."
What has happened to him since I don't know.
And in this room here a street musician lived for ten years. When he
died they found twenty thousand roubles in his feather bed.
IN PASSION WEEK
"Go along, they are ringing already; and mind, don't be naughty in
church or God will punish you."
My mother thrusts a few copper coins upon me, and, instantly forgetting
about me, runs into the kitchen with an iron that needs reheating. I
know well that after confession I shall not be allowed to eat or drink,
and so, before leaving the house, I force myself to eat a crust of white
bread, and to drink two glasses of water. It is quite spring in the
street. The roads are all covered with brownish slush, in which future
paths are already beginning to show; the roofs and side-walks are dry;
the fresh young green is piercing through the rotting grass of last
year, under the fences. In the gutters there is the merry gurgling and
foaming of dirty water, in which the sunbeams do not disdain to bathe.
Chips, straws, the husks of sunflower seeds are carried rapidly along in
the water, whirling round and sticking in the dirty foam. Where, where
are those chips swimming to? It may well be that from the gutter they
may pass into the river, from the river into the sea, and from the sea
into the ocean. I try to imagine to myself that long terrible journey,
but my fancy stops short before reaching the sea.
A cabman drives by. He clicks to his horse, tugs at the reins, and does
not see that two street urchins are hanging on the back of his cab. I
should like to join them, but think of confession, and the street
urchins begin to seem to me great sinners.
"They will be asked on the day of judgment: 'Why did you play pranks and
deceive the poor cabman?'" I think. "They will begin to defend
themselves, but evil spirits will seize them, and drag them to fire
everlasting. But if they obey their parents, and give the beggars a
kopeck each, or a roll, God will have pity on them, and will let them
into Paradise."
The church porch is dry and bathed in sunshine. There is not a soul in
it. I open the door irresolutely and go into the church. Here, in the
twilight which seems to me thick and gloomy as at no other time, I am
overcome by the sense of sinfulness and insignificance. What strikes the
eye first of all is a huge crucifix, and on one side of it the Mother of
God, and on the other, St. John the Divine. The candelabra and the
candlestands are draped in black mourning covers, the lamps glimmer
dimly and faintly, and the sun seems intentionally to pass by the church
windows. The Mother of God and the beloved disciple of Jesus Christ,
depicted in profile, gaze in silence at the insufferable agony and do
not observe my presence; I feel that to them I am alien, superfluous,
unnoticed, that I can be no help to them by word or deed, that I am a
loathsome, dishonest boy, only capable of mischief, rudeness, and tale-
bearing. I think of all the people I know, and they all seem to me
petty, stupid, and wicked, and incapable of bringing one drop of relief
to that intolerable sorrow which I now behold.
The twilight of the church grows darker and more gloomy. And the Mother
of God and St. John look lonely and forlorn to me.
Prokofy Ignatitch, a veteran soldier, the church verger's assistant, is
standing behind the candle cupboard. Raising his eyebrows and stroking
his beard he explains in a half-whisper to an old woman: "Matins will be
in the evening to-day, directly after vespers. And they will ring for
the 'hours' to-morrow between seven and eight. Do you understand?
Between seven and eight."
Between the two broad columns on the right, where the chapel of Varvara
the Martyr begins, those who are going to confess stand beside the
screen, awaiting their turn. And Mitka is there too-- a ragged boy with
his head hideously cropped, with ears that jut out, and little spiteful
eyes. He is the son of Nastasya the charwoman, and is a bully and a
ruffian who snatches apples from the women's baskets, and has more than
once carried off my knuckle-bones. He looks at me angrily, and I fancy
takes a spiteful pleasure in the fact that he, not I, will first go
behind the screen. I feel boiling over with resentment, I try not to
look at him, and, at the bottom of my heart, I am vexed that this
wretched boy's sins will soon be forgiven.
In front of him stands a grandly dressed, beautiful lady, wearing a hat
with a white feather. She is noticeably agitated, is waiting in strained
suspense, and one of her cheeks is flushed red with excitement.
I wait for five minutes, for ten. . . . A well-dressed young man with a
long thin neck, and rubber goloshes, comes out from behind the screen. I
begin dreaming how, when I am grown up, I will buy goloshes exactly like
them. I certainly will! The lady shudders and goes behind the screen. It
is her turn.
In the crack, between the two panels of the screen, I can see the lady
go up to the lectern and bow down to the ground, then get up, and,
without looking at the priest, bow her head in anticipation. The priest
stands with his back to the screen, and so I can only see his grey curly
head, the chain of the cross on his chest, and his broad back. His face
is not visible. Heaving a sigh, and not looking at the lady, he begins
speaking rapidly, shaking his head, alternately raising and dropping his
whispering voice. The lady listens meekly as though conscious of guilt,
answers meekly, and looks at the floor.
"In what way can she be sinful?" I wonder, looking reverently at her
gentle, beautiful face. "God forgive her sins, God send her happiness."
But now the priest covers her head with the stole. "And I, unworthy
priest . . ." I hear his voice, ". . . by His power given unto me, do
forgive and absolve thee from all thy sins. . . ."
The lady bows down to the ground, kisses the cross, and comes back. Both
her cheeks are flushed now, but her face is calm and serene and
cheerful.
"She is happy now," I think to myself, looking first at her and then at
the priest who had forgiven her sins. "But how happy the man must be who
has the right to forgive sins!"
Now it is Mitka's turn, but a feeling of hatred for that young ruffian
suddenly boils up in me. I want to go behind the screen before him, I
want to be the first. Noticing my movement he hits me on the head with
his candle, I respond by doing the same, and, for half a minute, there
is a sound of panting, and, as it were, of someone breaking candles. . .
. We are separated. My foe goes timidly up to the lectern, and bows down
to the floor without bending his knees, but I do not see what happens
after that; the thought that my turn is coming after Mitka's makes
everything grow blurred and confused before my eyes; Mitka's protruding
ears grow large, and melt into his dark head, the priest sways, the
floor seems to be undulating. . . .
The priest's voice is audible: "And I, unworthy priest . . ."
Now I too move behind the screen. I do not feel the ground under my
feet, it is as though I were walking on air. . . . I go up to the
lectern which is taller than I am. For a minute I have a glimpse of the
indifferent, exhausted face of the priest. But after that I see nothing
but his sleeve with its blue lining, the cross, and the edge of the
lectern. I am conscious of the close proximity of the priest, the smell
of his cassock; I hear his stern voice, and my cheek turned towards him
begins to burn. . . . I am so troubled that I miss a great deal that he
says, but I answer his questions sincerely in an unnatural voice, not my
own. I think of the forlorn figures of the Holy Mother and St. John the
Divine, the crucifix, my mother, and I want to cry and beg forgiveness.
"What is your name?" the priest asks me, covering my head with the soft
stole.
How light-hearted I am now, with joy in my soul!
I have no sins now, I am holy, I have the right to enter Paradise! I
fancy that I already smell like the cassock. I go from behind the screen
to the deacon to enter my name, and sniff at my sleeves. The dusk of the
church no longer seems gloomy, and I look indifferently, without malice,