Short Stories by Chekhov
and that that did not trouble them in the least; and human life began to
seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened as a dog's.
Bareheaded he walked about the yard, then he went out on to the road,
clenching his fists. Snow was falling in big flakes at the time. His
beard was blown about in the wind. He kept shaking his head, as though
there were something weighing upon his head and shoulders, as though
devils were sitting on them; and it seemed to him that it was not
himself walking about, but some wild beast, a huge terrible beast, and
that if he were to cry out his voice would be a roar that would sound
all over the forest and the plain, and would frighten everyone. . . . V
When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there, but
the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the reckoning
beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every day, to the
tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch, now he came to
see Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the beads, while his face
perspired and looked strained, or he would ask for money or, stroking
his whiskers, would describe how he had once been in a first-class
station and used to prepare champagne-punch for officers, and at grand
dinners served the sturgeon-soup with his own hands. Nothing in this
world interested him but refreshment bars, and he could only talk about
things to eat, about wines and the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On
one occasion, handing a cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her
baby and wishing to say something agreeable to her, he expressed himself
in this way:
"The mother's breast is the baby's refreshment bar."
Reckoning with the beads in Matvey's room, he asked for money; said he
could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated in a
tone of voice that sounded as though he were just going to cry:
"Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please."
Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled potatoes
which he had probably put away from the day before. It was quiet, and it
seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone. It was past the time
for evening service; he called Aglaia, and, thinking there was no one
else in the house sang out aloud without embarrassment. He sang and
read, but was inwardly pronouncing other words, "Lord, forgive me! Lord,
save me!" and, one after another, without ceasing, he made low bows to
the ground as though he wanted to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking
his head, so that Aglaia looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey
would come in, and was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger
against him which he could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually
bowing down to the ground.
Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.
"It's a sin, such a sin!" he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.
"Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!"
Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear of
striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a huge
terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road, he crossed
the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke and fog, in
which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent a long time
walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily, so that the
crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook. It was clear to
him now that he was himself dissatisfied with his religion, and could
not pray as he used to do. He must repent, he must think things over,
reconsider, live and pray in some other way. But how pray? And perhaps
all this was a temptation of the devil, and nothing of this was
necessary? . . . How was it to be? What was he to do? Who could guide
him? What helplessness! He stopped and, clutching at his head, began to
think, but Matvey's being near him prevented him from reflecting calmly.
And he went rapidly into the room.
Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating. Close
by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing one another,
spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which Matvey was
sitting was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a cold iron.
"Sister," Matvey asked, "let me have a little oil!"
"Who eats oil on a day like this?" asked Aglaia.
"I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may take
not only oil but milk."
"Yes, at the factory you may have anything."
Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it angrily
down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased that he was
such a sinner.
"But I tell you, you can't eat oil!" shouted Yakov.
Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the bowl and
went on eating as though he had not heard.
"I tell you, you can't eat oil!" Yakov shouted still more loudly; he
turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than his
head, and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that it flew
into fragments. "Don't dare to speak!" he cried in a furious voice,
though Matvey had not said a word. "Don't dare!" he repeated, and struck
his fist on the table.
Matvey turned pale and got up.
"Brother!" he said, still munching--"brother, think what you are about!"
"Out of my house this minute!" shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey's
wrinkled face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and the
fact that he was munching. "Out, I tell you!"
"Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!"
"Hold your tongue!" (Yakov stamped.) "Go away, you devil!"
"If you care to know," Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too, began
to get angry, "you are a backslider from God and a heretic. The accursed
spirits have hidden the true light from you; your prayer is not
acceptable to God. Repent before it is too late! The deathbed of the
sinner is terrible! Repent, brother!"
Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the table,
while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered, began
muttering, "What is it? What's the matter?" and, struggling and making
efforts to free himself from Yakov's hands, he accidentally caught hold
of his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it seemed to Aglaia
that he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a shriek, snatched up the
bottle of Lenten oil and with all her force brought it down straight on
the skull of the cousin she hated. Matvey reeled, and in one instant his
face became calm and indifferent. Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and
feeling pleasure at the gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing,
when it had struck the head, kept him from falling and several times (he
remembered this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with
his finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands
and he heard Dashutka's loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell with
a crash, and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling anger
and understood what had happened.
"Let him rot, the factory buck!" Aglaia brought out with repulsion,
still keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief
slipped on to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder. "He's
got what he deserved!"
Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove with
the yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down, uttering at
each bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible to Yakov as the
potato in the blood, on which he was afraid of stepping, and there was
something else terrible which weighed upon him like a bad dream and
seemed the worst danger, though he could not take it in for the first
minute. This was the waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, who was standing in the
doorway with the reckoning beads in his hands, very pale, looking with
horror at what was happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and
went quickly into the passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who
it was and followed him.
Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea flashed
through his mind that their labourer had gone away long before and had
asked leave to stay the night at home in the village; the day before
they had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains in the snow and
on the sledge, and even one side of the top of the well was splattered
with blood, so that it could not have seemed suspicious even if the
whole of Yakov's family had been stained with blood. To conceal the
murder would be agonizing, but for the policeman, who would whistle and
smile ironically, to come from the station, for the peasants to arrive
and bind Yakov's and Aglaia's hands, and take them solemnly to the
district courthouse and from there to the town, while everyone on the
way would point at them and say mirthfully, "They are taking the
Godlies!"--this seemed to Yakov more agonizing than anything, and he
longed to lengthen out the time somehow, so as to endure this shame not
now, but later, in the future.
"I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . ." he said, overtaking Sergey
Nikanoritch. "If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . . There's no
bringing the man back, anyway;" and with difficulty keeping up with the
waiter, who did not look round, but tried to walk away faster than ever,
he went on: "I can give you fifteen hundred. . . ."
He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch walked
on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be killed, too.
Only after passing the railway crossing and going half the way from the
crossing to the station, he furtively looked round and walked more
slowly. Lights, red and green, were already gleaming in the station and
along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes of snow were still
coming down and the road had turned white again. But just at the station
Sergey Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute, and turned resolutely
back. It was growing dark.
"Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch," he said, trembling
all over. "I agree." VI
Yakov Ivanitch's money was in the bank of the town and was invested in
second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was wanted
for necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for the matchbox,
and while the sulphur was burning with a blue light he had time to make
out the figure of Matvey, which was still lying on the floor near the
table, but now it was covered with a white sheet, and nothing could be
seen but his boots. A cricket was chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were
not in the room, they were both sitting behind the counter in the tea-
room, spinning yarn in silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room
with a little lamp in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little
box in which he kept his money. This time there were in it four hundred
and twenty one-rouble notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five
roubles; the notes had an unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money
together in his cap, Yakov Ivanitch went out into the yard and then out
of the gate. He walked, looking from side to side, but there was no sign
of the waiter.
"Hi!" cried Yakov.
A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing and
came irresolutely towards him.
"Why do you keep walking about?" said Yakov with vexation, as he
recognized the waiter. "Here you are; there is a little less than five
hundred. . . . I've no more in the house."
"Very well; . . . very grateful to you," muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
"Don't worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter for:
I came and went away, that's all I've had to do with it. As the saying