Short Stories by Chekhov
shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that the colour pleased her or that
he reminded her of her children, she stood a long time motionless
staring after him.
But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain, the
sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a hawk
hovered over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill whirled
its sails, and still it looked like a little man waving his arms. It was
wearisome to watch, and it seemed as though one would never reach it, as
though it were running away from the chaise.
Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the horses
and kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off crying, and
gazed about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of the steppes
overpowered him. He felt as though he had been travelling and jolting up
and down for a very long time, that the sun had been baking his back a
long time. Before they had gone eight miles he began to feel "It must be
time to rest." The geniality gradually faded out of his uncle's face and
nothing else was left but the air of business reserve; and to a gaunt
shaven face, especially when it is adorned with spectacles and the nose
and temples are covered with dust, this reserve gives a relentless,
inquisitorial appearance. Father Christopher never left off gazing with
wonder at God's world, and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over
something pleasant and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained
imprinted on his face. It seemed as though some nice and pleasant
thought were imprinted on his brain by the heat.
"Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?" asked Kuzmitchov.
Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses and
then answered:
"By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them."
There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling
barks, flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious,
surrounded the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and their
eyes red with anger, and jostling against one another in their anger,
raised a hoarse howl. They were filled with passionate hatred of the
horses, of the chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed ready to tear
them into pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing and beating, was
delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant expression bent over
and lashed at the sheep-dogs with his whip. The brutes growled more than
ever, the horses flew on; and Yegorushka, who had difficulty in keeping
his seat on the box, realized, looking at the dogs' eyes and teeth, that
if he fell down they would instantly tear him to bits; but he felt no
fear and looked at them as malignantly as Deniska, and regretted that he
had no whip in his hand.
The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.
"Stop!" cried Kuzmitchov. "Pull up! Woa!"
Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.
"Come here!" Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. "Call off the dogs,
curse them!"
The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a dirty
sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand--a regular figure from
the Old Testament--called off the dogs, and taking off his cap, went up
to the chaise. Another similar Old Testament figure was standing
motionless at the other end of the flock, staring without interest at
the travellers.
"Whose sheep are these?" asked Kuzmitchov.
"Varlamov's," the old man answered in a loud voice.
"Varlamov's," repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of the
flock.
"Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or not?"
"He did not; his clerk came. . . ."
"Drive on!"
The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were left
behind. Yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in front, and
it began to seem as though the windmill, waving its sails, were getting
nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew quite large, and now he could
distinguish clearly its two sails. One sail was old and patched, the
other had only lately been made of new wood and glistened in the sun.
The chaise drove straight on, while the windmill, for some reason, began
retreating to the left. They drove on and on, and the windmill kept
moving away to the left, and still did not disappear.
"A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son," observed Deniska.
"And how is it we don't see his farm?"
"It is that way, beyond the creek."
Boltva's farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did not
retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched Yegorushka with its
shining sail and waved. What a sorcerer! II
Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went on a
little way at walking pace and then stopped. Yegorushka heard a soft,
very caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on his face with
a cool velvety touch. Through a little pipe of hemlock stuck there by
some unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin trickle from a low
hill, put together by nature of huge monstrous stones. It fell to the
ground, and limpid, sparkling gaily in the sun, and softly murmuring as
though fancying itself a great tempestuous torrent, flowed swiftly away
to the left. Not far from its source the little stream spread itself out
into a pool; the burning sunbeams and the parched soil greedily drank it
up and sucked away its strength; but a little further on it must have
mingled with another rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds
showed green and luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up
from them with a loud cry as the chaise drove by.
The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in the
narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed horses. The
nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in Father
Christopher's brain craved expression after he had had a drink of water
and eaten a hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look upon Yegorushka,
munched, and began:
"I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into me good
sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a lad as you I
was beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors by my good
sense. Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses in Latin, just
as in Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his Holiness Bishop
Christopher. After mass one day, as I remember it was the patron saint's
day of His Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch of blessed memory, he
unrobed at the altar, looked kindly at me and asked, 'Puer bone, quam
appelaris?' And I answered, 'Christopherus sum;' and he said, 'Ergo
connominati sumus'--that is, that we were namesakes. . . Then he asked in
Latin, 'Whose son are you?' To which I answered, also in Latin, that I
was the son of deacon Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my
readiness and the clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and
said, 'Write to your father that I will not forget him, and that I will
keep you in view.' The holy priests and fathers who were standing round
the altar, hearing our discussion in Latin, were not a little surprised,
and everyone expressed his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had
moustaches, my boy, I could read Latin, Greek, and French; I knew
philosophy, mathematics, secular history, and all the sciences. The Lord
gave me a marvellous memory. Sometimes, if I read a thing once or twice,
I knew it by heart. My preceptors and patrons were amazed, and so they
expected I should make a learned man, a luminary of the Church. I did
think of going to Kiev to continue my studies, but my parents did not
approve. 'You'll be studying all your life,' said my father; 'when shall
we see you finished?' Hearing such words, I gave up study and took a
post. . . . Of course, I did not become a learned man, but then I did
not disobey my parents; I was a comfort to them in their old age and
gave them a creditable funeral. Obedience is more than fasting and
prayer.
"I suppose you have forgotten all your learning?" observed Kuzmitchov.
"I should think so! Thank God, I have reached my eightieth year!
Something of philosophy and rhetoric I do remember, but languages and
mathematics I have quite forgotten."
Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said in an
undertone:
"What is a substance? A creature is a self-existing object, not
requiring anything else for its completion."
He shook his head and laughed with feeling.
"Spiritual nourishment!" he said. "Of a truth matter nourishes the flesh
and spiritual nourishment the soul!"
"Learning is all very well," sighed Kuzmitchov, "but if we don't
overtake Varlamov, learning won't do much for us."
"A man isn't a needle--we shall find him. He must be going his rounds in
these parts."
Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before, and in
their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation at having
been driven away from the stream. The horses were steadily munching and
snorting. Deniska walked about by them and, trying to appear indifferent
to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry were eating, he
concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies that were fastening
upon the horses' backs and bellies; he squashed his victims
apathetically, emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant, guttural
sound, and when he missed them cleared his throat with an air of
vexation and looked after every lucky one that escaped death.
"Deniska, where are you? Come and eat," said Kuzmitchov, heaving a deep
sigh, a sign that he had had enough.
Deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick and
yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and fresher
ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were cracked, then
irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow on his outstretched
hand, touched a pie with his finger.
"Take them, take them," Kuzmitchov urged him on.
Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away, sat
down on the grass with his back to the chaise. At once there was such a
sound of loud munching that even the horses turned round to look
suspiciously at Deniska.
After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of the
chaise and said to Yegorushka:
"I am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from under
my head."
Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full coat,
and Yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment. He had never
imagined that priests wore trousers, and Father Christopher had on real
canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and a short striped jacket.
Looking at him, Yegorushka thought that in this costume, so unsuitable
to his dignified position, he looked with his long hair and beard very
much like Robinson Crusoe. After taking off their outer garments
Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher lay down in the shade under the
chaise, facing one another, and closed their eyes. Deniska, who had
finished munching, stretched himself out on his back and also closed his
eyes.
"You look out that no one takes away the horses!" he said to Yegorushka,
and at once fell asleep.
Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the munching and snorting
of the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere far away a
lapwing wailed, and from time to time there sounded the shrill cries of
the three snipe who had flown up to see whether their uninvited visitors
had gone away; the rivulet babbled, lisping softly, but all these sounds
did not break the stillness, did not stir the stagnation, but, on the
contrary, lulled all nature to slumber.
Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive