Short Stories by Chekhov
at the wedding at Marionovsky's. It's in my head and in my throat. It
seems as though I could sing it, but I can't; I have no voice."
He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
"For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works there
was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it, I bathed
two years ago in the Donets, and I can't get a single note true ever
since. I took cold in my throat. And without a voice I am like a workman
without hands."
"That's true," Panteley agreed.
"I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more."
At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His eyes
grew moist and smaller than ever.
"There's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his nose
with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver! Stay
with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool."
The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and a
waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for he burst
into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea. Emelyan glanced
upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily. He was absorbed in
his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya, would not have noticed
Yegorushka's presence. Before five minutes had passed he was waving his
arms again, then describing to his companions the beauties of the
wedding anthem, "Lord, have Mercy," which he had remembered in the
night. He put the whip under his arm and waved both hands.
A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on his
stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders, and
part of his chest into the black hole, so that Yegorushka could see
nothing but his short legs, which scarcely touched the ground. Seeing
the reflection of his head far down at the bottom of the well, he was
delighted and went off into his deep bass stupid laugh, and the echo
from the well answered him. When he got up his neck and face were as red
as beetroot. The first to run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing,
often turning from the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he
turned round, and uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five
very bad words. Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words,
but he knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his
friends and relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without
knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that only
drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering such words
aloud. He remembered the murder of the grass snake, listened to Dymov's
laughter, and felt something like hatred for the man. And as ill-luck
would have it, Dymov at that moment caught sight of Yegorushka, who had
climbed down from the waggon and gone up to the well. He laughed aloud
and shouted:
"I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the
night!"
Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed too,
while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that Dymov was a
very wicked man.
With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and no
hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every
movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete,
knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo,
talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though he
were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and astonish
the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking eyes glided over
the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on anything, and
seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime, and something to
laugh at. Evidently he was afraid of no one, would stick at nothing, and
most likely was not in the least interested in Yegorushka's opinion of
him. . . . Yegorushka meanwhile hated his flaxen head, his clear face,
and his strength with his whole heart, listened with fear and loathing
to his laughter, and kept thinking what word of abuse he could pay him
out with.
Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a little
green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it from the
pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the little glass
in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked him,
surprised.
"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old man
answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink out of
the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."
"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,
plaintive voice. "You darling!"
His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling, and
his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at Yegorushka.
"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.
"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."
Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but no
one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he
was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as Yegorushka
learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown steppe was for
him always full of life and interest. He had only to look into the
distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some other animal keeping
at a distance from men. There was nothing strange in seeing a hare
running away or a flying bustard--everyone crossing the steppes could see
them; but it was not vouchsafed to everyone to see wild animals in their
own haunts when they were not running nor hiding, nor looking about them
in alarm. Yet Vassya saw foxes playing, hares washing themselves with
their paws, bustards preening their wings and hammering out their hollow
nests. Thanks to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world
seen by everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else,
and probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was in
raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.
When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for
service. V
The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of a
village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the air was
stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the bank, but the
shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the water, where it
was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it was stifling and
wearisome. The water, blue from the reflection of the sky in it, was
alluring.
Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time, a
Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt, and full
trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed quickly, ran
along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He dived three times,
then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his delight. His face was
smiling and wrinkled up as though he were being tickled, hurt and
amused.
On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry, stifling
heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man bathing sounds
like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking at Styopka,
undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing loudly in eager
anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the water, and the quiet,
modest little river resounded with snorting and splashing and shouting.
Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as though they were trying to drown
him, while Dymov chased him and tried to catch him by the leg.
"Ha-ha-ha!" he shouted. "Catch him! Hold him!"
Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same as
it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as
though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit him on the
head with the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed, too, but did not
let himself down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap from the
height of about ten feet. Describing an arc in the air, he fell into the
water, sank deep, but did not reach the bottom; some force, cold and
pleasant to the touch, seemed to hold him up and bring him back to the
surface. He popped out and, snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his
eyes; but the sun was reflected in the water quite close to his face. At
first blinding spots of light, then rainbow colours and dark patches,
flitted before his eyes. He made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in
the water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight
night. Again the same force would not let him touch the bottom and stay
in the coolness, but lifted him to the surface. He popped out and heaved
a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of space and freshness, not only in
his chest, but in his stomach. Then, to get from the water everything he
possibly could get, he allowed himself every luxury; he lay on his back
and basked, splashed, frolicked, swam on his face, on his side, on his
back and standing up--just as he pleased till he was exhausted. The other
bank was thickly overgrown with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the
flowers of the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In
one place the reeds were shaking and nodding, with their flowers
rustling-- Styopka and Kiruha were hunting crayfish.
"A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!" Kiruha cried triumphantly and
actually showed a crayfish.
Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among their
roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something sharp and
unpleasant--perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at that minute someone
seized him by the leg and pulled him to the surface. Spluttering and
coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before him the wet grinning
face of the dare-devil Dymov. The impudent fellow was breathing hard,
and from a look in his eyes he seemed inclined for further mischief. He
held Yegorushka tight by the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold
of his neck. But Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror,
as though disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would
drown him, and said:
"Fool! I'll punch you in the face."
Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he thought a
minute and added:
"You blackguard! You son of a bitch!"
But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice of
Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
"Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish."
"To be sure," Kiruha agreed; "there must be a lot of fish here."
"Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
"They won't give it to me."
"They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us for
Christ's sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims."
"That's true."
Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a cap
on he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water lost
all its charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov. He got out
and began dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on the steep bank,
with their legs hanging down, looking at the bathers. Emelyan was
standing naked, up to his knees in the water, holding on to the grass
with one hand to prevent himself from falling while the other stroked
his body. With his bony shoulder-blades, with the swelling under his
eye, bending down and evidently afraid of the water, he made a ludicrous
figure. His face was grave and severe. He looked angrily at the water,
as though he were just going to upbraid it for having given him cold in
the Donets and robbed him of his voice.
"And why don't you bathe?" Yegorushka asked Vassya.