Short Stories by Chekhov
the darkness of evening--the same; the mountains--the same. . . . And when
Kirilin began paying her attentions, she had neither the power nor the
wish to resist, and surrendered to him. . . .
Now the foreign steamers and the men in white reminded her for some
reason of a huge hall; together with the shouts of French she heard the
strains of a waltz, and her bosom heaved with unaccountable delight. She
longed to dance and talk French.
She reflected joyfully that there was nothing terrible about her
infidelity. Her soul had no part in her infidelity; she still loved
Laevsky, and that was proved by the fact that she was jealous of him,
was sorry for him, and missed him when he was away. Kirilin had turned
out to be very mediocre, rather coarse though handsome; everything was
broken off with him already and there would never be anything more. What
had happened was over; it had nothing to do with any one, and if Laevsky
found it out he would not believe in it.
There was only one bathing-house for ladies on the sea-front; men bathed
under the open sky. Going into the bathing-house, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
found there an elderly lady, Marya Konstantinovna Bityugov, and her
daughter Katya, a schoolgirl of fifteen; both of them were sitting on a
bench undressing. Marya Konstantinovna was a good-natured, enthusiastic,
and genteel person, who talked in a drawling and pathetic voice. She had
been a governess until she was thirty-two, and then had married
Bityugov, a Government official--a bald little man with his hair combed
on to his temples and with a very meek disposition. She was still in
love with him, was jealous, blushed at the word "love," and told every
one she was very happy.
"My dear," she cried enthusiastically, on seeing Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
assuming an expression which all her acquaintances called "almond-oily."
"My dear, how delightful that you have come! We'll bathe together
--that's enchanting!"
Olga quickly flung off her dress and chemise, and began undressing her
mistress.
"It's not quite so hot to-day as yesterday?" said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
shrinking at the coarse touch of the naked cook. "Yesterday I almost
died of the heat."
"Oh, yes, my dear; I could hardly breathe myself. Would you believe it?
I bathed yesterday three times! Just imagine, my dear, three times!
Nikodim Alexandritch was quite uneasy."
"Is it possible to be so ugly?" thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, looking at
Olga and the official's wife; she glanced at Katya and thought: "The
little girl's not badly made."
"Your Nikodim Alexandritch is very charming!" she said. "I'm simply in
love with him."
"Ha, ha, ha!" cried Marya Konstantinovna, with a forced laugh; "that's
quite enchanting."
Free from her clothes, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna felt a desire to fly. And it
seemed to her that if she were to wave her hands she would fly upwards.
When she was undressed, she noticed that Olga looked scornfully at her
white body. Olga, a young soldier's wife, was living with her lawful
husband, and so considered herself superior to her mistress. Marya
Konstantinovna and Katya were afraid of her, and did not respect her.
This was disagreeable, and to raise herself in their opinion, Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna said:
"At home, in Petersburg, summer villa life is at its height now. My
husband and I have so many friends! We ought to go and see them."
"I believe your husband is an engineer?" said Marya Konstantinovna
timidly.
"I am speaking of Laevsky. He has a great many acquaintances. But
unfortunately his mother is a proud aristocrat, not very intelligent. .
. ."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna threw herself into the water without finishing;
Marya Konstantinovna and Katya made their way in after her.
"There are so many conventional ideas in the world," Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna went on, "and life is not so easy as it seems."
Marya Konstantinovna, who had been a governess in aristocratic families
and who was an authority on social matters, said:
"Oh yes! Would you believe me, my dear, at the Garatynskys' I was
expected to dress for lunch as well as for dinner, so that, like an
actress, I received a special allowance for my wardrobe in addition to
my salary."
She stood between Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Katya as though to screen her
daughter from the water that washed the former.
Through the open doors looking out to the sea they could see some one
swimming a hundred paces from their bathing-place.
"Mother, it's our Kostya," said Katya.
"Ach, ach!" Marya Konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. "Ach, Kostya!"
she shouted, "Come back! Kostya, come back!"
Kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother and
sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and hurried
back, and from his strained and serious face it could be seen that he
could not trust his own strength.
"The trouble one has with these boys, my dear!" said Marya
Konstantinovna, growing calmer. "Before you can turn round, he will
break his neck. Ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same time
how difficult, to be a mother! One's afraid of everything."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the open
sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back. She could
see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on the sea-front,
the town; and all this, together with the sultry heat and the soft,
transparent waves, excited her and whispered that she must live, live. .
. . A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly and vigorously, cleaving the
waves and the air; the man sitting at the helm looked at her, and she
liked being looked at. . . .
After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.
"I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don't get thin," said
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the bathe,
and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances. "I've
always been plump, and now I believe I'm plumper than ever."
"That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no
constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. . . . But
you've wetted your hat, my dear."
"It doesn't matter; it will dry."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking on the
sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden thrill of joy,
and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she had once danced, or
of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And something at the bottom of
her soul dimly and obscurely whispered to her that she was a pretty,
common, miserable, worthless woman. . . .
Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and asked her to come in and
sit down for a little while.
"Come in, my dear," she said in an imploring voice, and at the same time
she looked at Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with anxiety and hope; perhaps she
would refuse and not come in!
"With pleasure," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, accepting. "You know how I
love being with you!"
And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna sat her down and gave
her coffee, regaled her with milk rolls, then showed her photographs of
her former pupils, the Garatynskys, who were by now married. She showed
her, too, the examination reports of Kostya and Katya. The reports were
very good, but to make them seem even better, she complained, with a
sigh, how difficult the lessons at school were now. . . . She made much
of her visitor, and was sorry for her, though at the same time she was
harassed by the thought that Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a
corrupting influence on the morals of Kostya and Katya, and was glad
that her Nikodim Alexandritch was not at home. Seeing that in her
opinion all men are fond of "women like that," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
might have a bad effect on Nikodim Alexandritch too.
As she talked to her visitor, Marya Konstantinovna kept remembering that
they were to have a picnic that evening, and that Von Koren had
particularly begged her to say nothing about it to the "Japanese
monkeys"--that is, Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna; but she dropped a
word about it unawares, crimsoned, and said in confusion:
"I hope you will come too!" VI
It was agreed to drive about five miles out of town on the road to the
south, to stop near a duhan at the junction of two streams --the Black
River and the Yellow River--and to cook fish soup. They started out soon
after five. Foremost of the party in a char-à-banc drove Samoylenko and
Laevsky; they were followed by Marya Konstantinovna, Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna, Katya and Kostya, in a coach with three horses, carrying
with them the crockery and a basket with provisions. In the next
carriage came the police captain, Kirilin, and the young Atchmianov, the
son of the shopkeeper to whom Nadyezhda Fyodorovna owed three hundred
roubles; opposite them, huddled up on the little seat with his feet
tucked under him, sat Nikodim Alexandritch, a neat little man with hair
combed on to his temples. Last of all came Von Koren and the deacon; at
the deacon's feet stood a basket of fish.
"R-r-right!" Samoylenko shouted at the top of his voice when he met a
cart or a mountaineer riding on a donkey.
"In two years' time, when I shall have the means and the people ready, I
shall set off on an expedition," Von Koren was telling the deacon. "I
shall go by the sea-coast from Vladivostok to the Behring Straits, and
then from the Straits to the mouth of the Yenisei. We shall make the
map, study the fauna and the flora, and make detailed geological,
anthropological, and ethnographical researches. It depends upon you to
go with me or not."
"It's impossible," said the deacon.
"Why?"
"I'm a man with ties and a family."
"Your wife will let you go; we will provide for her. Better still if you
were to persuade her for the public benefit to go into a nunnery; that
would make it possible for you to become a monk, too, and join the
expedition as a priest. I can arrange it for you."
The deacon was silent.
"Do you know your theology well?" asked the zoologist.
"No, rather badly."
"H'm! . . . I can't give you any advice on that score, because I don't
know much about theology myself. You give me a list of books you need,
and I will send them to you from Petersburg in the winter. It will be
necessary for you to read the notes of religious travellers, too; among
them are some good ethnologists and Oriental scholars. When you are
familiar with their methods, it will be easier for you to set to work.
And you needn't waste your time till you get the books; come to me, and
we will study the compass and go through a course of meteorology. All
that's indispensable."
"To be sure . . ." muttered the deacon, and he laughed. "I was trying to
get a place in Central Russia, and my uncle, the head priest, promised
to help me. If I go with you I shall have troubled them for nothing."
"I don't understand your hesitation. If you go on being an ordinary
deacon, who is only obliged to hold a service on holidays, and on the
other days can rest from work, you will be exactly the same as you are
now in ten years' time, and will have gained nothing but a beard and
moustache; while on returning from this expedition in ten years' time
you will be a different man, you will be enriched by the consciousness
that something has been done by you."
From the ladies' carriage came shrieks of terror and delight. The
carriages were driving along a road hollowed in a literally overhanging
precipitous cliff, and it seemed to every one that they were galloping
along a shelf on a steep wall, and that in a moment the carriages would
drop into the abyss. On the right stretched the sea; on the left was a
rough brown wall with black blotches and red veins and with climbing
roots; while on the summit stood shaggy fir-trees bent over, as though