Short Stories by Chekhov
rapidly from the shore in the direction of the steamer: it was the
Customs boat going out to it.
"The passengers are asleep in their cabins . . ." thought Laevsky, and
he envied the peace of mind of other people.
The windows in Samoylenko's house were open. Laevsky looked in at one of
them, then in at another; it was dark and still in the rooms.
"Alexandr Daviditch, are you asleep?" he called. "Alexandr Daviditch!"
He heard a cough and an uneasy shout:
"Who's there? What the devil?"
"It is I, Alexandr Daviditch; excuse me."
A little later the door opened; there was a glow of soft light from the
lamp, and Samoylenko's huge figure appeared all in white, with a white
nightcap on his head.
"What now?" he asked, scratching himself and breathing hard from
sleepiness. "Wait a minute; I'll open the door directly."
"Don't trouble; I'll get in at the window. . . ."
Laevsky climbed in at the window, and when he reached Samoylenko, seized
him by the hand.
"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in a shaking voice, "save me! I beseech
you, I implore you. Understand me! My position is agonising. If it goes
on for another two days I shall strangle myself like . . . like a dog."
"Wait a bit. . . . What are you talking about exactly?"
"Light a candle."
"Oh . . . oh! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, lighting a candle. "My God! My
God! . . . Why, it's past one, brother."
"Excuse me, but I can't stay at home," said Laevsky, feeling great
comfort from the light and the presence of Samoylenko. "You are my best,
my only friend, Alexandr Daviditch. . . . You are my only hope. For
God's sake, come to my rescue, whether you want to or not. I must get
away from here, come what may! . . . Lend me the money!"
"Oh, my God, my God! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, scratching himself. "I
was dropping asleep and I hear the whistle of the steamer, and now you .
. . Do you want much?"
"Three hundred roubles at least. I must leave her a hundred, and I need
two hundred for the journey. . . . I owe you about four hundred already,
but I will send it you all . . . all. . . ."
Samoylenko took hold of both his whiskers in one hand, and standing with
his legs wide apart, pondered.
"Yes . . ." he muttered, musing. "Three hundred. . . . Yes. . . . But I
haven't got so much. I shall have to borrow it from some one."
"Borrow it, for God's sake!" said Laevsky, seeing from Samoylenko's face
that he wanted to lend him the money and certainly would lend it.
"Borrow it, and I'll be sure to pay you back. I will send it from
Petersburg as soon as I get there. You can set your mind at rest about
that. I'll tell you what, Sasha," he said, growing more animated; "let
us have some wine."
"Yes . . . we can have some wine, too."
They both went into the dining-room.
"And how about Nadyezhda Fyodorovna?" asked Samoylenko, setting three
bottles and a plate of peaches on the table. "Surely she's not
remaining?"
"I will arrange it all, I will arrange it all," said Laevsky, feeling an
unexpected rush of joy. "I will send her the money afterwards and she
will join me. . . . Then we will define our relations. To your health,
friend."
"Wait a bit," said Samoylenko. "Drink this first. . . . This is from my
vineyard. This bottle is from Navaridze's vineyard and this one is from
Ahatulov's. . . . Try all three kinds and tell me candidly. . . . There
seems a little acidity about mine. Eh? Don't you taste it?"
"Yes. You have comforted me, Alexandr Daviditch. Thank you. . . . I feel
better."
"Is there any acidity?"
"Goodness only knows, I don't know. But you are a splendid, wonderful
man!"
Looking at his pale, excited, good-natured face, Samoylenko remembered
Von Koren's view that men like that ought to be destroyed, and Laevsky
seemed to him a weak, defenceless child, whom any one could injure and
destroy.
"And when you go, make it up with your mother," he said. "It's not
right."
"Yes, yes; I certainly shall."
They were silent for a while. When they had emptied the first bottle,
Samoylenko said:
"You ought to make it up with Von Koren too. You are both such splendid,
clever fellows, and you glare at each other like wolves."
"Yes, he's a fine, very intelligent fellow," Laevsky assented, ready now
to praise and forgive every one. "He's a remarkable man, but it's
impossible for me to get on with him. No! Our natures are too different.
I'm an indolent, weak, submissive nature. Perhaps in a good minute I
might hold out my hand to him, but he would turn away from me . . . with
contempt."
Laevsky took a sip of wine, walked from corner to corner and went on,
standing in the middle of the room:
"I understand Von Koren very well. His is a resolute, strong, despotic
nature. You have heard him continually talking of 'the expedition,' and
it's not mere talk. He wants the wilderness, the moonlit night: all
around in little tents, under the open sky, lie sleeping his sick and
hungry Cossacks, guides, porters, doctor, priest, all exhausted with
their weary marches, while only he is awake, sitting like Stanley on a
camp-stool, feeling himself the monarch of the desert and the master of
these men. He goes on and on and on, his men groan and die, one after
another, and he goes on and on, and in the end perishes himself, but
still is monarch and ruler of the desert, since the cross upon his tomb
can be seen by the caravans for thirty or forty miles over the desert. I
am sorry the man is not in the army. He would have made a splendid
military genius. He would not have hesitated to drown his cavalry in the
river and make a bridge out of dead bodies. And such hardihood is more
needed in war than any kind of fortification or strategy. Oh, I
understand him perfectly! Tell me: why is he wasting his substance here?
What does he want here?"
"He is studying the marine fauna."
"No, no, brother, no!" Laevsky sighed. "A scientific man who was on the
steamer told me the Black Sea was poor in animal life, and that in its
depths, thanks to the abundance of sulphuric hydrogen, organic life was
impossible. All the serious zoologists work at the biological station at
Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren is independent and obstinate: he
works on the Black Sea because nobody else is working there; he is at
loggerheads with the university, does not care to know his comrades and
other scientific men because he is first of all a despot and only
secondly a zoologist. And you'll see he'll do something. He is already
dreaming that when he comes back from his expedition he will purify our
universities from intrigue and mediocrity, and will make the scientific
men mind their p's and q's. Despotism is just as strong in science as in
the army. And he is spending his second summer in this stinking little
town because he would rather be first in a village than second in a
town. Here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the inhabitants under
his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He has appropriated
every one, he meddles in other people's affairs; everything is of use to
him, and every one is afraid of him. I am slipping out of his clutches,
he feels that and hates me. Hasn't he told you that I ought to be
destroyed or sent to hard labour?"
"Yes," laughed Samoylenko.
Laevsky laughed too, and drank some wine.
"His ideals are despotic too," he said, laughing, and biting a peach.
"Ordinary mortals think of their neighbour--me, you, man in fact--if they
work for the common weal. To Von Koren men are puppets and nonentities,
too trivial to be the object of his life. He works, will go for his
expedition and break his neck there, not for the sake of love for his
neighbour, but for the sake of such abstractions as humanity, future
generations, an ideal race of men. He exerts himself for the improvement
of the human race, and we are in his eyes only slaves, food for the
cannon, beasts of burden; some he would destroy or stow away in Siberia,
others he would break by discipline, would, like Araktcheev, force them
to get up and go to bed to the sound of the drum; would appoint eunuchs
to preserve our chastity and morality, would order them to fire at any
one who steps out of the circle of our narrow conservative morality; and
all this in the name of the improvement of the human race. . . . And
what is the human race? Illusion, mirage . . . despots have always been
illusionists. I understand him very well, brother. I appreciate him and
don't deny his importance; this world rests on men like him, and if the
world were left only to such men as us, for all our good-nature and good
intentions, we should make as great a mess of it as the flies have of
that picture. Yes."
Laevsky sat down beside Samoylenko, and said with genuine feeling: "I'm
a foolish, worthless, depraved man. The air I breathe, this wine, love,
life in fact--for all that, I have given nothing in exchange so far but
lying, idleness, and cowardice. Till now I have deceived myself and
other people; I have been miserable about it, and my misery was cheap
and common. I bow my back humbly before Von Koren's hatred because at
times I hate and despise myself."
Laevsky began again pacing from one end of the room to the other in
excitement, and said:
"I'm glad I see my faults clearly and am conscious of them. That will
help me to reform and become a different man. My dear fellow, if only
you knew how passionately, with what anguish, I long for such a change.
And I swear to you I'll be a man! I will! I don't know whether it is the
wine that is speaking in me, or whether it really is so, but it seems to
me that it is long since I have spent such pure and lucid moments as I
have just now with you."
"It's time to sleep, brother," said Samoylenko.
"Yes, yes. . . . Excuse me; I'll go directly."
Laevsky moved hurriedly about the furniture and windows, looking for his
cap.
"Thank you," he muttered, sighing. "Thank you. . . . Kind and friendly
words are better than charity. You have given me new life."
He found his cap, stopped, and looked guiltily at Samoylenko.
"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in an imploring voice.
"What is it?"
"Let me stay the night with you, my dear fellow!"
"Certainly. . . . Why not?"
Laevsky lay down on the sofa, and went on talking to the doctor for a
long time. X
Three days after the picnic, Marya Konstantinovna unexpectedly called on
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and without greeting her or taking off her hat,
seized her by both hands, pressed them to her breast and said in great
excitement:
"My dear, I am deeply touched and moved: our dear kind-hearted doctor
told my Nikodim Alexandritch yesterday that your husband was dead. Tell
me, my dear . . . tell me, is it true?"
"Yes, it's true; he is dead," answered Nadyezhda Fyodorovna.
"That is awful, awful, my dear! But there's no evil without some
compensation; your husband was no doubt a noble, wonderful, holy man,
and such are more needed in Heaven than on earth."
Every line and feature in Marya Konstantinovna's face began quivering as
though little needles were jumping up and down under her skin; she gave
an almond-oily smile and said, breathlessly, enthusiastically:
"And so you are free, my dear. You can hold your head high now, and look
people boldly in the face. Henceforth God and man will bless your union
with Ivan Andreitch. It's enchanting. I am trembling with joy, I can
find no words. My dear, I will give you away. . . . Nikodim Alexandritch
and I have been so fond of you, you will allow us to give our blessing
to your pure, lawful union. When, when do you think of being married?"
"I haven't thought of it," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, freeing her hands.
"That's impossible, my dear. You have thought of it, you have."
"Upon my word, I haven't," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, laughing. "What