Short Stories by Chekhov
robbed of it. He would have found God and goodness, but that was as
impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it
was impossible he was in despair.
When the storm was over, he sat by the open window and thought calmly of
what was before him. Von Koren would most likely kill him. The man's
clear, cold theory of life justified the destruction of the rotten and
the useless; if it changed at the crucial moment, it would be the hatred
and the repugnance that Laevsky inspired in him that would save him. If
he missed his aim or, in mockery of his hated opponent, only wounded
him, or fired in the air, what could he do then? Where could he go?
"Go to Petersburg?" Laevsky asked himself. But that would mean beginning
over again the old life which he cursed. And the man who seeks salvation
in change of place like a migrating bird would find nothing anywhere,
for all the world is alike to him. Seek salvation in men? In whom and
how? Samoylenko's kindness and generosity could no more save him than
the deacon's laughter or Von Koren's hatred. He must look for salvation
in himself alone, and if there were no finding it, why waste time? He
must kill himself, that was all. . . .
He heard the sound of a carriage. It was getting light. The carriage
passed by, turned, and crunching on the wet sand, stopped near the
house. There were two men in the carriage.
"Wait a minute; I'm coming directly," Laevsky said to them out of the
window. "I'm not asleep. Surely it's not time yet?"
"Yes, it's four o'clock. By the time we get there . . . ."
Laevsky put on his overcoat and cap, put some cigarettes in his pocket,
and stood still hesitating. He felt as though there was something else
he must do. In the street the seconds talked in low voices and the
horses snorted, and this sound in the damp, early morning, when
everybody was asleep and light was hardly dawning in the sky, filled
Laevsky's soul with a disconsolate feeling which was like a presentiment
of evil. He stood for a little, hesitating, and went into the bedroom.
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna was lying stretched out on the bed, wrapped from
head to foot in a rug. She did not stir, and her whole appearance,
especially her head, suggested an Egyptian mummy. Looking at her in
silence, Laevsky mentally asked her forgiveness, and thought that if the
heavens were not empty and there really were a God, then He would save
her; if there were no God, then she had better perish--there was nothing
for her to live for.
All at once she jumped up, and sat up in bed. Lifting her pale face and
looking with horror at Laevsky, she asked:
"Is it you? Is the storm over?"
"Yes."
She remembered; put both hands to her head and shuddered all over.
"How miserable I am!" she said. "If only you knew how miserable I am! I
expected," she went on, half closing her eyes, "that you would kill me
or turn me out of the house into the rain and storm, but you delay . . .
delay . . ."
Warmly and impulsively he put his arms round her and covered her knees
and hands with kisses. Then when she muttered something and shuddered
with the thought of the past, he stroked her hair, and looking into her
face, realised that this unhappy, sinful woman was the one creature near
and dear to him, whom no one could replace.
When he went out of the house and got into the carriage he wanted to
return home alive. XVIII
The deacon got up, dressed, took his thick, gnarled stick and slipped
quietly out of the house. It was dark, and for the first minute when he
went into the street, he could not even see his white stick. There was
not a single star in the sky, and it looked as though there would be
rain again. There was a smell of wet sand and sea.
"It's to be hoped that the mountaineers won't attack us," thought the
deacon, hearing the tap of the stick on the pavement, and noticing how
loud and lonely the taps sounded in the stillness of the night.
When he got out of town, he began to see both the road and his stick.
Here and there in the black sky there were dark cloudy patches, and soon
a star peeped out and timidly blinked its one eye. The deacon walked
along the high rocky coast and did not see the sea; it was slumbering
below, and its unseen waves broke languidly and heavily on the shore, as
though sighing "Ouf!" and how slowly! One wave broke--the deacon had time
to count eight steps; then another broke, and six steps; later a third.
As before, nothing could be seen, and in the darkness one could hear the
languid, drowsy drone of the sea. One could hear the infinitely faraway,
inconceivable time when God moved above chaos.
The deacon felt uncanny. He hoped God would not punish him for keeping
company with infidels, and even going to look at their duels. The duel
would be nonsensical, bloodless, absurd, but however that might be, it
was a heathen spectacle, and it was altogether unseemly for an
ecclesiastical person to be present at it. He stopped and
wondered--should he go back? But an intense, restless curiosity triumphed
over his doubts, and he went on.
"Though they are infidels they are good people, and will be saved," he
assured himself. "They are sure to be saved," he said aloud, lighting a
cigarette.
By what standard must one measure men's qualities, to judge rightly of
them? The deacon remembered his enemy, the inspector of the clerical
school, who believed in God, lived in chastity, and did not fight duels;
but he used to feed the deacon on bread with sand in it, and on one
occasion almost pulled off the deacon's ear. If human life was so
artlessly constructed that every one respected this cruel and dishonest
inspector who stole the Government flour, and his health and salvation
were prayed for in the schools, was it just to shun such men as Von
Koren and Laevsky, simply because they were unbelievers? The deacon was
weighing this question, but he recalled how absurd Samoylenko had looked
yesterday, and that broke the thread of his ideas. What fun they would
have next day! The deacon imagined how he would sit under a bush and
look on, and when Von Koren began boasting next day at dinner, he, the
deacon, would begin laughing and telling him all the details of the
duel.
"How do you know all about it?" the zoologist would ask.
"Well, there you are! I stayed at home, but I know all about it."
It would be nice to write a comic description of the duel. His father-
in-law would read it and laugh. A good story, told or written, was more
than meat and drink to his father-in-law.
The valley of the Yellow River opened before him. The stream was broader
and fiercer for the rain, and instead of murmuring as before, it was
raging. It began to get light. The grey, dingy morning, and the clouds
racing towards the west to overtake the storm-clouds, the mountains girt
with mist, and the wet trees, all struck the deacon as ugly and
sinister. He washed at the brook, repeated his morning prayer, and felt
a longing for tea and hot rolls, with sour cream, which were served
every morning at his father-in-law's. He remembered his wife and the
"Days past Recall," which she played on the piano. What sort of woman
was she? His wife had been introduced, betrothed, and married to him all
in one week: he had lived with her less than a month when he was ordered
here, so that he had not had time to find out what she was like. All the
same, he rather missed her.
"I must write her a nice letter . . ." he thought. The flag on the duhan
hung limp, soaked by the rain, and the duhan itself with its wet roof
seemed darker and lower than it had been before. Near the door was
standing a cart; Kerbalay, with two mountaineers and a young Tatar woman
in trousers--no doubt Kerbalay's wife or daughter--were bringing sacks of
something out of the duhan, and putting them on maize straw in the cart.
Near the cart stood a pair of asses hanging their heads. When they had
put in all the sacks, the mountaineers and the Tatar woman began
covering them over with straw, while Kerbalay began hurriedly harnessing
the asses.
"Smuggling, perhaps," thought the deacon.
Here was the fallen tree with the dried pine-needles, here was the
blackened patch from the fire. He remembered the picnic and all its
incidents, the fire, the singing of the mountaineers, his sweet dreams
of becoming a bishop, and of the Church procession. . . . The Black
River had grown blacker and broader with the rain. The deacon walked
cautiously over the narrow bridge, which by now was reached by the
topmost crests of the dirty water, and went up through the little copse
to the drying-shed.
"A splendid head," he thought, stretching himself on the straw, and
thinking of Von Koren. "A fine head--God grant him health; only there is
cruelty in him. . . ."
Why did he hate Laevsky and Laevsky hate him? Why were they going to
fight a duel? If from their childhood they had known poverty as the
deacon had; if they had been brought up among ignorant, hard-hearted,
grasping, coarse and ill-mannered people who grudged you a crust of
bread, who spat on the floor and hiccoughed at dinner and at prayers; if
they had not been spoilt from childhood by the pleasant surroundings and
the select circle of friends they lived in--how they would have rushed at
each other, how readily they would have overlooked each other's
shortcomings and would have prized each other's strong points! Why, how
few even outwardly decent people there were in the world! It was true
that Laevsky was flighty, dissipated, queer, but he did not steal, did
not spit loudly on the floor; he did not abuse his wife and say, "You'll
eat till you burst, but you don't want to work;" he would not beat a
child with reins, or give his servants stinking meat to eat-- surely this
was reason enough to be indulgent to him? Besides, he was the chief
sufferer from his failings, like a sick man from his sores. Instead of
being led by boredom and some sort of misunderstanding to look for
degeneracy, extinction, heredity, and other such incomprehensible things
in each other, would they not do better to stoop a little lower and turn
their hatred and anger where whole streets resounded with moanings from
coarse ignorance, greed, scolding, impurity, swearing, the shrieks of
women. . . .
The sound of a carriage interrupted the deacon's thoughts. He glanced
out of the door and saw a carriage and in it three persons: Laevsky,
Sheshkovsky, and the superintendent of the post-office.
"Stop!" said Sheshkovsky.
All three got out of the carriage and looked at one another.
"They are not here yet," said Sheshkovsky, shaking the mud off. "Well?
Till the show begins, let us go and find a suitable spot; there's not
room to turn round here."
They went further up the river and soon vanished from sight. The Tatar
driver sat in the carriage with his head resting on his shoulder and
fell asleep. After waiting ten minutes the deacon came out of the
drying-shed, and taking off his black hat that he might not be noticed,
he began threading his way among the bushes and strips of maize along
the bank, crouching and looking about him. The grass and maize were wet,
and big drops fell on his head from the trees and bushes. "Disgraceful!"
he muttered, picking up his wet and muddy skirt. "Had I realised it, I
would not have come."
Soon he heard voices and caught sight of them. Laevsky was walking
rapidly to and fro in the small glade with bowed back and hands thrust
in his sleeves; his seconds were standing at the water's edge, rolling
cigarettes.
"Strange," thought the deacon, not recognising Laevsky's walk; "he looks
like an old man. . . ."
"How rude it is of them!" said the superintendent of the post-office,
looking at his watch. "It may be learned manners to be late, but to my
thinking it's hoggish."