Short Stories by Chekhov
weak, cowardly man with a guilty face.
A hundred paces off on the right bank of the pond, something dark was
standing motionless: was it a man or a tall post? Pyotr Mihalitch
thought of the divinity student who had been killed and thrown into the
pond.
"Olivier behaved inhumanly, but one way or another he did settle the
question, while I have settled nothing and have only made it worse," he
thought, gazing at the dark figure that looked like a ghost. "He said
and did what he thought right while I say and do what I don't think
right; and I don't know really what I do think. . . ."
He rode up to the dark figure: it was an old rotten post, the relic of
some shed.
From Koltovitch's copse and garden there came a strong fragrant scent of
lilies of the valley and honey-laden flowers. Pyotr Mihalitch rode along
the bank of the pond and looked mournfully into the water. And thinking
about his life, he came to the conclusion he had never said or acted
upon what he really thought, and other people had repaid him in the same
way. And so the whole of life seemed to him as dark as this water in
which the night sky was reflected and water-weeds grew in a tangle. And
it seemed to him that nothing could ever set it right.
AT HOME I
THE Don railway. A quiet, cheerless station, white and solitary in the
steppe, with its walls baking in the sun, without a speck of shade, and,
it seems, without a human being. The train goes on after leaving one
here; the sound of it is scarcely audible and dies away at last. Outside
the station it is a desert, and there are no horses but one's own. One
gets into the carriage--which is so pleasant after the train--and is borne
along the road through the steppe, and by degrees there are unfolded
before one views such as one does not see near Moscow--immense, endless,
fascinating in their monotony. The steppe, the steppe, and nothing more;
in the distance an ancient barrow or a windmill; ox-waggons laden with
coal trail by. . . . Solitary birds fly low over the plain, and a drowsy
feeling comes with the monotonous beat of their wings. It is hot.
Another hour or so passes, and still the steppe, the steppe, and still
in the distance the barrow. The driver tells you something, some long
unnecessary tale, pointing into the distance with his whip. And
tranquillity takes possession of the soul; one is loth to think of the
past. . . .
A carriage with three horses had been sent to fetch Vera Ivanovna
Kardin. The driver put in her luggage and set the harness to rights.
"Everything just as it always has been," said Vera, looking about her.
"I was a little girl when I was here last, ten years ago. I remember old
Boris came to fetch me then. Is he still living, I wonder?"
The driver made no reply, but, like a Little Russian, looked at her
angrily and clambered on to the box.
It was a twenty-mile drive from the station, and Vera, too, abandoned
herself to the charm of the steppe, forgot the past, and thought only of
the wide expanse, of the freedom. Healthy, clever, beautiful, and
young--she was only three-and-twenty--she had hitherto lacked nothing in
her life but just this space and freedom.
The steppe, the steppe. . . . The horses trotted, the sun rose higher
and higher; and it seemed to Vera that never in her childhood had the
steppe been so rich, so luxuriant in June; the wild flowers were green,
yellow, lilac, white, and a fragrance rose from them and from the warmed
earth; and there were strange blue birds along the roadside. . . . Vera
had long got out of the habit of praying, but now, struggling with
drowsiness, she murmured:
"Lord, grant that I may be happy here."
And there was peace and sweetness in her soul, and she felt as though
she would have been glad to drive like that all her life, looking at the
steppe.
Suddenly there was a deep ravine overgrown with oak saplings and alder-
trees; there was a moist feeling in the air--there must have been a
spring at the bottom. On the near side, on the very edge of the ravine,
a covey of partridges rose noisily. Vera remembered that in old days
they used to go for evening walks to this ravine; so it must be near
home! And now she could actually see the poplars, the barn, black smoke
rising on one side--they were burning old straw. And there was Auntie
Dasha coming to meet her and waving her handkerchief; grandfather was on
the terrace. Oh dear, how happy she was!
"My darling, my darling!" cried her aunt, shrieking as though she were
in hysterics. "Our real mistress has come! You must understand you are
our mistress, you are our queen! Here everything is yours! My darling,
my beauty, I am not your aunt, but your willing slave!"
Vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather; her mother had
long been dead; her father, an engineer, had died three months before at
Kazan, on his way from Siberia. Her grandfather had a big grey beard. He
was stout, red-faced, and asthmatic, and walked leaning on a cane and
sticking his stomach out. Her aunt, a lady of forty-two, drawn in
tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed with sleeves high on the
shoulder, evidently tried to look young and was still anxious to be
charming; she walked with tiny steps with a wriggle of her spine.
"Will you love us?" she said, embracing Vera, "You are not proud?"
At her grandfather's wish there was a thanksgiving service, then they
spent a long while over dinner--and Vera's new life began. She was given
the best room. All the rugs in the house had been put in it, and a great
many flowers; and when at night she lay down in her snug, wide, very
soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt that smelt of old clothes
long stored away, she laughed with pleasure. Auntie Dasha came in for a
minute to wish her good-night.
"Here you are home again, thank God," she said, sitting down on the bed.
"As you see, we get along very well and have everything we want. There's
only one thing: your grandfather is in a poor way! A terribly poor way!
He is short of breath and he has begun to lose his memory. And you
remember how strong, how vigorous, he used to be! There was no doing
anything with him. . . . In old days, if the servants didn't please him
or anything else went wrong, he would jump up at once and shout:
'Twenty-five strokes! The birch!' But now he has grown milder and you
never hear him. And besides, times are changed, my precious; one mayn't
beat them nowadays. Of course, they oughtn't to be beaten, but they need
looking after."
"And are they beaten now, auntie?" asked Vera.
"The steward beats them sometimes, but I never do, bless their hearts!
And your grandfather sometimes lifts his stick from old habit, but he
never beats them."
Auntie Dasha yawned and crossed herself over her mouth and her right
ear.
"It's not dull here?" Vera inquired.
"What shall I say? There are no landowners living here now, but there
have been works built near, darling, and there are lots of engineers,
doctors, and mine managers. Of course, we have theatricals and concerts,
but we play cards more than anything. They come to us, too. Dr.
Neshtchapov from the works comes to see us--such a handsome, interesting
man! He fell in love with your photograph. I made up my mind: he is
Verotchka's destiny, I thought. He's young, handsome, he has means--a
good match, in fact. And of course you're a match for any one. You're of
good family. The place is mortgaged, it's true, but it's in good order
and not neglected; there is my share in it, but it will all come to you;
I am your willing slave. And my brother, your father, left you fifteen
thousand roubles. . . . But I see you can't keep your eyes open. Sleep,
my child."
Next day Vera spent a long time walking round the house. The garden,
which was old and unattractive, lying inconveniently upon the slope, had
no paths, and was utterly neglected; probably the care of it was
regarded as an unnecessary item in the management. There were numbers of
grass-snakes. Hoopoes flew about under the trees calling "Oo-too-toot!"
as though they were trying to remind her of something. At the bottom of
the hill there was a river overgrown with tall reeds, and half a mile
beyond the river was the village. From the garden Vera went out into the
fields; looking into the distance, thinking of her new life in her own
home, she kept trying to grasp what was in store for her. The space, the
lovely peace of the steppe, told her that happiness was near at hand,
and perhaps was here already; thousands of people, in fact, would have
said: "What happiness to be young, healthy, well-educated, to be living
on one's own estate!" And at the same time the endless plain, all alike,
without one living soul, frightened her, and at moments it was clear to
her that its peaceful green vastness would swallow up her life and
reduce it to nothingness. She was very young, elegant, fond of life; she
had finished her studies at an aristocratic boarding-school, had learnt
three languages, had read a great deal, had travelled with her
father--and could all this have been meant to lead to nothing but
settling down in a remote country-house in the steppe, and wandering day
after day from the garden into the fields and from the fields into the
garden to while away the time, and then sitting at home listening to her
grandfather's breathing? But what could she do? Where could she go? She
could find no answer, and as she was returning home she doubted whether
she would be happy here, and thought that driving from the station was
far more interesting than living here.
Dr. Neshtchapov drove over from the works. He was a doctor, but three
years previously he had taken a share in the works, and had become one
of the partners; and now he no longer looked upon medicine as his chief
vocation, though he still practised. In appearance he was a pale, dark
man in a white waistcoat, with a good figure; but to guess what there
was in his heart and his brain was difficult. He kissed Auntie Dasha's
hand on greeting her, and was continually leaping up to set a chair or
give his seat to some one. He was very silent and grave all the while,
and, when he did speak, it was for some reason impossible to hear and
understand his first sentence, though he spoke correctly and not in a
low voice.
"You play the piano?" he asked Vera, and immediately leapt up, as she
had dropped her handkerchief.
He stayed from midday to midnight without speaking, and Vera found him
very unattractive. She thought that a white waistcoat in the country was
bad form, and his elaborate politeness, his manners, and his pale,
serious face with dark eyebrows, were mawkish; and it seemed to her that
he was perpetually silent, probably because he was stupid. When he had
gone her aunt said enthusiastically:
"Well? Isn't he charming?" II
Auntie Dasha looked after the estate. Tightly laced, with jingling
bracelets on her wrists, she went into the kitchen, the granary, the
cattle-yard, tripping along with tiny steps, wriggling her spine; and
whenever she talked to the steward or to the peasants, she used, for
some reason, to put on a pince-nez. Vera's grandfather always sat in the
same place, playing patience or dozing. He ate a very great deal at
dinner and supper; they gave him the dinner cooked to-day and what was
left from yesterday, and cold pie left from Sunday, and salt meat from
the servants' dinner, and he ate it all greedily. And every dinner left
on Vera such an impression, that when she saw afterwards a flock of
sheep driven by, or flour being brought from the mill, she thought,
"Grandfather will eat that." For the most part he was silent, absorbed
in eating or in patience; but it sometimes happened at dinner that at
the sight of Vera he would be touched and say tenderly: