Short Stories by Chekhov
hospital more than once, not for medical treatment, but to see the
doctor about horses--to ask whether he had not one for sale, and whether
his honour would not like to swop his bay mare for a dun-coloured
gelding. Now his head was pomaded and a silver ear-ring glittered in his
ear, and altogether he had a holiday air. Frowning and dropping his
lower lip, he was looking intently at a big dog's-eared picture-book.
Another peasant lay stretched on the floor near the stove; his head, his
shoulders, and his chest were covered with a sheepskin--he was probably
asleep; beside his new boots, with shining bits of metal on the heels,
there were two dark pools of melted snow.
Seeing the hospital assistant, Kalashnikov greeted him.
"Yes, it is weather," said Yergunov, rubbing his chilled knees with his
open hands. "The snow is up to one's neck; I am soaked to the skin, I
can tell you. And I believe my revolver is, too. . . ."
He took out his revolver, looked it all over, and put it back in his
knapsack. But the revolver made no impression at all; the peasant went
on looking at the book.
"Yes, it is weather. . . . I lost my way, and if it had not been for the
dogs here, I do believe it would have been my death. There would have
been a nice to-do. And where are the women?"
"The old woman has gone to Ryepino, and the girl is getting supper ready
. . ." answered Kalashnikov.
Silence followed. Yergunov, shivering and gasping, breathed on his
hands, huddled up, and made a show of being very cold and exhausted. The
still angry dogs could be heard howling outside. It was dreary.
"You come from Bogalyovka, don't you?" he asked the peasant sternly.
"Yes, from Bogalyovka."
And to while away the time Yergunov began to think about Bogalyovka. It
was a big village and it lay in a deep ravine, so that when one drove
along the highroad on a moonlight night, and looked down into the dark
ravine and then up at the sky, it seemed as though the moon were hanging
over a bottomless abyss and it were the end of the world. The path going
down was steep, winding, and so narrow that when one drove down to
Bogalyovka on account of some epidemic or to vaccinate the people, one
had to shout at the top of one's voice, or whistle all the way, for if
one met a cart coming up one could not pass. The peasants of Bogalyovka
had the reputation of being good gardeners and horse-stealers. They had
well-stocked gardens. In spring the whole village was buried in white
cherry-blossom, and in the summer they sold cherries at three kopecks a
pail. One could pay three kopecks and pick as one liked. Their women
were handsome and looked well fed, they were fond of finery, and never
did anything even on working-days, but spent all their time sitting on
the ledge in front of their houses and searching in each other's heads.
But at last there was the sound of footsteps. Lyubka, a girl of twenty,
with bare feet and a red dress, came into the room. . . . She looked
sideways at Yergunov and walked twice from one end of the room to the
other. She did not move simply, but with tiny steps, thrusting forward
her bosom; evidently she enjoyed padding about with her bare feet on the
freshly washed floor, and had taken off her shoes on purpose.
Kalashnikov laughed at something and beckoned her with his finger. She
went up to the table, and he showed her a picture of the Prophet Elijah,
who, driving three horses abreast, was dashing up to the sky. Lyubka put
her elbow on the table; her plait fell across her shoulder--a long
chestnut plait tied with red ribbon at the end--and it almost touched the
floor. She, too, smiled.
"A splendid, wonderful picture," said Kalashnikov. "Wonderful," he
repeated, and motioned with his hand as though he wanted to take the
reins instead of Elijah.
The wind howled in the stove; something growled and squeaked as though a
big dog had strangled a rat.
"Ugh! the unclean spirits are abroad!" said Lyubka.
"That's the wind," said Kalashnikov; and after a pause he raised his
eyes to Yergunov and asked:
"And what is your learned opinion, Osip Vassilyitch--are there devils in
this world or not?"
"What's one to say, brother?" said Yergunov, and he shrugged one
shoulder. "If one reasons from science, of course there are no devils,
for it's a superstition; but if one looks at it simply, as you and I do
now, there are devils, to put it shortly. . . . I have seen a great deal
in my life. . . . When I finished my studies I served as medical
assistant in the army in a regiment of the dragoons, and I have been in
the war, of course. I have a medal and a decoration from the Red Cross,
but after the treaty of San Stefano I returned to Russia and went into
the service of the Zemstvo. And in consequence of my enormous
circulation about the world, I may say I have seen more than many
another has dreamed of. It has happened to me to see devils, too; that
is, not devils with horns and a tail--that is all nonsense--but just, to
speak precisely, something of the sort."
"Where?" asked Kalashnikov.
"In various places. There is no need to go far. Last year I met him
here--speak of him not at night--near this very inn. I was driving, I
remember, to Golyshino; I was going there to vaccinate. Of course, as
usual, I had the racing droshky and a horse, and all the necessary
paraphernalia, and, what's more, I had a watch and all the rest of it,
so I was on my guard as I drove along, for fear of some mischance. There
are lots of tramps of all sorts. I came up to the Zmeinoy
Ravine--damnation take it--and was just going down it, when all at once
somebody comes up to me--such a fellow! Black hair, black eyes, and his
whole face looked smutted with soot . . . . He comes straight up to the
horse and takes hold of the left rein: 'Stop!' He looked at the horse,
then at me, then dropped the reins, and without saying a bad word,
'Where are you going?' says he. And he showed his teeth in a grin, and
his eyes were spiteful-looking.
"'Ah,' thought I, 'you are a queer customer!' 'I am going to vaccinate
for the smallpox,' said I. 'And what is that to you?' 'Well, if that's
so,' says he, 'vaccinate me. He bared his arm and thrust it under my
nose. Of course, I did not bandy words with him; I just vaccinated him
to get rid of him. Afterwards I looked at my lancet and it had gone
rusty."
The peasant who was asleep near the stove suddenly turned over and flung
off the sheepskin; to his great surprise, Yergunov recognized the
stranger he had met that day at Zmeinoy Ravine. This peasant's hair,
beard, and eyes were black as soot; his face was swarthy; and, to add to
the effect, there was a black spot the size of a lentil on his right
cheek. He looked mockingly at the hospital assistant and said:
"I did take hold of the left rein--that was so; but about the smallpox
you are lying, sir. And there was not a word said about the smallpox
between us."
Yergunov was disconcerted.
"I'm not talking about you," he said. "Lie down, since you are lying
down."
The dark-skinned peasant had never been to the hospital, and Yergunov
did not know who he was or where he came from; and now, looking at him,
he made up his mind that the man must be a gypsy. The peasant got up
and, stretching and yawning loudly, went up to Lyubka and Kalashnikov,
and sat down beside them, and he, too, began looking at the book. His
sleepy face softened and a look of envy came into it.
"Look, Merik," Lyubka said to him; "get me such horses and I will drive
to heaven."
"Sinners can't drive to heaven," said Kalashnikov. "That's for
holiness."
Then Lyubka laid the table and brought in a big piece of fat bacon,
salted cucumbers, a wooden platter of boiled meat cut up into little
pieces, then a frying-pan, in which there were sausages and cabbage
spluttering. A cut-glass decanter of vodka, which diffused a smell of
orange-peel all over the room when it was poured out, was put on the
table also.
Yergunov was annoyed that Kalashnikov and the dark fellow Merik talked
together and took no notice of him at all, behaving exactly as though he
were not in the room. And he wanted to talk to them, to brag, to drink,
to have a good meal, and if possible to have a little fun with Lyubka,
who sat down near him half a dozen times while they were at supper, and,
as though by accident, brushed against him with her handsome shoulders
and passed her hands over her broad hips. She was a healthy, active
girl, always laughing and never still: she would sit down, then get up,
and when she was sitting down she would keep turning first her face and
then her back to her neighbour, like a fidgety child, and never failed
to brush against him with her elbows or her knees.
And he was displeased, too, that the peasants drank only a glass each
and no more, and it was awkward for him to drink alone. But he could not
refrain from taking a second glass, all the same, then a third, and he
ate all the sausage. He brought himself to flatter the peasants, that
they might accept him as one of the party instead of holding him at
arm's length.
"You are a fine set of fellows in Bogalyovka!" he said, and wagged his
head.
"In what way fine fellows?" enquired Kalashnikov.
"Why, about horses, for instance. Fine fellows at stealing!"
"H'm! fine fellows, you call them. Nothing but thieves and drunkards."
"They have had their day, but it is over," said Merik, after a pause.
"But now they have only Filya left, and he is blind."
"Yes, there is no one but Filya," said Kalashnikov, with a sigh. "Reckon
it up, he must be seventy; the German settlers knocked out one of his
eyes, and he does not see well with the other. It is cataract. In old
days the police officer would shout as soon as he saw him: 'Hey, you
Shamil!' and all the peasants called him that--he was Shamil all over the
place; and now his only name is One-eyed Filya. But he was a fine
fellow! Lyuba's father, Andrey Grigoritch, and he stole one night into
Rozhnovo--there were cavalry regiments stationed there--and carried off
nine of the soldiers' horses, the very best of them. They weren't
frightened of the sentry, and in the morning they sold all the horses
for twenty roubles to the gypsy Afonka. Yes! But nowadays a man
contrives to carry off a horse whose rider is drunk or asleep, and has
no fear of God, but will take the very boots from a drunkard, and then
slinks off and goes away a hundred and fifty miles with a horse, and
haggles at the market, haggles like a Jew, till the policeman catches
him, the fool. There is no fun in it; it is simply a disgrace! A paltry
set of people, I must say."
"What about Merik?" asked Lyubka.
"Merik is not one of us," said Kalashnikov. "He is a Harkov man from
Mizhiritch. But that he is a bold fellow, that's the truth; there's no
gainsaying that he is a fine fellow."
Lyubka looked slily and gleefully at Merik, and said:
"It wasn't for nothing they dipped him in a hole in the ice."
"How was that?" asked Yergunov.
"It was like this . . ." said Merik, and he laughed. "Filya carried off
three horses from the Samoylenka tenants, and they pitched upon me.
There were ten of the tenants at Samoylenka, and with their labourers
there were thirty altogether, and all of them Molokans . . . . So one of
them says to me at the market: 'Come and have a look, Merik; we have
brought some new horses from the fair.' I was interested, of course. I
went up to them, and the whole lot of them, thirty men, tied my hands
behind me and led me to the river. 'We'll show you fine horses,' they
said. One hole in the ice was there already; they cut another beside it
seven feet away. Then, to be sure, they took a cord and put a noose
under my armpits, and tied a crooked stick to the other end, long enough