Short Stories by Chekhov
letter to Gorny.
She fell to thinking of the student, of his love, of her love; but the
thoughts in her head insisted on flowing in all directions, and she
thought about everything--about her mother, about the street, about the
pencil, about the piano.... She thought of them joyfully, and felt that
everything was good, splendid, and her joy told her that this was not
all, that in a little while it would be better still. Soon it would be
spring, summer, going with her mother to Gorbiki. Gorny would come for
his furlough, would walk about the garden with her and make love to her.
Gruzdev would come too. He would play croquet and skittles with her, and
would tell her wonderful things. She had a passionate longing for the
garden, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her shoulders shook
with laughter, and it seemed to her that there was a scent of wormwood
in the room and that a twig was tapping at the window.
She went to her bed, sat down, and not knowing what to do with the
immense joy which filled her with yearning, she looked at the holy image
hanging at the back of her bed, and said:
"Oh, Lord God! Oh, Lord God!"
A LADY'S STORY
NINE years ago Pyotr Sergeyitch, the deputy prosecutor, and I were
riding towards evening in hay-making time to fetch the letters from the
station.
The weather was magnificent, but on our way back we heard a peal of
thunder, and saw an angry black storm-cloud which was coming straight
towards us. The storm-cloud was approaching us and we were approaching
it.
Against the background of it our house and church looked white and the
tall poplars shone like silver. There was a scent of rain and mown hay.
My companion was in high spirits. He kept laughing and talking all sorts
of nonsense. He said it would be nice if we could suddenly come upon a
medieval castle with turreted towers, with moss on it and owls, in which
we could take shelter from the rain and in the end be killed by a
thunderbolt....
Then the first wave raced through the rye and a field of oats, there was
a gust of wind, and the dust flew round and round in the air. Pyotr
Sergeyitch laughed and spurred on his horse.
"It's fine!" he cried, "it's splendid!"
Infected by his gaiety, I too began laughing at the thought that in a
minute I should be drenched to the skin and might be struck by
lightning.
Riding swiftly in a hurricane when one is breathless with the wind, and
feels like a bird, thrills one and puts one's heart in a flutter. By the
time we rode into our courtyard the wind had gone down, and big drops of
rain were pattering on the grass and on the roofs. There was not a soul
near the stable.
Pyotr Sergeyitch himself took the bridles off, and led the horses to
their stalls. I stood in the doorway waiting for him to finish, and
watching the slanting streaks of rain; the sweetish, exciting scent of
hay was even stronger here than in the fields; the storm-clouds and the
rain made it almost twilight.
"What a crash!" said Pyotr Sergeyitch, coming up to me after a very loud
rolling peal of thunder when it seemed as though the sky were split in
two. "What do you say to that?"
He stood beside me in the doorway and, still breathless from his rapid
ride, looked at me. I could see that he was admiring me.
"Natalya Vladimirovna," he said, "I would give anything only to stay
here a little longer and look at you. You are lovely to-day."
His eyes looked at me with delight and supplication, his face was pale.
On his beard and mustache were glittering raindrops, and they, too,
seemed to be looking at me with love.
"I love you," he said. "I love you, and I am happy at seeing you. I know
you cannot be my wife, but I want nothing, I ask nothing; only know that
I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no notice of it, but only
know that you are dear to me and let me look at you."
His rapture affected me too; I looked at his enthusiastic face, listened
to his voice which mingled with the patter of the rain, and stood as
though spellbound, unable to stir.
I longed to go on endlessly looking at his shining eyes and listening.
"You say nothing, and that is splendid," said Pyotr Sergeyitch. "Go on
being silent."
I felt happy. I laughed with delight and ran through the drenching rain
to the house; he laughed too, and, leaping as he went, ran after me.
Both drenched, panting, noisily clattering up the stairs like children,
we dashed into the room. My father and brother, who were not used to
seeing me laughing and light-hearted, looked at me in surprise and began
laughing too.
The storm-clouds had passed over and the thunder had ceased, but the
raindrops still glittered on Pyotr Sergeyitch's beard. The whole evening
till supper-time he was singing, whistling, playing noisily with the dog
and racing about the room after it, so that he nearly upset the servant
with the samovar. And at supper he ate a great deal, talked nonsense,
and maintained that when one eats fresh cucumbers in winter there is the
fragrance of spring in one's mouth.
When I went to bed I lighted a candle and threw my window wide open, and
an undefined feeling took possession of my soul. I remembered that I was
free and healthy, that I had rank and wealth, that I was beloved; above
all, that I had rank and wealth, rank and wealth, my God! how nice that
was!... Then, huddling up in bed at a touch of cold which reached me
from the garden with the dew, I tried to discover whether I loved Pyotr
Sergeyitch or not,... and fell asleep unable to reach any conclusion.
And when in the morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and the
shadows of the lime trees on my bed, what had happened yesterday rose
vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of charm.
Humming, I dressed quickly and went out into the garden....
And what happened afterwards? Why--nothing. In the winter when we lived
in town Pyotr Sergeyitch came to see us from time to time. Country
acquaintances are charming only in the country and in summer; in the
town and in winter they lose their charm. When you pour out tea for them
in the town it seems as though they are wearing other people's coats,
and as though they stirred their tea too long. In the town, too, Pyotr
Sergeyitch spoke sometimes of love, but the effect was not at all the
same as in the country. In the town we were more vividly conscious of
the wall that stood between us. I had rank and wealth, while he was
poor, and he was not even a nobleman, but only the son of a deacon and a
deputy public prosecutor; we both of us--I through my youth and he for
some unknown reason--thought of that wall as very high and thick, and
when he was with us in the town he would criticize aristocratic society
with a forced smile, and maintain a sullen silence when there was anyone
else in the drawing-room. There is no wall that cannot be broken
through, but the heroes of the modern romance, so far as I know them,
are too timid, spiritless, lazy, and oversensitive, and are too ready to
resign themselves to the thought that they are doomed to failure, that
personal life has disappointed them; instead of struggling they merely
criticize, calling the world vulgar and forgetting that their criticism
passes little by little into vulgarity.
I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to be almost
touching me; I went on living in careless ease without trying to
understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from
life, and time went on and on.... People passed by me with their love,
bright days and warm nights flashed by, the nightingales sang, the hay
smelt fragrant, and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance,
passed with me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not
prized, and vanished like mist.... Where is it all?
My father is dead, I have grown older; everything that delighted me,
caressed me, gave me hope--the patter of the rain, the rolling of the
thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love--all that has become nothing
but a memory, and I see before me a flat desert distance; on the plain
not one living soul, and out there on the horizon it is dark and
terrible....
A ring at the bell.... It is Pyotr Sergeyitch. When in the winter I see
the trees and remember how green they were for me in the summer I
whisper:
"Oh, my darlings!"
And when I see people with whom I spent my spring-time, I feel sorrowful
and warm and whisper the same thing.
He has long ago by my father's good offices been transferred to town. He
looks a little older, a little fallen away. He has long given up
declaring his love, has left off talking nonsense, dislikes his official
work, is ill in some way and disillusioned; he has given up trying to
get anything out of life, and takes no interest in living. Now he has
sat down by the hearth and looks in silence at the fire....
Not knowing what to say I ask him:
"Well, what have you to tell me?"
"Nothing," he answers.
And silence again. The red glow of the fire plays about his melancholy
face.
I thought of the past, and all at once my shoulders began quivering, my
head dropped, and I began weeping bitterly. I felt unbearably sorry for
myself and for this man, and passionately longed for what had passed
away and what life refused us now. And now I did not think about rank
and wealth.
I broke into loud sobs, pressing my temples, and muttered:
"My God! my God! my life is wasted!"
And he sat and was silent, and did not say to me: "Don't weep." He
understood that I must weep, and that the time for this had come.
I saw from his eyes that he was sorry for me; and I was sorry for him,
too, and vexed with this timid, unsuccessful man who could not make a
life for me, nor for himself.
When I saw him to the door, he was, I fancied, purposely a long while
putting on his coat. Twice he kissed my hand without a word, and looked
a long while into my tear-stained face. I believe at that moment he
recalled the storm, the streaks of rain, our laughter, my face that day;
he longed to say something to me, and he would have been glad to say it;
but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand. God
help him!
After seeing him out, I went back to my study and again sat on the
carpet before the fireplace; the red embers were covered with ash and
began to grow dim. The frost tapped still more angrily at the windows,
and the wind droned in the chimney.
The maid came in and, thinking I was asleep, called my name.
IN EXILE
OLD SEMYON, nicknamed Canny, and a young Tatar, whom no one knew by
name, were sitting on the river-bank by the camp-fire; the other three
ferrymen were in the hut. Semyon, an old man of sixty, lean and
toothless, but broad shouldered and still healthy-looking, was drunk; he
would have gone in to sleep long before, but he had a bottle in his
pocket and he was afraid that the fellows in the hut would ask him for
vodka. The Tatar was ill and weary, and wrapping himself up in his rags
was describing how nice it was in the Simbirsk province, and what a
beautiful and clever wife he had left behind at home. He was not more
than twenty five, and now by the light of the camp-fire, with his pale
and sick, mournful face, he looked like a boy.
"To be sure, it is not paradise here," said Canny. "You can see for
yourself, the water, the bare banks, clay, and nothing else.... Easter
has long passed and yet there is ice on the river, and this morning
there was snow..."
"It's bad! it's bad!" said the Tatar, and looked round him in terror.
The dark, cold river was flowing ten paces away; it grumbled, lapped
against the hollow clay banks and raced on swiftly towards the far-away
sea. Close to the bank there was the dark blur of a big barge, which the