Short Stories by Chekhov
ferrymen called a "karbos." Far away on the further bank, lights, dying
down and flickering up again, zigzagged like little snakes; they were
burning last year's grass. And beyond the little snakes there was
darkness again. There little icicles could be heard knocking against the
barge. It was damp and cold....
The Tatar glanced at the sky. There were as many stars as at home, and
the same blackness all round, but something was lacking. At home in the
Simbirsk province the stars were quite different, and so was the sky.
"It's bad! it's bad!" he repeated.
"You will get used to it," said Semyon, and he laughed. "Now you are
young and foolish, the milk is hardly dry on your lips, and it seems to
you in your foolishness that you are more wretched than anyone; but the
time will come when you will say to yourself: 'I wish no one a better
life than mine.' You look at me. Within a week the floods will be over
and we shall set up the ferry; you will all go wandering off about
Siberia while I shall stay and shall begin going from bank to bank. I've
been going like that for twenty-two years, day and night. The pike and
the salmon are under the water while I am on the water. And thank God
for it, I want nothing; God give everyone such a life."
The Tatar threw some dry twigs on the camp-fire, lay down closer to the
blaze, and said:
"My father is a sick man. When he dies my mother and wife will come
here. They have promised."
"And what do you want your wife and mother for?" asked Canny. "That's
mere foolishness, my lad. It's the devil confounding you, damn his soul!
Don't you listen to him, the cursed one. Don't let him have his way. He
is at you about the women, but you spite him; say, 'I don't want them!'
He is on at you about freedom, but you stand up to him and say: 'I don't
want it!' I want nothing, neither father nor mother, nor wife, nor
freedom, nor post, nor paddock; I want nothing, damn their souls!"
Semyon took a pull at the bottle and went on:
"I am not a simple peasant, not of the working class, but the son of a
deacon, and when I was free I lived at Kursk; I used to wear a
frockcoat, and now I have brought myself to such a pass that I can sleep
naked on the ground and eat grass. And I wish no one a better life. I
want nothing and I am afraid of nobody, and the way I look at it is that
there is nobody richer and freer than I am. When they sent me here from
Russia from the first day I stuck it out; I want nothing! The devil was
at me about my wife and about my home and about freedom, but I told him:
'I want nothing.' I stuck to it, and here you see I live well, and I
don't complain, and if anyone gives way to the devil and listens to him,
if but once, he is lost, there is no salvation for him: he is sunk in
the bog to the crown of his head and will never get out.
"It is not only a foolish peasant like you, but even gentlemen, well-
educated people, are lost. Fifteen years ago they sent a gentleman here
from Russia. He hadn't shared something with his brothers and had forged
something in a will. They did say he was a prince or a baron, but maybe
he was simply an official--who knows? Well, the gentleman arrived here,
and first thing he bought himself a house and land in Muhortinskoe. 'I
want to live by my own work,' says he, 'in the sweat of my brow, for I
am not a gentleman now,' says he, 'but a settler.' 'Well,' says I, 'God
help you, that's the right thing.' He was a young man then, busy and
careful; he used to mow himself and catch fish and ride sixty miles on
horseback. Only this is what happened: from the very first year he took
to riding to Gyrino for the post; he used to stand on my ferry and sigh:
'Ech, Semyon, how long it is since they sent me any money from home!'
'You don't want money, Vassily Sergeyitch,' says I. 'What use is it to
you? You cast away the past, and forget it as though it had never been
at all, as though it had been a dream, and begin to live anew. Don't
listen to the devil,' says I; 'he will bring you to no good, he'll draw
you into a snare. Now you want money,' says I, 'but in a very little
while you'll be wanting something else, and then more and more. If you
want to be happy,' says I, the chief thing is not to want anything.
Yes.... If,' says I, 'if Fate has wronged you and me cruelly it's no
good asking for her favor and bowing down to her, but you despise her
and laugh at her, or else she will laugh at you.' That's what I said to
him....
"Two years later I ferried him across to this side, and he was rubbing
his hands and laughing. 'I am going to Gyrino to meet my wife,' says he.
'She was sorry for me,' says he; 'she has come. She is good and kind.'
And he was breathless with joy. So a day later he came with his wife. A
beautiful young lady in a hat; in her arms was a baby girl. And lots of
luggage of all sorts. And my Vassily Sergeyitch was fussing round her;
he couldn't take his eyes off her and couldn't say enough in praise of
her. 'Yes, brother Semyon, even in Siberia people can live!' 'Oh, all
right,' thinks I, 'it will be a different tale presently.' And from that
time forward he went almost every week to inquire whether money had not
come from Russia. He wanted a lot of money. 'She is losing her youth and
beauty here in Siberia for my sake,' says he, 'and sharing my bitter lot
with me, and so I ought,' says he, 'to provide her with every
comfort....'
"To make it livelier for the lady he made acquaintance with the
officials and all sorts of riff-raff. And of course he had to give food
and drink to all that crew, and there had to be a piano and a shaggy
lapdog on the sofa--plague take it!... Luxury, in fact, self-indulgence.
The lady did not stay with him long. How could she? The clay, the water,
the cold, no vegetables for you, no fruit. All around you ignorant and
drunken people and no sort of manners, and she was a spoilt lady from
Petersburg or Moscow.... To be sure she moped. Besides, her husband, say
what you like, was not a gentleman now, but a settler--not the same rank.
"Three years later, I remember, on the eve of the Assumption, there was
shouting from the further bank. I went over with the ferry, and what do
I see but the lady, all wrapped up, and with her a young gentleman, an
official. A sledge with three horses.... I ferried them across here,
they got in and away like the wind. They were soon lost to sight. And
towards morning Vassily Sergeyitch galloped down to the ferry. 'Didn't
my wife come this way with a gentleman in spectacles, Semyon?' 'She
did,' said I; 'you may look for the wind in the fields!' He galloped in
pursuit of them. For five days and nights he was riding after them. When
I ferried him over to the other side afterwards, he flung himself on the
ferry and beat his head on the boards of the ferry and howled. 'So
that's how it is,' says I. I laughed, and reminded him 'people can live
even in Siberia!' And he beat his head harder than ever....
"Then he began longing for freedom. His wife had slipped off to Russia,
and of course he was drawn there to see her and to get her away from her
lover. And he took, my lad, to galloping almost every day, either to the
post or the town to see the commanding officer; he kept sending in
petitions for them to have mercy on him and let him go back home; and he
used to say that he had spent some two hundred roubles on telegrams
alone. He sold his land and mortgaged his house to the Jews. He grew
gray and bent, and yellow in the face, as though he was in consumption.
If he talked to you he would go, khee--khee--khee,... and there were tears
in his eyes. He kept rushing about like this with petitions for eight
years, but now he has grown brighter and more cheerful again: he has
found another whim to give way to. You see, his daughter has grown up.
He looks at her, and she is the apple of his eye. And to tell the truth
she is all right, good-looking, with black eyebrows and a lively
disposition. Every Sunday he used to ride with her to church in Gyrino.
They used to stand on the ferry, side by side, she would laugh and he
could not take his eyes off her. 'Yes, Semyon,' says he, 'people can
live even in Siberia. Even in Siberia there is happiness. Look,' says
he, 'what a daughter I have got! I warrant you wouldn't find another
like her for a thousand versts round.' 'Your daughter is all right,'
says I, 'that's true, certainly.' But to myself I thought: 'Wait a bit,
the wench is young, her blood is dancing, she wants to live, and there
is no life here.' And she did begin to pine, my lad.... She faded and
faded, and now she can hardly crawl about. Consumption.
"So you see what Siberian happiness is, damn its soul! You see how
people can live in Siberia.... He has taken to going from one doctor to
another and taking them home with him. As soon as he hears that two or
three hundred miles away there is a doctor or a sorcerer, he will drive
to fetch him. A terrible lot of money he spent on doctors, and to my
thinking he had better have spent the money on drink.... She'll die just
the same. She is certain to die, and then it will be all over with him.
He'll hang himself from grief or run away to Russia--that's a sure thing.
He'll run away and they'll catch him, then he will be tried, sent to
prison, he will have a taste of the lash...."
"Good! good!" said the Tatar, shivering with cold.
"What is good?" asked Canny.
"His wife, his daughter.... What of prison and what of sorrow!--anyway,
he did see his wife and his daughter.... You say, want nothing. But
'nothing' is bad! His wife lived with him three years--that was a gift
from God. 'Nothing' is bad, but three years is good. How not
understand?"
Shivering and hesitating, with effort picking out the Russian words of
which he knew but few, the Tatar said that God forbid one should fall
sick and die in a strange land, and be buried in the cold and dark
earth; that if his wife came to him for one day, even for one hour, that
for such happiness he would be ready to bear any suffering and to thank
God. Better one day of happiness than nothing.
Then he described again what a beautiful and clever wife he had left at
home. Then, clutching his head in both hands, he began crying and
assuring Semyon that he was not guilty, and was suffering for nothing.
His two brothers and an uncle had carried off a peasant's horses, and
had beaten the old man till he was half dead, and the commune had not
judged fairly, but had contrived a sentence by which all the three
brothers were sent to Siberia, while the uncle, a rich man, was left at
home.
"You will get used to it!" said Semyon.
The Tatar was silent, and stared with tear-stained eyes at the fire; his
face expressed bewilderment and fear, as though he still did not
understand why he was here in the darkness and the wet, beside
strangers, and not in the Simbirsk province.
Canny lay near the fire, chuckled at something, and began humming a song
in an undertone.
"What joy has she with her father?" he said a little later. "He loves
her and he rejoices in her, that's true; but, mate, you must mind your
ps and qs with him, he is a strict old man, a harsh old man. And young
wenches don't want strictness. They want petting and ha-ha-ha! and ho-
ho-ho! and scent and pomade. Yes.... Ech! life, life," sighed Semyon,
and he got up heavily. "The vodka is all gone, so it is time to sleep.
Eh? I am going, my lad...."
Left alone, the Tatar put on more twigs, lay down and stared at the
fire; he began thinking of his own village and of his wife. If his wife
could only come for a month, for a day; and then if she liked she might
go back again. Better a month or even a day than nothing. But if his
wife kept her promise and came, what would he have to feed her on? Where
could she live here?