Short Stories by Chekhov
tiny, infinitely elegant movements, in her smile, in the play of her
face, in her rapid glances at us, in the combination of the subtle grace
of her movements with her youth, her freshness, the purity of her soul
that sounded in her laugh and voice, and with the weakness we love so
much in children, in birds, in fawns, and in young trees.
It was that butterfly's beauty so in keeping with waltzing, darting
about the garden, laughter and gaiety, and incongruous with serious
thought, grief, and repose; and it seemed as though a gust of wind
blowing over the platform, or a fall of rain, would be enough to wither
the fragile body and scatter the capricious beauty like the pollen of a
flower.
"So--o!..." the officer muttered with a sigh when, after the second bell,
we went back to our compartment.
And what that "So--o" meant I will not undertake to decide.
Perhaps he was sad, and did not want to go away from the beauty and the
spring evening into the stuffy train; or perhaps he, like me, was
unaccountably sorry for the beauty, for himself, and for me, and for all
the passengers, who were listlessly and reluctantly sauntering back to
their compartments. As we passed the station window, at which a pale,
red-haired telegraphist with upstanding curls and a faded, broad-cheeked
face was sitting beside his apparatus, the officer heaved a sigh and
said:
"I bet that telegraphist is in love with that pretty girl. To live out
in the wilds under one roof with that ethereal creature and not fall in
love is beyond the power of man. And what a calamity, my friend! what an
ironical fate, to be stooping, unkempt, gray, a decent fellow and not a
fool, and to be in love with that pretty, stupid little girl who would
never take a scrap of notice of you! Or worse still: imagine that
telegraphist is in love, and at the same time married, and that his wife
is as stooping, as unkempt, and as decent a person as himself."
On the platform between our carriage and the next the guard was standing
with his elbows on the railing, looking in the direction of the
beautiful girl, and his battered, wrinkled, unpleasantly beefy face,
exhausted by sleepless nights and the jolting of the train, wore a look
of tenderness and of the deepest sadness, as though in that girl he saw
happiness, his own youth, soberness, purity, wife, children; as though
he were repenting and feeling in his whole being that that girl was not
his, and that for him, with his premature old age, his uncouthness, and
his beefy face, the ordinary happiness of a man and a passenger was as
far away as heaven....
The third bell rang, the whistles sounded, and the train slowly moved
off. First the guard, the station-master, then the garden, the beautiful
girl with her exquisitely sly smile, passed before our windows....
Putting my head out and looking back, I saw how, looking after the
train, she walked along the platform by the window where the telegraph
clerk was sitting, smoothed her hair, and ran into the garden. The
station no longer screened off the sunset, the plain lay open before us,
but the sun had already set and the smoke lay in black clouds over the
green, velvety young corn. It was melancholy in the spring air, and in
the darkening sky, and in the railway carriage.
The familiar figure of the guard came into the carriage, and he began
lighting the candles.
THE SHOEMAKER AND THE DEVIL
IT was Christmas Eve. Marya had long been snoring on the stove; all the
paraffin in the little lamp had burnt out, but Fyodor Nilov still sat at
work. He would long ago have flung aside his work and gone out into the
street, but a customer from Kolokolny Lane, who had a fortnight before
ordered some boots, had been in the previous day, had abused him
roundly, and had ordered him to finish the boots at once before the
morning service.
"It's a convict's life!" Fyodor grumbled as he worked. "Some people have
been asleep long ago, others are enjoying themselves, while you sit here
like some Cain and sew for the devil knows whom...."
To save himself from accidentally falling asleep, he kept taking a
bottle from under the table and drinking out of it, and after every pull
at it he twisted his head and said aloud:
"What is the reason, kindly tell me, that customers enjoy themselves
while I am forced to sit and work for them? Because they have money and
I am a beggar?"
He hated all his customers, especially the one who lived in Kolokolny
Lane. He was a gentleman of gloomy appearance, with long hair, a yellow
face, blue spectacles, and a husky voice. He had a German name which one
could not pronounce. It was impossible to tell what was his calling and
what he did. When, a fortnight before, Fyodor had gone to take his
measure, he, the customer, was sitting on the floor pounding something
in a mortar. Before Fyodor had time to say good-morning the contents of
the mortar suddenly flared up and burned with a bright red flame; there
was a stink of sulphur and burnt feathers, and the room was filled with
a thick pink smoke, so that Fyodor sneezed five times; and as he
returned home afterwards, he thought: "Anyone who feared God would not
have anything to do with things like that."
When there was nothing left in the bottle Fyodor put the boots on the
table and sank into thought. He leaned his heavy head on his fist and
began thinking of his poverty, of his hard life with no glimmer of light
in it. Then he thought of the rich, of their big houses and their
carriages, of their hundred-rouble notes.... How nice it would be if the
houses of these rich men--the devil flay them!--were smashed, if their
horses died, if their fur coats and sable caps got shabby! How splendid
it would be if the rich, little by little, changed into beggars having
nothing, and he, a poor shoemaker, were to become rich, and were to lord
it over some other poor shoemaker on Christmas Eve.
Dreaming like this, Fyodor suddenly thought of his work, and opened his
eyes.
"Here's a go," he thought, looking at the boots. "The job has been
finished ever so long ago, and I go on sitting here. I must take the
boots to the gentleman."
He wrapped up the work in a red handkerchief, put on his things, and
went out into the street. A fine hard snow was falling, pricking the
face as though with needles. It was cold, slippery, dark, the gas-lamps
burned dimly, and for some reason there was a smell of paraffin in the
street, so that Fyodor coughed and cleared his throat. Rich men were
driving to and fro on the road, and every rich man had a ham and a
bottle of vodka in his hands. Rich young ladies peeped at Fyodor out of
the carriages and sledges, put out their tongues and shouted, laughing:
"Beggar! Beggar!"
Students, officers, and merchants walked behind Fyodor, jeering at him
and crying:
"Drunkard! Drunkard! Infidel cobbler! Soul of a boot-leg! Beggar!"
All this was insulting, but Fyodor held his tongue and only spat in
disgust. But when Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw, a master-bootmaker, met
him and said: "I've married a rich woman and I have men working under
me, while you are a beggar and have nothing to eat," Fyodor could not
refrain from running after him. He pursued him till he found himself in
Kolokolny Lane. His customer lived in the fourth house from the corner
on the very top floor. To reach him one had to go through a long, dark
courtyard, and then to climb up a very high slippery stair-case which
tottered under one's feet. When Fyodor went in to him he was sitting on
the floor pounding something in a mortar, just as he had been the
fortnight before.
"Your honor, I have brought your boots," said Fyodor sullenly.
The customer got up and began trying on the boots in silence. Desiring
to help him, Fyodor went down on one knee and pulled off his old, boot,
but at once jumped up and staggered towards the door in horror. The
customer had not a foot, but a hoof like a horse's.
"Aha!" thought Fyodor; "here's a go!"
The first thing should have been to cross himself, then to leave
everything and run downstairs; but he immediately reflected that he was
meeting a devil for the first and probably the last time, and not to
take advantage of his services would be foolish. He controlled himself
and determined to try his luck. Clasping his hands behind him to avoid
making the sign of the cross, he coughed respectfully and began:
"They say that there is nothing on earth more evil and impure than the
devil, but I am of the opinion, your honor, that the devil is highly
educated. He has--excuse my saying it--hoofs and a tail behind, but he has
more brains than many a student."
"I like you for what you say," said the devil, flattered. "Thank you,
shoemaker! What do you want?"
And without loss of time the shoemaker began complaining of his lot. He
began by saying that from his childhood up he had envied the rich. He
had always resented it that all people did not live alike in big houses
and drive with good horses. Why, he asked, was he poor? How was he worse
than Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw, who had his own house, and whose wife
wore a hat? He had the same sort of nose, the same hands, feet, head,
and back, as the rich, and so why was he forced to work when others were
enjoying themselves? Why was he married to Marya and not to a lady
smelling of scent? He had often seen beautiful young ladies in the
houses of rich customers, but they either took no notice of him
whatever, or else sometimes laughed and whispered to each other: "What a
red nose that shoemaker has!" It was true that Marya was a good, kind,
hard-working woman, but she was not educated; her hand was heavy and hit
hard, and if one had occasion to speak of politics or anything
intellectual before her, she would put her spoke in and talk the most
awful nonsense.
"What do you want, then?" his customer interrupted him.
"I beg you, your honor Satan Ivanitch, to be graciously pleased to make
me a rich man."
"Certainly. Only for that you must give me up your soul! Before the
cocks crow, go and sign on this paper here that you give me up your
soul."
"Your honor," said Fyodor politely, "when you ordered a pair of boots
from me I did not ask for the money in advance. One has first to carry
out the order and then ask for payment."
"Oh, very well!" the customer assented.
A bright flame suddenly flared up in the mortar, a pink thick smoke came
puffing out, and there was a smell of burnt feathers and sulphur. When
the smoke had subsided, Fyodor rubbed his eyes and saw that he was no
longer Fyodor, no longer a shoemaker, but quite a different man, wearing
a waistcoat and a watch-chain, in a new pair of trousers, and that he
was sitting in an armchair at a big table. Two foot men were handing him
dishes, bowing low and saying:
"Kindly eat, your honor, and may it do you good!"
What wealth! The footmen handed him a big piece of roast mutton and a
dish of cucumbers, and then brought in a frying-pan a roast goose, and a
little afterwards boiled pork with horse-radish cream. And how
dignified, how genteel it all was! Fyodor ate, and before each dish
drank a big glass of excellent vodka, like some general or some count.
After the pork he was handed some boiled grain moistened with goose fat,
then an omelette with bacon fat, then fried liver, and he went on eating
and was delighted. What more? They served, too, a pie with onion and
steamed turnip with kvass.
"How is it the gentry don't burst with such meals?" he thought.
In conclusion they handed him a big pot of honey. After dinner the devil
appeared in blue spectacles and asked with a low bow:
"Are you satisfied with your dinner, Fyodor Pantelyeitch?"
But Fyodor could not answer one word, he was so stuffed after his