Short Stories by Chekhov
happy moments of creation, thoughts of death, of finiteness and
dissolution, were not alien to him, and we see how insignificant and
finite, how timid and poor, are these lines of his...."
"I only heat these rooms," muttered Ivan Ivanitch, showing me his rooms.
"Ever since my wife died and my son was killed in the war, I have kept
the best rooms shut up. Yes... see..."
He opened a door, and I saw a big room with four columns, an old piano,
and a heap of peas on the floor; it smelt cold and damp.
"The garden seats are in the next room..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch.
"There's no one to dance the mazurka now.... I've shut them up."
We heard a noise. It was Dr. Sobol arriving. While he was rubbing his
cold hands and stroking his wet beard, I had time to notice in the first
place that he had a very dull life, and so was pleased to see Ivan
Ivanitch and me; and, secondly, that he was a naive and simple-hearted
man. He looked at me as though I were very glad to see him and very much
interested in him.
"I have not slept for two nights," he said, looking at me naively and
stroking his beard. "One night with a confinement, and the next I stayed
at a peasant's with the bugs biting me all night. I am as sleepy as
Satan, do you know."
With an expression on his face as though it could not afford me anything
but pleasure, he took me by the arm and led me to the dining-room. His
naive eyes, his crumpled coat, his cheap tie and the smell of iodoform
made an unpleasant impression upon me; I felt as though I were in vulgar
company. When we sat down to table he filled my glass with vodka, and,
smiling helplessly, I drank it; he put a piece of ham on my plate and I
ate it submissively.
"Repetitia est mater studiorum," said Sobol, hastening to drink off
another wineglassful. "Would you believe it, the joy of seeing good
people has driven away my sleepiness? I have turned into a peasant, a
savage in the wilds; I've grown coarse, but I am still an educated man,
and I tell you in good earnest, it's tedious without company."
They served first for a cold course white sucking-pig with horse-radish
cream, then a rich and very hot cabbage soup with pork on it, with
boiled buckwheat, from which rose a column of steam. The doctor went on
talking, and I was soon convinced that he was a weak, unfortunate man,
disorderly in external life. Three glasses of vodka made him drunk; he
grew unnaturally lively, ate a great deal, kept clearing his throat and
smacking his lips, and already addressed me in Italian, "Eccellenza."
Looking naively at me as though he were convinced that I was very glad
to see and hear him, he informed me that he had long been separated from
his wife and gave her three-quarters of his salary; that she lived in
the town with his children, a boy and a girl, whom he adored; that he
loved another woman, a widow, well educated, with an estate in the
country, but was rarely able to see her, as he was busy with his work
from morning till night and had not a free moment.
"The whole day long, first at the hospital, then on my rounds," he told
us; "and I assure you, Eccellenza, I have not time to read a book, let
alone going to see the woman I love. I've read nothing for ten years!
For ten years, Eccellenza. As for the financial side of the question,
ask Ivan Ivanitch: I have often no money to buy tobacco."
"On the other hand, you have the moral satisfaction of your work," I
said.
"What?" he asked, and he winked. "No," he said, "better let us drink."
I listened to the doctor, and, after my invariable habit, tried to take
his measure by my usual classification--materialist, idealist, filthy
lucre, gregarious instincts, and so on; but no classification fitted him
even approximately; and strange to say, while I simply listened and
looked at him, he seemed perfectly clear to me as a person, but as soon
as I began trying to classify him he became an exceptionally complex,
intricate, and incomprehensible character in spite of all his candour
and simplicity. "Is that man," I asked myself, "capable of wasting other
people's money, abusing their confidence, being disposed to sponge on
them?" And now this question, which had once seemed to me grave and
important, struck me as crude, petty, and coarse.
Pie was served; then, I remember, with long intervals between, during
which we drank home-made liquors, they gave us a stew of pigeons, some
dish of giblets, roast sucking-pig, partridges, cauliflower, curd
dumplings, curd cheese and milk, jelly, and finally pancakes and jam. At
first I ate with great relish, especially the cabbage soup and the
buckwheat, but afterwards I munched and swallowed mechanically, smiling
helplessly and unconscious of the taste of anything. My face was burning
from the hot cabbage soup and the heat of the room. Ivan Ivanitch and
Sobol, too, were crimson.
"To the health of your wife," said Sobol. "She likes me. Tell her her
doctor sends her his respects."
"She's fortunate, upon my word," sighed Ivan Ivanitch. "Though she takes
no trouble, does not fuss or worry herself, she has become the most
important person in the whole district. Almost the whole business is in
her hands, and they all gather round her, the doctor, the District
Captains, and the ladies. With people of the right sort that happens of
itself. Yes.... The apple-tree need take no thought for the apple to
grow on it; it will grow of itself."
"It's only people who don't care who take no thought," said I.
"Eh? Yes..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch, not catching what I said, "that's
true.... One must not worry oneself. Just so, just so.... Only do your
duty towards God and your neighbour, and then never mind what happens."
"Eccellenza," said Sobol solemnly, "just look at nature about us: if you
poke your nose or your ear out of your fur collar it will be frost-
bitten; stay in the fields for one hour, you'll be buried in the snow;
while the village is just the same as in the days of Rurik, the same
Petchenyegs and Polovtsi. It's nothing but being burnt down, starving,
and struggling against nature in every way. What was I saying? Yes! If
one thinks about it, you know, looks into it and analyses all this
hotchpotch, if you will allow me to call it so, it's not life but more
like a fire in a theatre! Any one who falls down or screams with terror,
or rushes about, is the worst enemy of good order; one must stand up and
look sharp, and not stir a hair! There's no time for whimpering and
busying oneself with trifles. When you have to deal with elemental
forces you must put out force against them, be firm and as unyielding as
a stone. Isn't that right, grandfather?" He turned to Ivan Ivanitch and
laughed. "I am no better than a woman myself; I am a limp rag, a flabby
creature, so I hate flabbiness. I can't endure petty feelings! One
mopes, another is frightened, a third will come straight in here and
say: 'Fie on you! Here you've guzzled a dozen courses and you talk about
the starving!' That's petty and stupid! A fourth will reproach you,
Eccellenza, for being rich. Excuse me, Eccellenza," he went on in a loud
voice, laying his hand on his heart, "but your having set our magistrate
the task of hunting day and night for your thieves--excuse me, that's
also petty on your part. I am a little drunk, so that's why I say this
now, but you know, it is petty!"
"Who's asking him to worry himself? I don't understand!" I said, getting
up.
I suddenly felt unbearably ashamed and mortified, and I walked round the
table.
"Who asks him to worry himself? I didn't ask him to.... Damn him!"
"They have arrested three men and let them go again. They turned out not
to be the right ones, and now they are looking for a fresh lot," said
Sobol, laughing. "It's too bad!"
"I did not ask him to worry himself," said I, almost crying with
excitement. "What's it all for? What's it all for? Well, supposing I was
wrong, supposing I have done wrong, why do they try to put me more in
the wrong?"
"Come, come, come, come!" said Sobol, trying to soothe me. "Come! I have
had a drop, that is why I said it. My tongue is my enemy. Come," he
sighed, "we have eaten and drunk wine, and now for a nap."
He got up from the table, kissed Ivan Ivanitch on the head, and
staggering from repletion, went out of the dining-room. Ivan Ivanitch
and I smoked in silence.
"I don't sleep after dinner, my dear," said Ivan Ivanitch, "but you have
a rest in the lounge-room."
I agreed. In the half-dark and warmly heated room they called the
lounge-room, there stood against the walls long, wide sofas, solid and
heavy, the work of Butyga the cabinet maker; on them lay high, soft,
white beds, probably made by the old woman in spectacles. On one of them
Sobol, without his coat and boots, already lay asleep with his face to
the back of the sofa; another bed was awaiting me. I took off my coat
and boots, and, overcome by fatigue, by the spirit of Butyga which
hovered over the quiet lounge-room, and by the light, caressing snore of
Sobol, I lay down submissively.
And at once I began dreaming of my wife, of her room, of the station-
master with his face full of hatred, the heaps of snow, a fire in the
theatre. I dreamed of the peasants who had stolen twenty sacks of rye
out of my barn.
"Anyway, it's a good thing the magistrate let them go," I said.
I woke up at the sound of my own voice, looked for a moment in
perplexity at Sobol's broad back, at the buckles of his waistcoat, at
his thick heels, then lay down again and fell asleep.
When I woke up the second time it was quite dark. Sobol was asleep.
There was peace in my heart, and I longed to make haste home. I dressed
and went out of the lounge-room. Ivan Ivanitch was sitting in a big arm-
chair in his study, absolutely motionless, staring at a fixed point, and
it was evident that he had been in the same state of petrifaction all
the while I had been asleep.
"Good!" I said, yawning. "I feel as though I had woken up after breaking
the fast at Easter. I shall often come and see you now. Tell me, did my
wife ever dine here?"
"So-ome-ti-mes... sometimes,"' muttered Ivan Ivanitch, making an effort
to stir. "She dined here last Saturday. Yes.... She likes me."
After a silence I said:
"Do you remember, Ivan Ivanitch, you told me I had a disagreeable
character and that it was difficult to get on with me? But what am I to
do to make my character different?"
"I don't know, my dear boy.... I'm a feeble old man, I can't advise
you.... Yes.... But I said that to you at the time because I am fond of
you and fond of your wife, and I was fond of your father.... Yes. I
shall soon die, and what need have I to conceal things from you or to
tell you lies? So I tell you: I am very fond of you, but I don't respect
you. No, I don't respect you."
He turned towards me and said in a breathless whisper:
"It's impossible to respect you, my dear fellow. You look like a real
man. You have the figure and deportment of the French President Carnot--I
saw a portrait of him the other day in an illustrated paper... yes....
You use lofty language, and you are clever, and you are high up in the
service beyond all reach, but haven't real soul, my dear boy... there's
no strength in it."
"A Scythian, in fact," I laughed. "But what about my wife? Tell me
something about my wife; you know her better."
I wanted to talk about my wife, but Sobol came in and prevented me.
"I've had a sleep and a wash," he said, looking at me naively. "I'll
have a cup of tea with some rum in it and go home."
VII
It was by now past seven. Besides Ivan Ivanitch, women servants, the old
dame in spectacles, the little girls and the peasant, all accompanied us
from the hall out on to the steps, wishing us good-bye and all sorts of