Short Stories by Chekhov
myself pretty thoroughly. Such catastrophes in life as fame, the rank of
a general, the transition from comfort to living beyond our means,
acquaintance with celebrities, etc., have scarcely affected me, and I
have remained intact and unashamed; but on my wife and Liza, who have
not been through the same hardening process and are weak, all this has
fallen like an avalanche of snow, overwhelming them. Gnekker and the
young ladies talk of fugues, of counterpoint, of singers and pianists,
of Bach and Brahms, while my wife, afraid of their suspecting her of
ignorance of music, smiles to them sympathetically and mutters: "That's
exquisite... really! You don't say so!..." Gnekker eats with solid
dignity, jests with solid dignity, and condescendingly listens to the
remarks of the young ladies. From time to time he is moved to speak in
bad French, and then, for some reason or other, he thinks it necessary
to address me as "Votre Excellence."
And I am glum. Evidently I am a constraint to them and they are a
constraint to me. I have never in my earlier days had a close knowledge
of class antagonism, but now I am tormented by something of that sort. I
am on the lookout for nothing but bad qualities in Gnekker; I quickly
find them, and am fretted at the thought that a man not of my circle is
sitting here as my daughter's suitor. His presence has a bad influence
on me in other ways, too. As a rule, when I am alone or in the society
of people I like, never think of my own achievements, or, if I do recall
them, they seem to me as trivial as though I had only completed my
studies yesterday; but in the presence of people like Gnekker my
achievements in science seem to be a lofty mountain the top of which
vanishes into the clouds, while at its foot Gnekkers are running about
scarcely visible to the naked eye.
After dinner I go into my study and there smoke my pipe, the only one in
the whole day, the sole relic of my old bad habit of smoking from
morning till night. While I am smoking my wife comes in and sits down to
talk to me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what our
conversation is going to be about.
"I must talk to you seriously, Nikolay Stepanovitch," she begins. "I
mean about Liza.... Why don't you pay attention to it?"
"To what?"
"You pretend to notice nothing. But that is not right. We can't shirk
responsibility.... Gnekker has intentions in regard to Liza.... What do
you say?"
"That he is a bad man I can't say, because I don't know him, but that I
don't like him I have told you a thousand times already."
"But you can't... you can't!"
She gets up and walks about in excitement.
"You can't take up that attitude to a serious step," she says. "When it
is a question of our daughter's happiness we must lay aside all personal
feeling. I know you do not like him.... Very good... if we refuse him
now, if we break it all off, how can you be sure that Liza will not have
a grievance against us all her life? Suitors are not plentiful nowadays,
goodness knows, and it may happen that no other match will turn up....
He is very much in love with Liza, and she seems to like him.... Of
course, he has no settled position, but that can't be helped. Please
God, in time he will get one. He is of good family and well off."
"Where did you learn that?"
"He told us so. His father has a large house in Harkov and an estate in
the neighbourhood. In short, Nikolay Stepanovitch, you absolutely must
go to Harkov."
"What for?"
"You will find out all about him there.... You know the professors
there; they will help you. I would go myself, but I am a woman. I
cannot...."
"I am not going to Harkov," I say morosely.
My wife is frightened, and a look of intense suffering comes into her
face.
"For God's sake, Nikolay Stepanovitch," she implores me, with tears in
her voice--"for God's sake, take this burden off me! I am so worried!"
It is painful for me to look at her.
"Very well, Varya," I say affectionately, "if you wish it, then
certainly I will go to Harkov and do all you want."
She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes off to her room to
cry, and I am left alone.
A little later lights are brought in. The armchair and the lamp-shade
cast familiar shadows that have long grown wearisome on the walls and on
the floor, and when I look at them I feel as though the night had come
and with it my accursed sleeplessness. I lie on my bed, then get up and
walk about the room, then lie down again. As a rule it is after dinner,
at the approach of evening, that my nervous excitement reaches its
highest pitch. For no reason I begin crying and burying my head in the
pillow. At such times I am afraid that some one may come in; I am afraid
of suddenly dying; I am ashamed of my tears, and altogether there is
something insufferable in my soul. I feel that I can no longer bear the
sight of my lamp, of my books, of the shadows on the floor. I cannot
bear the sound of the voices coming from the drawing-room. Some force
unseen, uncomprehended, is roughly thrusting me out of my flat. I leap
up hurriedly, dress, and cautiously, that my family may not notice, slip
out into the street. Where am I to go?
The answer to that question has long been ready in my brain. To Katya.
III
As a rule she is lying on the sofa or in a lounge-chair reading. Seeing
me, she raises her head languidly, sits up, and shakes hands.
"You are always lying down," I say, after pausing and taking breath.
"That's not good for you. You ought to occupy yourself with something."
"What?"
"I say you ought to occupy yourself in some way."
"With what? A woman can be nothing but a simple workwoman or an
actress."
"Well, if you can't be a workwoman, be an actress."
She says nothing.
"You ought to get married," I say, half in jest.
"There is no one to marry. There's no reason to, either."
"You can't live like this."
"Without a husband? Much that matters; I could have as many men as I
like if I wanted to."
"That's ugly, Katya."
"What is ugly?"
"Why, what you have just said."
Noticing that I am hurt and wishing to efface the disagreeable
impression, Katya says:
"Let us go; come this way."
She takes me into a very snug little room, and says, pointing to the
writing-table:
"Look... I have got that ready for you. You shall work here. Come here
every day and bring your work with you. They only hinder you there at
home. Will you work here? Will you like to?"
Not to wound her by refusing, I answer that I will work here, and that I
like the room very much. Then we both sit down in the snug little room
and begin talking.
The warm, snug surroundings and the presence of a sympathetic person
does not, as in old days, arouse in me a feeling of pleasure, but an
intense impulse to complain and grumble. I feel for some reason that if
I lament and complain I shall feel better.
"Things are in a bad way with me, my dear--very bad...."
"What is it?"
"You see how it is, my dear; the best and holiest right of kings is the
right of mercy. And I have always felt myself a king, since I have made
unlimited use of that right. I have never judged, I have been indulgent,
I have readily forgiven every one, right and left. Where others have
protested and expressed indignation, I have only advised and persuaded.
All my life it has been my endeavour that my society should not be a
burden to my family, to my students, to my colleagues, to my servants.
And I know that this attitude to people has had a good influence on all
who have chanced to come into contact with me. But now I am not a king.
Something is happening to me that is only excusable in a slave; day and
night my brain is haunted by evil thoughts, and feelings such as I never
knew before are brooding in my soul. I am full of hatred, and contempt,
and indignation, and loathing, and dread. I have become excessively
severe, exacting, irritable, ungracious, suspicious. Even things that in
old days would have provoked me only to an unnecessary jest and a good-
natured laugh now arouse an oppressive feeling in me. My reasoning, too,
has undergone a change: in old days I despised money; now I harbour an
evil feeling, not towards money, but towards the rich as though they
were to blame: in old days I hated violence and tyranny, but now I hate
the men who make use of violence, as though they were alone to blame,
and not all of us who do not know how to educate each other. What is the
meaning of it? If these new ideas and new feelings have come from a
change of convictions, what is that change due to? Can the world have
grown worse and I better, or was I blind before and indifferent? If this
change is the result of a general decline of physical and intellectual
powers--I am ill, you know, and every day I am losing weight--my position
is pitiable; it means that my new ideas are morbid and abnormal; I ought
to be ashamed of them and think them of no consequence...."
"Illness has nothing to do with it," Katya interrupts me; "it's simply
that your eyes are opened, that's all. You have seen what in old days,
for some reason, you refused to see. To my thinking, what you ought to
do first of all, is to break with your family for good, and go away."
"You are talking nonsense."
"You don't love them; why should you force your feelings? Can you call
them a family? Nonentities! If they died today, no one would notice
their absence tomorrow."
Katya despises my wife and Liza as much as they hate her. One can hardly
talk at this date of people's having a right to despise one another. But
if one looks at it from Katya's standpoint and recognizes such a right,
one can see she has as much right to despise my wife and Liza as they
have to hate her.
"Nonentities," she goes on. "Have you had dinner today? How was it they
did not forget to tell you it was ready? How is it they still remember
your existence?"
"Katya," I say sternly, "I beg you to be silent."
"You think I enjoy talking about them? I should be glad not to know them
at all. Listen, my dear: give it all up and go away. Go abroad. The
sooner the better."
"What nonsense! What about the University?"
"The University, too. What is it to you? There's no sense in it, anyway.
You have been lecturing for thirty years, and where are your pupils? Are
many of them celebrated scientific men? Count them up! And to multiply
the doctors who exploit ignorance and pile up hundreds of thousands for
themselves, there is no need to be a good and talented man. You are not
wanted."
"Good heavens! how harsh you are!" I cry in horror. "How harsh you are!
Be quiet or I will go away! I don't know how to answer the harsh things
you say!"
The maid comes in and summons us to tea. At the samovar our
conversation, thank God, changes. After having had my grumble out, I
have a longing to give way to another weakness of old age,
reminiscences. I tell Katya about my past, and to my great astonishment
tell her incidents which, till then, I did not suspect of being still
preserved in my memory, and she listens to me with tenderness, with
pride, holding her breath. I am particularly fond of telling her how I
was educated in a seminary and dreamed of going to the University.
"At times I used to walk about our seminary garden..." I would tell her.
"If from some faraway tavern the wind floated sounds of a song and the
squeaking of an accordion, or a sledge with bells dashed by the garden-
fence, it was quite enough to send a rush of happiness, filling not only
my heart, but even my stomach, my legs, my arms.... I would listen to
the accordion or the bells dying away in the distance and imagine myself
a doctor, and paint pictures, one better than another. And here, as you
see, my dreams have come true. I have had more than I dared to dream of.