Short Stories by Chekhov
people used to come to him to be cured of the ague: from the village,
and the hamlets, and the Armenian settlement. They came almost every
day, and no one called them devils. But if anyone once a year comes in
bad weather to warm himself, you wonder at it, you silly, and take all
sorts of notions into your head at once."
His wife's logic touched Savely. He stood with his bare feet wide apart,
bent his head, and pondered. He was not firmly convinced yet of the
truth of his suspicions, and his wife's genuine and unconcerned tone
quite disconcerted him. Yet after a moment's thought he wagged his head
and said:
"It's not as though they were old men or bandy-legged cripples; it's
always young men who want to come for the night.... Why is that? And if
they only wanted to warm themselves----But they are up to mischief. No,
woman; there's no creature in this world as cunning as your female sort!
Of real brains you've not an ounce, less than a starling, but for
devilish slyness--oo-oo-oo! The Queen of Heaven protect us! There is the
postman's bell! When the storm was only beginning I knew all that was in
your mind. That's your witchery, you spider!"
"Why do you keep on at me, you heathen?" His wife lost her patience at
last. "Why do you keep sticking to it like pitch?"
"I stick to it because if anything--God forbid--happens to-night... do you
hear?... if anything happens to-night, I'll go straight off to-morrow
morning to Father Nikodim and tell him all about it. 'Father Nikodim,' I
shall say, 'graciously excuse me, but she is a witch.' 'Why so?' 'H'm!
do you want to know why?' 'Certainly....' And I shall tell him. And woe
to you, woman! Not only at the dread Seat of Judgment, but in your
earthly life you'll be punished, too! It's not for nothing there are
prayers in the breviary against your kind!"
Suddenly there was a knock at the window, so loud and unusual that
Savely turned pale and almost dropped backwards with fright. His wife
jumped up, and she, too, turned pale.
"For God's sake, let us come in and get warm!" they heard in a trembling
deep bass. "Who lives here? For mercy's sake! We've lost our way."
"Who are you?" asked Raissa, afraid to look at the window.
"The post," answered a second voice.
"You've succeeded with your devil's tricks," said Savely with a wave of
his hand. "No mistake; I am right! Well, you'd better look out!"
The sexton jumped on to the bed in two skips, stretched himself on the
feather mattress, and sniffing angrily, turned with his face to the
wall. Soon he felt a draught of cold air on his back. The door creaked
and the tall figure of a man, plastered over with snow from head to
foot, appeared in the doorway. Behind him could be seen a second figure
as white.
"Am I to bring in the bags?" asked the second in a hoarse bass voice.
"You can't leave them there." Saying this, the first figure began
untying his hood, but gave it up, and pulling it off impatiently with
his cap, angrily flung it near the stove. Then taking off his greatcoat,
he threw that down beside it, and, without saying good-evening, began
pacing up and down the hut.
He was a fair-haired, young postman wearing a shabby uniform and black
rusty-looking high boots. After warming himself by walking to and fro,
he sat down at the table, stretched out his muddy feet towards the sacks
and leaned his chin on his fist. His pale face, reddened in places by
the cold, still bore vivid traces of the pain and terror he had just
been through. Though distorted by anger and bearing traces of recent
suffering, physical and moral, it was handsome in spite of the melting
snow on the eyebrows, moustaches, and short beard.
"It's a dog's life!" muttered the postman, looking round the walls and
seeming hardly able to believe that he was in the warmth. "We were
nearly lost! If it had not been for your light, I don't know what would
have happened. Goodness only knows when it will all be over! There's no
end to this dog's life! Where have we come?" he asked, dropping his
voice and raising his eyes to the sexton's wife.
"To the Gulyaevsky Hill on General Kalinovsky's estate," she answered,
startled and blushing.
"Do you hear, Stepan?" The postman turned to the driver, who was wedged
in the doorway with a huge mail-bag on his shoulders. "We've got to
Gulyaevsky Hill."
"Yes... we're a long way out." Jerking out these words like a hoarse
sigh, the driver went out and soon after returned with another bag, then
went out once more and this time brought the postman's sword on a big
belt, of the pattern of that long flat blade with which Judith is
portrayed by the bedside of Holofernes in cheap woodcuts. Laying the
bags along the wall, he went out into the outer room, sat down there and
lighted his pipe.
"Perhaps you'd like some tea after your journey?" Raissa inquired.
"How can we sit drinking tea?" said the postman, frowning. "We must make
haste and get warm, and then set off, or we shall be late for the mail
train. We'll stay ten minutes and then get on our way. Only be so good
as to show us the way."
"What an infliction it is, this weather!" sighed Raissa.
"H'm, yes.... Who may you be?"
"We? We live here, by the church.... We belong to the clergy.... There
lies my husband. Savely, get up and say good-evening! This used to be a
separate parish till eighteen months ago. Of course, when the gentry
lived here there were more people, and it was worth while to have the
services. But now the gentry have gone, and I need not tell you there's
nothing for the clergy to live on. The nearest village is Markovka, and
that's over three miles away. Savely is on the retired list now, and has
got the watchman's job; he has to look after the church...."
And the postman was immediately informed that if Savely were to go to
the General's lady and ask her for a letter to the bishop, he would be
given a good berth. "But he doesn't go to the General's lady because he
is lazy and afraid of people. We belong to the clergy all the same..."
added Raissa.
"What do you live on?" asked the postman.
"There's a kitchen garden and a meadow belonging to the church. Only we
don't get much from that," sighed Raissa. "The old skinflint, Father
Nikodim, from the next village celebrates here on St. Nicolas' Day in
the winter and on St. Nicolas' Day in the summer, and for that he takes
almost all the crops for himself. There's no one to stick up for us!"
"You are lying," Savely growled hoarsely. "Father Nikodim is a saintly
soul, a luminary of the Church; and if he does take it, it's the
regulation!"
"You've a cross one!" said the postman, with a grin. "Have you been
married long?"
"It was three years ago the last Sunday before Lent. My father was
sexton here in the old days, and when the time came for him to die, he
went to the Consistory and asked them to send some unmarried man to
marry me that I might keep the place. So I married him."
"Aha, so you killed two birds with one stone!" said the postman, looking
at Savely's back. "Got wife and job together."
Savely wriggled his leg impatiently and moved closer to the wall. The
postman moved away from the table, stretched, and sat down on the mail-
bag. After a moment's thought he squeezed the bags with his hands,
shifted his sword to the other side, and lay down with one foot touching
the floor.
"It's a dog's life," he muttered, putting his hands behind his head and
closing his eyes. "I wouldn't wish a wild Tatar such a life."
Soon everything was still. Nothing was audible except the sniffing of
Savely and the slow, even breathing of the sleeping postman, who uttered
a deep prolonged "h-h-h" at every breath. From time to time there was a
sound like a creaking wheel in his throat, and his twitching foot
rustled against the bag.
Savely fidgeted under the quilt and looked round slowly. His wife was
sitting on the stool, and with her hands pressed against her cheeks was
gazing at the postman's face. Her face was immovable, like the face of
some one frightened and astonished.
"Well, what are you gaping at?" Savely whispered angrily.
"What is it to you? Lie down!" answered his wife without taking her eyes
off the flaxen head.
Savely angrily puffed all the air out of his chest and turned abruptly
to the wall. Three minutes later he turned over restlessly again, knelt
up on the bed, and with his hands on the pillow looked askance at his
wife. She was still sitting motionless, staring at the visitor. Her
cheeks were pale and her eyes were glowing with a strange fire. The
sexton cleared his throat, crawled on his stomach off the bed, and going
up to the postman, put a handkerchief over his face.
"What's that for?" asked his wife.
"To keep the light out of his eyes."
"Then put out the light!"
Savely looked distrustfully at his wife, put out his lips towards the
lamp, but at once thought better of it and clasped his hands.
"Isn't that devilish cunning?" he exclaimed. "Ah! Is there any creature
slyer than womenkind?"
"Ah, you long-skirted devil!" hissed his wife, frowning with vexation.
"You wait a bit!"
And settling herself more comfortably, she stared at the postman again.
It did not matter to her that his face was covered. She was not so much
interested in his face as in his whole appearance, in the novelty of
this man. His chest was broad and powerful, his hands were slender and
well formed, and his graceful, muscular legs were much comelier than
Savely's stumps. There could be no comparison, in fact.
"Though I am a long-skirted devil," Savely said after a brief interval,
"they've no business to sleep here.... It's government work; we shall
have to answer for keeping them. If you carry the letters, carry them,
you can't go to sleep.... Hey! you!" Savely shouted into the outer room.
"You, driver. What's your name? Shall I show you the way? Get up;
postmen mustn't sleep!"
And Savely, thoroughly roused, ran up to the postman and tugged him by
the sleeve.
"Hey, your honour, if you must go, go; and if you don't, it's not the
thing.... Sleeping won't do."
The postman jumped up, sat down, looked with blank eyes round the hut,
and lay down again.
"But when are you going?" Savely pattered away. "That's what the post is
for--to get there in good time, do you hear? I'll take you."
The postman opened his eyes. Warmed and relaxed by his first sweet
sleep, and not yet quite awake, he saw as through a mist the white neck
and the immovable, alluring eyes of the sexton's wife. He closed his
eyes and smiled as though he had been dreaming it all.
"Come, how can you go in such weather!" he heard a soft feminine voice;
"you ought to have a sound sleep and it would do you good!"
"And what about the post?" said Savely anxiously. "Who's going to take
the post? Are you going to take it, pray, you?"
The postman opened his eyes again, looked at the play of the dimples on
Raissa's face, remembered where he was, and understood Savely. The
thought that he had to go out into the cold darkness sent a chill
shudder all down him, and he winced.
"I might sleep another five minutes," he said, yawning. "I shall be
late, anyway...."
"We might be just in time," came a voice from the outer room. "All days
are not alike; the train may be late for a bit of luck."
The postman got up, and stretching lazily began putting on his coat.
Savely positively neighed with delight when he saw his visitors were
getting ready to go.
"Give us a hand," the driver shouted to him as he lifted up a mail-bag.
The sexton ran out and helped him drag the post-bags into the yard. The
postman began undoing the knot in his hood. The sexton's wife gazed into
his eyes, and seemed trying to look right into his soul.
"You ought to have a cup of tea..." she said.