Short Stories by Chekhov
fish at all. And take the rivers now... the rivers are drying up, for
sure."
"It is true; they are drying up."
"To be sure, that's what I say. Every year they are shallower and
shallower, and there are not the deep holes there used to be. And do you
see the bushes yonder?" the old man asked, pointing to one side. "Beyond
them is an old river-bed; it's called a backwater. In my father's time
the Pestchanka flowed there, but now look; where have the evil spirits
taken it to? It changes its course, and, mind you, it will go on
changing till such time as it has dried up altogether. There used to be
marshes and ponds beyond Kurgasovo, and where are they now? And what has
become of the streams? Here in this very wood we used to have a stream
flowing, and such a stream that the peasants used to set creels in it
and caught pike; wild ducks used to spend the winter by it, and nowadays
there is no water in it worth speaking of, even at the spring floods.
Yes, brother, look where you will, things are bad everywhere.
Everywhere!"
A silence followed. Meliton sank into thought, with his eyes fixed on
one spot. He wanted to think of some one part of nature as yet untouched
by the all-embracing ruin. Spots of light glistened on the mist and the
slanting streaks of rain as though on opaque glass, and immediately died
away again--it was the rising sun trying to break through the clouds and
peep at the earth.
"Yes, the forests, too..." Meliton muttered.
"The forests, too," the shepherd repeated. "They cut them down, and they
catch fire, and they wither away, and no new ones are growing. Whatever
does grow up is cut down at once; one day it shoots up and the next it
has been cut down--and so on without end till nothing's left. I have kept
the herds of the commune ever since the time of Freedom, good man;
before the time of Freedom I was shepherd of the master's herds. I have
watched them in this very spot, and I can't remember a summer day in all
my life that I have not been here. And all the time I have been
observing the works of God. I have looked at them in my time till I know
them, and it is my opinion that all things growing are on the decline.
Whether you take the rye, or the vegetables, or flowers of any sort,
they are all going the same way."
"But people have grown better," observed the bailiff.
"In what way better?"
"Cleverer."
"Cleverer, maybe, that's true, young man; but what's the use of that?
What earthly good is cleverness to people on the brink of ruin? One can
perish without cleverness. What's the good of cleverness to a huntsman
if there is no game? What I think is that God has given men brains and
taken away their strength. People have grown weak, exceedingly weak.
Take me, for instance... I am not worth a halfpenny, I am the humblest
peasant in the whole village, and yet, young man, I have strength. Mind
you, I am in my seventies, and I tend my herd day in and day out, and
keep the night watch, too, for twenty kopecks, and I don't sleep, and I
don't feel the cold; my son is cleverer than I am, but put him in my
place and he would ask for a raise next day, or would be going to the
doctors. There it is. I eat nothing but bread, for 'Give us this day our
daily bread,' and my father ate nothing but bread, and my grandfather;
but the peasant nowadays must have tea and vodka and white loaves, and
must sleep from sunset to dawn, and he goes to the doctor and pampers
himself in all sorts of ways. And why is it? He has grown weak; he has
not the strength to endure. If he wants to stay awake, his eyes
close--there is no doing anything."
"That's true," Meliton agreed; "the peasant is good for nothing
nowadays."
"It's no good hiding what is wrong; we get worse from year to year. And
if you take the gentry into consideration, they've grown feebler even
more than the peasants have. The gentleman nowadays has mastered
everything; he knows what he ought not to know, and what is the sense of
it? It makes you feel pitiful to look at him.... He is a thin, puny
little fellow, like some Hungarian or Frenchman; there is no dignity nor
air about him; it's only in name he is a gentleman. There is no place
for him, poor dear, and nothing for him to do, and there is no making
out what he wants. Either he sits with a hook catching fish, or he lolls
on his back reading, or trots about among the peasants saying all sorts
of things to them, and those that are hungry go in for being clerks. So
he spends his life in vain. And he has no notion of doing something real
and useful. The gentry in old days were half of them generals, but
nowadays they are--a poor lot."
"They are badly off nowadays," said Meliton.
"They are poorer because God has taken away their strength. You can't go
against God."
Meliton stared at a fixed point again. After thinking a little he heaved
a sigh as staid, reasonable people do sigh, shook his head, and said:
"And all because of what? We have sinned greatly, we have forgotten
God.. and it seems that the time has come for all to end. And, after
all, the world can't last for ever--it's time to know when to take
leave."
The shepherd sighed and, as though wishing to cut short an unpleasant
conversation, he walked away from the birch-tree and began silently
reckoning over the cows.
"Hey-hey-hey!" he shouted. "Hey-hey-hey! Bother you, the plague take
you! The devil has taken you into the thicket. Tu-lu-lu!"
With an angry face he went into the bushes to collect his herd. Meliton
got up and sauntered slowly along the edge of the wood. He looked at the
ground at his feet and pondered; he still wanted to think of something
which had not yet been touched by death. Patches of light crept upon the
slanting streaks of rain again; they danced on the tops of the trees and
died away among the wet leaves. Damka found a hedgehog under a bush, and
wanting to attract her master's attention to it, barked and howled.
"Did you have an eclipse or not?" the shepherd called from the bushes.
"Yes, we had," answered Meliton.
"Ah! Folks are complaining all about that there was one. It shows there
is disorder even in the heavens! It's not for nothing.... Hey-hey-hey!
Hey!"
Driving his herd together to the edge of the wood, the shepherd leaned
against the birch-tree, looked up at the sky, without haste took his
pipe from his bosom and began playing. As before, he played mechanically
and took no more than five or six notes; as though the pipe had come
into his hands for the first time, the sounds floated from it
uncertainly, with no regularity, not blending into a tune, but to
Meliton, brooding on the destruction of the world, there was a sound in
it of something very depressing and revolting which he would much rather
not have heard. The highest, shrillest notes, which quivered and broke,
seemed to be weeping disconsolately, as though the pipe were sick and
frightened, while the lowest notes for some reason reminded him of the
mist, the dejected trees, the grey sky. Such music seemed in keeping
with the weather, the old man and his sayings.
Meliton wanted to complain. He went up to the old man and, looking at
his mournful, mocking face and at the pipe, muttered:
"And life has grown worse, grandfather. It is utterly impossible to
live. Bad crops, want.... Cattle plague continually, diseases of all
sorts.... We are crushed by poverty."
The bailiff's puffy face turned crimson and took a dejected, womanish
expression. He twirled his fingers as though seeking words to convey his
vague feeling and went on:
"Eight children, a wife... and my mother still living, and my whole
salary ten roubles a month and to board myself. My wife has become a
Satan from poverty.... I go off drinking myself. I am a sensible, steady
man; I have education. I ought to sit at home in peace, but I stray
about all day with my gun like a dog because it is more than I can
stand; my home is hateful to me!"
Feeling that his tongue was uttering something quite different from what
he wanted to say, the bailiff waved his hand and said bitterly:
"If the world's going to end I wish it would make haste about it.
There's no need to drag it out and make folks miserable for nothing...."
The old man took the pipe from his lips and, screwing up one eye, looked
into its little opening. His face was sad and covered with thick drops
like tears. He smiled and said:
"It's a pity, my friend! My goodness, what a pity! The earth, the
forest, the sky, the beasts of all sorts--all this has been created, you
know, adapted; they all have their intelligence. It is all going to
ruin. And most of all I am sorry for people."
There was the sound in the wood of heavy rain coming nearer. Meliton
looked in the direction of the sound, did up all his buttons, and said:
"I am going to the village. Good-bye, grandfather. What is your name?"
"Luka the Poor."
"Well, good-bye, Luka! Thank you for your good words. Damka, ici!"
After parting from the shepherd Meliton made his way along the edge of
the wood, and then down hill to a meadow which by degrees turned into a
marsh. There was a squelch of water under his feet, and the rusty marsh
sedge, still green and juicy, drooped down to the earth as though afraid
of being trampled underfoot. Beyond the marsh, on the bank of the
Pestchanka, of which the old man had spoken, stood a row of willows, and
beyond the willows a barn looked dark blue in the mist. One could feel
the approach of that miserable, utterly inevitable season, when the
fields grow dark and the earth is muddy and cold, when the weeping
willow seems still more mournful and tears trickle down its stem, and
only the cranes fly away from the general misery, and even they, as
though afraid of insulting dispirited nature by the expression of their
happiness, fill the air with their mournful, dreary notes.
Meliton plodded along to the river, and heard the sounds of the pipe
gradually dying away behind him. He still wanted to complain. He looked
dejectedly about him, and he felt insufferably sorry for the sky and the
earth and the sun and the woods and his Damka, and when the highest
drawn-out note of the pipe floated quivering in the air, like a voice
weeping, he felt extremely bitter and resentful of the impropriety in
the conduct of nature.
The high note quivered, broke off, and the pipe was silent.
AGAFYA
DURING my stay in the district of S. I often used to go to see the
watchman Savva Stukatch, or simply Savka, in the kitchen gardens of
Dubovo. These kitchen gardens were my favorite resort for so-called
"mixed" fishing, when one goes out without knowing what day or hour one
may return, taking with one every sort of fishing tackle as well as a
store of provisions. To tell the truth, it was not so much the fishing
that attracted me as the peaceful stroll, the meals at no set time, the
talk with Savka, and being for so long face to face with the calm summer
nights. Savka was a young man of five-and-twenty, well grown and
handsome, and as strong as a flint. He had the reputation of being a
sensible and reasonable fellow. He could read and write, and very rarely
drank, but as a workman this strong and healthy young man was not worth
a farthing. A sluggish, overpowering sloth was mingled with the strength
in his muscles, which were strong as cords. Like everyone else in his
village, he lived in his own hut, and had his share of land, but neither
tilled it nor sowed it, and did not work at any sort of trade. His old
mother begged alms at people's windows and he himself lived like a bird
of the air; he did not know in the morning what he would eat at midday.
It was not that he was lacking in will, or energy, or feeling for his
mother; it was simply that he felt no inclination for work and did not