Short Stories by Chekhov
"No... I shall be at home before he is. He is on the line now, and he
will come back when the mail train brings him, and from here I can hear
when the train's coming...."
Agafya once more passed her hand over her forehead and looked away in
the direction in which Savka had vanished. The nightingale was singing.
Some night bird flew low down close to the ground and, noticing us, was
startled, fluttered its wings and flew across to the other side of the
river.
Soon the nightingale was silent, but Savka did not come back. Agafya got
up, took a few steps uneasily, and sat down again.
"What is he doing?" she could not refrain from saying. "The train's not
coming in to-morrow! I shall have to go away directly."
"Savka," I shouted. "Savka."
I was not answered even by an echo. Agafya moved uneasily and sat down
again.
"It's time I was going," she said in an agitated voice. "The train will
be here directly! I know when the trains come in."
The poor woman was not mistaken. Before a quarter of an hour had passed
a sound was heard in the distance.
Agafya kept her eyes fixed on the copse for a long time and moved her
hands impatiently.
"Why, where can he be?" she said, laughing nervously. "Where has the
devil carried him? I am going! I really must be going."
Meanwhile the noise was growing more and more distinct. By now one could
distinguish the rumble of the wheels from the heavy gasps of the engine.
Then we heard the whistle, the train crossed the bridge with a hollow
rumble... another minute and all was still.
"I'll wait one minute more," said Agafya, sitting down resolutely. "So
be it, I'll wait."
At last Savka appeared in the darkness. He walked noiselessly on the
crumbling earth of the kitchen gardens and hummed something softly to
himself.
"Here's a bit of luck; what do you say to that now?" he said gaily. "As
soon as I got up to the bush and began taking aim with my hand it left
off singing! Ah, the bald dog! I waited and waited to see when it would
begin again, but I had to give it up."
Savka flopped clumsily down to the ground beside Agafya and, to keep his
balance, clutched at her waist with both hands.
"Why do you look cross, as though your aunt were your mother?" he asked.
With all his soft-heartedness and good-nature, Savka despised women. He
behaved carelessly, condescendingly with them, and even stooped to
scornful laughter of their feelings for himself. God knows, perhaps this
careless, contemptuous manner was one of the causes of his irresistible
attraction for the village Dulcineas. He was handsome and well-built; in
his eyes there was always a soft friendliness, even when he was looking
at the women he so despised, but the fascination was not to be explained
by merely external qualities. Apart from his happy exterior and original
manner, one must suppose that the touching position of Savka as an
acknowledged failure and an unhappy exile from his own hut to the
kitchen gardens also had an influence upon the women.
"Tell the gentleman what you have come here for!" Savka went on, still
holding Agafya by the waist. "Come, tell him, you good married woman!
Ho-ho! Shall we have another drop of vodka, friend Agasha?"
I got up and, threading my way between the plots, I walked the length of
the kitchen garden. The dark beds looked like flattened-out graves. They
smelt of dug earth and the tender dampness of plants beginning to be
covered with dew.... A red light was still gleaming on the left. It
winked genially and seemed to smile.
I heard a happy laugh. It was Agafya laughing.
"And the train?" I thought. "The train has come in long ago."
Waiting a little longer, I went back to the shanty. Savka was sitting
motionless, his legs crossed like a Turk, and was softly, scarcely
audibly humming a song consisting of words of one syllable something
like: "Out on you, fie on you... I and you." Agafya, intoxicated by the
vodka, by Savka's scornful caresses, and by the stifling warmth of the
night, was lying on the earth beside him, pressing her face convulsively
to his knees. She was so carried away by her feelings that she did not
even notice my arrival.
"Agasha, the train has been in a long time," I said.
"It's time--it's time you were gone," Savka, tossing his head, took up my
thought. "What are you sprawling here for? You shameless hussy!"
Agafya started, took her head from his knees, glanced at me, and sank
down beside him again.
"You ought to have gone long ago," I said.
Agafya turned round and got up on one knee.... She was unhappy.... For
half a minute her whole figure, as far as I could distinguish it through
the darkness, expressed conflict and hesitation. There was an instant
when, seeming to come to herself, she drew herself up to get upon her
feet, but then some invincible and implacable force seemed to push her
whole body, and she sank down beside Savka again.
"Bother him!" she said, with a wild, guttural laugh, and reckless
determination, impotence, and pain could be heard in that laugh.
I strolled quietly away to the copse, and from there down to the river,
where our fishing lines were set. The river slept. Some soft, fluffy-
petalled flower on a tall stalk touched my cheek tenderly like a child
who wants to let one know it's awake. To pass the time I felt for one of
the lines and pulled at it. It yielded easily and hung limply--nothing
had been caught.... The further bank and the village could not be seen.
A light gleamed in one hut, but soon went out. I felt my way along the
bank, found a hollow place which I had noticed in the daylight, and sat
down in it as in an arm-chair. I sat there a long time.... I saw the
stars begin to grow misty and lose their brightness; a cool breath
passed over the earth like a faint sigh and touched the leaves of the
slumbering osiers....
"A-ga-fya!" a hollow voice called from the village. "Agafya!"
It was the husband, who had returned home, and in alarm was looking for
his wife in the village. At that moment there came the sound of
unrestrained laughter: the wife, forgetful of everything, sought in her
intoxication to make up by a few hours of happiness for the misery
awaiting her next day.
I dropped asleep.
When I woke up Savka was sitting beside me and lightly shaking my
shoulder. The river, the copse, both banks, green and washed, trees and
fields--all were bathed in bright morning light. Through the slim trunks
of the trees the rays of the newly risen sun beat upon my back.
"So that's how you catch fish?" laughed Savka. "Get up!"
I got up, gave a luxurious stretch, and began greedily drinking in the
damp and fragrant air.
"Has Agasha gone?" I asked.
"There she is," said Savka, pointing in the direction of the ford.
I glanced and saw Agafya. Dishevelled, with her kerchief dropping off
her head, she was crossing the river, holding up her skirt. Her legs
were scarcely moving....
"The cat knows whose meat it has eaten," muttered Savka, screwing up his
eyes as he looked at her. "She goes with her tail hanging down.... They
are sly as cats, these women, and timid as hares.... She didn't go,
silly thing, in the evening when we told her to! Now she will catch it,
and they'll flog me again at the peasant court... all on account of the
women...."
Agafya stepped upon the bank and went across the fields to the village.
At first she walked fairly boldly, but soon terror and excitement got
the upper hand; she turned round fearfully, stopped and took breath.
"Yes, you are frightened!" Savka laughed mournfully, looking at the
bright green streak left by Agafya in the dewy grass. "She doesn't want
to go! Her husband's been standing waiting for her for a good hour....
Did you see him?"
Savka said the last words with a smile, but they sent a chill to my
heart. In the village, near the furthest hut, Yakov was standing in the
road, gazing fixedly at his returning wife. He stood without stirring,
and was as motionless as a post. What was he thinking as he looked at
her? What words was he preparing to greet her with? Agafya stood still a
little while, looked round once more as though expecting help from us,
and went on. I have never seen anyone, drunk or sober, move as she did.
Agafya seemed to be shrivelled up by her husband's eyes. At one time she
moved in zigzags, then she moved her feet up and down without going
forward, bending her knees and stretching out her hands, then she
staggered back. When she had gone another hundred paces she looked round
once more and sat down.
"You ought at least to hide behind a bush..." I said to Savka. "If the
husband sees you..."
"He knows, anyway, who it is Agafya has come from.... The women don't go
to the kitchen garden at night for cabbages--we all know that."
I glanced at Savka's face. It was pale and puckered up with a look of
fastidious pity such as one sees in the faces of people watching
tortured animals.
"What's fun for the cat is tears for the mouse..." he muttered.
Agafya suddenly jumped up, shook her head, and with a bold step went
towards her husband. She had evidently plucked up her courage and made
up her mind.
AT CHRISTMAS TIME I
|"WHAT shall I write?" said Yegor, and he dipped his pen in the ink.
Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years. Her daughter Yefimya
had gone after her wedding to Petersburg, had sent them two letters, and
since then seemed to vanish out of their lives; there had been no sight
nor sound of her. And whether the old woman were milking her cow at
dawn, or heating her stove, or dozing at night, she was always thinking
of one and the same thing--what was happening to Yefimya, whether she
were alive out yonder. She ought to have sent a letter, but the old
father could not write, and there was no one to write.
But now Christmas had come, and Vasilisa could not bear it any longer,
and went to the tavern to Yegor, the brother of the innkeeper's wife,
who had sat in the tavern doing nothing ever since he came back from the
army; people said that he could write letters very well if he were
properly paid. Vasilisa talked to the cook at the tavern, then to the
mistress of the house, then to Yegor himself. They agreed upon fifteen
kopecks.
And now--it happened on the second day of the holidays, in the tavern
kitchen--Yegor was sitting at the table, holding the pen in his hand.
Vasilisa was standing before him, pondering with an expression of
anxiety and woe on her face. Pyotr, her husband, a very thin old man
with a brownish bald patch, had come with her; he stood looking straight
before him like a blind man. On the stove a piece of pork was being
braised in a saucepan; it was spurting and hissing, and seemed to be
actually saying: "Flu-flu-flu." It was stifling.
"What am I to write?" Yegor asked again.
"What?" asked Vasilisa, looking at him angrily and suspiciously. "Don't
worry me! You are not writing for nothing; no fear, you'll be paid for
it. Come, write: 'To our dear son-in-law, Andrey Hrisanfitch, and to our
only beloved daughter, Yefimya Petrovna, with our love we send a low bow
and our parental blessing abiding for ever.'"
"Written; fire away."
"'And we wish them a happy Christmas; we are alive and well, and I wish
you the same, please the Lord... the Heavenly King.'"
Vasilisa pondered and exchanged glances with the old man.
"'And I wish you the same, please the Lord the Heavenly King,'" she
repeated, beginning to cry.
She could say nothing more. And yet before, when she lay awake thinking
at night, it had seemed to her that she could not get all she had to say
into a dozen letters. Since the time when her daughter had gone away
with her husband much water had flowed into the sea, the old people had