Short Stories by Chekhov
lived feeling bereaved, and sighed heavily at night as though they had
buried their daughter. And how many events had occurred in the village
since then, how many marriages and deaths! How long the winters had
been! How long the nights!
"It's hot," said Yegor, unbuttoning his waistcoat. "It must be seventy
degrees. What more?" he asked.
The old people were silent.
"What does your son-in-law do in Petersburg?" asked Yegor.
"He was a soldier, my good friend," the old man answered in a weak
voice. "He left the service at the same time as you did. He was a
soldier, and now, to be sure, he is at Petersburg at a hydropathic
establishment. The doctor treats the sick with water. So he, to be sure,
is house-porter at the doctor's."
"Here it is written down," said the old woman, taking a letter out of
her pocket. "We got it from Yefimya, goodness knows when. Maybe they are
no longer in this world."
Yegor thought a little and began writing rapidly:
"At the present time"--he wrote--"since your destiny through your own
doing allotted you to the Military Career, we counsel you to look into
the Code of Disciplinary Offences and Fundamental Laws of the War
Office, and you will see in that law the Civilization of the Officials
of the War Office."
He wrote and kept reading aloud what was written, while Vasilisa
considered what she ought to write: how great had been their want the
year before, how their corn had not lasted even till Christmas, how they
had to sell their cow. She ought to ask for money, ought to write that
the old father was often ailing and would soon no doubt give up his soul
to God... but how to express this in words? What must be said first and
what afterwards?
"Take note," Yegor went on writing, "in volume five of the Army
Regulations soldier is a common noun and a proper one, a soldier of the
first rank is called a general, and of the last a private...."
The old man stirred his lips and said softly:
"It would be all right to have a look at the grandchildren."
"What grandchildren?" asked the old woman, and she looked angrily at
him; "perhaps there are none."
"Well, but perhaps there are. Who knows?"
"And thereby you can judge," Yegor hurried on, "what is the enemy
without and what is the enemy within. The foremost of our enemies within
is Bacchus." The pen squeaked, executing upon the paper flourishes like
fish-hooks. Yegor hastened and read over every line several times. He
sat on a stool sprawling his broad feet under the table, well-fed,
bursting with health, with a coarse animal face and a red bull neck. He
was vulgarity itself: coarse, conceited, invincible, proud of having
been born and bred in a pot-house; and Vasilisa quite understood the
vulgarity, but could not express it in words, and could only look
angrily and suspiciously at Yegor. Her head was beginning to ache, and
her thoughts were in confusion from the sound of his voice and his
unintelligible words, from the heat and the stuffiness, and she said
nothing and thought nothing, but simply waited for him to finish
scribbling. But the old man looked with full confidence. He believed in
his old woman who had brought him there, and in Yegor; and when he had
mentioned the hydropathic establishment it could be seen that he
believed in the establishment and the healing efficacy of water.
Having finished the letter, Yegor got up and read the whole of it
through from the beginning. The old man did not understand, but he
nodded his head trustfully.
"That's all right; it is smooth..." he said. "God give you health.
That's all right...."
They laid on the table three five-kopeck pieces and went out of the
tavern; the old man looked immovably straight before him as though he
were blind, and perfect trustfulness was written on his face; but as
Vasilisa came out of the tavern she waved angrily at the dog, and said
angrily:
"Ugh, the plague."
The old woman did not sleep all night; she was disturbed by thoughts,
and at daybreak she got up, said her prayers, and went to the station to
send off the letter.
It was between eight and nine miles to the station.
II
Dr. B. O. Mozelweiser's hydropathic establishment worked on New Year's
Day exactly as on ordinary days; the only difference was that the
porter, Andrey Hrisanfitch, had on a uniform with new braiding, his
boots had an extra polish, and he greeted every visitor with "A Happy
New Year to you!"
It was the morning; Andrey Hrisanfitch was standing at the door, reading
the newspaper. Just at ten o'clock there arrived a general, one of the
habitual visitors, and directly after him the postman; Andrey
Hrisanfitch helped the general off with his great-coat, and said:
"A Happy New Year to your Excellency!"
"Thank you, my good fellow; the same to you."
And at the top of the stairs the general asked, nodding towards the door
(he asked the same question every day and always forgot the answer):
"And what is there in that room?"
"The massage room, your Excellency."
When the general's steps had died away Andrey Hrisanfitch looked at the
post that had come, and found one addressed to himself. He tore it open,
read several lines, then, looking at the newspaper, he walked without
haste to his own room, which was downstairs close by at the end of the
passage. His wife Yefimya was sitting on the bed, feeding her baby;
another child, the eldest, was standing by, laying its curly head on her
knee; a third was asleep on the bed.
Going into the room, Andrey gave his wife the letter and said:
"From the country, I suppose."
Then he walked out again without taking his eyes from the paper. He
could hear Yefimya with a shaking voice reading the first lines. She
read them and could read no more; these lines were enough for her. She
burst into tears, and hugging her eldest child, kissing him, she began
saying--and it was hard to say whether she were laughing or crying:
"It's from granny, from grandfather," she said. "From the country....
The Heavenly Mother, Saints and Martyrs! The snow lies heaped up under
the roofs now... the trees are as white as white. The boys slide on
little sledges... and dear old bald grandfather is on the stove... and
there is a little yellow dog.... My own darlings!"
Andrey Hrisanfitch, hearing this, recalled that his wife had on three or
four occasions given him letters and asked him to send them to the
country, but some important business had always prevented him; he had
not sent them, and the letters somehow got lost.
"And little hares run about in the fields," Yefimya went on chanting,
kissing her boy and shedding tears. "Grandfather is kind and gentle;
granny is good, too--kind-hearted. They are warm-hearted in the country,
they are God-fearing... and there is a little church in the village; the
peasants sing in the choir. Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother and Defender,
take us away from here!"
Andrey Hrisanfitch returned to his room to smoke a little till there was
another ring at the door, and Yefimya ceased speaking, subsided, and
wiped her eyes, though her lips were still quivering. She was very much
frightened of him--oh, how frightened of him! She trembled and was
reduced to terror by the sound of his steps, by the look in his eyes,
and dared not utter a word in his presence.
Andrey Hrisanfitch lighted a cigarette, but at that very moment there
was a ring from upstairs. He put out his cigarette, and, assuming a very
grave face, hastened to his front door.
The general was coming downstairs, fresh and rosy from his bath.
"And what is there in that room?" he asked, pointing to a door.
Andrey Hrisanfitch put his hands down swiftly to the seams of his
trousers, and pronounced loudly:
"Charcot douche, your Excellency!"
GUSEV I
IT was getting dark; it would soon be night.
Gusev, a discharged soldier, sat up in his hammock and said in an
undertone:
"I say, Pavel Ivanitch. A soldier at Sutchan told me: while they were
sailing a big fish came into collision with their ship and stove a hole
in it."
The nondescript individual whom he was addressing, and whom everyone in
the ship's hospital called Pavel Ivanitch, was silent, as though he had
not heard.
And again a stillness followed... The wind frolicked with the rigging,
the screw throbbed, the waves lashed, the hammocks creaked, but the ear
had long ago become accustomed to these sounds, and it seemed that
everything around was asleep and silent. It was dreary. The three
invalids--two soldiers and a sailor--who had been playing cards all the
day were asleep and talking in their dreams.
It seemed as though the ship were beginning to rock. The hammock slowly
rose and fell under Gusev, as though it were heaving a sigh, and this
was repeated once, twice, three times.... Something crashed on to the
floor with a clang: it must have been a jug falling down.
"The wind has broken loose from its chain..." said Gusev, listening.
This time Pavel Ivanitch cleared his throat and answered irritably:
"One minute a vessel's running into a fish, the next, the wind's
breaking loose from its chain. Is the wind a beast that it can break
loose from its chain?"
"That's how christened folk talk."
"They are as ignorant as you are then. They say all sorts of things. One
must keep a head on one's shoulders and use one's reason. You are a
senseless creature."
Pavel Ivanitch was subject to sea-sickness. When the sea was rough he
was usually ill-humoured, and the merest trifle would make him
irritable. And in Gusev's opinion there was absolutely nothing to be
vexed about. What was there strange or wonderful, for instance, in the
fish or in the wind's breaking loose from its chain? Suppose the fish
were as big as a mountain and its back were as hard as a sturgeon: and
in the same way, supposing that away yonder at the end of the world
there stood great stone walls and the fierce winds were chained up to
the walls... if they had not broken loose, why did they tear about all
over the sea like maniacs, and struggle to escape like dogs? If they
were not chained up, what did become of them when it was calm?
Gusev pondered for a long time about fishes as big as a mountain and
stout, rusty chains, then he began to feel dull and thought of his
native place to which he was returning after five years' service in the
East. He pictured an immense pond covered with snow.... On one side of
the pond the red-brick building of the potteries with a tall chimney and
clouds of black smoke; on the other side--a village.... His brother
Alexey comes out in a sledge from the fifth yard from the end; behind
him sits his little son Vanka in big felt over-boots, and his little
girl Akulka, also in big felt boots. Alexey has been drinking, Vanka is
laughing, Akulka's face he could not see, she had muffled herself up.
"You never know, he'll get the children frozen..." thought Gusev. "Lord
send them sense and judgment that they may honour their father and
mother and not be wiser than their parents."
"They want re-soleing," a delirious sailor says in a bass voice. "Yes,
yes!"
Gusev's thoughts break off, and instead of a pond there suddenly appears
apropos of nothing a huge bull's head without eyes, and the horse and
sledge are not driving along, but are whirling round and round in a
cloud of smoke. But still he was glad he had seen his own folks. He held
his breath from delight, shudders ran all over him, and his fingers
twitched.
"The Lord let us meet again," he muttered feverishly, but he at once
opened his eyes and sought in the darkness for water.
He drank and lay back, and again the sledge was moving, then again the
bull's head without eyes, smoke, clouds.... And so on till daybreak.
II
The first outline visible in the darkness was a blue circle--the little