Short Stories by Chekhov
sleep. I am like a bit of rotten timber nowadays, my beams are crumbling
under me. Ho-ho-ho! I suppose it's time I was dead."
And he gave a gulp. Old Tsybukin did not finish his tea but sat on a
little, pondering; and his face looked as though he were listening to
the footsteps of Crutch, who was far away down the street.
"Sashka the blacksmith told a lie, I expect," said Aksinya, guessing his
thoughts.
He went into the house and came back a little later with a parcel; he
opened it, and there was the gleam of roubles--perfectly new coins. He
took one, tried it with his teeth, flung it on the tray; then flung down
another.
"The roubles really are false..." he said, looking at Aksinya and
seeming perplexed. "These are those Anisim brought, his present. Take
them, daughter," he whispered, and thrust the parcel into her hands.
"Take them and throw them into the well... confound them! And mind there
is no talk about it. Harm might come of it.... Take away the samovar,
put out the light."
Lipa and her mother sitting in the barn saw the lights go out one after
the other; only overhead in Varvara's room there were blue and red lamps
gleaming, and a feeling of peace, content, and happy ignorance seemed to
float down from there. Praskovya could never get used to her daughter's
being married to a rich man, and when she came she huddled timidly in
the outer room with a deprecating smile on her face, and tea and sugar
were sent out to her. And Lipa, too, could not get used to it either,
and after her husband had gone away she did not sleep in her bed, but
lay down anywhere to sleep, in the kitchen or the barn, and every day
she scrubbed the floor or washed the clothes, and felt as though she
were hired by the day. And now, on coming back from the service, they
drank tea in the kitchen with the cook, then they went into the barn and
lay down on the ground between the sledge and the wall. It was dark here
and smelt of harness. The lights went out about the house, then they
could hear the deaf man shutting up the shop, the mowers settling
themselves about the yard to sleep. In the distance at the Hrymin
Juniors' they were playing on the expensive concertina.... Praskovya and
Lipa began to go to sleep.
And when they were awakened by somebody's steps it was bright moonlight;
at the entrance of the barn stood Aksinya with her bedding in her arms.
"Maybe it's a bit cooler here," she said; then she came in and lay down
almost in the doorway so that the moonlight fell full upon her.
She did not sleep, but breathed heavily, tossing from side to side with
the heat, throwing off almost all the bedclothes. And in the magic
moonlight what a beautiful, what a proud animal she was! A little time
passed, and then steps were heard again: the old father, white all over,
appeared in the doorway.
"Aksinya," he called, "are you here?"
"Well?" she responded angrily.
"I told you just now to throw the money into the well, have you done
so?"
"What next, throwing property into the water! I gave them to the
mowers...."
"Oh my God!" cried the old man, dumbfounded and alarmed. "Oh my God! you
wicked woman...."
He flung up his hands and went out, and he kept saying something as he
went away. And a little later Aksinya sat up and sighed heavily with
annoyance, then got up and, gathering up her bedclothes in her arms,
went out.
"Why did you marry me into this family, mother?" said Lipa.
"One has to be married, daughter. It was not us who ordained it."
And a feeling of inconsolable woe was ready to take possession of them.
But it seemed to them that someone was looking down from the height of
the heavens, out of the blue from where the stars were seeing everything
that was going on in Ukleevo, watching over them. And however great was
wickedness, still the night was calm and beautiful, and still in God's
world there is and will be truth and justice as calm and beautiful, and
everything on earth is only waiting to be made one with truth and
justice, even as the moonlight is blended with the night.
And both, huddling close to one another, fell asleep comforted.
VI
News had come long before that Anisim had been put in prison for coining
and passing bad money. Months passed, more than half a year passed, the
long winter was over, spring had begun, and everyone in the house and
the village had grown used to the fact that Anisim was in prison. And
when anyone passed by the house or the shop at night he would remember
that Anisim was in prison; and when they rang at the churchyard for some
reason, that, too, reminded them that he was in prison awaiting trial.
It seemed as though a shadow had fallen upon the house. The house looked
darker, the roof was rustier, the heavy, iron-bound door into the shop,
which was painted green, was covered with cracks, or, as the deaf man
expressed it, "blisters"; and old Tsybukin seemed to have grown dingy,
too. He had given up cutting his hair and beard, and looked shaggy. He
no longer sprang jauntily into his chaise, nor shouted to beggars: "God
will provide!" His strength was on the wane, and that was evident in
everything. People were less afraid of him now, and the police officer
drew up a formal charge against him in the shop though he received his
regular bribe as before; and three times the old man was called up to
the town to be tried for illicit dealing in spirits, and the case was
continually adjourned owing to the non-appearance of witnesses, and old
Tsybukin was worn out with worry.
He often went to see his son, hired somebody, handed in a petition to
somebody else, presented a holy banner to some church. He presented the
governor of the prison in which Anisim was confined with a silver glass
stand with a long spoon and the inscription: "The soul knows its right
measure."
"There is no one to look after things for us," said Varvara. "Tut,
tut.... You ought to ask someone of the gentlefolks, they would write to
the head officials.... At least they might let him out on bail! Why wear
the poor fellow out?"
She, too, was grieved, but had grown stouter and whiter; she lighted the
lamps before the ikons as before, and saw that everything in the house
was clean, and regaled the guests with jam and apple cheese. The deaf
man and Aksinya looked after the shop. A new project was in progress--a
brickyard in Butyokino--and Aksinya went there almost every day in the
chaise. She drove herself, and when she met acquaintances she stretched
out her neck like a snake out of the young rye, and smiled naively and
enigmatically. Lipa spent her time playing with the baby which had been
born to her before Lent. It was a tiny, thin, pitiful little baby, and
it was strange that it should cry and gaze about and be considered a
human being, and even be called Nikifor. He lay in his swinging cradle,
and Lipa would walk away towards the door and say, bowing to him:
"Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!"
And she would rush at him and kiss him. Then she would walk away to the
door, bow again, and say:
'Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!
And he kicked up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with
laughter like the carpenter Elizarov's.
At last the day of the trial was fixed. Tsybukin went away five days
before. Then they heard that the peasants called as witnesses had been
fetched; their old workman who had received a notice to appear went too.
The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had passed, and Tsybukin was
still not back, and there was no news. Towards the evening on Tuesday
Varvara was sitting at the open window, listening for her husband to
come. In the next room Lipa was playing with her baby. She was tossing
him up in her arms and saying enthusiastically:
"You will grow up ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we
shall go out to work together! We shall go out to work together!"
"Come, come," said Varvara, offended. "Go out to work, what an idea, you
silly girl! He will be a merchant...!"
Lipa sang softly, but a minute later she forgot and again:
"You will grow ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we'll go
out to work together."
"There she is at it again!"
Lipa, with Nikifor in her arms, stood still in the doorway and asked:
"Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she
went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Who is
he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb,
but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do nothing,
he can't talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes."
Varvara was listening; the sound of the evening train coming in to the
station reached her. Had her husband come? She did not hear and she did
not heed what Lipa was saying, she had no idea how the time passed, but
only trembled all over--not from dread, but intense curiosity. She saw a
cart full of peasants roll quickly by with a rattle. It was the
witnesses coming back from the station. When the cart passed the shop
the old workman jumped out and walked into the yard. She could hear him
being greeted in the yard and being asked some questions....
"Deprivation of rights and all his property," he said loudly, "and six
years' penal servitude in Siberia."
She could see Aksinya come out of the shop by the back way; she had just
been selling kerosene, and in one hand held a bottle and in the other a
can, and in her mouth she had some silver coins.
"Where is father?" she asked, lisping.
"At the station," answered the labourer. "'When it gets a little
darker,' he said, 'then I shall come.'"
And when it became known all through the household that Anisim was
sentenced to penal servitude, the cook in the kitchen suddenly broke
into a wail as though at a funeral, imagining that this was demanded by
the proprieties:
"There is no one to care for us now you have gone, Anisim Grigoritch,
our bright falcon...."
The dogs began barking in alarm. Varvara ran to the window, and rushing
about in distress, shouted to the cook with all her might, straining her
voice:
"Sto-op, Stepanida, sto-op! Don't harrow us, for Christ's sake!"
They forgot to set the samovar, they could think of nothing. Only Lipa
could not make out what it was all about and went on playing with her
baby.
When the old father arrived from the station they asked him no
questions. He greeted them and walked through all the rooms in silence;
he had no supper.
"There was no one to see about things..." Varvara began when they were
alone. "I said you should have asked some of the gentry, you would not
heed me at the time.... A petition would..."
"I saw to things," said her husband with a wave of his hand. "When
Anisim was condemned I went to the gentleman who was defending him.
'It's no use now,' he said, 'it's too late'; and Anisim said the same;
it's too late. But all the same as I came out of the court I made an
agreement with a lawyer, I paid him something in advance. I'll wait a
week and then I will go again. It is as God wills."
Again the old man walked through all the rooms, and when he went back to
Varvara he said:
"I must be ill. My head's in a sort of... fog. My thoughts are in a
maze."
He closed the door that Lipa might not hear, and went on softly:
"I am unhappy about my money. Do you remember on Low Sunday before his
wedding Anisim's bringing me some new roubles and half-roubles? One
parcel I put away at the time, but the others I mixed with my own money.
When my uncle Dmitri Filatitch--the kingdom of heaven be his--was alive,
he used constantly to go journeys to Moscow and to the Crimea to buy
goods. He had a wife, and this same wife, when he was away buying goods,
used to take up with other men. She had half a dozen children. And when