Short Stories by Chekhov
stood round and looked on, and it seemed to them that they saw the
disease being drawn out of Nikolay; and Nikolay, too, watched how the
cups suckling at his breast gradually filled with dark blood, and felt
as though there really were something coming out of him, and smiled with
pleasure.
"It's a good thing," said the tailor. "Please God, it will do you good."
The Jew put on twelve cups and then another twelve, drank some tea, and
went away. Nikolay began shivering; his face looked drawn, and, as the
women expressed it, shrank up like a fist; his fingers turned blue. He
wrapped himself up in a quilt and in a sheepskin, but got colder and
colder. Towards the evening he began to be in great distress; asked to
be laid on the ground, asked the tailor not to smoke; then he subsided
under the sheepskin and towards morning he died.
IX
Oh, what a grim, what a long winter!
Their own grain did not last beyond Christmas, and they had to buy
flour. Kiryak, who lived at home now, was noisy in the evenings,
inspiring terror in everyone, and in the mornings he suffered from
headache and was ashamed; and he was a pitiful sight. In the stall the
starved cows bellowed day and night--a heart-rending sound to Granny and
Marya. And as ill-luck would have it, there was a sharp frost all the
winter, the snow drifted in high heaps, and the winter dragged on. At
Annunciation there was a regular blizzard, and there was a fall of snow
at Easter.
But in spite of it all the winter did end. At the beginning of April
there came warm days and frosty nights. Winter would not give way, but
one warm day overpowered it at last, and the streams began to flow and
the birds began to sing. The whole meadow and the bushes near the river
were drowned in the spring floods, and all the space between Zhukovo and
the further side was filled up with a vast sheet of water, from which
wild ducks rose up in flocks here and there. The spring sunset, flaming
among gorgeous clouds, gave every evening something new, extraordinary,
incredible--just what one does not believe in afterwards, when one sees
those very colours and those very clouds in a picture.
The cranes flew swiftly, swiftly, with mournful cries, as though they
were calling themselves. Standing on the edge of the ravine, Olga looked
a long time at the flooded meadow, at the sunshine, at the bright
church, that looked as though it had grown younger; and her tears flowed
and her breath came in gasps from her passionate longing to go away, to
go far away to the end of the world. It was already settled that she
should go back to Moscow to be a servant, and that Kiryak should set off
with her to get a job as a porter or something. Oh, to get away quickly!
As soon as it dried up and grew warm they got ready to set off. Olga and
Sasha, with wallets on their backs and shoes of plaited bark on their
feet, came out before daybreak: Marya came out, too, to see them on
their way. Kiryak was not well, and was kept at home for another week.
For the last time Olga prayed at the church and thought of her husband,
and though she did not shed tears, her face puckered up and looked ugly
like an old woman's. During the winter she had grown thinner and
plainer, and her hair had gone a little grey, and instead of the old
look of sweetness and the pleasant smile on her face, she had the
resigned, mournful expression left by the sorrows she had been through,
and there was something blank and irresponsive in her eyes, as though
she did not hear what was said. She was sorry to part from the village
and the peasants. She remembered how they had carried out Nikolay, and
how a requiem had been ordered for him at almost every hut, and all had
shed tears in sympathy with her grief. In the course of the summer and
the winter there had been hours and days when it seemed as though these
people lived worse than the beasts, and to live with them was terrible;
they were coarse, dishonest, filthy, and drunken; they did not live in
harmony, but quarrelled continually, because they distrusted and feared
and did not respect one another. Who keeps the tavern and makes the
people drunken? A peasant. Who wastes and spends on drink the funds of
the commune, of the schools, of the church? A peasant. Who stole from
his neighbours, set fire to their property, gave false witness at the
court for a bottle of vodka? At the meetings of the Zemstvo and other
local bodies, who was the first to fall foul of the peasants? A peasant.
Yes, to live with them was terrible; but yet, they were human beings,
they suffered and wept like human beings, and there was nothing in their
lives for which one could not find excuse. Hard labour that made the
whole body ache at night, the cruel winters, the scanty harvests, the
overcrowding; and they had no help and none to whom they could look for
help. Those of them who were a little stronger and better off could be
no help, as they were themselves coarse, dishonest, drunken, and abused
one another just as revoltingly; the paltriest little clerk or official
treated the peasants as though they were tramps, and addressed even the
village elders and church wardens as inferiors, and considered they had
a right to do so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or good example be
given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, and idle persons who only visit
the village in order to insult, to despoil, and to terrorize? Olga
remembered the pitiful, humiliated look of the old people when in the
winter Kiryak had been taken to be flogged.... And now she felt sorry
for all these people, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept
looking back at the huts.
After walking two miles with them Marya said good-bye, then kneeling,
and falling forward with her face on the earth, she began wailing:
"Again I am left alone. Alas, for poor me! poor, unhappy!..."
And she wailed like this for a long time, and for a long way Olga and
Sasha could still see her on her knees, bowing down to someone at the
side and clutching her head in her hands, while the rooks flew over her
head.
The sun rose high; it began to get hot. Zhukovo was left far behind.
Walking was pleasant. Olga and Sasha soon forgot both the village and
Marya; they were gay and everything entertained them. Now they came upon
an ancient barrow, now upon a row of telegraph posts running one after
another into the distance and disappearing into the horizon, and the
wires hummed mysteriously. Then they saw a homestead, all wreathed in
green foliage; there came a scent from it of dampness, of hemp, and it
seemed for some reason that happy people lived there. Then they came
upon a horse's skeleton whitening in solitude in the open fields. And
the larks trilled unceasingly, the corncrakes called to one another, and
the landrail cried as though someone were really scraping at an old iron
rail.
At midday Olga and Sasha reached a big village. There in the broad
street they met the little old man who was General Zhukov's cook. He was
hot, and his red, perspiring bald head shone in the sunshine. Olga and
he did not recognize each other, then looked round at the same moment,
recognized each other, and went their separate ways without saying a
word. Stopping near the hut which looked newest and most prosperous,
Olga bowed down before the open windows, and said in a loud, thin,
chanting voice:
"Good Christian folk, give alms, for Christ's sake, that God's blessing
may be upon you, and that your parents may be in the Kingdom of Heaven
in peace eternal."
"Good Christian folk," Sasha began chanting, "give, for Christ's sake,
that God's blessing, the Heavenly Kingdom..."
The Chorus Girl and Other Stories
THE CHORUS GIRL
ONE day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice was
stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the
outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and stifling.
Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of inferior port,
felt ill-humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored and waiting for the
heat of the day to be over in order to go for a walk.
All at once there was a sudden ring at the door. Kolpakov, who was
sitting with his coat off, in his slippers, jumped up and looked
inquiringly at Pasha.
"It must be the postman or one of the girls," said the singer.
Kolpakov did not mind being found by the postman or Pasha's lady
friends, but by way of precaution gathered up his clothes and went into
the next room, while Pasha ran to open the door. To her great surprise
in the doorway stood, not the postman and not a girl friend, but an
unknown woman, young and beautiful, who was dressed like a lady, and
from all outward signs was one.
The stranger was pale and was breathing heavily as though she had been
running up a steep flight of stairs.
"What is it?" asked Pasha.
The lady did not at once answer. She took a step forward, slowly looked
about the room, and sat down in a way that suggested that from fatigue,
or perhaps illness, she could not stand; then for a long time her pale
lips quivered as she tried in vain to speak.
"Is my husband here?" she asked at last, raising to Pasha her big eyes
with their red tear-stained lids.
"Husband?" whispered Pasha, and was suddenly so frightened that her
hands and feet turned cold. "What husband?" she repeated, beginning to
tremble.
"My husband, . . . Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov."
"N . . . no, madam. . . . I . . . I don't know any husband."
A minute passed in silence. The stranger several times passed her
handkerchief over her pale lips and held her breath to stop her inward
trembling, while Pasha stood before her motionless, like a post, and
looked at her with astonishment and terror.
"So you say he is not here?" the lady asked, this time speaking with a
firm voice and smiling oddly.
"I . . . I don't know who it is you are asking about."
"You are horrid, mean, vile . . ." the stranger muttered, scanning Pasha
with hatred and repulsion. "Yes, yes . . . you are horrid. I am very,
very glad that at last I can tell you so!"
Pasha felt that on this lady in black with the angry eyes and white
slender fingers she produced the impression of something horrid and
unseemly, and she felt ashamed of her chubby red cheeks, the pock-mark
on her nose, and the fringe on her forehead, which never could be combed
back. And it seemed to her that if she had been thin, and had had no
powder on her face and no fringe on her forehead, then she could have
disguised the fact that she was not "respectable," and she would not
have felt so frightened and ashamed to stand facing this unknown,
mysterious lady.
"Where is my husband?" the lady went on. "Though I don't care whether he
is here or not, but I ought to tell you that the money has been missed,
and they are looking for Nikolay Petrovitch. . . . They mean to arrest
him. That's your doing!"
The lady got up and walked about the room in great excitement. Pasha
looked at her and was so frightened that she could not understand.
"He'll be found and arrested to-day," said the lady, and she gave a sob,
and in that sound could be heard her resentment and vexation. "I know
who has brought him to this awful position! Low, horrid creature!
Loathsome, mercenary hussy!" The lady's lips worked and her nose
wrinkled up with disgust. "I am helpless, do you hear, you low woman? .
. . I am helpless; you are stronger than I am, but there is One to
defend me and my children! God sees all! He is just! He will punish you
for every tear I have shed, for all my sleepless nights! The time will
come; you will think of me! . . ."
Silence followed again. The lady walked about the room and wrung her
hands, while Pasha still gazed blankly at her in amazement, not
understanding and expecting something terrible.