Short Stories by Chekhov
"I dare say! Scoundrels always have money. . . . Why are you afraid of
people, then? So you must have! I'd like to take and rob you for spite,
to teach you a lesson! . . ."
Artyom slipped noiselessly from the stove, lighted a candle, and sat
down under the holy image. He was pale and did not take his eyes off the
hunter.
"Here, I'll rob you," said the hunter, getting up. "What do you think
about it? Fellows like you want a lesson. Tell me, where is your money
hidden?"
Artyom drew his legs up under him and blinked. "What are you wriggling
for? Where is your money hidden? Have you lost your tongue, you fool?
Why don't you answer?"
The young man jumped up and went up to the forester.
"He is blinking like an owl! Well? Give me your money, or I will shoot
you with my gun."
"Why do you keep on at me?" squealed the forester, and big tears rolled
from his eyes. "What's the reason of it? God sees all! You will have to
answer, for every word you say, to God. You have no right whatever to
ask for my money."
The young man looked at Artyom's tearful face, frowned, and walked up
and down the hut, then angrily clapped his cap on his head and picked up
his gun.
"Ugh! . . . ugh! . . . it makes me sick to look at you," he filtered
through his teeth. "I can't bear the sight of you. I won't sleep in your
house, anyway. Good-bye! Hey, Flerka!"
The door slammed and the troublesome visitor went out with his dog. . .
. Artyom bolted the door after him, crossed himself, and lay down.
AN ACTOR'S END
SHTCHIPTSOV, the "heavy father" and "good-hearted simpleton," a tall and
thick-set old man, not so much distinguished by his talents as an actor
as by his exceptional physical strength, had a desperate quarrel with
the manager during the performance, and just when the storm of words was
at its height felt as though something had snapped in his chest. Zhukov,
the manager, as a rule began at the end of every heated discussion to
laugh hysterically and to fall into a swoon; on this occasion, however,
Shtchiptsov did not remain for this climax, but hurried home. The high
words and the sensation of something ruptured in his chest so agitated
him as he left the theatre that he forgot to wash off his paint, and did
nothing but take off his beard.
When he reached his hotel room, Shtchiptsov spent a long time pacing up
and down, then sat down on the bed, propped his head on his fists, and
sank into thought. He sat like that without stirring or uttering a sound
till two o'clock the next afternoon, when Sigaev, the comic man, walked
into his room.
"Why is it you did not come to the rehearsal, Booby Ivanitch?" the comic
man began, panting and filling the room with fumes of vodka. "Where have
you been?"
Shtchiptsov made no answer, but simply stared at the comic man with
lustreless eyes, under which there were smudges of paint.
"You might at least have washed your phiz!" Sigaev went on. "You are a
disgraceful sight! Have you been boozing, or . . . are you ill, or what?
But why don't you speak? I am asking you: are you ill?"
Shtchiptsov did not speak. In spite of the paint on his face, the comic
man could not help noticing his striking pallor, the drops of sweat on
his forehead, and the twitching of his lips. His hands and feet were
trembling too, and the whole huge figure of the "good-natured simpleton"
looked somehow crushed and flattened. The comic man took a rapid glance
round the room, but saw neither bottle nor flask nor any other
suspicious vessel.
"I say, Mishutka, you know you are ill!" he said in a flutter. "Strike
me dead, you are ill! You don't look yourself!"
Shtchiptsov remained silent and stared disconsolately at the floor.
"You must have caught cold," said Sigaev, taking him by the hand. "Oh,
dear, how hot your hands are! What's the trouble?"
"I wa-ant to go home," muttered Shtchiptsov.
"But you are at home now, aren't you?"
"No. . . . To Vyazma. . . ."
"Oh, my, anywhere else! It would take you three years to get to your
Vyazma. . . . What? do you want to go and see your daddy and mummy? I'll
be bound, they've kicked the bucket years ago, and you won't find their
graves. . . ."
"My ho-ome's there."
"Come, it's no good giving way to the dismal dumps. These neurotic
feelings are the limit, old man. You must get well, for you have to play
Mitka in 'The Terrible Tsar' to-morrow. There is nobody else to do it.
Drink something hot and take some castor-oil? Have you got the money for
some castor-oil? Or, stay, I'll run and buy some."
The comic man fumbled in his pockets, found a fifteen-kopeck piece, and
ran to the chemist's. A quarter of an hour later he came back.
"Come, drink it," he said, holding the bottle to the "heavy father's"
mouth. "Drink it straight out of the bottle. . . . All at a go! That's
the way. . . . Now nibble at a clove that your very soul mayn't stink of
the filthy stuff."
The comic man sat a little longer with his sick friend, then kissed him
tenderly, and went away. Towards evening the jeune premier, Brama-
Glinsky, ran in to see Shtchiptsov. The gifted actor was wearing a pair
of prunella boots, had a glove on his left hand, was smoking a cigar,
and even smelt of heliotrope, yet nevertheless he strongly suggested a
traveller cast away in some land in which there were neither baths nor
laundresses nor tailors. . . .
"I hear you are ill?" he said to Shtchiptsov, twirling round on his
heel. "What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you, really? . . ."
Shtchiptsov did not speak nor stir.
"Why don't you speak? Do you feel giddy? Oh well, don't talk, I won't
pester you . . . don't talk. . . ."
Brama-Glinsky (that was his stage name, in his passport he was called
Guskov) walked away to the window, put his hands in his pockets, and
fell to gazing into the street. Before his eyes stretched an immense
waste, bounded by a grey fence beside which ran a perfect forest of last
year's burdocks. Beyond the waste ground was a dark, deserted factory,
with windows boarded up. A belated jackdaw was flying round the chimney.
This dreary, lifeless scene was beginning to be veiled in the dusk of
evening.
"I must go home!" the jeune premier heard.
"Where is home?"
"To Vyazma . . . to my home. . . ."
"It is a thousand miles to Vyazma . . . my boy," sighed Brama-Glinsky,
drumming on the window-pane. "And what do you want to go to Vyazma for?"
"I want to die there."
"What next! Now he's dying! He has fallen ill for the first time in his
life, and already he fancies that his last hour is come. . . . No, my
boy, no cholera will carry off a buffalo like you. You'll live to be a
hundred. . . . Where's the pain?"
"There's no pain, but I . . . feel . . ."
"You don't feel anything, it all comes from being too healthy. Your
surplus energy upsets you. You ought to get jolly tight--drink, you know,
till your whole inside is topsy-turvy. Getting drunk is wonderfully
restoring. . . . Do you remember how screwed you were at Rostov on the
Don? Good Lord, the very thought of it is alarming! Sashka and I
together could only just carry in the barrel, and you emptied it alone,
and even sent for rum afterwards. . . . You got so drunk you were
catching devils in a sack and pulled a lamp-post up by the roots. Do you
remember? Then you went off to beat the Greeks. . . ."
Under the influence of these agreeable reminiscences Shtchiptsov's face
brightened a little and his eyes began to shine.
"And do you remember how I beat Savoikin the manager?" he muttered,
raising his head. "But there! I've beaten thirty-three managers in my
time, and I can't remember how many smaller fry. And what managers they
were! Men who would not permit the very winds to touch them! I've beaten
two celebrated authors and one painter!"
"What are you crying for?"
"At Kherson I killed a horse with my fists. And at Taganrog some roughs
fell upon me at night, fifteen of them. I took off their caps and they
followed me, begging: 'Uncle, give us back our caps.' That's how I used
to go on."
"What are you crying for, then, you silly?"
"But now it's all over . . . I feel it. If only I could go to Vyazma!"
A pause followed. After a silence Shtchiptsov suddenly jumped up and
seized his cap. He looked distraught.
"Good-bye! I am going to Vyazma!" he articulated, staggering.
"And the money for the journey?"
"H'm! . . . I shall go on foot!"
"You are crazy. . . ."
The two men looked at each other, probably because the same thought--of
the boundless plains, the unending forests and swamps--struck both of
them at once.
"Well, I see you have gone off your head," the jeune premier commented.
"I'll tell you what, old man. . . . First thing, go to bed, then drink
some brandy and tea to put you into a sweat. And some castor-oil, of
course. Stay, where am I to get some brandy?"
Brama-Glinsky thought a minute, then made up his mind to go to a
shopkeeper called Madame Tsitrinnikov to try and get it from her on
tick: who knows? perhaps the woman would feel for them and let them have
it. The jeune premier went off, and half an hour later returned with a
bottle of brandy and some castor-oil. Shtchiptsov was sitting
motionless, as before, on the bed, gazing dumbly at the floor. He drank
the castor-oil offered him by his friend like an automaton, with no
consciousness of what he was doing. Like an automaton he sat afterwards
at the table, and drank tea and brandy; mechanically he emptied the
whole bottle and let the jeune premier put him to bed. The latter
covered him up with a quilt and an overcoat, advised him to get into a
perspiration, and went away.
The night came on; Shtchiptsov had drunk a great deal of brandy, but he
did not sleep. He lay motionless under the quilt and stared at the dark
ceiling; then, seeing the moon looking in at the window, he turned his
eyes from the ceiling towards the companion of the earth, and lay so
with open eyes till the morning. At nine o'clock in the morning Zhukov,
the manager, ran in.
"What has put it into your head to be ill, my angel?" he cackled,
wrinkling up his nose. "Aie, aie! A man with your physique has no
business to be ill! For shame, for shame! Do you know, I was quite
frightened. 'Can our conversation have had such an effect on him?' I
wondered. My dear soul, I hope it's not through me you've fallen ill!
You know you gave me as good . . . er . . . And, besides, comrades can
never get on without words. You called me all sorts of names . . . and
have gone at me with your fists too, and yet I am fond of you! Upon my
soul, I am. I respect you and am fond of you! Explain, my angel, why I
am so fond of you. You are neither kith nor kin nor wife, but as soon as
I heard you had fallen ill it cut me to the heart."
Zhukov spent a long time declaring his affection, then fell to kissing
the invalid, and finally was so overcome by his feelings that he began
laughing hysterically, and was even meaning to fall into a swoon, but,
probably remembering that he was not at home nor at the theatre, put off
the swoon to a more convenient opportunity and went away.
Soon after him Adabashev, the tragic actor, a dingy, short-sighted
individual who talked through his nose, made his appearance. . . . For a
long while he looked at Shtchiptsov, for a long while he pondered, and
at last he made a discovery.
"Do you know what, Mifa?" he said, pronouncing through his nose "f"
instead of "sh," and assuming a mysterious expression. "Do you know
what? You ought to have a dose of castor-oil!"
Shtchiptsov was silent. He remained silent, too, a little later as the
tragic actor poured the loathsome oil into his mouth. Two hours later
Yevlampy, or, as the actors for some reason called him, Rigoletto, the