Short Stories by Chekhov
to all who asked, and not so much from good nature or confidence in
people as from exaggerated gentlemanliness as though he would say: "Take
it and feel how comme il faut I am!" By the time I made his acquaintance
he had got into debt himself, had learned what it was like to have a
second mortgage on his land, and had sunk so deeply into difficulties
that there was no chance of his ever getting out of them again. There
were days when he had no dinner, and went about with an empty cigar-
holder, but he was always seen clean and fashionably dressed, and always
smelt strongly of ylang-ylang.
The prince's second misfortune was his absolute solitariness. He was not
married, he had no friends nor relations. His silent and reserved
character and his comme il faut deportment, which became the more
conspicuous the more anxious he was to conceal his poverty, prevented
him from becoming intimate with people. For love affairs he was too
heavy, spiritless, and cold, and so rarely got on with women. . . .
When we reached the forest this prince and I got out of the chaise and
walked along a narrow woodland path which was hidden among huge ferns.
But before we had gone a hundred paces a tall, lank figure with a long
oval face, wearing a shabby reefer jacket, a straw hat, and patent
leather boots, rose up from behind a young fir-tree some three feet
high, as though he had sprung out of the ground. The stranger held in
one hand a basket of mushrooms, with the other he playfully fingered a
cheap watch-chain on his waistcoat. On seeing us he was taken aback,
smoothed his waistcoat, coughed politely, and gave an agreeable smile,
as though he were delighted to see such nice people as us. Then, to our
complete surprise, he came up to us, scraping with his long feet on the
grass, bending his whole person, and, still smiling agreeably, lifted
his hat and pronounced in a sugary voice with the intonations of a
whining dog:
"Aie, aie . . . gentlemen, painful as it is, it is my duty to warn you
that shooting is forbidden in this wood. Pardon me for venturing to
disturb you, though unacquainted, but . . . allow me to present myself.
I am Grontovsky, the head clerk on Madame Kandurin's estate."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, but why can't we shoot?"
"Such is the wish of the owner of this forest!"
The prince and I exchanged glances. A moment passed in silence. The
prince stood looking pensively at a big fly agaric at his feet, which he
had crushed with his stick. Grontovsky went on smiling agreeably. His
whole face was twitching, exuding honey, and even the watch-chain on his
waistcoat seemed to be smiling and trying to impress us all with its
refinement. A shade of embarrassment passed over us like an angel
passing; all three of us felt awkward.
"Nonsense!" I said. "Only last week I was shooting here!"
"Very possible!" Grontovsky sniggered through his teeth. "As a matter of
fact everyone shoots here regardless of the prohibition. But once I have
met you, it is my duty . . . my sacred duty to warn you. I am a man in a
dependent position. If the forest were mine, on the word of honour of a
Grontovsky, I should not oppose your agreeable pleasure. But whose fault
is it that I am in a dependent position?"
The lanky individual sighed and shrugged his shoulders. I began arguing,
getting hot and protesting, but the more loudly and impressively I spoke
the more mawkish and sugary Grontovsky's face became. Evidently the
consciousness of a certain power over us afforded him the greatest
gratification. He was enjoying his condescending tone, his politeness,
his manners, and with peculiar relish pronounced his sonorous surname,
of which he was probably very fond. Standing before us he felt more than
at ease, but judging from the confused sideway glances he cast from time
to time at his basket, only one thing was spoiling his satisfaction-the
mushrooms, womanish, peasantish, prose, derogatory to his dignity.
"We can't go back!" I said. "We have come over ten miles!"
"What's to be done?" sighed Grontovsky. "If you had come not ten but a
hundred thousand miles, if the king even had come from America or from
some other distant land, even then I should think it my duty . . .
sacred, so to say, obligation . . ."
"Does the forest belong to Nadyezhda Lvovna?" asked the prince.
"Yes, Nadyezhda Lvovna . . ."
"Is she at home now?"
"Yes . . . I tell you what, you go to her, it is not more than half a
mile from here; if she gives you a note, then I. . . . I needn't say!
Ha-ha . . . he-he-!"
"By all means," I agreed. "It's much nearer than to go back. . . . You
go to her, Sergey Ivanitch," I said, addressing the prince. "You know
her."
The prince, who had been gazing the whole time at the crushed agaric,
raised his eyes to me, thought a minute, and said:
"I used to know her at one time, but . . . it's rather awkward for me to
go to her. Besides, I am in shabby clothes. . . . You go, you don't know
her. . . . It's more suitable for you to go."
I agreed. We got into our chaise and, followed by Grontovsky's smiles,
drove along the edge of the forest to the manor house. I was not
acquainted with Nadyezhda Lvovna Kandurin, née Shabelsky. I had never
seen her at close quarters, and knew her only by hearsay. I knew that
she was incredibly wealthy, richer than anyone else in the province.
After the death of her father, Shabelsky, who was a landowner with no
other children, she was left with several estates, a stud farm, and a
lot of money. I had heard that, though she was only twenty-five or
twenty-six, she was ugly, uninteresting, and as insignificant as
anybody, and was only distinguished from the ordinary ladies of the
district by her immense wealth.
It has always seemed to me that wealth is felt, and that the rich must
have special feelings unknown to the poor. Often as I passed by
Nadyezhda Lvovna's big fruit garden, in which stood the large, heavy
house with its windows always curtained, I thought: "What is she
thinking at this moment? Is there happiness behind those blinds?" and so
on. Once I saw her from a distance in a fine light cabriolet, driving a
handsome white horse, and, sinful man that I am, I not only envied her,
but even thought that in her poses, in her movements, there was
something special, not to be found in people who are not rich, just as
persons of a servile nature succeed in discovering "good family" at the
first glance in people of the most ordinary exterior, if they are a
little more distinguished than themselves. Nadyezhda Lvovna's inner life
was only known to me by scandal. It was said in the district that five
or six years ago, before she was married, during her father's lifetime,
she had been passionately in love with Prince Sergey Ivanitch, who was
now beside me in the chaise. The prince had been fond of visiting her
father, and used to spend whole days in his billiard room, where he
played pyramids indefatigably till his arms and legs ached. Six months
before the old man's death he had suddenly given up visiting the
Shabelskys. The gossip of the district having no positive facts to go
upon explained this abrupt change in their relations in various ways.
Some said that the prince, having observed the plain daughter's feeling
for him and being unable to reciprocate it, considered it the duty of a
gentleman to cut short his visits. Others maintained that old Shabelsky
had discovered why his daughter was pining away, and had proposed to the
poverty-stricken prince that he should marry her; the prince, imagining
in his narrow-minded way that they were trying to buy him together with
his title, was indignant, said foolish things, and quarrelled with them.
What was true and what was false in this nonsense was difficult to say.
But that there was a portion of truth in it was evident, from the fact
that the prince always avoided conversation about Nadyezhda Lvovna.
I knew that soon after her father's death Nadyezhda Lvovna had married
one Kandurin, a bachelor of law, not wealthy, but adroit, who had come
on a visit to the neighbourhood. She married him not from love, but
because she was touched by the love of the legal gentleman who, so it
was said, had cleverly played the love-sick swain. At the time I am
describing, Kandurin was for some reason living in Cairo, and writing
thence to his friend, the marshal of the district, "Notes of Travel,"
while she sat languishing behind lowered blinds, surrounded by idle
parasites, and whiled away her dreary days in petty philanthropy.
On the way to the house the prince fell to talking.
"It's three days since I have been at home," he said in a half whisper,
with a sidelong glance at the driver. "I am not a child, nor a silly
woman, and I have no prejudices, but I can't stand the bailiffs. When I
see a bailiff in my house I turn pale and tremble, and even have a
twitching in the calves of my legs. Do you know Rogozhin refused to
honour my note?"
The prince did not, as a rule, like to complain of his straitened
circumstances; where poverty was concerned he was reserved and
exceedingly proud and sensitive, and so this announcement surprised me.
He stared a long time at the yellow clearing, warmed by the sun, watched
a long string of cranes float in the azure sky, and turned facing me.
"And by the sixth of September I must have the money ready for the bank
. . . the interest for my estate," he said aloud, by now regardless of
the coachman. "And where am I to get it? Altogether, old man, I am in a
tight fix! An awfully tight fix!"
The prince examined the cock of his gun, blew on it for some reason, and
began looking for the cranes which by now were out of sight.
"Sergey Ivanitch," I asked, after a minute's silence, "imagine if they
sell your Shatilovka, what will you do?"
"I? I don't know! Shatilovka can't be saved, that's clear as daylight,
but I cannot imagine such a calamity. I can't imagine myself without my
daily bread secure. What can I do? I have had hardly any education; I
have not tried working yet; for government service it is late to begin,
. . . Besides, where could I serve? Where could I be of use? Admitting
that no great cleverness is needed for serving in our Zemstvo, for
example, yet I suffer from . . . the devil knows what, a sort of
faintheartedness, I haven't a ha'p'orth of pluck. If I went into the
Service I should always feel I was not in my right place. I am not an
idealist; I am not a Utopian; I haven't any special principles; but am
simply, I suppose, stupid and thoroughly incompetent, a neurotic and a
coward. Altogether not like other people. All other people are like
other people, only I seem to be something . . . a poor thing. . . . I
met Naryagin last Wednesday-you know him?-drunken, slovenly . . .
doesn't pay his debts, stupid" (the prince frowned and tossed his head)
. . . "a horrible person! He said to me, staggering: 'I'm being balloted
for as a justice of the peace!' Of course, they won't elect him, but,
you see, he believes he is fit to be a justice of the peace and
considers that position within his capacity. He has boldness and self-
confidence. I went to see our investigating magistrate too. The man gets
two hundred and fifty roubles a month, and does scarcely anything. All
he can do is to stride backwards and forwards for days together in
nothing but his underclothes, but, ask him, he is convinced he is doing
his work and honourably performing his duty. I couldn't go on like that!
I should be ashamed to look the clerk in the face."
At that moment Grontovsky, on a chestnut horse, galloped by us with a
flourish. On his left arm the basket bobbed up and down with the
mushrooms dancing in it. As he passed us he grinned and waved his hand,
as though we were old friends.