Short Stories by Chekhov
She attracted me more and more, and apparently she liked me too, and the
surroundings were most appropriate: the husband not at home, no servants
visible, stillness around. . . . Though I had little confidence in
success, I made up my mind to begin the attack anyway. First of all it
was necessary to get into a familiar tone and to change Kisotchka's
lyrically earnest mood into a more frivolous one.
"'Let us change the conversation, Natalya Stepanovna,' I began. 'Let us
talk of something amusing. First of all, allow me, for the sake of old
times, to call you Kisotchka.'
"She allowed me.
"'Tell me, please, Kisotchka,' I went on, 'what is the matter with all
the fair sex here. What has happened to them? In old days they were all
so moral and virtuous, and now, upon my word, if one asks about anyone,
one is told such things that one is quite shocked at human nature. . . .
One young lady has eloped with an officer; another has run away and
carried off a high-school boy with her; another--a married woman--has run
away from her husband with an actor; a fourth has left her husband and
gone off with an officer, and so on and so on. It's a regular epidemic!
If it goes on like this there won't be a girl or a young woman left in
your town!'
"I spoke in a vulgar, playful tone. If Kisotchka had laughed in response
I should have gone on in this style: 'You had better look out,
Kisotchka, or some officer or actor will be carrying you off!' She would
have dropped her eyes and said: 'As though anyone would care to carry me
off; there are plenty younger and better looking . . . .' And I should
have said: 'Nonsense, Kisotchka--I for one should be delighted!' And so
on in that style, and it would all have gone swimmingly. But Kisotchka
did not laugh in response; on the contrary, she looked grave and sighed.
"'All you have been told is true,' she said. 'My cousin Sonya ran away
from her husband with an actor. Of course, it is wrong. . . . Everyone
ought to bear the lot that fate has laid on him, but I do not condemn
them or blame them. . . . Circumstances are sometimes too strong for
anyone!'
"'That is so, Kisotchka, but what circumstances can produce a regular
epidemic?'
"'It's very simple and easy to understand,' replied Kisotchka, raising
her eyebrows. 'There is absolutely nothing for us educated girls and
women to do with ourselves. Not everyone is able to go to the
University, to become a teacher, to live for ideas, in fact, as men do.
They have to be married. . . . And whom would you have them marry? You
boys leave the high-school and go away to the University, never to
return to your native town again, and you marry in Petersburg or Moscow,
while the girls remain. . . . To whom are they to be married? Why, in
the absence of decent cultured men, goodness knows what sort of men they
marry--stockbrokers and such people of all kinds, who can do nothing but
drink and get into rows at the club. . . . A girl married like that, at
random. . . . And what is her life like afterwards? You can understand:
a well-educated, cultured woman is living with a stupid, boorish man; if
she meets a cultivated man, an officer, an actor, or a doctor--well, she
gets to love him, her life becomes unbearable to her, and she runs away
from her husband. And one can't condemn her!'
"'If that is so, Kisotchka, why get married?' I asked.
"'Yes, of course,' said Kisotchka with a sigh, 'but you know every girl
fancies that any husband is better than nothing. . . . Altogether life
is horrid here, Nikolay Anastasyevitch, very horrid! Life is stifling
for a girl and stifling when one is married. . . . Here they laugh at
Sonya for having run away from her husband, but if they could see into
her soul they would not laugh. . . .'"
Azorka began barking outside again. He growled angrily at some one, then
howled miserably and dashed with all his force against the wall of the
hut. . . . Ananyev's face was puckered with pity; he broke off his story
and went out. For two minutes he could be heard outside comforting his
dog. "Good dog! poor dog!"
"Our Nikolay Anastasyevitch is fond of talking," said Von Schtenberg,
laughing. "He is a good fellow," he added after a brief silence.
Returning to the hut, the engineer filled up our glasses and, smiling
and stroking his chest, went on:
"And so my attack was unsuccessful. There was nothing for it, I put off
my unclean thoughts to a more favourable occasion, resigned myself to my
failure and, as the saying is, waved my hand. What is more, under the
influence of Kisotchka's voice, the evening air, and the stillness, I
gradually myself fell into a quiet sentimental mood. I remember I sat in
an easy chair by the wide-open window and glanced at the trees and
darkened sky. The outlines of the acacias and the lime trees were just
the same as they had been eight years before; just as then, in the days
of my childhood, somewhere far away there was the tinkling of a wretched
piano, and the public had just the same habit of sauntering to and fro
along the avenues, but the people were not the same. Along the avenues
there walked now not my comrades and I and the object of my adoration,
but schoolboys and young ladies who were strangers. And I felt
melancholy. When to my inquiries about acquaintances I five times
received from Kisotchka the answer, 'He is dead,' my melancholy changed
into the feeling one has at the funeral service of a good man. And
sitting there at the window, looking at the promenading public and
listening to the tinkling piano, I saw with my own eyes for the first
time in my life with what eagerness one generation hastens to replace
another, and what a momentous significance even some seven or eight
years may have in a man's life!
"Kisotchka put a bottle of red wine on the table. I drank it off, grew
sentimental, and began telling a long story about something or other.
Kisotchka listened as before, admiring me and my cleverness. And time
passed. The sky was by now so dark that the outlines of the acacias and
lime trees melted into one, the public was no longer walking up and down
the avenues, the piano was silent and the only sound was the even murmur
of the sea.
"Young people are all alike. Be friendly to a young man, make much of
him, regale him with wine, let him understand that he is attractive and
he will sit on and on, forget that it is time to go, and talk and talk
and talk. . . . His hosts cannot keep their eyes open, it's past their
bedtime, and he still stays and talks. That was what I did. Once I
chanced to look at the clock; it was half-past ten. I began saying good-
bye.
"'Have another glass before your walk,' said Kisotchka.
"I took another glass, again I began talking at length, forgot it was
time to go, and sat down. Then there came the sound of men's voices,
footsteps and the clank of spurs.
"'I think my husband has come in . . . .' said Kisotchka listening.
"The door creaked, two voices came now from the passage and I saw two
men pass the door that led into the dining-room: one a stout, solid,
dark man with a hooked nose, wearing a straw hat, and the other a young
officer in a white tunic. As they passed the door they both glanced
casually and indifferently at Kisotchka and me, and I fancied both of
them were drunk.
"'She told you a lie then, and you believed her!' we heard a loud voice
with a marked nasal twang say a minute later. 'To begin with, it wasn't
at the big club but at the little one.'
"'You are angry, Jupiter, so you are wrong . . . .' said another voice,
obviously the officer's, laughing and coughing. 'I say, can I stay the
night? Tell me honestly, shall I be in your way?'
"'What a question! Not only you can, but you must. What will you have,
beer or wine?'
"They were sitting two rooms away from us, talking loudly, and
apparently feeling no interest in Kisotchka or her visitor. A
perceptible change came over Kisotchka on her husband's arrival. At
first she flushed red, then her face wore a timid, guilty expression;
she seemed to be troubled by some anxiety, and I began to fancy that she
was ashamed to show me her husband and wanted me to go.
"I began taking leave. Kisotchka saw me to the front door. I remember
well her gentle mournful smile and kind patient eyes as she pressed my
hand and said:
"'Most likely we shall never see each other again. Well, God give you
every blessing. Thank you!'
"Not one sigh, not one fine phrase. As she said good-bye she was holding
the candle in her hand; patches of light danced over her face and neck,
as though chasing her mournful smile. I pictured to myself the old
Kisotchka whom one used to want to stroke like a cat, I looked intently
at the present Kisotchka, and for some reason recalled her words:
'Everyone ought to bear the lot that fate has laid on him.' And I had a
pang at my heart. I instinctively guessed how it was, and my conscience
whispered to me that I, in my happiness and indifference, was face to
face with a good, warm-hearted, loving creature, who was broken by
suffering.
"I said good-bye and went to the gate. By now it was quite dark. In the
south the evenings draw in early in July and it gets dark rapidly.
Towards ten o'clock it is so dark that you can't see an inch before your
nose. I lighted a couple of dozen matches before, almost groping, I
found my way to the gate.
"'Cab!' I shouted, going out of the gate; not a sound, not a sigh in
answer. . . . 'Cab,' I repeated, 'hey, Cab!'
"But there was no cab of any description. The silence of the grave. I
could hear nothing but the murmur of the drowsy sea and the beating of
my heart from the wine. Lifting my eyes to the sky I found not a single
star. It was dark and sullen. Evidently the sky was covered with clouds.
For some reason I shrugged my shoulders, smiling foolishly, and once
more, not quite so resolutely, shouted for a cab.
"The echo answered me. A walk of three miles across open country and in
the pitch dark was not an agreeable prospect. Before making up my mind
to walk, I spent a long time deliberating and shouting for a cab; then,
shrugging my shoulders, I walked lazily back to the copse, with no
definite object in my mind. It was dreadfully dark in the copse. Here
and there between the trees the windows of the summer villas glowed a
dull red. A raven, disturbed by my steps and the matches with which I
lighted my way to the summer-house, flew from tree to tree and rustled
among the leaves. I felt vexed and ashamed, and the raven seemed to
understand this, and croaked 'krrra!' I was vexed that I had to walk,
and ashamed that I had stayed on at Kisotchka's, chatting like a boy.
"I made my way to the summer-house, felt for the seat and sat down. Far
below me, behind a veil of thick darkness, the sea kept up a low angry
growl. I remember that, as though I were blind, I could see neither sky
nor sea, nor even the summer-house in which I was sitting. And it seemed
to me as though the whole world consisted only of the thoughts that were
straying through my head, dizzy from the wine, and of an unseen power
murmuring monotonously somewhere below. And afterwards, as I sank into a
doze, it began to seem that it was not the sea murmuring, but my
thoughts, and that the whole world consisted of nothing but me. And
concentrating the whole world in myself in this way, I thought no more
of cabs, of the town, and of Kisotchka, and abandoned myself to the
sensation I was so fond of: that is, the sensation of fearful isolation
when you feel that in the whole universe, dark and formless, you alone
exist. It is a proud, demoniac sensation, only possible to Russians
whose thoughts and sensations are as large, boundless, and gloomy as
their plains, their forests, and their snow. If I had been an artist I