Short Stories by Chekhov
should certainly have depicted the expression of a Russian's face when
he sits motionless and, with his legs under him and his head clasped in
his hands, abandons himself to this sensation. . . . And together with
this sensation come thoughts of the aimlessness of life, of death, and
of the darkness of the grave. . . . The thoughts are not worth a brass
farthing, but the expression of face must be fine. . . .
"While I was sitting and dozing, unable to bring myself to get up--I was
warm and comfortable--all at once, against the even monotonous murmur of
the sea, as though upon a canvas, sounds began to grow distinct which
drew my attention from myself. . . . Someone was coming hurriedly along
the avenue. Reaching the summer-house this someone stopped, gave a sob
like a little girl, and said in the voice of a weeping child: 'My God,
when will it all end! Merciful Heavens!'
"Judging from the voice and the weeping I took it to be a little girl of
ten or twelve. She walked irresolutely into the summer-house, sat down,
and began half-praying, half-complaining aloud. . . .
"'Merciful God!' she said, crying, 'it's unbearable. It's beyond all
endurance! I suffer in silence, but I want to live too. . . . Oh, my
God! My God!'
"And so on in the same style.
"I wanted to look at the child and speak to her. So as not to frighten
her I first gave a loud sigh and coughed, then cautiously struck a
match. . . . There was a flash of bright light in the darkness, which
lighted up the weeping figure. It was Kisotchka!"
"Marvels upon marvels!" said Von Schtenberg with a sigh. "Black night,
the murmur of the sea; she in grief, he with a sensation of
world--solitude. . . . It's too much of a good thing. . . . You only want
Circassians with daggers to complete it."
"I am not telling you a tale, but fact."
"Well, even if it is a fact . . . it all proves nothing, and there is
nothing new in it. . . ."
"Wait a little before you find fault! Let me finish," said Ananyev,
waving his hand with vexation; "don't interfere, please! I am not
telling you, but the doctor. . . . Well," he went on, addressing me and
glancing askance at the student who bent over his books and seemed very
well satisfied at having gibed at the engineer--"well, Kisotchka was not
surprised or frightened at seeing me. It seemed as though she had known
beforehand that she would find me in the summer-house. She was breathing
in gasps and trembling all over as though in a fever, while her tear-
stained face, so far as I could distinguish it as I struck match after
match, was not the intelligent, submissive weary face I had seen before,
but something different, which I cannot understand to this day. It did
not express pain, nor anxiety, nor misery--nothing of what was expressed
by her words and her tears. . . . I must own that, probably because I
did not understand it, it looked to me senseless and as though she were
drunk.
"'I can't bear it,' muttered Kisotchka in the voice of a crying child.
'It's too much for me, Nikolay Anastasyitch. Forgive me, Nikolav
Anastasyitch. I can't go on living like this. . . . I am going to the
town to my mother's. . . . Take me there. . . . Take me there, for God's
sake!'
"In the presence of tears I can neither speak nor be silent. I was
flustered and muttered some nonsense trying to comfort her.
"'No, no; I will go to my mother's,' said Kisotchka resolutely, getting
up and clutching my arm convulsively (her hands and her sleeves were wet
with tears). 'Forgive me, Nikolay Anastasyitch, I am going. . . . I can
bear no more. . . .'
"'Kisotchka, but there isn't a single cab,' I said. 'How can you go?'
"'No matter, I'll walk. . . . It's not far. I can't bear it. . . .'
"I was embarrassed, but not touched. Kisotchka's tears, her trembling,
and the blank expression of her face suggested to me a trivial, French
or Little Russian melodrama, in which every ounce of cheap shallow
feeling is washed down with pints of tears.
"I didn't understand her, and knew I did not understand her; I ought to
have been silent, but for some reason, most likely for fear my silence
might be taken for stupidity, I thought fit to try to persuade her not
to go to her mother's, but to stay at home. When people cry, they don't
like their tears to be seen. And I lighted match after match and went on
striking till the box was empty. What I wanted with this ungenerous
illumination, I can't conceive to this day. Cold-hearted people are apt
to be awkward, and even stupid.
"In the end Kisotchka took my arm and we set off. Going out of the gate,
we turned to the right and sauntered slowly along the soft dusty road.
It was dark. As my eyes grew gradually accustomed to the darkness, I
began to distinguish the silhouettes of the old gaunt oaks and lime
trees which bordered the road. The jagged, precipitous cliffs,
intersected here and there by deep, narrow ravines and creeks, soon
showed indistinctly, a black streak on the right. Low bushes nestled by
the hollows, looking like sitting figures. It was uncanny. I looked
sideways suspiciously at the cliffs, and the murmur of the sea and the
stillness of the country alarmed my imagination. Kisotchka did not
speak. She was still trembling, and before she had gone half a mile she
was exhausted with walking and was out of breath. I too was silent.
"Three-quarters of a mile from the Quarantine Station there was a
deserted building of four storeys, with a very high chimney in which
there had once been a steam flour mill. It stood solitary on the cliff,
and by day it could be seen for a long distance, both by sea and by
land. Because it was deserted and no one lived in it, and because there
was an echo in it which distinctly repeated the steps and voices of
passers-by, it seemed mysterious. Picture me in the dark night arm-in-
arm with a woman who was running away from her husband near this tall
long monster which repeated the sound of every step I took and stared at
me fixedly with its hundred black windows. A normal young man would have
been moved to romantic feelings in such surroundings, but I looked at
the dark windows and thought: 'All this is very impressive, but time
will come when of that building and of Kisotchka and her troubles and of
me with my thoughts, not one grain of dust will remain. . . . All is
nonsense and vanity. . . .'
"When we reached the flour mill Kisotchka suddenly stopped, took her arm
out of mine, and said, no longer in a childish voice, but in her own:
"'Nikolay Anastasvitch, I know all this seems strange to you. But I am
terribly unhappy! And you cannot even imagine how unhappy! It's
impossible to imagine it! I don't tell you about it because one can't
talk about it. . . . Such a life, such a life! . . .'
"Kisotchka did not finish. She clenched her teeth and moaned as though
she were doing her utmost not to scream with pain.
"'Such a life!' she repeated with horror, with the cadence and the
southern, rather Ukrainian accent which particularly in women gives to
emotional speech the effect of singing. 'It is a life! Ah, my God, my
God! what does it mean? Oh, my God, my God!'
"As though trying to solve the riddle of her fate, she shrugged her
shoulders in perplexity, shook her head, and clasped her hands. She
spoke as though she were singing, moved gracefully, and reminded me of a
celebrated Little Russian actress.
"'Great God, it is as though I were in a pit,' she went on. 'If one
could live for one minute in happiness as other people live! Oh, my God,
my God! I have come to such disgrace that before a stranger I am running
away from my husband by night, like some disreputable creature! Can I
expect anything good after that?'
"As I admired her movements and her voice, I began to feel annoyed that
she was not on good terms with her husband. 'It would be nice to have
got on into relations with her!' flitted through my mind; and this
pitiless thought stayed in my brain, haunted me all the way and grew
more and more alluring.
"About a mile from the flour mill we had to turn to the left by the
cemetery. At the turning by the corner of the cemetery there stood a
stone windmill, and by it a little hut in which the miller lived. We
passed the mill and the hut, turned to the left and reached the gates of
the cemetery. There Kisotchka stopped and said:
"'I am going back, Nikolay Anastasyitch! You go home, and God bless you,
but I am going back. I am not frightened.'
"'Well, what next!' I said, disconcerted. 'If you are going, you had
better go!'
"'I have been too hasty. . . . It was all about nothing that mattered.
You and your talk took me back to the past and put all sort of ideas
into my head. . . . I was sad and wanted to cry, and my husband said
rude things to me before that officer, and I could not bear it. . . .
And what's the good of my going to the town to my mother's? Will that
make me any happier? I must go back. . . . But never mind . . . let us
go on,' said Kisotchka, and she laughed. 'It makes no difference!'
"I remembered that over the gate of the cemetery there was an
inscription: 'The hour will come wherein all they that lie in the grave
will hear the voice of the Son of God.' I knew very well that sooner or
later I and Kisotchka and her husband and the officer in the white tunic
would lie under the dark trees in the churchyard; I knew that an unhappy
and insulted fellow-creature was walking beside me. All this I
recognised distinctly, but at the same time I was troubled by an
oppressive and unpleasant dread that Kisotchka would turn back, and that
I should not manage to say to her what had to be said. Never at any
other time in my life have thoughts of a higher order been so closely
interwoven with the basest animal prose as on that night. . . . It was
horrible!
"Not far from the cemetery we found a cab. When we reached the High
Street, where Kisotchka's mother lived, we dismissed the cab and walked
along the pavement. Kisotchka was silent all the while, while I looked
at her, and I raged at myself, 'Why don't you begin? Now's the time!'
About twenty paces from the hotel where I was staying, Kisotchka stopped
by the lamp-post and burst into tears.
"'Nikolay Anastasyitch!' she said, crying and laughing and looking at me
with wet shining eyes, 'I shall never forget your sympathy . . . . How
good you are! All of you are so splendid--all of you! Honest, great-
hearted, kind, clever. . . . Ah, how good that is!'
"She saw in me a highly educated man, advanced in every sense of the
word, and on her tear-stained laughing face, together with the emotion
and enthusiasm aroused by my personality, there was clearly written
regret that she so rarely saw such people, and that God had not
vouchsafed her the bliss of being the wife of one of them. She muttered,
'Ah, how splendid it is!' The childish gladness on her face, the tears,
the gentle smile, the soft hair, which had escaped from under the
kerchief, and the kerchief itself thrown carelessly over her head, in
the light of the street lamp reminded me of the old Kisotchka whom one
had wanted to stroke like a kitten.
"I could not restrain myself, and began stroking her hair, her
shoulders, and her hands.
"'Kisotchka, what do you want?' I muttered. 'I'll go to the ends of the
earth with you if you like! I will take you out of this hole and give
you happiness. I love you. . . . Let us go, my sweet? Yes? Will you?'
"Kisotchka's face was flooded with bewilderment. She stepped back from
the street lamp and, completely overwhelmed, gazed at me with wide-open
eyes. I gripped her by the arm, began showering kisses on her face, her
neck, her shoulders, and went on making vows and promises. In love
affairs vows and promises are almost a physiological necessity. There's