Short Stories by Chekhov

every year in Petersburg and Moscow and in other centres these same skins would be bought to the . . . to the sum of five hundred thousand, let us suppose. That's the minimum. Well, and if. . . ." "You can tell me to-morrow . . . later on. . . ." "Yes, that's true. You are sleepy, pardon, I am just going . . . say what you like, but with capital you can do good business everywhere, wherever you go. . . . With capital even out of cigarette ends one may make a million. . . . Take your theatrical business now. Why, for example, did Lentovsky come to grief? It's very simple. He did not go the right way to work from the very first. He had no capital and he went headlong to the dogs. . . . He ought first to have secured his capital, and then to have gone slowly and cautiously . . . . Nowadays, one can easily make money by a theatre, whether it is a private one or a people's one. . . . If one produces the right plays, charges a low price for admission, and hits the public fancy, one may put a hundred thousand in one's pocket the first year. . . . You don't understand, but I am talking sense. . . . You see you are fond of hoarding capital; you are no better than that fool Zagvozdkin, you heap it up and don't know what for. . . . You won't listen, you don't want to. . . . If you were to put it into circulation, you wouldn't have to be rushing all over the place . . . . You see for a private theatre, five thousand would be enough for a beginning. . . . Not like Lentovsky, of course, but on a modest scale in a small way. I have got a manager already, I have looked at a suitable building. . . . It's only the money I haven't got. . . . If only you understood things you would have parted with your Five per cents . . . your Preference shares. . . ." "No, merci. . . . You have fleeced me enough already. . . . Let me alone, I have been punished already. . . ." "If you are going to argue like a woman, then of course . . ." sighs Nikitin, getting up. "Of course. . . ." "Let me alone. . . . Come, go away and don't keep me awake. . . . I am sick of listening to your nonsense." "H'm. . . . To be sure . . . of course! Fleeced. . . plundered. . . . What we give we remember, but we don't remember what we take." "I have never taken anything from you." "Is that so? But when we weren't a celebrated singer, at whose expense did we live then? And who, allow me to ask, lifted you out of beggary and secured your happiness? Don't you remember that?" "Come, go to bed. Go along and sleep it off." "Do you mean to say you think I am drunk? . . . if I am so low in the eyes of such a grand lady. . . I can go away altogether." "Do. A good thing too." "I will, too. I have humbled myself enough. And I will go." "Oh, my God! Oh, do go, then! I shall be delighted!" "Very well, we shall see." Nikitin mutters something to himself, and, stumbling over the chairs, goes out of the bedroom. Then sounds reach her from the entry of whispering, the shuffling of goloshes and a door being shut. Mari d'elle has taken offence in earnest and gone out. "Thank God, he has gone!" thinks the singer. "Now I can sleep." And as she falls asleep she thinks of her mari d'elle, "what sort of a man he is, and how this affliction has come upon her. At one time he used to live at Tchernigov, and had a situation there as a book-keeper. As an ordinary obscure individual and not the mari d'elle, he had been quite endurable: he used to go to his work and take his salary, and all his whims and projects went no further than a new guitar, fashionable trousers, and an amber cigarette-holder. Since he had become "the husband of a celebrity" he was completely transformed. The singer remembered that when first she told him she was going on the stage he had made a fuss, been indignant, complained to her parents, turned her out of the house. She had been obliged to go on the stage without his permission. Afterwards, when he learned from the papers and from various people that she was earning big sums, he had 'forgiven her,' abandoned book-keeping, and become her hanger-on. The singer was overcome with amazement when she looked at her hanger-on: when and where had he managed to pick up new tastes, polish, and airs and graces? Where had he learned the taste of oysters and of different Burgundies? Who had taught him to dress and do his hair in the fashion and call her 'Nathalie' instead of Natasha?" "It's strange," thinks the singer. "In old days he used to get his salary and put it away, but now a hundred roubles a day is not enough for him. In old days he was afraid to talk before schoolboys for fear of saying something silly, and now he is overfamiliar even with princes . . . wretched, contemptible little creature!" But then the singer starts again; again there is the clang of the bell in the entry. The housemaid, scolding and angrily flopping with her slippers, goes to open the door. Again some one comes in and stamps like a horse. "He has come back!" thinks the singer. "When shall I be left in peace? It's revolting!" She is overcome by fury. "Wait a bit. . . . I'll teach you to get up these farces! You shall go away. I'll make you go away!" The singer leaps up and runs barefoot into the little drawing-room where her mari usually sleeps. She comes at the moment when he is undressing, and carefully folding his clothes on a chair. "You went away!" she says, looking at him with bright eyes full of hatred. "What did you come back for?" Nikitin remains silent, and merely sniffs. "You went away! Kindly take yourself off this very minute! This very minute! Do you hear?" Mari d'elle coughs and, without looking at his wife, takes off his braces. "If you don't go away, you insolent creature, I shall go," the singer goes on, stamping her bare foot, and looking at him with flashing eyes. "I shall go! Do you hear, insolent . . . worthless wretch, flunkey, out you go!" "You might have some shame before outsiders," mutters her husband . . . . The singer looks round and only then sees an unfamiliar countenance that looks like an actor's. . . . The countenance, seeing the singer's uncovered shoulders and bare feet, shows signs of embarrassment, and looks ready to sink through the floor. "Let me introduce . . ." mutters Nikitin, "Bezbozhnikov, a provincial manager." The singer utters a shriek, and runs off into her bedroom. "There, you see . . ." says mari d'elle, as he stretches himself on the sofa, "it was all honey just now . . . my love, my dear, my darling, kisses and embraces . . . but as soon as money is touched upon, then. . . . As you see . . . money is the great thing. . . . Good night!" A minute later there is a snore. A LIVING CHATTEL GROHOLSKY embraced Liza, kept kissing one after another all her little fingers with their bitten pink nails, and laid her on the couch covered with cheap velvet. Liza crossed one foot over the other, clasped her hands behind her head, and lay down. Groholsky sat down in a chair beside her and bent over. He was entirely absorbed in contemplation of her. How pretty she seemed to him, lighted up by the rays of the setting sun! There was a complete view from the window of the setting sun, golden, lightly flecked with purple. The whole drawing-room, including Liza, was bathed by it with brilliant light that did not hurt the eyes, and for a little while covered with gold. Groholsky was lost in admiration. Liza was so incredibly beautiful. It is true her little kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn up nose was fresh, and even piquant, his scanty hair was black as soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole. . . . However my taste has nothing to do with it. Groholsky who was spoilt by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times in his life, saw her as a beauty. He loved her, and blind love finds ideal beauty everywhere. "I say," he said, looking straight into her eyes, "I have come to talk to you, my precious. Love cannot bear anything vague or indefinite. . . . Indefinite relations, you know, I told you yesterday, Liza . . . we will try to-day to settle the question we raised yesterday. Come, let us decide together. . . ." "What are we to do?" Liza gave a yawn and scowling, drew her right arm from under her head. "What are we to do?" she repeated hardly audibly after Groholsky. "Well, yes, what are we to do? Come, decide, wise little head . . . I love you, and a man in love is not fond of sharing. He is more than an egoist. It is too much for me to go shares with your husband. I mentally tear him to pieces, when I remember that he loves you too. In the second place you love me. . . . Perfect freedom is an essential condition for love. . . . And are you free? Are you not tortured by the thought that that man towers for ever over your soul? A man whom you do not love, whom very likely and quite naturally, you hate. . . . That's the second thing. . . . And thirdly. . . . What is the third thing? Oh yes. . . . We are deceiving him and that . . . is dishonourable. Truth before everything, Liza. Let us have done with lying!" "Well, then, what are we to do?" "You can guess. . . . I think it necessary, obligatory, to inform him of our relations and to leave him, to begin to live in freedom. Both must be done as quickly as possible. . . . This very evening, for instance. . . . It's time to make an end of it. Surely you must be sick of loving like a thief?" "Tell! tell Vanya?" "Why, yes!" "That's impossible! I told you yesterday, Michel, that it is impossible." "Why?" "He will be upset. He'll make a row, do all sorts of unpleasant things. . . . Don't you know what he is like? God forbid! There's no need to tell him. What an idea!" Groholsky passed his hand over his brow, and heaved a sigh. "Yes," he said, "he will be more than upset. I am robbing him of his happiness. Does he love you?" "He does love me. Very much." "There's another complication! One does not know where to begin. To conceal it from him is base, telling him would kill him. . . . Goodness knows what's one to do. Well, how is it to be?" Groholsky pondered. His pale face wore a frown. "Let us go on always as we are now," said Liza. "Let him find out for himself, if he wants to." "But you know that . . . is sinful, and besides the fact is you are mine, and no one has the right to think that you do not belong to me but to someone else! You are mine! I will not give way to anyone! . . . I am sorry for him--God knows how sorry I am for him, Liza! It hurts me to see him! But . . . it can't be helped after all. You don't love him, do you? What's the good of your going on being miserable with him? We must have it out! We will have it out with him, and you will come to me. You are my wife, and not his. Let him do what he likes. He'll get over his troubles somehow. . . . He is not the first, and he won't be the last. . . . Will you run away? Eh? Make haste and tell me! Will you run away?" Liza got up and looked inquiringly at Groholsky. "Run away?" "Yes. . . . To my estate. . . . Then to the Crimea. . . . We will tell him by letter. . . . We can go at night. There is a train at half past one. Well? Is that all right?" Liza scratched the bridge of her nose, and hesitated. "Very well," she said, and burst into tears. Patches of red came out of her cheeks, her eyes swelled, and tears flowed down her kittenish face. . . . "What is it?" cried Groholsky in a flutter. "Liza! what's the matter? Come! what are you crying for? What a girl! Come, what is it? Darling! Little woman!" Liza held out her hands to Groholsky, and hung on his neck. There was a