Short Stories by Chekhov
life and were now abandoning himself with surprise to the new sensation.
A broad streak of light stretched across the bookcase on one wall of the
study; this light came together with the close, heavy smell of carbolic
and ether from the door into the bedroom, which stood a little way open.
. . . The doctor sank into a low chair in front of the table; for a
minute he stared drowsily at his books, which lay with the light on
them, then got up and went into the bedroom.
Here in the bedroom reigned a dead silence. Everything to the smallest
detail was eloquent of the storm that had been passed through, of
exhaustion, and everything was at rest. A candle standing among a crowd
of bottles, boxes, and pots on a stool and a big lamp on the chest of
drawers threw a brilliant light over all the room. On the bed under the
window lay a boy with open eyes and a look of wonder on his face. He did
not move, but his open eyes seemed every moment growing darker and
sinking further into his head. The mother was kneeling by the bed with
her arms on his body and her head hidden in the bedclothes. Like the
child, she did not stir; but what throbbing life was suggested in the
curves of her body and in her arms! She leaned against the bed with all
her being, pressing against it greedily with all her might, as though
she were afraid of disturbing the peaceful and comfortable attitude she
had found at last for her exhausted body. The bedclothes, the rags and
bowls, the splashes of water on the floor, the little paint-brushes and
spoons thrown down here and there, the white bottle of lime water, the
very air, heavy and stifling--were all hushed and seemed plunged in
repose.
The doctor stopped close to his wife, thrust his hands in his trouser
pockets, and slanting his head on one side fixed his eyes on his son.
His face bore an expression of indifference, and only from the drops
that glittered on his beard it could be seen that he had just been
crying.
That repellent horror which is thought of when we speak of death was
absent from the room. In the numbness of everything, in the mother's
attitude, in the indifference on the doctor's face there was something
that attracted and touched the heart, that subtle, almost elusive beauty
of human sorrow which men will not for a long time learn to understand
and describe, and which it seems only music can convey. There was a
feeling of beauty, too, in the austere stillness. Kirilov and his wife
were silent and not weeping, as though besides the bitterness of their
loss they were conscious, too, of all the tragedy of their position;
just as once their youth had passed away, so now together with this boy
their right to have children had gone for ever to all eternity! The
doctor was forty-four, his hair was grey and he looked like an old man;
his faded and invalid wife was thirty-five. Andrey was not merely the
only child, but also the last child.
In contrast to his wife the doctor belonged to the class of people who
at times of spiritual suffering feel a craving for movement. After
standing for five minutes by his wife, he walked, raising his right foot
high, from the bedroom into a little room which was half filled up by a
big sofa; from there he went into the kitchen. After wandering by the
stove and the cook's bed he bent down and went by a little door into the
passage.
There he saw again the white scarf and the white face.
"At last," sighed Abogin, reaching towards the door-handle. "Let us go,
please."
The doctor started, glanced at him, and remembered. . . .
"Why, I have told you already that I can't go!" he said, growing more
animated. "How strange!"
"Doctor, I am not a stone, I fully understand your position . . . I feel
for you," Abogin said in an imploring voice, laying his hand on his
scarf. "But I am not asking you for myself. My wife is dying. If you had
heard that cry, if you had seen her face, you would understand my
pertinacity. My God, I thought you had gone to get ready! Doctor, time
is precious. Let us go, I entreat you."
"I cannot go," said Kirilov emphatically and he took a step into the
drawing-room.
Abogin followed him and caught hold of his sleeve.
"You are in sorrow, I understand. But I'm not asking you to a case of
toothache, or to a consultation, but to save a human life!" he went on
entreating like a beggar. "Life comes before any personal sorrow! Come,
I ask for courage, for heroism! For the love of humanity!"
"Humanity--that cuts both ways," Kirilov said irritably. "In the name of
humanity I beg you not to take me. And how queer it is, really! I can
hardly stand and you talk to me about humanity! I am fit for nothing
just now. . . . Nothing will induce me to go, and I can't leave my wife
alone. No, no. . ."
Kirilov waved his hands and staggered back.
"And . . . and don't ask me," he went on in a tone of alarm. "Excuse me.
By No. XIII of the regulations I am obliged to go and you have the right
to drag me by my collar . . . drag me if you like, but . . . I am not
fit . . . I can't even speak . . . excuse me."
"There is no need to take that tone to me, doctor!" said Abogin, again
taking the doctor by his sleeve. "What do I care about No. XIII! To
force you against your will I have no right whatever. If you will, come;
if you will not--God forgive you; but I am not appealing to your will,
but to your feelings. A young woman is dying. You were just speaking of
the death of your son. Who should understand my horror if not you?"
Abogin's voice quivered with emotion; that quiver and his tone were far
more persuasive than his words. Abogin was sincere, but it was
remarkable that whatever he said his words sounded stilted, soulless,
and inappropriately flowery, and even seemed an outrage on the
atmosphere of the doctor's home and on the woman who was somewhere
dying. He felt this himself, and so, afraid of not being understood, did
his utmost to put softness and tenderness into his voice so that the
sincerity of his tone might prevail if his words did not. As a rule,
however fine and deep a phrase may be, it only affects the indifferent,
and cannot fully satisfy those who are happy or unhappy; that is why
dumbness is most often the highest expression of happiness or
unhappiness; lovers understand each other better when they are silent,
and a fervent, passionate speech delivered by the grave only touches
outsiders, while to the widow and children of the dead man it seems cold
and trivial.
Kirilov stood in silence. When Abogin uttered a few more phrases
concerning the noble calling of a doctor, self-sacrifice, and so on, the
doctor asked sullenly: "Is it far?"
"Something like eight or nine miles. I have capital horses, doctor! I
give you my word of honour that I will get you there and back in an
hour. Only one hour."
These words had more effect on Kirilov than the appeals to humanity or
the noble calling of the doctor. He thought a moment and said with a
sigh: "Very well, let us go!"
He went rapidly with a more certain step to his study, and afterwards
came back in a long frock-coat. Abogin, greatly relieved, fidgeted round
him and scraped with his feet as he helped him on with his overcoat, and
went out of the house with him.
It was dark out of doors, though lighter than in the entry. The tall,
stooping figure of the doctor, with his long, narrow beard and aquiline
nose, stood out distinctly in the darkness. Abogin's big head and the
little student's cap that barely covered it could be seen now as well as
his pale face. The scarf showed white only in front, behind it was
hidden by his long hair.
"Believe me, I know how to appreciate your generosity," Abogin muttered
as he helped the doctor into the carriage. "We shall get there quickly.
Drive as fast as you can, Luka, there's a good fellow! Please!"
The coachman drove rapidly. At first there was a row of indistinct
buildings that stretched alongside the hospital yard; it was dark
everywhere except for a bright light from a window that gleamed through
the fence into the furthest part of the yard while three windows of the
upper storey of the hospital looked paler than the surrounding air. Then
the carriage drove into dense shadow; here there was the smell of
dampness and mushrooms, and the sound of rustling trees; the crows,
awakened by the noise of the wheels, stirred among the foliage and
uttered prolonged plaintive cries as though they knew the doctor's son
was dead and that Abogin's wife was ill. Then came glimpses of separate
trees, of bushes; a pond, on which great black shadows were slumbering,
gleamed with a sullen light--and the carriage rolled over a smooth level
ground. The clamour of the crows sounded dimly far away and soon ceased
altogether.
Kirilov and Abogin were silent almost all the way. Only once Abogin
heaved a deep sigh and muttered:
"It's an agonizing state! One never loves those who are near one so much
as when one is in danger of losing them."
And when the carriage slowly drove over the river, Kirilov started all
at once as though the splash of the water had frightened him, and made a
movement.
"Listen--let me go," he said miserably. "I'll come to you later. I must
just send my assistant to my wife. She is alone, you know!"
Abogin did not speak. The carriage swaying from side to side and
crunching over the stones drove up the sandy bank and rolled on its way.
Kirilov moved restlessly and looked about him in misery. Behind them in
the dim light of the stars the road could be seen and the riverside
willows vanishing into the darkness. On the right lay a plain as uniform
and as boundless as the sky; here and there in the distance, probably on
the peat marshes, dim lights were glimmering. On the left, parallel with
the road, ran a hill tufted with small bushes, and above the hill stood
motionless a big, red half-moon, slightly veiled with mist and encircled
by tiny clouds, which seemed to be looking round at it from all sides
and watching that it did not go away.
In all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. The
earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and trying not
to think of the past, was brooding over memories of spring and summer
and apathetically waiting for the inevitable winter. Wherever one
looked, on all sides, nature seemed like a dark, infinitely deep, cold
pit from which neither Kirilov nor Abogin nor the red half-moon could
escape. . . .
The nearer the carriage got to its goal the more impatient Abogin
became. He kept moving, leaping up, looking over the coachman's
shoulder. And when at last the carriage stopped before the entrance,
which was elegantly curtained with striped linen, and when he looked at
the lighted windows of the second storey there was an audible catch in
his breath.
"If anything happens . . . I shall not survive it," he said, going into
the hall with the doctor, and rubbing his hands in agitation. "But there
is no commotion, so everything must be going well so far," he added,
listening in the stillness.
There was no sound in the hall of steps or voices and all the house
seemed asleep in spite of the lighted windows. Now the doctor and
Abogin, who till then had been in darkness, could see each other
clearly. The doctor was tall and stooped, was untidily dressed and not
good-looking. There was an unpleasantly harsh, morose, and unfriendly
look about his lips, thick as a negro's, his aquiline nose, and
listless, apathetic eyes. His unkempt head and sunken temples, the
premature greyness of his long, narrow beard through which his chin was
visible, the pale grey hue of his skin and his careless, uncouth
manners--the harshness of all this was suggestive of years of poverty, of
ill fortune, of weariness with life and with men. Looking at his frigid