Short Stories by Chekhov
father; a small piece of cold veal and a slice of bread. In the family
there were sayings: "Money loves an account," or "A copeck saves a
rouble," and so on, and my sister, impressed by such wisdom, did her
best to cut down expenses and made us feed rather meagrely. She put the
plate on the table, sat on my bed, and began to cry.
"Misail," she said, "what are you doing to us?"
She did not cover her face, her tears ran down her cheeks and hands, and
her expression was sorrowful. She fell on the pillow, gave way to her
tears, trembling all over and sobbing.
"You have left your work again!" she said. "How awful!"
"Do try to understand, sister!" I said, and because she cried I was
filled with despair.
As though it were deliberately arranged, the paraffin in my little lamp
ran out, and the lamp smoked and guttered, and the old hooks in the wall
looked terrible and their shadows flickered.
"Spare us!" said my sister, rising up. "Father is in an awful state, and
I am ill. I shall go mad. What will become of you?" she asked, sobbing
and holding out her hands to me. "I ask you, I implore you, in the name
of our dear mother, to go back to your work."
"I cannot, Cleopatra," I said, feeling that only a little more would
make me give in. "I cannot."
"Why?" insisted my sister, "why? If you have not made it up with your
chief, look for another place. For instance, why shouldn't you work on
the railway? I have just spoken to Aniuta Blagovo, and she assures me
you would be taken on, and she even promised to do what she could for
you. For goodness sake, Misail, think! Think it over, I implore you!"
We talked a little longer and I gave in. I said that the thought of
working on the railway had never come into my head, and that I was ready
to try.
She smiled happily through her tears and clasped my hand, and still she
cried, because she could not stop, and I went into the kitchen for
paraffin.
II
Among the supporters of amateur theatricals, charity concerts, and
tableaux vivants the leaders were the Azhoguins, who lived in their own
house in Great Gentry house the Street. They used to lend their house
and assume the necessary trouble and expense. They were a rich
landowning family, and had about three thousand urskins, with a
magnificent farm in the neighbourhood, but they did not care for village
life and lived in the town summer and winter. The family consisted of a
mother, a tall, spare, delicate lady, who had short hair, wore a blouse
and a plain skirt ? l'Anglais, and three daughters, who were spoken of,
not by their names, but as the eldest, the middle, and the youngest;
they all had ugly, sharp chins, and they were short-sighted, high-
shouldered, dressed in the same style as their mother, had an unpleasant
lisp, and yet they always took part in every play and were always doing
something for charity--acting, reciting, singing. They were very serious
and never smiled, and even in burlesque operettas they acted without
gaiety and with a businesslike air, as though they were engaged in
bookkeeping.
I loved our plays, especially the rehearsals, which were frequent,
rather absurd, and noisy, and we were always given supper after them. I
had no part in the selection of the pieces and the casting of the
characters. I had to look after the stage. I used to design the scenery
and copy out the parts, and prompt and make up. And I also had to look
after the various effects such as thunder, the singing of a nightingale,
and so on. Having no social position, I had no decent clothes, and
during rehearsals had to hold aloof from the others in the darkened
wings and shyly say nothing.
I used to paint the scenery in the Azhoguins' coach-house or yard. I was
assisted by a house-painter, or, as he called himself, a decorating
contractor, named Andrey Ivanov, a man of about fifty, tall and very
thin and pale, with a narrow chest, hollow temples, and dark rings under
his eyes, he was rather awful to look at. He had some kind of wasting
disease, and every spring and autumn he was said to be on the point of
death, but he would go to bed for a while and then get up and say with
surprise: "I'm not dead this time!"
In the town he was called Radish, and people said it was his real name.
He loved the theatre as much as I, and no sooner did he hear that a play
was in hand than he gave up all his work and went to the Azhoguins' to
paint scenery.
The day after my conversation with my sister I worked from morning till
night at the Azhoguins'. The rehearsal was fixed for seven o'clock, and
an hour before it began all the players were assembled, and the eldest,
the middle, and the youngest Miss Azhoguin were reading their parts on
the stage. Radish, in a long, brown overcoat with a scarf wound round
his neck, was standing, leaning with his head against the wall, looking
at the stage with a rapt expression. Mrs. Azhoguin went from guest to
guest saying something pleasant to every one. She had a way of gazing
into one's face and speaking in a hushed voice as though she were
telling a secret.
"It must be difficult to paint scenery," she said softly, coming up to
me. "I was just talking to Mrs. Mufke about prejudice when I saw you
come in. Mon Dieu! All my life I have struggled against prejudice. To
convince the servants that all their superstitions are nonsense I always
light three candles, and I begin all my important business on the
thirteenth."
The daughter of Dolyhikov, the engineer, was there, a handsome, plump,
fair girl, dressed, as people said in our town, in Parisian style. She
did not act, but at rehearsals a chair was put for her on the stage, and
the plays did not begin until she appeared in the front row, to astonish
everybody with the brilliance of her clothes. As coming from the
metropolis, she was allowed to make remarks during rehearsals, and she
did so with an affable, condescending smile, and it was clear that she
regarded our plays as a childish amusement. It was said that she had
studied singing at the Petersburg conservatoire and had sung for a
winter season in opera. I liked her very much, and during rehearsals or
the performance, I never took my eyes off her.
I had taken the book and began to prompt when suddenly my sister
appeared. Without taking off her coat and hat she came up to me and
said:
"Please come!"
I went. Behind the stage in the doorway stood Aniuta Blagovo, also
wearing a hat with a dark veil. She was the daughter of the vice-
president of the Court, who had been appointed to our town years ago,
almost as soon as the High Court was established. She was tall and had a
good figure, and was considered indispensable for the tableaux vivants,
and when she represented a fairy or a muse, her face would burn with
shame; but she took no part in the plays, and would only look in at
rehearsals, on some business, and never enter the hall. And it was
evident now that she had only looked in for a moment.
"My father has mentioned you," she said drily, not looking at me and
blushing.... "Dolyhikov has promised to find you something to do on the
railway. If you go to his house to-morrow, he will see you."
I bowed and thanked her for her kindness.
"And you must leave this," she said, pointing to my book.
She and my sister went up to Mrs. Azhoguin and began to whisper, looking
at me.
"Indeed," said Mrs. Azhoguin, coming up to me, and gazing into my face.
"Indeed, if it takes you from your more serious business"--she took the
book out of my hands--"then you must hand it over to some one else. Don't
worry, my friend. It will be all right."
I said good-bye and left in some confusion. As I went down-stairs I saw
my sister and Aniuta Blagovo going away; they were talking animatedly, I
suppose about my going on the railway, and they hurried away. My sister
had never been to a rehearsal before, and she was probably tortured by
her conscience and by her fear of my father finding out that she had
been to the Azhoguins' without permission.
The next day I went to see Dolyhikov at one o'clock. The man servant
showed me into a charming room, which was the engineer's drawing-room
and study. Everything in it was charming and tasteful, and to a man like
myself, unused to such things, very strange. Costly carpets, huge
chairs, bronzes, pictures in gold and velvet frames; photographs on the
walls of beautiful women, clever, handsome faces, and striking
attitudes; from the drawing-room a door led straight into the garden, by
a veranda, and I saw lilac and a table laid for breakfast, rolls, and a
bunch of roses; and there was a smell of spring, and good cigars, and
happiness--and everything seemed to say, here lives a man who has worked
and won the highest happiness here on earth. At the table the engineer's
daughter was sitting reading a newspaper.
"Do you want my father?" she asked. "He is having a shower-bath. He will
be down presently. Please take a chair."
I sat down.
"I believe you live opposite?" she asked after a short silence.
"Yes."
"When I have nothing to do I look out of the window. You must excuse
me," she added, turning to her newspaper, "and I often see you and your
sister. She has such a kind, wistful expression."
Dolyhikov came in. He was wiping his neck with a towel.
"Papa, this is Mr. Pologniev," said his daughter.
"Yes, yes. Blagovo spoke to me." He turned quickly to me, but did not
hold out his hand. "But what do you think I can give you? I'm not
bursting with situations. You are queer people!" he went on in a loud
voice and as though he were scolding me. "I get about twenty people
every day, as though I were a Department of State. I run a railway, sir.
I employ hard labour; I need mechanics, navvies, joiners, well-sinkers,
and you can only sit and write. That's all! You are all clerks!"
And he exhaled the same air of happiness as his carpets and chairs. He
was stout, healthy, with red cheeks and a broad chest; he looked clean
in his pink shirt and wide trousers, just like a china figure of a post-
boy. He had a round, bristling beard--and not a single grey hair--and a
nose with a slight bridge, and bright, innocent, dark eyes.
"What can you do?" he went on. "Nothing! I am an engineer and well-to-
do, but before I was given this railway I worked very hard for a long
time. I was an engine-driver for two years, I worked in Belgium as an
ordinary lubricator. Now, my dear man, just think--what work can I offer
you?"
"I quite agree," said I, utterly abashed, not daring to meet his bright,
innocent eyes.
"Are you any good with the telegraph?" he asked after some thought.
"Yes. I have been in the telegraph service."
"Hm.... Well, we'll see. Go to Dubechnia. There's a fellow there
already. But he is a scamp."
"And what will my duties be?" I asked.
"We'll see to that later. Go there now. I'll give orders. But please
don't drivel and don't bother me with petitions or I'll kick you out."
He turned away from me without even a nod. I bowed to him and his
daughter, who was reading the newspaper, and went out. I felt so
miserable that when my sister asked how the engineer had received me, I
could not utter a single word.
To go to Dubechnia I got up early in the morning at sunrise. There was
not a soul in the street, the whole town was asleep, and my footsteps
rang out with a hollow sound. The dewy poplars filled the air with a
soft scent. I was sad and had no desire to leave the town. It seemed so
nice and warm! I loved the green trees, the quiet sunny mornings, the
ringing of the bells, but the people in the town were alien to me,
tiresome and sometimes even loathsome. I neither liked nor understood
them.
I did not understand why or for what purpose those thirty-five thousand