Short Stories by Chekhov
clutched at his head. He got back into the carriage, then walked again.
The new idea the doctor had imparted to him seemed to have overwhelmed
him, to have poisoned him; he was distracted, shattered in body and
soul, and when he got back to the town he said good-bye to the doctor,
declining to stay to dinner though he had promised the doctor the
evening before to dine with him.
BETROTHED I
IT was ten o'clock in the evening and the full moon was shining over the
garden. In the Shumins' house an evening service celebrated at the
request of the grandmother, Marfa Mihalovna, was just over, and now
Nadya--she had gone into the garden for a minute--could see the table
being laid for supper in the dining-room, and her grandmother bustling
about in her gorgeous silk dress; Father Andrey, a chief priest of the
cathedral, was talking to Nadya's mother, Nina Ivanovna, and now in the
evening light through the window her mother for some reason looked very
young; Andrey Andreitch, Father Andrey's son, was standing by listening
attentively.
It was still and cool in the garden, and dark peaceful shadows lay on
the ground. There was a sound of frogs croaking, far, far away beyond
the town. There was a feeling of May, sweet May! One drew deep breaths
and longed to fancy that not here but far away under the sky, above the
trees, far away in the open country, in the fields and the woods, the
life of spring was unfolding now, mysterious, lovely, rich and holy
beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man. And for some reason one
wanted to cry.
She, Nadya, was already twenty-three. Ever since she was sixteen she had
been passionately dreaming of marriage and at last she was engaged to
Andrey Andreitch, the young man who was standing on the other side of
the window; she liked him, the wedding was already fixed for July 7, and
yet there was no joy in her heart, she was sleeping badly, her spirits
drooped. . . . She could hear from the open windows of the basement
where the kitchen was the hurrying servants, the clatter of knives, the
banging of the swing door; there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled
cherries, and for some reason it seemed to her that it would be like
that all her life, with no change, no end to it.
Some one came out of the house and stood on the steps; it was Alexandr
Timofeitch, or, as he was always called, Sasha, who had come from Moscow
ten days before and was staying with them. Years ago a distant relation
of the grandmother, a gentleman's widow called Marya Petrovna, a thin,
sickly little woman who had sunk into poverty, used to come to the house
to ask for assistance. She had a son Sasha. It used for some reason to
be said that he had talent as an artist, and when his mother died
Nadya's grandmother had, for the salvation of her soul, sent him to the
Komissarovsky school in Moscow; two years later he went into the school
of painting, spent nearly fifteen years there, and only just managed to
scrape through the leaving examination in the section of architecture.
He did not set up as an architect, however, but took a job at a
lithographer's. He used to come almost every year, usually very ill, to
stay with Nadya's grandmother to rest and recover.
He was wearing now a frock-coat buttoned up, and shabby canvas trousers,
crumpled into creases at the bottom. And his shirt had not been ironed
and he had somehow all over a look of not being fresh. He was very thin,
with big eyes, long thin fingers and a swarthy bearded face, and all the
same he was handsome. With the Shumins he was like one of the family,
and in their house felt he was at home. And the room in which he lived
when he was there had for years been called Sasha's room. Standing on
the steps he saw Nadya, and went up to her.
"It's nice here," he said.
"Of course it's nice, you ought to stay here till the autumn."
"Yes, I expect it will come to that. I dare say I shall stay with you
till September."
He laughed for no reason, and sat down beside her.
"I'm sitting gazing at mother," said Nadya. "She looks so young from
here! My mother has her weaknesses, of course," she added, after a
pause, "but still she is an exceptional woman."
"Yes, she is very nice . . ." Sasha agreed. "Your mother, in her own way
of course, is a very good and sweet woman, but . . . how shall I say? I
went early this morning into your kitchen and there I found four
servants sleeping on the floor, no bedsteads, and rags for bedding,
stench, bugs, beetles . . . it is just as it was twenty years ago, no
change at all. Well, Granny, God bless her, what else can you expect of
Granny? But your mother speaks French, you know, and acts in private
theatricals. One would think she might understand."
As Sasha talked, he used to stretch out two long wasted fingers before
the listener's face.
"It all seems somehow strange to me here, now I am out of the habit of
it," he went on. "There is no making it out. Nobody ever does anything.
Your mother spends the whole day walking about like a duchess, Granny
does nothing either, nor you either. And your Andrey Andreitch never
does anything either."
Nadya had heard this the year before and, she fancied, the year before
that too, and she knew that Sasha could not make any other criticism,
and in old days this had amused her, but now for some reason she felt
annoyed.
"That's all stale, and I have been sick of it for ages," she said and
got up. "You should think of something a little newer."
He laughed and got up too, and they went together toward the house. She,
tall, handsome, and well-made, beside him looked very healthy and
smartly dressed; she was conscious of this and felt sorry for him and
for some reason awkward.
"And you say a great deal you should not," she said. "You've just been
talking about my Andrey, but you see you don't know him."
"My Andrey. . . . Bother him, your Andrey. I am sorry for your youth."
They were already sitting down to supper as the young people went into
the dining-room. The grandmother, or Granny as she was called in the
household, a very stout, plain old lady with bushy eyebrows and a little
moustache, was talking loudly, and from her voice and manner of speaking
it could be seen that she was the person of most importance in the
house. She owned rows of shops in the market, and the old-fashioned
house with columns and the garden, yet she prayed every morning that God
might save her from ruin and shed tears as she did so. Her daughter-in-
law, Nadya's mother, Nina Ivanovna, a fair-haired woman tightly laced
in, with a pince-nez, and diamonds on every finger, Father Andrey, a
lean, toothless old man whose face always looked as though he were just
going to say something amusing, and his son, Andrey Andreitch, a stout
and handsome young man with curly hair looking like an artist or an
actor, were all talking of hypnotism.
"You will get well in a week here," said Granny, addressing Sasha. "Only
you must eat more. What do you look like!" she sighed. "You are really
dreadful! You are a regular prodigal son, that is what you are."
"After wasting his father's substance in riotous living," said Father
Andrey slowly, with laughing eyes. "He fed with senseless beasts."
"I like my dad," said Andrey Andreitch, touching his father on the
shoulder. "He is a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow."
Everyone was silent for a space. Sasha suddenly burst out laughing and
put his dinner napkin to his mouth.
"So you believe in hypnotism?" said Father Andrey to Nina Ivanovna.
"I cannot, of course, assert that I believe," answered Nina Ivanovna,
assuming a very serious, even severe, expression; "but I must own that
there is much that is mysterious and incomprehensible in nature."
"I quite agree with you, though I must add that religion distinctly
curtails for us the domain of the mysterious."
A big and very fat turkey was served. Father Andrey and Nina Ivanovna
went on with their conversation. Nina Ivanovna's diamonds glittered on
her fingers, then tears began to glitter in her eyes, she grew excited.
"Though I cannot venture to argue with you," she said, "you must admit
there are so many insoluble riddles in life!"
"Not one, I assure you."
After supper Andrey Andreitch played the fiddle and Nina Ivanovna
accompanied him on the piano. Ten years before he had taken his degree
at the university in the Faculty of Arts, but had never held any post,
had no definite work, and only from time to time took part in concerts
for charitable objects; and in the town he was regarded as a musician.
Andrey Andreitch played; they all listened in silence. The samovar was
boiling quietly on the table and no one but Sasha was drinking tea. Then
when it struck twelve a violin string suddenly broke; everyone laughed,
bustled about, and began saying good-bye.
After seeing her fiancé out, Nadya went upstairs where she and her
mother had their rooms (the lower storey was occupied by the
grandmother). They began putting the lights out below in the dining-
room, while Sasha still sat on drinking tea. He always spent a long time
over tea in the Moscow style, drinking as much as seven glasses at a
time. For a long time after Nadya had undressed and gone to bed she
could hear the servants clearing away downstairs and Granny talking
angrily. At last everything was hushed, and nothing could be heard but
Sasha from time to time coughing on a bass note in his room below. II
When Nadya woke up it must have been two o'clock, it was beginning to
get light. A watchman was tapping somewhere far away. She was not
sleepy, and her bed felt very soft and uncomfortable. Nadya sat up in
her bed and fell to thinking as she had done every night in May. Her
thoughts were the same as they had been the night before, useless,
persistent thoughts, always alike, of how Andrey Andreitch had begun
courting her and had made her an offer, how she had accepted him and
then little by little had come to appreciate the kindly, intelligent
man. But for some reason now when there was hardly a month left before
the wedding, she began to feel dread and uneasiness as though something
vague and oppressive were before her.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock . . ." the watchman tapped lazily. ". . . Tick-
tock."
Through the big old-fashioned window she could see the garden and at a
little distance bushes of lilac in full flower, drowsy and lifeless from
the cold; and the thick white mist was floating softly up to the lilac,
trying to cover it. Drowsy rooks were cawing in the far-away trees.
"My God, why is my heart so heavy?"
Perhaps every girl felt the same before her wedding. There was no
knowing! Or was it Sasha's influence? But for several years past Sasha
had been repeating the same thing, like a copybook, and when he talked
he seemed naïve and queer. But why was it she could not get Sasha out
of her head? Why was it?
The watchman left off tapping for a long while. The birds were
twittering under the windows and the mist had disappeared from the
garden. Everything was lighted up by the spring sunshine as by a smile.
Soon the whole garden, warm and caressed by the sun, returned to life,
and dewdrops like diamonds glittered on the leaves and the old neglected
garden on that morning looked young and gaily decked.
Granny was already awake. Sasha's husky cough began. Nadya could hear
them below, setting the samovar and moving the chairs. The hours passed
slowly, Nadya had been up and walking about the garden for a long while
and still the morning dragged on.
At last Nina Ivanovna appeared with a tear-stained face, carrying a
glass of mineral water. She was interested in spiritualism and
homeopathy, read a great deal, was fond of talking of the doubts to