Short Stories by Chekhov
waive the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise, and which
I now despise. That I may deprive myself of my right to them, I shall
come out from here five minutes before the stipulated term, and thus
shall violate the agreement."
When he had read, the banker put the sheet on the table, kissed the head
of the strange man, and began to weep. He went out of the wing. Never at
any other time, not even after his terrible losses on the Exchange, had
he felt such contempt for himself as now. Coming home, he lay down on
his bed, but agitation and tears kept him long from sleep....
The next morning the poor watchman came running to him and told him that
they had seen the man who lived in the wing climbing through the window
into the garden. He had gone to the gate and disappeared. Together with
his servants the banker went instantly to the wing and established the
escape of his prisoner. To avoid unnecessary rumours he took the paper
with the renunciation from the table and, on his return, locked it in
his safe. A TEDIOUS STORY (FROM AN OLD MAN'S JOURNAL) I
There lives in Russia an emeritus professor, Nicolai Stiepanovich ...
privy councillor and knight. He has so many Russian and foreign Orders
that when he puts them on the students call him "the holy picture." His
acquaintance is most distinguished. Not a single famous scholar lived or
died during the last twenty-five or thirty years but he was intimately
acquainted with him. Now he has no one to be friendly with, but speaking
of the past the long list of his eminent friends would end with such
names as Pirogov, Kavelin, and the poet Nekrasov, who bestowed upon him
their warmest and most sincere friendship. He is a member of all the
Russian and of three foreign universities, et cetera, et cetera. All
this, and a great deal besides, forms what is known as my name.
This name of mine is very popular. It is known to every literate person
in Russia; abroad it is mentioned from professorial chairs with the
epithets "eminent and esteemed." It is reckoned among those fortunate
names which to mention in vain or to abuse in public or in the Press is
considered a mark of bad breeding. Indeed, it should be so; because with
my name is inseparably associated the idea of a famous, richly gifted,
and indubitably useful person. I am a steady worker, with the endurance
of a camel, which is important. I am also endowed with talent, which is
still more important. In passing, I would add that I am a well-educated,
modest, and honest fellow. I have never poked my nose into letters or
politics, never sought popularity in disputes with the ignorant, and
made no speeches either at dinners or at my colleagues' funerals.
Altogether there is not a single spot on my learned name, and it has
nothing to complain of. It is fortunate.
The bearer of this name, that is myself, is a man of sixty-two, with a
bald head, false teeth and an incurable tic. My name is as brilliant and
prepossessing, as I, myself am dull and ugly. My head and hands tremble
from weakness; my neck, like that of one of Turgeniev's heroines,
resembles the handle of a counter-bass; my chest is hollow and my back
narrow. When I speak or read my mouth twists, and when I smile my whole
face is covered with senile, deathly wrinkles. There is nothing imposing
in my pitiable face, save that when I suffer from the tic, I have a
singular expression which compels anyone who looks at me to think: "This
man will die soon, for sure."
I can still read pretty well; I can still hold the attention of my
audience for two hours. My passionate manner, the literary form of my
exposition and my humour make the defects of my voice almost
unnoticeable, though it is dry, harsh, and hard like a hypocrite's. But
I write badly. The part of my brain which governs the ability to write
refused office. My memory has weakened, and my thoughts are too
inconsequent; and when I expound them on paper, I always have a feeling
that I have lost the sense of their organic connection. The construction
is monotonous, and the sentence feeble and timid. I often do not write
what I want to, and when I write the end I cannot remember the
beginning. I often forget common words, and in writing a letter I always
have to waste much energy in order to avoid superfluous sentences and
unnecessary incidental statements; both bear clear witness of the decay
of my intellectual activity. And it is remarkable that, the simpler the
letter, the more tormenting is my effort. When writing a scientific
article I fed much freer and much more intelligent than in writing a
letter of welcome or a report. One thing more: it is easier for me to
write German or English than Russian.
As regards my present life, I must first of all note insomnia, from
which I have begun to suffer lately. If I were asked: "What is now the
chief and fundamental fact of your existence?" I would answer:
"Insomnia." From habit, I still undress at midnight precisely and get
into bed. I soon fall asleep but wake just after one with the feeling
that I have not slept at all. I must get out of bed and light the lamp.
For an hour or two I walk about the room from corner to corner and
inspect the long familiar pictures. When I am weary of walking I sit
down to the table. I sit motionless thinking of nothing, feeling no
desires; if a book lies before me I draw it mechanically towards me and
read without interest. Thus lately in one night I read mechanically a
whole novel with a strange title, "Of What the Swallow Sang." Or in
order to occupy my attention I make myself count to a thousand, or I
imagine the face of some one of my friends, and begin to remember in
what year and under what circumstances he joined the faculty. I love to
listen to sounds. Now, two rooms away from me my daughter Liza will say
something quickly, in her sleep; then my wife will walk through the
drawing-room with a candle and infallibly drop the box of matches. Then
the shrinking wood of the cupboard squeaks or the burner of the lamp
tinkles suddenly, and all these sounds somehow agitate me.
Not to sleep of nights confesses one abnormal; and therefore I wait
impatiently for the morning and the day, when I have the right not to
sleep. Many oppressive hours pass before the cock crows. He is my
harbinger of good. As soon as he has crowed I know that in an hour's
time the porter downstairs will awake and for some reason or other go up
the stairs, coughing angrily; and later beyond the windows the air
begins to pale gradually and voices echo in the street.
The day begins with the coming of my wife. She comes in to me in a
petticoat, with her hair undone, but already washed and smelling of eau
de Cologne, and looking as though she came in by accident, saying the
same thing every time: "Pardon, I came in for a moment. You haven't
slept again?" Then she puts the lamp out, sits by the table and begins
to talk. I am not a prophet but I know beforehand what the subject of
conversation will be, every morning the same. Usually, after breathless
inquiries after my health, she suddenly remembers our son, the officer,
who is serving in Warsaw. On the twentieth of each month we send him
fifty roubles. This is our chief subject of conversation.
"Of course it is hard on us," my wife sighs. "But until he is finally
settled we are obliged to help him. The boy is among strangers; the pay
is small. But if you like, next month we'll send him forty roubles
instead of fifty. What do you think?"
Daily experience might have convinced my wife that expenses do not grow
less by talking of them. But my wife does not acknowledge experience and
speaks about our officer punctually every day, about bread, thank
Heaven, being cheaper and sugar a half-penny dearer--and all this in a
tone as though it were news to me.
I listen and agree mechanically. Probably because I have not slept
during the night strange idle thoughts take hold of me. I look at my
wife and wonder like a child. In perplexity I ask myself: This old,
stout, clumsy woman, with sordid cares and anxiety about bread and
butter written in the dull expression of her face, her eyes tired with
eternal thoughts of debts and poverty, who can talk only of expenses and
smile only when things are cheap--was this once the slim Varya whom I
loved passionately for her fine clear mind, her pure soul, her beauty,
and as Othello loved Desdemona, for her "compassion" of my science? Is
she really the same, my wife Varya, who bore me a son?
I gaze intently into the fat, clumsy old woman's face. I seek in her my
Varya; but from the past nothing remains but her fear for my health and
her way of calling my salary "our" salary and my hat "our" hat. It pains
me to look at her, and to console her, if only a little, I let her talk
as she pleases, and I am silent even when she judges people unjustly, or
scolds me because I do not practise and do not publish text-books.
Our conversation always ends in the same way. My wife suddenly remembers
that I have not yet had tea, and gives a start:
"Why am I sitting down?" she says, getting up. "The samovar has been on
the table a long while, and I sit chatting. How forgetful I am? Good
gracious!"
She hurries away, but stops at the door to say:
"We owe Yegor five months' wages. Do you realise it? It's a bad thing to
let the servants' wages run on. I've said so often. It's much easier to
pay ten roubles every month than fifty for five!"
Outside the door she stops again:
"I pity our poor Liza more than anybody. The girl studies at the
Conservatoire. She's always in good society, and the Lord only knows how
she's dressed. That fur-coat of hers! It's a sin to show yourself in the
street in it. If she had a different father, it would do, but everyone
knows he is a famous professor, a privy councillor."
So, having reproached me for my name and title, she goes away at last.
Thus begins my day. It does not improve.
When I have drunk my tea, Liza comes in, in a fur-coat and hat, with her
music, ready to go to the Conservatoire. She is twenty-two. She looks
younger. She is pretty, rather like my wife when she was young. She
kisses me tenderly on my forehead and my hand.
"Good morning, Papa. Quite well?"
As a child she adored ice-cream, and I often had to take her to a
confectioner's. Ice-cream was her standard of beauty. If she wanted to
praise me, she used to say: "Papa, you are ice-creamy." One finger she
called the pistachio, the other the cream, the third the raspberry
finger and so on. And when she came to say good morning, I used to lift
her on to my knees and kiss her fingers, and say:
"The cream one, the pistachio one, the lemon one."
And now from force of habit I kiss Liza's fingers and murmur:
"Pistachio one, cream one, lemon one." But it does not sound the same. I
am cold like the ice-cream and I feel ashamed. When my daughter comes in
and touches my forehead with her lips I shudder as though a bee had
stung my forehead, I smile constrainedly and turn away my face. Since my
insomnia began a question has been driving like a nail into my brain. My
daughter continually sees how terribly I, an old man, blush because I
owe the servant his wages; she sees how often the worry of small debts
forces me to leave my work and to pace the room from corner to corner
for hours, thinking; but why hasn't she, even once, come to me without
telling her mother and whispered: "Father, here's my watch, bracelets,
earrings, dresses.... Pawn them all.... You need money"? Why, seeing how
I and her mother try to hide our poverty, out of false pride--why does
she not deny herself the luxury of music lessons? I would not accept the
watch, the bracelets, or her sacrifices--God forbid!--I do not want that.