Short Stories by Chekhov
labour. At one and the same time you have to be a savant, a
schoolmaster, and an orator, and it is a failure if the orator triumphs
over the schoolmaster in you or the schoolmaster over the orator.
After lecturing for a quarter, for half an hour, I notice suddenly that
the students have begun to stare at the ceiling or Peter Ignatievich.
One will feel for his handkerchief, another settle himself comfortably,
another smile at his own thoughts. This means their attention is tried.
I must take steps. I seize the first opening and make a pun. All the
hundred and fifty faces have a broad smile, their eyes flash merrily,
and for a while you can hear the boom of the sea. I laugh too. Their
attention is refreshed and I can go on.
No sport, no recreation, no game ever gave me such delight as reading a
lecture. Only in a lecture could I surrender myself wholly to passion
and understand that inspiration is not a poet's fiction, but exists
indeed. And I do not believe that Hercules, even after the most
delightful of his exploits, felt such a pleasant weariness as I
experienced every time after a lecture.
This was in the past. Now at lectures I experience only torture. Not
half an hour passes before I begin to feel an invincible weakness in my
legs and shoulders. I sit down in my chair, but I am not used to lecture
sitting. In a moment I am up again, and lecture standing. Then I sit
down again. Inside my mouth is dry, my voice is hoarse, my head feels
dizzy. To hide my state from my audience I drink some water now and
then, cough, wipe my nose continually, as though I was troubled by a
cold, make inopportune puns, and finally announce the interval earlier
than I should. But chiefly I feel ashamed.
Conscience and reason tell me that the best thing I could do now is to
read my farewell lecture to the boys, give them my last word, bless them
and give up my place to someone younger and stronger than I. But, heaven
be my judge, I have not the courage to act up to my conscience.
Unfortunately, I am neither philosopher nor theologian. I know quite
well I have no more than six months to live; and it would seem that now
I ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the darkness beyond the
grave, and the visions which will visit my sleep in the earth. But
somehow my soul is not curious of these questions, though my mind grants
every atom of their importance. Now before my death it is just as it was
twenty or thirty years ago. Only science interests me.--When I take my
last breath I shall still believe that Science is the most important,
the most beautiful, the most necessary thing in the life of man; that
she has always been and always will be the highest manifestation of
love, and that by her alone will man triumph over nature and himself.
This faith is, perhaps, at bottom naive and unfair, but I am not to
blame if this and not another is my faith. To conquer this faith within
me is for me impossible.
But this is beside the point. I only ask that you should incline to my
weakness and understand that to tear a man who is more deeply concerned
with the destiny of a brain tissue than the final goal of creation away
from his rostrum and his students is like taking him and nailing him up
in a coffin without waiting until he is dead.
Because of my insomnia and the intense struggle with my increasing
weakness a strange thing happens inside me. In the middle of my lecture
tears rise to my throat, my eyes begin to ache, and I have a passionate
and hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. I want to
cry out that fate has doomed me, a famous man, to death; that in some
six months here in the auditorium another will be master. I want to cry
out that I am poisoned; that new ideas that I did not know before have
poisoned the last days of my life, and sting my brain incessantly like
mosquitoes. At that moment my position seems so terrible to me that I
want all my students to be terrified, to jump from their seats and rush
panic-stricken to the door, shrieking in despair.
It is not easy to live through such moments. II
After the lecture I sit at home and work. I read reviews, dissertations,
or prepare for the next lecture, and sometimes I write something. I work
with interruptions, since I have to receive visitors.
The bell rings. It is a friend who has come to talk over some business.
He enters with hat and stick. He holds them both in front of him and
says:
"Just a minute, a minute. Sit down, cher confrère. Only a word or two."
First we try to show each other that we are both extraordinarily polite
and very glad to see each other. I make him sit down in the chair, and
he makes me sit down; and then we touch each other's waists, and put our
hands on each other's buttons, as though we were feeling each other and
afraid to bum ourselves. We both laugh, though we say nothing funny.
Sitting down, we bend our heads together and begin to whisper to each
other. We must gild our conversation with such Chinese formalities as:
"You remarked most justly" or "I have already had the occasion to say."
We must giggle if either of us makes a pun, though it's a bad one. When
we have finished with the business, my friend gets up with a rush, waves
his hat towards my work, and begins to take his leave. We feel each
other once more and laugh. I accompany him down to the hall. There I
help my friend on with his coat, but he emphatically declines so great
an honour. Then, when Yegor opens the door my friend assures me that I
will catch cold, and I pretend to be ready to follow him into the
street. And when I finally return to my study my face keeps smiling
still, it must be from inertia.
A little later another ring. Someone enters the hall, spends a long time
taking off his coat and coughs. Yegor brings me word that a student has
come. I tell him to show him up. In a minute a pleasant-faced young man
appears. For a year we have been on these forced terms together. He
sends in abominable answers at examinations, and I mark him gamma. Every
year I have about seven of these people to whom, to use the students'
slang, "I give a plough" or "haul them through." Those of them who fail
because of stupidity or illness, usually bear their cross in patience
and do not bargain with me; only sanguine temperaments, "open natures,"
bargain with me and come to my house, people whose appetite is spoiled
or who are prevented from going regularly to the opera by a delay in
their examinations. With the first I am over-indulgent; the second kind
I keep on the run for a year.
"Sit down," I say to my guest. "What was it you wished to say?"
"Forgive me for troubling you, Professor...." he begins, stammering and
never looking me in the face. "I would not venture to trouble you
unless.... I was up for my examination before you for the fifth time ...
and I failed. I implore you to be kind, and give me a 'satis,'
because...."
The defence which all idlers make of themselves is always the same. They
have passed in every other subject with distinction, and failed only in
mine, which is all the more strange because they had always studied my
subject most diligently and know it thoroughly. They failed through some
inconceivable misunderstanding.
"Forgive me, my friend," I say to my guest. "But I can't give you a
'satis'--impossible. Go and read your lectures again, and then come. Then
we'll see."
Pause. I get a desire to torment the student a little, because he
prefers beer and the opera to science; and I say with a sigh:
"In my opinion, the best thing for you now is to give up the Faculty of
Medicine altogether. With your abilities, if you find it impossible to
pass the examination, then it seems you have neither the desire nor the
vocation to be a doctor."
My sanguine friend's face grows grave.
"Excuse me, Professor," he smiles, "but it would be strange, to say the
least, on my part. Studying medicine for five years and suddenly--to
throw it over."
"Yes, but it's better to waste five years than to spend your whole life
afterwards in an occupation which you dislike."
Immediately I begin to feel sorry for him and hasten to say:
"Well, do as you please. Read a little and come again."
"When?" the idler asks, dully.
"Whenever you like. To-morrow, even."
And I read in his pleasant eyes. "I can come again; but you'll send me
away again, you beast."
"Of course," I say, "you won't become more learned because you have to
come up to me fifteen times for examination; but this will form your
character. You must be thankful for that."
Silence. I rise and wait for my guest to leave. But he stands there,
looking at the window, pulling at his little beard and thinking. It
becomes tedious.
My sanguine friend has a pleasant, succulent voice, clever, amusing
eyes, a good-natured face, rather puffed by assiduity to beer and much
resting on the sofa. Evidently he could tell me many interesting things
about the opera, about his love affairs, about the friends he adores;
but, unfortunately, it is not the thing. And I would so eagerly listen!
"On my word of honour, Professor, if you give me a 'satis' I'll...."
As soon as it gets to "my word of honour," I wave my hands and sit down
to the table. The student thinks for a while and says, dejectedly:
"In that case, good-bye.... Forgive me!"
"Good-bye, my friend.... Good-bye!"
He walks irresolutely into the hall, slowly puts on his coat, and, when
he goes into the street, probably thinks again for a long while; having
excogitated nothing better than "old devil" for me, he goes to a cheap
restaurant to drink beer and dine, and then home to sleep. Peace be to
your ashes, honest labourer!
A third ring. Enters a young doctor in a new black suit, gold-rimmed
spectacles and the inevitable white necktie. He introduces himself. I
ask him to take a seat and inquire his business. The young priest of
science begins to tell me, not without agitation, that he passed his
doctor's examination this year, and now has only to write his
dissertation. He would like to work with me, under my guidance; and I
would do him a great kindness if I would suggest a subject for his
dissertation.
"I should be delighted to be of use to you, mon cher confrère," I say.
"But first of all, let us come to an agreement as to what is a
dissertation. Generally we understand by this, work produced as the
result of an independent creative power. Isn't that so? But a work
written on another's subject, under another's guidance, has a different
name."
The aspirant is silent. I fire up and jump out of my seat. "Why do you
all come to me? I can't understand," I cry out angrily. "Do I keep a
shop? I don't sell theses across the counter. For the one thousandth
time I ask you all to leave me alone. Forgive my rudeness, but I've got
tired of it at last!"
The aspirant is silent. Only, a tinge of colour shows on his cheek. His
face expresses his profound respect for my famous name and my erudition,
but I see in his eyes that he despises my voice, my pitiable figure, my
nervous gestures. When I am angry I seem to him a very queer fellow.
"I do not keep a shop," I storm. "It's an amazing business! Why don't
you want to be independent? Why do you find freedom so objectionable?"
I say a great deal, but he is silent. At last by degrees I grow calm,
and, of course, surrender. The aspirant will receive a valueless subject
from me, will write under my observation a needless thesis, will pass
his tedious disputation cum laude and will get a useless and learned
degree.
The rings follow in endless succession, but here I confine myself to
four. The fourth ring sounds, and I hear the familiar steps, the
rustling dress, the dear voice.
Eighteen years ago my dear friend, the oculist, died and left behind him