Short Stories by Chekhov

unknown reason to address me magnificently, "Votre Excellence." And I am morose. Apparently I embarrass them all and they embarrass me. I never had any intimate acquaintance with class antagonism before, but now something of the kind torments me indeed. I try to find only bad traits in Gnekker. It does not take long and then I am tormented because one of my friends has not taken his place as bridegroom. In another way too his presence has a bad effect upon me. Usually, when I am left alone with myself or when I am in the company of people I love, I never think of my merits; and if I begin to think about them they seem as trivial as though I had become a scholar only yesterday. But in the presence of a man like Gnekker my merits appear to me like an extremely high mountain, whose summit is lost in the clouds, while Gnekkers move about the foot, so small as hardly to be seen. After dinner I go up to my study and light my little pipe, the only one during the whole day, the sole survivor of my old habit of smoking from morning to night. My wife comes into me while I am smoking and sits down to speak to me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what the conversation will be. "We ought to talk seriously, Nicolai Stiepanovich," she begins. "I mean about Liza. Why won't you attend?" "Attend to what?" "You pretend you don't notice anything. It's not right: It's not right to be unconcerned. Gnekker has intentions about Liza. What do you say to that?" "I can't say he's a bad man, because I don't know him; but I've told you a thousand times already that I don't like him." "But that's impossible ... impossible...." She rises and walks about in agitation. "It's impossible to have such an attitude to a serious matter," she says. "When our daughter's happiness is concerned, we must put everything personal aside. I know you don't like him.... Very well.... But if we refuse him now and upset everything, how can you guarantee that Liza won't have a grievance against us for the rest of her life? Heaven knows there aren't many young men nowadays. It's quite likely there won't be another chance. He loves Liza very much and she likes him, evidently. Of course he hasn't a settled position. But what is there to do? Please God, he'll get a position in time. He comes of a good family, and he's rich." "How did you find that out?" "He said so himself. His father has a big house in Kharkov and an estate outside. You must certainly go to Kharkov." "Why?" "You'll find out there. You have acquaintances among the professors there. I'd go myself. But I'm a woman. I can't." "I will not go to Kharkov," I say morosely. My wife gets frightened; a tormented expression comes over her face. "For God's sake, Nicolai Stiepanich," she implores, sobbing, "For God's sake help me with this burden! It hurts me." It is painful to look at her. "Very well, Varya," I say kindly, "If you like--very well I'll go to Kharkov, and do everything you want." She puts her handkerchief to her eyes and goes to cry in her room. I am left alone. A little later they bring in the lamp. The familiar shadows that have wearied me for years fall from the chairs and the lamp-shade on to the walls and the floor. When I look at them it seems that it's night already, and the cursed insomnia has begun. I lie down on the bed; then I get up and walk about the room then lie down again. My nervous excitement generally reaches its highest after dinner, before the evening. For no reason I begin to cry and hide my head in the pillow. All the while I am afraid somebody may come in; I am afraid I shall die suddenly; I am ashamed of my tears; altogether, something intolerable is happening in my soul. I feel I cannot look at the lamp or the books or the shadows on the floor, or listen to the voices in the drawing-room any more. Some invisible, mysterious force pushes me rudely out of my house. I jump up, dress hurriedly, and go cautiously out into the street so that the household shall not notice me. Where shall I go? The answer to this question has long been there in my brain: "To Katy." III As usual she is lying on the Turkish divan or the couch and reading something. Seeing me she lifts her head languidly, sits down, and gives me her hand. "You are always lying down like that," I say after a reposeful silence. "It's unhealthy. You'd far better be doing something." "Ah?" "You'd far better be doing something, I say." "What?... A woman can be either a simple worker or an actress." "Well, then--if you can't become a worker, be an actress." She is silent. "You had better marry," I say, half-joking. "There's no one to marry: and no use if I did." "You can't go on living like this." "Without a husband? As if that mattered. There are as many men as you like, if you only had the will." "This isn't right, Katy." "What isn't right?" "What you said just now." Katy sees that I am chagrined, and desires to soften the bad impression. "Come. Let's come here. Here." She leads me into a small room, very cosy, and points to the writing table. "There. I made it for you. You'll work here. Come every day and bring your work with you. They only disturb you there at home.... Will you work here? Would you like to?" In order not to hurt her by refusing, I answer that I shall work with her and that I like the room immensely. Then we both sit down in the cosy room and begin to talk. The warmth, the cosy surroundings, the presence of a sympathetic being, rouses in me now not a feeling of pleasure as it used but a strong desire to complain and grumble. Anyhow it seems to me that if I moan and complain I shall feel better. "It's a bad business, my dear," I begin with a sigh. "Very bad." "What is the matter?" "I'll tell you what is the matter. The best and most sacred right of kings is the right to pardon. And I have always felt myself a king so long as I used this right prodigally. I never judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned everyone right and left. Where others protested and revolted I only advised and persuaded. All my life I've tried to make my society tolerable to the family of students, friends and servants. And this attitude of mine towards people, I know, educated every one who came into contact with me. But now I am king no more. There's something going on in me which belongs only to slaves. Day and night evil thoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I never knew before have made their home in my soul. I hate and despise; I'm exasperated, disturbed, and afraid. I've become strict beyond measure, exacting, unkind, and suspicious. Even the things which in the past gave me the chance of making an extra pun, now bring me a feeling of oppression. My logic has changed too. I used to despise money alone; now I cherish evil feelings, not to money, but to the rich, as if they were guilty. I used to hate violence and arbitrariness; now I hate the people who employ violence, as if they alone are to blame and not all of us, who cannot educate one another. What does it all mean? If my new thoughts and feelings come from a change of my convictions, where could the change have come from? Has the world grown worse and I better, or was I blind and indifferent before? But if the change is due to the general decline of my physical and mental powers--I am sick and losing weight every day--then I'm in a pitiable position. It means that my new thoughts are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them and consider them valueless...." "Sickness hasn't anything to do with it," Katy interrupts. "Your eyes are opened--that's all. You've begun to notice things you didn't want to notice before for some reason. My opinion is that you must break with your family finally first of all and then go away." "You're talking nonsense." "You don't love them any more. Then, why do you behave unfairly? And is it a family! Mere nobodies. If they died to-day, no one would notice their absence to-morrow." Katy despises my wife and daughter as much as they hate her. It's scarcely possible nowadays to speak of the right of people to despise one another. But if you accept Katy's point of view and own that such a right exists, you will notice that she has the same right to despise my wife and Liza as they have to hate her. "Mere nobodies!" she repeats. "Did you have any dinner to-day? It's a wonder they didn't forget to tell you dinner was ready. I don't know how they still remember that you exist." "Katy!" I say sternly. "Please be quiet." "You don't think it's fun for me to talk about them, do you? I wish I didn't know them at all. You listen to me, dear. Leave everything and go away: go abroad--the quicker, the better." "What nonsense! What about the University?" "And the University, too. What is it to you? There's no sense in it all. You've been lecturing for thirty years, and where are your pupils? Have you many famous scholars? Count them up. But to increase the number of doctors who exploit the general ignorance and make hundreds of thousands,--there's no need to be a good and gifted man. You aren't wanted." "My God, how bitter you are!" I get terrified. "How bitter you are. Be quiet, or I'll go away. I can't reply to the bitter things you say." The maid enters and calls us to tea. Thank God, our conversation changes round the samovar. I have made my moan, and now I want to indulge another senile weakness--reminiscences. I tell Katy about my past, to my great surprise with details that I never suspected I had kept safe in my memory. And she listens to me with emotion, with pride, holding her breath. I like particularly to tell how I once was a student at a seminary and how I dreamed of entering the University. "I used to walk in the seminary garden," I tell her, "and the wind would bring the sound of a song and the thrumming of an accordion from a distant tavern, or a troika with bells would pass quickly by the seminary fence. That would be quite enough to fill not only my breast with a sense of happiness, but my stomach, legs, and hands. As I heard the sound of the accordion or the bells fading away, I would see myself a doctor and paint pictures, one more glorious than another. And, you see, my dreams came true. There were more things I dared to dream of. I have been a favourite professor thirty years, I have had excellent friends and an honourable reputation. I loved and married when I was passionately in love. I had children. Altogether, when I look back the whole of my life seems like a nice, clever composition. The only thing I have to do now is not to spoil the finale. For this, I must die like a man. If death is really a danger then I must meet it as becomes a teacher, a scholar, and a citizen of a Christian State. But I am spoiling the finale. I am drowning, and I run to you and beg for help, and you say: 'Drown. It's your duty.'" At this point a ring at the bell sounds in the hall. Katy and I both recognise it and say: "That must be Mikhail Fiodorovich." And indeed in a minute Mikhail Fiodorovich, my colleague, the philologist, enters. He is a tall, well-built man about fifty years old, clean shaven, with thick grey hair and black eyebrows. He is a good man and an admirable friend. He belongs to an old aristocratic family, a prosperous and gifted house which has played a notable rôle in the history of our literature and education. He himself is clever, gifted, and highly educated, but not without his eccentricities. To a certain extent we are all eccentric, queer fellows, but his eccentricities have an element of the exceptional, not quite safe for his friends. Among the latter I know not a few who cannot see his many merits clearly because of his eccentricities.