Short Stories by Chekhov
the poor man. I wither away beneath his quiet, even voice and his
bookish language. His stories make me stupid.... He cherishes the
kindliest feelings towards me and talks to me only to give me pleasure.
I reward him by staring at his face as if I wanted to hypnotise him, and
thinking "Go away. Go, go...." But he is proof against my mental
suggestion and sits, sits, sits....
While he sits with me I cannot rid myself of the idea: "When I die, it's
quite possible that he will be appointed in my place." Then my poor
audience appears to me as an oasis where the stream has dried, up, and I
am unkind to Piotr Ignatievich, and silent and morose as if he were
guilty of such thoughts and not I myself. When he begins, as usual, to
glorify the German scholars, I no longer jest good-naturedly, but murmur
sternly:
"They're fools, your Germans...."
It's like the late Professor Nikita Krylov when he was bathing with
Pirogov at Reval. He got angry with the water, which was very cold, and
swore about "These scoundrelly Germans." I behave badly to Piotr
Ignatievich; and it's only when he is going away and I see through the
window his grey hat disappearing behind the garden fence, that I want to
call him back and say: "Forgive me, my dear fellow."
The dinner goes yet more wearily than in winter. The same Gnekker, whom
I now hate and despise, dines with me every day. Before, I used to
suffer his presence in silence, but now I say biting things to him,
which make my wife and Liza blush. Carried away by an evil feeling, I
often say things that are merely foolish, end don't know why I say them.
Thus it happened once that after looking at Gnekker contemptuously for a
long while, I suddenly fired off, for no reason at all:
"Eagles than barnyard-fowls may lower bend; But fowls shall never to the
heav'ns ascend."
More's the pity that the fowl Gnekker shows himself more clever than the
eagle professor. Knowing my wife and daughter are on his side he
maintains these tactics. He replies to my shafts with a condescending
silence ("The old man's off his head.... What's the good of talking to
him?"), or makes good-humoured fun of me. It is amazing to what depths
of pettiness a man may descend. During the whole dinner I can dream how
Gnekker will be shown to be an adventurer, how Liza and my wife will
realise their mistake, and I will tease them--ridiculous dreams like
these at a time when I have one foot in the grave.
Now there occur misunderstandings, of a kind which I formerly knew only
by hearsay. Though it is painful I will describe one which occurred
after dinner the other day. I sit in my room smoking a little pipe.
Enters my wife, as usual, sits down and begins to talk. What a good idea
it would be to go to Kharkov now while the weather is warm and there is
the time, and inquire what kind of man our Gnekker is.
"Very well. I'll go," I agree.
My wife gets up, pleased with me, and walks to the door; but immediately
returns:
"By-the bye, I've one more favour to ask. I know you'll be angry; but
it's my duty to warn you.... Forgive me, Nicolai,--but all our neighbours
have begun to talk about the way you go to Katy's continually. I don't
deny that she's clever and educated. It's pleasant to spend the time
with her. But at your age and in your position it's rather strange to
find pleasure in her society.... Besides she has a reputation enough
to...."
All my blood rushes instantly from my brain. My eyes flash fire. I catch
hold of my hair, and stamp and cry, in a voice that is not mine:
"Leave me alone, leave me, leave me...."
My face is probably terrible, and my voice strange, for my wife suddenly
gets pale, and calls aloud, with a despairing voice, also not her own.
At our cries rush in Liza and Gnekker, then Yegor.
My feet grow numb, as though they did not exist. I feel that I am
falling into somebody's arms. Then I hear crying for a little while and
sink into a faint which lasts for two or three hours.
Now for Katy. She comes to see me before evening every day, which of
course must be noticed by my neighbours and my friends. After a minute
she takes me with her for a drive. She has her own horse and a new buggy
she bought this summer. Generally she lives like a princess. She has
taken an expensive detached bungalow with a big garden, and put into it
all her town furniture. She has two maids and a coachman. I often ask
her:
"Katy, what will you live on when you've spent all your father's money?"
"We'll see, then," she answers.
"But this money deserves to be treated more seriously, my dear. It was
earned by a good man and honest labour."
"You've told me that before. I know."
First we drive by the field, then by a young pine forest, which you can
see from my window. Nature seems to me as beautiful as she used,
although the devil whispers to me that all these pines and firs, the
birds and white clouds in the sky will not notice my absence in three or
four months when I am dead. Katy likes to take the reins, and it is good
that the weather is fine and I am sitting by her side. She is in a happy
mood, and does not say bitter things.
"You're a very good man, Nicolai," she says. "You are a rare bird.
There's no actor who could play your part. Mine or Mikhail's, for
instance--even a bad actor could manage, but yours--there's nobody. I envy
you, envy you terribly I What am I? What?"
She thinks for a moment, and asks:
"I'm a negative phenomenon, aren't I?"
"Yes," I answer.
"H'm ... what's to be done then?"
What answer can I give? It's easy to say "Work," or "Give your property
to the poor," or "Know yourself," and because it's so easy to say this I
don't know what to answer.
My therapeutist colleagues, when teaching methods of cure, advise one
"to individualise each particular case." This advice must be followed in
order to convince one's self that the remedies recommended in the text-
books as the best and most thoroughly suitable as a general rule, are
quite unsuitable in particular cases. It applies to moral affections as
well. But I must answer something. So I say:
"You've too much time on your hands, my dear. You must take up
something.... In fact, why shouldn't you go on the stage again, if you
have a vocation."
"I can't."
"You have the manner and tone of a victim. I don't like it, my dear. You
have yourself to blame. Remember, you began by getting angry with people
and things in general; but you never did anything to improve either of
them. You didn't put up a struggle against the evil. You got tired.
You're not a victim of the struggle but of your own weakness. Certainly
you were young then and inexperienced. But now everything can be
different. Come on, be an actress. You will work; you will serve in the
temple of art."...
"Don't be so clever, Nicolai," she interrupts. "Let's agree once for
all: let's speak about actors, actresses, writers, but let us leave art
out of it. You're a rare and excellent man. But you don't understand
enough about art to consider it truly sacred. You have no flair, no ear
for art. You've been busy all your life, and you never had time to
acquire the flair. Really ... I don't love these conversations about
art!" she continues nervously. "I don't love them. They've vulgarised it
enough already, thank you."
"Who's vulgarised it?"
"They vulgarised it by their drunkenness, newspapers by their over-
familiarity, clever people by philosophy."
"What's philosophy got to do with it?"
"A great deal. If a man philosophises, it means he doesn't understand."
So that it should not come to bitter words, I hasten to change the
subject, and then keep silence for a long while. It's not till we come
out of the forest and drive towards Katy's bungalow, I return to the
subject and ask:
"Still, you haven't answered me why you don't want to go on the stage?"
"Really, it's cruel," she cries out, and suddenly blushes all over. "You
want me to tell you the truth outright. Very well if ... if you will
have it I I've no talent! No talent and ... much ambition! There you
are!"
After this confession, she turns her face away from me, and to hide the
trembling of her hands, tugs at the reins.
As we approach her bungalow, from a distance we see Mikhail already,
walking about by the gate, impatiently awaiting us.
"This Fiodorovich again," Katy says with annoyance. "Please take him
away from me. I'm sick of him. He's flat.... Let him go to the deuce."
Mikhail Fiodorovich ought to have gone abroad long ago, but he has
postponed his departure every week. There have been some changes in him
lately. He's suddenly got thin, begun to be affected by drink--a thing
that never happened to him before, and his black eyebrows have begun to
get grey. When our buggy stops at the gate he cannot hide his joy and
impatience. Anxiously he helps Katy and me from the buggy, hastily asks
us questions, laughs, slowly rubs his hands, and that gentle, prayerful,
pure something that I used to notice only in his eyes is now poured over
all his face. He is happy and at the same time ashamed of his happiness,
ashamed of his habit of coming to Katy's every evening, and he finds it
necessary to give a reason for his coming, some obvious absurdity, like:
"I was passing on business, and I thought I'd just drop in for a
second."
All three of us go indoors. First we drink tea, then our old friends,
the two packs of cards, appear on the table, with a big piece of cheese,
some fruit, and a bottle of Crimean champagne. The subjects of
conversation are not new, but all exactly the same as they were in the
winter. The university, the students, literature, the theatre--all of
them come in for it. The air thickens with slanders, and grows more
dose. It is poisoned by the breath, not of two toads as in winter, but
now by all three. Besides the velvety, baritone laughter and the
accordion-like giggle, the maid who waits upon us hears also the
unpleasant jarring laugh of a musical comedy general: "He, he, he!" V
There sometimes come fearful nights with thunder, lightning, rain, and
wind, which the peasants call "sparrow-nights." There was one such
sparrow-night in my own personal life....
I wake after midnight and suddenly leap out of bed. Somehow it seems to
me that I am going to die immediately. I do not know why, for there is
no single sensation in my body which points to a quick end; but a terror
presses on my soul as though I had suddenly seen a huge, ill-boding fire
in the sky.
I light the lamp quickly and drink some water straight out of the
decanter. Then I hurry to the window. The weather is magnificent. The
air smells of hay and some delicious thing besides. I see the spikes of
my garden fence, the sleepy starveling trees by the window, the road,
the dark strip of forest. There is a calm and brilliant moon in the sky
and not a single cloud. Serenity. Not a leaf stirs. To me it seems that
everything is looking at me and listening for me to die.
Dread seizes me. I shut the window and run to the bed, I feel for my
pulse. I cannot find it in my wrist; I seek it in my temples, my chin,
my hand again. They are all cold and slippery with sweat. My breathing
comes quicker and quicker; my body trembles, all my bowels are stirred,
and my face and forehead feel as though a cobweb had settled on them.
What shall I do? Shall I call my family? No use. I do not know what my
wife and Liza will do when they come in to me.
I hide my head under the pillow, shut my eyes and wait, wait.... My
spine is cold. It almost contracts within me. And I feel that death will
approach me only from behind, very quietly.
"Kivi, kivi." A squeak sounds in the stillness of the night. I do not
know whether it is in my heart or in the street.