Short Stories by Chekhov
splashed the letter. She was powerless to stop her laughter; and to
convince herself that she had a reason for it, she hastened to remember
something funny.
"What a funny poodle!" she cried, feeling that she was choking with
laughter. "What a funny poodle!"
She remembered how Gronsdiev was playing with Maxim the poodle after tea
yesterday; how he told a story afterwards of a very clever poodle who
was chasing a crow in the yard. The crow gave him a look and said:
"Oh, you swindler!"
The poodle did not know he had to do with a learned crow. He was
terribly confused, and ran away dumfounded. Afterwards he began to bark.
"No, I'd better love Gronsdiev," Nadya decided and tore up the letter.
She began to think of the student, of his love, of her own love, with
the result that the thoughts in her head swam apart and she thought
about everything, about her mother, the street, the pencil, the piano.
She was happy thinking, and found that everything was good, magnificent.
Her happiness told her that this was not all, that a little later it
would be still better. Soon it will be spring, summer. They will go with
mother to Gorbiki in the country. Gorny will come for his holidays. He
will walk in the orchard with her, and make love to her. Gronsdiev will
come too. He will play croquet with her and bowls. He will tell funny,
wonderful stories. She passionately longed for the orchard, the
darkness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her shoulders trembled with
laughter and she seemed to awake to a smell of wormwood in the room; and
a branch was tapping at the window.
She went to her bed and sat down. She did not know what to do with her
great happiness. It overwhelmed her. She stared at the crucifix which
hung at the head of her bed and saying:
"Dear God, dear God, dear God." THAT WRETCHED BOY
Ivan Ivanich Lapkin, a pleasant looking young man, and Anna Zamblizky, a
young girl with a little snub nose, walked down the sloping bank and sat
down on the bench. The bench was close to the water's edge, among thick
bushes of young willow. A heavenly spot! You sat down, and you were
hidden from the world. Only the fish could see you and the catspaws
which flashed over the water like lightning. The two young persons were
equipped with rods, fish hooks, bags, tins of worms and everything else
necessary. Once seated, they immediately began to fish.
"I am glad that we're left alone at last," said Lapkin, looking round.
I've got a lot to tell you, Anna--tremendous ... when I saw you for the
first time ... you've got a nibble ... I understood then--why I am alive,
I knew where my idol was, to whom I can devote my honest, hardworking
life.... It must be a big one ... it is biting.... When I saw you--for
the first time in my life I fell in love--fell in love passionately I
Don't pull. Let it go on biting.... Tell me, darling, tell me--will you
let me hope? No! I'm not worth it. I dare not even think of it--may I
hope for.... Pull!
Anna lifted her hand that held the rod--pulled, cried out. A silvery
green fish shone in the air.
"Goodness! it's a perch! Help--quick! It's slipping off." The perch tore
itself from the hook--danced in the grass towards its native element and
... leaped into the water.
But instead of the little fish that he was chasing, Lapkin quite by
accident caught hold of Anna's hand--quite by accident pressed it to his
lips. She drew back, but it was too late; quite by accident their lips
met and kissed; yes, it was an absolute accident! They kissed and
kissed. Then came vows and assurances.... Blissful moments! But there is
no such thing as absolute happiness in this life. If happiness itself
does not contain a poison, poison will enter in from without. Which
happened this time. Suddenly, while the two were kissing, a laugh was
heard. They looked at the river and were paralysed. The schoolboy Kolia,
Anna's brother, was standing in the water, watching the young people and
maliciously laughing.
"Ah--ha! Kissing!" said he. "Right O, I'll tell Mother."
"I hope that you--as a man of honour," Lapkin muttered, blushing. "It's
disgusting to spy on us, it's loathsome to tell tales, it's rotten. As a
man of honour...."
"Give me a shilling, then I'll shut up!" the man of honour retorted. "If
you don't, I'll tell."
Lapkin took a shilling out of his pocket and gave it to Kolia, who
squeezed it in his wet fist, whistled, and swam away. And the young
people did not kiss any more just then.
Next day Lapkin brought Kolia some paints and a ball from town, and his
sister gave him all her empty pill boxes. Then they had to present him
with a set of studs like dogs' heads. The wretched boy enjoyed this game
immensely, and to keep it going he began to spy on them. Wherever Lapkin
and Anna went, he was there too. He did not leave them alone for a
single moment.
"Beast!" Lapkin gnashed his teeth. "So young and yet such a full fledged
scoundrel. What on earth will become of him later!"
During the whole of July the poor lovers had no life apart from him. He
threatened to tell on them; he dogged them and demanded more presents.
Nothing satisfied him--finally he hinted at a gold watch. All right, they
had to promise the watch.
Once, at table, when biscuits were being handed round, he burst out
laughing and said to Lapkin: "Shall I let on? Ah--ha!"
Lapkin blushed fearfully and instead of a biscuit he began to chew his
table napkin. Anna jumped up from the table and rushed out of the room.
And this state of things went on until the end of August, up to the day
when Lapkin at last proposed to Anna. Ah! What a happy day that was!
When he had spoken to her parents and obtained their consent Lapkin
rushed into the garden after Kolia. When he found him he nearly cried
for joy and caught hold of the wretched boy by the ear. Anna, who was
also looking for Kolia came running up and grabbed him by the other ear.
You should have seen the happiness depicted on their faces while Kolia
roared and begged them:
"Darling, precious pets, I won't do it again. O-oh--O-oh! Forgive me!"
And both of them confessed afterwards that during all the time they were
in love with each other they never experienced such happiness, such
overwhelming joy as during those moments when they pulled the wretched
boy's ears. ENEMIES
About ten o'clock of a dark September evening the Zemstvo doctor
Kirilov's only son, six-year-old Andrey, died of diphtheria. As the
doctor's wife dropped on to her knees before the dead child's cot and
the first paroxysm of despair took hold of her, the bell rang sharply in
the hall.
When the diphtheria came all the servants were sent away from the house,
that very morning. Kirilov himself went to the door, just as he was, in
his shirt-sleeves with his waistcoat unbuttoned, without wiping his wet
face or hands, which had been burnt with carbolic acid. It was dark in
the hall, and of the person who entered could be distinguished only his
middle height, a white scarf and a big, extraordinarily pale face, so
pale that it seemed as though its appearance made the hall brighter....
"Is the doctor in?" the visitor asked abruptly.
"I'm at home," answered Kirilov. "What do you want?"
"Oh, you're the doctor? I'm so glad!" The visitor was overjoyed and
began to seek for the doctor's hand in the darkness. He found it and
squeezed it hard in his own. "I'm very ... very glad! We were introduced
... I am Aboguin ... had the pleasure of meeting you this summer at Mr.
Gnouchev's. I am very glad to have found you at home.... For God's sake,
don't say you won't come with me immediately.... My wife has been taken
dangerously ill.... I have the carriage with me...."
From the visitor's voice and movements it was evident that he had been
in a state of violent agitation. Exactly as though he had been
frightened by a fire or a mad dog, he could hardly restrain his hurried
breathing, and he spoke quickly in a trembling voice. In his speech
there sounded a note of real sincerity, of childish fright. Like all men
who are frightened and dazed, he spoke in short, abrupt phrases and
uttered many superfluous, quite unnecessary, words.
"I was afraid I shouldn't find you at home," he continued. "While I was
coming to you I suffered terribly.... Dress yourself and let us go, for
God's sake.... It happened like this. Papchinsky came to me--Alexander
Siemionovich, you know him.... We were chatting.... Then we sat down to
tea. Suddenly my wife cries out, presses her hands to her heart, and
falls back in her chair. We carried her off to her bed and ... and I
rubbed her forehead with sal-volatile, and splashed her with water....
She lies like a corpse.... I'm afraid that her heart's failed.... Let us
go.... Her father too died of heart-failure."
Kirilov listened in silence as though he did not understand the Russian
language.
When Aboguin once more mentioned Papchinsky and his wife's father, and
once more began to seek for the doctor's hand in the darkness, the
doctor shook his head and said, drawling each word listlessly:
"Excuse me, but I can't go.... Five minutes ago my ... my son died."
"Is that true?" Aboguin whispered, stepping back. "My God, what an awful
moment to come! It's a terribly fated day ... terribly! What a
coincidence ... and it might have been on purpose!"
Aboguin took hold of the door handle and drooped his head in meditation.
Evidently he was hesitating, not knowing whether to go away, or to ask
the doctor once more.
"Listen," he said eagerly, seizing Kirilov by the sleeve. "I fully
understand your state! God knows I'm ashamed to try to hold your
attention at such a moment, but what can I do? Think yourself--who can I
go to? There isn't another doctor here besides you. For heaven's sake
come. I'm not asking for myself. It's not I that's ill!"
Silence began. Kirilov turned his back to Aboguin, stood still for a
while and slowly went out of the hall into the drawing-room. To judge by
his uncertain, machine-like movement, and by the attentiveness with
which he arranged the hanging shade on the unlighted lamp in the
drawing-room and consulted a thick book which lay on the table--at such a
moment he had neither purpose nor desire, nor did he think of anything,
and probably had already forgotten that there was a stranger standing in
his hall. The gloom and the quiet of the drawing-room apparently
increased his insanity. As he went from the drawing-room to his study he
raised his right foot higher than he need, felt with his hands for the
door-posts, and then one felt a certain perplexity in his whole figure,
as though he had entered a strange house by chance, or for the first
time in his life had got drunk, and now was giving himself up in
bewilderment to the new sensation. A wide line of light stretched across
the bookshelves on one wall of the study; this light, together with the
heavy stifling smell of carbolic acid and ether came from the door ajar
that led from the study into the bed-room.... The doctor sank into a
chair before the table; for a while he looked drowsily at the shining
books, then rose and went into the bed-room.
Here, in the bed-room, dead quiet reigned. Everything, down to the last
trifle, spoke eloquently of the tempest undergone, of weariness, and
everything rested. The candle which stood among a close crowd of phials,
boxes and jars on the stool and the big lamp on the chest of drawers
brightly lit the room. On the bed, by the window, the boy lay open-eyed,
with a look of wonder on his face. He did not move, but it seemed that
his open eyes became darker and darker every second and sank into his
skull. Having laid her hands on his body and hid her face in the folds
of the bed-clothes, the mother now was on her knees before the bed. Like