Short Stories by Chekhov
never anything but bold and independent in drunken company; but now,
dressed in common clothes, and just like any ordinary person begging a
favour, she felt timid and humble.
"Perhaps he has forgotten me..." she thought, not daring to pull the
bell. "And how can I go up to him in a dress like this? As if I were a
pauper, or a dowdy respectable..."
She rang the bell irresolutely.
There were steps behind the door. It was the porter.
"Is the doctor at home?" she asked.
She would have been very pleased now if the porter had said "No," but
instead of answering he showed her into the hall, and took her jacket.
The stairs seemed to her luxurious and magnificent, but what she noticed
first of all in all the luxury was a large mirror in which she saw a
ragged creature without an elaborate hat, without a modish jacket, and
without a pair of brown shoes. And Vanda found it strange that, now that
she was poorly dressed and looking more like a seamstress or a
washerwoman, for the first time she felt ashamed, and had no more
assurance or boldness left. In her thoughts she began to call herself
Nastya Kanavkina, instead of Vanda as she used.
"This way, please!" said the maid-servant, leading her to the private
room. "The doctor will be here immediately.... Please, take a seat."
Vanda dropped into an easy chair.
"I'll say: 'Lend me ...'" she thought. "That's the right thing, because
we are acquainted. But the maid must go out of the room.... It's awkward
in front of the maid.... What is she standing there for?"
In five minutes the door opened and Finkel entered--a tall, swarthy,
convert Jew, with fat cheeks and goggle-eyes. His cheeks, eyes, belly,
fleshy hips--were all so full, repulsive, and coarse! At the Renaissance
and the German club he used always to be a little drunk, to spend a lot
of money on women, patiently put up with all their tricks--for instance,
when Vanda poured the beer on his head, he only smiled and shook his
finger at her--but now he looked dull and sleepy; he had the pompous,
chilly expression of a superior, and he was chewing something.
"What is the matter?" he asked, without looking at Vanda. Vanda glanced
at the maid's serious face, at the blown-out figure of Finkel, who
obviously did not recognise her, and she blushed.
"What's the matter?" the dentist repeated, irritated.
"To ... oth ache...." whispered Vanda.
"Ah ... which tooth ... where?"
Vanda remembered she had a tooth with a hole.
"At the bottom ... to the right," she said.
"H'm ... open your mouth."
Finkel frowned, held his breath, and began to work the aching tooth
loose.
"Do you feel any pain?" he asked, picking at her tooth with some
instrument.
"Yes, I do...." Vanda lied. "Shall I remind him?" she thought, "he'll be
sure to remember.... But ... the maid ... what is she standing there
for?"
Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine straight into her mouth, and
said:
"I don't advise you to have a stopping.... Anyhow the tooth is quite
useless."
Again he picked at the tooth for a little, and soiled Vanda's lips and
gums with his tobacco-stained fingers. Again he held his breath and
dived into her mouth with something cold....
Vanda suddenly felt a terrible pain, shrieked and seized Finkel's
hand....
"Never mind...." he murmured. "Don't be frightened.... This tooth isn't
any use."
And his tobacco-stained fingers, covered with blood, held up the
extracted tooth before her eyes. The maid came forward and put a bowl to
her lips.
"Rinse your mouth with cold water at home," said Finkel. "That will make
the blood stop."
He stood before her in the attitude of a man impatient to be left alone
at last.
"Good-bye ..." she said, turning to the door.
"H'm! And who's to pay me for the work?" Finkel asked laughingly.
"Ah ... yes!" Vanda recollected, blushed and gave the dentist the rouble
she had got for the turquoise ring.
When she came into the street she felt still more ashamed than before,
but she was not ashamed of her poverty any more. Nor did she notice any
more that she hadn't an elaborate hat or a modish jacket. She walked
along the street spitting blood and each red spittle told her about her
life, a bad, hard life; about the insults she had suffered and had still
to suffer-to-morrow, a week, a year hence--her whole life, till death....
"Oh, how terrible it is!" she whispered. "My God, how terrible!"
But the next day she was at the Renaissance and she danced there. She
wore a new, immense red hat, a new jacket ? la mode and a pair of brown
shoes. She was treated to supper by a young merchant from Kazan.
OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS
This happened not so very long ago in the Moscow Circuit Court. The
jurymen, left in court for the night, before going to bed, began a
conversation about overwhelming sensations. It was occasioned by
someone's recollection of a witness who became a stammerer and turned
grey, owing, as he said, to one dreadful moment. The jurymen decided
before going to bed that each one of them should dig into his memories
and tell a story. Life is short; but still there is not a single man who
can boast that he had not had some dreadful moments in his past.
One juryman related how he was nearly drowned. A second told how one
night he poisoned his own child, in a place where there was neither
doctor nor chemist, by giving the child white copperas in mistake for
soda. The child did not die, but the father nearly went mad. A third,
not an old man, but sickly, described his two attempts to commit
suicide. Once he shot himself; the second time he threw himself in front
of a train.
The fourth, a short, stout man, smartly dressed, told the following
story:
"I was no more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old, when I fell
head over heels in love with my present wife and proposed to her. Now, I
would gladly give myself a thrashing for that early marriage; but
then--well, I don't know what would have happened to me if Natasha had
refused. My love was most ardent, the kind described in novels as mad,
passionate, and so on. My happiness choked me, and I did not know how to
escape from it. I bored my father, my friends, the servants by
continually telling them how desperately I was in love. Happy people are
quite the most tiresome and boring. I used to be awfully exasperating.
Even now I'm ashamed.
"At the time I had a newly-called barrister among my friends. The
barrister is now known all over Russia, but then he was only at the
beginning of his popularity, and he was not rich or famous enough to
have the right not to recognise a friend when he met him or not to raise
his hat. I used to go and see him once or twice a week.
"When I came, we used both to stretch ourselves upon the sofas and begin
to philosophise.
"Once I lay on the sofa, harping on the theme that there is no more
ungrateful profession than a barrister's. I tried to show that after the
witnesses have been heard the Court can easily dispense with the Crown
Prosecutor and the barrister, because they are equally unnecessary and
only hindrances. If an adult juryman, sound in spirit and mind, is
convinced that this ceiling is white, or that Ivanov is guilty, no
Demosthenes has the power to fight and overcome his conviction. Who can
convince me that my moustache is carroty when I know it is black? When I
listen to an orator I may perhaps get sentimental and even shed a tear,
but my rooted convictions, for the most part based on the obvious and on
facts, will not be changed an atom. My friend the barrister contended
that I was still young and silly and was talking childish nonsense. In
his opinion an obvious fact when illumined by conscientious experts
became still more obvious. That was his first point. His second was that
a talent is a force, an elemental power, a hurricane, that is able to
turn even stones to dust, not to speak of such trifles as the
convictions of householders and small shopkeepers. It is as hard for
human frailty to struggle against a talent as it is to look at the sun
without being blinded or to stop the wind. By the power of the word one
single mortal converts thousands of convinced savages to Christianity.
Ulysses was the most convinced person in the world, but he was all
submission before the Syrens, and so on. All history is made up of such
instances. In life we meet them at every turn. And so it ought to be;
otherwise a clever person of talent would not be preferred before the
stupid and untalented.
"I persisted and continued to argue that a conviction is stronger than
any talent, though, speaking frankly, I myself could not define what
exactly is a conviction and what is a talent. Probably I talked only for
the sake of talking.
"'Take even your own case' ... said the barrister. 'You are convinced
that your fiancée is an angel and that there's not a man in all the
town happier than you. I tell you, ten or twenty minutes would be quite
enough for me to make you sit down at this very table and write to break
off the engagement.'
"I began to laugh.
"'Don't laugh. I'm talking seriously,' said my friend. 'If I only had
the desire, in twenty minutes you would be happy in the thought that you
have been saved from marriage. My talent is not great, but neither are
you strong?'
"'Well, try, please,' I said.
"'No, why should I? I only said it in passing. You're a good boy. It
would be a pity to expose you to such an experiment. Besides, I'm not in
the mood, to-day.'
"We sat down to supper. The wine and thoughts of Natasha and my love
utterly filled me with a sense of youth and happiness. My happiness was
so infinitely great that the green-eyed barrister opposite me seemed so
unhappy, so little, so grey!"
"'But do try,' I pressed him. 'I beg you.'
"The barrister shook his head and knit his brows. Evidently I had begun
to bore him.
"'I know,' he said, 'that when the experiment is over you will thank me
and call me saviour, but one must think of your sweetheart too. She
loves you, and your refusal would make her suffer. But what a beauty she
is 'I envy you.'
"The barrister sighed, swallowed some wine, and began to speak of what a
wonderful creature my Natasha was. He had an uncommon gift for
description. He could pour out a whole heap of words about a woman's
eyelashes or her little finger. I listened to him with delight.
"'I've seen many women in my life-time;' he said, 'but I give you my
word of honour, I tell you as a friend, your Natasha Andreevna is a gem,
a rare girl! Of course, there are defects, even a good many, I grant
you, but still she is charming.'
"And the barrister began to speak of the defects of my sweetheart. Now I
quite understand it was a general conversation about women, one about
their weak points in general; but it appeared to me then as though he
was speaking only of Natasha. He went into raptures about her snub-nose,
her excited voice, her shrill laugh, her affectation--indeed, about
everything I particularly disliked in her. All this was in his opinion
infinitely amiable, gracious and feminine. Imperceptibly he changed from
enthusiasm first to paternal edification, then to a light, sneering
tone.... There was no Chairman of the Bench with us to stop the
barrister riding the high horse. I hadn't a chance of opening my
mouth--and what could I have said? My friend said nothing new, his truths
were long familiar. The poison was not at all in what he said, but
altogether in the devilish form in which he said it. A form of Satan's
own invention! As I listened to him I was convinced that one and the
same word had a thousand meanings and nuances according to the way it is
pronounced and the turn given to the sentence. I certainly cannot
reproduce the tone or the form. I can only say that as I listened to my