Short Stories by Chekhov
tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and tasteless way. At home she
spent her days reading thick magazines, covering them with cigarette
ash, or eating frozen apples.
"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly."
As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began to
pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her
husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat
opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled
with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew that
she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she married the
Colonel _par dépit_. She had never told him of her love; she had not
wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her feeling, but from
her face she knew that he understood her perfectly --and her pride
suffered. But what was most humiliating in her position was that, since
her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun to pay her attention, which he
had never done before, spending hours with her, sitting silent or
chattering about trifles; and even now in the sledge, though he did not
talk to her, he touched her foot with his and pressed her hand a little.
Evidently that was all he wanted, that she should be married; and it was
evident that he despised her and that she only excited in him an
interest of a special kind as though she were an immoral and
disreputable woman. And when the feeling of triumph and love for her
husband were mingled in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she
was overcome by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to
shout and whistle to the horses.
Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. Rita
crossed herself.
"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, crossed
herself and shuddered.
"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel.
"_Par dépit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to Sofya's
marrying Yagitch. "_Par dépit_ is all the fashion nowadays. Defiance of
all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate flirt, fond of
nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden off she went--to
surprise every one!"
"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur coat
and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par dépit_; it was
simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent to penal
servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her mother died of
grief."
He turned up his collar again.
"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted
child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take that into
consideration too!"
Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to say
something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of defiance came
over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a tearful voice:
"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see Olga."
They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna
fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her
life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver stopped
the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, unescorted and
alone, went quickly up to the gate.
"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already."
She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from the
gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and the
ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through her whole
being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, and an ante-room
with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance of juniper and
incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it and bowing very low.
The service had not yet begun. One nun was walking by the ikon-screen
and lighting the candles on the tall standard candlesticks, another was
lighting the chandelier. Here and there, by the columns and the side
chapels, there stood black, motionless figures. "I suppose they must
remain standing as they are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna,
and it seemed to her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard.
She looked with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures
and suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short
nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she
recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had been
plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, Sofya
Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into her face,
recognised her as Olga.
"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from
emotion. "Olga!"
The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and her
pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white headcloth that
she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure.
"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her thin,
pale little hands.
Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as she did
so that she might smell of spirits.
"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, breathing
hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale you are! I . .
. I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are you? Are you dull?"
Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued
voice:
"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married to
Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very happy with
him."
"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well?"
"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and see us
during the holidays, Olga, won't you?"
"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second day."
Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute she
shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said:
"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. And
Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd be if
you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service hasn't
begun yet."
"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out with
Sofya Lvovna to the entrance.
"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out at
the gate.
"Very."
"Well, thank God for that."
The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted her
respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and her black
monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had remembered them and
come to greet them. That she might not be cold, Sofya Lvovna wrapped her
up in a rug and put one half of her fur coat round her. Her tears had
relieved and purified her heart, and she was glad that this noisy,
restless, and, in reality, impure night should unexpectedly end so
purely and serenely. And to keep Olga by her a little longer she
suggested:
"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way."
The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in three-
horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got into the
sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city gate all were
silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, and each of
them was thinking of what she had been in the past and what she was now.
Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, pale, and transparent,
as though there were water, not blood, in her veins. And two or three
years ago she had been plump and rosy, talking about her suitors and
laughing at every trifle.
Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten minutes
later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The bell had begun
to ring more rapidly.
"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do.
"Mind you come, Olga."
"I will, I will."
She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after
that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was
silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have made
a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober seemed to
her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the intoxication
passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away also. It was clear
to her now that she did not love her husband, and never could love him,
and that it all had been foolishness and nonsense. She had married him
from interested motives, because, in the words of her school friends, he
was madly rich, and because she was afraid of becoming an old maid like
Rita, and because she was sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to
annoy Volodya.
If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be so
oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have consented to
the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now there was no
setting it right. She must make up her mind to it.
They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the bed-
clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the smell of
incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt frightened at the
thought that these figures would be standing there all the while she was
asleep. The early service would be very, very long; then there would be
"the hours," then the mass, then the service of the day.
"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I shall
have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's soul, of
eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled all
questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her life is
wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?"
And a minute later the thought came into her mind again:
"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If Olga
were to see death before her this minute she would not be afraid. She is
prepared. And the great thing is that she has already solved the problem
of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes . . . . But is there no
other solution except going into a monastery? To go into the monastery
means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ."
Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under her
pillow.
"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ."
Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a soft
jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred to Sofya
Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one reason--that
his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and called tenderly:
"Volodya!"
"What is it?" her husband responded.
"Nothing."
She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell.
Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts of
God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she covered
her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that before old
age and death there would be a long, long life before her, and that day
by day she would have to put up with being close to a man she did not
love, who had just now come into the bedroom and was getting into bed,
and would have to stifle in her heart her hopeless love for the other
young, fascinating, and, as she thought, exceptional man. She looked at
her husband and tried to say good-night to him, but suddenly burst out
crying instead. She was vexed with herself.
"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch.
She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off
crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting
headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the next
room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to dress. He came