Short Stories by Chekhov
next, he heard the voice of some woman going to market. And the sparrows
twittered the whole time.
II
The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock
Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly
arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. There
she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and her smile
was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a local artist,
a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a picture of the
Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, the servants, her
brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- were suddenly convinced,
that she was certainly going to get well. With shrieks of laughter the
children ran after their uncle, chasing him and catching him, and
filling the house with noise.
People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her that
in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for her that
day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the town, and was
liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her brother Alexey, who
gave away his money freely, without considering whether it was necessary
to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used to pay the school fees for poor
children; used to give away tea, sugar, and jam to old women; used to
provide trousseaux for poor brides; and if she picked up a newspaper,
she always looked first of all to see if there were any appeals for
charity or a paragraph about somebody's being in a destitute condition.
She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which
various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's
shop.
They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a
request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles.
"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she said,
deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no joke! Eighty-
two roubles! I declare I won't pay it."
"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev.
"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation.
"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month from
you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, so as
not to be overheard by the servants.
"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I tell
you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I or Fyodor.
Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, and of every
three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to you."
But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked as
though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. And this
lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made Laptev feel
uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private debts in addition
which worried her and of which she scrupled to tell him.
Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the doctor
coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual.
"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru."
To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then went
downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get on with the
doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities was impossible;
and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called him, was distasteful.
That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He reflected now that the father
was not at home, that if he were to take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol,
he would be sure to find her at home alone, and his heart ached with
joy. Haste, haste!
He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of love.
It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's house,
overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins were
playing ball. These were all the children of working-class families who
tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which the doctor was
always meaning to have done up, though he put it off from year to year.
The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. At some distance on one
side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her porch, her hands folded,
watching the game.
"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her.
She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired as she
had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of life and
frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball.
"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to meet
him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no place to run
there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, looking round at the
children.
"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev,
admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and
seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him as
though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain for the
first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My sister has
sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday."
She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his bosom
and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to the sweet
ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the parasol.
"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . of
our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!"
"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful about
it."
He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say.
"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief pause,
laughing. "Let us go indoors."
"I am not disturbing you?"
They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white dress
with blue flowers on it rustling as she went.
"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I never
do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till night."
"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. "I grew
up in a world in which every one without exception, men and women alike,
worked hard every day."
"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked.
"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is
inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work."
Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise spoke
softly, in a voice unlike his own:
"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I would
give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice I would
not make."
She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm.
"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible,
I assure you. Forgive me."
Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and vanished
through the doorway.
Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed,
completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly been
extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a man who is
disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps disgusting, who
is shunned, he walked out of the house.
"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went home
through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. "I would
give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she wanted your
_everything_!"
All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he lied,
saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, without
exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone about a clean
and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; it was false--false
in the Moscow style. But by degrees there followed that mood of
indifference into which criminals sink after a severe sentence. He began
thinking that, thank God! everything was at an end and that the terrible
uncertainty was over; that now there was no need to spend whole days in
anticipation, in pining, in thinking always of the same thing. Now
everything was clear; he must give up all hope of personal happiness,
live without desires, without hopes, without dreams, or expectations,
and to escape that dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to
soothe, he could busy himself with other people's affairs, other
people's happiness, and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life
would reach its end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he
wished for nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a
sort of heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead
felt drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his
eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five minutes
was sound asleep.
III
The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna into
despair.
She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; he was
a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor Laptev
and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious about his
sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no notice of her
whatever, and she did not care about him in the least --and then all of
a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that pitiful, ecstatic face. .
. .
The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact that the
word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting it. She
could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she still felt
traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she had rejected
him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; he was not
interesting; she could not have answered him except with a refusal, and
yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done wrong.
"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she said
to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her pillow;
"and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so oddly. . . ."
In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it was
beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. She needed
some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she had done right.
But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her mother long before; she
thought her father a queer man, and could not talk to him seriously. He
worried her with his whims, his extreme readiness to take offence, and
his meaningless gestures; and as soon as one began to talk to him, he
promptly turned the conversation on himself. And in her prayer she was
not perfectly open, because she did not know for certain what she ought
to pray for.
The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired,
looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was one of
her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey Borisovitch,
in his long coat that reached below his knees, with his red face and
unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets,
pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards and forwards at random,
like a wild beast in its cage. He would stand still by the table, sip
his glass of tea with relish, and pace about again, lost in thought.
"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed
crimson.
The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand.
"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?"
He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would sooner or
later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think about that.
He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason fancied, that if he
were left alone in that great house, he would have an apoplectic stroke,
but he did not like to speak of this directly.
"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I
congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid opportunity