Short Stories by Chekhov
the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men sitting at the
table, knew what the look in her face meant.
"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said slowly.
"Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor."
Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused it,
and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had said, but
it was clear to him that it was not his words that were hateful, but the
fact of his meddling in the conversation at all.
After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart,
expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in the
hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat down to
the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of varied
accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform conjuring
tricks.
"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay at
home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere."
They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's club
to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go with them
because he did not usually join these expeditions, and because his
brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean that his society
bored them, and that he was not wanted in their light-hearted youthful
company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, was so intense that he
almost shed tears. He was positively glad that he was treated so
ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he was a stupid, dull husband, a
money-bag; and it seemed to him, that he would have been even more glad
if his wife were to deceive him that night with his best friend, and
were afterwards to acknowledge it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He
was jealous on her account of their student friends, of actors, of
singers, of Yartsev, even of casual acquaintances; and now he had a
passionate longing for her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to
find her in another man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever.
Fyodor was drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go.
"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his fur
coat. "His sight has become very poor."
Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother part
of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's.
"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This is
love!"
His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy or
something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a comic
singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he should meet
his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he met his wife, he
would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and that every one would
understand what feeling had induced him to come here. He was bewildered
by the electric light, the loud music, the smell of powder, and the fact
that the ladies he met looked at him. He stood at the doors trying to
see and to hear what was going on in the private rooms, and it seemed to
him that he was somehow playing a mean, contemptible part on a level
with the comic singers and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he
found none of his circle there, either; and only when on the way home he
was again driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook
him. The driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev
laughing: "Ha, ha, ha!"
Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was in
bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and said
sharply:
"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me before
other people; you might conceal your feelings."
She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes looked
big and black in the lamplight.
"I beg your pardon," she said.
He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling of
his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, too, and
sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations.
"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in hell,
and I'm out of my mind."
"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in her
voice. "God alone knows what I go through."
"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of love for
me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! Why did you
marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon thrust you into
my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?"
She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would kill
her.
"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath.
"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed money!
The cursed money!"
"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed to
shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her crying. "I
swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about your money; I
didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong if I refused you. I
was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And now I am suffering for my
mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!"
She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing what
to say, dropped down on the carpet before her.
"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because I
love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately hugged it.
"If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to me; tell me a lie!
Don't say it's a mistake! . . ."
But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his
caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot he
had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for her.
She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got into
bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not know what
to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily on the foot he
had kissed.
Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible
desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go away
and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and the
continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided at
dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her father
for two or three weeks until she was tired of it.
XI
She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on his
head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape.
"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a sigh.
"They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. I have been
a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, chairman of the
Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the provincial
administration. I think I have served my country and have earned the
right to receive attention; but--would you believe it?--I can never
succeed in wringing from the authorities a post in another town. . . ."
Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head.
"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. "Of
course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other hand, I'm a
decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something rare. I regret to
say I have not been always quite straightforward with women, but in my
relations with the Russian government I've always been a gentleman. But
enough of that," he said, opening his eyes; "let us talk of you. What
put it into your head to visit your papa so suddenly?"
"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said
Yulia, looking at his cap.
"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your
husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother Fyodor
is a perfect fool."
Panaurov sighed and asked seriously:
"And have you a lover yet?"
Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed.
"Goodness knows what you're talking about."
It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had
supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat and
his cap, and sat down beside Yulia.
"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for the
eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted cucumber; it
still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has a smack of the salt
and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes on you will make a
magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. If this trip of ours
had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I should have felt it my duty
to join the ranks of your adorers, but now, alas, I'm a veteran on the
retired list."
He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his arm
round her waist.
"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened
that her hands and feet turned cold.
"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!"
"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there dreadful
about it? It's simply that you're not used to it."
If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had made
an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round the waist,
he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in the full
conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. Yulia recovered
from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. He kissed her once
more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap:
"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a kind-
hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, I fancy it
was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives drew up in a row
before him, he walked round them, kissed each one of them, and said:
'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And that's just what I say,
too."
All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. She
felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got a box of
sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, shouted:
"Catch!"
He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then a
third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth,
looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in his
face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that was
feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down on the
seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with two fingers,
and said as though he were vexed:
"Naughty girl!"
"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet
things."
He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box in his
trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them.
"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran to
go bye-bye."
He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, lay
down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown.
"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his whole
body ached.
And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of constraint,
she, too, lay down and went to sleep.
When next morning she drove through her native town from the station
homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow looked
grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed them. She
was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried in an open
coffin with banners.
"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought.
There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where Nina
Fyodorovna used to live.
With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and rang at
the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a plump, sleepy-
looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she went upstairs Yulia
remembered how Laptev had declared his love there, but now the staircase