Short Stories by Chekhov
"I was at Ivan Fyodoritch's yesterday. . . . Pyotr Petrovitch and I took
all the tricks, playing no trumps. . . . Yes, indeed. . . . Olga
Andreyevna was so exasperated that her false tooth fell out of her
mouth."
But at last the "Eternal Memory" is sung. Gelikonsky respectfully takes
away the candles, and the memorial service is over. Thereupon there
follows a momentary commotion; there is a changing of vestments and a
thanksgiving service. After the thanksgiving, while Father Yevmeny is
disrobing, the visitors rub their hands and cough, while their hostess
tells some anecdote of the good-heartedness of the deceased Trifon
Lvovitch.
"Pray come to lunch, friends," she says, concluding her story with a
sigh.
The visitors, trying not to push or tread on each other's feet, hasten
into the dining-room. . . . There the luncheon is awaiting them. The
repast is so magnificent that the deacon Konkordiev thinks it his duty
every year to fling up his hands as he looks at it and, shaking his head
in amazement, say:
"Supernatural! It's not so much like human fare, Father Yevmeny, as
offerings to the gods."
The lunch is certainly exceptional. Everything that the flora and fauna
of the country can furnish is on the table, but the only thing
supernatural about it, perhaps, is that on the table there is everything
except . . . alcoholic beverages. Lyubov Petrovna has taken a vow never
to have in her house cards or spirituous liquors --the two sources of her
husband's ruin. And the only bottles contain oil and vinegar, as though
in mockery and chastisement of the guests who are to a man desperately
fond of the bottle, and given to tippling.
"Please help yourselves, gentlemen!" the marshal's widow presses them.
"Only you must excuse me, I have no vodka. . . . I have none in the
house."
The guests approach the table and hesitatingly attack the pie. But the
progress with eating is slow. In the plying of forks, in the cutting up
and munching, there is a certain sloth and apathy. . . . Evidently
something is wanting.
"I feel as though I had lost something," one of the justices of the
peace whispers to the other. "I feel as I did when my wife ran away with
the engineer. . . . I can't eat."
Marfutkin, before beginning to eat, fumbles for a long time in his
pocket and looks for his handkerchief.
"Oh, my handkerchief must be in my greatcoat," he recalls in a loud
voice, "and here I am looking for it," and he goes into the vestibule
where the fur coats are hanging up.
He returns from the vestibule with glistening eyes, and at once attacks
the pie with relish.
"I say, it's horrid munching away with a dry mouth, isn't it?" he
whispers to Father Yevmeny. "Go into the vestibule, Father. There's a
bottle there in my fur coat. . . . Only mind you are careful; don't make
a clatter with the bottle."
Father Yevmeny recollects that he has some direction to give to Luka,
and trips off to the vestibule.
"Father, a couple of words in confidence," says Dvornyagin, overtaking
him.
"You should see the fur coat I've bought myself, gentlemen," Hrumov
boasts. "It's worth a thousand, and I gave . . . you won't believe it .
. . two hundred and fifty! Not a farthing more."
At any other time the guests would have greeted this information with
indifference, but now they display surprise and incredulity. In the end
they all troop out into the vestibule to look at the fur coat, and go on
looking at it till the doctor's man Mikeshka carries five empty bottles
out on the sly. When the steamed sturgeon is served, Marfutkin remembers
that he has left his cigar case in his sledge and goes to the stable.
That he may not be lonely on this expedition, he takes with him the
deacon, who appropriately feels it necessary to have a look at his
horse. . . .
On the evening of the same day, Lyubov Petrovna is sitting in her study,
writing a letter to an old friend in Petersburg:
"To-day, as in past years," she writes among other things, "I had a
memorial service for my dear husband. All my neighbours came to the
service. They are a simple, rough set, but what hearts! I gave them a
splendid lunch, but of course, as in previous years, without a drop of
alcoholic liquor. Ever since he died from excessive drinking I have
vowed to establish temperance in this district and thereby to expiate
his sins. I have begun the campaign for temperance at my own house.
Father Yevmeny is delighted with my efforts, and helps me both in word
and deed. Oh, ma chère, if you knew how fond my bears are of me! The
president of the Zemstvo, Marfutkin, kissed my hand after lunch, held it
a long while to his lips, and, wagging his head in an absurd way, burst
into tears: so much feeling but no words! Father Yevmeny, that
delightful little old man, sat down by me, and looking tearfully at me
kept babbling something like a child. I did not understand what he said,
but I know how to understand true feeling. The police captain, the
handsome man of whom I wrote to you, went down on his knees to me, tried
to read me some verses of his own composition (he is a poet), but . . .
his feelings were too much for him, he lurched and fell over . . . that
huge giant went into hysterics, you can imagine my delight! The day did
not pass without a hitch, however. Poor Alalykin, the president of the
judges' assembly, a stout and apoplectic man, was overcome by illness
and lay on the sofa in a state of unconsciousness for two hours. We had
to pour water on him. . . . I am thankful to Doctor Dvornyagin: he had
brought a bottle of brandy from his dispensary and he moistened the
patient's temples, which quickly revived him, and he was able to be
moved. . . ."
A BAD BUSINESS "WHO goes there?"
No answer. The watchman sees nothing, but through the roar of the wind
and the trees distinctly hears someone walking along the avenue ahead of
him. A March night, cloudy and foggy, envelopes the earth, and it seems
to the watchman that the earth, the sky, and he himself with his
thoughts are all merged together into something vast and impenetrably
black. He can only grope his way.
"Who goes there?" the watchman repeats, and he begins to fancy that he
hears whispering and smothered laughter. "Who's there?"
"It's I, friend . . ." answers an old man's voice.
"But who are you?"
"I . . . a traveller."
"What sort of traveller?" the watchman cries angrily, trying to disguise
his terror by shouting. "What the devil do you want here? You go
prowling about the graveyard at night, you ruffian!"
"You don't say it's a graveyard here?"
"Why, what else? Of course it's the graveyard! Don't you see it is?"
"O-o-oh . . . Queen of Heaven!" there is a sound of an old man sighing.
"I see nothing, my good soul, nothing. Oh the darkness, the darkness!
You can't see your hand before your face, it is dark, friend. O-o-oh. .
."
"But who are you?"
"I am a pilgrim, friend, a wandering man."
"The devils, the nightbirds. . . . Nice sort of pilgrims! They are
drunkards . . ." mutters the watchman, reassured by the tone and sighs
of the stranger. "One's tempted to sin by you. They drink the day away
and prowl about at night. But I fancy I heard you were not alone; it
sounded like two or three of you."
"I am alone, friend, alone. Quite alone. O-o-oh our sins. . . ."
The watchman stumbles up against the man and stops.
"How did you get here?" he asks.
"I have lost my way, good man. I was walking to the Mitrievsky Mill and
I lost my way."
"Whew! Is this the road to Mitrievsky Mill? You sheepshead! For the
Mitrievsky Mill you must keep much more to the left, straight out of the
town along the high road. You have been drinking and have gone a couple
of miles out of your way. You must have had a drop in the town."
"I did, friend . . . Truly I did; I won't hide my sins. But how am I to
go now?"
"Go straight on and on along this avenue till you can go no farther, and
then turn at once to the left and go till you have crossed the whole
graveyard right to the gate. There will be a gate there. . . . Open it
and go with God's blessing. Mind you don't fall into the ditch. And when
you are out of the graveyard you go all the way by the fields till you
come out on the main road."
"God give you health, friend. May the Queen of Heaven save you and have
mercy on you. You might take me along, good man! Be merciful! Lead me to
the gate."
"As though I had the time to waste! Go by yourself!"
"Be merciful! I'll pray for you. I can't see anything; one can't see
one's hand before one's face, friend. . . . It's so dark, so dark! Show
me the way, sir!"
"As though I had the time to take you about; if I were to play the nurse
to everyone I should never have done."
"For Christ's sake, take me! I can't see, and I am afraid to go alone
through the graveyard. It's terrifying, friend, it's terrifying; I am
afraid, good man."
"There's no getting rid of you," sighs the watchman. "All right then,
come along."
The watchman and the traveller go on together. They walk shoulder to
shoulder in silence. A damp, cutting wind blows straight into their
faces and the unseen trees murmuring and rustling scatter big drops upon
them. . . . The path is almost entirely covered with puddles.
"There is one thing passes my understanding," says the watchman after a
prolonged silence--"how you got here. The gate's locked. Did you climb
over the wall? If you did climb over the wall, that's the last thing you
would expect of an old man."
"I don't know, friend, I don't know. I can't say myself how I got here.
It's a visitation. A chastisement of the Lord. Truly a visitation, the
evil one confounded me. So you are a watchman here, friend?"
"Yes."
"The only one for the whole graveyard?"
There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute.
Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers:
"There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the other's
asleep. He and I take turns about."
"Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! It howls
like a wild beast! O-o-oh."
"And where do you come from?"
"From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I go from
one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me and have mercy
upon me, O Lord."
The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops down behind
the traveller's back and lights several matches. The gleam of the first
match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenue on the right, a
white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross; the light of the second
match, flaring up brightly and extinguished by the wind, flashes like
lightning on the left side, and from the darkness nothing stands out but
the angle of some sort of trellis; the third match throws light to right
and to left, revealing the white tombstone, the dark cross, and the
trellis round a child's grave.
"The departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!" the stranger mutters, sighing
loudly. "They all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise and foolish, good and
wicked. They are of the same value now. And they will sleep till the
last trump. The Kingdom of Heaven and peace eternal be theirs."
"Here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shall be
lying here ourselves," says the watchman.
"To be sure, to be sure, we shall all. There is no man who will not die.
O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful! Sins, sins!
My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and lustful! I have
angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me in this world and the
next. I am deep in sins like a worm in the earth."
"Yes, and you have to die."
"You are right there."
"Death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us," says the
watchman.