Short Stories by Chekhov
had to speak to him, Pyotr Dmitritch, turning a little away from him,
looked with half-closed eyes at the ceiling, meaning to signify thereby
that the lawyer was utterly superfluous and that he was neither
recognizing him nor listening to him; if a badly-dressed lawyer spoke,
Pyotr Dmitritch pricked up his ears and looked the man up and down with
a sarcastic, annihilating stare as though to say: "Queer sort of lawyers
nowadays!"
"What do you mean by that?" he would interrupt.
If a would-be eloquent lawyer mispronounced a foreign word, saying, for
instance, "factitious" instead of "fictitious," Pyotr Dmitritch
brightened up at once and asked, "What? How? Factitious? What does that
mean?" and then observed impressively: "Don't make use of words you do
not understand." And the lawyer, finishing his speech, would walk away
from the table, red and perspiring, while Pyotr Dmitritch; with a self-
satisfied smile, would lean back in his chair triumphant. In his manner
with the lawyers he imitated Count Alexey Petrovitch a little, but when
the latter said, for instance, "Counsel for the defence, you keep quiet
for a little!" it sounded paternally good-natured and natural, while the
same words in Pyotr Dmitritch's mouth were rude and artificial. II
There were sounds of applause. The young man had finished playing. Olga
Mihalovna remembered her guests and hurried into the drawing-room.
"I have so enjoyed your playing," she said, going up to the piano. "I
have so enjoyed it. You have a wonderful talent! But don't you think our
piano's out of tune?"
At that moment the two schoolboys walked into the room, accompanied by
the student.
"My goodness! Mitya and Kolya," Olga Mihalovna drawled joyfully, going
to meet them: "How big they have grown! One would not know you! But
where is your mamma?"
"I congratulate you on the name-day," the student began in a free-and-
easy tone, "and I wish you all happiness. Ekaterina Andreyevna sends her
congratulations and begs you to excuse her. She is not very well."
"How unkind of her! I have been expecting her all day. Is it long since
you left Petersburg?" Olga Mihalovna asked the student. "What kind of
weather have you there now?" And without waiting for an answer, she
looked cordially at the schoolboys and repeated:
"How tall they have grown! It is not long since they used to come with
their nurse, and they are at school already! The old grow older while
the young grow up. . . . Have you had dinner?"
"Oh, please don't trouble!" said the student.
"Why, you have not had dinner?"
"For goodness' sake, don't trouble!"
"But I suppose you are hungry?" Olga Mihalovna said it in a harsh, rude
voice, with impatience and vexation--it escaped her unawares, but at once
she coughed, smiled, and flushed crimson. "How tall they have grown!"
she said softly.
"Please don't trouble!" the student said once more.
The student begged her not to trouble; the boys said nothing; obviously
all three of them were hungry. Olga Mihalovna took them into the dining-
room and told Vassily to lay the table.
"How unkind of your mamma!" she said as she made them sit down. "She has
quite forgotten me. Unkind, unkind, unkind . . . you must tell her so.
What are you studying?" she asked the student.
"Medicine."
"Well, I have a weakness for doctors, only fancy. I am very sorry my
husband is not a doctor. What courage any one must have to perform an
operation or dissect a corpse, for instance! Horrible! Aren't you
frightened? I believe I should die of terror! Of course, you drink
vodka?"
"Please don't trouble."
"After your journey you must have something to drink. Though I am a
woman, even I drink sometimes. And Mitya and Kolya will drink Malaga.
It's not a strong wine; you need not be afraid of it. What fine fellows
they are, really! They'll be thinking of getting married next."
Olga Mihalovna talked without ceasing; she knew by experience that when
she had guests to entertain it was far easier and more comfortable to
talk than to listen. When you talk there is no need to strain your
attention to think of answers to questions, and to change your
expression of face. But unawares she asked the student a serious
question; the student began a lengthy speech and she was forced to
listen. The student knew that she had once been at the University, and
so tried to seem a serious person as he talked to her.
"What subject are you studying?" she asked, forgetting that she had
already put that question to him.
"Medicine."
Olga Mihalovna now remembered that she had been away from the ladies for
a long while.
"Yes? Then I suppose you are going to be a doctor?" she said, getting
up. "That's splendid. I am sorry I did not go in for medicine myself. So
you will finish your dinner here, gentlemen, and then come into the
garden. I will introduce you to the young ladies."
She went out and glanced at her watch: it was five minutes to six. And
she wondered that the time had gone so slowly, and thought with horror
that there were six more hours before midnight, when the party would
break up. How could she get through those six hours? What phrases could
she utter? How should she behave to her husband?
There was not a soul in the drawing-room or on the verandah. All the
guests were sauntering about the garden.
"I shall have to suggest a walk in the birchwood before tea, or else a
row in the boats," thought Olga Mihalovna, hurrying to the croquet
ground, from which came the sounds of voices and laughter.
"And sit the old people down to vint. . . ." She met Grigory the footman
coming from the croquet ground with empty bottles.
"Where are the ladies?" she asked.
"Among the raspberry-bushes. The master's there, too."
"Oh, good heavens!" some one on the croquet lawn shouted with
exasperation. "I have told you a thousand times over! To know the
Bulgarians you must see them! You can't judge from the papers!"
Either because of the outburst or for some other reason, Olga Mihalovna
was suddenly aware of a terrible weakness all over, especially in her
legs and in her shoulders. She felt she could not bear to speak, to
listen, or to move.
"Grigory," she said faintly and with an effort, "when you have to serve
tea or anything, please don't appeal to me, don't ask me anything, don't
speak of anything. . . . Do it all yourself, and . . . and don't make a
noise with your feet, I entreat you. . . . I can't, because . . ."
Without finishing, she walked on towards the croquet lawn, but on the
way she thought of the ladies, and turned towards the raspberry-bushes.
The sky, the air, and the trees looked gloomy again and threatened rain;
it was hot and stifling. An immense flock of crows, foreseeing a storm,
flew cawing over the garden. The paths were more overgrown, darker, and
narrower as they got nearer the kitchen garden. In one of them, buried
in a thick tangle of wild pear, crab-apple, sorrel, young oaks, and
hopbine, clouds of tiny black flies swarmed round Olga Mihalovna. She
covered her face with her hands and began forcing herself to think of
the little creature . . . . There floated through her imagination the
figures of Grigory, Mitya, Kolya, the faces of the peasants who had come
in the morning to present their congratulations.
She heard footsteps, and she opened her eyes. Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch
was coming rapidly towards her.
"It's you, dear? I am very glad . . ." he began, breathless. "A couple
of words. . . ." He mopped with his handkerchief his red shaven chin,
then suddenly stepped back a pace, flung up his hands and opened his
eyes wide. "My dear girl, how long is this going on?" he said rapidly,
spluttering. "I ask you: is there no limit to it? I say nothing of the
demoralizing effect of his martinet views on all around him, of the way
he insults all that is sacred and best in me and in every honest
thinking man--I will say nothing about that, but he might at least behave
decently! Why, he shouts, he bellows, gives himself airs, poses as a
sort of Bonaparte, does not let one say a word. . . . I don't know what
the devil's the matter with him! These lordly gestures, this
condescending tone; and laughing like a general! Who is he, allow me to
ask you? I ask you, who is he? The husband of his wife, with a few
paltry acres and the rank of a titular who has had the luck to marry an
heiress! An upstart and a junker, like so many others! A type out of
Shtchedrin! Upon my word, it's either that he's suffering from
megalomania, or that old rat in his dotage, Count Alexey Petrovitch, is
right when he says that children and young people are a long time
growing up nowadays, and go on playing they are cabmen and generals till
they are forty!"
"That's true, that's true," Olga Mihalovna assented. "Let me pass."
"Now just consider: what is it leading to?" her uncle went on, barring
her way. "How will this playing at being a general and a Conservative
end? Already he has got into trouble! Yes, to stand his trial! I am very
glad of it! That's what his noise and shouting has brought him to--to
stand in the prisoner's dock. And it's not as though it were the Circuit
Court or something: it's the Central Court! Nothing worse could be
imagined, I think! And then he has quarrelled with every one! He is
celebrating his name-day, and look, Vostryakov's not here, nor Yahontov,
nor Vladimirov, nor Shevud, nor the Count. . . . There is no one, I
imagine, more Conservative than Count Alexey Petrovitch, yet even he has
not come. And he never will come again. He won't come, you will see!"
"My God! but what has it to do with me?" asked Olga Mihalovna.
"What has it to do with you? Why, you are his wife! You are clever, you
have had a university education, and it was in your power to make him an
honest worker!"
"At the lectures I went to they did not teach us how to influence
tiresome people. It seems as though I should have to apologize to all of
you for having been at the University," said Olga Mihalovna sharply.
"Listen, uncle. If people played the same scales over and over again the
whole day long in your hearing, you wouldn't be able to sit still and
listen, but would run away. I hear the same thing over again for days
together all the year round. You must have pity on me at last."
Her uncle pulled a very long face, then looked at her searchingly and
twisted his lips into a mocking smile.
"So that's how it is," he piped in a voice like an old woman's. "I beg
your pardon!" he said, and made a ceremonious bow. "If you have fallen
under his influence yourself, and have abandoned your convictions, you
should have said so before. I beg your pardon!"
"Yes, I have abandoned my convictions," she cried. "There; make the most
of it!"
"I beg your pardon!"
Her uncle for the last time made her a ceremonious bow, a little on one
side, and, shrinking into himself, made a scrape with his foot and
walked back.
"Idiot!" thought Olga Mihalovna. "I hope he will go home."
She found the ladies and the young people among the raspberries in the
kitchen garden. Some were eating raspberries; others, tired of eating
raspberries, were strolling about the strawberry beds or foraging among
the sugar-peas. A little on one side of the raspberry bed, near a
branching appletree propped up by posts which had been pulled out of an
old fence, Pyotr Dmitritch was mowing the grass. His hair was falling
over his forehead, his cravat was untied. His watch-chain was hanging
loose. Every step and every swing of the scythe showed skill and the
possession of immense physical strength. Near him were standing
Lubotchka and the daughters of a neighbour, Colonel Bukryeev--two anaemic
and unhealthily stout fair girls, Natalya and Valentina, or, as they