Short Stories by Chekhov
but, still, it was not a crime but a generally accepted dodge, an ugly
formality which injured no one and was quite harmless, for in forging
the Colonel's signature Sasha had had no intention of causing anybody
damage or loss.
"No, it doesn't mean that I am a criminal . . ." thought Sasha. "And
it's not in my character to bring myself to commit a crime. I am soft,
emotional. . . . When I have the money I help the poor. . . ."
Sasha was musing after this fashion while they went on talking the other
side of the door.
"But, my friends, this is endless," the Colonel declared, getting
excited. "Suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he
would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making
debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you
guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I
have no faith whatever in his reforming!"
The official of the Treasury muttered something in reply; after him Ivan
Markovitch began talking blandly and suavely again. The Colonel moved
his chair impatiently and drowned the other's words with his detestable
metallic voice. At last the door opened and Ivan Markovitch came out of
the study; there were patches of red on his lean shaven face.
"Come along," he said, taking Sasha by the hand. "Come and speak frankly
from your heart. Without pride, my dear boy, humbly and from your
heart."
Sasha went into the study. The official of the Treasury was sitting
down; the Colonel was standing before the table with one hand in his
pocket and one knee on a chair. It was smoky and stifling in the study.
Sasha did not look at the official or the Colonel; he felt suddenly
ashamed and uncomfortable. He looked uneasily at Ivan Markovitch and
muttered:
"I'll pay it . . . I'll give it back. . . ."
"What did you expect when you discounted the IOU?" he heard a metallic
voice.
"I . . . Handrikov promised to lend me the money before now."
Sasha could say no more. He went out of the study and sat down again on
the chair near the door.
He would have been glad to go away altogether at once, but he was
choking with hatred and he awfully wanted to remain, to tear the Colonel
to pieces, to say something rude to him. He sat trying to think of
something violent and effective to say to his hated uncle, and at that
moment a woman's figure, shrouded in the twilight, appeared at the
drawing-room door. It was the Colonel's wife. She beckoned Sasha to her,
and, wringing her hands, said, weeping:
"Alexandre, I know you don't like me, but . . . listen to me; listen, I
beg you. . . . But, my dear, how can this have happened? Why, it's
awful, awful! For goodness' sake, beg them, defend yourself, entreat
them."
Sasha looked at her quivering shoulders, at the big tears that were
rolling down her cheeks, heard behind his back the hollow, nervous
voices of worried and exhausted people, and shrugged his shoulders. He
had not in the least expected that his aristocratic relations would
raise such a tempest over a paltry fifteen hundred roubles! He could not
understand her tears nor the quiver of their voices.
An hour later he heard that the Colonel was getting the best of it; the
uncles were finally inclining to let the case go for trial.
"The matter's settled," said the Colonel, sighing. "Enough."
After this decision all the uncles, even the emphatic Colonel, became
noticeably depressed. A silence followed.
"Merciful Heavens!" sighed Ivan Markovitch. "My poor sister!"
And he began saying in a subdued voice that most likely his sister,
Sasha's mother, was present unseen in the study at that moment. He felt
in his soul how the unhappy, saintly woman was weeping, grieving, and
begging for her boy. For the sake of her peace beyond the grave, they
ought to spare Sasha.
The sound of a muffled sob was heard. Ivan Markovitch was weeping and
muttering something which it was impossible to catch through the door.
The Colonel got up and paced from corner to corner. The long
conversation began over again.
But then the clock in the drawing-room struck two. The family council
was over. To avoid seeing the person who had moved him to such wrath,
the Colonel went from the study, not into the hall, but into the
vestibule. . . . Ivan Markovitch came out into the hall. . . . He was
agitated and rubbing his hands joyfully. His tear-stained eyes looked
good-humoured and his mouth was twisted into a smile.
"Capital," he said to Sasha. "Thank God! You can go home, my dear, and
sleep tranquilly. We have decided to pay the sum, but on condition that
you repent and come with me tomorrow into the country and set to work."
A minute later Ivan Markovitch and Sasha in their great-coats and caps
were going down the stairs. The uncle was muttering something edifying.
Sasha did not listen, but felt as though some uneasy weight were
gradually slipping off his shoulders. They had forgiven him; he was
free! A gust of joy sprang up within him and sent a sweet chill to his
heart. He longed to breathe, to move swiftly, to live! Glancing at the
street lamps and the black sky, he remembered that Von Burst was
celebrating his name-day that evening at the "Bear," and again a rush of
joy flooded his soul. . . .
"I am going!" he decided.
But then he remembered he had not a farthing, that the companions he was
going to would despise him at once for his empty pockets. He must get
hold of some money, come what may!
"Uncle, lend me a hundred roubles," he said to Ivan Markovitch.
His uncle, surprised, looked into his face and backed against a lamp-
post.
"Give it to me," said Sasha, shifting impatiently from one foot to the
other and beginning to pant. "Uncle, I entreat you, give me a hundred
roubles."
His face worked; he trembled, and seemed on the point of attacking his
uncle. . . .
"Won't you?" he kept asking, seeing that his uncle was still amazed and
did not understand. "Listen. If you don't, I'll give myself up tomorrow!
I won't let you pay the IOU! I'll present another false note tomorrow!"
Petrified, muttering something incoherent in his horror, Ivan Markovitch
took a hundred-rouble note out of his pocket-book and gave it to Sasha.
The young man took it and walked rapidly away from him. . . .
Taking a sledge, Sasha grew calmer, and felt a rush of joy within him
again. The "rights of youth" of which kind-hearted Ivan Markovitch had
spoken at the family council woke up and asserted themselves. Sasha
pictured the drinking-party before him, and, among the bottles, the
women, and his friends, the thought flashed through his mind:
"Now I see that I am a criminal; yes, I am a criminal."
THE KISS
AT eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the six
batteries of the N---- Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night in
the village of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the general
commotion was at its height, while some officers were busily occupied
around the guns, while others, gathered together in the square near the
church enclosure, were listening to the quartermasters, a man in
civilian dress, riding a strange horse, came into sight round the
church. The little dun-coloured horse with a good neck and a short tail
came, moving not straight forward, but as it were sideways, with a sort
of dance step, as though it were being lashed about the legs. When he
reached the officers the man on the horse took off his hat and said:
"His Excellency Lieutenant-General von Rabbek invites the gentlemen to
drink tea with him this minute. . . ."
The horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; the messenger raised his
hat once more, and in an instant disappeared with his strange horse
behind the church.
"What the devil does it mean?" grumbled some of the officers, dispersing
to their quarters. "One is sleepy, and here this Von Rabbek with his
tea! We know what tea means."
The officers of all the six batteries remembered vividly an incident of
the previous year, when during manoeuvres they, together with the
officers of a Cossack regiment, were in the same way invited to tea by a
count who had an estate in the neighbourhood and was a retired army
officer: the hospitable and genial count made much of them, fed them,
and gave them drink, refused to let them go to their quarters in the
village and made them stay the night. All that, of course, was very
nice--nothing better could be desired, but the worst of it was, the old
army officer was so carried away by the pleasure of the young men's
company that till sunrise he was telling the officers anecdotes of his
glorious past, taking them over the house, showing them expensive
pictures, old engravings, rare guns, reading them autograph letters from
great people, while the weary and exhausted officers looked and
listened, longing for their beds and yawning in their sleeves; when at
last their host let them go, it was too late for sleep.
Might not this Von Rabbek be just such another? Whether he were or not,
there was no help for it. The officers changed their uniforms, brushed
themselves, and went all together in search of the gentleman's house. In
the square by the church they were told they could get to His
Excellency's by the lower path--going down behind the church to the
river, going along the bank to the garden, and there an avenue would
taken them to the house; or by the upper way-- straight from the church
by the road which, half a mile from the village, led right up to His
Excellency's granaries. The officers decided to go by the upper way.
"What Von Rabbek is it?" they wondered on the way. "Surely not the one
who was in command of the N---- cavalry division at Plevna?"
"No, that was not Von Rabbek, but simply Rabbe and no 'von.'"
"What lovely weather!"
At the first of the granaries the road divided in two: one branch went
straight on and vanished in the evening darkness, the other led to the
owner's house on the right. The officers turned to the right and began
to speak more softly. . . . On both sides of the road stretched stone
granaries with red roofs, heavy and sullen-looking, very much like
barracks of a district town. Ahead of them gleamed the windows of the
manor-house.
"A good omen, gentlemen," said one of the officers. "Our setter is the
foremost of all; no doubt he scents game ahead of us! . . ."
Lieutenant Lobytko, who was walking in front, a tall and stalwart
fellow, though entirely without moustache (he was over five-and-twenty,
yet for some reason there was no sign of hair on his round, well-fed
face), renowned in the brigade for his peculiar faculty for divining the
presence of women at a distance, turned round and said:
"Yes, there must be women here; I feel that by instinct."
On the threshold the officers were met by Von Rabbek himself, a comely-
looking man of sixty in civilian dress. Shaking hands with his guests,
he said that he was very glad and happy to see them, but begged them
earnestly for God's sake to excuse him for not asking them to stay the
night; two sisters with their children, some brothers, and some
neighbours, had come on a visit to him, so that he had not one spare
room left.
The General shook hands with every one, made his apologies, and smiled,
but it was evident by his face that he was by no means so delighted as
their last year's count, and that he had invited the officers simply
because, in his opinion, it was a social obligation to do so. And the
officers themselves, as they walked up the softly carpeted stairs, as
they listened to him, felt that they had been invited to this house
simply because it would have been awkward not to invite them; and at the
sight of the footmen, who hastened to light the lamps in the entrance