Short Stories by Chekhov
below and in the anteroom above, they began to feel as though they had
brought uneasiness and discomfort into the house with them. In a house
in which two sisters and their children, brothers, and neighbours were
gathered together, probably on account of some family festivity, or
event, how could the presence of nineteen unknown officers possibly be
welcome?
At the entrance to the drawing-room the officers were met by a tall,
graceful old lady with black eyebrows and a long face, very much like
the Empress Eugénie. Smiling graciously and majestically, she said she
was glad and happy to see her guests, and apologized that her husband
and she were on this occasion unable to invite messieurs les officiers
to stay the night. From her beautiful majestic smile, which instantly
vanished from her face every time she turned away from her guests, it
was evident that she had seen numbers of officers in her day, that she
was in no humour for them now, and if she invited them to her house and
apologized for not doing more, it was only because her breeding and
position in society required it of her.
When the officers went into the big dining-room, there were about a
dozen people, men and ladies, young and old, sitting at tea at the end
of a long table. A group of men was dimly visible behind their chairs,
wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in the midst of them stood a lanky
young man with red whiskers, talking loudly, with a lisp, in English.
Through a door beyond the group could be seen a light room with pale
blue furniture.
"Gentlemen, there are so many of you that it is impossible to introduce
you all!" said the General in a loud voice, trying to sound very
cheerful. "Make each other's acquaintance, gentlemen, without any
ceremony!"
The officers--some with very serious and even stern faces, others with
forced smiles, and all feeling extremely awkward--somehow made their bows
and sat down to tea.
The most ill at ease of them all was Ryabovitch--a little officer in
spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers like a lynx's. While
some of his comrades assumed a serious expression, while others wore
forced smiles, his face, his lynx-like whiskers, and spectacles seemed
to say: "I am the shyest, most modest, and most undistinguished officer
in the whole brigade!" At first, on going into the room and sitting down
to the table, he could not fix his attention on any one face or object.
The faces, the dresses, the cut-glass decanters of brandy, the steam
from the glasses, the moulded cornices--all blended in one general
impression that inspired in Ryabovitch alarm and a desire to hide his
head. Like a lecturer making his first appearance before the public, he
saw everything that was before his eyes, but apparently only had a dim
understanding of it (among physiologists this condition, when the
subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical blindness).
After a little while, growing accustomed to his surroundings, Ryabovitch
saw clearly and began to observe. As a shy man, unused to society, what
struck him first was that in which he had always been deficient--namely,
the extraordinary boldness of his new acquaintances. Von Rabbek, his
wife, two elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac dress, and the young
man with the red whiskers, who was, it appeared, a younger son of Von
Rabbek, very cleverly, as though they had rehearsed it beforehand, took
seats between the officers, and at once got up a heated discussion in
which the visitors could not help taking part. The lilac young lady
hotly asserted that the artillery had a much better time than the
cavalry and the infantry, while Von Rabbek and the elderly ladies
maintained the opposite. A brisk interchange of talk followed.
Ryabovitch watched the lilac young lady who argued so hotly about what
was unfamiliar and utterly uninteresting to her, and watched artificial
smiles come and go on her face.
Von Rabbek and his family skilfully drew the officers into the
discussion, and meanwhile kept a sharp lookout over their glasses and
mouths, to see whether all of them were drinking, whether all had enough
sugar, why some one was not eating cakes or not drinking brandy. And the
longer Ryabovitch watched and listened, the more he was attracted by
this insincere but splendidly disciplined family.
After tea the officers went into the drawing-room. Lieutenant Lobytko's
instinct had not deceived him. There were a great number of girls and
young married ladies. The "setter" lieutenant was soon standing by a
very young, fair girl in a black dress, and, bending down to her
jauntily, as though leaning on an unseen sword, smiled and shrugged his
shoulders coquettishly. He probably talked very interesting nonsense,
for the fair girl looked at his well-fed face condescendingly and asked
indifferently, "Really?" And from that uninterested "Really?" the
setter, had he been intelligent, might have concluded that she would
never call him to heel.
The piano struck up; the melancholy strains of a valse floated out of
the wide open windows, and every one, for some reason, remembered that
it was spring, a May evening. Every one was conscious of the fragrance
of roses, of lilac, and of the young leaves of the poplar. Ryabovitch,
in whom the brandy he had drunk made itself felt, under the influence of
the music stole a glance towards the window, smiled, and began watching
the movements of the women, and it seemed to him that the smell of
roses, of poplars, and lilac came not from the garden, but from the
ladies' faces and dresses.
Von Rabbek's son invited a scraggy-looking young lady to dance, and
waltzed round the room twice with her. Lobytko, gliding over the parquet
floor, flew up to the lilac young lady and whirled her away. Dancing
began. . . . Ryabovitch stood near the door among those who were not
dancing and looked on. He had never once danced in his whole life, and
he had never once in his life put his arm round the waist of a
respectable woman. He was highly delighted that a man should in the
sight of all take a girl he did not know round the waist and offer her
his shoulder to put her hand on, but he could not imagine himself in the
position of such a man. There were times when he envied the boldness and
swagger of his companions and was inwardly wretched; the consciousness
that he was timid, that he was round-shouldered and uninteresting, that
he had a long waist and lynx-like whiskers, had deeply mortified him,
but with years he had grown used to this feeling, and now, looking at
his comrades dancing or loudly talking, he no longer envied them, but
only felt touched and mournful.
When the quadrille began, young Von Rabbek came up to those who were not
dancing and invited two officers to have a game at billiards. The
officers accepted and went with him out of the drawing-room. Ryabovitch,
having nothing to do and wishing to take part in the general movement,
slouched after them. From the big drawing-room they went into the little
drawing-room, then into a narrow corridor with a glass roof, and thence
into a room in which on their entrance three sleepy-looking footmen
jumped up quickly from the sofa. At last, after passing through a long
succession of rooms, young Von Rabbek and the officers came into a small
room where there was a billiard-table. They began to play.
Ryabovitch, who had never played any game but cards, stood near the
billiard-table and looked indifferently at the players, while they in
unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands, stepped about, made puns,
and kept shouting out unintelligible words.
The players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of them,
shoving him with his elbow or accidentally touching him with the end of
his cue, would turn round and say "Pardon!" Before the first game was
over he was weary of it, and began to feel he was not wanted and in the
way. . . . He felt disposed to return to the drawing-room, and he went
out.
On his way back he met with a little adventure. When he had gone half-
way he noticed he had taken a wrong turning. He distinctly remembered
that he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his way, but he had passed
five or six rooms, and those sleepy figures seemed to have vanished into
the earth. Noticing his mistake, he walked back a little way and turned
to the right; he found himself in a little dark room which he had not
seen on his way to the billiard-room. After standing there a little
while, he resolutely opened the first door that met his eyes and walked
into an absolutely dark room. Straight in front could be seen the crack
in the doorway through which there was a gleam of vivid light; from the
other side of the door came the muffled sound of a melancholy mazurka.
Here, too, as in the drawing-room, the windows were wide open and there
was a smell of poplars, lilac and roses. . . .
Ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. . . . At that moment, to his
surprise, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustling of a dress, a
breathless feminine voice whispered "At last!" And two soft, fragrant,
unmistakably feminine arms were clasped about his neck; a warm cheek was
pressed to his cheek, and simultaneously there was the sound of a kiss.
But at once the bestower of the kiss uttered a faint shriek and skipped
back from him, as it seemed to Ryabovitch, with aversion. He, too,
almost shrieked and rushed towards the gleam of light at the door. . . .
When he went back into the drawing-room his heart was beating and his
hands were trembling so noticeably that he made haste to hide them
behind his back. At first he was tormented by shame and dread that the
whole drawing-room knew that he had just been kissed and embraced by a
woman. He shrank into himself and looked uneasily about him, but as he
became convinced that people were dancing and talking as calmly as ever,
he gave himself up entirely to the new sensation which he had never
experienced before in his life. Something strange was happening to him.
. . . His neck, round which soft, fragrant arms had so lately been
clasped, seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on his left cheek near
his moustache where the unknown had kissed him there was a faint chilly
tingling sensation as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the
place the more distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to
foot, he was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and
stronger . . . . He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to
laugh aloud. . . . He quite forgot that he was round-shouldered and
uninteresting, that he had lynx-like whiskers and an "undistinguished
appearance" (that was how his appearance had been described by some
ladies whose conversation he had accidentally overheard). When Von
Rabbek's wife happened to pass by him, he gave her such a broad and
friendly smile that she stood still and looked at him inquiringly.
"I like your house immensely!" he said, setting his spectacles straight.
The General's wife smiled and said that the house had belonged to her
father; then she asked whether his parents were living, whether he had
long been in the army, why he was so thin, and so on. . . . After
receiving answers to her questions, she went on, and after his
conversation with her his smiles were more friendly than ever, and he
thought he was surrounded by splendid people. . . .
At supper Ryabovitch ate mechanically everything offered him, drank, and
without listening to anything, tried to understand what had just
happened to him. . . . The adventure was of a mysterious and romantic
character, but it was not difficult to explain it. No doubt some girl or
young married lady had arranged a tryst with some one in the dark room;
had waited a long time, and being nervous and excited had taken