Short Stories by Chekhov
Ryabovitch for her hero; this was the more probable as Ryabovitch had
stood still hesitating in the dark room, so that he, too, had seemed
like a person expecting something. . . . This was how Ryabovitch
explained to himself the kiss he had received.
"And who is she?" he wondered, looking round at the women's faces. "She
must be young, for elderly ladies don't give rendezvous. That she was a
lady, one could tell by the rustle of her dress, her perfume, her voice.
. . ."
His eyes rested on the lilac young lady, and he thought her very
attractive; she had beautiful shoulders and arms, a clever face, and a
delightful voice. Ryabovitch, looking at her, hoped that she and no one
else was his unknown. . . . But she laughed somehow artificially and
wrinkled up her long nose, which seemed to him to make her look old.
Then he turned his eyes upon the fair girl in a black dress. She was
younger, simpler, and more genuine, had a charming brow, and drank very
daintily out of her wineglass. Ryabovitch now hoped that it was she. But
soon he began to think her face flat, and fixed his eyes upon the one
next her.
"It's difficult to guess," he thought, musing. "If one takes the
shoulders and arms of the lilac one only, adds the brow of the fair one
and the eyes of the one on the left of Lobytko, then . . ."
He made a combination of these things in his mind and so formed the
image of the girl who had kissed him, the image that he wanted her to
have, but could not find at the table. . . .
After supper, replete and exhilarated, the officers began to take leave
and say thank you. Von Rabbek and his wife began again apologizing that
they could not ask them to stay the night.
"Very, very glad to have met you, gentlemen," said Von Rabbek, and this
time sincerely (probably because people are far more sincere and good-
humoured at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them).
"Delighted. I hope you will come on your way back! Don't stand on
ceremony! Where are you going? Do you want to go by the upper way? No,
go across the garden; it's nearer here by the lower way."
The officers went out into the garden. After the bright light and the
noise the garden seemed very dark and quiet. They walked in silence all
the way to the gate. They were a little drunk, pleased, and in good
spirits, but the darkness and silence made them thoughtful for a minute.
Probably the same idea occurred to each one of them as to Ryabovitch:
would there ever come a time for them when, like Von Rabbek, they would
have a large house, a family, a garden-- when they, too, would be able to
welcome people, even though insincerely, feed them, make them drunk and
contented?
Going out of the garden gate, they all began talking at once and
laughing loudly about nothing. They were walking now along the little
path that led down to the river, and then ran along the water's edge,
winding round the bushes on the bank, the pools, and the willows that
overhung the water. The bank and the path were scarcely visible, and the
other bank was entirely plunged in darkness. Stars were reflected here
and there on the dark water; they quivered and were broken up on the
surface--and from that alone it could be seen that the river was flowing
rapidly. It was still. Drowsy curlews cried plaintively on the further
bank, and in one of the bushes on the nearest side a nightingale was
trilling loudly, taking no notice of the crowd of officers. The officers
stood round the bush, touched it, but the nightingale went on singing.
"What a fellow!" they exclaimed approvingly. "We stand beside him and he
takes not a bit of notice! What a rascal!"
At the end of the way the path went uphill, and, skirting the church
enclosure, turned into the road. Here the officers, tired with walking
uphill, sat down and lighted their cigarettes. On the other side of the
river a murky red fire came into sight, and having nothing better to do,
they spent a long time in discussing whether it was a camp fire or a
light in a window, or something else. . . . Ryabovitch, too, looked at
the light, and he fancied that the light looked and winked at him, as
though it knew about the kiss.
On reaching his quarters, Ryabovitch undressed as quickly as possible
and got into bed. Lobytko and Lieutenant Merzlyakov--a peaceable, silent
fellow, who was considered in his own circle a highly educated officer,
and was always, whenever it was possible, reading the "Vyestnik Evropi,"
which he carried about with him everywhere-- were quartered in the same
hut with Ryabovitch. Lobytko undressed, walked up and down the room for
a long while with the air of a man who has not been satisfied, and sent
his orderly for beer. Merzlyakov got into bed, put a candle by his
pillow and plunged into reading the "Vyestnik Evropi."
"Who was she?" Ryabovitch wondered, looking at the smoky ceiling.
His neck still felt as though he had been anointed with oil, and there
was still the chilly sensation near his mouth as though from peppermint
drops. The shoulders and arms of the young lady in lilac, the brow and
the truthful eyes of the fair girl in black, waists, dresses, and
brooches, floated through his imagination. He tried to fix his attention
on these images, but they danced about, broke up and flickered. When
these images vanished altogether from the broad dark background which
every man sees when he closes his eyes, he began to hear hurried
footsteps, the rustle of skirts, the sound of a kiss and--an intense
groundless joy took possession of him . . . . Abandoning himself to this
joy, he heard the orderly return and announce that there was no beer.
Lobytko was terribly indignant, and began pacing up and down again.
"Well, isn't he an idiot?" he kept saying, stopping first before
Ryabovitch and then before Merzlyakov. "What a fool and a dummy a man
must be not to get hold of any beer! Eh? Isn't he a scoundrel?"
"Of course you can't get beer here," said Merzlyakov, not removing his
eyes from the "Vyestnik Evropi."
"Oh! Is that your opinion?" Lobytko persisted. "Lord have mercy upon us,
if you dropped me on the moon I'd find you beer and women directly! I'll
go and find some at once. . . . You may call me an impostor if I don't!"
He spent a long time in dressing and pulling on his high boots, then
finished smoking his cigarette in silence and went out.
"Rabbek, Grabbek, Labbek," he muttered, stopping in the outer room. "I
don't care to go alone, damn it all! Ryabovitch, wouldn't you like to go
for a walk? Eh?"
Receiving no answer, he returned, slowly undressed and got into bed.
Merzlyakov sighed, put the "Vyestnik Evropi" away, and put out the
light.
"H'm! . . ." muttered Lobytko, lighting a cigarette in the dark.
Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in
bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to
combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon fell
asleep, and his last thought was that some one had caressed him and made
him happy--that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and
delightful, had come into his life. The thought did not leave him even
in his sleep.
When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of
peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as
the day before. He looked enthusiastically at the window-frames, gilded
by the light of the rising sun, and listened to the movement of the
passers-by in the street. People were talking loudly close to the
window. Lebedetsky, the commander of Ryabovitch's battery, who had only
just overtaken the brigade, was talking to his sergeant at the top of
his voice, being always accustomed to shout.
"What else?" shouted the commander.
"When they were shoeing yesterday, your high nobility, they drove a nail
into Pigeon's hoof. The vet. put on clay and vinegar; they are leading
him apart now. And also, your honour, Artemyev got drunk yesterday, and
the lieutenant ordered him to be put in the limber of a spare gun-
carriage."
The sergeant reported that Karpov had forgotten the new cords for the
trumpets and the rings for the tents, and that their honours, the
officers, had spent the previous evening visiting General Von Rabbek. In
the middle of this conversation the red-bearded face of Lebedetsky
appeared in the window. He screwed up his short-sighted eyes, looking at
the sleepy faces of the officers, and said good-morning to them.
"Is everything all right?" he asked.
"One of the horses has a sore neck from the new collar," answered
Lobytko, yawning.
The commander sighed, thought a moment, and said in a loud voice:
"I am thinking of going to see Alexandra Yevgrafovna. I must call on
her. Well, good-bye. I shall catch you up in the evening."
A quarter of an hour later the brigade set off on its way. When it was
moving along the road by the granaries, Ryabovitch looked at the house
on the right. The blinds were down in all the windows. Evidently the
household was still asleep. The one who had kissed Ryabovitch the day
before was asleep, too. He tried to imagine her asleep. The wide-open
windows of the bedroom, the green branches peeping in, the morning
freshness, the scent of the poplars, lilac, and roses, the bed, a chair,
and on it the skirts that had rustled the day before, the little
slippers, the little watch on the table --all this he pictured to himself
clearly and distinctly, but the features of the face, the sweet sleepy
smile, just what was characteristic and important, slipped through his
imagination like quicksilver through the fingers. When he had ridden on
half a mile, he looked back: the yellow church, the house, and the
river, were all bathed in light; the river with its bright green banks,
with the blue sky reflected in it and glints of silver in the sunshine
here and there, was very beautiful. Ryabovitch gazed for the last time
at Myestetchki, and he felt as sad as though he were parting with
something very near and dear to him.
And before him on the road lay nothing but long familiar, uninteresting
pictures. . . . To right and to left, fields of young rye and buckwheat
with rooks hopping about in them. If one looked ahead, one saw dust and
the backs of men's heads; if one looked back, one saw the same dust and
faces. . . . Foremost of all marched four men with sabres--this was the
vanguard. Next, behind, the crowd of singers, and behind them the
trumpeters on horseback. The vanguard and the chorus of singers, like
torch-bearers in a funeral procession, often forgot to keep the
regulation distance and pushed a long way ahead. . . . Ryabovitch was
with the first cannon of the fifth battery. He could see all the four
batteries moving in front of him. For any one not a military man this
long tedious procession of a moving brigade seems an intricate and
unintelligible muddle; one cannot understand why there are so many
people round one cannon, and why it is drawn by so many horses in such a
strange network of harness, as though it really were so terrible and
heavy. To Ryabovitch it was all perfectly comprehensible and therefore
uninteresting. He had known for ever so long why at the head of each
battery there rode a stalwart bombardier, and why he was called a
bombardier; immediately behind this bombardier could be seen the
horsemen of the first and then of the middle units. Ryabovitch knew that
the horses on which they rode, those on the left, were called one name,
while those on the right were called another--it was extremely
uninteresting. Behind the horsemen came two shaft-horses. On one of them
sat a rider with the dust of yesterday on his back and a clumsy and
funny-looking piece of wood on his leg. Ryabovitch knew the object of
this piece of wood, and did not think it funny. All the riders waved