Short Stories by Chekhov
middle of the room, clapping her hands and crying:
"Supper, supper, supper!"
And they all streamed into the dining-room. At supper Varya had another
argument, and this time with her father. Polyansky ate stolidly, drank
red wine, and described to Nikitin how once in a winter campaign he had
stood all night up to his knees in a bog; the enemy was so near that
they were not allowed to speak or smoke, the night was cold and dark, a
piercing wind was blowing. Nikitin listened and stole side-glances at
Masha. She was gazing at him immovably, without blinking, as though she
was pondering something or was lost in a reverie. . . . It was pleasure
and agony to him both at once.
"Why does she look at me like that?" was the question that fretted him.
"It's awkward. People may notice it. Oh, how young, how naïve she is!"
The party broke up at midnight. When Nikitin went out at the gate, a
window opened on the first-floor, and Masha showed herself at it.
"Sergey Vassilitch!" she called.
"What is it?"
"I tell you what . . ." said Masha, evidently thinking of something to
say. "I tell you what. . . Polyansky said he would come in a day or two
with his camera and take us all. We must meet here."
"Very well."
Masha vanished, the window was slammed, and some one immediately began
playing the piano in the house.
"Well, it is a house!" thought Nikitin while he crossed the street. "A
house in which there is no moaning except from Egyptian pigeons, and
they only do it because they have no other means of expressing their
joy!"
But the Shelestovs were not the only festive household. Nikitin had not
gone two hundred paces before he heard the strains of a piano from
another house. A little further he met a peasant playing the balalaika
at the gate. In the gardens the band struck up a potpourri of Russian
songs.
Nikitin lived nearly half a mile from the Shelestoys' in a flat of eight
rooms at the rent of three hundred roubles a year, which he shared with
his colleague Ippolit Ippolititch, a teacher of geography and history.
When Nikitin went in this Ippolit Ippolititch, a snub-nosed, middle-aged
man with a reddish beard, with a coarse, good-natured, unintellectual
face like a workman's, was sitting at the table correcting his pupils'
maps. He considered that the most important and necessary part of the
study of geography was the drawing of maps, and of the study of history
the learning of dates: he would sit for nights together correcting in
blue pencil the maps drawn by the boys and girls he taught, or making
chronological tables.
"What a lovely day it has been!" said Nikitin, going in to him. "I
wonder at you--how can you sit indoors?"
Ippolit Ippolititch was not a talkative person; he either remained
silent or talked of things which everybody knew already. Now what he
answered was:
"Yes, very fine weather. It's May now; we soon shall have real summer.
And summer's a very different thing from winter. In the winter you have
to heat the stoves, but in summer you can keep warm without. In summer
you have your window open at night and still are warm, and in winter you
are cold even with the double frames in."
Nikitin had not sat at the table for more than one minute before he was
bored.
"Good-night!" he said, getting up and yawning. "I wanted to tell you
something romantic concerning myself, but you are--geography! If one
talks to you of love, you will ask one at once, 'What was the date of
the Battle of Kalka?' Confound you, with your battles and your capes in
Siberia!"
"What are you cross about?"
"Why, it is vexatious!"
And vexed that he had not spoken to Masha, and that he had no one to
talk to of his love, he went to his study and lay down upon the sofa. It
was dark and still in the study. Lying gazing into the darkness, Nikitin
for some reason began thinking how in two or three years he would go to
Petersburg, how Masha would see him off at the station and would cry; in
Petersburg he would get a long letter from her in which she would
entreat him to come home as quickly as possible. And he would write to
her. . . . He would begin his letter like that: "My dear little rat!"
"Yes, my dear little rat!" he said, and he laughed.
He was lying in an uncomfortable position. He put his arms under his
head and put his left leg over the back of the sofa. He felt more
comfortable. Meanwhile a pale light was more and more perceptible at the
windows, sleepy cocks crowed in the yard. Nikitin went on thinking how
he would come back from Petersburg, how Masha would meet him at the
station, and with a shriek of delight would fling herself on his neck;
or, better still, he would cheat her and come home by stealth late at
night: the cook would open the door, then he would go on tiptoe to the
bedroom, undress noiselessly, and jump into bed! And she would wake up
and be overjoyed.
It was beginning to get quite light. By now there were no windows, no
study. On the steps of the brewery by which they had ridden that day
Masha was sitting, saying something. Then she took Nikitin by the arm
and went with him to the suburban garden. There he saw the oaks and, the
crows' nests like hats. One of the nests rocked; out of it peeped
Shebaldin, shouting loudly: "You have not read Lessing!"
Nikitin shuddered all over and opened his eyes. Ippolit Ippolititch was
standing before the sofa, and throwing back his head, was putting on his
cravat.
"Get up; it's time for school," he said. "You shouldn't sleep in your
clothes; it spoils your clothes. You should sleep in your bed,
undressed."
And as usual he began slowly and emphatically saying what everybody
knew.
Nikitin's first lesson was on Russian language in the second class. When
at nine o'clock punctually he went into the classroom, he saw written on
the blackboard two large letters--M. S. That, no doubt, meant Masha
Shelestov.
"They've scented it out already, the rascals . . ." thought Nikitin.
"How is it they know everything?"
The second lesson was in the fifth class. And there two letters, M. S.,
were written on the blackboard; and when he went out of the classroom at
the end of the lesson, he heard the shout behind him as though from a
theatre gallery:
"Hurrah for Masha Shelestov!"
His head was heavy from sleeping in his clothes, his limbs were weighted
down with inertia. The boys, who were expecting every day to break up
before the examinations, did nothing, were restless, and so bored that
they got into mischief. Nikitin, too, was restless, did not notice their
pranks, and was continually going to the window. He could see the street
brilliantly lighted up with the sun; above the houses the blue limpid
sky, the birds, and far, far away, beyond the gardens and the houses,
vast indefinite distance, the forests in the blue haze, the smoke from a
passing train. . . .
Here two officers in white tunics, playing with their whips, passed in
the street in the shade of the acacias. Here a lot of Jews, with grey
beards, and caps on, drove past in a waggonette. . . . The governess
walked by with the director's granddaughter. Som ran by in the company
of two other dogs. . . . And then Varya, wearing a simple grey dress and
red stockings, carrying the "Vyestnik Evropi" in her hand, passed by.
She must have been to the town library. . . .
And it would be a long time before lessons were over at three o'clock!
And after school he could not go home nor to the Shelestovs', but must
go to give a lesson at Wolf's. This Wolf, a wealthy Jew who had turned
Lutheran, did not send his children to the high school, but had them
taught at home by the high-school masters, and paid five roubles a
lesson.
He was bored, bored, bored.
At three o'clock he went to Wolf's and spent there, as it seemed to him,
an eternity. He left there at five o'clock, and before seven he had to
be at the high school again to a meeting of the masters --to draw up the
plan for the viva voce examination of the fourth and sixth classes.
When late in the evening he left the high school and went to the
Shelestovs', his heart was beating and his face was flushed. A month
before, even a week before, he had, every time that he made up his mind
to speak to her, prepared a whole speech, with an introduction and a
conclusion. Now he had not one word ready; everything was in a muddle in
his head, and all he knew was that today he would certainly declare
himself, and that it was utterly impossible to wait any longer.
"I will ask her to come to the garden," he thought; "we'll walk about a
little and I'll speak."
There was not a soul in the hall; he went into the dining-room and then
into the drawing-room. . . . There was no one there either. He could
hear Varya arguing with some one upstairs and the clink of the
dressmaker's scissors in the nursery.
There was a little room in the house which had three names: the little
room, the passage room, and the dark room. There was a big cupboard in
it where they kept medicines, gunpowder, and their hunting gear. Leading
from this room to the first floor was a narrow wooden staircase where
cats were always asleep. There were two doors in it--one leading to the
nursery, one to the drawing-room. When Nikitin went into this room to go
upstairs, the door from the nursery opened and shut with such a bang
that it made the stairs and the cupboard tremble; Masha, in a dark
dress, ran in with a piece of blue material in her hand, and, not
noticing Nikitin, darted towards the stairs.
"Stay . . ." said Nikitin, stopping her. "Good-evening, Godefroi . . . .
Allow me. . . ."
He gasped, he did not know what to say; with one hand he held her hand
and with the other the blue material. And she was half frightened, half
surprised, and looked at him with big eyes.
"Allow me . . ." Nikitin went on, afraid she would go away. "There's
something I must say to you. . . . Only . . . it's inconvenient here. I
cannot, I am incapable. . . . Understand, Godefroi, I can't --that's all
. . . ."
The blue material slipped on to the floor, and Nikitin took Masha by the
other hand. She turned pale, moved her lips, then stepped back from
Nikitin and found herself in the corner between the wall and the
cupboard.
"On my honour, I assure you . . ." he said softly. "Masha, on my honour.
. . ."
She threw back her head and he kissed her lips, and that the kiss might
last longer he put his fingers to her cheeks; and it somehow happened
that he found himself in the corner between the cupboard and the wall,
and she put her arms round his neck and pressed her head against his
chin.
Then they both ran into the garden. The Shelestoys had a garden of nine
acres. There were about twenty old maples and lime-trees in it; there
was one fir-tree, and all the rest were fruit-trees: cherries, apples,
pears, horse-chestnuts, silvery olive-trees. . . . There were heaps of
flowers, too.
Nikitin and Masha ran along the avenues in silence, laughed, asked each
other from time to time disconnected questions which they did not
answer. A crescent moon was shining over the garden, and drowsy tulips
and irises were stretching up from the dark grass in its faint light, as
though entreating for words of love for them, too.
When Nikitin and Masha went back to the house, the officers and the
young ladies were already assembled and dancing the mazurka. Again
Polyansky led the grand chain through all the rooms, again after dancing
they played "fate." Before supper, when the visitors had gone into the
dining-room, Masha, left alone with Nikitin, pressed close to him and
said:
"You must speak to papa and Varya yourself; I am ashamed."
After supper he talked to the old father. After listening to him,
Shelestov thought a little and said: