Short Stories by Chekhov
that moment she had gone up to him and said to him, "No," there would
have been a force in her voice hard to disobey. But she did not go up to
him and did not speak--indeed, never thought of doing so. The pettiness
and egoism of youth had never been more patent in her than that evening.
She realized that Ilyin was unhappy, and that he was sitting on the sofa
as though he were on hot coals; she felt sorry for him, but at the same
time the presence of a man who loved her to distraction, filled her soul
with triumph and a sense of her own power. She felt her youth, her
beauty, and her unassailable virtue, and, since she had decided to go
away, gave herself full licence for that evening. She flirted, laughed
incessantly, sang with peculiar feeling and gusto. Everything delighted
and amused her. She was amused at the memory of what had happened at the
seat in the wood, of the sentinel who had looked on. She was amused by
her guests, by Ilyin's cutting jests, by the pin in his cravat, which
she had never noticed before. There was a red snake with diamond eyes on
the pin; this snake struck her as so amusing that she could have kissed
it on the spot.
Sofya Petrovna sang nervously, with defiant recklessness as though half
intoxicated, and she chose sad, mournful songs which dealt with wasted
hopes, the past, old age, as though in mockery of another's grief. "'And
old age comes nearer and nearer' . . ." she sang. And what was old age
to her?
"It seems as though there is something going wrong with me," she thought
from time to time through her laughter and singing.
The party broke up at twelve o'clock. Ilyin was the last to leave. Sofya
Petrovna was still reckless enough to accompany him to the bottom step
of the verandah. She wanted to tell him that she was going away with her
husband, and to watch the effect this news would produce on him.
The moon was hidden behind the clouds, but it was light enough for Sofya
Petrovna to see how the wind played with the skirts of his overcoat and
with the awning of the verandah. She could see, too, how white Ilyin
was, and how he twisted his upper lip in the effort to smile.
"Sonia, Sonitchka . . . my darling woman!" he muttered, preventing her
from speaking. "My dear! my sweet!"
In a rush of tenderness, with tears in his voice, he showered caressing
words upon her, that grew tenderer and tenderer, and even called her
"thou," as though she were his wife or mistress. Quite unexpectedly he
put one arm round her waist and with the other hand took hold of her
elbow.
"My precious! my delight!" he whispered, kissing the nape of her neck;
"be sincere; come to me at once!"
She slipped out of his arms and raised her head to give vent to her
indignation and anger, but the indignation did not come off, and all her
vaunted virtue and chastity was only sufficient to enable her to utter
the phrase used by all ordinary women on such occasions:
"You must be mad."
"Come, let us go," Ilyin continued. "I felt just now, as well as at the
seat in the wood, that you are as helpless as I am, Sonia . . . . You
are in the same plight! You love me and are fruitlessly trying to
appease your conscience. . . ."
Seeing that she was moving away, he caught her by her lace cuff and said
rapidly:
"If not today, then tomorrow you will have to give in! Why, then, this
waste of time? My precious, darling Sonia, the sentence is passed; why
put off the execution? Why deceive yourself?"
Sofya Petrovna tore herself from him and darted in at the door.
Returning to the drawing-room, she mechanically shut the piano, looked
for a long time at the music-stand, and sat down. She could not stand up
nor think. All that was left of her excitement and recklessness was a
fearful weakness, apathy, and dreariness. Her conscience whispered to
her that she had behaved badly, foolishly, that evening, like some
madcap girl--that she had just been embraced on the verandah, and still
had an uneasy feeling in her waist and her elbow. There was not a soul
in the drawing-room; there was only one candle burning. Madame
Lubyantsev sat on the round stool before the piano, motionless, as
though expecting something. And as though taking advantage of the
darkness and her extreme lassitude, an oppressive, overpowering desire
began to assail her. Like a boa-constrictor it gripped her limbs and her
soul, and grew stronger every second, and no longer menaced her as it
had done, but stood clear before her in all its nakedness.
She sat for half an hour without stirring, not restraining herself from
thinking of Ilyin, then she got up languidly and dragged herself to her
bedroom. Andrey Ilyitch was already in bed. She sat down by the open
window and gave herself up to desire. There was no "tangle" now in her
head; all her thoughts and feelings were bent with one accord upon a
single aim. She tried to struggle against it, but instantly gave it up.
. . . She understood now how strong and relentless was the foe. Strength
and fortitude were needed to combat him, and her birth, her education,
and her life had given her nothing to fall back upon.
"Immoral wretch! Low creature!" she nagged at herself for her weakness.
"So that's what you're like!"
Her outraged sense of propriety was moved to such indignation by this
weakness that she lavished upon herself every term of abuse she knew,
and told herself many offensive and humiliating truths. So, for
instance, she told herself that she never had been moral, that she had
not come to grief before simply because she had had no opportunity, that
her inward conflict during that day had all been a farce. . . .
"And even if I have struggled," she thought, "what sort of struggle was
it? Even the woman who sells herself struggles before she brings herself
to it, and yet she sells herself. A fine struggle! Like milk, I've
turned in a day! In one day!"
She convicted herself of being tempted, not by feeling, not by Ilyin
personally, but by sensations which awaited her . . . an idle lady,
having her fling in the summer holidays, like so many!
"'Like an unfledged bird when the mother has been slain,'" sang a husky
tenor outside the window.
"If I am to go, it's time," thought Sofya Petrovna. Her heart suddenly
began beating violently.
"Andrey!" she almost shrieked. "Listen! we . . . we are going? Yes?"
"Yes, I've told you already: you go alone."
"But listen," she began. "If you don't go with me, you are in danger of
losing me. I believe I am . . . in love already."
"With whom?" asked Andrey Ilyitch.
"It can't make any difference to you who it is!" cried Sofya Petrovna.
Andrey Ilyitch sat up with his feet out of bed and looked wonderingly at
his wife's dark figure.
"It's a fancy!" he yawned.
He did not believe her, but yet he was frightened. After thinking a
little and asking his wife several unimportant questions, he delivered
himself of his opinions on the family, on infidelity . . . spoke
listlessly for about ten minutes and got into bed again. His moralizing
produced no effect. There are a great many opinions in the world, and a
good half of them are held by people who have never been in trouble!
In spite of the late hour, summer visitors were still walking outside.
Sofya Petrovna put on a light cape, stood a little, thought a little. .
. . She still had resolution enough to say to her sleeping husband:
"Are you asleep? I am going for a walk. . . . Will you come with me?"
That was her last hope. Receiving no answer, she went out. . . . It was
fresh and windy. She was conscious neither of the wind nor the darkness,
but went on and on. . . . An overmastering force drove her on, and it
seemed as though, if she had stopped, it would have pushed her in the
back.
"Immoral creature!" she muttered mechanically. "Low wretch!"
She was breathless, hot with shame, did not feel her legs under her, but
what drove her on was stronger than shame, reason, or fear.
A TRIFLE FROM LIFE
A WELL-FED, red-cheeked young man called Nikolay Ilyitch Belyaev, of
thirty-two, who was an owner of house property in Petersburg, and a
devotee of the race-course, went one evening to see Olga Ivanovna Irnin,
with whom he was living, or, to use his own expression, was dragging out
a long, wearisome romance. And, indeed, the first interesting and
enthusiastic pages of this romance had long been perused; now the pages
dragged on, and still dragged on, without presenting anything new or of
interest.
Not finding Olga Ivanovna at home, my hero lay down on the lounge chair
and proceeded to wait for her in the drawing-room.
"Good-evening, Nikolay Ilyitch!" he heard a child's voice. "Mother will
be here directly. She has gone with Sonia to the dressmaker's."
Olga Ivanovna's son, Alyosha--a boy of eight who looked graceful and very
well cared for, who was dressed like a picture, in a black velvet jacket
and long black stockings--was lying on the sofa in the same room. He was
lying on a satin cushion and, evidently imitating an acrobat he had
lately seen at the circus, stuck up in the air first one leg and then
the other. When his elegant legs were exhausted, he brought his arms
into play or jumped up impulsively and went on all fours, trying to
stand with his legs in the air. All this he was doing with the utmost
gravity, gasping and groaning painfully as though he regretted that God
had given him such a restless body.
"Ah, good-evening, my boy," said Belyaev. "It's you! I did not notice
you. Is your mother well?"
Alyosha, taking hold of the tip of his left toe with his right hand and
falling into the most unnatural attitude, turned over, jumped up, and
peeped at Belyaev from behind the big fluffy lampshade.
"What shall I say?" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "In reality
mother's never well. You see, she is a woman, and women, Nikolay
Ilyitch, have always something the matter with them."
Belyaev, having nothing better to do, began watching Alyosha's face. He
had never before during the whole of his intimacy with Olga Ivanovna
paid any attention to the boy, and had completely ignored his existence;
the boy had been before his eyes, but he had not cared to think why he
was there and what part he was playing.
In the twilight of the evening, Alyosha's face, with his white forehead
and black, unblinking eyes, unexpectedly reminded Belyaev of Olga
Ivanovna as she had been during the first pages of their romance. And he
felt disposed to be friendly to the boy.
"Come here, insect," he said; "let me have a closer look at you."
The boy jumped off the sofa and skipped up to Belyaev.
"Well," began Nikolay Ilyitch, putting a hand on the boy's thin
shoulder. "How are you getting on?"
"How shall I say! We used to get on a great deal better."
"Why?"
"It's very simple. Sonia and I used only to learn music and reading, and
now they give us French poetry to learn. Have you been shaved lately?"
"Yes."
"Yes, I see you have. Your beard is shorter. Let me touch it. . . . Does
that hurt?"
"No."
"Why is it that if you pull one hair it hurts, but if you pull a lot at
once it doesn't hurt a bit? Ha, ha! And, you know, it's a pity you don't
have whiskers. Here ought to be shaved . . . but here at the sides the
hair ought to be left. . . ."
The boy nestled up to Belyaev and began playing with his watch-chain.
"When I go to the high-school," he said, "mother is going to buy me a
watch. I shall ask her to buy me a watch-chain like this. . . . Wh-at a
lo-ket! Father's got a locket like that, only yours has little bars on
it and his has letters. . . . There's mother's portrait in the middle of
his. Father has a different sort of chain now, not made with rings, but
like ribbon. . . ."
"How do you know? Do you see your father?"
"I? M'm . . . no . . . I . . ."