The Complete Short Novels

by Chekhov, Anton

  Then, thank God, a cart laden with sheaves comes the opposite way. On the very top lies a peasant girl. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat, she raises her head and looks at the passersby. Deniska gapes at her, the bays stretch their muzzles out to the sheaves, the britzka, shrieking, kisses the cart, and prickly ears of wheat brush like a besom over Father Khristofor’s top hat.

  ‘‘Running people down, eh, pudgy!’’ shouts Deniska. ‘‘See, her mug’s all swollen like a bee stung it!’’

  The girl smiles sleepily, moves her lips, and lies down again ... But now a solitary poplar appears on a hill; who planted it and why it is here—God only knows. It is hard to tear your eyes from its slender figure and green garments. Is the handsome fellow happy? Heat in summer, frost and blizzards in winter, terrible autumn nights when you see only darkness and hear nothing but the wayward, furiously howling wind, and above all—you are alone, alone your whole life ... Beyond the poplar, fields of wheat stretch in a bright yellow carpet from the top of the hill right down to the road. On the hill the grain has already been cut and gathered into stacks, but below they are still mowing ... Six mowers stand in a row and swing their scythes, and the scythes flash merrily and in rhythm, all together making a sound like ‘‘vzzhi, vzzhi!’’ By the movements of the women binding the sheaves, by the faces of the mowers, by the gleaming of the scythes, you can see that the heat is burning and stifling. A black dog, its tongue hanging out, comes running from the mowers to meet the britzka, probably intending to bark, but stops halfway and gazes indifferently at Deniska, who threatens it with his whip: it is too hot to bark! One woman straightens up and, pressing both hands to her weary back, follows Egorushka’s red shirt with her eyes. The red color may have pleased her, or she may have been remembering her own children, but she stands for a long time motionless and looks after him ...

  But now the wheat, too, has flashed by. Again the scorched plain, the sunburnt hills, the torrid sky stretch out, again a kite skims over the ground. The windmill beats its wings in the distance, as before, and still looks like a little man waving his arms. You get sick of looking at it, and it seems you will never reach it, that it is running away from the britzka.

  Father Khristofor and Kuzmichov were silent. Deniska kept whipping up the bays and making little cries, and Egorushka no longer wept but gazed indifferently on all sides. The heat and the boredom of the steppe wearied him. It seemed to him that he had already been riding and bobbing about for a long time, that the sun had already been baking his back for a long time. They had not yet gone ten miles, but he was already thinking: ‘‘Time for a rest!’’ The good cheer gradually left his uncle’s face, and only the businesslike dryness remained, and to a gaunt, clean-shaven face, especially when it is in spectacles, when its nose and temples are covered with dust, this dryness lends an implacable, inquisitorial expression. Father Khristofor, however, went on gazing in astonishment at God’s world and smiled. He was silently thinking of something good and cheerful, and a kindly, good-natured smile congealed on his face. It seemed that the good, cheerful thought also congealed in his brain from the heat ...

  ‘‘What do you say, Deniska, will we catch up with the wagon train today?’’ asked Kuzmichov.

  Deniska glanced at the sky, rose a little, whipped up the horses, and only then replied:

  ‘‘By nightfall, God willing.’’

  The barking of dogs was heard. Some six huge steppe sheepdogs suddenly rushed at the britzka, as if leaping from ambush, with a fierce, howling barking. Extraordinarily vicious, with shaggy, spiderlike muzzles, their eyes red with malice, they all surrounded the britzka and, shoving each other jealously, set up a hoarse growling. Their hatred was passionate, and they seemed ready to tear to pieces the horses, and the britzka, and the people ... Deniska, who liked teasing and whipping, was glad of the opportunity and, giving his face an expression of malicious glee, bent over and lashed one of the sheepdogs with his whip. The dogs growled still more, the horses bolted; and Egorushka, barely clinging to the box, looked at the dogs’ eyes and teeth and understood that if he were to fall off, he would instantly be torn to pieces, but he felt no fear and looked on with the same malicious glee as Deniska, regretting that he had no whip in his hands.

  The britzka overtook a flock of sheep.

  ‘‘Stop!’’ cried Kuzmichov. ‘‘Hold up! Whoa ...’’

  Deniska threw his whole body back and reined in the bays. The britzka stopped.

  ‘‘Come here!’’ Kuzmichov shouted to the shepherd. ‘‘Calm those dogs down, curse them!’’

  The old shepherd, ragged and barefoot, in a warm hat, with a dirty bag on his hip and a long staff with a crook— a perfect Old Testament figure—calmed the dogs down and, removing his hat, came up to the britzka. Exactly the same Old Testament figure stood motionless at the other end of the flock and gazed indifferently at the passersby.

  ‘‘Whose flock is this?’’ asked Kuzmichov.

  ‘‘Varlamov’s!’’ the old man replied loudly.

  ‘‘Varlamov’s!’’ repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of the flock.

  ‘‘Say, did Varlamov pass by here yesterday or not?’’

  ‘‘No, sir...His agent passed by, that’s a fact ...’’

  ‘‘Gee-up!’’

  The britzka drove on, and the shepherds with their vicious dogs were left behind. Egorushka reluctantly looked ahead into the purple distance, and it was beginning to seem to him that the windmill beating its wings was coming nearer. It was getting bigger and bigger, it really grew, and you could now distinctly make out its two wings. One wing was old, patched up; the other had just recently been made of new wood and gleamed in the sun.

  The britzka drove straight on, but the mill for some reason began moving to the left. They drove and drove, but it kept moving to the left and would not disappear from sight.

  ‘‘A fine windmill Boltva built for his son!’’ observed Deniska.

  ‘‘But his farmstead’s nowhere to be seen.’’

  ‘‘It’s over there, beyond that little gully.’’

  Soon Boltva’s farmstead appeared as well, but the windmill still would not drop back, would not fall behind, looking at Egorushka with its gleaming wing and beating away. What a sorcerer!

  II

  AROUND MIDDAY THE britzka turned off the road to the right, drove slowly for a while, and stopped. Egorushka heard a soft, very gentle burbling and felt on his face the cool velvet touch of some different air. Out of a hill that nature had glued together from huge ugly stones, through a little hemlock pipe put in by some unknown benefactor, ran a thin stream of water. It fell to the ground, gay, transparent, sparkling in the sun, and, murmuring quietly, as if imagining itself a strong and swift torrent, quickly flowed off somewhere to the left. Not far from the hill, the little rivulet broadened into a pool; the hot rays and scorching soil drank it up greedily, diminishing its strength; but a bit further on, it probably merged with another such little rivulet, because some hundred paces from the hill, along its course, dense, lush green sedge was growing, from which, as the britzka approached, three snipe flew up with a cry.

  The travelers settled by the brook to rest and feed the horses. Kuzmichov, Father Khristofor, and Egorushka sat down in the thin shade of the britzka and the unharnessed horses, on a spread piece of felt, and began to eat. Once he had drunk his fill of water and eaten a baked egg, the good, cheerful thought congealed by the heat in Father Khristofor’s brain asked to be let out. He looked at Egorushka affectionately, munched his lips, and began:

  ‘‘I myself studied a bit, old boy. From a very early age, God put sense and comprehension into me, so that unlike others, being still as you are now, I comforted my parents and preceptors with my understanding. I was not yet fifteen, and I already spoke and wrote verses in Latin as if it was Russian. I remember when I was a staff-bearer for Bishop Khristofor. Once after the liturgy, I remember it like today, on the name day of the most pious sovereign Alexander Pavlovich the Bles
sed,5 while he was taking off his vestments in the sanctuary, he looked at me affectionately and asked: ‘Puer bone, quam appellaris?’1 And I answered: ‘Christophorus sum.’2And he: ‘Ergo connominati summus,’3; meaning that we were namesakes...Then he asks in Latin: ‘Whose child are you?’ I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of the deacon Siriysky in the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing such promptness and clarity in my answers, his grace blessed me and said: ‘Write to your father that I will not forget him and will keep an eye on you.’ The archpriests and priests who were in the sanctuary, listening to the Latin exchange, were also not a little surprised, and each showed his pleasure by praising me. I didn’t have whiskers yet, old boy, and was already reading Latin, and Greek, and French, knew philosophy, mathematics, civic history, and all subjects. God gave me an amazing memory. It happened that I would read something twice and learn it by heart. My preceptors and benefactors were amazed and supposed I would become a man of great learning, a Church luminary. And I myself thought of going to Kiev to continue my studies, but my parents would not give me their blessing. ‘You’ll go on studying for ages,’ said my father, ‘when will we be done waiting for you?’ On hearing these words, I abandoned my studies and took a post. True, no scholar came of me, but I obeyed my parents instead, brought peace to their old age, and buried them honorably. Obedience is greater than fasting and prayer!’’

  ‘‘You must have forgotten all your learning by now!’’ observed Kuzmichov.

  ‘‘How could I not? Praise God, I’m in my seventies! I still remember something of philosophy and rhetoric, but languages and mathematics I’ve quite forgotten.’’

  Father Khristofor closed his eyes, thought, and said in a low voice:

  ‘‘What is a being? A being is a self-sufficient thing that requires nothing for its completion.’’

  He wagged his head and laughed with sweet emotion.

  ‘‘Spiritual food!’’ he said. ‘‘Truly, matter nourishes the flesh, and spiritual food for the soul!’’

  ‘‘Learning’s learning,’’ sighed Kuzmichov, ‘‘but if we don’t catch up with Varlamov, that’ll learn us all.’’

  ‘‘A man’s not a needle, we’ll find him. He’s circling around in these parts now.’’

  The three familiar snipe flew over the sedge, and in their squawks, anxiety and vexation could be heard at having been driven away from the brook. The horses munched sedately and snorted; Deniska walked around them, trying to show that he was totally indifferent to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs his masters were eating, immersing himself completely in slaughtering the flies and horseflies that covered the horses’ bellies and backs. Apathetically, his throat producing some sort of special, sarcastically triumphant sound, he swatted his victims, but in case of failure, he grunted vexedly, his eyes following each of the lucky ones that had escaped death.

  ‘‘Deniska, where are you? Come and eat!’’ said Kuzmichov, sighing deeply and thereby letting it be known that he had already had enough.

  Deniska timorously approached the felt and chose for himself five big and yellow cucumbers, so-called ‘‘yallers’’ (he was ashamed to choose the smaller and fresher ones), took two baked eggs, blackened and cracked, then irresolutely, as if afraid of being struck on his outstretched hand, touched a little pie with his finger.

  ‘‘Take it, take it!’’ Kuzmichov urged him.

  Deniska resolutely took the pie and, walking far off to one side, sat down on the ground, his back to the britzka. At once such loud chomping was heard that even the horses turned around and looked at Deniska suspiciously.

  Having had a bite to eat, Kuzmichov took a sack with something in it out of the britzka and said to Egorushka:

  ‘‘I’m going to sleep, and you watch out that nobody pulls this sack from under my head.’’

  Father Khristofor took off his cassock, belt, and caftan, and Egorushka, looking at him, froze in astonishment. He had never supposed that priests wore trousers, but Father Khristofor had on a pair of real canvas trousers tucked into his high boots, and a short buckram jacket. Looking at him, Egorushka found that in this costume so unsuited to his dignity, with his long hair and beard, he looked very much like Robinson Crusoe. After they undressed, Father Khristofor and Kuzmichov lay down face-to-face in the shade under the britzka and closed their eyes. Deniska, having finished chomping, stretched out belly-up in the sun and also closed his eyes.

  ‘‘Watch out that nobody steals the horses!’’ he said to Egorushka and fell asleep at once.

  Quiet ensued. All that could be heard was the horses snorting and munching and the sleepers snoring; somewhere not close by a peewit wept, and from time to time there came a squawk from the three snipe, who kept coming to check whether the uninvited guests had left; the brook burbled with a soft burr, yet all these sounds did not disturb the quiet or awaken the congealed air, but, on the contrary, drove nature into slumber.

  Egorushka, suffocating from the heat, which was especially felt now, after eating, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the countryside. He saw the same thing he had seen before noon: the plain, the hills, the sky, the purple distance; only the hills stood nearer and there was no windmill, which had been left far behind. Beyond the rocky hill where the brook flowed rose another hill, smoother and wider; to it clung a small hamlet of five or six farmyards. There were no people, or trees, or shadows to be seen by the huts, as if the hamlet had suffocated in the hot air and dried up. Having nothing to do, Egorushka caught a capricorn beetle in the grass, held it to his ear in his fist, and listened to it playing its fiddle for a long time. When he got tired of the music, he chased after a crowd of yellow butterflies that had come to the sedge to drink, and did not notice himself how he wound up by the britzka again. His uncle and Father Khristofor were fast asleep; their sleep was bound to go on for another two or three hours, till the horses were rested... How to kill that long time and where to hide from the heat? A tricky problem ... Mechanically, Egorushka put his mouth to the stream running from the pipe; his mouth felt cold and tasted of hemlock; first he drank eagerly, then forcing himself, until the sharp cold had spread from his mouth to his whole body and the water flowed down his shirt. Then he went over to the britzka and began to look at the sleepers. His uncle’s face, as before, showed a businesslike dryness. A fanatic for his business, Kuzmichov always thought about his affairs, even in his sleep, even while praying in church, when they sang the ‘‘Cherubic Hymn,’’6 unable to forget them even for a moment, and was now probably dreaming of bales of wool, carts, prices, Varlamov ... But Father Khristofor was a gentle man, light-minded and given to laughter, who never in all his life had known a single such affair, which could bind his soul like a boa constrictor. In all the numerous affairs he had undertaken in his life, he had never been tempted by the affair itself so much as by the bustle and intercourse with people proper to every undertaking. Thus, in the present journey, he was interested not so much in wool, Varlamov, and prices as in the long route, the conversation on the way, sleeping under the britzka, eating at odd times ... And now, judging by his face, he must have been dreaming of Bishop Khristofor, the Latin discussion, his wife, doughnuts with sour cream, and all that Kuzmichov never could have dreamed of.

  While Egorushka was looking at the sleeping faces, he suddenly heard a soft singing. Somewhere not close by, a woman was singing, but precisely where and in which direction was hard to make out. The song, soft, drawn out, and mournful, like weeping, and barely audible, came now from the right, now from the left, now from above, now from under the ground, as if some invisible spirit was hovering over the steppe and singing. Egorushka looked around and could not tell where this strange song was coming from; then, when he listened better, it began to seem to him that it was the grass singing; in its song, half dead, already perished, wordless, but plaintive and sincere, it was trying to persuade someone that it was not to blame for anything, that the sun was scorching it for nothing; it insisted that it wanted passionately to live,
that it was still young and would be beautiful if it were not for the heat and drought; it was not to blame, but even so, it asked forgiveness of someone, swearing that it was suffering unbearably, felt sad and sorry for itself ...

  Egorushka listened a little, and it began to seem to him that this mournful, drawn-out song made the air still more sultry, hot, and immobile ... To stifle the song, he ran to the sedge, humming and trying to stamp his feet. From there he looked in all directions and found the one who was singing. Near the last hut in the hamlet, a peasant woman in a short shift, long-legged and lanky as a heron, stood sifting something. White dust drifted lazily down the knoll from under her sieve. It was now obvious that it was she who was singing. A few feet from her, a little boy stood motionless in nothing but a shirt, and with no hat. As if enchanted by the song, he did not stir and looked down somewhere, probably at Egorushka’s red shirt.

  The song ceased. Egorushka trudged back to the britzka and again, having nothing to do, occupied himself with the stream of water.

  And again he heard the drawn-out song. The same long-legged woman in the hamlet behind the knoll was singing. Egorushka’s boredom suddenly came back to him. He abandoned the pipe and raised his eyes. What he saw was so unexpected that he was slightly frightened. Above his head, on one of the big clumsy stones, stood a little boy in nothing but a shirt, pudgy, with a big protruding belly and skinny legs, the same one who had been standing by the woman earlier. With dull astonishment and not without fear, as if seeing otherworldly beings before him, unblinking and openmouthed, he studied Egorushka’s red shirt and the britzka. The red color of the shirt lured and caressed him, and the britzka and the people sleeping under it aroused his curiosity; perhaps he himself had not noticed how the pleasing red color and curiosity had drawn him down from the hamlet, and probably he was now astonished at his own boldness. Egorushka studied him for a long time, and he Egorushka. Both were silent and felt a certain awkwardness. After a long silence, Egorushka asked: