The Complete Short Novels

by Chekhov, Anton

  ‘‘Your Excellency, forgive us, it’s not clean here!’’ moaned Moisei Moiseich with a painfully sweet smile, no longer noticing Kuzmichov or Father Khristofor, but only balancing his whole body so as not to fall apart. ‘‘We’re simple people, Your Excellency!’’

  Egorushka rubbed his eyes. Indeed, in the middle of the room stood an excellency in the guise of a young, very beautiful and shapely woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Egorushka had time to make out her features, he recalled for some reason the solitary slender poplar he had seen that day on a hill.

  ‘‘Did Varlamov pass here today?’’ asked a woman’s voice.

  ‘‘No, Your Excellency!’’ replied Moisei Moiseich.

  ‘‘If you see him tomorrow, ask him to stop at my place for a minute.’’

  Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, an inch from his eyes, Egorushka saw black velvety eyebrows, big brown eyes, and pampered woman’s cheeks with dimples, from which a smile spread all over her face like rays from the sun. There was a scent of something magnificent.

  ‘‘What a pretty boy!’’ said the lady. ‘‘Whose boy is he? Kazimir Mikhailovich, look, how lovely! My God, he’s asleep! My dear little chubsy . . .’’

  And the lady kissed Egorushka hard on both cheeks, and he smiled and, thinking he was asleep, closed his eyes. The door pulley shrieked, and hurried steps were heard: someone was going in and out.

  ‘‘Egorushka! Egorushka!’’ came the thick whisper of two voices. ‘‘Get up, we’re leaving!’’

  Someone, probably Deniska, stood Egorushka on his feet and led him by the arm; on the way he half opened his eyes and once more saw the beautiful woman in the black dress who had kissed him. She was standing in the middle of the room and, seeing him leave, smiled and nodded to him amiably. When he reached the door, he saw some handsome and thickset dark-haired man in a bowler hat and leggings. This must have been the lady’s escort.

  ‘‘Whoa!’’ came from the yard.

  By the porch Egorushka saw a new luxurious carriage and a pair of black horses. On the box sat a lackey in livery with a long whip in his hand. Only Solomon came out to see the departing guests off. His face was tense with the desire to burst out laughing; he looked as if he was waiting with great impatience for their departure in order to laugh at them all he wanted.

  ‘‘Countess Dranitsky,’’ whispered Father Khristofor, getting into the britzka.

  ‘‘Yes, Countess Dranitsky,’’ Kuzmichov repeated, also in a whisper.

  The impression produced by the countess’s arrival was probably very strong, because even Deniska spoke in a whisper and only dared to shout and whip up the bays when the britzka had gone about a quarter of a mile and instead of the inn nothing but a dim little light could be seen far behind them.

  IV

  WHO, FINALLY, WAS this elusive, mysterious Varlamov, of whom there was so much talk, whom Solomon held in contempt, and whom even the beautiful countess needed? Sitting on the box beside Deniska, the half-sleepy Egorushka was thinking precisely about this man. He had never seen him, but he had heard about him very often and had frequently pictured him in his imagination. It was known to him that Varlamov owned several thousand-score acres of land, about a hundred thousand sheep, and a lot of money; of his way of life and activities Egorushka knew only that he was always ‘‘circling around in these parts’’ and was always sought after.

  Egorushka had also heard much at home about the countess Dranitsky. She, too, had several thousand-score acres, many sheep, a stud farm, and a lot of money, but she did not ‘‘circle around,’’ but lived on her rich estate, about which their acquaintances and Ivan Ivanych, who had visited the countess more than once on business, told many wonders. For instance, they said that in the countess’s drawing room, where portraits of all the Polish kings hung, there was a big table clock in the form of a crag, and on the crag stood a rearing golden steed with diamond eyes, and on the steed sat a golden rider who swung his saber right and left each time the clock struck the hour. They also told how twice a year the countess gave a ball to which the nobility and officials of the whole province were invited, and even Varlamov came, the guests all drank tea from silver samovars, ate all sorts of extraordinary things (for instance, raspberries and strawberries were served in winter, for Christmas), and danced to music that played day and night ...

  ‘‘And she’s so beautiful!’’ thought Egorushka, remembering her face and smile.

  Kuzmichov was probably also thinking about the countess, because when the britzka had gone some two miles, he said:

  ‘‘This Kazimir Mikhailych robs her good and proper! Two years ago, remember, when I bought wool from her, he made about three thousand on my purchase alone.’’

  ‘‘You’d expect nothing else from a Polack,’’ said Father Khristofor.

  ‘‘And she doesn’t care a whit. As they say, young and stupid. Wind blowing around in her head!’’

  Egorushka, for some reason, wanted to think only about Varlamov and the countess, especially the latter. His sleepy brain totally rejected ordinary thoughts, it was clouded and retained only fantastic fairy-tale images, which have the convenience of emerging in the brain somehow of themselves, without any bother on the thinker’s part, and also of themselves—you need only give a good shake of the head— of vanishing without a trace. And besides, nothing around disposed him to ordinary thoughts. To the right were dark hills, which seemed to screen off something unknown and terrible; to the left, the whole sky above the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and it was hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere or the moon was about to rise. The distance was visible, as in the daytime, but now its delicate purple color, shaded by the dusk of evening, disappeared, and the whole steppe was hiding in the dusk, like Moisei Moiseich’s children under the blanket.

  On July evenings and nights, the quails and corncrakes no longer cry, the nightingales do not sing in the wooded gullies, the flowers give off no scent, but the steppe is still beautiful and filled with life. As soon as the sun sets and the earth is enveloped in dusk, the day’s anguish is forgotten, all is forgiven, and the steppe breathes easily with its broad chest. As if because the grass does not see its old age in the darkness, a merry, youthful chirring arises in it, such as does not happen in the daytime; chirping, whistling, scratching, steppe basses, tenors, and trebles—everything blends into a ceaseless, monotonous hum, a good background for remembrance and sorrow. The monotonous chirring lulls you like a cradle song; you ride along and feel you are falling asleep, but then from somewhere comes the abrupt, alarmed cry of a sleepless bird or some indefinite noise resembling someone’s voice, like an astonished ‘‘Ahh!’’ and the drowsiness lets go of your eyelids. And then it happens that you drive past a little gully thick with brush, and you hear a bird that the steppe people call a ‘‘sleepik,’’ crying ‘‘Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!’’ to someone, and another guffaws or dissolves in hysterical sobbing—that is an owl. Whom they cry to and who listens to them on this plain, God only knows, but there is much sorrow and plaintiveness in their cries ... There is a scent of hay, dried grass, and late flowers, but the scent is thick, sweetly cloying, and tender.

  Everything is visible in the dusk, but it is hard to make out the colors and outlines of objects. Everything appears to be not what it is. You ride along and suddenly, ahead of you, you see a silhouette like a monk’s standing just by the road; he does not move, waits, and is holding something in his hands ... Is it a robber? The figure draws near, grows, now it comes even with the britzka, and you see that it is not a man but a solitary bush or a big stone. Such motionless figures, waiting for someone, stand on the hills, hide behind the barrows, peek from amidst the tall weeds, and they all look like people and arouse suspicion.

  But when the moon rises, the night becomes pale and dark. It is as if the dusk had never been. The air is transparent, fresh, and warm, everything is clearly visible, and you can even make out the separate stalks of the weeds by the roadside.
In the far distance, skulls and stones can be seen. The suspicious monklike figures seem blacker and look more sullen against the bright background of the night. More and more often, amidst the monotonous chirring, someone’s astonished ‘‘Ah!’’ is heard, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious bird rings out, troubling the motionless air. Broad shadows drift across the plain like clouds across the sky, and in the incomprehensible distance, if you look at it for a long time, misty, whimsical images loom and heap upon each other ... It is a little eerie. And once you gaze at the pale green sky spangled with stars, with not a cloud, not a spot on it, you understand why the warm air is motionless, why nature is on the alert and afraid to stir: she feels eerie and sorry to lose even one moment of life. The boundless depth and infinity of the sky can be judged only on the sea or on the steppe at night, when the moon is shining. It is frightening, beautiful, and caressing, it looks at you languorously and beckons, and its caress makes your head spin.

  You ride for an hour, two hours ... On the way you come upon a silent old barrow or a stone idol set up God knows when or by whom, a night bird noiselessly flies over the ground, and steppe legends gradually come to your mind, stories of passing strangers, tales of some old nanny of the steppe, and all that you yourself have managed to see and grasp with your soul. And then, in the chirring of the insects, in the suspicious figures and barrows, in the blue sky, in the moonlight, in the flight of a night bird, in everything you see and hear, you begin to perceive the triumph of beauty, youth, flourishing strength, and a passionate thirst for life; your soul responds to the beautiful, stern motherland, and you want to fly over the steppe with the night bird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the excess of happiness, you feel a tension and anguish, as if the steppe were aware that it is lonely, that its riches and inspiration go for naught in the world, unsung by anyone, unneeded by anyone, and through the joyful hum you hear its anguished, hopeless call: a singer! a singer!

  ‘‘Who-oa! Greetings, Pantelei! Is all well?’’

  ‘‘Thank God, it is, Ivan Ivanych!’’

  ‘‘Have you boys seen Varlamov?’’

  ‘‘No, haven’t seen him.’’

  Egorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The britzka had stopped. Down the road to the right, a wagon train stretched far ahead, with some people scurrying up and down by it. The wagons, because of the big bales of wool piled on them, all seemed very tall and plump, and the horses small and short-legged.

  ‘‘Well, so that means now we go to the Molokan’s!’’ Kuzmichov was saying loudly. ‘‘The Yid said Varlamov would spend the night at the Molokan’s. In that case, good-bye, brothers! God be with you!’’

  ‘‘Good-bye, Ivan Ivanych!’’ several voices anwered.

  ‘‘Tell you what, boys,’’ Kuzmichov said briskly, ‘‘why don’t you take my little lad with you! So he doesn’t hang about uselessly with us? Put him on a bale, Pantelei, and let him ride slowly, and we’ll catch up with you. Go on, Egor! Go, it’s all right! ...’’

  Egorushka got down from the box. Several hands picked him up, lifted him high, and he found himself on something big, soft, and slightly moist with dew. The sky now seemed close to him and the earth far away.

  ‘‘Hey, take your coat!’’ Deniska shouted somewhere far below.

  The coat and little bundle, tossed up from below, fell next to Egorushka. Quickly, not wanting to think about anything, he put the bundle under his head, covered himself with his coat, stretched his legs out all the way, squirming from the dew, and laughed with pleasure.

  ‘‘Sleep, sleep, sleep ...’’ he thought.

  ‘‘Don’t rough him up, you devils!’’ Deniska’s voice came from below.

  ‘‘Good-bye, brothers, God be with you!’’ shouted Kuzmichov. ‘‘I’m counting on you!’’

  ‘‘Don’t worry, Ivan Ivanych!’’

  Deniska hupped the horses, the britzka squealed and started rolling, no longer down the road but somewhere to one side. For two minutes it was silent, as if the wagon train had fallen asleep, and you could hear only the clanking of the bucket tied to the rear of the britzka gradually dying away in the distance. But then at the head of the train someone shouted:

  ‘‘Gee-up, Kiriukha!’’

  The wagon at the very front creaked, after it the second, the third ... Egorushka felt the wagon he was lying on sway and also creak. The train got moving. Egorushka took a tight grip on the rope with which the bundle was tied, laughed again with pleasure, straightened the gingerbread in his pocket, and began to fall asleep the way he used to fall asleep at home in his bed ...

  When he woke up, the sun was already rising; it was screened by a barrow, but in an effort to spray light over the world, it spread its rays tensely in all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It seemed to Egorushka that it was not where it belonged, because the day before it had risen behind his back, while today it was much more to the left ... And the whole place was nothing like yesterday. There were no more hills, and wherever you looked, the endless, brown, bleak plain stretched away; here and there small barrows rose up on it, and yesterday’s rooks were flying about. Far ahead the belfries and cottages of some village showed white; on account of Sunday, the khokhly13 stayed home, baking and cooking—that could be seen by the smoke that came from all the chimneys and hung in a transparent dove-gray veil over the village. In the spaces between cottages and behind the church a blue river appeared, and beyond it the misty distance. But there was nothing that so little resembled yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily broad, sweeping, and mighty stretched across the steppe instead of a road; it was a gray strip, well trodden and covered with dust, like all roads, but it was several dozen yards wide. Its vastness aroused perplexity in Egorushka and suggested folktale thoughts to him. Who drives on it? Who needs such vastness? Incomprehensible and strange. You might really think there were still enormous, long-striding people in Russia, like Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber,14 and that mighty steeds had not died out yet. Looking at the road, Egorushka imagined some six tall chariots galloping in a row, as he had seen in pictures from sacred history; harnessed to these chariots are six wild, furious horses, and they raise clouds of dust in the sky with their high wheels, and the horses are driven by people such as might appear in dreams or grow in folktale thoughts. And how those figures would suit the steppe and the road, if they existed!

  On the right side of the road, for the whole of its length, stood telegraph poles with two wires. Getting smaller and smaller, they disappeared near the village behind the cottages and greenery, and then appeared again in the purple distance, in the guise of very small, thin sticks, like pencils stuck in the ground. On the wires sat hawks, merlins, and crows, looking indifferently at the moving train.

  Egorushka lay on the very last wagon and could therefore see the whole train. There were about twenty wagons in the train, and one wagoner for every three wagons. By the last wagon, where Egorushka was, walked an old man with a gray beard, as skinny and short as Father Khristofor, but with a face dirty brown from sunburn, stern and pensive. It might very well have been that this old man was neither stern nor pensive, but his red eyelids and long, sharp nose gave his face the stern, dry expression that occurs in people who are accustomed to always thinking of serious things, and in solitude. Like Father Khristofor, he was wearing a broad-brimmed top hat, though not a gentleman’s, but made of felt and of a dirty brown color, more like a truncated cone than a cylinder. He was barefoot. Probably from a habit acquired during the cold winters, when more than once he must have frozen beside the wagons, he kept slapping his thighs and stamping his feet as he walked. Noticing that Egorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, squirming as if from cold:

  ‘‘Ah, you’re awake, my fine lad! Are you Ivan Ivanovich’s son?’’

  ‘‘No, his nephew ...’’

  ‘‘Ivan Ivanych’s? And here I’ve taken my boots off and go hopping around barefoot. My feet hurt, they got frostbit, and it feels freer withou
t boots ... Freer, my fine lad ... Without boots, that is ... So, you’re his nephew? He’s a good man, all right ... God grant him health ... He’s all right ... Ivan Ivanych, I mean ... He’s gone to the Molokan’s ... Lord have mercy!’’

  The old man also spoke as if it was very cold, with pauses, and not opening his mouth properly; and he articulated labial consonants poorly, faltering over them as if his lips were frozen. Addressing Egorushka, he never once smiled and appeared stern.

  Two wagons ahead walked a man in a long reddish coat, a visored cap, and boots with crumpled tops, holding a whip. This one was not old, about forty. When he turned around, Egorushka saw a long red face with a thin goatee and a spongy bump under the right eye. Besides this very unattractive bump, he had another special mark that struck the eye sharply: he held the whip in his left hand, and his right hand he waved in such fashion as if he was conducting an invisible choir; occasionally he put the whip under his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something under his nose.

  The next wagoner after this one presented a tall, rectilinear figure with extremely sloping shoulders and a back flat as a board. He held himself erect, as if he was marching or had swallowed a yardstick; his arms did not swing, but hung down like straight sticks, and he strode somehow woodenly, in the manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying to take the longest stride possible. Where the old man or the owner of the spongy bump took two strides, he managed to take only one, and this made it look as if he was walking more slowly than everyone else and lagging behind. His face was bound in a rag, and something like a monk’s skullcap was stuck on his head; he was dressed in a short Ukrainian caftan all sprinkled with patches, and dark blue balloon trousers over his bast shoes.

  Those who were further ahead, Egorushka did not examine. He lay belly-down, poked a little hole in the bale, and, having nothing to do, began twisting the wool into threads. The old man striding along below turned out to be not as stern and serious as one might have judged by his face. Once he had started the conversation, he kept it up.