The Complete Short Novels

by Chekhov, Anton

  Wine made them merrier towards the end of supper, and they would go on to merry conversations. They would make fun of Gruzin’s family life, of Kukushkin’s conquests, or of Pekarsky, whose account book supposedly had a page with the heading For Works of Charity, and another For Physiological Needs. They said there were no faithful wives; there was no wife from whom, given a certain knack, one could not obtain caresses without leaving the drawing room, with the husband sitting right next door in his study. Adolescent girls are depraved and already know everything. Orlov keeps the letter of one fourteen-year-old schoolgirl; on her way home from school, she ‘‘hitched up with a little officer on Nevsky’’ who supposedly took her to his place and let her go only late at night, and she hastened to write to a friend about it in order to share her rapture. They said that there is not and never has been any purity of morals, that it is obviously not needed; mankind has so far done perfectly well without it. The harmfulness of so-called depravity is undoubtedly exaggerated. The perversity specified in our penal code did not keep Diogenes10 from being a philosopher and a teacher; Caesar and Cicero were debauchees and at the same time great men. Old Cato11 married a young girl and, even so, went on being considered a strict faster and observer of morals.

  At three or four o’clock, the guests would go home or drive out of town together, or to Ofitserskaya Street to visit some Varvara Osipovna, and I would go to my room in the servants’ quarters and lie awake for a long time with a headache and a cough.

  IV

  A BOUT THREE WEEKS after I went to work for Orlov, on a Sunday morning, as I recall, someone rang the bell. It was past ten o’clock, and Orlov was still asleep. I went to open the door. You can imagine my amazement: outside on the landing stood a lady in a veil.

  ‘‘Is Georgiy Ivanych up?’’ she asked.

  And by her voice I knew it was Zinaida Fyodorovna, to whom I brought letters on Znamenskaya. I don’t remember whether I had time or was able to answer her—I was confused by her appearance. But she had no need of my answer. In an instant she darted past me, and, having filled the front hall with the fragrance of her perfume, which to this day I remember perfectly well, she went in, and the sound of her footsteps died away. For at least half an hour after that, nothing was heard. But then someone rang again. This time some spruced-up girl, apparently a maid from a wealthy house, and our porter, both out of breath, brought in two suitcases and a wicker trunk.

  ‘‘For Zinaida Fyodorovna,’’ said the girl.

  And she left without saying another word. All this was mysterious and evoked a sly smile in Polya, who stood in awe of her master’s pranks. It was as if she meant to say: ‘‘See how we are!’’—and she went around all the while on tiptoe. Finally footsteps were heard; Zinaida Fyodorovna quickly came into the front hall and, seeing me in the doorway of my servants’ quarters, said:

  ‘‘Stepan, go and dress Georgiy Ivanych.’’

  When I came into Orlov’s room with his clothes and boots, he was sitting on his bed, his feet dangling on the bearskin rug. His whole figure expressed confusion. He didn’t notice me, and my servant’s opinion didn’t interest him: obviously he was confused and abashed before himself, before his own ‘‘inner eye.’’ He dressed, washed, and then fussed silently and unhurriedly with his brushes and combs, as if giving himself time to think over and figure out his situation, and even by his back you could see that he was confused and displeased with himself.

  They had coffee together. Zinaida Fyodorovna poured for herself and for Orlov, then leaned her elbows on the table and laughed.

  ‘‘I still can’t believe it,’’ she said. ‘‘When you travel for a long time and then arrive at a hotel, it’s hard to believe there’s no need to keep going. It’s nice to breathe easy.’’

  With the expression of a little girl who wants very much to do some mischief, she breathed easy and laughed again.

  ‘‘Excuse me,’’ said Orlov, nodding towards the newspapers. ‘‘Reading over coffee is an invincible habit of mine. But I can do the two things at once: read and listen.’’

  ‘‘Read, read . . . Your habits and your freedom will remain yours. But why do you have such a lenten look? Are you always this way in the mornings, or just today? You’re not glad?’’

  ‘‘On the contrary. But I confess I’m a little stunned.’’

  ‘‘Why? You had time to prepare for my invasion. I’ve been threatening you every day.’’

  ‘‘Yes, but I didn’t expect you to carry out your threat precisely today.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t expect it myself, but it’s better so. Better, my friend. To pull the aching tooth all at once and—be done.’’

  ‘‘Yes, of course.’’

  ‘‘Ah, my dear!’’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘‘All’s well that ends well, but before it ended well, how much grief there was! Never mind that I laugh; I’m glad, happy, but I feel more like weeping than laughing. Yesterday I went through a whole battle,’’ she continued in French. ‘‘God alone knows how hard it was for me. But I’m laughing because I find it hard to believe. It seems to me that I’m sitting and having coffee with you not in reality but in a dream.’’

  Then, continuing to speak in French, she told him how she broke up with her husband the day before, and her eyes now filled with tears, now laughed and looked admiringly at Orlov. She told him that her husband had long suspected her but was avoiding an explanation; they quarreled very often, and usually, at the height of a quarrel, he would suddenly fall silent and go to his study, so as not to voice his suspicions in a sudden outburst, and so that she herself would not begin to explain. Zinaida Fyodorovna felt guilty, worthless, incapable of a bold, serious step, and that made her hate herself and her husband more strongly every day and to suffer as if in hell. But yesterday, during a quarrel, when he cried out in a tearful voice: ‘‘My God, when will it all end?’’— and went to his study, she chased after him like a cat after a mouse and, keeping him from closing the door behind him, cried out that she hated him with all her soul. Then he let her into the study, and she told him everything and confessed that she loved another man, that this other man was her true, most lawful husband, and she considered it a duty of conscience to move to his place that very day, despite anything, even if she had to go through cannon fire.

  ‘‘There’s the strong pulse of a romantic vein in you,’’ Orlov interrupted her, not taking his eyes from the newspaper.

  She laughed and went on with her story, not touching her coffee. Her cheeks were burning, this embarrassed her slightly, and she kept glancing abashedly at me and Polya. From her further account I learned that her husband had answered her with reproaches, threats, and finally with tears, and it would have been more correct to say that it was not she but he who had gone through a battle.

  ‘‘Yes, my friend, while my nerves were aroused, it all went beautifully,’’ she told him, ‘‘but as soon as night came, I lost heart. You don’t believe in God, Georges, but I believe a little, and I’m afraid of retribution. God demands patience of us, magnanimity, self-sacrifice, and here I refuse to suffer and want to set up my life in my own way. Is that good? But what if it’s suddenly not good from God’s point of view? At two o’clock in the morning my husband came into my room and said: ‘You won’t dare to leave. I’ll summons you back with a scandal, through the police.’ And a short time later, I see he’s in the doorway again, like a shadow. ‘Have mercy on me. Your running away may harm my career.’ Those words had a rude effect on me, they made me feel covered with rust, I thought the retribution was already beginning, and I began to weep and tremble with fear. It seemed to me that the ceiling was going to collapse on me, that I’d be taken to the police at once, that you would stop loving me—in short, God knows what! I’ll go to a convent, I thought, or be a sick-nurse somewhere, and renounce my happiness, but here I remembered that you loved me and that I had no right to dispose of myself without your knowledge, and everything in my head began to get muddled, and I was in d
espair, I didn’t know what to think or do. But the sun rose, and I became cheerful again. I waited till morning and came racing to you. Ah, how worn out I am, my dear! I haven’t slept for two nights in a row!’’

  She was weary and excited. She wanted at the same time to sleep and talk endlessly, and laugh, and cry, and go to a restaurant for lunch, so as to feel herself free.

  ‘‘Your apartment is cozy, but I’m afraid it will be too small for two,’’ she said after coffee, quickly walking through all the rooms. ‘‘Which room will you give me? I like this one, because it’s next to your study.’’

  After one, she changed her clothes in the room next to the study, which after that she began to call hers, and drove off with Orlov to have lunch. They also dined in a restaurant and spent the long stretch between lunch and dinner driving from shop to shop. I kept opening the door to shop clerks and messengers till late in the evening, receiving various purchases. Among other things, they brought a magnificent pier glass, a toilet table, a bed, and a splendid tea service, which we didn’t need. They brought a whole family of copper pots, which we placed side by side on a shelf in our empty, cold kitchen. As we unwrapped the tea service, Polya’s eyes lit up, and she glanced at me two or three times with hatred and fear that maybe not she but I would be the first to steal one of those graceful little cups. They brought a lady’s desk, very expensive but uncomfortable. Evidently Zinaida Fyodorovna had the intention of lodging firmly with us as mistress of the house.

  She and Orlov came back after nine. Filled with the proud awareness of having accomplished something brave and extraordinary, passionately in love, and, as it seemed to her, loved passionately, languorous, anticipating a sound and happy sleep, Zinaida Fyodorovna reveled in her new life. Overflowing with happiness, she clasped her hands tightly, convinced that everything was beautiful, and vowed that she would love eternally, and these vows, and her naïve, almost childlike confidence that she was also truly loved and would be loved eternally, made her five years younger. She talked sweet nonsense and laughed at herself.

  ‘‘There’s no higher good than freedom!’’ she said, forcing herself to say something serious and significant. ‘‘How preposterous it is, if you stop to think! We give no value to our own opinion, even if it’s intelligent, but we tremble before the opinion of various fools. Up to the last minute, I was afraid of other people’s opinion, but as soon as I listened to myself and decided to live in my own way, my eyes were opened, I overcame my foolish fear, and now I’m happy and wish everyone such happiness.’’

  But her train of thought immediately broke off, and she began talking about a new apartment, wallpaper, horses, traveling to Switzerland and Italy. Orlov, however, was weary from driving around to restaurants and shops, and continued to feel the same confusion before himself that I had noticed in him that morning. He smiled, but more out of politeness than pleasure, and when she said something serious, he ironically agreed: ‘‘Oh, yes!’’

  ‘‘Stepan, you must find a good cook at once,’’ she turned to me.

  ‘‘No point hurrying with kitchen matters,’’ said Orlov, giving me a cold look. ‘‘We’ll have to move to a new apartment first.’’

  He had never kept a cook or horses because, as he put it, he didn’t want to ‘‘install any mess around him,’’ and he tolerated Polya and me in his apartment only out of necessity. The so-called family hearth with its ordinary joys and squabbles offended his taste, as a banality; to be pregnant or have children and talk about them was bad tone, philistinism. And I now found it extremely curious to picture how these two beings would get along in the same apartment—she, housewifely and practical, with her copper pans and dreams of a good cook and horses, and he, who had often said to his friends that, like a good ship of war, the apartment of a decent, clean man should have nothing superfluous in it— no women, no children, no rags, no kitchenware . . .

  V

  NOW I’LL TELL you what happened the next Thursday. On that day Orlov and Zinaida Fyodorovna dined at Contan’s or Donon’s. Orlov returned home alone, while Zinaida Fyodorovna, as I learned later, went to her old governess on the Petersburg side, to wait out the time while we were having guests. Orlov didn’t want to show her to his friends. I realized it in the morning over coffee, when he began assuring her that, for the sake of her peace, it would be necessary to cancel the Thursdays.

  The guests, as usual, arrived at almost the same time.

  ‘‘And is the lady at home?’’ Kukushkin asked me in a whisper.

  ‘‘No, sir,’’ I replied.

  He went in with sly, unctuous eyes, smiling mysteriously and rubbing his hands from the cold.

  ‘‘I have the honor of congratulating you,’’ he said to Orlov, his whole body trembling with obsequious, servile laughter. ‘‘I wish you to be fruitful and multiply like the cedars of Lebanon.’’ 12

  The guests went to the bedroom and there exercised their wit at the expense of the woman’s slippers, the rug between the two beds, and the gray bed jacket that was hanging on the back of one bed. They found it funny that this stubborn man, who scorned everything ordinary in love, had suddenly been caught in a woman’s net in such a simple and ordinary way.

  ‘‘What thou hast mocked, that hast thou also served,’’ Kukushkin repeated several times, having, incidentally, the unpleasant affectation of flaunting Church Slavonic texts.13 ‘‘Quiet!’’ he whispered, putting his finger to his lips, as they went from the bedroom to the room next to the study. ‘‘Shhh! Here Margarete dreams of her Faust.’’14

  And he rocked with laughter, as if he had said something terribly funny. I peered at Gruzin, expecting that his musical soul would be unable to bear that laughter, but I was mistaken. His kind, lean face beamed with pleasure. When they sat down to play cards, he said, swallowing his R’s and spluttering with laughter, that to attain full family happiness, it now only remained for Georginka to acquire a cherry-wood chibouk and a guitar. Pekarsky chuckled sedately, but it could be seen from his concentrated expression that he found Orlov’s new love story unpleasant. He did not understand what in fact had happened.

  ‘‘But what about the husband?’’ he asked in perplexity when they had played three rubbers.

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Orlov replied.

  Pekarsky combed his big beard with his fingers and fell to thinking and was silent afterwards right up until supper. When they sat down to supper, he said slowly, drawing out each word:

  ‘‘Generally, excuse me, but I don’t understand the two of you. You could be in love with each other and break the seventh commandment as much as you like—that I understand. Yes, that I understand. But why initiate the husband into your secrets? Was it really necessary?’’

  ‘‘But does it make any difference?’’

  ‘‘Hm . . .’’ Pekarsky fell to thinking. ‘‘I’ll tell you this, my gentle friend,’’ he went on with evident mental strain, ‘‘if I ever get married a second time, and you decide to make me a cuckold, do it so that I don’t notice. It’s much more honest to deceive a man than to spoil the order of his life and his reputation. I understand. You both think that by living openly, you are acting with extraordinary honesty and liberalism, but with this...how is it called? . . . with this romanticism I cannot agree.’’

  Orlov made no reply. He was out of sorts and did not want to talk. Pekarsky, continuing to be perplexed, drummed the table with his fingers, thought, and said:

  ‘‘I still don’t understand the two of you. You’re not a student, and she’s not a seamstress. You’re both people of means. I suppose you could arrange a separate apartment for her.’’

  ‘‘No, I couldn’t. Go and read Turgenev.’’15

  ‘‘Why should I read him? I already have.’’

  ‘‘Turgenev teaches in his works that every noble-hearted, honest-minded girl should go to the ends of the earth with the man she loves and serve his idea,’’ Orlov said, narrowing his eyes ironically. ‘‘The end of the world is licentia
poëtica: the whole world, with all its ends, is located in the apartment of the man she loves. Therefore, not to live in the same apartment with the woman who loves you—means to reject her in her lofty purpose and not to share her ideals. Yes, my dear fellow, Turgenev wrote this porridge, and now I have to slop it up for him.’’

  ‘‘I don’t understand what Turgenev has to do with it,’’ Gruzin said softly and shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘But do you remember, Georginka, how, in ‘Three Meetings,’ he’s walking late in the evening somewhere in Italy and suddenly hears: ‘Vieni pensando a me segretamente!’ ’’5 Gruzin sang. ‘‘That’s good!’’

  ‘‘But she didn’t force herself on you,’’ said Pekarsky. ‘‘You wanted it yourself.’’

  ‘‘Well, that’s a good one! I not only didn’t want it, I didn’t even think it would ever happen. When she said she’d move in with me, I thought it was a nice joke.’’

  They all laughed.

  ‘‘I couldn’t want it,’’ Orlov went on in such a tone as if he felt forced to justify himself. ‘‘I’m not a Turgenev hero, and if I ever need to liberate Bulgaria,16 I won’t want the company of women. I look at love first of all as a need of my organism, low and hostile to my spirit; it should be satisfied reasonably or renounced entirely, otherwise it will introduce elements as impure as itself into your life. So that it will be an enjoyment and not a torment, I try to make it beautiful and surround it with a host of illusions. I will not go to a woman if I’m not convinced beforehand that she will be beautiful, attractive; nor will I go to her if I’m not at my best myself. And it’s only under those conditions that we manage to deceive each other, and it seems to us that we love and are happy. But can I want copper pans and uncombed hair, or that I should be seen when I’m unwashed and out of sorts? Zinaida Fyodorovna, in the simplicity of her heart, wants to make me love something I’ve been hiding from all my life. She wants my apartment to smell of cooking and dishwashing; she needs to move noisily to a new apartment, drive around with her own horses; she needs to count my linen and look after my health; she needs to interfere in my private life every moment and watch over my every step, and at the same time to assure me sincerely that my habits and freedom will remain my own. She’s convinced that we’ll