Tales of Chekhov

by Anton Chekhov

  Suddenly there came a strange noise, the same sound Korolyov had heard before supper. Some one was striking on a sheet of metal near one of the buildings; he struck a note, and then at once checked the vibrations, so that short, abrupt, discordant sounds were produced, rather like “Dair . . . dair . . . dair. . . .” Then there was half a minute of stillness, and from another building there came sounds equally abrupt and unpleasant, lower bass notes: “Drin . . . drin . . . drin. . .” Eleven times. Evidently it was the watchman striking the hour. Near the third building he heard: “Zhuk . . . zhuk . . . zhuk. . . .” And so near all the buildings, and then behind the barracks and beyond the gates. And in the stillness of the night it seemed as though these sounds were uttered by a monster with crimson eyes—the devil himself, who controlled the owners and the work-people alike, and was deceiving both.

  Korolyov went out of the yard into the open country.

  “Who goes there?” some one called to him at the gates in an abrupt voice.

  “It’s just like being in prison,” he thought, and made no answer.

  Here the nightingales and the frogs could be heard more distinctly, and one could feel it was a night in May. From the station came the noise of a train; somewhere in the distance drowsy cocks were crowing; but, all the same, the night was still, the world was sleeping tranquilly. In a field not far from the factory there could be seen the framework of a house and heaps of building material.

  Korolyov sat down on the planks and went on thinking.

  “The only person who feels happy here is the governess, and the factory hands are working for her gratification. But that’s only apparent: she is only the figurehead. The real person, for whom everything is being done, is the devil.”

  And he thought about the devil, in whom he did not believe, and he looked round at the two windows where the fires were gleaming. It seemed to him that out of those crimson eyes the devil himself was looking at him—that unknown force that had created the mutual relation of the strong and the weak, that coarse blunder which one could never correct. The strong must hinder the weak from living —such was the law of Nature; but only in a newspaper article or in a school book was that intelligible and easily accepted. In the hotchpotch which was everyday life, in the tangle of trivialities out of which human relations were woven, it was no longer a law, but a logical absurdity, when the strong and the weak were both equally victims of their mutual relations, unwillingly submitting to some directing force, unknown, standing outside life, apart from man.

  So thought Korolyov, sitting on the planks, and little by little he was possessed by a feeling that this unknown and mysterious force was really close by and looking at him. Meanwhile the east was growing paler, time passed rapidly; when there was not a soul anywhere near, as though everything were dead, the five buildings and their chimneys against the grey background of the dawn had a peculiar look—not the same as by day; one forgot altogether that inside there were steam motors, electricity, telephones, and kept thinking of lake-dwellings, of the Stone Age, feeling the presence of a crude, unconscious force. . . .

  And again there came the sound: “Dair . . . dair . . . dair . . . dair . . .” twelve times. Then there was stillness, stillness for half a minute, and at the other end of the yard there rang out.

  “Drin . . . drin . . . drin. . . .”

  “Horribly disagreeable,” thought Korolyov.

  “Zhuk . . . zhuk . . .” there resounded from a third place, abruptly, sharply, as though with annoyance—“Zhuk . . . zhuk. . . .”

  And it took four minutes to strike twelve. Then there was a hush; and again it seemed as though everything were dead.

  Korolyov sat a little longer, then went to the house, but sat up for a good while longer. In the adjoining rooms there was whispering, there was a sound of shuffling slippers and bare feet.

  “Is she having another attack?” thought Korolyov.

  He went out to have a look at the patient. By now it was quite light in the rooms, and a faint glimmer of sunlight, piercing through the morning mist, quivered on the floor and on the wall of the drawing-room. The door of Liza’s room was open, and she was sitting in a low chair beside her bed, with her hair down, wearing a dressing-gown and wrapped in a shawl. The blinds were down on the windows.

  “How do you feel?” asked Korolyov.

  “Well, thank you.”

  He touched her pulse, then straightened her hair, that had fallen over her forehead.

  “You are not asleep,” he said. “It’s beautiful weather outside. It’s spring. The nightingales are singing, and you sit in the dark and think of something.”

  She listened and looked into his face; her eyes were sorrowful and intelligent, and it was evident she wanted to say something to him.

  “Does this happen to you often?” he said.

  She moved her lips, and answered:

  “Often, I feel wretched almost every night.”

  At that moment the watchman in the yard began striking two o’clock. They heard: “Dair . . . dair . . .” and she shuddered.

  “Do those knockings worry you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Everything here worries me,” she answered, and pondered. “Everything worries me. I hear sympathy in your voice; it seemed to me as soon as I saw you that I could tell you all about it.”

  “Tell me, I beg you.”

  “I want to tell you of my opinion. It seems to me that I have no illness, but that I am weary and frightened, because it is bound to be so and cannot be otherwise. Even the healthiest person can’t help being uneasy if, for instance, a robber is moving about under his window. I am constantly being doctored,” she went on, looking at her knees, and she gave a shy smile. “I am very grateful, of course, and I do not deny that the treatment is a benefit; but I should like to talk, not with a doctor, but with some intimate friend who would understand me and would convince me that I was right or wrong.”

  “Have you no friends?” asked Korolyov.

  “I am lonely. I have a mother; I love her, but, all the same, I am lonely. That’s how it happens to be. . . . Lonely people read a great deal, but say little and hear little. Life for them is mysterious; they are mystics and often see the devil where he is not. Lermontov’s Tamara was lonely and she saw the devil.”

  “Do you read a great deal?”

  “Yes. You see, my whole time is free from morning till night. I read by day, and by night my head is empty; instead of thoughts there are shadows in it.”

  “Do you see anything at night?” asked Korolyov.

  “No, but I feel. . . .”

  She smiled again, raised her eyes to the doctor, and looked at him so sorrowfully, so intelligently; and it seemed to him that she trusted him, and that she wanted to speak frankly to him, and that she thought the same as he did. But she was silent, perhaps waiting for him to speak.

  And he knew what to say to her. It was clear to him that she needed as quickly as possible to give up the five buildings and the million if she had it—to leave that devil that looked out at night; it was clear to him, too, that she thought so herself, and was only waiting for some one she trusted to confirm her.

  But he did not know how to say it. How? One is shy of asking men under sentence what they have been sentenced for; and in the same way it is awkward to ask very rich people what they want so much money for, why they make such a poor use of their wealth, why they don’t give it up, even when they see in it their unhappiness; and if they begin a conversation about it themselves, it is usually embarrassing, awkward, and long.

  “How is one to say it?” Korolyov wondered. “And is it necessary to speak?”

  And he said what he meant in a roundabout way:

  “You in the position of a factory owner and a wealthy heiress are dissatisfied; you don’t believe in your right to it; and here now you can’t sleep. That, of course, is better than if you were satisfied, slept soundly, and thought everything was satisfactory. Your sleeplessness does you credit; in a
ny case, it is a good sign. In reality, such a conversation as this between us now would have been unthinkable for our parents. At night they did not talk, but slept sound; we, our generation, sleep badly, are restless, but talk a great deal, and are always trying to settle whether we are right or not. For our children or grandchildren that question— whether they are right or not—will have been settled. Things will be clearer for them than for us. Life will be good in fifty years’ time; it’s only a pity we shall not last out till then. It would be interesting to have a peep at it.”

  “What will our children and grandchildren do?” asked Liza.

  “I don’t know. . . . I suppose they will throw it all up and go away.”

  “Go where?”

  “Where? . . . Why, where they like,” said Korolyov; and he laughed. “There are lots of places a good, intelligent person can go to.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “The sun has risen, though,” he said. “It is time you were asleep. Undress and sleep soundly. Very glad to have made your acquaintance,” he went on, pressing her hand. “You are a good, interesting woman. Good-night!”

  He went to his room and went to bed.

  In the morning when the carriage was brought round they all came out on to the steps to see him off. Liza, pale and exhausted, was in a white dress as though for a holiday, with a flower in her hair; she looked at him, as yesterday, sorrowfully and intelligently, smiled and talked, and all with an expression as though she wanted to tell him something special, important—him alone. They could hear the larks trilling and the church bells pealing. The windows in the factory buildings were sparkling gaily, and, driving across the yard and afterwards along the road to the station, Korolyov thought neither of the workpeople nor of lake dwellings, nor of the devil, but thought of the time, perhaps close at hand, when life would be as bright and joyous as that still Sunday morning; and he thought how pleasant it was on such a morning in the spring to drive with three horses in a good carriage, and to bask in the sunshine.

  An Upheaval

  M

  ashenka Pavletsky, a young girl who had only just finished her studies at a boarding school, returning from a walk to the house of the Kushkins, with whom she was living as a governess, found the household in a terrible turmoil. Mihailo, the porter who opened the door to her, was excited and red as a crab.

  Loud voices were heard from upstairs.

  “Madame Kushkin is in a fit, most likely, or else she has quarrelled with her husband,” thought Mashenka.

  In the hall and in the corridor she met maid-servants. One of them was crying. Then Mashenka saw, running out of her room, the master of the house himself, Nikolay Sergeitch, a little man with a flabby face and a bald head, though he was not old. He was red in the face and twitching all over. He passed the governess without noticing her, and throwing up his arms, exclaimed:

  “Oh, how horrible it is! How tactless! How stupid! How barbarous! Abominable!”

  Mashenka went into her room, and then, for the first time in her life, it was her lot to experience in all its acuteness the feeling that is so familiar to persons in dependent positions, who eat the bread of the rich and powerful, and cannot speak their minds. There was a search going on in her room. The lady of the house, Fedosya Vassilyevna, a stout, broad-shouldered, uncouth woman with thick black eyebrows, a faintly perceptible moustache, and red hands, who was exactly like a plain, illiterate cook in face and manners, was standing, without her cap on, at the table, putting back into Mashenka’s workbag balls of wool, scraps of materials, and bits of paper. . . . Evidently the governess’s arrival took her by surprise, since, on looking round and seeing the girl’s pale and astonished face, she was a little taken aback, and muttered:

  “Pardon. I . . . I upset it accidentally. . . . My sleeve caught in it. . .”

  And saying something more, Madame Kushkin rustled her long skirts and went out. Mashenka looked round her room with wondering eyes, and, unable to understand it, not knowing what to think, shrugged her shoulders, and turned cold with dismay. What had Fedosya Vassilyevna been looking for in her work-bag? If she really had, as she said, caught her sleeve in it and upset everything, why had Nikolay Sergeitch dashed out of her room so excited and red in the face? Why was one drawer of the table pulled out a little way? The money-box, in which the governess put away ten kopeck pieces and old stamps, was open. They had opened it, but did not know how to shut it, though they had scratched the lock all over. The whatnot with her books on it, the things on the table, the bed—all bore fresh traces of a search. Her linen-basket, too. The linen had been carefully folded, but it was not in the same order as Mashenka had left it when she went out. So the search had been thorough, most thorough. But what was it for? Why? What had happened? Mashenka remembered the excited porter, the general turmoil which was still going on, the weeping servant-girl; had it not all some connection with the search that had just been made in her room? Was not she mixed up in something dreadful? Mashenka turned pale, and feeling cold all over, sank on to her linen-basket.

  A maid-servant came into the room.

  “Liza, you don’t know why they have been rummaging in my room?” the governess asked her.

  “Mistress has lost a brooch worth two thousand,” said Liza.

  “Yes, but why have they been rummaging in my room?”

  “They’ve been searching every one, miss. They’ve searched all my things, too. They stripped us all naked and searched us. . . . God knows, miss, I never went near her toilet-table, let alone touching the brooch. I shall say the same at the police-station.”

  “But . . . why have they been rummaging here?” the governess still wondered.

  “A brooch has been stolen, I tell you. The mistress has been rummaging in everything with her own hands. She even searched Mihailo, the porter, herself. It’s a perfect disgrace! Nikolay Sergeitch simply looks on and cackles like a hen. But you’ve no need to tremble like that, miss. They found nothing here. You’ve nothing to be afraid of if you didn’t take the brooch.”

  “But, Liza, it’s vile . . . it’s insulting,” said Mashenka, breathless with indignation. “It’s so mean, so low! What right had she to suspect me and to rummage in my things?”

  “You are living with strangers, miss,” sighed Liza. “Though you are a young lady, still you are . . . as it were . . . a servant. . . . It’s not like living with your papa and mamma.”

  Mashenka threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly. Never in her life had she been subjected to such an outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted. . . . She, well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was suspected of theft; she had been searched like a street-walker! She could not imagine a greater insult. And to this feeling of resentment was added an oppressive dread of what would come next. All sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind. If they could suspect her of theft, then they might arrest her, strip her naked, and search her, then lead her through the street with an escort of soldiers, cast her into a cold, dark cell with mice and woodlice, exactly like the dungeon in which Princess Tarakanov was imprisoned. Who would stand up for her? Her parents lived far away in the provinces; they had not the money to come to her. In the capital she was as solitary as in a desert, without friends or kindred. They could do what they liked with her.

  “I will go to all the courts and all the lawyers,” Mashenka thought, trembling. “I will explain to them, I will take an oath. . . . They will believe that I could not be a thief!”

  Mashenka remembered that under the sheets in her basket she had some sweetmeats, which, following the habits of her schooldays, she had put in her pocket at dinner and carried off to her room. She felt hot all over, and was ashamed at the thought that her little secret was known to the lady of the house; and all this terror, shame, resentment, brought on an attack of palpitation of the heart, which set up a throbbing in her temples, in her heart, and deep down in her stomach.

  “Dinner is ready,” the servant summoned Mashenka.

>   “Shall I go, or not?”

  Mashenka brushed her hair, wiped her face with a wet towel, and went into the dining-room. There they had already begun dinner. At one end of the table sat Fedosya Vassilyevna with a stupid, solemn, serious face; at the other end Nikolay Sergeitch. At the sides there were the visitors and the children. The dishes were handed by two footmen in swallowtails and white gloves. Every one knew that there was an upset in the house, that Madame Kushkin was in trouble, and every one was silent. Nothing was heard but the sound of munching and the rattle of spoons on the plates.

  The lady of the house, herself, was the first to speak.

  “What is the third course?” she asked the footman in a weary, injured voice.

  “Esturgeon à la russe,” answered the footman.

  “I ordered that, Fenya,” Nikolay Sergeitch hastened to observe. “I wanted some fish. If you don’t like it, ma chère, don’t let them serve it. I just ordered it. . . .”

  Fedosya Vassilyevna did not like dishes that she had not ordered herself, and now her eyes filled with tears.

  “Come, don’t let us agitate ourselves,” Mamikov, her household doctor, observed in a honeyed voice, just touching her arm, with a smile as honeyed. “We are nervous enough as it is. Let us forget the brooch! Health is worth more than two thousand roubles!”

  “It’s not the two thousand I regret,” answered the lady, and a big tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s the fact itself that revolts me! I cannot put up with thieves in my house. I don’t regret it—I regret nothing; but to steal from me is such ingratitude! That’s how they repay me for my kindness. . . .”