Tales of Chekhov

by Anton Chekhov

  “Your Excellency, make me remember you in my prayers for the rest of my days, have pity on a lone, lorn woman,” wailed Madame Shtchukin; “I am a weak, defenceless woman. . . . I am worried to death, I’ve to settle with the lodgers and see to my husband’s affairs and fly round looking after the house, and I am going to church every day this week, and my son-in-law is out of a job. . . . I might as well not eat or drink. . . . I can scarcely keep on my feet. . . . I haven’t slept all night. . . .”

  Kistunov was conscious of the palpitation of his heart. With a face of anguish, pressing his hand on his heart, he began explaining to Madame Shtchukin again, but his voice failed him.

  “No, excuse me, I cannot talk to you,” he said with a wave of his hand. “My head’s going round. You are hindering us and wasting your time. Ough! Alexey Nikolaitch,” he said, addressing one of his clerks, “please will you explain to Madame Shtchukin?”

  Kistunov, passing by all the petitioners, went to his private room and signed about a dozen papers while Alexey Nikolaitch was still engaged with Madame Shtchukin. As he sat in his room Kistunov heard two voices: the monotonous, restrained bass of Alexey Nikolaitch and the shrill, wailing voice of Madame Shtchukin.

  “I am a weak, defenceless woman, I am a woman in delicate health,” said Madame Shtchukin. “I look strong, but if you were to overhaul me there is not one healthy fibre in me. I can scarcely keep on my feet, and my appetite is gone. . . . I drank my cup of coffee this morning without the slightest relish. . . .”

  Alexey Nikolaitch explained to her the difference between the departments and the complicated system of sending in papers. He was soon exhausted, and his place was taken by the accountant.

  “A wonderfully disagreeable woman!” said Kistunov, revolted, nervously cracking his fingers and continually going to the decanter of water. “She’s a perfect idiot! She’s worn me out and she’ll exhaust them, the nasty creature! Ough! . . . my heart is throbbing.”

  Half an hour later he rang his bell. Alexey Nikolaitch made his appearance.

  “How are things going?” Kistunov asked languidly.

  “We can’t make her see anything, Pyotr Alexandritch! We are simply done. We talk of one thing and she talks of something else.”

  “I . . . I can’t stand the sound of her voice. . . . I am ill . . . . I can’t bear it.”

  “Send for the porter, Pyotr Alexandritch, let him put her out.”

  “No, no,” cried Kistunov in alarm. “She will set up a squeal, and there are lots of flats in this building, and goodness knows what they would think of us. . . . Do try and explain to her, my dear fellow. . . .”

  A minute later the deep drone of Alexey Nikolaitch’s voice was audible again. A quarter of an hour passed, and instead of his bass there was the murmur of the accountant’s powerful tenor.“

  “Re-mark-ably nasty woman,” Kistunov thought indignantly, nervously shrugging his shoulders. “No more brains than a sheep. I believe that’s a twinge of the gout again. . . . My migraine is coming back. . . .”

  In the next room Alexey Nikolaitch, at the end of his resources, at last tapped his finger on the table and then on his own forehead.

  “The fact of the matter is you haven’t a head on your shoulders,” he said, “but this.”

  “Come, come,” said the old lady, offended. “Talk to your own wife like that. . . . You screw! . . . Don’t be too free with your hands.”

  And looking at her with fury, with exasperation, as though he would devour her, Alexey Nikolaitch said in a quiet, stifled voice:

  “Clear out.”

  “Wha-at?” squealed Madame Shtchukin. “How dare you? I am a weak, defenceless woman; I won’t endure it. My husband is a collegiate assessor. You screw! . . . I will go to Dmitri Karlitch, the lawyer, and there will be nothing left of you! I’ve had the law of three lodgers, and I will make you flop down at my feet for your saucy words! I’ll go to your general. Your Excellency, your Excellency!”

  “Be off, you pest,” hissed Alexey Nikolaitch.

  Kistunov opened his door and looked into the office.

  “What is it?” he asked in a tearful voice.

  Madame Shtchukin, as red as a crab, was standing in the middle of the room, rolling her eyes and prodding the air with her fingers. The bank clerks were standing round red in the face too, and, evidently harassed, were looking at each other distractedly.

  “Your Excellency,” cried Madame Shtchukin, pouncing upon Kistunov. “Here, this man, he here . . . this man . . .” (she pointed to Alexey Nikolaitch) “tapped himself on the forehead and then tapped the table. . . . You told him to go into my case, and he’s jeering at me! I am a weak, defenceless woman. . . . My husband is a collegiate assessor, and I am a major’s daughter myself!”

  “Very good, madam,” moaned Kistunov. “I will go into it . . . I will take steps. . . . Go away . . . later!”

  “And when shall I get the money, your Excellency? I need it to-day!”

  Kistunov passed his trembling hand over his forehead, heaved a sigh, and began explaining again.

  “Madam, I have told you already this is a bank, a private commercial establishment. . . . What do you want of us? And do understand that you are hindering us.”

  Madame Shtchukin listened to him and sighed.

  “To be sure, to be sure,” she assented. “Only, your Excellency, do me the kindness, make me pray for you for the rest of my life, be a father, protect me! If a medical certificate is not enough I can produce an affidavit from the police. . . . Tell them to give me the money.”

  Everything began swimming before Kistunov’s eyes. He breathed out all the air in his lungs in a prolonged sigh and sank helpless on a chair.

  “How much do you want?” he asked in a weak voice.

  “Twenty-four roubles and thirty-six kopecks.”

  Kistunov took his pocket-book out of his pocket, extracted a twenty-five rouble note and gave it to Madame Shtchukin.

  “Take it and . . . and go away!”

  Madame Shtchukin wrapped the money up in her handkerchief, put it away, and pursing up her face into a sweet, mincing, even coquettish smile, asked:

  “Your Excellency, and would it be possible for my husband to get a post again?”

  “I am going . . . I am ill . . .” said Kistunov in a weary voice. “I have dreadful palpitations.”

  When he had driven home Alexey Nikolaitch sent Nikita for some laurel drops, and, after taking twenty drops each, all the clerks set to work, while Madame Shtchukin stayed another two hours in the vestibule, talking to the porter and waiting for Kistunov to return. . . .

  She came again next day.

  An Enigmatic Nature

  O

  n the red velvet seat of a first-class railway carriage a pretty lady sits half reclining. An expensive fluffy fan trembles in her tightly closed fingers, a pince-nez keeps dropping off her pretty little nose, the brooch heaves and falls on her bosom, like a boat on the ocean. She is greatly agitated.

  On the seat opposite sits the Provincial Secretary of Special Commissions, a budding young author, who from time to time publishes long stories of high life, or “Novelli” as he calls them, in the leading paper of the province. He is gazing into her face, gazing intently, with the eyes of a connoisseur. He is watching, studying, catching every shade of this exceptional, enigmatic nature. He understands it, he fathoms it. Her soul, her whole psychology lies open before him.

  “Oh, I understand, I understand you to your inmost depths!” says the Secretary of Special Commissions, kissing her hand near the bracelet. “Your sensitive, responsive soul is seeking to escape from the maze of —— Yes, the struggle is terrific, titanic. But do not lose heart, you will be triumphant! Yes!”

  “Write about me, Voldemar!” says the pretty lady, with a mournful smile. “My life has been so full, so varied, so chequered. Above all, I am unhappy. I am a suffering soul in some page of Dostoevsky. Reveal my soul to the world, Voldemar. Reveal that hapless soul. You
are a psychologist. We have not been in the train an hour together, and you have already fathomed my heart.”

  “Tell me! I beseech you, tell me!”

  “Listen. My father was a poor clerk in the Service. He had a good heart and was not without intelligence; but the spirit of the age —of his environment—vous comprenez?—I do not blame my poor father. He drank, gambled, took bribes. My mother—but why say more? Poverty, the struggle for daily bread, the consciousness of insignificance—ah, do not force me to recall it! I had to make my own way. You know the monstrous education at a boarding-school, foolish novel-reading, the errors of early youth, the first timid flutter of love. It was awful! The vacillation! And the agonies of losing faith in life, in oneself! Ah, you are an author. You know us women. You will understand. Unhappily I have an intense nature. I looked for happiness—and what happiness! I longed to set my soul free. Yes. In that I saw my happiness!”

  “Exquisite creature!” murmured the author, kissing her hand close to the bracelet. “It’s not you I am kissing, but the suffering of humanity. Do you remember Raskolnikov and his kiss?”

  “Oh, Voldemar, I longed for glory, renown, success, like every— why affect modesty?—every nature above the commonplace. I yearned for something extraordinary, above the common lot of woman! And then—and then—there crossed my path—an old general—very well off. Understand me, Voldemar! It was self-sacrifice, renunciation! You must see that! I could do nothing else. I restored the family fortunes, was able to travel, to do good. Yet how I suffered, how revolting, how loathsome to me were his embraces—though I will be fair to him—he had fought nobly in his day. There were moments —terrible moments—but I was kept up by the thought that from day to day the old man might die, that then I would begin to live as I liked, to give myself to the man I adore—be happy. There is such a man, Voldemar, indeed there is!”

  The pretty lady flutters her fan more violently. Her face takes a lachrymose expression. She goes on:

  “But at last the old man died. He left me something. I was free as a bird of the air. Now is the moment for me to be happy, isn’t it, Voldemar? Happiness comes tapping at my window, I had only to let it in—but—Voldemar, listen, I implore you! Now is the time for me to give myself to the man I love, to become the partner of his life, to help, to uphold his ideals, to be happy—to find rest—but—how ignoble, repulsive, and senseless all our life is! How mean it all is, Voldemar. I am wretched, wretched, wretched! Again there is an obstacle in my path! Again I feel that my happiness is far, far away! Ah, what anguish!—if only you knew what anguish!”

  “But what—what stands in your way? I implore you tell me! What is it?”

  “Another old general, very well off——”

  The broken fan conceals the pretty little face. The author props on his fist his thought—heavy brow and ponders with the air of a master in psychology. The engine is whistling and hissing while the window curtains flush red with the glow of the setting sun.

  A Happy Man

  T

  he passenger train is just starting from Bologoe, the junction on the Petersburg-Moscow line. In a second-class smoking compartment five passengers sit dozing, shrouded in the twilight of the carriage. They had just had a meal, and now, snugly ensconced in their seats, they are trying to go to sleep. Stillness.

  The door opens and in there walks a tall, lanky figure straight as a poker, with a ginger-coloured hat and a smart overcoat, wonderfully suggestive of a journalist in Jules Verne or on the comic stage.

  The figure stands still in the middle of the compartment for a long while, breathing heavily, screwing up his eyes and peering at the seats.

  “No, wrong again!” he mutters. “What the deuce! It’s positively revolting! No, the wrong one again!”

  One of the passengers stares at the figure and utters a shout of joy:

  “Ivan Alexyevitch! what brings you here? Is it you?”

  The poker-like gentleman starts, stares blankly at the passenger, and recognizing him claps his hands with delight.

  “Ha! Pyotr Petrovitch,” he says. “How many summers, how many winters! I didn’t know you were in this train.”

  “How are you getting on?”

  “I am all right; the only thing is, my dear fellow, I’ve lost my compartment and I simply can’t find it. What an idiot I am! I ought to be thrashed!”

  The poker-like gentleman sways a little unsteadily and sniggers.

  “Queer things do happen!” he continues. “I stepped out just after the second bell to get a glass of brandy. I got it, of course. Well, I thought, since it’s a long way to the next station, it would be as well to have a second glass. While I was thinking about it and drinking it the third bell rang. . . . I ran like mad and jumped into the first carriage. I am an idiot! I am the son of a hen!”

  “But you seem in very good spirits,” observes Pyotr Petrovitch. “Come and sit down! There’s room and a welcome.”

  “No, no. . . . I’m off to look for my carriage. Good-bye!”

  “You’ll fall between the carriages in the dark if you don’t look out! Sit down, and when we get to a station you’ll find your own compartment. Sit down!”

  Ivan Alexyevitch heaves a sigh and irresolutely sits down facing Pyotr Petrovitch. He is visibly excited, and fidgets as though he were sitting on thorns.

  “Where are you travelling to?” Pyotr Petrovitch enquires.

  “I? Into space. There is such a turmoil in my head that I couldn’t tell where I am going myself. I go where fate takes me. Ha-ha! My dear fellow, have you ever seen a happy fool? No? Well, then, take a look at one. You behold the happiest of mortals! Yes! Don’t you see something from my face?”

  “Well, one can see you’re a bit . . . a tiny bit so-so.”

  “I dare say I look awfully stupid just now. Ach! it’s a pity I haven’t a looking-glass, I should like to look at my counting-house. My dear fellow, I feel I am turning into an idiot, honour bright. Ha-ha! Would you believe it, I’m on my honeymoon. Am I not the son of a hen?”

  “You? Do you mean to say you are married?”

  “To-day, my dear boy. We came away straight after the wedding.”

  Congratulations and the usual questions follow. “Well, you are a fellow!” laughs Pyotr Petrovitch. “That’s why you are rigged out such a dandy.”

  “Yes, indeed. . . . To complete the illusion, I’ve even sprinkled myself with scent. I am over my ears in vanity! No care, no thought, nothing but a sensation of something or other . . . deuce knows what to call it . . . beatitude or something? I’ve never felt so grand in my life!”

  Ivan Alexyevitch shuts his eyes and waggles his head.

  “I’m revoltingly happy,” he says. “Just think; in a minute I shall go to my compartment. There on the seat near the window is sitting a being who is, so to say, devoted to you with her whole being. A little blonde with a little nose . . . little fingers. . . . My little darling! My angel! My little poppet! Phylloxera of my soul! And her little foot! Good God! A little foot not like our beetle-crushers, but something miniature, fairylike, allegorical. I could pick it up and eat it, that little foot! Oh, but you don’t understand! You’re a materialist, of course, you begin analyzing at once, and one thing and another. You are cold-hearted bachelors, that’s what you are! When you get married you’ll think of me. ‘Where’s Ivan Alexyevitch now?’ you’ll say. Yes; so in a minute I’m going to my compartment. There she is waiting for me with impatience . . . in joyful anticipation of my appearance. She’ll have a smile to greet me. I sit down beside her and take her chin with my two fingers.”

  Ivan Alexyevitch waggles his head and goes off into a chuckle of delight.

  “Then I lay my noddle on her shoulder and put my arm round her waist. Around all is silence, you know . . . poetic twilight. I could embrace the whole world at such a moment. Pyotr Petrovitch, allow me to embrace you!”

  “Delighted, I’m sure.” The two friends embrace while the passengers laugh in chorus. And th
e happy bridegroom continues:

  “And to complete the idiocy, or, as the novelists say, to complete the illusion, one goes to the refreshment-room and tosses off two or three glasses. And then something happens in your head and your heart, finer than you can read of in a fairy tale. I am a man of no importance, but I feel as though I were limitless: I embrace the whole world!”

  The passengers, looking at the tipsy and blissful bridegroom, are infected by his cheerfulness and no longer feel sleepy. Instead of one listener, Ivan Alexyevitch has now an audience of five. He wriggles and splutters, gesticulates, and prattles on without ceasing. He laughs and they all laugh.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, don’t think so much! Damn all this analysis! If you want a drink, drink, no need to philosophize as to whether it’s bad for you or not. . . . Damn all this philosophy and psychology!”

  The guard walks through the compartment.

  “My dear fellow,” the bridegroom addresses him, “when you pass through the carriage No. 209 look out for a lady in a grey hat with a white bird and tell her I’m here!”

  “Yes, sir. Only there isn’t a No. 209 in this train; there’s 219!”

  “Well, 219, then! It’s all the same. Tell that lady, then, that her husband is all right!”

  Ivan Alexyevitch suddenly clutches his head and groans:

  “Husband. . . . Lady. . . . All in a minute! Husband. . . . Ha-ha! I am a puppy that needs thrashing, and here I am a husband! Ach, idiot! But think of her! . . . Yesterday she was a little girl, a midget . . . it s simply incredible!”

  “Nowadays it really seems strange to see a happy man,” observes one of the passengers; “one as soon expects to see a white elephant.”

  “Yes, and whose fault is it?” says Ivan Alexyevitch, stretching his long legs and thrusting out his feet with their very pointed toes. “If you are not happy it’s your own fault! Yes, what else do you suppose it is? Man is the creator of his own happiness. If you want to be happy you will be, but you don’t want to be! You obstinately turn away from happiness.”