Tales of Chekhov

by Anton Chekhov

  On the verandah in the villa opposite there was a table in front of the glass door. A tea service was shining and glistening on the table with a silver samovar at the head. Ivan Petrovitch was sitting at the table. He had in his hand a glass in a silver holder, and was drinking tea. He was drinking it with great relish. That fact could be deduced from the smacking of his lips, the sound of which reached Liza’s ears. He was wearing a brown dressing-gown with black flowers on it. Massive tassels fell down to the ground. It was the first time in her life Liza had seen her husband in a dressing-gown, and such an expensive-looking one.

  Mishutka was sitting on one of his knees, and hindering him from drinking his tea. The child jumped up and down and tried to clutch his papa’s shining lip. After every three or four sips the father bent down to his son and kissed him on the head. A grey cat with its tail in the air was rubbing itself against one of the table legs, and with a plaintive mew proclaiming its desire for food. Liza hid behind the verandah curtain, and fastened her eyes upon the members of her former family; her face was radiant with joy.

  “Misha!” she murmured, “Misha! Are you really here, Misha? The darling! And how he loves Vanya! Heavens!”

  And Liza went off into a giggle when Mishutka stirred his father’s tea with a spoon. “And how Vanya loves Misha! My darlings!”

  Liza’s heart throbbed, and her head went round with joy and happiness. She sank into an armchair and went on observing them, sitting down.

  “How did they come here?” she wondered as she sent airy kisses to Mishutka. “Who gave them the idea of coming here? Heavens! Can all that wealth belong to them? Can those swan-like horses that were led in at the gate belong to Ivan Petrovitch? Ah!”

  When he had finished his tea, Ivan Petrovitch went into the house. Ten minutes later, he appeared on the steps and Liza was astounded . . . . He, who in his youth only seven years ago had been called Vanushka and Vanka and had been ready to punch a man in the face and turn the house upside down over twenty kopecks, was dressed devilishly well. He had on a broad-brimmed straw hat, exquisite brilliant boots, a piqué waistcoat. . . . Thousands of suns, big and little, glistened on his watch-chain. With much chic he held in his right hand his gloves and cane.

  And what swagger, what style there was in his heavy figure when, with a graceful motion of his hand, he bade the footman bring the horse round.

  He got into the chaise with dignity, and told the footmen standing round the chaise to give him Mishutka and the fishing tackle they had brought. Setting Mishutka beside him, and putting his left arm round him, he held the reins and drove off.

  “Ge-ee up!” shouted Mishutka.

  Liza, unaware of what she was doing, waved her handkerchief after them. If she had looked in the glass she would have been surprised at her flushed, laughing, and, at the same time, tear-stained face. She was vexed that she was not beside her gleeful boy, and that she could not for some reason shower kisses on him at once.

  For some reason! . . . Away with all your petty delicacies!

  “Grisha! Grisha!” Liza ran into Groholsky’s bedroom and set to work to wake him. “Get up, they have come! The darling!”

  “Who has come?” asked Groholsky, waking up.

  “Our people . . . Vanya and Misha, they have come, they are in the villa opposite. . . . I looked out, and there they were drinking tea. . . . And Misha too. . . . What a little angel our Misha has grown! If only you had seen him! Mother of God!”

  “Seen whom? Why, you are. . . . Who has come? Come where?”

  “Vanya and Misha. . . . I have been looking at the villa opposite, while they were sitting drinking tea. Misha can drink his tea by himself now. . . . Didn’t you see them moving in yesterday, it was they who arrived!”

  Groholsky rubbed his forehead and turned pale.

  “Arrived? Your husband?” he asked.

  “Why, yes.”

  “What for?”

  “Most likely he is going to live here. They don’t know we are here. If they did, they would have looked at our villa, but they drank their tea and took no notice.”

  “Where is he now? But for God’s sake do talk sense! Oh, where is he?”

  “He has gone fishing with Misha in the chaise. Did you see the horses yesterday? Those are their horses . . . Vanya’s . . . Vanya drives with them. Do you know what, Grisha? We will have Misha to stay with us. . . . We will, won’t we? He is such a pretty boy. Such an exquisite boy!”

  Groholsky pondered, while Liza went on talking and talking.

  “This is an unexpected meeting,” said Groholsky, after prolonged and, as usual, harrassing reflection. “Well, who could have expected that we should meet here? Well. . . There it is. . . . So be it. It seems that it is fated. I can imagine the awkwardness of his position when he meets us.”

  “Shall we have Misha to stay with us?”

  “Yes, we will. . . . It will be awkward meeting him. . . . Why, what can I say to him? What can I talk of? It will be awkward for him and awkward for me. . . . We ought not to meet. We will carry on communications, if necessary, through the servants. . . . My head does ache so, Lizotchka. My arms and legs too, I ache all over. Is my head feverish?”

  Liza put her hand on his forehead and found that his head was hot.

  “I had dreadful dreams all night . . . I shan’t get up to-day. I shall stay in bed . . . I must take some quinine. Send me my breakfast here, little woman.”

  Groholsky took quinine and lay in bed the whole day. He drank warm water, moaned, had the sheets and pillowcase changed, whimpered, and induced an agonising boredom in all surrounding him.

  He was insupportable when he imagined he had caught a chill. Liza had continually to interrupt her inquisitive observations and run from the verandah to his room. At dinner-time she had to put on mustard plasters. How boring all this would have been, O reader, if the villa opposite had not been at the service of my heroine! Liza watched that villa all day long and was gasping with happiness.

  At ten o’clock Ivan Petrovitch and Mishutka came back from fishing and had breakfast. At two o’clock they had dinner, and at four o’clock they drove off somewhere in a carriage. The white horses bore them away with the swiftness of lightning. At seven o’clock visitors came to see them—all of them men. They were playing cards on two tables in the verandah till midnight. One of the men played superbly on the piano. The visitors played, ate, drank, and laughed. Ivan Petrovitch guffawing loudly, told them an anecdote of Armenian life at the top of his voice, so that all the villas round could hear. It was very gay and Mishutka sat up with them till midnight.

  “Misha is merry, he is not crying,” thought Liza, “so he does not remember his mamma. So he has forgotten me!”

  And there was a horrible bitter feeling in Liza’s soul. She spent the whole night crying. She was fretted by her little conscience, and by vexation and misery, and the desire to talk to Mishutka and kiss him. . . . In the morning she got up with a headache and tear-stained eyes. Her tears Groholsky put down to his own account.

  “Do not weep, darling,” he said to her, “I am all right to-day, my chest is a little painful, but that is nothing.”

  While they were having tea, lunch was being served at the villa opposite. Ivan Petrovitch was looking at his plate, and seeing nothing but a morsel of goose dripping with fat.

  “I am very glad,” said Groholsky, looking askance at Bugrov, “very glad that his life is so tolerable! I hope that decent surroundings anyway may help to stifle his grief. Keep out of sight, Liza! They will see you . . . I am not disposed to talk to him just now . . . God be with him! Why trouble his peace?”

  But the dinner did not pass off so quietly. During dinner precisely that “awkward position” which Groholsky so dreaded occurred. Just when the partridges, Groholsky’s favorite dish, had been put on the table, Liza was suddenly overcome with confusion, and Groholsky began wiping his face with his dinner napkin. On the verandah of the villa opposite they saw Bugrov. He was standing with h
is arms leaning on the parapet, and staring straight at them, with his eyes starting out of his head.

  “Go in, Liza, go in,” Groholsky whispered. “I said we must have dinner indoors! What a girl you are, really. . . .”

  Bugrov stared and stared, and suddenly began shouting. Groholsky looked at him and saw a face full of astonishment. . . .

  “Is that you ?” bawled Ivan Petrovitch, “you! Are you here too?”

  Groholsky passed his fingers from one shoulder to another, as though to say, “My chest is weak, and so I can’t shout across such a distance.” Liza’s heart began throbbing, and everything turned round before her eyes. Bugrov ran from his verandah, ran across the road, and a few seconds later was standing under the verandah on which Groholsky and Liza were dining. Alas for the partridges!

  “How are you?” he began, flushing crimson, and stuffing his big hands in his pockets. “Are you here? Are you here too?”

  “Yes, we are here too. . . .”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Why, how did you?”

  “I? It’s a long story, a regular romance, my good friend! But don’t put yourselves out—eat your dinner! I’ve been living, you know, ever since then . . . in the Oryol province. I rented an estate. A splendid estate! But do eat your dinner! I stayed there from the end of May, but now I have given it up. . . . It was cold there, and—well, the doctor advised me to go to the Crimea. . . .”

  “Are you ill, then?” inquired Groholsky.

  “Oh, well. . . . There always seems, as it were . . . something gurgling here. . . .”

  And at the word “here” Ivan Petrovitch passed his open hand from his neck down to the middle of his stomach.

  “So you are here too. . . . Yes . . . that’s very pleasant. Have you been here long?”

  “Since July.”

  “Oh, and you, Liza, how are you? Quite well?”

  “Quite well,” answered Liza, and was embarrassed.

  “You miss Mishutka, I’ll be bound. Eh? Well, he’s here with me. . . . I’ll send him over to you directly with Nikifor. This is very nice. Well, good-bye! I have to go off directly. . . . I made the acquaintance of Prince Ter-Haimazov yesterday; delightful man, though he is an Armenian. So he has a croquet party to-day; we are going to play croquet. . . . Good-bye! The carriage is waiting . . . .”

  Ivan Petrovitch whirled round, tossed his head, and, waving adieu to them, ran home.

  “Unhappy man,” said Groholsky, heaving a deep sigh as he watched him go off.

  “In what way is he unhappy?” asked Liza.

  “To see you and not have the right to call you his!”

  “Fool!” Liza was so bold to think. “Idiot!”

  Before evening Liza was hugging and kissing Mishutka. At first the boy howled, but when he was offered jam, he was all friendly smiles.

  For three days Groholsky and Liza did not see Bugrov. He had disappeared somewhere, and was only at home at night. On the fourth day he visited them again at dinner-time. He came in, shook hands with both of them, and sat down to the table. His face was serious.

  “I have come to you on business,” he said. “Read this.” And he handed Groholsky a letter. “Read it! Read it aloud!”

  Groholsky read as follows:

  “My beloved and consoling, never-forgotten son Ioann! I have received the respectful and loving letter in which you invite your aged father to the mild and salubrious Crimea, to breathe the fragrant air, and behold strange lands. To that letter I reply that on taking my holiday, I will come to you, but not for long. My colleague, Father Gerasim, is a frail and delicate man, and cannot be left alone for long. I am very sensible of your not forgetting your parents, your father and your mother. . . . You rejoice your father with your affection, and you remember your mother in your prayers, and so it is fitting to do. Meet me at Feodosia. What sort of town is Feodosia—what is it like? It will be very agreeable to see it. Your godmother, who took you from the font, is called Feodosia. You write that God has been graciously pleased that you should win two hundred thousand roubles. That is gratifying to me. But I cannot approve of your having left the service while still of a grade of little importance; even a rich man ought to be in the service. I bless you always, now and hereafter. Ilya and Seryozhka Andronov send you their greetings. You might send them ten roubles each— they are badly off!

  “Your loving Father,

  “Pyotr Bugrov, Priest.”

  Groholsky read this letter aloud, and he and Liza both looked inquiringly at Bugrov.

  “You see what it is,” Ivan Petrovitch began hesitatingly. “I should like to ask you, Liza, not to let him see you, to keep out of his sight while he is here. I have written to him that you are ill and gone to the Caucasus for a cure. If you meet him. . . You see yourself. . . . It’s awkward. . . H’m. . . .”

  “Very well,” said Liza.

  “We can do that,” thought Groholsky, “since he makes sacrifices, why shouldn’t we?”

  “Please do. . . . If he sees you there will be trouble. . . . My father is a man of strict principles. He would curse me in seven churches. Don’t go out of doors, Liza, that is all. He won’t be here long. Don’t be afraid.”

  Father Pyotr did not long keep them waiting. One fine morning Ivan Petrovitch ran in and hissed in a mysterious tone:

  “He has come! He is asleep now, so please be careful.”

  And Liza was shut up within four walls. She did not venture to go out into the yard or on to the verandah. She could only see the sky from behind the window curtain. Unluckily for her, Ivan Petrovitch’s papa spent his whole time in the open air, and even slept on the verandah. Usually Father Pyotr, a little parish priest, in a brown cassock and a top hat with a curly brim, walked slowly round the villas and gazed with curiosity at the “strange lands” through his grandfatherly spectacles. Ivan Petrovitch with the Stanislav on a little ribbon accompanied him. He did not wear a decoration as a rule, but before his own people he liked to show off. In their society he always wore the Stanislav.

  Liza was bored to death. Groholsky suffered too. He had to go for his walks alone without a companion. He almost shed tears, but . . . had to submit to his fate. And to make things worse, Bugrov would run across every morning and in a hissing whisper would give some quite unnecessary bulletin concerning the health of Father Pyotr. He bored them with those bulletins.

  “He slept well,” he informed them. “Yesterday he was put out because I had no salted cucumbers. . . He has taken to Mishutka; he keeps patting him on the head.”

  At last, a fortnight later, little Father Pyotr walked for the last time round the villas and, to Groholsky’s immense relief, departed. He had enjoyed himself, and went off very well satisfied. Liza and Groholsky fell back into their old manner of life. Groholsky once more blessed his fate. But his happiness did not last for long. A new trouble worse than Father Pyotr followed. Ivan Petrovitch took to coming to see them every day. Ivan Petrovitch, to be frank, though a capital fellow, was a very tedious person. He came at dinner-time, dined with them and stayed a very long time. That would not have mattered. But they had to buy vodka, which Groholsky could not endure, for his dinner. He would drink five glasses and talk the whole dinner-time. That, too, would not have mattered. . . . But he would sit on till two o’clock in the morning, and not let them get to bed, and, worse still, he permitted himself to talk of things about which he should have been silent. When towards two o’clock in the morning he had drunk too much vodka and champagne, he would take Mishutka in his arms, and weeping, say to him, before Groholsky and Liza:

  “Mihail, my son, what am I? I . . . am a scoundrel. I have sold your mother! Sold her for thirty pieces of silver, may the Lord punish me! Mihail Ivanitch, little sucking pig, where is your mother? Lost! Gone! Sold into slavery! Well, I am a scoundrel.”

  These tears and these words turned Groholsky’s soul inside out. He would look timidly at Liza’s pale face and wring his hands.

  “Go to bed, Iv
an Petrovitch,” he would say timidly.

  “I am going. . . . Come along, Mishutka. . . . The Lord be our judge! I cannot think of sleep while I know that my wife is a slave . . . . But it is not Groholsky’s fault. . . . The goods were mine, the money his. . . . Freedom for the free and Heaven for the saved.”

  By day Ivan Petrovitch was no less insufferable to Groholsky. To Groholsky’s intense horror, he was always at Liza’s side. He went fishing with her, told her stories, walked with her, and even on one occasion, taking advantage of Groholsky’s having a cold, carried her off in his carriage, goodness knows where, and did not bring her back till night!

  “It’s outrageous, inhuman,” thought Groholsky, biting his lips.

  Groholsky liked to be continually kissing Liza. He could not exist without those honeyed kisses, and it was awkward to kiss her before Ivan Petrovitch. It was agony. The poor fellow felt forlorn, but fate soon had compassion on him. Ivan Petrovitch suddenly went off somewhere for a whole week. Visitors had come and carried him off with them . . . And Mishutka was taken too.

  One fine morning Groholsky came home from a walk good-humoured and beaming.

  “He has come,” he said to Liza, rubbing his hands. “I am very glad he has come. Ha-ha-ha!”

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “There are women with him.”

  “What women?”

  “I don’t know. . . . It’s a good thing he has got women. . . . A capital thing, in fact. . . . He is still young and fresh. Come here! Look!”

  Groholsky led Liza on to the verandah, and pointed to the villa opposite. They both held their sides, and roared with laughter. It was funny. Ivan Petrovitch was standing on the verandah of the villa opposite, smiling. Two dark-haired ladies and Mishutka were standing below, under the verandah. The ladies were laughing, and loudly talking French.

  “French women,” observed Groholsky. “The one nearest us isn’t at all bad-looking. Lively damsels, but that’s no matter. There are good women to be found even among such. . . . But they really do go too far.”