Tales of Chekhov

by Anton Chekhov

  “I saw him off at the steamer at three o’clock.”

  Liza suddenly clutched at her head, made a movement, and falling on the seat, began shaking all over.

  “Vanya,” she wailed, “Vanya! I will go to Vanya. . . . Darling!”

  She had a fit of hysterics. . . .

  And from that evening, right up to July, two shadows could be seen in the park in which the summer visitors took their walks. The shadows wandered about from morning till evening, and made the summer visitors feel dismal. . . . After Liza’s shadow invariably walked the shadow of Groholsky. . . . I call them shadows because they had both lost their natural appearance. They had grown thin and pale and shrunken, and looked more like shadows than living people. . . . Both were pining away like fleas in the classic anecdote of the Jew who sold insect powder.

  At the beginning of July, Liza ran away from Groholsky, leaving a note in which she wrote that she was going for a time to “her son” . . . For a time! She ran away by night when Groholsky was asleep . . . . After reading her letter Groholsky spent a whole week wandering round about the villa as though he were mad, and neither ate nor slept. In August, he had an attack of recurrent fever, and in September he went abroad. There he took to drink. . . . He hoped in drink and dissipation to find comfort. . . . He squandered all his fortune, but did not succeed, poor fellow, in driving out of his brain the image of the beloved woman with the kittenish face . . . . Men do not die of happiness, nor do they die of misery. Groholsky’s hair went grey, but he did not die: he is alive to this day. . . . He came back from abroad to have “just a peep” at Liza . . . . Bugrov met him with open arms, and made him stay for an indefinite period. He is staying with Bugrov to this day.

  This year I happened to be passing through Groholyovka, Bugrov’s estate. I found the master and the mistress of the house having supper. . . . Ivan Petrovitch was highly delighted to see me, and fell to pressing good things upon me. . . . He had grown rather stout, and his face was a trifle puffy, though it was still rosy and looked sleek and well-nourished. . . . He was not bald. Liza, too, had grown fatter. Plumpness did not suit her. Her face was beginning to lose the kittenish look, and was, alas! more suggestive of the seal. Her cheeks were spreading upwards, outwards, and to both sides. The Bugrovs were living in first-rate style. They had plenty of everything. The house was overflowing with servants and edibles. . . .

  When we had finished supper we got into conversation. Forgetting that Liza did not play, I asked her to play us something on the piano.

  “She does not play,” said Bugrov; “she is no musician. . . . Hey, you there! Ivan! call Grigory Vassilyevitch here! What’s he doing there?” And turning to me, Bugrov added, “Our musician will come directly; he plays the guitar. We keep the piano for Mishutka— we are having him taught. . . .”

  Five minutes later, Groholsky walked into the room—sleepy, unkempt, and unshaven. . . . He walked in, bowed to me, and sat down on one side.

  “Why, whoever goes to bed so early?” said Bugrov, addressing him. “What a fellow you are really! He’s always asleep, always asleep . . . The sleepy head! Come, play us something lively. . . .”

  Groholsky turned the guitar, touched the strings, and began singing:

  “Yesterday I waited for my dear one. . . .”

  I listened to the singing, looked at Bugrov’s well-fed countenance, and thought: “Nasty brute!” I felt like crying. . . . When he had finished singing, Groholsky bowed to us, and went out.

  “And what am I to do with him?” Bugrov said when he had gone away. “I do have trouble with him! In the day he is always brooding and brooding. . . . And at night he moans. . . . He sleeps, but he sighs and moans in his sleep. . . . It is a sort of illness. . . . What am I to do with him, I can’t think! He won’t let us sleep. . . . I am afraid that he will go out of his mind. People think he is badly treated here. . . . In what way is he badly treated? He eats with us, and he drinks with us. . . . Only we won’t give him money. If we were to give him any he would spend it on drink or waste it . . . . That’s another trouble for me! Lord forgive me, a sinner!”

  They made me stay the night. When I woke next morning, Bugrov was giving some one a lecture in the adjoining room. . . .

  “Set a fool to say his prayers, and he will crack his skull on the floor! Why, who paints oars green! Do think, blockhead! Use your sense! Why don’t you speak?”

  “I . . . I . . . made a mistake,” said a husky tenor apologetically.

  The tenor belonged to Groholsky.

  Groholsky saw me to the station.

  “He is a despot, a tyrant,” he kept whispering to me all the way. “He is a generous man, but a tyrant! Neither heart nor brain are developed in him. . . . He tortures me! If it were not for that noble woman, I should have gone away long ago. I am sorry to leave her. It’s somehow easier to endure together.”

  Groholsky heaved a sigh, and went on:

  “She is with child. . . . You notice it? It is really my child. . . . Mine. . . . She soon saw her mistake, and gave herself to me again. She cannot endure him. . . .”

  “You are a rag,” I could not refrain from saying to Groholsky.

  “Yes, I am a man of weak character. . . . That is quite true. I was born so. Do you know how I came into the world? My late papa cruelly oppressed a certain little clerk—it was awful how he treated him! He poisoned his life. Well . . . and my late mama was tender-hearted. She came from the people, she was of the working class. . . . She took that little clerk to her heart from pity. . . . Well . . . and so I came into the world. . . . The son of the ill-treated clerk. How could I have a strong will? Where was I to get it from? But that’s the second bell. . . . Good-bye. Come and see us again, but don’t tell Ivan Petrovitch what I have said about him.”

  I pressed Groholsky’s hand, and got into the train. He bowed towards the carriage, and went to the water-barrel—I suppose he was thirsty!

  The Doctor

  I

  t was still in the drawing-room, so still that a house-fly that had flown in from outside could be distinctly heard brushing against the ceiling. Olga Ivanovna, the lady of the villa, was standing by the window, looking out at the flower-beds and thinking. Dr. Tsvyetkov, who was her doctor as well as an old friend, and had been sent for to treat her son Misha, was sitting in an easy chair and swinging his hat, which he held in both hands, and he too was thinking. Except them, there was not a soul in the drawing-room or in the adjoining rooms. The sun had set, and the shades of evening began settling in the corners under the furniture and on the cornices.

  The silence was broken by Olga Ivanovna.

  “No misfortune more terrible can be imagined,” she said, without turning from the window. “You know that life has no value for me whatever apart from the boy.”

  “Yes, I know that,” said the doctor.

  “No value whatever,” said Olga Ivanovna, and her voice quivered. “He is everything to me. He is my joy, my happiness, my wealth. And if, as you say, I cease to be a mother, if he . . . dies, there will be nothing left of me but a shadow. I cannot survive it.”

  Wringing her hands, Olga Ivanovna walked from one window to the other and went on:

  “When he was born, I wanted to send him away to the Foundling Hospital, you remember that, but, my God, how can that time be compared with now? Then I was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed, but now I am a mother, do you understand? I am a mother, and that’s all I care to know. Between the present and the past there is an impassable gulf.”

  Silence followed again. The doctor shifted his seat from the chair to the sofa and impatiently playing with his hat, kept his eyes fixed upon Olga Ivanovna. From his face it could be seen that he wanted to speak, and was waiting for a fitting moment.

  “You are silent, but still I do not give up hope,” said the lady, turning round. “Why are you silent?”

  “I should be as glad of any hope as you, Olga, but there is none,” Tsvyetkov answered, “we must look the hideous truth
in the face. The boy has a tumour on the brain, and we must try to prepare ourselves for his death, for such cases never recover.”

  “Nikolay, are you certain you are not mistaken?”

  “Such questions lead to nothing. I am ready to answer as many as you like, but it will make it no better for us.”

  Olga Ivanovna pressed her face into the window curtains, and began weeping bitterly. The doctor got up and walked several times up and down the drawing-room, then went to the weeping woman, and lightly touched her arm. Judging from his uncertain movements, from the expression of his gloomy face, which looked dark in the dusk of the evening, he wanted to say something.

  “Listen, Olga,” he began. “Spare me a minute’s attention; there is something I must ask you. You can’t attend to me now, though. I’ll come later, afterwards. . . .” He sat down again, and sank into thought. The bitter, imploring weeping, like the weeping of a little girl, continued. Without waiting for it to end, Tsvyetkov heaved a sigh and walked out of the drawing-room. He went into the nursery to Misha. The boy was lying on his back as before, staring at one point as though he were listening. The doctor sat down on his bed and felt his pulse.

  “Misha, does your head ache?” he asked.

  Misha answered, not at once: “Yes. I keep dreaming.”

  “What do you dream?”

  “All sorts of things. . . .”

  The doctor, who did not know how to talk with weeping women or with children, stroked his burning head, and muttered:

  “Never mind, poor boy, never mind. . . . One can’t go through life without illness. . . . Misha, who am I—do you know me?”

  Misha did not answer.

  “Does your head ache very badly?”

  “Ve-ery. I keep dreaming.”

  After examining him and putting a few questions to the maid who was looking after the sick child, the doctor went slowly back to the drawing-room. There it was by now dark, and Olga Ivanovna, standing by the window, looked like a silhouette.

  “Shall I light up?” asked Tsvyetkov.

  No answer followed. The house-fly was still brushing against the ceiling. Not a sound floated in from outside as though the whole world, like the doctor, were thinking, and could not bring itself to speak. Olga Ivanovna was not weeping now, but as before, staring at the flower-bed in profound silence. When Tsvyetkov went up to her, and through the twilight glanced at her pale face, exhausted with grief, her expression was such as he had seen before during her attacks of acute, stupefying, sick headache.

  “Nikolay Trofimitch!” she addressed him, “and what do you think about a consultation?”

  “Very good; I’ll arrange it to-morrow.”

  From the doctor’s tone it could be easily seen that he put little faith in the benefit of a consultation. Olga Ivanovna would have asked him something else, but her sobs prevented her. Again she pressed her face into the window curtain. At that moment, the strains of a band playing at the club floated in distinctly. They could hear not only the wind instruments, but even the violins and the flutes.

  “If he is in pain, why is he silent?” asked Olga Ivanovna. “All day long, not a sound, he never complains, and never cries. I know God will take the poor boy from us because we have not known how to prize him. Such a treasure!”

  The band finished the march, and a minute later began playing a lively waltz for the opening of the ball.

  “Good God, can nothing really be done?” moaned Olga Ivanovna. “Nikolay, you are a doctor and ought to know what to do! You must understand that I can’t bear the loss of him! I can’t survive it.”

  The doctor, who did not know how to talk to weeping women, heaved a sigh, and paced slowly about the drawing-room. There followed a succession of oppressive pauses interspersed with weeping and the questions which lead to nothing. The band had already played a quadrille, a polka, and another quadrille. It got quite dark. In the adjoining room, the maid lighted the lamp; and all the while the doctor kept his hat in his hands, and seemed trying to say something. Several times Olga Ivanovna went off to her son, sat by him for half an hour, and came back again into the drawing-room; she was continually breaking into tears and lamentations. The time dragged agonisingly, and it seemed as though the evening had no end.

  At midnight, when the band had played the cotillion and ceased altogether, the doctor got ready to go.

  “I will come again to-morrow,” he said, pressing the mother’s cold hand. “You go to bed.”

  After putting on his greatcoat in the passage and picking up his walking-stick, he stopped, thought a minute, and went back into the drawing-room.

  “I’ll come to-morrow, Olga,” he repeated in a quivering voice. “Do you hear?”

  She did not answer, and it seemed as though grief had robbed her of all power of speech. In his greatcoat and with his stick still in his hand, the doctor sat down beside her, and began in a soft, tender half-whisper, which was utterly out of keeping with his heavy, dignified figure:

  “Olga! For the sake of your sorrow which I share. . . . Now, when falsehood is criminal, I beseech you to tell me the truth. You have always declared that the boy is my son. Is that the truth?”

  Olga Ivanovna was silent.

  “You have been the one attachment in my life,” the doctor went on, “and you cannot imagine how deeply my feeling is wounded by falsehood . . . . Come, I entreat you, Olga, for once in your life, tell me the truth. . . . At these moments one cannot lie. Tell me that Misha is not my son. I am waiting.”

  “He is.”

  Olga Ivanovna’s face could not be seen, but in her voice the doctor could hear hesitation. He sighed.

  “Even at such moments you can bring yourself to tell a lie,” he said in his ordinary voice. “There is nothing sacred to you! Do listen, do understand me. . . . You have been the one only attachment in my life. Yes, you were depraved, vulgar, but I have loved no one else but you in my life. That trivial love, now that I am growing old, is the one solitary bright spot in my memories. Why do you darken it with deception? What is it for?”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Oh my God!” cried Tsvyetkov. “You are lying, you understand very well!” he cried more loudly, and he began pacing about the drawing-room, angrily waving his stick. “Or have you forgotten? Then I will remind you! A father’s rights to the boy are equally shared with me by Petrov and Kurovsky the lawyer, who still make you an allowance for their son’s education, just as I do! Yes, indeed! I know all that quite well! I forgive your lying in the past, what does it matter? But now when you have grown older, at this moment when the boy is dying, your lying stifles me! How sorry I am that I cannot speak, how sorry I am!”

  The doctor unbuttoned his overcoat, and still pacing about, said:

  “Wretched woman! Even such moments have no effect on her! Even now she lies as freely as nine years ago in the Hermitage Restaurant! She is afraid if she tells me the truth I shall leave off giving her money, she thinks that if she did not lie I should not love the boy! You are lying! It’s contemptible!”

  The doctor rapped the floor with his stick, and cried:

  “It’s loathsome. Warped, corrupted creature! I must despise you, and I ought to be ashamed of my feeling. Yes! Your lying has stuck in my throat these nine years, I have endured it, but now it’s too much—too much.”

  From the dark corner where Olga Ivanovna was sitting there came the sound of weeping. The doctor ceased speaking and cleared his throat. A silence followed. The doctor slowly buttoned up his over-coat, and began looking for his hat which he had dropped as he walked about.

  “I lost my temper,” he muttered, bending down to the floor. “I quite lost sight of the fact that you cannot attend to me now. . . . God knows what I have said. . . . Don’t take any notice of it, Olga.”

  He found his hat and went towards the dark corner.

  “I have wounded you,” he said in a soft, tender half-whisper, “but once more I entreat you, tell me the truth; there should
not be lying between us. . . . I blurted it out, and now you know that Petrov and Kurovsky are no secret to me. So now it is easy for you to tell me the truth.”

  Olga Ivanovna thought a moment, and with perceptible hesitation, said:

  “Nikolay, I am not lying—Misha is your child.”

  “My God,” moaned the doctor, “then I will tell you something more: I have kept your letter to Petrov in which you call him Misha’s father! Olga, I know the truth, but I want to hear it from you! Do you hear?”

  Olga Ivanovna made no reply, but went on weeping. After waiting for an answer the doctor shrugged his shoulders and went out.

  “I will come to-morrow,” he called from the passage.

  All the way home, as he sat in his carriage, he was shrugging his shoulders and muttering:

  “What a pity that I don’t know how to speak! I haven’t the gift of persuading and convincing. It’s evident she does not understand me since she lies! It’s evident! How can I make her see? How?”

  Too Early!

  T

  he bells are ringing for service in the village of Shalmovo. The sun is already kissing the earth on the horizon; it has turned crimson and will soon disappear. In Semyon’s pothouse, which has lately changed its name and become a restaurant—a title quite out of keeping with the wretched little hut with its thatch torn off its roof, and its couple of dingy windows—two peasant sportsmen are sitting. One of them is called Filimon Slyunka; he is an old man of sixty, formerly a house-serf, belonging to the Counts Zavalin, by trade a carpenter. He has at one time been employed in a nail factory, has been turned off for drunkenness and idleness, and now lives upon his old wife, who begs for alms. He is thin and weak, with a mangy-looking little beard, speaks with a hissing sound, and after every word twitches the right side of his face and jerkily shrugs his right shoulder. The other, Ignat Ryabov, a sturdy, broad-shouldered peasant who never does anything and is everlastingly silent, is sitting in the corner under a big string of bread rings. The door, opening inwards, throws a thick shadow upon him, so that Slyunka and Semyon the publican can see nothing but his patched knees, his long fleshy nose, and a big tuft of hair which has escaped from the thick uncombed tangle covering his head. Semyon, a sickly little man, with a pale face and a long sinewy neck, stands behind his counter, looks mournfully at the string of bread rings, and coughs meekly.