The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91

by Anton Chekhov

  Whistling some tune, he slowly left the study, walking in that familiar, dignified fashion. His unhurried footsteps could be heard as he crossed the hall and drawing-room, then his supercilious laugh as he called out ‘Bravo, bravo!’ to the young man at the piano. Soon the footsteps died away – he must have gone out into the garden. Now it was no longer jealousy or annoyance that took hold of Olga, but deep hatred for the way he walked, for that insidious laugh and tone of voice. She went over to the window, looked out into the garden and saw Pyotr walking down the avenue. One hand was in his pocket and he was snapping the fingers of the other. His head tossed slightly backwards, he solemnly ambled along, apparently very pleased with himself, the dinner, his digestion and nature all around.

  Two small schoolboys – the sons of Mrs Chizhevsky, a landowner – who had just arrived with their tutor, a student in white tunic and very narrow trousers, appeared on the path. When they came up to Pyotr the boys and the student stopped, probably to congratulate him on his name-day. Exquisitely twitching his shoulders, he patted the children’s cheeks and casually offered the student his hand without looking at him. The student must have praised the weather and compared it to St Petersburg’s, since Pyotr replied in a loud voice, as if addressing a bailiff or court witness instead of a guest, ‘Eh! Is it cold in St Petersburg then? Here, my dear young man, we have a salubrious climate and an abundance of fruits of the earth. Eh, what’s that?’

  Placing one hand in his pocket and snapping the fingers of the other, he strode off. Olga gazed at the back of his neck in amazement until he was lost to sight behind the hazel bushes. How had that thirty-four-year-old man acquired the solemn walk of a general? Where did that ponderous, impressive gait come from? Whence that authoritarian vibrancy of voice, all those ‘What!’s, ‘Well, sir!’s and ‘My dear fellow!’s?

  Olga remembered going to court sittings, where Pyotr sometimes deputized as president for her godfather, Count Aleksey Petrovich, to escape the boredom and loneliness at home during the first few months of her marriage. Seated in the president’s chair in his uniform, with a chain over his chest, he underwent a complete transformation, what with those grandiose gestures, that thunderous voice, those ‘What, sir?’s, those ‘Hmm’s, that casual tone. All normal human qualities, everything natural to him that she was used to seeing at home, had been swallowed up in grandeur. It was not Pyotr sitting in that chair, but some other man whom everyone called ‘Your honour’. The consciousness of the power he wielded did not allow him to sit still for one minute, and he was always on the look-out for some opportunity to ring his bell, to scowl at the public, to shout… And where did he acquire that shortsightedness and deafness? He had suddenly become myopic and deaf, frowning imperiously as he told people to speak up and to come nearer the bench. From those lofty heights he could not distinguish faces and sounds at all well, and if Olga herself had approached him at these moments, he would most likely have shouted ‘What’s your name?’ He talked down to peasant witnesses, yelled so loud at the public that they could hear him out in the street, and his treatment of barristers was quite outrageous. If a barrister approached him, Pyotr would sit sideways to him, squint at the ceiling to make it plain that the lawyer was not needed in court at all and that he had no wish either to listen to him or to acknowledge his existence. But if a shabby-suited solicitor happened to speak, Pyotr was all ears and sized him up with a devastatingly sarcastic look that seemed to say ‘God, what lawyers we’re afflicted with these days!’ ‘Just what are you trying to say?’ he would interrupt. If some barrister with a florid turn of phrase ventured to use some word of foreign origin and said ‘factitious’ instead of ‘fictitious’, for example, Pyotr would suddenly come to life and ask ‘What’s that? What? Factitious? What does that mean?’ Then he would issue the pompous admonition ‘Don’t use words you don’t understand’. And when the barrister had finished his speech he would come away from the bench red-faced and bathed in perspiration, while Pyotr would settle back in his chair, celebrating his victory with a complacent smile. In the way he addressed barristers, he was imitating Count Aleksey Petrovich to a certain extent, but when the latter said ‘Will counsel for the defence please be quiet?’, for example, the remark sounded quite natural, as if a good-humoured old gentleman were speaking, but with Pyotr it was rather coarse and strained.

  II

  People were applauding – the young man had finished playing. Olga suddenly remembered her guests and hurried into the drawing-room.

  ‘You play delightfully,’ she said, going over to the piano. ‘Delightfully. You have a wonderful gift! But isn’t our piano out of tune?’

  At that moment the two schoolboys and the student came in.

  ‘Heavens, it’s Mitya and Kolya!’ Olga drawled joyfully as she went to meet them. ‘How you’ve grown! I wouldn’t have recognized you! But where’s your mother?’

  ‘Many happy returns to our host,’ the student said breezily. ‘I wish him all the best. Yekaterina Andreyevna Chizhevsky sends her congratulations and her apologies. She’s not feeling very well.’

  ‘How unkind of her! I’ve been looking forward all day to seeing her. When did you leave St Petersburg?’ Olga asked the student. ‘What’s the weather like there?’

  Without waiting for an answer she looked affectionately at the boys and repeated, ‘How they’ve grown! Not so long ago they used to come here with their nanny, and now they’re already at school! The old get older and the young grow up. Have you had dinner?’

  ‘Oh, please don’t worry,’ the student said.

  ‘Now you haven’t eaten, have you?’

  ‘Please don’t worry.’

  ‘Surely you must be hungry?’ Olga asked impatiently and irritably, in a rough, harsh voice. She did not mean to speak like that and she immediately had a little coughing-fit, then smiled and blushed. ‘How they’ve grown!’ she said, softly.

  ‘Please don’t worry,’ the student said yet again. He begged her not to go to any trouble; the children said nothing. It was obvious all three were hungry. Olga led them into the dining-room and told Vasily to lay the table.

  ‘Your mother is so unkind,’ she said, making them sit down. ‘She’s completely forgotten me. She’s not very nice at all… you can tell her that. And what are you studying?’ she asked, turning to the student.

  ‘Medicine.’

  ‘Oh, I have a weakness for doctors, you know! I’m very sorry my husband isn’t one. What courage you must have, to do operations, for example, or to dissect corpses! It’s terrifying! You’re not afraid? I think I’d die of fright. Of course, you’ll have some vodka?’

  ‘It’s all right, please don’t bother.’

  ‘After that journey you simply must have a drink. I like a drink sometimes, even though I’m a woman. Mitya and Kolya can have some Malaga.1 It’s not very strong, don’t worry. What fine young men they are, really! Even ready for marriage.’

  Olga talked non-stop. She knew from experience that with guests it suited her better and was in fact far easier to do the talking than to sit listening. When one is talking there’s no need to be alert, to think of answers to questions and keep changing one’s expression. But she accidentally raised some serious question and the student embarked on a long speech, so that she had to listen whether she liked it or not. The student knew that at some time she had been to a course of lectures, so he tried to look serious when speaking to her.

  ‘What’s your subject?’ she asked, forgetting that she had already asked this.

  ‘Medicine.’

  ‘Oh, yes. So you’re going to be a doctor?’ she asked, getting up. ‘That’s good. I’m sorry I never went to lectures on medicine. Now, have your dinner, gentlemen, and then come out into the garden. I’ll introduce you to some young ladies.’

  Olga remembered that she had been neglecting the ladies for some time. She went out and looked at the clock: it was five to six. She was amazed that the time was passing so slowly and horrified that there were
still six hours to midnight, when the guests would leave. How could she kill these six hours? What should she say? How should she behave towards her husband?

  There wasn’t a soul in the drawing-room or on the terrace – all the guests had wandered off to different parts of the garden.

  ‘I really ought to suggest a walk to the birch grove, or boating before tea –’ Olga thought, hurrying to the croquet lawn, where she could hear voices and laughter. ‘And I must make the old men play cards.’

  Grigory the footman came towards her from the croquet lawn carrying some empty bottles.

  ‘Where are the ladies?’ she asked.

  ‘In the raspberry canes. The master’s there as well.’

  ‘Oh, good heavens!’ came the furious cry from the croquet lawn. ‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times! If you want to know your Bulgarians you must go and see them. You can’t tell from the newspapers.’

  Either because of this shout or something else, Olga suddenly felt dreadfully weak all over, especially in the legs and shoulders. She had no wish to speak, listen or move.

  ‘Grigory,’ she said listlessly, after a great effort, ‘when you’re serving tea or something please don’t come bothering me, don’t ask me questions and don’t talk to me about anything. You can do it all yourself… and don’t make a noise with your feet. I beg you to do this. I can’t, because…’

  She did not finish and walked on towards the croquet lawn. But on the way she remembered the ladies and went in the direction of the raspberry canes. The sky, the air and the trees were still just as gloomy, threatening rain. It was hot and close; huge flocks of crows, sensing bad weather, cawed as they wheeled over the garden. The nearer the paths were to the kitchen garden, the more neglected, dark and narrow they became. Over one of them that lay hidden in a dense thicket of wild pears, wood-sorrel, oak saplings and hops, great clouds of tiny black midges swarmed around her. Olga covered her face with her hands and tried hard to imagine that little creature… But all that came to mind were Grigory, Mitya, Kolya, the faces of the peasants who had come offering congratulations in the morning.

  Hearing footsteps, she opened her eyes. Uncle Nikolay was fast approaching.

  ‘Is that you, my dear? So glad to see you,’ he said, panting. ‘I’d like a couple of words with you.’ He wiped his red, clean-shaven chin with his handkerchief, then suddenly stepped sharply backwards, clasped his hands and opened his eyes wide. ‘My dear, how long is this going on for?’ he said breathlessly. ‘I’m asking you, isn’t there a limit? I don’t mean the demoralizing effect of his police sergeant’s views on our little circle or the way he insults all that is finest and noblest in me and in all honest, thinking men. I’m not talking about that. But he could at least behave civilly. What’s the matter with him? He shouts, growls, shows off, acts the little Bonaparte, doesn’t let anyone get a word in edgeways. What the hell! Those grand gestures of his, that imperious laugh, that condescending tone! Who does he think he is, may I ask? Who does he think he is? He can’t hold a candle to his wife, he’s just a landowner lucky enough to have married money. Another of those nouveau riche upstarts. A cad and a rotter! I swear by God, either he’s suffering from megalomania or that senile half-cracked Count Aleksey Petrovich is actually right when he says that children and young people take a long time to mature these days and carry on playing cabbies and generals until they’re forty!’

  ‘That’s true, so true,’ Olga agreed. ‘Please let me pass now.’

  ‘And where do you think it will all lead?’ Uncle went on, barring her way. ‘How will playing the bigot, acting the inquisitor finish? He’s already facing prosecution, oh, yes! I’m delighted! Look where all his ranting and raving have landed him – in the dock! And not just the local Assizes, but the High Court of Justice! I can’t think of anything worse than that! What’s more, he’s quarrelled with everyone. Today is his name-day party, but just look who’s given it a miss – Vostryakov, Yakhontov, Vladimirov, Shevud, the Count – none of them have turned up. And who could be more of a die-hard reactionary than Count Aleksey Petrovich – even he’s not here. And he’ll never come again, you mark my words!’

  ‘Oh, heavens, what’s all this got to do with me?’ Olga asked.

  ‘To do with you? You’re his wife! You’re clever, you’ve been to university, and it’s in your power to make an honest worker out of him!’

  ‘They don’t teach you at lectures how to influence difficult people. I’ll have to apologize to all of you, it seems, for having attended lectures!’ Olga said sharply. ‘Listen, Uncle, if your ears were bombarded all day long by someone practising the same scales, you wouldn’t sit still and you’d run away. The whole year, day in, day out, I hear the same old thing, the same old thing. Heavens, it’s high time you felt a little pity for me!’

  Uncle pulled a very serious face, gave her an inquisitive look and curled his lips into a mocking smile.

  ‘So that’s how it is!’ he chanted in his senile voice. ‘I’m so sorry, madam!’ he said with a stiff bow. ‘If you yourself have fallen under his influence and changed your convictions, then you should have said so earlier. I’m sorry, madam!’

  ‘Yes, I have changed my convictions!’ she shouted. ‘That should make you happy!’

  ‘So sorry, madam!’

  Uncle ceremoniously bowed for the last time – sideways on – drew himself in, clicked his heels and left.

  ‘The fool,’ Olga thought. ‘I wish he’d clear off home.’

  She found the ladies and young people among the raspberry canes in the kitchen garden. Some were eating the raspberries, while others who had had their fill were wandering among the strawberry beds or nosing around in the sugar-peas. Just to one side of the raspberry canes, near a spreading apple tree that was propped up on all sides by stakes pulled out of an old fence, Pyotr was scything the grass. His hair was hanging over his forehead, his tie had come undone, his watch-chain was dangling loose. Every step he took, every sweep of the scythe showed skill and enormous physical strength. Near him stood Lyubochka, with their neighbour Colonel Bukreyev’s daughters Natalya and Valentina – or, as everyone called them, Nata and Vata, anaemic and unhealthy, plump blondes of about sixteen or seventeen in white dresses and strikingly alike. Pyotr was teaching them to scythe.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ he was saying. ‘All you have to know is how to hold the scythe and to take it calmly – I mean, not exerting yourself more than you need. Like this… Would you like to try now?’ he asked, offering the scythe to Lyubochka. ‘Come on!’

  Lyubochka awkwardly took the scythe then suddenly blushed and burst out laughing.

  ‘Don’t be shy, Lyubochka,’ Olga shouted, loud enough for all the ladies to hear and know that she had returned to them. ‘Don’t be shy. You have to learn. Marry a Tolstoyan, he’ll make you wield the scythe.’

  Lyubochka raised the scythe but burst out laughing again, which so weakened her she immediately put it down. She was both embarrassed and pleased that she was being spoken to like an adult. Nata, without smiling or showing any shyness, picked up the scythe with a serious, cold look, took a sweep and got it tangled up in the grass. Without smiling either, as serious and cold-looking as her sister, Vata silently picked up the scythe and plunged it into the earth. These operations completed, the sisters took each other by the arm and silently walked over to the raspberry canes.

  Pyotr laughed and joked like a small boy, and this mischievous, childish mood, when he became excessively good-humoured, suited him far more than anything else. Olga loved him that way. But the boyish behaviour did not usually last long, which was the case this time. Having had his little joke he thought that he should introduce a note of seriousness into his playfulness.

  ‘When I use a scythe I feel healthier, a more normal person, I can tell you,’ he said. ‘If you tried to force me to be satisfied solely with the life of the mind and nothing else I think I would go mad. I feel that I was not born for the cultural life! I
should be reaping, ploughing, sowing, training horses.’

  Pyotr started talking to the ladies about the advantages of physical labour, about culture, then turned to the harmfulness of money, to landed property. As she listened to her husband, for some reason Olga thought of her dowry.

  ‘Surely the time will come,’ Olga thought, ‘when he won’t be able to forgive me for being the richer. He’s proud and touchy. Perhaps he’ll come to hate me because of his great debt towards me.’

  She stopped by Colonel Bukreyev, who was eating raspberries while participating in the conversation.

  ‘Please join us,’ he said, stepping to one side for Olga and Pyotr. ‘The ripest ones are over here. And so, in Proudhon’s2 opinion,’ he went on, raising his voice, ‘property is theft. But I must confess that I don’t accept Proudhon and don’t rate him as a philosopher. As far as I’m concerned the French are not authorities on the matter, blast them!’

  ‘Well, I’m a bit weak on my Proudhons and Buckles,’3 Pyotr said. ‘If you want to discuss philosophy, then my wife’s the one. She’s been to university lectures and knows all these Schopenhauers4 and Proudhons backwards.’

  Olga felt bored again. Once more she went down the garden along the narrow path, past the apple and pear trees, and again she appeared to be on some very important mission… Here was the gardener’s cottage. Barbara, the gardener’s wife, and her four small boys, with their big, close-cropped heads, were sitting in the doorway.

  Barbara was pregnant too and the baby was due, according to her calculations, by Elijah’s Day. After greeting her, Olga silently surveyed her and the children and asked, ‘Well, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  Silence followed. It seemed that both women understood each other without the need for words. Olga pondered for a moment and then said, ‘It’s terribly frightening having your first baby. I keep thinking that I won’t get through it, that I’ll die…’