The Big Book of Christmas

by Anton Chekhov

"Better and better," said Nicolas to himself; "now we are in an enchanted forest--the black shadows lie across a flooring of diamonds and mix with the sparkling of gems. That might be a fairy palace, out there, built of large blocks of marble and jewelled tiles? Did I not hear the howl of wild beasts in the distance? Supposing it were only Melukovka that I am coming to after all! On my word, it would be no less miraculous to have reached port after steering so completely at random!"

  * * *

  It was, in fact, Melukovka, for he could see the house servants coming out on the balcony with lights, and then down to meet them, only too glad of this unexpected diversion.

  * * *

  "Who is there?" a voice asked within.

  * * *

  "The mummers from Count Rostow's; they are his teams," replied the servants.

  * * *

  * * * * *

  * * *

  Pelagueia Danilovna Melukow, a stout and commanding personality, in spectacles and a flowing dressing-gown, was sitting in her drawing-room surrounded by her children, whom she was doing her best to amuse by modelling heads in wax and tracing the shadows they cast on the wall, when steps and voices were heard in the ante-room. Hussars, witches, clowns, and bears were rubbing their faces, which were scorched by the cold and covered with rime, or shaking the snow off their clothes. As soon as they had cast off their furs they rushed into the large drawing-room, which was hastily lighted up. Dimmler, the clown, and Nicolas, the marquise, performed a dance, while the others stood close along the wall, the children shouting and jumping about them with glee.

  * * *

  "It is impossible to know who is who--can that really be Natacha? Look at her; does not she remind you of some one? Edward, before Karlovitch, how fine you are! and how beautifully you dance! Oh! and that splendid Circassian--why, it is Sonia! What a kind and delightful surprise; we were so desperately dull. Ha, ha! what a beautiful hussar! A real hussar, or a real monkey of a boy--which is he, I wonder? I cannot look at you without laughing." They all shouted and laughed and talked at once, at the top of their voices.

  * * *

  Natacha, to whom the Melukows were devoted, soon vanished with them to their own room, where corks and various articles of men's clothing were brought to them, and clutched by bare arms through a half-open door. Ten minutes later all the young people of the house rejoined the company, equally unrecognizable. Pelagueia Danilovna, going and coming among them all, with her spectacles on her nose and a quiet smile, had seats arranged and a supper laid out for the visitors, masters and servants alike. She looked straight in the face of each in turn, recognizing no one of the motley crew--neither the Rostows, nor Dimmler, nor even her own children, nor any of the clothes they figured in.

  * * *

  "That one, who is she?" she asked the governess, stopping a Kazan Tartar, who was, in fact, her own daughter. "One of the Rostows, is it not? And you, gallant hussar, what regiment do you belong to?" she went on, addressing Natacha. "Give some _pastila_ to this Turkish lady," she cried to the butler; "it is not forbidden by her religion, I believe."

  * * *

  At the sight of some of the reckless dancing which the mummers performed under the shelter of their disguise, Pelagueia Danilovna could not help hiding her face in her handkerchief, while her huge person shook with uncontrollable laughter--the laugh of a kindly matron, frankly jovial and gay.

  * * *

  When they had danced all the national dances, ending with the _Horovody_, she placed every one, both masters and servants, in a large circle, holding a cord with a ring and a rouble, and for a while they played games. An hour after, when the finery was the worse for wear and heat and laughter had removed much of the charcoal, Pelagueia Danilovna could recognize them, compliment the girls on the success of their disguise, and thank the whole party for the amusement they had given her. Supper was served for the company in the drawing-room, and for the servants in the large dining-room.

  * * *

  "You should try your fortune in the bathroom over there; that is enough to frighten you!" said an old maid who lived with the Melukows.

  * * *

  "Why?" said the eldest girl.

  * * *

  "Oh! you would never dare to do it; you must be very brave."

  * * *

  "Well, I will go," said Sonia.

  * * *

  "Tell us what happened to that young girl, you know," said the youngest Melukow.

  * * *

  "Once a young girl went to the bath, taking with her a cock and two plates with knives and forks, which is what you must do; and she waited. Suddenly she heard horses' bells--some one was coming; he stopped, came up-stairs, and she saw an officer walk into the room; a real live officer--at least so he seemed--who sat down opposite to her where the second cover was laid."

  * * *

  "Oh! how horrible!" exclaimed Natacha, wide-eyed. "And he spoke to her--really spoke?"

  * * *

  "Yes, just as if he had really been a man. He begged and prayed her to listen to him, and all she had to do was to refuse him and hold out till the cock crowed; but she was too much frightened. She covered her face with her hands, and he clasped her in his arms; luckily some girls who were on the watch rushed in when she screamed."

  * * *

  "Why do you terrify them with such nonsense?" said Pelagueia Danilovna.

  * * *

  "But, mamma, you know you wanted to try your fortune too."

  * * *

  "And if you try your fortune in a barn, what do you do?" asked Sonia.

  * * *

  "That is quite simple. You must go to the barn--now, for instance--and listen. If you hear thrashing, it is for ill-luck; if you hear grain dropping, that is good."

  * * *

  "Tell us, mother, what happened to you in the barn."

  * * *

  "It is so long ago," said the mother, with a smile, "that I have quite forgotten; besides, not one of you is brave enough to try it."

  * * *

  "Yes, I will go," said Sonia. "Let me go."

  * * *

  "Go by all means if you are not afraid."

  * * *

  "May I, Madame Schoss?" said Sonia to the governess.

  * * *

  Now, whether playing games or sitting quietly and chatting, Nicolas had not left Sonia's side the whole evening; he felt as if he had seen her for the first time, and only just now appreciated all her merits. Bright, bewitchingly pretty in her quaint costume, and excited as she very rarely was, she had completely fascinated him.

  * * *

  "What a simpleton I must have been!" thought he, responding in thought to those sparkling eyes and that triumphant smile which had revealed to him a little dimple at the tip of her mustache that he had never observed before.

  * * *

  "I am afraid of nothing," she declared. She rose, asked her way, precisely, to the barn, and every detail as to what she was to expect, waiting there in total silence; then she threw a fur cloak over her shoulders, glanced at Nicolas, and went on.

  * * *

  She went along the corridor and down the back-stairs; while Nicolas, saying that the heat of the room was too much for him, slipped out by the front entrance. It was as cold as ever, and the moon seemed to be shining even more brightly than before. The snow at her feet was strewn with stars, while their sisters overhead twinkled in the deep gloom of the sky, and she soon looked away from them, back to the gleaming earth in its radiant mantle of ermine.

  * * *

  Nicolas hurried across the hall, turned the corner of the house, and went past the side door where Sonia was to come out. Half-way to the barn stacks of wood, in the full moonlight, threw their shadows on the path, and beyond, an alley of lime-trees traced a tangled pattern on the snow with the fine crossed lines of their leafless twigs. The beams of the house and its snow-laden roof looked as if they had been hewn out of a block of opal, with iridescent lights where the facets caught the silvery mo
onlight. Suddenly a bough fell crashing off a tree in the garden; then all was still again. Sonia's heart beat high with gladness; as if she were drinking in not common air, but some life-giving elixir of eternal youth and joy.

  * * *

  "Straight on, if you please, miss, and on no account look behind you."

  * * *

  "I am not afraid," said Sonia, her little shoes tapping the stone steps and then crunching the carpet of snow as she ran to meet Nicolas, who was within a couple of yards of her. And yet not the Nicolas of every-day life. What had transfigured him so completely? Was it his woman's costume with frizzed-out hair, or was it that radiant smile which he so rarely wore, and which at this moment illumined his face?

  * * *

  "But Sonia is quite unlike herself, and yet she is herself," thought Nicolas on his side, looking down at the sweet little face in the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the fur cloak that wrapped her, and drew her to him, and he kissed her lips, which still tasted of the burned cork that had blackened her mustache.

  * * *

  "Nicolas--Sonia," they whispered; and Sonia put her little hands round his face. Then, hand in hand, they ran to the barn and back, and each went in by the different doors they had come out of.

  * * *

  Natacha, who had noted everything, managed so that she, Mme. Schoss, and Dimmler should return in one sleigh, while the maids went with Nicolas and Sonia in another. Nicolas was in no hurry to get home; he could not help looking at Sonia and trying to find under her disguise the true Sonia--his Sonia, from whom nothing now could ever part him. The magical effects of moonlight, the remembrance of that kiss on her sweet lips, the dizzy flight of the snow-clad ground under the horses' hoofs, the black sky, studded with diamonds, that bent over their heads, the icy air that seemed to give vigor to his lungs--all was enough to make him fancy that they were transported to a land of magic.

  * * *

  "Sonia, are you not cold?"

  * * *

  "No; and you?"

  * * *

  Nicolas pulled up, and giving the reins to a man to drive, he ran back to the sleigh in which Natacha was sitting.

  * * *

  "Listen," he said, in a whisper and in French; "I have made up my mind to tell Sonia."

  * * *

  "And you have spoken to her?" exclaimed Natacha, radiant with joy.

  * * *

  "Oh, Natacha, how queer that mustache makes you look! Are you glad?"

  * * *

  "Glad! I am delighted. I did not say anything, you know, but I have been so vexed with you. She is a jewel, a heart of gold. I--I am often naughty, and I have no right to have all the happiness to myself now. Go, go back to her."

  * * *

  "No. Wait one minute. Mercy, how funny you look!" he repeated, examining her closely and discovering in her face, too, an unwonted tenderness and emotion that struck him deeply. "Natacha, is there not some magic at the bottom of it all, heh?"

  * * *

  "You have acted very wisely. Go."

  * * *

  "If I had ever seen Natacha look as she does at this moment I should have asked her advice and have obeyed her, whatever she had bid me do; and all would have gone well. So you are glad?" he said, aloud. "I have done right?"

  * * *

  "Yes, yes, of course you have! I was quite angry with mamma the other day about you two. Mamma would have it that Sonia was running after you. I will not allow any one to say--no, nor even to think--any evil of her, for she is sweetness and truth itself."

  * * *

  "So much the better." Nicolas jumped down and in a few long strides overtook his own sleigh, where the little Circassian received him with a smile from under the fur hood; and the Circassian was Sonia, and Sonia beyond a doubt would be his beloved little wife!

  * * *

  When they got home the two girls went into the countess's room and gave her an account of their expedition; then they went to bed. Without stopping to wipe off their mustaches they stood chattering as they undressed; they had so much to say of their happiness, their future prospects, the friendship between their husbands:

  * * *

  "But, oh! when will it all be? I am so afraid it will never come to pass," said Natacha, as she went toward a table on which two looking-glasses stood.

  * * *

  "Sit down," said Sonia, "and look in the glass; perhaps you will see something about it." Natacha lighted two pairs of candles and seated herself. "I certainly see a pair of mustaches," she said, laughing.

  * * *

  "You should not laugh," said the maid, very gravely.

  * * *

  Natacha settled herself to gaze without blinking into the mirror; she put on a solemn face and sat in silence for some time, wondering what she should see. Would a coffin rise before her, or would Prince Andre presently stand revealed against the confused background in the shining glass? Her eyes were weary and could hardly distinguish even the flickering light of the candles. But with the best will in the world she could see nothing; not a spot to suggest the image either of a coffin or of a human form. She rose.

  * * *

  "Why do other people see things and I never see anything at all? Take my place, Sonia; you must look for yourself and for me, too. I am so frightened; if I could but know!"

  * * *

  Sonia sat down and fixed her eyes on the mirror.

  * * *

  "Sofia Alexandrovna will be sure to see something," whispered Douniacha; "but you always are laughing at such things." Sonia heard the remark and Natacha's whispered reply: "Yes, she is sure to see something; she did last year." Three minutes they waited in total silence. "She is sure to see something," Natacha repeated, trembling.

  * * *

  Sonia started back, covered her face with one hand, and cried out:

  * * *

  "Natacha!"

  * * *

  "You saw something? What did you see?" And Natacha rushed forward to hold up the glass.

  * * *

  But Sonia had seen nothing; her eyes were getting dim, and she was on the point of giving it up when Natacha's exclamation had stopped her; she did not want to disappoint them; but there is nothing so tiring as sitting motionless. She did not know why she had called out and hidden her face.

  * * *

  "Did you see him?" asked Natacha.

  * * *

  "Yes; stop a minute. I saw him," said Sonia, not quite sure whether "him" was to mean Nicolas or Prince Andre. "Why not make them believe that I saw something?" she thought. "A great many people have done so before, and no one can prove the contrary. Yes, I saw him," she repeated.

  * * *

  "How? standing up or lying down?"

  * * *

  "I saw him--at first there was nothing; then suddenly I saw him lying down."

  * * *

  "Andre, lying down? Then he is ill!" And Natacha gazed horror-stricken at her companion.

  * * *

  "Not at all; he seemed quite cheerful, on the contrary," said she, beginning to believe in her own inventions.

  * * *

  "And then--Sonia, what then?"

  * * *

  "Then I saw only confusion--red and blue."

  * * *

  "And when will he come back, Sonia? When shall I see him again? O God! I am afraid for him--afraid of everything."

  * * *

  And, without listening to Sonia's attempts at comfort, Natacha slipped into bed, and, long after the lights were out, she lay motionless but awake, her eyes fixed on the moonshine that came dimly through the frost-embroidered windows.

  * * *

  A Wayfarer's Fancy.

  * * *

  "A felicitous combination of the German, the Sclave, and the Semite, with grand features, brown hair floating in artistic fashion, and brown eyes in spectacles."

  * * *

  George Eliot.

  Papa Panov's Special Christmas

  Leo Tolstoy

>   Papa Panov's Special Christmas

  It was Christmas Eve and although it was still afternoon, lights had begun to appear in the shops and houses of the little Russian village, for the short winter day was nearly over. Excited children scurried indoors and now only muffled sounds of chatter and laughter escaped from closed shutters.