"I want to live!" I said genuinely. "To live, to live! I want peace, tranquillity; I want warmth -- this sea here -- to have you near. Oh, how I wish I could rouse in you the same thirst for life! You spoke just now of love, but it would be enough for me to have you near, to hear your voice, to watch the look in your face . . . !"
She flushed crimson, and to hinder my speaking, said quickly:
"You love life, and I hate it. So our ways lie apart."
She poured herself out some tea, but did not touch it, went into the bedroom, and lay down.
"I imagine it is better to cut short this conversation," she said to me from within. "Everything is over for me, and I want nothing. . . . What more is there to say?"
"No, it's not all over!"
"Oh, very well! . . . I know! I am sick of it. . . . That's enough."
I got up, took a turn from one end of the room to the other, and went out into the corridor. When late at night I went to her door and listened, I distinctly heard her crying.
Next morning the waiter, handing me my clothes, informed me, with a smile, that the lady in number thirteen was confined. I dressed somehow, and almost fainting with terror ran to Zinaida Fyodorovna. In her room I found a doctor, a midwife, and an elderly Russian lady from Harkov, called Darya Milhailovna. There was a smell of ether. I had scarcely crossed the threshold when from the room where she was lying I heard a low, plaintive moan, and, as though it had been wafted me by the wind from Russia, I thought of Orlov, his irony, Polya, the Neva, the drifting snow, then the cab without an apron, the prediction I had read in the cold morning sky, and the despairing cry "Nina! Nina!"
"Go in to her," said the lady.
I went in to see Zinaida Fyodorovna, feeling as though I were the father of the child. She was lying with her eyes closed, looking thin and pale, wearing a white cap edged with lace. I remember there were two expressions on her face: one -- cold, indifferent, apathetic; the other -- a look of childish helplessness given her by the white cap. She did not hear me come in, or heard, perhaps, but did not pay attention. I stood, looked at her, and waited.
But her face was contorted with pain; she opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling, as though wondering what was happening to her. . . . There was a look of loathing on her face.
"It's horrible . . ." she whispered.
"Zinaida Fyodorovna." I spoke her name softly. She looked at me indifferently, listlessly, and closed her eyes. I stood there a little while, then went away.
At night, Darya Mihailovna informed me that the child, a girl, was born, but that the mother was in a dangerous condition. Then I heard noise and bustle in the passage. Darya Mihailovna came to me again and with a face of despair, wringing her hands, said:
"Oh, this is awful! The doctor suspects that she has taken poison! Oh, how badly Russians do behave here!"
And at twelve o'clock the next day Zinaida Fyodorovna died.
XVIII
Two years had passed. Circumstances had changed; I had come to Petersburg again and could live here openly. I was no longer afraid of being and seeming sentimental, and gave myself up entirely to the fatherly, or rather idolatrous feeling roused in me by Sonya, Zinaida Fyodorovna's child. I fed her with my own hands, gave her her bath, put her to bed, never took my eyes off her for nights together, and screamed when it seemed to me that the nurse was just going to drop her. My thirst for normal ordinary life became stronger and more acute as time went on, but wider visions stopped short at Sonya, as though I had found in her at last just what I needed. I loved the child madly. In her I saw the continuation of my life, and it was not exactly that I fancied, but I felt, I almost believed, that when I had cast off at last my long, bony, bearded frame, I should go on living in those little blue eyes, that silky flaxen hair, those dimpled pink hands which stroked my face so lovingly and were clasped round my neck.
Sonya's future made me anxious. Orlov was her father; in her birth certificate she was called Krasnovsky, and the only person who knew of her existence, and took interest in her -- that is, I -- was at death's door. I had to think about her seriously.
The day after I arrived in Petersburg I went to see Orlov. The door was opened to me by a stout old fellow with red whiskers and no moustache, who looked like a German. Polya, who was tidying the drawing-room, did not recognise me, but Orlov knew me at once.
"Ah, Mr. Revolutionist!" he said, looking at me with curiosity, and laughing. "What fate has brought you?"
He was not changed in the least: the same well-groomed, unpleasant face, the same irony. And a new book was lying on the table just as of old, with an ivory paper-knife thrust in it. He had evidently been reading before I came in. He made me sit down, offered me a cigar, and with a delicacy only found in well-bred people, concealing the unpleasant feeling aroused by my face and my wasted figure, observed casually that I was not in the least changed, and that he would have known me anywhere in spite of my having grown a beard. We talked of the weather, of Paris. To dispose as quickly as possible of the oppressive, inevitable question, which weighed upon him and me, he asked:
"Zinaida Fyodorovna is dead?"
"Yes," I answered.
"In childbirth?"
"Yes, in childbirth. The doctor suspected another cause of death, but . . . it is more comforting for you and for me to think that she died in childbirth."
He sighed decorously and was silent. The angel of silence passed over us, as they say.
"Yes. And here everything is as it used to be -- no changes," he said briskly, seeing that I was looking about the room. "My father, as you know, has left the service and is living in retirement; I am still in the same department. Do you remember Pekarsky? He is just the same as ever. Gruzin died of diphtheria a year ago. . . . Kukushkin is alive, and often speaks of you. By the way," said Orlov, dropping his eyes with an air of reserve, "when Kukushkin heard who you were, he began telling every one you had attacked him and tried to murder him . . . and that he only just escaped with his life."
I did not speak.
"Old servants do not forget their masters. . . . It's very nice of you," said Orlov jocosely. "Will you have some wine and some coffee, though? I will tell them to make some."
"No, thank you. I have come to see you about a very important matter, Georgy Ivanitch."
"I am not very fond of important matters, but I shall be glad to be of service to you. What do you want?"
"You see," I began, growing agitated, "I have here with me Zinaida Fyodorovna's daughter. . . . Hitherto I have brought her up, but, as you see, before many days I shall be an empty sound. I should like to die with the thought that she is provided for."
Orlov coloured a little, frowned a little, and took a cursory and sullen glance at me. He was unpleasantly affected, not so much by the "important matter" as by my words about death, about becoming an empty sound.
"Yes, it must be thought about," he said, screening his eyes as though from the sun. "Thank you. You say it's a girl?"
"Yes, a girl. A wonderful child!"
"Yes. Of course, it's not a lap-dog, but a human being. I understand we must consider it seriously. I am prepared to do my part, and am very grateful to you."
He got up, walked about, biting his nails, and stopped before a picture.
"We must think about it," he said in a hollow voice, standing with his back to me. "I shall go to Pekarsky's to-day and will ask him to go to Krasnovsky's. I don't think he will make much ado about consenting to take the child."
"But, excuse me, I don't see what Krasnovsky has got to do with it," I said, also getting up and walking to a picture at the other end of the room.
"But she bears his name, of course!" said Orlov.
"Yes, he may be legally obliged to accept the child -- I don't know; but I came to you, Georgy Ivanitch, not to discuss the legal aspect."
"Yes, yes, you are right," he agreed briskly. "I believe I am talking nonsense. But don't excite yourself. We will decide the matter to our mutual satisfaction.
If one thing won't do, we'll try another; and if that won't do, we'll try a third -- one way or another this delicate question shall be settled. Pekarsky will arrange it all. Be so good as to leave me your address and I will let you know at once what we decide. Where are you living?"
Orlov wrote down my address, sighed, and said with a smile:
"Oh, Lord, what a job it is to be the father of a little daughter! But Pekarsky will arrange it all. He is a sensible man. Did you stay long in Paris?"
"Two months."
We were silent. Orlov was evidently afraid I should begin talking of the child again, and to turn my attention in another direction, said:
"You have probably forgotten your letter by now. But I have kept it. I understand your mood at the time, and, I must own, I respect that letter. 'Damnable cold blood,' 'Asiatic,' 'coarse laugh' -- that was charming and characteristic," he went on with an ironical smile. "And the fundamental thought is perhaps near the truth, though one might dispute the question endlessly. That is," he hesitated, "not dispute the thought itself, but your attitude to the question -- your temperament, so to say. Yes, my life is abnormal, corrupted, of no use to any one, and what prevents me from beginning a new life is cowardice -- there you are quite right. But that you take it so much to heart, are troubled, and reduced to despair by it -- that's irrational; there you are quite wrong."
"A living man cannot help being troubled and reduced to despair when he sees that he himself is going to ruin and others are going to ruin round him."
"Who doubts it! I am not advocating indifference; all I ask for is an objective attitude to life. The more objective, the less danger of falling into error. One must look into the root of things, and try to see in every phenomenon a cause of all the other causes. We have grown feeble, slack -- degraded, in fact. Our generation is entirely composed of neurasthenics and whimperers; we do nothing but talk of fatigue and exhaustion. But the fault is neither yours nor mine; we are of too little consequence to affect the destiny of a whole generation. We must suppose for that larger, more general causes with a solid raison d'être from the biological point of view. We are neurasthenics, flabby, renegades, but perhaps it's necessary and of service for generations that will come after us. Not one hair falls from the head without the will of the Heavenly Father -- in other words, nothing happens by chance in Nature and in human environment. Everything has its cause and is inevitable. And if so, why should we worry and write despairing letters?"
"That's all very well," I said, thinking a little. "I believe it will be easier and clearer for the generations to come; our experience will be at their service. But one wants to live apart from future generations and not only for their sake. Life is only given us once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full consciousness and beauty. One wants to play a striking, independent, noble part; one wants to make history so that those generations may not have the right to say of each of us that we were nonentities or worse. . . . I believe what is going on about us is inevitable and not without a purpose, but what have I to do with that inevitability? Why should my ego be lost?"
"Well, there's no help for it," sighed Orlov, getting up and, as it were, giving me to understand that our conversation was over.
I took my hat.
"We've only been sitting here half an hour, and how many questions we have settled, when you come to think of it!" said Orlov, seeing me into the hall. "So I will see to that matter. . . . I will see Pekarsky to-day. . . . Don't be uneasy."
He stood waiting while I put on my coat, and was obviously relieved at the feeling that I was going away.
"Georgy Ivanitch, give me back my letter," I said.
"Certainly."
He went to his study, and a minute later returned with the letter. I thanked him and went away.
The next day I got a letter from him. He congratulated me on the satisfactory settlement of the question. Pekarsky knew a lady, he wrote, who kept a school, something like a kindergarten, where she took quite little children. The lady could be entirely depended upon, but before concluding anything with her it would be as well to discuss the matter with Krasnovsky -- it was a matter of form. He advised me to see Pekarsky at once and to take the birth certificate with me, if I had it. "Rest assured of the sincere respect and devotion of your humble servant. . . ."
I read this letter, and Sonya sat on the table and gazed at me attentively without blinking, as though she knew her fate was being decided.
NOTES
kammer-junker: aristocrat
addressed as "thou": that is, as a menial, his "superiors" could use the intimate "you" with him, as they would a dog
Eliseyev's: Eliseev's was a very expensive food store in St. Petersburg
Gogol or Shtchedrin: two leading Russian satirists
actual civil councillor: grade 4 in the Russian Civil Service
Senate: the Russian Senate functioned as a Supreme Court and interpreted the laws
Prutkov's: "Kuzma Prutkov" was a pseudonym for the brothers Zhemchuzhnikov, collaborating with A. K. Tolstoy; "Prutkov" wrote satires directed against the government
"What does the coming day bring to me?": from Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Canto VI, verse xxi
the immortals: the members of the French Academy were known as the "Forty Immortals"
Diogenes: Diogenes (c. 412 B. C. - 343 B. C.) was a Greek philosopher and cynic
Cæsar and Cicero: Roman emperor who lived c. 102 B. C - 44 B. C.; Cicero was a famous Roman orator (c. 102 B. C. - 43 B. C.)
Cato: Cato the Elder (243 B. C. - 149 B. C.)
increase and multiply: cf. Genesis 1:22
cedars of Lebanon: the phrase is repeated often in the Bible; see for example Psalms 92:13
Faust: of the many versions of the story, Chekhov probably had in mind the opera "Faust" (1859) by Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
seventh commandment: "Thou shalt not commit adultery"
Turgenev teaches: I. S. Turgenev (1818-1883), the well-known Russian novelist; for example, the heroine of On the Eve (1860) offers to follow the hero to "the ends of the earth"
Three Meetings: Turgenev's 1852 story
Vieni pensando a me segretamente: Come, thinking of me in secret (Turgenev used this as the epigram of the story "Three Meetings")
free Bulgaria: in Turgenev's novel On the Eve (1860), the hero is a Bulgarian trying to gain his country's freedom
sous: French coins worth 1/100 franc each
Othello: in Shakespeare's play Othello the title hero is a needlessly jealous husband
Shtchedrin's heroes: one of the comic civil servants who form the main targets of the satirist Shchedrin
cutting a book: in the 19th century the pages of books, particularly French books, were not always cut, so the reader had to do it
Sidors and the Nikitas: typical Russian peasant names
Saint-Saëns's "Swan Song: French composer (1835-1921); "Le Cygne" is from Le Carnaval des animaux (1886)
Samson: see Judges 16:3
novel of Dostoevsky's: the incident occurs in The Insulted and Injured (1861), Part I, Chapter 13
thief: Luke 23:39-43
Petersburg Side: the older part of the city, to the north of the Neva River
driving on wheels: as opposed to the sleigh-runners used in winter
"The Parisian Beggars": the 1859 drama Les Pauvres de Paris by Brisebarre and Nus was acted in Chekhov's hometown when he was a boy
bijoux: jewels
Père Goriot: Le Père Goriot, by Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850)
Desdemona: the murdered heroine of Shakespeare's Othello has traditionally been associated with the Palazzo Contarini-Fasan in Venice
Canova: Antonio Canova (1757-1822) was an Italian sculptor
Marino Faliero: Marino Faliero (1274-1355) was a Doge of Venice who rebelled against the nobility; he was beheaded and his portrait defaced
Jam-mo! Jam-mo!: fragments of Italian words
cocottes: prostitutes
what a job it is
to be the father of a little daughter: allusion to Famusov's exit lines at the end of Act I of A. S. Griboyedov's play Woe from Wit
raison d'être: reason for existing
* * *
The Two Volodyas
by Anton Chekhov
"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up on the box beside you."
She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast.
"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, really!"
The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be administering compresses and drops.
"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!"
She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is said, par dépit; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she was only twenty-three?
"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!"
She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the sangfroid with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The Colonel paid for all.
Selected short stories -1892-1895- translated by Constance Garnett Page 17