The Tales of Chekhov

by Anton Chekhov

  Some, absorbed in conversation, drank their tea slowly, keeping their glasses for half an hour; others, especially some who had drunk a good deal at dinner, would not leave the table, and kept on drinking glass after glass, so that Olga Mihalovna scarcely had time to fill them. One jocular young man sipped his tea through a lump of sugar, and kept saying, “Sinful man that I am, I love to indulge myself with the Chinese herb.” He kept asking with a heavy sigh: “Another tiny dish of tea more, if you please.” He drank a great deal, nibbled his sugar, and thought it all very amusing and original, and imagined that he was doing a clever imitation of a Russian merchant. None of them understood that these trifles were agonizing to their hostess, and, indeed, it was hard to understand it, as Olga Mihalovna went on all the time smiling affably and talking nonsense.

  But she felt ill. . . . She was irritated by the crowd of people, the laughter, the questions, the jocular young man, the footmen harassed and run off their legs, the children who hung round the table; she was irritated at Vata’s being like Nata, at Kolya’s being like Mitya, so that one could not tell which of them had had tea and which of them had not. She felt that her smile of forced affability was passing into an expression of anger, and she felt every minute as though she would burst into tears.

  “Rain, my friends,” cried some one.

  Every one looked at the sky.

  “Yes, it really is rain . . .” Pyotr Dmitritch assented, and wiped his cheek.

  Only a few drops were falling from the sky—the real rain had not begun yet; but the company abandoned their tea and made haste to get off. At first they all wanted to drive home in the carriages, but changed their minds and made for the boats. On the pretext that she had to hasten home to give directions about the supper, Olga Mihalovna asked to be excused for leaving the others, and went home in the carriage.

  When she got into the carriage, she first of all let her face rest from smiling. With an angry face she drove through the village, and with an angry face acknowledged the bows of the peasants she met. When she got home, she went to the bedroom by the back way and lay down on her husband’s bed.

  “Merciful God!” she whispered. “What is all this hard labour for? Why do all these people hustle each other here and pretend that they are enjoying themselves? Why do I smile and lie? I don’t understand it.”

  She heard steps and voices. The visitors had come back.

  “Let them come,” thought Olga Mihalovna; “I shall lie a little longer.”

  But a maid-servant came and said:

  “Marya Grigoryevna is going, madam.”

  Olga Mihalovna jumped up, tidied her hair and hurried out of the room.

  “Marya Grigoryevna, what is the meaning of this?” she began in an injured voice, going to meet Marya Grigoryevna. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

  “I can’t help it, darling! I’ve stayed too long as it is; my children are expecting me home.”

  “It’s too bad of you! Why didn’t you bring your children with you?”

  “If you will let me, dear, I will bring them on some ordinary day, but to-day . . .”

  “Oh, please do,” Olga Mihalovna interrupted; “I shall be delighted! Your children are so sweet! Kiss them all for me. . . . But, really, I am offended with you! I don’t understand why you are in such a hurry!”

  “I really must, I really must. . . . Good-bye, dear. Take care of yourself. In your condition, you know . . .”

  And the ladies kissed each other. After seeing the departing guest to her carriage, Olga Mihalovna went in to the ladies in the drawing-room. There the lamps were already lighted and the gentlemen were sitting down to cards.

  IV

  The party broke up after supper about a quarter past twelve. Seeing her visitors off, Olga Mihalovna stood at the door and said:

  “You really ought to take a shawl! It’s turning a little chilly. Please God, you don’t catch cold!”

  “Don’t trouble, Olga Mihalovna,” the ladies answered as they got into the carriage. “Well, good-bye. Mind now, we are expecting you; don’t play us false!”

  “Wo-o-o!” the coachman checked the horses.

  “Ready, Denis! Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna!”

  “Kiss the children for me!”

  The carriage started and immediately disappeared into the darkness. In the red circle of light cast by the lamp in the road, a fresh pair or trio of impatient horses, and the silhouette of a coachman with his hands held out stiffly before him, would come into view. Again there began kisses, reproaches, and entreaties to come again or to take a shawl. Pyotr Dmitritch kept running out and helping the ladies into their carriages.

  “You go now by Efremovshtchina,” he directed the coachman; “it’s nearer through Mankino, but the road is worse that way. You might have an upset. . . . Good-bye, my charmer. Mille compliments to your artist!”

  “Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna, darling! Go indoors, or you will catch cold! It’s damp!”

  “Wo-o-o! you rascal!”

  “What horses have you got here?” Pyotr Dmitritch asked.

  “They were bought from Haidorov, in Lent,” answered the coachman.

  “Capital horses. . . .”

  And Pyotr Dmitritch patted the trace horse on the haunch.

  “Well, you can start! God give you good luck!”

  The last visitor was gone at last; the red circle on the road quivered, moved aside, contracted and went out, as Vassily carried away the lamp from the entrance. On previous occasions when they had seen off their visitors, Pyotr Dmitritch and Olga Mihalovna had begun dancing about the drawing-room, facing each other, clapping their hands and singing: “They’ve gone! They’ve gone!” But now Olga Mihalovna was not equal to that. She went to her bedroom, undressed, and got into bed.

  She fancied she would fall asleep at once and sleep soundly. Her legs and her shoulders ached painfully, her head was heavy from the strain of talking, and she was conscious, as before, of discomfort all over her body. Covering her head over, she lay still for three or four minutes, then peeped out from under the bed-clothes at the lamp before the ikon, listened to the silence, and smiled.

  “It’s nice, it’s nice,” she whispered, curling up her legs, which felt as if they had grown longer from so much walking. “Sleep, sleep . . . .”

  Her legs would not get into a comfortable position; she felt uneasy all over, and she turned on the other side. A big fly blew buzzing about the bedroom and thumped against the ceiling. She could hear, too, Grigory and Vassily stepping cautiously about the drawing-room, putting the chairs back in their places; it seemed to Olga Mihalovna that she could not go to sleep, nor be comfortable till those sounds were hushed. And again she turned over on the other side impatiently.

  She heard her husband’s voice in the drawing-room. Some one must be staying the night, as Pyotr Dmitritch was addressing some one and speaking loudly:

  “I don’t say that Count Alexey Petrovitch is an impostor. But he can’t help seeming to be one, because all of you gentlemen attempt to see in him something different from what he really is. His craziness is looked upon as originality, his familiar manners as good-nature, and his complete absence of opinions as Conservatism. Even granted that he is a Conservative of the stamp of ‘84, what after all is Conservatism?”

  Pyotr Dmitritch, angry with Count Alexey Petrovitch, his visitors, and himself, was relieving his heart. He abused both the Count and his visitors, and in his vexation with himself was ready to speak out and to hold forth upon anything. After seeing his guest to his room, he walked up and down the drawing-room, walked through the dining-room, down the corridor, then into his study, then again went into the drawing-room, and came into the bedroom. Olga Mihalovna was lying on her back, with the bed-clothes only to her waist (by now she felt hot), and with an angry face, watched the fly that was thumping against the ceiling.

  “Is some one staying the night?” she asked.

  “Yegorov.”

  Pyotr Dmitritch undressed and got i
nto his bed.

  Without speaking, he lighted a cigarette, and he, too, fell to watching the fly. There was an uneasy and forbidding look in his eyes. Olga Mihalovna looked at his handsome profile for five minutes in silence. It seemed to her for some reason that if her husband were suddenly to turn facing her, and to say, “Olga, I am unhappy,” she would cry or laugh, and she would be at ease. She fancied that her legs were aching and her body was uncomfortable all over because of the strain on her feelings.

  “Pyotr, what are you thinking of?” she said.

  “Oh, nothing . . .” her husband answered.

  “You have taken to having secrets from me of late: that’s not right.”

  “Why is it not right?” answered Pyotr Dmitritch drily and not at once. “We all have our personal life, every one of us, and we are bound to have our secrets.”

  “Personal life, our secrets . . . that’s all words! Understand you are wounding me!” said Olga Mihalovna, sitting up in bed. “If you have a load on your heart, why do you hide it from me? And why do you find it more suitable to open your heart to women who are nothing to you, instead of to your wife? I overheard your outpourings to Lubotchka by the bee-house to-day.”

  “Well, I congratulate you. I am glad you did overhear it.”

  This meant “Leave me alone and let me think.” Olga Mihalovna was indignant. Vexation, hatred, and wrath, which had been accumulating within her during the whole day, suddenly boiled over; she wanted at once to speak out, to hurt her husband without putting it off till to-morrow, to wound him, to punish him. . . . Making an effort to control herself and not to scream, she said:

  “Let me tell you, then, that it’s all loathsome, loathsome, loathsome! I’ve been hating you all day; you see what you’ve done.”

  Pyotr Dmitritch, too, got up and sat on the bed.

  “It’s loathsome, loathsome, loathsome,” Olga Mihalovna went on, beginning to tremble all over. “There’s no need to congratulate me; you had better congratulate yourself! It’s a shame, a disgrace. You have wrapped yourself in lies till you are ashamed to be alone in the room with your wife! You are a deceitful man! I see through you and understand every step you take!”

  “Olya, I wish you would please warn me when you are out of humour. Then I will sleep in the study.”

  Saying this, Pyotr Dmitritch picked up his pillow and walked out of the bedroom. Olga Mihalovna had not foreseen this. For some minutes she remained silent with her mouth open, trembling all over and looking at the door by which her husband had gone out, and trying to understand what it meant. Was this one of the devices to which deceitful people have recourse when they are in the wrong, or was it a deliberate insult aimed at her pride? How was she to take it? Olga Mihalovna remembered her cousin, a lively young officer, who often used to tell her, laughing, that when “his spouse nagged at him” at night, he usually picked up his pillow and went whistling to spend the night in his study, leaving his wife in a foolish and ridiculous position. This officer was married to a rich, capricious, and foolish woman whom he did not respect but simply put up with.

  Olga Mihalovna jumped out of bed. To her mind there was only one thing left for her to do now; to dress with all possible haste and to leave the house forever. The house was her own, but so much the worse for Pyotr Dmitritch. Without pausing to consider whether this was necessary or not, she went quickly to the study to inform her husband of her intention (“Feminine logic!” flashed through her mind), and to say something wounding and sarcastic at parting. . . .

  Pyotr Dmitritch was lying on the sofa and pretending to read a newspaper. There was a candle burning on a chair near him. His face could not be seen behind the newspaper.

  “Be so kind as to tell me what this means? I am asking you.”

  “Be so kind . . .” Pyotr Dmitritch mimicked her, not showing his face. “It’s sickening, Olga! Upon my honour, I am exhausted and not up to it. . . . Let us do our quarrelling to-morrow.”

  “No, I understand you perfectly!” Olga Mihalovna went on. “You hate me! Yes, yes! You hate me because I am richer than you! You will never forgive me for that, and will always be lying to me!” (“Feminine logic!” flashed through her mind again.) “You are laughing at me now. . . . I am convinced, in fact, that you only married me in order to have property qualifications and those wretched horses. . . . Oh, I am miserable!”

  Pyotr Dmitritch dropped the newspaper and got up. The unexpected insult overwhelmed him. With a childishly helpless smile he looked desperately at his wife, and holding out his hands to her as though to ward off blows, he said imploringly:

  “Olya!”

  And expecting her to say something else awful, he leaned back in his chair, and his huge figure seemed as helplessly childish as his smile.

  “Olya, how could you say it?” he whispered.

  Olga Mihalovna came to herself. She was suddenly aware of her passionate love for this man, remembered that he was her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, without whom she could not live for a day, and who loved her passionately, too. She burst into loud sobs that sounded strange and unlike her, and ran back to her bedroom.

  She fell on the bed, and short hysterical sobs, choking her and making her arms and legs twitch, filled the bedroom. Remembering there was a visitor sleeping three or four rooms away, she buried her head under the pillow to stifle her sobs, but the pillow rolled on to the floor, and she almost fell on the floor herself when she stooped to pick it up. She pulled the quilt up to her face, but her hands would not obey her, but tore convulsively at everything she clutched.

  She thought that everything was lost, that the falsehood she had told to wound her husband had shattered her life into fragments. Her husband would not forgive her. The insult she had hurled at him was not one that could be effaced by any caresses, by any vows. . . . How could she convince her husband that she did not believe what she had said?

  “It’s all over, it’s all over!” she cried, not noticing that the pillow had slipped on to the floor again. “For God’s sake, for God’s sake!”

  Probably roused by her cries, the guest and the servants were now awake; next day all the neighbourhood would know that she had been in hysterics and would blame Pyotr Dmitritch. She made an effort to restrain herself, but her sobs grew louder and louder every minute.

  “For God’s sake,” she cried in a voice not like her own, and not knowing why she cried it. “For God’s sake!”

  She felt as though the bed were heaving under her and her feet were entangled in the bed-clothes. Pyotr Dmitritch, in his dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, came into the bedroom.

  “Olya, hush!” he said.

  She raised herself, and kneeling up in bed, screwing up her eyes at the light, articulated through her sobs:

  “Understand . . . understand! . . . .”

  She wanted to tell him that she was tired to death by the party, by his falsity, by her own falsity, that it had all worked together, but she could only articulate:

  “Understand . . . understand!”

  “Come, drink!” he said, handing her some water.

  She took the glass obediently and began drinking, but the water splashed over and was spilt on her arms, her throat and knees.

  “I must look horribly unseemly,” she thought.

  Pyotr Dmitritch put her back in bed without a word, and covered her with the quilt, then he took the candle and went out.

  “For God’s sake!” Olga Mihalovna cried again. “Pyotr, understand, understand!”

  Suddenly something gripped her in the lower part of her body and back with such violence that her wailing was cut short, and she bit the pillow from the pain. But the pain let her go again at once, and she began sobbing again.

  The maid came in, and arranging the quilt over her, asked in alarm:

  “Mistress, darling, what is the matter?”

  “Go out of the room,” said Pyotr Dmitritch sternly, going up to the bed.

  “Understand . . . understand! . . .” Olga Mih
alovna began.

  “Olya, I entreat you, calm yourself,” he said. “I did not mean to hurt you. I would not have gone out of the room if I had known it would have hurt you so much; I simply felt depressed. I tell you, on my honour . . .”

  “Understand! . . . You were lying, I was lying. . . .”

  “I understand. . . . Come, come, that’s enough! I understand,” said Pyotr Dmitritch tenderly, sitting down on her bed. “You said that in anger; I quite understand. I swear to God I love you beyond anything on earth, and when I married you I never once thought of your being rich. I loved you immensely, and that’s all . . . I assure you. I have never been in want of money or felt the value of it, and so I cannot feel the difference between your fortune and mine. It always seemed to me we were equally well off. And that I have been deceitful in little things, that . . . of course, is true. My life has hitherto been arranged in such a frivolous way that it has somehow been impossible to get on without paltry lying. It weighs on me, too, now. . . . Let us leave off talking about it, for goodness’ sake!”