Forty Stories

by Anton Chekhov

  The Princess was almost out of her wits, inhaling her smelling salts. She was full of wild conjectures, but before Chaikhidzev and the assembled guests she felt angry and ashamed. She was a woman who had never had recourse to violence, but when a maidservant came to tell her there was no sign of Olya, she slapped the maidservant on the face. The guests, weary of waiting for the champagne and the congratulations, exchanged smiles and the latest gossip, and began dancing again.

  The clock struck one, and still no sign of Olya. The Princess was close to madness.

  “This is one of your tricks,” she hissed, passing by one of our group. “She’ll hear about this! Where is she?”

  Finally she found a benefactor who revealed Olya’s hiding place. This benefactor was her nephew, a small potbellied schoolboy, who came running out of the garden like someone possessed, hurled himself at the Princess, jumped on her lap, pulled her head down, and whispered into her ear. The Princess turned pale and bit her lip so hard that she drew blood.

  “In the summer house?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  The Princess rose, and with a grimace which somehow resembled the smile of officialdom, she informed the guests that Olya was suffering from a headache and had begged to be excused, et cetera, et cetera. The guests expressed their regrets, quickly finished supper, and began leaving.

  At two o’clock—Yegorov had excelled himself by keeping Olya all this time—I was standing at the entrance to the terrace behind some oleanders, waiting for Olya’s return. I wanted to see how her face would express at one and the same time her love for Yegorov and her fear of the Princess; and which was stronger, her love or her fear. For a little while longer I breathed the scent of the oleanders. Then Olya appeared, and I feasted my eyes on her face. She walked slowly, holding up her skirt a little, revealing her tiny slippers. Her face was brilliantly clear in the light of the moon and of the lanterns hanging on the trees, the glow of the lanterns somehow spoiling the pure radiance of the moon. Her face was solemn, very pale, with the ghost of a smile playing around her lips. She was gazing thoughtfully on the ground with the expression of one pondering a particularly difficult problem. When Olya climbed the first step I saw that her eyes were troubled, darting restlessly to and fro, as she remembered her mother. For a moment her hand went up to her disheveled hair, and then for a while she stood on that first step undecided. At last, with a toss of her head, she marched bravely to the door. And then I saw an extraordinary thing. The door was flung open suddenly, and Olya’s white face was lit with a fierce light. She shuddered, stepped back, and her knees trembled under her. On the threshold, head held high, stood the Princess, scarlet-faced, quivering with shame and rage. For two whole minutes there was silence.

  “So the daughter of a Prince and the betrothed of a Prince goes to see a mere lieutenant!” she began. “A man with a common name like Yegorov! What an abominable creature you are!”

  Olya was completely annihilated. She was shivering feverishly as she made a serpentine glide past the Princess and flew to her own room. All night long she sat on her bed and stared at the window with terror-stricken eyes.

  At three o’clock that morning we had another meeting. At this meeting we had a good laugh at Yegorov, drunk with happiness, and we appointed our baronial lawyer from Kharkov as an ambassador to Chaikhidzev. The prince was still awake. The baronial lawyer from Kharkov was to explain “in the most friendly fashion” the delicacy of Chaikhidzev’s position, and to beg his pardon for our interference in his affairs, all this, of course, “in the most friendly fashion,” as one intelligent man speaks to another. Chaikhidzev informed the baron that “he understood perfectly,” that he attached no importance to the paternal vows, but he was in love with Olya and that was why he had been so persistent.… With deep feeling he shook hands with the baron and promised to retire from the scene the next day.

  The next morning Olya appeared at the breakfast table looking wan, annihilated, terribly apprehensive, fearful and ashamed. But her face lit up when she saw us in the dining room and heard our voices. The whole group of us stood before the Princess, shouting. We shouted in unison. We had removed our masks, our very small masks, and we loudly insinuated into the mind of the old Princess certain “ideas,” which were the same as those Yegorov had been insinuating into the ears of Olya the previous evening. We spoke of the “personality” of women, and of their right to choose freely their own husbands, and so on, and so on. The Princess listened in gloomy silence, and then she read out a letter which had been sent to her by Lieutenant Yegorov—in fact, the letter had been written by the entire group and abounded in phrases like “being of immature years,” “owing to inexperience,” “by your favor,” et cetera. The Princess heard us to the end, read Yegorov’s letter to the end, and said:

  “How dare you young whippersnappers teach an old woman like me! I know exactly what I am doing! Finish your tea, and then get out of here, and turn someone else’s head for a change! You are not the proper people to live with an old woman! You’re all so clever, and I’m only a fool! So good day, my dears! I’ll be grateful to you to the end of my days!”

  The Princess threw us out of the house. We all wrote her a bread-and-butter letter, kissed her hand, and that same day we regretfully moved on to Yegorov’s estate. Chaikhidzev left the castle at the same time. At Yegorov’s we embarked on a course of dissipation; we missed Olya, and we consoled Yegorov. In this way two weeks passed. Then, during the third week, our baronial lawyer received a letter from the Princess asking him to come to Green Scythe to draw up some legal documents. The baron left us, and two or three days later we followed, pretending to come and fetch him. We arrived just before dinner. We did not go into the house, but wandered around the garden, gazing up at the windows. The Princess saw us from a window.

  “So you’re here?” she shouted at us.

  “Yes, we’re here!”

  “What brought you here?”

  “We’ve come for the baron.”

  “The baron hasn’t any time to fool around with gallows birds like you! He’s writing!”

  We removed our hats and approached the window.

  “How do you do, Princess,” I said.

  “Well, what are you gadding about for?” the Princess replied. “Go back to your rooms!”

  So we went to our rooms and sat down humbly in our chairs. Our humble airs must have gratified the Princess, who had grown terribly bored without us. She made us stay for lunch. There, at lunch, when one of us dropped a spoon, she castigated him for being a clumsy fool, and she excoriated us all for our lack of table manners. We went for a walk with Olya and stayed the night there. The following night we were still at Green Scythe, and indeed we remained there until September. Peace had been declared.

  Yesterday I received a letter from Yegorov. The lieutenant wrote that he had spent the winter “buttering up” the Princess, and he had finally succeeded in taming her anger and resentment. She has promised to let them marry in the summer.

  Soon I shall receive two letters—one will be stern and official, from the Princess; the other will be a long one from Olya, full of gaiety and madcap schemes. In May I shall be going back to Green Scythe again.

  1882

  Joy

  IT WAS twelve o’clock at night when a young man called Mitya Kuldarov, disheveled and blazing with excitement, burst into his parents’ apartment and ran wildly through all the rooms. His mother and father were already in bed. His sister, too, was in bed, finishing the last pages of a novel. His younger brothers, the schoolboys, were fast asleep.

  “What happened?” his parents asked, surprised out of their wits. “What on earth is the matter?”

  “Oh, don’t ask me! I never thought it would happen! Never expected it! It’s … it’s absolutely beyond belief!”

  Mitya exploded with laughter and fell into a chair, because so much joy had weakened his legs.

  “It’s beyond belief!” he went on. “You simply couldn’t im
agine it! Just look!”

  His sister jumped out of bed and, pulling a blanket round her shoulders, went in to see her brother. The schoolboy brothers also woke up.

  “What on earth is the matter with you? You look as though you had gone completely out of your mind!”

  “It’s because I am so happy, Mama. Today, all over Russia, people know me! Everyone! Until today you were the only ones who knew such a person as Dmitry Kuldarov, collegiate registrar, existed. Now everyone knows! Oh, Mama! Oh, Lord!”

  Mitya jumped up and once more ran through all the rooms, and then he fell into a chair.

  “Well, tell us what happened! Please get some sense into your head!”

  “You—you live like wild animals! You don’t read the newspapers, and popular fame has no meaning for you! Very remarkable things are recorded in newspapers! Whenever anything important happens, everyone knows about it: nothing is left out. I’m so happy. Oh, Lord! You know newspapers only print things about celebrities! Well, they’ve printed something about me!”

  “How? Where?”

  Papa turned pale. Mama glanced at the icon, and crossed herself. The brothers jumped out of bed and ran to their elder brother as they were, in their attenuated nightshirts.

  “Yes, indeed! They have printed something about me! Now all of Russia knows about me! Mama, please keep this number as a souvenir! You can look at it from time to time. Just look!”

  Mitya pulled a newspaper from his pocket and handed it to his father. He pointed to a place marked with a blue pencil.

  “Read that!”

  His father put on his spectacles.

  “Go on! Read it!”

  Mama gazed at the icon and crossed herself. Papa cleared his throat and began to read:

  “December 29, at eleven o’clock in the evening, the collegiate registrar Dmitry Kuldarov …”

  “See? See? Go on!”

  “… the collegiate registrar Dmitry Kuldarov, coming out of the tavern situated at the Kozikhin house on Little Armorer Street, being in an intoxicated condition …”

  “That’s right! I was with Semyon Petrovich.… It’s absolutely correct! Go on! Read the next line! Listen, all of you!”

  “… being in an intoxicated condition, slipped and fell under a horse belonging to the cabman Ivan Drotov, a peasant from the village of Durikina in the Yuknovsky district. The terrified horse jumped over Kuldarov, dragging the sleigh after it: in which sleigh sat Stepan Lukov, merchant in the Second Guild of Moscow Merchants. The horse galloped down the street until brought to a halt by house porters. Kuldarov, after being unconscious for some moments, was removed to a police station for examination by the appropriate medical officers. A blow sustained by him at the back of the neck …”

  “That was from the shaft, Papa. Go on! Read further down!”

  “… A blow sustained by him at the back of the neck was pronounced to be slight. The victim was given medical assistance.”

  “They put bandages soaked in cold water round my neck. Read it! There you are! All of Russia knows about it! Give me the newspaper!”

  Mitya took the newspaper, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket.

  “I’ll have to run to the Makarovs and show it to them.… And then the Ivanitskys. Natalia Ivanovna and Anisim Vasilich must see it, too.… I must run now! Good-by!”

  Then Mitya crammed the cap with the cockade on his head, and ran joyously, triumphantly, down the street.

  January 1883

  The Ninny

  JUST a few days ago I invited Yulia Vassilyevna, the governess of my children, to come to my study. I wanted to settle my account with her.

  “Sit down, Yulia Vassilyevna,” I said to her. “Let’s get our accounts settled. I’m sure you need some money, but you kept standing on ceremony and never ask for it. Let me see. We agreed to give you thirty rubles a month, didn’t we?”

  “Forty.”

  “No, thirty. I made a note of it. I always pay the governess thirty. Now, let me see. You have been with us for two months?”

  “Two months and five days.”

  “Two months exactly. I made a note of it. So you have sixty rubles coming to you. Subtract nine Sundays. You know you don’t tutor Kolya on Sundays, you just go out for a walk. And then the three holidays …”

  Yulia Vassilyevna blushed and picked at the trimmings of her dress, but said not a word.

  “Three holidays. So we take off twelve rubles. Kolya was sick for four days—those days you didn’t look after him. You looked after Vanya, only Vanya. Then there were the three days you had toothache, when my wife gave you permission to stay away from the children after dinner. Twelve and seven makes nineteen. Subtract.… That leaves … hm … forty-one rubles. Correct?”

  Yulia Vassilyevna’s left eye reddened and filled with tears. Her chin trembled. She began to cough nervously, blew her nose, and said nothing.

  “Then around New Year’s Day you broke a cup and saucer. Subtract two rubles. The cup cost more than that—it was a heirloom, but we won’t bother about that. We’re the ones who pay. Another matter. Due to your carelessness Kolya climbed a tree and tore his coat. Subtract ten. Also, due to your carelessness the chambermaid ran off with Varya’s boots. You ought to have kept your eyes open. You get a good salary. So we dock off five more.… On the tenth of January you took ten rubles from me.”

  “I didn’t,” Yulia Vassilyevna whispered.

  “But I made a note of it.”

  “Well, yes—perhaps …”

  “From forty-one we take twenty-seven. That leaves fourteen.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and her thin, pretty little nose was shining with perspiration. Poor little child!

  “I only took money once,” she said in a trembling voice. “I took three rubles from your wife … never anything more.”

  “Did you now? You see, I never made a note of it. Take three from fourteen. That leaves eleven. Here’s your money, my dear. Three, three, three … one and one. Take it, my dear.”

  I gave her the eleven rubles. With trembling fingers she took them and slipped them into her pocket.

  “Merci,” she whispered.

  I jumped up, and began pacing up and down the room. I was in a furious temper.

  “Why did you say ‘merci’?” I asked.

  “For the money.”

  “Dammit, don’t you realize I’ve been cheating you? I steal your money, and all you can say is ‘merci’!”

  “In my other places they gave me nothing.”

  “They gave you nothing! Well, no wonder! I was playing a trick on you—a dirty trick.… I’ll give you your eighty rubles, they are all here in an envelope made out for you. Is it possible for anyone to be such a nitwit? Why didn’t you protest? Why did you keep your mouth shut? Is it possible that there is anyone in this world who is so spineless? Why are you such a ninny?”

  She gave me a bitter little smile. On her face I read the words: “Yes, it is possible.”

  I apologized for having played this cruel trick on her, and to her great surprise gave her the eighty rubles. And then she said “merci” again several times, always timidly, and went out. I gazed after her, thinking how very easy it is in this world to be strong.

  February 1883

  The Highest Heights

  The Height of Credulity

  A FEW days ago K., a man of considerable local importance, rich and well connected, shot himself in the town of T. The bullet entered his mouth and lodged in his brain.

  In the poor man’s side pocket a letter was found, with the following contents:

  “I read in the Almanac today there will be a bad harvest this year. For me a bad harvest can only mean bankruptcy. Having no desire to fall victim to dishonor, I have decided to put an end to my life in advance. It is my desire, accordingly, that no one should be held responsible for my death.”

  The Height of Absent-mindedness

  We have received from authentic sources the following distressing item from a
local clinic:

  “The well-known surgeon M., while amputating both legs of a railway switchman, absent-mindedly cut off one of his own legs, together with one of the legs of his assistant. Both are now receiving medical care.”

  The Height of Citizenship

  “I, the son of a former honorary citizen, being a reader of The Citizen,1 wearing the clothes of a citizen, contracted a civil marriage with my Anyuta.…”2

  The Height of Conformity

  We are informed that a certain T., one of the contributors to Kievlyanin,3 having read the greater portion of the Moscow newspapers, suffered an attack of self-doubt and searched his own home for illegal literature. Finding none, he nevertheless gave himself up to the police.

  April 1883

  1 The Citizen was a conservative St. Petersburg newspaper, owned by Prince Meshchersky and edited for a while by Dostoyevsky. Chekhov loathed The Citizen and pilloried it on many occasions.

  2 This is a joke. There were no civil marriages in Russia before 1917.

  3 A conservative newspaper published in Kiev.

  Death of a Government Clerk

  ON a beautiful night the no less beautiful government clerk Ivan Dmitrich Chervyakov1 sat in the second row of the stalls watching Les Cloches de Corneville through opera glasses. He was gazing at the stage and thinking himself the most blessed among mortals when suddenly … (Very often in stories you come upon this word “suddenly,” and this is all very proper, since authors must always concern themselves with the unexpectedness of life.) Suddenly, then, his face puckered up, he rolled his eyes, his breathing stopped, the opera glasses fell from his eyes, he collapsed into his seat, and … at-choo! As the reader has observed, he sneezed.