The horse-stealers and other stories. From the Russian by Constance Garnett

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HORSE-STEALERS

AND OTHER STORIES

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ANTON TCHJiHOVJ

FROM THE RUSSIAN
BY CONSTANCE GARNETT

v. 1C

LONDON
CHATTO tf WINDUS

1921

a 7.

THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

VOL. X.

THE HORSE-STEALERS

AND OTHER STORIES

CONTENTS

THE HORSE-STEALERS I

WARD NO. 6 29 -

THE PETCHENYEG 1 13

A- DEAD BODY xj !

A HAPPY ENDING !4I

THE LOOKING-GLASS I^g

OLD AGE Xeg

DARKNESS Z5g

THE BEr.r.AK j^

A STORY WITHOUT A TITLE 187 «

IN TROUBLE

FROST

A SLANDER

207
2IQ

MINDS IN FERMENT 227

GONE ASTRAY 2jc

AN AVENGER 243

THE JEUNE PREMIER 253

A DEFENCELESS CREATURE 26j
AN ENIGMATIC NATURE

A HAPPY MAN 279

A TROUBLESOME VISITOR 289

AN ACTOR'S END tor

THE HORSE-STEALERS

X.

THE HORSE- STEALERS

A HOSPITAL assistant, called Yergunov, an empty-
headed fellow, known throughout the district as a
great braggart and drunkard, was returning one
evening in Christmas week from the hamlet of
Ryepino, where he had been to make~some pur
chases for the hospital. That he might get home
in good time and not be late, the doctor had lent
him his very best horse.

At first it had been a still day, but at eight o'clock
a violent snow-storm came on, and when he was
only about four miles from home Yergunov com
pletely lost his way.

He did not know how to drive, he did not know
the road, and he drove on at random, hoping that
the horse would find the way of itself. Two
hours passed ; the horse was exhausted, he himself
was chilled, and already began to fancy that he
was not going home, but back towards Ryepino.
But at last above the uproar of the storm he heard
the far-away barking of a dog, and a murky red
blur came into sight ahead of him : little ByTIttle,
HieToutlines of a high gate could be discerned, then
a long fence on which there were nails with their
points uppermost, and beyond the fence there
stood the slanting crane of a well. The wind

3

4 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

drove away the mist of snow from before the eyes,
and where there had been a red blur, there sprang
up a small, squat little house with a steep thatched
roof. Of the three little windows one, covered on
the inside with something red, was lighted up.

What sort of place was it ? Yergunov re
membered that to the right of the road, three and
a half or four miles from the hospital, there was
Andrey Tchirikov's tavern. He remembered, too,
that this Tchirikov, who had been lately killed by
some sledge-drivers, had left a wife and a daughter
called Lyubka, who had come to the hospital two
years before as a patient. The inn had a bad
reputation, and to visit it late in the evening, and
especially with someone else's horse, was not free
from risk . But there was no help for it . Yerguno v
fumbled in his knapsack for his revolver, and,
coughing sternly, tapped at the window-frame
with his whip.

" Hey ! who is within ?" he cried. " Hey,
granny ! let me come in and get warm !"

With a hoarse bark a black dog rolled like a ball
under the horse's feet, then another white one,
then another black one — there must have been a
dozen of them. Yergunov looked to see which was
the biggest, swung his whip and lashed at it with
all his might. A small, long-legged puppy turned
its sharp muzzle upwards and set up a shrill,
piercing howl.

Yergunov stood for a long while at the window,
tapping. But at last the hoar-frost on the trees
near the house glowed red, and a muffled female
figure appeared with a lantern in her hands.

V v- «/

THE HORSE-STEALERS

" Let me in to get warm, granny," said Yergunov.
" I was driving to the hospital, and I have lost my
way. It's such weather, God preserve us. Don't
be afraid; we are your own people, granny."

" All my own people are at home, and we didn't
invite strangers," said the figure _grimly^ "And
what are you knocking for ? The gate is not
locked."

Yergunov drove into the yard and stopped at the
steps.

" Bid your labourer take my horse out, granny,"
said he.

" I am not granny."

And indeed she was not a granny. While she
was putting out the lantern the light fell on her
face, and Yergunov saw black eyebrows, and
recognized Lyubka.

" There are no labourers about now," she said
as she went into theTTTouseT " Some are drunk and
asleep, and some have been gone to Ryepino since
the morning. It's a holiday. . . ."

As he fastened his horse up in the shed, Yergunov
heard a neigh, and distinguished in the darkness
another horse, and felt on it a Cossack saddle.
So there must be someone else in the house besides
the woman and her daughter. For greater security
Yergunov unsaddled his horse, and when he went
into the house, took with him both his purchases
and his saddle.

The first room into which he went was large and
very hot, and smelt of freshly washed floors. A
short, lean peasant of about forty, with a small,
fair beard, wearing a dark blue shirt, was sitting at

6 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

the table under the holy images. It was Kalashni-
kov, an arrant scoundrel and horse-stealer, whose
father and uncle kept a tavern in Bogalyovka,
and disposed of the stolen horses where they could.
He too had been to the hospital more than once, not
for medical treatment, but to see the doctor about
horses — to ask whether he had not one for sale,
and whether his honour would not like to swop
his bay mare for a dun-coloured gelding. Now
his head was pomaded and a silver ear-ring glittered
in his ear, and altogether he had a holiday air.
Frowning and dropping his lower lip, he was look
ing intently at a big dog's-eared picture-book.
Another peasant lay stretched on the floor near the
stove; his head, his shoulders, and his chest were
covered with a sheepskin — he was probably asleep ;
beside his new boots, with shining bits of metal
on the heels, there were two dark pools of melted
snow.

Seeing the hospital assistant, Kalashnikov
greeted him.

" Yes, it is weather," said Yergunov, rubbing his
chilled knees with his open hands. " The snow
is up to one's neck ; I am soaked to the skin, I can
tell you. And I believe my revolver is, too. . . ."

He took out his revolver, looked it all over, and
put it back in his knapsack. But the revolver
made no impression at all; the peasant went on
looking at the book.

' Yes, it is weather. ... I lost my way, and
if it had not been for the dogs here, I do believe it
would have been my death. There would have
been a nice to-do. And where are the women ?"

THE HORSE-STEALERS 7

" The old woman has gone to Ryepino, and the
girl is getting supper ready ..." answered
Kalashnikov.

Silence followed. Yergunov, shivering and
gasping, breathed on his hands, huddled up, and
made a show of being very cold and exhausted.
The still angry dogs could be heard howling out
side. It was dreary.

" You come from Bogalyovka, don't you ?" he
asked the peasant sternly.

" Yes, from Bogalyovka."

And to while away the tune Yergunov began to
think about Bogalyovka. It was a big village
and it lay in a deep ravine, so that when one drove
along the highroad on a moonlight night, and
looked down into the dark ravine and then up at
the sky, it seemed as though the moon were hanging
over a bottomless abyss and it were the end of the
world. The path going down was steep, winding,
and so narrow that when one drove down to
Bogalyovka on account of some epidemic or to
vaccinate the people, one had to shout at the top
of one's voice, or whistle all the way, for if one met
a cart coming up one could not pass. The peasants
of Bogalyovka had the reputation of being good
gardeners and horse-stealers. They had well-
stocked gardens. In spring the whole village was
buried in white cherry-blossom, and in the summer
they sold cherries at three kopecks a pail. One
could pay three kopecks and pick as one liked.
Their women were handsome and looked well-fed,
they were fond of finery, and never did anything
even on working-days, but spent all their time

8 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

sitting on the ledge in front of their houses and
searching in each other's heads.

But at last there was the sound of footsteps.
Lyubka, a girl of twenty, with bare feet and a red
dress, came into the room. . . . She looked side
ways at Yergunov and walked twice from one end
of the room to the other. She did not move simply,
but with tiny steps, thrusting forward her bosom ;
evidently she enjoyed padding about with her bare
feet on the freshly washed floor, and had taken off
her shoes on purpose.

Kalashnikov laughed at something and beckoned
her with his finger. She went up to the table, and
he showed her a picture of the Prophet Elijah,
who, driving three horses abreast, was dashing up
to the sky. Lyubka put her elbow on the table;
her plait fell across her shoulder — a long chestnut
plait tied with red ribbon at the end — and it almost
touched the floor. She, too, smiled.
, "A splendid, wonderful picture," said Kalashni-
Jkov. " Wonderful," he repeated, and motioned
with his hand as though he wanted to take the reins '
instead of Elijah.

The wind howled in the stove; something
growled and squeaked as though a big dog had
strangled a rat.

"Ugh! the unclean spirits are abroad!" said
Lyubka.

" That's the wind," said Kalashnikov; and after
a pause he raised his eyes to Yergunov and asked :
" And what is your learned opinion, Osip Vas-
silyitch — are there devils in this world or not ?"

" What's one to say, brother ?" said Yergunov,

THE HORSE-STEALERS 9

and he shrugged one shoulder. "If one reasons
from science, of course there are no devils, for it's
a superstition ; but if one looks at it simply, as you
and I do now, there are devils, to put it shortly.
... I have seen a great deal in my life. . . .
When I finished my studies I served as medical
assistant in the army in a regiment of the dragoons,
and I have been in the war, of course. I have a
medal and a decoration from the Red Cross, but
.after the treaty of San Stefano I returned to Russia
land went into the service of the Zemstvo. And in
jconsequence of my enormous circulation about the
world, I may say I have seen more than many
another has dreamed of. It has happened to me
to see devils, too ; that is, not devils with horns and
a tail — that is all nonsense — but just, to speak
precisely, something of the sort."

" Where ?" asked Kalashnikov.

" In various places. There is no need to go far.
Last year I met him here — speak of him not at
night — near this very inn. I was driving, I re
member, to Golyshino; I was going there to vac
cinate. Of course, as usual, I had the racing
droshky and a horse, and all the necessary para
phernalia, and, what's more, I had a watch and all
the rest of it, so I was on my guard as I drove
along, for fear of some mischance. There are lots
of tramps of all sorts. I came up to the Zmeinoy
Ravine—damnation take it — and was just going
down it, when all at once somebody comes up to
me — such a fellow ! Black hair, black eyes, and
his whole face looked smutted with soot. ... He
comes straight up to the horse and takes hold of

10

the left rein : ' Stop !' He looked at the horse, then
at me, then dropped the reins, and without saying
a bad word, ' Where are you going ?' says he. And
he showed his teeth in a grin, and his eyes were
spiteful-looking. . . . 'Ah,' thought I, 'you are
a queer customer !' 'I am going to vaccinate for
the smallpox,' said I . ' And what is that to you ?'
' Well, if that's so,' says he, ' vaccinate me.' He
bared his arm and thrust it under my nose. Of
course, I did not bandy words with him; I
just vaccinated him to get rid of him. After
wards I looked at my lancet and it had gone
rusty."

The peasant who was asleep near the stove
suddenly turned over and flung off the sheepskin;
to his great surprise, Yergunov recognized the
stranger he had met that day at Zmeinoy Ravine.
This peasant's hair, beard, and eyes were black as
soot; his face was swarthy; and, to add to the effect,
there was a black spot the size of a lentil on his
right cheek. He looked mockingly at the hospital
assistant and said:

" I did take hold of the left rein — that was so;
but about the smallpox you are lying, sir. And
there was not a word said about the smallpox
between us."

Yergunov was disconcerted.

"I'm not talking about you," he said. " Lie
down, since you are lying down."

The dark-skinned peasant had never been to the
hospital, and Yergunov did not know who he was
or where he came from ; and now, looking at him, he
made up his mind that the man must be a gypsy.

THE HORSE- STEALERS n

The peasant got up, and, stretching and yawning
loudly, went up to Lyubka and Kalashnikov, and
sat down beside them, and he, too, began looking
at the book. His sleepy face softened, and a look
of envy came into it.

" Look, Merik," Lyubka said to him; " get me
such horses and I will drive to heaven."

" Sinners can't drive to heaven," said Kalashni-
kov7 r> That's for holiness."

Then Lyubka laid the table and brought in a big
piece of fat bacon, salted cucumbers, a wooden
platter of boiled meat cut up into little pieces, then
a frying-pan, in which there were sausages and
cabbage spluttering. A cut-glass decanter of
vodka, which diffused a smell of orange-peel all
over the room when it was poured out, was put
on the table also.

Yergunov was annoyed that Kalashnikov and the
dark fellow Merik talked together and took no notice
of him at all, behaving exactly as though he were
not in the room. And he wanted to talk to them,
to brag, to drink, to have a good meal, and if
possible to have a little fun with Lyubka, who sat
down near him half a dozen times while they were
at supper, and, as though by accident, brushed
against him with her handsome shoulders and
passed her hands over her broad hips. She was
a healthy, active girl, always laughing and never
still : she would sit down, then get up, and when she
was sitting down she would keep turning first her
face and then her back to her neighbour, like a
fidgety child, and never failed to brush against
him with her elbows or her knees.

12 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

And he was displeased, too, that the peasants
drank only a glass each and no more, and it was
awkward for him to drink alone. But he could not
refrain from taking a second glass, all the same,
then a third, and he ate all the sausage. He
brought himself to flatter the peasants, that they
might accept him as one of the party instead of
holding him at arm's length.

" You are a fine set of fellows in Bogalyovka !"
he said, and wagged his head.

" In what way fine fellows ?" enquired Kalashni-
kov.

" Why, about horses, for instance. Fine fellows
at stealing !"

" H'm ! fine fellows, you call them. Nothing but
thieves and drunkards."

" They have had their day, but it is over," said
Merik, after a pause. " But now they have only
Filya left, and he is blind."

" Yes, there is no one but Filya," said Kalashni-
kov, with a sigh. " Reckon it up, he must be
seventy; the German settlers knocked out one of
his eyes, and he does not see well with the other.
It is cataract. In old days the police officer would
shout as soon as he saw him: ' Hey, you Shamil !'
and all the peasants called him that — he was
Shamil all over the place; and now his only name
is One-eyed Filya. But he was a fine fellow !
Lyuba's father, Andrey Grigoritch, and he stole
one night into Rozhnovo — there were cavalry
regiments stationed there — and carried off nine of
the soldiers' horses, the very best of them. They
weren't frightened of the sentry, and in the morning

THE HORSE-STEALERS 13

they sold all the horses for twenty roubles to the
gypsy Afonka. Yes ! But nowadays a man con
trives to carry off a horse whose rider is drunk or
I asleep, and has no fear of God, but will take the
very boots from a drunkard, and then slinks off
and goes away a hundred and fifty miles with a
horse, and haggles at the market, haggles like a
J ew, till the policeman catches him , the fool . There
is no fun in it ; it is simply a disgrace ! A paltry
set of people, I must say."

" What about Merik ?" asked Lyubka.

" Merik is not one of us," said Kalashnikov.
" He is a Harkov man from Mizhiritch. But that
he is a bold fellow, that's the truth; there's no
gainsaying that he is a fine fellow."

Lyubka looked slily and gleefully at Merik, and
said:

" It wasn't for nothing they dipped him in a
hole in the ice."

" How was that ?" asked Yergunov.

"It was like this ..." said Merik, and he
laughed. " Filya carried off three horses from the
Samoylenka tenants, and they pitched upon me.
There were ten of the tenants at Samoylenka, and
with their labourers there were thirty altogether,
and all of them Molokans. ... So one of them
says to me at the market : ' Come and have a look,
Merik ; we have brought some new horses from the
fair.' I was interested, of course. I went up to
them, and the whole lot of them, thirty men, tied
my hands behind me and led me to the river.
' We'll show you fine horses,' they said. One hole
in the ice was there already; they cut another

14 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

beside it seven feet away. Then, to be sure, they
took a cord and put a noose under my armpits, and
tied a crooked stick to the other end, long enough
to reach both holes. They thrust the stick in and
dragged it through. I went plop into the ice-hole
just as I was, in my fur coat and my high
boots, while they stood and shoved me, one
with his foot and one with his stick, then dragged
me under the ice and pulled me out of the other
hole."

Lyubka shuddered and shrugged.

" At first I was in a fever from the cold," Merik
went on, " but when they pulled me out I was
helpless, and lay in the snow, and the Molokans
stood round and hit me with sticks on my knees and
my elbows. It hurt fearfully. They beat me and
they went away . . . and everything on me was
frozen, my clothes were covered with ice. I got up,
but I couldn't move. Thank God, a woman drove
by and gave me a lift."

Meanwhile Yergunov had drunk five or six glasses
of vodka; his heart felt lighter, and he longed to tell
some extraordinary, wonderful story too, and to
show that he, too, was a bold fellow and not afraid
of anything.

"I'll tell you what happened to us in Penza
Province . . ." he began.

Either because he had drunk a great deal and
was a little tipsy, or perhaps because he had
twice been detected in a lie, the peasants took not
the slightest notice of him, and even left off
answering his questions. What was worse, they
permitted themselves a frankness in his presence

THE HORSE-STEALERS 15

.that made him feel uncomfortable and cold all
lover, and that meant that they took no notice
' of him.

Kalashnikov had the dignified manners of a
sedate and sensible man; he spoke weightily, and
made the sign of the cross over his mouth every
time he yawned, and no one could have supposed
that this was a thief, a heartless thief who had
stripped poor creatures, who had already been
twice in prison, and who had been sentenced by the
commune to exile in Siberia, and had been bought
off by his father and uncle, who were as great
thieves and rogues as he was. Merik gave himself
the airs of a bravo. He saw that Lyubka and
Kalashnikov were admiring him, and looked upon
himself as a very fine fellow, and put his arms
akimbo, squared his chest, or stretched so that the
bench creaked under him. . . .

After supper Kalashnikov prayed to the holy
image without getting up from his seat, and shook
hands with Merik; the latter prayed too, and shook
Kalashnikov's hand. Lyubka cleared away the
supper, shook out on the table some peppermint
biscuits, dried nuts, and pumpkin seeds, and
placed two bottles of sweet wine.

" The kingdom of heaven and peace everlasting
to Andrey Grigoritch," said Kalashnikov, clinking
glasses with Merik. " When he was alive we used
to gather together here or at his brother Martin's,
and — my word ! my word ! what men, what talks !
Remarkable conversations ! Martin used to be
her.e, and Filya, and Fyodor Stukotey. ... It
was all done in style, it was all in keeping. . . .

16 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

And what fun we had ! We did have fun, we did
have fun !"

Lyubka went out and soon afterwards came back
wearing a green kerchief and beads.

" Look, Merik, what Kalashnikov brought me
to-day," she said.

She looked at herself in the looking-glass, and
tossed her head several times to make the beads
jingle. And then she opened a chest and began
taking out, first, a cotton dress with red and blue
flowers on it, and then a red one with flounces
which rustled and crackled like paper, then a new
kerchief, dark blue, shot with many colours — and
all these things she showed and flung up her hands,
laughing as though astonished that she had such
treasures.

Kalashnikov tuned the balalaika and began
playing it, but Yergunov could not make out what
sort of song he was singing, and whether it was
gay or melancholy, because at one moment it was
so mournful he wanted to cry, and at the next it
would be merry. Merik suddenly jumped up and
began tapping with his heels on the same spot, then,
brandishing his arms, he moved on his heels from the
table to the stove, from the stove to the chest, then
he bounded up as though he had been stung, clicked
the heels of his boots together in the air, and began
going round and round in a crouching position.
Lyubka waved both her arms, uttered a desperate
shriek, and followed him. At first she moved
sideways, like a snake, as though she wanted to
steal up to someone and strike him from behind.
She tapped rapidly with her bare heels as Merik

THE HORSE-STEALERS 17

had done with the heels of his boots, then she
turned round and round like a top and crouched
down, and her red dress was blown out like a bell.
Merik, looking angrily at her, and showing his
teeth in a grin, flew towards her in the same
crouching posture as though he wanted to crush
her with his terrible legs, while she jumped up,
flung back her head, and waving her arms as a big
bird does its wings, floated across the room scarcely
touching the floor. . . .

" What a flame of a girl !" thought Yergunov,
sitting on the chest, and from there watching the
dance. " What fire ! Give up everything for her,
and it would be too little. ..."

And he regretted that he was a hospital assis
tant, and not a simple peasant, that he wore a
reefer coat and a chain with a gilt key on it instead
of a blue shirt with a cord tied round the waist.
Then he could boldly have sung, danced, flung
both arms round Lyubka as Merik did. . . .

The sharp tapping, shouts, and whoops set the
crockery ringing in the cupboard and the flame of
the candle dancing.

The thread broke and the beads were scattered
all over the floor, the green kerchief slipped off,
and Lyubka was transformed into a red cloud
flitting by and flashing black eyes, and it seemed
as though in another second Merik' s arms and legs
would drop off.

But finally Merik stamped for the last time, and
stood still as though turned to stone. Exhausted
and almost breathless, Lyubka sank on to his
bosom and leaned against him as against a post,

i8 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

and he put his arms round her, and looking into
her eyes, said tenderly and caressingly, as though
in jest:

"I'll find out where your old mother's money is
hidden, I'll murder her and cut your little throat
for you, and after that I will set fire to the inn.
. . . People will think you have perished in the
fire, and with your money I shall go to Kuban.
I'll keep droves of horses and flocks of sheep. ..."

Lyubka made no answer, but only looked at him
with a guilty air, and asked :

" And is it nice in Kuban, Merik ?"

He said nothing, but went to the chest, sat down,
and sank into thought ; most likely he was dream
ing of Kuban.

" It's time for me to be going," said Kalashnikov,
getting up. " Filya must be waiting for me.
Good-bye, Lyuba."

Yergunov went out into the yard to see that
Kalashnikov did not go off with his horse. The
snow-storm still persisted. White clouds were
floating about the yard, their long tails clinging to
the rough grass and the bushes, while on the other
side of the fence in the open country huge giants
in white robes with wide sleeves were whirling
round and falling to the ground, and getting up
again to wave their arms and fight. And the wind,
the wind ! The bare birches and cherry-trees,
unable to endure its rude caresses, bowed low
down to the ground and wailed: " God, for what
sin hast Thou bound us to the earth and will not
let us go free ?"

" Wo !" said Kalashnikov sternly, and he got

THE HORSE-STEALERS 19

on his horse; one half of the gate was opened, and
by it lay a high snowdrift. "Well, get on!"
shouted Kalashnikov. His little short-legged nag
set off, and sank up to its stomach in the drift at
once. Kalashnikov was white all over with the
snow, and soon vanished from sight with his horse.

When Yergunov went back into the room,
Lyubka was creeping about the floor picking up
her beads; Merik was not there.

" A splendid girl !" thought Yergunov, as he lay
down on the bench and put his coat under his head.
" Oh, if only Merik were not here." Lyubka
excited him as she crept about the floor by the
bench, and he thought that if Merik had not been
there he would certainly have got up and embraced
her, and then one would see what would happen.
It was true she was only a girl, but not likely to be
chaste; and even if she were — need one stand on
ceremony in a den of thieves ? Lyubka collected
her beads and went out. The candle burnt down
and the flame caught the paper in the candlestick.
Yergunov laid his revolver and matches beside
him, and put out the candle. The light before the
holy images flickered so much that it hurt his eyes,
and patches of light danced on the ceiling, on the
floor, and on the cupboard, and among them he
had visions of Lyubka, buxom, full-bosomed: now
she was turning round like a top, now she was
exhausted and breathless. . . .

" Oh, if the devils would carry off that Merik,"
he thought.

The little lamp gave a last flicker, spluttered,
and went out. Someone, it must have been Merik,

20 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

came into the room and sat down on the bench.
He puffed at his pipe, and for an instant lighted
up a dark cheek with a patch on it. Yergunov's
throat was irritated by the horrible fumes of the
tobacco smoke.

" What filthy tobacco you have got — damnation
take it !" said Yergunov. " It makes me posi
tively sick."

" I mix my tobacco with the flowers of the oats,"
answered Merik after a pause. "It is better for
the chest."

He smoked, spat, and went out again. Half an
hour passed, and all at once there was the gleam
of a light in the passage. Merik appeared in a
coat and cap, then Lyubka with a candle in her
hand.

" Do stay, Merik," said Lyubka in an imploring
voice.

" No, Lyuba, don't keep me."

" Listen, Merik," said Lyubka, and her voice
grew soft and tender. " I know you will find
mother's money, and will do for her and for me,
and will go to Kuban and love other girls; but
God be with you. I only ask you one thing,
sweetheart: do stay !"

" No, I want some fun ..." said Merik,
fastening his belt.

" But you have nothing to go on. . . . You
came on foot; what are you going on ?"

Merik bent down to Lyubka and whispered some
thing in her ear; she looked towards the door and
laughed through her tears.

" He is asleep, the puffed-up devil ..." she said

THE HORSE-STEALERS 21

Merik embraced her, kissed her vigorously, and
went out. Yergunov thrust his revolver into his
pocket, jumped up, and ran after him.

" Get out of the way !" he said to Lyubka, who
hurriedly bolted the door of the entry and stood
across the threshold. " Let me pass ! Why are
you standing here ?"

" What do you want to go out for ?"

" To have a look at my horse."

Lyubka gazed up at him with a sly and caressing
look.

" Why look at it ? You had better look at
me ..." she said, then she bent down and
touched with her finger the gilt watch-key that
hung on his chain.

" Let me pass, or he will go off on my horse,"
said Yergunov. " Let me go, you devil !" he
shouted, and giving her an angry blow on the
shoulder, he pressed his chest against her with
all his might to push her away from the door,
but she kept tight hold of the bolt, and was like
iron.

" Let me go !" he shouted, exhausted; " he will
go off with it, I tell you."

" Why should he ? He won't." Breathing
hard and rubbing her shoulder, which hurt, she
looked up at him again, flushed a little and
laughed. " Don't go away, dear heart," she said;
" I am dull alone."

Yergunov looked into her eyes, hesitated, and
put his arms round her; she did not resist.

" Come, no nonsense; let me go," he begged her.
She did not speak.

22 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" I heard you just now," he said, " telling Merik
that you love him."

" I dare say. . . . My heart knows who it is I
love."

She put her finger on the key again, and said
softly: " Give me that."

Yergunov unfastened the key and gave it to her.
She suddenly craned her neck and listened with a
grave face, and her expression struck Yergunov
as cold and cunning; he thought of his horse, and
now easily pushed her aside and ran out into the
yard. In the shed a sleepy pig was grunting with
lazy regularity and a cow was knocking her horn.
Yergunov lighted a match and saw the pig, and
the cow, and the dogs, which rushed at him on all
sides at seeing the light, but there was no trace
of the horse. Shouting and waving his arms at
the dogs, stumbling over the drifts and sticking
in the snow, he ran out at the gate and fell to
gazing into the darkness. He strained his eyes to
the utmost, and saw only the snow flying and the
snowflakes distinctly forming into all sorts of
shapes: at one moment the white, laughing face
of a corpse would peep out of the darkness, at the
next a white horse would gallop by with an Amazon
in a muslin dress upon it, at the next a string of
white swans would fly overhead. . . . Shaking
with anger and cold, and not knowing what to do,
Yergunov fired his revolver at the dogs, and did
not hit one of them; then he rushed back to the
house.

When he went into the entry he distinctly heard
someone scurry out of the room and bang the door

THE HORSE- STEALERS 23

1 1 was dark in the room . Yerguno v pushed against
the door; it was locked. Then, lighting match
after match, he rushed back into the entry, from
there into the kitchen, and from the kitchen into
a little room where all the walls were hung with
petticoats and dresses, where there was a smell of
cornflowers and fennel, and a bedstead with a
perfect mountain of pillows, standing in the corner
by the stove; this must have been the old mother's
room. From there he passed into another little
room, and here he saw Lyubka. She was lying on
a chest, covered with a gay-coloured patchwork
cotton quilt, pretending to be asleep. A little
ikon-lamp was burning in the corner above the
pillow.

" Where is my horse ?" Yergunov asked.

Lyubka did not stir.

" Where is my horse, I am asking you ?"
Yergunov repeated still more sternly, and he tore
the quilt off her. " I am asking you, she-devil !"
he shouted.

She jumped up on her knees, and with one hand
holding her shift and with the other trying to
clutch the quilt, huddled against the wall. . . .
She looked at Yergunov with repulsion and terror
in her eyes, and, like a wild beast in a trap, kept
cunning watch on his faintest movement.

" Tell me where my horse is, or I'll knock the
life out of you," shouted Yergunov.

" Get away, dirty brute !" she said in a hoarse
voice .

Yergunov seized her by the shift near the neck
and tore it. And then he could not restrain him-

24 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

self, and with all his might embraced the girl. But
hissing with fury, she slipped out of his arms, and
freeing one hand — the other was tangled in the torn
shift — hit him a blow with her fist on the skull.

His head was dizzy with the pain, there was a
ringing and rattling in his ears, he staggered back,
and at that moment received another blow — this
time on the temple. Reeling and clutching at the
door-posts, that he might not fall, he made his way
to the room where his things were, and lay down on
the bench; then after lying for a little time, took
the matchbox out of his pocket and began lighting
fmatch after match for no object: he lit it, blew it
out, and threw it under the table, and went on till
', all the matches were gone.

Meanwhile the air began to turn blue outside,
the cocks began to crow, but his head still ached,
and there was an uproar in his ears as though he
were sitting under a railway bridge and hearing
the trains passing over his head. He got, some
how, into his coat and cap; the saddle and the
bundle of his purchases he could not find, his
knapsack was empty: it was not for nothing that
someone had scurried out of the room when he
came in from the yard.

He took a poker from the kitchen to keep off the
dogs, and went out into the yard, leaving the door
open. The snow-storm had subsided and it was
calm outside. . . . When he went out at the gate,

7 the white plain looked dead, and there was not a
single bird in the morning sky. On both sides of
the road and in the distance there were bluish
patches of young copse.

THE HORSE-STEALERS 25

Yergunov began thinking how he would be
greeted at the hospital and what the doctor would
say to him ; it was absolutely necessary to think of
that, and to prepare beforehand to answer questions
he would be asked, but this thought grew blurred
and slipped away. He walked along thinking of
nothing but Lyubka, of the peasants with whom
he had passed the night; he remembered how,
after Lyubka struck him the second time, she had
bent down to the floor for the quilt, and how her
loose hair had fallen on the floor. His mind was
In a maze, and he wondered why there were in
jthe world doctors, hospital assistants, merchants,
plerks, and peasants instead of simply free men ?
There are, to be sure, free birds, free beasts, a free
Merik, and they are not afraid of anyone, and don't
need anyone ! And whose idea was it, who had
decreed that one must get up in the morning, dine
at midday, go to bed in the evening ; that a doctor
takes precedence of a hospital assistant; that one
must live in rooms and love only one's wife ? And
why not the contrary — dine at night and sleep in
the day ? Ah, to jump on a horse without en
quiring whose it is, to ride races with the wind like
a devil, over fields and forests and ravines, to make
love to girls, to mock at everyone. . . .

Yergunov thrust the poker into the snow, pressed
his forehead to the cold white trunk of a birch-tree,
and sank into thought ; and his grey, monotonous
ilife, his wages, his subordinate position, the dis-
Vpensary, the everlasting to-do with the bottles and
blisters, struck him as contemptible, sickening.
I " Who says it's a sin to enjoy oneself ?" he asked

26 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

himself with vexation. " Those who say that
have never lived in freedom like Merik and Kalash-
nikov, and have never loved Lyubka ; they have
been beggars all their lives, have lived without any
pleasure, and have only loved their wives, who are
like frogs."

And he thought about himself that he had not
hitherto been a thief, a swindler, or even a brigand,
simply because he could not, or had not yet met with
a suitable opportunity.

A year and a half passed. In spring, after
Easter, Yergunov, who had long before been dis
missed from the hospital and was hanging about
without a job, came out of the tavern in Ryepino
and sauntered aimlessly along the street.

He went out into the open country. Here there
was the scent of spring, and a warm, caressing wind
was blowing. The calm, starry night looked down
from the sky on the earth. My God, how infinite
the depth of the sky, and with what fathomless
immensity it stretched over the world ! The world
is created well enough, only why and with what
right do people, thought Yergunov, divide their
fellows into the sober and the drunken, the em
ployed and the dismissed, and so on ? Why do the
sober and well-fed sleep comfortably in their homes
while the drunken and the hungry must wander
about the country without a refuge ? Why was it
that if anyone had not a job and did not get a
salary he had to go hungry, without clothes and
boots ? Whose idea was it ? Why was it the

THE HORSE-STEALERS 27

birds and the wild beasts in the woods did not have
jobs and get salaries, but lived as they pleased ?

Far away in the sky a beautiful crimson glow
lay quivering, stretched wide over the horizon.
Yergunov stopped, and for a long time he gazed
at it, and kept wondering why was it that if he had
carried off someone else's samovar the day before
and sold it for drink in the taverns it would be a sin ?
Why was it ?

Two carts drove by on the road ; in one of them
there was a woman asleep, in the other sat an old
man without a cap on. ...

" Grandfather, where is that fire ?" asked
Yergunov.

" Andrey Tchirikov's inn," answered the old
man.

And Yergunov recalled what had happened to
him eighteen months before in the winter, in that
very inn, and how Merik had boasted; and he
imagined the old woman and Lyubka, with their
throats cut, burning, and he envied Merik. And
when he walked back to the tavern, looking at the
houses of the rich publicans, cattle-dealers, and
blacksmiths, he reflected how nice it would be to
steal by night into some rich man's house !

WARD NO. 6

WARD NO. 6

I.

IN the hospital yard there stands a small lodge
surrounded by a perfect forest of burdocks, nettles,
and wild hemp. Its roof is rusty, the chimney is
tumbling down, the steps at the front-door are
rotting away and overgrown with grass, and there
are only traces left of the stucco. The front of the
lodge faces the hospital; at the back it looks out
into the open country, from which it is separated by
the grey hospital fence with nails on it. These
nails, with their points upwards, and the fence, and
the lodge itself, have that peculiar, desolate, God
forsaken look which is only found in our hospital
and prison buildings.

If you are not afraid of being stung by the
nettles, come by the narrow footpath that leads
to the lodge, and let us see what is going on inside.
Opening the first door, we walk into the entry.
Here along the walls and by the stove every
sort of hospital rubbish lies littered about. Mat
tresses, old tattered dressing-gowns, trousers, blue
striped shirts, boots and shoes no good for any
thing — all these remnants are piled up in heaps,
mixed up and crumpled, mouldering and giving
out a sickly smell.

31

32 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

The porter, Nikita, an old soldier wearing rusty
good-conduct stripes, is always lying on the litter
with a pipe between his teeth. He has a grim,
surly, battered-looking face, overhanging eyebrows
which give him the expression of a sheep-dog
of the steppes, and a red nose; he is short and
looks thin and scraggy, but he is of imposing
deportment and his fists are vigorous. He belongs
to the class of simple-hearted, practical, and dull-
witted people, prompt in carrying out orders, who
like discipline better than anything in the world,
and so are convinced that it is their duty to beat
people. He showers blows on the face, on the
chest, on the back, on whatever comes first, and
is convinced that there would be no order in the
place if he did not .

Next you come into a big, spacious room which
fills up the whole lodge except for the entry. Here
the walls are painted a dirty blue, the ceiling is as
sooty as in a hut without a chimney — it is evident
that in the winter the stove smokes and the room
is full of fumes. The windows are disfigured by
iron gratings on the inside. The wooden floor is
grey and full of splinters. There is a stench of
sour cabbage, of smouldering wicks, of bugs, and
of ammonia, and for the first minute this stench
gives you the impression of having walked into a
menagerie. . . .

There are bedsteads screwed to the floor. Men
in blue hospital dressing-gowns, and wearing night
caps in the old style, are sitting and lying on them .
These are the lunatics.

There are five of them in all here. Only one is

WARD NO. 6 33

of ths upper class, the rest are all artisans. The
one nearest the door — a tall, lean workman with
shining red whiskers and tear-stained eyes — sits
with his head propped on his hand, staring at the
same point. Day and night he grieves, shaking
his head, sighing and smiling bitterly. He
rarely takes a part in conversation and usually
makes no answer to questions; he eats and drinks
mechanically when food is offered him. From his
agonizing, throbbing cough, his thinness, and the
flush on his cheeks, one may judge that he is in
the first stage of consumption. Next him is a
little, alert, very lively old man, with a pointed
beard and curly black hair like a negro's. By day
he walks up and down the ward from window to
window, or sits on his bed, cross-legged like a Turk,
and, ceaselessly as a bullfinch whistles, softly sings
and titters. He shows his childish gaiety and
lively character at night also when he gets up to
say his prayers — that is, to beat himself on the
chest with his fists, and to scratch with his fingers
at the door. This is the Jew Moiseika, an imbecile,
who went crazy twenty years ago when his hat
factory was burnt down.

And of all the inhabitants of Ward No. 6, he is
the only one who is allowed to go out of the lodge,
and even out of the yard into the street. He
has enjoyed this privilege for years, probably
because he is an old inhabitant of the hospital —
a quiet, harmless imbecile, the buffoon of the town,
where people are used to seeing him surrounded
by boys and dogs. In his wretched gown, in his
absurd night-cap, and in slippers, sometimes with

x- 3

34 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

bare legs and even without trousers, he walks
about the streets, stopping at the gates and little
shops, and begging for a copper. In one 'place
they will give him some kvass, in another some
bread, in another a copper, so that he generally
goes back to the ward feeling rich and well-fed.
Everything that he brings back Nikita takes from
him for his own benefit. The soldier does this
roughly, angrily turning the Jew's pockets inside
out, and calling God to witness that he will not
let him go into the street again, and that breach
of the regulations is worse to him than anything
in the world.

Moiseika likes to make himself useful. He gives
his companions water, and covers them up when
they are asleep ; he promises each of them to bring
him back a kopeck, and to make him a new cap;
he feeds with a spoon his neighbour on the left, who
is paralyzed. He acts in this way, not from com
passion nor from any considerations of a humane
kind, but through imitation, unconsciously domi
nated by Gromov, his neighbour on the right hand.

Ivan Dmitritch Gromov, a man of thirty-three,
who is a gentleman by birth, and has been a
court usher and provincial secretary, suffers from
the mania of persecution. He either lies curled
up in bed or walks from corner to corner as
though for exercise; he very rarely sits down.
He is always excited, agitated, and overwrought
by a sort of vague, undefined expectation. The
faintest rustle in the entry or shout in the yard
is enough to make him raise' his head and begin
listening: whether they are coming for him,

WARD NO. 6 35

whether they are looking for him. And at such
times his face expresses the utmost uneasiness and
repulsion.

/ I like his broad face with its high cheek-bones,
/always pale and unhappy, and reflecting, as
' though in a mirror, a soul tormented by conflict
and long-continued terror. His grimaces are
strange and abnormal, but the delicate lines traced
on his face by profound, genuine suffering show
intelligence and sense, and there is a warm and
healthy light in his eyes. I like the man himself
courteous, anxious to be of use, and extraordinarily
gentle to everyone except Nikita. When anyone
drops a button or a spoon, he jumps up from his
bed quickly and picks it up; every day he says
good-morning to his companions, and when he
goes to bed he wishes them good-night.

Besides his continually overwrought condition
and his grimaces, his madness shows itself in the
following way also. Sometimes in the evenings he
wraps himself in his dressing-gown, and, trembling
all over, with his teeth chattering, begins walking
rapidly from corner to corner and between the
bedsteads. It seems as though he is in a
violent fever. From the way he suddenly stops
and glances at his companions, it can be seen
that he is longing to say something very im
portant, but, apparently reflecting that they
would not listen or would not understand
him, he shakes his head impatiently and goes
on pacing up and down. But soon the desire
to speak gets the upper hand of every con
sideration, and he will let himself go and speak

36 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

fervently and passionately. His talk is disordered
and feverish like delirium, disconnected, and not
always intelligible, but, on the other hand, some
thing extremely fine may be felt in it, both in the
words and the voice. When he talks you recognize
in him the lunatic and the man. It is difficult to
reproduce on paper his insane talk. He speaks
of the baseness of mankind, of violence trampling
on justice, of the glorious life which will one day
be upon earth, of the window-gratings, which
remind him every minute of the stupidity and
cruelty of oppressors. It makes a disorderly,
incoherent potpourri of themes old but not yet
out of date.

II.

Some twelve or fifteen years ago an official
called Gromov, a highly respectable and prosperous
person, was living in his own house in the principal
street of the town. He had two sons, Sergey and
Ivan. When Sergey was a student in his fourth
year he was taken ill with galloping consumption
and died, and his death was, as it were, the first
of a whole series of calamities which suddenly
showered on the Gromov family. Within a week
of Sergey's funeral the old father was put on his
trial for fraud and misappropriation, and he died
of typhoid in the prison hospital soon afterwards.
The house, with all their belongings, was sold by
auction, and Ivan Dmitritch and his mother were
left entirely without means.

Hitherto, in his father's lifetime, Ivan Dmitritch,
who was studying in the University of Petersburg,

WARD NO. 6 37

had received an allowance of sixty or seventy
roubles a month, and had had no conception of
poverty ; now he had to make an abrupt change in
his life. He had to spend his time from morning to
night giving lessons for next to nothing, to work
at copying, and with all that to go hungry, as all
his earnings were sent to keep his mother. Ivan
Dmitritch could not stand such a life ; he lost heart
and strength, and, giving up the university, went
home.

Here, through interest, he obtained the post of
teacher in the district school, but could not get
on with his colleagues, was not liked by the boys,
and soon gave up the post. His mother died. He
was for six months without work, living on nothing
but bread and water; then he became a court
usher. He kept this post until he was dismissed
owing to his illness.

He had never even in his young student days'
given the impression of being perfectly healthy
He had always been pale, thin, and given tc
catching cold; he ate little and slept badly. A
single glass of wine went to his head and made
him hysterical. He always had a craving for
society, but, owing to his irritable temperament
and suspiciousness, he never became very intimate
with anyone, and had no friends. He always
spoke with contempt of his fellow-townsmen,
saying that their coarse ignorance and sleepy
animal existence seemed to him loathsome and
horrible. He spoke in a loud tenor, with heat, and
invariably either with scorn and indignation, or with
wonder and enthusiasm, and always with perfect

38 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

sincerity. Whatever one talked to him about
he always brought it round to the same subject:
that life was dull and stifling in the town; that
the townspeople had no lofty interests, but lived
a dingy, meaningless life, diversified by violence,
coarse profligacy, and hypocrisy; that scoundrels
were well fed and clothed, while honest men lived
from hand to mouth; that they needed schools, a
progressive local paper, a theatre, public lectures,
the co-ordination of the intellectual elements ; that
society must see its failings and be horrified. In
his criticisms of people he laid on the colours
thick, using only black and white, and no
fine shades; mankind was divided for him into
honest men and scoundrels : there was nothing in
between. He always spoke with passion and
enthusiasm of women and of love, but he had never
been in love.

In spite of the severity of his judgments and his
nervousness, he was liked, and behind his back
was spoken of affectionately as Vanya. His innate
refinement and readiness to be of service, his good
breeding, his moral purity, and his shabby coat,
his frail appearance and family misfortunes,
aroused a kind, warm, sorrowful feeling. More
over, he was well educated and well read ; accord
ing to the townspeople's notions, he knew every
thing, and was in their eyes something like a
walking encyclopsedia.

He had read a great deal. He would sit at the
club, nervously pulling at his beard and looking
through the magazines and books; and from his
face one could see that he was not reading, but

WARD NO. 6 39

devouring the pages without giving himself time
to digest what he read. It must be supposed that
reading was one of his morbid habits, as he fell
upon anything that came into his hands with
equal avidity, even last year's newspapers and
calendars. At home he always read lying down.

III.

One autumn morning Ivan Dmitritch, turning
up the collar of his greatcoat and splashing through
the mud, made his way by side-streets and back
lanes to see some artisan, and to collect some
payment that was owing. He was in a gloomy
mood, as he always was in the morning. In one of
the side-streets he was met by two convicts in fetters
and four soldiers with rifles in charge of them.
Ivan Dmitritch had very often met convicts before,
and they had always excited feelings of compassion
and discomfort in him ; but now this meeting made
a peculiar, strange impression on him. It suddenly
seemed to him for some reason that he, too, might
be put into fetters and led through the mud to
prison like that. After visiting the artisan, on the
way home he met near the post office a police
superintendent of his acquaintance, who greeted
Mm and walked a few paces along the street with
pirn, and for some reason this seemed to him
(suspicious. At home he could not get the con
victs or the soldiers with their rifles out of his
head all day, and an unaccountable inward agita
tion prevented him from reading or concentrating
his mind. In the evening he did not light his

40 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

lamp, and at night he could not sleep, but kept
thinking that he might be arrested, put into fetters,
and thrown into prison. He did not know of any
harm he had done, and could be certain that he
would never be guilty of murder, arson, or theft
in the future either ; but was it not easy to commit
a crime by accident, unconsciously, and was not
false witness always possible, and, indeed, mis
carriage of justice ? It was not without good
reason that the agelong experience of the simple
people teaches that beggary and prison are ills
none can be safe from. A judicial mistake is very
possible as legal proceedings are conducted nowa
days, and there is nothing to be wondered at in it.
People who have an official, professional relation
to other men's sufferings — for instance, judges,
police officers, doctors — in course of time, through
habit, grow so callous that they cannot, even if
they wish it, take any but a formal attitude to
their clients; in this respect they are not different
from the peasant who slaughters sheep and calves
in the back- yard, and does not notice the blood.
With this formal, soulless attitude to human
personality the judge needs but one thing — time — •
in order to deprive an innocent man of all rights
of property, and to condemn him to penal servi
tude. Only the time spent on performing certain
formalities for which the judge is paid his salary,
and then — it is all over. Then you may look
in vain for justice and protection in this dirty,
wretched little town a hundred and fifty miles
from a railway station ! And, indeed, is it not
absurd even to think of justice when every kind of

WARD NO. 6 41

violence is accepted by society as a rational and
consistent necessity, and every act of mercy — for
instance, a verdict of acquittal — calls forth a
perfect outburst of dissatisfied and revengeful
feeling ?

In the morning Ivan Dmitritch got up from his
bed in a state of horror, with cold perspiration on
his forehead, completely convinced that he might
be arrested any minute. Since his gloomy thoughts
of yesterday had haunted him so long, he thought,
it must be that there was some truth in them.
They could not, indeed, have come into his mind
without any grounds whatever.

A policeman walking slowly passed by the
windows: that was not for nothing. Here were
two men standing still and silent near the house.
Why were they silent ? And agonizing days and
nights followed for Ivan Dmitritch. Everyone
who passed by the windows or came into the
yard seemed to him a spy or a detective. At mid
day the chief of the police usually drove down the
street with a pair of horses ; he was going from his
estate near the town to the police department;
but Ivan Dmitritch fancied every time that he
was driving especially quickly, and that he had a
peculiar expression: it was evident that he was in
haste to announce that there was a very important
criminal in the town. Ivan Dmitritch started at
every ring at the bell and knock at the gate, and
was agitated whenever he came upon anyone new
at his landlady's; when he met police officers and
gendarmes he smiled and began whistling so as to
seem unconcerned. He could not sleep for whole

42 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

nights in succession expecting to be arrested, but
he snored loudly and sighed as though in deep
sleep, that his landlady might think he was asleep ;
for if he could not sleep it meant that he was
tormented by the stings of conscience — what a
piece of evidence ! Facts and common sense per
suaded him that all these terrors were nonsense
and morbidity, that if one looked at the matter
more broadly there was nothing really terrible in
arrest and imprisonment — so long as the conscience
is at ease; but the more sensibly and logically he
reasoned, the more acute and agonizing his mental
distress became. It might be compared with the
story of a hermit who tried to cut a dwelling-place
for himself in a virgin forest: the more zealously
he worked with his axe, the thicker the forest grew.
In the end Ivan Dmitritch, seeing it was useless,
gave up reasoning altogether, and abandoned him
self entirely to despair and terror.

He began to avoid people and to seek solitude.
His official work had been distasteful to him before :
now it became unbearable to him. He was afraid
they would somehow get him into trouble, would
put a bribe in his pocket unnoticed and then
denounce him, or that he would accidentally make
a mistake in official papers that would appear to
be fraudulent, or would lose other people's money.
It is strange that his imagination had never at
other times been so agile and inventive as now,
when every day he thought of thousands of
different reasons for being seriously anxious over
his freedom and honour; but, on the other hand,
his interest in the outer world, in books in par-

WARD NO. 6 43

ticular, grew sensibly fainter, and his memory
began to fail him.

In the spring when the snow melted there were
found in the ravine near the cemetery two half-
decomposed corpses — the bodies of an old woman
and a boy bearing the traces of death by violence.
Nothing was talked of but these bodies and their
unknown murderers. That people might not
think he had been guilty of the crime, Ivan
Dmitritch walked about the streets, smiling, and
when he met acquaintances he turned pale,
flushed, and began declaring that there was no
greater crime than the murder of the weak and
defenceless. But this duplicity soon exhausted
him, and after some reflection he decided that in
his position the best thing to do was to hide in his
landlady's cellar. He sat in the cellar all day and
then all night, then another day, was fearfully
cold, and, waiting till dusk, stole secretly like a
thief back to his room. He stood in the middle of
the room till daybreak, listening without stirring.
Very early in the morning, before sunrise, some
workmen came into the house. Ivan Dmitritch
knew perfectly well that they had come to mend
the stove in the kitchen, but terror told him that
they were police officers disguised as workmen.
He slipped stealthily out of the flat, and, overcome
by terror, ran along the street without his cap and
coat. Dogs raced after him barking, a peasant
shouted somewhere behind him, the wind whistled
in his ears, and it seemed to Ivan Dmitritch that the
force and violence of the whole world was massed
together behind his back and was chasing after him.

44 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

He was stopped and brought home, and his land
lady sent for a doctor. Doctor Andrey Yefimitch,
of whom we shall have more to say hereafter,
prescribed cold compresses on his head and laurel
drops, shook his head, and went away, telling the
landlady he should not come again, as one should
not interfere with people who are going out of their
minds. As he had not the means to live at home
and be nursed, Ivan Dmitritch was soon sent to
the hospital, and was there put into the ward for
venereal patients. He could not sleep at night,
was full of whims and fancies, and disturbed the
patients, and was soon afterwards, by Andrey
Yefimitch's orders, transferred to Ward No. 6.

Within a year Ivan Dmitritch was completely
forgotten in the town, and his books, heaped up
by his landlady in a sledge in the shed, were pulled
to pieces by boys.

IV.

Ivan Dmitritch' s neighbour on the left hand
is, as I have said already, the Jew Moiseika; his
neighbour on the right hand is a peasant so
rolling in fat that he is almost spherical, with a
blankly stupid face, utterly devoid of thought.
This is a motionless, gluttonous, unclean animal
who has long ago lost all powers of thought or
feeling. An acrid, stifling stench always comes
from him.

Nikita, who has to clean up after him, beats him
terribly with all his might, not sparing his fists;
and what is dreadful is not his being beaten — that
one can get used to — but the fact that this stupefied

WARD NO. 6 45

creature does not respond to the blows with a
sound or a movement, nor by a look in the eyes,
but only sways a little like a heavy barrel.

The fifth and last inhabitant of Ward No. 6 is a
man of the artisan class who has once been a
sorter in the post office, a thinnish, fair little man
with a good-natured but rather sly face. To judge
from the clear, cheerful look in his calm and
intelligent eyes, he has some pleasant idea in his
mind, and has some very important and agreeable
secret. He has under his pillow and under his
mattress something that he never shows anyone,
not from fear of its being taken from him and
stolen, but from modesty. Sometimes he goes to
the window, and turning his back to his com
panions, puts something on his breast, and bending
his head, looks at it ; if you go up to him at such
a moment, he is overcome with confusion and
snatches something off his breast. But it is not
difficult to guess his secret.

" Congratulate me," he often says to Ivan
Dmitritch; " I have been presented with the
Stanislav order of the second degree with the star.
The second degree with the star is only given to
foreigners, but for some reason they want to make
an exception for me," he says with a smile, shrug
ging his shoulders in perplexity. " That I must
confess I did not expect."

" I don't understand anything about that," Ivan
Dmitritch replies morosely.

" But do you know what I shall attain to sooner
or later ?" the former sorter persists, screwing up
his eyes slily. " I shall certainly get the Swedish

46 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

* Polar Star.' That's an order it is worth working
for, a white cross with a black ribbon. It's very
beautiful."

Probably in no other place is life so monotonous
as in this ward. In the morning the patients,
except the paralytic and the fat peasant, wash in
the entry at a big tub and wipe themselves with
the skirts of their dressing-gowns; after that they
drink tea out of tin mugs which Nikita brings them
out of the main building. Everyone is allowed
one mugful. At midday they have soup made out
of sour cabbage and boiled grain, in the evening
their supper consists of grain left from dinner.
In the intervals they lie down, sleep, look out of
window, and walk from one corner to the other.
And so every day. Even the former sorter always
talks of the same orders.

Fresh faces are rarely seen in Ward No. 6. The
doctor has not taken in any new mental cases for a
long time, and the people who are fond of visiting
lunatic asylums are few in this world. Once every
two months Semyon Lazaritch, the barber, appears
in the ward. How he cuts the patients' hair, and how
Nikita helps him to do it, and what a trepidation
the lunatics are always thrown into by the arrival of
the drunken, smiling barber, we will not describe.

No one even looks into the ward except the barber.
The patients are condemned to see day after day
no one but Nikita.

A rather strange rumour has, however, been cir
culating in the hospital of late.

It is rumoured that the doctor hastfegun to visit
Ward No. 6.

WARD NO. 6 47

V.

A strange rumour !

Doctor Andrey Yefimitch Ragin is a strange
man in his way. They say that when he was
young he was very religious, and prepared himself
for a clerical career, and that when he had finished
his studies at the high school in 1863 he intended
to enter a theological academy, but that his father,
a surgeon and doctor of medicine, jeered at him
and declared point-blank that he would disown him
if he became a priest. How far this is true I don't
know, but Andrey Yefimitch himself has more than
once confessed that he has never had a natural
bent for medicine or science in general.

However that may have been, when he finished
his studies in the medical faculty he did not enter
the priesthood. He showed no special devoutness,
and was no more like a priest at the beginning of
his medical career than he is now.

His exterior is heavy, coarse like a peasant's, his
face, his beard, his flat hair, and his coarse, clumsy
figure, suggest an overfed, intemperate, and harsh
innkeeper on the highroad. His face is surly-
looking and covered with blue veins, his eyes are
little and his nose is red. With his Height and broad
shoulders he has huge hands and feet; one would
think that a blow from his fist would knock the
life out of anyone, but his step is soft, and his walk
is cautious and insinuating ; when he meets anyone
in a narrow passage he is always the first to stop
and make way, and to say, not in a bass, as one
would expect, but in a high, soft tenor: " I beg your

48 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

pardon ! " He has a little swelling on his neck which
prevents him from wearing stiff starched collars,
and so he always goes about in soft linen or cotton
shirts. Altogether he does not dress like a doctor.
He wears the same suit for ten years, and the new
clothes, which he usually buys at a Jewish shop,
look as shabby and crumpled on him as his old
ones; he sees patients and dines and pays visits
all in the same coat ; but this is not due to niggard
liness, but to complete carelessness about his
appearance.

When Andrey Yefimitch came to the town to
take up his duties the " institution founded to the
glory of God " was in a terrible condition. One
could hardly breathe for the stench in the wards, in
the passages, and in the courtyards of the hospital.
The hospital servants, the nurses, and their children
slept in the wards together with the patients.
They complained that there was no living for
beetles, bugs, and mice. The surgical wards were
never free from erysipelas. There were only two
scalpels and not one thermometer in the whole
hospital; potatoes were kept in the baths. The
superintendent, the housekeeper, and the medical
assistant robbed the patients, and of the old doctor,
Andrey Yenmitch's predecessor, people declared
that he secretly sold the hospital alcohol, and that
he kept a regular harem consisting of nurses and
female patients. These disorderly proceedings
were perfectly well known in the town, and were
even exaggerated, but people took them calmly;
some justified them on the ground that there were
only peasants and working men in the hospital, who

WARD NO. 6 49

could rot be dissatisfied, since they were much
worse off at home than in the hospital — they
couldn't be fed on woodcocks ! Others said in
excuse that the town alone, without help from the
Zemstvo, was not equal to maintaining a good
hospital; thank God for having one at all, even a
poor one. And the newly formed Zemstvo did
not open infirmaries either in the town or the
neighbourhood, relying on the fact that the town
already had its hospital.

After looking over the hospital Andrey Yefimitch
came to the conclusion that it was an immoral
institution and extremely prejudicial to the health
of the townspeople. In his opinion the most
sensible thing that could be done was to let out
the patients and close the hospital. But he re
flected that his will alone was not enough to do
this, and that it would be useless ; if physical and
moral impurity were driven out of one place, they
would only move to another ; one must wait for it to
wither away of itself. Besides, if people open a
hospital and put up with having it, it must be be
cause they need it; superstition and all the nasti-
ness and abominations of daily life were necessary,
since in process of time they worked out to some
thing sensible, just as manure turns into black
earth. There was nothing on earth so good that
it had not something nasty about its first origin.

When Andrey Yefimitch undertook his duties
he was apparently not greatly concerned about the
irregularities at the hospital. He only asked the
attendants and nurses not to sleep in the wards,
and had two cupboards of instruments put up; the

x. 4

50 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

superintendent, the housekeeper, the medical assis
tant, and the erysipelas remained unchanged.

Andrey Yenmitch loved intelligence and honesty
intensely, but he had no strength of will nor belief
in his right to organize an intelligent and honest
life about him. He was absolutely unable to give
orders, to forbid things, and to insist. It seemed
as though he had taken a vow never to raise his
voice and never to make use of the imperative. It
was difficult for him to say " Fetch " or " Bring " ;
when he wanted his meals he would cough hesita
tingly and say to the cook : " How about tea ? . . ."
or " How about dinner ? . . ." To dismiss the
superintendent or to tell him to leave off stealing,
or to abolish the unnecessary parasitic post alto
gether, was absolutely beyond his powers. When
Andrey Yenmitch was deceived or flattered, or
accounts he knew to be cooked were brought him
to sign, he would turn as red as a crab and feel
guilty, but yet he would sign the accounts. When
the patients complained to him of being hungry
or of the roughness of the nurses, he would be con
fused and mutter guiltily: "Very well, very well.
I will go into it later. . . . Most likely there is
some misunderstanding. ..."

At first Andrey Yefimitch worked very zealously.
He saw patients every day from morning till
dinner-time, performed operations, and even at
tended confinements. The ladies said of him that
he was attentive and clever at diagnosing diseases,
especially those of women and children. But in
process of time the work unmistakably wearied him
by its monotony and obvious uselessness. To-day

WARD NO. 6 51

one sees thirty patients, and to-morrow they have
increased to thirty-five, the next day forty, and
so on from day to day, from year to year, while the
mortality in the town did not decrease and the
patients did not leave off coming. To be any real
help to forty patients between morning and dinner
was not physically possible, so it could but lead to
deception. If twelve thousand patients were seen
in a year it meant, if one looked at it simply, that
twelve thousand men were deceived. To put those
who were seriously ill into wards, and to treat them
according to the principles of science, was impos
sible, too, because though there were principles
there was no science ; if he were to put aside philo
sophy and pedantically follow the rules as other
doctors did, the things above all necessary were
cleanliness and ventilation instead of dirt, whole
some nourishment instead of broth made of stinking,
sour cabbage, and good assistants instead of thieves ;
and, indeed, why hinder people dying if death is
the normal and legitimate end of everyone ? What
is gained if some shopkeeper or clerk lives an extra
five or ten years ? If the aim of medicine is by
drugs to alleviate suffering, the question forces
itself on one : why alleviate it ? In the first place,
they say that suffering leads man to perfection;
and in the second, if mankind really learns to
alleviate its sufferings with pills and drops, it will
completely abandon religion and philosophy, in
which it has hitherto found not merely protection
from all sorts of trouble, but even happiness.
Pushkin suffered terrible agonies before his death,
poor Heine lay paralyzed for several years; why,

52

then, should not some Andrey Yefimitch or
Matryona Savishna be ill, since their lives had
nothing of importance in them, and would have
been entirely empty and like the life of an amoeba
except for suffering ?

Oppressed by such reflections, Andrey Yefimitch
relaxed his efforts and gave up visiting the hospital
every day.

VI.

His life was passed like this. As a rule he got up
at eight o'clock in the morning, dressed, and drank
his tea. Then he sat down in his study to read, or
went to the hospital. At the hospital the out
patients were sitting in the dark, narrow little
corridor waiting to be seen by the doctor. The
nurses and the attendants, tramping with their
boots over the brick floors, ran by them; gaunt-
looking patients in dressing-gowns passed; dead
bodies and vessels full of filth were carried by ; the
children were crying, and there was a cold draught.
Andrey Yefimitch knew that such surroundings
were torture to feverish, consumptive, and im
pressionable patients ; but what could be done ?
In the consulting-room he was met by his assis
tant, Sergey Sergeyitch — a fat little man with a
plump, well-washed, shaven face, with soft, smooth
manners, wearing a new loosely cut suit, and
looking more like a senator than a medical assistant.
He had an immense practice in the town, wore a
white tie, and considered himself more proficient
than the doctor, who had no practice. In the
corner of the consulting-room there stood a huge

WARD NO. 6 53

ikon in a shrine with a heavy lamp in front of it, and
near it a candle-stand with a white cover on it.
On the walls hung portraits of bishops, a view of the
Svyatogorsky Monastery, and wreaths of dried
cornflowers. Sergey Sergeyitch was religious, and
liked solemnity and decorum. The ikon had been
put up at his expense ; at his instructions some one
of the patients read the hymns of praise in the con
sulting-room on Sundays, and after the reading
Sergey Sergeyitch himself went through the ward
with a censer and burned incense.

There were a great many patients, but the time
was short, and so the work was confined to the
asking of a few brief questions and the administra
tion of some drugs, such as castor-oil or volatile
ointment. Andrey Yefimitch would sit with his
cheek resting in his hand, lost in thought and asking
questions mechanically. Sergey Sergeyitch sat
down too, rubbing his hands, and from time to time
putting in his word.

" We suffer pain and poverty," he would say,
" because we do not pray to the merciful God as we
should. Yes !"

Andrey Yefimitch never performed any opera
tions when he was seeing patients ; he had long ago
given up doing so, and the sight of blood upset
him. When he had to open a child's mouth in
order to look at its throat, and the child cried and
tried to defend itself with its little hands, the noise
in his ears made his head go round and brought
tears into his eyes. He would make haste to pre
scribe a drug, and motion to the woman to take the
child away.

54 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

He was soon wearied by the timidity of the
patients and their incoherence, by the proximity
of the pious Sergey Sergeyitch, by the portraits on
the walls, and by his own questions which he had
asked over and over again for twenty years. And
he would go away after seeing five or six patients.
The rest would be seen by his assistant in his
absence.

With the agreeable thought that, thank God, he
had no private practice now, and that no one would
interrupt him, Andrey Yefimitch sat down to the
table immediately on reaching home and took up
a book. He read a great deal and always with
enjoyment. Half his salary went on buying books,
and of the six rooms that made up his abode three
were heaped up with books and old magazines.
He liked best of all works on history and philosophy ;
the only medical publication to which he subscribed
was The Doctor, of which he always read the last
pages first. He would always go on reading for
several hours without a break and without being
weary. He did not read as rapidly and impulsively
as Ivan Dmitritch had done in the past, but slowly
and with concentration, often pausing over a
passage which he liked or did not find intelligible.
Near the books there always stood a decanter of
vodka, and a salted cucumber or a pickled apple
lay beside it, not on a plate, but on the baize table
cloth. Every half -hour he would pour himself out
a glass of vodka and drink it without taking his
eyes off the book. Then without looking at it he
would feel for the cucumber and bite off a bit.

At three o'clock he would go cautiously to the

WARD NO. 6 55

kitchen door, cough, and say: " Daryushka, what
about dinner ? . . ."

After his dinner — a rather poor and untidily
served one — Andrey Yefimitch would walk up and
down his rooms with his arms folded, thinking.
The clock would strike four, then five, and
still he would be walking up and down thinking.
Occasionally the kitchen door would creak, and
the red and sleepy face of Daryushka would
appear.

" Andrey Yefimitch, isn't it time for you to have
your beer ?" she would ask anxiously.

" No, it is not time yet . . ."he would answer.
" I'll wait a little. . . . I'll wait a little. . . ."

Towards the evening the postmaster, Mihail
Averyanitch, the only man in the town whose
society did not bore Andrey Yefimitch, would
come in. Mihail Averyanitch had once been a
very rich landowner, and had served in the cavalry,
but had come to ruin, and was forced by poverty to
take a job in the post office late in life. He had
a hale and hearty appearance, luxuriant grey
whiskers, the manners of a well-bred man, and a
loud, pleasant voice. He was good-natured and
emotional, but hot-tempered. When anyone in the
post office made a protest, expressed disagreement,
or even began to argue, Mihail Averyanitch would
turn crimson, shake all over, and shout in a voice
of thunder, " Hold your tongue !" so that the post
office had long enjoyed the reputation of an insti
tution which it was terrible to visit. Mihail
Averyanitch liked and respected Andrey Yefimitch
for his culture and the loftiness of his soul; he

56 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

treated the other inhabitants of the town super
ciliously, as though they were his subordinates.

" Here I am," he would say, going in to Andrey
Yefimitch. " Good-evening, my dear fellow ! I'll
be bound, you are getting sick of me, aren't you ?"

" On the contrary, I am delighted," said the
doctor. " I am always glad to see you."

The friends would sit down on the sofa in the
study and for some time would smoke in silence.

" Daryushka, what about the beer ?" Andrey
Yefimitch would say.

They would drink their first bottle still in silence,
the doctor brooding and Mihail Averyanitch with
a gay and animated face, like a man who has
something very interesting to tell. The doctor
was always the one to begin the conversation.

" What a pity," he would say quietly and slowly,

I not looking his friend in the face (he never looked
anyone in the face) — " what a great pity it is that
there are no people in our town who are capable
of carrying on intelligent and interesting conversa
tion, or care to do so. It is an immense privation
for us. Even the educated class do not rise above
vulgarity; the level of their development, I assure
you, is not a bit higher than that of the lower
orders."

" Perfectly true. I agree."

" You know, of course," the doctor went on
quietly and deliberately, " that everything in this
world is insignificant and uninteresting except the
higher spiritual manifestations of the human mind.
Intellect draws a sharp line between the animals
and man, suggests the divinity of the latter, and

WARD NO. 6 57

to some extent even takes the place of ±he_inL-

exjst. Consequently the

intellect is the only possible source of enjoyment.
We see and hear of no trace of intellect about us,
so we are deprived of enjoyment. We have books,
it is true, but that is not at all the same as living
talk and converse. If you will allow me to make
a not quite apt comparison: books are the printed
score, while talk is the singing."

" Perfectly true."

A silence would follow. Daryushka would come
out of the kitchen and with an expression of blank
dejection would stand in the doorway to listen,
with her face propped on her fist.

" Eh !" Mihail Averyanitch would sigh. " To
expect intelligence of this generation !"

And he would describe how wholesome, enter
taining, and interesting life had been in the past.
How intelligent the educated class in Russia used
to be, and what lofty ideas it had of honour and
friendship; how they used to lend money without
an IOU, and it was thought a disgrace not to give
a helping hand to a comrade in need; and what
campaigns, what adventures, what skirmishes,
what comrades, what women ! And the Caucasus,
what a marvellous country ! The wife of a battalion
commander, a queer woman, used to put on an
officer's uniform and drive off into the mountains
in the evening, alone, without a guide. It was
said that she had a love affair with some princeling
in the native village.

" Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother . . ." Dar
yushka would sigh.

58 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" And how we drank ! And how we ate ! And
what desperate liberals we were !"

Andrey Yefimitch would listen without hearing ;
he was musing as he sipped his beer.

" I often dream of intellectual people and con
versation with them," he said suddenly, inter
rupting Mihail Averyanitch. " My father gave
me an excellent education, but under the influence
of the ideas of the sixties made me become a
doctor. I believe if I had not obeyed him then,
by now I should have been in the very centre of
the intellectual movement. Most likely I should
have become a member of some university. Of
course, intellect, too, is transient and not eternal,
but you know why I cherish a partiality for it.
Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man
reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness
he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from
which there is no escape. Indeed, he is summoned
without his choice by fortuitous circumstances
from non-existence into life . . . what for ? He
tries to find out the meaning and object of his
existence ; he is told nothing, or he is told absurdi
ties; he knocks and it is not opened to him; death
comes to him — also without his choice. And so,
just as in prison men held together by common
misfortune feel more at ease when they are together,
so one does not notice the trap in life when people
with a bent for analysis and generalization meet
together and pass their time in the interchange
of proud and free ideas. In that sense the intellect
is the source of an enjoym'ent nothing can replace."

" Perfectly true."

WARD NO. 6 59

Not looking his friend in the face, Andrey
Yefimitch would go on, quietly and with pauses,
talking about intellectual people and conversa
tion with them, and Mihail Averyanitch would
listen attentively and agree: " Perfectly true."

" And you do not believe in the immortality of
the soul ?" he would ask suddenly.

" No, honoured Mihail Averyanitch ; I do not
believe it, and have no grounds for believing it."

" I must own I doubt it too. And yet I have
a feeling as though I should never die. Oh, I
think to myself: 'Old fogey, it is time you were
dead !' But there is a little voice in my soul says:
' Don't believe it; you won't die.' '

Soon after nine o'clock Mihail Averyanitch
would go away. As he put on his fur coat in the
entry he would say with a sigh :

" What a wilderness fate has carried us to,
though, really! What's most vexatious of all is
to have to die here. Ech ! . . ."

VII.

After seeing his friend out Andrey Yefimitch
would sit down at the table and begin reading
again. The stillness of the evening, and afterwards
of the night, was not broken by a single sound,
and it seemed as though time were standing still
and brooding with the doctor over the book, and
as though there were nothing in existence but
the books and the lamp with the green shade.
The doctor's coarse peasant-like face was gradually
lighted up by a smile of delight and enthusiasm

60 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

over the progress of the human intellect. Oh,
why is not man immortal ? he thought. What is
the good of the brain centres and convolutions,
what is the good of sight, speech, self-conscious
ness, genius, if it is all destined to depart into the
soil, and in the end to grow cold together with the
earth's crust, and then for millions of years to fly
with the earth round the sun with no meaning
and no object ? To do that there was no need at
all to draw man with his lofty, almost godlike
intellect out of non-existence, and then, as though
in mockery, to turn him into clay. The trans
mutation of substances ! But what cowardice to
comfort oneself with that cheap substitute for
immortality ! The unconscious processes that
take place in nature are lower even than the
stupidity of man, since in stupidity there is, any
way, consciousness and will, while in those pro
cesses there is absolutely nothing. Only the
coward who has more fear of death than dignity
can comfort himself with the fact that his body
will in time live again in the grass, in the stones,
in the toad. To find one's immortality in the
transmutation of substances is as strange as to
prophesy a brilliant future for the case after a
precious violin has been broken and become
useless.

When the clock struck, Andrey Yefimitch would
sink back into his chair and close his eyes to think
a little. And under the influence of the fine ideas
of which he had been reading he would, unawares,
recall his past and his present. The past was
hateful — better not to think of it. And it was the

WARD NO. 6 61

same in the present as in the past. He knew that
at the very time when his thoughts were floating
together with the cooling earth round the sun, in
the main building beside his abode people were
suffering in sickness and physical impurity : some
one perhaps could not sleep and was making war
upon the insects, someone was being infected by
erysipelas, or moaning over too tight a bandage;
perhaps the patients were playing cards with the
nurses and drinking vodka. According to the
yearly return, twelve thousand people had been
deceived ; the whole hospital rested as it had done
twenty years ago on thieving, filth, scandals,
gossip, on gross quackery, and, as before, it was
an immoral institution extremely injurious to the
health of the inhabitants. He knew that Nikita
knocked the patients about behind the barred
windows of Ward No. 6, and that Moiseika went
about the town every day begging alms.

On the other hand, he knew very well that a
magical change had taken place in medicine during
the last twenty-five years. When he was study
ing at the university he had fancied that medicine
would soon be overtaken by the fate of alchemy
and metaphysics; but now when he was reading
at night the science of medicine touched him and
excited his wonder, and even enthusiasm. What
unexpected brilliance, what a revolution ! Thanks
to the antiseptic system operations were performed
such as the great Pirogov had considered impossible
even in spe. Ordinary Zemstvo doctors were
venturing to perform the resection of the kneecap;
of abdominal operations only one per cent, was

62 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

fatal; while stone was considered such a trifle that
they did not even write about it. A radical cure
for syphilis had been discovered. And the theory
of heredity, hypnotism, the discoveries of Pasteur
and of Koch, hygiene based on statistics, and the
work of our Zemstvo doctors !

Psychiatry with its modern classification of
mental diseases, methods of diagnosis, and treat
ment, was a perfect Elborus in comparison with
what had been in the past . They no longer poured
cold water on the heads of lunatics nor put strait-
waistcoats upon them; they treated them with
humanity, and even, so it was stated in the papers,
got up balls and entertainments for them. Andrey
Yefimitch knew that with modern tastes and
views such an abomination as Ward No. 6 was
possible only a hundred and fifty miles from a
railway in a little town where the mayor and all
the town council were half-illiterate tradesmen
who looked upon the doctor as an oracle who must
be believed without any criticism even if he had
poured molten lead into their mouths; in any
other place the public and the newspapers
would long ago have torn this little Bastille to
pieces.

" But, after all, what of it ?" Andrey Yefimitch

] would ask himself, opening his eyes. " There is the

intiseptic system, there is Koch, there is Pasteur,

3ut the essential reality is not altered a bit; ill-

icalth and mortality are still the same. They get

Jup balls and entertainments for the mad, but still

they don't let them go free; so it's all nonsense

and vanity, and there is no difference in reality

WARD NO. 6 63

between the best Vienna clinic and my hospital."
But depression and a feeling akin to envy pre
vented him from feeling indifferent; it must have
been owing to exhaustion. His heavy head sank
on to the book, he put his hands under his face to
make it softer, and thought: " I serve in a perni
cious institution and receive a salary from people
whom I am deceiving. I am not honest, but then,

1 1 of myself am nothing, I am only part of an in
evitable social evil : all local officials are perni-

J cious and receive their salary for doing nothing.
. . . And so for my dishonesty it is not I who,
am to blame, but the jtimes. . . . Tf^T

borntwgjmndred years later I should have been
different^. . ."

" When it struck three he would put out his
lamp and go into his bedroom ; he was not sleepy.

VIII.

Two years before, the Zemstvo in a liberal mood
had decided to allow three hundred roubles a year
to pay for additional medical service in the town
till the Zemstvo hospital should be opened, and
the district doctor, Yevgeny Fyodoritch Hobotov,
was invited to the town to assist Andrey Yefimitch.
He was a very young man — not yet thirty — tall
and dark, with broad cheek-bones and little eyes;
his forefathers had probably come from one of the
many alien races of Russia. He arrived in the
town without a farthing, with a small portmanteau,
and a plain young woman whom he called his cook.
This woman had a baby at the breast. Yevgeny

64 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

Fyodoritch used to go about in a cap with a peak,
and in high boots, and in the winter wore a sheep
skin. He made great friends with Sergey Sergey-
itch, the medical assistant, and with the treasurer,
but held aloof from the other officials, and for some
reason called them aristocrats. He had only one
book in his lodgings, " The Latest Prescriptions
of the Vienna Clinic for 1881." When he went to
a patient he always took this book with him. He
played billiards in the evening at the club: he did
not like cards. He was very fond of using in
conversation such expressions as "endless bobbery,"
" canting soft soap," " shut up with your
finicking. ..."

He visited the hospital twice a week, made the
round of the wards, and saw out-patients. The
complete absence of antiseptic treatment and
the cupping roused his indignation, but he did not
introduce any new system, being afraid of offend
ing Andrey Yefimitch. He regarded his colleague
as a sly old rascal, suspected him of being a man
of large means, and secretly envied him. He
would have been very glad to have his post.

IX.

On a spring evening towards the end of March,
when there was no snow left on the ground and
the starlings were singing in the hospital garden,
the doctor went out to see his friend the post
master as far as the gate. At that very moment
the Jew Moiseika, returning with his booty,
came into the yard. He had no cap on, and his

WARD NO. 6 65

bare feet were thrust into goloshes ; in his hand he
had a little bag of coppers.

" Give me a kopeck !" he said to the doctor,
smiling, and shivering with cold. Andrey Yefi-
mitch, who could never refuse anyone anything,
gave him a ten-kopeck piece.

" How bad that is !" he thought, looking at the
Jew's bare feet with their thin red ankles. " Why,
it's wet."

And stirred by a feeling akin both to pity and
disgust, he went into the lodge behind the Jew,
looking now at his bald head, now at his ankles.
As the doctor went in, Nikita jumped up from his
heap of litter and stood at attention.

" Good-day, Nikita," Andrey Yefimitch said
mildly. " That Jew should be provided with
boots or something, he will catch cold."

" Certainly, your honour. I'll inform the super
intendent."

" Please do; ask him in my name. Tell him
that I asked."

The door into the ward was open. Ivan
Dmitritch, lying propped on his elbow on the bed,
listened in alarm to the unfamiliar voice, and
suddenly recognized the doctor. He trembled
•all over with anger, jumped up, and with a red
and wrathful face, with his eyes starting out of his
head, ran out into the middle of the road.

" The doctor has come 1" he shouted, and broke
into a laugh. " At last ! Gentlemen, I con
gratulate you. The doctor is honouring us with
a visit ! Cursed reptile !" he shrieked, and stamped
in a frenzy such as had never been seen in the ward

X. T

66 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

before. " Kill the reptile ! No, killing's too
good. Drown him in the midden-pit !"

Andrey Yefimitch, hearing this, looked into the
ward from the entry and asked gently : " What for ?"

" What for ?" shouted Ivan Dmitritch, going up
to him with a menacing air and convulsively
wrapping himself in his dressing-gown. " What
for ? Thief !" he said with a look of repulsion,
moving his lips as though he would spit at him.
" Quack ! hangman !"

" Calm yourself," said Andrey Yefimitch, smiling
guiltily. " I assure you I have never stolen any
thing; and as to the rest, most likely you greatly
exaggerate. I see you are angry with me. Calm
yourself, I beg, if you can, and tell me coolly what
are you angry for ?"

" What are you keeping me here for ?"

" Because you are ill."

" Yes, I am ill. But you know dozens, hundreds
of madmen are walking about in freedom because
your ignorance is incapable of distinguishing them
from the sane. Why am I and these poor wretches
to be shut up here like scapegoats for all the
rest ? You, your assistant, the superintendent,
and all your hospital rabble, are immeasurably
inferior to every one of us morally; why then are
we shut up and you not ? Where's the logic of it ?"

" Morality and logic don't come in, it all depends
on chance. If anyone is shut up he has to stay,
and if anyone is not shut up he can walk about,
that's all. There is neither morality nor logic in
my being a doctor and your being a mental
patient, there is nothing but idle chance."

WARD NO. 6 67

" That twaddle I don't understand ..." Ivan
Dmitritch brought out in a hollow voice, and he
sat down on his bed.

Moiseika, whom Nikita did not venture to
search in the presence of the doctor, laid out on
his bed pieces of bread, bits of paper, and little
bones, and, still shivering with cold, began rapidly
in a singsong voice saying something in Yiddish.
He most likely imagined that he had opened a shop.

" Let me out," said Ivan Dmitritch, and his
voice quivered.

" I cannot."

" But why, why ?"

" Because it is not in my power. Think, what
use will it be to you if I do let you out ? Go.
The townspeople or the police will detain you or
bring you back."

"Yes, yes, that's true," said Ivan Dmitritch,
and he rubbed his forehead. " It's awful ! But
what am I to do, what ?"

Andrey Yefimitch liked Ivan Dmitritch's voice
and his intelligent young face with its grimaces.
He longed to be kind to the young man and soothe
him ; he sat down on the bed beside him, thought,
and said :

" You ask me what to do. The very best thing
in your position would be to run away. But,
unhappily, that is useless. You would be taken
up . When society protects itself from the criminal,
mentally deranged, or otherwise inconvenient
(people, it is invincible. There is only one thing
Ueft for you : to resign yourself to the thought that
Vour presence here is inevitable."

68 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" It is no use to anyone."

" So long as prisons and madhouses exist some
one must be shut up in them. If not you, I. If
not I, some third person. Wait till in the distant
future prisons and madhouses no longer exist, and
there will be neither bars on the windows nor
hospital gowns. Of course, that time will come
sooner or later."

Ivan Dmitritch smiled ironically.

" You are jesting," he said, screwing up his
eyes. " Such gentlemen as you and your assistant
Nikita have nothing to do with the future, but
you may be sure, sir, better days will come ! I
may express myself cheaply, you may laugh, but
the dawn of a new life is at hand; truth and justice
will triumph, and — our turn will come ! I shall
not live to see it, I shall perish, but some people's
great-grandsons will see it. I greet them with all
my heart and rejoice, rejoice with them ! Onward !
God be your help, friends !"

With shining eyes Ivan Dmitritch got up, and
stretching his hands towards the window, went on
with emotion in his voice :

" From behind these bars I bless you ! Hurrah
for truth and justice ! I rejoice !"

" I see no particular reason to rejoice," said
Andrey Yefimitch, who thought Ivan Dmitritch's
movement theatrical, though he was delighted by
it. " Prisons and madhouses there will not be,
and truth, as you have just expressed it, will
triumph; but the reality of things, you know,
will not change, the laws of nature will still remain
the same. People will suffer pain, grow old, and

WARD NO. 6 69

die just as they do now. However magnificent a
dawn lighted up your life, you would yet in the
end be nailed up in a coffin and thrown into a hole."

" And immortality ?"

" Oh, come, now !"

" You don't believe in it, but I do. Somebody
in Dostoevsky or Voltaire said that if there had not
been a God men would have invented him. And
I firmly believe that if there is no immortality the
great intellect of man will sooner or later invent it."

" Well said," observed Andrey Yefimitch,
smiling with pleasure; " it's a good thing you
have faith. With such a belief one may live
happily even shut up within walls. You have
studied somewhere, I presume ?"

" Yes, I have been at the university, but did
not complete my studies."

" You are a reflecting and a thoughtful man.
In any surroundings you can find tranquillity in
yourself. Free and deep thinking which strives
for the comprehension of life, and complete con
tempt for the foolish bustle of the world — those
are two blessings beyond any that man has ever
known. And you can possess them even though you
lived behind threefold bars. Diogenes lived in a tub,
yet he was happier than all the kings of the earth."

" Your Diogenes was a blockhead," said Ivan
Dmitritch morosely. " Why do you talk to me
about Diogenes and some foolish comprehension
of life ?" he cried, growing suddenly angry and
leaping up. " I love life; I love it passionately.
I have the mania of persecution, a continual
agonizing terror; but I have moments when I am

70 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

overwhelmed by the thirst for life, and then I am
afraid of going mad. I want dreadfully to live,
dreadfully !"

He walked up and down the ward in agitation,
and said, dropping his voice :

" When I dream I am haunted by phantoms.
People come to me, I hear voices and music, and
I fancy I am walking through woods or by the
seashore, and I long so passionately for movement,
for interests. . . . Come, tell me, what news is
there?" asked Ivan Dmitritch; "what's hap
pening ?"

" Do you wish to know about the town or in
general ?"

" Well, tell me first about the town, and then in
general."

" Well, in the town it is appallingly dull. . . .
There's no one to say a word to, no one to listen
to. There are no new people. A young doctor
called Hobotov has come here recently."

" He had come in my time. Well, he is a low
cad, isn't he ?"

" Yes, he is a man of no culture. It's strange,
you know. . . . Judging by every sign, there is
no intellectual stagnation in our capital cities;
there is a movement — so there must be real people
there too; but for some reason they always send
us such men as I would rather not see. It's an
unlucky town !"

' Yes, it is an unlucky town," sighed Ivan
Dmitritch, and he laughed. " And how are things
in general ? What are they writing in the papers
and reviews ?"

WARD NO. 6 71

It was by now dark in the ward. The doctor
got up, and, standing, began to describe what was
being written abroad and in Russia, and the
tendency of thought that could be noticed now.
Ivan Dmitritch listened attentively and put
questions, but suddenly, as though recalling some
thing terrible, clutched at his head and lay down
on the bed with his back to the doctor.

" What's the matter ?" asked Andrey Yefimitch.
" You will not hear another word from me,"
said Ivan Dmitritch rudely. " Leave me alone."
" Why so ?"

" I tell you, leave me alone. Why the devil do
you persist ?"

Andrey Yefimitch shrugged his shoulders, heaved
a sigh, and went out. As he crossed the entry
he said: " You might clear up here, Nikita . . .
there's an awfully stuffy smell."
" Certainly, your honour."
"What an agreeable young man!" thought
Andrey Yefimitch, going back to his flat. " In all
I the years I have been living here I do believe he
lis the first I have met with whom one can talk.
\He is capable of reasoning and is interested in
jjust the right things."

While he was reading, and afterwards, while he
was going to bed, he kept thinking about Ivan
Dmitritch, and when he woke next morning he
remembered that he had the day before made the
acquaintance of an intelligent and interesting man,
and determined to visit him again as soon as
possible.

72 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

X.

Ivan Dmitritch was lying in the same position
as on the previous day, with his head clutched in
both hands and his legs drawn up. His face was
not visible.

" Good-day, my friend," said Andrey Yefimitch.
" You are not asleep, are you ?"

" In the first place, I am not your friend," Ivan
Dmitritch articulated into the pillow; " and in the
second, your efforts are useless; you will not get
one word out of me."

" Strange," muttered Andrey Yefimitch in con
fusion. " Yesterday we talked peacefully, but
suddenly for some reason you took offence and
broke off all at once. . . . Probably I expressed
myself awkwardly, or perhaps gave utterance to
some idea which did not fit in with your con
victions. ..."

"Yes, a likely idea!" said Ivan Dmitritch,
sitting up and looking at the doctor with irony
and uneasiness. His eyes were red. " You can
go and spy and probe somewhere else, it's no use
your doing it here. I knew yesterday what you
had come for."

" A strange fancy," laughed the doctor. "So
you suppose me to be a spy ?"

" Yes, I do. ... A spy or a doctor who has
been charged to test me — it's all the same "

" Oh, excuse me, what a queer fellow you are
really!"

The doctor sat down on the stool near the bed
and shook his head reproachfully.

WARD NO. 6 73

" But let us suppose you are right," he said,
" let us suppose that I am treacherously trying
to trap you into saying something so as to betray
you to the police. You would be arrested and
then tried. But would you be any worse off being
tried and in prison than you are here ? If you
are banished to a settlement, or even sent to penal
servitude, would it be worse than being shut up
in this ward ? I imagine it would be no worse.
. . . What, then, are you afraid of ?"

These words evidently had an effect on Ivan
Dmitritch. He sat down quietly.

It was between four and five in the afternoon — the
time when Andrey Yefimitch usually walked up and
down his rooms, and Daryushka asked whether it
was not time for his beer. It was a still, bright day.

" I came out for a walk after dinner, and here I
have come, as you see," said the doctor. " It is
quite spring."

"What month is it? March?" asked Ivan
Dmitritch.

" Yes, the end of March."

" Is it very muddy ?"

" No, not very. There are already paths in the
garden."

" It would be nice now to drive in an open carriage
somewhere into the country," said Ivan Dmitritch,
rubbing his red eyes as though he were just awake,
" then to come home to a warm, snug study, and
. . . and to have a decent doctor to cure one's
headache. . . . It's so long since I have lived
like a human being. It's disgusting here! In
sufferably disgusting !"

74 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

After his excitement of the previous day he was
exhausted and listless, and spoke unwillingly. His
fingers twitched, and from his face it could be seen
that he had a splitting headache.

" There is no real difference between a warm,
snug study and this ward," said Andrey Yefimitch.
" A man's peace and contentment do not lie
outside a man, but in himself."

" What do you mean ?"

" The ordinary man looks for good and evil in
external things — that is, in carriages, in studies —
but a thinking man looks for it in himself."

" You should go and preach that philosophy
in Greece, where it's warm and fragrant with the
scent of pomegranates, but here it is not suited
to the climate. With whom was it I was talking
of Diogenes ? Was it with you ?"

" Yes, with me yesterday."

" Diogenes did not need a study or a warm
habitation; it's hot there without. You can lie
in your tub and eat oranges and olives. But
bring him to Russia to live: he'd be begging to be
let indoors in May, let alone December. He'd be
doubled up with the cold."

"No. One can be insensible to cold as to every
ather pain. Marcus Aurelius says: 'A pain is a
vivid idea of pain ; make an effort of will to change
that idea, dismiss it, cease to complain, and the
pain will disappear.' That is true. The wise man,
or simply the reflecting, thoughtful man, is dis
tinguished precisely by his contempt for suffering ;
he is always contented and surprised at nothing."

" Then I am an idiot, since I suffer and am

WARD NO. 6 75

discontented and surprised at the baseness of
mankind."

" You are wrong in that ; if you will reflect more
on the subject you will understand how insigni
ficant is all that external world that agitates us.
One must strive for the comprehension of life, and
in that is true happiness."

"Comprehension . . ." repeated Ivan Dmitritch,
frowning. " External, internal. . . . Excuse me,
but I don't understand it. I only know," he said,
getting up and looking angrily at the doctor — " I
only know that God has created me of warm blood
and nerves, yes, indeed ! If organic tissue is capable
of life it must react to every stimulus. And I do !
To pain I respond with tears and outcries, to base
ness with indignation, to filth with loathing. To
my mind, that is just what is called life. The lower
the organism, the less sensitive it is, and the more
feebly it reacts to stimulus; and the higher it is,
the more responsively and vigorously it reacts to
reality. How is it you don't know that ? A
doctor, and not know such trifles ! To despise
suffering, to be always contented, and to be sur
prised at nothing, one must reach this condition "
— and Ivan Dmitritch pointed to the peasant who
was a mass of fat — " or to harden oneself by suffer
ing to such a point that one loses all sensibility to it
— that is, in other words, to cease to live. You
must excuse me, I am not a sage or a philosopher,"
Ivan Dmitritch continued with irritation, " and
I don't understand anything about it. I am not
capable of reasoning."

" On the contrary, your reasoning is excellent."

76 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

' The Stoics, whom you are parodying, were
remarkable people, but their doctrine crystallized
two thousand years ago and has not advanced,
and will not advance, an inch forward, since it is not
practical or living. It had a success only with the
minority which spends its life in savouring all sorts
of theories and ruminating over them ; the majority
did not understand it. A doctrine which advocates
indifference to wealth and to the comforts of life,
and a contempt for suffering and death, is quite
unintelligible to the vast majority of men, since
that majority has never known wealth or the
comforts of life; and to despise suffering would
mean to it despising life itself, since the whole
existence of man is made up of the sensations of
hunger, cold, injury, loss, and a Hamlet-like dread
of death. The whole of life lies in these sensations ;
one may be oppressed by it, one may hate it, but
one cannot despise it. Yes, so, I repeat, the
doctrine of the Stoics can never have a future; from
the beginning of time up to to-day you see con
tinually increasing the struggle, the sensibility to
pain, the capacity of responding to stimulus."

Ivan Dmitritch suddenly lost the thread of his
thoughts, stopped, and rubbed his forehead with
vexation.

" I meant to say something important, but I
have lost it," he said. "What was I saying?
Oh yes ! This is what I mean : one of the Stoics
sold himself into slavery to redeem his neighbour,
so, you see, even a Stoic did react to stimulus, since',
for such a generous act as the destruction of oneself
for the sake of one's neighbour, he must have had

^ WARD NO. 6 77

ja soul capable of pity and indignation. Here in *
brison I have forgotten everything I have learned,
tor else I could have recalled something else. Take
jthrist, for instance: Christ responded to reality by
^weeping, smiling, being sorrowful and moved to
i wrath, even overcome by misery. He did not go
^jto meet His sufferings with a smile, He did not
'\ despise death, but prayed in the Garden of Geth- /
^.semane that this cup might pass Him by."
Iti Ivan Dmitritch laughed and sat down.
™ " Granted that a man's peace and contentment
••jlie not outside but in himself," he said, " granted
.'j that one must despise suffering and not be sur-
", prised at anything, yet on what ground do you preach
^ the theory ? Are you a sage ? A philosopher ?

" No, I am not a philosopher, but everyone ought
I to preach it because it is reasonable."

" No, I want to know how it is that you consider"\ \
yourself competent to judge of ' comprehension,' \\
contempt for suffering, and so on. Have you ever
suffered ? Have you any idea of suffering ? j
Allow me to ask you, were you ever thrashed in ,
your childhood ?"

" No, my parents had an aversion for corporal
punishment."

" My father used to flog me cruelly; my father
was a harsh, sickly Government clerk with a long
nose and a yellow neck. But let us talk of you.
No one has laid a finger on you all your life, no one
has scared you nor beaten you; you are as strong
as a bull. You grew up under your father's wing
and studied at his expense, and then you dropped
at once into a sinecure. For more than twenty

y

78 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

years you have lived rent free with heating, light
ing, and service all provided, and had the right to
work how you pleased and as much as you pleased,
even to do nothing. You were naturally a flabby,
lazy man, and so you have tried to arrange your
life so that nothing should disturb you or make you
move. You have handed over your work to the
assistant and the rest of the rabble while you sit in
peace and warmth, save money, read, amuse your
self with reflections, with all sorts of lofty nonsense,
and " (Ivan Dmitritch looked at the doctor's red
nose) " with boozing; in fact, you have seen nothing
of life, you know absolutely nothing of it, and are
only theoretically acquainted with reality; you
despise suffering and are surprised at nothing for
a very simple reason: vanity of vanities, the ex
ternal and the internal, contempt for life, for
suffering and for death, comprehension, true happi
ness — that's the philosophy that suits the Russian
sluggard best. You see a peasant beating his wife,
for instance. Why interfere ? Let him beat her,
they will both die sooner or later, anyway; and,
besides, he who beats injures by his blows, not the
person he is beating, but himself. To get drunk
is stupid and unseemly, but if you drink you die,
and if you don't drink you die. A peasant woman
comes with toothache . . . well, what of it ?
Pain is the idea of pain, and besides ' there is no
living in this world without illness; we shall all
die, and so, go away, woman, don't hinder me from
thinking and drinking vodka'.' A young man asks
advice, what he is to do, how he is to live; anyone
else would think before answering, but -you have

WARD NO. 6 79

got the answer ready : strive for ' comprehension '
or for true happiness. And what is that fantastic
' true happiness ' ? There's no answer, of course.
We are kept here behind barred windows, tortured,
left to rot ; but that is very good and reasonable,
because there is no difference at all between this
ward and a warm, snug study. A convenient
philosophy. You can do nothing, and your
conscience is clear, and you feel you are wise. . . .
No, sir, it is not philosophy, it's not thinking, it's
not breadth of vision, but laziness, f akirism , jinawsy
stupefaction. Yes," cried Ivan Dmilntch, getting
angry again, " you despise suffering, but I'll be
bound if you pinch your finger in the door you will
howl at the top of your voice."

" And perhaps I shouldn't howl," said Andrey
Yefimitch, with a gentle smile.

" Oh, I dare say ! Well, if you had a stroke of
paralysis, or supposing some fool or bully took
advantage of his position and rank to insult you in
public, and if you knew he could do it with im
punity, then you would understand what it means
to put people off with comprehension and true
happiness."

" That's original," said Andrey Yefimitch,
laughing with pleasure and rubbing his hands.
" I am agreeably struck by your inclination for
drawing generalizations, and the sketch of my
character you have just drawn is simply brilliant.
I must confess that talking to you gives me great
pleasure. Well, I've listened to you, and now you
must graciously listen to me."

8o THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

XL

The conversation went on for about an hour
longer, and apparently made a deep impression on
Andrey Yefimitch. He began going to the ward
every day. He went there in the mornings and
after dinner, and often the dusk of evening found
him in conversation with Ivan Dmitritch. At
first Ivan Dmitritch held aloof from him, suspected
him of evil designs, and openly expressed his
hostility. But afterwards he got used to him, and
his abrupt manner changed to one of condescending
irony.

Soon it was all over the hospital that the doctor,
Andrey Yefimitch, had taken to visiting Ward
No. 6. No one — neither Sergey Sergeyitch, nor
Nikita, nor the nurses — could conceive why he
went there, why he stayed there for hours together,
what he was talking about, and why he did not
write prescriptions. His actions seemed strange.
Often Mihail Averyanitch did not find him at
home, which had never happened in the past, and
Daryushka was greatly perturbed, for the doctor
drank his beer now at no definite time, and some
times was even late for dinner.

One day — it was at the end of June — Dr.
Hobotov went to see Andrey Yefimitch about
something. Not finding him at home, he pro
ceeded to look for him in the yard; there he was
told that the old doctor had gone to see the mental
patients. Going into the lodge and stopping in the
entry, Hobotov heard the following conversation :

WARD NO. 6 81

" We shall never agree, and you will not succeed
in converting me to your faith," Ivan Dmitritch
was saying irritably; " you are utterly ignorant of
reality, and you have never known suffering, but
have only like a leech fed beside the sufferings of
others, while I have been in continual suffering from
the day of my birth till to-day. For that reason, I
tell you frankly, I consider myself superior to you
and more competent in every respect. It's not for
you to teach me."

" I have absolutely no ambition to convert you
to my faith," said Andrey Yefimitch gently, and
with regret that the other refused to understand
him. " And that is not what matters, my friend;
what matters is not that you have suffered and I
have not. Joy and suffering are passing; let us
leave them, never mind them. What_ma±ters is
that you and-I think; we see in each other people
who are capable of thinking and reasoning, and
that is a common bond between us however
different our views. If you knew, my friend, how
sick I am of the universal senselessness, ineptitude,
stupidity, and with what delight I always talk with
you ! You are an intelligent man, and I enjoy
your company."

Hobotov opened the door an inch and glanced
into the ward; Ivan Dmitritch in his night-cap and
the doctor Andrey Yefimitch were sitting side by
side on the bed. The madman was grimacing,
twitching, and convulsively wrapping himself in
his gown, while the doctor sat motionless with
bowed head, and his face was red and looked
helpless and sorrowful. Hobotov shrugged his

x. 6

82 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

shoulders, grinned, and glanced at Nikita. Nikita
shrugged his shoulders too.

Next day Hobotov went to the lodge, accom
panied by the assistant. Both stood in the entry
and listened.

" I fancy our old man has gone clean off his
chump !" said Hobotov as he came out of the
lodge.

' Lord have mercy upon us sinners !" sighed the
decorous Sergey Sergeyitch, scrupulously avoid
ing the puddles that he might not muddy his
polished boots. " I must own, honoured Yevgeny
Fyodoritch, I have been expecting it for a long
time."

XII.

After this Andrey Yefimitch began to notice a
mysterious air in all around him. The attendants,
the nurses, and the patients looked at him in
quisitively when they met him, and then whispered
together. The superintendent's little daughter
Masha, whom he liked to meet in the hospital
garden, for some reason ran away from him now
when he went up with a smile to stroke her on the
head. The postmaster no longer said, " Perfectly
true," as he listened to him, but in unaccountable
confusion muttered, " Yes, yes, yes ..." and
looked at him with a grieved and thoughtful
expression ; for some reason he took to advising his
friend to give up vodka and beer, but as a man of
delicate feeling he did not say this directly, but
hinted it, telling him first about the commanding
officer of his battalion, an excellent man, and then

WARD NO. 6 83

about the priest of the regiment, a capital fellow,
both of whom drank and fell ill, but on giving up
drinking completely regained their health. On
two or three occasions Andrey Yefimitch was
visited by his colleague Hobotov, who also advised
him to give up spirituous liquors, and for no ap
parent reason recommended him to take bromide.

In August Andrey Yefimitch got a letter from
the mayor of the town asking him to come on very
important business. On arriving at the town hall
at the time fixed, Andrey Yefimitch found there
the military commander, the superintendent of the
district school, a member of the town council.
Hobotov, and a plump, fair gentleman who was
introduced to him as a doctor. This doctor, with
a Polish surname difficult to pronounce, lived at a
pedigree stud- farm twenty miles away, and was
now on a visit to the town.

" There's something that concerns you," said the
member of the town council, addressing Andrey
Yefimitch after they had all greeted one another
and sat down to the table. " Here Yevgeny
Fyodoritch says that there is not room for the
dispensary in the main building, and that it ought
to be transferred to one of the lodges. That's of
no consequence — of course it can be transferred,
but the point is that the lodge wants doing up."

" Yes, it would have to be done up," said Andrey
Yefimitch after a moment's thought. " If the
corner lodge, for instance, were fitted up as a dis
pensary, I imagine it would cost at least five hun
dred roubles. An unproductive expenditure-! "

Everyone was silent for a space.

84 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" I had the honour of submitting to you ten
years ago," Andrey Yefimitch went on in a low
voice, " that the hospital in its present form is a
luxury for the town beyond its means. It was
built in the forties, but things were different then.
The town spends too much on unnecessary build
ings and superfluous staff. I believe with a dif
ferent system two model hospitals might be main
tained for the same money."

"Well, let us have a different system, then!"
the member of the town council said briskly.

" I have already had the honour of submitting
to you that the medical department should be
transferred to the supervision of the Zemstvo."

" Yes, transfer the money to the Zemstvo and
they will steal it," laughed the fair-haired doctor.

" That's what it always comes to," the member
of the council assented, and he also laughed.

Andrey Yefimitch looked with apathetic, lustre
less eyes at the fair-haired doctor and said: " One
should be just."

Again there was silence. Tea was brought in.
The military commander, for some reason much
embarrassed, touched Andrey Yefimitch's hand
across the table and said: "You have quite for
gotten us, doctor. But of course you are a hermit:
you don't play cards and don't like women. You
would be dull with fellows like us."

They all began saying how boring it was for a
decent person to live in such a town. No theatre,
no music, and at the last dance at the club there
had been about twenty ladies and only two gentle
men. The young men did not dance, but spent all

WARD NO. 6 85

the time crowding round the refreshment bar or
playing cards.

Not looking at anyone and speaking slowly in a
low voice, Andrey Yefimitch began saying what
a pity, what a terrible pity it was that the towns
people should waste their vital energy, their hearts,
and their minds on cards and gossip, and should
have neither the power nor the inclination to spend
their time in interesting conversation and reading,
and should refuse to take advantage of the enjoy
ments of the mind. The mind alone was interest
ing and worthy of attention, all the rest was low
and petty. Hobotov listened to his colleague
attentively and suddenly asked:

" Andrey Yefimitch, what day of the month is
it?"

Having received an answer, the fair-haired
doctor and he, in the tone of examiners conscious
of their lack of skill, began asking Andrey Yefimitch
what was the day of the week, how many days there
were in the year, and whether it was true that
there was a remarkable prophet living in Ward
No. 6.

In response to the last question Andrey Yefimitch
turned rather red and said: " Yes, he is mentally
deranged, but he is an interesting young man."

They asked him no other questions.

When he was putting on his overcoat in the
entry, the military commander laid a hand on his
shoulder and said with a sigh:

" It's time for us old fellows to rest !"

As he came out of the hall, Andrey Yefimitch
understood that it had been a committee appointed

86 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

to enquire into his mental condition. He recalled
the questions that had been asked him, flushed
crimson, and for some reason, for the first time in
his life, felt bitterly grieved for medical science.

" My God . . ." he thought, remembering how
these doctors had just examined him; " why, they
have only lately been hearing lectures on mental
pathology; they have passed an examination —
what's the explanation of this crass ignorance ?
They have not a conception of mental pathology !"

And for the first time in his life he felt insulted
and moved to anger.

In the evening of the same day Mihail Averya-
nitch came to see him. The postmaster went up to
him without waiting to greet him, took him by both
hands, and said in an agitated voice :

" My dear fellow, my dear friend, show me that
you believe in my genuine affection and look on
me as your friend!" And preventing Andrey
Yefimitch from speaking, he went on, growing
excited: " I love you for your culture and nobility
of soul. Listen to me, my dear fellow. The rules
of their profession compel the doctors to conceal
the truth from you, but I blurt out the plain truth
like a soldier. You are not well ! Excuse me,
my dear fellow, but it is the truth; everyone
about you has been noticing it for a long time.
Doctor Yevgeny Fyodoritch has just told me that
it is essential for you to rest and distract your
mind for the sake of your health. Perfectly true !
Excellent ! In a day or two I am taking a holiday
and am going away for a sniff of a different atmo
sphere. Show that you are a friend to me, let

WARD NO. 6 87

us go t ogether ! Let us go for a j aunt as in the good
old days."

" I feel perfectly well," said Andrey Yefimitch
after a moment's thought. " I can't go away.
Allow me to show you my friendship in some other
way."

To go off with no object, without his books,
without his Daryushka, without his beer, to break
abruptly through the routine of life, established
for twenty years — the idea for the first minute
struck him as wild and fantastic, but he remem
bered the conversation at the Zemstvo committee
and the depressing feelings with which he had
returned home, and the thought of a brief absence
from the town in which stupid people looked on
him as a madman was pleasant to him.

" And where precisely do you intend to go ?"
he asked.

" To Moscow, to Petersburg, to Warsaw. . . .
I spent the five happiest years of my life in Warsaw.
What a marvellous town ! Let us go, my dear
fellow !"

XIII.

A week later it was suggested to Andrey Yefi
mitch that he should have a rest — that is, send
in his resignation — a suggestion he received with in-
iifference, and a week later still, Mihail Averyanitch
and he were sitting in a posting carriage driving
to the nearest railway station. The days were
cool and bright, with a blue sky and a transparent
distance. They were two days driving the hun
dred and fifty miles to the railway station, and

88 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

stayed two nights on the way. When at the post
ing station the glasses given them for their tea
had not been properly washed, or the drivers were
slow in harnessing the horses, Mihail Averyanitch
would turn crimson, and quivering all over would
shout :

" Hold your tongue ! Don't argue !"
And in the carriage he talked without ceasing
for a moment, describing his campaigns in the
Caucasus and in Poland. What adventures he
had had, what meetings ! He talked loudly and
opened his eyes so wide with wonder that he might
well be thought to be lying. Moreover, as he
talked he breathed in Andrey Yefimitch's face and
laughed into his ear. This bothered the doctor
and prevented him from thinking or concentrating
his mind.

In the train they travelled, from motives of
economy, third-class in a non-smoking compart
ment. Half the passengers were decent people.
Mihail Averyanitch soon made friends with every
one, and moving from one seat to another, kept
saying loudly that they ought not to travel by
these appalling lines. It was a regular swindle !
A very different thing riding on a good horse:
one could do over seventy miles a day and feel
fresh and well after it. And our bad harvests were
due to the draining of the Pinsk marshes ; altogether,
the way things were done was dreadful. He got
excited, talked loudly, and would not let others
speak. This endless chatter to the accompaniment
of loud laughter and expressive gestures wearied
Andrey Yefimitch.

WARD NO. 6 89

" Which of us is the madman ?" he thought with
vexation. " I, who try not to disturb my fellow-
passengers in any way, or this egoist who thinks
that he is cleverer and more interesting than any
one here, and so will leave no one in peace ?"

In Moscow Mihail Averyanitch put on a military
coat without epaulettes and trousers with red braid
on them. He wore a military cap and overcoat in
the street, and soldiers saluted him. It seemed to
Andrey Yefimitch. now, that his companion was
a man who had flung away all that was good and
kept only what was bad of all the characteristics
of a country gentleman that he had once possessed.
He liked to be waited on even when it was quite
unnecessary. The matches would be lying before
him on the table, and he would see them and shout
to the waiter to give him the matches; he did not
hesitate to appear before a maidservant in nothing
but his underclothes ; he used the familiar mode of
address to all footmen indiscriminately, even old
men, and when he was angry called them fools and
blockheads. This, Andrey Yefimitch thought,
was like a gentleman,but disgusting.

First of all Mihail Averyanitch led his friend to
the Iversky Madonna. He prayed fervently,
shedding tears and bowing down to the earth,
and when he had finished, heaved a deep sigh and
said:

" Even though one does not believe it makes
one somehow easier when one prays a little. Kiss
the ikon, my dear fellow."

Andrey Yefimitch was embarrassed and he
kissed the image, while Mihail Averyanitch pursed

go THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

up his lips and prayed in a whisper, and again tears
came into his eyes. Then they went to the Krem
lin and looked there at the Tsar-cannon and the
Tsar-bell, and even touched them with their
fingers, admired the view over the river, visited
St. Saviour's and the Rumyantsev museum.

They dined at Tyestov's. Mihail Averyanitch
looked a long time at the menu, stroking his
whiskers, and said in the tone of a gourmand
accustomed to dine in restaurants:

" We shall see what you give us to eat to-day,
angel !"

XIV.

The doctor walked about, looked at things,
ate and drank, but he had all the while one feel
ing: annoyance with Mihail Averyanitch. He
longed to have a rest from his friend, to get away
from him, to hide himself, while the friend thought
it his duty not to let the doctor move a step away
from him, and to provide him with as many dis
tractions as possible. When there was nothing
to look at he entertained him with conversation.
For two days Andrey Yefimitch endured it, but on
the third he announced to his friend that he was
ill and wanted to stay at home for the whole day ;
his friend replied that in that case he would stay
too — that really he needed rest, for he was run
off his legs already. Andrey Yefimitch lay on the
sofa, with his face to the back, and clenching his
teeth, listened to his friend, who assured him with
heat that sooner or later France would certainly
thrash Germany, that there were a great many

WARD NO. 6 91

scoundrels in Moscow, and that it was impossible
to judge of a horse's quality by its outward appear
ance. The doctor began to have a buzzing in his
ears and palpitations of the heart, but out of
delicacy could not bring himself to beg his friend
to go away or hold his tongue. Fortunately Mihail
Averyanitch grew weary of sitting in the hotel
room, arid after dinner he went out for a walk.

As soon as he was alone Andrey Yefimitch aban
doned himself to a feeling of relief. How pleasant
to lie motionless on the sofa and to know that one
is alone in the room ! Real happiness is impossible I
without solitude. The fallen angel betrayed God '
probably because he longed for solitude, of which
the angels know nothing. Andrey Yefimitch
wanted to think about what he had seen and heard
during the last few days, but he could not get
Mihail Averyanitch out of his head.

" Why, he has taken a holiday and come with
me out of friendship, out of generosity," thought
the doctor with vexation; "nothing could be
worse than this friendly supervision. I suppose
he is good-natured and generous and a lively
fellow, but he is a bore. An insufferable bore.
In the same way there are people who never say
anything but what is clever and good, yet one feels
that they are dull-witted people."

For the following days Andrey Yefimitch
\declared himself ill and would not leave the hotel
Iroom; he lay with his face to the back of the sofa,
land suffered agonies of weariness when his friend
entertained him with conversation, or rested when
his friend was absent. He was vexed with himself

92 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

for having come, and with his friend, who grew
every day more talkative and more free-and-easy;
he could not succeed in attuning his thoughts to a
serious and lofty level.

" This is what I get from the real life Ivan
Dmitritch talked about," he thought, angry at
his own pettiness. " It's of no consequence,
though. ... I shall go home, and everything
will go on as before. ..."

It was the same thing in Petersburg too; for
whole days together he did not leave the hotel
room, but lay on the sofa and only got up to drink
beer.

Mihail Averyanitch was all haste to get to
Warsaw.

" My dear man, what should I go there for ?"
said Andrey Yefimitch in an imploring voice.
" You go alone and let me get home ! I entreat
you !"

" On no account," protested Mihail Averyanitch.
" It's a marvellous town."

Andrey Yefimitch had not the strength of will to
insist on his own way, and much against his
inclination went to Warsaw. There he did not
leave the hotel room, but lay on the sofa, furious
with himself, with his friend, and with the waiters,
who obstinately refused to understand Russian;
while Mihail Averyanitch, healthy, hearty, and full
of spirits as usual, went about the town from
morning to night, looking for his old acquaintances.
Several times he did not return home at night.
After one night spent in some unknown haunt he
returned home early in the morning, in a violently

WARD NO. 6 93

excited condition, with a red face and tousled hair.
For a long time he walked up and down the rooms
muttering something to himself, then stopped and
said:

" Honour before everything."
After walking up and down a little longer he
clutched his head in both hands and pronounced
in a tragic voice : " Yes, honour before everything !
Accursed be the moment when the idea first
entered my head to visit this Babylon ! My dear
friend," he added, addressing the doctor, " you
may despise me, I have played and lost ; lend me
five hundred roubles !"

Andrey Yefimitch counted out five hundred
roubles and gave them to his friend without a
word. The latter, still crimson with shame and
anger, incoherently articulated some useless vow,
put on his cap, and went out. Returning two
hours later he flopped into an easy-chair, heaved
a loud sigh, and said :

" My honour is saved. Let us go, my friend; I
do not care to remain another hour in this accursed
town. Scoundrels ! Austrian spies !"

By the time the friends were back in their own

town it was November, and deep snow was lying

i in the streets. Dr. Hobotov had Andrey Yefi-

/mitch's post; he was still living in his old lodgings,

I waiting for Andrey Yefimitch to arrive and clear

1 out of the hospital apartments. The plain woman

whom he called his cook was already established

in one of the lodges.

Fresh scandals about the hospital were going
the round of the town. It was said that the plain

94 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

woman had quarrelled with the superintendent, and
that the latter had crawled on his knees before her
begging forgiveness . On the very first day he arrived
Andrey Yefimitch had to look out for lodgings.

" My friend," the postmaster said to him
timidly, "excuse an indiscreet question: what
means have you at your disposal ?"

Andrey Yefimitch, without a word, counted out
his money and said: " Eighty-six roubles."

" I don't mean that," Mihail Averyanitch
brought out in confusion, misunderstanding him;
" I mean, what have you to live on ?"

" I tell you, eighty-six roubles ... I have
nothing else."

Mihail Averyanitch looked upon the doctor as
an honourable man, yet he suspected that he had
accumulated a fortune of at least twenty thousand.
Now learning that Andrey Yefimitch was a beggar,
that he had nothing to live on, he was for some
reason suddenly moved to tears and embraced his
friend.

XV.

Andrey Yefimitch now lodged in a little house
with three windows. There were only three
rooms besides the kitchen in the little house. The
doctor lived in two of them which looked into the
street, while Daryushka and the landlady with
her three children lived in the third room and
the kitchen. Sometimes the landlady's lover, a
drunken peasant who was rowdy and reduced the
children and Daryushka to terror, would come
for the night. When he arrived and established

WARD NO. 6 95

himself in the kitchen and demanded vodka, they
all felt very uncomfortable, and the doctor would
be moved by pity to take the crying children into
his room and let them lie on his floor, and this
gave him great satisfaction.

He got up as before at eight o'clock, and after
his morning tea sat down to read his old books
and magazines: he had no money for new ones.
Either because the books were old, or perhaps
because of the change in his surroundings, reading
exhausted him, and did not grip his attention as
before. That he might not spend his time in
idleness he made a detailed catalogue of his books
and gummed little labels on their backs, and
this mechanical, tedious work seemed to him
more interesting than reading. The monotonous,
tedious work lulled his thoughts to sleep in some
unaccountable way, and the time passed quickly
while he thought of nothing. Even sitting in the
kitchen, peeling potatoes with Daryushka or
picking over the buckwheat grain, seemed to him
interesting. On Saturdays and Sundays he went
to church. Standing near the wall and half closing
his eyes, he listened to the singing and thought of
his father, of his mother, of the university, of the
religions of the world; he felt calm and melan
choly, and as he went out of the church afterwards
he regretted that the service was so soon over.
He went twice to the hospital to talk to Ivan
Dmitritch. But on both occasions Ivan Dmitritch
was unusually excited and ill-humoured; he bade
the doctor leave him in peace, as he had long been
sick of empty chatter, and declared, to make up

96 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

for all his sufferings, he asked from the damned
scoundrels only one favour — solitary confinement.
Surely they would not refuse him even that ? On
both occasions when Andrey Yefimitch was taking
leave of him and wishing him good-night, he
answered rudely and said :
" Go to hell !"

And Andrey Yefimitch did not know now
whether to go to him for the third time or not.
He longed to go.

In old days Andrey Yefimitch used to walk
about his rooms and think in the interval after
dinner, but now from dinner-time till evening tea
he lay on the sofa with his face to the back and
gave himself up to trivial thoughts which he
could not struggle against. He was mortified that
after more than twenty years of service he had
been given neither a pension nor any assistance.
It is true that he had not done his work honestly,
but, then, all who are in the Service get a pension
without distinction whether they are honest or
not. Contemporary justice lies precisely in the
bestowal of grades, orders, and pensions, not for
moral qualities or capacities, but for service what
ever it may have been like. Why was he alone to
be an exception ? He had no money at all. He
was ashamed to pass by the shop and look at the
woman who owned it. He owed thirty-two
roubles for beer already. There was money
owing to the landlady also. Daryushka sold old
/ clothes and books on the sly, and told lies to the
I landlady, saying that the doctor was just going
I to receive a large sum of money.

WARD NO. 6 97

He was angry with himself for having wasted
on travelling the thousand roubles he had saved
up. How useful that thousand roubles would
have been now ! He was vexed that people
would not leave him in peace. Hobotov thought
it his duty to look in on his sick colleague from
time to time. Everything about him was revolt
ing to Andrey Yefimitch — his well-fed face and
vulgar, condescending tone, and his use of the
word " colleague," and his high top-boots; the
most revolting thing was that he thought it
was his duty to treat Andrey Yefimitch, and
thought that he really was treating him. On
every visit he brought a bottle of bromide and
rhubarb pills.

Mihail Averyanitch, too, thought it his duty to
visit his friend and entertain him. Every time he
went in to Andrey Yefimitch with an affectation
of ease, laughed constrainedly, and began assuring
him that he was looking very well to-day, and
that, thank God, he was on the highroad to
recovery, and from this it might be concluded
that he looked on his friend's condition as hope
less. He had notjyet repaid his Warsaw. debt, and
was overwhelmed by shame; he was constrained,
and so tried to laugh louder and talk more
amusingly. His anecdotes and descriptions seemed
endless now, and were an agony both to Andrey
Yefimitch and himself.

In his presence Andrey Yefimitch usually lay
on the sofa with his face to the wall, and listened
with his teeth clenched; his soul was oppressed
with rankling disgust, and after every visit from

x. 7

98 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

his friend he felt as though this disgust had risen
higher, and was mounting into his throat.

To stifle petty thoughts he made haste to re
flect that he himself, and Hobotov, and Mihail
Averyanitch, would all sooner or later perish
without leaving any trace on the world. If one
imagined some spirit flying by the earthly globe
in space in a million years he would see nothing
but clay and bare rocks. Everything — culture
and the moral law — would pass away and not even
a burdock would grow out of them. Of what
consequence was shame in the presence of a shop
keeper, of what consequence was the insignificant
Hobotov or the wearisome friendship of Mihail
Averyanitch ? It^ was^ alLtrivial and nonsensical.

But such reflectionT~3Id not help him now.
Scarcely had he imagined the earthly globe in a
million years, when Hobotov in his high top-boots
or Mihail Averyanitch with his forced laugh would
appear from behind a bare rock, and he even
heard the shamefaced whisper: "The Warsaw
debt. ... I will repay it in a day or two, my
dear fellow, without fail. ..."

XVI.

One day Mihail Averyanitch came after dinner
when Andrey Yefimitch was lying on the sofa.
It so happened that Hobotov arrived at the same
time with his bromide. Andrey Yefimitch got up
heavily and sat down, leaning both arms on the
sofa.

" You have a much better colour to-day than you

WARD NO. 6 99

had yesterday, my dear man," began Mihail
Averyanitch. " Yes, you look jolly. Upon my
soul, you do !"

" It's high time you were well, colleague," said
Hobotov, yawning. " I'll be bound, you are sick
of this bobbery."

" And we shall recover," said Mihail Averyanitch
cheerfully. " We shall live another hundred years !
To be sure !"

" Not a hundred years, but another twenty,"
Hobotov said reassuringly. " It's all right, all
right, colleague; don't lose heart. . . . Don't go
piling it on !"

"We'll show what we can do," laughed Mihail
Averyanitch, and he slapped his friend on the
knee. " We'll show them yet ! Next summer,
please God, we shall be off to the Caucasus, and
we will ride all over it on horseback — trot, trot,
trot ! And when we are back from the Caucasus
I shouldn't wonder if we will all dance at the
wedding." Mihail Averyanitch gave a sly wink.
" We'll marry you, my dear boy, we'll marry
you. . . ."

Andrey Yefimitch felt suddenly that the rising
disgust had mounted to his throat, his heart began
beating violently.

• " That's vulgar," he said, getting up quickly
and walking away to the window. " Don't you
understand that you are talking vulgar nonsense ?"

He meant to go on softly and politely, but
against his will he suddenly clenched his fists and
raised them above his head.

" Leave me alone," he shouted in a voice unlike

ICO

his own, flushing crimson and shaking all over.
" Go away, both of you !"

Mihail Averyanitch and Hobotov got up and
stared at him first with amazement and then with
alarm.

" Go away, both !" Andrey Yefimitch went on
shouting. ' ' Stupid people ! Foolish people ! I
don't want either your friendship or your medi
cines, stupid man ! Vulgar ! Nasty !"

Hobotov and Mihail Averyanitch, looking at
each other in bewilderment, staggered to the door
and went out. Andrey Yefimitch snatched up the
bottle of bromide and flung it after them ; the bottle
broke with a crash on the door-frame.

" Go to the devil !" he shouted in a tearful voice,
running out into the passage. " To the devil !"

When his guests were gone Andrey Yefimitch
lay down on the sofa, trembling as though in a
fever, and went on for a long while repeating:
"Stupid people! Foolish people!"

When he was calmer, what occurred to him first
of all was the thought that poor Mihail Averyanitch
must be feeling fearfully ashamed and depressed
now, and that it was all dreadful. Nothing like
this had ever happened to him before. Where was
his intelligence and his tact ? Where was his
comprehension of things and his philosophical
indifference ?

The doctor could not sleep all night for shame
and vexation with himself, and at ten o'clock next
morning he went to the post office and apologized
to the postmaster.
' " We won't think again of what has happened,"

WARD NO. 6 rot

Mihail Averyanitch, greatly touched, said with a
sigh, warmly pressing his hand. " Let bygones be
bygones. Lyubavkin," he suddenly shouted so
loud that all the postmen and other persons present
started, " hand a chair; and you wait," he shouted
to a peasant woman who was stretching out a
registered letter to him through the grating.
" Don't you see that I am busy ? We will not
remember the past," he went on, affectionately ad
dressing Andrey Yefimitch; " sit down, I beg you,
my dear fellow."

For a minute he stroked his knees in silence, and
then said:

" I have never had a thought of taking offence.
Illness is no joke, I understand. Your attack
frightened the doctor and me yesterday, and we
had a long talk about you afterwards. My dear
friend, why won't you treat your illness seriously ?
You can't go on like this. . . . Excuse me speak
ing openly as a friend," whispered Mihail Aver
yanitch. " You live in the most unfavourable
surroundings, in a crowd, in uncleanliness, no one
to look after you, no money for proper treatment.
. . . My dear friend, the doctor and I implore yo*
with all our hearts, listen to our advice: go into the
hospital ! There you will have wholesome food and
attendance and treatment. Though, between our
selves, Yevgeny Fyodoritch is mauvais ton, yet he
does understand his work, you can fully rely upon
him. He has promised me he will look after you."

Andrey Yefimitch was touched by the post
master's genuine sympathy and the tears which
suddenly glittered on his cheeks.

102 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

"My honoured friend, don't believe it!" he
whispered, laying his hand on his heart; " don't
believe them. It's all a sham. Myjllnessis only
thjiHn_twjejrtYjireaj^^

nd he4&-mad. I am

not ill at all, it's simply that I have got into an
enchanted circle which there is no getting out of.
I don't care; I am ready for anything."
" Go into the hospital, my dear fellow."
" I don't care if it were into the pit."
" Give me your word, my dear man, that you will
obey Yevgeny Fyodoritch in everything."

" Certainly I will give you my word. But I
repeat, my honoured friend, I have got into an
enchanted circle. Now everything, even the
genuine sympathy of my friends, leads to the same
thing — to my ruin. I am going to my ruin, and I
have the manliness to recognize it."
" My dear fellow, you will recover."
" What's the use of saying that ?" said Andrey
Yefimitch, with irritation. " There are few men
who at the end of their lives do not experience what
I am experiencing now. When you are told that
you have something such as diseased kidneys or
enlarged heart, and you begin being treated for it,
or are told you are mad or a criminal — that is, in
fact, when people suddenly turn their attention to
you — you may be sure you have got into an
enchanted circle from which you will not escape.
You will try to escape and make things worse.
You had better give in, for no human efforts can
save you. So it seems to me."

Meanwhile the public was crowding at the grat-

WARD NO. 6 103

ing. That he might not be in their way, Andrey
Yefimitch got up and began to take leave. Mihail
Averyanitch made him promise on his honour once
more, and escorted him to the outer door.

Towards evening on the same day Hobotov,
in his sheepskin and his high top-boots, suddenly
made his appearance, and said to Andrey Yefi
mitch in a tone as though nothing had happened
the day before:

" I have come on business, colleague. I have
come to ask you whether you would not join me in
a consultation. Eh ?"

Thinking that Hobotov wanted to distract his
mind with an outing, or perhaps really to enable
him to earn something, Andrey Yefimitch put on
his coat and hat, and went out with him into the
street. He was glad of the opportunity to smooth
over his fault of the previous day and to be recon
ciled, and in his heart thanked Hobotov, who did
not even allude to yesterday's scene and was
evidently sparing him. One would never have
expected such delicacy from this uncultured man.

" Where is your invalid ?" asked Andrey
Yefimitch.

" In the hospital. ... I have long wanted to
show him to you. A very interesting case."

They went into the hospital yard, and going
round the main building, turned towards the lodge
where the mental cases were kept, and all this, for
some reason, in silence. When they went into the
lodge Nikita as usual jumped up and stood at
attention.

" One of the patients here has a lung complica-

104 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

tion," Hobotov said in an undertone, going into
the ward with Andrey Yefimitch. " You wait here,
I'll be back directly. I am going for a stethoscope."
And he went away.

XVII.

It was getting dusk. Ivan Dmitritch was lying
on his bed with his face thrust into his pillow ; the
paralytic was sitting motionless, crying quietly and
moving his lips. The fat peasant and the former
sorter were asleep. It was quiet.

Andrey Yefimitch sat down on Ivan Dmitritch's
bed and waited. But half an hour passed, and in
stead of Hobotov, Nikita came into the ward with
a dressing-gown, some underlinen, and a pair of
slippers in a heap on his arm.

" Please change your things, your honour," he
said softly. " Here is your bed; come this way,"
he added, pointing to an empty bedstead which had
obviously been recently brought into the ward.
" It's all right; please God, you will recover."

Andrey Yefimitch understood it all. Without
saying a word he crossed to the bed to which Nikita
pointed and sat down; seeing that Nikita was
standing waiting, he undressed entirely and he felt
ashamed. Then he put on the hospital clothes;
the drawers were very short, the shirt was long, and
the dressing-gown smelt of smoked fish.

" Please God, you will recover," repeated Nikita,
and he gathered up Andrey Yefimitch' s clothes into
his arms, went out, and shut the door after him.

" No matter ..." thought Andrey Yefimitch,

WARD NO. 6 105

wrapping himself in his dressing-gown in a shame
faced way and feeling that he looked like a convict
in his new costume. " It's no matter. ... It
does not matter whether it's a dress-coat or a
uniform or this dressing-gown. ..."

But how about his watch ? And the notebook
that was in the side-pocket ? And his cigarettes ?
Where had Nikita taken his clothes ? Now per
haps to the day of his death he would not put on
trousers, a waistcoat, and high boots. It was all
somehow strange and even incomprehensible at
first. Andrey Yefimitch was even now convinced
that there was no difference between his landlady's
house and Ward No. 6, that pwrything^ in this
world was nonsenae-and- vanity of vanities. And
yet his hands were trembling, his feet were cold,
and he was filled with dread at the thought that
soon Ivan Dmitritch would get up and see that he
was in a dressing-gown. He got up and walked
across the room and sat down again.

Here he had been sitting already half an hour, an
hour, and he was miserably sick of it : was it really
possible to live here a day, a week, and even years
like these people ? Why, he had been sitting here,
had walked about and sat down again; he could
get up and look out of window and walk from
corner to corner again, and then what ? Sit so all
the time, like a post, and think ? No, that was
scarcely possible.

Andrey Yefimitch lay down, but at once got up,
wiped the cold sweat from his brow with his sleeve,
and felt that his whole face smelt of smoked fish.
He walked about again.

106 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" It's some misunderstanding . . ." he said,
turning out the palms of his hands in perplexity.
" It must be cleared up. There is a misunder
standing. . . ."

Meanwhile Ivan Dmitritch woke up; he sat up
and propped his cheeks on his fists. He spat.
Then he glanced lazily at the doctor, and apparently
for the first minute did not understand; but soon
his sleepy face grew malicious and mocking.

" Aha ! so they have put you in here, too, old

fellow ?" he said in a voice husky from sleepiness,

.screwing up one eye. "Very glad to see you.

1 You sucked the blood of others, and now they will

( suck yours. Excellent !"

" It's a misunderstanding . . ." Andrey Yefi-
mitch brought out, frightened by Ivan Dmitritch's
words; he shrugged his shoulders and repeated:
" It's some misunderstanding. . . ."

Ivan Dmitritch spat again and lay down.

" Cursed life," he grumbled, " and what's bitter
and insulting, this life will not end in compensation
for our sufferings, it will not end with apotheosis
as it would in an opera, but with death; peasants
will come and drag one's dead body by the arms
and the legs to the cellar. Ugh ! Well, it does
not matter. . . . We shall have our good time in
the other world. ... I shall come here as a ghost
from the other world and frighten these reptiles.
I'll turn their hair grey."

Moiseika returned, and, seeing the doctor, held
out his hand.

" Give me one little kopeck," he said.

WARD NO. 6 107

XVIII.

Andrey Yefimitch walked away to the window
and looked out into the open country. It was
getting dark, and on the horizon to the right a cold
crimson moon was mounting upwards. Not far
from the hospital fence, not much more than two
hundred yards away, stood a tall white house shut
in by a stone wall. This was the prison.

" So this is real life," thought Andrey Yefimitch,
and he felt frightened.

The moon and the prison, and the nails on the
fence, and the far-away flames at the bone-charring
factory were all terrible. Behind him there was
the sound of a sigh. Andrey Yefimitch looked
round and saw a man with glittering stars and
orders on his breast, who was smiling and slily
winking. And this, too, seemed terrible.

Andrey Yefimitch assured himself that there was
nothing special about the moon or the prison, that
even sane persons wear orders, and that everything
in time wjll decay an^ jm«»-**r- earth, but he was
siiddenly^vercome with despair ; he clutched at the
grating with both hands and shook it with all his
might. The strong grating did not yield.

Then that it might not be so dreadful he went
to Ivan Dmitritch's bed and sat down.

" I have lost heart, my dear fellow," he muttered,
trembling and wiping away the cold sweat, " I have
lost heart."

" You should be philosophical," said Ivan
Dmitritch ironically.

" My God, my God. . . . Yes, yes. . . . You
were pleased to say once that there was no philo-

io8 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

sophy in Russia, but that all people, even the
paltriest, talk philosophy. But you know the
philosophizing of the paltriest does not harm any
one," said Andrey Yefimitch in a tone as if he
wanted to cry and complain. " Why, then, that
malignant laugh, my friend, and how can these
paltry creatures help philosophizing if they are
not satisfied ? For an intelligent, educated man,
made in God's image, proud and loving freedom, to
have no alternative but to be a doctor in a filthy,
stupid, wretched little town, and to spend his whole
life among bottles, leeches, mustard plasters !
Quackery, narrowness, vulgarity ! Oh, my God !"
' You are talking nonsense. If you don't like
being a doctor you should have gone in for being a
statesman."

" I could not, I could not do anything. We are
weak, my dear friend. ... I used to be in
different. I reasoned boldly and soundly, but at
the first coarse touch of life upon me I have lost
heart. . . . Prostration. . . . We are weak, we
are poor creatures . . . and you, too, my dear
friend, you are intelligent, generous, you drew in
good impulses with your mother's milk, but you
had hardly entered upon life when you were ex
hausted and fell ill. . . . Weak, weak !"

Andrey Yefimitch was all the while at the ap
proach of evening tormented by another persistent
sensation besides terror and the feeling of resent
ment. At last he realized that he was longing
for a smoke and for beer.

" I am going out, my friend," he said. " I will
tell them to bring a light; I can't put up with
this. ... I am not equal to it. . . ."

WARD NO. 6 109

Andrey Yefimitch went to the door and opened it,
but at once Nikita jumped up and barred his way.

" Where are you going ? You can't, you can't !"
he said. " It's bedtime."

" But I'm only going out for a minute to walk
about the yard," said Andrey Yefimitch.

"You can't, you can't; it's forbidden. You
know that yourself."

" But what difference will it make to anyone if I
do go out ?" asked Andrey Yefimitch, shrugging his
shoulders. " I don't understand. Nikita, I must
go out !" he said in a trembling voice. " I must."

" Don't be disorderly, it's not right," Nikita
said peremptorily.

" This is beyond everything," Ivan Dmitritch
cried suddenly, and he jumped up. " What right
has he not to let you out ? How dare they keep us
here ? I believe it is clearly laid down in the law
that no one can be deprived of freedom without
trial ! It's an outrage ! It's tyranny !"

" Of course it's tyranny," said Andrey Yefimitch,
encouraged by Ivan Dmitritch's outburst. " I
must go out, I want to. He has no right ! Open,
I tell you."

" Do you hear, you dull-witted brute ?" cried
Ivan Dmitritch, and he banged on the door with
his fist. " Open the door, or I will break it open I
Torturer !"

" Open the door," cried Andrey Yefimitch,
trembling all over; " I insist !"

" Talk away !" Nikita answered through the
door, " talk away. . . ."

" Anyhow, go and call Yevgeny Fyodoritch !
Say that I beg him to come for a minute !"

no THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" His honour wilf come of himself to-morrow."

" They will never let us out," Ivan Dmitritch
was going on meanwhile. " They will leave us to
rot here ! Oh, Lord, can there really be no hell
in the next world, and will these wretches be for
given ? Where is justice ? Open the door, you
wretch ! I am choking !" he cried in a hoarse
voice, and flung himself upon the door. "I'll
dash out my brains, murderers !"

Nikita opened the door quickly, and roughly
with both his hands and his knee shoved Andrey
Yefimitch back, then swung his arm and punched
him in the face with his fist. It seemed to Andrey
Yefimitch as though a huge salt wave enveloped
him from his head downwards and dragged him to
the bed ; there really was a salt taste in his mouth :
most likely the blood was running from his teeth.
He waved his arms as though he were trying to
swim out and clutched at a bedstead, and at the
same moment felt Nikita hit him twice on the back.

Ivan Dmitritch gave a loud scream. He must
have been beaten too.

Then all was still, the faint moonlight came
through the grating, and a shadow like a net lay
on the floor. It was terrible. Andrey Yefimitch
lay and held his breath: he was expecting with
horror to be struck again. He felt as though
someone had taken a sickle, thrust it into him,
and turned it round several times in his breast
and bowels. He bit the pillow from pain and
clenched his teeth, and all at once through the
chaos in his brain there flashed the terrible un
bearable thought that these people, who seemed
now like black shadows in the moonlight, had to

WARD NO. 6 in

endure such pain day by day. for years. How
could it have happened that for more than twenty
years he had not known it and had refused to
know it ? He knew nothing of pain, had no con
ception of it, so he was not to blame, but his con
science, as inexorable and as rough as Nikita.
made him turn cold from the crown of his head
to his heels. He leaped up, tried to cry out with all
his might, and to run in haste to kill Nikita, and
then Hobotov, the superintendent and the assistant,
and then himself; but no sound came from his
chest, and his legs would not obey him. Gasping
for breath, he tore at the dressing-gown and the
shirt on his breast, rent them, and fell senseless on
the bed.

XIX.

Next morning his head ached, there was a
droning in his ears and a feeling of utter weakness
all over. He was not ashamed at recalling his
weakness the day before. He had been cowardly,
had even been afraid of the moon, had openly
expressed thoughts and feelings such as he had
not expected in himself before; for instance, the
thought that the paltry people who philosophized
were really dissatisfied . But now nothing mattered
to him.

He ate nothing, he drank nothing. He lay
motionless and silent.

"It is all the same to me," he thought when
they asked him questions. " I am not going to
answer. . . . It's all the same to me."

After dinner Mihail Averyanitch brought him
a quarter of a pound of tea and a pound of fruit

H2 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

pastilles. Daryushka came too and stood for a
whole hour by the bed with an expression of dull
grief on her face. Dr. Hobotov visited him.
He brought a bottle of bromide and told Nikita
to fumigate the ward with something.

Towards evening Andrey Yefimitch died of an
apoplectic stroke. At first he had a violent
shivering fit and a feeling of sickness; something
revolting, as it seemed, penetrating through his
whole body, even to his finger-tips, strained from
his stomach to his head and flooded his eyes and
ears. There was a greenness before his eyes.
Andrey Yefimitch understood that his end had
come, and remembered that I vanDmitritch, Mihail
Averyanitch, and millions of people believed in
immOTtatttyT And what ir~ir^e^IIy~~exigtEd ?
But"li^'3idTiol~wainrlmlh^

of it only for one instant. A herd of deer, extra
ordinarily beautiful and graceful, of which he had
been reading the day before, ran by him ; then a
peasant woman stretched out her hand to him with
a registered letter. . . . Mihail Averyanitch said
something, then it all vanished, and Andrey Yefi
mitch sank into oblivion for ever.

The hospital porters came, took him by his arms
and his legs, and carried him away to the chapel.

There he lay on the table, with open eyes, and
the moon shed its light upon him at night. In the
morning Sergey Sergeyitch came, prayed piously
before the crucifix, and closed his former chief's
eyes.

Next day Andrey Yefimitch was buried. Mihail
Averyanitch and Daryushka were the only people
at the funeral.

THE PETCHENYEG

THE PETCHENYEG

IVAN ABRAMITCH ZHMUHIN, a retired Cossack
officer, who had once served in the Caucasus,
but now lived on his own farm, and who had
once been young, strong, and vigorous, but now
was old, dried up, and bent, with shaggy eyebrows
and a greenish-grey moustache, was returning from
the town to his farm one hot summer's day.
In the town he had confessed and received absolu
tion, and had made his will at the notary's (a fort
night before he had had a slight stroke), and now
all the while he was in the railway carriage he
was haunted by melancholy, serious thoughts of
approaching death, of the vanity of vanities, of
the transitoriness of all things earthly. At the
station of Provalye — there is such a one on the
Donetz line — a fair-haired, plump, middle-aged
gentleman with a shabby portfolio stepped into the
carriage and sat down opposite. They got into
conversation.

" Yes," said Ivan Abramitch, looking pensively
out of window, "it is never too late to marry.
I myself married when I was forty-eight; I was
told it was late, but it has turned out that it was not
late or early, but simply that it would have been
better not to marry at all. Everyone is soon tired
of his wife, but not everyone tells the truth,
because, you know, people are ashamed of an
"5

n6 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

unhappy home life and conceal it. It's ' Manya
this ' and ' Manya that ' with many a man by his
wife's side, but if he had his way he'd put that
Manya in a sack and drop her in the water. It's
dull with one's wife, it's mere foolishness. And
it's no better with one's children, I make bold to
assure you. I have two of them, the rascals.
There's nowhere for them to be taught out here
in the steppe; I haven't the money to send them
to school in Novo Tcherkask, and they live here
like young wolves. Next thing they will be
murdering someone on the highroad."

The fair-haired gentleman listened attentively,
answered questions briefly in a low voice, and was
apparently a gentleman of gentle and modest dis
position. He mentioned that he was a lawyer,
and that he was going to the village Dyuevka on
business.

" Why, merciful heavens, that is six miles from
me !" said Zhmuhin in a tone of voice as though
someone were disputing with him. " But excuse
me, you won't find horses at the station now. To
my mind, the very best thing you can do, you
know, is to come straight to me, stay the night,
you know, and in the morning drive over with my
horses."

The lawyer thought a moment and accepted the
invitation.

When they reached the station the sun was
already low over the steppe. They said nothing
all the way from the station to the farm : the jolting
prevented conversation. The trap bounded up
and down, squeaked, and seemed to be sobbing,

THE PETCHENYEG 117

and the lawyer, who was sitting very un
comfortably, stared before him, miserably hoping
to see the farm. After they had driven five or six
miles there came into view in the distance a low-
pitched house and a yard enclosed by a fence made
of dark flat stones standing on end ; the roof was
green, the stucco was peeling off, and the windows
were little narrow slits like screwed-up eyes.
The farm stood in the full sunshine, and there was
no sign either of water or trees anywhere round.
Among the neighbouring landowners and the
peasants it was known as the Petchenyeg's.farm.
Many years before, a land surveyor, who was passing
through the neighbourhood and put up at the farm,
spent the whole night talking to Ivan Abramitch,
was not favourably impressed, and as he was driv
ing away in the morning said to him grimly :
" You are a Petchenyeg,* my good sir !"
From this came the nickname, the Petchenyeg's
farm, which stuck to the place even more when
Zhmuhin's boys grew up and began to make raids
on the orchards and kitchen-gardens. Ivan Abra
mitch was called " You Know," as he usually talked
a very great deal and frequently made use of that
expression.

In the yard near a barn Zhmuhin's sons were
standing, one a young man of nineteen, the other
a younger lad, both barefoot and bareheaded.
Just at the moment when the trap drove into the
yard the younger one flung high up a hen which,

* The Petchenyegs were a tribe of wild Mongolian nomads
who made frequent inroads upon the Russians in the tenth
and eleventh centuries. — Translator's Note.

n8 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

cackling, described an arc in the air ; the elder shot
at it with a gun and the hen fell dead on the earth.

" Those are my boys learning to shoot birds
flying," said Zhmuhin.

In the entry the travellers were met by a little
thin woman with a pale face, still young and beauti
ful ; from her dress she might have been taken for a
servant.

"And this, allow me to introduce her," said
Zhmuhin, " is the mother of my young cubs.
Come, Lyubov Osipovna," he said, addressing
her, " you must be spry, mother, and get some
thing for our guest. Let us have supper. Look
sharp !"

The house consisted of two parts : in one was the
parlour and beside it old Zhmuhin's bedroom,
both stuffy rooms with low ceilings and multitudes
of flies and wasps, and in the other was the kitchen
in which the cooking and washing was done and
the labourers had their meals; here geese and
turkey-hens were sitting on their eggs under the
benches, and here were the beds of Lyubov
Osipovna and her two sons. The furniture in the
parlour was unpainted and evidently roughly made
by a carpenter; guns, game-bags, and whips were
hanging on the walls, and all this old rubbish was
covered with the rust of years and looked grey with
dust. There was not one picture; in the corner
was a dingy board which had at one time been an
ikon.

A young Little Russian woman laid the table
and handed ham, then beetroot soup. The visitor
refused vodka and ate only bread and cucumbers.

THE PETCHENYEG 119

"How about ham?" asked Zhmuhin.

" Thank you, I don't eat it," answered the
visitor, " I don't eat meat at all."

" Why is that ?"

" I am a vegetarian. Killing animals is against
my principles."

Zhmuhin thought a minute and then said slowly
with a sigh:

" Yes ... to be sure. ... I saw a man
who did not eat meat in town, too. It's a new
religion they've got now. Well, it's good. We
can't go on always shooting and slaughtering, you
know ; we must give it up some day and leave even
the beasts in peace. It's a sin to kill, it's a sin,
there is no denying it. Sometimes one kills a hare
and wounds him in the leg, and he cries like a child.
... So it must hurt him !"

" Of course it hurts him; animals suffer just like
human beings."

" That's true," Zhmuhin assented. " I under
stand that very well," he went on, musing, " only
there is this one thing I don't understand : suppose,
you know, everyone gave up eating meat, what
would become of the domestic animals — fowls and
geese, for instance ?"

" Fowls and geese would live in freedom like wild
birds."

" Now I understand. To be sure, crows and
jackdaws get on all right without us. Yes. . . .
Fowls and geese and hares and sheep, all will live
in freedom, rejoicing, you know, and praising God ;
and they will not fear us, peace and concord will
come. Only there is one thing, you know, I can't

120 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

understand," Zhmuhin went on, glancing at the
ham." How will it be with the pigs ? What is
toj,be done with them ?"

" They will be like all the rest — that is, they will
live in freedom."

" Ah ! Yes. But allow me to say, if they were
not slaughtered they would multiply, you know,
and then good-bye to the kitchen-gardens and the
meadows. Why, a pig, if you let it free and don't
look after it, will ruin everything in a day. A pig
is a pig, and it is not for nothing it is called a
pig. . . ."

They finished supper. Zhmuhin got up from
the table and for a long while walked up and down
the room, talking and talking. . . . He was fond
of talking of something important or serious and
was fond of meditating, and in his old age he had a
longing to reach some haven, to be reassured, that
he might not be so frightened of dying. He had a
longing for meekness, spiritual calm, and con
fidence in himself, such as this guest of theirs had,
who had satisfied his hunger on cucumbers and
bread, and believed that doing so made him more
perfect; he was sitting on a chest, plump and
healthy, keeping silent and patiently enduring his
boredom, and in the dusk when one glanced at him
from the entry he looked like a big round stone
which one could not move from its place. If a man
has something to lay hold of in life he is all right.

Zhmuhin went through the entry to the porch,
and then he could be heard sighing and saying
reflectively to himself: " Yes. ... To be sure.
..." By now it was dark, and here and there

THE PETCHENYEG 121

stars could be seen in the sky. They had not yet
lighted up indoors. Someone came into the parlour
as noiselessly as a shadow and stood still near
the door. It was Lyubov Osipovna, Zhmuhin's
wife.

" Are you from the town ?" she asked timidly,
not looking at her visitor.

" Yes, I live in the town."

" Perhaps you are something in the learned way,
sir ; be so kind as to advise us. We ought to send
in a petition."

" To whom ?" asked the visitor.

" We have two sons, kind gentleman, and they
ought to have been sent to school long ago, but we
never see anyone and have no one to advise us.
And I know nothing. For if they are not taught
they will have to serve in the army as common
Cossacks. It's not right, sir ! They can't read
and write, they are worse than peasants, and Ivan
Abramitch himself can't stand them and won't let
them indoors. But they are not to blame. The
younger one, at any rate, ought to be sent to school,
it is such a pity !" she said slowly, and there was
a quiver in her voice; and it seemed incredible
that a woman so small and so youthful could have
grown-up children. " Oh, it's such a pity !"

" You don't know anything about it, mother, and
it is not your affair," said Zhmuhin, appearing
in the doorway. " Don't pester our guest with
your wild talk. Go away, mother !"

Lyubov Osipovna went out, and in the entry
repeated once more in a thin little voice: " Oh, it's
such a pity !"

122 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

A bed was made up for the visitor on the sofa in
the parlour, and that it might not be dark for him
they lighted the lamp before the ikon. Zhmuhin
went to bed in his own room. And as he lay there
he thought of his soul, of his age, of his recent
stroke which had so frightened him and made him
think of death. He was fond of philosophizing
when he was in quietness by himself, and then he
fancied that he was a very earnest, deep thinker,
and that nothing in this world interested him but
serious questions. And now he kept thinking and
he longed to pitch upon some one significant thought
unlike others, which would be a guide to him in
life, and he wanted to think out principles of some
sort for himself so as to make his life as deep and
earnest as he imagined that he felt himself to be.
It would be a good thing for an old man like him to
abstain altogether from meat, from superfluities of
all sorts. The time when men give up killing each
other and animals would come sooner or later, it
could not but be so, and he imagined that time to
himself and clearly pictured himself living in peace
with all the animals, and suddenly he thought again
of the pigs, and everything was in a tangle in his
brain.

" It's a queer business, Lord have mercy upon
us," he muttered, sighing heavily. " Are you
asleep ?" he asked.

" No."

Zhmuhin got out of bed and stopped in the door
way with nothing but his shirt on, displaying to
his guest his sinewy legs, that looked as dry as
sticks.

THE PETCHENYEG 123

" Nowadays, you know," he began, " all sorts of
telegraphs, telephones, and marvels of all kinds in
fact, have come in, but people are no better than
they were. They say that in our day, thirty or
forty years ago, men were coarse and cruel; but
isn't it just the same now ? We certainly did not
stand on ceremony in our day. I remember in the
Caucasus when we were stationed by a little river
with nothing to do for four whole months — I was
an under-officer at that time — something queer
happened, quite in the style of a novel. Just on
the banks of that river, you know, where our
division was encamped, a wretched prince whom
we had killed not long before was buried. And at
night, you know, the princess used to come to his
grave and weep. She would wail and wail, and
moan and moan, and make us so depressed we
couldn't sleep, and that's the fact. We couldn't
sleep one night, we couldn't sleep a second; well,
we got sick of it. And from a common-sense point
of view you really can't go without your sleep for
the devil knows what (excuse the expression) . We
took that princess and gave her a good thrashing,
and she gave up coming. There's an instance for
you. Nowadays, of course, there is not the same
class of people, and they are not given to thrashing
and they live in cleaner style, and there is more
learning; but, you know, the soul is just the same:
there is no change. Now, look here, there's a
landowner living here among us ; he has mines, you
know; all sorts of tramps without passports who
don't know where to go work for him. On
Saturdays he has to settle up with the workmen,

124 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

but he doesn't care to pay them, you know, he
grudges the money. So he's got hold of a foreman
who is a tramp too, though he does wear a hat.
' Don't you pay them anything,' he says, ' not a
kopeck: they'll beat you, and let them beat you,'
says he, ' but you put up with it, and I'll pay you
ten roubles every Saturday for it.' So on the
Saturday evening the workmen come to settle up
in the usual way; the foreman says to them:
' Nothing !' Well, word for word, as the master
said, they begin swearing and using their fists.
. . . They beat him and they kick him . . . you
know, they are a set of men brutalized by hunger —
they beat him till he is senseless, and then they go
each on his way. The master gives orders for cold
water to be poured on the foreman, then flings ten
roubles in his face. And he takes it and is pleased
too, for indeed he'd be ready to be hanged for three
roubles, let alone ten. Yes . . . and on Monday
a new gang of workmen arrive ; they work, for they
have nowhere to go. . . . On Saturday it is the
same story over again."

The visitor turned over on the other side with his
face to the back of the sofa and muttered something.

" And here's another instance," Zhmuhin went
on. " We had the Siberian plague here, you know
— the cattle die off like flies, I can tell you — and
the veterinary surgeons came here, and strict
orders were given that the dead cattle were to be
buried at a distance deep in the earth, that lime
was to be thrown over them, and so on, you know,
on scientific principles. My horse died too. I
buried it with every precaution, and threw over

THE PETCHENYEG 125

three hundredweight of lime over it. And what
do you think ? My fine fellows — my precious sons,
I mean — dug it up, skinned it, and sold the hide
for three roubles; there's an instance for you. So
people have grown no better, and however you feed
a wolf he will always look towards the forest ; there
it is. It gives one something to think about, eh ?
How do you look at it ?"

On one side a flash of lightning gleamed through
a chink in the window- blinds. There was the
stifling feeling of a storm coming, the gnats were
biting, and Zhmuhin, as he lay in his bedroom
meditating, sighed and groaned and said to himself :
' Yes, to be sure " and there was no possi
bility of getting to sleep. Somewhere far, far away
there was a growl of thunder.

" Are you asleep ?"

"No," answered the visitor.

Zhmuhin got up, and thudding with his heels
walked through the parlour and the entry to the
kitchen to get a drink of water.

" The worst thing in the world, you know, is
stupidity," he said a little later, coming back with
a dipper. " My Lyubov Osipovna is on her knees
saying her prayers. She prays every night, you
know, and bows down to the ground, first that her
children may be sent to school; she is afraid her
boys will go into the army as simple Cossacks, and
that they will be whacked across their backs with
sabres. But for teaching one must have money,
and where is one to get it ? You may break the
floor beating your head against it, but if you haven't
got it you haven't. And the other reason she prays

126 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

is because, you know, every woman imagines there
is no one in the world as unhappy as she is. I am
a plain-spoken man, and I don't want to conceal
anything from you. She comes of a poor family,
a village priest's daughter. I married her when
she was seventeen, and they accepted my offer
chiefly because they hadn't enough to eat; it was
nothing but poverty and misery, while I have any
way land, you see — a farm — and after all I am
an officer ; it was a step up for her to marry me, you
know. On the very first day when she was married
she cried, and she has been crying ever since, all
these twenty years; she has got a watery eye.
And she's always sitting and thinking, and what
do you suppose she is thinking about ? What can
a woman think about ? Why, nothing. I must
own I don't consider a woman a human being."

The visitor got up abruptly and sat on the bed.

" Excuse me, I feel stifled," he said; " I will go
outside."

Zhmuhin, still talking about women, drew the
bolt in the entry and they both went out. A full
moon was floating in the sky just over the yard,
and in the moonlight the house and barn looked
whiter than by day; and on the grass brilliant
streaks of moonlight, white too, stretched between
the black shadows. Far away on the right could
be seen the steppe, above it the stars were softly
glowing — and it was all mysterious, infinitely far
away, as though one were gazing into a deep
abyss ; while on the left heavy storm-clouds, black
as soot, were piling up one upon another above the
steppe; their edges were lighted up by the moon,

THE PETCHENYEG 127

and it looked as though there were mountains there
with white snow on their peaks, dark forests, the
sea. There was a flash of lightning, a faint rumble
of thunder, and it seemed as though a battle were
being fought in the mountains. . . .

Quite close to the house a little night-owl screeched
monotonously:

" Asleep ! asleep !"

" What time is it now ?" asked the visitor.

" Just after one."

" How long it is still to dawn !"

They went back to the house and lay down again.
It was time to sleep, and one can usually sleep so
splendidly before rain; but the old man had a
hankering after serious, weighty thoughts; he
wanted not simply to think but to meditate, and he
meditated how good it would be, as death was near
at hand, for the sake of his soul to give up the
idleness which so imperceptibly swallowed up day
after day, year after year, leaving no trace; to
think out for himself some great exploit — for in
stance, to walk on foot far, far away, or to give up
meat like this young man. And again he pictured
to himself the time when animals would not be
killed, pictured it clearly and distinctly as though
he were living through that time himself; but
suddenly it was all in a tangle again in his head and
all was muddled.

The thunderstorm had passed over, but from the
edges of the storm-clouds came rain softly pattering
on the roof. Zhmuhin got up, stretching and
groaning with old age, and looked into the parlour.
Noticing that his visitor was not asleep, he said:

128 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" When we were in the Caucasus, you know, there
was a colonel there who was a vegetarian, too ; he
didn't eat meat, never went shooting, and would
not let his servants catch fish. Of course, I under
stand that every animal ought to live in freedom
and enjoy its life; only I don't understand how a
pig can go about where it likes without being
looked after. ..."

The visitor got up and sat down. His pale
haggard face expressed weariness and vexation ; it
was evident that he was exhausted, and only his
gentleness and the delicacy of his soul prevented
him from expressing his vexation in words.

" It's getting light," he said mildly. " Please
have the horse brought round for me."

" Why so ? Wait a little and the rain will be
over."

" No, I entreat you," said the visitor in horror,
with a supplicating voice; "it is essential for me
to go at once."

And he began hurriedly dressing.

By the time the horse was harnessed the sun
was rising. It had just left off raining, the clouds
were racing swiftly by, and the patches of blue were
growing bigger and bigger in the sky. The first
rays of the sun were timidly reflected below in the
big puddles. The visitor walked through the
entry with his portfolio to get into the trap, and
at that moment Zhmuhin's wife, pale, and it
seemed paler than the day before, with tear-
stained eyes, looked at him intently without
blinking, with the naive expression of a little girl,
and it was evident from her dejected face that she

THE PETCHENYEG 129

was envying him his freedom — oh, with what joy
she would have gone away from there ! — and she
wanted to say something to him, most likely to
ask advice about her children. And what a
pitiable figure she was ! This was not a wife,
not the head of a house, not even a servant,
but more like a dependent, a poor relation not
wanted by anyone, a nonentity. . . . Her hus
band, fussing about, talking unceasingly, was
seeing his visitor off, continually running in front
of him, while she huddled up to the wall with a
timid, guilty air, waiting for a convenient minute
to speak.

" Please come again another time," the old man
kept repeating incessantly; " what we have we are
glad to offer, you know."

The visitor hurriedly got into the trap, evidently
with relief, as though he were afraid every minute
that they would detain him. The trap lurched
about as it had the day before, squeaked, and
furiously rattled the pail that was tied on at the
back. He glanced round at Zhmuhin with a
peculiar expression ; it looked as though he wanted
to call him a Petchenyeg, as the surveyor had once
done, or some such name, but his gentleness got
the upper hand. He controlled himself and said
nothing. But in the gateway he suddenly could
not restrain himself; he got up and shouted loudly
and angrily: " You have bored me to death."

And he disappeared through the gate.

Near the barn Zhmuhin's sons were standing;
the elder held a gun, while the younger had in his
hands a grey cockerel with a bright red comb.

x. 9

130 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

The younger flung up the cockerel with all his
might ; the bird flew upwards higher than the house
and turned over in the air like a pigeon. The elder
boy fired and the cockerel fell like a stone.

The old man, overcome with confusion, not
knowing how to explain the visitor's strange, un
expected shout, went slowly back into the house.
And sitting down at the table he spent a long
while meditating on the intellectual tendencies of
the day, on the universal immorality, on the tele
graph, on the telephone, on velocipedes, on how
unnecessary it all was ; little by little he regained
his composure, then slowly had a meal, drank five
glasses of tea, and lay down for a nap.

A DEAD BODY

A DEAD BODY

A STILL August night. A mist is rising slowly
from the fields and casting an opaque veil over
everything within eyesight. Lighted up by the
moon, the mist gives the impression at one moment
of a calm, boundless sea, at the next of an immense
white wall. The air is damp and chilly. Morn
ing is still far off. A step from the bye-road which
runs along the edge of the forest a little fire is
gleaming. A dead body, covered from head to
foot with new white linen, is lying under a young
oak-tree. A wooden ikon is lying on its breast.
Beside the corpse almost on the road sits the
" watch " — two peasants performing one of the
most disagreeable and uninviting of peasants'
duties. One, a tall young fellow with a scarcely
perceptible moustache and thick black eyebrows,
in a tattered sheepskin and bark shoes, is sitting
on the wet grass, his feet stuck out straight in front
of him, and is trying to while away the time with
work. He bends his long neck, and breathing
loudly through his nose, makes a spoon out of a
big crooked bit of wood ; the other — a little scraggy,
pock-marked peasant with an aged face, a scanty
moustache, and a little goat's beard — sits with his
hands dangling loose on his knees, and without

134 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

moving gazes listlessly at the light. A small
camp-fire is lazily burning down between them,
throwing a red glow on their faces. There is
perfect stillness. The only sounds are the scrape
of the knife on the wood and the crackling of damp
sticks in the fire.

" Don't you go to sleep, Syoma . . ." says the
young man.

" I ... I am not asleep ..." stammers the
goat-beard.

" That's all right. ... It would be dreadful
to sit here alone, one would be frightened. You
might tell me something, Syoma."
" I ... I can't. . . ."

" You are a queer fellow, Syomushka ! Other
people will laugh and tell a story and sing a song,
but you — there is no making you out. You sit
like a scarecrow in the garden and roll your eyes
at the fire. You can't say anything properly . . .
when you speak you seem frightened. I dare say
you are fifty, but you have less sense than a
child". . . . Aren't you sorry that you are a
simpleton ?"

" I am sorry," the goat-beard answers gloomily.
" And we are sorry to see your foolishness, you
may be sure. You are a good-natured, sober
peasant, and the only trouble is that you have no
sense in your head. You should have picked up
some sense for yourself if the Lord has afflicted you
and given you no understanding. You must make
an effort, Syoma. -. . . You should listen hard
when anything good's being said, note . it well,
and keep thinking and thinking. ... If there

A DEAD BODY 135

is any word you don't understand, you should
make an effort and think over in your head in
what meaning the word is used. Do you see ?
Make an effort ! If you don't gain some sense
for yourself you'll be a simpleton and of no account
at all to your dying day."

All at once a long-drawn-out, moaning sound is
heard in the forest. Something rustles in the
leaves as though torn from the very top of the
tree and falls to the ground. All this is faintly
repeated by the echo. The young man shudders
and looks enquiringly at his companion.

" It's an owl at the little birds," says Syoma,
gloomily.

"Why, Syoma, it's time for the birds to fly to
the watm countries !"
" To be sure, it is time."

"It is chilly at dawn now. It is co-old. The
crane is a chilly creature, it is tender. Such cold
is death to it. I am not a crane, but I am frozen.
. . . Put some more wood on !"

Syoma gets up and disappears in the dark under
growth. While he is busy among the bushes,
breaking dry twigs, his companion puts his hand
over his eyes and starts at every sound. Syoma
brings an armful of wood and lays it on the fire.
The flame irresolutely licks the black twigs with
its little tongues, then suddenly, as though at the
word of command, catches them and throws a
crimson light on the faces, the road, the white linen
with its prominences where the hands and feet
of the corpse raise it, the ikon. The " watch " is
silent. The young man bends his neck still lower

136 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

and sets to work with still more nervous haste.
The goat-beard sits motionless as before and keeps
his eyes fixed on the fire. . . .

"Ye that love not Zion . . . shall be put
to shame by the Lord." A falsetto voice is
suddenly heard singing in the stillness of the
night, then slow footsteps are audible, and the dark
figure of a man in a short monkish cassock and a
broad-brimmed hat, with a wallet on his shoulders,
comes into sight on the road in the crimson
firelight.

" Thy will be done, O Lord ! Holy Mother !"
the figure says in a husky falsetto. " I saw the fire
in the outer darkness and my soul leapt for joy.
... At first I thought it was men grazing a drove
of horses, then I thought it can't be that, since
no horses were to be seen. ' Aren't they thieves/
I wondered, ' aren't they robbers lying in wait
for a rich Lazarus ? Aren't they the gypsy people
offering sacrifices to idols ?' And my soul leapt
for joy. ' Go, Feodosy, servant of God,' I said to
myself, ' and win a martyr's crown !' And I flew
to the fire like a light-winged moth. Now I stand
before you, and from your outer aspect I judge of
your souls: you are not thieves and you are not
heathens. Peace be to you !"

" Good-evening."

" Good orthodox people, do you know how
to reach the Makuhinsky Brickyards from
here ?"

" It's close here. You go straight along the road;
when you have gone a mile and a half there will
be Ananova, our village. From the village, father,

A DEAD BODY 137

you turn to the right by the river-bank, and so you
will get to the brickyards. It's two miles from
Ananova."

' ' God give you health . And why are you sitting
here ?"

" We are sitting here watching. You see, there
is a dead body. . . ."

" What ? what body ? Holy Mother !"

The pilgrim sees the white linen with the ikon
on it, and starts so violently that his legs give a
little skip. This unexpected sight has an over
powering effect upon him. He huddles together
and stands as though rooted to the spot, with
wide-open mouth and staring eyes. For three
minutes he is silent as though he could not believe
his eyes, then begins muttering:

" O Lord ! Holy Mother ! I was going along
not meddling with anyone, and all at once such an
affliction."

" What may you be ?" enquires the young man.
" Of the clergy ?"

"No . . . no. . . . I go from one monastery to
another. . . . Do you know Mi ... Mihail Poli-
karpitch, the foreman of the brickyard ? Well,
I am his nephew. . . . Thy will be done, O
Lord ! Why are you here ?"

" We are watching ... we are told to."

" Yes, yes . . ." mutters the man in the cassock,
passing his hand over his eyes. " And where did
the deceased come from ?"

" He was a stranger."

"Such is life! But I '11 ... er ... begetting
on, brothers. ... I feel flustered. I am more

138 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

afraid of the dead than of anything, my dear souls !
And only fancy ! while this man was alive he wasn't
noticed, while now when he is dead and given over
to corruption we tremble before him as before
some famous general or a bishop. . . . Such is
life; was he murdered, or what ?"

" The Lord knows ! Maybe he was murdered,
or maybe he died of himself."

" Yes, yes. . . . Who knows, brothers ? Maybe
his soul is now tasting the joys of Paradise."

" His soul is still hovering here, near his body,"
says the young man. "It does not depart from
the body for three days."

" H'm, yes ! . . . How chilly the nights are
now ! It sets one's teeth chattering. ... So
then I am to go straight on and on ? . . ."

" Till you get to the village, and then you turn
to the right by the river-bank."

" By the river-bank. . . . To be sure. . . .
Why am I standing still ? I must go on. Fare
well, brothers."

The man in the cassock takes five steps along the
road and stops.

"I've forgotten to put a kopeck for the burying,"
he says. " Good orthodox friends, can I give the
money ?"

" You ought to know best, you go the round of
the monasteries. If he died a natural death it
would go for the good of his soul; if it's a suicide
it's a sin."

" That's true. . . . And maybe it really was a
•suicide ! So I had better keep my money. Oh,
sins, sins ! Give me a thousand roubles and I

A DEAD BODY 139

would not consent to sit here. . . . Farewell,
brothers."

The cassock slowly moves away and stops
again.

" I can't make up my mind what I am to do,"
he mutters. " To stay here by the fire and wait
till daybreak. ... I am frightened; to go on
is dreadful, too. The dead man will haunt me
all the way in the darkness. . . . The Lord has
chastised me indeed ! Over three hundred miles
I have come on foot and nothing happened, and
now I am near home and there's trouble. I can't
go on. . . ."

" It is dreadful, that is true."

" I am not afraid of wolves, of thieves, or of
darkness, but I am afraid of the dead. I am
afraid of them, and that is all about it. Good
orthodox brothers, I entreat you on my knees, see
me to the village."

" We've been told not to go away from the
body."

" No one will see, brothers. Upon my soul, no
one will see ! The Lord will reward you a hundred
fold ! Old man, come with me, I beg ! Old
man ! Why are you silent ?"

" He is a bit simple," says the young man.

" You come with me, friend; I will give you five
kopecks."

" For five kopecks I might," says the young
man, scratching his head, " but I was told not to.
If Syoma here, our simpleton, will stay alone, I
will take you. Syoma, will you stay here alone ?"

" I'll stay," the simpleton consents.

140 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Well, that's all right, then. Come along !"
The young man gets up, and goes with the
cassock. A minute later the sound of their steps
and their talk dies away. Syoma shuts his eyes
and gently dozes. The fire begins to grow dim,
and a big black shadow falls on the dead body.

A HAPPY ENDING

A HAPPY ENDING

LYUBOV GRIGORYEVNA, a substantial, buxom lady
of forty who undertook matchmaking and many
other matters of which it is usual to speak only in
whispers, had come to see Stytchkin, the head
guard, on a day when he was off duty. Stytchkin,
somewhat embarrassed, but, as always, grave,
practical, and severe, was walking up and down
the room, smoking a cigar and saying:

" Very pleased to make your acquaintance.
Semyon Ivanovitch recommended you on the
ground that you may be able to assist me in a
delicate and very important matter affecting the
happiness of my life. I have, Lyubov Grigoryevna,
reached the age of fifty-two; that is a period of
life at which very many have already grown-up
children. My position is a secure one. Though
my fortune is not large, yet I am in a position to
support a beloved being and children at my side.
I may tell you between ourselves that apart from
my salary I have also money in the bank which my
manner of living has enabled me to save. I am
a practical and sober man, I lead a sensible and
consistent life, so that I may hold myself up as
an example to many. But one thing I lack — a
domestic hearth of my own and a partner in life,
and I live like a wandering Magyar, moving from
place to place without any satisfaction. I have no
one with whom to take counsel, and when I am ill
no one to give me water, and so on. Apart from that,
143

144 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

Lyubov Grigoryevna, a married man has always
more weight in society than a bachelor. ... I am
a man of the educated class, with money, but if
you look at me from a point of view, what am I ?
A man with no kith and kin, no better than some
Polish priest. And therefore I should be very
desirous to be united in the bonds of Hymen — that is,
to enter into matrimony with some worthy person."

" An excellent thing," said the matchmaker,
with a sigh.

" I am a solitary man and in this town I know
no one. Where can I go, and to whom can I
apply, since all the people here are strangers to
me ? That is why Semyon Ivanovitch advised
me to address myself to a person who is a specialist
in this line, and makes the arrangement of the
happiness of others her profession. And there
fore I most earnestly beg you, Lyubov Grigoryevna,
to assist me in ordering my future. You know all
the marriageable young ladies in the town, and
it is easy for you to accommodate me."

" I can. . . ."

" A glass of wine, I beg you. . . ."

With an habitual gesture the matchmaker raised
her glass to her mouth and tossed it off without
winking.

" I can," she repeated. " And what sort of
bride would you like, Nikolay Nikolayitch ?"

" Should I like ? The bride fate sends me."

" Well, of course it depends on your fate, but
everyone has his own taste, you know. One likes
dark ladies, the other prefers fair ones."

" You see, Lyubov Grigoryevna," said Stytch-
kin, sighing sedately, " I am a practical man and

A HAPPY ENDING 145

a man of character; for me beauty and external
appearance generally take a secondary place, for,
as you know yourself, beauty is neither bowl noi
platter, and a pretty wife involves a great deal of
anxiety. The way I look at it is, what matters
most in a woman is not what is external, but what
lies within — that is, that she should have soul
and all the qualities. A glass of wine, I beg. . . .
Of course, it would be very agreeable that one's
wife should be rather plump, but for mutual
happiness it is not of great consequence; what
matters is the mind. Properly speaking, a woman
does not need mind either, for if she has brains
she will have too high an opinion of herself, and
take all sorts of ideas into her head. One cannot
do without education nowadays, of course, but
education is of different kinds. It would be
pleasing for one's wife t£> know French and German,
to speak various languages, very pleasing; but
what's the use of that if she can't sew on one's
buttons, perhaps ? I am a man of the educated
class; I am just as much at home, I may say, with
Prince Kanitelin as I am with you here now. But
my habits are simple, and I want a girl who is not too
much a fine lady. Above all, she must have respect
for me and feel that I have made her happiness."

" To be sure."

" Well, now, as regards the essential. ... I do
not want a wealthy bride; I would never con
descend to anything so low as to marry for money.
I desire not to be kept by my wife, but to keep her,
and that she may be sensible of it. But I do not
want a poor girl either. Though I am a man of

x. 10

146 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

means, and am marrying not from mercenary'
motives, but from love, yet I cannot take a poof
girl, for, as you know yourself, prices have gone
up so, and there will be children."

" One might find one with a dowry," said the
matchmaker.

" A glass of wine, I beg. . . ."

There was a pause of five minutes.

The matchmaker heaved a sigh, took a sidelong
glance at the guard, and asked :

" Well, now, my good sir ... do you want
anything in the bachelor line ? I have some fine
bargains. One is a French girl and one is a
Greek. Well worth the money."

The guard thought a moment and said :

" No, I thank you. In view of your favourable
disposition, allow me to enquire now how much
you ask for your exertions in regard to a bride ?"

" I don't ask much. Give me twenty-five
roubles and the stuff for a dress, as is usual, and
I will say thank you . . . but for the dowry, that's
a different account."

Stytchkin folded his arms over his chest and
fell to pondering in silence. After some thought
he heaved a sigh and said :

" That's dear. . . ."

" It's not at all dear, Nikolay Nikolayitch ! In
old days when there were lots of weddings one
did do it cheaper, but nowadays what are our
earnings ? If you make fifty roubles in a month
that is not a fast, you may be thankful. It's not
on weddings we make our money, my good sir."

Stytchkin looked at the matchmaker in amaze
ment and shrugged his shoulders.

A HAPPY ENDING 147

" H'm ! . . . Do you call fifty roubles little ?"
he asked.

" Of course it is little ! In old days we some
times made more than a hundred."

" H'm ! I should never have thought it was
possible to earn such a sum by these jobs. Fifty
roubles ! It is not every man that earns as
much ! Pray drink your wine. ..."

The matchmaker drained her glass without
winking. Stytchkin looked her over from head to
foot in silence, then said :

" Fifty roubles. . . . Why, that is six hundred
roubles a year. . . . Please take some more. . . .
With such dividends, you know, Lyubov Grigor-
yevna, you would have no difficulty in making a
match for yourself. ..."

" For myself," laughed the matchmaker, " I am
an old woman."

" Not at all. . . . You have such a figure, and
your face is plump and fair, and all the rest of it."

The matchmaker was embarrassed, Stytchkin
was also embarrassed and sat down beside her.

" You are still very attractive," said he; " if you
met withapractical, steady, careful husband.withhis
salary and your earnings you might even attract him
very much, and you'd get on very well together. ..."

" Goodness knows what you are saying, Nikolay
Nikolayitch."

" Well. I meant no harm. . . ."

A silence followed. Stytchkin began loudly
blowing his nose, while the matchmaker turned
crimson, and looking bashfully at him, asked:

" And how much do you get, Nikolay
Nikolayitch ?"

148 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" I ? Seventy-five roubles, besides tips. . . .
Apart from that we make something out of
candles and hares."

" You go hunting, then ?"

"No. Passengers who travel without tickets
are called hares with us."

Another minute passed in silence. Stytchkin
got up and walked about the room in excitement .

" I don't want a young wife," said he. " I am
a middle-aged man, and I want someone who . . .
as it might be like you . . . staid and settled . . .
and a figure something like yours. ..."

" Goodness knows what you are saying ..."
giggled the matchmaker, hiding her crimson face
in her kerchief.

" There is no need to be long thinking about it.
You are after my own heart, and you suit me in
your qualities. I am a practical, sober man, and
if you like me . . . what could be better ? Allow
me to make you a proposal !"

The matchmaker dropped a tear, laughed, and,
in token of her consent, clinked glasses with
Stytchkin.

" Well," said the happy railway guard, " now
allow me to explain to you the behaviour and
manner of life I desire from you. ... I am a
strict, respectable, practical man. I take a
gentlemanly view of everything. And I desire
that my wife should be strict also, and should
understand that to her I am a benefactor and the
foremost person in the world."

He sat down, and, heaving a deep sigh, began
expounding to his bride-elect his views on domestic
life and a wife's duties.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

THE LOOKING-GLASS

NEW Year's Eve. Nellie, the daughter of a land
owner and general, a young and pretty girl,
dreaming day and night of being married, was
sitting in her room, gazing with exhausted, half-
closed eyes into the looking-glass. She was pale,
tense, and as motionless as the looking-glass.

The non-existent but apparent vista of a long,
narrow corridor with endless rows of candles, the
reflection of her face, her hands, of the frame — all
this was already clouded in mist and merged into
a boundless grey sea. The sea was undulating,
gleaming and now and then flaring crimson. . . .

Looking at Nellie's motionless eyes and parted
lips, one could hardly say whether she was asleep
or awake, but nevertheless she was seeing. At
first she saw only the smile and soft, charming
expression of someone's eyes, then against the
shifting grey background there gradually appeared
the outlines of a head, a face, eyebrows, beard.
It was he, the destined one, the object of long
dreams and hopes. The destined one was for
Nellie everything, the significance of life, personal
happiness, career, fate. Outside him, as on the
grey background of the looking-glass, all was
dark, empty, meaningless. And so it was not
strange that, seeing before her a handsome, gently

152 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

smiling face, she was conscious of bliss, of an
unutterably sweet dream that could not be ex
pressed in speech or on paper. Then she heard his
voice, saw herself living under the same roof with
him, her life merged into his. Months and years
flew by against the grey background. And Nellie
saw her future distinctly in all its details.

Picture followed picture against the grey back
ground. Now Nellie saw herself one winter night
knocking at the door of Stepan Lukitch, the
district doctor. The old dog hoarsely and lazily
barked behind the gate. The doctor's windows
were in darkness. All was silence.

" For God's sake, for God's sake !" whispered
Nellie.

But at last the garden gate creaked and Nellie
saw the doctor's cook.

" Is the doctor at home ?"

" His honour's asleep," whispered the cook into
her sleeve, as though afraid of waking her master.
" He's only just got home from his fever patients,
and gave orders he was not to be waked."

But Nellie scarcely heard the cook. Thrusting
her aside, she rushed headlong into the doctor's
house. Running through some dark and stuffy
rooms, upsetting two or three chairs, she at last
reached the doctor's bedroom. Stepan Lukitch
was lying on his bed, dressed, but without his coat,
and with pouting lips was breathing into his open
hand. A little night-light glimmered faintly
beside him. Without uttering a word Nellie sat
down and began to cry. She wept bitterly,
Shaking all over.

THE LOOKING-GLASS 153

" My husband is ill !" she sobbed out. Stepan
Lukitch was silent. He slowly sat up, propped his
head on his hand, and looked at his visitor with
fixed, sleepy eyes. " My husband is ill !" Nellie
continued, restraining her sobs. ' ' For mercy's sake
come quickly. Make haste. . . . Make haste !"

" Eh ?" growled the doctor, blowing into his
hand.

" Come ! Come this very minute ! Or ...
it's terrible to think ! For mercy's sake !"

And pale, exhausted Nellie, gasping and swal
lowing her tears, began describing to the doctor her
husband's illness, her unutterable terror. Her
sufferings would have touched the heart of a stone,
but the doctor looked at her, blew into his open
hand, and — not a movement.

" I'll come to-morrow !" he muttered.

" That's impossible !" cried Nellie. " I know
my husband has typhus ! At once . . . this very
minute you are needed !"

" I . . . er . . . have only just come in," mut
tered the doctor. " For the last three days I've
been away, seeing typhus patients, and I'm ex
hausted and ill myself. ... I simply can't !
Absolutely ! I've caught it myself ! There !"

And the doctor thrust before her eyes a clinical
thermometer.

" My temperature is nearly forty. ... I abso
lutely can't. I can scarcely sit up. Excuse me.
I'll lie down. . . ."

The doctor lay down.

" But I implore you, doctor," Nellie moaned in
despair. " I beseech you ! Help me, for mercy's

154 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

sake ! Make a great effort and come ! I will
repay you, doctor !"

" Oh, dear ! . . . Why, I have told you al
ready. Ah !"

Nellie leapt up and walked nervously up and
down the bedroom. She longed to explain to the
doctor, to bring him to reason. . . . She thought
if only he knew how dear her husband was to her
and how unhappy she was, he would forget his
exhaustion and his illness. But how could she be
eloquent enough ?

" Go to the Zemstvo doctor," she heard Stepan
Lukitch's voice.

" That's impossible ! He lives more than twenty
miles from here, and time is precious. And the
horses can't stand it. It is thirty miles from
us to you, and as much from here to the Zemstvo
doctor. No, it's impossible ! Come along, Stepan
Lukitch. I ask of you an heroic deed. Come,
perform that heroic deed ! Have pity on us !"

" It's beyond everything. . . . I'm in a fever
. . . my head's in a whirl . . . and she won't
understand ! Leave me alone !"

" But you are in duty bound to come ! You
cannot refuse to come ! It's egoism ! A man is
bound to sacrifice his life for his neighbour, and
you . . . you refuse to come ! I will summon you
before the Court."

Nellie felt that she was uttering a false and
undeserved insult, but for her husband's sake she
was capable of forgetting logic, tact, sympathy for
others. ... In reply to her threats, the doctor
greedily gulped a glass of cold water. Nellie fell to

THE LOOKING-GLASS 155

entreating and imploring like the very lowest
beggar. ... At last the doctor gave way. He
slowly got up, puffing and panting, looking for his
coat.

" Here it is !" cried Nellie, helping him. " Let
me put it on to you. Come along ! I will re
pay you. . . . All my life I shall be grateful to
you. . . ."

But what agony ! After putting on his coat the
doctor lay down again. Nellie got him up and
dragged him to the hall. There there was an
agonizing to-do over his goloshes, his overcoat.
. . . His cap was lost. . . . But at last Nellie
was in the carriage with the doctor. Now they had
only to drive thirty miles and her husband would
have a doctor's help. The earth was wrapped in
darkness. One could not see one's hand before
one's face. ... A cold winter wind was blowing.
There were frozen lumps under their wheels. The
coachman was continually stopping and wondering
which road to take.

Nellie and the doctor sat silent all the way. It
was fearfully jolting, but they felt neither the cold
nor the jolts.

" Get on, get on !" Nellie implored the driver.

At five in the morning the exhausted horses
drove into the yard. Nellie saw the familiar gates,
the well with the crane, the long row of stables and
barns. At last she was at home.

" Wait a moment, I will be back directly," she
said to Stepan Lukitch, making him sit down on
the sofa in the dining-room. " Sit still and wait
a little, and I'll see how he is going on."

156 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

On her return from her husband, Nellie found the
doctor lying down. He was lying on the sofa and
muttering.

" Doctor, please ! . . . doctor !"

" Eh ? Ask Domna ! " muttered Stepan Lukitch.

" What ?"

" They said at the meeting . . . Vlassov said
. . . Who? . . . what?"

And to her horror Nellie saw that the doctor was
as delirious as her husband. What was to be
done ?

" I must go for the Zemstvo doctor," she de
cided.

Then again there followed darkness, a cutting
cold wind, lumps of frozen earth. She was suffer
ing in body and in soul, and delusive nature has
no arts, no deceptions to compensate these suffer
ings. . . .

Then she saw against the grey background how
her husband every spring was in straits for money
to pay the interest for the mortgage to the bank.
He could not sleep, she could not sleep, and both
racked their brains till their heads ached, thinking
how to avoid being visited by the clerk of the Court.

She saw her children: the everlasting appre
hension of colds, scarlet fever, diphtheria, bad
marks at school, separation. Out of a brood of
five or six one was sure to die.

The grey background was not untouched by death.
That might well be. A husband and wife cannot
die simultaneously. Whatever happened one must
bury the other. And Nellie saw her husband dying.
This terrible event presented itself to her in[every

THE LOOKING-GLASS 157

detail. She saw the coffin, the candles, the deacon,
and even the footmarks in the hall made by the
undertaker.

" Why is it, what is it for ?" she asked, looking
blankly at her husband's face.

And all the previous life with her husband seemed
to her a stupid prelude to this.

Something fell from Nellie's hand and knocked on
the floor. She started, jumped up, and opened her
eyes wide. One looking-glass she saw lying at
her feet. The other was standing as before on the
table.

She looked into the looking-glass and saw a pale,
tear-stained face. There was no grey background
now.

" I must have fallen asleep," she thought with a
sigh of relief.

OLD AGE

OLD AGE

UZELKOV, an architect with the rank of civil
councillor, arrived in his native town, to which
he had been invited to restore the church in the
cemetery. He had been born in the town, had
been at school, had grown up and married in it.
But when he got out of the train he scarcely recog
nized it. Everything was changed. . . . Eigh
teen years ago when he had moved to Petersburg
the street-boys used to catch marmots, for instance,
on the spot where now the station was standing;
now when one drove into the chief street, a hotel of
four storeys stood facing one; in old days there was
an ugly grey fence just there; but nothing — neither
fences nor houses — had changed as much as the
people. From his enquiries of the hotel waiter
Uzelkov learned that more than half of the people
he remembered were dead, reduced to poverty,
forgotten.

" And do you remember Uzelkov ?" he asked the
old waiter about himself. " Uzelkov the architect
who divorced his wife ? He used to have a house
in Svirebeyevsky Street . . . you must remember."

" I don't remember, sir."

" How is it you don't remember ? The case
made a lot of noise, even the cabmen all knew
about it. Think, now ! Shapkin the attorney
x. 161 ii

162 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

managed my divorce for me, the rascal . . . the
notorious cardsharper, the fellow who got a thrash
ing at the club. ..."

" Ivan Nikolaitch ?"

" Yes, yes. . . . Well, is he alive ? Is he
dead ?"

" Alive, sir, thank God. He is a notary now
and has an office. He is very well off . He has two
houses in Kirpitchny Street. . . . His daughter
was married the other day. . . ."

Uzelkov paced up and down the room, thought a
bit, and in his boredom made up his mind to go and
see Shapkin at his office. When he walked out of
the hotel and sauntered slowly towards Kirpitchny
Street it was midday. He found Shapkin at his
office and scarcely recognized him. From the once
well-made, adroit attorney with a mobile, insolent,
and always drunken face Shapkin had changed into
a modest, grey-headed, decrepit old man.

" You don't recognize me, you have forgotten
me," began Uzelkov. " I am your old client,
Uzelkov."

" Uzelkov, what Uzelkov ? Ah !" Shapkin
remembered, recognized, and was struck all of a
heap. There followed a shower of exclamations,
questions, recollections.

" This is a surprise ! This is unexpected !"
cackled Shapkin. " What can I offer you ? Do
you care for champagne ? Perhaps you would like
oysters ? My dear fellow, I have had so much
from you in my time that I can't offer you anything
equal to the occasion. ..."

" Please don't put yourself out . . ." said

OLD AGE 163

Uzelkov. " I have no time to spare. I must go
at once to the cemetery and examine the church;
I have undertaken the restoration of it."

" That's capital ! We'll have a snack and a
drink and drive together. I have capital horses.
I'll take you there and introduce you to the church
warden ; I will arrange it all. . . . But why is it,
my angel, you seem to be afraid of me and hold me
at arm's length ? Sit a little nearer ! There is no
need for you to be afraid of me nowadays. He-he !
... At one time, it is true, I was a cunning blade,
a dog of a fellow ... no one dared approach me ;
but now I am stiller than water and humbler than
the grass. I have grown old, I am a family man,
I have children. It's tune I was dead."

The friends had lunch, had a drink, and with
a pan* of horses drove out of the town to the
cemetery.

" Yes, those were times !" Shapkin recalled as he
sat in the sledge. " When you remember them
you simply can't believe in them. Do you re
member how you divorced your wife ? It's nearly
twenty years ago, and I dare say you have forgotten
it all ; but I remember it as though I'd divorced you
yesterday. Good Lord, what a lot of worry I had
over it ! I was a sharp fellow, tricky and cunning,
a desperate character. . . . Sometimes I was
burning to tackle some ticklish business, especially
if the fee were a good one, as, for instance, in your
case. What did you pay me then ? Five or six
thousand ! That was worth taking trouble for,
wasn't it ? You went off to Petersburg and left
the whole thing in my hands to do the best

164 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

I could, and, though Sofya Mihailovna, your wife,
came only of a merchant family, she was proud and
dignified. To bribe her to take the guilt on herself
was difficult, awfully difficult ! I would go to
negotiate with her, and as soon as she saw me she
called to her maid: ' Masha, didn't I tell you not
to admit that scoundrel ? ' Well, Ftried one thing
and another. ... I wrote her letters and con
trived to meet her accidentally — it was no use !
I had to act through a third person. I had a
lot of trouble with her for a long time, and she
only gave in when you agreed to give her ten
thousand. . . . She couldn't resist ten thousand,
she couldn't hold out. . . . She cried, she spat
in my face, but she consented, she took the guilt
on herself !"

"I thought it was fifteen thousand she had from
me, not ten," said Uzelkov.

" Yes, yes . . . fifteen — I made a mistake," said
Shapkin in confusion. " It's all over and done
with, though, it's no use concealing it. I gave her
ten and the other five I collared for myself. I
deceived you both. . . . It's all over and done
with, it's no use to be ashamed. And indeed, judge
for yourself, Boris Petrovitch, weren't you the very
person for me to get money out of ? ... You
were a wealthy man and had everything you
Wanted. ... Your marriage was an idle whim,
and so was your divorce. You were making a lot
of money. ... I remember you made a scoop of
twenty thousand over one contract. Whom should
I have fleeced if, not you? And I must own I
envied you. If you grabbed anything they took off

OLD AGE 165

their caps to you, while they would thrash me for
a rouble and slap me in the face at the club. . . .
But there, why recall it ? It is high time to
forget it."

" Tell me, please, how did Sofya Mihailovna get
on afterwards ?"

" With her ten thousand ? Very badly. God
knows what it was — she lost her head, perhaps, or
maybe her pride and her conscience tormented her
at having sold her honour, or perhaps she loved
you; but, do you know, she took to drink. . . .
As soon as she got her money she was off driving
about with officers. It was drunkenness, dissipa
tion, debauchery. . . . When she went to a
restaurant with officers she was not content with
port or anything light, she must have strong
brandy, fiery stuff to stupefy her."

" Yes, she was eccentric. ... I had a lot to put
up with from her . . . sometimes she would take
offence at something and begin being hysterical.
. . . And what happened afterwards ?"

" One week passed and then another. ... I
was sitting at home, writing something. All at
once the door opened and she walked in ...
drunk. ' Take back your cursed money,' she said,
and flung a roll of notes in my face. ... So she
could not keep it up. I picked up the notes and
counted them . 1 1 was five hundred short of th e ten
thousand, so she had only managed to get through
five hundred."

" Where did you put the money ?"

" It's all ancient history . . . there's no reason
to conceal it now. ... In my pocket, of course.

166 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

Why do you look at me like that ? Wait a bit
for what will come later. . . . It's a regular novel,
a pathological study. A couple of months later
I was going home one night in a nasty drunken
condition. ... I lighted a candle, and lo and
behold ! Sofya Mihailovna was sitting on my sofa,
and she was drunk, too, and in a frantic state — as
wild as though she had run out of Bedlam. ' Give
me back my money,' she said, ' I have changed
my mind; if I must go to ruin I won't do it by
halves, I'll have my fling ! Be quick, you
scoundrel, give me my money !' A disgraceful
scene !"

" And you . . . gave it her ?"
" I gave her, I remember, ten roubles."
" Oh ! How could you ?" cried Uzelkov, frown
ing. " If you couldn't or wouldn't have given it
her, you might have written to me. . . . And
I didn't know ! I didn't know !"

" My dear fellow, what use would it have been
for me to write, considering that she wrote to you
herself when she was lying in the hospital after
wards ?"

• " Yes, but I was so taken up then with my second
marriage. I was in such a whirl that I had no
thoughts to spare for letters. . . . But you were
an outsider, you had no antipathy for Sofya . . .
why didn't you give her a helping hand ? . . ."

" You can't judge by the standard of to-day,
Boris Petrovitch; that's how we look at it now,
but at the time we thought very differently. . . .
Now maybe I'd give her a thousand roubles, but
then even that ten-rouble note I did not give her

OLD AGE 167

for nothing. It was a bad business ! . . . We
must forget it. ... But here we are. . . ."

The sledge stopped at the cemetery gates.
Uzelkov and Shapkin got out of the sledge, went
in at the gate, and walked up a long, broad avenue.
The bare cherry-trees and acacias, the grey crosses
and tombstones, were silvered with hoar-frost,
every little grain of snow reflected the bright,
sunny day. There was the smell there always is in
cemeteries, the smell of incense and freshly dug
earth. . . .

" Our cemetery is a pretty one," said Uzelkov,
" quite a garden !"

" Yes, but it is a pity thieves steal the tomb
stones. . . . And over there, beyond that iron
monument on the right, Sofya Mihailovna is buried.
Would you like to see ?"

The friends turned to the right and walked
through the deep snow to the iron monument.

" Here it is," said Shapkin, pointing to a little
slab of white marble. " A lieutenant put the
stone on her grave."

Uzelkov slowly took off his cap and exposed his
bald head to the sun. Shapkin, looking at him,
took off his cap too, and another bald patch
gleamed in the sunlight. There was the stillness
of the tomb all around as though the air, too,
were dead. The friends looked at the grave,
pondered, and said nothing.

' She sleeps in peace," said Shapkin, breaking
the silence. " It's nothing to her now that she
took the blame on herself and drank brandy.
You must own, Boris Petrovitch . . ."

168 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Own what ?" Uzelkov asked gloomily.

" Why . . . However hateful the past, it was
better than this."

And Shapkin pointed to his grey head.

" I used not to think of the hour of death. . . .
I fancied I could have given death points and won
the game if we had had an encounter ; but now . . .
But what's the good of talking !"

Uzelkov was overcome with melancholy. He
suddenly had a passionate longing to weep, as
once he had longed for love, and he felt those tears
would have tasted sweet and refreshing. A
moisture came into his eyes and there was a lump
in his throat, but . . . Shapkin was standing
beside him and Uzelkov was ashamed to show
weakness before a witness. He turned back
abruptly and went into the church.

Only two hours later, after talking to the church
warden and looking over the church, he seized a
moment when Shapkin was in conversation with
the priest and hastened away to weep. . . . He
stole up to the grave secretly, furtively, looking
round him every minute. The little white slab
looked at him pensively, mournfully, and innocently
as though a little girl lay under it instead of a
dissolute, divorced wife.

" To weep, to weep !" thought Uzelkov.

But the moment for tears had been missed;
though the old man blinked his eyes, though he
worked up his feelings, the tears did not flow nor
the lump come in his throat. After standing for
ten minutes, with a gesture of despair, Uzelkov
went to look for Shapkin.

DARKNESS

DARKNESS

A YOUNG peasant, with white eyebrows and eye
lashes and broad cheek-bones, in" a to7n sheepskin
and big black felt overboots, waited till the Zemstvo
doctor had finished seeing his patients and came
out to go home from the hospital ; then he went up
to him, diffidently.:

" Please, your honour," he said.

" What do you want ?"

The young man passed the palm of his hand up
and oyer his nose, looked at the sky, and then
answered :

" Please, your honour. . . . You've got my
brother Vaska the blacksmith from Varvarino in
the convict ward here, your honour. ..."

" Yes, what then ?" "

" I am Vaska's brother, you see. . . . Father
has the two of us: him, Vaska, and me, Kirila;
besides us there are three sisters, and Vaska's
a married man with a little one. . . . There are
a lot of us and no one to work. ... In the smithy
it's nearly two years now since the forge has been
heated. I am at the cotton factory, I can't do
smith's work, and how can father work ? Let
alone work, he can't eat properly, he can't lift
the spoon to his mouth."

" What do you want from me ?"

" Be merciful ! Let Vaska go !"
171

172 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

The doctor looked wonderingly at Kirila, and
without saying a word walked on. The young
peasant ran on in front and flung himself in a heap
at his feet.

" Doctor, kind gentleman !" he besought him,
blinking and again passing his open hand over his
nose. " Show heavenly mercy; let Vaska go
home ! We shall remember you in our prayers
for ever ! Your honour, let him go ! They are
all starving ! Mother's wailing day in, day out,
Vaska's wife's wailing . . . it's worse than death !
I don't care to look upon the light of day. Be
merciful; let him go, kind gentleman !"

" Are you stupid or out of your senses ?" asked
the doctor angrily. " How can I let him go ?
Why, he is a convict."

Kirila began crying. " Let him go !"

" Tfoo, queer fellow ! What right have I ? Am
I a gaoler or what ? They brought him to the
hospital for me to treat him, but I have as much
right to let him out as I have to put you in prison,
silly fellow!"

" But they have shut him up for nothing ! He
was in prison a year before the trial, and now there
is no saying what he is there for. It would have
been a different thing if he had murdered someone,
let us say, or stolen horses ; but as it is, what is it all
about ?"

" Very likely, but how do I come in ?"

" They shut a man up and they don't know
themselves what for. He was drunk, your honour,
did not know what he was doing, and even hit father
on the ear and scratched his own cheek on a branch,

DARKNESS 173

and two of our fellows — they wanted some Turkish
tobacco, you see — began telling him to go with
them and break into the Armenian's shop at night
for tobacco. Being drunk, he obeyed them, the
fool. They broke the lock, you know, got in, and
did no end of mischief; they turned everything up
side down, broke the windows, and scattered the
flour about. They were drunk, that is all one can
say ! Well, the constable turned up ... and with
one thing and another they took them off to the
magistrate. They have been a whole year in
prison, and a week ago, on the Wednesday, they
were all three tried in the town. A soldier stood
behind them with a gun . . . people were sworn
in. Vaska was less to blame than any, but the
gentry decided that he was the ringleader. The
other two lads were sent to prison, but Vaska to a
convict battalion for three years. And what for ?
One should judge like a Christian !"

" I have nothing to do with it, I tell you again.
Go to the authorities."

" I have been already ! I've been to the court ; I
have tried to send in a petition — they wouldn't take
a petition ; I have been to the police captain, and I
have been to the examining magistrate, and every
one says, ' It is not my business !' Whose business
is it, then ? But there is no one above you here in
the hospital; you do what you like, your honour."

" You simpleton," sighed the doctor, " once the
jury have found him guilty, not the governor, not
even the minister, could do anything, let alone the
police captain. It's no good your trying to do
anything !"

174 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" And who judged him, then ?"
" The gentlemen of the jury. ..."
" They weren't gentlemen, they were our
peasants ! Andrey Guryev was one; Aloshka Huk
was one."

" Well, I am cold talking to you. ..."
The doctor waved his hand and walked quickly to
his own door. Kirila was on the point of follow
ing him, but, seeing the door slam, he stopped.

For ten minutes he stood motionless in the middle
of the hospital yard, and without putting on his cap
stared at the doctor's house, then he heaved a deep
sigh, slowly scratched himself, and walked towards

the gate.

" To whom am I to go ?" he muttered as he came
out on to the road. " One says it is not his business,
another says it is not his business. Whose business
is it, then ? No, till you grease their hands you will
get nothing out of them. The doctor says that,
but he keeps looking all the while at my fist to see
whether I am going to give him a blue note. Well,
brother, I'll go, if it has to be to the governor."

Shifting from one foot to the other and con
tinually looking round him in an objectless way, he
trudged lazily along the road and was apparently
won3ering where to go. ... It was not cold and
the snow faintly crunched under his feet. Not
more than half a mile in front of him the wretched
little district town in which his brother liaoTJust
been tried lay outstretched on the hill . On the right
was the dark prison with its red roof and sentry-
boxes at the corners; on the left was the big town
copse, now covered with hoar-frost. It was still;

N

DARKNESS 175

only an old man, wearing a woman's short jacket
and a huge cap, was walking ahead, coughing and
shouting to a cow which he was driving to the town.

" Good-day, grandfather," said Kirila, over
taking him.

" Good-day. . . ."

" Are you driving it to the market ?"

" No,' the old man answered lazily.

" Are you a townsman ?"

They got into conversation ; Kirila told him what
he had come to the hospital for, and what he had
been talking about to the doctor.

" The doctor does not know anything about such
matters, that is a sure thing," the old man said to
him as they were both entering the town; " though
he is a gentleman, he is only taught to cure by
every means, but to give you real advice or, let us
say, write out a petition for you — that he cannot
do. There are special authorities to do that. You
have been to the justice of the peace and to the
police captain — they are no good for your business
either."

" Where am I to go ?"

' ' The permanent member of the rural board is the
chief person for peasants' affairs. Go to him, Mr.
Sineokov."

" The one who is at Zolotovo ?"

" Why.yes.atZolotovo. He is your chief man. If
it is anything that has to do with you peasants even
the police captain has no authority against him."

" It's a long way to go, old man. ... I dare
say it's twelve miles and may be more."

"One who needs something will go seventy."

176 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" That is so. . . . Should I send in a petition
to him, or what ?"

" You will find out there. If you should have
a petition the clerk will write you one quick
enough. The permanent member has a clerk."

After parting from the old man Kirila stood still
in the middle of the square, thought a little, and
walked back out of the town. He made up his
mind to go to Zolotovo.

Five days later, as the doctor was on his way
home after seeing his patients, he caught sight
of Kirila again in his yard. This time the young
peasant was not alone, but with a gaunt, very pale
old£man who nodded his head without ceasing,
like a pendulum, and mumbled with his lips.

" Your honour, I have come again to ask your
gracious mercy," began Kirila. " Here I have
come with my father. Be merciful, let Vaska go !
The permanent member would not talk to me.
He said : ' Go away !' '

" Your honour," the old man hissed in his
throat, raising his twitching eyebrows, " be merci
ful ! We are poor people, we cannot repay your
honour, but if you graciously please, Kiryushka or
Vaska can repay you in work. Let them work."

" We will pay with work," said Kirila, and he
raised his hand above his head as though he would
take an oath. " Let him go ! They are starving,
they are crying day and night, your honour I"

The young peasant bent a rapid glance on his
father, pulled him by the sleeve, and both of them,
as at the word of command, fell at the doctor's feet.
The latter waved his hand in despair, and, without
looking round, walked quickly in at his door.

THE BEGGAR

X.

12

THE BEGGAR

" KIND sir, be so good as to notice a poor hungry
man. I have not tasted food for three days. . . .
I have not a five-kopeck piece for a night's lodging.
... I swear by God ! For five years I was a
village schoolmaster and lost my post through the
intrigues of the Zemstvo. I was the victim of
false witness. I have been out of a place for a
year now."

Skvortsov, a Petersburg lawyer, looked at the
speaker's tattered dark blue overcoat, at his
muddy, drunken eyes, at the red patches on his
cheeks, and it seemed to him that he had seen the
man before.

" And now I am offered a post in the Kaluga
province," the beggar continued, " but I have not
the means for the journey there. Graciously help
me ! I am ashamed to ask, but ... I am com
pelled by circumstances."

Skvortsov looked at his goloshes, of which one
was shallow like a shoe, while the other came high
up the leg like a boot, and suddenly remembered.

" Listen, the day before yesterday I met you in
Sadovoy Street," he said, " and then you told me,
not that you were a village schoolmaster, but that
you were a student who had been expelled. Do
you remember ?"

179

i8o THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" N-o. No, that cannot be so !" the beggar
muttered in confusion. "I am a village school
master, and if you wish it I can show you docu
ments to prove it."

" That's enough lies ! You called yourself a
student, and even told me what you were expelled
for. Do you remember ?"

Skvortsov flushed, and with a look of disgust on
his face turned away from the ragged figure.

" It's contemptible, sir !" he cried angrily.
" It's a swindle ! I'll hand you over to the police,
damn you ! You are poor and hungry, but that
does not give you the right to lie so shamelessly !"

The ragged figure took hold of the door-handle
and, like a bird in a snare, looked round the hall
desperately.

" I ... I am not lying," he muttered. " I
can show documents."

" Who can believe you ?" Skvortsov went on,
still indignant. " To exploit the sympathy of the
public for village schoolmasters and students —
it's so low, so mean, so dirty ! It's revolting !"

Skvortsov flew into a rage and gave the beggar a
merciless scolding. The ragged fellow's insolent
lying aroused his disgust and aversion, was an
offence against what he, Skvortsov, loved and
prized in himself: kindliness, a feeling heart,
sympathy for the unhappy. By his lying, by his
treacherous assault upon compassion, the indi
vidual had, as it were, denied the charity
which he liked to give to the poor with no
misgivings in his heart. The beggar at first
defended himself, protested with oaths, then he

THE BEGGAR 181

sank into silence and hung his head, overcome
with shame.

" Sir !" he said, laying his hand on his heart,
" I really was . . . lying ! I am not a student
and not a village schoolmaster. All that's mere
invention ! I used to be in the Russian choir, and
I was turned out of it for drunkenness. But what
can I do ? Believe me, in God's name, I can't get
on without lying — when I tell the truth no one
will give me anything. With the truth one may
die of hunger and freeze without a night's lodging !
What you say is true, I understand that, but . . .
what am I to do ?"

" What are you to do ? You ask what are you
to do ?" cried Skvortsov, going close up to him.
" Work — that's what you must do ! You must
work !"

" Work. ... I know that myself, but where
can I get work ?"

" Nonsense. You are young, strong, and
healthy, and could always find work if you wanted
to. But you know you are lazy, pampered,
drunken ! You reek of vodka like a pothouse !
You have become false and corrupt to the marrow
of your bones and fit for nothing but begging and
lying ! If you do graciously condescend to take
work, you must have a job in an office, in the
Russian choir, or as a billiard-marker, where you
will have a salary and have nothing to do ! But
how would you like to undertake manual labour ?
I'll be bound, you wouldn't be a house porter or
a factory hand ! You are too genteel for that !"

" What things you say, really . . ." said the

i82 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

beggar, and he gave a bitter smile. " How can
I get manual work ? It's rather late for me to
be a shopman, for in trade one has to begin from
a boy; no one would take me as a house porter,
because I am not of that class. . . . And I could
not get work in a factory ; one must know a trade,
and I know nothing."

" Nonsense ! You always find some justifica
tion ! Wouldn't you like to chop wood ?"

" I would not refuse to, but the regular wood-
choppers are out of work now."

"Oh, all idlers argue like that ! As soon as
you are offered anything you refuse it. Would
you care to chop wood for me ?"

" Certainly I will. ..."

" Very good, we shall see. . . . Excellent. . . .
We'll see !" Skvortsov, in nervous haste, and not
without malignant pleasure, rubbing his hands,
summoned his cook from the kitchen.

"""Here, Olga," he said to her, " take this gentle
man to the shed and let him chop some wood."

The beggar shrugged his shoulders as though
puzzled, and irresolutely followed the cook. It
was evident from his demeanour that he had con
sented to go and chop wood, not because he was
hungry and wanted to earn money, but simply
from shame and amour propre, because he had
been taken at his word. It was clear, too, that
he was suffering from the effects of vodka, that
he was unwell, and felt not the faintest inclination
to work.

Skvortsov hurried into the dining-room. There
from the window which looked out into the yard

s\

/i

THE BEGGAR 183

he could see the woodshed and everything that
happened in the yard. Standing at the window,
Skvortsov saw the cook and the beggar come by the
back way into the yard and go through the muddy
snow to the woodshed. Olga scrutinized her com
panion angrily, and jerking her elbow unlocked
the woodshed and angrily banged the door open.

Most likely we interrupted the woman drink-
ing her coffee," thought Skvortsov. "What a
cross creature she is !"

Then he saw the pseudo-schoolmaster and
pseudo-student seat himself on a block of wood,
and, leaning his red cheeks upon his fists, sink into
thought. The cook flung an axe at his feet, spat
angrily on the ground, and, judging by the ex
pression of her lips, began abusing him. The
beggar drew a log of wood towards him irresolutely,
set it up between his feet, and diffidently drew the
axe across it. The log toppled and" fell over. The
beggar drew it towards him, breathed on his
frozen hands, and again drew the axe along it as
cautiously as though he were afraid of its hitting
his golosh or chopping off his fingers. The log fell
over again.

Skvortsov's wrath had passed off by now, he
felt sore and ashamed at the thought that he had
forced a pampered, drunken, and perhaps sick
man to do Rard", rough work in the cold.

" Never mind, let him go on . . ." he thought,
going from the dining-room into his study. " I
am doing it for his good !"

An hour later Olga appeared and announced
that the wood had been chopped up.

1 84 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Here, give him half a rouble," said Skvortsov.
" If he likes, let him come and chop wood on the
first of every month. . . . There will always be
work for him."

On the first of the month the beggar turned up
and again earned half a rouble, though he could
hardly stand. From that time forward he took
to turning up frequently, and work was always
found for him: sometimes he would sweep the
snow into heaps, or clear up the shed, at another
he used to beat the rugs and the mattresses. He
always received thirty to forty kopecks for his
work, and on one occasion an old pair of trousers
was sent out to him.

When he moved, Skvortsov engaged him to
assist in packing and moving the furniture. On
this occasion the beggar was sober, gloomy, and
silent; he scarcely touched the^furnitufe, walked
with hanging Tiead behind the furniture vans, and
did not even try to appear busy ; he merely shiyered
with the cold, and was overcome with confusion
when the men with the vans laughed at his idleness,
feebleness, and ragged coat that had once been
a gentleman's. After the removal Skvortsov sent
for him.

" Well, I see my words have had an effect upon
you," he said, giving him a rouble. " This is for
your work. I see that you are sober and not dis
inclined to work. What is your name ?"

" Lushkov."

• " I can offer you better work, not so rough,
Lushkov . Can you write ? "

" Yes, sir."

THE BEGGAR 185

" Then go with this note to-morrow to my
colleague and he will give you some copying to
do. Work, don't drink, and don't forget what I
said to you. Good-bye."

Skvortsov, pleased that he had put a man in the
path of rectitude, patted Lushkov genially on the
shoulder, and even shook hands with him at
parting. Lushkov took the letter, departed, and
from that time forward did not come to the back
yard for work.

Two years passed. One day as Skvortsov was
standing at the ticket-office of a theatre, paying
for his ticket, he saw beside him a little man with
a lambskin collar and a shabby cat's-skin cap.
The man timidly asked the clerk for a gallery
ticket and paid for it with kopecks.

" Lushkov, is it you ?" asked Skvortsov,
recognizing in the little man his former wood-
chopper. " Well, what are you doing ? Are you
getting on all right ?"

" Pretty well. ... I am in a notary's office
now. I earn thirty-five roubles."

" Well, thank God, that's capital. I rejoice for
you. I am very, very glad, Lushkov. You know,
in a way, you are my godson. It was I who
shoved you into the right way. Do you remember
what a scolding I gave you, eh ? You almost
sank through the floor that time. Well, thank
you, my dear fellow, for remembering my words.'*

" Thank you too," said Lushkov. " If I had not
come to you that day, maybe I should be calling
rriyself a schoolmaster or a student still. Yes, in
your house I was saved, and climbed out of the pit."

186 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" I am very, very glad."

" Thank you for your kind words and deeds.
What you said that day was excellent. I am
grateful to you and to your cook, God bless that
kind, noble-hearted woman. What you said that
day was excellent; I am indebted to you as long
as I live, of course, but it was your cook, Olga,
who really saved me."

" How was that ?"

" Why, it was like this. I used to come to you
to chop wood and she would begin : ' Ah, you
drunkard ! You God-forsaken man ! And yet
death does not take you !' and then she would sit
opposite me, lamenting, looking into my face and
wailing: ' You unlucky fellow ! You have no
gladness in this world, and in the next you will
burn in hell, poor drunkard ! You poor sorrowful
creature !' and she always went on in that style,
you know. How often she upset herself, and how
many tears she shed over me, I can't tell you.
But what affected me most — she chopped the wood
for me ! Do you know, sir, I never chopped a
single log for you — she did it all ! How it was
she saved me, how it was I changed, looking at
her, and gave up drinking, I can't explain. I only
know that what she said and the noble way she
behaved brought about a change in my soul, and
I shall never forget it. It's time to go up, though,
they are just going to ring the bell."

Lushkov bowed and went off to the gallery.

A STORY WITHOUT A TITLE

A STORY WITHOUT A TITLE

IN the fifth century, just as now, the sun rose every
morning and every evening retired to rest. In the
morning, when the first rays kissed the dew, the
earth revived, the air was filled with the sounds of
rapture and hope ; while in the evening the same
earth subsided into silence and plunged into
gloomy darkness. One day was like another, one
night like another. From time to time a storm-
cloud raced up and there was the angry rumble of
thunder, or a negligent star fell out of the sky, or a
pale monk ran to tell the brotherhood that not far
from the monastery he had seen a tiger — and that
was all, and then each day was like the next.

The monks worked and prayed, and their Father
Superior played on the organ, made Latin verses,
and wrote music. The wonderful old man pos
sessed an extraordinary gift. He played on the
organ with such art that even the oldest monks,
whose hearing had grown somewhat dull towards
the end of their lives, could not restrain their tears
when the sounds of the organ floated from his cell.
When he spoke of anything, even of the most
ordinary things — for instance of the trees, of the
wild beasts, or of the sea — they could not listen to
him without a smile or tears, and it seemed that the
same chords vibrated in his soul as in the organ.
189

190 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

If he were moved to anger or abandoned himself to
intense joy, or began speaking of something terrible
or grand, then a passionate inspiration took pos
session of him, tears came into his flashing eyes, his
face flushed, and his voice thundered, and as the
monks listened to him they felt that their souls were
spell-bound by his inspiration ; at such marvellous,
splendid moments his power over them was bound
less, and if he had bidden his elders fling themselves
into the sea, they would all, every one of them, have
hastened to carry out his wishes.

His music, his voice, his poetry in which he
glorified God, the heavens and the earth, were a
continual source of joy to the monks. It some
times happened that through the monotony of their
lives they grew weary of the trees, the flowers, the
spring, the autumn, their ears were tired of the
sound of the sea, and the song of the birds seemed
tedious to them, but the talents of their Father
Superior were as necessary to them as their daily
bread.

Dozens of years passed by, and every day was
like every other day, every night was like every
other night. Except the birds and the wild beasts,
not one soul appeared near the monastery. The
nearest human habitation was far away, and to
reach it from the monastery, or to reach the
monastery from it, meant a journey of over seventy
miles across the desert. Only men who despised
life, who had renounced it, and who came to the
monastery as to the grave, ventured to cross the
desert.

What was the amazement of the monks, there-

A STORY WITHOUT A TITLE 191

fore, when one night there knocked at their gate
a man who turned out to be from the town, and the
most ordinary sinner who loved life. Before saying
his prayers and asking for the Father Superior's
blessing, this man asked for wine and food. To the
question how he had come from the town into the
desert, he answered by a long story of hunting: he
had gone out hunting, had drunk too much, and
lost his way. To the suggestion that he should
enter the monastery and save his soul, he replied
with a smile: " I am not a fit companion for you !"

When he had eaten and drunk he looked at the
monks who were serving him, shook his head
reproachfully, and said:

" You don't do anything, you monks. You are
good for nothing but eating and drinking. Is that
the way to save one's soul ? Only think, while you
sit here in peace, eat and drink and dream of
beatitude, your neighbours are perishing and going
to hell. You should see what is going on in the
town ! Some are dying of hunger, others, not
knowing what to do with their gold, sink into
profligacy and perish like flies stuck in honey.
There is no faith, no truth in men. Whose task is
it to save them ? Whose work is it to preach to
them ? It is not for me, drunk from morning till
night as I am. Can a meek spirit, a loving heart,
and faith in God have been given you for you to sit
here within four walls doing nothing ?"

The townsman's drunken words were insolent and
unseemly, but they had a strange effect upon the
Father Superior. The old man exchanged glances
with his monks, turned pale, and said:

IQ2 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" My brothers, he speaks the truth, you know.
Indeed, poor people in their weakness and lack of
understanding are perishing in vice and infidelity,
while we do not move, as though it did not concern
us. Why should I not go and remind them of the
Christ whom they have forgotten ?"

The townsman's words had carried the old man
away. The next day he took his staff, said farewell
to the brotherhood, and set off for the town. And
the monks were left without music, and without his
speeches and verses. They spent a month drearily,
then a second, but the old man did not come back.
At last after three months had passed the familiar
tap of his staff was heard. The monks flew to meet
him and showered questions upon him, but in
stead of being delighted to see them he wept
bitterly and did not utter a word. The monks
noticed that he looked greatly aged and had grown
thinner; his face looked exhausted and wore an
expression of profound sadness, and when he wept
he had the air of a man who has been outraged.

The monks fell to weeping too, and began with
sympathy asking him why he was weeping, why
his face was so gloomy, but he locked himself in his
cell without uttering a word. For seven days he
sat in his cell, eating and drinking nothing, weeping
and not playing on his organ. To knocking at his
door and to the entreaties of the monks to come out
and share his grief with them he replied with un
broken silence.

At last he came out. Gathering all the monks
around him, with a tear-stained face and with an
expression of grief and indignation, he began telling

A STORY WITHOUT A TITLE 193

them of what had befallen him during those three
months. His voice was calm and his eyes were
smiling while he described his journey from the
monastery to the town. On the road, he told
them, the birds sang to him, the brooks gurgled, and
sweet youthful hopes agitated his soul ; he marched
on and felt like a soldier going to battle and con
fident of victory ; he walked on dreaming, and com
posed poems and hymns, and reached the end of
his journey without noticing it.

But his voice quivered, his eyes flashed, and he
was full of wrath when he came to speak of the town
and of the men in it. Never in his life had he seen
or even dared to imagine what he met with when he
went into the town. Only then for the first time in
his life, in his old age, he saw and understood how
powerful was the devil, how fair was evil, and how
weak and faint-hearted and worthless were men.
By an unhappy chance the first dwelling he entered
was the abode of vice. Some fifty men in posses
sion of much money were eating and drinking wine
beyond measure. Intoxicated by the wine, they
sang songs and boldly uttered terrible, revolting
words such as a God-fearing man could not bring
himself to pronounce; boundlessly free, self-con
fident, and happy, they feared neither God nor the
devil, nor death, but said and did what they liked,
and went whither their lust led them. And the
wine, clear as amber, flecked with sparks of gold,
must have been irresistibly sweet and fragrant, for
each man who drank it smiled blissfully and wanted
to drink more. To the smile of man it responded
with a 'smile and sparkled joyfully when they

x. 13

194 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

drank it, as though it knew the devilish charm it
kept hidden in its sweetness.

The old man, growing more and more incensed
and weeping with wrath, went on to describe what
he had seen. On a table in the midst of the rev
ellers, he said, stood a sinful, half-naked woman.
It was hard to imagine or to find in nature anything
more lovely and fascinating. This reptile, young,
long-haired, dark-skinned, with black eyes and full
lips, shameless and insolent, showed her snow-white
teeth and smiled as though to say: " Look how
shameless, how beautiful I am." Silk and brocade
fell in lovely folds from her shoulders, but her
beauty would not hide itself under her clothes, but
eagerly thrust itself through the folds, like the
young grass through the ground in spring. The
shameless woman drank wine, sang songs, and
abandoned herself to anyone who wanted her.

Then the old man, wrathfully brandishing his
arms, described the horse-races, the bull-fights, the
theatres, the artists' studios where they painted
naked women or moulded them of clay. He spoke
with inspiration, with sonorous beauty, as though
he were playing on unseen chords, while the monks,
petrified, greedily drank in his words and gasped
with rapture. . . .

After describing all the charms of the devil, the
beauty of evil, and the fascinating grace of the
dreadful female form, the old man cursed the devil,
turned and shut himself up in his cell. . . .

When he came out of his cell in the morning there
was not a monk left in the monastery : they had all
fled to the town.

IN TROUBLE

IN TROUBLE

PYOTR SEMYONITCH, the bank manager, together
with the book-keeper, his assistant, and two mrrn-
bers of the board, were taken in the night to prison.
The day after the upheaval the merchant Avdeyev,
who was one of the committee of auditors, was
sitting with his friends in the shop saying :

" So it is God's will, it seems. There is no
escaping your fate. Here to-day we are eating
caviare and to-morrow, for aught we know, it will
be prison, beggary, or maybe death. Anything
may happen. Take Pyotr Semyonitch, for in
stance. . . ."

He spoke, screwing up his drunken eyes, while
his friends went on drinking, eating caviare, and
listening. Having described the disgrace and
helplessness of Pyotr Semyonitch, who only the
day before had been powerful and respected by all,
Avdeyev went on with a sigh :

" The tears of the mouse come back to the cat.
Serve them right, the scoundrels ! They could
steal, the rooks, so let them answer for it !"

" You'd better look out, Ivan Danilitch, that you
don't catch it too !" one of his friends observed.

" What has it to do with me ?"

" Why, they were stealing, and what were you
auditors thinking about ? I'll be bound, you
signed the audit."

197

198 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" It's all very well to talk !" laughed Avdeyev.
" Signed it, indeed ! They used to bring the
accounts to my shop and I signed them . As though
I understood ! Give me anything you like, I'll
scrawl my name to it. If you were to write that
I murdered someone I'd sign my name to it. I
haven't time to go into it; besides, I can't see
without my spectacles."

After discussing the failure of the bank and the
fate of Pyotr Semyonitch, Avdeyev and his friends
went to eat pie at the house of a friend whose wife was
celebrating her name-day. At the name-day party
everyone was discussing the bank failure. Avdeyev
was more excited than anyone, and declared that
he had long foreseen the crash and knew two years
before that things were not quite right at the bank.
While they were eating pie he described a dozen
illegal operations which had come to his knowledge .

" If you knew, why did you not give informa
tion ?" asked an officer who was present.

" I wasn't the only one: the whole town knew of
it," laughed Avdeyev. " Besides, I haven't the
time to hang about the law courts, damn them !"

He had a nap after the pie and then had dinner,
then had another nap, then went to the evening
service at the church of which he was a warden;
after the service he went back to the name-day
party and played preference till midnight. Every
thing seemed satisfactory.

But when Avdeyev hurried home after midnight
the cook, who opened the door to him, looked pale,
and was trembling so violently that she could not
utter a word. His wife, Elizaveta Trofimovna, a

IN TROUBLE 199

flabby, overfed woman, with her grey hair hanging
loose, was sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room,
quivering all over, and vacantly rolling her eyes as
though she were drunk. Her elder son, Vassily, a
high-school boy, pale too, and extremely agitated,
was fussing round her with a glass of water.

" What's the matter ?" asked Avdeyev, and
looked angrily sideways at the stove (his family
was constantly being upset by the fumes from it).

" The examining magistrate has just been with
the police," answered Vassily; " they've made a
search."

Avdeyev looked round him. The cupboards, the
chests, the tables — everything bore traces of the
recent search. For a minute Avdeyev stood
motionless as though petrified, unable to under
stand; then his whole inside quivered and seemed
to grow heavy, his left leg went numb, and, unable
to endure his trembling, he lay down flat on the
sofa. He felt his inside heaving and his rebellious
left leg tapping against the back of the sofa.

In the course of two or three minutes he recalled
the whole of his past, but could not remember any
crime deserving of the attention of the police.

" It's all nonsense," he said, getting up. " They
must have slandered me. To-morrow I must lodge
a complaint of their having dared to do such a
thing."

Next morning after a sleepless night Avdeyev,
as usual, went to his shop. His customers brought
him the news that during the night the public
prosecutor had sent the deputy manager and the
head-clerk to prison as well. This news did not

200 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

disturb Avdeyev. He was convinced that he had
been slandered, and that if he were to lodge a
complaint to-day the examining magistrate would
get into trouble for the search of the night before.

Between nine and ten o'clock he hurried to the
town hall to see the secretary, who was the only
educated man in the town council.

" Vladimir Stepanitch, what's this new fashion?"
he said, bending down to the secretary's ear.
" People have been stealing, but how do I come in ?
What has it to do with me ? My dear fellow," he
whispered, " there has been a search at my house
last night ! Upon my word ! Have they gone
crazy ? Why touch me ?"

" Because one shouldn't be a sheep," the secre
tary answered calmly. " Before you sign you
ought to look."

" Look at what ? But if I were to look at
those accounts for a thousand years I could not
make head or tail of them ! It's all Greek to me !
I am no book-keeper. They used to bring them
to me and I signed them."

" Excuse me. Apart from that you and your
committee are seriously compromised. You bor
rowed nineteen thousand from the bank, giving
no security."

" Lord have mercy upon us !" cried Avdeyev
in amazement. " I am not the only one in debt
to the bank ! The whole town owes it money.
I pay the interest and I shall repay the debt.
What next ! And besides, to tell the honest truth,
it wasn't I myself borrowed the money. Pyotr
Semyonitch forced it upon me. ' Take it,' he said,

IN TROUBLE 201

' take it. If you don't take it,' he said, ' it means
that you don't trust us and fight shy of us. You
take it,' he said, ' and build your father a mill.'
So I took it."

" Well, you see, none but children or sheep can
reason like that. In any case, signor, you need
not be anxious. You can't escape trial, of course,
but you are sure to be acquitted."

The secretary's indifference and calm tone
restored Avdeyev's composure. Going back to his
shop and finding friends there, he again began
drinking, eating caviare, and airing his views. He
almost forgot the police search, and he was only
troubled by one circumstance which he could not
help noticing: his left leg was strangely numb, and
his stomach for some reason refused to do its work.

That evening destiny dealt another overwhelm
ing blow at Avdeyev : at an extraordinary meeting
of the town council all members who were on the
staff of the bank, Avdeyev among them, were asked
to resign, on the ground that they were charged
with a criminal offence. In the morning he received
a request to give up immediately his duties as
churchwarden.

After that Avdeyev lost count of the blows dealt
him by fate, and strange, unprecedented days
flitted rapidly by, one after another, and every
day brought some new, unexpected surprise.
Among other things, the examining magistrate
sent him a summons, and he returned home after
the interview, insulted and red in the face.

" He gave me no peace, pestering me to tell
him why I had signed. I signed, that's all about

202 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

it. I didn't do it on purpose. They brought the
papers to the shop and I signed them. I am no
great hand at reading writing."

Young men with unconcerned faces arrived,
sealed up the shop, and made an inventory of all
the furniture of the house. Suspecting some
intrigue behind this, and, as before, unconscious
of any wrongdoing, Avdeyev in his mortification
ran from one Government office to another lodging
complaints. He spent hours together in waiting-
rooms, composed long petitions, shed tears, swore.
To his complaints the public prosecutor and the
examining magistrate made the indifferent and
rational reply: " Come to us when you are sum
moned: we have not time to attend to you now."
While others answered: " It is not our business."

The secretary, an educated man, who, Avdeyev
thought, might have helped him, merely shrugged
his shoulders and said :

" It's your own fault. You shouldn't have been
a sheep."

The old man exerted himself to the utmost, but
his left leg was still numb, and his digestion was
getting worse and worse. When he was weary
of doing nothing and was getting poorer and poorer,
he made up his mind to go to his father's mill, or
to his brother, and begin dealing in corn. His
family went to his father's and he was left alone.
The days flitted by, one after another. Without
a family, without a shop, and without money, the
former churchwarden, an honoured and respected
man, spent whole days going the round of his
friends' shops, drinking, eating, and listening to

IN TROUBLE 203

advice. In the mornings and in the evenings, to
while away the time, he went to church. Looking
for hours together at the ikons, he did not pray,
but pondered. His conscience was clear, and he
ascribed his position to mistake and misunder
standing; to his mind, it was all due to the fact
that the officials and the examining magistrates
were young men and inexperienced. It seemed
to him that if he were to talk it over in detail and
open his heart to some elderly judge, everything
would go right again. He did not understand his
judges, and he fancied they did not understand
him.

The days raced by, and at last, after protracted,
harassing delays, the day of the trial came.
Avdeyev borrowed fifty roubles, and providing
himself with spirit to rub on his leg and a decoc
tion of herbs for his digestion, set off for the town
where the circuit court was being held.

The trial lasted for ten days. Throughout the
trial Avdeyev sat among his companions in mis
fortune with the stolid composure and dignity
befitting a respectable and innocent man who is
suffering for no fault of his own : he listened and
did not understand a word. He was in an an
tagonistic mood. He was angry at being detained
so long in the court, at being unable to get Lenten
food anywhere, at his defending counsel's not
understanding him, and, as he thought, saying
the wrong thing. He thought that the judges did
not understand their business. They took scarcely
any notice of Avdeyev, they only addressed him
once in three days, and the questions they put

304 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

to him were of such a character that Avdeyev
raised a laugh in the audience each time he
answered them. When he tried to speak of the
expenses he had incurred, of his losses, and of
his meaning to claim his costs from the court, his
counsel turned round and made an incompre
hensible grimace, the public laughed, and the
judge announced sternly that that had nothing
to do with the case. The last words that he
was allowed to say were not what his counsel
had instructed him to say, but something quite
different, which raised a laugh again.

During the terrible hour when the jury were
consulting in their room he sat angrily in the
refreshment bar, not thinking about the jury at
all. He did not understand why they were so
long deliberating when everything was so clear,
and what they wanted of him.

Getting hungry, he asked the waiter to give him
.some cheap Lenten dish. For forty kopecks they
gave him some cold fish and carrots. He ate it
and felt at once as though the fish were heaving
in a chilly lump in his stomach; it was followed by
flatulence, heartburn, and pain.

Afterwards, as he listened to the foreman of the
jury reading out the questions point by point,
there was a regular revolution taking place in his
inside, his whole body was bathed in a cold sweat,
his left leg was numb; he did not follow, under
stood nothing, and suffered unbearably at not
being able to sit or lie down while the foreman
was reading. At last, when he and his companions
were allowed to sit down, the public prosecutor

IN TROUBLE 205

got up and said something unintelligible, and all
at once, as though they had sprung out of the earth,
some police officers appeared on the scene with
drawn swords and surrounded all the prisoners.
Avdeyev was told to get up and go.

Now he understood that he was found guilty
and in charge of the police, but he was not fright
ened nor amazed; such a turmoil was going
on in his stomach that he could not think about
his guards.

" So they won't let us go back to the hotel ?"
he asked one of his companions. " But I have
three roubles and an untouched quarter of a pound
of tea in my room there."

He spent the night at the police station; all
night he was aware of a loathing for fish, and was
thinking about the three roubles and the quarter
of a pound of tea. Early in the morning, when
the sky was beginning to turn blue, he was told
to dress and set off. Two soldiers with bayonets
took him to prison. Never before had the streets
of the town seemed to him so long and endless.
He walked not on the pavement but in the middle
of the road in the muddy, thawing snow. His
inside was still at war with the fish, his left leg
was numb ; he had forgotten his goloshes either in
the court or in the police station, and his feet felt
frozen.

Five days later all the prisoners were brought
before the court again to hear their sentence.
Avdeyev learnt that he was sentenced to exile in
the province of Tobolsk. And that did not
frighten nor amaze him either. He fancied for

206 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

some reason that the trial was not yet over, that
there were more adjournments to come, and that
the final decision had not been reached yet. . . .
He went on in the prison expecting this final
decision every day.

Only six months later, when his wife and his son
Vassily came to say good-bye to him, and when in
the wasted, wretchedly dressed old woman he
scarcely recognized his once fat and dignified
Elizaveta Trofimovna, and when he saw his son
wearing a short, shabby reefer-jacket and cotton
trousers instead of the high-school uniform, he
realized that his fate was decided, and that what
ever new " decision " there might be, his past
would never come back to him. And for the first
tune since the trial and his imprisonment the
angry expression left his face, and he wept bitterly.

FROST

FROST

A " POPULAR " fete with a philanthropic object had
been arranged on the Feast of Epiphany in the pro
vincial town of N . They had selected a broad

part of the river between the market and the
bishop's palace, fenced it round with a rope, with
fir-trees and with flags, and provided everything
necessary for skating, sledging, and tobogganing.
The festivity was organized on the grandest scale
possible. The notices that were distributed were
of huge size and promised a number of delights:
skating, a military band, a lottery with no blank
tickets, an electric sun, and so on. But the whole
scheme almost came to nothing owing to the hard
frost. From the eve of Epiphany there were
twenty-eight degrees of frost with a strong wind;
it was proposed to put off the fete, and this was
not done only because the public, which for a long
while had been looking forward to the fete im
patiently, would not consent to any postponement.

" Only think, what do you expect in winter but
a frost !" said the ladies persuading the governor,
who tried to insist that the fete should be post
poned. "If anyone is cold he can go and warm
himself."

The trees, the horses, the men's beards were
white with frost; ft even seemed that the air

x. 209 14

210 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

itself crackled, as though unable to endure the cold ;
but in spite of that the frozen public were skating.
Immediately after the blessing of the waters and
precisely at one o'clock the military band began
playing.

Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon,
when the festivity was at its height, the select
society of the place gathered together to warm
themselves in the governor's pavilion, which had
been put up on the river-bank. The old governor
and his wife, the bishop, the president of the local
court, the head -master of the high school, and many
others, were there. The ladies were sitting in arm
chairs, while the men crowded round the wide glass
door, looking at the skating.

"Holy Saints!" said the bishop in surprise;
" what flourishes they execute with their legs !
Upon my soul, many a singer couldn't do a twirl
with his voice as those cut -throats do with their
legs. Aie ! he'll kill himself !"

" That's Smirnov. . . . That's Gruzdev . . ."
said the head-master, mentioning the names of the
schoolboys who flew by the pavilion.

" Bah ! he's all alive-oh !" laughed the governor.
" Look, gentlemen, our mayor is coming. ... He
is coming this way. ... That's a nuisance, he will
talk our heads off now."

A little thin old man, wearing a big cap and a
fur-lined coat hanging open, came from the op
posite bank towards the pavilion, avoiding the
skaters. This was the mayor of the town, a
merchant, Eremeyev by name, a millionaire and
an old inhabitant of N . Flinging wide his arms

FROST 211

and shrugging at the cold, he skipped along,
knocking one golosh against the other, evidently
in haste to get out of the wind. Half-way he
suddenly bent down, stole up to some lady, and
plucked at her sleeve from behind. When she
looked round he skipped away, and probably
delighted at having succeeded in frightening her,
went off into a loud, aged laugh.

" Lively old fellow," said the governor. " It's
a wonder he's not skating."

As he got near the pavilion the mayor fell into
a little tripping trot, waved his hands, and,
taking a run, slid along the ice in his huge golosh
boots up to the very door.

" Yegor Ivanitch, you ought to get yourself
some skates !" the governor greeted him.

" That's just what I am thinking," he answered
in a squeaky, somewhat nasal tenor, taking off his
cap. " I wish you good health, your Excellency !
Your Holiness ! Long life to all the other gentle
men and ladies ! Here's, a frost ! Yes, it is a
frost, bother it ! It's deadly !"

Winking with his red, frozen eyes, Yegor Ivan-
itch stamped on the floor with his golosh boots and
swung his arms together like a frozen cabman.

" Such a damnable frost, worse than any dog !"
he went on talking, smiling all over his face. " It's
a real affliction !"

" It's healthy," said the governor; " frost
strengthens a man and makes him vigorous. ..."

" Though it may be healthy, it would be better
without it at all," said the mayor, wiping his wedge-
shaped beard with a red handkerchief. "It

212 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

would be a good riddance ! To my thinking, your
Excellency, the Lord sends it us as a punishment —
the frost, I mean. We sin in the summer and are
punished in the winter. . . . Yes !"

Yegor Ivanitch looked round him quickly and
flung up his hands.

" Why, where's the needful ... to warm us
up ?" he asked, looking in alarm first at the governor
and then at the bishop. " Your Excellency !
Your Holiness ! I'll be bound, the ladies are frozen
too ! We must have something, this won't do !"
Everyone began gesticulating and declaring that
they had not come to the skating to warm them
selves, but the mayor, heeding no one, opened the
door and beckoned to someone with his crooked
finger. A workman and a fireman ran up to him.
" Here, run off to Savatin," he muttered, " and
tell him to make haste and send here . . . what do
you call it ? ... What's it to be ? Tell him to
send a dozen glasses ... a dozen glasses of mulled
wine, the very hottest, or punch, perhaps. . . ."
There was laughter in the pavilion.
" A nice thing to treat us to !"
" Never mind, we will drink it," muttered the
mayor; "a dozen glasses, then . . . and some
Benedictine, perhaps . . . and tell them to warm
two bottles of red wine. . . . Oh, and what for
the ladies ? Well, you tell them to bring cakes,
nuts . . . sweets of some sort, perhaps. . . .
There, run along, look sharp !"

The mayor was silent for a minute and then began
again abusing the frost, banging his arms across his
chest and thumping with his golosh boots.

FROST 213

" No, Yegor Ivanitch," said the governor per
suasively, " don't be unfair, the Russian frost has
its charms. I was reading lately that many of the
good qualities of the Russian people are due to the
vast expanse of their land and to the climate, the
cruel struggle for existence . . . that's perfectly
true !"

" It may be true, your Excellency, but it would
be better without it. The frost did drive out the
French, of course, and one can freeze all sorts of
dishes, and the children can go skating — that's all
true ! For the man who is well fed and well
clothed the frost is only a pleasure, but for the
working man, the beggar, the pilgrim, the crazy
wanderer, it's the greatest evil and misfortune.
It's misery, your Holiness ! In a frost like this
poverty is twice as hard, and the thief is more
cunning and evildoers more violent. There's no
gainsaying it ! I am turned seventy, I've a fur
coat now, and at home I have a stove and rums and
punches of all sorts. The frost means nothing to
me now ; I take no notice of it, I don't care to know
of it, but how it used to be in old days, Holy
Mother ! It's dreadful to recall it ! My memory
is failing me with years and I have forgotten every
thing ; my enemies, and my sins and troubles of all
sorts — I forget them all, but the frost — ough !
How I remember it ! When my mother died I was
left a little devil — this high — a homeless orphan
... no kith nor kin, wretched, ragged little
clothes, hungry, nowhere to sleep — in fact, ' we have
here no abiding city, but seek the one to come.'
In those days I used to lead an old blind woman

214 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

about the town for five kopecks a day . . . the
frosts were cruel, wicked. One would go out with
the old woman and begin suffering torments. My
Creator ! First of all you would be shivering as in
a fever, shrugging and dancing about. Then your
ears, your fingers, your feet, would begin aching.
They would ache as though someone were squeezing
them with pincers. But all that would have been
nothing, a trivial matter, of no great consequence.
The trouble was when your whole body was chilled.
One would walk for three blessed hours in the frost,
your Holiness , and lose all human semblance . Your
legs are drawn up, there is a weight on your chest,
your stomach is pinched ; above all, there is a pain
in your heart that is worse than anything. Your
heart aches beyond all endurance, and there is a
wretchedness all over your body as though you
were leading Death by the hand instead of an old
woman. You are numb all over, turned to stone
like a statue ; you go on and feel as though it were
not you walking, but someone else moving your
legs instead of you. When your soul is frozen you
don't know what you are doing : you are ready to
leave the old woman with no one to guide her, or
to pull a hot roll from off a hawker's tray, or to
fight with someone. And when you come to your
night's lodging into the warmth after the frost,
there is not much joy in that either ! You lie
awake till midnight, crying, and don't know your
self what you are crying for. . . ."

" We must walk about the skating-ground before
it gets dark," said the governor's wife, who was
bored with listening. " Who's coming with me ?"

FROST 215

The governor's wife went out and the whole
company trooped out of the pavilion after her.
Only the governor, the bishop, and the mayor
remained.

" Queen of Heaven ! and what I went through
when I was a shopboy in a fish-shop !" Yegor
Ivanitch went on, flinging up his arms so that his
fox-lined coat fell open. " One would go out to
the shop almost before it was light ... by eight
o'clock I was completely frozen, my face was blue,
my fingers were stiff so that I could not fasten my
buttons nor count the money. One would stand
in the cold, turn numb, and think, ' Lord, I shall
have to stand like this right on till evening !'
By dinner-time my stomach was pinched and my
heart was aching. . . . Yes ! And I was not
much better afterwards when I had a shop of my
own. The frost was intense and the shop was like
a mouse-trap with draughts blowing in all direc
tions; the coat I had on was, pardon me, mangy,
as thin as paper, threadbare. . . . One would
be chilled through and through, half dazed, and
turn as cruel as the frost oneself: I would pull
one by the ear so that I nearly pulled the ear off ;
I would smack another on the back of the head;
I'd glare at a customer like a ruffian, a wild beast,
and be ready to fleece him ; and when I got home
in the evening and ought to have gone to bed, I'd
be ill-humoured and set upon my family, throwing
it in their teeth that they were living upon me;
I would make a row and carry on so that half a
dozen policemen couldn't have managed me. The
frost makes one spiteful and drives one to drink."

216 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

Yegor Ivanitch clasped his hands and went on :

" And when we were taking fish to Moscow in
the winter, Holy Mother !" And spluttering as
he talked, he began describing the horrors he
endured with his shopmen when he was taking fish
to Moscow. . . .

" Yes," sighed the governor, "it is wonderful
what a man can endure ! You used to take
waggon-loads of fish to Moscow, Yegor Ivanitch,
while I in my time was at the war. I remember
one extraordinary instance. ..."

And the governor described how, during the
last Russo-Turkish War, one frosty night the
division in which he was had stood in the snow
without moving for thirteen hours in a piercing
wind; from fear of being observed the division did
not light a fire, nor make a sound or a movement ;
they were forbidden to smoke. . . .

Reminiscences followed. The governor and the
mayor grew lively and good-humoured, and, inter
rupting each other, began recalling their experi
ences. And the bishop told them how, when he
was serving in Siberia, he had travelled in a sledge
drawn by dogs; how one day, being drowsy, in a
time of sharp frost he had fallen out of the sledge
and been nearly frozen ; when the Tunguses turned
back and found him he was barely alive. Then,
as by common agreement, the old men suddenly
sank into silence, sat side by side, and mused.

" Ech !" whispered the mayor; " you'd think it
would be time to forget, but when you look at the
water-carriers, at the schoolboys, at the convicts
in their wretched gowns, it brings it all back !

FROST 217

Why, only take those musicians who are playing
now. I'll be bound, there is a pain in their hearts,
a pinch at their stomachs, and their trumpets are
freezing to their lips. . . . They play and think:
' Holy Mother ! we have another three hours to
sit here in the cold.' '

The old men sank into thought. They thought
of that in man which is higher than good birth,
higher than rank and wealth and learning, of that
which brings the lowest beggar near to God : of the
helplessness of man, of his sufferings and his
patience. . . .

Meanwhile the air was turning blue . . . the
door opened and two waiters from Savatin's
walked in, carrying trays and a big muffled teapot.
When the glasses had been filled and there was
a strong smell of cinnamon and clove in the air,
the door opened again, and there came into the
pavilion a beardless young policeman whose nose
was crimson, and who was covered all over with
frost; he went up to the governor, and, saluting,
said: " Her Excellency told me to inform you that
she has gone home."

Looking at the way the policeman put his stiff,
frozen fingers to his cap, looking at his nose, his
lustreless eyes, and his hood covered with white
frost near the mouth, they all for some reason felt
that this policeman's heart must be aching, that
his stomach must feel pinched, and his soul
numb. . . .

" I say," said the governor hesitatingly, " have
a drink of mulled wine !"

" It's all right . . . it's all right ! Drink it

218 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

up !" the mayor urged him, gesticulating; " don't
be shy !"

The policeman took the glass in both hands,
moved aside, and, trying to drink without making
any sound, began discreetly sipping from the glass.
He drank and was overwhelmed with embarrass
ment while the old men looked at him in silence,
and they all fancied that the pain was leaving the
young policeman's heart, and that his soul was
thawing. The governor heaved a sigh.

" It's time we were at home," he said, getting
up. " Good-bye ! I say," he added, addressing
the policeman, " tell the musicians there to ...
leave off playing, and ask Pavel Semyonovitch
from me to see they are given . . . beer or
vodka."

The governor and the bishop said good-bye to
the mayor and went out of the pavilion.

Yegor Ivanitch attacked the mulled wine, and
before the policeman had finished his glass suc
ceeded in telling him a great many interesting
things. He could not be silent.

A SLANDER

A SLANDER

SERGEY KAPITONITCH AHINEEV, the writing-
master, was marrying his daughter Natalya to the
teacher of history and geography. The wedding
festivities were going off most successfully. In
the drawing-room there was singing, playing, and
dancing. Waiters hired from the club were
flitting distractedly about the rooms, dressed in
black swallow-tails and dirty white ties. There
was a continual hubbub and din of conversation.
Sitting side by side on the sofa, the teacher of
mathematics, Tarantulov, the French teacher,
Pasdequoi, and the junior assessor of taxes, Mzda,
were talking hurriedly and interrupting one another
as they described to the guests cases of persons
being buried alive, and gave their opinions on
spiritualism. None of them believed in spiritual
ism, but all admitted that there were many things
in this world which would always be beyond the
mind of man. In the next room the literature
master, Dodonslcy, was explaining to the visitors
the cases in which a sentry has the right to fire
on passers-by. The subjects, as you perceive,
were alarming, but very agreeable. Persons whose
social position precluded them from entering were
looking in at the windows from the yard.

Just at midnight the master of the house went

221

222 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

into the kitchen to see whether everything was
ready for supper. The kitchen from floor to ceiling
was rilled with fumes composed of goose, duck, and
many other odours. On two tables the acces
sories, the drinks and light refreshments, were set
out in artistic disorder. The cook, Marfa, a red-
faced woman, whose figure was like a barrel with
a belt round it, was bustling about the tables.

" Show me the sturgeon, Marfa," said Ahineev,
rubbing his hands and licking his lips. " What
a perfume, what a miasma ! I could eat up the
whole kitchen. Come, show me the sturgeon."

Marfa went up to one of the benches and cau
tiously lifted a piece of greasy newspaper. Under
the paper on an immense dish there reposed a
huge sturgeon, masked in jelly and decorated
with capers, olives, and carrots. Ahineev gazed
at the sturgeon and gasped. His face beamed,
he turned his eyes up. He bent down and with
his lips emitted the sound of an ungreased wheel.
After standing a moment he snapped his fingers
with delight, and once more smacked his lips.

" Ah-ah ! the sound of a passionate kiss. . . .
Who is it you're kissing out there, little Marfa ?"
came a voice from the next room, and in the
doorway there appeared the cropped head of the
assistant usher Vankin. " Who is it ? A-a-h !
. . . Delighted to meet you ! Sergey Kapiton-
itch ! You're a fine grandfather, I must say !
Tete-d-tete with the fair sex — tette !"

"I'm not kissing," said Ahineev in confusion.
" Who told you so, you fool ? I was only . . .
I smacked my lips ... in reference to ... as

A SLANDER 223

an indication of ... pleasure ... at the sight of
the fish."

" Tell that to the marines !" The intrusive face
vanished, wearing a broad grin.
Ahineev flushed.

" Hang it !" he thought, " the beast will go
now and talk scandal. He'll disgrace me to all
the town, the brute."

Ahineev went timidly into the drawing-room
and looked stealthily round for Vankin. Vankin
was standing by the piano, and, bending down
with a jaunty air, was whispering something to the
inspector's sister-in-law, who was laughing.

" Talking about me !" thought Ahineev. " About
me, blast him ! And she believes it ... believes
it ! She laughs ! Mercy on us ! No, I can't let
it pass ... I can't. I must do something to
prevent his being believed. ... I'll speak to
them all, and he'll be shown up for a fool and a
gossip."

Ahineev scratched his head, and, still overcome
with embarrassment, went up to Pasdequoi.

" I've just been in the kitchen to see after the
supper," he said to the Frenchman. " I know
you are fond of fish, and I've a sturgeon, my dear
fellow, beyond everything ! A yard and a half
long ! Ha, ha, ha ! And, by the way ... I was
just forgetting. ... In the kitchen just now,
with that sturgeon . . . quite a little story ! I
went into the kitchen just now and wanted to
look at the supper dishes. I looked at the sturgeon
and I smacked my lips with relish ... at the
piquancy of it. And at the very moment that

224 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

fool Vankin came in and said : . . .' Ha, ha, ha !
. . . So you're kissing here !' Kissing Marf a, the
cook ! What a thing to imagine, silly fool ! The
woman is a perfect fright, like all the beasts put to
gether, and he talks about kissing ! Queer fish !"

" Who's a queer fish ?" asked Tarantulov,
coming up.

" Why, he, over there — Vankin ! I went into
the kitchen ..."

And he told the story of Vankin. "... He
amused me, queer fish ! I'd rather kiss a dog
than Marfa, if you ask me," added Ahineev. He
looked round and saw behind him Mzda.

" We are talking of Vankin," he said. " Queer
fish, he is ! He went into the kitchen, saw me
beside Marfa, and began inventing all sorts of silly
stories. ' Why are you kissing ?' says he. He
must have had a drop too much. ' And I'd rather
kiss a turkeycock than Marfa,' I said. ' And I've
a wife of my own, you fool,' said I. He did amuse
me !"

" Who amused you ?" asked the priest who
taught Scripture in the school, going up to Ahineev.

" Vankin. I was standing in the kitchen, you
know, looking at the sturgeon. ..."

And so on. Within half an hour or so all the
guests knew the incident of the sturgeon and
Vankin.

" Let him tell away now !" thought Ahineev,
rubbing his hands, " let him ! He'll begin telling
his story and they'll say to him at once, ' Enough of
your nonsense, you fool, we know all about it !' '

And Ahineev was so relieved that in his joy he

A SLANDER 225

drank four glasses too many. After escorting the
young people to their room he went to bed and
slept like an innocent babe, and next day he thought
no more of the incident with the sturgeon. But,
alas ! man proposes, but God disposes. An evil
tongue did its evil work, and Ahineev's strategy
was of no avail. Just a week later — to be precise,
on Wednesday after the third lesson — when Ahineev
was standing in the middle of the teachers' room,
holding forth on the vicious propensities of a boy
called Visekin, the head-master went up to him
and drew him aside :

" Look here, Sergey Kapitonitch," said the head
master, " you must excuse me. . . . It's not my
business, but all the same I must make you realize.
. . . It's my duty. You see, there are rumours
that you are living with that . . . cook. . . . It's
nothing to do with me, but . . . Live with her,
kiss her ... as you please, but don't let it be so
public, please. I entreat you ! Don't forget that
you're a schoolmaster."

Ahineev turned cold and faint. He went home
like a man stung by a whole swarm of bees, like a
man scalded with boiling water. As he walked
home, it seemed to him that the whole town was
looking at him as though he were smeared with
pitch. At home fresh trouble awaited him.

" Why aren't you gobbling up your food as
usual ?" his wife asked him at dinner. " What
are you so pensive about ? Brooding over your
amours ? Pining for your slut of a Marfa ? I
know all about it, Mahomedan ! Kind friends have
opened my eyes ! O-o-o ! . . . you savage !"
x 15

226 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

""And she slapped him in the face. He got up
from the table, not feeling the earth under his feet,
and without his hat or his coat, made his way to
Vankin. He found him at home.

' You scoundrel !" was how he addressed him.
" Why have you covered me with mud before all
the town ? Why did you set this slander going
about me ?"

" What slander ? What are you talking about ?"

" Who was it gossiped of my kissing Marfa ?
Wasn't it you ? Tell me that. Wasn't it you, you
brigand ?"

Vankin blinked and twitched in every fibre of
his battered countenance, raised his eyes to the
ikon and articulated, " God blast me ! Strike me
blind and lay me out, if I said a single word about
you ! May I be left without house or home, may I
be stricken with worse than cholera !"

Vankin's sincerity did not admit of doubt. It
was evidently not he who was the author of the
slander.

" But who, then, who ?" Ahineev wondered,
going over all his acquaintances in his mind and
beating himself on the breast. " Who, then ?"

Who, then ? We, too, ask the reader.

!

MINDS IN FERMENT

MINDS IN FERMENT
(FROM THE ANNALS OF A TOWN)

THE earth was like an oven. The afternoon sun
blazed with such energy that even the thermometer
hanging in the excise officer's room lost its head:
it ran up to 112-5 and stopped there, irresolute.
The inhabitants streamed with perspiration like
overdriven horses, and were too lazy to mop their
faces.

Two of the inhabitants were walking along the
market-place in front of the closely shuttered
houses. One was Potcheshihin, the local treasury
clerk, and the other was Optimov, the agent, for
many years a correspondent of the Son of the Father
land newspaper. They walked in silence, speech
less from the heat. Optimov felt tempted to find
fault with the local authorities for the dust and
disorder -of the market-place, but, aware of the
peace-loving disposition and moderate views of his
companion, he said nothing.

In the middle of the market-place Potcheshihin
suddenly halted and began gazing into the sky.

" What are you looking at ?"

" Those starlings that flew up. I wonder where

they have settled. Clouds and clouds of them.

... If one were to go and take a shot at them,

and if one were to pick them up ... and if ...

229

230 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

They have settled in the Father Prebendary's
garden !"

"Oh no ! They are not in the Father Pre
bendary's, they are in the Father Deacon's. If
you did have a shot at them from here you wouldn't
kill anything. Fine shot won't carry so far; it
loses its force. And why should you kill them,
anyway ? They're birds destructive of the fruit,
that's true; still, they're fowls of the air, works of
the Lord. The starling sings, you know. . . .
And what does it sing, pray ? A song of praise.
... ' All ye fowls of the air, praise ye the Lord.'
No. I do believe they have settled in the Father
Prebendary's garden."

Three old pilgrim women, wearing bark shoes
and carrying wallets, passed noiselessly by the
speakers. Looking enquiringly at the gentlemen
who were for some unknown reason staring at the
Father Prebendary's house, they slackened their
pace, and when they were a few yards off stopped,
glanced at the friends once more, and then fell to
gazing at the house themselves.

" Yes, you were right ; they have settled in the
Father Prebendary's," said Optimov. " His
cherries are ripe now, so they have gone there to
peck them."

From the garden gate emerged the Father Pre
bendary himself, accompanied by the sexton.
Seeing the attention directed upon his abode and
wondering what people were staring at, he stopped,
and he, too, as well as the sexton, began looking
upwards to find out.

" The Father is going to a service somewhere, I

MINDS IN FERMENT 231

suppose," said Potcheshihin. " The Lord be his
succour !"

Some workmen from Purov's factory, who had
been bathing in the river, passed between the
friends and the priest. Seeing the latter absorbed
in contemplation of the heavens and the pilgrim
women, too, standing motionless with their eyes
turned upwards, they stood still and stared in the
same direction.

A small boy leading a blind beggar and a peasant,
carrying a tub of stinking fish to throw into the
market-place, did the same.

" There must be something the matter, I should
think," said Potcheshihin, " a fire or something.
But there's no sign of smoke anywhere. Hey !
Kuzma !" he shouted to the peasant, " what's the
matter ?"

The peasant made some reply, but Potcheshihin
and Optimov did not catch it. Sleepy -looking
shopmen made their appearance at the doors of all
the shops. Some plasterers at work on a ware
house near left their ladders and joined the work
men.

The fireman, who was describing circles with his
bare feet, on the watch-tower, halted, and, after
looking steadily at them for a few minutes, came
down. The watch-tower was left deserted. This
seemed suspicious.

" There must be a fire somewhere. Don't shove
me ! You damned swine !"

" Where do you see the fire ? What fire ? Pass
on, gentlemen ! I ask you civilly !"

" It must be a fire indoors !"

232 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Asks us civilly and keeps poking with his
elbows. Keep your hands to yourself ! Though
you are a head-constable, you have no sort of
right to make free with your fists !"

" He's trodden on my corn ! Ah ! I'll crush
you !"

" Crushed ? Who's crushed ? Lads ! a man's
been crushed !"

" What's the meaning of this crowd ? What do
you want ?"

" A man's been crushed, please your honour !"

" Where ? Pass on ! I ask you civilly ! I ask
you civilly, you blockheads !"

" You may shove a peasant, but you daren't
touch a gentleman ! Hands off !"

" Did you ever know such people ? There's no
doing anything with them by fair words, the devils !
Sidorov, run for Akim Danilitch ! Look sharp !
It'll be the worse for you, gentlemen ! Akim
Danilitch is coming, and he'll give it to you ! You
here, Parfen ? A blind man, and at his age too !
Can't see, but he must be like other people and won't
do what he's told. Smirnov, put his name down !"

" Yes, sir ! And shall I write down the men
from Purov's ? That man there with the swollen
cheek, he's from Purov's works."

" Don't put down the men from Purov's. It's
Purov's birthday to-morrow."

The starlings rose in a black cloud from the
Father Prebendary's garden, but Potcheshihin and
Optimov did not notice them. They stood staring
into the air, wondering what could have attracted
such a crowd, and what it was looking at.

MINDS IN FERMENT 233

Akim Danilitch appeared. Still munching and
wiping his lips, he cut his way into the crowd,
bellowing :

" Firemen, be ready ! Disperse ! Mr. Optimo v,
disperse, or it'll be the worse for you ! Instead of
writing all kinds of things about decent people in
the papers, you had better try to behave yourself
more conformably ! No good ever comes of read
ing the papers !"

" Kindly refrain from reflections upon litera
ture !" cried Optimo v hotly. " I am a literary
man, and I will allow no one to make reflections
upon literature ! though, as is the duty of a citizen,
I respect you as a father and benefactor !"

" Firemen, turn the hose on them !"

" There's no water, please your honour !"

" Don't answer me ! Go and get some ! Look
sharp !"

" We've nothing to get it in, your honour. The
major has taken the fire-brigade horses to drive
his aunt to the station."

" Disperse ! Stand back, damnation take you I
... Is that to your taste ? Put him down, the
devil !"

" I've lost my pencil, please your honour !"

The crowd grew larger and larger. There is no
telling what proportions it might have reached if the
new organ just arrived from Moscow had not
fortunately begun playing in the tavern close by.
Hearing their favourite tune, the crowd gasped
and rushed off to the tavern. So nobody ever knew
why the crowd had assembled, and Potcheshihin
and Optimov had by now forgotten the existence

234 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

of the starlings who were innocently responsible
for the proceedings.

An hour later the town was still and silent again,
and only a solitary figure was to be seen — the
fireman pacing round and round on the watch-
tower.

The same evening Akim Danilitch sat in the
grocer's shop drinking limonade gaseuse and
brandy, and writing:

" In addition to the official report, I venture,
your Excellency, to append a few supplementary
observations of my own. Father and benefactor !
In very truth, but for the prayers of your virtuous
spouse in her salubrious villa near our town, there's
no knowing what might not have come to pass.
What I have been through to-day I can find no
words to express. The efficiency of Krushensky
and of the major of the fire brigade are beyond all
praise ! I am proud of such devoted servants of
our country ! As for me, I did all that a weak man
could do, whose only desire is the welfare of his
neighbour; and sitting now in the bosom of my
family, with tears in my eyes I thank Him Who
spared us bloodshed ! In absence of evidence, the
guilty parties remain in custody, but I propose to
release them in a week or so. It was their ignorance
that led them astray !"

GONE ASTRAY

GONE ASTRAY

A COUNTRY village wrapped in the darkness of
night. One o'clock strikes from the belfry. Two
lawyers, called Kozyavkin and Laev, both in the
best of spirits and a little unsteady on their legs,
come out of the wood and turn towards the cottages.
" Well, thank God, we've arrived," says Kozyav
kin, drawing a deep breath. " Tramping four
miles from the station in our condition is a feat.
I am fearfully done up ! And, as ill-luck would
have it, not a fly to be seen."

" Petya, my dear fellow. ... I can't. ... I
feel like dying if I'm not in bed in five minutes."

" In bed ! Don't you think it, my boy ! First
we'll have supper and a glass of red wine, and then
you can go to bed. Verotchka and I will wake you
up. . . . Ah, my dear fellow, it's a fine thing to
be married ! You don't understand it, you cold-
hearted wretch ! I shall be home in a minute,
worn out and exhausted. ... A loving wife will
welcome me, give me some tea and something to
eat, and repay me for my hard work and my love
with such a fond and loving look out of her darling
black eyes that I shall forget how tired I am, and
forget the burglary and the law courts and the
appeal division. . . . It's glorious !"

" Yes — I say, I feel as though my legs were
dropping off, I can scarcely get along. ... I am.
frightfully thirsty. ..."
23?

238 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Well, here we are at home."

The friends go up to one of the cottages, and
stand still under the nearest window.

" It's a jolly cottage," said Kozyavkin. " You
will see to-morrow what views we have ! There's
no light in the windows. Verotchka must have
gone to bed, then ; she must have got tired of sitting
up. She's in bed, and must be worrying at my not
having turned up." (He pushes the window with
his stick, and it opens.) " Plucky girl ! She goes
to bed without bolting the window." (He takes
off his cape and flings it with his portfolio in at
the window.) " I am hot ! Let us strike up a
serenade and make her laugh !" (He sings.) "The
moon floats in the midnight sky. . . . Faintly stir
the tender breezes. . . . Faintly rustle in the
tree-tops. . . . Sing, sing, Alyosha ! Verotchka,
shall we sing you Schubert's Serenade ? " (He sings.)

His performance is cut short by a sudden fit of
coughing. " Tphoo ! Verotchka, tell Aksinya to
unlock the gate for us ! " (A pause.) ' ' Verotchka !
don't be lazy, get up, darling !" (He stands on a
stone and looks in at the window.) " Verotchka,
my dumpling; Verotchka, my poppet . . . my
little angel, my wife beyond compare, get up and
tell Aksinya to unlock the gate for us ! You are
not asleep, you know. Little wife, we are really so
done up and exhausted that we're not in the mood
for jokes. We've trudged all the way from the
station! Don't you hear? Ah, hang it all!"
(He makes an effort to climb up to the window and
falls down.) " You know this isn't a nice trick to
play on a visitor ! I see you are just as great a

GONE ASTRAY 239

schoolgirl as ever, Vera, you are always up to
mischief !"

" Perhaps Vera Stepanovna is asleep," says
Laev.

" She isn't asleep ! I bet she wants me to make
an outcry and wake up the whole neighbourhood.
I'm beginning to get cross, Vera ! Ach, damn it
all ! Give me a leg up, Alyosha; I'll get in. You
are a naughty girl, nothing but a regular school
girl. . . . Give me a hoist."

Puffing and panting, Laev gives him a leg up, and
Kozyavkin climbs in at the window and vanishes
into the darkness within.

" Vera !" Laev hears a minute later, " where are
you ? . . . D — damnation ! Tphoo ! I've put
my hand into something ! Tphoo !"

There is a rustling sound, a flapping of wings, and
the desperate cackling of a fowl.

" A nice state of things," Laev hears. " Vera,
where on earth did these chickens come from ?
Why, the devil, there's no end of them ! There's
a basket with a turkey in it. ... It pecks, the
nasty creature."

Two hens fly out of the window, and cackling at
the top of their voices, flutter down the village
street.

" Alyosha, we've made a mistake !" says Kozyav
kin in a lachrymose voice. " There are a lot of
hens here. ... I must have mistaken the house.
Confound you, you are all over the place, you
cursed brutes !"

" Well, then, make haste and come down. Do
you hear ? I am dying of thirst !"

240 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" In a minute. ... I am looking for my cape
and portfolio."

" Light a match."

" The matches are in the cape. ... I was a
crazy idiot to get into this place. The cottages are
exactly alike; the devil himself couldn't tell them
apart in the dark. Aie, the turkey's pecked my
cheek, nasty creature !"

" Make haste and get out or they'll think we are
stealing the chickens."

" In a minute. ... I can't find my cape any
where. . . . There are lots of old rags here, and
I can't tell where the cape is. Throw me a match."

" I haven't any."

" We are in a hole, I must say ! What am I to-
do ? I can't go without my cape and my portfolio..
I must find them."

" I can't understand a man's not knowing his own
cottage," says Laev indignantly. " Drunken beast..
... If I'd known I was in for this sort of thing
I would never have come with you. I should have
been at home and fast asleep by now, and a nice
fix I'm in here ! . . . I'm fearfully done up and
thirsty, and my head is going round."

" In a minute, in a minute. . . . You won't
expire."

A big cock flies crowing over Laev's head. Laev
heaves a deep sigh, and with a hopeless gesture sits
down on a stone. He is beset with a burning
thirst, his eyes are closing, his head drops forward,
. . . Five minutes pass, ten, twenty, and Kozyav-
kin is still busy among the hens.

" Petya, will you be long ?"

GONE ASTRAY 241

" A minute. I found the portfolio, but I have
lost it again."

Laev lays his head on his fists, and closes his eyes.
The cackling of the fowls grows louder and louder.
The inhabitants of the empty cottage fly out of the
window and flutter round in circles, he fancies, like
owls over his head. His ears ring with their cackle,
he is overwhelmed with terror.

" The beast I" he thinks. " He invited me to-
stay, promising me wine and junket, and then he
makes me walk from the station and listen to these
hens. . . ."

In the midst of his indignation his chin sinks into
his collar, he lays his head on his portfolio, and
gradually subsides. Weariness gets the upper hand
and he begins to doze.

" I've found the portfolio !" he hears Kozyavkin
cry triumphantly. "I shall find the cape in a
minute and then off we go !"

Then through his sleep he hears the barking of
dogs. First one dog barks, then a second, and a
third. . . . And the barking of the dogs blends
with the cackling of the fowls into a sort of savage
music. Someone conies up to Laev and asks him
something. Then he hears someone climb over his
head into the window, then a knocking and a shout
ing. ... A woman in a red apron stands beside
him with a lantern in her hand and asks him some
thing.

' You've no right to say so," he hears Kozyav-
kin's voice. " I am a lawyer, a bachelor of laws —
Kozyavkin — here's my visiting card."

" What do I want with your card ?" says some-
* 16

242 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

one in a husky bass. " You've disturbed all my
fowls, you've smashed the eggs ! Look what you've
done. The turkey poults were to have come out
to-day or to-morrow, and you've smashed them.
What's the use of your giving me your card, sir ?"

" How dare you interfere with me ! No ! I won't
have it !"

" I am thirsty," thinks Laev, trying to open his
eyes, and he feels somebody climb down from the
window over his head.

" My name is Kozyavkin ! I have a cottage
here. Everyone knows me."

" We don't know anyone called Kozyavkin."

" What are you saying ? Call the elder. He
knows me."

" Don't get excited, the constable will be here
directly. . . . We know all the summer visitors
here, but I've never seen you in my life."

" I've had a cottage in Rottendale for five years."

" Whew ! Do you take this for the Dale ? This
is Sicklystead, but Rottendale is farther to the
right, beyond the match factory. It's three miles
from here."

" Bless my soul ! Then I've taken the wrong
turning !"

The cries of men and fowls mingle with the barking
of dogs, and the voice of Kozyavkin rises above the
chaos of confused sounds:

" You shut up ! I'll pay. I'll show you whom
you have to deal with !"

Little by little the voices die down. Laev feels
himself being shaken by the shoulder. . . .

AN AVENGER

AN AVENGER

SHORTLY after finding his wife in flagrante ddicto
Fyodor Fyodorovitch Sigaev was standing in
Schmuck and Go's., the gunsmiths, selecting a
suitable revolver. His countenance expressed
wrath, grief, and unalterable determination.

" I know what I must do," he was thinking.
" The sanctities of the home are outraged, honour
is trampled in the mud, vice is triumphant, and
therefore as a citizen and a man of honour I must be
their avenger. First, I will kill her and her lover
and then myself."

He had not yet chosen a revolver or killed any
one, but already in imagination he saw three blood
stained corpses, broken skulls, brains oozing from
them, the commotion, the crowd of gaping specta
tors, the post-mortem. . . . With the malignant
joy of an insulted man he pictured the horror of the
relations and the public, the agony of the traitress,
and was mentally reading leading articles on the
destruction of the traditions of the home.

The shopman, a sprightly little Frenchified
figure with rounded belly and white waistcoat,
displayed the revolvers, and smiling respectfully
and scraping with his little feet observed :

"... I would advise you, M'sieur, to take this
superb revolver, the Smith and Wesson pattern,
245

246 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

the last word in the science of firearms: triple-
action, with ejector, kills at six hundred paces,
central sight. Let me draw your attention,
M'sieu, to the beauty of the finish. The most
fashionable system, M'sieu. We sell a dozen every
day for burglars, wolves, and lovers. Very correct
and powerful action, hits at a great distance, and
kills wife and lover with one bullet. As for suicide,
M'sieu, I don't know a better pattern."

The shopman pulled and cocked the trigger,
breathed on the barrel, took aim, and affected to be
breathless with delight. Looking at his ecstatic
countenance, one might have supposed that he
would readily have put a bullet through his brains
if he had only possessed a revolver of such a
superb pattern as a Smith-Wesson.
" And what price ?" asked Sigaev.
" Forty-five roubles, M'sieu."
" Mm ! . . . that's too dear for me."
" In that case, M'sieu, let me offer you another
make, somewhat cheaper. Here, if you'll kindly
look, we have an immense choice, at all prices.
. . . Here, for instance, this revolver of the
Lefaucher pattern costs only eighteen roubles,
but ..." (the shopman pursed up his face con
temptuously) "... but, M'sieu, it's an old-
fashioned make. They are only bought by
hysterical ladies or the mentally deficient. To
commit suicide or shoot one's wife with a Le
faucher revolver is considered bad form nowadays.
Smith-Wesson is the only pattern that's correct
style."

" I don't want to shoot myself or to kill any-

AN AVENGER 247

one," said Sigaev, lying sullenly. " I am buying
it simply for a country cottage ... to frighten
away burglars. ..."

" That's not our business, what object you have
in buying it." The shopman smiled, dropping his
eyes discreetly. "If we were to investigate the
object in each case, M'sieu, we should have to close
our shop. To frighten burglars Lefaucher is not
a suitable pattern, M'sieu, for it goes off with a
faint, muffled sound. I would suggest Mortimer's,
the so-called duelling pistol. ..."

" Shouldn't I challenge him to a duel ?" flashed
through Sigaev's mind. " It's doing him too
much honour, though. . . . Beasts like that are
killed like dogs. ..."

The shopman, swaying gracefully and tripping to
and fro on his little feet, still smiling and chatter
ing, displayed before him a heap of revolvers.
The most inviting and impressive of all was the
Smith and Wesson's. Sigaev picked up a pistol
of that pattern, gazed blankly at it, and sank into
brooding. His imagination pictured how he
would blow out their brains, how blood would flow
in streams over the rug and the parquet, how the
traitress's legs would twitch in her last agony. . . .
But that was not enough for his indignant soul.
The picture of blood, wailing, and horror did not
satisfy him. He must think of something more
terrible.

" I know ! I'll kill myself and him," he thought,
" but I'll leave her alive. Let her pine away
from the stings of conscience and the contempt
of all surrounding her. For a sensitive nature

248 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

like hers that will be far more agonizing than
death."

And he imagined his own funeral : he, the injured
husband, lies in his coffin with a gentle smile on
his lips, and she, pale, tortured by remorse, follows
the coffin like a Niobe, not knowing where to hide
herself to escape from the withering, contemptuous
looks cast upon her by the indignant crowd.

"I see, M'sieu, that you like the Smith and
Wesson make," the shopman broke in upon his
broodings. " If you think it too dear, very well,
I'll knock off five roubles. . . . But we have
other makes, cheaper."

The little Frenchified figure turned gracefully
and took down another dozen cases of revolvers
from the shelf.

" Here, M'sieu, price thirty roubles. That's not
expensive, especially as the rate of exchange has
dropped terribly and the Customs duties are rising
every hour. M'sieu, I vow I am a Conservative,
but even I am beginning to murmur. Why, with
the rate of exchange and the Customs tariff, only
the rich can purchase firearms. There's nothing
left for the poor but Tula weapons and phosphorus
matches, and Tula weapons are a misery ! You
may aim at your wife with a Tula revolver and
shoot yourself through the shoulder-blade."

Sigaev suddenly felt mortified and sorry that he
would be dead, and would miss seeing the agonies
of the traitress. Revenge is only sweet when one
can see and taste its fruits, and what sense would
there be in it if he were lying in his coffin, knowing
nothing about it ?

AN AVENGER 249

" Hadn't I better do this ?" he pondered. " I'll
kill him, then I'll go to his funeral and look on,
and after the funeral I'll kill myself. They'd
arrest me, though, before the funeral, and take
away my pistol. . . . And so I'll kill him, she
shall remain alive, and I ... for the time, I'll
not kill myself, but go and be arrested. I shall
always have time to kill myself. There will be
this advantage about being arrested, that at the
preliminary investigation I shall have an oppor
tunity of exposing to the authorities and to the
public all the infamy of her conduct. If I kill
myself she may, with her characteristic duplicity
and impudence, throw all the blame on me, and
society will justify her behaviour and will very
likely laugh at me. ... If I remain alive,
then . . ."

A minute later he was thinking :

" Yes, if I kill myself I may be blamed and
suspected of petty feeling. . . . Besides, why
should I kill myself ? That's one thing. And for
another, to shoot oneself is cowardly. And so I'll
kill him and let her live, and I'll face my trial. I
shall be tried, and she will be brought into court
as a witness. ... I can imagine her confusion,
her disgrace when she is examined by my counsel !
The sympathies of the court, of the Press, and of
the public will certainly be with me."

While he deliberated the shopman displayed his
wares, and felt it incumbent upon him to entertain
his customer.

" Here are English ones, a new pattern, only
just received," he prattled on. " But I warn you,

250 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

M'sieu, all these systems pale beside the Smith
and Wesson. The other day — as I dare say you
have read — an officer bought from us a Smith and
Wesson. He shot his wife's lover, and — would
you believe it ? — the bullet passed through him,
pierced the bronze lamp, then the piano, and
ricochetted back from the piano, killing the lap-
dog and bruising the wife. A magnificent record
redounding to the honour of our firm ! The officer
is now under arrest. He will no doubt be con
victed and sent to penal servitude. In the first
place, our penal code is quite out of date; and,
secondly, M'sieu, the sympathies of the court are
always with the lover. Why is it ? Very simple,
M'sieu. The judges and the jury and the prose
cutor and the counsel for the defence are all living
with other men's wives, and it'll add to their
comfort that there will be one husband the less
in Russia. Society would be pleased if the Govern
ment were to send all the husbands to Sahalin.
Oh, M'sieu, you don't know how it excites my
indignation to see the corruption of morals nowa
days. To love other men's wives is as much the
regular thing to-day as to smoke other men's
cigarettes and to read other men's books. Every
year our trade gets worse and worse — it doesn't
mean that wives are more faithful, but that
husbands resign themselves to their position and
are afraid of the law and penal servitude."

The shopman looked round and whispered:
" And whose fault is it, M'sieu ? The Govern
ment's."

" To go to Sahalin for the sake of a pig like that

AN AVENGER 251

— there's no sense in that either," Sigaev pondered.
" If I go to penal servitude it will only give my
wife an opportunity of marrying again and de
ceiving a second husband. She would triumph.
. . . And so I will leave her alive, I won't kill
myself, him ... I won't kill either. I must
think of something more sensible and more effec
tive. I will punish them with my contempt, and
will take divorce proceedings that will make a
scandal."

" Here, M'sieu, is another make," said the shop
man, taking down another dozen from the shelf.
" Let me call your attention to the original
mechanism of the lock."

In view of his determination a revolver was now
of no use to Sigaev, but the shopman, meanwhile,
getting more and more enthusiastic, persisted in
displaying his wares before him. The outraged
husband began to feel ashamed that the shopman
should be taking so much trouble on his account
for nothing, that he should be smiling, wasting
time, displaying enthusiasm for nothing.

" Very well, in that case," he muttered, "I'll
look in again later on ... or I'll send someone."

He didn't see the expression of the shopman's
face, but to smooth over the awkwardness of the
position a little he felt called upon to make some
purchase. But what should he buy ? He looked
round the walls of the shop to pick out something
inexpensive, and his eyes rested on a green net
hanging near the door.

" That's . . . what's that ?" he asked.
" That's a net for catching quails."

252 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" And what price is it ?"

" Eight roubles, M'sieu."

" Wrap it up for me. . . ."

The outraged husband paid his eight roubles,
took the net, and, feeling even more outraged,
walked out of the shop.

THE JEUNE PREMIER

THE JEUNE PREMIER

YEVGENY ALEXEYITCH PODZHAROV, the jeune
premier, a graceful, elegant young man with an
oval face and little bags under his eyes, had come
for the season to one of the southern towns of
Russia, and tried at once to make the acquaintance
of a few of the leading families of the place.
" Yes, signer," he would often say, gracefully
swinging his foot and displaying his red socks,
" an artist ought to act upon the masses, both
directly and indirectly; the first aim is attained
by his work on the stage, the second by an acquaint
ance, with the local inhabitants. On my honour,
parole d'honneur, I don't understand why it is
we actors avoid making acquaintance with local
families. Why is it ? To say nothing of dinners,
name-day parties, feasts, soirees fixes, to say
nothing of these entertainments, think of the
moral influence we may have on society ! Is it
not agreeable to feel one has dropped a spark in
some thick skull ? The types one meets ! The
women ! Mon Dien, what women ! they turn one's
head ! One penetrates into some huge merchant's
house, into the sacred retreats, and picks out
some fresh and rosy little peach — it's heaven,
parole d'honneur !"

In the southern town, among other estimable
255

256 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

families he made the acquaintance of that of
a manufacturer called Zybaev. Whenever he
remembers that acquaintance now he frowns con
temptuously, screws up his eyes, and nervously
plays with his watch-chain.

One day — it was at a name-day party at
Zybaev's — the actor was sitting in his new friends'
drawing-room and holding forth as usual. Around
him " types " were sitting in arm-chairs and on
the sofa, listening affably; from the next room
came feminine laughter and the sounds of evening
tea. . . . Crossing his legs, after each phrase
sipping tea with rum in it, and trying to assume
an expression of careless boredom, he talked of his
stage triumphs.

" I am a provincial actor principally," he said,
smiling condescendingly, " but I have played in
Petersburg and Moscow too. . . . By the way,
I will describe an incident which illustrates pretty
well the state of mind of to-day. At my benefit
in Moscow the young people brought me such a
mass of laurel wreaths that I swear by all I hold
sacred I did not know where to put them ! Parole
d'honneur ! Later on, at a moment when funds
were short, I took the laurel wreaths to the shop,
and . . . guess what they weighed. Eighty
pounds altogether. Ha, ha ! you can't think how
useful the money was. Artists, indeed, are often
hard up. To-day I have hundreds, thousands,
to-morrow nothing. . . . To-day I haven't a
crust of bread, to-morrow I have oysters and
anchovies, hang it all !"

The local inhabitants sipped their glasses

THE JEUNE PREMIER 257

decorously and listened. The well-pleased host,
not knowing how to make enough of his cultured
and interesting visitor, presented to him a distant
relative who had just arrived, one Pavel Ignat-
yevitch Klimov, a bulky gentleman about forty,
wearing a long frock-coat and very full trousers.

" You ought to know each other," said Zybaev
as he presented Klimov; " he loves theatres, and
at one time used to act himself. He has an estate
in the Tula province."

Podzharov and Klimov got into conversation.
It appeared, to the great satisfaction of both, that
the Tula landowner lived in the very town in
which the jeune premier had acted for two seasons
in succession. Enquiries followed about the town,
about common acquaintances, and about the
theatre. . . .

" Do you know, I like that town awfully," said
the jeune premier, displaying his red socks.
" What streets, what a charming park, and what
society ! Delightful society !"

" Yes, delightful society," the landowner as
sented.

" A commercial town, but extremely cultured.
. . . For instance, er-er-er . . . the head -master
of the high school, the public prosecutor . . . the
officers. . . . The police captain, too,- was not
bad. a man, as the French say, enchantt, and the
women, Allah, what women !"

" Yes, the women . . . certainly. . . ."

" Perhaps I am partial; the fact is that in youi
town, I don't know why, I was devilishly lucky
with the fair sex ! I could write a dozen novels.

x. 17

258 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

To take this episode, for instance. ... I was
staying in Yegoryevsky Street, in the very house
where the Treasury is. ..."

" The red house without stucco ?"
' Yes, yes . . . without stucco. . . . Close
by, as I remember now, lived a local beauty,
Varenka. ..."

" Not Varvara Nikolayevna ?" asked Klimov,
and he beamed with satisfaction. " She really is
a beauty . . . the most beautiful girl in the
town."

" The most beautiful girl in the town ! A
classic profile, great black eyes . . . and hair to
her waist ! She saw me in ' Hamlet,' she wrote me
a letter a la Pushkin's ' Tatyana.' ... I an
swered, as you may guess. . . ."

Podzharov looked round, and having satisfied
himself that there were no ladies in the room,
rolled his eyes, smiled mournfully, and heaved a
sigh:

" I came home one evening after a performance,"
he whispered, " and there she was, sitting on my
sofa. There followed tears, protestations of love,
kisses. . . . Oh, that was a marvellous, that was
a divine night ! Our romance lasted two months,
but that night was never repeated. It was a
night, parole d'honneur /" fe&^&

" Excuse me, what's that ?" muttered Klimov,
turning crimson and gazing open-eyed at the
actor. " I know Varvara Nikolayevna well: she's
my niece."

Podzharov was embarrassed, and he, too, opened
his eyes wide.

THE JEUNE PREMIER 259

" How's this ?" Klimov went on, throwing up his
hands. " I know the girl, and . . . and . . . lam
surprised. ..."

" I am very sorry this has come up," muttered
the actor, getting up and rubbing something out
of his left eye with his little finger. " Though, of
course ... of course, you as her uncle . . ."

The other guests, who had hitherto been listening
to the actor with pleasure and rewarding him with
smiles, were embarrassed and dropped their eyes.

" Please, do be so good . . . take your words
back ..." said Klimov in extreme embarrassment.
" I beg you to do so !"

"If . . . er-er-er ... it off ends you, certainly,"
answered the actor, with an undefined movement of
his hand.

" And confess you have told a falsehood."

"I, no . . . er-er-er. ... It was not a lie,
but ... I greatly regret having spoken too
freely. . . . And, in fact . . . I don't understand
your tone!"

Klimov walked up and down the room in
silence, as though in uncertainty and hesitation.
His fleshy face grew more and more crimson, and
the veins in his neck swelled up. After walking
up and down for about two minutes he went up to
the actor and said in a tearful voice :

" No, do be so good as to confess that you told
a lie about Varenka ! Have the goodness to do
so!"

" It's queer," said the actor, with a strained
smile, shrugging his shoulders and swinging his
leg. " This is positively insulting !"

26o THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" So you will not confess it ?"

" I do-on 't understand !"

" You will not ? In that case, excuse me . . .
I shall have to resort to unpleasant measures.
Either, sir, I shall insult you at once on the spot,
or ... if you are an honourable man, you will
kindly accept my challenge to a duel. . . . We
will fight !"

" Certainly !" rapped out the jeune premier, with
a contemptuous gesture. " Certainly."

Extremely perturbed, the guests and the host,
not knowing what to do, drew Klimov aside and
began begging him not to get up a scandal.
Astonished feminine countenances appeared in
the doorway. . . . The jeune premier turned
round, said a few words, and with an air of being
unable to remain in a house where he was in
sulted, took his cap and made off without saying
good-bye.

On his way home the jeune premier smiled con
temptuously and shrugged his shoulders, but when
he reached his hotel room and stretched himself on
his sofa he felt exceedingly uneasy.

"The devil take him !" he thought. " A duel
does not matter, he won't kill me, but the trouble
is the other fellows will hear of it, and they know
perfectly well it was a yarn. It's abominable !
I shall be disgraced all over Russia. ..."

Podzharov thought a little, smoked, and to calm
himself went out into the street .

" I ought to talk to this bully, ram into his
stupid noddle that he is a blockhead and a fool, and
that I am not in the least afraid of him.

THE JEUNE PREMIER 261

The jeune premier stopped before Zybaev's house
and looked at the windows. Lights were still
burning behind the muslin curtains and figures were
moving about.

"I'll wait for him !" the actor decided.

It was dark and cold. A hateful autumn rain was
drizzling as though through a sieve. Podzharov
leaned his elbow on a lamp-post and abandoned
himself to a feeling of uneasiness.

He was wet through and exhausted.

At two o'clock in the night the guests began
coming out of Zybaev's house. The landowner
from Tula was the last to make his appearance.
He heaved a sigh that could be heard by the whole
street and scraped the pavement with his heavy
over boots.

' ' Excuse me ! ' ' said the jeune premier, overtaking
him. " One minute."

Klimov stopped. The actor gave a smile,
hesitated, and began, stammering: "I . . .1
confess ... I told a lie."

" No, sir, you will please confess that publicly,"
said Klimov, and he turned crimson again. " I
can't leave it like that. ..."

" But you see I am apologizing ! I beg you
. . . don't you understand ? I beg you because
you will admit a duel will make talk, and I am in
a position. . . . My fellow-actors . . . goodness
knows what they may think. . . ."

The jeune premier tried to appear unconcerned, to
smile, to stand erect, but his body would not obey
him, his voice trembled, his eyes blinked guiltily,
and his head drooped. For a good while he went

262 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

on muttering something. Klimov listened to him,
thought a little, and heaved a sigh.

" Well, so be it," he said. " May God forgive
you. Only don't lie in future, young man. No
thing degrades a man like lying . . . yes, indeed !
You are a young man, you have had a good educa
tion. . . ."

The landowner from Tula, in a benignant,
fatherly way, gave him a lecture, while the jeune
premier listened and smiled meekly. . . . When
it was over he smirked, bowed, and with a guilty
step and a crestfallen air set off for his hotel.

As he went to bed half an hour later he felt that
he was out of danger and was already in excellent
spirits. Serene and satisfied that the misunder
standing had ended so satisfactorily, he wrapped
himself in the bedclothes, soon fell asleep, and slept
soundly till ten o'clock next morning.

A DEFENCELESS CREATURE

A DEFENCELESS CREATURE

1 N spite of a violent attack of gout in the night and
the nervous exhaustion left by it, Kistunov went
in the morning to his office and began punctually
seeing the clients of the bank and persons who
had come with petitions. He looked languid and
exhausted, and spoke in a faint voice hardly above
a whisper, as though he were dying.

" What can I do for you ?" he asked a lady in
an antediluvian mantle, whose back view was ex
tremely suggestive of a huge dung-beetle.

" You see, your Excellency," the petitioner in
question began, speaking rapidly, " my husband
Shtchukin, a collegiate assessor, was ill for five
months, and while he, if you will excuse my saying
so, was laid up at home, he was for no sort of reason
dismissed, your Excellency ; and when I went for his
salary they deducted, if you please, your Excel
lency, twenty-four roubles thirty-six kopecks from
his salary. ' What for ?' I asked. ' He borrowed
from the club fund/ they told me, ' and the other
clerks had stood security for him . ' How was that ?
How could he have borrowed it without my con
sent ? It's impossible, your Excellency. What's
the reason of it ? I am a poor woman, I earn my
bread by taking in lodgers. I am a weak, defence
less woman ... I have to put up with ill-usage
from everyone and never hear a kind word. ..."
265

266 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

The petitioner was blinking, and dived into her
mantle for her handkerchief. Kistunov took her
petition from her and began reading it.

" Excuse me, what's this?" he asked, shrugging
his shoulders. "I can make nothing of it.
Evidently you have come to the wrong place,
madam. Your petition has nothing to do with
us at all. You will have to apply to the depart
ment in which your husband was employed."

" Why, my dear sir, I have been to five places
already, and they would not even take the petition
anywhere," said Madame Shtchukin. " I'd quite
lost my head, but, thank goodness — God bless him
for it — my son-in-law, Boris Matveyitch advised
me to come to you. ' You go to Mr. Kistunov,
mamma: he is an influential man, he can do any
thing for you. . . .' Help me, your Excellency !"

" We can do nothing for you, Madame Shtchukin.
You must understand: your husband served in
the Army Medical Department, and our establish
ment is a purely private commercial undertaking,
a bank. Surely you must understand that !"

Kistunov shrugged his shoulders again and
turned to a gentleman in a military uniform, with
a swollen face.

" Your Excellency," piped Madame Shtchukin
in a pitiful voice, " I have the doctor's certificate
that my husband was ill ! Here it is, if you will
kindly look at it."

" Very good, I believe you," Kistunov said
irritably, " but I repeat it has nothing to do with
us. It's queer and positively absurd ! Surely your
husband must know where you are to apply ?"

A DEFENCELESS CREATURE 267

" He knows nothing, your Excellency. He
keeps on: ' It's not your business ! Get away !'
— that's all I can get out of him. . . . Whose
business is it, then ? It's I have to keep them
all !"

Kistunov again turned to Madame Shtchukin
and began explaining to her the difference between
the Army Medical Department and a private
bank. She listened attentively, nodded in token
of assent, and said:

" Yes . . . yes . . . yes ... I understand, sir.
In that case, your Excellency, tell them to pay
me fifteen roubles at least ! I agree to take part
on account !"

" Ough !" sighed Kistunov, letting his head
drop back. " There's no making you see reason.
Do understand that to apply to us with such a
petition is as strange as to send in a petition
concerning divorce, for instance, to a chemist's or
to the Assaying Board. You have not been paid
your due, but what have we to do with it ?"

" Your Excellency, make me remember you in
my prayers for the rest of my days, have pity on
a lone, lorn woman," wailed Madame Shtchukin;
" I am a weak, defenceless woman. ... I am
worried to death, I've to settle with the lodgers
and see to my husband's affairs and fly round
looking after the house, and I am going to church
every day this week, and my son-in-law is out of
a job. ... I might as well not eat or drink. . . .
I can scarcely keep on my feet. ... I haven't
slept all night. ..."

Kistunov was conscious of the palpitation of his

268 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

heart. With a face of anguish, pressing his hand
on his heart, he began explaining to Madame
Shtchukin again, but his voice failed him. . . .

" No, excuse me, I cannot talk to you," he said
with a wave of his hand. " My head's going
round. You are hindering us and wasting your
time. Ough ! Alexey Nikolaitch," he said, ad
dressing one of his clerks, " please will you explain
to Madame Shtchukin ?"

Kistunov, passing by all the petitioners, went
to his private room and signed about a dozen
papers while Alexey Nikolaitch was still engaged
with Madame Shtchukin. As he sat in his room
Kistunov heard two voices: the monotonous,
restrained bass of Alexey Nikolaitch and the shrill,
wailing voice of Madame Shtchukin.

I am a weak, defenceless woman, I am a
woman in delicate health," said Madame Shtchukin.
" I look strong, but if you were to overhaul me
there is not one healthy fibre in me. I can scarcely
keep on my feet, and my appetite is gone. . . .
I drank my cup of coffee this morning without
the slightest relish. ..."

Alexey Nikolaitch explained to her the difference
between the departments and the complicated
system of sending in papers. He was soon ex
hausted, and his place was taken by the accountant.

" A wonderfully disagreeable woman !" said
Kistunov, revolted, nervously cracking his fingers
and continually going to the decanter of water.
" She's a perfect idiot ! She's worn me out and
she'll exhaust them, the nasty creature ! Ough !
, . . my heart is throbbing."

A DEFENCELESS CREATURE 269

Half an hour later he rang his bell. Alexey
Nikolaitch made his appearance.

" How are things going ?" Kistunov asked
languidly.

" We can't make her see anything, Pyotr
Alexandritch ! We are simply done. We talk of
one thing and she talks of something else."

" I ... I can't stand the sound of her voice.

. . I am ill. ... I can't bear it."

"Send for the porter, Pyotr Alexandritch; let
him put her out."

" No, no," cried Kistunov in alarm. " She will
set up a squeal, and there are lots of flats in this
building, and goodness knows what they would
think of us. ... Do try and explain to her, my
dear fellow. ..."

A minute later the deep drone of Alexey Niko-
laitch's voice was audible again. A quarter of
an hour passed, and instead of his bass there was
the murmur of the accountant's powerful tenor.

" Re-mark-ably nasty woman," Kistunov
thought indignantly, nervously shrugging his
shoulders. " No more brains than a sheep. I
believe that's a twinge of the gout again. . . .
My migraine is coming back. . . ."

In the next room Alexey Nikolaitch, at the end
of his resources, at last tapped his finger on the
table and then on his own forehead.

" The fact of the matter is you haven't a head
on your shoulders," he said, " but this."

" Come, come," said the old lady, offended.
" Talk to your own wife like that. . . . You
screw ! . . . Don't be too free with your hands."

270 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

And looking at her with fury, with exasperation,
as though he would devour her, Alexey Nikolaitch
said in a quiet, stifled voice:

" Clear out."

" Wha-at ?" squealed Madame Shtchukin.
" How dare you ? I am a weak, defenceless
woman; I won't endure it. My husband is a
collegiate assessor. You screw ! . . . I will go
to Dmitri Karlitch, the lawyer, and there will be
nothing left of you ! I've had the law of three
lodgers, and I will make you flop down at my feet
for your saucy words ! I'll go to your general.
Your Excellency, your Excellency !"

" Be off, you pest," hissed Alexey Nikolaitch.

Kistunov opened his door and looked into the
office.

" What is it ?" he asked in a tearful voice.

Madame Shtchukin, as red as a crab, was stand
ing in the middle of the room, rolling her eyes
and prodding the air with her fingers. The bank
clerks were standing round, red in the face too,
and, evidently harassed, were looking at each other
distractedly.

" Your Excellency," cried Madame Shtchukin,
pouncing upon Kistunov. " Here, this man, he
here . . . this man ..." (she pointed to Alexey
Nikolaitch) " tapped himself on the forehead and
then tapped the table. . . . You told him to go
into my case, and he's jeering at me ! I am a
weak, defenceless woman. . . . My husband is
a collegiate assessor, and I am a major's daughter
myself !"

" Very good, madam," moaned Kistunov. " I

•

A DEFENCELESS CREATURE 271

will go into it ... I will take steps. . . . Go
away . . . later !"

" And when shall I get the money, your Excel
lency ? I need it to-day !"

Kistunov passed his trembling hand over his
forehead, heaved a sigh, and began explaining
again.

" Madam, I have told you already this is a
bank, a private commercial establishment. . . .
What do you want of us ? And do understand
that you are hindering us."

Madame Shtchukin listened to him and sighed.

" To be sure, to be sure," she assented. " Only,
your Excellency, do me the kindness, make me
pray for you for the rest of my life, be a father,
protect me ! If a medical certificate is not enough
I can produce an affidavit from the police. . . .
Tell them to give me the money."

Everything began swimming before Kistunov 's
eyes. He breathed out all the air in his lungs
in a prolonged sigh and sank helpless on a
chair.

" How much do you want ?" he asked in a
weak voice.

" Twenty-four roubles and thirty-six kopecks."

Kistunov took his pocket-book out of his
pocket, extracted a twenty-five rouble note and
gave it to Madame Shtchukin.

" Take it and . . . and go away !"

Madame Shtchukin wrapped the money up in
her handkerchief, put it away, and pursing up
her face into a sweet, mincing, even coquettish
smile, asked:

272 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Your Excellency, and would it be possible for
my husband to get a post again ?"

" I am going ... I am ill . . ." said Kistunov
in a weary voice. " I have dreadful palpitations."

When he had driven home Alexey Nikolaitch
sent Nikita for some laurel drops, and, after
taking twenty drops each, all the clerks set to
work, while Madame Shtchukin stayed another
two hours in the vestibule, talking to the porter
and waiting for Kistunov to return. . . .

She came again next day.

AN ENIGMATIC NATURE

X.

18

AN ENIGMATIC NATURE

ON the red velvet seat of a first-class railway
carriage a pretty lady sits half reclining. An
expensive fluffy fan trembles in her tightly closed
fingers, a pince-nez keeps dropping off her pretty
little nose, the brooch heaves and falls on her
bosom, like a boat on the ocean. She is greatly
agitated.

On the seat opposite sits the Provincial Secretary
of Special Commissions, a budding young author,
who from time to time publishes long stories of
high life, or " Novelli " as he calls them, in the
leading paper of the province. He is gazing into
her face, gazing intently, with the eyes of a con
noisseur. He is watching, studying, catching
every shade of this exceptional, enigmatic nature.
He understands it, he fathoms it. Her soul, her
whole psychology lies open before him.

"Oh, I understand, I understand you to your
inmost depths !" says the Secretary of Special
Commissions, kissing her hand near the bracelet.
" Your sensitive, responsive soul is seeking to

escape from the maze of Yes, the struggle is

terrific, titanic. But do not lose heart, you will
be triumphant ! Yes !"

" Write about me, Voldemar!" says the pretty
275

276 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

lady, with a mournful smile. " My life has been
so full, so varied, so chequered. Above all, I am
unhappy. I am a suffering soul in some page
of Dostoevsky. Reveal my soul to the world,
Voldemar. Reveal that hapless soul. You are a
psychologist. We have not been in the train an
hour together, and you have already fathomed my
heart!"

" Tell me ! I beseech you, tell me !"

" Listen. My father was a poor clerk in the
Service. He had a good heart and was not without
intelligence; but the spirit of the age — of his
environment — -rous cotnprenez? — I do not blame
my poor father. He drank, gambled, took
bribes . My mother — but why say more ? Poverty,
the struggle for daily bread, the consciousness of
insignificance — ah, do not force me to recall it !
I had to make my own way. You know the
monstrous education at a boarding-school, foolish
novel-reading, the errors of early youth, the first
timid flutter of love. It was awful ! The vacil
lation ! And the agonies of losing faith in life,
in oneself ! Ah, you are an author. You know
us women. You will understand. Unhappily I
have an intense nature. I looked for happiness —
and what happiness ! I longed to set my soul
free. Yes. In that I saw my happiness !"

" Exquisite creature !" murmured the author,
kissing her hand close to the bracelet. " It's not
you I am kissing, but the suffering of humanity.
Do you remember Raskolnikov and his kiss ?"

"Oh, Voldemar, I longed for glory, renown,
success, like every — why affect modesty ? — every

AN ENIGMATIC NATURE 277

nature above the commonplace. I yearned for
something extraordinary, above the common lot of
woman ! And then — and then — there crossed my
path — an old general — very well off. Understand
me, Voldemar ! It was self-sacrifice, renunciation !
You must see that ! I could do nothing else. I
restored the family fortunes, was able to travel,
to do good. Yet how I suffered, how revolting,
how loathsome to me were his embraces — though
I will be fair to him — he had fought nobly in his
day. There were moments — terrible moments —
but I was kept up by the thought that from day
to day the old man might die, that then I would
begin to live as I liked, to give myself to the
man I adore — be happy. There is such a man,
Voldemar, indeed there is !"

The pretty lady flutters her fan more violently.
Her face takes a lachrymose expression. She goes
on:

" But at last the old man died. He left me
something. I was free as a bird of the air. Now
is the moment for me to be happy, isn't it, Volde
mar ? Happiness comes tapping at my window,
I had only to let it in — but — Voldemar, listen, I
implore you ! Now is the time for me to give
myself to the man I love, to become the partner
of his life, to help, to uphold his ideals, to be happy
— to find rest — but — how ignoble, repulsive, and
senseless all our life is ! How mean it all is,
Voldemar. I am wretched, wretched, wretched !
Again there is an obstacle in my path ! Again I
feel that my happiness is far, far away ! Ah,
what anguish ! — if only you knew what anguish !"

278 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" But what — what stands in your way ? I
implore you tell me ! What is it ?"

" Another old general, very well off — • — "
The broken fan conceals the pretty little face.
The author props on his fist his thought-heavy
brow and ponders with the air of a master in
psychology. The engine is whistling and hissing
while the window curtains flush red with the glow
of the setting sun.

A HAPPY MAN

A HAPPY MAN

THE passenger train is just starting from Bologoe,
the junction on the Petersburg-Moscow line. In
a second-class smoking compartment five pas
sengers sit dozing, shrouded in the twilight of the
carriage. They have just had a meal, and now,
snugly ensconced in their seats, they are trying
to go to sleep. Stillness.

The door opens and in there walks a tall, lanky
figure straight as a poker, with a ginger-coloured
hat and a smart overcoat, wonderfully suggestive
of a journalist in Jules Verne or on the comic
stage.

The figure stands still in the middle of the com
partment for a long while, breathing heavily,
screwing up his eyes and peering at the seats.

" No, wrong again !" he mutters. " What the
deuce ! It's positively revolting ! No, the wrong
one again !"

One of the passengers stares at the figure and
utters a shout of joy :

" Ivan Alexyevitch ! what brings you here ?
Is it you ?"

The poker-like gentleman starts, stares blankly
at the passenger, and recognizing him claps his
hands with delight.

" Ha ! Pyotr Petrovitch," he says. " How
281

282 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

many summers, how many winters ! I didn't
know you were in this train."

" How are you getting on ?"

"I am all right; the only thing is, my dear
fellow, I've lost my compartment and I simply
can't find it. What an idiot I am ! I ought to
be thrashed !"

The poker-like gentleman sways a little un
steadily and sniggers.

" Queer things do happen !" he continues. " I
stepped out just after the second bell to get a
glass of brandy. I got it, of course. Well, I
thought, since it's a long way to the next station,
it would be as well to have a second glass. While
I was thinking about it and drinking it the third
bell rang. ... I ran like mad and jumped into
the first carriage. I am an idiot ! I am the son
of a hen !"

" But you seem in very good spirits," observes
Pyotr Petrovitch. " Come and sit down ! There's
room and a welcome."

" No, no. ... I'm off to look for my carriage.
Good-bye !"

" You'll fall between the carriages in the dark
if you don't look out ! Sit down, and when we
get to a station you'll find your own compartment.
Sit down !"

Ivan Alexyevitch heaves a sigh and irresolutely
sits down facing Pyotr Petrovitch. He is visibly
excited, and fidgets as though he were sitting on
thorns.

" Where are you travelling to ?" Pyotr Petrov
itch enquires.

A HAPPY MAN 283

" I ? Into space. There is such a turmoil in
my head that I couldn't tell where I am going
myself. I go where fate takes me. Ha-ha ! My
dear fellow, have you ever seen a happy fool ?
No ? Well, then, take a look at one. You behold
the happiest of mortals ! Yes ! Don't you see
something from my face ?"

" Well, one can see you're a bit ... a tiny bit
so-so."

" I dare say I look awfully stupid just now.
Ach ! it's a pity I haven't a looking-glass, I should
like to look at my counting-house. My dear
fellow, I feel I am turning into an idiot, honour
bright. Ha-ha ! Would you believe it, I'm on
my honeymoon. Am I not the son of a hen ?"

" You ? Do you mean to say you are married ? ' '

" To-day, my dear boy. We came away
straight after the wedding."

Congratulations and the usual questions follow.

" Well, you are a fellow !" laughs Pyotr
Petrovitch. " That's why you are rigged out
such a dandy."

" Yes, indeed. ... To complete the illusion,
I've even sprinkled myself with scent. I am over
my ears in vanity ! No care, no thought, nothing
but a sensation of something or other . . . deuce
knows what to call it ... beatitude or some
thing ? I've never felt so grand in my life !"

Ivan Alexyevitch shuts his eyes and waggles his
head.

" I'm revoltingly happy," he says. " Just
think; in a minute I shall go to my compartment.
There on the seat near the window is sitting a

284 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

being who is, so to say, devoted to you with her
whole being. A little blonde with a little nose
. . . little fingers. . . . My little darling ! My
angel ! My little poppet ! Phylloxera of my
soul ! And her little foot ! Good God ! A little
foot not like our beetle-crushers, but something
miniature, fairy-like, allegorical. I could pick it
up and eat it, that little foot ! Oh, but you don't
understand ! You're a materialist, of course, you
begin analyzing at once, and one thing and
another. You are cold-hearted bachelors, that's
what you are ! When you get married you'll think
of me. ' Where's Ivan Alexyevitch now ?' you'll
say. Yes; so in a minute I'm going to my com
partment. There she is waiting for me with
impatience ... in joyful anticipation of my
appearance. She'll have a smile to greet me. I
sit down beside her and take her chin with my two
fingers. ..."

Ivan Alexyevitch waggles his head and goes off
into a chuckle of delight.

" Then I lay my noddle on her shoulder and
put my arm round her waist. Around all is
silence, you know . . . poetic twilight. I could
embrace the whole world at such a moment.
Pyotr Petrovitch, allow me to embrace you !"

" Delighted, I'm sure." The two friends em
brace while the passengers laugh in chorus. And
the happy bridegroom continues :

" And to complete the idiocy, or, as the novelists
say, to complete the illusion, one goes to the
refreshment-room and tosses off two or three
glasses. And then something happens in your

A HAPPY MAN 285

head and your heart, finer than you can read of
in a fairy tale. I am a man of no importance,
but I feel as though I were limitless: I embrace
the whole world !"

The passengers, looking at the tipsy and blissful
bridegroom, are infected by his cheerfulness and
no longer feel sleepy. Instead of one listener,
Ivan Alexyevitch has now an audience of five.
He wriggles and splutters, gesticulates, and prattles
on without ceasing. He laughs and they all
laugh.

" Gentlemen, gentlemen, don't think so much !
Damn all this analysis ! If you want a drink,
drink, no need to philosophize as to whether it's
bad for you or not. . . . Damn all this philosophy
and psychology !"

The guard walks through the compartment.
" My dear fellow," the bridegroom addresses
him, " when you pass through the carriage No. 209
look out for a lady in a grey hat with a white bird
and tell her I'm here !"

" Yes, sir. Only there isn't a No. 209 in this
train; there's 219 !"

" Well, 219, then ! It's all the same. Tell that
lady, then, that her husband is all right !"

Ivan Alexyevitch suddenly clutches his head
and groans :

"Husband. . . . Lady. . . . All in a minute !
Husband. . . . Ha-ha ! I am a puppy that
needs thrashing, and here I am a husband ! Ach,
idiot ! But think of her ! . . . Yesterday she
was a little girl, a midget . . . it's simply in
credible !"

286 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Nowadays it really seems strange to see a
happy man," observes one of the passengers; " one
as soon expects to see a white elephant."

" Yes, and whose fault is it ?" says Ivan Alex-
yevitch, stretching his long legs and thrusting
out his feet with their very pointed toes. "If you
are not happy it's your own fault ! Yes, what
else do you suppose it is ? Man is the creator of
his own happiness. If you want to be happy you
will be, but you don't want to be ! You obsti
nately turn away from happiness."

" Why, what next ! How do you make that
out ?"

" Very simply. Nature has ordained that at a
certain stage in his life man should love. When
that time comes you should love like a house on
fire, but you won't heed the dictates of nature, you
keep waiting for something. What's more, it's laid
down by law that the normal man should enter upon
matrimony. There's no happiness without mar
riage. When the propitious moment has come,
get married. There's no use in shilly-shallying.
. . . But you don't get married, you keep waiting
for something ! Then the Scriptures tell us that
' wine maketh glad the heart of man.' ... If you
feel happy and you want to feel better still, then go
to the refreshment bar and have a drink. The
great thing is not to be too clever, but to follow the
beaten track ! The beaten track is a grand thing !"

" You say that man is the creator of his own
happiness. How the devil is he the creator of it
when a toothache or an ill-natured mother-in-law
is enough to scatter his happiness to the winds ?

A HAPPY MAN 287

Everything depends on chance. If we had an ac
cident at this moment you'd sing a different tune."

" Stuff and nonsense !" retorts the bridegroom.
" Railway accidents only happen once a year. I'm
not afraid of an accident, for there is no reason
for one. Accidents are exceptional ! Confound
them ! I don't want to talk of them ! Oh, I be
lieve we're stopping at a station."

"Where are you going now?" asks Pyotr
Petrovitch. " To Moscow or somewhere farther
south ?"

" Why, bless you ! How could I go somewhere
farther south, when I'm on my way to the north ?"

" But Moscow isn't in the north."

" I know that, but we're on our way to Peters
burg," says Ivan Alexyevitch.

" We are going to Moscow, mercy on us !"

" To Moscow ? What do you mean ?" says the
bridegroom in amazement.

" It's queer. . . . For what station did you
take your ticket ?"

" For Petersburg."

" In that case I congratulate you. You've got
into the wrong train."

There follows a minute of silence. The bride
groom gets up and looks blankly round the
company.

" Yes, yes," Pyotr Petrovitch explains. " You
must have jumped into the wrong train at
Bologoe. . . . After your glass of brandy you
succeeded in getting into the down-train."

Ivan Alexyevitch turns pale, clutches his head,
and begins pacing rapidly about the carriage.

288 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Ach, idiot that I am !" he says in indignation.
" Scoundrel ! The devil devour me ! Whatever
am I to do now ? Why, my wife is in that train !
She's there all alone, expecting me, consumed by
anxiety. Ach, I'm a motley fool !"

The bridegroom falls on the seat and writhes as
though someone had trodden on his corns.

" I am un- unhappy man !" he moans. " What
am I to do, what am I to do ?"

" There, there !" the passengers try to console
him. " It's all right. . . . You must telegraph
to your wife and try to change into the Petersburg
express. In that way you'll overtake her."

" The Petersburg express !" weeps the bridegroom,
the creator of his own happiness. " And how am
I to get a ticket for the Petersburg express ? All
my money is with my wife."

The passengers, laughing and whispering together,
make a collection and furnish the happy man with
funds.

A TROUBLESOME VISITOR

X. 19

A TROUBLESOME VISITOR

IN the low-pitched, crooked little hut of Artyom,
the forester, two men were sitting under the big
dark ikon — Artyom himself, a short and lean
peasant with a wrinkled, aged-looking face and a
little beard that grew out of his neck, and a well-
grown young man in a new crimson shirt and big
wading boots, who had been out hunting and
come in for the night. They were sitting on a
bench at a little three-legged table on which a
tallow candle stuck into a bottle was lazily
burning.

Outside the window the darkness of the night
was full of the noisy uproar into which nature
usually breaks out before a thunderstorm. The
wind howled angrily and the bowed trees moaned
miserably. One pane of the window had been
pasted up with paper, and leaves torn off by the
wind could be heard pattering against the paper.

" I tell you what, good Christian," said Artyom
in a hoarse little tenor half-whisper, staring with
unblinking, scared-looking eyes at the hunter. " I
am not afraid of wolves or bears, or wild beasts
of any sort, but I am afraid of man. You can
save yourself from beasts with a gun or some other
weapon, but you have no means of saving yourself
from a wicked man."

" To be sure, you can fire at a beast, but if you
291

292 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

shoot at a robber you will have to answer for it :
you will go to Siberia."

" I've been forester, my lad, for thirty years,
and I couldn't tell you what I have had to put
up with from wicked men. There have been lots
and lots of them here. The hut's on a track, it's
a cart-road, and that brings them, the devils.
Every sort of ruffian turns up, and without taking
off his cap or making the sign of the cross, bursts
straight in upon one with : ' Give us some bread,
you old so-and-so.' And where am I to get bread
for him ? What claim has he ? Am I a mil
lionaire to feed every drunkard that passes ?
They are half-blind with spite. . . . They have
no cross on them, the devils. . . . They'll give
you a clout on the ear and not think twice about it :
' Give us bread !' Well, one gives it. ... One
is not going to fight with them, the idols ! Some
of them are two yards across the shoulders, and a
great fist as big as your boot, and you see the sort
of figure I am. One of them could smash me
with his little finger. . . . Well, one gives him
bread and he gobbles it up, and stretches out full-
length across the hut with not a word of thanks.
And there are some that ask for money. ' Tell
me, where is your money ?' As though I had
money ! How should I come by it ?"

" A forester and no money !" laughed the
hunter. " You get wages every month, and I'll
be bound you sell timber on the sly."

Artyom took a timid sideway glance at his
visitor and twitched his beard as a magpie twitches
her tail.

A TROUBLESOME VISITOR 293

" You are still young to say a thing like that
to me," he said. " You will have to answer to
God for those words. Whom may your people
be ? Where do you come from ?"

" I am from Vyazovka. I am the son of Nefed
the village elder."

" You have gone out for sport with your gun.
... I used to like sport, too, when I was young.
H'm ! Ah, our sins are grievous," said Artyom.
with a yawn. " It's a sad thing ! There are few
good folks, but villains and murderers no end —
God have mercy upon us."

" You seem to be frightened of me, too. . . ."

" Come, what next ! What should I be afraid
of you for? I see. . . . I understand. . . . You
came in, and not just anyhow, but you made the
sign of the cross, you bowed, all decent and
proper. ... I understand. . . . One can give
you bread. ... I am a widower, I don't heat
the stove, I sold the samovar. ... I am too poor
to keep meat or anything else, but bread you are
welcome to."

At that moment something began growling
under the bench: the growl was followed by a
hiss. Artyom started, drew up his legs, and
looked enquiringly at the hunter.

" It's my dog worrying your cat," said the
hunter. " You devils !" he shouted under the
bench. " Lie down. You'll be beaten. I say,
your cat's thin, mate ! She is nothing but skin
and bone."

" She is old, it is time she was dead. ... So
you say you are from Vyazovka ?"

294 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" I see you don't feed her. Though she's a
cat she's a creature . . . every breathing thing.
You should have pity on her !"

' You are a queer lot in Vyazovka," Artyom
went on as though not listening. " The church
has been robbed twice in one year. ... To think
that there are such wicked men ! So they fear
neither man nor God ! To steal what is the
Lord's ! Hanging's too good for them ! In old
days the governors used to have such rogues
flogged."

" However you punish, whether it is with
flogging or anything else, it will be no good, you
will not knock the wickedness out of a wicked
man."

" Save and preserve us, Queen of Heaven !"
The forester sighed abruptly. " Save us from
all enemies and evildoers. Last week at Volovy
Zaimishtchy, a mower struck another on the chest
with his scythe ... he killed him outright !
And what was it all about, God bless me ! One
mower came out of the tavern . . . drunk. The
other met him, drunk too."

The young man, who had been listening atten
tively, suddenly started, and his face grew tense
as he listened.

" Stay," he said, interrupting the forester. " I
fancy someone is shouting."

The hunter and the forester fell to listening with
their eyes fixed on the window. Through the
noise of the forest they could hear sounds such
as the strained ear can always distinguish in
every storm, so that it was difficult to make out

A TROUBLESOME VISITOR 295

whether people were calling for help or whether
the wind was wailing in the chimney. But the
wind tore at the roof, tapped at the paper on the
window, and brought a distinct shout of " Help !"

"Talk of your murderers," said the hunter,
turning pale and getting up. " Someone is being
robbed !"

"Lord have mercy on us," whispered the
forester, and he. too, turned pale and got up.

The hunter looked aimlessly out of window and
walked up and down the hut.

" What a night, what a night !" he muttered.
" You can't see your hand before your face ! The
very tune for a robbery. Do you hear ? There
is a shout again."

The forester looked at the ikon and from the
ikon turned his eyes upon the hunter, and sank
on to the bench, collapsing like a man terrified by
sudden bad news.

"Good Christian," he said in a tearful voice,
" you might go into the passage and bolt the door.
And we must put out the light."

" What for ?"

" By ill-luck they may find their way here. . . .
Oh, our sins !"

" We ought to be going, and you talk of bolting
the door ! You are a clever one ! Are you
coming ?"

The hunter threw his gun over his shoulder and
picked up his cap.

" Get ready, take your gun. Hey, Flerka,
here." he called to his dog. " Flerka !"

A dog with long frayed ears, a mongrel between

296 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

a setter and a house-dog, came out from under the
bench. He stretched himself by his master's feet
and wagged his tail.

" Why are you sitting there ?" cried the hunter
to the forester. " You mean to say you are not
going ?"

" Where ?"

" To help !"

" How can I ?" said the forester with a wave
of his hand, shuddering all over. " I can't bother
about it !"

" Why won't you come ?"

" After talking of such dreadful things I won't
stir a step into the darkness. Bless them ! And
what should I go for ?"

" What are you afraid of ? Haven't you got a
gun ? Let us go, please do. It's scaring to go
alone; it will be more cheerful, the two of us.
Do you hear ? There was a shout again. Get
up!"

" Whatever do you think of rne, lad ?" wailed
the forester. " Do you think I am such a fool
to go straight to my undoing ?"

" So you are not coming ?"

The forester did not answer. The dog, probably
hearing a human cry, gave a plaintive whine.

" Are you coming, I ask you ?" cried the hunter,
rolling his eyes angrily.

" You do keep on, upon my word," said the
forester with annoyance. " Go yourself."

" Ugh ! . . . low cur," growled the hunter,
turning towards the door. " Flerka, here !"

He went out and left the door open. The wind

A TROUBLESOME VISITOR 297

flew into the hut. The flame of the candle
flickered uneasily, flared up, and went out.

As he bolted the door after the hunter, the
forester saw the puddles in the track, the nearest
pine-trees, and the retreating figure of his guest
lighted up by a flash of lightning. Far away he
heard the rumble of thunder.

" Holy, holy, holy," whispered the forester,
making haste to thrust the thick bolt into the
great iron rings. " What weather the Lord has
sent us !"

Going back into the room, he felt his way to
the stove, lay down, and covered himself from
head to foot. Lying under the sheepskin and
listening intently, he could no longer hear the
human cry, but the peals of thunder kept growing
louder and more prolonged. He could hear the
big wind-lashed raindrops pattering angrily on
the panes and on the paper of the window.

" He's gone on a fool's errand," he thought,
picturing the hunter soaked with rain and stum
bling over the tree-stumps. " I bet his teeth are
chattering with terror !"

Not more than ten minutes later there was a
sound of footsteps, followed by a loud knock at
the door.

" Who's there ?" cried the forester.

" It's I," he heard the young man's voice.
" Unfasten the door."

The forester clambered down from the stove,
felt for the candle, and, lighting it, went to the
door. The hunter and his dog were drenched to
the skin. They had come in for the heaviest of

298 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

the downpour, and now the water ran from them
as from washed clothes before they have been
wrung out.

" What was it ?" asked the forester.

" A peasant woman driving in a cart; she had
got o.f the road ..." answered the young man,
struggling with his breathlessness. " She was
caught in a thicket."

" Ah, the silly thing ! She was frightened,
then. . . . Well, did you put her on the road ?"

" I don't care to talk to a scoundrel like you."

The young man flung his wet cap on the bench
and went on :

" I know now that you are a scoundrel and
the lowest of men. And you a keeper, too, getting
a salary ! You blackguard !"

The forester slunk with a guilty step to the
stove, cleared his throat, and lay down. The
young man sat on the bench, thought a little, and
lay down on it full length. Not long afterwards
he got up, put out the candle, and lay down again.
During a particularly loud clap of thunder he
turned over, spat on the floor, and growled out :

" He's afraid. . . . And what if the woman
were being murdered ? Whose business is it to
defend her ? And he an old man, too, and a
Christian. . . . He's a pig and nothing else."

The forester cleared his throat and heaved a
deep sigh. Somewhere in the darkness Flerka
shook his wet coat vigorously, which sent drops
of water flying about all over the room.

" So you wouldn't care if the woman were
murdered ?" the hunter went on. " Well — strike

A TROUBLESOME VISITOR 299

me, God — I had no notion you were that sort of
man. . . ."

A silence followed. The thunderstorm was by
now over and the thunder came from far away,
but it was still raining.

" And suppose it hadn't been a woman but
you shouting 'Help!' ?" said the hunter, breaking
the silence. " How would you feel, you beast, if
no one ran to your aid ? You have upset me with
your meanness, plague take you !"

After another long interval the hunter said :

" You must have money to be afraid of
people ! A man who is poor is not likely to be
afraid. . . ."

" For those words you will answer before God,"
Artyom said hoarsely from the stove. " I have
no money."

" I dare say ! Scoundrels always have money.
l(7J'\r Why are you afraid of people, then ? So
you must have ! I'd like to take and rob you for
spite, to teach you a lesson ! . . ."

Artyom slipped noiselessly from the stove,
lighted a candle, and sat down under the holy
image. He was pale and did not take his eyes
off the hunter.

" Here, I'll rob you," said the hunter, getting up.
" What do you think about it ? Fellows like you
want a lesson. Tell me, where is your money
hidden ?"

Artyom drew his legs up under him and blinked.

" What are you wriggling for ? Where is your
money hidden ? Have you lost your tongue, you
fool ? Why don't you answer ?"

300 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

The young man jumped up and went up to the
forester.

" He is blinking like an owl ! Well ? Give me
your money, or I will shoot you with my gun."

" Why do you keep on at me ?" squealed
the forester, and big tears rolled from his eyes.
" What's the reason of it ? God sees all ! You
will have to answer, for every word you say, to
God. You have no right whatever to ask for my
money."

The young man looked at Artyom's tearful face,
frowned, and walked up and down the hut, then
angrily clapped his cap on his head and picked up
his gun.

" Ugh ! . . . ugh ! ... it makes me sick to
look at you," he filtered through his teeth. " I
can't bear the sight of you. I won't sleep in your
house, anyway. Good-bye ! Hey, Flerka !"

The door slammed and the troublesome visitor
went out with his dog. . . . Artyom bolted the
door after him, crossed himself, and lay down.

AN ACTOR'S END

AN ACTOR'S END

SHTCHIPTSOV, the " heavy father " and " good-
hearted simpleton," a tall and thick-set old man,
not so much distinguished by his talents as an
actor as by his exceptional physical strength, had
a desperate quarrel with the manager during the
performance, and just when the storm of words
was at its height felt as though something had
snapped in his chest. Zhukov, the manager, as
a rule began at the end of every heated discussion
to laugh hysterically and to fall into a swoon;
on this occasion, however, Shtchiptsov did not
remain for this climax, but hurried home. The
high words and the sensation of something ruptured
in his chest so agitated him as he left the theatre
that he forgot to wash off his paint, and did nothing
but take off his beard.

When he reached his hotel room Shtchiptsov
spent a long time pacing up and down, then sat
down on the bed, propped his head on his fists,
and sank into thought. He sat like that without
stirring or uttering a sound till two o'clock the
next afternoon, when Sigaev, the comic man,
walked into his room.

" Why is it you did not come to the rehearsal,
Booby Ivanitch ?" the comic man began, panting
and filling the room with fumes of vodka. ' ' Where
have you been ?"

3°3

304 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

Shtchiptsov made no answer, but simply stared
at the comic man with lustreless eyes, under which
there were smudges of paint.

" You might at least have washed your phiz !"
Sigaev went on. " You are a disgraceful sight !
Have you been boozing, or ... are you ill, or
what ? But why don't you speak ? I am asking
you: are you ill ?"

Shtchiptsov did not speak. In spite of the
paint on his face, the comic man could not help
noticing his striking pallor, the drops of sweat on
his forehead, and the twitching of his lips. His
hands and feet were trembling too, and the whole
huge figure of the " good-natured simpleton "
looked somehow crushed and flattened. The comic
man took a rapid glance round the room, but saw
neither bottle nor flask nor any other suspicious
vessel.

" I say, Mishutka, you know you are ill !" he
said in a flutter. " Strike me dead, you are ill !
You don't look yourself !"

Shtchiptsov remained silent and stared dis
consolately at the floor.

" You must have caught cold," said Sigaev,
taking him by the hand. " Oh dear, how hot
your hands are ! What's the trouble ?"

" I wa-ant to go home," muttered Shtchiptsov.

" But you are at home now, aren't you ?"

"No. . ... To Vyazma. . . ."

" Oh, my, anywhere else ! It would take you
three years to get to your Vyazma. . . . What?
do you want to go and see your daddy and
mummy ? I'll be bound, they've kicked the

AN ACTOR'S END 305

bucket years ago, and you won't find their
graves. . . ."

" My ho-ome's there."

" Come, it's no good giving way to the dismal
dumps. These neurotic feelings are the limit, old
man. You must get well, for you have to play
Mitka in ' The Terrible Tsar ', to-morrow. There
is nobody else to do it. Drink something hot and
take some castor-oil. Have you got the money
for some castor-oil ? Or, stay, I'll run and buy
some."

The comic man fumbled in his pockets, found
a fifteen-kopeck piece, and ran to the chemist's.
A quarter of an hour later he came back.

" Come, drink it," he said, holding the bottle
to the "heavy father's" mouth. "Drink it
straight out of the bottle. . . . All at a go !
That's the way. . . . Now nibble at a clove that
your very soul mayn't stink of the filthy stuff."

The comic man sat a little longer with his sick
friend, then kissed him tenderly, and went away.
Towards evening the jeune premier, Brama-
Glinsky, ran in to see Shtchiptsov. The gifted
actor was wearing a pair of prunella boots, had
a glove on his left hand, was smoking a cigar,
and even smelt of heliotrope, yet nevertheless
he strongly suggested a traveller cast away in
some land in which there were neither baths nor
laundresses nor tailors. . . .

" I hear you are ill ?" he said to Shtchiptsov,
twirling round on his heel. " What's wrong with
you ? What's wrong with you, really ? . . ."

Shtchiptsov did not speak nor stir.

x. 20

306 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Why don't you speak ? Do you feel giddy ?
Oh well, don't talk, I won't pester you . . . don't
talk. . . ."

Brama-Glinsky (that was his stage name, in his
passport he was called Guskov) walked away to
the window, put his hands in his pockets, and fell
to gazing into the street. Before his eyes
stretched an immense waste, bounded by a grey
fence beside which ran a perfect forest of last
year's burdocks. Beyond the waste ground was
a dark, deserted factory, with windows boarded
up. A belated jackdaw was flying round the
chimney. This dreary, lifeless scene was begin
ning to be veiled in the dusk of evening.

" I must go home !" the jeune premier heard.

" Where is home ?"

" To Vyazma . . . to my home. . . ."

"It is a thousand miles to Vyazma . . . my
boy," sighed Brama-Glinsky, drumming on the
window-pane. " And what do you want to go
to Vyazma for ?"

" I want to die there."

" What next ! Now he's dying ! He has fallen
ill for the first time in his life, and already he
fancies that his last hour is come. . . . No, my
boy, no cholera will carry off a buffalo like you.
You'll live to be a hundred. . . . Where's the
pain ?"

" There's no pain, but I ... feel ..."

" You don't feel anything, it all comes from
being too healthy. Your surplus energy upsets
you. You ought to get jolly tight' — drink, you
know, till your whole inside is topsy-turvy.

AN ACTOR'S END 307

Getting drunk is wonderfully restoring. . . . Do
you remember how screwed you were at Rostov
on the Don ? Good Lord, the very thought of it
is alarming ! Sashka and I together could only
just carry in the barrel, and you emptied it alone,
and even sent for rum afterwards. . . . You got
so drunk you were catching devils in a sack and
pulled a lamp-post up by the roots. Do you
remember ? Then you went off to beat the
Greeks. . . ."

Under the influence of these agreeable remini
scences Shtchiptsov's face brightened a little and
his eyes began to shine.

" And do you remember how I beat Savoikin
the manager ?" he muttered, raising his head.
" But there ! I've beaten thirty-three managers
in my time, and I can't remember how many
smaller fry. And what managers they were !
Men who would not permit the very winds to
touch them ! I've beaten two celebrated authors
and one painter ! ' '

" What are you crying for ?"
" At Kherson I killed a horse with my fists.
And at Taganrog some roughs fell upon me at
night, fifteen of them. I took off their caps and
they followed me, begging: ' Uncle, give us back
our caps.' That's how I used to go on."

" What are you crying.ior, then, you silly ?"
" But now it's all over ... I feel it. If only
I could go to Vyazma ! ' '

A pause followed. After a silence Shtchiptsov
suddenly jumped up and seized his cap. He
looked distraught.

308 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

" Good-bye ! I am going to Vyazma !" he
articulated, staggering.

" And the money for the journey ?"

" H'm ! . . . I shall go on foot !"
' You are crazy. . . ."

The two men looked at each other, probably
because the same thought — of the boundless plains,
the unending forests and swamps — struck both of
them at once.

" Well, I see you have gone off your head," the
jeune premier commented. " I'll tell you what,
old man. . . . First thing, go to bed, then drink
some brandy and tea to put you into a sweat.
And some castor-oil, of course. Stay, where am
I to get some brandy ?"

Brama-Glinsky thought a minute, then made up
his mind to go to a shopkeeper called Madame
Tsitrinnikov to try and get it from her en tick:
who knows ? perhaps the woman would feel for
them and let them have it. The jeune premier
went off, and half an hour later returned with a
bottle of brandy and some castor-oil. Shtchiptsov
was sitting motionless, as before, on the bed,
gazing dumbly at the floor. He drank the castor-
oil offered him by his friend like an automaton,
with no consciousness of what he was doing. Like
an automaton he sat afterwards at the table, and
drank tea and brandy; mechanically he emptied
the whole bottle and let the jeune premier put
him to bed. The latter covered him up with a
quilt and an overcoat, advised him to get into a
perspiration, and went away.

The night came on; Shtchiptsov had drunk a

AN ACTOR'S END 309

great deal of brandy, but he did not sleep. He
lay motionless under the quilt and stared at the
dark ceiling; then, seeing the moon looking in at
the window, he turned his eyes from the ceiling
towards the companion of the earth, and lay so
with open eyes till the morning. At nine o'clock
in the morning Zhukov, the manager, ran in.

" What has put it into your head to be ill, my
angel ?" he cackled, wrinkling up his nose. " Aie,
aie ! A man with your physique has no business
to be ill ! For shame, for shame ! Do you know,
I was quite frightened. ' Can our conversation
have had such an effect on him ?' I wondered.
My dear soul, I hope it's not through me you've
fallen ill ! You know you gave me as good . . .
er . . . And, besides, comrades can never get on
without words. You called me all sorts of names
. . . and have gone at me with your fists too,
and yet I am fond of you ! Upon my soul, I am.
I respect you and am fond of you ! Explain, my
angel, why I am so fond of you. You are neither
kith nor kin nor wife, but as soon as I heard you
had fallen ill it cut me to the heart."

Zhukov spent a long time declaring his affection,
then fell to kissing the invalid, and finally was so
overcome by his feelings that he began laughing
hysterically, and was even meaning to fall into a
swoon, but, probably remembering that he was
not at home nor at the theatre, put off the swoon
to a more convenient opportunity and went away.

Soon after him Adabashev, the tragic actor, a
dingy, short-sighted individual who talked through
his nose, made his appearance. . . . For a long

310 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

while he looked at Shtchiptsov, for a long while
he pondered, and at last he made a discovery :

" Do you know what, Mifa ?" he said, pro
nouncing through his nose " f " instead of " sh,"
and assuming a mysterious expression. " Do you
know what ? You ought to have a dose of
castor-oil !"

Shtchiptsov was silent. He remained silent,
too, a little later as the tragic actor poured the
loathsome oil into his mouth. Two hours later
Yevlampy, or, as the actors for some reason
called him, Rigoletto, the hairdresser of the com
pany, came into the room. He too, like the tragic
man, stared at Shtchiptsov for a long time, then
sighed like a steam-engine, and slowly and de
liberately began untying a parcel he had brought
with him. In it there were twenty cups and
several little flasks.

"You should have sent for me and I would
have cupped you long ago," he said, tenderly
baring Shtchiptsov's chest. " It is easy to neglect
illness."

Thereupon Rigoletto stroked the broad chest of
the " heavy father " and covered it all over with
suction cups.

" Yes . . ." he said, as after this operation
he packed up his paraphernalia, crimson with
Shtchiptsov's blood. " You should have sent for
me, and I would have come. . . . You needn't
trouble about payment. ... I do it from
sympathy. Where are you to get the money if
that idol won't pay you ? Now, please, take these
drops. They are nice drops ! And now you

AN ACTOR'S END 311

must have a dose of this castor-oil. It's the real
thing. That's right ! I hope it will do you good.
Well, now, good-bye. . . ."

Rigoletto took his parcel and withdrew, pleased
that he had been of assistance to a fellow-creature.

The next morning Sigaev, the comic man, going
in to see Shtchiptsov, found him in a terrible
condition. He was lying under his coat, breathing
in gasps, while his eyes strayed over the ceiling.
In his hands he was crushing convulsively the
crumpled quilt.

" To Vyazma !" he whispered, when he saw the
comic man. " To Vyazma."

" Come, I don't like that, old man !" said the
comic man, flinging up his hands. " You see . . .
you see . . . you see, old man, that's not the
thing ! Excuse me, but . . . it's positively
stupid. . . ."

" To go to Vyazma ! My God, to Vyazma !"

"I . . .1 did not expect it of you," the comic
man muttered, utterly distracted. " What the
deuce do you want to collapse like this for ! Aie
. . . aie . . . aie ! . . . that's not the thing. A
giant as tall as a watch-tower, and crying. Is it
the thing for actors to cry ?"

" No wife nor children," muttered Shtchiptsov.
" I ought not to have gone for an actor, but have
stayed at Vyazma. My life has been wasted,
Semyon ! Oh, to be in Vyazma !"

" Aie ... aie ... aie ! ... that's not the
thing ! You see, it's stupid . . . contemptible
indeed !"

Recovering his composure and setting his feelings

312 THE TALES OF TCHEHOV

in order, Sigaev began comforting Shtchiptsov,
telling him untruly that his comrades had decided
to send him to the Crimea at their expense, and
so on, but the sick man did not listen and kept
muttering about Vyazma. ... At last, with a
wave of his hand, the comic man began talking
about Vyazma himself to comfort the invalid.

" It's a fine town," he said soothingly, " a
capital town, old man ! It's famous for its cakes.
The cakes are classical, but — between ourselves —
h'm ! — they are a bit groggy. For a whole week
after eating them I was ... h'm ! ... But
what is fine there is the merchants ! They are
something like merchants. When they treat you
they do treat you !"

The comic man talked while Shtchiptsov listened
in silence and nodded his head approvingly.

Towards evening he died.

FRTNTSD IN GREAT BRITAIN 8V
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