A Nervous Breakdown

by Anton Chekhov

  And there followed rambling periods, one after the other: ‘in so far as’ or ‘if we take that as a starting-point’ or ‘in view of the aforesaid’, all of which humiliated poor Peter Leontyevich and made him die for a drink.

  The boys, who usually had holes in their boots and worn-out trousers when they visited Anne, were also subjected to these lectures.

  ‘Every man should have responsibilities,’ Modeste would tell them. But he didn’t give them any money. However, he presented Anne with rings, bracelets and brooches, and told her that they should be kept for a rainy day. Often he would unlock her chest of drawers to check if anything was missing.

  II

  Meanwhile winter had set in. Long before Christmas it was announced in the local paper that the usual winter ball would ‘take place’ on 29 December at the Assembly Rooms. Every evening after cards, Modeste Alekseyevich would get excited and have whispering sessions with civil servants’ wives while he anxiously glanced at Anne. Then he would pace from corner to corner for a long time, deep in thought. Finally, late one evening, he stopped in front of Anne and said, ‘You must get a dress for the ball. Do you understand? But first consult Marya Grigoryevna and Natalya Kuzminishna.’

  And he gave her a hundred roubles, which she took. But when it came to ordering the dress she wouldn’t consult anyone, talked only to her father and tried to visualize how her mother would have dressed for the ball. Her mother had always dressed in the latest fashion and had taken great pains with Anne, making sure she was dressed elegantly, like a doll, and taught her to speak French and dance an excellent mazurka (before her marriage she had been a governess for five years). Like her mother, she knew how to turn an old dress into a new one, wash her gloves with benzine, hire jewels and – just like her mother – flutter her eyelids, roll her ‘r’s, strike beautiful poses, go into raptures when the occasion called for it, or look sad and mysterious. She had her dark hair and eyes and nervous temperament from her mother and the habit of making herself look pretty the whole time from her father.

  When Modeste Alekseyevich came into her room half an hour before they left for the ball to tie his St Anne ribbon round his neck in front of the full-length mirror, he was enchanted by her beauty and the glitter of her new gossamer-like dress, and he smugly combed his whiskers and said, ‘What a beauty I’ve got … really! Just look at you, my dearest Anne!’ His voice suddenly became solemn as he went on, ‘I’ve made you happy and tonight you can make me happy. Introduce yourself to His Excellency’s wife, I beg you! For heaven’s sake! She can help me get a senior position!’

  They drove off to the ball and arrived at the Assembly Rooms; at the entrance there was a porter. The hall was full of clothes-racks, scurrying footmen and ladies in low-necked dresses shielding themselves from the draught with their fans. The place smelt of soldiers and gas lights. As Anne went up the staircase on her husband’s arm she heard music and caught a glimpse of herself in an enormous mirror lit by many lamps. Then the joy welled up in her heart and she felt she would be happy – as she had been on that moonlit night at the railway halt. She bore herself proudly, confidently feeling for the first time that she was no longer a little girl, but a lady now, copying her late mother’s walk and manner. And – for the first time in her life – she felt rich and free. She didn’t feel at all tied down having her husband with her: she had already instinctively guessed that the company of an elderly husband didn’t in the least lower her in anyone’s eyes. On the contrary, it stamped her with that tantalizing mysteriousness adored by men. The orchestra was already roaring away and dancing had started in the large ballroom. After that government flat, Anne felt overcome in a world of light, colour, music and noise, and she glanced around the ballroom thinking how wonderful it all was. At once she picked out all the people in the crowd she had met at parties or on walks – officers, teachers, lawyers, civil servants, landowners, His Excellency, Artynov, society ladies in their very best dresses with plunging necklines – some beautiful and others ugly – already in position at the stands and stalls of the charity bazaar in aid of the poor. A huge officer with epaulettes (she had met him in the Old Kiev Road when she was a schoolgirl and couldn’t remember his name now) seemed to loom up out of thin air and invited her to the waltz. She flew from her husband and felt she was sailing in a boat during a violent storm – while her husband remained behind on the distant shore. She danced the waltz, polka and quadrille with fire and enthusiasm, moving from one partner to the other, intoxicated by the music and the noise, mixing Russian with French, rolling her ‘r’s, laughing, without a thought for her husband or indeed anyone or anything. She had scored a success with the men – there was no doubt about that – and it wasn’t really surprising. Breathless with excitement, she feverishly pressed her fan between her hands and wanted to drink. Her father, in a crumpled tail-coat that smelt of benzine, went up to her with a plate of pink ice-cream.

  ‘You look enchanting,’ he said, eyeing her delightedly, ‘and I’ve never felt as sorry as I do now that you rushed into that marriage … Why? I know you did it for us, but …’ He pulled out a small bundle of notes with trembling hands and added, ‘I was paid for a lesson today so I can repay your husband.’

  She thrust the plate into his hands as she was grabbed by someone and whirled away from him; over her partner’s shoulders she caught a glimpse of her father, who slid over the parquet floor, clasped a lady in his arms and tore around the room with her.

  ‘He’s so nice when he’s sober!’ she thought.

  She danced a mazurka with the huge officer again. He moved across the floor very solemnly, ponderously, like a piece of meat in uniform, just turning his shoulder and chest and hardly shifting his feet – he didn’t really want to dance at all. But she flitted around him, teasing him with her beauty and her bare neck. Her eyes burnt with desire, her movements were passionate, but her partner grew more and more cool towards her, holding his hand out graciously like a king bestowing a favour.

  ‘Bravo, bravo!’ shouted some onlookers.

  But gradually he gave in. He was revitalized, very excited and spellbound by her. He became really animated and started moving easily, like a young man, while she merely moved her shoulders with an artful look, as though she were the queen and he the slave. Now she thought everyone was looking at them and dying with envy. The enormous officer hardly had time to thank her when the crowd suddenly parted and the men curiously stiffened up, their arms at their sides. It was all because His Excellency was coming over in his tail-coat – with two stars on his chest. There was no doubt about it, His Excellency was heading for her, as he was staring straight at her with a sugary smile on his face – he always did this when he saw a pretty woman.

  ‘Absolutely delighted. Really delighted!’ he began. ‘I’ll have to lock your husband up for hiding his treasure for so long. I’ve a message from my wife,’ he continued, offering his hand. ‘You must help us … Hm, yes … They should award you a prize for beauty as they do in America … Hm … My wife is dying to meet you.’

  He led her over to a stall, to an old lady whose enormous chin was so out of proportion to the rest of her face it looked as if she had a large stone in her mouth.

  ‘Please come and help us,’ she said in a twanging voice. ‘Every pretty woman helps us with the charity bazaar and you’re the only one who seems content just to have a good time. Why don’t you come and help!’

  She left and Anne took her place next to a silver samovar and some tea cups. Immediately she did a roaring trade. She wouldn’t take less than a rouble for a cup of tea and she made the huge officer drink three cups. Artynov came over – he was a rich man with bulging eyes and who suffered from shortness of breath. He wasn’t sporting that peculiar costume which Anne had seen him wearing during the summer, but wore a tail-coat like everyone else. Without taking his eyes off Anne, he drank a glass of champagne, for which he paid a hundred roubles. Then he drank some tea and gave another hundred – all this without s
aying a word, and breathing like an asthmatic. Anne coaxed her customers and took their money, quite convinced that these people derived only the greatest pleasure from her smiles and glances. Now she realized that this was the life she was born for, this noisy, brilliant life of music, laughter, dancing and admirers, and her earlier fears of that force which was bearing down on her, threatening to crush her, seemed quite comical. She was afraid of nobody now and only regretted that her mother was not there with her to share in her success.

  Her father, white-faced, but still steady on his feet, came over to her stall and asked for a glass of brandy. Anne blushed, frightened he might make some indecent remark (she was ashamed enough of having such a pale, ordinary father). But he merely drank his brandy, threw ten roubles down from his bundle and solemnly walked away without saying a word. A little later she saw him dancing the grand rond with his partner and this time he was staggering and shouting, much to his lady’s embarrassment. Anne remembered a ball, about three years before, when he had staggered around and shouted in just the same way, and it had finished with the police hauling him off home to bed; the next day the headmaster threatened him with the sack. How this memory jarred on her now!

  When the samovars in the stalls had cooled down and the weary ladies of charity had handed over their takings to the old lady with a stone in her mouth, Artynov led Anne by the arm into the ballroom, where supper was being served for the charity bazaar helpers. Twenty of them sat down to supper, no more, but it was all very noisy. His Excellency proposed a toast: ‘It would be appropriate, in this luxurious dining-room, to drink to soup kitchens for the poor, which are the object of today’s bazaar.’ A brigadier proposed a toast to ‘that power to which even artillery must surrender’ – and all the men clinked glasses with the ladies. It was all very, very lively!

  When Anne had been taken home, it was already growing light and cooks were going to market. Very happy, tipsy, brimming with new impressions and quite exhausted, she undressed, collapsed on to her bed and immediately fell asleep.

  After one in the afternoon, she was woken up by her chambermaid who announced that Mr Artynov had come to visit her. She quickly dressed, went into the drawing-room, and before long His Excellency arrived to thank her for helping with the charity bazaar. He gave her a sickly look, moved his lips, kissed her hand, asked permission to call again, and left. She stood in the middle of the drawing-room absolutely astonished, enchanted, hardly believing that this change in her life – such an amazing one – had come so quickly. At that moment her husband came in. And now he stood there with the usual grovelling, cloying, servile expression he assumed in the presence of powerful and distinguished people. Convinced that she could say what she liked now, she told him – with rapture, indignation and contempt – ‘Clear off, you fathead!’, clearly articulating each syllable.

  After that, Anne didn’t have a single day to herself, since she joined the others for picnics, outings and theatricals. Every day she came back in the early hours, lay down on the drawing-room floor and gave everyone a most touching account of the gay life she was leading. She needed a great deal of money, but she wasn’t afraid of Modeste Alekseyevich any more and spent his money as if it were hers. And she didn’t even bother to ask for it or demand it, but simply sent him bills or notes saying: ‘Pay bearer two hundred roubles’ or ‘Pay one hundred roubles immediately.’

  At Easter, Modeste Alekseyevich was awarded the Order of St Anne, second class. When he called to express his thanks, His Excellency put his paper to one side and sank deeper into his armchair.

  ‘That means you’ve three Annes now,’ he said, examining his white hands and pink nails, ‘one in your buttonhole and two round your neck.’

  Modeste Alekseyevich pressed two fingers to his lips to stop himself laughing out loud and said, ‘Now all I’m waiting for is a little Vladimir.* Dare I ask His Excellency to be the godfather?’ He meant the Order of Vladimir, fourth class, and already pictured himself regaling all and sundry with this brilliantly apt and bold pun, and was about to produce another scintillating witticism along the same lines but His Excellency just nodded and plunged into his paper again …

  Most of the time Anne went riding in a troika, hunting with Artynov, took part in one-act plays, dined out, and visited her family less and less. Peter Leontyevich began to drink more than ever, all his money had gone and they had to sell the harmonium to settle his debts. The boys wouldn’t let him out in the street on his own and kept following him in case he fell down. And whenever they met Anne on the Old Kiev Road, riding in a coach and pair with a side horse, Artynov sitting on the box instead of a coachman, Peter Leontyevich would doff his top-hat and start shouting. But then Peter and Andrew would hold him by the arms and plead with him, ‘Please stop it, Papa. Please …’

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