Selected short stories -1888-1892- translated by Constance Garnett

by Anton Chekhov

  Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.

  "You needn't look," the old man called after them. "I tell you there isn't, and there isn't."

  "Listen, auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who was sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds, "where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"

  The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.

  "Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried. "Lord! it is eight years since she married her daughter and gave up the house to her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there now."

  And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing like that, you fools?"

  "And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.

  "Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise. "She moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her house to her son-in-law! Upon my word!"

  She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:

  "Where does she live now?"

  The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:

  "Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little red house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down that little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ."

  Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right. On both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big gaps in it. The first part of the fence was tilting forwards and threatened to fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards towards the yard. The gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best -- to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened the little gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard overgrown with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit:

  "Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"

  Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers, he ran to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a tenor bark).

  "Whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun.

  "Good-morning!" Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with his stick. "Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live here?"

  "Yes! But what do you want with her?"

  "Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?"

  "Well, yes, I am!"

  "Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga Ivanovna Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And I, perhaps you remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You are one of us from N. . . . You were born among us and married there. . . ."

  A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron and tears spurted from her eyes.

  "Olga Ivanovna!" she screamed, breathless with excitement. "My own darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My pretty little angel. . . ."

  She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down completely.

  "Heavens!" she said, wringing her hands, "Olga's little boy! How delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But why are you standing in the yard? Come indoors."

  Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards the house. Her visitors trudged after her.

  "The room has not been done yet," she said, ushering the visitors into a stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers. "Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters anyway! My little angel! My little beauty! I did not know that Olitchka had a boy like that!"

  When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan Ivanitch asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another room; there was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a starling in it, and there were as many ikons and flowers as in the drawing-room. Near the machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and chubby cheeks like Tit's, and a clean cotton dress. She stared at Yegorushka without blinking, and apparently felt very awkward. Yegorushka looked at her and after a pause asked:

  "What's your name?"

  The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry, and answered softly:

  "Atka. . . ."

  This meant Katka.

  "He will live with you," Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the drawing-room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles a month for his keep. He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . ."

  "I really don't know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!" Nastasya Petrovna sighed tearfully. "Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a dreadful thing to take another person's child! He may fall ill or something. . . ."

  When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch was standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.

  "Well, let him stay with you now, then," he said. "Good-bye! You stay, Yegor!" he said, addressing his nephew. "Don't be troublesome; mind you obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again to-morrow."

  And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called him a little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing for dinner. Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her, answering her endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.

  In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head on his hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing and crying, she talked of his mother's young days, her own marriage, her children. . . . A cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was a faint humming from the burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna talked in a low voice, and was continually dropping her thimble in her excitement; and Katka her granddaughter, crawled under the table after it and each time sat a long while under the table, probably examining Yegorushka's feet; and Yegorushka listened, half dozing and looking at the old woman's face, her wart with hairs on it, and the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad. He was put to sleep on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the night he must go out into the little passage and take some chicken, put there under a plate in the window.

  Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say good-bye. Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about to set the samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry, waved his hands and said:

  "We have no time for tea! We are just setting off."

  Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute. Nastasya Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon with tear-stained eyes.

  "Well," began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, "so you will stay. . . ."

  All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his face; he flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:

  "Mind you work hard. . . . Don't forget your mother, and obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I'll stand by you."

  He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka, fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a ten-kopeck piece, gave it to Yegorushka.

  Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.

  "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . Study," he said. "Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your prayers. Here is a ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . ."

  Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in his heart that he would never see the old man again.

  "I have applied at the high school already," sa
id Ivan Ivanitch in a voice as though there were a corpse in the room. "You will take him for the entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . . Well, good-bye; God bless you, good-bye, Yegor!"

  "You might at least have had a cup of tea," wailed Nastasya Petrovna.

  Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his uncle and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but they were not in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been barking, was running back from the gate with the air of having done his duty. When Yegorushka ran out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher, the former waving his stick with the crook, the latter his staff, were just turning the corner. Yegorushka felt that with these people all that he had known till then had vanished from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little bench, and with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was beginning for him now. . . .

  What would that life be like?

  NOTES

  the widow of a collegiate secretary: a minor official, Class 10 in the civil service Table of Ranks

  on the day of the Holy Mother of Kazan: July 8 (Julian Calendar)

  eyes: an old Russian custom

  Lomonosov set off with the fishermen: Mikhaylo V. Lomonosov (1711-1765) was the son of a fisherman; he became famous as a scientist and poet

  For the glory of our Maker . . . : the ending of the morning prayer that was recited in Russian classrooms before the start of class

  barrows: stone sculptures up to 17 feet high, used as tombstones by Turkic peoples 2,000 years ago

  Arctic petrels: a type of sea bird

  crosier-bearer: cross-bearer, an honor only given to a boy or man of good character

  patron saint's day: August 30; Alexander I died in 1825

  Puer bone, quam appelaris?: Good boy, what is your name?

  Christopherus sum: I am Christopher

  Robinson Crusoe: hero of Daniel Defoe's novel of the same name, published in 1719; about a man who survives living on an island

  "Like the cherubim": see Ezekiel 10:19; sung while Russian Orthodox priests bring bread and wine to the altar

  Plague take you, cursed idolater!: the Russian translates literally as "the anathema of an idol upon you"

  Moisey Moisevitch: Ashkenazic Jews in Russia would not have named a son for a living father (Solomon is a younger brother); however, Russians tend to make up a patronymic based on one's first name if they don't know the correct patronymic

  eagle: the symbol of pre-1917 Russia

  Molokans': Molokans were a religious sect

  high school: gimnaziya were schools originally intended for sons of the gentry, but later open to others; Chekhov graduated from such a school in 1879

  stamped paper: legal documents had to be on special paper bearing the Imperial Russian seal (a form of taxation)

  Pharaoh in his chariot: Exodus 14

  Jacob: Genesis 37; Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his brothers

  Tchernigov: Chernigov province is located in the Ukraine

  Solomon the Wise: meant ironically of course; Solomon in the Bible was noted for his wisdom

  mouth: so that the devil cannot enter his soul through his open mouth

  Dranitsky: Dranicka is a Polish surname

  Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand: two mythical Russian folk heroes

  coat: short jacket worn in the Ukraine

  Yegory, the Bearer of Victory: a name for St. George, 4th century Roman soldier who died for Christianity; the Russian Order of St. George is given for the highest military bravery in battle

  Tim: town about 250 miles south of Moscow

  Varvara: also called St. Barbara the Great, martyred in the 3rd century

  holy bread: altar bread given out at the end of the liturgy

  Epiphany: January 19 (Julian Calendar)

  name down: members of the Russian Orthodox Church customarily carried a small book with names in it of relatives and friends, living and dead, to be remembered

  Old Believer: someone who adhered to the ritual of the Russian Orthodox Church as practiced before the 17th century reforms; they did not eat or drink with the same utensils as other people

  St. Peter's Day: June 29 (Julian Calendar)

  Mazeppa: a traitor; Ivan S. Mazeppa (1645-1709) went over to the Swedish enemy at the Battle of Poltava

  A. . . a. . . va: Chekhov is imitating sounds that remain after other syllables are lost in the wind

  Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth: from Isaiah 6:3; used in the Russian Orthodox liturgy

  Pyotr Mogila: Peter Mogila (1596-1647) was a famous cleric and educator

  Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse studies: Hebrews 13:9

  Saul: 1 Samuel 28:8-20

  Basil the Great: 329-379, a famous churchman

  St. Nestor: 11th century monk

  honour your mother: Exodus 20:12

  sat down: a Russian tradition to bring good luck on the journey

  * * *

  Lights

  by Anton Chekhov

  THE dog was barking excitedly outside. And Ananyev the engineer, his assistant called Von Schtenberg, and I went out of the hut to see at whom it was barking. I was the visitor, and might have remained indoors, but I must confess my head was a little dizzy from the wine I had drunk, and I was glad to get a breath of fresh air.

  "There is nobody here," said Ananyev when we went out. "Why are you telling stories, Azorka? You fool!"

  There was not a soul in sight.

  "The fool," Azorka, a black house-dog, probably conscious of his guilt in barking for nothing and anxious to propitiate us, approached us, diffidently wagging his tail. The engineer bent down and touched him between his ears.

  "Why are you barking for nothing, creature?" he said in the tone in which good-natured people talk to children and dogs. "Have you had a bad dream or what? Here, doctor, let me commend to your attention," he said, turning to me, "a wonderfully nervous subject! Would you believe it, he can't endure solitude -- he is always having terrible dreams and suffering from nightmares; and when you shout at him he has something like an attack of hysterics."

  "Yes, a dog of refined feelings," the student chimed in.

  Azorka must have understood that the conversation was concerning him. He turned his head upwards and grinned plaintively, as though to say, "Yes, at times I suffer unbearably, but please excuse it!"

  It was an August night, there were stars, but it was dark. Owing to the fact that I had never in my life been in such exceptional surroundings, as I had chanced to come into now, the starry night seemed to me gloomy, inhospitable, and darker than it was in reality. I was on a railway line which was still in process of construction. The high, half-finished embankment, the mounds of sand, clay, and rubble, the holes, the wheel-barrows standing here and there, the flat tops of the mud huts in which the workmen lived -- all this muddle, coloured to one tint by the darkness, gave the earth a strange, wild aspect that suggested the times of chaos. There was so little order in all that lay before me that it was somehow strange in the midst of the hideously excavated, grotesque-looking earth to see the silhouettes of human beings and the slender telegraph posts. Both spoiled the ensemble of the picture, and seemed to belong to a different world. It was still, and the only sound came from the telegraph wire droning its wearisome refrain somewhere very high above our heads.

  We climbed up on the embankment and from its height looked down upon the earth. A hundred yards away where the pits, holes, and mounds melted into the darkness of the night, a dim light was twinkling. Beyond it gleamed another light, beyond that a third, then a hundred paces away two red eyes glowed side by side -- probably the windows of some hut -- and a long series of such lights, growing continually closer and dimmer, stretched along the line to the very horizon, then turned in a semicircle to the left and disappeared in the darkness of the distance. The lights were motionless. There seemed to be something in common between them and the stillness of the night a
nd the disconsolate song of the telegraph wire. It seemed as though some weighty secret were buried under the embankment and only the lights, the night, and the wires knew of it.

  "How glorious, O Lord!" sighed Ananyev; "such space and beauty that one can't tear oneself away! And what an embankment! It's not an embankment, my dear fellow, but a regular Mont Blanc. It's costing millions. . . ."

  Going into ecstasies over the lights and the embankment that was costing millions, intoxicated by the wine and his sentimental mood, the engineer slapped Von Schtenberg on the shoulder and went on in a jocose tone:

  "Well, Mihail Mihailitch, lost in reveries? No doubt it is pleasant to look at the work of one's own hands, eh? Last year this very spot was bare steppe, not a sight of human life, and now look: life . . . civilisation. . . And how splendid it all is, upon my soul! You and I are building a railway, and after we are gone, in another century or two, good men will build a factory, a school, a hospital, and things will begin to move! Eh!"

  The student stood motionless with his hands thrust in his pockets, and did not take his eyes off the lights. He was not listening to the engineer, but was thinking, and was apparently in the mood in which one does not want to speak or to listen. After a prolonged silence he turned to me and said quietly:

  "Do you know what those endless lights are like? They make me think of something long dead, that lived thousands of years ago, something like the camps of the Amalekites or the Philistines. It is as though some people of the Old Testament had pitched their camp and were waiting for morning to fight with Saul or David. All that is wanting to complete the illusion is the blare of trumpets and sentries calling to one another in some Ethiopian language."

  And, as though of design, the wind fluttered over the line and brought a sound like the clank of weapons. A silence followed. I don't know what the engineer and the student were thinking of, but it seemed to me already that I actually saw before me something long dead and even heard the sentry talking in an unknown tongue. My imagination hastened to picture the tents, the strange people, their clothes, their armour.

  "Yes," muttered the student pensively, "once Philistines and Amalekites were living in this world, making wars, playing their part, and now no trace of them remains. So it will be with us. Now we are making a railway, are standing here philosophising, but two thousand years will pass -- and of this embankment and of all those men, asleep after their hard work, not one grain of dust will remain. In reality, it's awful!"