The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91

by Anton Chekhov

  She was glad Layevsky had been cool and grudgingly polite towards her lately – at times he had been impertinent and even downright rude. Once she would have answered his outbursts and his contemptuous and cold, or strange and inscrutable, glances with reproaches, would have threatened to leave him or starve herself to death; but now she only replied with blushes, looked guilty, and rejoiced in the fact that he did not show any affection. It would have been even better and more pleasant if he had told her off or threatened her, since she felt entirely to blame. She thought she was the guilty one – firstly, for not showing any sympathy for his dreams of a life of toil, on account of which he had given up St Petersburg and come out here to the Caucasus. She was convinced that this was the true reason for his recent anger with her. When she was on her way to the Caucasus she thought that on the very first day she would find herself a quiet little place near the sea, with a cosy, shady little garden with birds and streams where she could plant flowers and vegetables, keep ducks and hens, entertain the neighbours, dole out medicine to the poor peasants and give them books. However, as it turned out, the Caucasus offered nothing but bare mountains, forests, enormous valleys – it was a place where one always had to be choosing, making a fuss, building. There just weren’t any neighbours around, it was terribly hot, and one could easily be burgled. Layevsky was in no hurry to acquire a building-plot. Of that she was glad and it seemed they had both tacitly agreed never to mention that ‘life of toil’ again. His silence on the subject meant he was angry with her for not saying anything about it, so she thought.

  Secondly, without his knowledge, she had spent about three hundred roubles over these two years on various trifles at Achmianov’s shop. Buying cloth, silk, a parasol, little by little, she had run up a sizeable bill without even noticing it.

  ‘I’ll tell him today,’ she decided, but immediately realized that it was hardly the best time to talk to Layevsky about bills in his present frame of mind.

  In the third place she had already entertained Kirilin, an inspector in the local police, twice in Layevsky’s absence – one morning when Layevsky had gone for a swim, and then at midnight, when he was playing cards. Nadezhda flushed as she recalled this and she looked at her cook as though she was frightened she might read her thoughts. These long, insufferably hot, tedious days; these beautiful, languorous evenings; these stifling nights; her whole life here, when from morning to night time hung heavily; the obsessive thought that she was the youngest and most beautiful woman in the town and that she was squandering her youth; and Layevsky himself, so honest, idealistic, but so set in his ways, perpetually shuffling about in his slippers, biting his nails and plaguing her with his moods – all these things gradually made her a victim of desire, so that, like a woman insane, she could think only of one thing, day and night. In her breathing, her glances, her tone of voice, the way she walked, she was ruled by desire. The roar of the waves told her how she must love, so did the darkness of evening, and the mountains too… And when Kirilin had begun courting her, she was neither able nor willing to resist, and she had given herself to him.

  Now those foreign ships and men in white somehow put her in mind of a huge ballroom: the sounds of a waltz rang in her ears, mingling with French, and her breast trembled with inexplicable joy. She wanted to dance and to speak French.

  Joyfully she thought that there was nothing so terrible in being unfaithful to him and her heart had played no part in that betrayal: she still loved Layevsky and this was plain from her jealousy of him, from feeling sorry for him and bored when he was out. As for Kirilin, he was just ordinary and a little on the coarse side, despite his good looks. She had already broken off with him and there would never be anything between them again. It was all over, finished, and it was no one’s business – if Layevsky chanced to find out he would never believe it.

  There was only one bathing-house on the beach – for ladies; the men swam out in the open. As she entered the bathing-house, Nadezhda met Marya Konstantinova Bityugov, the middle-aged wife of a civil servant, together with her fifteen-year-old schoolgirl daughter Katya. Both of them were sitting on a bench undressing. Marya Konstantinova was a kindly, emotional, refined lady who spoke with a drawl and over-dramatically. Up to the age of thirty-two she had been a governess, then she married Bityugov, a short, bald, extremely docile man who combed his hair over his temples. She was still in love with him, jealous of other women, blushed every time the word ‘love’ was mentioned, and assured everyone she was very happy.

  ‘My dear!’ she said, enraptured at seeing Nadezhda and assuming that expression all her friends called ‘sugary’. ‘My dear, I’m so pleased you’ve come! We shall bathe together – how delightful!’

  Olga quickly threw off her dress and blouse and began undressing her mistress.

  ‘Not quite so hot today, is it?’ Nadezhda said, shrinking at her naked cook’s rough hands. ‘Yesterday I nearly died from the heat!’

  ‘Oh yes, my dear! I almost suffocated. Can you believe it, I bathed three times yesterday, just imagine my dear, three times! Even my Nikodim was worried.’

  ‘Well, how can people be so ugly?’ Nadezhda thought as she looked at Olga and the civil servant’s wife. She glanced at Katya and thought, ‘Quite a good figure for a young girl!’

  ‘Your Nikodim is very, very nice!’ she said. ‘I’m just mad about him.’

  Marya Konstantinova replied, forcing a laugh, ‘Ha, ha, ha! How delightful!’

  Free of her clothes, Nadezhda had a sudden urge to fly and she felt that she had only to flap her arms to soar up into the sky. As she sat there undressed she saw Olga was looking at her white body rather disgustedly. The wife of a young soldier, Olga was living with her lawful husband and for this reason considered herself superior. Nadezhda also felt that Marya Konstantinova and Katya despised and feared her. This was unpleasant, so she tried to raise herself in their opinion and said, ‘At home in St Petersburg the holiday season is in full swing right now. My husband and I have so many friends! We should go and see them.’

  ‘Your husband’s an engineer, I believe?’ Marya Konstantinova asked timidly.

  ‘I’m talking about Layevsky. He knows a lot of people. Unfortunately his mother’s a terrible snob, and she’s a little soft in the head…’

  Nadezhda did not finish and plunged into the water; Marya Konstantinova and Katya followed her in.

  ‘Society is so riddled with prejudices,’ Nadezhda said. ‘It’s harder to get on with people than you think.’

  Marya Konstantinova, who had worked as a governess with aristocratic families and who knew about high society, said, ‘Oh, yes! Would you believe it, my dear, you had to dress for lunch and dinner at the Garatynskys’, no question, so they gave me a dress allowance, apart from my salary, just as if I were an actress.’

  She stood between Nadezhda and Katya as though shielding her daughter from the water that was washing over Nadezhda. Through the open doorway which led out to the sea they could see someone swimming about a hundred yards from the bathing enclosure.

  ‘Mama, it’s Kostya!’ Katya said.

  ‘Oh, oh!’ Marya Konstantinova clucked in horror. ‘Kostya, come back!’ she shouted. ‘Kostya, come back!’

  Kostya, a boy of fourteen, dived and swam further away to show off to his mother and sister, but he tired and hurried back. It was plain from his serious, tense expression that he did not trust his own strength.

  ‘Boys are so much trouble, my dear!’ Marya Konstantinova said, feeling relieved now. ‘It always seems that he’s about to break his neck. Oh, my dear, how lovely to be a mother – but at the same time, it’s a real worry! Everything scares you.’

  Nadezhda put on her straw hat and struck out to sea. She swam ten yards or so and then floated on her back. She could see as far as the horizon, ships, people on the beach, the town, and all these sights, together with the heat and the translucent, caressing waves, excited her and whispered that she needed to live… live… A sailing-boat
rushed swiftly past, vigorously cutting through the waves and air. The man at the rudder was looking at her and she felt how pleasant it was to be looked at.

  After their bathe the ladies dressed and went off together. ‘I’m usually running a temperature every other day, but I don’t lose any weight, despite this,’ Nadezhda said, licking her lips that were salty after the bathe, and smiling at bowing acquaintances. ‘I’ve always been plump and now I seem to have put on even more weight.’

  ‘My dear, it all depends on one’s disposition. If you’re not inclined to put on weight, like myself for example, then it makes no difference how much food you eat. But my dear, your hat’s dripping wet.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it will soon dry.’

  Nadezhda caught another glimpse of those French-speaking men in white strolling along the front. And once again, for some strange reason, she felt the joy rise up within her and she dimly remembered some great ballroom where she had once danced – or was it only a dream? And from deep down inside her came muffled, hollow whispers, telling her she was a petty-minded, vulgar, worthless, insignificant woman.

  Marya Konstantinova stopped by her front gate and invited her to come in and sit down. ‘Please do come in, my dear,’ she said imploringly, and at the same time she looked anxiously at Nadezhda, half hoping she would refuse.

  ‘Delighted,’ Nadezhda agreed. ‘You know how I love visiting you.’ And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinova asked her to sit down, gave her coffee and rolls. Then she showed her photographs of her former charges – the Garatynsky girls, who were married now; and she showed her Katya and Kostya’s examination marks. They were very good, but to make them appear even better she sighed and complained how difficult schoolwork was these days. She looked after her guest, but at the same time felt sorry for her and was worried in case her presence might have a bad effect on Kostya and Katya’s morals. She was pleased Nikodim was out. Convinced that all men fell for her sort, she felt Nadezhda might have a bad influence on Nikodim Aleksandrych as well.

  As she chatted with her guest, Marya could not forget that there was going to be a picnic later that afternoon and that von Koren had particularly requested her not to tell the ‘macaques’ about it – that is, Layevsky and Nadezhda. But she accidentally let it slip, blushed deeply and told her in an embarrassed voice, ‘I do hope you’ll join us!’

  VI

  The arrangements were to drive about five miles out of town along the southbound road, to stop near the inn at the junction of the Black and Yellow Rivers, where they would make some fish soup. Samoylenko and Layevsky led the way in a cabriolet, followed by Marya Konstantinova, Nadezhda, Katya and Kostya in a carriage drawn by three horses; in this carriage were the hamper and the crockery. In the next carriage sat Inspector Kirilin and young Achmianov – the son of the merchant whom Nadezhda owed three hundred roubles. Huddled up on a bench opposite them, legs crossed, was Nikodim Aleksandrych, a smart little man with his hair brushed over his temples. Last of all came von Koren, and the deacon, who had a basket of fish at his feet.

  ‘Keep to the r-r-ight!’ Samoylenko shouted at the top of his voice whenever they met a bullock cart or an Abkhazian on his donkey.

  ‘Two years from now,’ von Koren was telling the deacon, ‘when I have the funds and staff, I’ll be off on my expedition. I’m going up the coast from Vladivostok to the Bering Straits, then to the mouth of the Yenisey. We’re going to make a map, study the fauna and flora and carry out detailed geological, anthropological and ethnographic surveys. It’s up to you whether you come or not.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said the deacon.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m a family man, I’m tied down.’

  ‘The deaconess will let you go. We’ll see she has nothing to worry about. Even better, you might try to persuade her, for the good of society, to become a nun. That would enable you to become a monk yourself and come on the expedition as a regular priest. I can fix it.’ The deacon remained silent. ‘Is your theology up to scratch?’

  ‘Pretty weak.’

  ‘Hm… can’t advise you there, because I don’t know much about it myself. Give me a list of the books you need and I’ll send them to you this winter from St Petersburg. You’ll also have to read the memoirs of missionaries. There you’ll find excellent ethnologists and experts in oriental languages. When you’re familiar with their approach you’ll find you can tackle the work more easily. Well, don’t waste your time while you’re waiting for books, come and see me and we’ll study the compass and do some meteorology. All that’s essential.’

  ‘Well now…’ muttered the deacon and he burst out laughing. ‘I’ve applied for a post in Middle Russia and my archpriest uncle promised to help. If I join you I’ll have troubled him for nothing.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you can’t make your mind up. If you go on as you are, just an ordinary deacon, your only duty conducting services on Sundays and high holidays, and taking it easy the rest of the time, in ten years you’ll be just the same – although you might have acquired whiskers and a beard. Whereas if you come on the expedition you’ll be a different man in ten years’ time, you’ll be rich in the knowledge that you’ve achieved something.’

  Cries of horror and delight came from the ladies’ carriage. They were travelling along a road carved out of a sheer cliff and everyone felt they were racing along a shelf attached to a high wall and that at any moment they would all go hurtling over into the abyss. On the right stretched the sea, while on the left was a rugged brown wall covered in black patches, red veins and creeping roots, while up above bushy conifers seemed to be leaning down towards them and gazing in fear and curiosity. A minute later there was laughter and more shrieks – they had to pass under an enormous, overhanging rock.

  ‘I don’t know why the hell I’ve come with you,’ Layevsky said. ‘It’s so stupid and trivial! I should be on my way north, running away, escaping, but for some reason here I am on this ridiculous picnic.’

  ‘But look at that view!’ Samoylenko told him when the horses had turned to the left and the Yellow River valley opened out before them, with the glinting river itself flowing yellow, turbid, insane…

  ‘I can’t see anything nice about it,’ Layevsky answered. ‘Always going into raptures over nature is to betray poverty of imagination. Compared with what my imagination can offer me all those streams and cliffs are absolute rubbish, nothing else.’

  The carriages were travelling along the river bank now. The lofty, precipitous banks gradually closed in, the valley narrowed, confronting them now in the form of a gorge. The great crag which they were passing had been constructed by nature from huge rocks that were exerting such pressure on each other that Samoylenko had to grunt every time he looked at it. Here and there that gloomy, magnificent mountain was intersected by narrow defiles and clefts, from which dampness and a sense of mystery came wafting towards the travellers. Through the defiles they caught sight of other mountains – brown, pink, lilac, smoky, or suffused with light. Every now and then, as they passed the defiles, they could hear water pouring down from above, splashing over the rocks.

  ‘Blasted mountains,’ Layevsky sighed; ‘they bore me stiff!’

  At the point where the Black River flowed into the Yellow, where its ink-black waters stained the yellow as they did battle with them, stood Kerbalay the Tatar’s inn, just off the road. The Russian flag flew over it and the name Pleasant Inn was chalked on the signboard. Nearby was a small garden, enclosed by a wattle fence, with tables and benches, and from a miserable looking thorny bush rose a solitary cypress, beautiful and dark. Kerbalay, a small sprightly Tatar in dark blue shirt and white apron, was standing in the road. Clasping his stomach he bowed low to the approaching carriages and smiled to reveal his brilliant white teeth.

  ‘Hallo, my dear old Kerbalay!’ Samoylenko shouted. ‘We’re just going on a little bit further, so bring us a samovar and chairs. Look lively now!’

  Kerbalay nodde
d his close-cropped head and muttered something which only the occupants of the last carriage could make out, ‘We’ve got trout today, General.’

  ‘Bring it then, bring it!’ von Koren told him.

  About five hundred yards past the inn the carriages stopped. Samoylenko chose a small meadow strewn with rocks that made good seats. Here there was a tree felled in a storm, lying with bared, shaggy roots and dried-up yellow needles. A rickety plank bridge spanned the river and right opposite, on the far bank, was a little shed used as a drying-room for maize; with its four low piles it reminded one of the fairy-tale hut that stood on chicken’s legs. A short ladder led down from the door.

  Their first impression was that they would never get out of the place. Wherever they looked, the mountains loomed on all sides and seemed to be bearing down on them; the evening shadows swiftly closed in from the direction of the inn and the dark cypress, making the narrow, sinuous Yellow River valley look even narrower and the mountains higher. The river gurgled and cicadas chirped incessantly.

  ‘Enchanting!’ Marya Konstantinova said with deep sighs of delight. ‘My dears, look how beautiful it is! So very quiet!’

  ‘Yes, it really is nice,’ agreed Layevsky, who liked this view. For some reason he felt suddenly sad when he gazed at the sky and then at the blue wisp of smoke curling out of the inn’s chimney. ‘Yes, very nice!’ he repeated.

  ‘Ivan Andreich, please describe the view for us!’ Marya Konstantinova said.

  ‘What for?’ Layevsky asked. ‘First-hand impressions are better than any description. The wealth of colour and sound that we all receive from nature through our senses is turned into an ugly, unrecognizable mishmash by writers.’

  ‘Is that so?’ von Koren asked coldly, selecting the largest rock near the water and trying to climb up it and sit down. ‘Is that so?’ he repeated and stared at Layevsky. ‘What about Romeo and Juliet? Or Pushkin’s Ukrainian Night?10 Nature should prostrate herself before them.’