The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91

by Anton Chekhov

  ‘But those are trivial little things,’ Nadezhda sobbed. ‘If only I were happy, but I’m so miserable!’

  ‘Yes, you’re dreadfully unhappy!’ Marya Konstantinova sighed, barely able to stop crying herself. ‘And great sorrow awaits you in the future. A lonely old age, illnesses, then you will have to answer at the Day of Judgement. It’s terrible, terrible! And now that fate is lending you a helping hand you stupidly turn your back on it. You must get married, there’s not a moment to lose!’

  ‘Yes, I should, I should,’ Nadezhda said, ‘but it’s impossible!’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It’s impossible! Oh, if only you knew!’

  Nadezhda wanted to tell her about Kirilin, about yesterday evening’s meeting with young, handsome Achmianov on the quayside, and about her crazy, ridiculous idea of getting rid of that debt of three hundred roubles, about how amusing it had all been, about how she had returned home very late that evening feeling irrevocably ruined – like a prostitute. She herself did not know how it had all come about. And now she wanted to make an oath, with Marya Konstantinova as witness, that she would settle the debt, without fail. But she could not speak for sobbing and shame.

  ‘I shall go away from here,’ she said, ‘Ivan can stay if he likes, but I’m going.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Back to central Russia.’

  ‘And what will you live on there? You haven’t a penny, surely?’

  ‘I’ll do some translating… or open a little lending library.’

  ‘Stop daydreaming, my dear. You need money to start a library. Well, I’ll leave you now, so please calm yourself, think it over and tomorrow you’ll come and see me, all nice and cheerful. That will be delightful! Well, goodbye, my little angel. Let me give you a kiss.’

  Marya Konstantinova kissed Nadezhda on the forehead, made the sign of the cross over her and quietly left. It was already growing dark and Olga had lit the lamp in the kitchen. Nadezhda went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. She began to run a high fever. She undressed as she lay there, crumpling her dress down to her feet, then she rolled herself into a ball under the blanket. She felt thirsty, but no one was there to bring her a drink. ‘I’ll settle that debt!’ she told herself and in her delirium she imagined she was sitting beside some sick woman whom she recognized as herself. ‘I’ll settle it! How stupid to think that just for some money I’d… I’ll leave and send him the money from St Petersburg. First a hundred roubles… then another hundred… then another…’

  Late that night Layevsky returned.

  ‘A hundred to begin with, then another…’ Nadezhda told him.

  ‘You should take some quinine,’ he said and thought to himself, ‘It’s Wednesday tomorrow, that ship will sail and I won’t be on it. That means I’m stuck here till Saturday.’

  Nadezhda knelt up in bed.

  ‘I didn’t say anything just now, did I?’ she asked, smiling and screwing up her eyes in the candlelight.

  ‘No. We’ll have to send for the doctor tomorrow morning. Get some sleep now.’

  He took a pillow and went towards the door. Ever since he finally made up his mind to go away and abandon Nadezhda she began to arouse pity and guilt in him. He felt rather shamefaced when he was with her, as though she were an old or sick horse that was going to be put down. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. ‘I was feeling irritable at the picnic and I said something very rude to you. Please forgive me, for God’s sake.’

  With these words he went to his study and lay down, but it was a long time before he fell asleep.

  The next morning, Samoylenko, in full ceremonial uniform (today was an official holiday), parading his epaulettes and medals, took Nadezhda’s pulse and examined her tongue. As he came out of the bedroom, Layevsky, who was standing in the doorway, worriedly asked, ‘Well, is it all right? Is everything all right then?’ Fear, extreme anxiety and hope were written all over his face.

  ‘Relax, it’s nothing dangerous,’ Samoylenko said. ‘Just an ordinary fever.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Layevsky said, impatiently frowning. ‘Did you get the money?’

  ‘My dear chap, do forgive me,’ Samoylenko whispered, glancing back at the door in embarrassment. ‘Please forgive me, for heaven’s sake! No one has any spare cash and up to now I’ve managed to collect only five or ten roubles here and there – all in all, a hundred and ten. I’ll be speaking to some other people today. Please be patient.’

  ‘But Saturday’s the last day!’ Layevsky whispered, trembling with impatience. ‘In the name of all that’s holy, by Saturday! If I can’t get away on Saturday, then I won’t need anything… anything! I don’t understand how a doctor can be short of money!’

  ‘Good God, all right then. As you like,’ Samoylenko whispered so rapidly and impatiently his throat squeaked. ‘I’ve been stripped bare. I’m owed seven thousand and I’m up to my eyes in debt. Is that my fault?’

  ‘Do you mean you’ll have it by Saturday? Yes?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘I beg you, my dear chap! You must see I have the money by Friday morning.’

  Samoylenko sat down and wrote out a prescription for quinine solution with kalium bromatum,16 rhubarb infusion, tincture of gentian and aqua foeniculi17 – all in the same mixture, with rose syrup to take the bitterness away – and then he left.

  XI

  ‘You look as if you’ve come to arrest me,’ von Koren said when he saw Samoylenko entering in full regalia.

  ‘I was passing by and thought, why don’t I drop in and have a taste of zoology?’ Samoylenko said as he sat at the large table that the zoologist had knocked together himself from some simple boards. ‘Good day, Your Grace!’ he said, nodding to the deacon who was sitting by the window copying something out. ‘I’ll just stay for a few minutes, then I must rush home to see to lunch. It’s time already… I’m not disturbing you, I hope?’

  ‘Not at all,’ the zoologist answered, laying out some papers covered with fine handwriting over the table. ‘We’re busy copying up some notes.’

  ‘Oh… my God, my God…’ Samoylenko sighed. From the table he gingerly picked up a dusty book, on top of which was a dry, dead insect, like a spider, and said, ‘Really! Just imagine some little green beetle going about its business when along comes this frightful object. I can imagine how horrified it would be!’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Is it equipped with poison to defend itself from its enemies?’

  ‘Yes, for protection and for attacking as well.’

  ‘Well, well, well… And everything in nature, my dear gentlemen, has its function and reason,’ Samoylenko sighed. ‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand. You’re a terribly clever man, so please explain this. You know, there are some small animals, no larger than rats, quite pretty to look at but extremely vicious and immoral. Let’s suppose one of these tiny creatures is making its way through a forest. It sees a bird, catches it and eats it. It moves on and sees a small nest in the grass with eggs in it. It’s not hungry any more as it’s eaten its fill, but it bites into one of the eggs and pushes the others out of the nest with its paw. Then it meets a frog, has a little game with it. After tormenting it, off it goes licking its lips and then along comes a beetle. It crushes it with its paw. And so it harms and destroys everything in its path. And it clambers into other animals’ lairs, ruins ant-hills just for the fun of it, cracks snails open with its teeth… If it comes across a rat, it starts a fight. If it sees a small snake or a baby mouse it just has to throttle them. And so it goes on, all day long. Tell me then, what’s the use of such an animal? Why was it created?’

  ‘I don’t know what animal you’re talking about,’ von Koren said, ‘most likely an insectivore. Well now, the bird was caught because it was careless. It destroyed the nest of eggs because the bird was stupid, built its nest badly and did not succeed in camouflaging it. And there was most likely some defect in the frog’s colouring,
otherwise your animal wouldn’t have spotted it, and so on. Your animal destroys only weak, stupid, careless creatures – briefly, creatures with defects that nature doesn’t consider necessary to hand down to posterity. Only the most artful, cautious, strong and developed animals survive. Therefore, quite unaware of the fact, your little animal serves a magnificent end – progress towards perfection.’

  ‘Yes, yes… By the way, old boy,’ Samoylenko said casually, ‘lend me a hundred roubles, will you?’

  ‘All right. Among the insectivores there’s some very interesting examples. Take the mole. It’s said to be useful because it destroys harmful insects. There’s a story about some German who sent Kaiser Wilhelm I a moleskin coat, but it seems the Kaiser ordered him to be reprimanded for destroying so many useful animals. However, the mole can be just as cruel as your little beast and it’s also a very great nuisance, as it wreaks havoc in the fields.’

  Von Koren opened a money-box and took out a hundred-rouble note.

  ‘Moles have a powerful thorax, like bats,’ he went on, shutting the box, ‘tremendously developed bones and muscles and unusually well-armed mouths. If they were as big as elephants they would be invincible, capable of annihilating everything. It’s interesting – when two moles meet underground they both start digging a little platform for themselves, as if they’d agreed on it beforehand. They need this platform to make it easier to fight. When it’s finished they battle away furiously and fight until the weaker drops.’ Von Koren lowered his voice as he added, ‘Now, take your hundred roubles, but on condition it’s not for Layevsky.’

  ‘And supposing it is for Layevsky!’ Samoylenko said, flaring up. ‘Is that any of your business?’

  ‘I can’t let you have money if it’s to help Layevsky. I know your fondness for lending people money. You’d lend any old bandit money if he asked you. I’m sorry, I can’t help you in that direction.’

  ‘Yes, it is for Layevsky!’ Samoylenko said, standing up and brandishing his right arm. ‘Yes, for Layevsky! What the hell, no one has the right to damned well try and teach me what to do with my money! You don’t want to lend me it, eh?’

  The deacon burst out laughing.

  ‘Don’t get so excited, just think a minute,’ the zoologist said. ‘Doing Mr Layevsky a good turn is just as silly in my opinion as watering weeds or feeding locusts.’

  ‘I think it’s our duty to help our neighbours,’ Samoylenko shouted.

  ‘In that case, help that starving Turk lying beneath the fence! He’s a labourer and he’s more valuable, more useful than your Layevsky. Let him have the hundred roubles. Or contribute a hundred towards my expedition!’

  ‘I’m asking you, are you going to let me have it or not?’

  ‘Tell me frankly, what does he need the money for?’

  ‘It’s no secret. He has to travel to St Petersburg on Saturday.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s it!’ von Koren drawled. ‘Aha… we understand. And is she going with him, or what?’

  ‘She’s staying on for the time being. He’s going to straighten his affairs out in St Petersburg and send her money, and then she’ll go as well.’

  ‘Very neat!’ the zoologist said with a short, high-pitched laugh. ‘Very neat. A brilliant idea.’

  He rushed over to Samoylenko, faced up to him and stared him right in the eye. ‘Tell me honestly, now,’ he asked: ‘he doesn’t love her any more, does he? No?’

  ‘No,’ Samoylenko said, breaking into a sweat.

  ‘How revolting!’ von Koren said and his face clearly showed his disgust. ‘There are two alternatives, Alexander: either you’ve both hatched this plot together or – pardon me for saying so – you’re a stupid ass. Can’t you see he’s making a fool of you, in the most shameless fashion, as though you were a little boy? Surely it’s clear as daylight that he wants to get rid of her and abandon her here. She’ll be hanging round your neck and it’s also clear as anything that you’ll have to send her to St Petersburg at your own expense. Surely that fine friend of yours can’t have dazzled you so much with his virtues that you’re blind to what’s patently obvious?’

  ‘These are mere conjectures,’ Samoylenko said, sitting down.

  ‘Conjectures? But why is he travelling alone and not with her? And ask him why she shouldn’t go on ahead, with him following afterwards? The crafty devil!’

  Overcome by sudden doubts and misgivings about his friend, Samoylenko’s spirits fell, and he lowered his voice.

  ‘But that’s impossible!’ he said, recalling the night when Layevsky had stayed with him. ‘He’s going through so much!’

  ‘What of it? Thieves and arsonists also suffer!’

  ‘Let’s suppose you’re right,’ Samoylenko said reflectively. ‘Granted… On the other hand, he’s a young man in a strange country… a student… we’re students as well and he had no one to turn to here for help besides us.’

  ‘Help him perpetrate his filthy tricks just because you were both at university at different times and neither of you did a stroke of work there! What nonsense!’

  ‘Hold on, let’s consider it calmly.’ Shaking his fingers, Samoylenko worked it all out. ‘Perhaps we could manage it like this… I’ll give him the money, but I’ll insist he gives me his word of honour to send Nadezhda the money for her fare within one week.’

  ‘And he’ll give you his word, he’ll even shed a tear or two and convince himself it’s all genuine. But what is his word worth? He won’t keep it, and when you meet him a year or so from now, on Nevsky Prospekt, with his new lady-love on his arm, he’ll start defending himself, saying civilization has crippled him and that he’s a chip off the same block as Rudin.18 Give him up, for God’s sake! Steer clear of this muck, don’t go raking around in it!’

  Samoylenko pondered for a moment and then said in a determined voice, ‘I’m going to lend him the money all the same. You do as you like, but I’m in no position to refuse someone on the basis of mere suppositions.’

  ‘That’s excellent. So go and embrace him if you like.’

  ‘Well, give me the hundred roubles, then,’ Samoylenko timidly asked.

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  Silence followed. Samoylenko felt quite weak. His face took on a guilty, ashamed, ingratiating expression and somehow it was strange to see a huge man like him, with epaulettes and medals, looking so pathetic and bewildered, just like a child.

  As he laid down his pen the deacon said, ‘The local bishop doesn’t do his parish rounds in a carriage, but on horseback. He makes a terribly moving sight, sitting on his little horse. His simplicity and humility are permeated with biblical grandeur.’

  ‘Is he a good man?’ von Koren asked, glad of a change of subject.

  ‘Well what do you think? If he weren’t how come that he’s a bishop?’

  ‘There are some very fine and talented bishops about,’ von Koren said. ‘The only pity is, though, many of them have this weakness – they imagine they’re state dignitaries. One tries to Russianize everything, another criticizes science. It’s not their business. They’d do better if they looked in at the consistory more often.’

  ‘Laymen aren’t qualified to judge bishops.’

  ‘But why not, deacon? A bishop is a man, like myself.’

  ‘He is and yet he isn’t,’ the deacon replied in an injured voice, picking up his pen. ‘If you were the same, then divine grace would have descended on you, and you yourself would be a bishop. But as you’re not a bishop that means you can’t be such a man.’

  ‘Don’t talk rot, deacon!’ Samoylenko said, becoming very upset. ‘Listen, I have an idea,’ he added, turning to von Koren. ‘Don’t lend me the hundred roubles. As you’ll be eating here for another three months before winter’s here, you can pay a quarter in advance.’

  ‘I won’t do it.’

  Samoylenko blinked and turned crimson. Mechanically, he drew the book with the spider on it over towards him and inspected it. Then he stood up and reached for his hat.


  Von Koren felt sorry for him. ‘Living and working with a man like that!’ the zoologist said, and indignantly kicked a piece of paper into the corner. ‘Please try and understand that this is not goodness of heart or love, but cowardice, poison! Whatever reason achieves, it’s wrecked by your ineffectual, half-baked emotions! When I had typhoid as a schoolboy, my aunt was so sorry she stuffed me with pickled mushrooms and I nearly died. Both my aunt and yourself should see that love for one’s neighbour should not be in the heart or the pit of the stomach or the small of the back, but here!’ von Koren tapped his forehead. ‘Take it!’ he said and flung a hundred-rouble note in front of him.

  ‘Now don’t upset yourself, Nicholas,’ Samoylenko said meekly as he folded the banknote. ‘I understand you very well, but… put yourself in my position.’

  ‘You’re an old woman, that’s what!’

  The deacon burst out laughing.

  ‘Listen, Alexander, a last request!’ von Koren said heatedly. ‘You should make one condition when you give that swindler the money: either he takes his lady friend with him or he sends her on ahead. Otherwise don’t let him have it. You can’t stand on ceremony with him. Tell him that, but if you don’t, then on my word of honour, I’ll go to his office and throw him down the stairs. And I won’t have anything more to do with you! So there!’

  ‘All right. If he travels with her or sends her on ahead, that will suit him all the more,’ Samoylenko said. ‘He’ll even be glad. Well, goodbye.’

  He made a fond farewell and left, but before shutting the door behind him he looked round at von Koren, pulled a terrible face and said:

  ‘It’s the Germans who’ve corrupted you, my friend. Yes, the Germans!’

  XII

  Next day, a Thursday, Marya Konstantinova was celebrating her son Kostya’s birthday. Everyone had been invited for pies at midday and for chocolate in the evening. When Layevsky and Nadezhda arrived in the evening, the zoologist was already sitting in the drawing-room drinking chocolate.