Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, 1892-1895

by Anton Chekhov

  He reached the level crossing and the dark hut where the keeper lived. The barrier was raised and all around were massive snowdrifts and clouds of snow whirling like witches at a sabbath. The track was crossed here by an old road, once a main trunk route and still called the highway. On the right, just by the level crossing and on the road, was Terekhov’s inn, an old coaching-house. A small light always glimmered there at night.

  When Matvey arrived home the whole house, even the hall, smelled strongly of incense. Cousin Yakov Ivanych was still celebrating vespers. In the corner of the ‘chapel’ where the service was being held, facing the door, stood an icon-case filled with old-fashioned family icons, all in gilt, and both walls to right and left were covered with icons in the old and new style, some in cases, some without. On the table, draped with a cloth that touched the floor, was an icon of the Annunciation, as well as a cross made from cypress wood, and a censer. Candles were burning. Near the table stood a lectern. As he passed the chapel, Matvey stopped to look through the door. Yakov Ivanych was reading at the lectern and worshipping with him was his sister Aglaya, a tall, skinny old woman in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief. Yakov Ivanych’s daughter Dashutka was there as well – she was an ugly girl of about eighteen, covered in freckles. As usual, she was barefoot and wearing the dress in which she watered the cattle in the evenings.

  ‘Glory to Thee who has shown us the light!’ chanted Yakov Ivanych as he bowed low.

  Aglaya propped her chin on her hand and, without hurrying, sang in a thin, shrill voice. From the room above came vague voices: they sounded sinister and seemed to be issuing threats. After the fire of long ago no one had lived on the upper storey; the windows were boarded up and empty bottles were scattered about on the floor between the wooden beams. The wind banged and howled up there and it sounded as though someone was running around and stumbling over the beams.

  Half of the ground floor was taken up by the inn and the Terekhovs lived in the other, so when drunken visitors called at the inn they could hear every word from their living-room. Matvey lived next to the kitchen in a room with a large stove, where they had baked the bread every day when the coaching-inn had been there. Dashutka, without her own room, had her little space here, behind the stove. At night a cricket was always chirping and mice scurried about.

  Matvey lit a candle and started reading a book he had borrowed from the railway policeman. While he sat reading, the prayers finished and everyone went to bed, Dashutka included. She immediately started snoring but soon woke up and said, yawning, ‘Uncle Matvey, you shouldn’t waste candles.’

  ‘It’s my own’, Matvey replied. ‘I bought it myself.’

  Dashutka tossed and turned for a while, then fell asleep again. Matvey stayed up for a long time, as he did not feel sleepy, and when he had finished the last page he took a pencil from a trunk and wrote in the book: ‘I, Matvey Terekhov, have read this book and I find it the best of all those read by me, in which I hereby impress me grettitude to Kuzma Nikolayev Zhukov, senior officer of the railway police, owner of the aforesaid priceless book.’

  He considered it only polite to make inscriptions in other people’s books.

  II

  When Annunciation Day arrived, after they had seen the mail train off, Matvey sat in the refreshment room drinking tea with lemon, and talking. The buffet attendant and Constable Zhukov were listening.

  ‘Let me tell you’, Matvey was saying, ‘even when I was a nipper I was all for relidgun. When I was only twelve I was already reading the Acts and the Epistles3 in church and this was a great comfort to my parents. And every summer I used to go on a pilgrimage with Mother, God rest her soul. Other boys used to sing songs or go after crayfish, but I stayed with Mother. The older folk thought well of me and I was pleased, because I was such a well-behaved boy. And after I’d gone off to the tile-works with Mother’s blessing I’d sing tenor in our choir, in my spare time, never enjoyed anything so much. Of course, I didn’t touch vodka, or smoke, and I kept myself clean. As you know, the Devil don’t like that way of life and took it into his head to ruin me and he began to cloud my mind, just as he’s doing to Cousin Yakov. The first thing I did was vow to fast on Mondays and not to eat meat on any day, and it wasn’t long before I went a bit soft in the head. The Holy Fathers say you must have cold dry food in the first week in Lent, up to the Saturday, but it’s no sin for the weak or them that toil to have a cup of tea even. Not a crumb passed my lips until the Sunday. And the whole of Lent I didn’t take a scrap of butter, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I didn’t eat anything at all. It was the same during the minor fasts. At St Peter’s Fast my mates at the works had their fish soup, but I would just suck a dry biscuit. Some folk are stronger than others, of course, but I didn’t find it too hard on fast days, and in fact the harder you try, the easier it is. You only get hungry during the first few days, but then you take it in your stride, it gets easier and easier and by the end of the week it’s not hard at all and all you have is that numb feeling in your legs, as though you were walking on clouds. And what’s more, I imposed all sorts of penances on myself – I’d get up at night and prostrate myself, drag heavy stones around and walk barefoot in the snow. And I’d wear irons.

  ‘But a little later, when I was at confession, the idea suddenly dawned on me: that priest’s married, he doesn’t keep the fasts and he smokes. Then why should he hear me confess, what authority did he have to pardon my sins, with him more of a sinner than me? I even kept away from vegetable oil, but he’d have his sturgeon all right, I dare say. I went to another priest, but as luck would have it I landed myself with a real fatty in a silk cassock that rustled like a lady’s dress – and he smelt of tobacco too. I went to a monastery to prepare for communion, but I was ill at ease there too, it struck me the monks didn’t keep to their rules. After that I couldn’t find any kind of church service to my liking. In one place they rushed it or sang the wrong hymns, in another the lay reader spoke through his nose. And there was once a time – God forgive me, sinner that I am – when I’d stand in the church seething with rage, and that’s no way to pray. And it seemed to me that the congregation weren’t crossing themselves properly or listening right. Whoever I looked at seemed to be a drunkard, fast-breaker, smoker, fornicator, card-sharper. Only I kept the Commandments. The Devil didn’t sleep and things got even worse. I didn’t sing in the choir any more and didn’t go to church. I didn’t think the church was good enough for a godly man like me. I was a fallen angel, swollen-headed beyond belief. Then I tried to start my own church. I rented a poky little room from a deaf woman a long way out of town, by the cemetery, and I set up a chapel – like my cousin’s, but I had proper candlesticks and a real censer. In this chapel I abided by the rules of Mount Athos,4 that’s to say, matins always began at midnight, and on the eve of the twelve great festivals vespers went on for ten, sometimes twelve hours even. According to their rules monks could sit while the Psalms and Parables were read, but I wanted to go one better, so I stood up the whole time. I wept and sighed as I read and sang, dragging everything out and lifting my arms up. And I went straight from prayers to work, without any sleep, and I’d still be praying while I worked.

  ‘Well now, people in town started saying, “Matvey’s a saint, Matvey heals the sick and insane.” Of course, I never healed anyone, but everyone knows when you have any kind of schism or heresy you just can’t keep the women away, they’re like flies round a jam-pot. Some women and old maids started calling on me, threw themselves at my feet, kissed my hand and shouted that I was a saint and so on. One of them even saw a halo round my head. It grew cramped in my chapel, so I took a larger room and it was absolute bedlam! The Devil really had his claws into me and his accursed hooves blotted the true light from my eyes. And we all seemed possessed by the Devil. I’d read, and the old girls and maids would sing. After going without food or drink for long periods, after being on their feet for twenty-four hours or more they’d suddenly get the shakes, as if they’d ca
ught a fever. Then one would cry out, then another – it was terrifying! And I was shaking all over too, like a cat on hot bricks and I didn’t know why. There we were, all jumping about! It’s very odd, I must say, when you are jumping away and swinging your arms, and you can’t stop yourself. After this there was shouting and screaming, and we all danced and kept chasing each other till we dropped. This was how, in one of these frenzied fits, I became a fornicator.’

  The policeman burst out laughing, but became serious when he saw no one else was.

  ‘It’s like the Molokans’,5 he said. ‘I’ve read they’re all that way inclined in the Caucasus.’

  ‘But I was not struck by lightning’, Matvey went on, crossing himself before the icon and moving his lips. ‘My mother must have prayed in heaven for me. When everyone in town thought me a saint and even fine ladies and gents started visiting me on the sly for comfort, I chanced to go and see the boss, Osip Varlamych, to ask him to forgive me, as it was Forgiveness Day.6 Well, he put the latch on the door and there we were, the two of us face to face. He gave me a real ticking-off. I should mention that Osip Varlamych’s got no education, but he’s no fool and everyone feared and respected him, because he led a strict and holy life and was a real hard worker. He’d been mayor and churchwarden for twenty years, I think, and he did a lot of good. He laid gravel on the New Moscow Road and had the church painted – the pillars were done up to look like malkalite.

  ‘So he shuts the door. “I’ve been after you for a long time, you damned so-and-so,” he says. “Think you’re a saint, do you? No, you’re no saint, but an apostate, a heretic and a scoundrel!” On and on he went, can’t say it the way he did, all smooth and clever like in books, enough to make you weep, it was. He carried on for two hours. His words struck home and my eyes were opened. I listened and listened – and I just sobbed my heart out! And he said, “Be like normal men, eat, drink, dress and pray like everyone else. Doing more than you ought is the work of the Devil. Those irons of yours are the Devil’s, your fasts are from the Devil and your chapel’s a Devil’s chapel. It’s all pride.”

  ‘Next day – the first Monday in Lent – God willed me to fall ill. I’d strained myself and was taken to hospital. I suffered something cruel I did, wept bitter tears and trembled. I thought I’d go straight from hospital to hell, and it nearly finished me off. About six months I lay suffering in bed and when they let me out the first thing I did was take proper communion and I became a human being again.

  ‘Osip Varlamych let me go home. “Now don’t forget, Matvey,” he ordered, “doing more than you should is the Devil’s work.” So now I eat and drink and pray like everyone else. If I meet an old priest who smells of tobacco or spirits I daren’t condemn him, as priests are normal human beings too. But the moment I hear some holy man’s set himself up in the town or country and doesn’t eat for weeks, keeping to his own rules, then I know for sure who’s at the bottom of it all. Well, my dear sirs, all that happened to me once. And now I’m just like Osip Varlamych, I order my cousin and his sister around, I reproach them, but mine is a voice of one crying in the wilderness.7 God didn’t grant me the gift.’

  Matvey’s story evidently made no impression at all. Sergey Nikanorych said nothing and began clearing food from the counter, while the police constable observed how rich Matvey’s cousin Yakov Ivanych was: ‘He’s worth at least thirty thousand.’

  Constable Zhukov was red-haired, full-faced (his cheeks quivered as he walked), healthy and well-fed. When his superiors weren’t around he usually sprawled in his chair, his legs crossed. He would rock to and fro as he spoke, nonchalantly whistling, with a smug, sated expression as if he had just had dinner. He had plenty of money and always spoke of it as if he were an expert on the subject. He was a commission agent and whenever people had an estate, a horse or a second-hand carriage to sell they would come to him.

  ‘Yes, he could be worth thirty thousand’, Sergey Nikanorych agreed. ‘Your grandpa had a large fortune’, he added, turning to Matvey. ‘Really enormous! Then everything went to your father and uncle. Your father died young and your uncle got the lot, and then Yakov Ivanych of course. While you were going round churches and monasteries with your mother and singing in the factory choir, there were some here who weren’t standing idle.’

  ‘Your share’s about fifteen thousand’, the policeman said, rocking in his chair. ‘The inn’s jointly owned by you, so’s the capital. Yes. If I’d been in your shoes I’d have sued them long ago. Of course, I’d have taken him to court, but while it was being sorted out I’d have got him to one side and given him a right good bash in the mug.’

  Yakov Ivanych was not liked, because people with queer beliefs tend to upset others, even those who are indifferent to religion. And in any case the policeman did not like him, as he too dealt in horses and second-hand carriages.

  ‘You won’t sue your cousin because you’ve plenty of money of your own’, the buffet attendant told Matvey, giving him an envious look. ‘It’s all right for those what has means, but I’ll probably be stuck here in this job until I die.’

  Matvey tried to assure them that he had no money at all, but Sergey Nikanorych was not listening any more. Memories of his past life, of the daily insults he had suffered, came flooding over him. His bald head sweated, he went red in the face and blinked.

  ‘Oh, this damned life!’ he exclaimed, deeply annoyed, and threw a piece of sausage on the floor.

  III

  The coaching-inn was said to have been built back in Alexander I’s reign by a widow, Avdotya Terekhov, who had settled there with her son. Travellers passing in mail coaches, especially on moonlit nights, would feel depressed and strangely uneasy at the sight of that dark yard with its lean-to shed and perpetually locked gates. It was as if the place were the haunt of sorcerers or robbers. Drivers would look back and urge on their horses every time they went past. People never liked staying overnight there, as the innkeepers were always unfriendly and charged exorbitant prices. The yard was muddy even in summer and huge fat pigs wallowed in the muck; horses – the Terekhovs were dealers – wandered around loose, often becoming restive; then they would race out of the yard and tear like mad down the road, frightening women pilgrims. In those days there was a lot of traffic. Long trains of loaded wagons would pass through and there were incidents, like the one about thirty years ago for example, when some angry wagoners had lost their tempers, started a fight and murdered a passing merchant. A crooked cross still stands about a quarter of a mile from the inn. Mail troikas with bells and landowners’ heavy dormeuses8 would drive by, and herds of bellowing cattle passed in clouds of dust.

  When they first built the railway, there had been only a halt here, simply called a passing-point. Then about ten years later the present Progonnaya Station was built. The traffic along the old post road almost vanished; now it was used only by local landowners and peasants, and in spring and autumn gangs of workmen crowded along it on foot. The coaching-inn became just an ordinary tavern. The top floor was damaged by fire, the roof went yellow with rust, the lean-to shed gradually collapsed, but enormous fat pigs – pink and revolting – still wallowed in the mud in the yard. As before, horses would sometimes tear out of the yard and race furiously down the road with tails streaming. At the inn they sold tea, hay, oats, flour, as well as vodka or beer for consumption on or off the premises. They were a little tight-lipped about the alcohol they sold, however, since they had never been licensed.

  The Terekhovs had always been renowned for their piety and had even earned the nickname ‘Pillars of the Faith’. But perhaps because they lived like bears, keeping to themselves, avoiding company and thinking out things for themselves, they were prone to wild dreaming, religious wavering, and almost every generation had its own approach to religion and matters of faith.

  Grandma Avdotya, who had built the coaching-inn, was an Old Believer, but her son and two grandsons (Matvey and Yakov’s fathers) worshipped at the Orthodox Church, entertained the
clergy and prayed to the new icons just as reverently as to the old. In his old age her son gave up meat and took a vow of silence, considering any kind of talk at all a sin, while the grandsons were odd in not taking the Scriptures at their face value – they were always seeking some hidden meaning, maintaining that every holy word must hold some secret. Avdotya’s great-grandson Matvey had struggled against lack of faith since he was a young boy and this was very nearly his undoing. Yakov, the other great-grandson, was Orthodox, but he suddenly stopped going to church when his wife died, and worshipped at home. Aglaya followed his bad example, stayed away from church and did not let Dashutka go either. It was said that when Aglaya was a young girl she used to go to Flagellant meetings at Vedenyapino and that she was still a secret member of the sect, which was why she went around in a white kerchief.9

  Yakov Ivanych was ten years older than Matvey. He was a handsome old man, tall, with a broad grey beard that nearly reached his waist and bushy eyebrows that lent his face a grim, even malevolent expression. He wore a long coat of good cloth, or a black sheepskin jacket, and always tried to dress neatly and decently. Even in fine weather he wore galoshes. He stayed away from church because, in his opinion, they did not observe the rites properly and because the priests drank wine at the wrong times and smoked. Every day he read and sang the service at home with Aglaya. During matins at Vedenyapino they did not read the canon, omitted vespers – even on high holidays – whereas he read through the prescribed portion at home, not hurrying or leaving out one line. In his spare time he would read aloud from the lives of the saints. And in his everyday life he stuck close to the rules. For example, if wine was permitted on a certain day during Lent ‘because of the long vigil’, he would invariably have a drink, even if he did not feel like one.