Ward No. 6 and Other Stories

by Anton Chekhov

  He did not read, sing or burn incense in the hope that God might shower his blessings down on him, but for form’s sake. Man cannot live without faith, and faith must be correctly expressed, from year to year and from day to day according to established formulae which laid down that man should address God each morning and evening with the exact words and thoughts appropriate to that particular day or hour. His life, and therefore his method of prayer, must be pleasing to God and so he should read and sing each day only what pleased God, that is, what was laid down by Church law. Therefore the first chapter of St John should be read only on Easter Sunday, and from Easter Sunday till Ascension Day certain hymns must not be sung. Awareness of this procedure and its importance gave Yakov Ivanych great pleasure during hours of prayer. When he was forced to depart from his routine – having to fetch goods from town or go to the bank – then his conscience tormented him and this made him feel wretched.

  When Cousin Matvey unexpectedly arrived from the tile-works, making the inn his home, he started breaking the rules right from the start. He did not wish to pray with the others, had his meals and tea at the wrong times, got up late and drank milk on Wednesdays and Fridays because of his poor health. Almost every day, at prayer-time, he would go into the chapel and shout: ‘Listen to reason, Cousin! Repent, Cousin!’ This would make Yakov Ivanych see red and Aglaya lose her temper and start swearing. Or Matvey would sneak into the chapel at night and softly say: ‘Cousin, your prayer is not pleasing to the Lord, as it is said, “First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”10 But you’re nothing but a money-lender and a vodka trader. Repent!’

  In Matvey’s words Yakov could see only the usual lame excuse made by empty, sloppy people who always talk about ‘love thy neighbour’, ‘be reconciled with thy brother’ and the rest of it just to avoid fasting, praying and reading sacred books, and who turn their noses up at profit and interest because they don’t like hard work. Indeed, it’s far easier being poor, not to save up – much easier than being rich.

  For all this, he felt worried and could not worship as he used to. No sooner did he enter the chapel and open his book than he began to feel apprehensive – any moment his cousin might come in and interrupt him. And in fact Matvey would soon appear and shout in a trembling voice, ‘Come to your senses, Cousin! Repent, Cousin!’ His sister would start cursing and Yakov would lose his temper and shout, ‘Clear out of my house!’

  Matvey told him, ‘This house belongs to all of us.’

  Yakov would return to his reading and singing but was never able to calm himself and he would suddenly start daydreaming over his book without even noticing it. Although he thought his cousin’s words were nonsense, why had he recently taken to thinking that it was hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, that he had done very nicely out of that stolen horse he had bought two years ago, that a drunk had died at the inn from too much vodka, in his wife’s lifetime?…

  Now he slept very badly, lightly at night and he heard Matvey, who could not sleep either, sighing as he pined for his tile-works. And as he tossed and turned Yakov recalled that stolen horse, the drunkard, what the Gospels said about camels.

  He was beginning to have doubts again, it seemed. And although it was already the end of March, it snowed every day, as if on purpose; the forest roared as though it were winter and it seemed impossible that spring would ever come. This kind of weather made everyone bored, quarrelsome and hateful, and when the wind howled above the ceiling at night it seemed someone was living up there in the empty storey. And then doubts gradually flooded his mind, his head burnt and he did not want to sleep.

  IV

  On the morning of the Monday in Passion Week, Matvey was in his room and could hear Dashutka saying to Aglaya, ‘A few days ago Uncle Matvey was telling me I don’t need to fast.’

  Matvey remembered the whole conversation he’d had with Dashutka the previous day and suddenly felt insulted.

  ‘That’s a sinful way to speak, girl’, he said in the moaning voice of a sick man. ‘There has to be fasting. Our Lord Himself fasted forty days. I was just trying to tell you even fasting won’t help the wicked.’

  ‘Just hark at him with his tile-work sermons, trying to teach us to be good’, scoffed Aglaya as she washed the floor (she normally washed the floors on weekdays and lost her temper with everyone in the process). ‘We know how they fast at the tile-works! Just ask that old uncle of yours about his little darling, how him and that filthy bitch guzzled milk in Lent. Likes preaching to others all right but forgets that slut quick enough. Ask him who he left the money with. Who?’

  Matvey took pains to hide the fact, as though it were a festering sore, that when he’d been frisking about and making merry with those old women and young girls at prayer meetings he had had an affair with a woman from the town, who bore him a child. Before he went home he gave her everything he had saved up at the tile-works and borrowed the money for his fare from the boss. And now he had only a few roubles for tea and candles. Later on his ‘darling’ informed him that the baby had died, and wrote to ask what she should do with the money. The workman brought the letter from the station but Aglaya intercepted it and read it, and every day after that kept reproaching Matvey about his ‘darling’.

  ‘Mere chicken-feed, only nine hundred roubles!’ Aglaya continued. ‘Gave nine hundred to a stranger, that bitch, that factory tart! Damn you!’ She flew off the handle and shrieked, ‘Nothing to say for yourself then? I could tear you to pieces, you spineless wretch! Nine hundred roubles, like chicken-feed! You should have left it to Dashutka, she’s your own flesh and blood. Or sent it to the poor orphans’ home in Belyov. Why couldn’t she choke, that cow of yours, blast her! Bloody bitch, damn her eyes! May she rot in hell!’

  Yakov Ivanych called her, as it was time to begin lauds. She washed, put on a white kerchief and now went quietly and meekly to her beloved brother in the chapel. When she spoke to Matvey or served tea to peasants at the inn she was a skinny, sharp-eyed old hag, but in chapel she looked pure and radiant. Making elaborate curtsies, coyly pursing her lips even, she looked so much younger.

  As always during Lent, Yakov Ivanych began to read the offices in a soft, mournful voice. After a little while he stopped to savour the calm that reigned over the whole house. Then he started reading again, deriving great pleasure from it. He clasped his hands as if to pray, turned his eyes up, shook his head and sighed.

  Suddenly he heard some voices. Sergey Nikanorych and the policeman had come to visit Matvey. Yakov Ivanych felt awkward reading out loud and singing with strangers in the house and now the sound of voices made him read slowly, in a whisper. In the chapel they could hear what the buffet attendant was saying:

  ‘The Tartar at Shchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred. He’ll accept five hundred now and we can draw up a bill of exchange for the rest. So please, Matvey Vasilich, help me out and lend me the five hundred. I’ll pay you two per cent a month interest.’

  Matvey was staggered and said, ‘But what money? What money have I got?’

  ‘Two per cent a month would be a godsend for you’, the policeman explained. ‘But if the money’s left lying around here, it’ll only be food for moths and that’ll do you no good at all.’

  The visitors left and silence fell. But Yakov had hardly returned to his reading and singing than a voice came through the door: ‘Cousin, give me a horse, I want to go to Vedenyapino.’

  It was Matvey. Yakov felt uneasy again. ‘But which one?’ he asked after a moment’s thought. ‘The workman’s taking the bay to cart a pig and I’m off to Shuteykino on the stallion as soon as I’m finished here.’

  ‘My dear cousin, why are you allowed to do what you want with the horses while I’m not?’ Matvey asked angrily.

  ‘Because I’m not going on a joyride, they’re needed for a job.’

  ‘The property belongs to all of us, that means horses as well. You must understand that, Cousin.’

&nbs
p; Silence fell. Yakov did not go back to his devotions, but waited for Matvey to go away from the door.

  ‘Cousin’, Matvey said, ‘I’m a sick man, I don’t want any part of the estate. You can keep it, I don’t care, but just let me have enough to live on seeing as I’m so poorly. Give it to me and I’ll go away.’

  Yakov did not reply. He dearly wanted to be rid of Matvey, but he could not let him have any money, since it was all tied up in the business. Among the whole Terekhov clan there had never been a single case of cousins sharing – that meant going broke.

  Yakov still said nothing, waiting for Matvey to leave and he kept looking at his sister, frightened she might interfere and start another quarrel like they’d had that morning. When Matvey had gone at last he went back to his reading, but he took no enjoyment in it. His head was heavy from all those prostrations, his eyes were dim and he found the sound of his own soft, mournful voice most monotonous. When he was depressed like this at night he ascribed it to lack of sleep, but during the day it scared him and he began to think devils were sitting on his head and shoulders.

  After he somehow finished reading the offices he left for Shuteykino, feeling disgruntled and irritable. In the autumn, navvies had dug a boundary ditch near Progonnaya and run up a bill for eighteen roubles at the inn: now he had to catch their foreman in Shuteykino and get his money. The thaw and snowstorms had ruined the road. It was dark, full of potholes and already breaking up in places. The snow was lying lower than the road level, along the verges, so that it was like driving along a narrow embankment. Giving way to oncoming traffic was quite a job. The sky had been overcast since morning and a moist wind was blowing…

  A long train of sledges was coming towards him – some women were carting bricks – so Yakov had to turn off the road. His horse sank up to its belly in the snow, his one-man sledge tilted to the right. He bent over to the left to stop himself falling off and sat that way while the sledges slowly moved past. Through the wind he could hear the sledges creaking, the skinny horses panting, and the women saying: ‘There goes His Grace.’ One of them looked pityingly at his horse and said quickly, ‘Looks like the snow’ll last until St George’s Day. We’re fair worn out!’

  Yakov sat uncomfortably hunched, screwing up his eyes in the wind as horses and red bricks went by. Perhaps it was because he felt cramped and had a pain in his side that he suddenly began to feel annoyed; the purpose of his journey struck him as unimportant and he concluded that he could send his man to Shuteykino tomorrow. Once again, as on the last sleepless night, he recalled the words about the camel and then all sorts of memories came to mind – the peasant who sold him the stolen horse, the drunkard, the women who pawned their samovars with him. Of course, every trader was out for all he could get, but he was tired of it and wanted to go as far away as he could from that mode of life. The thought that he would have to read vespers that evening depressed him. The wind that lashed him right in the face and rustled in his collar seemed to be whispering all these thoughts to him, carrying them from the wide white fields… As he looked at these fields he had known from childhood, Yakov remembered having had just the same feelings of apprehension, just the same worries as a young man, when he was assailed by serious doubts and his faith began to waver.

  It was frightening being all alone in the open fields and he turned back and slowly followed the sledge train. The women laughed and said, ‘His Grace’s turned back.’

  As it was Lent, no cooking was done at home and they did not use the samovar, which made the day seem very long. Yakov Ivanych had long ago stabled the horse and sent flour to the station. Once or twice he had started reading the Psalms, but it was a long time till evening. Aglaya had already washed down the floors and for something to do was tidying her trunk. The inside of its lid had bottle labels stuck all over it. Hungry and depressed, Matvey sat reading or went over to the tiled stove, where he stood a long time inspecting the tiles, which made him think of the works. Dashutka slept, but soon woke up again and went off to water the cattle. As she was drawing water from the well, the rope broke and the bucket fell into the water. The workman hunted around for a hook to haul it out with, and Dashutka followed him over the muddy snow, her bare feet as red as a goose’s. She kept repeating, ‘It’s dippy there!’ – she wanted to say the water in the well was too deep for the hook, but the man did not understand. Evidently she had got on his nerves, as he suddenly turned round and swore at her. Yakov happened to come out into the yard just then and heard Dashutka quickly reply with a stream of choice obscenities she could only have picked up from drunken peasants at the inn. He shouted at her and even became quite frightened: ‘What’s that, you shameless bitch? What kind of language is that?’

  She gave her father a stupid, puzzled look, not understanding why such words were forbidden. He wanted to give her a good telling-off, but she seemed so barbarous, so ignorant. For the very first time since she had been with him he realized that she believed in nothing. His whole way of life – the forests, snow, drunken peasants, swearing – struck him as just as wild and barbarous as the girl, so instead of telling her off he merely waved his arm and went back to his room.

  Just then the policeman and Sergey Nikanorych came back to see Matvey again. Yakov Ivanych recalled that these people had no faith either – this didn’t worry them in the least and his life seemed strange, mad and hopeless, a real dog’s life in fact. He paced up and down the yard bareheaded, then he went out into the road and walked up and down with fists clenched (at that moment the snow began to fall in large flakes) and his beard streamed in the wind. He kept shaking his head, as something seemed to be weighing down on his head and shoulders – it was just as though devils were sitting on them. It was not he who was wandering about, so he thought, but some huge and terrifying wild beast, and it seemed he only had to shout for his voice to roar through the fields and woods, terrifying everyone…

  V

  When he returned to the house, the policeman had gone and the buffet attendant was sitting in Matvey’s room working with his abacus. Earlier he had been in the habit of calling at the inn almost every day. Then he would go and see Yakov Ivanych, but now it was Matvey. He was always busy with his abacus, and then his face would be tense and sweaty; or he would ask for money, or stroke his whiskers and tell how he had once made punch for some officers at a main-line station and had personally served the sturgeon soup at regimental dinners. His sole interest in life was catering, his sole topic of conversation food, cutlery and wines. Once, wanting to say something pleasant, he had told a young mother feeding her baby, ‘A mother’s breast is milk-bar for baby!’

  As he worked away at the abacus in Matvey’s room he asked for money, saying he could not live at Progonnaya any more and as if about to burst into tears he asked, ‘Oh, where can I go now? Please tell me where I can go?’

  Then Matvey came into the kitchen and started peeling some boiled potatoes he had probably put by the day before. It was quiet and Yakov Ivanych thought that the buffet attendant had gone. It was high time for vespers. He called Aglaya and, thinking no one was at home, began singing in a loud, uninhibited voice. He sang and read, but in his mind he recited something quite different, ‘Lord forgive me! Lord save me!’

  And without stopping he performed a series of low bows, as though he wanted to tire himself out, shaking his head the whole time so that Aglaya looked at him in astonishment. He was scared Matvey might come in – he was convinced he would and neither his prayers nor his many prostrations were enough to suppress his feeling of anger towards him.

  Matvey opened the door extremely quietly and entered the chapel. ‘What a sin, what a sin!’ he sighed reproachfully. ‘Repent! Come to your senses, Cousin!’

  Yakov dashed out of the chapel, fists clenched, without looking at him, in case he was tempted to hit him. He felt he was a huge terrible beast again – the same feeling he’d had a little while before on the road – and he crossed the hall into the grey, dirty part of the inn,
thick with haze and smoke, where peasants usually drank their tea. For some time he paced up and down, treading so heavily that the china on the shelves rattled and the tables shook. Now he realized quite clearly that he was no longer satisfied with the way he believed and he could no longer carry on praying as before. He must repent, come to his senses, see reason, live and worship somehow differently. But how was he to worship? Perhaps all this was only the Devil trying to confuse him and he really needed to do none of these things?… What would happen? What should he do? Who could teach him? How helpless he felt! He stopped, clutched his head and started to think, but could not take stock of everything in peace, since Matvey was so near. And he quickly returned to the living-quarters.

  Matvey was sitting in the kitchen eating from a bowl of potatoes which he had in front of him. Aglaya and Dashutka were sitting in the kitchen too, by the stove, facing each other and winding yarn. An ironing-board had been set up between the stove and the table where Matvey was sitting; on it was a cold flat-iron.

  ‘Cousin Aglaya’, asked Matvey, ‘give me some oil, please!’

  ‘But no one has oil in Lent!’ Aglaya said.

  ‘I’m not a monk, Cousin Aglaya, I’m an ordinary man. Being so poorly I’m even allowed milk, let alone oil.’

  ‘You factory lot think you can do just what you like!’

  Aglaya reached for a bottle of vegetable oil from the shelf and banged it angrily in front of Matvey with a spiteful grin, obviously delighted to see he was such a sinner.

  ‘I’m telling you, you’re not allowed any oil!’ Yakov shouted.

  Aglaya and Dashutka shuddered, but Matvey poured some oil into his bowl and went on eating as though he had not heard.