Ward No. 6 and Other Stories

by Anton Chekhov

  To flatter Anna Akimovna he produced a few more sentences that were derogatory to his own social position, and he was obviously trying to lower himself, since he considered he was her superior. Meanwhile she had finished the letter and sealed it. The letter would be thrown away, the money would not be spent on medicine – all this she knew and yet she still put twenty-five roubles on the table, adding two ten-rouble notes after further reflection. Mrs Chalikov’s gaunt yellow hand flashed before her like a hen’s claw, crumpling the money.

  ‘You’ve been kind enough to give us money for medicine’, Chalikov said in a trembling voice. ‘But please lend me a helping hand – and my children as well’, he added, sobbing. ‘My poor, poor children! I don’t fear for myself, but for my daughters. I fear the Hydra of corruption!’

  As she tried to open her purse with its jammed lock, Anna Akimovna grew flushed with embarrassment. She felt ashamed that people were standing there before her, looking at her hands, waiting, and most probably silently laughing at her. Just then someone entered the kitchen and stamped his feet to shake the snow off.

  ‘The lodger’s back’, Mrs Chalikov said.

  Anna Akimovna grew even more embarrassed. She did not want any of the factory workers to find her in that ridiculous situation. And then, at the worst possible moment, the lodger came into his room – just as she had finally managed to break the lock open and was handing Chalikov some banknotes, while that same Chalikov bellowed like a paralytic and moved his lips as if looking for somewhere to kiss her. She recognized the lodger as that workman who had once made an iron sheet clatter in front of her in the foundry and had explained things to her. Clearly, he had come straight from the works, as his face was smudged with soot. His hands were completely black and his unbelted shirt gleamed with greasy dirt. He was a broad-shouldered man, about thirty, of medium height, with black hair and he was obviously very strong. Anna Akimovna immediately recognized that foreman whose wages were not less than thirty-five roubles a month. He was a harsh, loud-mouthed man who knocked workmen’s teeth out – that was plain from the way he stood, from the pose he suddenly, instinctively, assumed when he saw a lady in his room, but chiefly from his habit of wearing his trousers outside his boots, from the pockets on the front of his shirt, from his sharp, beautifully trimmed beard. Although her late father Akim Ivanych had been the owner’s brother, he had been scared of foremen like this lodger and tried to keep in their good books.

  ‘Excuse me, we seem to have set up house here while you were out’, Anna Akimovna said.

  The workman gave her a surprised look, smiled awkwardly, but did not say a word.

  ‘Please speak a bit louder, ma’am’, Chalikov said softly. ‘When he comes home of an evening Mr Pimenov’s a bit hard of hearing.’

  But Anna Akimovna, pleased now that there was nothing more to do there, nodded and left quickly. Pimenov saw her out.

  ‘Have you been working for us long?’ she asked in a loud voice, without looking at him.

  ‘Since I was nine. I got my job in your uncle’s time.’

  ‘That was ages ago! My uncle and father knew all the workers, but I know hardly any of them. I’ve seen you before, but I didn’t know that your name is Pimenov.’

  Anna Akimovna felt that she should defend herself by pretending she hadn’t been serious just before, when she gave the money away – that it was only a joke.

  ‘Oh, this poverty!’ she sighed. ‘We do good deeds every single day, but it makes no sense. I think it’s pointless trying to help people like Chalikov.’

  ‘How right you are’, Pimenov agreed. ‘Everything you give him will go on drink. And now that husband and wife will spend the whole night squabbling and trying to take the money away from each other’, he added, laughing.

  ‘Yes, our acts of charity are useless, tiresome and ludicrous, I must admit. However, one can’t just give up the struggle; something has to be done. Now, what can be done about those Chalikovs?’

  She turned to Pimenov and stopped, waiting for his answer. He stopped too and slowly shrugged his shoulders without saying a word. Evidently he knew what should be done about the Chalikovs, but this was so crude and inhuman that he could not bring himself to mention it. For him, the Chalikovs were so boring and mediocre that a moment later he had forgotten all about them. As he looked into Anna Akimovna’s eyes he smiled with pleasure, like someone having a wonderful dream. Only now as she stood close to him could Anna Akimovna tell from his face, particularly his eyes, how exhausted and sleepy he was.

  ‘I should give him the fifteen hundred!’ she thought, but the idea struck her as rather absurd, and insulting to Pimenov.

  ‘You must be aching all over from that work, but it doesn’t stop you seeing me out’, she said, going downstairs. ‘Please go back.’

  But he did not hear. When they came out into the street he ran on ahead, unbuttoned the sledge cover and said ‘Happy Christmas!’ to Anna Akimovna as he helped her into her seat.

  II

  MORNING

  ‘The bells stopped ringing ages ago! There’ll be no one left in church by the time you get there! Heaven help us! Please get up!’

  ‘Two horses running, running…’ Anna Akimovna said as she woke up. Masha, her red-haired maid, was standing before her with a candle. ‘What’s the matter? What do you want?’

  ‘The service is over already!’ Masha said despairingly. ‘It’s the third time I’ve tried to wake you! I don’t care if you sleep till evening, but you yourself asked me to wake you.’

  Anna Akimovna raised herself on her elbow and looked out of the window. Outside it was still quite dark, apart from the lower edge of the window frame that was white with snow. The rich, deep ringing of bells could be heard, but it came from a parish church some distance away. The clock on the small table showed three minutes past six.

  ‘All right, Masha… Just two minutes’, Anna Akimovna pleaded, covering her head with the blanket.

  She pictured the snow by the porch, the sledge, the dark sky, the crowded church and the smell of juniper, but despite the misgivings this filled her with she decided to get up right away and go to early service. The whole time she lay there in her warm bed, struggling against sleep – sleep is so sweet when one has to get up – and conjuring up visions of a huge garden on a hill, Gushchin’s house, there was the nagging thought that she should get up immediately and go to church.

  But when she did get up it was quite light and the clock showed half past nine. During the night a great deal of fresh snow had piled up, the trees were clothed in white and the air was unusually bright, clear and serene, so that when Anna Akimovna looked through the window she wanted first to take a very deep breath. But as she was washing herself, a vestige of the joy she had felt as a child on Christmas Day stirred within her – and then she felt easier, free and pure at heart, as if her soul itself had been cleansed or dipped in white snow. In came Masha, in her best clothes and tightly corseted, and wished her happy Christmas, after which she spent a long time combing her hair and helping her to dress. The smell and feel of that beautiful, magnificent new dress, with its rustle, and the smell of fresh perfume all excited Anna Akimovna.

  ‘So, it’s Christmas’, she gaily told Masha. ‘Now let’s do some fortune-telling.’

  ‘Last year it came out that I would marry an old man. Three times it came out like that, it did.’

  ‘Don’t worry, God is merciful.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, ma’am. As I see it, I’d be better off married to an old man than running around getting nowhere’, Masha sighed sadly. ‘I’m past twenty now and that’s no joke.’

  Everyone in the house knew that red-haired Masha was in love with Misha the butler and that this deep but hopeless passion had lasted for three years now.

  ‘Don’t talk such nonsense’, Anna Akimovna said consolingly. ‘I’ll soon be thirty, but I still intend marrying someone young.’

  While the mistress of the house was dressing, Misha – in his
new tailcoat and lacquered boots – paced the ballroom waiting for her to come out so that he could wish her happy Christmas.

  He had his own peculiar manner of walking, and treading softly and delicately. If you watched his legs, arms and the angle of his head you might have thought that he wasn’t just walking, but practising the first figure of the quadrille. Despite his fine, velvety moustache and his handsome, even rather roguish exterior, he was as staid, sober-minded and pious as an old man. He always prostrated himself when praying and he loved burning incense in his room. He respected and revered the rich and influential, but he despised the poor and any kind of humble petitioner with the whole might of his ‘holier-than-thou’ flunkey’s soul. Under his starched shirt was a flannel vest which he wore winter and summer – he attached great importance to his health. His ears were stuffed with cottonwool.

  When Anna Akimovna and Masha came across the ballroom, he leant his head downwards, slightly to one side, and said in a pleasant, sugary voice, ‘I have the honour, ma’am, to offer my compliments on the solemn occasion of Jesus Christ’s nativity.’

  Anna Akimovna gave him five roubles and poor Masha was stunned. His festive appearance, his pose, his voice and what he said astounded her with their elegance and beauty. As she followed her mistress she had no thoughts, saw nothing, smiling first blissfully and then bitterly.

  The upper storey was called ‘the best rooms’ or ‘the apartment’, whereas the lower floor, where Aunt Tatyana Ivanovna held sway, was called the ‘tradesmen’s’, ‘old people’s’ or simply the ‘women’s quarters’. In the best rooms they usually received upper-class, educated people, and in the downstairs section ordinary people and Auntie’s personal friends. Beautiful, buxom, healthy, still young and fresh, and highly conscious of her magnificent dress, which, she felt, was radiating light in all directions, Anna Akimovna went down to the lower floor.

  There she was greeted with reproaches: an educated person like her had forgotten God, had missed morning service by oversleeping and had not come down to break her fast. All clasped their hands and assured her most sincerely that she was exceptionally pretty. She took them at their word and laughed, kissed them and gave them one, three or five roubles each, depending on the person. She liked it downstairs. Wherever she looked there were icon-cases, icons, icon-lamps, portraits of church dignitaries. It smelt of monks. Knives clattered in the kitchen and a rich, very savoury smell spread everywhere. The yellow stained floors shone and narrow rugs with bright blue stripes stretched like little paths from the doors to the corners where the icons were. The sun blazed through the windows.

  Some old women – strangers – were sitting in the dining-room. In Barbara’s room there were old women as well, together with a deaf and dumb girl who appeared very shy and who kept making a mumbling sound. Two skinny little girls who had been asked over from the orphanage for the holidays came up to kiss Anna Akimovna’s hand but stopped, dumbfounded by the richness of her dress. She noticed that one of the girls was a little cross-eyed, and although she was in a relaxed, holiday mood, her heart suddenly sank at the thought that the girl would be ignored by the young men and would never marry. Five huge peasants in new shirts – not factory workers but relatives of the kitchen servants – were sitting over the samovar in Agafya the cook’s room. As soon as they saw Anna Akimovna the peasants jumped up and stopped chewing, out of politeness, although all had a full mouth. Stefan her chef, in white hat and knife in hand, came out from the kitchen to wish them merry Christmas. House porters in felt boots arrived and offered their good wishes too. A water-carrier with icicles on his beard showed his face but dared not enter.

  Anna Akimovna walked through all the rooms, the whole assembly following her: Auntie, Barbara, Nikandrovna, Martha the seamstress, and ‘downstairs Masha’. Slim and slender, taller than anyone else in the house, dressed all in black and smelling of cypress wood and coffee, Barbara crossed herself and bowed before the icon in every room. Each time you looked at her you were somehow reminded that she had prepared her own shroud for the day she died, and that in the same trunk where she kept this shroud she had hidden her lottery tickets.

  ‘Come on, Anna dear, show some Christmas spirit!’ she said, opening the kitchen door. ‘Forgive that miserable wretch! What a crowd!’

  Panteley the coachman, who had been dismissed for drunkenness in November, was on his knees in the middle of the kitchen. A kind man, he was liable to become violent when drunk. Then he just couldn’t sleep and he marched round the factory blocks shouting menacingly ‘I know everything!’ From his bloated lips, puffy face and bloodshot eyes it was plain that he had been on the bottle non-stop since November.

  ‘Please forgive me, Anna Akimovna!’ he said hoarsely, banging his forehead on the floor and revealing a neck like a bull’s.

  ‘It was my aunt who dismissed you, so go and ask her.’

  ‘Did you say “aunt”?’ asked Auntie as she came puffing and panting into the kitchen. She was so fat one could have put a samovar and tray of cups on her chest. ‘What’s all this about your aunt? You’re mistress here, so you see to it. I’d rather these ruffians cleared out of here altogether. Come on, get up, you great pig!’ she shouted, losing patience. ‘Out of my sight! I’ll forgive you this one last time, but if it happens again don’t expect any mercy.’

  They went into the dining-room for coffee. People could be heard blowing their noses and there was a low, deep coughing and a sound of footsteps as if newly shod horses were being led into the anteroom near the ballroom. All was quiet for about half a minute, then suddenly the carol singers shrieked so loud that everyone jumped. While they sang, the almshouse priest arrived with the deacon and lay reader. As he put on his stole the priest slowly declared that ‘it had snowed during the night when the bells were ringing for early morning service’, that ‘it hadn’t been cold but towards morning the frost began to harden, confound it, and it was twenty below, in all likelihood’.

  ‘Many people, however, maintain that winter is healthier than summer’, the deacon said, but he immediately assumed a serious expression and followed the priest in singing ‘Thy Nativity, Oh, Christ Our Lord’.2

  Shortly after, the priest from the factory sickbay arrived, then nurses from the community hospital and children from the orphanage. The singing went on almost non-stop. They sang, they ate, they left.

  About twenty of the works staff came to offer their compliments of the season. They were all senior men – engineers, their assistants, pattern-makers, the accountant and so on. All looked eminently respectable in their new black frock-coats and they were all fine men, the select few, and each knew his worth. If any one of them were to lose his job that day, another factory would be only too pleased to take him on tomorrow. They seemed to take a great liking to Anna Akimovna’s aunt, since they were relaxed with her and even smoked, while the accountant put his arm around her ample waist as they all crowded over to the food. Perhaps they felt so free and easy because Barbara, who had wielded great power in the old man’s day and had been custodian of the servants’ morals, now had no authority at all in the house. Perhaps another reason was that many of them still remembered the time when Aunt Tatyana, who was kept on a tight rein by her brothers, had dressed like a simple peasant, in the same style as Agafya, and when even Miss Anna had run round the yard near the factory blocks and everyone had called her Annie.

  The factory staff ate their food, talked and glanced at Anna Akimovna in bewilderment. How she had grown up, how pretty she had become! But this elegant girl, brought up by governesses and tutors, was a stranger to them, a mystery, and they could not help staying close to the aunt, who spoke to them as though they were on her level, constantly urged them to eat and drink and clinked glasses with them, having already drunk two glasses of rowanberry vodka. Anna Akimovna had always feared that they might think she was vain, an upstart, a crow in peacock’s feathers. And now, as the staff crowded around the food, she stayed in the dining-room, where she took par
t in the conversation. She asked Pimenov, whom she had met the day before, ‘Why are there so many clocks in your room?’

  ‘I repair them’, he replied. ‘It’s something I do in my spare time, during holidays, or when I can’t sleep.’

  ‘So, if my watch goes wrong I can ask you to repair it?’ Anna Akimovna asked, laughing.

  ‘Of course, that would give me great pleasure’, Pimenov said, and he seemed deeply touched when, without knowing why, she unhooked her magnificent watch from her corsage and handed it to him. Silently he inspected it. ‘Why, yes, with pleasure’, he repeated. ‘I don’t usually repair pocket watches nowadays. My eyes are bad and the doctor advised me not to do any close work. But for you I’ll make an exception.’

  ‘Doctors are liars’, the accountant said. Everyone burst out laughing. ‘Don’t you believe what they say’, he continued, flattered by the laughter. ‘Last year, during Lent, a cog-wheel flew out of a drum and hit old Kalmykov right on the head; you could see his brains. The doctor said he would die, but he’s still alive and working, only he talks with a stutter after what happened.’

  ‘Doctors can talk rubbish, I do agree, but not that much’, Auntie sighed. ‘Pyotr Andreyevich, God rest his soul, lost his sight. Like you, he worked all day in the factory near a hot furnace and he went blind. Heat damages the eyes. Well, what’s the use of talking?’ She gave a start. ‘Let’s have a drink! Merry Christmas, my dears! I don’t usually drink, but I’ll have one with you. God forgive me! Cheers!’

  After what had happened yesterday, Anna Akimovna felt that Pimenov despised her as a ‘do-gooder’, but that, as a woman, she enchanted him. She glanced at him and it seemed he was behaving very nicely and was properly dressed for the occasion. True, his coat sleeves were rather short, the waist was too high and the trousers not broad, according to the latest style. On the other hand his tie was knotted with tasteful neglect and it wasn’t as loud as the others’. And he clearly was a good-natured man, for he obediently ate everything that Auntie put on his plate. She remembered how black he had looked the day before, how much he had wanted to sleep, and for some reason the memory of it moved her.