About Love and Other Stories

by Anton Chekhov

  ‘Oh Mama, you know it isn’t good for you to sleep in the daytime,’ said Zhenya, kissing her hand.

  They adored one another. When one of them went out into the garden, the other would immediately go and stand on the veranda and call out in the direction of the trees, ‘Zhenya, dear!’ or ‘Mama, where are you?’ They always prayed together and shared a strong faith, and they understood each other, even when they were silent. And they interacted with people in the same way. Yekaterina Pavlovna just as quickly got used to me and became fond of me, and if I did not appear for two or three days, she would send someone to find out whether I was ill. She also delighted in looking at my sketches and would inform me, just as ingenuously and talkatively as Missius, what had being going on, often entrusting me with her domestic secrets.

  She was in awe of her elder daughter. Lida was never affectionate and always talked about serious matters. She lived her own particular life, and for her mother and her sister she was as sacred and slightly mysterious a creature as an admiral who always sits in his cabin must seem to his sailors. ‘Lida really is a remarkable person,’ her mother would often say; ‘don’t you think?’

  We began to talk about Lida while it was spitting rain.

  ‘She really is a remarkable person,’ said her mother, and then, looking round warily, added in a whisper, in a furtive tone: ‘You won’t find another like her, but I do begin to worry a bit, you know. The school, the medicines, the books–it’s all very well, but why does it have to be so extreme? She is twenty-four already, after all; it’s time she thought about herself. If you get caught up in books and handing out medicines you might not notice life going by… She ought to get married.’

  Pale-faced from all her reading, and her hair in a mess, Zhenya looked up and said, as if to herself, but looking at her mother:

  ‘Everything depends on God’s will, Mama darling!’

  Then she buried herself in her book again.

  Belokurov arrived, decked out in his embroidered peasant shirt and coat. We played croquet and lawn-tennis, then spent a long time over supper when it grew dark, and Lida again talked about the schools and about Balagin, who had taken control of the whole district. As I left the Volchaninovs that evening, I carried away with me an impression of an incredibly long day spent in complete idleness, as well as a sad recognition that everything in this world must come to an end, no matter how long it lasts. Zhenya accompanied us as far as the gates, and perhaps because she had spent the whole day with me, from morning until night, I then felt rather lonely without her, and I realized that all her lovely family were dear to me. For the first time that summer I had an urge to paint.

  ‘So why do you lead such a dull, monochrome life?’ I asked Belokurov as we walked home. ‘My life is difficult, dull, and monotonous because I am an artist. I know I am peculiar; ever since I was young I have been tormented by envy, dissatisfaction with myself, and a lack of faith in what I do. I am always hard-up, and will never be settled, but you, on the other hand, are a normal, healthy person, a landowner, a gentleman–why do you live so uninterestingly, why don’t you get more out of life? I mean, why haven’t you fallen in love with Lida or Zhenya yet?’

  ‘You’re forgetting that I love another woman,’ answered Belokurov.

  He was referring to his friend Lyubov Ivanovna, who lived with him in the annex. I used to see this lady walking every day with a parasol in the garden, in traditional Russian costume complete with beads, while the servant would periodically invite her to come and eat or drink tea. She was plump and chubby-faced, like a fattened-up goose, and vain too. About three years before, she had rented one of the annexes for the summer, and had just stayed on, living with Belokurov on a permanent basis, or so it appeared. She was about ten years older than him and kept him on a tight leash, so that he had to ask permission if he wanted to go anywhere. She would often start sobbing in a deep masculine-sounding voice, and then I would have someone inform her that I would move out unless she stopped; and then she did.

  When we got home, Belokurov sat down on the sofa, his brows furrowed in thought, while I paced up and down the room, feeling quietly excited, as if I was in love. I wanted to talk about the Volchaninovs.

  ‘Lida could only love someone on the zemstvo, who is as mad as she is about hospitals and schools,’ I said. ‘But for a girl like that, most men would not think twice about becoming a member of the zemstvo; they would be ready to wear out a pair of iron boots, * like in the fairy tale. Then there’s Missius, of course. She’s so lovely!’

  Belokurov began a long diatribe about pessimism, the sickness of the age, complete with heavy sighs. He talked forcefully, as if I was arguing with him. Even endless miles of bleak, empty, scorched steppe are less depressing than a person who just sits and talks for ever and ever. ‘But the problem isn’t pessimism or optimism,’ I said finally, with irritation; ‘but that ninety-nine per cent of people don’t have brains.’ Belokurov thought I was talking about him, took offence, and left.

  III

  ‘The prince is staying at Malozyomovo and sends his regards,’ said Lida to her mother, as she took off her gloves after returning from somewhere. ‘He had some very interesting things to say… He promised to raise the question of the medical centre again at the county meeting, but he said there was little hope of success.’ And turning me to me, she said: ‘I’m sorry, I always forget that this can’t be of any interest to you.’ I was annoyed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, shrugging my shoulders. ‘You’re not keen to know my opinion, but I can assure you that I take a lively interest in this subject.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. In my opinion, a medical centre in Malozyomovo is quite unnecessary.’

  My irritation was transferred to her; she looked at me through narrowed eyes and asked:

  ‘What is necessary then? Landscape paintings?’

  ‘Landscapes aren’t necessary either. Nothing is needed there.’

  She finished pulling off her gloves and opened the newspaper which had just been brought from the post office. A minute later she said quietly, with obvious self-restraint:

  ‘Last week Anna died in childbirth, but if there had been a medical centre nearby she would have survived. I think gentlemen landscape painters ought to have some views on this subject.’

  ‘I have some very definite views on this subject, I can assure you,’ I replied. She closed the newspaper as if she did not want to listen. ‘In my opinion, medical centres, schools, libraries, and first-aid kits can only prolong enslavement under current conditions. The poor are bound by a huge chain, and you aren’t breaking that chain, just adding new links. There you are–that’s my view.’

  She raised her eyes to me, and smiled sarcastically while I continued, trying to elucidate my main idea.

  ‘The issue is not whether Anna died in childbirth, but that all these Annas, Mavras, and Pelageyas are bent double from dawn till dusk, getting ill from overwork. They constantly worry about their hungry, sick children, they are constantly scared of death and disease, they constantly have to take medication, they fade early, they grow old early, and then they die amidst dirt and stench. Their children repeat the whole cycle when they grow up, and so it goes on for hundreds of years, with millions of people living worse than animals in a permanent state of fear–and all for the sake of earning a living. Surely the most awful thing about their position is that they never have time to think about their souls, or even remember that they are human beings. Hunger, coldness, visceral fear, and endless work all block them like snowdrifts from pursuing a spiritual life, which is the one thing that distinguishes human beings from animals and makes life worth living. You turn up to help them with hospitals and schools, but that isn’t going to clear their path, it’s just going to enslave them more, because when you bring into their lives new standards, you increase the number of their needs, and that’s quite apart from the fact that they have to pay the zemstvo for the ointments and books, forci
ng them to work even harder.’

  ‘I’m not going to get into an argument with you,’ said Lida, putting the newspaper down. ‘I’ve heard all this before. I’ll say only one thing to you, which is that you can’t just sit there and do nothing. It’s true that we are not going to save mankind, and are mistaken in many respects, but we are doing what we can, and we are right to do so. Our greatest and noblest duty as educated people is to serve our fellow human beings, and we are trying to do that as best we can. You don’t like it, but then one can’t please everybody, can one?’

  ‘You’re right, Lida, absolutely,’ her mother said.

  She always became shy in Lida’s presence, and would look at her anxiously while she was speaking, afraid of saying something superfluous or out of place; she never contradicted her, but was always in agreement: you’re right, Lida, absolutely.

  ‘Peasant literacy, books with pathetic homilies and sayings, and first-aid kits can’t reduce ignorance or mortality, just as the light from your windows cannot light up this huge garden,’ I said. ‘You aren’t contributing anything by interfering in these people’s lives; you are just creating new needs, and new reasons why they have to work.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, one has got to do something though,’ said Lida in annoyance. I could tell from the tone of her voice that she despised my argument and found it worthless.

  ‘People should be freed from heavy physical labour,’ I said. ‘We need to lighten their load and give them some breathing-space, so that they don’t spend their entire lives by the stove, at the trough, or in the field, but have time to think about their souls, about God, and can develop spiritually. The greatest duty of any person with a spiritual life must be to keep searching for truth and for the meaning of life. Make all this crude physical labour unnecessary, give them a taste of freedom, and then you will see how ridiculous all these books and first-aid kits are. As soon as people acknowledge their true vocation, it will be satisfied only by religion, science, or art, and certainly not by these petty things.’

  ‘Free them from work!’ snorted Lida. ‘You think that’s really possible?’

  ‘Yes. Take a share of their work. If all of us town-dwellers and people from the countryside agreed without exception to share out the work expended by humanity on the satisfaction of our physical needs, then no one would have to work more than two or three hours a day. Just imagine all of us, rich and poor, working only three hours a day–we would have the rest of the time free. And imagine if we invented machines to replace physical labour, so we wouldn’t have to depend on our bodies so much and could work less, and could also try to reduce our needs to a minimum. We would harden ourselves, and our children, so they wouldn’t be afraid of going hungry or being cold and we wouldn’t constantly fret about their health, as Anna, Mavra, and Pelageya do. Just imagine us not having to take medicines, not having to run pharmacies, tobacco factories, or distilleries–think how much free time we would have! We could collaborate in devoting this leisure time to science and the arts. Like the peasants who sometimes join forces to mend the roads together, we would join forces to seek the truth and the meaning of life together, and–I am quite convinced of this–the truth would be revealed to us very rapidly; people would rid themselves of this constantly agonizing and oppressive fear of death, and even from death itself.’

  ‘But you are contradicting yourself,’ said Lida. ‘You keep talking about science, but you reject literacy.’

  ‘The kind of literacy when a person can only read signs on taverns and the occasional book he can’t understand has been around since the vikings. * Gogol’s Petrushka * learned to read a long time ago, but the villages are just the same as they were under Ryurik. We don’t need more literacy, but the freedom to develop our spiritual potential to the full. We don’t need schools, we need universities.’

  ‘But you reject medicine too.’

  ‘Yes. It should be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural phenomena, not for finding their cure. If you are going to cure something, then it shouldn’t be the disease, but its cause. If you remove the main cause–manual labour–then there won’t be any disease. I don’t recognize science which just provides treatment,’ I continued breathlessly. ‘True science and true art are never about the ephemeral and the individual, but about the eternal and universal. We are talking about truth and the meaning of life, God, and the soul, but if art and science have to get embroiled with contemporary needs and problems, with medical supplies and libraries and the like, then we just end up making life more complicated and burdensome. We have plenty of doctors, pharmacists, and lawyers, and there are lots of literate people out there now, but there aren’t enough biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, and poets. All that intellect and emotional energy goes towards satisfying temporary, transient needs… Scientists, writers, and artists work round the clock, and thanks to them our home comforts are increasing by the day. The body’s needs increase, but truth is still a long way off, and human beings are still the most predatory and slovenly animals on earth. Everything is leading to the degeneration of most of mankind and the permanent loss of any vitality. The life of an artist does not have any point under these conditions, and the more talented the artist, the stranger and more incomprehensible his role becomes, since it turns out that he is working for the amusement of a predatory, slovenly animal, while just maintaining the status quo. So I don’t want to work, and I am not going to… We don’t need anything; let the country go back to the Tatars!’ *

  ‘Missius, dear, would you leave us?’ said Lida to her sister, obviously worried about the effect of what I was saying on such a young girl.

  Zhenya looked sadly at her sister and at her mother and went out.

  ‘People usually voice such charming sentiments when they want to justify their own indifference,’ said Lida. ‘It’s easier to denigrate hospitals and schools than to treat people and teach them.’

  ‘That’s right, Lida,’ said her mother; ‘absolutely.’

  ‘You threaten not to work,’ Lida continued. ‘So it’s obvious that you value your painting highly. Let’s stop arguing. We will never see eye to eye, since I value even the most imperfect libraries and first-aid kits, to which you refer so dismissively, more highly than all the landscape paintings in the world.’ And turning to her mother, she immediately added, in quite a different tone, ‘The prince has got very thin and has changed a great deal since the last time he was with us. He’s being sent to Vichy.’ *

  She was talking to her mother about the prince to avoid having to talk to me. Her face was burning, and in order not to let me see how upset she was, she leant closely over the table, as if she was shortsighted, and pretended to read the newspaper. My presence was not welcome. I said goodbye and set off home.

  IV

  It was quiet in the courtyard. The village on the other side of the pond had already gone to sleep, and there was not a single light to be seen, just a few pale reflections from the stars glimmering dimly on the surface of the pond. Zhenya was standing motionless by the gates with lions, waiting to say goodbye to me.

  ‘Everyone is asleep in the village,’ I said to her, trying to make out her face in the darkness, and seeing a pair of dark, sad eyes focused on me. ‘The innkeeper and the horse-thief are sound asleep, while respectable people like us get irritated with each other and argue.’

  It was a wistful August night–wistful because there was already a hint of autumn in the air. The moon had risen, but was obscured by a purple cloud, and barely illuminated the road and the dark fields of winter crops growing on either side. There were many shooting stars. Zhenya walked along the road beside me, trying not to look up at the sky so she would not see the shooting stars, which for some reason frightened her.

  ‘I think you are right,’ she said, shivering from the night’s dampness. ‘If people could just work together and devote themselves to spiritual concerns then we would soon know about everything.’

  ‘Of cour
se. We are superior beings, and if we could actually realize the extent of human genius and live for higher goals, then we would eventually become like gods. But this won’t ever happen–humanity is degenerating and there won’t be any trace of genius left soon.’

  When the gates were no longer visible, Zhenya stopped and shook hands with me hurriedly.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said, shivering. Her shoulders were covered with only a thin blouse and she was hunched up from the cold. ‘Come tomorrow.’

  The prospect of being left alone, irritated, fed up with myself and others, was too ghastly, and even I tried not to look at the shooting stars now.

  ‘Spend one more minute with me,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  I loved Zhenya. I think I loved her because whenever I went to visit, she would always come out to meet me, and accompany me part of the way home, and because she looked at me with such obvious affection and appreciation. Her pale face, her slender neck, her slender hands, her frailty, her indolence, and her books all had a poignant beauty. And her mind? I suspected she had an exceptional mind; certainly the breadth of her views amazed me, perhaps because she had a different outlook from the severe, beautiful Lida, who had no liking for me. Zhenya liked me because I was an artist; I had won her heart with my talent, and I passionately wanted to paint just for her. I dreamed she was my own little queen, and that one day we would own the trees and fields, the mists and the dawns, and all this wonderful, enchanting countryside, where I still felt so desperately useless and lonely. ‘Just stay one more minute,’ I entreated her. ‘Please.’

  I took off my coat and covered her frozen shoulders with it, but she giggled and then threw it off, because she was afraid of looking stupid and unattractive in a man’s coat. It was then that I put my arms round her, and began to cover her face, her shoulders, and her hands with kisses.