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Chekhov -
Anna on the Neck
I II
II Meanwhile winter came on. Long before Christmas there was an
announcement in the local papers that the usual winter ball
would take place on the twenty-ninth of December in the Hall of
Nobility. Every evening after cards Modest Alexeitch was
excitedly whispering with his colleagues' wives and glancing at
Anna, and then paced up and down the room for a long while,
thinking. At last, late one evening, he stood still, facing
Anna, and said:
"You ought to get yourself a ball dress. Do you understand? Only
please consult Marya Grigoryevna and Natalya Kuzminishna."
And he gave her a hundred roubles. She took the money, but she
did not consult any one when she ordered the ball dress; she
spoke to no one but her father, and tried to imagine how her
mother would have dressed for a ball. Her mother had always
dressed in the latest fashion and had always taken trouble over
Anna, dressing her elegantly like a doll, and had taught her to
speak French and dance the mazurka superbly (she had been a
governess for five years before her marriage). Like her mother,
Anna could make a new dress out of an old one, clean gloves with
benzine, hire jewels; and, like her mother, she knew how to
screw up her eyes, lisp, assume graceful attitudes, fly into
raptures when necessary, and throw a mournful and enigmatic look
into her eyes. And from her father she had inherited the dark
colour of her hair and eyes, her highly-strung nerves, and the
habit of always making herself look her best.
When, half an hour before setting off for the ball, Modest
Alexeitch went into her room without his coat on, to put his
order round his neck before her pier-glass, dazzled by her
beauty and the splendour of her fresh, ethereal dress, he combed
his whiskers complacently and said:
"So that's what my wife can look like . . . so that's what you
can look like! Anyuta!" he went on, dropping into a tone of
solemnity, "I have made your fortune, and now I beg you to do
something for mine. I beg you to get introduced to the wife of
His Excellency! For God's sake, do! Through her I may get the
post of senior reporting clerk!"
They went to the ball. They reached the Hall of Nobility, the
entrance with the hall porter. They came to the vestibule with
the hat-stands, the fur coats; footmen scurrying about, and
ladies with low necks putting up their fans to screen themselves
from the draughts. There was a smell of gas and of soldiers.
When Anna, walking upstairs on her husband's arm, heard the
music and saw herself full length in the looking-glass in the
full glow of the lights, there was a rush of joy in her heart,
and she felt the same presentiment of happiness as in the
moonlight at the station. She walked in proudly, confidently,
for the first time feeling herself not a girl but a lady, and
unconsciously imitating her mother in her walk and in her
manner. And for the first time in her life she felt rich and
free. Even her husband's presence did not oppress her, for as
she crossed the threshold of the hall she had guessed
instinctively that the proximity of an old husband did not
detract from her in the least, but, on the contrary, gave her
that shade of piquant mystery that is so attractive to men. The
orchestra was already playing and the dances had begun. After
their flat Anna was overwhelmed by the lights, the bright
colours, the music, the noise, and looking round the room,
thought, "Oh, how lovely!" She at once distinguished in the
crowd all her acquaintances, every one she had met before at
parties or on picnics -- all the officers, the teachers, the
lawyers, the officials, the landowners, His Excellency, Artynov,
and the ladies of the highest standing, dressed up and very
dcollettes, handsome and ugly, who had already taken up their
positions in the stalls and pavilions of the charity bazaar, to
begin selling things for the benefit of the poor. A huge officer
in epaulettes -- she had been introduced to him in Staro-Kievsky
Street when she was a schoolgirl, but now she could not remember
his name -- seemed to spring from out of the ground, begging her
for a waltz, and she flew away from her husband, feeling as
though she were floating away in a sailing-boat in a violent
storm, while her husband was left far away on the shore. She
danced passionately, with fervour, a waltz, then a polka and a
quadrille, being snatched by one partner as soon as she was left
by another, dizzy with music and the noise, mixing Russian with
French, lisping, laughing, and with no thought of her husband or
anything else. She excited great admiration among the men --
that was evident, and indeed it could not have been otherwise;
she was breathless with excitement, felt thirsty, and
convulsively clutched her fan. Pyotr Leontyitch, her father, in
a crumpled dress-coat that smelt of benzine, came up to her,
offering her a plate of pink ice.
"You are enchanting this evening," he said, looking at her
rapturously, "and I have never so much regretted that you were
in such a hurry to get married. . . . What was it for? I know
you did it for our sake, but . . ." With a shaking hand he drew
out a roll of notes and said: "I got the money for my lessons
today, and can pay your husband what I owe him."
She put the plate back into his hand, and was pounced upon by
some one and borne off to a distance. She caught a glimpse over
her partner's shoulder of her father gliding over the floor,
putting his arm round a lady and whirling down the ball-room
with her.
"How sweet he is when he is sober!" she thought.
She danced the mazurka with the same huge officer; he moved
gravely, as heavily as a dead carcase in a uniform, twitched his
shoulders and his chest, stamped his feet very languidly -- he
felt fearfully disinclined to dance. She fluttered round him,
provoking him by her beauty, her bare neck; her eyes glowed
defiantly, her movements were passionate, while he became more
and more indifferent, and held out his hands to her as
graciously as a king.
"Bravo, bravo!" said people watching them.
But little by little the huge officer, too, broke out; he grew
lively, excited, and, overcome by her fascination, was carried
away and danced lightly, youthfully, while she merely moved her
shoulders and looked slyly at him as though she were now the
queen and he were her slave; and at that moment it seemed to her
that the whole room was looking at them, and that everybody was
thrilled and envied them. The huge officer had hardly had time
to thank her for the dance, when the crowd suddenly parted and
the men drew themselves up in a strange way, with their hands at
their sides.
His Excellency, with two stars on his dress-coat, was walking up
to her. Yes, His Excellency was walking straight towards her,
for he was staring directly at her with a sugary smile, while he
licked his lips as he always did when he saw a pretty woman.
"Delighted, delighted . . ." he began. "I shall order your
husband to be clapped in a lock-up for keeping such a treasure
hidden from us till now. I've come to you with a message from my
wife," he went on, offering her his arm. "You must help us. . .
. M-m-yes. . . . We ought to give you the prize for beauty as
they do in America. . . . M-m-yes. . . . The Americans. . . . My
wife is expecting you impatiently."
He led her to a stall and presented her to a middle-aged lady,
the lower part of whose face was disproportionately large, so
that she looked as though she were holding a big stone in her
mouth.
"You must help us," she said through her nose in a sing-song
voice. "All the pretty women are working for our charity bazaar,
and you are the only one enjoying yourself. Why won't you help
us?"
She went away, and Anna took her place by the cups and the
silver samovar. She was soon doing a lively trade. Anna asked no
less than a rouble for a cup of tea, and made the huge officer
drink three cups. Artynov, the rich man with prominent eyes, who
suffered from asthma, came up, too; he was not dressed in the
strange costume in which Anna had seen him in the summer at the
station, but wore a dress-coat like every one else. Keeping his
eyes fixed on Anna, he drank a glass of champagne and paid a
hundred roubles for it, then drank some tea and gave another
hundred -- all this without saying a word, as he was short of
breath through asthma. . . . Anna invited purchasers and got
money out of them, firmly convinced by now that her smiles and
glances could not fail to afford these people great pleasure.
She realized now that she was created exclusively for this
noisy, brilliant, laughing life, with its music, its dancers,
its adorers, and her old terror of a force that was sweeping
down upon her and menacing to crush her seemed to her
ridiculous: she was afraid of no one now, and only regretted
that her mother could not be there to rejoice at her success.
Pyotr Leontyitch, pale by now but still steady on his legs, came
up to the stall and asked for a glass of brandy. Anna turned
crimson, expecting him to say something inappropriate (she was
already ashamed of having such a poor and ordinary father); but
he emptied his glass, took ten roubles out of his roll of notes,
flung it down, and walked away with dignity without uttering a
word. A little later she saw him dancing in the grand chain, and
by now he was staggering and kept shouting something, to the
great confusion of his partner; and Anna remembered how at the
ball three years before he had staggered and shouted in the same
way, and it had ended in the police-sergeant's taking him home
to bed, and next day the director had threatened to dismiss him
from his post. How inappropriate that memory was!
When the samovars were put out in the stalls and the exhausted
ladies handed over their takings to the middle-aged lady with
the stone in her mouth, Artynov took Anna on his arm to the hall
where supper was served to all who had assisted at the bazaar.
There were some twenty people at supper, not more, but it was
very noisy. His Excellency proposed a toast:
"In this magnificent dining-room it will be appropriate to drink
to the success of the cheap dining-rooms, which are the object
of today's bazaar."
The brigadier-general proposed the toast: "To the power by which
even the artillery is vanquished," and all the company clinked
glasses with the ladies. It was very, very gay.
When Anna was escorted home it was daylight and the cooks were
going to market. Joyful, intoxicated, full of new sensations,
exhausted, she undressed, dropped into bed, and at once fell
asleep. . . .
It was past one in the afternoon when the servant waked her and
announced that M. Artynov had called. She dressed quickly and
went down into the drawing-room. Soon after Artynov, His
Excellency called to thank her for her assistance in the bazaar.
With a sugary smile, chewing his lips, he kissed her hand, and
asking her permission to come again, took his leave, while she
remained standing in the middle of the drawing-room, amazed,
enchanted, unable to believe that this change in her life, this
marvellous change, had taken place so quickly; and at that
moment Modest Alexeitch walked in . . . and he, too, stood
before her now with the same ingratiating, sugary, cringingly
respectful expression which she was accustomed to see on his
face in the presence of the great and powerful; and with
rapture, with indignation, with contempt, convinced that no harm
would come to her from it, she said, articulating distinctly
each word:
"Be off, you blockhead!"
From this time forward Anna never had one day free, as she was
always taking part in picnics, expeditions, performances. She
returned home every day after midnight, and went to bed on the
floor in the drawing-room, and afterwards used to tell every
one, touchingly, how she slept under flowers. She needed a very
great deal of money, but she was no longer afraid of Modest
Alexeitch, and spent his money as though it were her own; and
she did not ask, did not demand it, simply sent him in the
bills. "Give bearer two hundred roubles," or "Pay one hundred
roubles at once."
At Easter Modest Alexeitch received the Anna of the second
grade. When he went to offer his thanks, His Excellency put
aside the paper he was reading and settled himself more
comfortably in his chair.
"So now you have three Annas," he said, scrutinizing his white
hands and pink nails -- "one on your buttonhole and two on your
neck."
Modest Alexeitch put two fingers to his lips as a precaution
against laughing too loud and said:
"Now I have only to look forward to the arrival of a little
Vladimir. I make bold to beg your Excellency to stand
godfather."
He was alluding to Vladimir of the fourth grade, and was already
imagining how he would tell everywhere the story of this pun, so
happy in its readiness and audacity, and he wanted to say
something equally happy, but His Excellency was buried again in
his newspaper, and merely gave him a nod.
And Anna went on driving about with three horses, going out
hunting with Artynov, playing in one-act dramas, going out to
supper, and was more and more rarely with her own family; they
dined now alone. Pyotr Leontyitch was drinking more heavily than
ever; there was no money, and the harmonium had been sold long
ago for debt. The boys did not let him go out alone in the
street now, but looked after him for fear he might fall down;
and whenever they met Anna driving in Staro-Kievsky Street with
a pair of horses and Artynov on the box instead of a coachman,
Pyotr Leontyitch took off his top-hat, and was about to shout to
her, but Petya and Andrusha took him by the arm, and said
imploringly:
"You mustn't, father. Hush, father!"
NOTES
journey: it cost much less to stay at the monestary guest-houses
than at a hotel; this is the first indication of Modest
Alexeitch's stinginess
uniform of a teacher: both teachers and students in Chekhov's
Russia wore uniforms
the order of St. Anna: Russian decorations came in different
grades; lower grades would be placed in a buttonhole, while
higher grades were pinned on the chest or hung around the neck
screwed up her eyes: action that Russians considered flirtatious
intervals: intermissions
Hall of Nobility: a club and meeting place for the gentry in a
Russian provincial town
dcollettes: cut low at the neckline, fashionable
with three horses: a pretentious style of driving about
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