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A.P. Chekhov -
Ionitch
I II
III VI
V
I
WHEN visitors to the provincial town S----
complained of the dreariness and monotony of life, the
inhabitants of the town, as though defending themselves,
declared that it was very nice in S----, that there was a
library, a theatre, a club; that they had balls; and, finally,
that there were clever, agreeable, and interesting families with
whom one could make acquaintance. And they used to point to the
family of the Turkins as the most highly cultivated and
talented.
This family lived in their own house in the principal street,
near the Governor's. Ivan Petrovitch Turkin himself -- a stout,
handsome, dark man with whiskers -- used to get up amateur
performances for benevolent objects, and used to take the part
of an elderly general and cough very amusingly. He knew a number
of anecdotes, charades, proverbs, and was fond of being humorous
and witty, and he always wore an expression from which it was
impossible to tell whether he were joking or in earnest. His
wife, Vera Iosifovna -- a thin, nice-looking lady who wore a
pince-nez -- used to write novels and stories, and was very fond
of reading them aloud to her visitors. The daughter, Ekaterina
Ivanovna, a young girl, used to play on the piano. In short,
every member of the family had a special talent. The Turkins
welcomed visitors, and good-humouredly displayed their talents
with genuine simplicity. Their stone house was roomy and cool in
summer; half of the windows looked into a shady old garden,
where nightingales used to sing in the spring. When there were
visitors in the house, there was a clatter of knives in the
kitchen and a smell of fried onions in the yard -- and that was
always a sure sign of a plentiful and savoury supper to follow.
And as soon as Dmitri Ionitch Startsev was appointed the
district doctor, and took up his abode at Dyalizh, six miles
from S----, he, too, was told that as a cultivated man it was
essential for him to make the acquaintance of the Turkins. In
the winter he was introduced to Ivan Petrovitch in the street;
they talked about the weather, about the theatre, about the
cholera; an invitation followed. On a holiday in the spring --
it was Ascension Day -- after seeing his patients, Startsev set
off for town in search of a little recreation and to make some
purchases. He walked in a leisurely way (he had not yet set up
his carriage), humming all the time:
" 'Before I'd drunk the tears from life's goblet. . . .' "
In town he dined, went for a walk in the gardens, then Ivan
Petrovitch's invitation came into his mind, as it were of
itself, and he decided to call on the Turkins and see what sort
of people they were.
"How do you do, if you please?" said Ivan Petrovitch, meeting
him on the steps. "Delighted, delighted to see such an agreeable
visitor. Come along; I will introduce you to my better half. I
tell him, Verotchka," he went on, as he presented the doctor to
his wife --"I tell him that he has no human right to sit at home
in a hospital; he ought to devote his leisure to society.
Oughtn't he, darling?"
"Sit here," said Vera Iosifovna, making her visitor sit down
beside her. "You can dance attendance on me. My husband is
jealous -- he is an Othello; but we will try and behave so well
that he will notice nothing."
"Ah, you spoilt chicken!" Ivan Petrovitch muttered tenderly, and
he kissed her on the forehead. "You have come just in the nick
of time," he said, addressing the doctor again. "My better half
has written a 'hugeous' novel, and she is going to read it aloud
to-day."
"Petit Jean," said Vera Iosifovna to her husband, "dites que
l'on nous donne du th."
Startsev was introduced to Ekaterina Ivanovna, a girl of
eighteen, very much like her mother, thin and pretty. Her
expression was still childish and her figure was soft and slim;
and her developed girlish bosom, healthy and beautiful, was
suggestive of spring, real spring.
Then they drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats, and with
very nice cakes, which melted in the mouth. As the evening came
on, other visitors gradually arrived, and Ivan Petrovitch fixed
his laughing eyes on each of them and said:
"How do you do, if you please?"
Then they all sat down in the drawing-room with very serious
faces, and Vera Iosifovna read her novel. It began like this:
"The frost was intense. . . ." The windows were wide open; from
the kitchen came the clatter of knives and the smell of fried
onions. . . . It was comfortable in the soft deep arm-chair; the
lights had such a friendly twinkle in the twilight of the
drawing-room, and at the moment on a summer evening when sounds
of voices and laughter floated in from the street and whiffs of
lilac from the yard, it was difficult to grasp that the frost
was intense, and that the setting sun was lighting with its
chilly rays a solitary wayfarer on the snowy plain. Vera
Iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess founded a school,
a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in love with a
wandering artist; she read of what never happens in real life,
and yet it was pleasant to listen -- it was comfortable, and
such agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one
had no desire to get up.
"Not badsome . . ." Ivan Petrovitch said softly.
And one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away,
said hardly audibly:
"Yes . . . truly. . . ."
One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band
was playing and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut
her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes,
listening to "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song
gave what was not in the novel and is in real life.
"Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera
Iosifovna.
"No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away
in my cupboard. Why publish?" she explained. "We have enough to
live on."
And for some reason every one sighed.
"And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to
his daughter.
The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was
opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with
both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then
again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately
banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not
leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. The
drawing-room was filled with the din; everything was resounding;
the floor, the ceiling, the furniture. . . . Ekaterina Ivanovna
was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account
of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening,
pictured stones dropping down a steep hill and going on
dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping; and at
the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violent
exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over
her forehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at
Dyalizh among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room,
to watch this young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure
creature, and to listen to these noisy, tedious but still
cultured sounds, was so pleasant, so novel. . . .
"Well, Kitten, you have played as never before," said Ivan
Petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had
finished and stood up. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything
better."
All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed
astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard
such music, and she listened in silence with a faint smile, and
her whole figure was expressive of triumph.
"Splendid, superb!"
"Splendid," said Startsev, too, carried away by the general
enthusiasm. "Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina
Ivanovna. "At the Conservatoire?"
"No, I am only preparing for the Conservatoire, and till now
have been working with Madame Zavlovsky."
"Have you finished at the high school here?"
"Oh, no," Vera Iosifovna answered for her, "We have teachers for
her at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or
a boarding school, you know. While a young girl is growing up,
she ought to be under no influence but her mother's."
"All the same, I'm going to the Conservatoire," said Ekaterina
Ivanovna.
"No. Kitten loves her mamma. Kitten won't grieve papa and
mamma."
"No, I'm going, I'm going," said Ekaterina Ivanovna, with
playful caprice and stamping her foot.
And at supper it was Ivan Petrovitch who displayed his talents.
Laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams,
asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the
whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course
of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a
habit: "Badsome," "Hugeous," "Thank you most dumbly," and so on.
But that was not all. When the guests, replete and satisfied,
trooped into the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there
bustled about them the footman Pavlusha, or, as he was called in
the family, Pava -- a lad of fourteen with shaven head and
chubby cheeks.
"Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him.
Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic
tone: "Unhappy woman, die!"
And every one roared with laughter.
"It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the
street.
He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to
walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing:
" 'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing. . . .' "
On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six
miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with
pleasure have walked another twenty.
"Not badsome," he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep.
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