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Anton Chekhov -
Betrothed
I II
III IV
V VI
IV The wind was beating on the window and on the roof; there was a
whistling sound, and in the stove the house spirit was
plaintively and sullenly droning his song. It was past midnight;
everyone in the house had gone to bed, but no one was asleep,
and it seemed all the while to Nadya as though they were playing
the fiddle below. There was a sharp bang; a shutter must have
been torn off. A minute later Nina Ivanovna came in in her
nightgown, with a candle.
"What was the bang, Nadya?" she asked.
Her mother, with her hair in a single plait and a timid smile on
her face, looked older, plainer, smaller on that stormy night.
Nadya remembered that quite a little time ago she had thought
her mother an exceptional woman and had listened with pride to
the things she said; and now she could not remember those
things, everything that came into her mind was so feeble and
useless.
In the stove was the sound of several bass voices in chorus, and
she even heard "O-o-o my G-o-od!" Nadya sat on her bed, and
suddenly she clutched at her hair and burst into sobs.
"Mother, mother, my own," she said. "If only you knew what is
happening to me! I beg you, I beseech you, let me go away! I
beseech you!"
"Where?" asked Nina Ivanovna, not understanding, and she sat
down on the bedstead. "Go where?"
For a long while Nadya cried and could not utter a word.
"Let me go away from the town," she said at last. "There must
not and will not be a wedding, understand that! I don't love
that man . . . I can't even speak about him."
"No, my own, no!" Nina Ivanovna said quickly, terribly alarmed.
"Calm yourself -- it's just because you are in low spirits. It
will pass, it often happens. Most likely you have had a tiff
with Andrey; but lovers' quarrels always end in kisses!"
"Oh, go away, mother, oh, go away," sobbed Nadya.
"Yes," said Nina Ivanovna after a pause, "it's not long since
you were a baby, a little girl, and now you are engaged to be
married. In nature there is a continual transmutation of
substances. Before you know where you are you will be a mother
yourself and an old woman, and will have as rebellious a
daughter as I have."
"My darling, my sweet, you are clever you know, you are
unhappy," said Nadya. "You are very unhappy; why do you say such
very dull, commonplace things? For God's sake, why?"
Nina Ivanovna tried to say something, but could not utter a
word; she gave a sob and went away to her own room. The bass
voices began droning in the stove again, and Nadya felt suddenly
frightened. She jumped out of bed and went quickly to her
mother. Nina Ivanovna, with tear-stained face, was lying in bed
wrapped in a pale blue quilt and holding a book in her hands.
"Mother, listen to me!" said Nadya. "I implore you, do
understand! If you would only understand how petty and degrading
our life is. My eyes have been opened, and I see it all now. And
what is your Andrey Andreitch? Why, he is not intelligent,
mother! Merciful heavens, do understand, mother, he is stupid!"
Nina Ivanovna abruptly sat up.
"You and your grandmother torment me," she said with a sob. "I
want to live! to live," she repeated, and twice she beat her
little fist upon her bosom. "Let me be free! I am still young, I
want to live, and you have made me an old woman between you!"
She broke into bitter tears, lay down and curled up under the
quilt, and looked so small, so pitiful, so foolish. Nadya went
to her room, dressed, and sitting at the window fell to waiting
for the morning. She sat all night thinking, while someone
seemed to be tapping on the shutters and whistling in the yard.
In the morning Granny complained that the wind had blown down
all the apples in the garden, and broken down an old plum tree.
It was grey, murky, cheerless, dark enough for candles; everyone
complained of the cold, and the rain lashed on the windows.
After tea Nadya went into Sasha's room and without saying a word
knelt down before an armchair in the corner and hid her face in
her hands.
"What is it?" asked Sasha.
"I can't . . ." she said. "How I could go on living here before,
I can't understand, I can't conceive! I despise the man I am
engaged to, I despise myself, I despise all this idle, senseless
existence."
"Well, well," said Sasha, not yet grasping what was meant.
"That's all right . . . that's good."
"I am sick of this life," Nadya went on. "I can't endure another
day here. To-morrow I am going away. Take me with you for God's
sake!"
For a minute Sasha looked at her in astonishment; at last he
understood and was delighted as a child. He waved his arms and
began pattering with his slippers as though he were dancing with
delight.
"Splendid," he said, rubbing his hands. "My goodness, how fine
that is!"
And she stared at him without blinking, with adoring eyes, as
though spellbound, expecting every minute that he would say
something important, something infinitely significant; he had
told her nothing yet, but already it seemed to her that
something new and great was opening before her which she had not
known till then, and already she gazed at him full of
expectation, ready to face anything, even death.
"I am going to-morrow," he said after a moment's thought. "You
come to the station to see me off. . . . I'll take your things
in my portmanteau, and I'll get your ticket, and when the third
bell rings you get into the carriage, and we'll go off. You'll
see me as far as Moscow and then go on to Petersburg alone. Have
you a passport?"
"Yes."
"I can promise you, you won't regret it," said Sasha, with
conviction. "You will go, you will study, and then go where fate
takes you. When you turn your life upside down everything will
be changed. The great thing is to turn your life upside down,
and all the rest is unimportant. And so we will set off
to-morrow?"
"Oh yes, for God's sake!"
It seemed to Nadya that she was very much excited, that her
heart was heavier than ever before, that she would spend all the
time till she went away in misery and agonizing thought; but she
had hardly gone upstairs and lain down on her bed when she fell
asleep at once, with traces of tears and a smile on her face,
and slept soundly till evening.
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