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A.P. Chekhov -
The Kiss
AT eight o'clock on the evening of the
twentieth of May all the six batteries of the N---- Reserve
Artillery Brigade halted for the night in the village of
Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the general commotion was
at its height, while some officers were busily occupied around
the guns, while others, gathered together in the square near the
church enclosure, were listening to the quartermasters, a man in
civilian dress, riding a strange horse, came into sight round
the church. The little dun-coloured horse with a good neck and a
short tail came, moving not straight forward, but as it were
sideways, with a sort of dance step, as though it were being
lashed about the legs. When he reached the officers the man on
the horse took off his hat and said:
"His Excellency Lieutenant-General von Rabbek invites the
gentlemen to drink tea with him this minute. . . ."
The horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; the messenger
raised his hat once more, and in an instant disappeared with his
strange horse behind the church.
"What the devil does it mean?" grumbled some of the officers,
dispersing to their quarters. "One is sleepy, and here this Von
Rabbek with his tea! We know what tea means."
The officers of all the six batteries remembered vividly an
incident of the previous year, when during manoeuvres they,
together with the officers of a Cossack regiment, were in the
same way invited to tea by a count who had an estate in the
neighbourhood and was a retired army officer: the hospitable and
genial count made much of them, fed them, and gave them drink,
refused to let them go to their quarters in the village and made
them stay the night. All that, of course, was very nice --
nothing better could be desired, but the worst of it was, the
old army officer was so carried away by the pleasure of the
young men's company that till sunrise he was telling the
officers anecdotes of his glorious past, taking them over the
house, showing them expensive pictures, old engravings, rare
guns, reading them autograph letters from great people, while
the weary and exhausted officers looked and listened, longing
for their beds and yawning in their sleeves; when at last their
host let them go, it was too late for sleep.
Might not this Von Rabbek be just such another? Whether he were
or not, there was no help for it. The officers changed their
uniforms, brushed themselves, and went all together in search of
the gentleman's house. In the square by the church they were
told they could get to His Excellency's by the lower path --
going down behind the church to the river, going along the bank
to the garden, and there an avenue would taken them to the
house; or by the upper way -- straight from the church by the
road which, half a mile from the village, led right up to His
Excellency's granaries. The officers decided to go by the upper
way.
"What Von Rabbek is it?" they wondered on the way. "Surely not
the one who was in command of the N---- cavalry division at
Plevna?"
"No, that was not Von Rabbek, but simply Rabbe and no 'von.' "
"What lovely weather!"
At the first of the granaries the road divided in two: one
branch went straight on and vanished in the evening darkness,
the other led to the owner's house on the right. The officers
turned to the right and began to speak more softly. . . . On
both sides of the road stretched stone granaries with red roofs,
heavy and sullen-looking, very much like barracks of a district
town. Ahead of them gleamed the windows of the manor-house.
"A good omen, gentlemen," said one of the officers. "Our setter
is the foremost of all; no doubt he scents game ahead of us! . .
."
Lieutenant Lobytko, who was walking in front, a tall and
stalwart fellow, though entirely without moustache (he was over
five-and-twenty, yet for some reason there was no sign of hair
on his round, well-fed face), renowned in the brigade for his
peculiar faculty for divining the presence of women at a
distance, turned round and said:
"Yes, there must be women here; I feel that by instinct."
On the threshold the officers were met by Von Rabbek himself, a
comely-looking man of sixty in civilian dress. Shaking hands
with his guests, he said that he was very glad and happy to see
them, but begged them earnestly for God's sake to excuse him for
not asking them to stay the night; two sisters with their
children, some brothers, and some neighbours, had come on a
visit to him, so that he had not one spare room left.
The General shook hands with every one, made his apologies, and
smiled, but it was evident by his face that he was by no means
so delighted as their last year's count, and that he had invited
the officers simply because, in his opinion, it was a social
obligation to do so. And the officers themselves, as they walked
up the softly carpeted stairs, as they listened to him, felt
that they had been invited to this house simply because it would
have been awkward not to invite them; and at the sight of the
footmen, who hastened to light the lamps in the entrance below
and in the anteroom above, they began to feel as though they had
brought uneasiness and discomfort into the house with them. In a
house in which two sisters and their children, brothers, and
neighbours were gathered together, probably on account of some
family festivity, or event, how could the presence of nineteen
unknown officers possibly be welcome?
At the entrance to the drawing-room the officers were met by a
tall, graceful old lady with black eyebrows and a long face,
very much like the Empress Eugnie. Smiling graciously and
majestically, she said she was glad and happy to see her guests,
and apologized that her husband and she were on this occasion
unable to invite messieurs les officiers to stay the night. From
her beautiful majestic smile, which instantly vanished from her
face every time she turned away from her guests, it was evident
that she had seen numbers of officers in her day, that she was
in no humour for them now, and if she invited them to her house
and apologized for not doing more, it was only because her
breeding and position in society required it of her.
When the officers went into the big dining-room, there were
about a dozen people, men and ladies, young and old, sitting at
tea at the end of a long table. A group of men was dimly visible
behind their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in
the midst of them stood a lanky young man with red whiskers,
talking loudly, with a lisp, in English. Through a door beyond
the group could be seen a light room with pale blue furniture.
"Gentlemen, there are so many of you that it is impossible to
introduce you all!" said the General in a loud voice, trying to
sound very cheerful. "Make each other's acquaintance, gentlemen,
without any ceremony!"
The officers -- some with very serious and even stern faces,
others with forced smiles, and all feeling extremely awkward --
somehow made their bows and sat down to tea.
The most ill at ease of them all was Ryabovitch -- a little
officer in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers like
a lynx's. While some of his comrades assumed a serious
expression, while others wore forced smiles, his face, his
lynx-like whiskers, and spectacles seemed to say: "I am the
shyest, most modest, and most undistinguished officer in the
whole brigade!" At first, on going into the room and sitting
down to the table, he could not fix his attention on any one
face or object. The faces, the dresses, the cut-glass decanters
of brandy, the steam from the glasses, the moulded cornices --
all blended in one general impression that inspired in
Ryabovitch alarm and a desire to hide his head. Like a lecturer
making his first appearance before the public, he saw everything
that was before his eyes, but apparently only had a dim
understanding of it (among physiologists this condition, when
the subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical
blindness). After a little while, growing accustomed to his
surroundings, Ryabovitch saw clearly and began to observe. As a
shy man, unused to society, what struck him first was that in
which he had always been deficient -- namely, the extraordinary
boldness of his new acquaintances. Von Rabbek, his wife, two
elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac dress, and the young man
with the red whiskers, who was, it appeared, a younger son of
Von Rabbek, very cleverly, as though they had rehearsed it
beforehand, took seats between the officers, and at once got up
a heated discussion in which the visitors could not help taking
part. The lilac young lady hotly asserted that the artillery had
a much better time than the cavalry and the infantry, while Von
Rabbek and the elderly ladies maintained the opposite. A brisk
interchange of talk followed. Ryabovitch watched the lilac young
lady who argued so hotly about what was unfamiliar and utterly
uninteresting to her, and watched artificial smiles come and go
on her face.
Von Rabbek and his family skilfully drew the officers into the
discussion, and meanwhile kept a sharp lookout over their
glasses and mouths, to see whether all of them were drinking,
whether all had enough sugar, why some one was not eating cakes
or not drinking brandy. And the longer Ryabovitch watched and
listened, the more he was attracted by this insincere but
splendidly disciplined family.
After tea the officers went into the drawing-room. Lieutenant
Lobytko's instinct had not deceived him. There were a great
number of girls and young married ladies. The "setter"
lieutenant was soon standing by a very young, fair girl in a
black dress, and, bending down to her jauntily, as though
leaning on an unseen sword, smiled and shrugged his shoulders
coquettishly. He probably talked very interesting nonsense, for
the fair girl looked at his well-fed face condescendingly and
asked indifferently, "Really?" And from that uninterested
"Really?" the setter, had he been intelligent, might have
concluded that she would never call him to heel.
The piano struck up; the melancholy strains of a valse floated
out of the wide open windows, and every one, for some reason,
remembered that it was spring, a May evening. Every one was
conscious of the fragrance of roses, of lilac, and of the young
leaves of the poplar. Ryabovitch, in whom the brandy he had
drunk made itself felt, under the influence of the music stole a
glance towards the window, smiled, and began watching the
movements of the women, and it seemed to him that the smell of
roses, of poplars, and lilac came not from the garden, but from
the ladies' faces and dresses.
Von Rabbek's son invited a scraggy-looking young lady to dance,
and waltzed round the room twice with her. Lobytko, gliding over
the parquet floor, flew up to the lilac young lady and whirled
her away. Dancing began. . . . Ryabovitch stood near the door
among those who were not dancing and looked on. He had never
once danced in his whole life, and he had never once in his life
put his arm round the waist of a respectable woman. He was
highly delighted that a man should in the sight of all take a
girl he did not know round the waist and offer her his shoulder
to put her hand on, but he could not imagine himself in the
position of such a man. There were times when he envied the
boldness and swagger of his companions and was inwardly
wretched; the consciousness that he was timid, that he was
round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had a long waist and
lynx-like whiskers, had deeply mortified him, but with years he
had grown used to this feeling, and now, looking at his comrades
dancing or loudly talking, he no longer envied them, but only
felt touched and mournful.
When the quadrille began, young Von Rabbek came up to those who
were not dancing and invited two officers to have a game at
billiards. The officers accepted and went with him out of the
drawing-room. Ryabovitch, having nothing to do and wishing to
take part in the general movement, slouched after them. From the
big drawing-room they went into the little drawing-room, then
into a narrow corridor with a glass roof, and thence into a room
in which on their entrance three sleepy-looking footmen jumped
up quickly from the sofa. At last, after passing through a long
succession of rooms, young Von Rabbek and the officers came into
a small room where there was a billiard-table. They began to
play.
Ryabovitch, who had never played any game but cards, stood near
the billiard-table and looked indifferently at the players,
while they in unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands,
stepped about, made puns, and kept shouting out unintelligible
words.
The players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of
them, shoving him with his elbow or accidentally touching him
with the end of his cue, would turn round and say "Pardon!"
Before the first game was over he was weary of it, and began to
feel he was not wanted and in the way. . . . He felt disposed to
return to the drawing-room, and he went out.
On his way back he met with a little adventure. When he had gone
half-way he noticed he had taken a wrong turning. He distinctly
remembered that he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his
way, but he had passed five or six rooms, and those sleepy
figures seemed to have vanished into the earth. Noticing his
mistake, he walked back a little way and turned to the right; he
found himself in a little dark room which he had not seen on his
way to the billiard-room. After standing there a little while,
he resolutely opened the first door that met his eyes and walked
into an absolutely dark room. Straight in front could be seen
the crack in the doorway through which there was a gleam of
vivid light; from the other side of the door came the muffled
sound of a melancholy mazurka. Here, too, as in the
drawing-room, the windows were wide open and there was a smell
of poplars, lilac and roses. . . .
Ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. . . . At that moment, to
his surprise, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustling of a
dress, a breathless feminine voice whispered "At last!" And two
soft, fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms were clasped about
his neck; a warm cheek was pressed to his cheek, and
simultaneously there was the sound of a kiss. But at once the
bestower of the kiss uttered a faint shriek and skipped back
from him, as it seemed to Ryabovitch, with aversion. He, too,
almost shrieked and rushed towards the gleam of light at the
door. . . .
When he went back into the drawing-room his heart was beating
and his hands were trembling so noticeably that he made haste to
hide them behind his back. At first he was tormented by shame
and dread that the whole drawing-room knew that he had just been
kissed and embraced by a woman. He shrank into himself and
looked uneasily about him, but as he became convinced that
people were dancing and talking as calmly as ever, he gave
himself up entirely to the new sensation which he had never
experienced before in his life. Something strange was happening
to him. . . . His neck, round which soft, fragrant arms had so
lately been clasped, seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on
his left cheek near his moustache where the unknown had kissed
him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation as from
peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the place the more
distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to foot,
he was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and
stronger. . . . He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the
garden, to laugh aloud. . . . He quite forgot that he was
round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had lynx-like
whiskers and an "undistinguished appearance" (that was how his
appearance had been described by some ladies whose conversation
he had accidentally overheard). When Von Rabbek's wife happened
to pass by him, he gave her such a broad and friendly smile that
she stood still and looked at him inquiringly.
"I like your house immensely!" he said, setting his spectacles
straight.
The General's wife smiled and said that the house had belonged
to her father; then she asked whether his parents were living,
whether he had long been in the army, why he was so thin, and so
on. . . . After receiving answers to her questions, she went on,
and after his conversation with her his smiles were more
friendly than ever, and he thought he was surrounded by splendid
people. . . .
At supper Ryabovitch ate mechanically everything offered him,
drank, and without listening to anything, tried to understand
what had just happened to him. . . . The adventure was of a
mysterious and romantic character, but it was not difficult to
explain it. No doubt some girl or young married lady had
arranged a tryst with some one in the dark room; had waited a
long time, and being nervous and excited had taken Ryabovitch
for her hero; this was the more probable as Ryabovitch had stood
still hesitating in the dark room, so that he, too, had seemed
like a person expecting something. . . . This was how Ryabovitch
explained to himself the kiss he had received.
"And who is she?" he wondered, looking round at the women's
faces. "She must be young, for elderly ladies don't give
rendezvous. That she was a lady, one could tell by the rustle of
her dress, her perfume, her voice. . . ."
His eyes rested on the lilac young lady, and he thought her very
attractive; she had beautiful shoulders and arms, a clever face,
and a delightful voice. Ryabovitch, looking at her, hoped that
she and no one else was his unknown. . . . But she laughed
somehow artificially and wrinkled up her long nose, which seemed
to him to make her look old. Then he turned his eyes upon the
fair girl in a black dress. She was younger, simpler, and more
genuine, had a charming brow, and drank very daintily out of her
wineglass. Ryabovitch now hoped that it was she. But soon he
began to think her face flat, and fixed his eyes upon the one
next her.
"It's difficult to guess," he thought, musing. "If one takes the
shoulders and arms of the lilac one only, adds the brow of the
fair one and the eyes of the one on the left of Lobytko, then .
. ."
He made a combination of these things in his mind and so formed
the image of the girl who had kissed him, the image that he
wanted her to have, but could not find at the table. . . .
After supper, replete and exhilarated, the officers began to
take leave and say thank you. Von Rabbek and his wife began
again apologizing that they could not ask them to stay the
night.
"Very, very glad to have met you, gentlemen," said Von Rabbek,
and this time sincerely (probably because people are far more
sincere and good-humoured at speeding their parting guests than
on meeting them). "Delighted. I hope you will come on your way
back! Don't stand on ceremony! Where are you going? Do you want
to go by the upper way? No, go across the garden; it's nearer
here by the lower way."
The officers went out into the garden. After the bright light
and the noise the garden seemed very dark and quiet. They walked
in silence all the way to the gate. They were a little drunk,
pleased, and in good spirits, but the darkness and silence made
them thoughtful for a minute. Probably the same idea occurred to
each one of them as to Ryabovitch: would there ever come a time
for them when, like Von Rabbek, they would have a large house, a
family, a garden -- when they, too, would be able to welcome
people, even though insincerely, feed them, make them drunk and
contented?
Going out of the garden gate, they all began talking at once and
laughing loudly about nothing. They were walking now along the
little path that led down to the river, and then ran along the
water's edge, winding round the bushes on the bank, the pools,
and the willows that overhung the water. The bank and the path
were scarcely visible, and the other bank was entirely plunged
in darkness. Stars were reflected here and there on the dark
water; they quivered and were broken up on the surface -- and
from that alone it could be seen that the river was flowing
rapidly. It was still. Drowsy curlews cried plaintively on the
further bank, and in one of the bushes on the nearest side a
nightingale was trilling loudly, taking no notice of the crowd
of officers. The officers stood round the bush, touched it, but
the nightingale went on singing.
"What a fellow!" they exclaimed approvingly. "We stand beside
him and he takes not a bit of notice! What a rascal!"
At the end of the way the path went uphill, and, skirting the
church enclosure, turned into the road. Here the officers, tired
with walking uphill, sat down and lighted their cigarettes. On
the other side of the river a murky red fire came into sight,
and having nothing better to do, they spent a long time in
discussing whether it was a camp fire or a light in a window, or
something else. . . . Ryabovitch, too, looked at the light, and
he fancied that the light looked and winked at him, as though it
knew about the kiss.
On reaching his quarters, Ryabovitch undressed as quickly as
possible and got into bed. Lobytko and Lieutenant Merzlyakov --
a peaceable, silent fellow, who was considered in his own circle
a highly educated officer, and was always, whenever it was
possible, reading the "Vyestnik Evropi," which he carried about
with him everywhere -- were quartered in the same hut with
Ryabovitch. Lobytko undressed, walked up and down the room for a
long while with the air of a man who has not been satisfied, and
sent his orderly for beer. Merzlyakov got into bed, put a candle
by his pillow and plunged into reading the "Vyestnik Evropi."
"Who was she?" Ryabovitch wondered, looking at the smoky
ceiling.
His neck still felt as though he had been anointed with oil, and
there was still the chilly sensation near his mouth as though
from peppermint drops. The shoulders and arms of the young lady
in lilac, the brow and the truthful eyes of the fair girl in
black, waists, dresses, and brooches, floated through his
imagination. He tried to fix his attention on these images, but
they danced about, broke up and flickered. When these images
vanished altogether from the broad dark background which every
man sees when he closes his eyes, he began to hear hurried
footsteps, the rustle of skirts, the sound of a kiss and -- an
intense groundless joy took possession of him. . . . Abandoning
himself to this joy, he heard the orderly return and announce
that there was no beer. Lobytko was terribly indignant, and
began pacing up and down again.
"Well, isn't he an idiot?" he kept saying, stopping first before
Ryabovitch and then before Merzlyakov. "What a fool and a dummy
a man must be not to get hold of any beer! Eh? Isn't he a
scoundrel?"
"Of course you can't get beer here," said Merzlyakov, not
removing his eyes from the "Vyestnik Evropi."
"Oh! Is that your opinion?" Lobytko persisted. "Lord have mercy
upon us, if you dropped me on the moon I'd find you beer and
women directly! I'll go and find some at once. . . . You may
call me an impostor if I don't!"
He spent a long time in dressing and pulling on his high boots,
then finished smoking his cigarette in silence and went out.
"Rabbek, Grabbek, Labbek," he muttered, stopping in the outer
room. "I don't care to go alone, damn it all! Ryabovitch,
wouldn't you like to go for a walk? Eh?"
Receiving no answer, he returned, slowly undressed and got into
bed. Merzlyakov sighed, put the "Vyestnik Evropi" away, and put
out the light.
"H'm! . . ." muttered Lobytko, lighting a cigarette in the dark.
Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself
up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in
his mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of
it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that some one
had caressed him and made him happy -- that something
extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into
his life. The thought did not leave him even in his sleep.
When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill
of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart
just as the day before. He looked enthusiastically at the
window-frames, gilded by the light of the rising sun, and
listened to the movement of the passers-by in the street. People
were talking loudly close to the window. Lebedetsky, the
commander of Ryabovitch's battery, who had only just overtaken
the brigade, was talking to his sergeant at the top of his
voice, being always accustomed to shout.
"What else?" shouted the commander.
"When they were shoeing yesterday, your high nobility, they
drove a nail into Pigeon's hoof. The vet. put on clay and
vinegar; they are leading him apart now. And also, your honour,
Artemyev got drunk yesterday, and the lieutenant ordered him to
be put in the limber of a spare gun-carriage."
The sergeant reported that Karpov had forgotten the new cords
for the trumpets and the rings for the tents, and that their
honours, the officers, had spent the previous evening visiting
General Von Rabbek. In the middle of this conversation the
red-bearded face of Lebedetsky appeared in the window. He
screwed up his short-sighted eyes, looking at the sleepy faces
of the officers, and said good-morning to them.
"Is everything all right?" he asked.
"One of the horses has a sore neck from the new collar,"
answered Lobytko, yawning.
The commander sighed, thought a moment, and said in a loud
voice:
"I am thinking of going to see Alexandra Yevgrafovna. I must
call on her. Well, good-bye. I shall catch you up in the
evening."
A quarter of an hour later the brigade set off on its way. When
it was moving along the road by the granaries, Ryabovitch looked
at the house on the right. The blinds were down in all the
windows. Evidently the household was still asleep. The one who
had kissed Ryabovitch the day before was asleep, too. He tried
to imagine her asleep. The wide-open windows of the bedroom, the
green branches peeping in, the morning freshness, the scent of
the poplars, lilac, and roses, the bed, a chair, and on it the
skirts that had rustled the day before, the little slippers, the
little watch on the table -- all this he pictured to himself
clearly and distinctly, but the features of the face, the sweet
sleepy smile, just what was characteristic and important,
slipped through his imagination like quicksilver through the
fingers. When he had ridden on half a mile, he looked back: the
yellow church, the house, and the river, were all bathed in
light; the river with its bright green banks, with the blue sky
reflected in it and glints of silver in the sunshine here and
there, was very beautiful. Ryabovitch gazed for the last time at
Myestetchki, and he felt as sad as though he were parting with
something very near and dear to him.
And before him on the road lay nothing but long familiar,
uninteresting pictures. . . . To right and to left, fields of
young rye and buckwheat with rooks hopping about in them. If one
looked ahead, one saw dust and the backs of men's heads; if one
looked back, one saw the same dust and faces. . . . Foremost of
all marched four men with sabres -- this was the vanguard. Next,
behind, the crowd of singers, and behind them the trumpeters on
horseback. The vanguard and the chorus of singers, like
torch-bearers in a funeral procession, often forgot to keep the
regulation distance and pushed a long way ahead. . . .
Ryabovitch was with the first cannon of the fifth battery. He
could see all the four batteries moving in front of him. For any
one not a military man this long tedious procession of a moving
brigade seems an intricate and unintelligible muddle; one cannot
understand why there are so many people round one cannon, and
why it is drawn by so many horses in such a strange network of
harness, as though it really were so terrible and heavy. To
Ryabovitch it was all perfectly comprehensible and therefore
uninteresting. He had known for ever so long why at the head of
each battery there rode a stalwart bombardier, and why he was
called a bombardier; immediately behind this bombardier could be
seen the horsemen of the first and then of the middle units.
Ryabovitch knew that the horses on which they rode, those on the
left, were called one name, while those on the right were called
another -- it was extremely uninteresting. Behind the horsemen
came two shaft-horses. On one of them sat a rider with the dust
of yesterday on his back and a clumsy and funny-looking piece of
wood on his leg. Ryabovitch knew the object of this piece of
wood, and did not think it funny. All the riders waved their
whips mechanically and shouted from time to time. The cannon
itself was ugly. On the fore part lay sacks of oats covered with
canvas, and the cannon itself was hung all over with kettles,
soldiers' knapsacks, bags, and looked like some small harmless
animal surrounded for some unknown reason by men and horses. To
the leeward of it marched six men, the gunners, swinging their
arms. After the cannon there came again more bombardiers,
riders, shaft-horses, and behind them another cannon, as ugly
and unimpressive as the first. After the second followed a
third, a fourth; near the fourth an officer, and so on. There
were six batteries in all in the brigade, and four cannons in
each battery. The procession covered half a mile; it ended in a
string of wagons near which an extremely attractive creature --
the ass, Magar, brought by a battery commander from Turkey --
paced pensively with his long-eared head drooping.
Ryabovitch looked indifferently before and behind, at the backs
of heads and at faces; at any other time he would have been half
asleep, but now he was entirely absorbed in his new agreeable
thoughts. At first when the brigade was setting off on the march
he tried to persuade himself that the incident of the kiss could
only be interesting as a mysterious little adventure, that it
was in reality trivial, and to think of it seriously, to say the
least of it, was stupid; but now he bade farewell to logic and
gave himself up to dreams. . . . At one moment he imagined
himself in Von Rabbek's drawing-room beside a girl who was like
the young lady in lilac and the fair girl in black; then he
would close his eyes and see himself with another, entirely
unknown girl, whose features were very vague. In his imagination
he talked, caressed her, leaned on her shoulder, pictured war,
separation, then meeting again, supper with his wife, children.
. . .
"Brakes on!" the word of command rang out every time they went
downhill.
He, too, shouted "Brakes on!" and was afraid this shout would
disturb his reverie and bring him back to reality. . . .
As they passed by some landowner's estate Ryabovitch looked over
the fence into the garden. A long avenue, straight as a ruler,
strewn with yellow sand and bordered with young birch-trees, met
his eyes. . . . With the eagerness of a man given up to
dreaming, he pictured to himself little feminine feet tripping
along yellow sand, and quite unexpectedly had a clear vision in
his imagination of the girl who had kissed him and whom he had
succeeded in picturing to himself the evening before at supper.
This image remained in his brain and did not desert him again.
At midday there was a shout in the rear near the string of
wagons:
"Easy! Eyes to the left! Officers!"
The general of the brigade drove by in a carriage with a pair of
white horses. He stopped near the second battery, and shouted
something which no one understood. Several officers, among them
Ryabovitch, galloped up to them.
"Well?" asked the general, blinking his red eyes. "Are there any
sick?"
Receiving an answer, the general, a little skinny man, chewed,
thought for a moment and said, addressing one of the officers:
"One of your drivers of the third cannon has taken off his
leg-guard and hung it on the fore part of the cannon, the
rascal. Reprimand him."
He raised his eyes to Ryabovitch and went on:
"It seems to me your front strap is too long."
Making a few other tedious remarks, the general looked at
Lobytko and grinned.
"You look very melancholy today, Lieutenant Lobytko," he said.
"Are you pining for Madame Lopuhov? Eh? Gentlemen, he is pining
for Madame Lopuhov."
The lady in question was a very stout and tall person who had
long passed her fortieth year. The general, who had a
predilection for solid ladies, whatever their ages, suspected a
similar taste in his officers. The officers smiled respectfully.
The general, delighted at having said something very amusing and
biting, laughed loudly, touched his coachman's back, and
saluted. The carriage rolled on. . . .
"All I am dreaming about now which seems to me so impossible and
unearthly is really quite an ordinary thing," thought Ryabovitch,
looking at the clouds of dust racing after the general's
carriage. "It's all very ordinary, and every one goes through
it. . . . That general, for instance, has once been in love; now
he is married and has children. Captain Vahter, too, is married
and beloved, though the nape of his neck is very red and ugly
and he has no waist. . . . Salrnanov is coarse and very Tatar,
but he has had a love affair that has ended in marriage. . . . I
am the same as every one else, and I, too, shall have the same
experience as every one else, sooner or later. . . ."
And the thought that he was an ordinary person, and that his
life was ordinary, delighted him and gave him courage. He
pictured her and his happiness as he pleased, and put no rein on
his imagination.
When the brigade reached their halting-place in the evening, and
the officers were resting in their tents, Ryabovitch, Merzlyakov,
and Lobytko were sitting round a box having supper. Merzlyakov
ate without haste, and, as he munched deliberately, read the "Vyestnik
Evropi," which he held on his knees. Lobytko talked incessantly
and kept filling up his glass with beer, and Ryabovitch, whose
head was confused from dreaming all day long, drank and said
nothing. After three glasses he got a little drunk, felt weak,
and had an irresistible desire to impart his new sensations to
his comrades.
"A strange thing happened to me at those Von Rabbeks'," he
began, trying to put an indifferent and ironical tone into his
voice. "You know I went into the billiard-room. . . ."
He began describing very minutely the incident of the kiss, and
a moment later relapsed into silence. . . . In the course of
that moment he had told everything, and it surprised him
dreadfully to find how short a time it took him to tell it. He
had imagined that he could have been telling the story of the
kiss till next morning. Listening to him, Lobytko, who was a
great liar and consequently believed no one, looked at him
sceptically and laughed. Merzlyakov twitched his eyebrows and,
without removing his eyes from the "Vyestnik Evropi," said:
"That's an odd thing! How strange! . . . throws herself on a
man's neck, without addressing him by name. .. . She must be
some sort of hysterical neurotic."
"Yes, she must," Ryabovitch agreed.
"A similar thing once happened to me," said Lobytko, assuming a
scared expression. "I was going last year to Kovno. . . . I took
a second-class ticket. The train was crammed, and it was
impossible to sleep. I gave the guard half a rouble; he took my
luggage and led me to another compartment. . . . I lay down and
covered myself with a rug. . . . It was dark, you understand.
Suddenly I felt some one touch me on the shoulder and breathe in
my face. I made a movement with my hand and felt somebody's
elbow. . . . I opened my eyes and only imagine -- a woman. Black
eyes, lips red as a prime salmon, nostrils breathing
passionately -- a bosom like a buffer. . . ."
"Excuse me," Merzlyakov interrupted calmly, "I understand about
the bosom, but how could you see the lips if it was dark?"
Lobytko began trying to put himself right and laughing at
Merzlyakov's unimaginativeness. It made Ryabovitch wince. He
walked away from the box, got into bed, and vowed never to
confide again.
Camp life began. . . . The days flowed by, one very much like
another. All those days Ryabovitch felt, thought, and behaved as
though he were in love. Every morning when his orderly handed
him water to wash with, and he sluiced his head with cold water,
he thought there was something warm and delightful in his life.
In the evenings when his comrades began talking of love and
women, he would listen, and draw up closer; and he wore the
expression of a soldier when he hears the description of a
battle in which he has taken part. And on the evenings when the
officers, out on the spree with the setter -- Lobytko -- at
their head, made Don Juan excursions to the "suburb," and
Ryabovitch took part in such excursions, he always was sad, felt
profoundly guilty, and inwardly begged her forgiveness. . . . In
hours of leisure or on sleepless nights, when he felt moved to
recall his childhood, his father and mother -- everything near
and dear, in fact, he invariably thought of Myestetchki, the
strange horse, Von Rabbek, his wife who was like the Empress
Eugnie, the dark room, the crack of light at the door. . . .
On the thirty-first of August he went back from the camp, not
with the whole brigade, but with only two batteries of it. He
was dreaming and excited all the way, as though he were going
back to his native place. He had an intense longing to see again
the strange horse, the church, the insincere family of the Von
Rabbeks, the dark room. The "inner voice," which so often
deceives lovers, whispered to him for some reason that he would
be sure to see her . . . and he was tortured by the questions,
How he should meet her? What he would talk to her about? Whether
she had forgotten the kiss? If the worst came to the worst, he
thought, even if he did not meet her, it would be a pleasure to
him merely to go through the dark room and recall the past. . .
.
Towards evening there appeared on the horizon the familiar
church and white granaries. Ryabovitch's heart beat. . . . He
did not hear the officer who was riding beside him and saying
something to him, he forgot everything, and looked eagerly at
the river shining in the distance, at the roof of the house, at
the dovecote round which the pigeons were circling in the light
of the setting sun.
When they reached the church and were listening to the billeting
orders, he expected every second that a man on horseback would
come round the church enclosure and invite the officers to tea,
but . . . the billeting orders were read, the officers were in
haste to go on to the village, and the man on horseback did not
appear.
"Von Rabbek will hear at once from the peasants that we have
come and will send for us," thought Ryabovitch, as he went into
the hut, unable to understand why a comrade was lighting a
candle and why the orderlies were hurriedly setting samovars. .
. .
A painful uneasiness took possession of him. He lay down, then
got up and looked out of the window to see whether the messenger
were coming. But there was no sign of him.
He lay down again, but half an hour later he got up, and, unable
to restrain his uneasiness, went into the street and strode
towards the church. It was dark and deserted in the square near
the church. . . . Three soldiers were standing silent in a row
where the road began to go downhill. Seeing Ryabovitch, they
roused themselves and saluted. He returned the salute and began
to go down the familiar path.
On the further side of the river the whole sky was flooded with
crimson: the moon was rising; two peasant women, talking loudly,
were picking cabbage in the kitchen garden; behind the kitchen
garden there were some dark huts. . . . And everything on the
near side of the river was just as it had been in May: the path,
the bushes, the willows overhanging the water . . . but there
was no sound of the brave nightingale, and no scent of poplar
and fresh grass.
Reaching the garden, Ryabovitch looked in at the gate. The
garden was dark and still. . . . He could see nothing but the
white stems of the nearest birch-trees and a little bit of the
avenue; all the rest melted together into a dark blur.
Ryabovitch looked and listened eagerly, but after waiting for a
quarter of an hour without hearing a sound or catching a glimpse
of a light, he trudged back. . . .
He went down to the river. The General's bath-house and the
bath-sheets on the rail of the little bridge showed white before
him. . . . He went on to the bridge, stood a little, and, quite
unnecessarily, touched the sheets. They felt rough and cold. He
looked down at the water. . . . The river ran rapidly and with a
faintly audible gurgle round the piles of the bath-house. The
red moon was reflected near the left bank; little ripples ran
over the reflection, stretching it out, breaking it into bits,
and seemed trying to carry it away.
"How stupid, how stupid!" thought Ryabovitch, looking at the
running water. "How unintelligent it all is!"
Now that he expected nothing, the incident of the kiss, his
impatience, his vague hopes and disappointment, presented
themselves in a clear light. It no longer seemed to him strange
that he had not seen the General's messenger, and that he would
never see the girl who had accidentally kissed him instead of
some one else; on the contrary, it would have been strange if he
had seen her. . . .
The water was running, he knew not where or why, just as it did
in May. In May it had flowed into the great river, from the
great river into the sea; then it had risen in vapour, turned
into rain, and perhaps the very same water was running now
before Ryabovitch's eyes again. . . . What for? Why?
And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to Ryabovitch an
unintelligible, aimless jest. . . . And turning his eyes from
the water and looking at the sky, he remembered again how fate
in the person of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him, he
remembered his summer dreams and fancies, and his life struck
him as extraordinarily meagre, poverty-stricken, and colourless.
. . .
When he went back to his hut he did not find one of his
comrades. The orderly informed him that they had all gone to
"General von Rabbek's, who had sent a messenger on horseback to
invite them. . . ."
For an instant there was a flash of joy in Ryabovitch's heart,
but he quenched it at once, got into bed, and in his wrath with
his fate, as though to spite it, did not go to the General's.
NOTES
Empress Eugnie: consort of Napoleon III and Empress of France
from 1853-1870
"Vyestnik Evropi": Messenger of Europe
vet.: Chekhov actually used the word "feldscher," doctor's
assistant
rings for the tents: tent-stakes
Tatar: a member of the Turkic/Mongolian peoples who invaded
Russia in the Middle Ages; hence, not civilized
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