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Anton Chekhov -
A Dreary Story
I II
III IV
V VI
II After my lecture I sit at home and work. I read journals and
monographs, or prepare my next lecture; sometimes I write
something. I work with interruptions, as I have from time to
time to see visitors.
There is a ring at the bell. It is a colleague come to discuss
some business matter with me. He comes in to me with his hat and
his stick, and, holding out both these objects to me, says:
"Only for a minute! Only for a minute! Sit down, collega! Only a
couple of words."
To begin with, we both try to show each other that we are
extraordinarily polite and highly delighted to see each other. I
make him sit down in an easy-chair, and he makes me sit down; as
we do so, we cautiously pat each other on the back, touch each
other's buttons, and it looks as though we were feeling each
other and afraid of scorching our fingers. Both of us laugh,
though we say nothing amusing. When we are seated we bow our
heads towards each other and begin talking in subdued voices.
However affectionately disposed we may be to one another, we
cannot help adorning our conversation with all sorts of Chinese
mannerisms, such as "As you so justly observed," or "I have
already had the honour to inform you"; we cannot help laughing
if one of us makes a joke, however unsuccessfully. When we have
finished with business my colleague gets up impulsively and,
waving his hat in the direction of my work, begins to say
good-bye. Again we paw one another and laugh. I see him into the
hall; when I assist my colleague to put on his coat, while he
does all he can to decline this high honour. Then when Yegor
opens the door my colleague declares that I shall catch cold,
while I make a show of being ready to go even into the street
with him. And when at last I go back into my study my face still
goes on smiling, I suppose from inertia.
A little later another ring at the bell. Somebody comes into the
hall, and is a long time coughing and taking off his things.
Yegor announces a student. I tell him to ask him in. A minute
later a young man of agreeable appearance comes in. For the last
year he and I have been on strained relations; he answers me
disgracefully at the examinations, and I mark him one. Every
year I have some seven such hopefuls whom, to express it in the
students' slang, I "chivy" or "floor." Those of them who fail in
their examination through incapacity or illness usually bear
their cross patiently and do not haggle with me; those who come
to the house and haggle with me are always youths of sanguine
temperament, broad natures, whose failure at examinations spoils
their appetites and hinders them from visiting the opera with
their usual regularity. I let the first class off easily, but
the second I chivy through a whole year.
"Sit down," I say to my visitor; "what have you to tell me?"
"Excuse me, professor, for troubling you," he begins,
hesitating, and not looking me in the face. "I would not have
ventured to trouble you if it had not been . . . I have been up
for your examination five times, and have been ploughed. . . . I
beg you, be so good as to mark me for a pass, because . . ."
The argument which all the sluggards bring forward on their own
behalf is always the same; they have passed well in all their
subjects and have only come to grief in mine, and that is the
more surprising because they have always been particularly
interested in my subject and knew it so well; their failure has
always been entirely owing to some incomprehensible
misunderstanding.
"Excuse me, my friend," I say to the visitor; "I cannot mark you
for a pass. Go and read up the lectures and come to me again.
Then we shall see."
A pause. I feel an impulse to torment the student a little for
liking beer and the opera better than science, and I say, with a
sigh:
"To my mind, the best thing you can do now is to give up
medicine altogether. If, with your abilities, you cannot succeed
in passing the examination, it's evident that you have neither
the desire nor the vocation for a doctor's calling."
The sanguine youth's face lengthens.
"Excuse me, professor," he laughs, "but that would be odd of me,
to say the least of it. After studying for five years, all at
once to give it up."
"Oh, well! Better to have lost your five years than have to
spend the rest of your life in doing work you do not care for."
But at once I feel sorry for him, and I hasten to add:
"However, as you think best. And so read a little more and come
again."
"When?" the idle youth asks in a hollow voice.
"When you like. Tomorrow if you like."
And in his good-natured eyes I read:
"I can come all right, but of course you will plough me again,
you beast!"
"Of course," I say, "you won't know more science for going in
for my examination another fifteen times, but it is training
your character, and you must be thankful for that."
Silence follows. I get up and wait for my visitor to go, but he
stands and looks towards the window, fingers his beard, and
thinks. It grows boring.
The sanguine youth's voice is pleasant and mellow, his eyes are
clever and ironical, his face is genial, though a little bloated
from frequent indulgence in beer and overlong lying on the sofa;
he looks as though he could tell me a lot of interesting things
about the opera, about his affairs of the heart, and about
comrades whom he likes. Unluckily, it is not the thing to
discuss these subjects, or else I should have been glad to
listen to him.
"Professor, I give you my word of honour that if you mark me for
a pass I . . . I'll . . ."
As soon as we reach the "word of honour" I wave my hands and sit
down to the table. The student ponders a minute longer, and says
dejectedly:
"In that case, good-bye. . . I beg your pardon."
"Good-bye, my friend. Good luck to you."
He goes irresolutely into the hall, slowly puts on his outdoor
things, and, going out into the street, probably ponders for
some time longer; unable to think of anything, except "old
devil," inwardly addressed to me, he goes into a wretched
restaurant to dine and drink beer, and then home to bed. "Peace
be to thy ashes, honest toiler."
A third ring at the bell. A young doctor, in a pair of new black
trousers, gold spectacles, and of course a white tie, walks in.
He introduces himself. I beg him to be seated, and ask what I
can do for him. Not without emotion, the young devotee of
science begins telling me that he has passed his examination as
a doctor of medicine, and that he has now only to write his
dissertation. He would like to work with me under my guidance,
and he would be greatly obliged to me if I would give him a
subject for his dissertation.
"Very glad to be of use to you, colleague," I say, "but just let
us come to an understanding as to the meaning of a dissertation.
That word is taken to mean a composition which is a product of
independent creative effort. Is that not so? A work written on
another man's subject and under another man's guidance is called
something different. . . ."
The doctor says nothing. I fly into a rage and jump up from my
seat.
"Why is it you all come to me?" I cry angrily. "Do I keep a
shop? I don't deal in subjects. For the thousand and oneth time
I ask you all to leave me in peace! Excuse my brutality, but I
am quite sick of it!"
The doctor remains silent, but a faint flush is apparent on his
cheek-bones. His face expresses a profound reverence for my fame
and my learning, but from his eyes I can see he feels a contempt
for my voice, my pitiful figure, and my nervous gesticulation. I
impress him in my anger as a queer fish.
"I don't keep a shop," I go on angrily. "And it is a strange
thing! Why don't you want to be independent? Why have you such a
distaste for independence?"
I say a great deal, but he still remains silent. By degrees I
calm down, and of course give in. The doctor gets a subject from
me for his theme not worth a halfpenny, writes under my
supervision a dissertation of no use to any one, with dignity
defends it in a dreary discussion, and receives a degree of no
use to him.
The rings at the bell may follow one another endlessly, but I
will confine my description here to four of them. The bell rings
for the fourth time, and I hear familiar footsteps, the rustle
of a dress, a dear voice. . . .
Eighteen years ago a colleague of mine, an oculist, died leaving
a little daughter Katya, a child of seven, and sixty thousand
roubles. In his will he made me the child's guardian. Till she
was ten years old Katya lived with us as one of the family, then
she was sent to a boarding-school, and only spent the summer
holidays with us. I never had time to look after her education.
I only superintended it at leisure moments, and so I can say
very little about her childhood.
The first thing I remember, and like so much in remembrance, is
the extraordinary trustfulness with which she came into our
house and let herself be treated by the doctors, a trustfulness
which was always shining in her little face. She would sit
somewhere out of the way, with her face tied up, invariably
watching something with attention; whether she watched me
writing or turning over the pages of a book, or watched my wife
bustling about, or the cook scrubbing a potato in the kitchen,
or the dog playing, her eyes invariably expressed the same
thought -- that is, "Everything that is done in this world is
nice and sensible." She was curious, and very fond of talking to
me. Sometimes she would sit at the table opposite me, watching
my movements and asking questions. It interested her to know
what I was reading, what I did at the University, whether I was
not afraid of the dead bodies, what I did with my salary.
"Do the students fight at the University?" she would ask.
"They do, dear."
"And do you make them go down on their knees?"
"Yes, I do."
And she thought it funny that the students fought and I made
them go down on their knees, and she laughed. She was a gentle,
patient, good child. It happened not infrequently that I saw
something taken away from her, saw her punished without reason,
or her curiosity repressed; at such times a look of sadness was
mixed with the invariable expression of trustfulness on her face
-- that was all. I did not know how to take her part; only when
I saw her sad I had an inclination to draw her to me and to
commiserate her like some old nurse: "My poor little orphan
one!"
I remember, too, that she was fond of fine clothes and of
sprinkling herself with scent. In that respect she was like me.
I, too, am fond of pretty clothes and nice scent.
I regret that I had not time nor inclination to watch over the
rise and development of the passion which took complete
possession of Katya when she was fourteen or fifteen. I mean her
passionate love for the theatre. When she used to come from
boarding-school and stay with us for the summer holidays, she
talked of nothing with such pleasure and such warmth as of plays
and actors. She bored us with her continual talk of the theatre.
My wife and children would not listen to her. I was the only one
who had not the courage to refuse to attend to her. When she had
a longing to share her transports, she used to come into my
study and say in an imploring tone:
"Nikolay Stepanovitch, do let me talk to you about the theatre!"
I pointed to the clock, and said:
"I'll give you half an hour -- begin."
Later on she used to bring with her dozens of portraits of
actors and actresses which she worshipped; then she attempted
several times to take part in private theatricals, and the
upshot of it all was that when she left school she came to me
and announced that she was born to be an actress.
I had never shared Katya's inclinations for the theatre. To my
mind, if a play is good there is no need to trouble the actors
in order that it may make the right impression; it is enough to
read it. If the play is poor, no acting will make it good.
In my youth I often visited the theatre, and now my family takes
a box twice a year and carries me off for a little distraction.
Of course, that is not enough to give me the right to judge of
the theatre. In my opinion the theatre has become no better than
it was thirty or forty years ago. Just as in the past, I can
never find a glass of clean water in the corridors or foyers of
the theatre. Just as in the past, the attendants fine me twenty
kopecks for my fur coat, though there is nothing reprehensible
in wearing a warm coat in winter. As in the past, for no sort of
reason, music is played in the intervals, which adds something
new and uncalled-for to the impression made by the play. As in
the past, men go in the intervals and drink spirits in the
buffet. If no progress can be seen in trifles, I should look for
it in vain in what is more important. When an actor wrapped from
head to foot in stage traditions and conventions tries to recite
a simple ordinary speech, "To be or not to be," not simply, but
invariably with the accompaniment of hissing and convulsive
movements all over his body, or when he tries to convince me at
all costs that Tchatsky, who talks so much with fools and is so
fond of folly, is a very clever man, and that "Woe from Wit" is
not a dull play, the stage gives me the same feeling of
conventionality which bored me so much forty years ago when I
was regaled with the classical howling and beating on the
breast. And every time I come out of the theatre more
conservative than I go in.
The sentimental and confiding public may be persuaded that the
stage, even in its present form, is a school; but any one who is
familiar with a school in its true sense will not be caught with
that bait. I cannot say what will happen in fifty or a hundred
years, but in its actual condition the theatre can serve only as
an entertainment. But this entertainment is too costly to be
frequently enjoyed. It robs the state of thousands of healthy
and talented young men and women, who, if they had not devoted
themselves to the theatre, might have been good doctors,
farmers, schoolmistresses, officers; it robs the public of the
evening hours -- the best time for intellectual work and social
intercourse. I say nothing of the waste of money and the moral
damage to the spectator when he sees murder, fornication, or
false witness unsuitably treated on the stage.
Katya was of an entirely different opinion. She assured me that
the theatre, even in its present condition, was superior to the
lecture-hall, to books, or to anything in the world. The stage
was a power that united in itself all the arts, and actors were
missionaries. No art nor science was capable of producing so
strong and so certain an effect on the soul of man as the stage,
and it was with good reason that an actor of medium quality
enjoys greater popularity than the greatest savant or artist.
And no sort of public service could provide such enjoyment and
gratification as the theatre.
And one fine day Katya joined a troupe of actors, and went off,
I believe to Ufa, taking away with her a good supply of money, a
store of rainbow hopes, and the most aristocratic views of her
work.
Her first letters on the journey were marvellous. I read them,
and was simply amazed that those small sheets of paper could
contain so much youth, purity of spirit, holy innocence, and at
the same time subtle and apt judgments which would have done
credit to a fine masculine intellect. It was more like a
rapturous paean of praise she sent me than a mere description of
the Volga, the country, the towns she visited, her companions,
her failures and successes; every sentence was fragrant with
that confiding trustfulness I was accustomed to read in her face
-- and at the same time there were a great many grammatical
mistakes, and there was scarcely any punctuation at all.
Before six months had passed I received a highly poetical and
enthusiastic letter beginning with the words, "I have come to
love . . ." This letter was accompanied by a photograph
representing a young man with a shaven face, a wide-brimmed hat,
and a plaid flung over his shoulder. The letters that followed
were as splendid as before, but now commas and stops made their
appearance in them, the grammatical mistakes disappeared, and
there was a distinctly masculine flavour about them. Katya began
writing to me how splendid it would be to build a great theatre
somewhere on the Volga, on a cooperative system, and to attract
to the enterprise the rich merchants and the steamer owners;
there would be a great deal of money in it; there would be vast
audiences; the actors would play on co-operative terms. . . .
Possibly all this was really excellent, but it seemed to me that
such schemes could only originate from a man's mind.
However that may have been, for a year and a half everything
seemed to go well: Katya was in love, believed in her work, and
was happy; but then I began to notice in her letters
unmistakable signs of falling off. It began with Katya's
complaining of her companions -- this was the first and most
ominous symptom; if a young scientific or literary man begins
his career with bitter complaints of scientific and literary
men, it is a sure sign that he is worn out and not fit for his
work. Katya wrote to me that her companions did not attend the
rehearsals and never knew their parts; that one could see in
every one of them an utter disrespect for the public in the
production of absurd plays, and in their behaviour on the stage;
that for the benefit of the Actors' Fund, which they only talked
about, actresses of the serious drama demeaned themselves by
singing chansonettes, while tragic actors sang comic songs
making fun of deceived husbands and the pregnant condition of
unfaithful wives, and so on. In fact, it was amazing that all
this had not yet ruined the provincial stage, and that it could
still maintain itself on such a rotten and unsubstantial
footing.
In answer I wrote Katya a long and, I must confess, a very
boring letter. Among other things, I wrote to her:
"I have more than once happened to converse with old actors,
very worthy men, who showed a friendly disposition towards me;
from my conversations with them I could understand that their
work was controlled not so much by their own intelligence and
free choice as by fashion and the mood of the public. The best
of them had had to play in their day in tragedy, in operetta, in
Parisian farces, and in extravaganzas, and they always seemed
equally sure that they were on the right path and that they were
of use. So, as you see, the cause of the evil must be sought,
not in the actors, but, more deeply, in the art itself and in
the attitude of the whole of society to it."
This letter of mine only irritated Katya. She answered me:
"You and I are singing parts out of different operas. I wrote to
you, not of the worthy men who showed a friendly disposition to
you, but of a band of knaves who have nothing worthy about them.
They are a horde of savages who have got on the stage simply
because no one would have taken them elsewhere, and who call
themselves artists simply because they are impudent. There are
numbers of dull-witted creatures, drunkards, intriguing schemers
and slanderers, but there is not one person of talent among
them. I cannot tell you how bitter it is to me that the art I
love has fallen into the hands of people I detest; how bitter it
is that the best men look on at evil from afar, not caring to
come closer, and, instead of intervening, write ponderous
commonplaces and utterly useless sermons. . . ." And so on, all
in the same style.
A little time passed, and I got this letter: "I have been
brutally deceived. I cannot go on living. Dispose of my money as
you think best. I loved you as my father and my only friend.
Good-bye."
It turned out that he, too, belonged to the "horde of savages."
Later on, from certain hints, I gathered that there had been an
attempt at suicide. I believe Katya tried to poison herself. I
imagine that she must have been seriously ill afterwards, as the
next letter I got was from Yalta, where she had most probably
been sent by the doctors. Her last letter contained a request to
send her a thousand roubles to Yalta as quickly as possible, and
ended with these words:
"Excuse the gloominess of this letter; yesterday I buried my
child." After spending about a year in the Crimea, she returned
home.
She had been about four years on her travels, and during those
four years, I must confess, I had played a rather strange and
unenviable part in regard to her. When in earlier days she had
told me she was going on the stage, and then wrote to me of her
love; when she was periodically overcome by extravagance, and I
continually had to send her first one and then two thousand
roubles; when she wrote to me of her intention of suicide, and
then of the death of her baby, every time I lost my head, and
all my sympathy for her sufferings found no expression except
that, after prolonged reflection, I wrote long, boring letters
which I might just as well not have written. And yet I took a
father's place with her and loved her like a daughter!
Now Katya is living less than half a mile off. She has taken a
flat of five rooms, and has installed herself fairly comfortably
and in the taste of the day. If any one were to undertake to
describe her surroundings, the most characteristic note in the
picture would be indolence. For the indolent body there are soft
lounges, soft stools; for indolent feet soft rugs; for indolent
eyes faded, dingy, or flat colours; for the indolent soul the
walls are hung with a number of cheap fans and trivial pictures,
in which the originality of the execution is more conspicuous
than the subject; and the room contains a multitude of little
tables and shelves filled with utterly useless articles of no
value, and shapeless rags in place of curtains. . . . All this,
together with the dread of bright colours, of symmetry, and of
empty space, bears witness not only to spiritual indolence, but
also to a corruption of natural taste. For days together Katya
lies on the lounge reading, principally novels and stories. She
only goes out of the house once a day, in the afternoon, to see
me.
I go on working while Katya sits silent not far from me on the
sofa, wrapping herself in her shawl, as though she were cold.
Either because I find her sympathetic or because I was used to
her frequent visits when she was a little girl, her presence
does not prevent me from concentrating my attention. From time
to time I mechanically ask her some question; she gives very
brief replies; or, to rest for a minute, I turn round and watch
her as she looks dreamily at some medical journal or review. And
at such moments I notice that her face has lost the old look of
confiding trustfulness. Her expression now is cold, apathetic,
and absent-minded, like that of passengers who had to wait too
long for a train. She is dressed, as in old days, simply and
beautifully, but carelessly; her dress and her hair show visible
traces of the sofas and rocking-chairs in which she spends whole
days at a stretch. And she has lost the curiosity she had in old
days. She has ceased to ask me questions now, as though she had
experienced everything in life and looked for nothing new from
it.
Towards four o'clock there begins to be sounds of movement in
the hall and in the drawing-room. Liza has come back from the
Conservatoire, and has brought some girl-friends in with her. We
hear them playing on the piano, trying their voices and
laughing; in the dining-room Yegor is laying the table, with the
clatter of crockery.
"Good-bye," said Katya. "I won't go in and see your people
today. They must excuse me. I haven't time. Come and see me."
While I am seeing her to the door, she looks me up and down
grimly, and says with vexation:
"You are getting thinner and thinner! Why don't you consult a
doctor? I'll call at Sergey Fyodorovitch's and ask him to have a
look at you."
"There's no need, Katya."
"I can't think where your people's eyes are! They are a nice
lot, I must say!"
She puts on her fur coat abruptly, and as she does so two or
three hairpins drop unnoticed on the floor from her carelessly
arranged hair. She is too lazy and in too great a hurry to do
her hair up; she carelessly stuffs the falling curls under her
hat, and goes away.
When I go into the dining-room my wife asks me:
"Was Katya with you just now? Why didn't she come in to see us?
It's really strange . . . ."
"Mamma," Liza says to her reproachfully, "let her alone, if she
doesn't want to. We are not going down on our knees to her."
"It's very neglectful, anyway. To sit for three hours in the
study without remembering our existence! But of course she must
do as she likes."
Varya and Liza both hate Katya. This hatred is beyond my
comprehension, and probably one would have to be a woman in
order to understand it. I am ready to stake my life that of the
hundred and fifty young men I see every day in the
lecture-theatre, and of the hundred elderly ones I meet every
week, hardly one could be found capable of understanding their
hatred and aversion for Katya's past -- that is, for her having
been a mother without being a wife, and for her having had an
illegitimate child; and at the same time I cannot recall one
woman or girl of my acquaintance who would not consciously or
unconsciously harbour such feelings. And this is not because
woman is purer or more virtuous than man: why, virtue and purity
are not very different from vice if they are not free from evil
feeling. I attribute this simply to the backwardness of woman.
The mournful feeling of compassion and the pang of conscience
experienced by a modern man at the sight of suffering is, to my
mind, far greater proof of culture and moral elevation than
hatred and aversion. Woman is as tearful and as coarse in her
feelings now as she was in the Middle Ages, and to my thinking
those who advise that she should be educated like a man are
quite right.
My wife also dislikes Katya for having been an actress, for
ingratitude, for pride, for eccentricity, and for the numerous
vices which one woman can always find in another.
Besides my wife and daughter and me, there are dining with us
two or three of my daughter's friends and Alexandr Adolfovitch
Gnekker, her admirer and suitor. He is a fair-haired young man
under thirty, of medium height, very stout and broad-shouldered,
with red whiskers near his ears, and little waxed moustaches
which make his plump smooth face look like a toy. He is dressed
in a very short reefer jacket, a flowered waistcoat, breeches
very full at the top and very narrow at the ankle, with a large
check pattern on them, and yellow boots without heels. He has
prominent eyes like a crab's, his cravat is like a crab's neck,
and I even fancy there is a smell of crab-soup about the young
man's whole person. He visits us every day, but no one in my
family knows anything of his origin nor of the place of his
education, nor of his means of livelihood. He neither plays nor
sings, but has some connection with music and singing, sells
somebody's pianos somewhere, is frequently at the Conservatoire,
is acquainted with all the celebrities, and is a steward at the
concerts; he criticizes music with great authority, and I have
noticed that people are eager to agree with him.
Rich people always have dependents hanging about them; the arts
and sciences have the same. I believe there is not an art nor a
science in the world free from "foreign bodies" after the style
of this Mr. Gnekker. I am not a musician, and possibly I am
mistaken in regard to Mr. Gnekker, of whom, indeed, I know very
little. But his air of authority and the dignity with which he
takes his stand beside the piano when any one is playing or
singing strike me as very suspicious.
You may be ever so much of a gentleman and a privy councillor,
but if you have a daughter you cannot be secure of immunity from
that petty bourgeois atmosphere which is so often brought into
your house and into your mood by the attentions of suitors, by
matchmaking and marriage. I can never reconcile myself, for
instance, to the expression of triumph on my wife's face every
time Gnekker is in our company, nor can I reconcile myself to
the bottles of Lafitte, port and sherry which are only brought
out on his account, that he may see with his own eyes the
liberal and luxurious way in which we live. I cannot tolerate
the habit of spasmodic laughter Liza has picked up at the
Conservatoire, and her way of screwing up her eyes whenever
there are men in the room. Above all, I cannot understand why a
creature utterly alien to my habits, my studies, my whole manner
of life, completely different from the people I like, should
come and see me every day, and every day should dine with me. My
wife and my servants mysteriously whisper that he is a suitor,
but still I don't understand his presence; it rouses in me the
same wonder and perplexity as if they were to set a Zulu beside
me at the table. And it seems strange to me, too, that my
daughter, whom I am used to thinking of as a child, should love
that cravat, those eyes, those soft cheeks. . . .
In the old days I used to like my dinner, or at least was
indifferent about it; now it excites in me no feeling but
weariness and irritation. Ever since I became an "Excellency"
and one of the Deans of the Faculty my family has for some
reason found it necessary to make a complete change in our menu
and dining habits. Instead of the simple dishes to which I was
accustomed when I was a student and when I was in practice, now
they feed me with a puree with little white things like circles
floating about in it, and kidneys stewed in madeira. My rank as
a general and my fame have robbed me for ever of cabbage-soup
and savoury pies, and goose with apple-sauce, and bream with
boiled grain. They have robbed me of our maid-servant Agasha, a
chatty and laughter-loving old woman, instead of whom Yegor, a
dull-witted and conceited fellow with a white glove on his right
hand, waits at dinner. The intervals between the courses are
short, but they seem immensely long because there is nothing to
occupy them. There is none of the gaiety of the old days, the
spontaneous talk, the jokes, the laughter; there is nothing of
mutual affection and the joy which used to animate the children,
my wife, and me when in old days we met together at meals. For
me, the celebrated man of science, dinner was a time of rest and
reunion, and for my wife and children a fete -- brief indeed,
but bright and joyous -- in which they knew that for half an
hour I belonged, not to science, not to students, but to them
alone. Our real exhilaration from one glass of wine is gone for
ever, gone is Agasha, gone the bream with boiled grain, gone the
uproar that greeted every little startling incident at dinner,
such as the cat and dog fighting under the table, or Katya's
bandage falling off her face into her soup-plate.
To describe our dinner nowadays is as uninteresting as to eat
it. My wife's face wears a look of triumph and affected dignity,
and her habitual expression of anxiety. She looks at our plates
and says, "I see you don't care for the joint. Tell me; you
don't like it, do you?" and I am obliged to answer: "There is no
need for you to trouble, my dear; the meat is very nice." And
she will say: "You always stand up for me, Nikolay Stepanovitch,
and you never tell the truth. Why is Alexandr Adolfovitch eating
so little?" And so on in the same style all through dinner. Liza
laughs spasmodically and screws up her eyes. I watch them both,
and it is only now at dinner that it becomes absolutely evident
to me that the inner life of these two has slipped away out of
my ken. I have a feeling as though I had once lived at home with
a real wife and children and that now I am dining with visitors,
in the house of a sham wife who is not the real one, and am
looking at a Liza who is not the real Liza. A startling change
has taken place in both of them; I have missed the long process
by which that change was effected, and it is no wonder that I
can make nothing of it. Why did that change take place? I don't
know. Perhaps the whole trouble is that God has not given my
wife and daughter the same strength of character as me. From
childhood I have been accustomed to resisting external
influences, and have steeled myself pretty thoroughly. Such
catastrophes in life as fame, the rank of a general, the
transition from comfort to living beyond our means, acquaintance
with celebrities, etc., have scarcely affected me, and I have
remained intact and unashamed; but on my wife and Liza, who have
not been through the same hardening process and are weak, all
this has fallen like an avalanche of snow, overwhelming them.
Gnekker and the young ladies talk of fugues, of counterpoint, of
singers and pianists, of Bach and Brahms, while my wife, afraid
of their suspecting her of ignorance of music, smiles to them
sympathetically and mutters: "That's exquisite . . . really! You
don't say so! . . ." Gnekker eats with solid dignity, jests with
solid dignity, and condescendingly listens to the remarks of the
young ladies. From time to time he is moved to speak in bad
French, and then, for some reason or other, he thinks it
necessary to address me as "Votre Excellence."
And I am glum. Evidently I am a constraint to them and they are
a constraint to me. I have never in my earlier days had a close
knowledge of class antagonism, but now I am tormented by
something of that sort. I am on the lookout for nothing but bad
qualities in Gnekker; I quickly find them, and am fretted at the
thought that a man not of my circle is sitting here as my
daughter's suitor. His presence has a bad influence on me in
other ways, too. As a rule, when I am alone or in the society of
people I like, never think of my own achievements, or, if I do
recall them, they seem to me as trivial as though I had only
completed my studies yesterday; but in the presence of people
like Gnekker my achievements in science seem to be a lofty
mountain the top of which vanishes into the clouds, while at its
foot Gnekkers are running about scarcely visible to the naked
eye.
After dinner I go into my study and there smoke my pipe, the
only one in the whole day, the sole relic of my old bad habit of
smoking from morning till night. While I am smoking my wife
comes in and sits down to talk to me. Just as in the morning, I
know beforehand what our conversation is going to be about.
"I must talk to you seriously, Nikolay Stepanovitch," she
begins. "I mean about Liza. . . . Why don't you pay attention to
it?"
"To what?"
"You pretend to notice nothing. But that is not right. We can't
shirk responsibility. . . . Gnekker has intentions in regard to
Liza. . . . What do you say?"
"That he is a bad man I can't say, because I don't know him, but
that I don't like him I have told you a thousand times already."
"But you can't . . . you can't!"
She gets up and walks about in excitement.
"You can't take up that attitude to a serious step," she says.
"When it is a question of our daughter's happiness we must lay
aside all personal feeling. I know you do not like him. . . .
Very good . . . if we refuse him now, if we break it all off,
how can you be sure that Liza will not have a grievance against
us all her life? Suitors are not plentiful nowadays, goodness
knows, and it may happen that no other match will turn up. . . .
He is very much in love with Liza, and she seems to like him. .
. . Of course, he has no settled position, but that can't be
helped. Please God, in time he will get one. He is of good
family and well off."
"Where did you learn that?"
"He told us so. His father has a large house in Harkov and an
estate in the neighbourhood. In short, Nikolay Stepanovitch, you
absolutely must go to Harkov."
"What for?"
"You will find out all about him there. . . . You know the
professors there; they will help you. I would go myself, but I
am a woman. I cannot. . . ."
"I am not going to Harkov," I say morosely.
My wife is frightened, and a look of intense suffering comes
into her face.
"For God's sake, Nikolay Stepanovitch," she implores me, with
tears in her voice --"for God's sake, take this burden off me! I
am so worried!"
It is painful for me to look at her.
"Very well, Varya," I say affectionately, "if you wish it, then
certainly I will go to Harkov and do all you want."
She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes off to her
room to cry, and I am left alone.
A little later lights are brought in. The armchair and the
lamp-shade cast familiar shadows that have long grown wearisome
on the walls and on the floor, and when I look at them I feel as
though the night had come and with it my accursed sleeplessness.
I lie on my bed, then get up and walk about the room, then lie
down again. As a rule it is after dinner, at the approach of
evening, that my nervous excitement reaches its highest pitch.
For no reason I begin crying and burying my head in the pillow.
At such times I am afraid that some one may come in; I am afraid
of suddenly dying; I am ashamed of my tears, and altogether
there is something insufferable in my soul. I feel that I can no
longer bear the sight of my lamp, of my books, of the shadows on
the floor. I cannot bear the sound of the voices coming from the
drawing-room. Some force unseen, uncomprehended, is roughly
thrusting me out of my flat. I leap up hurriedly, dress, and
cautiously, that my family may not notice, slip out into the
street. Where am I to go?
The answer to that question has long been ready in my brain. To
Katya.
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