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A.P. Chekhov
- The Wife
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
II
Of all the mass of acquaintances who, in this
house twenty-five to thirty-five years ago, had eaten, drunk,
masqueraded, fallen in love, married, bored us with accounts of
their splendid packs of hounds and horses, the only one still
living was Ivan Ivanitch Bragin. At one time he had been very
active, talkative, noisy, and given to falling in love, and had
been famous for his extreme views and for the peculiar charm of
his face, which fascinated men as well as women; now he was an
old man, had grown corpulent, and was living out his days with
neither views nor charm. He came the day after getting my
letter, in the evening just as the samovar was brought into the
dining-room and little Marya Gerasimovna had begun slicing the
lemon.
"I am very glad to see you, my dear fellow," I said gaily,
meeting him. "Why, you are stouter than ever. . . ."
"It isn't getting stout; it's swelling," he answered. "The bees
must have stung me."
With the familiarity of a man laughing at his own fatness, he
put his arms round my waist and laid on my breast his big soft
head, with the hair combed down on the forehead like a Little
Russian's, and went off into a thin, aged laugh.
"And you go on getting younger," he said through his laugh. "I
wonder what dye you use for your hair and beard; you might let
me have some of it." Sniffing and gasping, he embraced me and
kissed me on the cheek. "You might give me some of it," he
repeated. "Why, you are not forty, are you?"
"Alas, I am forty-six!" I said, laughing.
Ivan Ivanitch smelt of tallow candles and cooking, and that
suited him. His big, puffy, slow-moving body was swathed in a
long frock-coat like a coachman's full coat, with a high waist,
and with hooks and eyes instead of buttons, and it would have
been strange if he had smelt of eau-de-Cologne, for instance. In
his long, unshaven, bluish double chin, which looked like a
thistle, his goggle eyes, his shortness of breath, and in the
whole of his clumsy, slovenly figure, in his voice, his laugh,
and his words, it was difficult to recognize the graceful,
interesting talker who used in old days to make the husbands of
the district jealous on account of their wives.
"I am in great need of your assistance, my friend," I said, when
we were sitting in the dining-room, drinking tea. "I want to
organize relief for the starving peasants, and I don't know how
to set about it. So perhaps you will be so kind as to advise
me."
"Yes, yes, yes," said Ivan Ivanitch, sighing. "To be sure, to be
sure, to be sure. . . ."
"I would not have worried you, my dear fellow, but really there
is no one here but you I can appeal to. You know what people are
like about here."
"To be sure, to be sure, to be sure. . . . Yes."
I thought that as we were going to have a serious, business
consultation in which any one might take part, regardless of
their position or personal relations, why should I not invite
Natalya Gavrilovna.
"Tres faciunt collegium," I said gaily. "What if we were to ask
Natalya Gavrilovna? What do you think? Fenya," I said, turning
to the maid, "ask Natalya Gavrilovna to come upstairs to us, if
possible at once. Tell her it's a very important matter."
A little later Natalya Gavrilovna came in. I got up to meet her
and said:
"Excuse us for troubling you, Natalie. We are discussing a very
important matter, and we had the happy thought that we might
take advantage of your good advice, which you will not refuse to
give us. Please sit down."
Ivan Ivanitch kissed her hand while she kissed his forehead;
then, when we all sat down to the table, he, looking at her
tearfully and blissfully, craned forward to her and kissed her
hand again. She was dressed in black, her hair was carefully
arranged, and she smelt of fresh scent. She had evidently
dressed to go out or was expecting somebody. Coming into the
dining-room, she held out her hand to me with simple
friendliness, and smiled to me as graciously as she did to Ivan
Ivanitch -- that pleased me; but as she talked she moved her
fingers, often and abruptly leaned back in her chair and talked
rapidly, and this jerkiness in her words and movements irritated
me and reminded me of her native town -- Odessa, where the
society, men and women alike, had wearied me by its bad taste.
"I want to do something for the famine-stricken peasants," I
began, and after a brief pause I went on: "Money, of course, is
a great thing, but to confine oneself to subscribing money, and
with that to be satisfied, would be evading the worst of the
trouble. Help must take the form of money, but the most
important thing is a proper and sound organization. Let us think
it over, my friends, and do something."
Natalya Gavrilovna looked at me inquiringly and shrugged her
shoulders as though to say, "What do I know about it?"
"Yes, yes, famine . . ." muttered Ivan Ivanitch. "Certainly . .
. yes."
"It's a serious position," I said, "and assistance is needed as
soon as possible. I imagine the first point among the principles
which we must work out ought to be promptitude. We must act on
the military principles of judgment, promptitude, and energy."
"Yes, promptitude . . ." repeated Ivan Ivanitch in a drowsy and
listless voice, as though he were dropping asleep. "Only one
can't do anything. The crops have failed, and so what's the use
of all your judgment and energy? . . . It's the elements. . . .
You can't go against God and fate."
"Yes, but that's what man has a head for, to contend against the
elements."
"Eh? Yes . . . that's so, to be sure. . . . Yes."
Ivan Ivanitch sneezed into his handkerchief, brightened up, and
as though he had just woken up, looked round at my wife and me.
"My crops have failed, too." He laughed a thin little laugh and
gave a sly wink as though this were really funny. "No money, no
corn, and a yard full of labourers like Count Sheremetyev's. I
want to kick them out, but I haven't the heart to."
Natalya Gavrilovna laughed, and began questioning him about his
private affairs. Her presence gave me a pleasure such as I had
not felt for a long time, and I was afraid to look at her for
fear my eyes would betray my secret feeling. Our relations were
such that that feeling might seem surprising and ridiculous.
She laughed and talked with Ivan Ivanitch without being in the
least disturbed that she was in my room and that I was not
laughing.
"And so, my friends, what are we to do?" I asked after waiting
for a pause. "I suppose before we do anything else we had better
immediately open a subscription-list. We will write to our
friends in the capitals and in Odessa, Natalie, and ask them to
subscribe. When we have got together a little sum we will begin
buying corn and fodder for the cattle; and you, Ivan Ivanitch,
will you be so kind as to undertake distributing the relief?
Entirely relying on your characteristic tact and efficiency, we
will only venture to express a desire that before you give any
relief you make acquaintance with the details of the case on the
spot, and also, which is very important, you should be careful
that corn should be distributed only to those who are in genuine
need, and not to the drunken, the idle, or the dishonest."
"Yes, yes, yes . . ." muttered Ivan Ivanitch. "To be sure, to be
sure."
"Well, one won't get much done with that slobbering wreck," I
thought, and I felt irritated.
"I am sick of these famine-stricken peasants, bother them! It's
nothing but grievances with them!" Ivan Ivanitch went on,
sucking the rind of the lemon. "The hungry have a grievance
against those who have enough, and those who have enough have a
grievance against the hungry. Yes . . . hunger stupefies and
maddens a man and makes him savage; hunger is not a potato. When
a man is starving he uses bad language, and steals, and may do
worse. . . . One must realize that."
Ivan Ivanitch choked over his tea, coughed, and shook all over
with a squeaky, smothered laughter.
" 'There was a battle at Pol . . . Poltava,' " he brought out,
gesticulating with both hands in protest against the laughter
and coughing which prevented him from speaking. " 'There was a
battle at Poltava!' When three years after the Emancipation we
had famine in two districts here, Fyodor Fyodoritch came and
invited me to go to him. 'Come along, come along,' he persisted,
and nothing else would satisfy him. 'Very well, let us go,' I
said. And, so we set off. It was in the evening; there was snow
falling. Towards night we were getting near his place, and
suddenly from the wood came 'bang!' and another time 'bang!'
'Oh, damn it all!' . . . I jumped out of the sledge, and I saw
in the darkness a man running up to me, knee-deep in the snow. I
put my arm round his shoulder, like this, and knocked the gun
out of his hand. Then another one turned up; I fetched him a
knock on the back of his head so that he grunted and flopped
with his nose in the snow. I was a sturdy chap then, my fist was
heavy; I disposed of two of them, and when I turned round Fyodor
was sitting astride of a third. We did not let our three fine
fellows go; we tied their hands behind their backs so that they
might not do us or themselves any harm, and took the fools into
the kitchen. We were angry with them and at the same time
ashamed to look at them; they were peasants we knew, and were
good fellows; we were sorry for them. They were quite stupid
with terror. One was crying and begging our pardon, the second
looked like a wild beast and kept swearing, the third knelt down
and began to pray. I said to Fedya: 'Don't bear them a grudge;
let them go, the rascals!' He fed them, gave them a bushel of
flour each, and let them go: 'Get along with you,' he said. So
that's what he did.. . . The Kingdom of Heaven be his and
everlasting peace! He understood and did not bear them a grudge;
but there were some who did, and how many people they ruined!
Yes. . . Why, over the affair at the Klotchkovs' tavern eleven
men were sent to the disciplinary battalion. Yes. . . . And now,
look, it's the same thing. Anisyin, the investigating
magistrate, stayed the night with me last Thursday, and he told
me about some landowner. . . . Yes. . . . They took the wall of
his barn to pieces at night and carried off twenty sacks of rye.
When the gentleman heard that such a crime had been committed,
he sent a telegram to the Governor and another to the police
captain, another to the investigating magistrate! . . . Of
course, every one is afraid of a man who is fond of litigation.
The authorities were in a flutter and there was a general
hubbub. Two villages were searched."
"Excuse me, Ivan Ivanitch," I said. "Twenty sacks of rye were
stolen from me, and it was I who telegraphed to the Governor. I
telegraphed to Petersburg, too. But it was by no means out of
love for litigation, as you are pleased to express it, and not
because I bore them a grudge. I look at every subject from the
point of view of principle. From the point of view of the law,
theft is the same whether a man is hungry or not."
"Yes, yes. . ." muttered Ivan Ivanitch in confusion. "Of course.
. . To be sure, yes."
Natalya Gavrilovna blushed.
"There are people. . ." she said and stopped; she made an effort
to seem indifferent, but she could not keep it up, and looked
into my eyes with the hatred that I know so well. "There are
people," she said, "for whom famine and human suffering exist
simply that they may vent their hateful and despicable
temperaments upon them."
I was confused and shrugged my shoulders.
"I meant to say generally," she went on, "that there are people
who are quite indifferent and completely devoid of all feeling
of sympathy, yet who do not pass human suffering by, but insist
on meddling for fear people should be able to do without them.
Nothing is sacred for their vanity."
"There are people," I said softly, "who have an angelic
character, but who express their glorious ideas in such a form
that it is difficult to distinguish the angel from an Odessa
market-woman."
I must confess it was not happily expressed.
My wife looked at me as though it cost her a great effort to
hold her tongue. Her sudden outburst, and then her inappropriate
eloquence on the subject of my desire to help the
famine-stricken peasants, were, to say the least, out of place;
when I had invited her to come upstairs I had expected quite a
different attitude to me and my intentions. I cannot say
definitely what I had expected, but I had been agreeably
agitated by the expectation. Now I saw that to go on speaking
about the famine would be difficult and perhaps stupid.
"Yes . . ." Ivan Ivanitch muttered inappropriately. "Burov, the
merchant, must have four hundred thousand at least. I said to
him: 'Hand over one or two thousand to the famine. You can't
take it with you when you die, anyway.' He was offended. But we
all have to die, you know. Death is not a potato."
A silence followed again.
"So there's nothing left for me but to reconcile myself to
loneliness," I sighed. "One cannot fight single-handed. Well, I
will try single-handed. Let us hope that my campaign against the
famine will be more successful than my campaign against
indifference."
"I am expected downstairs," said Natalya Gavrilovna.
She got up from the table and turned to Ivan Ivanitch.
"So you will look in upon me downstairs for a minute? I won't
say good-bye to you."
And she went away.
Ivan Ivanitch was now drinking his seventh glass of tea,
choking, smacking his lips, and sucking sometimes his moustache,
sometimes the lemon. He was muttering something drowsily and
listlessly, and I did not listen but waited for him to go. At
last, with an expression that suggested that he had only come to
me to take a cup of tea, he got up and began to take leave. As I
saw him out I said:
"And so you have given me no advice."
"Eh? I am a feeble, stupid old man," he answered. "What use
would my advice be? You shouldn't worry yourself. . . . I really
don't know why you worry yourself. Don't disturb yourself, my
dear fellow! Upon my word, there's no need," he whispered
genuinely and affectionately, soothing me as though I were a
child. "Upon my word, there's no need."
"No need? Why, the peasants are pulling the thatch off their
huts, and they say there is typhus somewhere already."
"Well, what of it? If there are good crops next year, they'll
thatch them again, and if we die of typhus others will live
after us. Anyway, we have to die -- if not now, later. Don't
worry yourself, my dear."
"I can't help worrying myself," I said irritably.
We were standing in the dimly lighted vestibule. Ivan Ivanitch
suddenly took me by the elbow, and, preparing to say something
evidently very important, looked at me in silence for a couple
of minutes.
"Pavel Andreitch!" he said softly, and suddenly in his puffy,
set face and dark eyes there was a gleam of the expression for
which he had once been famous and which was truly charming.
"Pavel Andreitch, I speak to you as a friend: try to be
different! One is ill at ease with you, my dear fellow, one
really is!"
He looked intently into my face; the charming expression faded
away, his eyes grew dim again, and he sniffed and muttered
feebly:
"Yes, yes. . . . Excuse an old man. . . . It's all nonsense . .
. yes."
As he slowly descended the staircase, spreading out his hands to
balance himself and showing me his huge, bulky back and red
neck, he gave me the unpleasant impression of a sort of crab.
"You ought to go away, your Excellency," he muttered. "To
Petersburg or abroad. . . . Why should you live here and waste
your golden days? You are young, wealthy, and healthy. . . .
Yes. . . . Ah, if I were younger I would whisk away like a hare,
and snap my fingers at everything."
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