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A.P. Chekhov
- The Wife
I
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III IV
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VII
VI
I went to the station at ten o'clock in the
morning. There was no frost, but snow was falling in big wet
flakes and an unpleasant damp wind was blowing.
We passed a pond and then a birch copse, and then began going
uphill along the road which I could see from my window. I turned
round to take a last look at my house, but I could see nothing
for the snow. Soon afterwards dark huts came into sight ahead of
us as in a fog. It was Pestrovo.
"If I ever go out of my mind, Pestrovo will be the cause of it,"
I thought. "It persecutes me."
We came out into the village street. All the roofs were intact,
not one of them had been pulled to pieces; so my bailiff had
told a lie. A boy was pulling along a little girl and a baby in
a sledge. Another boy of three, with his head wrapped up like a
peasant woman's and with huge mufflers on his hands, was trying
to catch the flying snowflakes on his tongue, and laughing. Then
a wagon loaded with fagots came toward us and a peasant walking
beside it, and there was no telling whether his beard was white
or whether it was covered with snow. He recognized my coachman,
smiled at him and said something, and mechanically took off his
hat to me. The dogs ran out of the yards and looked
inquisitively at my horses. Everything was quiet, ordinary, as
usual. The emigrants had returned, there was no bread; in the
huts "some were laughing, some were delirious"; but it all
looked so ordinary that one could not believe it really was so.
There were no distracted faces, no voices whining for help, no
weeping, nor abuse, but all around was stillness, order, life,
children, sledges, dogs with dishevelled tails. Neither the
children nor the peasant we met were troubled; why was I so
troubled?
Looking at the smiling peasant, at the boy with the huge
mufflers, at the huts, remembering my wife, I realized there was
no calamity that could daunt this people; I felt as though there
were already a breath of victory in the air. I felt proud and
felt ready to cry out that I was with them too; but the horses
were carrying us away from the village into the open country,
the snow was whirling, the wind was howling, and I was left
alone with my thoughts. Of the million people working for the
peasantry, life itself had cast me out as a useless,
incompetent, bad man. I was a hindrance, a part of the people's
calamity; I was vanquished, cast out, and I was hurrying to the
station to go away and hide myself in Petersburg in a hotel in
Bolshaya Morskaya.
An hour later we reached the station. The coachman and a porter
with a disc on his breast carried my trunks into the ladies'
room. My coachman Nikanor, wearing high felt boots and the skirt
of his coat tucked up through his belt, all wet with the snow
and glad I was going away, gave me a friendly smile and said:
"A fortunate journey, your Excellency. God give you luck."
Every one, by the way, calls me "your Excellency," though I am
only a collegiate councillor and a kammer-junker. The porter
told me the train had not yet left the next station; I had to
wait. I went outside, and with my head heavy from my sleepless
night, and so exhausted I could hardly move my legs, I walked
aimlessly towards the pump. There was not a soul anywhere near.
"Why am I going?" I kept asking myself. "What is there awaiting
me there? The acquaintances from whom I have come away,
loneliness, restaurant dinners, noise, the electric light, which
makes my eyes ache. Where am I going, and what am I going for?
What am I going for?"
And it seemed somehow strange to go away without speaking to my
wife. I felt that I was leaving her in uncertainty. Going away,
I ought to have told that she was right, that I really was a bad
man.
When I turned away from the pump, I saw in the doorway the
station-master, of whom I had twice made complaints to his
superiors, turning up the collar of his coat, shrinking from the
wind and the snow. He came up to me, and putting two fingers to
the peak of his cap, told me with an expression of helpless
confusion, strained respectfulness, and hatred on his face, that
the train was twenty minutes late, and asked me would I not like
to wait in the warm?
"Thank you," I answered, "but I am probably not going. Send word
to my coachman to wait; I have not made up my mind."
I walked to and fro on the platform and thought, should I go
away or not? When the train came in I decided not to go. At home
I had to expect my wife's amazement and perhaps her mockery, the
dismal upper storey and my uneasiness; but, still, at my age
that was easier and as it were more homelike than travelling for
two days and nights with strangers to Petersburg, where I should
be conscious every minute that my life was of no use to any one
or to anything, and that it was approaching its end. No, better
at home whatever awaited me there. . . . I went out of the
station. It was awkward by daylight to return home, where every
one was so glad at my going. I might spend the rest of the day
till evening at some neighbour's, but with whom? With some of
them I was on strained relations, others I did not know at all.
I considered and thought of Ivan Ivanitch.
"We are going to Bragino!" I said to the coachman, getting into
the sledge.
"It's a long way," sighed Nikanor; "it will be twenty miles, or
maybe twenty-five."
"Oh, please, my dear fellow," I said in a tone as though Nikanor
had the right to refuse. "Please let us go!"
Nikanor shook his head doubtfully and said slowly that we really
ought to have put in the shafts, not Circassian, but Peasant or
Siskin; and uncertainly, as though expecting I should change my
mind, took the reins in his gloves, stood up, thought a moment,
and then raised his whip.
"A whole series of inconsistent actions . . ." I thought,
screening my face from the snow. "I must have gone out of my
mind. Well, I don't care. . . ."
In one place, on a very high and steep slope, Nikanor carefully
held the horses in to the middle of the descent, but in the
middle the horses suddenly bolted and dashed downhill at a
fearful rate; he raised his elbows and shouted in a wild,
frantic voice such as I had never heard from him before:
"Hey! Let's give the general a drive! If you come to grief he'll
buy new ones, my darlings! Hey! look out! We'll run you down!"
Only now, when the extraordinary pace we were going at took my
breath away, I noticed that he was very drunk. He must have been
drinking at the station. At the bottom of the descent there was
the crash of ice; a piece of dirty frozen snow thrown up from
the road hit me a painful blow in the face.
The runaway horses ran up the hill as rapidly as they had
downhill, and before I had time to shout to Nikanor my sledge
was flying along on the level in an old pine forest, and the
tall pines were stretching out their shaggy white paws to me
from all directions.
"I have gone out of my mind, and the coachman's drunk," I
thought. "Good!"
I found Ivan Ivanitch at home. He laughed till he coughed, laid
his head on my breast, and said what he always did say on
meeting me:
"You grow younger and younger. I don't know what dye you use for
your hair and your beard; you might give me some of it."
"I've come to return your call, Ivan Ivanitch," I said
untruthfully. "Don't be hard on me; I'm a townsman,
conventional; I do keep count of calls."
"I am delighted, my dear fellow. I am an old man; I like
respect. . . . Yes."
From his voice and his blissfully smiling face, I could see that
he was greatly flattered by my visit. Two peasant women helped
me off with my coat in the entry, and a peasant in a red shirt
hung it on a hook, and when Ivan Ivanitch and I went into his
little study, two barefooted little girls were sitting on the
floor looking at a picture-book; when they saw us they jumped up
and ran away, and a tall, thin old woman in spectacles came in
at once, bowed gravely to me, and picking up a pillow from the
sofa and a picture-book from the floor, went away. From the
adjoining rooms we heard incessant whispering and the patter of
bare feet.
"I am expecting the doctor to dinner," said Ivan Ivanitch. "He
promised to come from the relief centre. Yes. He dines with me
every Wednesday, God bless him." He craned towards me and kissed
me on the neck. "You have come, my dear fellow, so you are not
vexed," he whispered, sniffing. "Don't be vexed, my dear
creature. Yes. Perhaps it is annoying, but don't be cross. My
only prayer to God before I die is to live in peace and harmony
with all in the true way. Yes."
"Forgive me, Ivan Ivanitch, I will put my feet on a chair," I
said, feeling that I was so exhausted I could not be myself; I
sat further back on the sofa and put up my feet on an arm-chair.
My face was burning from the snow and the wind, and I felt as
though my whole body were basking in the warmth and growing
weaker from it.
"It's very nice here," I went on -- "warm, soft, snug . . . and
goose-feather pens," I laughed, looking at the writing-table;
"sand instead of blotting-paper."
"Eh? Yes . . . yes. . . . The writing-table and the mahogany
cupboard here were made for my father by a self-taught
cabinet-maker -- Glyeb Butyga, a serf of General Zhukov's. Yes .
. . a great artist in his own way."
Listlessly and in the tone of a man dropping asleep, he began
telling me about cabinet-maker Butyga. I listened. Then Ivan
Ivanitch went into the next room to show me a polisander wood
chest of drawers remarkable for its beauty and cheapness. He
tapped the chest with his fingers, then called my attention to a
stove of patterned tiles, such as one never sees now. He tapped
the stove, too, with his fingers. There was an atmosphere of
good-natured simplicity and well-fed abundance about the chest
of drawers, the tiled stove, the low chairs, the pictures
embroidered in wool and silk on canvas in solid, ugly frames.
When one remembers that all those objects were standing in the
same places and precisely in the same order when I was a little
child, and used to come here to name-day parties with my mother,
it is simply unbelievable that they could ever cease to exist.
I thought what a fearful difference between Butyga and me!
Butyga who made things, above all, solidly and substantially,
and seeing in that his chief object, gave to length of life
peculiar significance, had no thought of death, and probably
hardly believed in its possibility; I, when I built my bridges
of iron and stone which would last a thousand years, could not
keep from me the thought, "It's not for long . . . .it's no
use." If in time Butyga's cupboard and my bridge should come
under the notice of some sensible historian of art, he would
say: "These were two men remarkable in their own way: Butyga
loved his fellow-creatures and would not admit the thought that
they might die and be annihilated, and so when he made his
furniture he had the immortal man in his mind. The engineer
Asorin did not love life or his fellow-creatures; even in the
happy moments of creation, thoughts of death, of finiteness and
dissolution, were not alien to him, and we see how insignificant
and finite, how timid and poor, are these lines of his. . . ."
"I only heat these rooms," muttered Ivan Ivanitch, showing me
his rooms. "Ever since my wife died and my son was killed in the
war, I have kept the best rooms shut up. Yes . . . see. . ."
He opened a door, and I saw a big room with four columns, an old
piano, and a heap of peas on the floor; it smelt cold and damp.
"The garden seats are in the next room . . ." muttered Ivan
Ivanitch. "There's no one to dance the mazurka now. . . . I've
shut them up."
We heard a noise. It was Dr. Sobol arriving. While he was
rubbing his cold hands and stroking his wet beard, I had time to
notice in the first place that he had a very dull life, and so
was pleased to see Ivan Ivanitch and me; and, secondly, that he
was a nave and simple-hearted man. He looked at me as though I
were very glad to see him and very much interested in him.
"I have not slept for two nights," he said, looking at me
navely and stroking his beard. "One night with a confinement,
and the next I stayed at a peasant's with the bugs biting me all
night. I am as sleepy as Satan, do you know."
With an expression on his face as though it could not afford me
anything but pleasure, he took me by the arm and led me to the
dining-room. His nave eyes, his crumpled coat, his cheap tie
and the smell of iodoform made an unpleasant impression upon me;
I felt as though I were in vulgar company. When we sat down to
table he filled my glass with vodka, and, smiling helplessly, I
drank it; he put a piece of ham on my plate and I ate it
submissively.
"Repetitia est mater studiorum," said Sobol, hastening to drink
off another wineglassful. "Would you believe it, the joy of
seeing good people has driven away my sleepiness? I have turned
into a peasant, a savage in the wilds; I've grown coarse, but I
am still an educated man, and I tell you in good earnest, it's
tedious without company."
They served first for a cold course white sucking-pig with
horse-radish cream, then a rich and very hot cabbage soup with
pork on it, with boiled buckwheat, from which rose a column of
steam. The doctor went on talking, and I was soon convinced that
he was a weak, unfortunate man, disorderly in external life.
Three glasses of vodka made him drunk; he grew unnaturally
lively, ate a great deal, kept clearing his throat and smacking
his lips, and already addressed me in Italian, "Eccellenza."
Looking navely at me as though he were convinced that I was
very glad to see and hear him, he informed me that he had long
been separated from his wife and gave her three-quarters of his
salary; that she lived in the town with his children, a boy and
a girl, whom he adored; that he loved another woman, a widow,
well educated, with an estate in the country, but was rarely
able to see her, as he was busy with his work from morning till
night and had not a free moment.
"The whole day long, first at the hospital, then on my rounds,"
he told us; "and I assure you, Eccellenza, I have not time to
read a book, let alone going to see the woman I love. I've read
nothing for ten years! For ten years, Eccellenza. As for the
financial side of the question, ask Ivan Ivanitch: I have often
no money to buy tobacco."
"On the other hand, you have the moral satisfaction of your
work," I said.
"What?" he asked, and he winked. "No," he said, "better let us
drink."
I listened to the doctor, and, after my invariable habit, tried
to take his measure by my usual classification -- materialist,
idealist, filthy lucre, gregarious instincts, and so on; but no
classification fitted him even approximately; and strange to
say, while I simply listened and looked at him, he seemed
perfectly clear to me as a person, but as soon as I began trying
to classify him he became an exceptionally complex, intricate,
and incomprehensible character in spite of all his candour and
simplicity. "Is that man," I asked myself, "capable of wasting
other people's money, abusing their confidence, being disposed
to sponge on them?" And now this question, which had once seemed
to me grave and important, struck me as crude, petty, and
coarse.
Pie was served; then, I remember, with long intervals between,
during which we drank home-made liquors, they gave us a stew of
pigeons, some dish of giblets, roast sucking-pig, partridges,
cauliflower, curd dumplings, curd cheese and milk, jelly, and
finally pancakes and jam. At first I ate with great relish,
especially the cabbage soup and the buckwheat, but afterwards I
munched and swallowed mechanically, smiling helplessly and
unconscious of the taste of anything. My face was burning from
the hot cabbage soup and the heat of the room. Ivan Ivanitch and
Sobol, too, were crimson.
"To the health of your wife," said Sobol. "She likes me. Tell
her her doctor sends her his respects."
"She's fortunate, upon my word," sighed Ivan Ivanitch. "Though
she takes no trouble, does not fuss or worry herself, she has
become the most important person in the whole district. Almost
the whole business is in her hands, and they all gather round
her, the doctor, the District Captains, and the ladies. With
people of the right sort that happens of itself. Yes. . . . The
apple-tree need take no thought for the apple to grow on it; it
will grow of itself."
"It's only people who don't care who take no thought," said I.
"Eh? Yes . . ." muttered Ivan Ivanitch, not catching what I
said, "that's true. . . . One must not worry oneself. Just so,
just so. . . . Only do your duty towards God and your neighbour,
and then never mind what happens."
"Eccellenza," said Sobol solemnly, "just look at nature about
us: if you poke your nose or your ear out of your fur collar it
will be frost-bitten; stay in the fields for one hour, you'll be
buried in the snow; while the village is just the same as in the
days of Rurik, the same Petchenyegs and Polovtsi. It's nothing
but being burnt down, starving, and struggling against nature in
every way. What was I saying? Yes! If one thinks about it, you
know, looks into it and analyses all this hotchpotch, if you
will allow me to call it so, it's not life but more like a fire
in a theatre! Any one who falls down or screams with terror, or
rushes about, is the worst enemy of good order; one must stand
up and look sharp, and not stir a hair! There's no time for
whimpering and busying oneself with trifles. When you have to
deal with elemental forces you must put out force against them,
be firm and as unyielding as a stone. Isn't that right,
grandfather?" He turned to Ivan Ivanitch and laughed. "I am no
better than a woman myself; I am a limp rag, a flabby creature,
so I hate flabbiness. I can't endure petty feelings! One mopes,
another is frightened, a third will come straight in here and
say: 'Fie on you! Here you've guzzled a dozen courses and you
talk about the starving!' That's petty and stupid! A fourth will
reproach you, Eccellenza, for being rich. Excuse me,
Eccellenza," he went on in a loud voice, laying his hand on his
heart, "but your having set our magistrate the task of hunting
day and night for your thieves -- excuse me, that's also petty
on your part. I am a little drunk, so that's why I say this now,
but you know, it is petty!"
"Who's asking him to worry himself? I don't understand!" I said,
getting up.
I suddenly felt unbearably ashamed and mortified, and I walked
round the table.
"Who asks him to worry himself? I didn't ask him to. . . . Damn
him!"
"They have arrested three men and let them go again. They turned
out not to be the right ones, and now they are looking for a
fresh lot," said Sobol, laughing. "It's too bad!"
"I did not ask him to worry himself," said I, almost crying with
excitement. "What's it all for? What's it all for? Well,
supposing I was wrong, supposing I have done wrong, why do they
try to put me more in the wrong?"
"Come, come, come, come!" said Sobol, trying to soothe me.
"Come! I have had a drop, that is why I said it. My tongue is my
enemy. Come," he sighed, "we have eaten and drunk wine, and now
for a nap."
He got up from the table, kissed Ivan Ivanitch on the head, and
staggering from repletion, went out of the dining-room. Ivan
Ivanitch and I smoked in silence.
"I don't sleep after dinner, my dear," said Ivan Ivanitch, "but
you have a rest in the lounge-room."
I agreed. In the half-dark and warmly heated room they called
the lounge-room, there stood against the walls long, wide sofas,
solid and heavy, the work of Butyga the cabinet maker; on them
lay high, soft, white beds, probably made by the old woman in
spectacles. On one of them Sobol, without his coat and boots,
already lay asleep with his face to the back of the sofa;
another bed was awaiting me. I took off my coat and boots, and,
overcome by fatigue, by the spirit of Butyga which hovered over
the quiet lounge-room, and by the light, caressing snore of
Sobol, I lay down submissively.
And at once I began dreaming of my wife, of her room, of the
station-master with his face full of hatred, the heaps of snow,
a fire in the theatre. I dreamed of the peasants who had stolen
twenty sacks of rye out of my barn.
"Anyway, it's a good thing the magistrate let them go," I said.
I woke up at the sound of my own voice, looked for a moment in
perplexity at Sobol's broad back, at the buckles of his
waistcoat, at his thick heels, then lay down again and fell
asleep.
When I woke up the second time it was quite dark. Sobol was
asleep. There was peace in my heart, and I longed to make haste
home. I dressed and went out of the lounge-room. Ivan Ivanitch
was sitting in a big arm-chair in his study, absolutely
motionless, staring at a fixed point, and it was evident that he
had been in the same state of petrifaction all the while I had
been asleep.
"Good!" I said, yawning. "I feel as though I had woken up after
breaking the fast at Easter. I shall often come and see you now.
Tell me, did my wife ever dine here?"
"So-ome-ti-mes . . . sometimes,"' muttered Ivan Ivanitch, making
an effort to stir. "She dined here last Saturday. Yes. . . . She
likes me."
After a silence I said:
"Do you remember, Ivan Ivanitch, you told me I had a
disagreeable character and that it was difficult to get on with
me? But what am I to do to make my character different?"
"I don't know, my dear boy. . . . I'm a feeble old man, I can't
advise you. . . . Yes. . . . But I said that to you at the time
because I am fond of you and fond of your wife, and I was fond
of your father. . . . Yes. I shall soon die, and what need have
I to conceal things from you or to tell you lies? So I tell you:
I am very fond of you, but I don't respect you. No, I don't
respect you."
He turned towards me and said in a breathless whisper:
"It's impossible to respect you, my dear fellow. You look like a
real man. You have the figure and deportment of the French
President Carnot -- I saw a portrait of him the other day in an
illustrated paper . . . yes. . . . You use lofty language, and
you are clever, and you are high up in the service beyond all
reach, but haven't real soul, my dear boy . . . there's no
strength in it."
"A Scythian, in fact," I laughed. "But what about my wife? Tell
me something about my wife; you know her better."
I wanted to talk about my wife, but Sobol came in and prevented
me.
"I've had a sleep and a wash," he said, looking at me navely.
"I'll have a cup of tea with some rum in it and go home."
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