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An Anonymous Story
by Anton Chekhov
I
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III IV
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VII
VIII
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XII
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XIV
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VII Now that I am writing these lines I am restrained by that dread
of appearing sentimental and ridiculous, in which I have been
trained from childhood; when I want to be affectionate or to say
anything tender, I don't know how to be natural. And it is that
dread, together with lack of practice, that prevents me from
being able to express with perfect clearness what was passing in
my soul at that time.
I was not in love with Zinaida Fyodorovna, but in the ordinary
human feeling I had for her, there was far more youth,
freshness, and joyousness than in Orlov's love.
As I worked in the morning, cleaning boots or sweeping the
rooms, I waited with a thrill at my heart for the moment when I
should hear her voice and her footsteps. To stand watching her
as she drank her coffee in the morning or ate her lunch, to hold
her fur coat for her in the hall, and to put the goloshes on her
little feet while she rested her hand on my shoulder; then to
wait till the hall porter rang up for me, to meet her at the
door, cold, and rosy, powdered with the snow, to listen to her
brief exclamations about the frost or the cabman -- if only you
knew how much all that meant to me! I longed to be in love, to
have a wife and child of my own. I wanted my future wife to have
just such a face, such a voice. I dreamed of it at dinner, and
in the street when I was sent on some errand, and when I lay
awake at night. Orlov rejected with disgust children, cooking,
copper saucepans, and feminine knicknacks and I gathered them
all up, tenderly cherished them in my dreams, loved them, and
begged them of destiny. I had visions of a wife, a nursery, a
little house with garden paths. . . .
I knew that if I did love her I could never dare hope for the
miracle of her returning my love, but that reflection did not
worry me. In my quiet, modest feeling akin to ordinary
affection, there was no jealousy of Orlov or even envy of him,
since I realised that for a wreck like me happiness was only to
be found in dreams.
When Zinaida Fyodorovna sat up night after night for her George,
looking immovably at a book of which she never turned a page, or
when she shuddered and turned pale at Polya's crossing the room,
I suffered with her, and the idea occurred to me to lance this
festering wound as quickly as possible by letting her know what
was said here at supper on Thursdays; but -- how was it to be
done? More and more often I saw her tears. For the first weeks
she laughed and sang to herself, even when Orlov was not at
home, but by the second month there was a mournful stillness in
our flat broken only on Thursday evenings.
She flattered Orlov, and to wring from him a counterfeit smile
or kiss, was ready to go on her knees to him, to fawn on him
like a dog. Even when her heart was heaviest, she could not
resist glancing into a looking-glass if she passed one and
straightening her hair. It seemed strange to me that she could
still take an interest in clothes and go into ecstasies over her
purchases. It did not seem in keeping with her genuine grief.
She paid attention to the fashions and ordered expensive
dresses. What for? On whose account? I particularly remember one
dress which cost four hundred roubles. To give four hundred
roubles for an unnecessary, useless dress while women for their
hard day's work get only twenty kopecks a day without food, and
the makers of Venice and Brussels lace are only paid half a
franc a day on the supposition that they can earn the rest by
immorality! And it seemed strange to me that Zinaida Fyodorovna
was not conscious of it; it vexed me. But she had only to go out
of the house for me to find excuses and explanations for
everything, and to be waiting eagerly for the hall porter to
ring for me.
She treated me as a flunkey, a being of a lower order. One may
pat a dog, and yet not notice it; I was given orders and asked
questions, but my presence was not observed. My master and
mistress thought it unseemly to say more to me than is usually
said to servants; if when waiting at dinner I had laughed or put
in my word in the conversation, they would certainly have
thought I was mad and have dismissed me. Zinaida Fyodorovna was
favourably disposed to me, all the same. When she was sending me
on some errand or explaining to me the working of a new lamp or
anything of that sort, her face was extraordinarily kind, frank,
and cordial, and her eyes looked me straight in the face. At
such moments I always fancied she remembered with gratitude how
I used to bring her letters to Znamensky Street. When she rang
the bell, Polya, who considered me her favourite and hated me
for it, used to say with a jeering smile:
"Go along, your mistress wants you."
Zinaida Fyodorovna considered me as a being of a lower order,
and did not suspect that if any one in the house were in a
humiliating position it was she. She did not know that I, a
footman, was unhappy on her account, and used to ask myself
twenty times a day what was in store for her and how it would
all end. Things were growing visibly worse day by day. After the
evening on which they had talked of his official work, Orlov,
who could not endure tears, unmistakably began to avoid
conversation with her; whenever Zinaida Fyodorovna began to
argue, or to beseech him, or seemed on the point of crying, he
seized some plausible excuse for retreating to his study or
going out. He more and more rarely slept at home, and still more
rarely dined there: on Thursdays he was the one to suggest some
expedition to his friends. Zinaida Fyodorovna was still dreaming
of having the cooking done at home, of moving to a new flat, of
travelling abroad, but her dreams remained dreams. Dinner was
sent in from the restaurant. Orlov asked her not to broach the
question of moving until after they had come back from abroad,
and apropos of their foreign tour, declared that they could not
go till his hair had grown long, as one could not go trailing
from hotel to hotel and serving the idea without long hair.
To crown it all, in Orlov's absence, Kukushkin began calling at
the flat in the evening. There was nothing exceptional in his
behaviour, but I could never forget the conversation in which he
had offered to cut Orlov out. He was regaled with tea and red
wine, and he used to titter and, anxious to say something
pleasant, would declare that a free union was superior in every
respect to legal marriage, and that all decent people ought
really to come to Zinaida Fyodorovna and fall at her feet.
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