|
|
|
Three Years
by A.P. Chekhov
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XII In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in
the school of painting. The whole family went together in the
Moscow fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and
all.
Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never
missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little
landscape paintings when he was in the country in the summer,
and he fancied he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had
studied he might have made a good painter. When he was abroad he
sometimes used to go to curio shops, examining the antiques with
the air of a connoisseur and giving his opinion on them. When he
bought any article he gave just what the shopkeeper liked to ask
for it and his purchase remained afterwards in a box in the
coach-house till it disappeared altogether. Or going into a
print shop, he would slowly and attentively examine the
engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on them, and
would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At home he
had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior quality;
the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to him more
than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards
turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was
remarkable that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life,
he was exceedingly bold and self-confident at a picture
exhibition. Why?
Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did,
through her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that
the people in the pictures were like live people, and the trees
like real trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed
to her that many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she
imagined that the whole object in painting was that the figures
and objects should stand out as though they were real, when you
looked at the picture through your open fist.
"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He
always paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such
a lilac colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter
than his right."
When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya,
that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a
small landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a
little wooden bridge; on the further side a path that
disappeared in the dark grass; a field on the right; a copse;
near it a camp fire -- no doubt of watchers by night; and in the
distance there was a glow of the evening sunset.
Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then
along the little path further and further, while all round was
stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering
in the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel
that she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the
red part of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many
times before. She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on
along the path; and there, in the glow of sunset was the calm
reflection of something unearthly, eternal.
"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the
picture had suddenly become intelligible to her.
"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?"
She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much,
but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept
looking at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that
the others saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she
began walking through the rooms and looking at the pictures
again. She tried to understand them and no longer thought that a
great many of them were alike. When, on returning home, for the
first time she looked attentively at the big picture that hung
over the piano in the drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it,
and said:
"What an idea to have pictures like that!"
And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses
with flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one
that hung over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's
reflections upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and
vexation, even of hatred.
Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise
of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm
days had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One
morning the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya,
who had been appointed by the court to defend some one. They
were late in starting, and reached the court after the
examination of the witnesses had begun. A soldier in the reserve
was accused of theft and housebreaking. There were a great
number of witnesses, washerwomen; they all testified that the
accused was often in the house of their employer -- a woman who
kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross he
came late in the evening and began asking for money; he wanted a
pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave him
anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came
back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake
for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till
daybreak, and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of
the door leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen
three men's shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing.
Kostya asked each witness sarcastically whether she had not
drunk the beer the accused had brought. Evidently he was
insinuating that the washerwomen had stolen the linen
themselves. He delivered his speech without the slightest
nervousness, looking angrily at the jury.
He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the
difference between that and simple theft. He spoke very
circumstantially and convincingly, displaying an unusual talent
for speaking at length and in a serious tone about what had been
know to every one long before. And it was difficult to make out
exactly what he was aiming at. From his long speech the foreman
of the jury could only have deduced "that it was housebreaking
but not robbery, as the washerwomen had sold the linen for drink
themselves; or, if there had been robbery, there had not been
housebreaking." But obviously, he said just what was wanted, as
his speech moved the jury and the audience, and was very much
liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, Yulia nodded to
Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly.
In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By
that time Yulia was expecting a baby.
|
|
|
