Anton
Chekhov's Three Years
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVII In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense
turnover, there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was
impossible to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier
in the office. Every day the warehouse was visited by agents,
German and English, with whom the clerks talked politics and
religion. A man of noble birth, ruined by drink, an ailing,
pitiable creature, used to come to translate the foreign
correspondence in the office; the clerks used to call him a
midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether the whole concern
struck Laptev as a very queer business.
He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new
order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer
at the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully
despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as
though they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief
person in the warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know
how large his fortune was, whether his business was doing well,
how much the senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and
Makeitchev looked upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed
a great deal from him, and whispered mysteriously every evening
with his blind old father.
It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went
into the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business
with him over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long
while, and had entered their service at eight years old. He
seemed to belong to them -- they trusted him fully; and when on
leaving the warehouse he gathered up all the takings from the
till and thrust them into his pocket, it never aroused the
slightest suspicion. He was the head man in the business and in
the house, and also in the church, where he performed the duties
of churchwarden in place of his old master. He was nicknamed
Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel treatment of the boys
and clerks under him.
When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and
said:
"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries."
After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle
of vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries.
"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a
plateful of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with
mashed potatoes."
The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have
said something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said:
"Except."
The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his
colleagues, and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a
plateful of tongue. When they had drunk a couple of glasses and
had had lunch, Laptev asked:
"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been
dropping off for the last year?"
"Not a bit of it."
"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making
and are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the
dark. We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse
lately, but, excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to
conceal something from me and only tell the truth to my father.
You have been used to being diplomatic from your childhood, and
now you can't get on without it. And what's the use of it? So I
beg you to be open. What is our position?"
"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin
answered after a moment's pause.
"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?"
Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of
it, and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his
appearance, had some lunch after saying grace, and in his
sedate, mellow baritone began saying first of all that the
clerks were in duty bound to pray night and day for their
benefactors.
"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your
benefactor," said Laptev.
"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of
his station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor
to us, and we are your slaves."
"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be
a benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our
business. Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall
close the business. My father is blind, my brother is in the
asylum, my nieces are only children. I hate the business; I
should be glad to go away, but there's no one to take my place,
as you know. For goodness' sake, drop your diplomacy!"
They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they
went on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself
assisting. Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the
old man spoke as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in
sorcery. It appeared that the profits of the business were
increasing approximately ten per cent. per annum, and that the
Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only money and paper securities,
amounted to six million roubles.
When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts,
Laptev went out into the open air, he was still under the spell
of those figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The
white walls of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred
gates, the stillness and the black shadows, combined to give the
impression of a fortress, and nothing was wanting to complete
the picture but a sentinel with a gun. Laptev went into the
garden and sat down on a seat near the fence, which divided them
from the neighbour's yard, where there was a garden, too. The
bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered that the tree had
been just as gnarled and just as big when he was a child, and
had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the garden
and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his
childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight
could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been
mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of
the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all
these were cheerless memories.
The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was
a sound of light steps.
"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the
fence that Laptev could hear the man's breathing.
Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions
and the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining
his life, and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how,
little by little, he would grow accustomed to his position;
would, little by little, enter into the part of the head of a
great firm; would begin to grow dull and old, die in the end, as
the average man usually does die, in a decrepit, soured old age,
making every one about him miserable and depressed. But what
hindered him from giving up those millions and that business,
and leaving that yard and garden which had been hateful to him
from his childhood?
The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed
him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his
shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him
that he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out
and never come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the
foretaste of freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how
exquisite, poetical, and even holy, life might be. . . .
But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself:
"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with
the black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard,
instead of running off to the open country, to the woods, where
it would have been free and happy. It was clear that that dog
and he were prevented from leaving the yard by the same thing;
the habit of bondage, of servitude. . . .
At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he
might not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia
Sergeyevna was staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had
not been to see her for five days. When they reached the station
the friends got into a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev
was singing and in raptures over the exquisite weather. The
villa was in a great park not far from the station. At the
beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces from the gates, Yulia
Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading poplar, waiting
for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress of a pale
cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had the old
familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the villa
from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while
Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters.
"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his
hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for
you to come. I miss you so when you are away!"
She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his
face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest.
"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are
precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I
can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something."
She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though
he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry
for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his
cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her
hand, stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to
the villa. The little girls ran to meet him.
"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these
three years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen
years, another thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us
in the future? If we live, we shall see."
He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said:
"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle
Kostya has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in
it. He's bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And
Uncle Alyosha is hungry."
Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly
along the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought;
there was a mournful, charming expression in her face, and her
eyes were bright with tears. She was not now the slender,
fragile, pale-faced girl she used to be; she was a mature,
beautiful, vigorous woman. And Laptev saw the enthusiasm with
which Yartsev looked at her when he met her, and the way her
new, lovely expression was reflected in his face, which looked
mournful and ecstatic too. One would have thought that he was
seeing her for the first time in his life. And while they were
at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a sort of joyous
shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful neck.
Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he had
perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before
him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time?
What is in store for us in the future?
And he thought:
"Let us live, and we shall see."
NOTES
dedication day: a patron saint's day
M. Laptev: Monsieur Laptev; in Chekhov's time it was polite to
refer to a gentleman as "monsieur," even if he was Russian
paysage: landscape, scenery
Poor Anton: refers to Anton Goremyka [Goremyka = "woebegone"],
the hero of the sentimental short story "Anton Goremyka" (1847)
by Dmitri V. Grigorovich (1822-1899)
Tolstoy: from Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina
thou: using the intimate form of "you"
Gaspard: a comic figure in the 1877 operetta The Chimes of
Normandy by the French composer Robert Planquette (1848-1903)
cayenne pepper: extremely rare in Russia
lips: it is normal in Russia for male family members or close
male friends to kiss
opponent: Chekhov actually writes, "for woman's heart is a
Shamil," referring to the Moslem guerrilla leader (1797-1871)
who led the Caucasians in their struggle against the Russians
Fley's: a Moscow pastry shop
Iudushka: the sanctimonious hero of the novel The Golovlyov
Family by M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826-1889)
pater-familias: head of the household
calotte: a kamelaukion, a high brimless hat worn by Russian
Orthodox priests
sacrifice: the passage is from 1 Samuel 16:4-5
Rubinstein: Rubinstein (1829-1894) was a pianist, composer and
conductor
ninth symphony: Beethoven's last symphony (1824)
Becker piano: the Becker grand pianos were made in St.
Petersburg by Jacob Becker
oleographs: imitation oil paintings
reinheit: purity
basta: enough
candle: he flings the candle away because candles are for the
dead and his wife is still living at this point
twenty degrees: 13 below zero F.
lessons: Russian schools included Orthodox religion in the
curriculum
Filippov's: Russian bakery chain; they had many stores in Moscow
censorship: nothing was published in Russia without approval by
the state censor
decadents: the French symbolists
"The Maid of Orleans": 1801 play about Joan of Arc by Friedrich
von Schiler (1759-1805)
Ermolova: Mariya Yermolov (1853-1928) was a famous Russian
actress, one of whose roles was Joan of Arc
pounder: this might also be translated "bouncer" (a strong
person hired to get rid of undesirables at bars and clubs)
In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread: Genesis 3:19
privy councillor: Class 3 in the Table of Ranks
Rothschild: rich banking family; their name was a synonym for
wealth in Chekhov's time
Shiskin's: Ivan I. Shishkin (1832-1898) was a Russian landscape
painter
Exaltation of the Cross: September 14
tender friend: the words were from Pushkin's 1823 poem "Night,"
and the music was by Anton Rubinstein
Muscovite Tsars: the kings of the Moscow-ruled Russian state
from the fourteenth through the early eighteenth century
Lyapunovs: the brothers P. P. Lyapunov and Z. P. Lyapunov; the
first was a hero of the national resistance against the invading
Poles in the early seventeenth century
Godunovs: Boris Gudunov (1552-1605) was Tsar of Muscovy from
1558 to 1605
Yaroslav or of Monomach: Yarsolav the Wise was prince of Kiev
from 1019-1054; Vladimir Monomakh was prince of Kiev from
1113-1125
monologue of Pimen: a famous speech in Pushkin's Boris Godunov
Kalmuck: the Kalmyk were an Asian ethnic group
Polovtsy: or Cumans, a Turkic-speaking group who fought
sporadicaslly with Kievan Russia between 1054 and 1238
Dulcinea: lady love, from a character in Cervantes' novel Don
Quixote
need much sense to bring children into the world: allusion to a
line from the play Woe from Wit by A. S. Griboyedov (1795-1829)
Vale of Daghestan: alludes to the first line of Lermontov's poem
"The Dream" (1841): "In noontide's heat, in a valley of
Daghestan, with a bullet in my breast, I lay motionless."
actual civil councillor: 4th in the table of ranks in the civil
service
gendarmes: the political police
fear: Fyodor Stepanovitch is wrong; according to Exodus 20:12,
the commandment is "honor thy father and thy mother"
our enemies: Matthew 6:44
Malyuta Skuratov: Malyuta Skuratov was the dreaded leader of the
Oprichnina, Ivan the Terrible's secret police; his daugther
married Boris Godunov
the exhibition: World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893
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