The Undiscovered Chekhov Read online

  I was staying at the Pshikovs’ dacha. The family looked on me as the groom-to-be and Zhenya as the bride. I wrote—she read. What a critic she was, ma chère! She was as objective as Aristides and as stern as Cato. I dedicated my works to her. One of these pieces she really liked. She wanted to see it in print, so I sent it to one of the magazines. I sent it on the first of July and waited two weeks for the answer. The fifteenth of July came, and Zhenya and I finally received the letter we had been waiting for. We opened it; she went red, I went white. Beneath the address the following was written: “Shlendovo village, Mr. M. B. You don’t have a drop of talent in you. God knows what the hell you’re writing about. Please don’t waste your stamps and our time! Find yourself another occupation!”

  Ridiculous... it was obvious that a bunch of idiots had written this.

  “I see...” Zhenya mumbled.

  “The damn... swine!” I muttered. So, ma chère Yevgenia Markovna, are you still smiling at my division of the world into writers and enviers?

  Zhenya thought for a while and then yawned.

  “Well,” she said, “maybe you don’t have any talent after all. They surely know best. Last year Fyodor Fyodosevitch spent the whole summer fishing by the river with me. All you do is write, write, write! It’s so boring!”

  Well! How do you like that! After all those sleepless nights we spent together, I writing, she reading! With both of us sacrificing ourselves to my muse! Ha!

  Zhenya cooled to my writing, and by extension to me. We broke up. It had to be.

  Third Incident

  You know, of course, my dear unforgettable friend, that I am a fervent music lover. Music is my passion, my true element. The names Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Gounod, are not the names of men—they are the names of giants! I love classical music. I scorn operettas, as I scorn vaudeville! I am a true habitué of the opera. Our stars Khokhlov, Kochetova, Barzal, Usatov, Korsov... are simply wonderful people! How I regret that I do not know any singers personally. Were I to know one, I would bare my soul in humble gratitude!

  Last winter I went to the opera particularly often. I did not go alone—I went with the Pepsinov family. It is such a pity that you do not know this dear family! Each winter the Pepsinovs book a loge. They are devoted to music, heart and soul. The crown of this dear family is Colonel Pepsinov’s daughter Zoya. What a girl, my dear friend! Her pink lips alone could drive someone like me out of his mind! She is shapely, beautiful, clever. I loved her... I loved her madly, passionately, terribly! My blood was boiling when I sat next to her. You smile, ma chère? You can smile! You cannot comprehend the love a writer feels! A writers love is—Mount Etna coupled with Mount Vesuvius! Zoya loved me. Her eyes always rested on my eyes, which were constantly seeking out her eyes. We were happy. It was but one step to marriage.

  But we foundered.

  Faust was playing. Faust, my dear friend, was written by Gounod, and Gounod is one of the greatest musicians on earth. On the way to the theater, I decided to declare my love to Zoya during the first act. I have never understood that act—it was a mistake on the part of the great Gounod to have written that first act!

  The opera began. Zoya and I slipped out to the foyer. She sat next to me and, shivering with expectation and happiness, nervously fanned herself. Flow beautiful she looked in the glittering lights, ma chère, how terribly beautiful!

  “The overture,” I began my declaration, “led me to some reflections, Zoya Egorovna... so much feeling, so much... you listen and you long... you long for, well, for that something, and you listen...”

  I hiccupped, and continued:

  “You long for something... special! You long for something unearthly... Love? Passion? Yes... it must be... love (I hic-cupped). Yes, love!”

  Zoya smiled in confusion, and fanned herself harder. I hiccupped. I can’t stand hiccups!

  “Zoya Egorovna! Tell me, I beg of you! Do you know this feeling? (I hiccupped.) Zoya Egorovna! I am trembling for your answer!”

  “I... I... don’t understand...”

  “Sorry, that was just a hiccup... It’ll pass... I’m talking about that all-embracing feeling that... damn!”

  “Have some water!”

  I’ll make my declaration, and then I’ll quickly go down to the buffet, I thought to myself, and continued:

  “In a nutshell, Zoya Egorovna... you, of course, will have noticed...”

  I hiccupped, and then in my consternation bit my tongue.

  “You will, of course, have noticed (I hiccupped)... you’ve known me almost a year now... well... I’m an honest man, Zoya Egorovna! I am a hardworking man! I am not rich, it’s true, but...”

  I hiccupped and leaped up.

  “I think you should have some water!” Zoya suggested. I moved a few steps away from the sofa, tapped my finger on my throat, and hiccupped again. Ma chère, I was in a terrible predicament! Zoya stood up, and marched off to the loge with me close on her heels. After escorting her, I hiccupped and quickly ran off to the buffet. I drank five or six glasses of water, and the hiccups seemed somehow to quiet down. I smoked a cigarette and returned to the loge. Zoya’s brother got up and gave me his seat, the seat next to my darling Zoya. I sat down, and at that very moment... hiccupped! About five minutes passed, I hiccupped, hiccupped somehow strangely, with a wheeze. I got up and went to stand by the loge door. It is bet- ter, ma chère, to hiccup by a door than into the ear of the woman one loves! I hiccupped. A schoolboy from the loge next to ours looked at me and laughed out loud. The joy with which that little brute laughed! And the joy with which I would have gladly ripped the horrible little brat’s ear off! He laughed as they were singing the great “Faust” aria on stage! What blasphemy1 No, ma chère! As children we would never have comported ourselves in this manner! Cursing the impertinent schoolboy, I hiccupped again.... Laughter broke out in the neighboring loges. “Encore!” the schoolboy loudly whispered.

  “What the hell!” Colonel Pepsinov mumbled. “Couldn’t you have hiccupped at home, sir?”

  Zoya went red. I hiccupped one last time and, furiously clenching my fists, ran out of the loge. I started walking up and down the corridor. I walked and walked and walked— hiccupping constantly. I ate, I drank, I tried everything— finally at the beginning of the fourth act I gave up and went home. The moment I unlocked the door, as if to spite me, my hiccups stopped. I slapped my neck, and shouted:

  “Go on, hiccup! Now you can hiccup all you want, you poor, booed-off fiancé! No, you were not booed off, you were hiccupped off!”

  The following day I went to visit the Pepsinovs the way I always did. Zoya didn’t come down for dinner, and sent word that she couldn’t see me as she wasn’t feeling well, while Pepsi- nov spoke at length about certain young people who didn’t know how to comport themselves in public. The fool! He’s obviously not aware that the organs that induce hiccupping are not subject to voluntary stimuli! Stimuli, ma chère, means “shakers.”

  “Would you give your daughter—that is, if you had one—to a man who wouldn’t think twice about belching in public?” Pepsinov asked me after dinner. “Ha? Well?”

  “Um, yes... I would,” I muttered.

  “Quite a mistake!”

  That was the end of Zoya as far as I was concerned. She could not forgive my hiccupping. For her that was the end of me. Would you like me to describe the remaining twelve incidents?

  I could, but... enough is enough! The veins on my tem-ples have swollen, tears are flowing freely, and my liver is churning.... “O brother writers, our destiny doth weave fateful threads!” I wish you, ma chère, all the very best! I squeeze your hand tightly, and send my warmest regards to Paul. I hear that he is a good husband and father. God bless him! Pity, though, that he drinks so heavily (this, by the way, ma chère, is not a reproach!).

  All the very best, ma chère. Your faithful servant, Baldas- tov.

  VILLAGE

  DOCTORS

  THE VILLAGE HOSPITAL. Morning.

&nbs
p; As the doctor is absent, out hunting with the district police officer, his assistants Kuzma Egorov and Gleb Glebitch are seeing patients. There are about thirty of them. Kuzma Egorov is having a cup of chicory coffee in the reception room, waiting for the sick to sign in. Gleb Glebitch, who hasn’t bathed or combed his hair since the day he was born, is leaning with chest and stomach over the table, swearing and registering patients. Registration is set up like a census: the patients name, fathers name, family name, profession, place of residence, literate or illiterate, age—and then after the checkup, the diagnosis and the medicine issued.

  “Damn this pen!” Gleb Glebitch shouts as he scrawls large ugly letters into the big book. “This is supposed to be ink? Its tar, not ink! The council never ceases to amaze me! They expect you to sign up patients, and then they give you two kopecks a year for ink! Next!”

  A peasant with a bandaged face and baritone Mikhailo come in.

  “Who are you?”

  “Ivan Mikulov.”

  “Huh? What? Speak Russian!”

  “Ivan Mikulov.”

  “Ivan Mikulov! I’m not talking to you! Get out! You! Your name!”

  Mikhailo smiles.

  “Like you don’t know my name!” he says.

  “What’s so funny? Damn it! I’ve no time for jokes! Time is money, and these people come here to joke! Your name!”

  “Like you don’t know my name! Are you out of your mind?”

  “Of course I know your name, but I still have to ask! That’s the protocol... and no, I’m not mad, I don’t hit the bottle like you do. I don’t go in for heavy drinking, thank you very much! Name and father’s name!”

  “If you’re so busy, why am I standing here talking to you when you already know all the answers? You’ve known me for five years... and now in the sixth you forget who I am?”

  “I haven’t forgotten, it’s protocol! Do you understand? Or don’t you speak Russian? Protocol!”

  “Well, if it is protocol, then, whatever! So write: Mikhai- lo Fedotitch Izmuchenko!”

  “It’s not Izmuchenko, it’s Izmuchenkov.”

  “Fine, Izmuchenkov... whatever, as long as I get cured. You can write Monkeyshine Ivanov for all I care.”

  “Your profession.”

  “Baritone.”

  “Your age?”

  “How the hell should I know? I wasn’t baptized, so I have no idea.”

  “Forty?”

  “Could be, but then again, who knows? Write down whatever you think best.”

  Gleb Glebitch looks intently at Mikhailo and writes thir-ty-seven. Then, having given it more thought, he crosses out thirty-seven and writes forty-one.

  “Literate?”

  “Have you ever heard of a singer who can’t read? Use your brains!”

  “In front of others you have to show me a little respect and refrain from shouting at me, do you hear? Next! Who are you, what’s your name?”

  “Mikifor Pugolov, from Khaplov.”

  “We don’t treat Khaplovites here. Next!”

  “Please, have pity, Your Excellency! I had to walk twenty versts!”

  “We don’t treat Khaplovites! Next! Who’s next! No smoking here!”

  “I’m not smoking, Gleb Glebitch!”

  “So what are you holding there?”

  “It’s my cut-off finger, Gleb Glebitch!”

  “I thought it was a cigar! We don’t treat Khaplovites!

  Next!”

  Gleb Glebitch finishes registering patients. Kuzma Egorov gulps down his coffee, and is ready to begin. Gleb Glebitch takes on the role of pharmacist and goes into the drug pantry, and Kuzma Egorov takes on the medical role and slips into an oilskin apron.

  “Marya Zaplakskina!” Kuzma Egorov calls out from the book.

  A little old woman comes in, wrinkled and hunched over as if crushed by fate. She crosses herself and bows with deference to the medicine man.

  “Yes! Shut the door! What’s wrong with you?”

  “My head, Mr. Doctor.”

  “Your whole head, or just half of it?”

  “My whole head, Mr. Doctor, the whole of it!”

  “Don’t wrap your head up like that! Take that rag off!

  Heads must always be cold, legs warm, and your body at middling climate! Any discomfort in the stomach?”

  “Oh, lots of it!”

  “So... Pull down your lower eyelid. Good, that’s enough. You’re anemic. I’ll give you some pills. Take ten of them morning, noon, and night.”

  Kuzma Egorov sits down and writes out the prescription.

  Three grams of Liquor ferri from the bottle by the window, as for the one on the shelf, Ivan Yakovlitch forbade us to dispense without his permission, ten pills three times a day for Marya Zaplakskina.

  The little old woman asks what to take the pills with, bows, and leaves. Kuzma Egorov throws the prescription through a little window in the wall separating the drug pantry, and calls in the next patient.

  “Timofei Stukotey!”

  “Present!”

  Stukotey walks in, thin and tall with a large head, from a distance resembling a knobbed walking stick.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “My heart, Kuzma Egorov.”

  “Where?”

  Stukotey points to his stomach.

  “I see... how long have you felt this pain?”

  “Since Holy Week... The other day I was walking and had to sit down more than ten times... I get chills, Kuzma Egorov... and then fever comes, Kuzma Egorov!”

  “Hm... does anything else hurt?”

  “To be honest with you, Kuzma Egorov, I hurt all over. But just cure my heart and don’t worry about the rest—I’ll get the old village women to cure that. I’d like you to give me some alcohol or something to stop the illness reaching my heart. These things just go up and up till they reach your heart, and when they get there, when they reach it... yes... then... uh... it snatches at your spine... and then your head feels like a stone... and then you cough!”

  “Appetite?”

  “None at all...”

  Kuzma Egorov walks up to Stukotey and prods him, pressing his fist against his stomach.

  “Did that hurt?”

  “Oh... oh... uh... yes!”

  “How about this?”

  “Oooh... unbearable!”

  Kuzma Egorov asks him a few more questions, thinks for a while, and then calls Gleb Glebitch. A consultation begins.

  “Stick out your tongue!” Gleb Glebitch orders.

  The patient opens his mouth wide and sticks out his tongue.

  “Farther!”

  “It can’t go any farther, Gleb Glebitch.”

  “There is no such a thing as ‘can’t’ in this world!”

  Gleb Glebitch looks at the patient intendy, thinks very hard, shrugs his shoulders, and walks out of the consultation room.

  “It must be a catarrh!” he shouts from the drug pantry.

  “We’ll give him some castor oil and some spirits of ammonia!” Kuzma Egorov shouts back. “Rub it over your stomach every morning and evening! Next!”

  The patient leaves the room and goes to the pantry win-dow in the corridor. Gleb Glebitch pours a third of a teacup of castor oil and gives it to Stukotey. He drinks it slowly, purses his lips, closes his eyes, and rubs his fingers together as if asking for something to eat that will cover the taste.

  “Here’s some alcohol for you!” Gleb Glebitch shouts, giving him a little bottle with ammonium chloride. “Rub this over your stomach with a rag every morning and evening. And bring back that bottle when you finish with it. Hey, don’t lean on that! Go away now!”

  Father Grigori’s cook comes up to the window, grinning, holding her shawl over her mouth.

  “How may I be of service?” Gleb Glebitch asks her.

  “Lizaveta Grigoryevna sends her regards, Gleb Glebitch, and asks if she can have some mint pastilles.”

  “That goes without saying! For magnificent individuals of the femal
e sex I will do anything!”

  Gleb Glebitch reaches up to the shelf with a stick, and half its contents come tumbling down into Pelageya’s apron.

  “Tell her that Gleb Glebitch was bubbling over with enchantment as he handed you these pastilles. Did she receive my letter?”

  “Yes, she got it and tore it up. Lizaveta Grigoryevna has no time for love.”

  “The harlot! Tell her from me she’s a harlot!”

  “Mikhailo Izmuchenkov!” Kuzma Egorov calls out. Baritone Mikhailo walks into the consulting room.

  “Greetings, Mikhailo Fedotitch! What is wrong with you?”

  “My throat, Kuzma Egorov! I came to you, as a matter of fact, so that you, to be perfectly honest with you, concerning my health, which... you see it’s not a question of pain as much as it is of loss... when I’m ill, I can’t sing, and the church conductor deducts forty kopecks for every mass. For yesterday’s evening service he knocked off a twenty-fiver, and today for the squire’s funeral the singers are getting three rubles—and me, as long as I’m sick, I get nothing. And, to be perfectly honest with you, as far as my throat is concerned it’s scratching and wheezing for all it’s worth—as if some kind of a cat were in there, its paws going... scratch... scratch!”

  “Could it be from your drinking hot liquids?”

  “Who knows where I got this illness from! But, to be per- fectly honest with you, I can certify that hot liquid affects tenors, never baritones. When a baritone drinks, Kuzma Egorov, his voice grows richer, more imposing... it’s a cold that usually affects baritones more.”

  Gleb Glebitch sticks his head through the pantry window.

  “What should I give the old woman?” he asks. “The Liquor ferri that was by the window is gone. I’ll give her the pills that are on the shelf.”

  “No, no! Ivan Yakovlitch forbade us to hand those out! He’ll be furious!”

  “So what am I supposed to give her?”

  “Whatever!”

  For Gleb Glebitch, “whatever” meant bicarbonate of soda.

  “You shouldn’t be drinking hot liquids.”