Tales of Chekhov 11- The Schoolmaster and other stories Page 7

  Numbers of the lady visitors, even young and pretty ones, run out of their villas without even putting their slippers on. Scenes occur which I hesitate to describe.

  "Oh, how dreadful!" shriek the variegated young ladies. "It's really too awful!"

  "Mesdames, watch!" I cry. "Time is precious!"

  And I hasten to measure the diameters. I remember the corona, and look towards the wounded officer. He stands doing nothing.

  "What's the matter?" I shout. "How about the corona?"

  He shrugs his shoulders and looks helplessly towards his arms. The poor fellow has variegated young ladies on both sides of him, clinging to him in terror and preventing him from working. I seize a pencil and note down the time to a second. That is of great importance. I note down the geographical position of the point of observation. That, too, is of importance. I am just about to measure the diameter when Mashenka seizes my hand, and says:

  "Do not forget to-day, eleven o'clock."

  I withdraw my hand, feeling every second precious, try to continue my observations, but Varenka clutches my arm and clings to me. Pencil, pieces of glass, drawings—all are scattered on the grass. Hang it! It's high time the girl realized that I am a man of violent temper, and when I am roused my fury knows no bounds, I cannot answer for myself.

  I try to continue, but the eclipse is over.

  "Look at me!" she whispers tenderly.

  Oh, that is the last straw! Trying a man's patience like that can but have a fatal ending. I am not to blame if something terrible happens. I allow no one to make a laughing stock of me, and, God knows, when I am furious, I advise nobody to come near me, damn it all! There's nothing I might not do! One of the young ladies, probably noticing from my face what a rage I am in, and anxious to propitiate me, says:

  "I did exactly what you told me, Nikolay Andreitch; I watched the animals. I saw the grey dog chasing the cat just before the eclipse, and wagging his tail for a long while afterwards."

  So nothing came of the eclipse after all.

  I go home. Thanks to the rain, I work indoors instead of on the balcony. The wounded officer has risked it, and has again got as far as "I was born in . . ." when I see one of the variegated young ladies pounce down on him and bear him off to her villa.

  I cannot work, for I am still in a fury and suffering from palpitation of the heart. I do not go to the arbour. It is impolite not to, but, after all, I can't be expected to go in the rain.

  At twelve o'clock I receive a letter from Mashenka, a letter full of reproaches and entreaties to go to the arbour, addressing me as "thou." At one o'clock I get a second letter, and at two, a third . . . . I must go. . . . But before going I must consider what I am to say to her. I will behave like a gentleman.

  To begin with, I will tell her that she is mistaken in supposing that I am in love with her. That's a thing one does not say to a lady as a rule, though. To tell a lady that one's not in love with her, is almost as rude as to tell an author he can't write.

  The best thing will be to explain my views of marriage.

  I put on my winter overcoat, take an umbrella, and walk to the arbour.

  Knowing the hastiness of my temper, I am afraid I may be led into speaking too strongly; I will try to restrain myself.

  I find Nadenka still waiting for me. She is pale and in tears. On seeing me she utters a cry of joy, flings herself on my neck, and says:

  "At last! You are trying my patience. . . . Listen, I have not slept all night. . . . I have been thinking and thinking. . . . I believe that when I come to know you better I shall learn to love you. . . ."

  I sit down, and begin to unfold my views of marriage. To begin with, to clear the ground of digressions and to be as brief as possible, I open with a short historical survey. I speak of marriage in ancient Egypt and India, then pass to more recent times, a few ideas from Schopenhauer. Mashenka listens attentively, but all of a sudden, through some strange incoherence of ideas, thinks fit to interrupt me:

  "Nicolas, kiss me!" she says.

  I am embarrassed and don't know what to say to her. She repeats her request. There seems no avoiding it. I get up and bend over her long face, feeling as I do so just as I did in my childhood when I was lifted up to kiss my grandmother in her coffin. Not content with the kiss, Mashenka leaps up and impulsively embraces me. At that instant, Mashenka's maman appears in the doorway of the arbour. . . . She makes a face as though in alarm, and saying "sh-sh" to someone with her, vanishes like Mephistopheles through the trapdoor.

  Confused and enraged, I return to our villa. At home I find Varenka's maman embracing my maman with tears in her eyes. And my maman weeps and says:

  "I always hoped for it!"

  And then, if you please, Nadenka's maman comes up to me, embraces me, and says:

  "May God bless you! . . . Mind you love her well. . . . Remember the sacrifice she is making for your sake!"

  And here I am at my wedding. At the moment I write these last words, my best man is at my side, urging me to make haste. These people have no idea of my character! I have a violent temper, I cannot always answer for myself! Hang it all! God knows what will come of it! To lead a violent, desperate man to the altar is as unwise as to thrust one's hand into the cage of a ferocious tiger. We shall see, we shall see!

  * * * * *

  And so, I am married. Everybody congratulates me and Varenka keeps clinging to me and saying:

  "Now you are mine, mine; do you understand that? Tell me that you love me!" And her nose swells as she says it.

  I learn from my best man that the wounded officer has very cleverly escaped the snares of Hymen. He showed the variegated young lady a medical certificate that owing to the wound in his temple he was at times mentally deranged and incapable of contracting a valid marriage. An inspiration! I might have got a certificate too. An uncle of mine drank himself to death, another uncle was extremely absent-minded (on one occasion he put a lady's muff on his head in mistake for his hat), an aunt of mine played a great deal on the piano, and used to put out her tongue at gentlemen she did not like. And my ungovernable temper is a very suspicious symptom.

  But why do these great ideas always come too late? Why?

  IN THE DARK

  A FLY of medium size made its way into the nose of the assistant procurator, Gagin. It may have been impelled by curiosity, or have got there through frivolity or accident in the dark; anyway, the nose resented the presence of a foreign body and gave the signal for a sneeze. Gagin sneezed, sneezed impressively and so shrilly and loudly that the bed shook and the springs creaked. Gagin's wife, Marya Mihalovna, a full, plump, fair woman, started, too, and woke up. She gazed into the darkness, sighed, and turned over on the other side. Five minutes afterwards she turned over again and shut her eyes more firmly but she could not get to sleep again. After sighing and tossing from side to side for a time, she got up, crept over her husband, and putting on her slippers, went to the window.

  It was dark outside. She could see nothing but the outlines of the trees and the roof of the stables. There was a faint pallor in the east, but this pallor was beginning to be clouded over. There was perfect stillness in the air wrapped in slumber and darkness. Even the watchman, paid to disturb the stillness of night, was silent; even the corncrake—the only wild creature of the feathered tribe that does not shun the proximity of summer visitors—was silent.

  The stillness was broken by Marya Mihalovna herself. Standing at the window and gazing into the yard, she suddenly uttered a cry. She fancied that from the flower garden with the gaunt, clipped poplar, a dark figure was creeping towards the house. For the first minute she thought it was a cow or a horse, then, rubbing her eyes, she distinguished clearly the outlines of a man.

  Then she fancied the dark figure approached the window of the kitchen and, standing still a moment, apparently undecided, put one foot on the window ledge and disappeared into the darkness of the window.

  "A burglar!" flashed into her mind and a deathly pallor ov
erspread her face.

  And in one instant her imagination had drawn the picture so dreaded by lady visitors in country places—a burglar creeps into the kitchen, from the kitchen into the dining-room . . . the silver in the cupboard . . . next into the bedroom . . . an axe . . . the face of a brigand . . . jewelry. . . . Her knees gave way under her and a shiver ran down her back.

  "Vassya!" she said, shaking her husband, "Basile! Vassily Prokovitch! Ah! mercy on us, he might be dead! Wake up, Basile, I beseech you!"

  "W-well?" grunted the assistant procurator, with a deep inward breath and a munching sound.

  "For God's sake, wake up! A burglar has got into the kitchen! I was standing at the window looking out and someone got in at the window. He will get into the dining-room next . . . the spoons are in the cupboard! Basile! They broke into Mavra Yegorovna's last year."

  "Wha—what's the matter?"

  "Heavens! he does not understand. Do listen, you stupid! I tell you I've just seen a man getting in at the kitchen window! Pelagea will be frightened and . . . and the silver is in the cupboard!"

  "Stuff and nonsense!"

  "Basile, this is unbearable! I tell you of a real danger and you sleep and grunt! What would you have? Would you have us robbed and murdered?"

  The assistant procurator slowly got up and sat on the bed, filling the air with loud yawns.

  "Goodness knows what creatures women are!" he muttered. "Can't leave one in peace even at night! To wake a man for such nonsense!"

  "But, Basile, I swear I saw a man getting in at the window!"

  "Well, what of it? Let him get in. . . . That's pretty sure to be

  Pelagea's sweetheart, the fireman."

  "What! what did you say?"

  "I say it's Pelagea's fireman come to see her."

  "Worse than ever!" shrieked Marya Mihalovna. "That's worse than a burglar! I won't put up with cynicism in my house!"

  "Hoity-toity! We are virtuous! . . . Won't put up with cynicism? As though it were cynicism! What's the use of firing off those foreign words? My dear girl, it's a thing that has happened ever since the world began, sanctified by tradition. What's a fireman for if not to make love to the cook?"

  "No, Basile! It seems you don't know me! I cannot face the idea of such a . . . such a . . . in my house. You must go this minute into the kitchen and tell him to go away! This very minute! And to-morrow I'll tell Pelagea that she must not dare to demean herself by such proceedings! When I am dead you may allow immorality in your house, but you shan't do it now! . . . Please go!"

  "Damn it," grumbled Gagin, annoyed. "Consider with your microscopic female brain, what am I to go for?"

  "Basile, I shall faint! . . ."

  Gagin cursed, put on his slippers, cursed again, and set off to the kitchen. It was as dark as the inside of a barrel, and the assistant procurator had to feel his way. He groped his way to the door of the nursery and waked the nurse.

  "Vassilissa," he said, "you took my dressing-gown to brush last night—where is it?"

  "I gave it to Pelagea to brush, sir."

  "What carelessness! You take it away and don't put it back—now

  I've to go without a dressing-gown!"

  On reaching the kitchen, he made his way to the corner in which on a box under a shelf of saucepans the cook slept.

  "Pelagea," he said, feeling her shoulder and giving it a shake, "Pelagea! Why are you pretending? You are not asleep! Who was it got in at your window just now?"

  "Mm . . . m . . . good morning! Got in at the window? Who could get in?"

  "Oh come, it's no use your trying to keep it up! You'd better tell your scamp to clear out while he can! Do you hear? He's no business to be here!"

  "Are you out of your senses, sir, bless you? Do you think I'd be such a fool? Here one's running about all day long, never a minute to sit down and then spoken to like this at night! Four roubles a month . . . and to find my own tea and sugar and this is all the credit I get for it! I used to live in a tradesman's house, and never met with such insult there!"

  "Come, come—no need to go over your grievances! This very minute your grenadier must turn out! Do you understand?"

  "You ought to be ashamed, sir," said Pelagea, and he could hear the tears in her voice. "Gentlefolks . . . educated, and yet not a notion that with our hard lot . . . in our life of toil"—she burst into tears. "It's easy to insult us. There's no one to stand up for us."

  "Come, come . . . I don't mind! Your mistress sent me. You may let a devil in at the window for all I care!"

  There was nothing left for the assistant procurator but to acknowledge himself in the wrong and go back to his spouse.

  "I say, Pelagea," he said, "you had my dressing-gown to brush. Where is it?"

  "Oh, I am so sorry, sir; I forgot to put it on your chair. It's hanging on a peg near the stove."

  Gagin felt for the dressing-gown by the stove, put it on, and went quietly back to his room.

  When her husband went out Marya Mihalovna got into bed and waited. For the first three minutes her mind was at rest, but after that she began to feel uneasy.

  "What a long time he's gone," she thought. "It's all right if he is there . . . that immoral man . . . but if it's a burglar?"

  And again her imagination drew a picture of her husband going into the dark kitchen . . . a blow with an axe . . . dying without uttering a single sound . . . a pool of blood! . . .

  Five minutes passed . . . five and a half . . . at last six. . . .

  A cold sweat came out on her forehead.

  "Basile!" she shrieked, "Basile!"

  "What are you shouting for? I am here." She heard her husband's voice and steps. "Are you being murdered?"

  The assistant procurator went up to the bedstead and sat down on the edge of it.

  "There's nobody there at all," he said. "It was your fancy, you queer creature. . . . You can sleep easy, your fool of a Pelagea is as virtuous as her mistress. What a coward you are! What a . . . ."

  And the deputy procurator began teasing his wife. He was wide awake now and did not want to go to sleep again.

  "You are a coward!" he laughed. "You'd better go to the doctor to-morrow and tell him about your hallucinations. You are a neurotic!"

  "What a smell of tar," said his wife—"tar or something . . . onion . . . cabbage soup!"

  "Y-yes! There is a smell . . . I am not sleepy. I say, I'll light the candle. . . . Where are the matches? And, by the way, I'll show you the photograph of the procurator of the Palace of Justice. He gave us all a photograph when he said good-bye to us yesterday, with his autograph."

  Gagin struck a match against the wall and lighted a candle. But before he had moved a step from the bed to fetch the photographs he heard behind him a piercing, heartrending shriek. Looking round, he saw his wife's large eyes fastened upon him, full of amazement, horror, and wrath. . . .

  "You took your dressing-gown off in the kitchen?" she said, turning pale.

  "Why?"

  "Look at yourself!"

  The deputy procurator looked down at himself, and gasped.

  Flung over his shoulders was not his dressing-gown, but the fireman's overcoat. How had it come on his shoulders? While he was settling that question, his wife's imagination was drawing another picture, awful and impossible: darkness, stillness, whispering, and so on, and so on.

  A PLAY

  "PAVEL VASSILYEVITCH, there's a lady here, asking for you," Luka announced. "She's been waiting a good hour. . . ."

  Pavel Vassilyevitch had only just finished lunch. Hearing of the lady, he frowned and said:

  "Oh, damn her! Tell her I'm busy."

  "She has been here five times already, Pavel Vassilyevitch. She says she really must see you. . . . She's almost crying."

  "H'm . . . very well, then, ask her into the study."

  Without haste Pavel Vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen in one hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though he were very busy he went into the study
. There the visitor was awaiting him—a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles. She looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable (she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with a reddish bird in it). On seeing him she turned up her eyes and folded her hands in supplication.

  "You don't remember me, of course," she began in a high masculine tenor, visibly agitated. "I . . . I have had the pleasure of meeting you at the Hrutskys. . . . I am Mme. Murashkin. . . ."

  "A. . . a . . . a . . . h'm . . . Sit down! What can I do for you?"

  "You . . . you see . . . I . . . I . . ." the lady went on, sitting down and becoming still more agitated. "You don't remember me. . . . I'm Mme. Murashkin. . . . You see I'm a great admirer of your talent and always read your articles with great enjoyment. . . . Don't imagine I'm flattering you—God forbid!—I'm only giving honour where honour is due. . . . I am always reading you . . . always! To some extent I am myself not a stranger to literature— that is, of course . . . I will not venture to call myself an authoress, but . . . still I have added my little quota . . . I have published at different times three stories for children. . . . You have not read them, of course. . . . I have translated a good deal and . . . and my late brother used to write for The Cause."

  "To be sure . . . er—er—er——What can I do for you?"

  "You see . . . (the lady cast down her eyes and turned redder) I know your talents . . . your views, Pavel Vassilyevitch, and I have been longing to learn your opinion, or more exactly . . . to ask your advice. I must tell you I have perpetrated a play, my first-born —pardon pour l'expression!—and before sending it to the Censor I should like above all things to have your opinion on it."

  Nervously, with the flutter of a captured bird, the lady fumbled in her skirt and drew out a fat manuscript.

  Pavel Vassilyevitch liked no articles but his own. When threatened with the necessity of reading other people's, or listening to them, he felt as though he were facing the cannon's mouth. Seeing the manuscript he took fright and hastened to say: