Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (120 page)

THE FATHER OF A FAMILY

Translated by
Marian Fell 1915

THIS is what generally follows a grand loss at cards or a drinking-bout, when his indigestion begins to make itself felt. Stepan Jilin wakes up in an uncommonly gloomy frame of mind. He looks sour, ruffled, and peevish, and his grey face wears an expression partly discontented, partly offended, and partly sneering. He dresses deliberately, slowly drinks his vichy water, and begins roaming about the house.

“I wish to goodness I knew what br-rute goes through here leaving all the doors open!” he growls angrily, wrapping his dressing-gown about him and noisily clearing his throat. “Take this paper away! What is it lying here for? Though we keep twenty servants, this house is more untidy than a hovel! Who rang the bell? Who’s there?”

“Aunty Anfisa, who nursed our Fedia,” answers his wife.

“Yes, loafing about, eating the bread of idleness!”

“I don’t understand you, Stepan; you invited her here yourself and now you are abusing her!”

“I’m not abusing her. I’m talking! And you ought to find something to do, too, good woman, instead of sitting there with your hands folded, picking quarrels with your husband! I don’t understand a woman like you, upon my word I don’t! How can you let day after day go by without working? Here’s your husband toiling and moiling like an ox, like a beast of burden, and there you are, his wife, his life’s companion, sitting about like a doll without ever turning your hand to a thing, so bored that you must seize every opportunity of quarrelling with him. It’s high time for you to drop those schoolgirlish airs, madam! You’re not a child nor a young miss any longer. You’re a woman, a mother! You turn away, eh? Aha! You don’t like disagreeable truths, do you?”

“It’s odd you only speak disagreeable truths when you have indigestion!”

“That’s right, let’s have a scene; go ahead!”

“Did you go to town yesterday or did you play cards somewhere?”

“Well, and what if I did? Whose business is it? Am I accountable to any one? Don’t I lose my own money? All that I spend and all that is spent in this house is mine, do you hear that? Mine!”

And so he persists in the same strain. But Jilin is never so crotchety, so stern, so bristling with virtue and justice, as he is when sitting at dinner with his household gathered about him. It generally begins with the soup. Having swallowed his first spoonful, Jilin suddenly scowls and stops eating.

“What the devil--” he mutters. “So I’ll have to go to the café for lunch--”

“What is it?” asks his anxious wife. “Isn’t the soup good?”

“I can’t conceive the swinish tastes a person must have to swallow this mess! It is too salty, it smells of rags, it is flavoured with bugs and not onions! Anfisa Pavlovna!” he cries to his guest. “It is shocking! I give them oceans of money every day to buy food with, I deny myself everything, and this is what they give me to eat! No doubt they would like me to retire from business into the kitchen and do the cooking myself!”

“The soup is good to-day,” the governess timidly ventures.

“Is it? Do you find it so?” inquires Jilin scowling angrily at her. “Every one to his taste, but I must confess that yours and mine differ widely, Varvara Vasilievna. You, for instance, admire the behavior of that child there (Jilin points a tragic forefinger at his son) . You are in ecstasies over him, but I--I am shocked! Yes, I am--”

Fedia, a boy of seven with a delicate, pale face, stops eating and lowers his eyes. His cheeks grow paler than ever.

“Yes, you are in ecstasies, and I am shocked. I don’t know which of us is right, but I venture to think that I, as his father, know my own son better than you do. Look at the way he is sitting! Is that how well-behaved children should hold themselves? Sit up!”

Fedia raises his chin and sticks out his neck and thinks he is sitting up straighter. his eyes are filling with tears.

“Eat your dinner! Hold your spoon properly! Don’t dare to snuffle! Look me in the face!”

Fedia tries to look at him, but his lips are quivering and the tears are trickling down his cheeks.

“Aha, so you’re crying? You’re naughty and that makes you cry, eh? Leave the table and go and stand in the corner, puppy!”

“But--do let him finish his dinner first!” his wife intercedes for the boy.

“No--no dinner! Such a--such a naughty brat has no right to eat dinner!”

Fedia makes a wry face, slides down from his chair, and takes his stand in a corner.

“That’s the way to treat him,” his father continues. “If no one else will take charge of his education I must do it myself. I won’t have you being naughty and crying at dinner, sir! Spoiled brat! You ought to work, do you hear me? Your father works, and you must work, too! No one may sponge on others. Be a man, a M-A-N!”

“For Heaven’s sake, hush!” his wife beseeches him in French. “At least don’t bite our heads off in public! The old lady is listening to every word, and the whole town will know of this, thanks to her.”

“I’m not afraid of the public!” retorts Jilin in Russian. “Anfisa Pavlovna can see for herself that I’m speaking the truth. What, do you think I ought to be satisfied with that youngster there? Do you know how much he costs me? Do you know, you worthless boy, how much you cost me? Or do you think I can create money and that it falls into my lap of its own accord? Stop bawling! Shut up! Do you hear me or not? Do you want me to thrash you, little wretch?”

Fedia breaks into piercing wails and begins sobbing.

“Oh, this is absolutely unbearable!” exclaims his mother, throwing down her napkin and getting up from the table. “He never lets us have our dinner in peace. That’s where that bread of yours sticks!”

She points to her throat and, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, leaves the dining-room.

“Her feelings are hurt,” mutters Jilin, forcing a smile. “She has been too gently handled, Anfisa Pavlovna, and that’s why she doesn’t like to hear the truth. We are to blame!”

Several minutes elapse in silence. Jilin catches sight of the dinner-plates and notices that the soup has not been touched. He sighs deeply and glares at the flushed and agitated face of the governess.

“Why don’t you eat your dinner, Varvara Vasilievna?” he demands. “You’re offended, too, are you? I see, you don’t like the truth either. Forgive me, but it is my nature never to be hypocritical. I always hit straight from the shoulder. (A sigh.) I see, though, that my company is distasteful to you. No one can speak or eat in my presence. You ought to have told me that sooner so that I could have left you to yourselves. I am going now.”

Jilin rises and walks with dignity toward the door. He stops as he passes the weeping Fedia.

“After what has happened just now you are fr-ee!” he says to him with a lofty toss of the head. “I shall no longer concern myself with your education. I wash my hands of it. Forgive me if, out of sincere fatherly solicitude for your welfare, I interfered with you and your preceptresses. At the same time, I renounce forever all responsibility for your future.”

Fedia wails and sobs more loudly than ever. Jilin turns toward the door with a stately air and walks off into his bedroom.

After his noonday nap Jilin is tormented by the pangs of conscience. He is ashamed of his behaviour to his wife, his son, and Anfisa Pavlovna, and feels extremely uncomfortable on remembering what happened at dinner. But his egotism is too strong for him and he is not man enough to be truthful, so he continues to grumble and sulk.

When he wakes up the following morning he feels in the gayest of moods and whistles merrily at his ablutions. On entering the dining-room for breakfast he finds Fedia. The boy rises at the sight of his father and gazes at him with troubled eyes.

“Well, how goes it, young man?” Jilin asks cheerfully as he sits down to table. “What’s the news, old fellow? Are you all right, eh? Come here, you little roly-poly, and give papa a kiss.”

Fedia approaches his father with a pale, serious face and brushes his cheek with trembling lips. Then he silently retreats and resumes his place at the table.

A FATHER

Translated by Constance Garnett 1887

“I ADMIT I have had a drop.... You must excuse me. I went into a beer shop on the way here, and as it was so hot had a couple of bottles. It’s hot, my boy.”

Old Musatov took a nondescript rag out of his pocket and wiped his shaven, battered face with it.

“I have come only for a minute, Borenka, my angel,” he went on, not looking at his son, “about something very important. Excuse me, perhaps I am hindering you. Haven’t you ten roubles, my dear, you could let me have till Tuesday? You see, I ought to have paid for my lodging yesterday, and money, you see!... None! Not to save my life!”

Young Musatov went out without a word, and began whispering the other side of the door with the landlady of the summer villa and his colleagues who had taken the villa with him. Three minutes later he came back, and without a word gave his father a ten-rouble note. The latter thrust it carelessly into his pocket without looking at it, and said:

“
Merci.
Well, how are you getting on? It’s a long time since we met.”

“Yes, a long time, not since Easter.”

“Half a dozen times I have been meaning to come to you, but I’ve never had time. First one thing, then another.... It’s simply awful! I am talking nonsense though.... All that’s nonsense. Don’t you believe me, Borenka. I said I would pay you back the ten roubles on Tuesday, don’t believe that either. Don’t believe a word I say. I have nothing to do at all, it’s simply laziness, drunkenness, and I am ashamed to be seen in such clothes in the street. You must excuse me, Borenka. Here I have sent the girl to you three times for money and written you piteous letters. Thanks for the money, but don’t believe the letters; I was telling fibs. I am ashamed to rob you, my angel; I know that you can scarcely make both ends meet yourself, and feed on locusts, but my impudence is too much for me. I am such a specimen of impudence -- fit for a show!... You must excuse me, Borenka. I tell you the truth, because I can’t see your angel face without emotion.”

A minute passed in silence. The old man heaved a deep sigh and said:

“You might treat me to a glass of beer perhaps.”

His son went out without a word, and again there was a sound of whispering the other side of the door. When a little later the beer was brought in, the old man seemed to revive at the sight of the bottles and abruptly changed his tone.

“I was at the races the other day, my boy,” he began telling him, assuming a scared expression. “We were a party of three, and we pooled three roubles on Frisky. And, thanks to that Frisky, we got thirty-two roubles each for our rouble. I can’t get on without the races, my boy. It’s a gentlemanly diversion. My virago always gives me a dressing over the races, but I go. I love it, and that’s all about it.”

Boris, a fair-haired young man with a melancholy immobile face, was walking slowly up and down, listening in silence. When the old man stopped to clear his throat, he went up to him and said:

“I bought myself a pair of boots the other day, father, which turn out to be too tight for me. Won’t you take them? I’ll let you have them cheap.”

“If you like,” said the old man with a grimace, “only for the price you gave for them, without any cheapening.”

“Very well, I’ll let you have them on credit.”

The son groped under the bed and produced the new boots. The father took off his clumsy, rusty, evidently second-hand boots and began trying on the new ones.

“A perfect fit,” he said. “Right, let me keep them. And on Tuesday, when I get my pension, I’ll send you the money for them. That’s not true, though,” he went on, suddenly falling into the same tearful tone again. “And it was a lie about the races, too, and a lie about the pension. And you are deceiving me, Borenka.... I feel your generous tactfulness. I see through you! Your boots were too small, because your heart is too big. Ah, Borenka, Borenka! I understand it all and feel it!”

“Have you moved into new lodgings?” his son interrupted, to change the conversation.

“Yes, my boy. I move every month. My virago can’t stay long in the same place with her temper.”

“I went to your lodgings, I meant to ask you to stay here with me. In your state of health it would do you good to be in the fresh air.”

“No,” said the old man, with a wave of his hand, “the woman wouldn’t let me, and I shouldn’t care to myself. A hundred times you have tried to drag me out of the pit, and I have tried myself, but nothing came of it. Give it up. I must stick in my filthy hole. This minute, here I am sitting, looking at your angel face, yet something is drawing me home to my hole. Such is my fate. You can’t draw a dung-beetle to a rose. But it’s time I was going, my boy. It’s getting dark.”

“Wait a minute then, I’ll come with you. I have to go to town to-day myself.”

Both put on their overcoats and went out. When a little while afterwards they were driving in a cab, it was already dark, and lights began to gleam in the windows.

“I’ve robbed you, Borenka!” the father muttered. “Poor children, poor children! It must be a dreadful trouble to have such a father! Borenka, my angel, I cannot lie when I see your face. You must excuse me.... What my depravity has come to, my God. Here I have just been robbing you, and put you to shame with my drunken state; I am robbing your brothers, too, and put them to shame, and you should have seen me yesterday! I won’t conceal it, Borenka. Some neighbours, a wretched crew, came to see my virago; I got drunk, too, with them, and I blackguarded you poor children for all I was worth. I abused you, and complained that you had abandoned me. I wanted, you see, to touch the drunken hussies’ hearts, and pose as an unhappy father. It’s my way, you know, when I want to screen my vices I throw all the blame on my innocent children. I can’t tell lies and hide things from you, Borenka. I came to see you as proud as a peacock, but when I saw your gentleness and kind heart, my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and it upset my conscience completely.”

“Hush, father, let’s talk of something else.”

“Mother of God, what children I have,” the old man went on, not heeding his son. “What wealth God has bestowed on me. Such children ought not to have had a black sheep like me for a father, but a real man with soul and feeling! I am not worthy of you!”

The old man took off his cap with a button at the top and crossed himself several times.

“Thanks be to Thee, O Lord!” he said with a sigh, looking from side to side as though seeking for an ikon. “Remarkable, exceptional children! I have three sons, and they are all like one. Sober, steady, hard-working, and what brains! Cabman, what brains! Grigory alone has brains enough for ten. He speaks French, he speaks German, and talks better than any of your lawyers -- one is never tired of listening. My children, my children, I can’t believe that you are mine! I can’t believe it! You are a martyr, my Borenka, I am ruining you, and I shall go on ruining you.... You give to me endlessly, though you know your money is thrown away. The other day I sent you a pitiful letter, I described how ill I was, but you know I was lying, I wanted the money for rum. And you give to me because you are afraid to wound me by refusing. I know all that, and feel it. Grisha’s a martyr, too. On Thursday I went to his office, drunk, filthy, ragged, reeking of vodka like a cellar... I went straight up, such a figure, I pestered him with nasty talk, while his colleagues and superiors and petitioners were standing round. I have disgraced him for life. And he wasn’t the least confused, only turned a bit pale, but smiled and came up to me as though there were nothing the matter, even introduced me to his colleagues. Then he took me all the way home, and not a word of reproach. I rob him worse than you. Take your brother Sasha now, he’s a martyr too! He married, as you know, a colonel’s daughter of an aristocratic circle, and got a dowry with her.... You would think he would have nothing to do with me. No, brother, after his wedding he came with his young wife and paid me the first visit... in my hole.... Upon my soul!”

The old man gave a sob and then began laughing.

“And at that moment, as luck would have it, we were eating grated radish with kvass and frying fish, and there was a stink enough in the flat to make the devil sick. I was lying down -- I’d had a drop -- my virago bounced out at the young people with her face crimson,... It was a disgrace in fact. But Sasha rose superior to it all.”

“Yes, our Sasha is a good fellow,” said Boris.

“The most splendid fellow! You are all pure gold, you and Grisha and Sasha and Sonya. I worry you, torment you, disgrace you, rob you, and all my life I have not heard one word of reproach from you, you have never given me one cross look. It would be all very well if I had been a decent father to you -- but as it is! You have had nothing from me but harm. I am a bad, dissipated man.... Now, thank God, I am quieter and I have no strength of will, but in old days when you were little I had determination, will. Whatever I said or did I always thought it was right. Sometimes I’d come home from the club at night, drunk and ill-humoured, and scold at your poor mother for spending money. The whole night I would be railing at her, and think it the right thing too; you would get up in the morning and go to school, while I’d still be venting my temper upon her. Heavens! I did torture her, poor martyr! When you came back from school and I was asleep you didn’t dare to have dinner till I got up. At dinner again there would be a flare up. I daresay you remember. I wish no one such a father; God sent me to you for a trial. Yes, for a trial! Hold out, children, to the end! Honour thy father and thy days shall be long. Perhaps for your noble conduct God will grant you long life. Cabman, stop!”

The old man jumped out of the cab and ran into a tavern. Half an hour later he came back, cleared his throat in a drunken way, and sat down beside his son.

“Where’s Sonya now?” he asked. “Still at boarding-school?”

“No, she left in May, and is living now with Sasha’s mother-in-law.”

“There!” said the old man in surprise. “She is a jolly good girl! So she is following her brother’s example.... Ah, Borenka, she has no mother, no one to rejoice over her! I say, Borenka, does she... does she know how I am living? Eh?”

Boris made no answer. Five minutes passed in profound silence. The old man gave a sob, wiped his face with a rag and said:

“I love her, Borenka! She is my only daughter, you know, and in one’s old age there is no comfort like a daughter. Could I see her, Borenka?”

“Of course, when you like.”

“Really? And she won’t mind?”

“Of course not, she has been trying to find you so as to see you.”

“Upon my soul! What children! Cabman, eh? Arrange it, Borenka darling! She is a young lady now,
delicatesse, consommé,
and all the rest of it in a refined way, and I don’t want to show myself to her in such an abject state. I’ll tell you how we’ll contrive to work it. For three days I will keep away from spirits, to get my filthy, drunken phiz into better order. Then I’ll come to you, and you shall lend me for the time some suit of yours; I’ll shave and have my hair cut, then you go and bring her to your flat. Will you?”

“Very well.”

“Cabman, stop!”

The old man sprang out of the cab again and ran into a tavern. While Boris was driving with him to his lodging he jumped out twice again, while his son sat silent and waited patiently for him. When, after dismissing the cab, they made their way across a long, filthy yard to the “virago’s” lodging, the old man put on an utterly shamefaced and guilty air, and began timidly clearing his throat and clicking with his lips.

“Borenka,” he said in an ingratiating voice, “if my virago begins saying anything, don’t take any notice... and behave to her, you know, affably. She is ignorant and impudent, but she’s a good baggage. There is a good, warm heart beating in her bosom!”

The long yard ended, and Boris found himself in a dark entry. The swing door creaked, there was a smell of cooking and a smoking samovar. There was a sound of harsh voices. Passing through the passage into the kitchen Boris could see nothing but thick smoke, a line with washing on it, and the chimney of the samovar through a crack of which golden sparks were dropping.