Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (615 page)

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The death of a child
. I have no sooner sat down in peace than — bang — fate lets fly at me.

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The she-wolf, nervous and anxious, fond of her young, dragged away a foal into her winter-shelter, thinking him a lamb. She knew that there was a ewe there and that the ewe had young. While she was dragging the foal away, suddenly some one whistled; she was alarmed and dropped him, but he followed her. They arrived at the shelter. He began to suck like the young wolves. Throughout the winter he changed but little; he only grew thin and his legs longer, and the spot on his forehead turned into a triangle. The she-wolf was in delicate health.

[Footnote 1: A sketch of part of the story “Whitehead.”]

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They invited celebrities to these evening parties, and it was dull because there are few people of talent in Moscow, and the same singers and reciters performed at all evening parties.

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She has not before felt herself so free and easy with a man.

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You wait until you grow up and I’ll teach you declamation.

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It seemed to her that at the show many of the pictures were alike.

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There filed up before you a whole line of laundry-maids.

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Kostya insisted that the women had robbed themselves.

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L. put himself in the place of the juryman and interpreted it thus: if it was a case of house-breaking, then there was no theft, because the laundresses themselves sold the linen and spent the money on drink; but if it was a case of theft, then there could have been no house-breaking.

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Fiodor was flattered that his brother had found him at the same table with a famous actor.

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When Y. spoke or ate, his beard moved as if he had no teeth in his mouth.

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Ivashin loved Nadya Vishnyevsky and was afraid of his love. When the butler told him that the old lady had just gone out, but the young lady was at home, he fumbled in his fur coat and dress-coat pocket, found his card, and said: “Right.”

But it was not all right. Driving from his house in the morning, to pay a visit, he thought that he was compelled to it by conventions of society, which weighed heavily upon him. But now it was clear to him that he went to pay calls only because somewhere far away in the depths of his soul, as under a veil, there lay hidden a hope that he would see Nadya…. And he suddenly felt pitiful, sad, and a little frightened….

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In his soul, it seemed to him, it was snowing, and everything faded away. He was afraid to love Nadya, because he was too old for her, thought his appearance unattractive, and did not believe that young girls like Nadya could love men for their minds and spiritual qualities. Still there would at times rise in him something like a hope. But now, from the moment when the officer’s spurs jingled and then died away, there also died away his timid love…. All was at an end, hope was impossible…. “Yes, now all is finished,” he thought, “I am glad, very glad.”

* * * * *

He imagined his wife to be not Nadya, but always, for some reason, a stout woman with a large bosom, covered with Venetian lace.

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The clerks in the office of the Governor of the island have a drunken headache. They long for a drink. They have no money. What is to be done? One of them, a convict who is serving his time here for forgery, devises a plan. He goes to the church, where a former officer, now exiled for giving his superior a box on the ears, sings in the choir, and says to him panting: “Here! There’s a pardon come for you! They have got a telegram in the office.”

The late officer turns pale, trembles, and can hardly walk for excitement.

“But for such news you ought to give something for a drink,” says the clerk.

“Take all I have! All!”

And he hands him some five roubles…. He arrives at the office. The officer is afraid that he may die from joy and presses his hand to his heart.

“Where is the telegram?”

“The bookkeeper has put it away.” (He goes to the bookkeeper.) General laughter and an invitation to drink with them.

“How terrible!”

After that the officer was ill for a week.

[Footnote 1: An episode which Chekhov heard during his journey in the island, Saghalien.]

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Fedya, the steward’s brother-in-law, told Ivanov that wild-duck were feeding on the other side of the wood. He loaded his gun with slugs. Suddenly a wolf appeared. He fired and smashed both the wolf’s hips. The wolf was mad with pain and did not see him. “What can I do for you, dear?” He thought and thought, and then went home and called Peter…. Peter took a stick, and with an awful grimace, began to beat the wolf…. He beat and beat and beat until it died…. He broke into a sweat and went away, without saying a single word.

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Vera
: “I do not respect you, because you married so strangely, because nothing came of you…. That is why I have secrets from you.”

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It is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. We should seek a simple solution.

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There is no Monday which will not give its place to Tuesday.

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I am happy and satisfied, sister, but if I were born a second time and were asked: “Do you want to marry?” I should answer: “No.” “Do you want to have money?” “No….”

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Lenstchka liked dukes and counts in novels, not ordinary persons. She loved the chapters in which there is love, pure and ideal not sensual. Descriptions of nature she did not like. She preferred conversations to descriptions. While reading the beginning she would glance impatiently at the end. She did not remember the names of authors. She wrote with a pencil in the margins: “Wonderful!” “Beautiful!” or “Serve him right!”

* * * * *

Lenstchka sang without opening her mouth.

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Post coitum
: We Balderiovs always excelled in vigor and health.

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He drove in a cab, and, as he watched his son walking away, thought: “Perhaps, he belongs to the race of men who will no longer trundle in scurvy cabs, as I do, but will fly through the skies in balloons.”

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She is so beautiful that it is even frightening; dark eye-brows.

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The son says nothing, but the wife feels him to be an enemy; she feels that he has overheard everything….

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What a lot of idiots there are among ladies. People get so used to it that they do not notice it.

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They often go to the theatre and read serious magazines — and yet are spiteful and immoral.

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Nat
: “I never have fits of hysterics. I am not a pampered darling.”

[Footnote 1: This and the following few passages are from the rough draft of Chekhov’s play
Three Sisters
.]

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Nat
: (continually to her sisters): “O, how ugly you have grown. O, how old you do look!”

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To live one must have something to hang on to…. In the provinces only the body works, not the spirit.

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You won’t become a saint through other people’s sins.

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Koulyguin
: “I am a jolly fellow, I infect every one with my mood.”

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Koul
. Gives lessons at rich houses.

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Koul
. In Act IV without mustaches.

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The wife implores the husband: “Don’t get fat.”

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O if there were a life in which every one grew younger and more beautiful.

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Irene
: “It is hard to live without a father, without a mother.” — “And without a husband.” — “Yes, without a husband. Whom could one confide in? To whom could one complain? With whom could one share ones’s joy? One must love some one strongly.”

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Koulyguin
(to his wife): “I am so happy to be married to you, that I consider it ungentlemanly and improper to speak of or even mention a dowry. Hush, don’t say anything….”

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The doctor enjoys being at the duel.

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It is difficult to live without orderlies. You cannot make the servants answer your bell.

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The 2nd, 3rd, and 6th companies left at 4, and we leave at 12 sharp.

[Footnote 1: Here the fragments from the rough draft of
Three
Sisters
end.]

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In the daytime conversations about the loose manners of the girls in secondary schools, in the evening a lecture on degeneration and the decline of everything, and at night, after all this, one longs to shoot oneself.

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In the life of our towns there is no pessimism, no Marxism, and no movements, but there is stagnation, stupidity, mediocrity.

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He had a thirst for life, but it seemed to him to mean that he wanted a drink — and he drank wine.

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F. in the town-hall: Serguey Nik. in a plaintive voice: “Gentlemen, where can we get the means? Our town is poor.”

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To be idle involuntarily means to listen to what is being said, to see what is being done; but he who works and is occupied hears little and sees little.

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In the skating rink he raced after L.; he wanted to overtake her and it seemed as if it were life which he wanted to overtake, that life which one cannot bring back or overtake or catch, just as one cannot catch one’s shadow.

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Only one thought reconciled him to the doctor: just as he had suffered from the doctor’s ignorance, so perhaps some one was suffering from his mistakes.