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A.P. Chekhov
- The Wife
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VII
It was by now past seven. Besides Ivan
Ivanitch, women servants, the old dame in spectacles, the little
girls and the peasant, all accompanied us from the hall out on
to the steps, wishing us good-bye and all sorts of blessings,
while near the horses in the darkness there were standing and
moving about men with lanterns, telling our coachmen how and
which way to drive, and wishing us a lucky journey. The horses,
the men, and the sledges were white.
"Where do all these people come from?" I asked as my three
horses and the doctor's two moved at a walking pace out of the
yard.
"They are all his serfs," said Sobol. "The new order has not
reached him yet. Some of the old servants are living out their
lives with him, and then there are orphans of all sorts who have
nowhere to go; there are some, too, who insist on living there,
there's no turning them out. A queer old man!"
Again the flying horses, the strange voice of drunken Nikanor,
the wind and the persistent snow, which got into one's eyes,
one's mouth, and every fold of one's fur coat. . . .
"Well, I am running a rig," I thought, while my bells chimed in
with the doctor's, the wind whistled, the coachmen shouted; and
while this frantic uproar was going on, I recalled all the
details of that strange wild day, unique in my life, and it
seemed to me that I really had gone out of my mind or become a
different man. It was as though the man I had been till that day
were already a stranger to me.
The doctor drove behind and kept talking loudly with his
coachman. From time to time he overtook me, drove side by side,
and always, with the same nave confidence that it was very
pleasant to me, offered me a cigarette or asked for the matches.
Or, overtaking me, he would lean right out of his sledge, and
waving about the sleeves of his fur coat, which were at least
twice as long as his arms, shout:
"Go it, Vaska! Beat the thousand roublers! Hey, my kittens!"
And to the accompaniment of loud, malicious laughter from Sobol
and his Vaska the doctor's kittens raced ahead. My Nikanor took
it as an affront, and held in his three horses, but when the
doctor's bells had passed out of hearing, he raised his elbows,
shouted, and our horses flew like mad in pursuit. We drove into
a village, there were glimpses of lights, the silhouettes of
huts. Some one shouted:
"Ah, the devils!" We seemed to have galloped a mile and a half,
and still it was the village street and there seemed no end to
it. When we caught up the doctor and drove more quietly, he
asked for matches and said:
"Now try and feed that street! And, you know, there are five
streets like that, sir. Stay, stay," he shouted. "Turn in at the
tavern! We must get warm and let the horses rest."
They stopped at the tavern.
"I have more than one village like that in my district," said
the doctor, opening a heavy door with a squeaky block, and
ushering me in front of him. "If you look in broad daylight you
can't see to the end of the street, and there are side-streets,
too, and one can do nothing but scratch one's head. It's hard to
do anything."
We went into the best room where there was a strong smell of
table-cloths, and at our entrance a sleepy peasant in a
waistcoat and a shirt worn outside his trousers jumped up from a
bench. Sobol asked for some beer and I asked for tea.
"It's hard to do anything," said Sobol. "Your wife has faith; I
respect her and have the greatest reverence for her, but I have
no great faith myself. As long as our relations to the people
continue to have the character of ordinary philanthropy, as
shown in orphan asylums and almshouses, so long we shall only be
shuffling, shamming, and deceiving ourselves, and nothing more.
Our relations ought to be businesslike, founded on calculation,
knowledge, and justice. My Vaska has been working for me all his
life; his crops have failed, he is sick and starving. If I give
him fifteen kopecks a day, by so doing I try to restore him to
his former condition as a workman; that is, I am first and
foremost looking after my own interests, and yet for some reason
I call that fifteen kopecks relief, charity, good works. Now let
us put it like this. On the most modest computation, reckoning
seven kopecks a soul and five souls a family, one needs three
hundred and fifty roubles a day to feed a thousand families.
That sum is fixed by our practical duty to a thousand families.
Meanwhile we give not three hundred and fifty a day, but only
ten, and say that that is relief, charity, that that makes your
wife and all of us exceptionally good people and hurrah for our
humaneness. That is it, my dear soul! Ah! if we would talk less
of being humane and calculated more, reasoned, and took a
conscientious attitude to our duties! How many such humane,
sensitive people there are among us who tear about in all good
faith with subscription lists, but don't pay their tailors or
their cooks. There is no logic in our life; that's what it is!
No logic!"
We were silent for a while. I was making a mental calculation
and said:
"I will feed a thousand families for two hundred days. Come and
see me tomorrow to talk it over."
I was pleased that this was said quite simply, and was glad that
Sobol answered me still more simply:
"Right."
We paid for what we had and went out of the tavern.
"I like going on like this," said Sobol, getting into the
sledge. "Eccellenza, oblige me with a match. I've forgotten mine
in the tavern."
A quarter of an hour later his horses fell behind, and the sound
of his bells was lost in the roar of the snow-storm. Reaching
home, I walked about my rooms, trying to think things over and
to define my position clearly to myself; I had not one word, one
phrase, ready for my wife. My brain was not working.
But without thinking of anything, I went downstairs to my wife.
She was in her room, in the same pink dressing-gown, and
standing in the same attitude as though screening her papers
from me. On her face was an expression of perplexity and irony,
and it was evident that having heard of my arrival, she had
prepared herself not to cry, not to entreat me, not to defend
herself, as she had done the day before, but to laugh at me, to
answer me contemptuously, and to act with decision. Her face was
saying: "If that's how it is, good-bye."
"Natalie, I've not gone away," I said, "but it's not deception.
I have gone out of my mind; I've grown old, I'm ill, I've become
a different man -- think as you like. . . . I've shaken off my
old self with horror, with horror; I despise him and am ashamed
of him, and the new man who has been in me since yesterday will
not let me go away. Do not drive me away, Natalie!"
She looked intently into my face and believed me, and there was
a gleam of uneasiness in her eyes. Enchanted by her presence,
warmed by the warmth of her room, I muttered as in delirium,
holding out my hands to her:
"I tell you, I have no one near to me but you. I have never for
one minute ceased to miss you, and only obstinate vanity
prevented me from owning it. The past, when we lived as husband
and wife, cannot be brought back, and there's no need; but make
me your servant, take all my property, and give it away to any
one you like. I am at peace, Natalie, I am content. . . . I am
at peace."
My wife, looking intently and with curiosity into my face,
suddenly uttered a faint cry, burst into tears, and ran into the
next room. I went upstairs to my own storey.
An hour later I was sitting at my table, writing my "History of
Railways," and the starving peasants did not now hinder me from
doing so. Now I feel no uneasiness. Neither the scenes of
disorder which I saw when I went the round of the huts at
Pestrovo with my wife and Sobol the other day, nor malignant
rumours, nor the mistakes of the people around me, nor old age
close upon me -- nothing disturbs me. Just as the flying bullets
do not hinder soldiers from talking of their own affairs, eating
and cleaning their boots, so the starving peasants do not hinder
me from sleeping quietly and looking after my personal affairs.
In my house and far around it there is in full swing the work
which Dr. Sobol calls "an orgy of philanthropy." My wife often
comes up to me and looks about my rooms uneasily, as though
looking for what more she can give to the starving peasants "to
justify her existence," and I see that, thanks to her, there
will soon be nothing of our property left and we shall be poor;
but that does not trouble me, and I smile at her gaily. What
will happen in the future I don't know.
NOTES
famine: about the time Chekhov published this story, the great
famine of 1891-1892 was ending; partly due to her extremely
short growing season, Russia has historically experienced many
famines
Zemstvo doctor: a doctor hired by a district council with
locally elected members; duties varied, but usually included
doing autopsies
Little Russian: Ukrainian
Tres faciunt collegium: Pavel Andreitch uses mixed-up French and
Latin; it possibly means "very helpful colleague"
Count Sheremetyev: the Sheremetevs were a famous Russian
land-owning family; one Sheremetev owned 300,000 serfs
Poltava: first verse of a song that was a parody of heroic
poetry; Poltava was the site where Peter I defeated the Swedes
in 1709
Emancipation: of the serfs in 1861
passport: Russians were required to have passports even for
travel within Russia; a husband had the right to withhold his
wife's passport and thus compel here to stay with him
Scythian: primitive
collegiate councillor: 6th in rank in the Russian Civil Service
tables
kammer-junker: aristocrat
sand: sand was used to dry ink before the invention of
blotting-paper
Eccellenza: excellency
Rurik: founder of the first of the ruling houses in Russia, that
lasted from 862 until 1598
Petchenyegs and Polovtsi: Pechenegs were a savage, marauding
Turkic tribe during the 9th-11th centuries; Polovtsi were one of
the tribe of Turkic nomads occupying the Russian steppe from the
11th to the 13th centuries
Carnot: Carnot (1837-1894) became President of France in 1887
new order: the serfs were freed in 1861
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