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Chekhov's Three Years
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III IV
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VI
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VIII
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VI At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving
with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse
carriage. He was afraid of his father's doing something
outrageous, and was already ill at ease. After two nights in her
husband's house Yulia Sergeyevna considered her marriage a
mistake and a calamity, and if she had had to live with her
husband in any other town but Moscow, it seemed to her that she
could not have endured the horror of it. Moscow entertained her
-- she was delighted with the streets, the churches; and if it
had been possible to drive about Moscow in those splendid
sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from
morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold
autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt
herself so unhappy.
Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman
pulled up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were
expected, and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter
in a new full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole
space, from the middle of the street to the gates and all over
the yard from the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter
took off his hat, the policemen saluted. Near the entrance
Fyodor met them with a very serious face.
"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said,
kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome."
He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor
through a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too,
and smelt of incense.
"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor
in the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man,
pater-familias."
In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor
Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the
priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with
Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was
overcome with confusion.
The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A
censer was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense
and charcoal. The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into
the drawing-room on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall.
There was perfect stillness, no one even coughed.
"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read
with great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles
were sung -- to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God.
The singers sang very slowly, holding up the music before them.
Laptev noticed how confused his wife was. While they were
singing the canticles, and the singers in different keys brought
out "Lord have mercy on us," he kept expecting in nervous
suspense that the old man would make some remark such as, "You
don't know how to cross yourself," and he felt vexed. Why this
crowd, and why this ceremony with priests and choristers? It was
too bourgeois. But when she, like the old man, put her head
under the gospel and afterwards several times dropped upon her
knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was reassured.
At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest
gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia
went up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to
speak. Signs were made to the singers to stop.
"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at
the bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with
fear and trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the
prophet answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the
Lord: sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.'
Even so, Yulia, servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou
come bringing peace into this house?"
Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her
the cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice:
"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time."
The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the
room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes
full of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the
cross over her face, and said:
"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing."
The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir
was singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they
had lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father,
and he talked to her, saying that families ought not to be
parted but live together in one house; that separation and
disunion led to permanent rupture.
"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it,"
he said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an
old man like me to rest."
Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like
her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her
and often kissed her hand.
"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of
red came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian
style, like Christians, little sister."
As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything
had gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened
as he had expected. He said to his wife:
"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father
should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me.
Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when
he was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale
and trembled in his presence. Nina was born first -- born of a
comparatively healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier
than we were. Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother
had been worn out by terror. I can remember my father correcting
me -- or, to speak plainly, beating me -- before I was five
years old. He used to thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit
me on the head, and every morning when I woke up my first
thought was whether he would beat me that day. Play and childish
mischief was forbidden us. We had to go to morning service and
to early mass. When we met priests or monks we had to kiss their
hands; at home we had to sing hymns. Here you are religious and
love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, and when I pass a
church I remember my childhood, and am overcome with horror. I
was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight years old. I
worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, for I
used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to the
high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after
dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things
went on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know
Yartsev, and he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That
Yartsev did a great deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev,
and he laughed with pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit
at once. He's a very fine fellow! How touched he will be!"
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