Three Years
by A. P. Chekhov
I
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III IV
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VIII
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XI
XII
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XVII
XI She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on
his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape.
"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a
sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear
girl. I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local
Board, chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally
councillor of the provincial administration. I think I have
served my country and have earned the right to receive
attention; but -- would you believe it? -- I can never succeed
in wringing from the authorities a post in another town. . . ."
Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head.
"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping
asleep. "Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on
the other hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even
that's something rare. I regret to say I have not been always
quite straightforward with women, but in my relations with the
Russian government I've always been a gentleman. But enough of
that," he said, opening his eyes; "let us talk of you. What put
it into your head to visit your papa so suddenly?"
"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband,"
said Yulia, looking at his cap.
"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your
husband's all right -- he's nothing out of the way, but his
brother Fyodor is a perfect fool."
Panaurov sighed and asked seriously:
"And have you a lover yet?"
Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed.
"Goodness knows what you're talking about."
It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and
had supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his
greatcoat and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia.
"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me
for the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh
salted cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and
yet has a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As
time goes on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful,
exquisite woman. If this trip of ours had happened five years
ago," he sighed, "I should have felt it my duty to join the
ranks of your adorers, but now, alas, I'm a veteran on the
retired list."
He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put
his arm round her waist.
"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so
frightened that her hands and feet turned cold.
"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!"
"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there
dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it."
If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he
had made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia
round the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the
lips, in the full conviction that he was giving her intense
gratification. Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and
began laughing. He kissed her once more and said, as he put on
his ridiculous cap:
"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha,
a kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one -- or
inherited, I fancy it was -- a whole harem. When his beautiful
young wives drew up in a row before him, he walked round them,
kissed each one of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal
to giving you.' And that's just what I say, too."
All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her.
She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she
got a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of
chocolate, shouted:
"Catch!"
He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet,
then a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into
his mouth, looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to
her that in his face, his features, his expression, there was a
great deal that was feminine and childlike. And when, out of
breath, she sat down on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he
tapped her cheek with two fingers, and said as though he were
vexed:
"Naughty girl!"
"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet
things."
He ate up the sweets -- every one of them, and locked the empty
box in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them.
"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the
veteran to go bye-bye."
He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a
pillow, lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown.
"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his
whole body ached.
And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of
constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep.
When next morning she drove through her native town from the
station homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted.
The snow looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one
had squashed them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead
body was carried in an open coffin with banners.
"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought.
There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where
Nina Fyodorovna used to live.
With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and
rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know --
a plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As
she went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his
love there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with
foot-marks. Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting
in their out-door coats. And for some reason her heart beat
violently, and she was so excited she could scarcely walk.
The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a
brick-red face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his
daughter, he was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She
thought that she was the only joy in this old man's life, and
much moved, she embraced him warmly, and told him she would stay
a long time -- till Easter. After taking off her things in her
own room, she went back to the dining-room to have tea with him.
He was pacing up and down with his hands in his pockets,
humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he was dissatisfied with
something.
"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad
for your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall
soon give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is
that my hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!"
He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They
had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her
children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not
trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred
roubles from him and had never paid it back.
"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor.
"I'm mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and
justice."
Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness
in not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it
seemed to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's
life. While he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his
rounds, she walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do
or what to think about. She had already grown strange to her own
town and her own home. She felt no inclination to go into the
streets or see her friends; and at the thought of her old
friends and her life as a girl, she felt no sadness nor regret
for the past.
In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the
evening service. But there were only poor people in the church,
and her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it
seemed to her that there was some change in the church as well
as in herself. In old days she had loved it when they read the
prayers for the day at evening service, and the choir sang
anthems such as "I will open my lips." She liked moving slowly
in the crowd to the priest who stood in the middle of the
church, and then to feel the holy oil on her forehead; now she
only waited for the service to be over. And now, going out of
the church, she was only afraid that beggars would ask for alms;
it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for her pockets;
besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now -- nothing but
roubles.
She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep.
She kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral
procession she had met that morning. The open coffin with the
dead body was carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill
at the door; then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on
a sheet, and dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and
jumped up in alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the
wire of the bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to
be heard.
The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs,
and then come back.
"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!"
"What is it?" said Yulia.
"A telegram for you!"
Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood
the doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had
a candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning
sleepily. "It ought to have been mended long ago."
Yulia broke open the telegram and read:
"We drink to your health. -- YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY."
"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her
heart felt light and gay.
Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then
she spent a long time in packing her things, until it was
daylight, and at midday she set off for Moscow.
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