Short Fiction, Anton Chekhov [websites to read books for free .TXT] 📗

wandered about from morning till evening, and made the summer visitors feel dismal.⁠ ⁠… After Liza’s shadow invariably walked the shadow of Groholsky.⁠ ⁠… I call them shadows because they had both lost their natural appearance. They had grown thin and pale and shrunken, and looked more like shadows than living people.⁠ ⁠… Both were pining away like fleas in the classic anecdote of the Jew who sold insect powder.

At the beginning of July, Liza ran away from Groholsky, leaving a note in which she wrote that she was going for a time to “her son”⁠ ⁠… For a time! She ran away by night when Groholsky was asleep.⁠ ⁠… After reading her letter Groholsky spent a whole week wandering round about the villa as though he were mad, and neither ate nor slept. In August, he had an attack of recurrent fever, and in September he went abroad. There he took to drink.⁠ ⁠… He hoped in drink and dissipation to find comfort.⁠ ⁠… He squandered all his fortune, but did not succeed, poor fellow, in driving out of his brain the image of the beloved woman with the kittenish face.⁠ ⁠… Men do not die of happiness, nor do they die of misery. Groholsky’s hair went grey, but he did not die: he is alive to this day.⁠ ⁠… He came back from abroad to have “just a peep” at Liza.⁠ ⁠… Bugrov met him with open arms, and made him stay for an indefinite period. He is staying with Bugrov to this day.

This year I happened to be passing through Groholyovka, Bugrov’s estate. I found the master and the mistress of the house having supper.⁠ ⁠… Ivan Petrovitch was highly delighted to see me, and fell to pressing good things upon me.⁠ ⁠… He had grown rather stout, and his face was a trifle puffy, though it was still rosy and looked sleek and well-nourished.⁠ ⁠… He was not bald. Liza, too, had grown fatter. Plumpness did not suit her. Her face was beginning to lose the kittenish look, and was, alas! more suggestive of the seal. Her cheeks were spreading upwards, outwards, and to both sides. The Bugrovs were living in first-rate style. They had plenty of everything. The house was overflowing with servants and edibles.⁠ ⁠…

When we had finished supper we got into conversation. Forgetting that Liza did not play, I asked her to play us something on the piano.

“She does not play,” said Bugrov; “she is no musician.⁠ ⁠… Hey, you there! Ivan! call Grigory Vassilyevitch here! What’s he doing there?” And turning to me, Bugrov added, “Our musician will come directly; he plays the guitar. We keep the piano for Mishutka⁠—we are having him taught.⁠ ⁠…”

Five minutes later, Groholsky walked into the room⁠—sleepy, unkempt, and unshaven.⁠ ⁠… He walked in, bowed to me, and sat down on one side.

“Why, whoever goes to bed so early?” said Bugrov, addressing him. “What a fellow you are really! He’s always asleep, always asleep⁠ ⁠… The sleepy head! Come, play us something lively.⁠ ⁠…”

Groholsky turned the guitar, touched the strings, and began singing:

“Yesterday I waited for my dear one.⁠ ⁠…”

I listened to the singing, looked at Bugrov’s well-fed countenance, and thought: “Nasty brute!” I felt like crying.⁠ ⁠… When he had finished singing, Groholsky bowed to us, and went out.

“And what am I to do with him?” Bugrov said when he had gone away. “I do have trouble with him! In the day he is always brooding and brooding.⁠ ⁠… And at night he moans.⁠ ⁠… He sleeps, but he sighs and moans in his sleep.⁠ ⁠… It is a sort of illness.⁠ ⁠… What am I to do with him, I can’t think! He won’t let us sleep.⁠ ⁠… I am afraid that he will go out of his mind. People think he is badly treated here.⁠ ⁠… In what way is he badly treated? He eats with us, and he drinks with us.⁠ ⁠… Only we won’t give him money. If we were to give him any he would spend it on drink or waste it.⁠ ⁠… That’s another trouble for me! Lord forgive me, a sinner!”

They made me stay the night. When I woke next morning, Bugrov was giving someone a lecture in the adjoining room.⁠ ⁠…

“Set a fool to say his prayers, and he will crack his skull on the floor! Why, who paints oars green! Do think, blockhead! Use your sense! Why don’t you speak?”

“I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… made a mistake,” said a husky tenor apologetically.

The tenor belonged to Groholsky.

Groholsky saw me to the station.

“He is a despot, a tyrant,” he kept whispering to me all the way. “He is a generous man, but a tyrant! Neither heart nor brain are developed in him.⁠ ⁠… He tortures me! If it were not for that noble woman, I should have gone away long ago. I am sorry to leave her. It’s somehow easier to endure together.”

Groholsky heaved a sigh, and went on:

“She is with child.⁠ ⁠… You notice it? It is really my child.⁠ ⁠… Mine.⁠ ⁠… She soon saw her mistake, and gave herself to me again. She cannot endure him.⁠ ⁠…”

“You are a rag,” I could not refrain from saying to Groholsky.

“Yes, I am a man of weak character.⁠ ⁠… That is quite true. I was born so. Do you know how I came into the world? My late papa cruelly oppressed a certain little clerk⁠—it was awful how he treated him! He poisoned his life. Well⁠ ⁠… and my late mama was tenderhearted. She came from the people, she was of the working class.⁠ ⁠… She took that little clerk to her heart from pity.⁠ ⁠… Well⁠ ⁠… and so I came into the world.⁠ ⁠… The son of the ill-treated clerk. How could I have a strong will? Where was I to get it from? But that’s the second bell.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye. Come and see us again, but don’t tell Ivan Petrovitch what I have said about him.”

I pressed Groholsky’s hand, and got into the train. He bowed towards the carriage, and went to the water-barrel⁠—I suppose he was thirsty!

Joy

It was twelve o’clock at night.

Mitya Kuldarov, with excited face and ruffled hair, flew into his parents’ flat, and