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

“Here’s five thousand⁠ ⁠…” he said. “Though it’s not my money, yet, God bless you, it’s all the same. I advise you to send for post-horses at once and go away. Yes, really!”

The lieutenant in his turn looked searchingly at Kryukov and laughed.

“You’ve guessed right, Alyosha,” he said, reddening. “It was to her I meant to ride. Yesterday evening when the washerwoman gave me that damned tunic, the one I was wearing then, and it smelt of jasmine, why⁠ ⁠… I felt I must go!”

“You must go away.”

“Yes, certainly. And my furlough’s just over. I really will go today! Yes, by Jove! However long one stays, one has to go in the end.⁠ ⁠… I’m going!”

The post-horses were brought after dinner the same day; the lieutenant said goodbye to the Kryukovs and set off, followed by their good wishes.

Another week passed. It was a dull but hot and heavy day. From early morning Kryukov walked aimlessly about the house, looking out of window, or turning over the leaves of albums, though he was sick of the sight of them already. When he came across his wife or children, he began grumbling crossly. It seemed to him, for some reason that day, that his children’s manners were revolting, that his wife did not know how to look after the servants, that their expenditure was quite disproportionate to their income. All this meant that “the master” was out of humour.

After dinner, Kryukov, feeling dissatisfied with the soup and the roast meat he had eaten, ordered out his racing droshky. He drove slowly out of the courtyard, drove at a walking pace for a quarter of a mile, and stopped.

“Shall I⁠ ⁠… drive to her⁠ ⁠… that devil?” he thought, looking at the leaden sky.

And Kryukov positively laughed, as though it were the first time that day he had asked himself that question. At once the load of boredom was lifted from his heart, and there rose a gleam of pleasure in his lazy eyes. He lashed the horse.⁠ ⁠…

All the way his imagination was picturing how surprised the Jewess would be to see him, how he would laugh and chat, and come home feeling refreshed.⁠ ⁠…

“Once a month one needs something to brighten one up⁠ ⁠… something out of the common round,” he thought, “something that would give the stagnant organism a good shaking up, a reaction⁠ ⁠… whether it’s a drinking bout, or⁠ ⁠… Susanna. One can’t get on without it.”

It was getting dark when he drove into the yard of the vodka distillery. From the open windows of the owner’s house came sounds of laughter and singing:

“ ‘Brighter than lightning, more burning than flame.⁠ ⁠…’ ”

sang a powerful, mellow, bass voice.

“Aha! she has visitors,” thought Kryukov.

And he was annoyed that she had visitors.

“Shall I go back?” he thought with his hand on the bell, but he rang all the same, and went up the familiar staircase. From the entry he glanced into the reception hall. There were about five men there⁠—all landowners and officials of his acquaintance; one, a tall, thin gentleman, was sitting at the piano, singing, and striking the keys with his long, thin fingers. The others were listening and grinning with enjoyment. Kryukov looked himself up and down in the looking-glass, and was about to go into the hall, when Susanna Moiseyevna herself darted into the entry, in high spirits and wearing the same black dress.⁠ ⁠… Seeing Kryukov, she was petrified for an instant, then she uttered a little scream and beamed with delight.

“Is it you?” she said, clutching his hand. “What a surprise!”

“Here she is!” smiled Kryukov, putting his arm round her waist. “Well! Does the destiny of Europe still lie in the hands of the French and the Russians?”

“I’m so glad,” laughed the Jewess, cautiously removing his arm. “Come, go into the hall; they’re all friends there.⁠ ⁠… I’ll go and tell them to bring you some tea. Your name’s Alexey, isn’t it? Well, go in, I’ll come directly.⁠ ⁠…”

She blew him a kiss and ran out of the entry, leaving behind her the same sickly smell of jasmine. Kryukov raised his head and walked into the hall. He was on terms of friendly intimacy with all the men in the room, but scarcely nodded to them; they, too, scarcely responded, as though the places in which they met were not quite decent, and as though they were in tacit agreement with one another that it was more suitable for them not to recognise one another.

From the hall Kryukov walked into the drawing room, and from it into a second drawing room. On the way he met three or four other guests, also men whom he knew, though they barely recognised him. Their faces were flushed with drink and merriment. Alexey Ivanovitch glanced furtively at them and marvelled that these men, respectable heads of families, who had known sorrow and privation, could demean themselves to such pitiful, cheap gaiety! He shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and walked on.

“There are places,” he reflected, “where a sober man feels sick, and a drunken man rejoices. I remember I never could go to the operetta or the gipsies when I was sober: wine makes a man more good-natured and reconciles him with vice.⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly he stood still, petrified, and caught hold of the doorpost with both hands. At the writing-table in Susanna’s study was sitting Lieutenant Alexandr Grigoryevitch. He was discussing something in an undertone with a fat, flabby-looking Jew, and seeing his cousin, flushed crimson and looked down at an album.

The sense of decency was stirred in Kryukov and the blood rushed to his head. Overwhelmed with amazement, shame, and anger, he walked up to the table without a word. Sokolsky’s head sank lower than ever. His face worked with an expression of agonising shame.

“Ah, it’s you, Alyosha!” he articulated, making a desperate effort to raise his eyes and to smile. “I called here to say goodbye, and, as you see.⁠ ⁠… But tomorrow I am certainly going.”

“What can I say to him? What?” thought Alexey Ivanovitch. “How can I judge him since