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

everything was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants were stingier, the peasants were poorer, the bread was dearer, everything had shrunk and was on a smaller scale. Emelyan told them that in old days he had been in the choir in the Lugansky works, and that he had a remarkable voice and read music splendidly, while now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of his brother, who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings. Vassya had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in a good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a three-in-hand in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble till he was twenty, when his stern harsh father, anxious to train him to work, and afraid he would be spoiled at home, had sent him to a carrier’s to work as a hired labourer. Styopka was the only one who said nothing, but from his beardless face it was evident that his life had been a much better one in the past.

Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly from under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye rested upon Yegorushka.

“You heathen, take off your cap,” he said rudely. “You can’t eat with your cap on, and you a gentleman too!”

Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew lost all savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya intervening on his behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting fellow was rankling oppressively in his breast, and he made up his mind that he would do him some injury, whatever it cost him.

After dinner everyone sauntered to the wagons and lay down in the shade.

“Are we going to start soon, grandfather?” Yegorushka asked Panteley.

“In God’s good time we shall set off. There’s no starting yet; it is too hot.⁠ ⁠… O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother⁠ ⁠… Lie down, little lad.”

Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the wagons. Yegorushka meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and lay down by the old man.

VI

The wagons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again when the sun was setting.

Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the wagon creaked softly and swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his feet, slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was full of the churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day before.

Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head, gazed upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle, then fade away; guardian angels covering the horizon with their gold wings disposed themselves to slumber. The day had passed peacefully; the quiet peaceful night had come, and they could stay tranquilly at home in heaven.⁠ ⁠… Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees grow dark and the mist fall over the earth⁠—saw the stars light up, one after the other.⁠ ⁠…

When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and feelings for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins to feel hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon as near and akin becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked down from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with them and tries to grasp their significance. One is reminded of the solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life seems awful⁠ ⁠… full of despair.⁠ ⁠…

Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under the cherry trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her coffin with pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and let down into the grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the clods of earth on the coffin lid.⁠ ⁠… He pictured his granny in the dark and narrow coffin, helpless and deserted by everyone. His imagination pictured his granny suddenly awakening, not understanding where she was, knocking upon the lid and calling for help, and in the end swooning with horror and dying again. He imagined his mother dead, Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky, Solomon. But however much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb, far from home, outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for himself personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt that he would never die.⁠ ⁠…

Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and went on reckoning up his thoughts.

“All right.⁠ ⁠… Nice gentlefolk,⁠ ⁠…” he muttered. “Took his little lad to school⁠—but how he is doing now I haven’t heard say⁠—in Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching them to be very clever.⁠ ⁠… No, that’s true⁠—a nice little lad, no harm in him.⁠ ⁠… He’ll grow up and be a help to his father.⁠ ⁠… You, Yegory, are little now, but you’ll grow big and will keep your father and mother.⁠ ⁠… So it is ordained of God, ‘Honour your father and your mother.’⁠ ⁠… I had children myself, but they were burnt.⁠ ⁠… My wife was burnt and my children,⁠ ⁠… that’s true.⁠ ⁠… The hut caught fire on the night of Epiphany.⁠ ⁠… I was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In Oryol.⁠ ⁠… Marya dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children.⁠ ⁠… Next day they found nothing but bones.”

About midnight Yegorushka and the wagoners were again sitting round a small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up, Kiruha and Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek; they vanished into