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

Brahms, while my wife, afraid of their suspecting her of ignorance of music, smiles to them sympathetically and mutters: “That’s exquisite⁠ ⁠… really! You don’t say so!⁠ ⁠…” Gnekker eats with solid dignity, jests with solid dignity, and condescendingly listens to the remarks of the young ladies. From time to time he is moved to speak in bad French, and then, for some reason or other, he thinks it necessary to address me as “Votre Excellence.”

And I am glum. Evidently I am a constraint to them and they are a constraint to me. I have never in my earlier days had a close knowledge of class antagonism, but now I am tormented by something of that sort. I am on the lookout for nothing but bad qualities in Gnekker; I quickly find them, and am fretted at the thought that a man not of my circle is sitting here as my daughter’s suitor. His presence has a bad influence on me in other ways, too. As a rule, when I am alone or in the society of people I like, never think of my own achievements, or, if I do recall them, they seem to me as trivial as though I had only completed my studies yesterday; but in the presence of people like Gnekker my achievements in science seem to be a lofty mountain the top of which vanishes into the clouds, while at its foot Gnekkers are running about scarcely visible to the naked eye.

After dinner I go into my study and there smoke my pipe, the only one in the whole day, the sole relic of my old bad habit of smoking from morning till night. While I am smoking my wife comes in and sits down to talk to me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what our conversation is going to be about.

“I must talk to you seriously, Nikolay Stepanovitch,” she begins. “I mean about Liza.⁠ ⁠… Why don’t you pay attention to it?”

“To what?”

“You pretend to notice nothing. But that is not right. We can’t shirk responsibility.⁠ ⁠… Gnekker has intentions in regard to Liza.⁠ ⁠… What do you say?”

“That he is a bad man I can’t say, because I don’t know him, but that I don’t like him I have told you a thousand times already.”

“But you can’t⁠ ⁠… you can’t!”

She gets up and walks about in excitement.

“You can’t take up that attitude to a serious step,” she says. “When it is a question of our daughter’s happiness we must lay aside all personal feeling. I know you do not like him.⁠ ⁠… Very good⁠ ⁠… if we refuse him now, if we break it all off, how can you be sure that Liza will not have a grievance against us all her life? Suitors are not plentiful nowadays, goodness knows, and it may happen that no other match will turn up.⁠ ⁠… He is very much in love with Liza, and she seems to like him.⁠ ⁠… Of course, he has no settled position, but that can’t be helped. Please God, in time he will get one. He is of good family and well off.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“He told us so. His father has a large house in Harkov and an estate in the neighbourhood. In short, Nikolay Stepanovitch, you absolutely must go to Harkov.”

“What for?”

“You will find out all about him there.⁠ ⁠… You know the professors there; they will help you. I would go myself, but I am a woman. I cannot.⁠ ⁠…”

“I am not going to Harkov,” I say morosely.

My wife is frightened, and a look of intense suffering comes into her face.

“For God’s sake, Nikolay Stepanovitch,” she implores me, with tears in her voice⁠—“for God’s sake, take this burden off me! I am so worried!”

It is painful for me to look at her.

“Very well, Varya,” I say affectionately, “if you wish it, then certainly I will go to Harkov and do all you want.”

She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes off to her room to cry, and I am left alone.

A little later lights are brought in. The armchair and the lampshade cast familiar shadows that have long grown wearisome on the walls and on the floor, and when I look at them I feel as though the night had come and with it my accursed sleeplessness. I lie on my bed, then get up and walk about the room, then lie down again. As a rule it is after dinner, at the approach of evening, that my nervous excitement reaches its highest pitch. For no reason I begin crying and burying my head in the pillow. At such times I am afraid that someone may come in; I am afraid of suddenly dying; I am ashamed of my tears, and altogether there is something insufferable in my soul. I feel that I can no longer bear the sight of my lamp, of my books, of the shadows on the floor. I cannot bear the sound of the voices coming from the drawing room. Some force unseen, uncomprehended, is roughly thrusting me out of my flat. I leap up hurriedly, dress, and cautiously, that my family may not notice, slip out into the street. Where am I to go?

The answer to that question has long been ready in my brain. To Katya.

III

As a rule she is lying on the sofa or in a lounge-chair reading. Seeing me, she raises her head languidly, sits up, and shakes hands.

“You are always lying down,” I say, after pausing and taking breath. “That’s not good for you. You ought to occupy yourself with something.”

“What?”

“I say you ought to occupy yourself in some way.”

“With what? A woman can be nothing but a simple workwoman or an actress.”

“Well, if you can’t be a workwoman, be an actress.”

She says nothing.

“You ought to get married,” I say, half in jest.

“There is no one to marry. There’s no reason to, either.”

“You can’t live like this.”

“Without a husband? Much that matters; I could have as many men as I