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

And a minute later the thought came into her mind again:

“There is a God; death must come; one must think of one’s soul. If Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God⁠ ⁠… yes.⁠ ⁠… But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it.⁠ ⁠…”

Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under her pillow.

“I mustn’t think about it,” she whispered. “I mustn’t.⁠ ⁠…”

Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one reason⁠—that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and called tenderly:

“Volodya!”

“What is it?” her husband responded.

“Nothing.”

She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that before old age and death there would be a long, long life before her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good night to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with herself.

“Well, now then for the music!” said Yagitch.

She was not pacified till ten o’clock in the morning. She left off crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked like a bird of prey.

She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell.

“Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks,” he said; and a minute later: “Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor Salimovitch to come to the telephone⁠ ⁠…” And a minute later: “With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H’m!⁠ ⁠… Thank you. Very good. I shall be much obliged⁠ ⁠… Merci.”

Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be back to dinner, went out.

At twelve o’clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted nothing but to look at him.

Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallowtail coat and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had sat down, he admired her dressing-gown.

“I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday,” she said. “At first I felt it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the problem of life? Why, it’s death, not life!”

At the thought of Olga, Volodya’s face softened.

“Here, you are a clever man, Volodya,” said Sofya Lvovna. “Show me how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. Life isn’t easy for me,” she added after a brief pause. “Tell me what to do.⁠ ⁠… Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me something, if it’s only one word.”

“One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay.”

“Volodya, why do you despise me?” she asked hotly. “You talk to me in a special, fatuous way, if you’ll excuse me, not as one talks to one’s friends and women one respects. You are so good at your work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? Why is it? Am I not good enough?”

Volodya frowned with annoyance and said:

“Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don’t you perhaps want constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horseradish?”

“Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I’ve grown up before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything you liked of me⁠—an angel. But you”⁠—her voice quivered⁠—“treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and you⁠ ⁠…”

“Come, come,” said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her