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

sparkling buckles. He stood ashamed of his new getup, and with his right hand covered the watch-chain for which he had, an hour before, paid three hundred roubles.

“I have come about something,” he began. “A business agreement is beyond price. I am not going to give up Mishutka.⁠ ⁠…”

“What Mishutka?” asked Groholsky.

“My son.”

Groholsky and Liza looked at each other. Liza’s eyes bulged, her cheeks flushed, and her lips twitched.⁠ ⁠…

“Very well,” she said.

She thought of Mishutka’s warm little cot. It would be cruel to exchange that warm little cot for a chilly sofa in the hotel, and she consented.

“I shall see him,” she said.

Bugrov bowed, walked out, and flew down the stairs in his splendour, cleaving the air with his expensive cane.⁠ ⁠…

“Home,” he said to the cabman. “I am starting at five o’clock tomorrow morning.⁠ ⁠… You will come; if I am asleep, you will wake me. We are driving out of town.”

II

It was a lovely August evening. The sun, set in a golden background lightly flecked with purple, stood above the western horizon on the point of sinking behind the faraway tumuli. In the garden, shadows and half-shadows had vanished, and the air had grown damp, but the golden light was still playing on the treetops.⁠ ⁠… It was warm.⁠ ⁠… Rain had just fallen, and made the fresh, transparent fragrant air still fresher.

I am not describing the August of Petersburg or Moscow, foggy, tearful, and dark, with its cold, incredibly damp sunsets. God forbid! I am not describing our cruel northern August. I ask the reader to move with me to the Crimea, to one of its shores, not far from Feodosia, the spot where stands the villa of one of our heroes. It is a pretty, neat villa surrounded by flowerbeds and clipped bushes. A hundred paces behind it is an orchard in which its inmates walk.⁠ ⁠… Groholsky pays a high rent for that villa, a thousand roubles a year, I believe.⁠ ⁠… The villa is not worth that rent, but it is pretty.⁠ ⁠… Tall, with delicate walls and very delicate parapets, fragile, slender, painted a pale blue colour, hung with curtains, portières, draperies, it suggests a charming, fragile Chinese lady.⁠ ⁠…

On the evening described above, Groholsky and Liza were sitting on the verandah of this villa. Groholsky was reading Novoye Vremya and drinking milk out of a green mug. A syphon of Seltzer water was standing on the table before him. Groholsky imagined that he was suffering from catarrh of the lungs, and by the advice of Dr. Dmitriev consumed an immense quantity of grapes, milk, and Seltzer water. Liza was sitting in a soft easy chair some distance from the table. With her elbows on the parapet, and her little face propped on her little fists, she was gazing at the villa opposite.⁠ ⁠… The sun was playing upon the windows of the villa opposite, the glittering panes reflected the dazzling light.⁠ ⁠… Beyond the little garden and the few trees that surrounded the villa there was a glimpse of the sea with its waves, its dark blue colour, its immensity, its white masts.⁠ ⁠… It was so delightful! Groholsky was reading an article by Anonymous, and after every dozen lines he raised his blue eyes to Liza’s back.⁠ ⁠… The same passionate, fervent love was shining in those eyes still.⁠ ⁠… He was infinitely happy in spite of his imaginary catarrh of the lungs.⁠ ⁠… Liza was conscious of his eyes upon her back, and was thinking of Mishutka’s brilliant future, and she felt so comfortable, so serene.⁠ ⁠…

She was not so much interested by the sea, and the glittering reflection on the windows of the villa opposite as by the wagons which were trailing up to that villa one after another.

The wagons were full of furniture and all sorts of domestic articles. Liza watched the trellis gates and big glass doors of the villa being opened and the men bustling about the furniture and wrangling incessantly. Big armchairs and a sofa covered with dark raspberry coloured velvet, tables for the hall, the drawing room and the dining room, a big double bed and a child’s cot were carried in by the glass doors; something big, wrapped up in sacking, was carried in too. A grand piano, thought Liza, and her heart throbbed.

It was long since she had heard the piano, and she was so fond of it. They had not a single musical instrument in their villa. Groholsky and she were musicians only in soul, no more. There were a great many boxes and packages with the words “with care” upon them carried in after the piano.

They were boxes of looking-glasses and crockery. A gorgeous and luxurious carriage was dragged in, at the gate, and two white horses were led in looking like swans.

“My goodness, what riches!” thought Liza, remembering her old pony which Groholsky, who did not care for riding, had bought her for a hundred roubles. Compared with those swan-like steeds, her pony seemed to her no better than a bug. Groholsky, who was afraid of riding fast, had purposely bought Liza a poor horse.

“What wealth!” Liza thought and murmured as she gazed at the noisy carriers.

The sun hid behind the tumuli, the air began to lose its dryness and limpidity, and still the furniture was being driven up and hauled into the house. At last it was so dark that Groholsky left off reading the newspaper while Liza still gazed and gazed.

“Shouldn’t we light the lamp?” said Groholsky, afraid that a fly might drop into his milk and be swallowed in the darkness.

“Liza! shouldn’t we light the lamp? Shall we sit in darkness, my angel?”

Liza did not answer. She was interested in a chaise which had driven up to the villa opposite.⁠ ⁠… What a charming little mare was in that chaise. Of medium size, not large, but graceful.⁠ ⁠… A gentleman in a top hat was sitting in the chaise, a child about three, apparently a boy, was sitting on his knees waving his little hands.⁠ ⁠… He was waving his little