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

him, he asked himself, to lay claim to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was suppertime. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then kissed her crosses and icons, he thought, watching her with hatred, “Here she’s praying. What’s she praying about? What about?” In his thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, meekness, the pure eyes of innocence.⁠ ⁠… While they were engaged her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous.

When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy with the frost,

“There’s a great fire in Pryesnya,” she said breathlessly. “There’s a tremendous glow. I’m going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch.”

“Well, do, dear!”

The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went to bed.

Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them was a note consisting of one word⁠—“basta.”

VIII

Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following circumstances.

It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep.

“I don’t remember his father’s name,” Nina Fyodorovna was saying softly, “but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy⁠—a poor clerk. He was a sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes.⁠ ⁠… And then, this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor little orphan!⁠ ⁠… We took him and hid him in the clerk’s quarters, and he lived there for a whole year, without father’s knowing. And when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old⁠—by that time I was engaged to be married⁠—I took him round to all the day schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. And he cried.⁠ ⁠… ‘What are you crying for, little silly?’ I said. I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where⁠—God bless them for it!⁠—they took him, and the boy began going every day on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again.⁠ ⁠… Alyosha paid for him.⁠ ⁠… By God’s grace the boy got on, was good at his lessons, and turned out well.⁠ ⁠… He’s a lawyer now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha’s, and so good in science. Yes, we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers⁠ ⁠… Yes.⁠ ⁠…”

Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up.

“There’s something the matter with me⁠ ⁠… something seems wrong,” she said. “Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can’t breathe!”

Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was frightened.

“Mother, you mustn’t!” she began sobbing. “You mustn’t.”

“Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed.”

Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep on a chest in the dining room with her clothes on and without a pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she