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

outside, the wind was high, and it was difficult to stand. I went to the gate and listened, the trees roared, the wind whistled and, probably at the feebleminded peasant’s, a dog howled lazily. Outside the gates the darkness was absolute, not a light on the railway-line. And near the lodge, which a year before had been the office, suddenly sounded a smothered scream:

“He-e-elp!”

“Who’s there?” I called.

There were two people struggling. One was thrusting the other out, while the other was resisting, and both were breathing heavily.

“Leave go,” said one, and I recognized Ivan Tcheprakov; it was he who was shrieking in a shrill, womanish voice: “Let go, you damned brute, or I’ll bite your hand off.”

The other I recognized as Moisey. I separated them, and as I did so I could not resist hitting Moisey two blows in the face. He fell down, then got up again, and I hit him once more.

“He tried to kill me,” he muttered. “He was trying to get at his mamma’s chest.⁠ ⁠… I want to lock him up in the lodge for security.”

Tcheprakov was drunk and did not recognize me; he kept drawing deep breaths, as though he were just going to shout “help” again.

I left them and went back to the house; my wife was lying on her bed; she had dressed. I told her what had happened in the yard, and did not conceal the fact that I had hit Moisey.

“It’s terrible to live in the country,” she said.

“And what a long night it is. Oh dear, if only it were over!”

“He-e-elp!” we heard again, a little later.

“I’ll go and stop them,” I said.

“No, let them bite each other’s throats,” she said with an expression of disgust.

She was looking up at the ceiling, listening, while I sat beside her, not daring to speak to her, feeling as though I were to blame for their shouting “help” in the yard and for the night’s seeming so long.

We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a gleam of light at the window, and Masha looked all the time as though she had awakened from a trance and now was marvelling how she, so clever, and well-educated, so elegant, had come into this pitiful, provincial, empty hole among a crew of petty, insignificant people, and how she could have so far forgotten herself as ever to be attracted by one of these people, and for more than six months to have been his wife. It seemed to me that at that moment it did not matter to her whether it was I, or Moisey, or Tcheprakov; everything for her was merged in that savage drunken “help”⁠—I and our marriage, and our work together, and the mud and slush of autumn, and when she sighed or moved into a more comfortable position I read in her face: “Oh, that morning would come quickly!”

In the morning she went away. I spent another three days at Dubetchnya expecting her, then I packed all our things in one room, locked it, and walked to the town. It was already evening when I rang at the engineer’s, and the street lamps were burning in Great Dvoryansky Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home; Viktor Ivanitch had gone to Petersburg, and Mariya Viktorovna was probably at the rehearsal at the Azhogins’. I remember with what emotion I went on to the Azhogins’, how my heart throbbed and fluttered as I mounted the stairs, and stood waiting a long while on the landing at the top, not daring to enter that temple of the muses! In the big room there were lighted candles everywhere, on a little table, on the piano, and on the stage, everywhere in threes; and the first performance was fixed for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal was on a Monday, an unlucky day. All part of the war against superstition! All the devotees of the scenic art were gathered together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest sisters were walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise books. Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side of his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with adoration at the stage, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used to be.

I was making my way to my hostess; I had to pay my respects to her, but suddenly everyone said “Hush!” and waved me to step quietly. There was a silence. The lid of the piano was raised; a lady sat down at it screwing up her shortsighted eyes at the music, and my Masha walked up to the piano, in a low-necked dress, looking beautiful, but with a special, new sort of beauty not in the least like the Masha who used to come and meet me in the spring at the mill. She sang: “Why do I love the radiant night?”

It was the first time during our whole acquaintance that I had heard her sing. She had a fine, mellow, powerful voice, and while she sang I felt as though I were eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. She ended, the audience applauded, and she smiled, very much pleased, making play with her eyes, turning over the music, smoothing her skirts, like a bird that has at last broken out of its cage and preens its wings in freedom. Her hair was arranged over her ears, and she had an unpleasant, defiant expression in her face, as though she wanted to throw down a challenge to us all, or to shout to us as she did to her horses: “Hey, there, my beauties!”

And she must at that moment have been very much like her grandfather the sledge-driver.

“You here too?” she said, giving me her hand. “Did you hear me sing? Well, what did you think of it?” and without waiting for my answer she went on: “It’s a very good thing you are here. I am going tonight to Petersburg for a short time.