Anton Chekhov

“ God give such a life to everybody. I want nothing. I am afraid of nobody and I think there is no man richer or freer than I. When they sent me here from Russia I set my teeth at once and said : 'I want nothing!' The devil whispers to me about my wife and my kindred, and about freedom and I say to him : 'I want nothing!' I stuck to it, and, you see, I live happily and have nothing to grumble at. If a man gives the devil the least opportunity and listens to him just once, then he is lost and has no hope of salvation : he will be over ears in the mire and will never get out. ”

“ They stepped slowly into the barge. . . . The Tartar and the three ferrymen took the long, broad-bladed oars, which in the dim light looked like a crab's claw, and Simeon flung himself with his belly against the tiller. And on the other side the voice kept on shouting, and a revolver was fired twice, for the man probably thought the ferrymen were asleep or gone to the village inn.
"All right. Plenty of time!" said Brains in the tone of one who was convinced that there is no need for hurry in this world—and indeed there is no reason for it. ”

“ Every Sunday he used to go to church with her at Guyrin. They would stand side by side on the ferry, and she would smile and he would devour her with his eyes. 'Yes, Simeon,' he would say. 'Even in Siberia people live. Even in Siberia there is happiness. ”

“ He's gone galloping after the doctor! " said Simeon, shivering in the cold. "Yes. To look for a real doctor, trying to overtake the wind in the fields, and catch the devil by the tail, plague take him ! What queer fish there are ! God forgive me, a miserable sinner."
The Tartar went up to Brains, and, looking at him with mingled hatred and disgust, trembling, and mixing Tartar words up with his broken Russian, said :
"He good. . . good. And you. . . bad! You are bad! The gentleman is a good soul, very good, and you are a beast, you are bad ! The gentleman is alive and you are dead. ”

“ God made man that he should be alive, that he should have happiness, sorrow, grief, and you want nothing, so you are not alive, but a stone! A stone wants nothing and so do you. You are a stone—and God does not love you and the gentleman he does. ”

“ He spent a terrific amount of money on doctors and I think it would have been much better spent on drink. All the same she had to die. No help for it. Then it was all up with him. He thought of hanging himself, and of trying to escape to Russia. That would be the end of him. He would try to escape : he would be caught, tried, penal servitude, flogging."
"Good ! Good ! " muttered the Tartar with a shiver.
"What is good? " asked Brains.
"Wife and daughter. What does penal servitude and suffering matter ? He saw his wife and his daughter. You say one should want nothing. But nothing—is evil ! ”

“ Even in Siberia there is happiness. ”

“ Then one day he came with his wife, a beautiful young lady with a little girl in her arms and a lot of luggage. And Vassili Andreich kept turning and looking at her and could not look at her or praise her enough. 'Yes, Simeon, my friend, even in Siberia people live. 'Well, thought I, all right, you won't be content. And from that time on, mark you, he used to go to Guyrin every week to find out if money had been sent from Russia. A terrible lot of money was wasted. 'She stays here,' said he, 'for my sake, and her youth and beauty wither away here in Siberia. ”

“ In a week's time, when the floods had subsided and the ferry would be fixed up, all the ferrymen except Simeon would not be wanted any longer and the Tartar would have to go from village to village, begging and looking for work. His wife was only seventeen; beautiful, soft, and shy. ”

“ She is young. Young blood will have its way; she wants to live and what life is there here? "And she began to pine away. . . Wasting, wasting away, she withered away, fell ill and had to keep to her bed. . . Consumption. That's Siberian happiness, plague take it; that's Siberian life. . . . He rushed all over the place after the doctors and dragged them home with him. ”

“ Not only peasants the like of you are lost, but the nobly born and the educated also. About fifteen years ago a certain nobleman was banished here from Russia. He had had some trouble with his brothers and had made a forgery in a will. ”