Anton Chekhov

“ But Ogneff, covered with intense confusion, turned his face away.
His confusion was followed by fright. The atmosphere of mournfulness, warmth, and sentiment inspired by liqueurs and leave-takings, suddenly made way for a sharp, unpleasant feeling of awkwardness. Feeling that his whole soul had been turned inside out, he looked shyly at Vera; and she, having avowed her love, and cast for ever away her woman's enhancing inaccessibility, seemed smaller, simpler, meaner.
“What does it all mean?” he asked himself in terror. “And then ... do I love her . . . or not? — that is the problem.” ”

“ Meliton, lost in thought, stared at one point. He sought but one place in Nature untouched by the all-embracing ruin. On the mist and oblique rain-belts, as on muffed glass, slipped bright spots and at once vanished — the rising sun strove to pierce the clouds and look upon the earth.
“And the forests?” stammered Meliton.
“And the forests,” repeated the shepherd. “The forests are cut down, burnt, and dried up, and no new trees grow. What does grow is soon cut down; to-day it is up — to-morrow — look over your shoulder! ”

“ Varvara laughed in her handkerchief, and said in a whisper —
“I have been with the priest's son.”
“Nonsense?”
“I swear.”
“It's a sin!” whispered Sophia.
“I don't care. It's nothing to regret. A sin is a sin, and better the lightning strike me than lead such a life. I am young . . . and healthy, and my husband is a hunchback, miserable, surly, worse than Diudya accursed! Before I was married I had not enough to eat and walked barefoot; but for the sake of Aliosha's money I became a slave, like a fish in a net, and I would sooner sleep with a serpent than with this scabby Aliosha. ”

“ The dark windows, the walls, the secretary's voice, the procurator's pose—all were soaked with official indifference and exhaled a chill. It seemed as if a murderer were a simple office accessory, as if he were to be judged not by living men, but by some invisible machine, brought God knows whence.
The narcotised peasant did not understand that his judges were as used to the dramas and tragedies of life as hospital doctors are to death, and that it was just in this mechanical impartiality that lay the terror, the hopelessness of his case. ”

“ And Olga Ivanovna listened, first to Riabovsky's voice, then to the midnight silence, and thought that she was immortal, and would never die. The river's turquoise hue, a hue she had never seen before, the sky, the banks, the black shadows, and the irresponsible joy which filled her heart, all whispered to her that she would become a great artist, that somewhere far away, beyond these distances, beyond the moon-light night, somewhere in infinite space there awaited success and glory, and the love of the world. ”

“ She went to his apartment unannounced. As she took off her goloshes in the hall she heard hasty footsteps, and the rustle of a woman's dress; and as she hurried into the studio a brown skirt flashed for a moment before her and vanished behind a big picture, which together with its easel was hung with black calico. There was no doubt that a woman hid there. How often had Olga Ivanovna herself hidden behind that picture! Riabovsky, in confusion, stretched out both hands as if surprised at her visit, and said with a constrained smile —
“Ah, I am glad to see you. What is the news?” ”

“ He knew every spot in the old house, the cosy terrace, the turns in the garden paths, the trees outlined against garden and bathing-box. And now in a few seconds when he had passed the wicket-gate, all these would be memories, void for evermore of real significance. A year — two years— would pass, and all these kindly images, dulled beyond restoring, would recur only in memory as the shapeless impressions of a dream.
“In life,” thought Ogneff, as he approached the gate, “there is nothing better than men. ”

“ Pashka rushed up the steps, and looked through the window. A sharp, breathless joy suddenly seized him. For there in the window at a table sat the merry, talkative doctor with a book in his hands. Pashka laughed with joy; he tried to cry out; but some irresistible force suppressed his breath, and struck him on the legs, and he staggered and fell senseless on the steps.
When he came to himself it was quite light; and the sing-song voice that had promised the fair, the thrushes, and the live fox whispered in his ear —
“You're a donkey, Pashka! Now aren't you a donkey? You ought to be whipped. ”

“ The present is yours; it brings youth, health, ardour—the future is a mirage, smoke! As soon as you reach the age of twenty you must begin to live!”
Tatiana Ivanovna dropped a knitting-needle. My uncle hopped from his seat, recovered and restored it, with a bow which told me for the first time that there were men in the world more gallant than Pobiedimsky.
“Yes,” continued my uncle. “Love, marry! . . . Play the fool! Follies are much more vital and sane than labours such as mine, saner far than our efforts to lead a rational life. ”

“ Two chattering peasant women walked in a kitchen garden and pulled cabbage leaves; behind them their log cabins stood out black against the sky. The river bank was as it had been in May; the bushes were the same; things differed only in that the nightingale no longer sang, that it smelt no longer of poplars and young grass.
When he reached von Rabbek's garden Riabovitch peered through the wicket-gate. Silence and darkness reigned. Save only the white birch trunks and patches of pathway, the whole garden merged in a black, impenetrable shade. ”

“ His conscience stung him. When Verotchka vanished in the garden he felt that he had lost something very dear which he would never find again. With Vera, it seemed to him, a part of his youth had passed away, and he knew that the precious moments he had let slip away without profit would never return.
When he reached the bridge he stopped in thought, and sought the cause of his unnatural coldness. That it lay not outside himself, but within, he saw clearly. ”

“ Olga Ivanovna's heart beat quickly. She tried to think of her husband; but her whole past, her marriage, Duimoff, even the evening parties seemed to her trivial, contemptible, dull, needless, and remote. . . . And, indeed, who was Duimoff? Why Duimoff? What had she to do with Duimoff? Did he exist really in Nature; was he only a dream?
“He has had more happiness than he could expect, a simple and ordinary man,” she thought, closing her eyes. “Let them condemn me, let them curse me; but I will take all and perish, take all and perish. . . . We must experience everything in life. ”

“ I vividly pictured to myself how this fish is brought from the market, cleaned, and thrust quickly into a pot . . . quickly, quickly, because every one is hungry . . . frightfully hungry. From the restaurant kitchen came the smell of boiled fish and crab soup.
This smell began to tickle my palate and nostrils; I felt it permeating my whole body. The restaurant, my father, the white notice, my sleeve, all exhaled it so strongly that I began to chew. I chewed and swallowed as if my mouth were really full of the strange animal that lives in the sea. ”

“ Not long afterwards Zinotchka was my brother's wife. That is the Zinaida Nikolaievna whom you all know. I never met her again until I was a junker. It was hard for her to recognise in the moustached officer the detested Petya — still, her manner to me was not quite that of a relative. . . And even to-day, despite my good-humoured bald head, my peaceful figure, and meek looks, Zinotchka always looks at me a little askance, and seems out of sorts when I visit my brother. . . It is plain that first hate is not as quickly forgotten as first love. ”

“ Yes, my heart," she said, imitating her mother. "When the Day of Judgment comes all the churches will be carried up to heaven."
"With the bells?" asked Motka in a bass voice, drawling every word.
"With the bells. And on the Day of Judgment good people will go to paradise, and wicked people will burn in fire eternal and unextinguishable, my heart! To mother and Marya God will say, 'You have offended no one, so go to the right, to paradise'; but He'll say to Kiriak and grandmother, 'You go to the left, into the fire!' And people who eat meat on fast-days will go to the fire too." ”

“ Bed-time came. Nikolai, as an invalid, was given a place on the stove beside the old man; Sasha slept on the floor; and Olga went with the young women to the shed.
“Never mind, my heart!” she said, lying on the hay beside Marya. “Crying is no help. You must bear it. In the Bible it is written, ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ Don't cry, my heart!”
And then, in a whisper, she began to tell of Moscow, of her life there, how she had served as housemaid in furnished lodgings.
“In Moscow the houses are big and built of brick,” said Olga. ”

“ He remembered how he had rested a few hours, and, asking for the address of the President of the Zemstvo Executive, had set out on foot to Gavriil Petrovitch's house; how he had tramped through four versts of rich meadows and young plantations; how high under a veil of cloud trembled a lark, filling the world with silver sounds, while above the green pastures, with a stolid, pompous flapping of wings, the rooks flew up and down. ”

“ She is a soldier's wife after all, and women are queer things; she is young, it was hard for her to guard herself. She is not the first, and she will not be the last. There is only one thing,’ he added. ‘I beg you henceforth to live as if there was nothing between us; let nothing be seen, and I,’ he says, ‘will try to please her in everything so that she may love me again.’ He gave me his hand on it, drank some tea, and went away contented. ‘Glory be to God!’ I said to myself; and I felt happy that all had been settled so well. But hardly had Vasya got outside the yard when Mashenka appears. ”

“ The high, piping notes, which trembled and died away, seemed to weep disconsolately, as if the reed itself were pained and frightened; and the lower notes seemed to speak of the mist, the grey heavens, the melancholy trees. The music, in truth, seemed made for the weather, the old man, and his words.
Meliton felt impelled to complain. He went up to the shepherd, looked at his sad, ironical face and at the reed, and muttered—
"And life has grown worse, grandfather! There's no living nowadays. Famines . . . and poverty . . . murrain, sickness! We are crushed by need." ”

“ The shepherd looked at the drizzling sky, at the wood, at the steward's soaked clothing, thought, and made no reply.
“The whole summer's been the same . . .” sighed Meliton. “Bad for the muzhiks, and for the quality no consolation. . . .”
Again the shepherd looked at the sky, again he thought, and then began, with pauses, as if chewing each word.
“The whole world goes the same way. . . . You can expect no good.”
“But how are things with you?” asked Meliton. He lighted his cigarette. “Have you seen any woodcock broods in Artamonoff's clearing?”
The shepherd was silent. ”

“ And Zinotchka, as if she were being driven into the Dog's Cavern to inhale carbonic acid gas, walked towards him slowly, breathing with difficulty, and hanging back her head. Everything showed that this was the first such meeting of her life. In a moment she stood before my brother, and for a few seconds they looked silently at one another as if they could not credit their own eyes. . . . And then some inexplicable force seemed to push Zinotchka from behind; she laid her hand on Sasha's shoulder and pressed her head against his waistcoat. ”

“ To Ogneff, who knew few women, she seemed beautiful.
“I am going away,” he said again, bidding her good-bye at the wicket-gate. “Think well of me! And thanks for everything!”
And again twitching his shoulders, and speaking in the sing-song seminarist's voice which, he had used to the old man, he thanked Vera for her hospitality, her kindness, her heartiness.
“I wrote about you to my mother in every letter,” he said. “If all men were like you and your father, life on earth would be paradise. Every one in your house is the same. ”

“ Sasha began her story, and at that moment, screaming and swearing, in came grandmother. Fekla lost her temper, and the whole hut was given over to noise.
“Never mind, never mind!” consoled Olga, pale and unnerved, stroking Sasha's head. “She's your grandmother; you've no right to be angry. Never mind, child!” Nikolai, already tortured by the constant shouting, hunger, smell, and smoke, hating and despising poverty, and ashamed of his parents before his wife and child, swung his legs over the stove and said to his mother with an irritable whine —
“You mustn't touch her! ”

“ A man cannot force himself to love!” he reasoned, and at the same time thought, “When shall I ever love except by force? I am nearly thirty. Better than Verotchka among women I have never met . . . and never shall meet. Oh, accursed old age! Old age at thirty!”
Vera walked before him, each moment quickening her steps. Her face was bowed to the ground, and she did not look round once. It seemed to Ogneff that she had suddenly grown slighter and that her shoulders were narrower. ”

“ Down the path came Tatiana Ivanovna, wife of Feodor Petrovitch, our steward. She was carrying a white, well-starched petticoat, and a long ironing board. When passing she looked timidly at the guest through her long eyelashes, and blushed.
“Still more miracles!” cried my uncle, through his teeth, looking genially after her. “One can't walk a yard with you, sister, without a fresh surprise. . . . I swear to God!”
“That is our local beauty,” said my mother. “She was courted for Feodor in town, a hundred versts from this.”
Few would have found Tatiana Ivanovna beautiful. ”

“ Grandmother, back in the hut, sat down again to the crusts, and Sasha and Motka, perched on the stove, looked at her, and saw with joy that she was drinking milk during fast time, and therefore would go to hell. Consoled by this, they lay down to sleep; and Sasha, going off to sleep, imagined the terrible chastisement: a big stove, like the potter's, and a black unclean spirit horned like a cow drove grandmother into the stove with a long stick, as she herself had lately driven the geese. ”

“ Riabovsky frowned and Winked, and named a woman she knew, and it was plain that he enjoyed her jealousy, and wished to annoy her. Olga Ivanovna went to her bedroom and lay on her bed ; from jealousy, anger, and a sense of humiliation and shame, she bit her pillow, and sobbed aloud. Duimoff left Korosteleff alone, came into the bedroom, and, confused and abstracted, said softly —
“Don't cry so loudly, mama! . . . What good is it? We must keep silence about this. . . . People mustn't see. . . . You know yourself that what has happened is beyond recall.” ”