Anton Chekhov

“ If it had been possible he would have been relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp and the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to keep awake, the light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew double, the samovar heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed even more acrid and disgusting.
"Ah, money, money!" sighed Father Christopher, smiling. "You bring trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am going to bring him a heap of money like this." ”

“ Another man will take no pleasure in anything but vodka and lewd talk, but when I have time I sit in a corner and read a book. I read and I weep and weep. . . ."
"What do you weep for?"
"They write so pathetically! For some books one gives but a five-kopeck piece, and yet one weeps and sighs exceedingly over it."
"Is your father dead?" asked Ptaha.
"I don't know, good man. I don't know my parent; it is no use concealing it. I judge that I was mamma's illegitimate son. My mamma lived all her life with the gentry, and did not want to marry a simple peasant. ”

“ Assuming a stern expression, he worked his legs with gravity and feeling, and so crooked his knees that he looked like a jack-a-dandy pulled by strings, while Anna Pavlovna, pale and thrilled, bending her figure languidly and turning her eyes up, tried to look as though she scarcely touched the floor, and evidently felt herself that she was not on earth, not at the local club, but somewhere far, far away — in the clouds. ”

“ Markovna helped herself to a large spoonful of jam, raised it to her lips, and swallowed it with a sidelong glance at Pavel Vasilitch. Next moment a sweet smile broke over her face, a smile almost as sweet as the jam itself.
“These preserves are perfectly delicious!” she exclaimed. “Did you make them yourself, Pelagia Ivanovna, dearie?”
“Yes, of course, who else could have made them? I do everything myself. Stepa, darling, was your tea too weak for you? Mercy, you’ve finished it already! Come, hand me your cup, sweetheart, and let me give you some more.” ”

“ Before the sun had risen in the morning Aksinya was panting and puffing as she washed in the outer room, and the samovar was boiling in the kitchen with a hum that boded no good. Old Grigory Petrovitch, dressed in a long black coat, cotton breeches and shiny top boots, looking a dapper little figure, walked about the rooms, tapping with his little heels like the father-in-law in a well-known song. The shop was opened. When it was daylight a racing droshky was brought up to the front door and the old man got jauntily on to it, pulling his big cap down to his ears ”

“ I'm not thirty yet, I'm young, I'm still a student, but I have undergone a great deal! I'm as hungry as the winter, I'm ill, I'm shaken. I'm as poor as a beggar, and where haven't I been--fate has tossed me everywhere! But my soul is always my own; every minute of the day and the night it is filled with unspeakable presentiments. I know that happiness is coming, Anya, I see it already. . .
ANYA. [Thoughtful] The moon is rising.
EPIKHODOV is heard playing the same sad song on his guitar. The moon rises. Somewhere by the poplars VARYA is looking for ANYA and calling, "Anya, where are you?" ”

“ He was wearing a short reefer jacket and indoor slippers; he walked like a man with the gout, rolling slightly from side to side and rubbing his hands. Humming something he softly purred and hugged himself with satisfaction at being at home again at last, and able to have his beloved shower bath.
"There is no disputing," he said to me at supper, "there is no disputing; you are all nice and charming people, but for some reason, as soon as you take to manual labour, or go in for saving the peasants, in the long run it all comes to no more than being a dissenter. Aren't you a dissenter? ”

“ The bees die, the cows die, they never let me have a horse.
ARKADINA. Of course I have some money, but I am an actress and my expenses for dress alone are enough to bankrupt me.
SORIN. You are a dear, and I am very fond of you, indeed I am. But something is the matter with me again. [He staggers] I feel giddy. [He leans against the table] I feel faint, and all.
ARKADINA. [Frightened] Peter! [She tries to support him] Peter! dearest! [She calls] Help! Help!
TREPLIEFF and MEDVIEDENKO come in; TREPLIEFF has a bandage around his head. ”

“ As ill-luck would have it, the kerosene in my little lamp was
exhausted; it began to smoke, and was on the point of going out,
and the old hooks on the walls looked down sullenly, and their
shadows flickered.
"Have mercy on us," said my sister, sitting up. "Father is in
terrible distress and I am ill; I shall go out of my mind. What
will become of you?" she said, sobbing and stretching out her arms
to me. "I beg you, I implore you, for our dear mother's sake, I beg
you to go back to the office!"
"I can't, Kleopatra!" I said, feeling that a little more and I
should give way. "I cannot!" ”

“ There was a scent of spring and holiday in the soft still air.
"How long was he dictating?" the deacon said admiringly. "Ten minutes, not more! It would have taken someone else a month to compose such a letter. Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that I don't know what to call it! It's a marvel! It's really a marvel!"
"Education!" sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding up his cassock to his waist. "It's not for us to compare ourselves with him. We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned education. Yes, he's a real man, there is no denying that." ”

“ You're not above love, you're just what our Fiers calls a bungler. Not to have a mistress at your age!
TROFIMOV. [In horror] This is awful! What is she saying? [Goes quickly up into the drawing-room, clutching his head] It's awful . . . I can't stand it, I'll go away. [Exit, but returns at once] All is over between us! [Exit.]
LUBOV. [Shouts after him] Peter, wait! Silly man, I was joking! Peter! [Somebody is heard going out and falling downstairs noisily. ANYA and VARYA scream; laughter is heard immediately] What's that?
ANYA comes running in, laughing.
ANYA. Peter's fallen downstairs! ”

“ The whole secret lies in loving it—that is, in the sharp eye of the master; yes, and in the master's hands, and in the feeling that makes one, when one goes anywhere for an hour's visit, sit, ill at ease, with one's heart far away, afraid that something may have happened in the garden. But when I die, who will look after it? Who will work? The gardener? The labourers? Yes? But I will tell you, my dear fellow, the worst enemy in the garden is not a hare, not a cockchafer, and not the frost, but any outside person."
"And Tanya?" asked Kovrin, laughing. "She can't be more harmful than a hare? ”

“ Dawn was already beginning, and that was especially perceptible from the distinctness with which the coils of smoke and the tops of the trees began to stand out in the air.
“It’s time we were asleep, though,” said Tanya, “and it’s cold, too.” She took his arm. “Thank you for coming, Andryusha. We have only uninteresting acquaintances, and not many of them. We have only the garden, the garden, the garden, and nothing else. Standards, half-standards,” she laughed. “Aports, Reinettes, Borovinkas, budded stocks, grafted stocks....All, all our life has gone into the garden. ”

“ The sickly sweet scent of hay was even stronger here than it had been in the fields. The air was dark with thunder-clouds and rain.
"What a flash !" cried Peter Sergeitch coming to my side after an especially loud, rolling thunderclap that, it seemed, must have cleft the sky in two. "Well?"
He stood on the threshold beside me breathing deeply after our swift ride, with his eyes fixed on my face. I saw that his glance was full of admiration.
"Oh, Natalia!" he cried. "I would give anything on earth to be able to stand here for ever looking at you. You are glorious to-day." ”

“ The leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it must have sounded when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently and monotonously when we are all no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection. ”

“ He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
"What good news have you?" asked his Reverence.
"What good news?" answered the deacon, and after a pause he went on with a smile: "When your children are little, your trouble is small; when your children are big, your trouble is great. Such goings on, Father Fyodor, that I don't know what to think of it. It's a regular farce, that's what it is."
He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
"Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling me about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me." ”

“ And it seems to me that they are all false."
"Nonsense, God bless you."
"I take a ticket at the station, I give the man three roubles, and I keep fancying they are false. And I am frightened. I must be ill."
"There's no denying it, we are all in God's hands. . . . Oh dear, dear . . ." said Varvara, and she shook her head. "You ought to think about this, Grigory Petrovitch: you never know, anything may happen, you are not a young man. See they don't wrong your grandchild when you are dead and gone. Oy, I am afraid they will be unfair to Nikifor! ”

“ MERIK. I want you, you fleecer, to take the boots off me, a poor tramp.
TIHON. Well, well ... don't get excited. Here have a glass. ... Have a drink, now!
MERIK. People, what do I want? Do I want him to stand me vodka, or to take off my boots? Didn't I say it properly? [To TIHON] Didn't you hear me rightly? I'll wait a moment, perhaps you'll hear me then.
[There is excitement among the pilgrims and tramps, who half-raise themselves in order to look at TIHON and MERIK. They wait in silence.]
TIHON. The devil brought you here! [Comes out from behind the bar] What a gentleman! Come on now. ”

“ PAULINA. Constantine is playing. That means he is sad.
MASHA silently waltzes a few turns to the music.
MASHA. The great thing, mother, is not to have him continually in sight. If my Simon could only get his remove I should forget it all in a month or two. It is a trifle.
DORN and MEDVIEDENKO come in through the door on the left, wheeling SORIN in an arm-chair.
MEDVIEDENKO. I have six mouths to feed now, and flour is at seventy kopecks.
DORN. A hard riddle to solve!
MEDVIEDENKO. It is easy for you to make light of it. You are rich enough to scatter money to your chickens, if you wanted to. ”

“ Leonid Andreyevitch, don't you fear God? When are you going to bed?
GAEV. Soon, soon. You go away, Fiers. I'll undress myself. Well, children, bye-bye . . .! I'll give you the details to-morrow, but let's go to bed now. [Kisses ANYA and VARYA] I'm a man of the eighties. . . . People don't praise those years much, but I can still say that I've suffered for my beliefs. The peasants don't love me for nothing, I assure you. We've got to learn to know the peasants! We ought to learn how. ”

“ Yes, brother, there were only two respectable, intelligent men in this county, you and I. Ten years or so of this life of ours, this miserable life, have sucked us under, and we have become as contemptible and petty as the rest. But don't try to talk me out of my purpose! Give me what you took from me, will you?
VOITSKI. I took nothing from you.
ASTROFF. You took a little bottle of morphine out of my medicine-case. [A pause] Listen! If you are positively determined to make an end to yourself, go into the woods and shoot yourself there. ”

“ In the reception-room and the drawing-room nobody remains except LUBOV ANDREYEVNA, who sits huddled up and weeping bitterly. The band plays softly. ANYA and TROFIMOV come in quickly. ANYA goes up to her mother and goes on her knees in front of her. TROFIMOV stands at the drawing-room entrance.
ANYA. Mother! mother, are you crying? My dear, kind, good mother, my beautiful mother, I love you! Bless you! The cherry orchard is sold, we've got it no longer, it's true, true, but don't cry mother, you've still got your life before you, you've still your beautiful pure soul . ”

“ No one understood as clearly and finely as Anton Chekhov, the tragedy of life's trivialities, no one before him showed men with such merciless truth the terrible and shameful picture of their life in the dim chaos of bourgeois every-day existence. ”

“ He did not drink much, but made a great uproar about it, and had a special faculty for getting through twenty roubles in an evening at such a poor cheap tavern as the _Volga_.
My sister began coming to see me again; they both expressed surprise every time on seeing each other, but from her joyful, guilty face it was evident that these meetings were not accidental. One evening, when we were playing billiards, the doctor said to me:
"I say, why don't you go and see Miss Dolzhikov? You don't know Mariya Viktorovna; she is a clever creature, a charmer, a simple, good-natured soul." ”

“ This road leads to the Count's forest that extends to the very horizon.
The Count and I stood on the top of the hill. Urbenin and the Pole being heavy men preferred to wait for us on the road below.
“Who's that cove?” I asked the Count, nodding towards the Pole. “Where did you pick him up?”
“He's a very nice fellow, Serezha; very nice!” the Count said in an agitated voice. “You'll soon be the best of friends.”
“Oh, that's not likely! Why does he never speak?”
“He is silent by nature! But he's very clever!”
“But what sort of a man is he?”
“I became acquainted with him in Moscow. ”