Short Fiction by Anton Chekhov (libby ebook reader .txt) 📕

“I⁠ ⁠… I do work. All night.⁠ ⁠… You’ve seen it yourself.”

“I prayed to God to take me, but He won’t take me, a sinful woman.⁠ ⁠… You torment! Other people have children like everyone else, and I’ve one only and no sense, no comfort out of him. Beat you? I’d beat you, but where am I to find the strength? Mother of God, where am I to find the strength?”

The mamma hid her face in the folds of her blouse and broke into sobs. Vanya wriggled with anguish and pressed his forehead against the wall. The aunt came in.

“So that’s how it is.⁠ ⁠… Just what I expected,” she said, at once guessing what was wrong, turning pale and clasping her hands. “I’ve been depressed all the morning.⁠ ⁠… There’s trouble coming, I thought⁠ ⁠… and here it’s come.⁠ ⁠…”

“The villain, the torment!”

“Why are you swearing at him?” cried the aunt, nervously pulling her coffee-coloured kerchief off her head and turning upon the mother. “It’s not his fault! It’s your fault! You are to blame! Why did you send him to that high school? You are a fine lady! You want to be a lady? A-a-ah! I dare say, as though you’ll turn into gentry! But if you had sent him, as I told you, into business⁠ ⁠… to an office, like my Kuzya⁠ ⁠… here is Kuzya getting five hundred a year.⁠ ⁠… Five hundred roubles is worth having, isn’t it? And you are wearing yourself out, and wearing the boy out with this studying, plague take it! He is thin, he coughs⁠ ⁠… just look at him! He’s thirteen, and he looks no more than ten.”

“No, Nastenka, no, my dear! I haven’t thrashed him enough, the torment! He ought to have been thrashed, that’s what it is! Ugh⁠ ⁠… Jesuit, Muhammad, torment!” she shook her fist at her son. “You want a flogging, but I haven’t the strength. They told me years ago when he was little, ‘Whip him, whip him!’ I didn’t heed them, sinful woman as I am. And now I am suffering for it. You wait a bit! I’ll flay you! Wait a bit.⁠ ⁠…”

The mamma shook her wet fist, and went weeping into her lodger’s room. The lodger, Yevtihy Kuzmitch Kuporossov, was sitting at his table, reading “Dancing Self-taught.” Yevtihy Kuzmitch was a man of intelligence and education. He spoke through his nose, washed with a soap the smell of which made everyone in the house sneeze, ate meat on fast days, and was on the lookout for a bride of refined education, and so was considered the cleverest of the lodgers. He sang tenor.

“My good friend,” began the mamma, dissolving into tears. “If you would have the generosity⁠—thrash my boy for me.⁠ ⁠… Do me the favour! He’s failed in his examination, the nuisance of a boy! Would you believe it, he’s failed! I can’t punish him, through the weakness of my ill-health.⁠ ⁠… Thrash him for me, if you would be so obliging and considerate, Yevtihy Kuzmitch! Have regard for a sick woman!”

Kuporossov frowned and heaved a deep sigh through his nose. He thought a little, drummed on the table with his fingers, and sighing once more, went to Vanya.

“You are being taught, so to say,” he began, “being educated, being given a chance, you revolting young person! Why have you done it?”

He talked for a long time, made a regular speech. He alluded to science, to light, and to darkness.

“Yes, young person.”

When he had finished his speech, he took off his belt and took Vanya by the hand.

“It’s the only way to deal with you,” he said. Vanya knelt down submissively and thrust his head between the lodger’s knees. His prominent pink ears moved up and down against the lodger’s new serge trousers, with brown stripes on the outer seams.

Vanya did not utter a single sound. At the family council in the evening, it was decided to send him into business.

One fine evening, a no less fine government clerk called Ivan Dmitritch Tchervyakov was sitting in the second row of the stalls, gazing through an opera glass at the Cloches de Corneville. He gazed and felt at the acme of bliss. But suddenly.⁠ ⁠… In stories one so often meets with this “But suddenly.” The authors are right: life is so full of surprises! But suddenly his face puckered up, his eyes disappeared, his breathing was arrested⁠ ⁠… he took the opera glass from his eyes, bent over and⁠ ⁠… “Aptchee!” he sneezed as you perceive. It is not reprehensible for anyone to sneeze anywhere. Peasants sneeze and so do police superintendents, and sometimes even privy councillors. All men sneeze. Tchervyakov was not in the least confused, he wiped his face with his handkerchief, and like a polite man, looked round to see whether he had disturbed anyone by his sneezing. But then he was overcome with confusion. He saw that an old gentleman sitting in front of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head and his neck with his glove and muttering something to himself. In the old gentleman, Tchervyakov recognised Brizzhalov, a civilian general serving in the Department of Transport.

“I have spattered him,” thought Tchervyakov, “he is not the head of my department, but still it is awkward. I must apologise.”

Tchervyakov gave a cough, bent his whole person forward, and whispered in the general’s ear.

“Pardon, your Excellency, I spattered you accidentally.⁠ ⁠…”

“Never mind, never mind.”

“For goodness sake excuse me, I⁠ ⁠… I did not mean to.”

“Oh, please, sit down! let me listen!”

Tchervyakov was embarrassed, he smiled stupidly and fell to gazing at the stage. He gazed at it but was no longer feeling bliss. He began to be troubled by uneasiness. In the interval, he went up to Brizzhalov, walked beside him, and overcoming his shyness, muttered:

“I spattered you, your Excellency, forgive me⁠ ⁠… you see⁠ ⁠… I didn’t do it to.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, that’s enough⁠ ⁠… I’d forgotten it, and you keep on about it!” said the general, moving