Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [109]
He smiled with his small eyes. She, too, smiled, for she was troubled by the thought that any moment he might kiss her with his full, moist lips, and now she no longer had the right to refuse him. The sleek movements of his fat body frightened her: she was terrified and disgusted. He got up, slowly removed the order he was wearing round his neck, removed his frock coat and waistcoat, and put on a dressing gown.
“That’s better,” he said, sitting down beside Anna.
Anna remembered the agony of the wedding, when it seemed to her that the priest, the guests, and everyone else in the church were gazing at her sorrowfully: why, why, was this dear, charming girl marrying that elderly and uninteresting gentleman? Only that morning she was in raptures because everything had been settled so well, but during the wedding ceremony and now in the carriage she felt guilty, cheated, and ridiculous. Now she had married a rich man, but still she had no money at all, her bridal dress had been bought on credit, and when her father and brothers were saying good-by, she saw from their faces that not one of them had a kopeck to his name. Would they have any supper tonight? And tomorrow? And for some reason it seemed to her that her father and the boys were suffering from hunger and they knew the same misery that weighed down upon them on the evening of their mother’s funeral.
“Oh, how unhappy I am,” she thought. “Why am I so unhappy?”
With the awkwardness of a man of dignity, unaccustomed to dealing with women, Modest Alexeich touched her waist and petted her on the shoulder while she continued to think of money, of her mother, and of her mother’s death. When her mother died, her father, Pyotr Leontyich, a teacher of calligraphy and drawing in the high school, took to drinking and knew real poverty; the boys were without boots or galoshes; her father was brought before the magistrate; a court officer came and seized the furniture for debt.… What a disgrace! Anna had to look after her drunken father, darn her brothers’ stockings, do the marketing, and when she was complimented on her youth, her beauty, her elegant manners, then it seemed to her that the whole world was only looking at her cheap hat and the holes in her shoes which she concealed with ink. At night she wept, troubled by the persistent thought that her father would soon, very soon, be dismissed from the high school because of this weakness of his, and he would be unable to endure his dismissal, and he would die as her mother had died. But then some ladies of their acquaintance began to take an interest in her and began to look for a good husband for her. Soon they found this Modest Alexeich, who was neither young nor handsome—but he had money. He had in fact a hundred thousand rubles in the bank and a family estate which he had rented to a tenant. He was a man of principles and His Excellency thought highly of him; and Anna was told that nothing would be easier than to arrange for His Excellency to send a note to the principal or to the trustee of the high school, so that Pyotr Leontyich would not be dismissed …
While she was remembering these things, the strains of music and the sound of voices suddenly burst in through the window. The train had stopped at a small wayside station. Beyond the platform there was a crowd of people listening to an accordion and a cheap squeaking fiddle playing lively