Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [110]
The tears were still glistening in Anna’s eyes, but she was no longer thinking about money, or her mother, or her marriage. She was shaking hands with the schoolboys and officers she knew, laughing gaily and saying quickly: “How are you? How do you do?”
She walked out on the platform in the moonlight and stood so that they could all see her in her new finery.
“Why are we stopping here?” she asked.
“This is a siding,” they told her. “We are waiting for the mail train to pass.”
Observing that Artynov was watching her closely, she winked coquettishly and began talking loudly in French, and because her voice was so beautiful, and because she heard music, and because the moon was reflected in a pool, and because Artynov, a notorious Don Juan and man of the world, was gazing at her eagerly and inquisitively, and because everyone was gay, she suddenly felt a great happiness, and when the train started and the officers she knew saluted her by snapping their hands to their caps, she was humming the polka which was being played by the military band somewhere beyond the trees, and she returned to the compartment with the feeling that she had received here, at the wayside station, proof that she would be happy in spite of everything.
They spent two days at the monastery and then returned to the town. They lived in an apartment provided by the government. When Modest Alexeich went to his office, Anna played the piano, or wept out of sheer boredom, or lay down on the sofa, or read novels, or looked through the fashion magazines. At dinner Modest Alexeich ate a great deal, and talked about politics, appointments, staff transfers, special remunerations; he observed that it was necessary for men to work very hard, and further that family life was not a pleasure but a duty, and that if you take care of the kopecks the rubles will take care of themselves. He said he placed religion and morality above everything in the world. Holding a knife in his hand, like a sword, he declared: “Everyone should perform his duties!”
Anna listened in fear and trembling; she could not bring herself to eat; and usually she rose hungry from the table. After dinner her husband took a nap, snoring loudly, while she went off to see her own people. Her father and the boys looked at her in a peculiar way, as though just a few minutes before she arrived they were blaming her for having married that tiresome man for money—a man she did not love. Her bracelets, her dress, which made a beautiful rustling sound, and her stylish appearance embarrassed and offended them; and in her presence they were a little confused, and did not know what to talk about; but they still loved her as before and had not yet grown accustomed to having dinner without her. She sat down and ate cabbage soup, porridge, and potatoes fried in mutton dripping, which smelled of tallow candles. With trembling hands Pyotr Leontyich filled his glass from a decanter and drank quickly, greedily, with disgust, and then he filled another glass, and then another. Petya and Andryusha, thin, pale little boys with large eyes, took the decanter away and said with embarrassment: “You shouldn’t, Papa.… It’s enough, Papa.…”
Anna was dismayed. She begged him not to drink any more, and he suddenly flew into a wild temper and struck the table with his fist.
“I won’t let anyone tell me what to do!” he roared at