Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [126]
She felt she had been living here for a long, long time, for a hundred years, and it seemed to her that she knew every stone, every tree on the road from the town to her school. Here was her past and her present, and she could imagine no other future than the school, the road to the town and back again, and again the school and again the road.
Of all that had happened to her before her appointment as a schoolteacher, she remembered very little. She had forgotten nearly everything. Once she had a father and mother—they lived in Moscow in a large apartment near the Red Gate—but of this period in her life the memories were as fluid and confused as dreams. Her father died when she was ten years old; her mother soon afterward.… She had a brother, an officer; at first they wrote to each other, and then he lost the habit of answering her letters. Of her former possessions only the photograph of her mother remained, but the damp air at school had faded it, and now nothing could be seen except the hair and eyebrows.
They had driven for two miles along the road when old Semyon, who held the reins, turned to her and said: “They’ve caught one of the town officials—taken him away somewhere. Said he and some Germans killed Alexeyev, the mayor, in Moscow.”
“Who told you?”
“I heard someone read it in the newspaper at Ivan Ionov’s tavern.”
There followed another long silence. Maria Vasilyevna thought about her school, and the examinations which would soon be coming along, and the four boys and one girl who would take part in them. She was still pondering these examinations when they were overtaken by a man driving in a carriage harnessed to four horses. The man was a landowner called Khanov, and he had in fact been the examiner at her school the year before. He drew alongside, recognized her, and bowed.
“Good morning,” he said. “I reckon you must be on your way home.”
Khanov was a man about forty years old, with a languid air and a face which showed signs of wear; he was rapidly aging, though he was still handsome and attractive to women. He lived alone on a large estate, and took no part in government service; they said he did nothing at home except whistle as he paced up and down the room, or else he played chess with an old footman. They said, too, that he drank a great deal. Indeed, during the examinations the year before, the very papers he brought with him smelled of wine and perfume. On that occasion he was dressed in brand-new clothes, and Maria Vasilyevna thought him very attractive: she was embarrassed and confused when she sat beside him. She was accustomed to receiving the visits of chilling, hardheaded examiners, but this particular examiner could not remember a single prayer, did not know what questions to ask, and was extraordinarily courteous and kind, giving all the children good marks.
“I am going to visit Bakvist,” he went on, still addressing Maria Vasilyevna, “but it occurs to me that he may not be at home.”
They turned off the highway into a narrow lane, Khanov leading the way and Semyon coming up behind. The four-horse team moved at a walking pace, straining to drag the heavy carriage out of the mud. Semyon followed a more erratic course, leaving