Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [156]
After supper Andrey Andreyich played the violin, Nina Ivanovna accompanying him on the piano. Ten years previously he had graduated from the faculty of philology at the university, but he never entered government service, never worked at a definite occupation; he merely played at occasional concerts given for charity. In the town, people spoke of him as an artist.
Andrey Andreyich played, and they listened in silence. The samovar steamed quietly on the table, but Sasha was the only one to drink tea. When it struck twelve, a violin string suddenly snapped, and they all laughed. Then they bustled about, and soon they were saying good-by.
After taking leave of her fiancé, Nadya went upstairs to the apartment she shared with her mother—the lower floor was occupied by her grandmother. Down below, in the drawing room, they were putting out the lights, but Sasha was still there, drinking tea. He always spent a long time over his tea, in the Moscow fashion, drinking up to seven glasses at a sitting. Long after she had undressed and gone to bed, Nadya could hear the servants clearing away and Granny talking angrily. At last silence reigned over the house, and there was no sound except the occasional coughing which came from somewhere below, from Sasha’s room.
II
It must have been about two o’clock when Nadya awoke. The dawn was coming up. The night watchman’s rattle could be heard in the distance. Nadya could not sleep: her bed felt soft and uncomfortable. She sat up in bed and gave herself up to her thoughts, as she had done during all the previous nights of May. Her thoughts were the same as on the night before: monotonous, futile, insistent—thoughts of how Andrey Andreyich courted and proposed to her, and how she had accepted him and gradually learned to appreciate this good and intelligent man. Yet for some reason, now, a month before the wedding, she began to experience a sense of fear and uneasiness, as though something vague and oppressive lay in wait for her.
“Tick-tock, tick-tock …” came the lazy tapping of the night watchman. “Tick-tock …”
Through the big old-fashioned window she could see the garden, and beyond the garden lay the lilac bushes heavy with bloom, drowsy and languid in the cold air, and a heavy white mist suddenly swept up to the lilacs, as though determined to drown them. The drowsy rooks were cawing in the distant trees.
“My God, why am I so depressed?”
Perhaps all brides feel the same before their weddings? Who knows? Or could it be the influence of Sasha? But for several years now Sasha had been repeating the same outworn phrases, like a copybook, and when he spoke to her now, he seemed naive and strange to her. Why couldn’t she get the thought of Sasha out of her head? Why?
The night watchman had stopped tapping long ago. The birds were twittering beneath her window, and in the garden the mist vanished, so that everything glittered and seemed to be smiling in the spring sunshine. Soon the whole garden, warmed and caressed by the sun, sprang to life, and drops of dew gleamed like jewels on the leaves; and the ancient, long-neglected garden looked young and beautifully arrayed in the morning light.
Granny was already awake. Sasha’s deep coughing could be heard. From below came the sound of the servants setting up the samovar and arranging the chairs.
The hours passed slowly. Nadya had risen long ago, and for a long time she had been walking about the garden, and still the morning dragged on.
Then Nina Ivanovna appeared, her face tear-stained, a glass of mineral water in her hand. She went in for spiritualism and homeopathy, read a great deal, and loved talking about the doubts which continually assailed her, and Nadya supposed that all this possessed a profound and mysterious significance. She kissed her mother and walked beside her.
“What are you crying for, Mama?” she asked.
“I started a novel last night—it was about an old man and his daughter. The old man worked in an office, and the boss fell in love with the daughter. I never finished it, but I came to a place where I couldn’t prevent