Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [25]
The general began his good-bys.
“You can tell him from me, gentlemen,” the general said, “that only swine behave like that!”
“You should protest his bill of exchange, Your Excellency,” Mikhey Yegorich suggested.
“What’s that? Bill of exchange? Why, yes, he shouldn’t take advantage of my kindness, should he? I’ve waited and waited, and now I’m tired of waiting. Tell him I’m going to pro—Good-by, gentlemen! Come and visit me. Yes, he’s a swine all right!”
The hunters bade farewell to the general and put him in the carriage alongside the sick Vanya.
“Let’s go!”
And the general and Vanya drove away.
After the eighteenth round of drinks the hunters went into the forest and spent some time shooting at a target before lying down and going to sleep. Towards evening the general’s horses came. Firs handed Mikhey Yegorich a letter addressed to “that brother of mine.” The letter contained a demand which would result in legal proceedings if not promptly carried out. After the third round of drinks (when they woke up, they started a new count), the general’s coachmen put them into the carriages and took them home.
When Yegor Yegorich at last reached his own house, he was met by Idler and Music Maker, whose rabbit hunt had only been a pretext for going home. Yegor Yegorich threw a threatening look at his wife, and started to search the house. He searched every storeroom, cupboard, closet, and wardrobe: he never found the doctor. But he did find the choirmaster Fortunov hiding under his wife’s bed.
It was already dark when the doctor awoke. For a while he wandered about the forest, and then, remembering that he had been out hunting, he cursed and began shouting for help. Of course, his cries remained unanswered, and he decided to make the journey back on foot. It was a good road, safe, and quite visible. He covered the sixteen miles in under four hours, and by morning he reached the district hospital. He gave a tongue-lashing to the orderlies, the patients, and the midwife, and then he began to compose an immensely long letter to Yegor Yegorich. In this letter he demanded “explanations for your unseemly conduct,” said some injurious things about jealous husbands, and swore on oath that he would never go hunting again—not even on the twenty-ninth of June.
June 1881
1 The name means “not-screaming-tail.”
Green Scythe
A SHORT NOVEL
CHAPTER 1
ON the shores of the Black Sea, in a small village which my diary and the diaries of my heroes and heroines call Green Scythe, there is a most charming villa. Architects and those who have a fondness for fashionable and rigorous styles would perhaps derive little pleasure from it, but your poet or artist would find it delightful. For myself, I particularly admire its unobtrusive beauty, which never overwhelms the pleasant surroundings, and I like, too, the absence of cold, intimidating marble and pretentious columns. It has warmth, intimacy, a romantic charm. With its towers, spires, battlements, and flagpoles, it can be seen looming behind a curtain of graceful silver poplars, and somehow it suggests the Middle Ages. When I gaze upon it, I am reminded of sentimental German novels full of knights and castles and doctors of philosophy and mysterious countesses. This villa is on a mountain; around the villa are rich gardens, pathways, little fountains, greenhouses. At the foot of the mountain lies the austere blue sea. Moist coquettish winds hover in the air, every conceivable bird utters its songs, the sky is eternally clear, and the sea translucent—a ravishing place!
The owner of the villa, Maria Yegorovna Mikshadze, the widow of a Georgian or perhaps Circassian princeling, was about fifty. She was tall and well fleshed, and no doubt had once been a beauty. She was well-disposed, good-tempered, and hospitable, but altogether too strict. Perhaps “strict” is not the word; let us say she was capricious. She always gave us the best food and fine wines,