Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [53]
“I’m caught! I’m trapped!” he thought, near fainting with terror. “The roofs falling in on you, brother! No use to run!”
And he lowered his head in humility, as though he were saying: “Take me! I have been vanquished!”
“Bless you, bless you!” the father went on, and tears filled his eyes. “Natasha, my daughter, stand beside him.… Petrovna, hand me the icon.”
Suddenly there was an end to his tears, and his face became contorted with rage.
“Idiot!” he shouted angrily at his wife. “Stupid blockhead! Is this an icon?”
“Oh, God in heaven …!”
What had happened? The writing master cautiously looked up and saw that he was saved. In her haste, instead of the icon, the mother had taken from the wall the picture of the writer Lazhechnikov. Cleopatra Petrovna stood there with the portrait in her hands, and she and old Peplov presented an appearance of utter confusion, for they had no idea what to do or say. The writing master profited from their confusion by taking to his heels.
January 1886
Heartache
To whom shall I tell my sorrow?
EVENING twilight. Thick flakes of wet snow were circling lazily round the newly lighted street lamps, settling in thin soft layers on rooftops, on the horses’ backs, and on people’s shoulders and caps. The cabdriver Iona Potapov was white as a ghost, and bent double as much as any human body can be bent double, sitting very still on his box. Even if a whole snowdrift had fallen on him, he would have found no need to shake it off. The little mare, too, was white, and quite motionless. Her immobility, and the fact that she was all sharp angles and sticklike legs, gave her a resemblance to one of those gingerbread horses which can be bought for a kopeck. No doubt the mare was plunged in deep thought. So would you be if you were torn from the plow, snatched away from familiar, gray surroundings, and thrown into a whirlpool of monstrous illuminations, ceaseless uproar, and people scrambling hither and thither.
For a long while neither Iona nor the little mare had made the slightest motion. They had driven out of the stableyard before dinner, and so far not a single fare had come to them. The evening mist fell over the city. The pale glow of the street lamps grew brighter, more intense, as the street noises grew louder.
Iona heard someone saying: “Driver—you, there!—take me to Vyborg District!”
Iona started, and through his snow-laden eyelashes he made out an officer wearing a military overcoat with a hood.
“Vyborg!” the officer repeated. “Are you asleep, eh? Get on with it—Vyborg!”
To show he had heard, Iona pulled at the reins, sending whole layers of snow flying from the horse’s back and from his own shoulders. The officer sat down in the sleigh. The driver clucked with his tongue, stretched out his neck like a swan, rose in his seat, and more from habit than necessity, he flourished his whip. The little horse also stretched her neck, crooked her sticklike legs, and started off irresolutely.…
“Where are you going, you fool!” Iona was being assailed with shouts from some massive, dark object wavering to and fro in front of him. “Where the devil are you going? Stay on the right side of the road!”
“You don’t know how to drive! Stay on the right side!” the officer shouted angrily.
A coachman driving a private carriage was swearing at him, and a pedestrian, running across the road and brushing his shoulder against the mare’s nose, glanced up at him and shook the snow from his sleeve. Iona shifted about on the box, as though sitting on needles, thrust out his elbows, rolled his eyes like a madman, as though he did not understand where he was or what he was doing there.
“They’re all scoundrels,” the officer laughed. “All trying to shove into you, or fall under your horse. Quite a conspiracy!”
The driver turned towards the officer, his lips moving. He appeared about to say something, but the only sound coming from him was a hoarse wheezing cough.
“What is it?” the officer asked.
Iona’s lips twitched