Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [94]
March 22. The rural officer called. For a long time we debated the subject of virtue—I sitting down, he standing. Among other things he said: “Have you ever wished, Your Excellency, to return to the days of your youth?” I replied to this question: “No, not in the least, for if I were young again, I would not be enjoying my present rank.” He agreed with my point of view, and went off, visibly moved.
April 16. With my own hands I have dug up two rows in the kitchen garden and planted semolina. I said nothing about this to anyone, to surprise my Marfa Yevlampyevna, to whom I am indebted for many happy moments in my life. Yesterday at tea she grumbled bitterly about her constitution, remarking that her expanding girth prevented her from passing through the door leading to the storehouse. My observation to her was: “On the contrary, my dear, the fullness of your form serves as an embellishment and disposes me all the more favorably towards you.” She blushed at this. I rose and embraced her with both arms, for it is impossible to embrace her with only one.
May 28. An old man, seeing me near the women’s bathing place, asked me why I was sitting there. I answered him with the observation: “The reason I am sitting here is because I want to see that young men do not come and sit here.” “Then let us watch together,” the old man said, and then he sat down beside me, and we began to talk about virtue.
April 1892
In Exile
OLD Semyon, nicknamed Smarty, and a young Tartar whom nobody knew by name, were sitting by a bonfire near the river: the other three ferrymen were inside the hut. Semyon was an old man of sixty, and though gaunt and toothless he was broad in the shoulder and gave an appearance of health. He was drunk, and would have been asleep long ago if it had not been for the half bottle in his pocket and his dread that the young fellows in the hut would want his vodka. The Tartar was ill and tired, and wrapping himself up in his rags, he talked about how good it was in Simbirsk province and about the good-looking, clever wife he had left behind him. He was no more than twenty-five, but looking at his pale, sick, melancholy face in the firelight, you would have thought he was only a boy.
“You can hardly call this place Paradise,” Smarty said. “You can see for yourself: water, the naked shore, clay everywhere—nothing else.… Holy Week is over, but the ice is still floating down the river, and there was snow this morning.”
“Misery, misery!” moaned the Tartar, looking round him in terror.
Ten paces below, the river flowed darkly, muttering to itself as it dug a path between the steep clay banks and made its way to the distant sea. The dark shape of one of those huge barges which the ferrymen call a karbass loomed against the bank. Far-off, on the further shore, dying down and flickering up again, were little serpents of fire: they were burning last year’s grasses. And behind these serpents darkness again. There could be heard the sound of little blocks of ice crashing against the barge. Dampness and cold.…
The Tartar looked at the sky. There were as many stars as there were at home, and the same darkness around, but something was missing. At home, in Simbirsk province, the stars were altogether different, and so was the sky.
“Misery, misery!” he repeated.
“You’ll get used to it,” Smarty said, laughing. “You’re young and foolish now, and wet round the ears, and it’s only your folly which makes you believe you are the most miserable mortal on earth, but the time will come when you will say: ‘May God grant everyone such a life!’ Just look at me. In a week’s time the water will have fallen, and then we’ll launch the small boat, and you’ll go wandering around Siberia to amuse yourself, and I’ll be staying here, rowing back and forth across the river. For twenty