THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ANTON CHEKHOV. Anton Chekhov

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СКАЧАТЬ my poetic imagination refused to be disturbed by thoughts of winter and of bread, those two sorrows that drive poets into cold, prosaic Petersburg and uncleanly Moscow, where fees are paid for verse, but no inspiration can be found.

      Peasants’ carts and landowners’ britzkas hurrying to church or to market passed me constantly as I trudged along. All the time I had to take off my cap in answer to the courteous bows of the muzhiks and the landowners of my acquaintance. They all offered to give me a lift, but to walk was pleasanter than to drive, and I refused all their offers. Among others the Count’s gardener, Franz, in a blue jacket and a jockey cap, passed me on a racing droshky… He looked lazily at me with his sleepy, sour eyes and touched his cap in a still more lazy fashion. Behind him a twelve-gallon barrel with iron hoops, evidently for vodka, was tied to the droshky… Franz’s disagreeable phiz and his barrel somewhat disturbed my poetical mood, but very soon poetry triumphed again when I heard the sound of wheels behind me, and looking round I saw a heavy wagonette drawn by a pair of bays, and in the heavy wagonette, on a leathern cushion on a sort of box seat, was my new acquaintance, ‘the girl in red’, who two days before had spoken to me about the ‘electricity that had killed her mother’. Olenka’s pretty, freshly washed and somewhat sleepy face beamed and blushed slightly when she saw me striding along the footpath that separated the wood from the road. She nodded merrily to me and smiled in the affable manner of an old acquaintance.

      ‘Good morning!’ I shouted to her.

      She kissed her hand to me and disappeared from my sight, together with her heavy wagonette, without giving me enough time to admire her fresh, pretty face. This day she was not dressed in red. She wore a sort of dark green costume with large buttons and a broad-brimmed straw hat, but even in this garb she pleased me no less than she had done before. I would have talked to her with pleasure, and I would gladly have heard her voice. I wanted to gaze into her deep eyes in the brilliancy of the sun, as I had gazed into them that night by the flashes of lightning. I wanted to take her down from the ugly wagonette and propose that she should walk beside me for the rest of the way, and I certainly would have done so if it had not been for the ‘rules of society’. For some reason it appeared to me that she would have gladly agreed to this proposal. It was not without some cause that she had twice looked back at me as the wagonette disappeared behind some old alders!

      It was about six versts from the place of my abode to Tenevo — nothing of a distance for a young man on a fine morning. Shortly after six I was already making my way between loaded carts and the booths of the fair towards the Tenevo church. Notwithstanding the early hour and the fact that the liturgy in the church was not over as yet, the noise of trade was already in the air. The squeaking of cart wheels, the neighing of horses, the lowing of cattle, and the sounds of toy trumpets were intermixed with the cries OF gipsy horse-dealers and the songs of muzhiks, who had already found time to get drunk. What numbers of gay, idle faces! What types! What beauty there was in the movements of these masses, bright with brilliant coloured dresses, on which the morning sun poured its light! All this many-thousand-headed crowd swarmed, moved, made a noise in order to finish the business they had to do in a few hours, and to disperse by the evening, leaving after them, on the market place as a sort of remembrance, refuse of hay, oats spilt here and there, and nutshells… The people, in dense crowds, were going to and coming from the church.

      The cross that surmounts the church emitted golden rays, bright as those of the sun. It glittered and seemed to be aflame with golden fire. Beneath it the cupola of the church was burning with the same fire, and the freshly painted green dome shone in the sun, and beyond the sparkling cross the clear blue sky stretched out in the far distance. I passed through the crowds in the churchyard and entered the church. The liturgy had only just begun and the Gospel was being read. The silence of the church was only broken by the voice of the reader and the footsteps of the incense-bearing deacon. The people stood silent and immovable, gazing with reverence through the wide-open holy gates of the altar and listening to the drawling voice of the reader. Village decorum, or, to speak more correctly, village propriety, strictly represses every inclination to violate the reverend quiet of the church. I always felt ashamed when in a church anything caused me to smile or speak. Unfortunately it is seldom that I do not meet some of my acquaintances who, I regret to say, are only too numerous, and it generally happens that I have hardly entered the church before I am accosted by one of the ‘intelligentsia’ who, after a long introduction about the weather, begins a conversation on his own trivial affairs. I answer ‘yes’ and ‘no’, but I am too considerate to refuse to give him any attention. While I talk I glance bashfully at my neighbours who are praying, fearing that my idle chatter may wound them.

      This time, as usual, I did not escape from acquaintances. When I entered the church I saw my heroine standing close to the door - that same ‘girl in red’ whom I had met on the way to Tenevo.

      Poor little thing! There she stood, red as a crawfish, and perspiring in the midst of the crowd, casting imploring glances on all those faces in the search for a deliverer. She had stuck fast in the densest crowd and, unable to move either forward or backward, looked like a bird who was being tightly squeezed in a fist. When she saw me she smiled bitterly and began nodding her pretty chin.

      ‘For God’s sake, escort me to the front!’ she said, seizing hold of my sleeve, it is terribly stuffy here - and so crowded… I beg you!’

      ‘In front it will be as crowded,’ I replied.

      ‘But there, all the people are well dressed and respectable… Here are only common people. A place is reserved for us in front… You, too, ought to be there…’

      So she was red not because it was stuffy and crowded in the church. Her little head was troubled by the question of precedence. I granted the vain girl’s prayer, and by carefully pressing aside the people I was able to conduct her to the very dais near the altar on which the flower of our district beau-monde was collected. Having placed Olenka in a position that was in accordance with her aristocratic desires, I took up a post at the back of the beau-monde and began an inspection.

      As usual, the men and women were whispering and giggling. The Justice of the Peace, Kalinin, gesticulating with his hands and shaking his head, was telling the landowner, Deryaev, in an undertone all about his ailments. Deryaev was abusing the doctors almost aloud and advising the justice of the peace to be treated by a certain Evstrat Ivanych. The ladies, perceiving Olenka, pounced upon her as a good subject for their criticism and began whispering. There was only one girl who evidently was praying… She was kneeling, with her black eyes fixed in front of her; she was moving her lips. She did not notice a curl of hair that had got loose under her hat and was hanging in disorder over her temple… She did not notice that Olenka and I had stopped beside her.

      She was Nadezhda Nikolaevna, Justice Kalinin’s daughter. When I spoke above of the woman, who, like a black cat, had run between the doctor and me, I was speaking of her… The doctor loved her as only such noble natures as my dear ‘Screw’s’ are able to love. Now he was standing beside her, as stiff as a pikestaff, with his hands at his sides and his neck stretched out. From time to time his loving eyes glanced inquiringly at her concentrated face. He seemed to be watching her pray and in his eyes there shone a melancholy, passionate longing to be the object of her prayers. But, to his grief, he knew for whom she was praying… It was not for him…

      I made a sign to Pavel Ivanovich when he looked round at me, and we both left the church.

      ‘Let’s stroll about the market,’ I proposed.

      We lighted our cigarettes and went towards the booths.

      CHAPTER IX

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