THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ANTON CHEKHOV. Anton Chekhov

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      CHAPTER XXIV

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      We heard the roar of the lake…

      The last act of the drama was just beginning, and two of the actors were driving to see a harrowing sight.

      ‘Well, and what do you think awaits us?’ I asked dear Pavel Ivanovich.

      ‘I can’t imagine… I don’t know…’

      ‘I also don’t know…’

      ‘Hamlet once regretted that the Lord of heaven and earth had forbidden the sin of suicide; in like manner I regret that fate has made me a doctor… I regret it deeply!’

      ‘I fear that, in my turn, I must regret that I am an examining magistrate,’ I said, if the Count has not made a mistake and confounded murder with suicide, and if Olga has really been murdered, my poor nerves will have much to suffer!’

      ‘You could always refuse the case!’

      I looked inquiringly at Pavel Ivanovich, but, of course, owing to the darkness, I could see nothing… How did he know that I could refuse the case? I was Olga’s lover, but who knew it, with the exception of Olga herself and perhaps also Pshekhotsky, who had favoured me once with his silent applause?

      ‘What makes you think I can refuse?’ I asked ‘Screw’.

      ‘You could fall ill, or tender your resignation. There is no disgrace in that, because somebody else can take your place. A doctor is placed in quite a different position.’

      ‘Only that?’ I thought.

      Our carriage, after a long, wearisome drive over the muddy roads stopped at last before the porch. Two windows just above the porch were brightly illuminated. Through the one on the right side, which was in Olga’s room, a dim light issued. All the other windows looked like black spots. On the stairs we met the Scops-Owl. She looked at me with her piercing little eyes, and her wrinkled face became more wrinkled in an evil, mocking smile.

      Her eyes seemed to say ‘You’ll have a great surprise!’

      She probably thought we had come to carouse, and that we did not know there was grief in the house.

      ‘Let me draw your attention to this,’ I said to Pavel Ivanovich, as I pulled the cap off the old woman’s head and exposed her completely bare pate. ‘This old witch is ninety years old, my good soul. If some day you and I had to make a post-mortem examination of her, we should arrive at very different conclusions. You would find senile atrophy of the brain, and I would assure you that she was the cleverest and the most cunning creature in the whole district… The devil in petticoats!’

      I was astounded when I entered the ballroom. The picture I saw there was quite unexpected. All the chairs and sofas were occupied by people… Groups of people were standing about in the corners and near the windows… Where had they all come from? If anybody had told me I would meet these people there, I would have laughed at him. Their presence was so improbable and out of place in the Count’s house at that time, when in one of the rooms Olga was either dying or already lying dead. They were the gipsy chorus of the chief gipsy Karpov from the Restaurant London; the same chorus which is known to the reader from one of the first chapters of this book.

      When I entered the room my old friend Tina, having recognized me, left one of the groups and came towards me with a cry of joy. A smile spread over her pale and dark complexioned cheeks when I gave her my hand, and tears rose to her eyes when she wanted to tell me something… Tears prevented her from speaking, and I was not able to obtain a single word from her. I turned to the other gipsies, and they explained their presence in the house in this way. In the morning the Count had sent them a telegram demanding that the whole chorus should be at the Count’s estate without fail by nine o’clock that evening. In execution of this order they had taken the train and had been in this hall by eight o’clock.

      ‘We had thought to afford pleasure to his Excellency and his guests… We know so many new songs! And suddenly…’

      ‘And suddenly a muzhik arrived on horseback, with the news that a brutal murder had been committed at the shooting party and with the order to prepare a bed for Olga Nikolaevna. The muzhik was not believed, because he was as drunk as a swine, but when a noise was heard on the stairs and a black figure was borne through the dancing hall, it was no longer possible to doubt…

      ‘And now we don’t know what to do! We can’t remain here… When the priest arrives it is time for the entertainers to depart… Besides, all the chorus girls are frightened and crying… They can’t be in the same house with a corpse… We must go away, but they won’t give us horses! His Excellency the Count is lying ill in bed and will not see anybody, and the servants only laugh at us when we ask for horses… How can we go on foot in such weather and on such a dark night? The servants are in general terribly rude! When we asked for a samovar for our ladies they told us to go to the devil…’

      All these complaints ended in tearful requests to my magnanimity. Could I not obtain vehicles to enable them to depart from this ‘accursed’ house?

      ‘If all the horses are not in the paddocks, and the coachmen have not been sent somewhere, you shall get away,’ I said. ‘I’ll give the order…’

      The poor people, dressed out in their burlesque costumes, and accustomed to flaunt about in a swaggering manner, looked very awkward with their sober countenances and undecided poses. My promise to have them taken to the station somewhat encouraged them. The whispers of the men turned into loud talk, and the women ceased crying.