The Collected Novellas & Short Stories of Anton Chekhov (200+ Titles in Multiple Translations). Anton Chekhov
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of her partner, who was looking at her husband with surprise and amusement. She got up and moved a little apart with her husband.
“What notion is this?” she began. “Why go home? Why, it’s not eleven o’clock.”
“I wish it, and that’s enough. Come along, and that’s all about it.”
“Don’t be silly! Go home alone if you want to.”
“All right; then I shall make a scene.”
The tax-collector saw the look of beatitude gradually vanish from his wife’s face, saw how ashamed and miserable she was — and he felt a little happier.
“Why do you want me at once?” asked his wife.
“I don’t want you, but I wish you to be at home. I wish it, that’s all.”
At first Anna Pavlovna refused to hear of it, then she began entreating her husband to let her stay just another half-hour; then, without knowing why, she began to apologise, to protest — and all in a whisper, with a smile, that the spectators might not suspect that she was having a tiff with her husband. She began assuring him she would not stay long, only another ten minutes, only five minutes; but the tax-collector stuck obstinately to his point.
“Stay if you like,” he said, “but I’ll make a scene if you do.”
And as she talked to her husband Anna Pavlovna looked thinner, older, plainer. Pale, biting her lips, and almost crying, she went out to the entry and began putting on her things.
“You are not going?” asked the ladies in surprise. “Anna Pavlovna, you are not going, dear?”
“Her head aches,” said the tax-collector for his wife.
Coming out of the club, the husband and wife walked all the way home in silence. The tax-collector walked behind his wife, and watching her downcast, sorrowful, humiliated little figure, he recalled the look of beatitude which had so irritated him at the club, and the consciousness that the beatitude was gone filled his soul with triumph. He was pleased and satisfied, and at the same time he felt the lack of something; he would have liked to go back to the club and make every one feel dreary and miserable, so that all might know how stale and worthless life is when you walk along the streets in the dark and hear the slush of the mud under your feet, and when you know that you will wake up next morning with nothing to look forward to but vodka and cards. Oh, how awful it is!
And Anna Pavlovna could scarcely walk…. She was still under the influence of the dancing, the music, the talk, the lights, and the noise; she asked herself as she walked along why God had thus afflicted her. She felt miserable, insulted, and choking with hate as she listened to her husband’s heavy footsteps. She was silent, trying to think of the most offensive, biting, and venomous word she could hurl at her husband, and at the same time she was fully aware that no word could penetrate her tax-collector’s hide. What did he care for words? Her bitterest enemy could not have contrived for her a more helpless position.
And meanwhile the band was playing and the darkness was full of the most rousing, intoxicating dance-tunes.
MISFORTUNE [trans. by John Middleton Murry]
Sophia Pietrovna, the wife of the solicitor Loubianzev, a handsome young woman of about twenty-five, was walking quickly along a forest path with her bungalow neighbour, the barrister Ilyin. It was just after four. In the distance, above the path, white feathery clouds gathered ; from behind them some bright blue pieces of cloud showed through. The clouds were motionless, as if caught on the tops of the tall, aged fir trees. It was calm and warm.
In the distance the path was cut across by a low railway embankment, along which at this hour, for some reason or other, a sentry strode. Just behind the embankment a big, six-towered church with a rusty roof shone white.
"I did not expect to meet you here," Sophia Pietrovna was saying, looking down and touching the last year's leaves with the end of her parasol. " But now I am glad to have met you. I want to speak to you seriously and finally. Ivan Mikhailovich, if you really love and respect me I implore you to stop pursuing me ! You follow me like a shadow—there's such a wicked look in your eye—you make love to me—write extraordinary letters and ... I don't know how all this is going to end Good Heavens ! What can all this lead to ? "
Ilyin was silent. Sophia Pietrovna took a few steps and continued :
"And this sudden complete change has happened in two or three weeks after five years of friendship. I do not know you any more, Ivan Mikhailovich."
Sophia Pietrovna glanced sideways at her companion. He was staring intently, screwing up his eyes at the feathery clouds. The expression of his face was angry, capricious and distracted, like that of a man who suffers and at the same time must listen to nonsense.
"It is annoying that you yourself can't realise it ! " Madame Loubianzev continued, shrugging her shoulders. " Please understand that you're not playing a very nice game. I am married, I love and respect my husband. I have a daughter. Don't you really care in the slightest for all this ? Besides, as an old friend, you know my views on family life ... on the sanctity of the home, generally."
Ilyin gave an angry grunt and sighed :
"The sanctity of the home," he murmured, "Good Lord ! "
"Yes, yes. I love and respect my husband and at any rate the peace of my family life is precious to me. I'd sooner let myself be killed than be the cause of Anrey's or his daughter's unhappiness. So, please, Ivan Mikhailovich, for goodness' sake, leave me alone. Let us be good and dear friends, and give up these sighings and gaspings which don't suit you. It's settled and done with ! Not another word about it. Let us talk of something else ! "
Sophia Pietrovna again glanced sideways at Ilyin. He was looking up. He was pale, and angrily he bit his trembling lips. Madame Loubianzev could not understand why he was disturbed and angry ? but his pallor moved her.
"Don't be cross. Let's be friends," she said, sweetly.
"Agreed ! Here is my hand."
Ilyin took her tiny plump hand in both his, pressed it and slowly raised it to his lips.
"I'm not a schoolboy," he murmured. " I'm not in the least attracted by the idea of friendship with the woman I love."
"That's enough. Stop ! It is all settled and done with. We have come as far as the bench. Let us sit down ..."
A sweet sense of repose filled Sophia Pietrovna's soul. The most difficult and delicate thing was already said. The tormenting question was settled and done with. Now she could breathe easily and look straight at Ilyin. She looked at him, and the egotistical sense of superiority that a woman feels over her lover caressed her pleasantly. She liked the way this big strong man with a virile angry face and a huge black beard sat obediently at her side and hung his head. They were silent for a little while. " Nothing is yet settled and done with," Ilyin began. " You are reading me a sermon. ' I love and respect my husband . . . the sanctity of the home. . . .' I know all that for myself and I can tell you more. Honestly and sincerely I confess that I consider my conduct as criminal and immoral. What else ? But why say what is known already ? Instead of sermonizing you had far better tell me what I am to do."
"I have already told you. Go away."
"I have gone. You know quite well. I have started five times and half-way there I have come back again. I can show you the through tickets. I have kept them all safe. But I haven't the power to run away from you. I struggle frightfully, but what in Heaven's name is the use ? If I cannot harden myself, if I'm weak and faint-hearted. I can't fight nature. Do you understand ? I cannot ! I run away from her and she holds me back by my coattails. Vile, vulgar weakness."
Ilyin blushed, got up, and began walking by the bench :
"How