The Greatest Novellas & Short Stories of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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them and learns to babble away in their lingo, while they… there’s no making them out. Just look at her nose, do look at her nose!”
“Come, drop it… it’s uncomfortable. Why attack a woman?”
“She’s not a woman, but a maiden lady…. I bet she’s dreaming of suitors. The ugly doll. And she smells of something decaying… . I’ve got a loathing for her, my boy! I can’t look at her with indifference. When she turns her ugly eyes on me it sends a twinge all through me as though I had knocked my elbow on the parapet. She likes fishing too. Watch her: she fishes as though it were a holy rite! She looks upon everything with disdain… . She stands there, the wretch, and is conscious that she is a human being, and that therefore she is the monarch of nature. And do you know what her name is? Wilka Charlesovna Fyce! Tfoo! There is no getting it out!”
The Englishwoman, hearing her name, deliberately turned her nose in Gryabov’s direction and scanned him with a disdainful glance; she raised her eyes from Gryabov to Otsov and steeped him in disdain. And all this in silence, with dignity and deliberation.
“Did you see?” said Gryabov chuckling. “As though to say ‘take that.’ Ah, you monster! It’s only for the children’s sake that I keep that triton. If it weren’t for the children, I wouldn’t let her come within ten miles of my estate…. She has got a nose like a hawk’s… and her figure! That doll makes me think of a long nail, so I could take her, and knock her into the ground, you know. Stay, I believe I have got a bite… .”
Gryabov jumped up and raised his rod. The line drew taut…. Gryabov tugged again, but could not pull out the hook.
“It has caught,” he said, frowning, “on a stone I expect… damnation take it… .”
There was a look of distress on Gryabov’s face. Sighing, moving uneasily, and muttering oaths, he began tugging at the line.
“What a pity; I shall have to go into the water.”
“Oh, chuck it!”
“I can’t…. There’s always good fishing in the evening…. What a nuisance. Lord, forgive us, I shall have to wade into the water, I must! And if only you knew, I have no inclination to undress. I shall have to get rid of the Englishwoman…. It’s awkward to undress before her. After all, she is a lady, you know!”
Gryabov flung off his hat, and his cravat.
“Meess… er, er …” he said, addressing the Englishwoman, “Meess Fyce, je voo pree… ? Well, what am I to say to her? How am I to tell you so that you can understand? I say… over there! Go away over there! Do you hear?”
Miss Fyce enveloped Gryabov in disdain, and uttered a nasal sound.
“What? Don’t you understand? Go away from here, I tell you! I must undress, you devil’s doll! Go over there! Over there!”
Gryabov pulled the lady by her sleeve, pointed her towards the bushes, and made as though he would sit down, as much as to say: Go behind the bushes and hide yourself there…. The Englishwoman, moving her eyebrows vigorously, uttered rapidly a long sentence in English. The gentlemen gushed with laughter.
“It’s the first time in my life I’ve heard her voice. There’s no denying, it is a voice! She does not understand! Well, what am I to do with her?”
“Chuck it, let’s go and have a drink of vodka!”
“I can’t. Now’s the time to fish, the evening…. It’s evening… . Come, what would you have me do? It is a nuisance! I shall have to undress before her… .”
Gryabov flung off his coat and his waistcoat and sat on the sand to take off his boots.
“I say, Ivan Kuzmitch,” said the marshal, chuckling behind his hand. “It’s really outrageous, an insult.”
“Nobody asks her not to understand! It’s a lesson for these foreigners!”
Gryabov took off his boots and his trousers, flung off his undergarments and remained in the costume of Adam. Otsov held his sides, he turned crimson both from laughter and embarrassment. The Englishwoman twitched her brows and blinked… . A haughty, disdainful smile passed over her yellow face.
“I must cool off,” said Gryabov, slapping himself on the ribs. “Tell me if you please, Fyodor Andreitch, why I have a rash on my chest every summer.”
“Oh, do get into the water quickly or cover yourself with something, you beast.”
“And if only she were confused, the nasty thing,” said Gryabov, crossing himself as he waded into the water. “Brrrr… the water’s cold…. Look how she moves her eyebrows! She doesn’t go away… she is far above the crowd! He, he, he… . and she doesn’t reckon us as human beings.”
Wading knee deep in the water and drawing his huge figure up to its full height, he gave a wink and said:
“This isn’t England, you see!”
Miss Fyce coolly put on another worm, gave a yawn, and dropped the hook in. Otsov turned away, Gryabov released his hook, ducked into the water and, spluttering, waded out. Two minutes later he was sitting on the sand and angling as before.
THE TROUSSEAU
Translation By Constance Garnett
I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than a house — a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen walking through it.
The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants do not care for sunlight — the light is no use to them. The windows are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in abundance. “What we have, we do not treasure,” and what’s more we do not even love it.
The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with happy birds nesting in them. But inside… alas… ! In summer, it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, not one breath of air, and the dreariness!…
The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it.
Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You are a stranger, a visitor, “a young man”; that’s enough to reduce her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you are met with alarm.
“Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?” the little lady asks in a trembling voice.
I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful “Ach!” and she turned her eyes upwards to