The Greatest Novellas & Short Stories of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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Pelagia.
"How could I have seen him before to-day? This was the first time. Aksinia picked him up somewhere—bad luck to him ! Why must I have him thrown at my head?"
That day the whole family kept their eyes fixed on Pelagia's face as she was serving the dinner and teased her about the driver. Pelagia blushed furiously and giggled with confusion.
"What a shameful thing it must be to get married !" thought Grisha. "What a horribly shameful thing!"
The whole dinner was too salty, blood was oozing from the half-cooked chickens, and, to complete the disaster, Pelagia kept dropping the knives and forks and dishes as if her hands had been a pair of rickety shelves. No one blamed her, however, for every one knew what her state of mind must be.
Once only did papa angrily throw down his napkin and exclaim to mamma:
"What is this craze you have for match-making? Can't you let them manage it for themselves If they want to get married?"
After dinner the neighbouring cooks and maids kept flitting in and out of the kitchen, and were whispering together there until late in the evening. Heaven knows how they had scented the approaching wedding ! Waking up at midnight, Grisha heard his nurse and the cook murmuring together in his nursery behind the curtain. The nurse was trying to convince the cook of something, and the latter was alternately sobbing and giggling. When he fell asleep, Grisha saw in his dreams Pelagia being spirited away by the Evil One and a witch.
Next day quiet reigned once more, and from that time forward life in the kitchen jogged on as if there were no such thing in the world as a driver. Only nurse would don her new shawl from time to time and sally forth for a couple of hours, evidently to a conference, with a serious and triumphant expression on her face. Pelagia and the driver did not see one another, and if any one mentioned his name to her she would fly into a rage and exclaim:
"Bad luck to him ! As if I ever thought of him at all—ugh!"
One evening, while Pelagia and the nurse were busily cutting out clothes in the kitchen, mamma came in and said:
"Of course you may marry him, Pelagia, that is your own affair, but I want you to understand that I can't have him living here. You know I don't like to have men sitting in the kitchen. Remember that ! And I can't ever let you go out for the night."
"What do you take me for, my lady?" screamed Pelagia. "Why do you cast him into my teeth? Let him fuss all he wants to ! What does he mean by hanging himself round my neck, the—"
Looking into the kitchen one Sunday morning, Grisha was petrified with astonishment. The room was packed to overflowing; the cooks from all the neighbouring houses were there with the house porter, two constables, a sergeant in his gold lace, and a boy named Filka. This Filka was generally to be found hanging about the wash-house playing with the dogs, but to-day he was washed and brushed and dressed in a gold-tinsel cassock and was carrying an icon in his hands. In the middle of the kitchen stood Pelagia in a new gingham dress with a wreath of flowers on her head. At her side stood the driver. The young couple were flushed and perspiring, and were blinking their eyes furiously.
"Well, it's time to begin," said the sergeant after a long silence.
A spasm passed over Pelagia's features and she began to bawl. The sergeant picked up a huge loaf of bread from the table, pulled the nurse to his side, and commenced the ceremony. The driver approached the sergeant and flopped down on his knees before him, delivering a smacking kiss on his hand. Pelagia went mechanically after him and also flopped down on her knees. At last the outside door opened, a gust of white mist blew into the kitchen, and the assembly streamed out into the courtyard.
"Poor, poor woman!" thought Grisha, listening to the cook's sobs. "Where are they taking her. Why don't papa and mamma interfere?"
After the wedding they sang and played the concertina in the laundry until night. Mamma was annoyed because nurse smelled of vodka and because, with all these weddings, there never was any one to put on the samovar. Pelagia had not come in when Grisha went to bed that night.
"Poor woman, she is crying out there somewhere in the dark," he thought. "And the driver is telling her to shut up!"
Next morning the cook was back in the kitchen again. The driver came in for a few minutes. He thanked mamma, and, casting a stern look at Pelagia, said:
"Keep a sharp eye on her, my lady ! And you, too, Aksinia, don't let her alone; make her behave herself. No nonsense for her ! And please let me have five roubles of her wages, my lady, to buy myself a new pair of hames."
Here, then, was a fresh puzzle for Grisha ! Pelagia had been free to do as she liked and had been responsible to no one, and now suddenly, for no reason at all, along came an unknown man who seemed somehow to have acquired the right to control her actions and her property ! Grisha grew very sad. He was on the verge of tears and longed passionately to be kind to this woman, who, it seemed to him, was a victim of human violence. He ran into the storeroom, picked out the largest apple he could find there, tiptoed into the kitchen, and, thrusting the apple into Pelagia's hand, rushed back as fast as his legs could carry him.
THE COOK’S WEDDING
[trans. by Constance Garnett]
GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, redhaired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman’s full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on which they chopped the meat and sliced the onions. He was balancing a saucer on the five fingers of his right hand and drinking tea out of it, and crunching sugar so loudly that it sent a shiver down Grisha’s back. Aksinya Stepanovna, the old nurse, was sitting on the dirty stool facing him, and she, too, was drinking tea. Her face was grave, though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph. Pelageya, the cook, was busy at the stove, and was apparently trying to hide her face. And on her face Grisha saw a regular illumination: it was burning and shifting through every shade of colour, beginning with a crimson purple and ending with a deathly white. She was continually catching hold of knives, forks, bits of wood, and rags with trembling hands, moving, grumbling to herself, making a clatter, but in reality doing nothing. She did not once glance at the table at which they were drinking tea, and to the questions put to her by the nurse she gave jerky, sullen answers without turning her face.
“Help yourself, Danilo Semyonitch,” the nurse urged him hospitably. “Why do you keep on with tea and nothing but tea? You should have a drop of vodka!”
And nurse put before the visitor a bottle of vodka and a wineglass, while her face wore a very wily expression.
“I never touch it…. No …” said the cabman, declining. “Don’t press me, Aksinya Stepanovna.”
“What a man!… A cabman and not drink!… A bachelor can’t get on without drinking. Help yourself!”
The cabman looked askance at the bottle, then at nurse’s wily face, and his own face assumed an expression no less cunning, as much as to say, “You won’t catch me, you old witch!”
“I don’t drink; please excuse me. Such a weakness does not do in our calling. A man who works at a trade may drink, for he sits at home, but we cabmen are always in view of the public. Aren’t we? If one goes into a pothouse one finds one’s horse gone; if one takes a drop too much it is worse still; before you know where you are you will fall asleep or slip off the box. That’s where it is.”
“And how much do you make a day, Danilo Semyonitch?”
“That’s according. One day you will have a fare for three roubles, and another day you will come back to the yard without a farthing. The days are very different. Nowadays our business is no good. There are lots and lots of cabmen as you know, hay is dear, and folks are