The Greatest Novellas & Short Stories of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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himself more comfortably in the cart and fell to thinking.
“He has run off … he was scared, the fool. Well, what’s to be done now? I can’t go on alone because I don’t know the way; besides they may think I have stolen his horse… . What’s to be done?”
“Klim! Klim,” he cried.
“Klim,” answered the echo.
At the thought that he would have to sit through the whole night in the cold and dark forest and hear nothing but the wolves, the echo, and the snorting of the scraggy mare, the surveyor began to have twinges down his spine as though it were being rasped with a cold file.
“Klimushka,” he shouted. “Dear fellow! Where are you, Klimushka?”
For two hours the surveyor shouted, and it was only after he was quite husky and had resigned himself to spending the night in the forest that a faint breeze wafted the sound of a moan to him.
“Klim, is it you, dear fellow? Let us go on.”
“You’ll mu-ur-der me!”
“But I was joking, my dear man! I swear to God I was joking! As though I had revolvers! I told a lie because I was frightened. For goodness sake let us go on, I am freezing!”
Klim, probably reflecting that a real robber would have vanished long ago with the horse and cart, came out of the forest and went hesitatingly up to his passenger.
“Well, what were you frightened of, stupid? I … I was joking and you were frightened. Get in!”
“God be with you, sir,” Klim muttered as he clambered into the cart, “if I had known I wouldn’t have taken you for a hundred roubles. I almost died of fright… .”
Klim lashed at the little mare. The cart swayed. Klim lashed once more and the cart gave a lurch. After the fourth stroke of the whip when the cart moved forward, the surveyor hid his ears in his collar and sank into thought.
The road and Klim no longer seemed dangerous to him.
OLD AGE [trans. by John Middleton Murry]
State-councillor Usielkov, architect, arrived in his native town, where he had been summoned to restore the cemetery church. He was born in the town, he had grown up and been married there, and yet when he got out of the train he hardly recognised it. Everything was changed. For instance, eighteen years ago, when he left the town to settle in Petersburg, where the railway station is now boys used to hunt for marmots : now as you come into the High Street there is a four storied " Hotel Vienna," with apartments, where there was of old an ugly grey fence. But not the fence or the houses, or anything had changed so much as the people. Questioning the hall-porter, Usielkov discovered that more than half of the people he remembered were dead or paupers or forgotten.
"Do you remember Usielkov ? " he asked the porter. " Usielkov, the architect, who divorced his wife. ... He had a house in Sviribev Street. . . . Surely you remember."
"No, I don't remember anyone of the name."
"Why, it's impossible not to remember. It was an exciting case. All the cabmen knew, even. Try to remember. His divorce was managed by the attorney, Shapkin, the swindler . . . the notorious sharper, the man who was thrashed at the club. . . ."
"You mean Ivan Nicolaich ? "
"Yes. ... Is he alive ? dead ? "
"Thank heaven, his honour's alive. His honour's a notary now, with an office. Well-to-do. Two houses in Kirpichny Street. Just lately married his daughter off."
Usielkov strode from one corner of the room to another. An idea flashed into his mind. From boredom, he decided to see Shapkin. It was afternoon when he left the hotel and quietly walked to Kirpichny Street. He found Shapkin in his office and hardly recognised him. From the well-built, alert attorney with a quick, impudent, perpetually tipsy expression, Shapkin had become a modest, grey-haired, shrunken old man.
"You don't recognise me . . . You have forgotten ..." Usielkov began. " I'm your old client, Usielkov."
"Usielkov ? Which Usielkov ? Ah ! " Remembrance came to Shapkin : he recognised him and was confused. Began exclamations, questions, recollections.
"Never expected . . . never thought ..." chuckled Shapkin. " What will you have ? Would you like champagne ? Perhaps you'd like oysters. My dear man, what a lot of money I got out of you in the old days—so much that I can't think what I ought to stand you."
"Please don't trouble," said Usielkov. " I haven't time. I must go to the cemetery and examine the church. I have a commission."
"Splendid. We'll have something to eat and a drink and go together. I've got some splendid horses ! I'll take you there and introduce you to the churchwarden. . . . I'll fix up everything. . . . But what's the matter, my dearest man ? You're not avoiding me, not afraid ? Please sit nearer. There's nothing to be afraid of now. . . . Long ago, I really was pretty sharp, a bit of a rogue . . . but now I'm quieter than water, humbler than grass. I've grown old ; got a family. There are children. . . . Time to die ! "
The friends had something to eat and drink, and went in a coach and pair to the cemetery.
"Yes, it was a good time," Shapkin was reminiscent, sitting in the sledge. " I remember, but I simply can't believe it. Do you remember how you divorced your wife? It's almost twenty years ago, and you've probably forgotten everything, but I remember it as though I conducted the petition yesterday. My God, how rotten I was ! Then I was a smart, casuistical devil, full of sharp practice and devilry. . . and I used to run into some shady affairs, particularly when there was a good fee, as in your case, for instance. What was it you paid me then ? Five—six hundred. Enough to upset anybody ! By the time you left for Petersburg you'd left the whole affair completely in my hands. ' Do what you like ! ' And your former wife, Sophia Mikhailovna, though she did come from a merchant family, was proud and selfish. To bribe her to take the guilt on herself was difficult—extremely difficult. I used to come to her for a business talk, and when she saw me, she would say to her maid : ' Masha, surely I told you I wasn't at home to scoundrels.' I tried one way, then another . . . wrote letters to her, tried to meet her accidentally—no good. I had to work through a third person. For a long time I had trouble with her, and she only yielded when you agreed to give her ten thousand. She could not stand out against ten thousand. She succumbed. . . . She began to weep, spat in my face, but she yielded and took the guilt on herself."
"If I remember it was fifteen, not ten thousand she took from me," said Usielkov.
"Yes, of course . . . fifteen, my mistake." Shapkin was disconcerted. " Anyway it's all past and done with now. Why shouldn't I confess, frankly ? Ten I gave to her, and the remaining five I bargained out of you for my own share. I deceived both of you. . . . It's all past, why be ashamed of it ? And who else was there to take from, Boris Pietrovich, if not from you ? I ask you . . . You were rich and well-to-do. You married in caprice : you were divorced in caprice. You were making a fortune. I remember you got twenty thousand out of a single contract. Whom was I to tap, if not you ? And I must confess, I was tortured by envy. If you got hold of a nice lot of money, people would take off their hats to you : but the same people would beat me for shillings and smack my face in the club. But why recall it ? It's time to forget."
"Tell me, please, how did Sophia Mikhailovna live afterwards ? "
"With her ten thousand ? On ne peut plus badly. . . . God knows whether it was frenzy or pride and conscience that tortured her, because she had sold herself for money—or perhaps she loved you ; but, she took to drink, you know. She received the money and began to gad about with officers in troikas. . . . Drunkenness, philandering, debauchery. . . . She would come into a tavern with an officer, and instead of port or a light wine, she would drink the strongest cognac to drive her into a frenzy."
"Yes, she was