The Greatest Novellas & Short Stories of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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. And what happened afterwards ? "
"A week passed, a fortnight. ... I was sitting at home writing. Suddenly, the door opened and she comes in. ' Take your cursed money,' she said, and threw the parcel in my face. . . She could not resist it. ... Five hundred were missing. She had only got rid of five hundred."
"And what did you do with the money ? "
"It's all past and done with. What's the good of concealing it ? ... I certainly took it. What are you staring at me like that for ? Wait for the sequel. It's a complete novel, the sickness of a soul ! Two months passed by. One night I came home drunk, in a wicked mood. ... I turned on the light and saw Sophia Mikhailovna sitting on my sofa, drunk too, wandering a bit, with something savage in her face as if she had just escaped from the mad-house. ' Give me my money back,' she said. ' I've changed my mind. If I'm going to the dogs, I want to go madly, passionately. Make haste, you scoundrel, give me the money.' How indecent it was ! "
"And you . . . did you give it her ? "
"I remember. ... I gave her ten roubles."
"Oh ... is it possible ? " Usielkov frowned. "If you couldn't do it yourself, or you didn't want to, you could have written to me. . . . And I didn't know ... I didn't know."
"My dear man, why should I write, when she wrote herself afterwards when she was in hospital ? "
"I was so taken up with the new marriage that I paid no attention to letters. . . . But you were an outsider ; you had no antagonism to Sophia Mikhailovna. . . . Why didn't you help her ? "
"We can't judge by our present standards, Boris Pietrovich. Now we think in this way ; but then we thought quite differently. . . . Now I might perhaps give her a thousand roubles ; but then even ten roubles . . . she didn't get them for nothing. It's a terrible story. It's time to forget. . . . But here you are ! "
The sledge stopped at the churchyard gate. Usielkov and Shapkin got out of the sledge, went through the gate and walked along a long, broad avenue. The bare cherry trees, the acacias, the grey crosses and monuments sparkled with hoar-frost. In each flake of snow the bright sunny day was reflected. There was the smell you find in all cemeteries of incense and fresh-dug earth.
"You have a beautiful cemetery," said Usielkov. " It's almost an orchard."
"Yes, but it's a pity the thieves steal the monuments. Look, there, behind that cast-iron memorial, on the right, Sophia Mikhailovna is buried. Would you like to see ? "
The friends turned to the right, stepping in deep snow towards the cast-iron memorial.
"Down here," said Shapkin, pointing to a little stone of white marble. "Some subaltern or other put up the monument on her grave."
Usielkov slowly took off his hat and showed his bald pate to the snow. Eying him, Shapkin also took off his hat, and another baldness shone beneath the sun. The silence round about was like the tomb, as though the air were dead, too. The friends looked at the stone, silent, thinking.
" She is asleep ! " Shapkin broke the silence. " And she cares very little that she took the guilt upon herself and drank cognac. Confess, Boris Pietrovich ! "
"What ? " asked Usielkov, sternly.
"That, however loathsome the past may be, it's better than this." And Shapkin pointed to his grey hairs.
"In the old days I did not even think of death. ... If I'd met her, I would have circumvented her, but now . . . well, now ! "
Sadness took hold of Usielkov. Suddenly he wanted to cry, passionately, as he once desired to love. . . . And he felt that these tears would be exquisite, refreshing. Moisture came out of his eyes and a lump rose in his throat, but . . . Shapkin was standing by his side, and Usielkov felt ashamed of his weakness before a witness. He turned back quickly and walked towards the church.
Two hours later, having arranged with the churchwarden and examined the church, he seized the opportunity while Shapkin was talking away to the priest, and ran to shed a tear. He walked to the stone surreptitiously, with stealthy steps, looking round all the time. The little white monument stared at him absently, so sadly and innocently, as though a girl and not a wanton divorcee were beneath.
"If I could weep, could weep ! " thought Usielkov.
But the moment for weeping had been lost. Though the old man managed to make his eyes shine, and tried to bring himself to the right pitch, the tears did not flow and the lump did not rise in his throat. . . . After waiting for about ten minutes, Usielkov waved his arm and went to look for Shapkin.
OLD AGE
[trans. by Constance Garnett]
UZELKOV, an architect with the rank of civil councillor, arrived in his native town, to which he had been invited to restore the church in the cemetery. He had been born in the town, had been at school, had grown up and married in it. But when he got out of the train he scarcely recognized it. Everything was changed…. Eighteen years ago when he had moved to Petersburg the street-boys used to catch marmots, for instance, on the spot where now the station was standing; now when one drove into the chief street, a hotel of four storeys stood facing one; in old days there was an ugly grey fence just there; but nothing — neither fences nor houses — had changed as much as the people. From his enquiries of the hotel waiter Uzelkov learned that more than half of the people he remembered were dead, reduced to poverty, forgotten.
“And do you remember Uzelkov?” he asked the old waiter about himself. “Uzelkov the architect who divorced his wife? He used to have a house in Svirebeyevsky Street… you must remember.”
“I don’t remember, sir.”
“How is it you don’t remember? The case made a lot of noise, even the cabmen all knew about it. Think, now! Shapkin the attorney managed my divorce for me, the rascal… the notorious cardsharper, the fellow who got a thrashing at the club… .”
“Ivan Nikolaitch?”
“Yes, yes…. Well, is he alive? Is he dead?”
“Alive, sir, thank God. He is a notary now and has an office. He is very well off. He has two houses in Kirpitchny Street…. His daughter was married the other day.”
Uzelkov paced up and down the room, thought a bit, and in his boredom made up his mind to go and see Shapkin at his office. When he walked out of the hotel and sauntered slowly towards Kirpitchny Street it was midday. He found Shapkin at his office and scarcely recognized him. From the once well-made, adroit attorney with a mobile, insolent, and always drunken face Shapkin had changed into a modest, grey-headed, decrepit old man.
“You don’t recognize me, you have forgotten me,” began Uzelkov. “I am your old client, Uzelkov.”
“Uzelkov, what Uzelkov? Ah!” Shapkin remembered, recognized, and was struck all of a heap. There followed a shower of exclamations, questions, recollections.
“This is a surprise! This is unexpected!” cackled Shapkin. “What can I offer you? Do you care for champagne? Perhaps you would like oysters? My dear fellow, I have had so much from you in my time that I can’t offer you anything equal to the occasion… .”
“Please don’t put yourself out …” said Uzelkov. “I have no time to spare. I must go at once to the cemetery and examine the church; I have undertaken the restoration of it.”
“That’s capital! We’ll have a snack and a drink and drive together. I have capital horses. I’ll take you there and introduce you to the churchwarden; I will arrange it all…. But why is it, my angel, you seem to be afraid of me and hold me at arm’s length? Sit a little nearer! There is no need for you to be afraid of me nowadays. He-he!… At one time, it is true, I was a cunning blade, a dog of a fellow… no one dared approach me; but now I am stiller than water and humbler than the grass. I have grown old, I am a family man, I have children.