The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Plays, Novellas, Short Stories, Diary & Letters. Anton Chekhov
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“I will come to you at night, Lizanka…. Don’t worry…. I am staying at Feodosia close by…. I will live here near you till I have run through everything… and I soon shall be at my last farthing! A-a-ah, what a life it is! Dreariness, ill… my chest is bad, and my stomach is bad.”
Bugrov ceased speaking, and then it was Liza’s turn…. My God, the cruelty of that woman! She began weeping, complaining, enumerating all the defects of her lover and her own sufferings. Groholsky as he listened to her, felt that he was a villain, a miscreant, a murderer.
“He makes me miserable… .” Liza said in conclusion.
After kissing Liza at parting, and going out at the garden gate, Bugrov came upon Groholsky, who was standing at the gate waiting for him.
“Ivan Petrovitch,” said Groholsky in the tone of a dying man, “I have seen and heard it all… It’s not honourable on your part, but I do not blame you…. You love her too, but you must understand that she is mine. Mine! I cannot live without her! How is it you don’t understand that? Granted that you love her, that you are miserable…. Have I not paid you, in part at least, for your sufferings? For God’s sake, go away! For God’s sake, go away! Go away from here for ever, I implore you, or you will kill me… .”
“I have nowhere to go,” Bugrov said thickly.
“H’m, you have squandered everything…. You are an impulsive man. Very well…. Go to my estate in the province of Tchernigov. If you like I will make you a present of the property. It’s a small estate, but a good one…. On my honour, it’s a good one!”
Bugrov gave a broad grin. He suddenly felt himself in the seventh heaven.
“I will give it you…. This very day I will write to my steward and send him an authorisation for completing the purchase. You must tell everyone you have bought it…. Go away, I entreat you.”
“Very good, I will go. I understand.”
“Let us go to a notary… at once,” said Groholsky, greatly cheered, and he went to order the carriage.
On the following evening, when Liza was sitting on the garden seat where her rendezvous with Ivan Petrovitch usually took place, Groholsky went quietly to her. He sat down beside her, and took her hand.
“Are you dull, Lizotchka?” he said, after a brief silence. “Are you depressed? Why shouldn’t we go away somewhere? Why is it we always stay at home? We want to go about, to enjoy ourselves, to make acquaintances…. Don’t we?”
“I want nothing,” said Liza, and turned her pale, thin face towards the path by which Bugrov used to come to her.
Groholsky pondered. He knew who it was she expected, who it was she wanted.
“Let us go home, Liza,” he said, “it is damp here… .”
“You go; I’ll come directly.”
Groholsky pondered again.
“You are expecting him?” he asked, and made a wry face as though his heart had been gripped with red-hot pincers.
“Yes…. I want to give him the socks for Misha… .”
“He will not come.”
“How do you know?”
“He has gone away… .”
Liza opened her eyes wide….
“He has gone away, gone to the Tchernigov province. I have given him my estate… .”
Liza turned fearfully pale, and caught at Groholsky’s shoulder to save herself from falling.
“I saw him off at the steamer at three o’clock.”
Liza suddenly clutched at her head, made a movement, and falling on the seat, began shaking all over.
“Vanya,” she wailed, “Vanya! I will go to Vanya…. Darling!”
She had a fit of hysterics….
And from that evening, right up to July, two shadows could be seen in the park in which the summer visitors took their walks. The shadows wandered about from morning till evening, and made the summer visitors feel dismal…. After Liza’s shadow invariably walked the shadow of Groholsky…. I call them shadows because they had both lost their natural appearance. They had grown thin and pale and shrunken, and looked more like shadows than living people…. Both were pining away like fleas in the classic anecdote of the Jew who sold insect powder.
At the beginning of July, Liza ran away from Groholsky, leaving a note in which she wrote that she was going for a time to “her son”… For a time! She ran away by night when Groholsky was asleep…. After reading her letter Groholsky spent a whole week wandering round about the villa as though he were mad, and neither ate nor slept. In August, he had an attack of recurrent fever, and in September he went abroad. There he took to drink…. He hoped in drink and dissipation to find comfort…. He squandered all his fortune, but did not succeed, poor fellow, in driving out of his brain the image of the beloved woman with the kittenish face…. Men do not die of happiness, nor do they die of misery. Groholsky’s hair went grey, but he did not die: he is alive to this day…. He came back from abroad to have “just a peep” at Liza…. Bugrov met him with open arms, and made him stay for an indefinite period. He is staying with Bugrov to this day.
This year I happened to be passing through Groholyovka, Bugrov’s estate. I found the master and the mistress of the house having supper…. Ivan Petrovitch was highly delighted to see me, and fell to pressing good things upon me…. He had grown rather stout, and his face was a trifle puffy, though it was still rosy and looked sleek and well-nourished…. He was not bald. Liza, too, had grown fatter. Plumpness did not suit her. Her face was beginning to lose the kittenish look, and was, alas! more suggestive of the seal. Her cheeks were spreading upwards, outwards, and to both sides. The Bugrovs were living in first-rate style. They had plenty of everything. The house was overflowing with servants and edibles….
When we had finished supper we got into conversation. Forgetting that Liza did not play, I asked her to play us something on the piano.
“She does not play,” said Bugrov; “she is no musician…. Hey, you there! Ivan! call Grigory Vassilyevitch here! What’s he doing there?” And turning to me, Bugrov added, “Our musician will come directly; he plays the guitar. We keep the piano for Mishutka — we are having him taught… .”
Five minutes later, Groholsky walked into the room — sleepy, unkempt, and unshaven…. He walked in, bowed to me, and sat down on one side.
“Why, whoever goes to bed so early?” said Bugrov, addressing him. “What a fellow you are really! He’s always asleep, always asleep…. The sleepy head! Come, play us something lively… .”
Groholsky turned the guitar, touched the strings, and began singing:
“Yesterday I waited for my dear one… .”
I listened to the singing, looked at Bugrov’s wellfed countenance, and thought: “Nasty brute!” I felt like crying…. When he had finished singing, Groholsky bowed to us, and went out.
“And what am I to do with him?” Bugrov said when he had gone away. “I do have trouble with him! In the day he is always brooding and brooding…. And at night he moans…. He sleeps, but he sighs and moans in his sleep…. It is a sort of illness…. What am I to do with him, I can’t think! He won’t let us sleep…. I am afraid that he will go out of his mind. People think he is badly treated here…. In what way is he badly treated? He eats with us, and he drinks with us…. Only we won’t give him money. If we were to give him any he would spend it on drink or waste it…. That’s another trouble for me! Lord forgive me, a sinner!”
They made me stay the night. When I woke next morning, Bugrov was giving some one a lecture in the adjoining room….