The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Plays, Novellas, Short Stories, Diary & Letters. Anton Chekhov
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quietly took her knitting into a corner after supper, his eyes never left her little fingers, and he babbled without a moment's pause.
"Friends, you must hurry and begin to enjoy life as fast as you can!" he said. "For heaven's sake, don't sacrifice the present to the future ! You have youth and health and passion now, and the future is deceitful—a vapour ! As soon as your twentieth year knocks at the door, then begin to live ! "
Tatiana dropped a needle. My uncle jumped up, picked it up, and handed it to her with a bow, at which I realised for the first time that there was some one in the world with manners more polished than Pobedimski's.
"Yes," my uncle continued. "Fall in love! Marry! Be silly ! Silliness is much more healthy and natural than our toiling and striving to be sensible."
My uncle talked much and long, and I sat on a trunk in a corner listening to him and dozing. I felt hurt because he had never once paid the least attention to me. He left our wing of the house at two o'clock that night, when I had given up the battle, and sunk into profound slumber.
From that time on my uncle came to us every evening. He sang with us and sat with us each night until two o'clock, chatting without end always of the same thing. He ceased his evening and nocturnal labours, and by the end of July, when the privy councillor had learned to eat my mother's turkeys and stewed fruits, his daytime toil was also abandoned. My uncle had torn himself away from his desk and had entered into "real life." By day he walked about the garden whistling and keeping the workmen from their work by making them tell him stories. If he caught sight of Tatiana he would run up to her, and, if she were carrying anything, would offer to carry it for her, which always embarrassed her dreadfully.
The farther summer advanced toward autumn the more absent-minded and frivolous and lively my uncle became. Pobedimski lost all his illusions about him.
"He is too one-sided," he used to say. "Nothing about him shows that he stands on the highest rung of the official hierarchic ladder. He can't even talk properly. He says 'upon my word and honour' after every word. No, I don't like him!"
A distinct change came over my tutor and Theodore from the time that my uncle began to visit us in our wing. Theodore stopped hunting and began to come home early. He grew more silent and stared more ferociously than ever at his wife. My tutor stopped talking of the epizooty in my uncle's presence, and now frowned and even smiled derisively at sight of him.
"Here comes our little hop o'my thumb ! " he once growled, seeing my uncle coming toward our part of the house.
This change in the behaviour of both men I explained by the theory that Gundasoff had hurt their feelings. My absent-minded uncle always confused their names, and on the day of his departure had not learned which was my tutor, and which was Tatiana's husband. Tatiana herself he sometimes called Nastasia, sometimes Pelagia, sometimes Evdokia. Full of affectionate enthusiasm as he was for us all, he laughed at us and treated us as if we had been children. All this, of course, might easily have offended the young men. But, as I now see, this was not a question of lacerated feelings; sentiments much more delicate were involved.
One night, I remember, I was sitting on the trunk contending with my longing for sleep. A heavy glue seemed to have fallen on my eyelids, and my body was drooping sideways, exhausted by a long day's playing, but I tried to conquer my sleepiness, for I wanted to see what was going on. It was nearly midnight. Gentle, rosy, and meek as ever, Tatlana was sitting at a little table sewing a shirt for her husband. From one corner of the room Theodore was staring sternly and gloomily at her, in another corner sat Pobedimski snorting angrily, his head half buried in his high coat collar. My uncle was walking up and down plunged in thought. Silence reigned, broken only by the rustling of the linen in Tatiana's hands. Suddenly my uncle stopped In front of Tatiana, and said:
"Oh, you are all so young and fresh and good, and you live so peacefully in this quiet place that I envy you ! I have grown so fond of this life of yours that, upon my honour, my heart aches when I remember that some day I shall have to leave it all."
Sleep closed my eyes and I heard no more. I was awakened by a bang, and saw my uncle standing In front of Tatiana, looking at her with emotion. His cheeks were burning,
"My life is over and I have not lived," he was saying. "Your young face reminds me of my lost youth, and I should be happy to sit here looking at you until I died. I should like to take you with me to St. Petersburg."
"Why?" demanded Theodore in a hoarse voice.
"I should like to put you under a glass case on my desk; I should delight in contemplating you, and showing you to my friends. Do you know, Pelagia, that we don't have people like you where I live ? We have wealth and fame and sometimes beauty, but we have none of this natural life and this wholesome peacefulness—"
My uncle sat down in front of Tatiana and took her hand.
"So you won't come with me to St. Petersburg?" he laughed. "Then at least let me take this hand away with me, this lovely little hand ! You won't ? Very well then, little miser, at least allow me to kiss it ! "
I heard a chair crack. Theodore sprang to his feet and strode toward his wife with a heavy, measured tread. His face was ashy grey and quivering. He raised his arm and brought his fist down on the table with all his might, saying in a muffled voice:
"I won't allow it!"
At the same moment Pobedimski jumped out of his chair, and with a face as pale and angry as the other's, he also advanced toward Tatiana and banged the table with his fist.
"I—I won't allow it !" he cried.
"What? What's the matter," asked my uncle in astonishment.
"I won't allow it !" Theodore repeated, with another blow on the table.
My uncle jumped up and abjectly blinked his eyes. He wanted to say something, but surprise and fright held him tongue-tied. He gave an embarrassed smile and pattered out of the room with short, senile steps, leaving his hat behind him. When my startled mother came into the room a few moments later, Theodore and Pobedimski were still banging the table with their fists like blacksmiths hammering an anvil, and shouting:
"I won't allow it!"
"What has happened here?" demanded my mother. "Why has my brother fainted? What is the matter?"
When she saw the frightened Tatiana and her angry husband, my mother must have guessed what had been going on, for she sighed and shook her head.
"Come, come, stop thumping the table!" she commanded. " Stop, Theodore ! And what are you hammering for, Gregory Pobedimski? What business is this of yours?"
Pobedimski recollected himself and blushed. Theodore glared intently first at him and then at his wife, and began striding up and down the room. After my mother had gone, I saw something that for a long time after I took to be a dream. I saw Theodore seize my tutor, raise him in the air, and fling him out of the door.
When I awoke next morning my tutor's bed was empty. To my inquiries, my nurse replied in a whisper that he had been taken to the hospital early that morning, to be treated for a broken arm. Saddened by this news, and recalling yesterday's scandal, I went out into the courtyard. The day was overcast. The sky was covered with storm-clouds, and a strong wind was blowing across the earth, whirling before it dust, feathers, and scraps of paper. One could feel the approaching rain, and bad humour was obvious in both men and beasts. When I went back to the house I was told to walk lightly, and not to make a noise because my mother was ill in bed with a headache. What could I do ? I went out of the front gate, and, sitting down on a bench, tried to make out the meaning of what I had seen the night before. The road from our gate wound past a blacksmith's shop and around a damp meadow, turning at last into the main highway. I sat and looked at the telegraph poles around which the dust was whirling, and at the sleepy birds sitting on the wires until, suddenly, such ennui overwhelmed me that I burst into tears.
A dusty char-a-banc came along the highway filled with townspeople who were probably on a pilgrimage to some shrine. The char-a-banc was scarcely out of sight before a light victoria drawn by a pair of horses appeared. Standing up in the carriage and holding on