The Greatest Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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you did not please the Justice of the Peace, owing to your arrogant manner, your sarcastic tone, and your friendship with the dissolute Count, and you would never have been in the Justice’s house if you yourself had not paid him a visit. You remember? You became acquainted with Nadezhda Nikolaevna, and you began to frequent the Justice’s house almost every day… Whenever one came to the house you were sure to be there… You were welcomed in the most cordial manner. You were shown all possible marks of friendship - by the father, the mother, and the little sister… They became as much attached to you as if you were a relative… They were enraptured by you… you were made much of, they were in fits of laughter over your slightest witticism… You were for them the acme of wisdom, nobility, gentle manners. You appeared to understand all this, and you reciprocated their attachment with attachment - you went there every day, even on the eve of holidays - the days of cleaning and bustle. Lastly, the unhappy love that you aroused in Nadezhda’s heart is no secret to you… Is that not so? Well, then, you, knowing she was over head and ears in love with you, continued to go there day after day… And what happened then, friend? A year ago, for no apparent reason, you suddenly ceased visiting the house. You were awaited for a week… a month… They are still waiting for you, and you still don’t appear… they write to you… you do not reply… You end by not even bowing… To you, who set so much store by decorum, such conduct must appear as the height of rudeness! Why did you break off your connection with the Kalinins in such a sharp and off-hand manner? Did they offend you? No… Did they bore you? In that case you might have broken off gradually, and not in such a sharp and insulting manner, for which there was no cause…’
‘I stopped visiting a house and therefore have become a psychopath!’ I laughed. ‘How naive you are, Screwy! What difference is there if you suddenly cease an acquaintance or do so gradually? It’s even more honest to do so suddenly — there’s less hypocrisy in it. But what trifles all these are!’
‘Let us admit that all this is trifling, or that the cause of your sudden rudeness is a secret that does not concern other people. But how can you explain your subsequent conduct?’
‘For instance?’
‘For instance, you appeared one day at a meeting of our Zemstvo Board -I don’t know what your business was there - and in reply to the president, who asked you how it came that you were no longer to be met at Kalinin’s, you said… Try to remember what you said! “I’m afraid they want to marry me!” Those were the words that came from your lips! And this you said during the meeting in a loud and distinct voice, so that every single man present could hear you! Pretty? In reply to your woi Is laughter and various offensive witticisms about fishing for husbands could be heard on all sides. Your words were caught up by a certain scamp, who went to Kalinin’s and repeated them to Nadenka during dinner… Why such an insult, Sergey Petrovich?’
Pavel Ivanovich barred the way. He stood before me and continued looking at me with imploring, almost tearful eyes.
‘Why such an insult? Why? Because this charming girl loves you? Let us admit that her father, like all fathers, had intentions on your person… He is like all fathers, they all have an eye on you, on me, on Markuzin… All parents are alike! There’s not the slightest doubt that she is over head and ears in love; perhaps she had hoped she would become your wife… Is that a reason to give her such a sounding box on the ear? Dyadenka, dyadenka! Was it not you yourself who encouraged these intentions on your person? You went there every day; ordinary guests never go so often. In the daytime you went out fishing with her, in the evening you walked about the garden with her, jealously guarding your tête-à-tête… You learned that she loved you, and you made not the slightest change in your conduct… Was it possible after that not to suspect you of having good intentions? I was convinced you would marry her! And you — you complained - you laughed! Why? What had she done to you?’
‘Don’t shout, Screwy, the people are staring at us,’ I said, getting round Pavel Ivanovich. ‘Let us change this conversation.
It’s old women’s chatter. I’ll explain in a few words, and that must be enough for you. I went to the Kalinins’ house because I was bored and also because Nadenka interested me. She’s a very interesting girl… Perhaps I might even have married her. But, finding out that you had preceded me as a candidate for her heart, that you were not indifferent to her, I decided to disappear… It would have been cruel on my part to stand in the way of such a good fellow as yourself…’
‘Thanks for the favour! I never asked you for this gracious gift, and, as far as I can judge by the expression on your face, you are now not speaking the truth; you are talking nonsense, not reflecting on what you say… And besides, the fact of my being a good fellow didn’t hinder you on one of your last meetings with Nadenka from making her a proposal in the summer-house, which would have brought no good to the excellent young fellow if he had married her.’
‘O-ho! Screwy, where did you find out about this? It seems that your affairs are not going on badly, if such secrets are confided to you! However, you’ve grown white with rage and almost look as if you were going to strike me… And just now we agreed to be objective! Screwy, what a funny fellow you are! Well, we’ve had about enough of all this nonsense… Let’s go to the post office…’
CHAPTER X
We went to the post office, which looked out gaily with its three little windows on to the market place. Through the grey paling gleamed the many-coloured flower garden of our postmaster, Maxim Fedorovich, who was known in the whole district as a great connoisseur of all that concerned gardening and the art of laying out beds, borders, lawns, etc.
We found Maxim Fedorovich very pleasantly occupied. Smiling, and red with pleasure, he was seated at his green table, turning over hundred-rouble notes as if they were a book. Evidently even the sight of another man’s money had a pleasing effect on his frame of mind.
‘How do you do, Maxim Fedorovich?’ I said to him. ‘Where have you got such a pile of money?’
‘It’s to be sent to St Petersburg,’ the postmaster replied, smiling sweetly, and he pointed his chin at the corner of the room where a dark figure was sitting on the only chair in the post office.
This dark figure rose when he saw me and came towards us. I recognized my new acquaintance, my new enemy, whom I had so grievously insulted when I had got drunk at the Count’s.
‘My best greetings!’ he said.
‘How are you, Kaetan Kazimirovich?’ I answered, pretending not to notice his outstretched hand. ‘How’s the Count?’
‘Thank God, he’s quite well… It’s just that he’s a little bored… He’s expecting you to come at any minute.’
I read on Pshekhotsky’s face the desire to converse with me. How could that desire have arisen after the ‘swine’ to which I had treated him on that evening, and what caused this change of tone?
‘What a lot of money you have!’ I said, gazing at the packet of hundred-rouble notes he was sending away.
It seemed as if somebody had given a fillip to my brain! I noticed that one of the hundred-rouble notes had charred edges, and one corner had been quite burnt off… It was the hundred-rouble note which I had wanted to burn in the flame of a Chandor candle, when the Count refused to accept it from me as my share of the payment for the gipsies, and which Pshekhotsky had picked up when I flung it on the ground.
‘It’s better that I should give it to the poor, than let it be consumed by the flames,’ he had said then.
To what ‘poor’ was he sending it now?
‘Seven thousand five hundred roubles,’ Maxim Fedorovich counted in a drawling voice. ‘Quite right!’
It is ill to pry into the secrets of other people, but I wanted terribly to find out whose this money was and to whom this black-browed Pole