The Greatest Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
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was condemned to the loss of all civil rights, transportation and hard labour for fifteen years.
So dearly had he to pay for his having met on a fine May morning the poetical girl in red.
More than eight years have passed since the events described above happened. Some of the actors in the drama are dead and buried, others are bearing the punishment of their sins, others still are wearily dragging on their lives, struggling with boredom and awaiting death from day to day.
Much is changed during these eight years… Count Karnéev, who has never ceased to entertain the sincerest friendship for me, has sunk into utter drunkenness. His estate which was the scene of the drama has passed from him into the hands of his wife and Pshekhotsky. He is now poor, and is supported by me. Sometimes of an evening, lying on the sofa in my room in the boarding-house, he likes to remember the good old times.
‘It would be fine to listen to the gipsies now!’ he murmurs. ‘Serezha, send for some cognac!’
I am also changed. My strength is gradually deserting me, and I feel youth and health leaving my body. I no longer possess the same physical strength, I have not the same alertness, the same endurance which I was proud of displaying formerly, when I could carouse night after night and could drink quantities which now I could hardly lift.
Wrinkles are appearing on my face one after the other; my hair is getting thin, my voice is becoming coarse and less strong… Life is finished.
I remember the past as if it were yesterday. I see places and people’s faces as if in a mist. I have not the power to regard them impartially; I love and hate them with all my former intensity, and never a day passes that I, being filled with feelings of indignation or hatred, do not hold my head in my hands. As formerly, I consider the Count odious, Olga infamous, Kalinin ludicrous owing to his stupid presumption. Evil I hold to be evil, sin to be sin.
But not infrequently there are moments when, looking intently at a portrait that is standing on my writing-table, I feel an irresistible desire to walk with the girl in red through the forest, under the sounds of the tall pines, and to press her to my breast regardless of everything. In such moments I forgive the lies, the fall into the abyss, I am ready to forgive everything, if only a small part of the past could be repeated once more… Wearied of the dullness of town, I want to hear once again the sound of the giant lake and gallop along its banks on my Zorka… I would forgive and forget everything if I could once again go along the road to Tenevo and meet the gardener Franz with his vodka barrel and jockey-cap… There are moments when I am even ready to press the bloodstained hand of goodnatured Pëtr Egorych, and talk with him about religion, the harvest, and the enlightenment of the people… I would like to meet ‘Screw’ and his Nadenka again…
Life is mad, licentious, turbulent - like a lake on an August night… Many victims have disappeared for ever beneath its dark waves… They lie, like sediment in wine, at its bottom.
But why, at certain moments, do I love it? Why do I forgive it, and in my soul hurry towards it like an affectionate son, like a bird released from a cage?
At this moment the life I see from the window of my room in these chambers reminds me of a grey circle; it is grey in colour without any light or shade…
But, if I close my eyes and remember the past, I see a rainbow formed by the sun’s spectrum… Yes, it is stormy there, but it is lighter too…
S. ZINOV’EV.
THE END
POSTSCRIPT
At the bottom of the manuscript there is written:
To THE EDITOR
Dear Sir, — I beg you to publish the novel (or story, if you prefer it) which I submit to you herewith, as far as possible, in its entirety, without abridgment, cuts or additions. However, changes can be made with the consent of the author. In case you find it unsuitable I beg you to keep the MSS. to be returned. My address (temporary) in Moscow is the Anglia Chambers, on the Tverskoy.
IVAN PETROVICH KAMYSHEV.
P.S. - The fee is at the discretion of the Editor. Year and date.
Now that the reader has become acquainted with Kamyshev’s novel I will continue my interrupted talk with him. First of all, I must inform the reader that the promise I made to him at the start of this novel has not been kept: Kamyshev’s novel has not been printed without omissions, not in toto, as I promised, but considerably shortened. The fact is, that ‘The Shooting Party’ could not be printed in the newspaper which was mentioned in the first chapter of this work, because the newspaper ceased to exist just when the manuscript was sent to press. The present editorial board, in accepting Kamyshev’s novel, found it impossible to publish it without cuts. During the time it was appearing, every chapter that was sent to me in proof was accompanied by an editorial request to ‘make changes’. However, not wishing to take on my soul the sin of changing another man’s work, I found it better and more profitable to leave out whole passages rather than make possibly unsuitable changes. With my assent the editor left out many passages that shocked by their cynicism, or were too long, or were abominably careless in style. These omissions and cuts demanded both care and time, which is the cause that many chapters were late. Among other passages we left out two descriptions of nocturnal orgies. One of these orgies took place in the Count’s house, the other on the lake. We also left out a description of Poly carp’s library and of the original manner in which he read; this passage was found over-extended and exaggerated.
The chapter I was most anxious to retain and which the editor chiefly disliked, was one in which the desperate card gambling that was the rage among the Count’s servants was minutely described. The most passionate gamblers were the gardener Franz and the old woman nicknamed the Scops-Owl. While Kamyshev was conducting the investigations he passed by one of the summer-houses, and looking in he saw mad play going on; the players were the Scops-Owl, Franz and - Pshekhotsky. They were playing ‘Stukolka’, at twenty kopeck points and with a fine that reached thirty roubles. Kamyshev joined the players and ‘cleared them out’ as if they had been partridges. Franz, who had lost everything but wished to continue, went to the island where he had hidden his money. Kamyshev followed him, marked where he had concealed his money, and afterwards robbed the gardener, not leaving a kopeck in his hoard. The money he had taken he gave to the fisherman Mikhey. Such strange charity admirably characterizes this hare-brained magistrate, but the chapter was written so carelessly and the conversation of the gamblers glittered with such pearls of obscenity that the editor would not consent to its inclusion even after alterations had been made.
The description of certain meetings of Olga and Kamyshev are omitted; an explanation between him and Nadenka Kalinin, etc., etc., are also left out. But I think what is printed is sufficient to characterize my hero. Sapienti sat….
Exactly three months later the doorkeeper Andrey announced the arrival of the gentleman ‘with the cockade’.
‘Ask him in!’ I said.
Kamyshev entered, the same rosy-cheeked, handsome and healthy man he had been three months before. His steps, as formerly, were noiseless… He put down his hat on the window with so much care that one might have imagined that he had deposited something heavy… Out of his eyes there shone, as before, something childlike and infinitely goodnatured.
‘I am troubling you again!’ he began smiling, and he sat down carefully. ‘I beg you, forgive me! Well, what? What sentence has been passed on my manuscript?’
‘Guilty, but deserving of indulgence,’ I replied.
Kamyshev laughed and blew his nose in a scented handkerchief.
‘Consequently, banishment into the flames of the fireplace?’ he asked.
‘No, why be so savage? It does not merit punitive measures; we will employ a corrective treatment.’
‘Must