Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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that he is holding himself better. Tears come into his eyes.
“Eat your dinner! Hold your spoon properly! You wait. I’ll show you, you horrid boy! Don’t dare to whimper! Look straight at me!”
Fedya tries to look straight at him, but his face is quivering and his eyes fill with tears.
“A-ah!… you cry? You are naughty and then you cry? Go and stand in the corner, you beast!”
“But… let him have his dinner first,” his wife intervenes.
“No dinner for him! Such bla… such rascals don’t deserve dinner!”
Fedya, wincing and quivering all over, creeps down from his chair and goes into the corner.
“You won’t get off with that!” his parent persists. “If nobody else cares to look after your bringing up, so be it; I must begin…. I won’t let you be naughty and cry at dinner, my lad! Idiot! You must do your duty! Do you understand? Do your duty! Your father works and you must work, too! No one must eat the bread of idleness! You must be a man! A m-man!”
“For God’s sake, leave off,” says his wife in French. “Don’t nag at us before outsiders, at least…. The old woman is all ears; and now, thanks to her, all the town will hear of it.”
I am not afraid of outsiders,” answers Zhilin in Russian. “Anfissa Ivanovna sees that I am speaking the truth. Why, do you think I ought to be pleased with the boy? Do you know what he costs me? Do you know, you nasty boy, what you cost me? Or do you imagine that I coin money, that I get it for nothing? Don’t howl! Hold your tongue! Do you hear what I say? Do you want me to whip you, you young ruffian?”
Fedya wails aloud and begins to sob.
“This is insufferable,” says his mother, getting up from the table and flinging down her dinner-napkin. “You never let us have dinner in peace! Your bread sticks in my throat.”
And putting her handkerchief to her eyes, she walks out of the dining-room.
“Now she is offended,” grumbles Zhilin, with a forced smile. “She’s been spoilt…. That’s how it is, Anfissa Ivanovna; no one likes to hear the truth nowadays…. It’s all my fault, it seems.”
Several minutes of silence follow. Zhilin looks round at the plates, and noticing that no one has yet touched their soup, heaves a deep sigh, and stares at the flushed and uneasy face of the governess.
“Why don’t you eat, Varvara Vassilyevna?” he asks. “Offended, I suppose? I see…. You don’t like to be told the truth. You must forgive me, it’s my nature; I can’t be a hypocrite…. I always blurt out the plain truth” (a sigh). “But I notice that my presence is unwelcome. No one can eat or talk while I am here…. Well, you should have told me, and I would have gone away…. I will go.”
Zhilin gets up and walks with dignity to the door. As he passes the weeping Fedya he stops.
“After all that has passed here, you are free,” he says to Fedya, throwing back his head with dignity. “I won’t meddle in your bringing up again. I wash my hands of it! I humbly apologise that as a father, from a sincere desire for your welfare, I have disturbed you and your mentors. At the same time, once for all I disclaim all responsibility for your future… .”
Fedya wails and sobs more loudly than ever. Zhilin turns with dignity to the door and departs to his bedroom.
When he wakes from his after-dinner nap he begins to feel the stings of conscience. He is ashamed to face his wife, his son, Anfissa Ivanovna, and even feels very wretched when he recalls the scene at dinner, but his amour-propre is too much for him; he has not the manliness to be frank, and he goes on sulking and grumbling.
Waking up next morning, he feels in excellent spirits, and whistles gaily as he washes. Going into the dining-room to breakfast, he finds there Fedya, who, at the sight of his father, gets up and looks at him helplessly.
“Well, young man?” Zhilin greets him good-humouredly, sitting down to the table. “What have you got to tell me, young man? Are you all right? Well, come, chubby; give your father a kiss.”
With a pale, grave face Fedya goes up to his father and touches his cheek with his quivering lips, then walks away and sits down in his place without a word.
A DEAD BODY
Translation By Constance Garnett
A STILL August night. A mist is rising slowly from the fields and casting an opaque veil over everything within eyesight. Lighted up by the moon, the mist gives the impression at one moment of a calm, boundless sea, at the next of an immense white wall. The air is damp and chilly. Morning is still far off. A step from the bye-road which runs along the edge of the forest a little fire is gleaming. A dead body, covered from head to foot with new white linen, is lying under a young oak-tree. A wooden ikon is lying on its breast. Beside the corpse almost on the road sits the “watch” — two peasants performing one of the most disagreeable and uninviting of peasants’ duties. One, a tall young fellow with a scarcely perceptible moustache and thick black eyebrows, in a tattered sheepskin and bark shoes, is sitting on the wet grass, his feet stuck out straight in front of him, and is trying to while away the time with work. He bends his long neck, and breathing loudly through his nose, makes a spoon out of a big crooked bit of wood; the other — a little scraggy, pockmarked peasant with an aged face, a scanty moustache, and a little goat’s beard — sits with his hands dangling loose on his knees, and without moving gazes listlessly at the light. A small campfire is lazily burning down between them, throwing a red glow on their faces. There is perfect stillness. The only sounds are the scrape of the knife on the wood and the crackling of damp sticks in the fire.
“Don’t you go to sleep, Syoma …” says the young man.
“I… I am not asleep …” stammers the goat-beard.
“That’s all right…. It would be dreadful to sit here alone, one would be frightened. You might tell me something, Syoma.”
“You are a queer fellow, Syomushka! Other people will laugh and tell a story and sing a song, but you — there is no making you out. You sit like a scarecrow in the garden and roll your eyes at the fire. You can’t say anything properly… when you speak you seem frightened. I dare say you are fifty, but you have less sense than a child. Aren’t you sorry that you are a simpleton?”
“I am sorry,” the goat-beard answers gloomily.
“And we are sorry to see your foolishness, you may be sure. You are a goodnatured, sober peasant, and the only trouble is that you have no sense in your head. You should have picked up some sense for yourself if the Lord has afflicted you and given you no understanding. You must make an effort, Syoma…. You should listen hard when anything good’s being said, note it well, and keep thinking and thinking…. If there is any word you don’t understand, you should make an effort and think over in your head in what meaning the word is used. Do you see? Make an effort! If you don’t gain some sense for yourself you’ll be a simpleton and of no account at all to your dying day.”
All at once a long drawn-out, moaning sound is heard in the forest. Something rustles in the leaves as though torn from the very top of the tree and falls to the ground. All this is faintly repeated by the echo. The young man shudders and looks enquiringly at his companion.
“It’s an owl at the little birds,” says Syoma, gloomily.
“Why, Syoma, it’s time for the birds to fly to the warm countries!”
“To be sure, it is time.”
“It is chilly at dawn now. It is co-old. The crane is a chilly creature, it is tender. Such cold is death to it. I am not a crane, but I am frozen…. Put some