Five Great Short Stories

ANTON PAVLOVICH CHEKHOV (1860-1904): Russian physician and preeminent author of short stories and plays. The present volume contains five of his most highly regarded stories, set in a variety of Tsarist Russian milieux and representative of the basic themes of his oeuvre: the sociological and psychological obstacles in the way of human affection and satisfactory development of the personality.

EDITOR: STANLEY APPELBAUM

 

This Dover edition, first published in 1990, is an unabridged republication of five stories. “The Black Monk” and “The Peasants” are reprinted from
The Works of Anton Chekhov: One Volume Edition,
Black's Readers Service Company, N.Y., n.d. (ca. 1929; translators not credited). “The House with the Mezzanine,” “Gooseberries” and “The Lady with the Toy Dog” are reprinted from
My Life and Other Stories,
C. W. Daniel, Ltd., London, 1920 (translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Gilbert Cannan). A number of typographical errors have been corrected tacitly. Footnotes glossing Russian terms remaining in the translated texts have been prepared specially for this Dover edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904.
[Short stories. English. Selections]
Five great short stories / Anton Chekhov.
p. cm.—(Dover thrift editions)
Translated from the Russian.

Contents: The black monk—The house with the mezzanine—The peasants—Gooseberries—The lady with the toy dog.

9780486153537

1. Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904—Translations, English. I. Title. II. Series.

PG3456.A13 1990

891.73'3—dc20

90-3580

CIP

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation
26463714
www.doverpublications.com

ANDREY VASIL'ICH KOVRIN, Master of Arts, was overworked and nervous. He was not being treated, but one day while sitting with a doctor at wine he happened casually to speak about his health. The physician advised him to pass the spring and summer in the country. Opportunely he received then a long letter from Tania Pesotski, inviting him to visit Borisovka. He decided that he really required a change.

It was April. He went to his family estate of Kovrinka for three weeks; then, the roads being clear, he started on wheels to see his former guardian and tutor, Pesotski, the great horticulturist. From Kovrinka to Borisovka, where the Pesotskis lived, it was only seventy versts,
¹
and it was a pleasure to take the drive.

Egor Semenych Pesotski's house was huge, with columns and lions, but the plaster was cracking. The old park, severe and gloomy, laid out in the English style, extended for nearly a verst from the house to the river, and finished in abruptly precipitous clayey banks, on which there grew old pines with bare roots that looked like shaggy paws; down below the water glittered unsociably, and snipe flitted along its surface with plaintive cries. When there you always had the feeling that you must sit down and write a ballad. However, near the house, in the courtyard and in the fruit orchard, which together with the nurseries covered about thirty acres, it was gay and cheerful even in bad weather. Such wonderful roses, lilies and camellias, such tulips of all imaginable hues, beginning with brilliant white and finishing with tints as black as soot, such a wealth of flowers as Pesotski possessed Kovrin had never seen in any other place. It was only the beginning of spring, and the real luxuriance of the flower-beds was still hidden in the hot-houses; but even those which blossomed in the borders along the walks and here and there on the flower-beds were sufficient to make you feel, when you passed through the garden, that you were in the kingdom of delicate tints, especially in the early morning, when a dewdrop glistened brightly on each petal.

The decorative part of the garden, which Pesotski called contemptuously a mere trifle, had greatly impressed Kovrin in his childhood. What wonderful whimsicalities were to be found there, what far-fetched monstrosities and mockeries of nature! There were espaliers of fruit trees, pear trees that had the form of pyramidal poplars, oaks and limes shaped like balls, an umbrella made of an apple tree, arches, monograms, candelabra and even 1862 formed by a plum tree; this date denoted the year when Pesotski first began to occupy himself with horticulture. There you also found pretty, graceful trees with straight strong stems like palms, and only when you examined them closely you saw that they were gooseberries and currants. But what chiefly made the garden pay and produced an animated appearance was the constant movement in it. From early morning till evening people with wheelbarrows, shovels and watering-pots swarmed like ants round the trees, bushes, avenues and flower-beds.

Kovrin arrived at the Pesotskis' in the evening, at past nine o'clock. He found Tania and her father in a very anxious mood. The clear starlit sky and the falling thermometer foretold a morning frost; the head gardener, Ivan Karlych, had gone to town, and there was nobody who could be relied on. During supper nothing but morning frost was talked of, and they settled that Tania was not to go to bed, but walk through the gardens and see if all was in order after midnight, and that her father would get up at three or probably earlier.

Kovrin sat up with Tania, and after midnight he went with her into the orchard. It was very cold. In the yard there was a strong smell of burning. In the large orchard, which was called the commercial orchard and brought Egor Semenych a clear yearly profit of several thousand roubles, a thick, black, biting smoke spread along the earth, and by enveloping the trees saved those thousands from the frost. The trees were planted here in regular rows like the squares of a chess-board, and they looked like ranks of soldiers. This strictly pedantical regularity together with the exact size and similarity of the stems and crowns of the trees made the picture monotonous and dull. Kovrin and Tania passed along the rows, where bonfires of manure, straw and all sorts of refuse were smouldering, and occasionally they met workmen, who were wandering about in the smoke like shadows. Only plums, cherries and some sorts of apple trees were in full blossom, but the whole orchard was smothered in smoke, and it was only when they reached the nurseries that Kovrin could draw a long breath.

“From my childhood the smoke here has made me sneeze,” he said, shrugging his shoulders; “but I still do not understand how this smoke can protect the trees from frost.”

“The smoke takes the place of clouds, when they are absent . . .” Tania answered.

“Why are clouds necessary?”

“In dull and cloudy weather there is never night frost.”

“Really?”

He laughed and took her hand. Her broad, serious, cold face, with its finely marked black eyebrows, the high turned-up collar of her coat, which prevented her from moving her head with ease, her whole thin,
svelte
figure, with skirts well tucked up to protect them from the dew, affected him.

“Good Lord, she's already grown up!” he said. “When I last drove away from here, five years ago, you were still quite a child. You were a thin, long-legged, bare-headed girl in short petticoats, and I teased you and called you the heron. . . . What time does!”

“Yes, five years!” Tania sighed. “Much water has flowed away since then. Tell me, Andryusha, quite candidly,” she said rapidly, looking into his face, “have we become strangers to you? But, why should I ask? You're a man, you are now living your own interesting life, you are great. . . . Estrangement is so natural! But, however it may be, Andryusha, I want you to consider us as your own people. We have that right.”

“Of course you have, Tania!”

“Honour bright?”

“Yes, honour bright.”

“You were surprised to-day to see we had so many of your portraits. You know my father adores you. Sometimes I think that he loves you more than he does me. He is proud of you. You are a scholar, an extraordinary man, you have made a brilliant career, and he is convinced that you have become all that because he brought you up. I do not prevent him from thinking this. Let him.”

The day began to break; this was chiefly to be noticed by the distinctness with which the clouds of smoke were perceptible in the air, and the bark of the trees became visible. Nightingales were singing and the cry of the quail was borne from the fields.

“It's time to go to bed now,” Tania said. “How cold it is!” She took his arm. “Thank you, Andryusha, for coming. We have but few acquaintances here, and they are not interesting. We have nothing but the garden, the garden, the garden—nothing but that. Standard, half-standard,” she laughed. “pippins, rennets, codlins, grafting, budding. . . . All, all our life has gone into the garden—I never dream of anything but apples and pears. Of course, all this is good and useful, but sometimes I wish for something else for variety. I remember when you used to come for the holidays or simply on a visit the house seemed to grow fresher and lighter; it was as if the covers had been taken off the lustres and the chairs. I was a child then, still I understood.”

She talked for a long time and with great feeling. Suddenly the idea entered his head that in the course of the summer he might become attached to this little, weak, loquacious creature, he might be carried away and fall in love—in their position it was so possible and so natural! This thought amused and moved him; he bent over her charming troubled face and began to sing in a low voice:

When they reached the house, Egor Semenych was already up. Kovrin did not want to sleep; he began to talk with the old man and he returned with him to the garden. Egor Semenych was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a large stomach; he suffered from breathlessness, but he always walked so fast that it was difficult to keep up with him. He always had an extremely worried look, and he was always hurrying somewhere, with an expression that seemed to say if he were too late by one minute even, all would be lost!

“Here's a strange thing, my dear fellow,” he said, stopping to take breath. “It's freezing on the ground, as you see, but if you raise the thermometer on a stick about fourteen feet above earth it's warm there. . . . Why is it?”

“I really don't know,” Kovrin said, laughing.

“Hm. . . . Of course, one can't know everything. . . . However vast a man's understanding may be it can't comprehend everything. You've chiefly gone in for philosophy?”

“Yes. I lecture on psychology, but I study philosophy in general.”

“And it does not bore you?”

“On the contrary, it's my very existence.”

“Well, may God prosper your work . . .” Egor Semenych exclaimed, and he stroked his grey whiskers reflectively. “God prosper you! . . . I'm very glad for you. . . . Very glad, indeed, my boy. . . .”

Suddenly he seemed to listen, an expression of anger passed over his face and he ran off to one side and was soon lost to sight among the trees in the clouds of smoke.

“Who has tethered a horse to an apple tree?” his despairing, heartrending cry could be heard. “What villain and scoundrel has dared to tie a horse to an apple-tree? Good God, good God! They have dirtied, spoilt, damaged, ruined it. The orchard is lost! The orchard is destroyed! My God!”

When he returned to Kovrin he looked worn out and insulted.

“What can you do with this accursed people?” he said in a plaintive voice, clasping his hands. “Stepka was carting manure during the night and has tied his horse to an apple tree! The villain tied the reins so tight round it that the bark has been rubbed in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him, and he only stood open-mouthed, blinking his eyes! He ought to be hanged.”

When he was somewhat calmer he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.

“Well, God help you. . . . God help you . . .” he mumbled. “I'm very glad you've come. Delighted beyond words. . . . Thank you.”

Then he went round the whole garden at the same rapid pace and with the same troubled expression, and showed his former ward all the hot-houses, conservatories and fruit-sheds, also his two apiaries, which he called the wonder of the century.

While they were walking round the sun rose and shed its brilliant rays over the garden. It became warm. Foreseeing a bright, joyous and long day, Kovrin remembered it was only the beginning of May, and that the whole summer lay before them, also bright, joyous and long, and suddenly a gladsome, youthful feeling was aroused in his breast, like he used to have when running about that garden in his childhood. He embraced the old man and kissed him tenderly. They were both much affected as they went into the house, where they drank tea with cream out of old china cups, and ate rich satisfying cracknels—these trifles again reminded Kovrin of his childhood and youth. The beautiful present and the memories that were aroused in him of the past were blended together; his soul was full and rejoiced.

He waited for Tania to get up and had coffee with her and then a walk, after which he went into his own room and sat down to work. He read with attention, made notes, only raising his eyes from time to time to look out of the open window, or at the fresh flowers, still wet with dew that were in a vase on his table, and then he again lowered his eyes to his book, and it appeared to him that every nerve in his system vibrated with satisfaction.