with irritation,
'while she, this woman [Aksinia] has turned her father-in-law out of his own house; the old man has neither food nor drink, where is he to go? He has not had a morsel these three days.'
' 'Three days!' said Crutch, amazed.
' 'Here he sits and does not say a word. He has grown feeble. And why be silent? He ought to prosecute her, they wouldn't praise her in court.'
' 'Who praised whom in court?' asked Crutch, who was hard of hearing.
' 'What?' from the watchman.
' 'The woman's all right,' said Crutch, 'she does her best. In their line of business they can't get on without that . . . without cheating, I mean. . . .'
' 'Kicked out of his own house!' Yakov went on with irritation. 'Save up and buy your own house, then turn people out of it!
She is a nice one, to be sure! A pla-ague!'
'Grigori listened and did not stir. . . .
' 'Whether it is your own house or others' it makes no difference so long as it is warm and the women don't scold . . .' said Crutch, and he laughed. 'When I was young I was very fond of my Nastasya. She was a quiet woman. And she used to be always at it: 'Buy a house, Makarych! Buy a house, Makarych! Buy a horse, Makarych!' She was dying and yet she kept on saying, 'Buy yourself a racing droshky, Makarych, so that you don't have to walk.' And all I did was to buy her gingerbread.'
''Her husband's deaf and stupid,' Yakov went on, not listening to Crutch; 'a regular fool, just like a goose. He can't understand anything. Hit a goose on the head with a stick and even then it does not understand.'
'Crutch got up to go home. Yakov also got up, and both of them went off together, still talking. When they had gone fifty paces old Grigori got up, too, and walked after them, stepping uncertainly as though on slippery ice.'
*
VN prefaces this section by the following remark to his class : 'There is again a time gap between chapters 8 and 9. You will observe the delightful Chekhovian detail when the Khrymins, one of whom, if not all, is or are on intimate terms with his wife have 'presented the deaf man with a gold watch, and he is constantly taking it out and putting it to his ear.' ' Ed.
173
In this last chapter the introduction of a new character in the toothless old watchman is another stroke of genius on the part of Chekhov, suggesting the continuity of existence, even though this is the conclusion of the story—but the story will go on with old and new characters, it will flow on as life flows on.
Note the synthesis at the end of this tale: 'The village was already sinking in the dusk of evening and the sun only gleamed on the upper part of the road which ran wriggling like a snake up the slope.' The brilliant, snakelike trail, an emblem of Aksinia, fades and vanishes in the serene bliss of the night. 'Old women were coming back from the woods and children with them; they were bringing baskets of mushrooms. Peasant women and girls came in a crowd from the station where they had been loading the cars with bricks, whose red dust had settled upon their skin under their eyes. They were singing.
Ahead of them was Lipa, with her eyes turned toward the sky, she was singing in a high voice, carolling away as though exulting in the fact that at last the day was over and one might rest. Among the crowd, holding by the knot something tied up in a kerchief, breathless as usual, walked Praskovya, her mother, who still went out to work by the day.
''Good evening, Makarych!' cried Lipa, seeing Crutch. 'Good evening, dear!'
''Good evening, Lipynka,' cried Crutch delighted. 'Girls,
women, love the rich carpenter! Ho-ho! My little children,
my little children. (Crutch gave a sob.) My dear little
hatchets!' ' Crutch is the not very efficient but on the
whole good spirit of the tale—in the dazed state he usually
lives in, he had spoken words of peace at the marriage, as if
trying, in vain, to avert the disaster.
Old Grigori dissolves in tears—a weak and silent King Lear.
'Crutch and Yakov passed and could still be heard talking
as they receded. Then old Grigori passed in their wake and
there was a sudden hush in the crowd. Lipa and Praskovya
dropped a little behind, and when the old man was abreast
of them Lipa bowed down low and said: 'Good evening,
Grigori Petrovich.' Her mother, too, bowed. The old man
stopped and, saying nothing, looked at the two; his lips
were quivering and his eyes full of tears. Lipa took out of
her mother's knotted bundle a piece of pie stuffed with
buckwheat and gave it to him. He took it and began eating.
'The sun had set by now: its glow died away on the upper
part of the road too. It was getting dark and cool. Lipa and
Praskovya walked on and for some time kept crossing
themselves.'
Lipa is her old self, she dissolves in song, happy in the tiny
enclosure of her limited world, united with her dead baby
The final page of 'In the Gully' in Nabokov's teaching copy.
in the coolness of nightfall—and innocently, unconsciously,
carrying to her God the pink dust of the bricks that are
making the fortune of Aksinia.
174
Notes on
In 1896
The first exposition—talk between two minor characters, the girl Masha and the village teacher Medvedenko—is thoroughly permeated by the manner and mood of the two. We learn about them and about the two major characters, the budding actress Nina Zarechny and the poet Treplev, who are arranging some amateur theatricals in the alley of the park:
'They are in love with each other and to-night their souls will unite in an effort to express one and the same artistic vision,'
says the teacher in the ornate style so typical of a Russian semi-intellectual. He has his reasons to allude to this, being in love too. Nevertheless, we must admit that this introduction is decidedly blunt. Chekhov, like Ibsen, was always eager to get done with the business of explaining as quickly as possible. Sorin, the flabby and good- natured landowner, drops by with Treplev, his nephew, who is nervous about the play he is staging. The workmen who have built the platform come and say, we are going for a dip. And meanwhile old Sorin has asked Masha to tell her father (who is his own employee on the estate) to have the dog kept quiet at night. Tell him yourself, she says, rebuffing him. The perfectly natural swing in the play, the association of odd little details which at the same time are perfectly true to life—this is where Chekhov's genius is disclosed.
In the second exposition Treplev talks to his uncle about his mother, the professional actress, who is jealous of the young lady who is going to act in his play. Nor can one even mention Duse in her presence. My goodness, just
