Selected early short stories 1886

refuse, and at the same time. . . .'

'Do, please,' I begged.

Nadyezhda Lvovna looked at me and laughed. I laughed too. She was probably amused by what Grontovsky had so enjoyed -- that is, the right of giving or withholding permission; my visit suddenly struck me as queer and strange.

'I don't like to break the long-established rules,' said Madame Kandurin. 'Shooting has been forbidden on our estate for the last six years. No!' she shook her head resolutely. 'Excuse me, I must refuse you. If I allow you I must allow others. I don't like unfairness. Either let all or no one.'

'I am sorry!' I sighed. 'It's all the sadder because we have come more than ten miles. I am not alone,' I added, 'Prince Sergey Ivanitch is with me.'

I uttered the prince's name with no arriere pensee, not prompted by any special motive or aim; I simply blurted it out without thinking, in the simplicity of my heart. Hearing the familiar name Madame Kandurin started, and bent a prolonged gaze upon me. I noticed her nose turn pale.

'That makes no difference . . .' she said, dropping her eyes.

As I talked to her I stood at the window that looked out on the shrubbery. I could see the whole shrubbery with the avenues and the ponds and the road by which I had come. At the end of the road, beyond the gates, the back of our chaise made a dark patch. Near the gate, with his back to the house, the prince was standing with his legs apart, talking to the lanky Grontovsky.

Madame Kandurin had been standing all the time at the other window. She looked from time to time towards the shrubbery, and from the moment I mentioned the prince's name she did not turn away from the window.

'Excuse me,' she said, screwing up her eyes as she looked towards the road and the gate, 'but it would be unfair to allow you only to shoot. . . . And, besides, what pleasure is there in shooting birds? What's it for? Are they in your way?'

A solitary life, immured within four walls, with its indoor twilight and heavy smell of decaying furniture, disposes people to sentimentality. Madame Kandurin's idea did her credit, but I could not resist saying:

'If one takes that line one ought to go barefoot. Boots are made out of the leather of slaughtered animals.'

'One must distinguish between a necessity and a caprice,' Madame Kandurin answered in a toneless voice.

She had by now recognized the prince, and did not take her eyes off his figure. It is hard to describe the delight and the suffering with which her ugly face was radiant! Her eyes were smiling and shining, her lips were quivering and laughing, while her face craned closer to the panes. Keeping hold of a flower-pot with both hands, with bated breath and with one foot slightly lifted, she reminded me of a dog pointing and waiting with passionate impatience for 'Fetch it!'

I looked at her and at the prince who could not tell a lie once in his life, and I felt angry and bitter against truth and falsehood, which play such an elemental part in the personal happiness of men.

The prince started suddenly, took aim and fired. A hawk, flying over him, fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow far away.

'He aimed too high!' I said. 'And so, Nadyezhda Lvovna,' I sighed, moving away from the window, 'you will not permit . . .' -- Madame Kandurin was silent.

'I have the honour to take my leave,' I said, 'and I beg you to forgive my disturbing you. . .'

Madame Kandurin would have turned facing me, and had already moved through a quarter of the angle, when she suddenly hid her face behind the hangings, as though she felt tears in her eyes that she wanted to conceal.

'Good-bye. . . . Forgive me . . .' she said softly.

I bowed to her back, and strode away across the bright yellow floors, no longer keeping to the carpet. I was glad to get away from this little domain of gilded boredom and sadness, and I hastened as though anxious to shake off a heavy, fantastic dream with its twilight, its enchanted princess, its lustres. . . .

At the front door a maidservant overtook me and thrust a note into my hand: 'Shooting is permitted on showing this. N. K.,' I read.

NOTES

comme il faut: proper

ylang-ylang: an exotic perfume with a heavy, sweat scent

fly agaric: a mushroom

Zemstvo: a district council with locally elected members

arriere pensee: afterthought

A TRIPPING TONGUE

by Anton Chekhov

NATALYA MIHALOVNA, a young married lady who had arrived in the morning from Yalta, was having her dinner, and in a never-ceasing flow of babble was telling her husband of all the charms of the Crimea. Her husband, delighted, gazed tenderly at her enthusiastic face, listened, and from time to time put in a question.

'But they say living is dreadfully expensive there?' he asked, among other things.

'Well, what shall I say? To my thinking this talk of its being so expensive is exaggerated, hubby. The devil is not as black as he is painted. Yulia Petrovna and I, for instance, had very decent and comfortable rooms for twenty roubles a day. Everything depends on knowing how to do things, my dear. Of course if you want to go up into the mountains . . . to Aie-Petri for instance . . . if you take a horse, a guide, then of course it does come to something. It's awful what it comes to! But, Vassitchka, the mountains there! Imagine high, high mountains, a thousand times higher than the church. . . . At the top -- mist, mist, mist. . . . At the bottom -- enormous stones, stones, stones. . . . And pines. . . . Ah, I can't bear to think of it!'

'By the way, I read about those Tatar guides there, in some magazine while you were away . . . . such abominable stories! Tell me is there really anything out of the way about them?'

Natalya Mihalovna made a little disdainful grimace and shook her head.

'Just ordinary Tatars, nothing special . . .' she said, 'though indeed I only had a glimpse of them in the distance. They were pointed out to me, but I did not take much notice of them. You know, hubby, I always had a prejudice against all such Circassians, Greeks . . . Moors!'

'They are said to be terrible Don Juans.'

'Perhaps! There are shameless creatures who . . . .'

Natalya Mihalovna suddenly jumped up from her chair, as though she had thought of something dreadful; for half a minute she looked with frightened eyes at her husband and said, accentuating each word:

'Vassitchka, I say, the im-mo-ral women there are in the world! Ah, how immoral! And it's not as though they were working-class or middle-class people, but aristocratic ladies, priding themselves on their bon- ton! It was simply awful, I could not believe my own eyes! I shall remember it as long as I live! To think that people can forget themselves to such a point as . . . ach, Vassitchka, I don't like to speak of it! Take my companion, Yulia Petrovna, for example. . . . Such a good husband, two children . . . she moves in a decent circle, always poses as a saint -- and all at once, would you believe it. . . . Only, hubby, of course this is entre nous. . . . Give me your word of honour you won't tell a soul?'

'What next! Of course I won't tell.'

'Honour bright? Mind now! I trust you. . . .'

The little lady put down her fork, assumed a mysterious air, and whispered:

'Imagine a thing like this. . . . That Yulia Petrovna rode up into the mountains . . . . It was glorious weather! She rode on ahead with her guide, I was a little behind. We had ridden two or three miles, all at once, only fancy, Vassitchka, Yulia cried out and clutched at her bosom. Her Tatar put his arm round her waist or she would have fallen off the saddle. . . . I rode up to her with my guide. . . . 'What is it? What is the matter?' 'Oh,' she cried, 'I am