'May it do you good. . . . But my son is dead, mate. . . . Do you hear? This week in the hospital. . . . It's a queer business. . . .'
Iona looks to see the effect produced by his words, but he sees nothing. The young man has covered his head over and is already asleep. The old man sighs and scratches himself. . . . Just as the young man had been thirsty for water, he thirsts for speech. His son will soon have been dead a week, and he has not really talked to anybody yet . . . . He wants to talk of it properly, with deliberation. . . . He wants to tell how his son was taken ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. . . . He wants to describe the funeral, and how he went to the hospital to get his son's clothes. He still has his daughter Anisya in the country. . . . And he wants to talk about her too. . . . Yes, he has plenty to talk about now. His listener ought to sigh and exclaim and lament. . . . It would be even better to talk to women. Though they are silly creatures, they blubber at the first word.
'Let's go out and have a look at the mare,' Iona thinks. 'There is always time for sleep. . . . You'll have sleep enough, no fear. . . .'
He puts on his coat and goes into the stables where his mare is standing. He thinks about oats, about hay, about the weather. . . . He cannot think about his son when he is alone. . . . To talk about him with someone is possible, but to think of him and picture him is insufferable anguish. . . .
'Are you munching?' Iona asks his mare, seeing her shining eyes. 'There, munch away, munch away. . . . Since we have not earned enough for oats, we will eat hay. . . . Yes, . . . I have grown too old to drive. . . . My son ought to be driving, not I. . . . He was a real cabman. . . . He ought to have lived. . . .'
Iona is silent for a while, and then he goes on:
'That's how it is, old girl. . . . Kuzma Ionitch is gone. . . . He said good-by to me. . . . He went and died for no reason. . . . Now, suppose you had a little colt, and you were own mother to that little colt. . . . And all at once that same little colt went and died. . . . You'd be sorry, wouldn't you? . . .'
The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master's hands. Iona is carried away and tells her all about it.
NOTES
To whom shall I tell my grief?: Beginning line from an anonymous 15th or 16th century religious poem
yard: where the horse, cabby , and cab are all based
dinnertime: Russian usually eat this meal anywhere from 12 to 3 p. m.
Vyborgskaya: section of Petersburg north of the Neva river
Police Bridge: bridge in downtown Petusky
stand: the coachman sat on the front box, two passengers sat behind the coachman; a third passenger had to stand between the driver and the seated passengers
you old dragon: lit., Serpent, Son of Woe; a winged monster in Russian folklore
benches: being peasants from the country-side, cab-drivers lived in bachelor barracks provided by the cab company
Easter Eve
by Anton Chekhov
I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out before me. The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary crags.
The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see the trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don't remember ever seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have put a finger in between them. There were some as big as a goose's egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. The air was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were gleaming. . . .
A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
'How long the ferry-boat is in coming!' I said.
'It is time it was here,' the silhouette answered.
'You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?'
'No I am not,' yawned the peasant-- 'I am waiting for the illumination. I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven't the five kopecks for the ferry.'
'I'll give you the five kopecks.'
'No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in the water!'
The peasant went up to the water's edge, took the rope in his hands, and shouted; 'Ieronim! Ieron--im!'
As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell floated across from the further bank. The note was deep and low, as from the thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though the darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the sound of a cannon shot. It rolled away in the darkness and ended somewhere in the far distance behind me. The peasant took off his hat and crossed himself.
''Christ is risen,' he said.
Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die away in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the darkness was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the red lights fresh lights
