Tales of Chekhov 11- The Schoolmaster and other stories

Gagin felt for the dressing-gown by the stove, put it on, and went quietly back to his room.

When her husband went out Marya Mihalovna got into bed and waited. For the first three minutes her mind was at rest, but after that she began to feel uneasy.

'What a long time he's gone,' she thought. 'It's all right if he is there . . . that immoral man . . . but if it's a burglar?'

And again her imagination drew a picture of her husband going into the dark kitchen . . . a blow with an axe . . . dying without uttering a single sound . . . a pool of blood! . . .

Five minutes passed . . . five and a half . . . at last six. . . .

A cold sweat came out on her forehead.

'Basile!' she shrieked, 'Basile!'

'What are you shouting for? I am here.' She heard her husband's voice and steps. 'Are you being murdered?'

The assistant procurator went up to the bedstead and sat down on the edge of it.

'There's nobody there at all,' he said. 'It was your fancy, you queer creature. . . . You can sleep easy, your fool of a Pelagea is as virtuous as her mistress. What a coward you are! What a . . . .'

And the deputy procurator began teasing his wife. He was wide awake now and did not want to go to sleep again.

'You are a coward!' he laughed. 'You'd better go to the doctor to-morrow and tell him about your hallucinations. You are a neurotic!'

'What a smell of tar,' said his wife—'tar or something . . . onion . . . cabbage soup!'

'Y-yes! There is a smell . . . I am not sleepy. I say, I'll light the candle. . . . Where are the matches? And, by the way, I'll show you the photograph of the procurator of the Palace of Justice. He gave us all a photograph when he said good-bye to us yesterday, with his autograph.'

Gagin struck a match against the wall and lighted a candle. But before he had moved a step from the bed to fetch the photographs he heard behind him a piercing, heartrending shriek. Looking round, he saw his wife's large eyes fastened upon him, full of amazement, horror, and wrath. . . .

'You took your dressing-gown off in the kitchen?' she said, turning pale.

'Why?'

'Look at yourself!'

The deputy procurator looked down at himself, and gasped.

Flung over his shoulders was not his dressing-gown, but the fireman's overcoat. How had it come on his shoulders? While he was settling that question, his wife's imagination was drawing another picture, awful and impossible: darkness, stillness, whispering, and so on, and so on.

A PLAY

'PAVEL VASSILYEVITCH, there's a lady here, asking for you,' Luka announced. 'She's been waiting a good hour. . . .'

Pavel Vassilyevitch had only just finished lunch. Hearing of the lady, he frowned and said:

'Oh, damn her! Tell her I'm busy.'

'She has been here five times already, Pavel Vassilyevitch. She says she really must see you. . . . She's almost crying.'

'H'm . . . very well, then, ask her into the study.'

Without haste Pavel Vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen in one hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though he were very busy he went into the study. There the visitor was awaiting him—a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles. She looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable (she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with a reddish bird in it). On seeing him she turned up her eyes and folded her hands in supplication.

'You don't remember me, of course,' she began in a high masculine tenor, visibly agitated. 'I . . . I have had the pleasure of meeting you at the Hrutskys. . . . I am Mme. Murashkin. . . .'

'A. . . a . . . a . . . h'm . . . Sit down! What can I do for you?'

'You . . . you see . . . I . . . I . . .' the lady went on, sitting down and becoming still more agitated. 'You don't remember me. . . . I'm Mme. Murashkin. . . . You see I'm a great admirer of your talent and always read your articles with great enjoyment. . . . Don't imagine I'm flattering you—God forbid!—I'm only giving honour where honour is due. . . . I am always reading you . . . always! To some extent I am myself not a stranger to literature— that is, of course . . . I will not venture to call myself an authoress, but . . . still I have added my little quota . . . I have published at different times three stories for children. . . . You have not read them, of course. . . . I have translated a good deal and . . . and my late brother used to write for The Cause.'

'To be sure . . . er—er—er——What can I do for you?'

'You see . . . (the lady cast down her eyes and turned redder) I know your talents . . . your views, Pavel Vassilyevitch, and I have been longing to learn your opinion, or more exactly . . . to ask your advice. I must tell you I have perpetrated a play, my first-born —pardon pour l'expression!—and before sending it to the Censor I should like above all things to have your opinion on it.'

Nervously, with the flutter of a captured bird, the lady fumbled in her skirt and drew out a fat manuscript.

Pavel Vassilyevitch liked no articles but his own. When threatened with the necessity of reading other people's, or listening to them, he felt as though he were facing the cannon's mouth. Seeing the manuscript he took fright and hastened to say:

'Very good, . . . leave it, . . . I'll read it.'

'Pavel Vassilyevitch,' the lady said languishingly, clasping her hands and raising them in supplication, 'I know you're busy. . . . Your every minute is precious, and I know you're inwardly cursing me at this moment, but . . . Be kind, allow me to read you my play . . . . Do be so very sweet!'

'I should be delighted . . .' faltered Pavel Vassilyevitch; 'but, Madam, I'm . . . I'm very busy . . . . I'm . . . I'm obliged to set off this minute.'

'Pavel Vassilyevitch,' moaned the lady and her eyes filled with tears, 'I'm asking a sacrifice! I am insolent, I am intrusive, but be magnanimous. To-morrow I'm leaving for Kazan and I should like to know your opinion to-day. Grant me half an hour of your attention . . . only one half-hour . . . I implore you!'

Pavel Vassilyevitch was cotton-wool at core, and could not refuse. When it seemed to him that the lady was about to burst into sobs and fall on her knees, he was overcome with confusion and muttered helplessly.

'Very well; certainly . . . I will listen . . . I will give you half an hour.'

The lady uttered a shriek of joy, took off her hat and settling herself, began to read. At first she read a scene in which a footman and a house maid, tidying up a sumptuous drawing-room, talked at length about their young lady, Anna Sergyevna, who was building a school and a hospital in the village. When the footman had left the room, the maidservant pronounced a monologue to the effect that education is light and ignorance is darkness; then Mme. Murashkin brought the footman back into the drawing-room and set him uttering a long monologue concerning his master, the General, who disliked his daughter's views, intended to marry her to a rich kammer junker, and held that the salvation of the people lay in unadulterated ignorance. Then, when the servants had left the stage, the young lady herself appeared and informed the audience that she had not slept all night, but had been thinking of Valentin Ivanovitch, who was the son of a poor teacher and assisted his sick father gratuitously. Valentin had studied all the sciences, but had no faith in friendship nor in love; he had no object in life and longed for death, and therefore she, the young lady, must save him.

Pavel Vassilyevitch listened, and thought with yearning anguish of his sofa. He scanned the lady viciously, felt her masculine tenor thumping on his eardrums, understood nothing, and thought:

'The devil sent you . . . as though I wanted to listen to your tosh! It's not my fault you've written a play, is it? My God! what a thick manuscript! What an infliction!'

Pavel Vassilyevitch glanced at the wall where the portrait of his wife was hanging and remembered that his wife had asked him to buy and bring to their summer cottage five yards of tape, a pound of cheese, and some tooth-powder.