 CHAPTER XII OF BEST RUSSIAN SHORT STORIES AND COMPILLED BY TOMAS SELTZER THE DARLING BY ANTON P. CHECOV Olenka, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plebnyanikov, was sitting on the backdoor steps of her house, doing nothing. It was hot, the flies were nagging and teasing, and it was pleasant to think that it would soon be evening. Dark rain clouds were gathering from the east, wafting a breath of moisture every now and then. Kukin, who roamed in the wing of the same house, was standing in the yard looking up at the sky. He was the manager of the Tivoli, an open-air theatre. Again, he said, despairingly, rain again, rain, rain, rain, every day rain. As though to spite me, I might as well stick my head into a noose and be done with it. It's ruining me. Heavy losses every day. He wrung his hands and continued, addressing Olenka. What a life, Olga Semyonova! It's enough to make a man weep. He works. He does his best, his very best. He tortures himself. He passes sleepless nights. He thinks and thinks how to do everything just right. And what is the result? He gives the public the best operetta, the very best pantomime, excellent artists. But do they want it? Have they the least appreciation of it? The public is rude. The public is a great bore. The public wants a circus, a lot of nonsense, a lot of stuff. And there's the weather. Look, rain almost every evening. It began to rain on the 10th of May, and it's kept it up through the whole of June. It's simply awful. I can't get any audiences. And don't I have to pay rent? Don't I have to pay the actors? The next day towards evening, the clouds gathered again, and Kuken said, with an hysterical laugh, I don't care. Let it do its worst. Let it drown the whole theater, and me too. All right. No luck for me in this world or the next. Let the actors bring suit against me and drag me to court. What's the court? Why not Siberia at hard labor or even the scaffold? It was the same on the third day. Olenka listened to Kuken seriously in silence. Sometimes tears would rise to her eyes. At last Kuken's misfortune touched her. She fell in love with him. He was short, gaunt, with a yellow face, and curly hair combed back from his forehead, and a thin tenor voice. His features puckered all up when he spoke. Despair was ever inscribed on his face, and yet he awakened in Olenka a sincere, deep feeling. She was always loving somebody. She couldn't get on without loving somebody. She had loved her sick father, who sat the whole time in his armchair in a darkened room, breathing heavily. She had loved her aunt, who came from Pryanska once or twice a year to visit them. And before that, when a pupil at the pro-gymnasium, she had loved her French teacher. She was a quiet, kind-hearted, compassionate girl with a soft, gentle way about her, and she made a very healthy, wholesome impression. Looking at her full rosy cheeks, at her soft white neck with the black mole, and at the good, naive smile that always played on her face when something pleasant was said, the men would think, not so bad, and would smile, too. And the lady visitors in the middle of the conversation would suddenly grasp her hand and exclaim, You darling, in a burst of delight. The house, hers by inheritance, in which she had lived from birth, was located at the outskirts of the city on the Gypsy Road, not far from the Tivoli. From early evening till late at night she could hear the music in the theater and the bursting of the rockets, and it seemed to her that Kuken was roaring and battling with his fate, and taking his chief enemy, the indifferent public, by assault. Her heart melted softly. She felt no desire to sleep, and when Kuken returned home towards morning, she tapped on her window-pane, and through the curtains he saw her face and one shoulder, and the kind smile she gave him. He proposed to her, and they were married, and when he had a good look of her neck and her full, vigorous shoulders, he clapped his hands and said, You darling. He was happy, but it rained on their wedding day, and the expression of despair never left his face. They got along well together. She sat in the cashiers box, kept the theater in order, wrote down the expenses, and paid out the salaries. Her rosy cheeks, her kind, naive smile, like a halo around her face, could be seen at the cashiers window behind the scenes and in the cafe. She began to tell her friends that the theater was the greatest, the most important, the most essential thing in the world, that it was the only place to obtain true enjoyment in and become humanized and educated. But do you suppose the public appreciates it? She asked. What the public wants is the circus. Yesterday Vanitschka and I gave Faust burlesque, and almost all the boxes were empty. If we had given some silly nonsense, I assure you the theater would have been overcrowded. Tomorrow we'll put Orpheus in Hades on. Do come. Whatever Kukin said about the theater and the actors, she repeated. She spoke, as he did, with contempt of the public, of its indifference to art, of its boorishness. She meddled in the rehearsals, corrected the actors, watched the conduct of the musicians, and, when an unfavorable criticism appeared in the local paper, she wept and went to the editor to argue with him. The actors were fond of her, and called her Vanitschka and I, and the darling. She was sorry for them, and lent them small sums. When they built her, she never complained to her husband. At the utmost, she shed a few tears. In winter, too, they got along nicely together. They leased a theater in the town for the whole winter, and subled it, for short periods, to a little Russian theatrical company, to a conjurer, and to the local amateur players. Olenka grew fuller and was always beaming with contentment. While Kukin grew thinner and yellower and complained of his terrible losses, though he did fairly well the whole winter. At night, he coughed, and she gave him raspberry syrup and lime water, rubbed him with odour cologne, and wrapped him up with soft coverings. You are my precious sweet, she said with perfect sincerity, stroking his hair. You are such a dear. At Lent, he went to Moscow to get his company together, and, while without him, Olenka was unable to sleep. She sat at the window the whole time, gazing at the stars. She likened herself to the hens that are also uneasy and unable to sleep when their rooster is out of the coop. Kukin was detained in Moscow. He wrote he would be back during Easter week, and in his letters discussed arrangements already for the Tivoli. But late one night, before Easter Monday, there was an ill-oamened knocking at the wicket gate. It was like a knocking on a barrel. The sleepy Kuk ran barefooted, plashing through the puddles to open the gate. Open the gate, please, said someone in a hollow bass voice. I have a telegram for you. Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this time somehow she was numbed with terror. She opened the telegram with trembling hands, and read, Ivan Petrovich died suddenly today, awaiting propped orders for the Wuneral Tuesday. That was the way the telegram was written. Wuneral, and another unintelligible word, propped. The telegram was signed by the manager of the opera company. My dearest! Olenka burst out sobbing. Vanichka, my dearest! My sweet heart! Why did I ever meet you? Why did I ever get to know you and love you? To whom have you abandoned your poor Olenka, your poor unhappy Olenka? Kuken was buried on Tuesday in the Vaganoff Cemetery in Moscow. Olenka returned home on Wednesday, and as soon as she entered her house, she threw herself on her bed, and broke into such loud sobbing that she could be heard in the street, and in the neighboring yards. The darling said the neighbors crossing themselves. How Olga Semyonova, the poor darling, is grieving. Three months afterwards, Olenka was returning home from Mass, downhearted, and in deep mourning, beside her walked a man also returning from church, Vasily Pustavalov, the manager of the merchant Babakayev's lumberyard. He was wearing a straw hat, a white vest with a gold chain, and looked more like a landowner than a businessman. Everything has its ordained course, Olga Semyonova, he said sedately, with sympathy in his voice. And if anyone near and dear to us dies, then it means it was God's will, and we should remember that, and bear it with submission. He took her to the wicked gate, said goodbye, and went away. After that she heard his sedate voice the whole day, and on closing her eyes, she instantly had a vision of his dark beard. She took a great liking to him, and evidently he had been impressed by her too, for not long after, an elderly woman, a distant acquaintance, came in to have a cup of coffee with her, and as soon as the woman was seated at table, she began to speak about Pustavalov, how good he was, what a steady man, and any woman could be glad to get him as a husband. Three days later Pustavalov himself paid Olenka a visit. He stayed only about ten minutes, and spoke little, but Olenka fell in love with him, fell in love so desperately that she did not sleep the whole night, and burned as with fever. In the morning she sent for the elderly woman. Soon after Olenka and Pustavalov were engaged, and the wedding followed. Pustavalov and Olenka lived happily together. He usually stayed in the lumberyard until dinner, then went out on business. In his absence Olenka took his place in the office, until evening, attending to the bookkeeping, and dispatching the orders. Lumber rises twenty percent every year nowadays, she told her customers and acquaintances. Imagine, we used to buy wood from our forests here. Now Vasichka has to go every year to the government of Mokolev to get wood. And what a tax! she exclaimed, covering her cheeks with her hands in terror. What a tax! she felt, as if she had been dealing in lumber for ever so long. That the most important and essential thing in life was lumber. There was something touching and endearing in the way she pronounced the words beam, joist, plank, stave, laugh, gun carriage, clamp. At night she dreamed of whole mountains of boards and planks, long endless rows of wagons, conveying the wood somewhere, far, far from the city. She dreamed that a whole regiment of beams, thirty-six feet by five inches, were advancing in an upright position to do battle against the lumber yard, that the beams and joists and clamps were knocking against each other, emitting the sharp crackling reports of dry wood, that they were all falling, and then rising again, piling on top of each other. Olinka cried out in her sleep, and Pustavalov said to her gently, Olinka, my dear, what is the matter? Cross yourself. Her husband's opinions were all hers. If he thought the room was too hot, she thought so too. If he thought business was dull, she thought business was dull. Pustavalov was not fond of amusements and stayed home on holidays. She did the same. You are always either at home or in the office, said her friends. Why don't you go to the theatre or to the circus, darling? Vesitka and I never go to the theatre. She answered sedately. We have work to do. We have no time for nonsense. What does one get out of going to the theatre? On Saturdays, Xi and Pustavalov went to Vespers, and on holidays to early mass. On returning home, they walked side by side, with wrapped faces and agreeable smell emanating from both of them, and her silk dress rustling pleasantly. At home they drank tea with milk bread and various jams, and then ate pie. Every day at noontime there was an appetizing odor in the yard and outside the gate of cabbage soup, roast mutton or duck, and on fast days of fish. You couldn't pass the gate without being seized by an acute desire to eat. The samovar was always boiling on the office table, and customers were treated to tea and biscuits. Once a week the married couple went to the baths, and returned with red faces, walking side by side. We are getting along very well, thank God, said Olenka to her friends. God grant that all should live as well as Vesitka and I. When Pustavalov went to the government of Mogilev to buy wood, she was dreadfully homesick for him, did not sleep nights, and cried. Sometimes the veterinary surgeon of the regiment, Smyrnoff, a young man who lodged in the wing of her house, came to see her evenings. He related incidents, or they played cards together. This distracted her. The most interesting of his stories were those of his own life. He was married and had a son, but he had separated from his wife because she had deceived him, and now he hated her and sent her forty rubles a month for his son's support. Olenka sighed, shook her head, and was sorry for him. Well, the Lord keep you. She said as she saw him off to the door by candlelight. Thank you for coming to kill time with me. May God give you health, mother in heaven. She spoke very sedately, very judiciously, imitating her husband. The veterinary surgeon had disappeared behind the door when she called out after him. Do you know, Vladimir Blatonic, you ought to make up with your wife. Forgive her, if only for the sake of your son. The child understands everything. You may be sure. When Pustvalov returned, she told him in a low voice about the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy family life. They sighed and shook their heads, and talked about the boy who must be homesick for his father. Then, by a strange association of ideas, they both stopped before the sacred images made genuflections and prayed to God to send them children. And so the Pustvalovs lived for full six years, quietly and peaceably, in perfect love and harmony. But once in the winter, Vasily Andreevich, after drinking some hot tea, went out into the lumberyard, without a hat on his head, and caught a cold, and took sick. He was treated by the best physicians, but the malady progressed, and he died after an illness of four months. Holinka was again left a widow. To whom have you left me, my darling? She wailed after the funeral. How shall I live now without you, wretched creature that I am? Pity me, good people, pity me, fatherless and motherless, all alone in the world. She went about dressed in black and weepers, and she gave up wearing hats and gloves for good. She hardly left the house except to go to church, and to visit her husband's grave. She almost led the life of a nun. It was not until six months had passed that she took off the weepers and opened her shutters. She began to go out occasionally in the morning to market with her cook. But how she lived at home, and what went on there, could only be surmised. It could be surmised from the fact that she was seen in her little garden drinking tea, with the veterinarian while he read the paper out loud to her, and also from the fact that once, on meeting an acquaintance at the post office, she said to her, there is no proper veterinary inspection in our town. That is why there is so much disease. You constantly hear of people getting sick from the milk, and becoming infected by the horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought really to be looked after as much as that of human beings. She repeated the veterinarian's words and held the same opinions as he about everything. It was plain that she could not exist a single year without an attachment, and she found her new happiness in the wing of her house. In any one else, this would have been condemned, but no one could thank ill of Olenka. Everything in her life was so transparent. She and the veterinary surgeon never spoke about the change in their relations. They tried, in fact, to conceal it, but unsuccessfully, for Olenka could have no secrets. When the surgeon's colleagues from the regiment came to see him, she poured tea and served the supper, and talked to them about the cattle plague, the foot and mouth disease, and the municipal slaughterhouses. The surgeon was dreadfully embarrassed, and after the visitors had left, he caught her hand and hissed angrily. Didn't I ask you not to talk about what you don't understand? When we doctors discuss things, please don't mix in. It's getting to be a nuisance. She looked at him in astonishment and alarm, and asked, but Volodychka, what am I to talk about? And she threw her arms round his neck with tears in her eyes, and begged him not to be angry. And they were both happy. But their happiness was of short duration. The veterinary surgeon went away with his regiment to be gone for good when it was transferred to some disted place, almost as far as Siberia, and Olenka was left alone. Now she was completely alone. Her father had long been dead, and his armchair lay in the attic covered with dust and minus one leg. She got thin and homely, and the people who met her on the street no longer looked at her as they had used to, nor smiled at her. Evidently her best years were over, past and gone, and a new dubious life was to begin, which it were better not to think about. In the evening Olenka sat on the steps and heard the music playing, and the rockets bursting in the tibaly, but it no longer aroused any response in her. She looked listlessly into the yard, thought of nothing, wanted nothing, and when night came on, she went to bed and dreamed of nothing but the empty yard. She ate and drank as though by compulsion, and what was worst of all, she no longer held any opinions. She saw and understood everything that went on around her, but she could not form an opinion about it. She knew of nothing to talk about, and how dreadful not to have opinions. For instance, you see a bottle, or you see that it is raining, or you see a mucic riding by in a wagon. But what the bottle or the rain, or the mucic are for, or what the sense of them all is, you cannot tell. You cannot tell, not for a thousand rubles. In the days of Kuken and Pustabalov, and then of the veterinary surgeon, Olenka had had an explanation for everything, and would have given her opinion freely, no matter about what. But now there was the same emptiness in her heart and brain as in her yard. It was as galling and bitter as a taste of wormwood. Gradually the town grew up all around. The gypsy road had become a street, and where the Tivoli and the lumberyard had been, there were now houses and a row of side streets. How quickly time flies, Olenka's house turned gloomy, the roof rusty, the shed slanting. Dock and thistles overgrew the yard Olenka herself had aged and grown homely. In the summer she sat on the steps, and her soul was empty and dreary and bitter. When she caught the breath of spring, or when the wind wafted the chime of the cathedral bells, a sudden flood of memories would pour over her. Her heart would expand with a tender warmth, and the tears would stream down her cheeks. But that lasted only a moment. Then would come emptiness again, and the feeling, what is the use of living? The black kitten, Brishka, rubbed up against her and purred softly. But the little creature's caresses left Olenka untouched. That was not what she needed. What she needed was a love that would absorb her whole being, her reason, her whole soul, that would give her ideas, an object in life that would warm her, aging blood. And she shook the black kitten off her skirt angrily, saying, go away, what are you doing here? And so day after day, year after year, not a single joy, not a single opinion. Whatever Marva the cook said was all right. One hot day in July towards evening, as the town cattle were being driven by, and the whole yard was filled with clouds of dust, there was suddenly a knocking at the gate. Olenka herself went to open it, and was dumbfounded to behold the veterinarian Smirnoff. He had turned gray, and was dressed as a civilian. All the old memories flooded into her soul. She could not restrain herself. She burst out crying, and laid her head on Smirnoff's breast, without saying a word. So overcome was she that she was totally unconscious of how they walked into the house, and seated themselves to drink tea. My darling, she murmured, trembling with joy. Vladimir Platonich, from where has God sent you? I want to settle here for good, he told her. I have resigned my position, and have come here to try my fortune as a free man, and lead a settled life. Besides, it's time to send my boy to the gymnasium. He has grown up now. You know, my wife and I have become reconciled. Where is she? asked Olenka. At the hotel with the boy, I am looking for lodgings. Good gracious, bless you, take my house. Why won't my house do? Oh, dear, why, I won't ask any rent of you. Olenka burst out in the greatest excitement, and began to cry again. You live here, and the wing will be enough for me. Oh, heavens, what a joy! The very next day, the roof was being painted, and the walls whitewashed, and Olenka arms a Kimbo, was going about the yard, super intending. Her face brightened with her old smile. Her whole being revived, and freshened, as though she had awakened from a long sleep. The veterinarian's wife and child arrived. She was a thin, plain woman, with a crabbed expression. The boy, Sasha, small for his ten years of age, was a chubby child, with clear blue eyes, and dimples in his cheeks. He made for the kitten the instant he entered the yard, and the place rang with his happy laughter. Is that your cat, Auntie? he asked Olenka. When she has little kitties, please give me one. Mama is awfully afraid of mice. Olenka chatted with him, gave him tea, and there was a sudden warmth in her bosom, and a soft gripping at her heart, as though the boy were her own son. In the evening, when he sat in the dining room studying his lessons, she looked at him tenderly, and whispered to herself, my pretty, you are such a clever child, so good to look at. An island is a tract of land, entirely surrounded by water, he recited. An island is a tract of land, she repeated. The first idea a-severated with conviction after so many years of silence and mental emptiness. She now had her opinions, and at supper, discussed with Sasha's parents how difficult the studies had become for the children at the gymnasium, but how, after all, a classical education was better than a commercial course, because when you graduated from the gymnasium, then the road was open to you for any career at all. If you chose to, you could become a doctor, or if you wanted to, you could become an engineer. Sasha began to go to the gymnasium. His mother left on a visit to her sister in Karkov, and never came back. The father was away every day, inspecting cattle, and sometimes was gone three whole days at a time, so that Sasha, it seemed to Alenka, was utterly abandoned, was treated as if he were quite superfluous, and must be dying of hunger. So she transferred him into the wing, along with herself, and fixed up a little room for him there. Every morning, Alenka would come into his room and find him sound asleep, with his hand tucked under his cheek, so quiet that he seemed not to be breathing. What a shame to have to wake him, she thought. Sashenka, she said saroinly, get up, darling, it's time to go to the gymnasium. He got up, dressed, said his prayers, then sat down to drink tea. He drank three glasses of tea, ate two large cracknoles, and half a buttered roll. The sleep was not yet out of him, so he was a little cross. You don't know your fable as you should, Sashenka, said Alenka, looking at him as though he were departing on a long journey. What a lot of trouble you are. You must try hard, and learn, dear, and mind your teachers. Oh, let me alone please, said Sasha. Then he went down the street to the gymnasium, a little fellow wearing a large cap, and carrying a satchel on his back. Alenka followed him noiselessly. Sashenka, she called. He looked round, and she shoved a date or a caramel into his hand. When he reached the street of the gymnasium, he turned around and said, a shame of being followed by a tall, stout woman. You had better go home, aunt. I can go the rest of the way myself. She stopped and stared after him until he had disappeared into the school entrance. Oh, how she loved him. Not one of her other ties had been so deep. Never before had she given herself so completely, so disinterestedly, so cheerfully, as now that her maternal instincts were all aroused. For this boy, who was not hers, for the dimples in his cheeks, and for this big cap, she would have given her life, given it with joy, and with tears of rapture. Why? Ah, indeed why? When she had seen Sasha off to the gymnasium, she returned home quietly, content, serene, overflowing with love. Her face, which had grown younger in the last half year, smiled and beamed. People who met her were pleased as they looked at her. How are you, Olga Semyonova, darling? How are you getting on, darling? The gymnasium course is very hard nowadays, she told at the market. It's no joke. Yesterday, the first class had a fable to learn by heart, a Latin translation, and a problem. How is a little fellow to do all that? And she spoke of the teacher and the lessons in the textbooks, repeating exactly what Sasha said about them. At three o'clock they had dinner. In the evening, they prepared the lessons together, and Olenko wept with Sasha over the difficulties. When she put him to bed, she lingered a long time making the sign of the cross over him, and muttering a prayer. And when she lay in bed, she dreamed of the far away, misty future, when Sasha would finish his studies, and become a doctor or an engineer, have a large house of his own, with horses and a carriage, marry and have children. She would fall asleep still thinking of the same things, and tears would roll down her cheeks from her closed eyes, and the black cat would lie at her side, purring. Suddenly there was a loud knocking at the gate. Olenko woke up, breathless with fright, her heart beating violently. Half a minute later there was another knock. A telegram from Karkov, she thought, her whole body in a tremble. His mother wants Sasha to come to her in Karkov. Oh, great God! She was in despair. Her head, her feet, her hands turned cold. There was no unhappier creature in the world, she felt. But another minute passed. She heard voices. It was the veterinarian coming home from the club. Thank God, she thought. The load gradually fell from her heart. She was at ease again. And she went back to bed, thinking of Sasha, who lay fast asleep in the next room, and sometimes cried out in his sleep. I'll give it to you. Get away. Quit your scrapping. End of The Darling by Anton Pete Chekhov. Read for LibriVox in Modesto, California by Dennis Sayers. LibriVox.org Best Russian Short Stories, edited and compiled by Thomas Seltzer The Bet by Anton Chekhov 1. It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was pacing from corner to corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the autumn fifteen years before. There were many clever people at the party, and much interesting conversation. They talked among other things of capital punishment. The guests, among them not a few scholars and journalists, for the most part disapproved of capital punishment. They found it obsolete as a means of punishment, unfitted to a Christian state, and immoral. Some of them thought the capital punishment should be replaced universally by life imprisonment. I don't agree with you, said the host. I myself have experienced neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment. But if one may judge a priori, then in my opinion capital punishment is more moral and more humane than imprisonment. Execution kills instantly. Life imprisonment kills by degrees. Who is the more humane executioner, one who kills you in a few seconds or one who draws the life out of you incessantly for years? They are both equally important, remarked one of the guests, because their purpose is the same, to take away life. The state is not God. It has no right to take away that which it cannot give back if it should so desire. Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five. On being asked his opinion, he said, Capital punishment and life imprisonment are equally immoral. But if I were offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the second. It's better to live somehow than not to live at all. There ensued a lively discussion. The banker, who was then younger and more nervous, suddenly lost his temper, banging his fist on the table and turning to the young lawyer, cried out, That's a lie! I bet you two million you wouldn't stick in a cell, even for five years. If you mean it seriously, replied the lawyer, then I bet I'll stay not five, but fifteen. Fifteen? Done! cried the banker. Gentlemen, I stake two millions. Agreed, you stake two millions. I, my freedom, said the lawyer. So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The banker, who at that time had too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was beside himself with rapture. During supper, he said to the lawyer jokingly, Come to your senses, young man, before it's too late. Two millions is nothing to me. But you stand to lose three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you'll never stick it out any longer. Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is much heavier than enforced imprisonment. The idea that you have the right to free yourself at any moment will poison the whole of your life in the cell. I pity you. And now the banker, pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this, and asked himself, Why did I make this bet? What's the good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of his life, and I throw away two millions. Will it convince people that capital punishment is worse or better than imprisonment for life? No, no. All stuff and rubbish. On my part it was the caprice of a well-fed man, on the lawyer's pure greed of gold. He recollected further what happened after the evening party. It was decided that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the strictest observation, in a garden wing of the banker's house. It was agreed that during the period he would be deprived of the right to cross the threshold, to see living people, to hear human voices, and to receive letters and newspapers. He was permitted to have a musical instrument, to read books, to write letters, to drink wine, and smoke tobacco. By agreement he could communicate but only in silence with the outside world, through a little window specially constructed for this purpose. Everything necessary, books, music, wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the window. The agreement provided for all the minutest details, which made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly fifteen years, from twelve o'clock of November 14th, 1870 to twelve o'clock of November 14th, 1885. The least attempt on his part to violate the conditions, to escape if only for two minutes before the time, freed the banker from the obligation to pay him the two millions. During the first year of imprisonment, the lawyer, as far as it was possible to judge from his short notes, suffered terrible loneliness and boredom. From his wing day and night came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine and tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites desires, and desires are the chief foes of a prisoner. Besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone. And tobacco spoils the air in his room. During the first year, the lawyer was sent books of a light character, novels with a complicated love interest, stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on. In the second year the piano was heard no longer, and the lawyer asked only for the classics. In the fifth year, music was heard again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those that watched him said that during the whole of that year he was only eating, drinking, and lying on his bed. He yawned often, and talked angrily to himself. Books he did not read. Sometimes at nights he would sit down to write. He would write for a long time and tear it all up in the morning. More than once he was heard to weep. In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study languages, philosophy, and history. He fell on these subjects so hungrily that the banker hardly had time to get books enough for him. In the space of four years about six hundred volumes were bought at his request. It was while that passion lasted that the banker received the following letter from the prisoner. My dear jailer, I am writing these letters in six languages. Show them to experts. Let them read them. If they do not find one single mistake, I beg you to give orders to have a gun fired off in the garden. By the noise I shall know that my efforts have not been in vain. The geniuses of all ages and countries speak in different languages, but in them all burns the same flame. Oh, if you knew my heavenly happiness, now that I can understand them. The prisoner's desire was fulfilled. Two shots were fired in the garden by the banker's orders. Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immobile before his table and read only the New Testament. The banker found it strange that a man who, in four years, had mastered six hundred erudite volumes, should have spent nearly a year in reading one book. Easy to understand, and by no means thick. The New Testament was then replaced by the history of religions and theology. During the last two years of his confinement, the prisoner read an extraordinary amount, quite haphazardly. Now he would apply himself to the natural sciences, then he would read Byron or Shakespeare. Notes used to come from him, which he asked to be sent at the same time a book on chemistry, a textbook of medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. He read as though he was swimming in a sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping at one piece or another. Two. The banker recalled all this, and thought, Tomorrow at twelve o'clock it receives his freedom. Under the agreement I shall have to pay him two millions. If I pay, it's all over for me. I am ruined forever. Fifteen years before, he had too many millions to count, and now he was afraid to ask himself which he had more of, money or debts. Gambling on the stock exchange, risky speculation, and the recklessness of which he could not rid himself even in old age, had gradually brought his business to decay. And the fearless, self-confident, proud man of business had become an ordinary banker, trembling at every rise and fall in the market. That cursed bet murmured the old man clutching his head in despair. Why didn't the man die? He's only forty years old. He will take away my last farthing, marry and enjoy life, gamble on the exchange, and I will look on like an envious beggar, and hear the same words from him every day. I'm obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let me help you. No, it's too much. The only escape from bankruptcy and disgrace is that the man should die. The clock had just struck three. The banker was listening. In the house, everyone was asleep, and one could hear only the frozen trees whining outside the windows. Trying to make no sound, he took out of his safe the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house. The garden was dark and cold. It was raining. A damp, penetrating wind howled in the garden, and gave the trees no rest. Though he strained his eyes, the banker could see neither the ground, nor the white statues, nor the garden wing, nor the trees. Approaching the garden wing, he called the watchman twice. There was no answer. Evidently the watchman had taken shelter from the bad weather, and was now asleep somewhere in the kitchen or the greenhouse. If I have the courage to fulfill my intention, thought the old man, the suspicion will fall on the watchman first of all. In the darkness he groped for the steps in the door, and entered the hall of the garden wing. Then poked his way into a narrow passage, and struck a match. Not a soul was there. Someone's bed, with no bed-clothes on it, stood there, and an iron stove loomed dark in the corner. The seals on the door that led into the prisoner's room were unbroken. When the match went out, the old man, trembling from agitation, peeped into the little window. In the prisoner's room, a candle was burning dimly. The prisoner himself sat by the table. Only his back, the hair on his head, and his hands were visible. Open books were strewn about the table, the two chairs, and on the carpet near the table. Five minutes passed, and the prisoner never once stirred. Fifteen years confinement had taught him to sit motionless. The banker tapped on the window with his finger, but the prisoner made no movement in reply. Then the banker cautiously tore the seals from the door, and put the key into the lock. The rusty lock gave a horse groan, and the door creaked. The banker expected instantly to hear a cry of surprise, and the sound of steps. Three minutes passed, and it was as quiet inside as it had been before. He made up his mind to enter. Before the table sat a man, unlike an ordinary human being. It was a skeleton, with tight-drawn skin, with long, curly hair like a woman's, and a shaggy beard. The color of his face was yellow, of an earthy shade. The cheeks were sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand upon which he leaned his hairy head was so lean and skinny that it was painful to look at. His hair was already silvering with gray, and no one who glanced at the sea-nally maciation of the face would have believed he was only forty years old. On the table before his bended head lay a sheet of paper on which something was written in a tiny hand. Poor devil! thought the banker. He's asleep and probably seeing millions in his dreams. I have only to take and throw this half-dead thing on the bed, smother him in a moment with a pillow, and the most careful examination will find no trace of unnatural death. But first let us read what he has written here. The banker took the sheet from the table and read, Tomorrow at twelve o'clock midnight I shall obtain my freedom and the right to mix with people. But before I leave this room and see this sun, I think it necessary to say a few words to you. On my own clear conscience, and before God, who sees me, I declare to you that I despise freedom, life, health, and all that your books call the blessings of the world. For fifteen years I have diligently studied earthly life. True, I saw neither the earth nor the people, but in your books I drank fragrant of wine, sang songs, hunted deer and wild boar in the forests, loved women, and beautiful women, like clouds ethereal, created by the magic of your poet's genius, visited me by night and whispered to me wonderful tales, which made my head drunken. In your books I climbed the summits of Elbrus and Mont Blanc, and saw from there how the sun rose in the morning, and in the evenings effused the sky, the ocean and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from there how above me lightnings glimmered, cleaving the clouds. I saw green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities. I heard sirens calling, and the playing of the pipes of pan. I touched the wings of beautiful devils, who came flying to me to speak of God. In your books I cast myself into bottomless abysses, worked miracles, burned cities to the ground, preached new religions, conjured whole countries. Your books gave me wisdom. All that unwarying human thought created in the centuries is compressed into a little lump in my skull. I know that I am cleverer than you all. And I despise your books, despise all the worldly blessings and wisdom. Everything is void, frail, visionary, and delusive as a mirage. Though you be proud and wise and beautiful, yet will death wipe you from the face of the earth, like the mice underground. And your posterity, your history, and the immortality of your young men of genius will be as frozen slag burnt down together with the terrestrial globe. You are mad and gone the wrong way. You take falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty. You would marvel if suddenly apple and orange trees should bear frogs and lizards instead of fruit, and if roses should begin to breathe the odor of a sweating horse. So do I marvel you, who have bartered heaven for earth. I do not want to understand you. That I may show you indeed my contempt for that by which you live. I wave the two millions, of which I once dreamed as a paradise, and which I now despise. That I may deprive myself of my right to them, I shall come out from here five minutes before the stipulated term, and thus shall violate the agreement. When it gets red, the banker put the sheet on the table, kissed the head of the strange man, and began to weep. He went out of the wing, never at any other time, not even after his terrible losses in the exchange, had he felt such contempt for himself as now. Coming home he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears kept him a long time from sleeping. The next morning the poor watchman came running to him and told him that they had seen the man who lived in the wing climb through the window into the garden, yet gone to the gate, and disappeared. The banker instantly went with his servants to the wing and established the escape of his prisoner. To avoid unnecessary rumors he took the paper with the renunciation from the table, and, on his return, locked it in his safe. Best Russian Short Stories Edited and Compiled by Thomas Seltzer Vanka by Anton Chekhov Nine-year-old Vanka Zhukov, who had been apprentice to the shoemaker Aliakhin for three months, did not go to bed the night before Christmas. He waited until the master and mistress and the assistants had gone out to an early church service. To procure from his employers cupboard a small vial of ink and a pen holder with a rusty nib. Then, spreading a crumpled sheet of paper in front of him, he began to write. Before, however, deciding to make the first letter, he looked furtively at the door and at the window, glanced several times at the somber icon, on either side of which stretched shelves full of lasts, and heaved a heart-rending sigh. The sheet of paper was spread on a bench, and he himself was on his knees in front of it. Dear grandfather Konstantin Makarich, he wrote, I am writing you a letter. I hope you a happy Christmas and all God's holy best. I have no mama or papa. You are all I have. Vanka took a look towards the window in which shown the reflection of his candle, and vividly pictured to himself his grandfather, Konstantin Makarich, who was night watchman at Monsieur's Zivarev. He was a small, lean, usually lively and active old man of sixty-five, always smiling and blear-eyed. All day he slept in the servant's kitchen or trifled with the cooks. At night, enveloped in his ample sheepskin coat, he strayed round the domain, tapping with his cudgel. Behind him, each hanging its head, walked the old bitch Konstanka and the dog Vyun, so named because of his black coat and long body, and his resemblance to a loach. Vyun was an unusually civil and friendly dog, to be trusted, looking as kindly at a stranger as at his master. But he was not to be trusted. Beneath his deference and humbleness was hid the most inquisitorial maliciousness. No one knew better than he how to sneak up and take a bite at a leg, or slip into the larder, or steal a musok's chicken. More than once they had nearly broken his hind legs. Twice he had been hung up. Every week he was nearly flogged to death. But he always recovered. At this moment, for certain, Vanka's grandfather must be standing at the gate, blinking his eyes at the bright red windows of the village church, stamping his feet in their high-felt boots, and jesting with the people in the yard. His cudgel will be hanging from his belt. He will be hugging himself with cold, giving a little dry old man's cough, and at times pinching a servant girl or a cook. Won't we take some snuff? He asks, holding out his snuff-box to the women. The women take a pinch of snuff and sneeze. The old man goes into indescribable ecstasies, breaks into loud laughter, and cries, off with it, it will freeze to your nose. He gives his snuff to the dogs, too. Kastanga sneezes, twitches her nose, and walks away offended. Vyun deferentially refuses to sniff and wags his tail. It is inglorious weather, not a breath of wind, clear, and frosty. It is a dark night, but the whole village, with its white roofs and streaks of smoke from the chimneys, the trees silvered with whorefrost and the snowdrifts. You can see it all. The sky scintillates with bright twinkling stars, and the milky way stands out so clearly, and it looks as if it had been polished and rubbed over with snow for the holidays. Vanka sighs, dips his pen in the ink, and continues to write. Last night I got a thrashing. My master dragged me by my hair into the yard, and belabored me with a shoemaker's stirrup, because, while I was rocking his brat in the cradle, I unfortunately fell asleep, and during the week my mistress told me to clean a herring and begin by its tail, so she took the herring and struck its snout into my face. The assistants tease me, send me to the tavern for Vodka, make me steal the master's cucumbers, and the master beats me with whatever is handy. Food there is none, and the morning is bread, at dinner, gruel, and in the evening bread again. As for tea or sour-cabbage soup, the master and the mistress themselves guzzle that. They make me sleep in the vestibule, and when their brat cries, I don't sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle. Dear grand-papa, for heaven's sake take me away from here, home to our village. I can't bear this any more. I bow to the ground to you, and will pray to God for ever and ever. Take me from here, or I shall die. The corners of Vanka's mouth went down. He rubbed his eyes with his dirty fist and sobbed. I'll grate your tobacco for you, he continued. I'll pray to God for you, and if there is anything wrong, then flog me like the great goat, and if you really think I shan't find work, then I'll ask the manager. For Christ's sake, let me clean the boots, or I'll go instead of Fegia as under herdsmen. Dear grand-papa, I can't bear this any more. It'll kill me. I wanted to run away to our village, but I have no boots, and I was afraid of the frost, and when I grow up I'll look after you, and no one shall harm you, and when you die I'll pray for the repose of your soul, just like I do for Mama Pellegeia. As for Moscow, it is a large town. There are all gentlemen's houses, lots of them. Lots of horses, no sheep, and dogs are not vicious. The children don't come round at Christmas with a star. No one is allowed to sing in the choir, and once I saw in the shop window hooks on a line with fishing rods, all for sale, and for every kind of fish, awfully convenient, and there was one hook which would catch a sheet fish weighing a pound, and there are shops with guns, like the masters, and I am sure they must cost a hundred rubles each, and in the meat shops there are woodcocks, partridges, and hairs, but who shot them or where they come from the shopper won't say. Dear Grandpa Pa, and when the masters give a Christmas tree, take a golden walnut and hide it in my green box. Ask the young lady Olga Ignatyevna for it, say it's for Vanka. Vanka sighed convulsively, and again stared at the window. He remembered that his grandfather always went to the forest for the Christmas tree, and took his grandson with him, what happy times. The frost crackled, his grandfather crackled, and as they both did, Vanka did the same. Then before cutting down the Christmas tree, his grandfather smoked his pipe, took a long pinch of snuff, and made fun of poor frozen little Vanka. The young fir trees wrapped in hors frost stood motionless, waiting for which of them would die. Suddenly a hair springing from somewhere would dart over the snowdrift. His grandfather could not help shouting, Catch it! Catch it! Catch it! Ah, short-tailed devil! When the tree was down, his grandfather dragged it to the master's house, and there they set about decorating it. The young lady, Olga Ignatyevna, Vanka's great friend, busied herself most about it. When little Vanka's mother, Pelagueya, was still alive, and was servant woman in the house, Olga Ignatyevna used to stuff him with sugar candy, and having nothing to do, taught him to read, write, count up to one hundred, and even to dance the quadril. When Pelagueya died, they placed the orphaned Vanka in the kitchen with his grandfather, and from the kitchen he was sent to Moscow, to Aliakin, the shoemaker. Come quick, dear grand-papa, continued Vanka, I beseech you for Christ's sake, take me from here, have pity on a poor orphan, for here they beat me, and I am frightfully hungry, and so sad that I can't tell you, I cry all the time. The other day the master hit me on the head with a last. I fell to the ground, and only just returned to life. My life is a misfortune, worse than any dog's. I send greetings to Aliona, to One-Eyed Tegor, and the coachman, and don't let anyone have my mouth organ. I remain your grandson Ivan Zukov. Dear grand-papa, do come! Vanka folded his sheet of paper in four, and put it into an envelope purchased the night before for a co-peck. He thought a little, dipped the pen into the ink, and broke the address, to village, to my grandfather. He then scratched his head, thought again, and added, Constantine Makarich. Pleased with not having been interfered with in his writing, he put on his cap, and, without putting on his sheepskin coat, ran out in his shirt sleeves, into the street. The shopman at the posterers, from whom he had inquired the night before, had told him that letters were to be put into post boxes, and from there they were conveyed over the whole earth, in mail-troikers by drunken post boys, and to the sound of bells. Vanka ran to the first post box, and slipped his precious letter into the slit. An hour afterwards, lulled by hope, he was sleeping soundly. In his dreams he saw a stove, by the stove his grandfather, sitting with his legs dangling down, barefooted, and reading a letter to the cooks, and Vyun, walking round the stove, wagged his tail. End of Vanka by Anton Chekhov. Edited and Compiled by Thomas Seltzer. Everything in Lelouchka's nursery was bright, pretty, and cheerful. Lelouchka's sweet voice charmed her mother. Lelouchka was a delightful child. There was no other such child. There never had been, and there never would be. Lelouchka's mother, Seraphima Aleksandrovna, was sure of that. Lelouchka's eyes were dark and large, her cheeks were rosy, her lips were made for kisses and for laughter. But it was not these charms in Lelouchka that gave her mother the keenest joy. Lelouchka was her mother's only child. That was why every movement of Lelouchka's bewitched her mother. It was great bliss to hold Lelouchka on her knees and to fondle her, to feel a little girl in her arms, a thing as lively and as bright as a little bird. To tell the truth, Seraphima Aleksandrovna felt happy only in the nursery. She felt cold with her husband. Perhaps it was because he himself loved the cold. He loved to drink cold water and to breathe cold air. He was always fresh and cool, with a frigid smile, and wherever he passed, cold currents seemed to move in the air. The Nestleyevs, Sergei Modestovich and Seraphima Aleksandrovna had married without love or calculation, because it was the exception thing. He was young man of thirty-five and she a young woman of twenty-five. Both were of the same circle and well brought up. He was expected to take a wife, and the time had come for her to take a husband. It even seemed to Seraphima Aleksandrovna that she was in love with her future husband, and this made her happy. He looked handsome and well-bred, his intelligent gray eyes always preserved a dignified expression, and he fulfilled his obligations of a fiancé with irreproachable gentleness. The bride was also good-looking. She was a tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl, somewhat timid but very tactful. He was not after her dowry, though it pleased him to know that she had something. He had connections and his wife came of good influential people. This might, at the proper opportunity, prove useful. Always irreproachable and tactful, Nestle Tiav got on in his position not so fast that anyone should envy him, nor yet so slow that he should envy anyone else. Everything came in the proper measure, and at the proper time. After their marriage there was nothing in the manner of Sergei Motherstovic to suggest anything wrong to his wife. Later, however, when his wife was about to have a child, Sergei Motherstovic established connections elsewhere of a light and temporary nature. Seraphima Aleksandrovna found this out, and to her own astonishment was not particularly hurt. She awaited her infant with a restless anticipation that swallowed every other feeling. A little girl was born. Seraphima Aleksandrovna gave herself up to her. At the beginning she used to tell her husband with rapture of all the joyous details of Lolechka's existence, but she soon found that he listened to her without the slightest interest, and only from the habit of politeness. Seraphima Aleksandrovna drifted farther and farther away from him. She loved her little girl with the ungratified passion that other women, deceived in their husbands, show their chance young lovers. Momochka, let's play priakki, cried Lolechka, pronouncing the R like the L so that the word sounded priakki. This charming inability to speak always made Seraphima Aleksandrovna smile with tender rapture. Lolechka then ran away, stamping with her plump little legs over the carpets, and hid herself behind the curtains near her bed. Toe, toe, Momochka, she cried out in her sweet laughing voice as she looked out with a single ruggish eye. Where is my baby girl, the mother asked, as she looked for Lolechka and may believe that she did not see her. And Lolechka poured out her rippling laughter in her hiding space. Then she came out a little farther, and her mother, as though she had only just caught sight of her, seized her by her little shoulders and exclaimed joyously, here she is, my Lolechka. Lolechka laughed long and merrily, her head close to her mother's knees, and all of her cuddled up between her mother's white hands. Her mother's eyes glowed with passionate emotion. Now, Momochka, you hide, said Lolechka, and she ceased laughing. Her mother went to hide. Lolechka turned away, as though not to see, but watched her Momochka stealthily all the time. Momah hid behind the cupboard and exclaimed, Toe, toe, baby girl. Lolechka ran round the room and looked into all the corners, making believe, as her mother had done before, that she was seeking, though she really knew all the time where her Momochka was standing. Where is my Momochka, as Lolechka? She's not here, and she's not there, she kept on repeating, as she ran from corner to corner. Her mother stood with suppressed breathing, her head pressed against the wall, her hair somewhat disarranged. A smile of absolute bliss played on her red lips. The nurse Fidocia, a good-natured and fine-looking, if somewhat stupid woman, smiled as she looked at her mistress with her characteristic expression, which seemed to say that it was not for her to object to gentle women's caprices. She thought to herself, the mother is like a little child herself. Look how excited she is. Lolechka was getting near her mother's corner. Her mother was growing more absorbed every moment by her interest in the game. Her heart beat with short, quick strokes, and she pressed even closer to the wall, disarranging her hair still more. Lolechka suddenly glanced toward her mother's corner and screamed with joy. I found U, she cried out loudly and joyously, mispronouncing her words in a way that again made her mother happy. She pulled her mother by her hands to the modal of the room. They were merry and they laughed, and Lolechka again hit her head against her mother's knees, and went on, lisping and lisping without end, her sweet little words so fascinating yet so awkward. Sergei Morozovich was coming at this moment toward the nursery. Through the half-closed doors he heard the laughter, the joyous outcries, the sound of romping. He entered the nursery, smiling his genial cold smile. He was irreperably dressed, and he looked fresh and erect, and he spread round him an atmosphere of cleanliness, freshness, and coldness. He entered in the midst of the lively game, and he confused them all by his radiant coldness. Even Fidocia felt abashed, now for her mistress, now for herself. Seraphima Aleksandrovna once became calm and apparently cold, and this mood communicated itself to the little girl. He ceased to laugh, but looked instead, silently and intently, at her father. Sergei Morozovich gave a swift glance round the room. He liked coming here, where everything was beautifully arranged. This was done by Seraphima Aleksandrovna, who wished to surround her little girl from her very infancy, only with the loveliest things. Seraphima Aleksandrovna dressed herself tastefully. This, too, she did for La Lechka, with the same end in view. One thing Sergei Morozovich had not become reconciled to, and this was his wife's almost continuous presence in the nursery. It's just as I thought. I knew that I'd find you here, he said with a derisive and condescending smile. They left the nursery together. As he followed his wife through the door, Sergei Morozovich said rather indifferently, in an incidental way, laying no stress on his words. Don't you think that it would be well for the little girl if she were sometimes without your company? Merely you see that the child should feel its own individuality, he explained an answer to Seraphima Aleksandrovna's puzzled glance. She's still so little, said Seraphima Aleksandrovna. In any case, this is but my humble opinion. I don't insist. It's your kingdom here. I'll think it over, his wife answered, smiling as he did, coldly but genuinely. Then they began to talk of something else. Part 2 Nurse Fidocia, sitting in the kitchen that evening, was telling the silent housemaid Daria and the talkative old cook, Agathia, about the young lady of the house, and how the child loved to play priyatki with her mother. She hides her little face and cries, twi twi, and the mistress herself is like a little one, added Fidocia, smiling. Agathia listened and shook her head ominously while her face became grave and reproachful. That the mistress does it, well, that's one thing, but that the young lady does it, that's bad. Why asked Fidocia with curiosity? This expression of curiosity gave her face the look of a wooden, roughly painted doll. Yes, that's bad, repeated Agathia with conviction, terribly bad. Well, said Fidocia, the ludicrous expression of curiosity on her face becoming more emphatic. She'll hide and hide and hide away, said Agathia in a mysterious whisper as she looked cautiously toward the door. What are you saying? exclaimed Fidocia, frightened. It's the truth I'm saying. Remember my words. Agathia went on with the same assurance and secrecy. It's the surest sign. The old woman had invented this sign quite suddenly herself, and she was evidently very proud of it. Part three. Lilechka was asleep, and Saraphima Alexndrovna was sitting in her own room, thinking with joy and tenderness of Lilechka. Lilechka was in her thoughts, first a sweet, tiny girl, then a sweet big girl, then again a delightful little girl, and so on until in the end she remained mama's little Lilechka. Saraphima Alexndrovna did not even notice that Fidocia came up to her and paused before her. Fidocia had a worried, frightened look. Madam, madam, she said quietly in a trembling voice. Saraphima Alexndrovna gave a start. Fidocia's face made her anxious. What is it, Fidocia? She asked with great concern. Is there anything wrong with Lilechka? No, madam, said Fidocia. She gesticulated with her hands to reassure her mistress and to make her sit down. Lilechka's asleep may God be with her. Only I'd like to say something, you see. Lilechka is always hiding herself. That is not good. Fidocia looked at her mistress with fixed eyes which had grown round from fright. Why not good? asked Saraphima Alexndrovna with vexation, succumbing involuntarily to vague fears. I can't tell you how bad it is, said Fidocia, and her face expressed the most decided confidence. Please speak in a sensible way, observed Saraphima Alexndrovna dryly. I understand nothing of what you are saying. You see, madam, it's a kind of omen, explains Fidocia abruptly in a shame-faced way. Nonsense, said Saraphima Alexndrovna. She did not wish to hear any further as to the sort of omen it was and what it foreboded. But somehow a sense of fear and of sadness crept into her mood, and it was humiliating to fear that an absurd tale should disturb her beloved fancies and should agitate her so deeply. Of course I know that gentle folk don't believe in omens, but it's a bad omen, madam, Fidocia went on in a doleful voice. The young lady will hide and hide. Suddenly she bursts into tears, sobbing out loudly. She'll hide and hide and hide away, angelic little soul, in a damp little grave. She continued as she wiped her tears within her apron and blew her nose. Who told you all this? asked Saraphima Alexndrovna in an austere low voice. Agatia says so, madam, answered Fidocia. It's she that knows. Nose exclaimed Saraphima Alexndrovna in irritation as though she wished to protect herself somehow from this sudden anxiety. What nonsense! Please don't come to me with such notions in the future. Now you may go. Fidocia dejected, her feelings hurt, left her mistress. What nonsense! As though Lolechka could die, thought Saraphima Alexndrovna to herself, trying to conquer the feeling of coldness and fear which took possession of her at the thought of the possible death of Lolechka. Saraphima Alexndrovna, upon reflection, attributed these women's beliefs and omens to ignorance. She saw clearly that there could be no possible connection between a child's quite ordinary diversion and the continuation of the child's life. She made a special effort that evening to occupy her mind with other matters, but her thoughts turned involuntarily to the fact that Lolechka loved to hide herself. When Lolechka was still quite small and had learned to distinguish between her mother and her nurse, she sometimes, sitting in her nurse's arms, made a sudden roguish grimace and hit her laughing face in the nurse's shoulder. Then she would look out with a sly glance. Of late, in those rare moments of the mistress's absence from the nursery, Fidocia had again taught Lolechka to hide, and when Lolechka's mother, on coming in, saw how lovely the child looked when she was hiding, she herself began to play hide and seek with her tiny daughter. Part four. The next day, Sarafima Aleksandrovna, absorbing her joyous cares for Lolechka, had forgotten Fidocia's words the day before. But when she returned to the nursery, after having ordered the dinner, and she heard Lolechka suddenly cry, twi, twi, from under the table, a feeling of fear suddenly took hold of her. Though she reproached herself at once for this unfounded superstitious dread, nevertheless she could not enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of Lolechka's favorite game, and she tried to divert Lolechka's attention to something else. Lolechka was a lovely and obedient child. She eagerly complied with her mother's new wishes. But as she had gotten to the habit of hiding from her mother in some corner, and of crying out, twi, twi, so even that day she returned more than once to the game. Sarafima Aleksandrovna tried desperately to amuse Lolechka. This was not so easy, because restless, threatening thoughts obtruded themselves constantly. Why does Lolechka keep on recalling the twi, twi? Why does she not get tired of the same thing, of eternally closing her eyes and of hiding her face? Perhaps, though Sarafima Aleksandrovna, she is not as strongly drawn to the world as other children, who are attracted by many things. If this is so, is it not a sign of organic weakness? Is it not a germ of the unconscious non-desire to live? Sarafima Aleksandrovna was tormented by presentiments. She felt ashamed of herself for ceasing to play hide and seek with Lolechka before Fidocia. This game had become agonizing to her, all the more agonizing because she had a real desire to play it, because something drew her very strongly to hide herself from Lolechka and to seek out the hiding child. Sarafima Aleksandrovna herself began the game once or twice, though she played it with a heavy heart. She suffered as though committing an evil deed with full consciousness. It was a sad day for Sarafima Aleksandrovna. Part 5 Lolechka was about to fall asleep. No sooner has she climbed into her little bed, protected by a network on all sides, than her eyes began to close from fatigue. Her mother covered her with a blue blanket. Lolechka drew her sweet little hands from under the blanket and stretched them out to embrace her mother. Her mother bent down. Lolechka, with a tender expression on her sleepy face, kissed her mother and let her head fall on the pillow. As her hands hit themselves under the blanket, Lolechka whispered, the hands, twi, twi, the mother's heart seemed to stop. Lolechka lay there so small, so frail, so quiet. Lolechka smiled gently, closed her eyes and said quietly, the eyes, twi, twi, then even more quietly. Lolechka, twi, twi, with these words she fell asleep, her face pressing the pillow. She seemed so small and so frail under the blanket that covered her. Her mother looked at her with sad eyes. Sarah Fima Alexandrovna remained standing over Lolechka's bed a long while, and she kept looking at Lolechka with tenderness and fear. I'm a mother. Is it possible that I shouldn't be able to protect her? She thought as she imagined the various ills that might befall Lolechka. She prayed long that night, but the prayer did not relieve her sadness. Part 6 Several days passed. Lolechka caught cold. The fever came upon her at night. When Sarah Fima Alexandrovna, awakened by fidocia, came to Lolechka and saw her looking so hot, so restless and so tormented, she instantly recalled the evil omen and a hopeless despair took possession of her from the first moments. A doctor was called, and everything was done that is usual on such occasions, but the inevitable happened. Sarah Fima Alexandrovna tried to console herself with the hope that Lolechka would get well and would again laugh and play. Yet this seemed to her an unthinkable happiness, and Lolechka grew feebler from hour to hour. All simulated tranquility so as not to frighten Sarah Fima Alexandrovna, but their masked face has only made her sad. Nothing made her so unhappy as the reiterations of fidocia uttered between subs. She hid herself and hid herself, our Lolechka. But the thoughts of Sarah Fima Alexandrovna were confused, and she could not quite grasp what was happening. Fever was consuming Lolechka, and there were times when she lost consciousness and spoke in delirium. But when she returned to herself, she bore her pain and her fatigue with gentle good nature. She smiled feebly at her momochka so that her momochka should not see how much she suffered. Three days passed, torturing like a nightmare. Lolechka grew quite feeble. She did not know that she was dying. She glanced at her mother with her dimmed eyes, enlist in a scarcely audible, hoarse voice. Sarah Fima Alexandrovna hit her face behind the curtains near Lolechka's bed. How tragic! Momochka cried Lolechka in an almost inaudible voice. Lolechka's mother bent over her, and Lolechka, her vision growing still more dim, saw her mother's pale, despairing face for the last time. A white momochka whispered Lolechka. Momochka's white face became blurred, and everything grew dark before Lolechka. She caught the edge of the bed cover feebly with her hands and whispered, Twee, Twee! Something rattled in her throat. Lolechka opened and again closed her rapidly paling lips and died. Sarah Fima Alexandrovna was in dumb despair as she left Lolechka and went out of the room. She met her husband. Lolechka's dead. She said in a quiet, dull voice. Sarah Gamelotstovic looked anxiously at her pale face. He was struck by the strange stupor and her formerly animated, handsome features. Part 7 Lolechka was dressed, placed in a little coffin, and carried into the parlor. Sarah Fima Alexandrovna was standing by the coffin and looking dullly at her dead child. Sarah Gamelotstovic went to his wife and, consoling her with cold, empty words, tried to draw her away from the coffin. Sarah Fima Alexandrovna smiled. Go away, she said quietly. Lolechka's playing. She'll be up in a minute. Fima, my dear, don't agitate yourself, said Sarah Gamelotstovic in a whisper. You must resign yourself to your fate. She'll be up in a minute, persisted Sarah Fima Alexandrovna, her eyes fixed on the dead little girl. Sarah Gamelotstovic looked around him cautiously. He was afraid of the unseemly and of the ridiculous. Fima, don't agitate yourself, he repeated. This would be a miracle and miracles do not happen in the nineteenth century. No sooner had he said these words than Sarah Gamelotstovic felt their relevance to what had happened. He was confused and annoyed. He took his wife by the arm and cautiously led her away from the coffin. She did not oppose him. Her face seemed tranquil and her eyes were dry. She went into the nursery and began to walk around the room, looking into those places where Lolechka used to hide herself. She walked all about the room and bent down then to look under the table or under the bed and kept on repeating cheerfully. Where's my little one? Where is my Lolechka? After she had walked around the room once, she began to make her quest anew. Fidocia, motionless, with a dejected face, sat in a corner and looked frightened at her mistress. Then she suddenly burst out sobbing and she wailed loudly. She hid herself and hid herself, our Lolechka, our angelic little soul. Serfima Aleksandrovna trembled, paused, cast a perplexed look at Fidocia, began to weep and left the nursery quietly. PART 8 Sergamelotstovic hurried the funeral. He saw that Serfima Aleksandrovna was terribly shocked by her sudden misfortune and as he feared for her reason he thought she would be more readily diverted and consoled when Lolechka was buried. Next morning Serfima Aleksandrovna dressed with particular care for Lolechka. When she entered the parlor there were several people between her and Lolechka. The priest and deacon paced up and down the room, clouds of blue smoke drifted in the air and there was a smell of incense. There was an oppressive feeling of heaviness in Serfima Aleksandrovna's head as she approached Lolechka. Lolechka lay there still in pale and smiled pathetically. Serfima Aleksandrovna laid her cheek upon the edge of Lolechka's coffin and whispered, twi twi little one. The little one did not reply. Then there was some kind of stir and the confusion around Serfima Aleksandrovna. Strange and necessary faces bent over her. Someone held her and Lolechka was carried away somewhere. Serfima Aleksandrovna stood up erect, sighed in a lost way, smiled and called loudly, Lolechka. Lolechka was being carried out. The mother threw herself after the coffin with despairing sobs but she was held back. She sprang behind the door through which Lolechka had passed, sat down there on the floor and as she looked through the crevice she cried out, Lolechka, twi twi. Then she put her head out from behind the door and began to laugh. Lolechka was quickly carried away from her mother and those who carried her seemed to run rather than to walk. End of Hide and Seek by Fodor Solagob