LiteraryJoint is
proud to present the full text edition of "The Chorus Girl and other
stories," a collection of short stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, many
of them not yet very well known by the general public. Every month, we
will commit one of our weekly post to these stories, in their English
translation by Constance Garnett. After
My Life, On the Road, The Chorus Girl, and Verotchka, we now continue with "At a Country House", which will be followed by: A
Father, Rothschild's Fiddle, Ivan
Matveyitch,
Zinotchka, Bad
Weather, A
Gentleman Friend, and A
Trivial Incident.
 |
| Anton Chekhov's Birth House; born on the Holiday of St. Anthony the Great (17 January Old Style) 29 January 1860 |
PAVEL ILYITCH RASHEVITCH walked up and down, stepping softly on the
floor covered with little Russian plaids, and casting a long shadow on
the wall and ceiling while his guest, Meier, the deputy examining
magistrate, sat on the sofa with one leg drawn up under him smoking and
listening. The clock already pointed to eleven, and there were sounds of
the table being laid in the room next to the study.
"Say what you like," Rashevitch was saying, "from the standpoint of
fraternity, equality, and the rest of it, Mitka, the swineherd, is
perhaps a man the same as Goethe and Frederick the Great; but take your
stand on a scientific basis, have the courage to look facts in the face,
and it will be obvious to you that blue blood is not a mere prejudice,
that it is not a feminine invention. Blue blood, my dear fellow, has an
historical justification, and to refuse to recognize it is, to my
thinking, as strange as to refuse to recognize the antlers on a stag.
One must reckon with facts! You are a law student and have confined your
attention to the humane studies, and you can still flatter yourself
with illusions of equality, fraternity, and so on; I am an incorrigible
Darwinian, and for me words such as lineage, aristocracy, noble blood,
are not empty sounds."
Rashevitch was roused and spoke with feeling. His eyes sparkled, his
pince-nez would not stay on his nose, he kept nervously shrugging his
shoulders and blinking, and at the word "Darwinian" he looked jauntily
in the looking-glass and combed his grey beard with both hands. He was
wearing a very short and shabby reefer jacket and narrow trousers; the
rapidity of his movements, his jaunty air, and his abbreviated jacket
all seemed out of keeping with him, and his big comely head, with long
hair suggestive of a bishop or a veteran poet, seemed to have been fixed
on to the body of a tall, lanky, affected youth. When he stood with his
legs wide apart, his long shadow looked like a pair of scissors.
He was fond of talking, and he always fancied that he was saying
something new and original. In the presence of Meier he was conscious of
an unusual flow of spirits and rush of ideas. He found the examining
magistrate sympathetic, and was stimulated by his youth, his health, his
good manners, his dignity, and, above all, by his cordial attitude to
himself and his family. Rashevitch was not a favourite with his
acquaintances; as a rule they fought shy of him, and, as he knew,
declared that he had driven his wife into her grave with his talking,
and they called him, behind his back, a spiteful creature and a toad.
Meier, a man new to the district and unprejudiced, visited him often and
readily and had even been known to say that Rashevitch and his
daughters were the only people in the district with whom he felt as much
at home as with his own people. Rashevitch liked him too, because he
was a young man who might be a good match for his elder daughter, Genya.
And now, enjoying his ideas and the sound of his own voice, and
looking with pleasure at the plump but well-proportioned, neatly
cropped, correct Meier, Rashevitch dreamed of how he would arrange his
daughter's marriage with a good man, and then how all his worries over
the estate would pass to his son-in-law. Hateful worries! The interest
owing to the bank had not been paid for the last two quarters, and fines
and arrears of all sorts had mounted up to more than two thousand.
"To my mind there can be no doubt," Rashevitch went on, growing more
and more enthusiastic, "that if a Richard Coeur-de-Lion, or Frederick
Barbarossa, for instance, is brave and noble those qualities will pass
by heredity to his son, together with the convolutions and bumps of the
brain, and if that courage and nobility of soul are preserved in the son
by means of education and exercise, and if he marries a princess who is
also noble and brave, those qualities will be transmitted to his
grandson, and so on, until they become a generic characteristic and pass
organically into the flesh and blood. Thanks to a strict sexual
selection, to the fact that high-born families have instinctively
guarded themselves against marriage with their inferiors, and young men
of high rank have not married just anybody, lofty, spiritual qualities
have been transmitted from generation to generation in their full
purity, have been preserved, and as time goes on have, through exercise,
become more exalted and lofty. For the fact that there is good in
humanity we are indebted to nature, to the normal, natural, consistent
order of things, which has throughout the ages scrupulously segregated
blue blood from plebeian. Yes, my dear boy, no low lout, no cook's son
has given us literature, science, art, law, conceptions of honour and
duty . . . . For all these things mankind is indebted exclusively to the
aristocracy, and from that point of view, the point of view of natural
history, an inferior Sobakevitch by the very fact of his blue blood is
superior and more useful than the very best merchant, even though the
latter may have built fifteen museums. Say what you like! And when I
refuse to shake hands with a low lout or a cook's son, or to let him sit
down to table with me, by that very act I am safeguarding what is the
best thing on earth, and am carrying out one of Mother Nature's finest
designs for leading us up to perfection. . ."
Rashevitch stood still, combing his beard with both hands; his
shadow, too, stood still on the wall, looking like a pair of scissors.
"Take Mother-Russia now," he went on, thrusting his hands in his
pockets and standing first on his heels and then on his toes. "Who are
her best people? Take our first-rate painters, writers, composers . . . .
Who are they? They were all of aristocratic origin. Pushkin, Lermontov,
Turgenev, Gontcharov, Tolstoy, they were not sexton's children."
"Gontcharov was a merchant," said Meier.
"Well, the exception only proves the rule. Besides, Gontcharov's
genius is quite open to dispute. But let us drop names and turn to
facts. What would you say, my good sir, for instance, to this eloquent
fact: when one of the mob forces his way where he has not been permitted
before, into society, into the world of learning, of literature, into
the Zemstvo or the law courts, observe, Nature herself, first of all,
champions the higher rights of humanity, and is the first to wage war on
the rabble. As soon as the plebeian forces himself into a place he is
not fit for he begins to ail, to go into consumption, to go out of his
mind, and to degenerate, and nowhere do we find so many puny, neurotic
wrecks, consumptives, and starvelings of all sorts as among these
darlings. They die like flies in autumn. If it were not for this
providential degeneration there would not have been a stone left
standing of our civilization, the rabble would have demolished
everything. Tell me, if you please, what has the inroad of the
barbarians given us so far? What has the rabble brought with it?"
Rashevitch assumed a mysterious, frightened expression, and went on:
"Never has literature and learning been at such low ebb among us as now.
The men of to-day, my good sir, have neither ideas nor ideals, and all
their sayings and doings are permeated by one spirit--to get all they
can and to strip someone to his last thread. All these men of to-day who
give themselves out as honest and progressive people can be bought at a
rouble a piece, and the distinguishing mark of the 'intellectual' of
to-day is that you have to keep strict watch over your pocket when you
talk to him, or else he will run off with your purse." Rashevitch winked
and burst out laughing. "Upon my soul, he will! he said, in a thin,
gleeful voice. "And morals! What of their morals?" Rashevitch looked
round towards the door. "No one is surprised nowadays when a wife robs
and leaves her husband. What's that, a trifle! Nowadays, my dear boy, a
chit of a girl of twelve is scheming to get a lover, and all these
amateur theatricals and literary evenings are only invented to make it
easier to get a rich merchant to take a girl on as his mistress. . . .
Mothers sell their daughters, and people make no bones about asking a
husband at what price he sells his wife, and one can haggle over the
bargain, you know, my dear. . . ."
Meier, who had been sitting motionless and silent all the time, suddenly got up from the sofa and looked at his watch.
"I beg your pardon, Pavel Ilyitch," he said, "it is time for me to be going."
But Pavel Ilyitch, who had not finished his remarks, put his arm
round him and, forcibly reseating him on the sofa, vowed that he would
not let him go without supper. And again Meier sat and listened, but he
looked at Rashevitch with perplexity and uneasiness, as though he were
only now beginning to understand him. Patches of red came into his face.
And when at last a maidservant came in to tell them that the young
ladies asked them to go to supper, he gave a sigh of relief and was the
first to walk out of the study.
At the table in the next room were Rashevitch's daughters, Genya and
Iraida, girls of four-and-twenty and two-and-twenty respectively, both
very pale, with black eyes, and exactly the same height. Genya had her
hair down, and Iraida had hers done up high on her head. Before eating
anything they each drank a wineglassful of bitter liqueur, with an air
as though they had drunk it by accident for the first time in their
lives and both were overcome with confusion and burst out laughing.
"Don't be naughty, girls," said Rashevitch.
Genya and Iraida talked French with each other, and Russian with
their father and their visitor. Interrupting one another, and mixing up
French words with Russian, they began rapidly describing how just at
this time in August, in previous years, they had set off to the hoarding
school and what fun it had been. Now there was nowhere to go, and they
had to stay at their home in the country, summer and winter without
change. Such dreariness!
"Don't be naughty, girls," Rashevitch said again.
He wanted to be talking himself. If other people talked in his presence, he suffered from a feeling like jealousy.
"So that's how it is, my dear boy," he began, looking affectionately
at Meier. "In the simplicity and goodness of our hearts, and from fear
of being suspected of being behind the times, we fraternize with, excuse
me, all sorts of riff-raff, we preach fraternity and equality with
money-lenders and innkeepers; but if we would only think, we should see
how criminal that good-nature is. We have brought things to such a pass,
that the fate of civilization is hanging on a hair. My dear fellow,
what our forefathers gained in the course of ages will be to-morrow, if
not to-day, outraged and destroyed by these modern Huns. . . ."
After supper they all went into the drawing-room. Genya and Iraida
lighted the candles on the piano, got out their music. . . . But their
father still went on talking, and there was no telling when he would
leave off. They looked with misery and vexation at their egoist-father,
to whom the pleasure of chattering and displaying his intelligence was
evidently more precious and important than his daughters' happiness.
Meier, the only young man who ever came to their house, came--they
knew--for the sake of their charming, feminine society, but the
irrepressible old man had taken possession of him, and would not let him
move a step away.
"Just as the knights of the west repelled the invasions of the
Mongols, so we, before it is too late, ought to unite and strike
together against our foe," Rashevitch went on in the tone of a preacher,
holding up his right hand. "May I appear to the riff-raff not as Pavel
Ilyitch, but as a mighty, menacing Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Let us give up
sloppy sentimentality; enough of it! Let us all make a compact, that as
soon as a plebeian comes near us we fling some careless phrase straight
in his ugly face: 'Paws off! Go back to your kennel, you cur!' straight
in his ugly face," Rashevitch went on gleefully, flicking his crooked
finger in front of him. "In his ugly face!"
"I can't do that," Meier brought out, turning away.
"Why not?" Rashevitch answered briskly, anticipating a prolonged and interesting argument. "Why not?"
"Because I am of the artisan class myself!"
As he said this Meier turned crimson, and his neck seemed to swell, and tears actually gleamed in his eyes.
"My father was a simple workman," he said, in a rough, jerky voice, "but I see no harm in that."
Rashevitch was fearfully confused. Dumbfoundered, as though he had
been caught in the act of a crime, he gazed helplessly at Meier, and did
not know what to say. Genya and Iraida flushed crimson, and bent over
their music; they were ashamed of their tactless father. A minute passed
in silence, and there was a feeling of unbearable discomfort, when all
at once with a sort of painful stiffness and inappropriateness, there
sounded in the air the words:
"Yes, I am of the artisan class, and I am proud of it!"
Thereupon Meier, stumbling awkwardly among the furniture, took his
leave, and walked rapidly into the hall, though his carriage was not yet
at the door.
"You'll have a dark drive to-night," Rashevitch muttered, following him. "The moon does not rise till late to-night."
They stood together on the steps in the dark, and waited for the horses to be brought. It was cool.
"There's a falling star," said Meier, wrapping himself in his overcoat.
"There are a great many in August."
When the horses were at the door, Rashevitch gazed intently at the sky, and said with a sigh:
"A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion. . . ."
After seeing his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden,
gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a queer,
stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed and vexed
with himself. In the first place it had been extremely incautious and
tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject of blue blood,
without finding out beforehand what his visitor's position was.
Something of the same sort had happened to him before; he had, on one
occasion in a railway carriage, begun abusing the Germans, and it had
afterwards appeared that all the persons he had been conversing with
were German. In the second place he felt that Meier would never come and
see him again. These intellectuals who have risen from the people are
morbidly sensitive, obstinate and slow to forgive.
"It's bad, it's bad," muttered Rashevitch, spitting; he had a feeling
of discomfort and loathing as though he had eaten soap. "Ah, it's bad!"
He could see from the garden, through the drawing-room window, Genya
by the piano, very pale, and looking scared, with her hair down. She was
talking very, very rapidly. . . . Iraida was walking up and down the
room, lost in thought; but now she, too, began talking rapidly with her
face full of indignation. They were both talking at once. Rashevitch
could not hear a word, but he guessed what they were talking about.
Genya was probably complaining that her father drove away every decent
person from the house with his talk, and to-day he had driven away from
them their one acquaintance, perhaps a suitor, and now the poor young
man would not have one place in the whole district where he could find
rest for his soul. And judging by the despairing way in which she threw
up her arms, Iraida was talking probably on the subject of their dreary
existence, their wasted youth. . . .
When he reached his own room, Rashevitch sat down on his bed and
began to undress. He felt oppressed, and he was still haunted by the
same feeling as though he had eaten soap. He was ashamed. As he
undressed he looked at his long, sinewy, elderly legs, and remembered
that in the district they called him the "toad," and after every long
conversation he always felt ashamed. Somehow or other, by some fatality,
it always happened that he began mildly, amicably, with good
intentions, calling himself an old student, an idealist, a Quixote, but
without being himself aware of it, gradually passed into abuse and
slander, and what was most surprising, with perfect sincerity criticized
science, art and morals, though he had not read a book for the last
twenty years, had been nowhere farther than their provincial town, and
did not really know what was going on in the world. If he sat down to
write anything, if it were only a letter of congratulation, there would
somehow be abuse in the letter. And all this was strange, because in
reality he was a man of feeling, given to tears, Could he be possessed
by some devil which hated and slandered in him, apart from his own will?
"It's bad," he sighed, as he lay down under the quilt. "It's bad."
His daughters did not sleep either. There was a sound of laughter and
screaming, as though someone was being pursued; it was Genya in
hysterics. A little later Iraida was sobbing too. A maidservant ran
barefoot up and down the passage several times. . . .
"What a business! Good Lord! . . ." muttered Rashevitch, sighing and tossing from side to side. "It's bad."
He had a nightmare. He dreamt he was standing naked, as tall as a
giraffe, in the middle of the room, and saying, as he flicked his finger
before him:
"In his ugly face! his ugly face! his ugly face!"
He woke up in a fright, and first of all remembered that a
misunderstanding had happened in the evening, and that Meier would
certainly not come again. He remembered, too, that he had to pay the
interest at the bank, to find husbands for his daughters, that one must
have food and drink, and close at hand were illness, old age,
unpleasantnesses, that soon it would be winter, and that there was no
wood. . . .
It was past nine o'clock in the morning. Rashevitch slowly dressed,
drank his tea and ate two hunks of bread and butter. His daughters did
not come down to breakfast; they did not want to meet him, and that
wounded him. He lay down on his sofa in his study, then sat down to his
table and began writing a letter to his daughters. His hand shook and
his eyes smarted. He wrote that he was old, and no use to anyone and
that nobody loved him, and he begged his daughters to forget him, and
when he died to bury him in a plain, deal coffin without ceremony, or to
send his body to Harkov to the dissecting theatre. He felt that every
line he wrote reeked of malice and affectation, but he could not stop,
and went on writing and writing.
"The toad!" he suddenly heard from the next room; it was the voice of
his elder daughter, a voice with a hiss of indignation. "The toad!"
"The toad!" the younger one repeated like an echo. "The toad!"
