A Lady's Story
by Anton Chekhov
Nine years ago Pyotr Sergeyitch, the deputy prosecutor, and I were riding
towards evening in hay-making time to fetch the letters from the station.
The weather was
magnificent, but on our way back we heard a peal of thunder, and saw an angry
black storm-cloud which was coming straight towards us. The storm-cloud was
approaching us and we were approaching it.
Against the
background of it our house and church looked white and the tall poplars shone
like silver. There was a scent of rain and mown hay. My companion was in high
spirits. He kept laughing and talking all sorts of nonsense. He said it would
be nice if we could suddenly come upon a medieval castle with turreted towers,
with moss on it and owls, in which we could take shelter from the rain and in
the end be killed by a thunderbolt....
Then the first wave
raced through the rye and a field of oats, there was a gust of wind, and the
dust flew round and round in the air. Pyotr Sergeyitch laughed and spurred on
his horse.
"It's
fine!" he cried, "it's splendid!"
Infected by his
gaiety, I too began laughing at the thought that in a minute I should be
drenched to the skin and might be struck by lightning.
Riding swiftly in a
hurricane when one is breathless with the wind, and feels like a bird, thrills
one and puts one's heart in a flutter. By the time we rode into our courtyard
the wind had gone down, and big drops of rain were pattering on the grass and
on the roofs. There was not a soul near the stable.
Pyotr Sergeyitch
himself took the bridles off, and led the horses to their stalls. I stood in
the doorway waiting for him to finish, and watching the slanting streaks of
rain; the sweetish, exciting scent of hay was even stronger here than in the
fields; the storm-clouds and the rain made it almost twilight.
"What a
crash!" said Pyotr Sergeyitch, coming up to me after a very loud rolling
peal of thunder when it seemed as though the sky were split in two. "What
do you say to that?"
He stood beside me
in the doorway and, still breathless from his rapid ride, looked at me. I could
see that he was admiring me.
"Natalya
Vladimirovna," he said, "I would give anything only to stay here a
little longer and look at you. You are lovely to-day."
His eyes looked at me with delight and supplication,
his face was pale. On his beard and mustache were glittering raindrops, and
they, too, seemed to be looking at me with love.
"I love you," he said. "I love you, and
I am happy at seeing you. I know you cannot be my wife, but I want nothing, I
ask nothing; only know that I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no
notice of it, but only know that you are dear to me and let me look at
you."
His rapture affected me too; I looked at his
enthusiastic face, listened to his voice which mingled with the patter of the
rain, and stood as though spellbound, unable to stir.
I longed to go on endlessly looking at his shining
eyes and listening.
"You say nothing, and that is splendid,"
said Pyotr Sergeyitch. "Go on being silent."
I felt happy. I laughed with delight and ran through
the drenching rain to the house; he laughed too, and, leaping as he went, ran
after me.
Both drenched, panting, noisily clattering up the
stairs like children, we dashed into the room. My father and brother, who were
not used to seeing me laughing and light-hearted, looked at me in surprise and
began laughing too.
The storm-clouds had passed over and the thunder had
ceased, but the raindrops still glittered on Pyotr Sergeyitch's beard. The
whole evening till supper-time he was singing, whistling, playing noisily with
the dog and racing about the room after it, so that he nearly upset the servant
with the samovar. And at supper he ate a great deal, talked nonsense, and
maintained that when one eats fresh cucumbers in winter there is the fragrance
of spring in one's mouth.
When I went to bed I lighted a candle and threw my
window wide open, and an undefined feeling took possession of my soul. I
remembered that I was free and healthy, that I had rank and wealth, that I was
beloved; above all, that I had rank and wealth, rank and wealth, my God! how
nice that was!... Then, huddling up in bed at a touch of cold which reached me
from the garden with the dew, I tried to discover whether I loved Pyotr
Sergeyitch or not,... and fell asleep unable to reach any conclusion.
And when in the morning I saw quivering patches of
sunlight and the shadows of the lime trees on my bed, what had happened
yesterday rose vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of
charm. Humming, I dressed quickly and went out into the garden....
And what happened afterwards? Why -- nothing. In the
winter when we lived in town Pyotr Sergeyitch came to see us from time to time.
Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and in summer; in the
town and in winter they lose their charm. When you pour out tea for them in the
town it seems as though they are wearing other people's coats, and as though
they stirred their tea too long. In the town, too, Pyotr Sergeyitch spoke
sometimes of love, but the effect was not at all the same as in the country. In
the town we were more vividly conscious of the wall that stood between us. I
had rank and wealth, while he was poor, and he was not even a nobleman, but
only the son of a deacon and a deputy public prosecutor; we both of us -- I
through my youth and he for some unknown reason -- thought of that wall as very
high and thick, and when he was with us in the town he would criticize
aristocratic society with a forced smile, and maintain a sullen silence when
there was anyone else in the drawing-room. There is no wall that cannot be
broken through, but the heroes of the modern romance, so far as I know them,
are too timid, spiritless, lazy, and oversensitive, and are too ready to resign
themselves to the thought that they are doomed to failure, that personal life
has disappointed them; instead of struggling they merely criticize, calling the
world vulgar and forgetting that their criticism passes little by little into
vulgarity.
I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to
be almost touching me; I went on living in careless ease without trying to
understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from life, and
time went on and on.... People passed by me with their love, bright days and
warm nights flashed by, the nightingales sang, the hay smelt fragrant, and all
this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with me as with everyone
rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like mist.... Where is
it all?
My father is dead, I have grown older; everything that
delighted me, caressed me, gave me hope -- the patter of the rain, the rolling
of the thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love -- all that has become
nothing but a memory, and I see before me a flat desert distance; on the plain
not one living soul, and out there on the horizon it is dark and terrible....
A ring at the bell.... It is Pyotr Sergeyitch. When in
the winter I see the trees and remember how green they were for me in the
summer I whisper:
"Oh, my darlings!"
And when I see people with whom I spent my
spring-time, I feel sorrowful and warm and whisper the same thing.
He has long ago by my father's good offices been
transferred to town. He looks a little older, a little fallen away. He has long
given up declaring his love, has left off talking nonsense, dislikes his
official work, is ill in some way and disillusioned; he has given up trying to
get anything out of life, and takes no interest in living. Now he has sat down
by the hearth and looks in silence at the fire....
Not knowing what to say I ask him:
"Well, what have you to tell me?"
"Nothing," he answers.
And silence again. The red glow of the fire plays
about his melancholy face.
I thought of the past, and all at once my shoulders
began quivering, my head dropped, and I began weeping bitterly. I felt
unbearably sorry for myself and for this man, and passionately longed for what
had passed away and what life refused us now. And now I did not think about
rank and wealth.
I broke into loud sobs, pressing my temples, and
muttered:
"My God! my God! my life is wasted!"
And he sat and was silent, and did not say to me:
"Don't weep." He understood that I must weep, and that the time for
this had come.
I saw from his eyes that he was sorry for me; and I
was sorry for him, too, and vexed with this timid, unsuccessful man who could
not make a life for me, nor for himself.
When I saw him to the door, he was, I fancied,
purposely a long while putting on his coat. Twice he kissed my hand without a
word, and looked a long while into my tear-stained face. I believe at that
moment he recalled the storm, the streaks of rain, our laughter, my face that
day; he longed to say something to me, and he would have been glad to say it;
but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand. God help
him!
After seeing him out, I went back to my study and
again sat on the carpet before the fireplace; the red embers were covered with
ash and began to grow dim. The frost tapped still more angrily at the windows,
and the wind droned in the chimney.
The maid came in and, thinking I was asleep, called my
name.
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