About Love
by Anton
Chekhov
(1860-1904)
(1860-1904)
At lunch
next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we
were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for
dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he
was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved,
but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea
was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did
not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very
devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to “live in sin”; he
insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he
was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she
used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants
stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.
We began talking about love.
“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not
love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and
why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The
Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all
that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one
incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’
Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion,
but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The
explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others,
and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case
individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to
individualize each case.”
“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.
“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality
for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized,
decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these
momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow,
when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and
every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a
month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way,
when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether
it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading
up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it
is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”
It looked as though he wanted to tell some story.
People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts
which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the
restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things
to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom
themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees
drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was
nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.
“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long
time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman
by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing
on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he
had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till
I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must
confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one
is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which
is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the
fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those
days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned;
I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring
villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed
and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village
cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and
I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile
this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is
necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself
upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and
liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the
Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my
liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters;
as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to
my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the
forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved
downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury
nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it
would be painful to turn away.
“In the first years I was elected here an honourary
justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the
sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant
change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break,
especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in
the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress- coats, too,
all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk
to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an
arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one’s waistcoat, is
such luxury!
“I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends
eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the
truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the
vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming
personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiarism; the
preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch
looked at me and said:
“ ‘Look here, come round to dinner with me.’
“This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very
little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to
my hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet
Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch’s wife. At that time she was still very young, not
more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just six months before.
It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define
what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much;
at the time, at dinner, it was all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young,
good, intelligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I
felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face,
those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the
album which lay on my mother’s chest of drawers.
“Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were
regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I
was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I said, but
Anna Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband:
“ ‘Dmitry, how is this?’
“Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those
simple-hearted people who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is
charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of
a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and
in private conversation.
“ ‘You and I did not set fire to the place,’ he said
softly, ‘and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.’
“And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and
drink as much as possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made
the coffee together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other
at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that
they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then
it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.
“After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without
a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the
graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think
of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.
“In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance
for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor’s box (I was
invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna
sitting beside the governor’s wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling
impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of
nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.
“ ‘You’ve grown thinner,’ she said; ‘have you been
ill?’
“ ‘Yes, I’ve had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in
rainy weather I can’t sleep.’
“ ‘You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came
to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and
talked a great deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess
I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my
memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today I
thought I should see you.’
“And she laughed.
“ ‘But you look dispirited today,’ she repeated; ‘it
makes you seem older.’
“The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs’. After
lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there
for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at
midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire
glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And
after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs.
They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced,
as though I were one of the family.
“ ‘Who is there?’ I would hear from a faraway room, in
the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.
“ ‘It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,’ answered the maid or
the nurse.
“Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious
face, and would ask every time:
“ ‘Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything
happened?’
“Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her
indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced
the same impression on me something new and extraordinary in my life, and very
important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own
thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at
home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on
the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in
the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those
parcels every time with as much love, with as much solemnity, as a boy.
“There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no
troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made
friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must
have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried
that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of
devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the country, rush round
like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They
fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal
my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of
their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I
really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money
enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife,
would whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a
grave face:
“ ‘If you really are in need of money at the moment,
Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from
us.’
“And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it
would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would
come up to me, with red ears, and say:
“ ‘My wife and I earnestly I beg you to accept this
present.’
“And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp,
and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by
the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed
money, and was not very particular about it—borrowed wherever I could—but
nothing in the world have induced me to borrow from the Luganovitchs. But why
talk of it?
“I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I
thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent
young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her
husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery
of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome
good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people,
looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression,
as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to
be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had
met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need
have happened.
“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her
eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she
had had a peculiar feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a
long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but
timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might
reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected
and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength
to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could
all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her
children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it
be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It
would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting
life—if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my
country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but
as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as
humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would
happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to
one another?
“And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She
thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband
like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or
else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally
terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her
love would bring me happiness—would she not complicate my life, which, as it
was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not
young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin
a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my
marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and
a help to me—and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find
such a girl in the whole town.
“Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna
already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants
smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had
come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand
what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one
looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a
noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to
their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer
and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together,
always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders
touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word,
and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she
was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange
misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good- bye and
parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying
about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!
“In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away
for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from
low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied,
and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was
already being treated for neurasthenia.
“We were silent and still silent, and in the presence
of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I
talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my
opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly:
“ ‘I congratulate you.’
“If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were
going to the theatre, she would say afterwards:
“ ‘I knew you would forget it.’
“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives
that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was
appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their
furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa,
and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time
at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had
to say good-bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of
August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were
sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off
for the western province.
“We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When
she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a
minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket,
which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When
our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I
took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from
her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how
unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart
I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered
us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your
reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more
important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted
meaning, or you must not reason at all.
“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and
parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next
compartment—it was empty—and until I reached the next station I sat there
crying. Then I walked home to Sofino….”
While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off
and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from
which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was
shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same
time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told
them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round
this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to
science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and
they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said
good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both
of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.
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