Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,132

all the same she stoked the stove in the morning and even went to fetch water. Towards evening she took to her bed. Yakov spent the whole day playing his fiddle; when it got completely dark, he took the notebook in which he recorded his losses daily, and out of boredom began adding up the yearly total. It came to over a thousand roubles. This astounded him so much that he flung the abacus to the floor and stamped his feet. Then he picked up the abacus, again clicked away for a long time, and sighed deeply and tensely. His face was purple and wet with sweat. He thought that if he could have put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, he would have earned at least forty roubles a year in interest. And therefore those forty roubles were also a loss. In short, wherever you turned, there was nothing but losses everywhere.

“Yakov!” Marfa called out unexpectedly. “I’m dying.”

He turned to look at his wife. Her face, rosy with fever, was unusually serene and joyful. Bronzy, who was used to seeing her face always pale, timid, and unhappy, was now dismayed. It looked as if she was indeed dying, and was glad to be leaving that cottage, the coffins, and Yakov finally and forever … She was gazing at the ceiling and moving her lips, and her expression was happy, as if she could see death, her deliverer, and was whispering to him.

Day was already breaking, and the glow of early dawn appeared in the window. Looking at the old woman, Yakov for some reason recalled that in all their life, it seemed, he had never once been gentle with her, or sorry for her, had never once thought of buying her a little shawl or bringing her something sweet from a wedding, but had only yelled at her, scolded her for their losses, threatened her with his fists; true, he had never beaten her, but he had frightened her, and each time she was frozen with fear. Yes, he had told her not to drink tea, because expenses were high as it was, and she had drunk only hot water. And he understood why she had such a strange, joyful face now, and it gave him an eerie feeling.

Having waited for morning, he borrowed a neighbor’s horse and took Marfa to the clinic. There were not many patients, and he did not have to wait long, only about three hours. To his great satisfaction, the patients were being received not by the doctor, who was ill himself, but by the doctor’s assistant, Maxim Nikolaich, an old man, of whom everyone in town said that, though he was a drunkard and a brawler, he understood more than the doctor.

“Good day to you,” said Yakov, leading his old woman into the receiving room. “Excuse us, Maxim Nikolaich, for troubling you with our trifling affairs. Here, you’ll kindly see, my object has taken sick. My life’s companion, as they say, excuse the expression …”

Knitting his gray eyebrows and stroking his side-whiskers, the assistant doctor began to examine the old woman, and she sat there on the stool, hunched up and skinny, sharp-nosed, her mouth open, in profile resembling a thirsty bird.

“Mm, yes … So …” the assistant said slowly and sighed. “Influenza, and maybe ague. There’s typhus going around town. So? The old woman has lived, thank God … How old is she?”

“One year short of seventy, Maxim Nikolaich.”

“So? The old woman has lived. Enough and to spare.”

“There, of course, you’ve made a correct observation, Maxim Nikolaich,” said Yakov, smiling out of politeness, “and we’re heartily grateful for your agreeableness, but—permit me the expression—every insect wants to live.”

“What else is new!” the assistant said, sounding as if it depended on him whether the old woman was to live or die. “Now then, my good man, you put a cold compress on her head and give her these powders twice a day. And with that—bye-bye, bonzhur.”

From the expression of his face Yakov could see that things were bad and that no powders would help; it was clear to him now that Marfa would die very soon, if not today then tomorrow. He gave the assistant a slight nudge in the arm, winked at him, and said in a low voice:

“Maybe try cupping glasses,1 Maxim Nikolaich.”

“No time, no time, my good man. Take your old woman and God speed you. Bye-bye.”

“Do us a kindness,” Yakov implored. “You know yourself that if she had,