Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,139

of penmanship and drawing in the high school, took to drinking, and they fell into want; the boys had no boots or galoshes, the father kept being dragged before the justice of the peace, the bailiff came to make an inventory of the furniture … Such shame! Anya had to look after the drunken father, darn her brothers’ socks, go to the market, and when people praised her beauty, youth, and gracious manners, it seemed to her that the whole world could see that her hat was cheap and the holes in her shoes were daubed over with ink. And during the nights, there were tears and the persistent, troubling thought that her father would very soon be dismissed from the school on account of his weakness, that he would not survive it and would also die, as her mother had died. But then their lady acquaintances got busy and began looking for a good man for Anya. Soon they came up with this same Modest Alexeich, neither young nor handsome, but with money. He had a hundred thousand in the bank and also a family estate that he leased. He was a man of principle and in good standing with His Excellency; it would be nothing for him, as Anya was told, to take a note from His Excellency to the principal of the school and even to the superintendent, to keep Pyotr Leontyich from being dismissed …

As she recalled these details, she suddenly heard music bursting through the window with the noise of voices. The train had stopped at a small station. Beyond the platform, in the crowd, an accordion and a cheap, shrill fiddle were playing briskly, and from beyond the tall birches and poplars, from beyond the dachas bathed in moonlight, came the sounds of a military band: they must have been having an evening dance. Summer residents and city-dwellers, who came there in good weather to breathe the clean air, strolled along the platform. Artynov was also there, the owner of this whole summer colony, a rich man, tall, stout, dark-haired, with an Armenian-looking face, protruding eyes, and a strange costume. He was wearing a shirt unbuttoned on the chest and high boots with spurs; a black cloak hung from his shoulders, dragging on the ground like a train. Two Borzoi hounds, their sharp muzzles lowered, followed after him.

Anya’s eyes still glistened with tears, but she was no longer thinking about her mother, or money, or her wedding, but was shaking hands with some high-school students and officers she knew, laughing merrily and saying quickly:

“Hello! How are you?”

She went out to the end of the corridor, into the moonlight, and stood in such a way as to be fully visible in her magnificent new dress and hat.

“Why have we stopped here?” she asked.

“There’s a sidetrack here,” came the answer, “we’re expecting the mail train.”

Noticing that Artynov was looking at her, she narrowed her eyes coquettishly and began speaking loudly in French, and because her own voice sounded so pretty, and there was music, and the moon was reflected in the pond, and because Artynov, that notorious Don Juan and prankster, was looking at her greedily and with curiosity, and because everyone felt merry, she was suddenly filled with joy, and when the train started, and her officer acquaintances touched their visors in farewell, she was already humming the strains of a polka that the military band, banging away somewhere beyond the trees, sent after her; and she went back to her compartment feeling as if she had been convinced at the station that she would certainly be happy, no matter what.

The newlyweds spent two days at the monastery and then returned to town. They lived in a government apartment. When Modest Alexeich went to work, Anya played the piano, or wept from boredom, or lay on the couch and read novels and looked through fashion magazines. At dinner Modest Alexeich ate a great deal and talked about politics, about appointments, transfers, and bonuses, and that one had to work, that family life was not a pleasure but a duty, that a penny saved was a penny earned, and that he considered religion and morality the highest things in the world. And, gripping the knife in his fist like a sword, he said:

“Every man must have his responsibilities!”

And Anya listened to him, afraid and unable to eat, and usually left the table hungry After dinner her husband rested and snored loudly, and she went to see