Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,152

her as my little queen who, together with me, would one day possess these trees, fields, mists, the dawn, this nature, wonderful, enchanting, but in the midst of which I had till then felt myself hopelessly lonely and useless.

“Stay another moment,” I asked. “I implore you.”

I took off my coat and covered her chilled shoulders; she, afraid of looking ridiculous and unattractive in a man’s coat, laughed and threw it off, and at that moment I embraced her and began to shower kisses on her face, shoulders, hands.

“Till tomorrow!” she whispered, and cautiously, as if afraid of breaking the silence of the night, embraced me. “We have no secrets from each other, I must tell mama and my sister everything at once … It’s so scary! Mama’s nothing, mama likes you, but Lida!”

She ran towards the gates.

“Good-bye!” she called.

And then for about two minutes I listened to her running. I had no wish to go home, nor any reason to go there. I stood for a while in thought and quietly trudged back, to look again at the house where she lived, a dear, naïve old house, which seemed to look at me with the windows of its mezzanine as if with eyes, and to understand everything. I went past the terrace, sat down on a bench by the tennis court, in the darkness under an old elm, and looked at the house from there. In the windows of the mezzanine, where Missyus lived, there was a flash of bright light, then a peaceful green—the lamp had been covered with a shade. Shadows moved about … I was filled with tenderness, quietude, and satisfaction with myself—satisfaction that I could be carried away and fall in love—and at the same time I felt discomfort at the thought that just then, a few steps away from me, in one of the rooms of that house, lived Lida, who did not like, and perhaps hated, me. I sat and kept waiting, in case Zhenya came out, listening, and it seemed to me that there was talking in the mezzanine.

About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows could no longer be seen. The moon had risen high over the house, lighting up the sleeping garden, the paths; the dahlias and roses in the flower garden in front of the house were clearly visible and seemed to be all of the same color. It was getting very cold. I left the garden, picked up my coat on the road, and unhurriedly plodded home.

When I came to the Volchaninovs’ the next day after dinner, the glass door to the garden was wide open. I sat on the terrace, expecting that Zhenya would appear at any moment on the tennis court beyond the flower garden, or on one of the paths, or that her voice would come from inside; then I went to the drawing room, the dining room. There was not a soul. From the dining room I walked down the long corridor to the front hall, then back. There were several doors in the corridor, and behind one of them Lida’s voice rang out.

“To a crow somewhere … God …” she said loudly and slowly, probably dictating. “God sent a piece of cheese … To a crow … somewhere … 9 Who’s there?” she suddenly called out, hearing my footsteps.

“It’s me.”

“Ah! Excuse me, I can’t come right now, I’m busy with Dasha.”

“Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?”

“No, she and my sister left this morning to visit our aunt in Penza province. And in the winter they will probably go abroad …” she added after a pause. “To a crow somewhere … God sent a pie-e-ece of che-e-ese … Have you written that?”

I went out to the front hall and, not thinking of anything, stood and looked from there at the pond and the village, and the words came to me:

“A piece of cheese … To a crow somewhere God sent a piece of cheese …”

And I left the estate by the same road I had come there on the first time, only in reverse: from the yard to the garden, past the house, then down the linden avenue … There a boy caught up with me and gave me a note. “I told my sister everything, and she demands that I part with you,” I read. “It is beyond me to upset her by my disobedience. Forgive me, and God grant you happiness. If you only knew how bitterly mama and