Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,169

the morning mist. The door to Liza’s room was open, and she was sitting in an armchair by the bed, in a robe, a shawl around her shoulders, her hair undone. The window blinds were drawn.

“How are you feeling?” asked Korolev.

“Well, thank you.”

He took her pulse, then straightened the hair that had fallen across her forehead.

“You’re not asleep,” he said. “The weather is wonderful outside, it’s spring, the nightingales are singing, and you sit in the dark and brood on something.”

She listened and looked into his face; her eyes were sad, intelligent, and it was clear that she wanted to say something to him.

“Does this happen to you often?” he asked.

She moved her lips and answered:

“Often. I feel oppressed almost every night.”

Just then the watchmen in the yard began striking two: “Derr … derr …” and she gave a start.

“Does this rapping upset you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Everything here upsets me,” she said, and thought a little. “Everything. I hear sympathy in your voice, at the first sight of you I thought for some reason that I could talk with you about everything.”

“Please do talk.”

“I want to tell you my opinion. It seems to me that I’m not ill, but I’m upset and afraid because that’s how it should be and it can’t be otherwise. Even the healthiest person can’t help being upset if, for instance, a robber is prowling under his windows. I’ve been treated often,” she went on, looking into her lap and smiling bashfully. “I’m very grateful, of course, and I don’t deny the benefits of the treatment, but I’d like to talk, not to a doctor, but to someone close to me, a friend who would understand me, who could convince me that I’m either right or wrong.”

“You don’t have any friends?” asked Korolev.

“I’m lonely. I have my mother, I love her, but still I’m lonely. Life has worked out this way … Lonely people read a lot, but talk little and hear little, life is mysterious for them; they’re mystics and often see the devil where he’s not. Lermontov’s Tamara was lonely and saw the devil.”2

“And you read a lot?”

“Yes. My time is all free, from morning till evening. During the day I read, but in the night my head is empty, there are some sort of shadows instead of thoughts.”

“Do you see things at night?” asked Korolev.

“No, but I feel …”

Again she smiled and raised her eyes to the doctor, and looked at him so sadly, so intelligently; and it seemed to him that she trusted him, wanted to talk openly with him, and that she thought as he did. But she was silent, perhaps waiting for him to speak.

And he knew what to tell her. It was clear to him that she ought quickly to leave those five buildings and the million, if she had it, to leave that devil who watched at night; it was also clear to him that she herself thought so, too, and was only waiting for someone she trusted to confirm it.

But he did not know how to say it. How? It was mortifying to ask condemned people what they were condemned for; just as it was awkward to ask very rich people what they needed so much money for, why they disposed of their wealth so badly, why they would not abandon it, even when they could see it was to their own misfortune; and if such a conversation began, it usually turned out to be embarrassing, awkward, long.

“How to say it?” pondered Korolev. “And need I say it?”

And he said what he wanted to say, not directly, but in a roundabout way:

“You’re not content in your position as a factory owner and a rich heiress, you don’t believe in your right to it, and now you can’t sleep, which, of course, is certainly better than if you were content, slept soundly, and thought everything was fine. Your insomnia is respectable; in any event, it’s a good sign. In fact, for our parents such a conversation as we’re having now would have been unthinkable; they didn’t talk at night, they slept soundly, but we, our generation, sleep badly, are anguished, talk a lot, and keep trying to decide if we’re right or not. But for our children or grandchildren this question—whether they’re right or not—will be decided. They’ll see better than we do. Life will be good in fifty years or so, it’s only a pity we won’t make it that far. It would be interesting