Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,45

so be it, I’ll go to Kharkov and do whatever you like.”

She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes to her room to cry. I remain alone.

A little later a lamp is brought in. Familiar shadows I’ve long since grown weary of are cast on the walls and floor by the chairs and the lamp shade, and when I look at them, it seems to me that it’s already night and that my cursed insomnia is beginning. I lie down, then get up and pace the room, then lie down again … Usually after dinner, before evening, my nervous agitation reaches its highest pitch. I start weeping for no reason and hide my head under the pillow. In those moments I’m afraid somebody may come in, afraid I may die suddenly; I’m ashamed of my tears, and generally there is something unbearable in my soul. I feel that I can no longer stand the sight of my lamp, the books, the shadows on the floor, or the sound of voices coming from the drawing room. Some invisible and incomprehensible force is roughly pushing me out of the house. I jump up, hastily put on my coat and hat, and cautiously, so that the family won’t notice, go outside. Where to?

The answer to that question has long been sitting in my brain: to Katya.

III

As usual, she’s lying on a Turkish divan or couch and reading something. On seeing me, she raises her head indolently, sits up, and gives me her hand.

“And you’re always lying down,” I say, after pausing briefly to rest. “That’s unhealthy. You ought to find something to do!”

“Eh?”

“I said, you ought to find something to do.”

“What? A woman can only be a menial worker or an actress.”

“Well, then? If you can’t be a worker, be an actress.”

Silence.

“Why don’t you get married?” I say half jokingly.

“There’s nobody to marry. And no reason to.”

“You can’t live like this.”

“Without a husband? A lot it matters! There are men all over, if anybody’s interested.”

“That’s not nice, Katya.”

“What’s not nice?”

“What you just said.”

Noticing that I’m upset, and wishing to smooth over the bad impression, Katya says:

“Come. Over here. Look.”

She leads me to a small, very cozy room and says, pointing to the writing table:

“Look … I’ve made it ready for you. You can work here. Come every day and bring your work. At home they only bother you. Will you work here? Do you want to?”

To avoid upsetting her by saying no, I reply that I will work in her place and that I like the room very much. Then the two of us sit down in this cozy room and begin to talk.

The warmth, the cozy atmosphere, and the presence of a sympathetic person now arouse in me not a feeling of contentment, as before, but a strong urge to complain and grumble. For some reason it seems to me that if I murmur and complain a bit I’ll feel better.

“Things are bad, my dear!” I begin with a sigh. “Very bad …”

“What’s wrong?”

“The thing is this, my friend. The best and most sacred right of kings is the right to show mercy. And I always felt myself a king, because I made boundless use of that right. I never judged, I was tolerant, I willingly forgave everybody right and left. Where others protested and were indignant, I merely advised and persuaded. All my life I tried only to make my company bearable for my family, students, colleagues, and servants. And this attitude of mine towards people, I know, was an education to all those around me. But now I’m no longer a king. Something is going on inside me that is fit only for slaves: spiteful thoughts wander through my head day and night, and feelings such as I’ve never known before are nesting in my soul. I hate and despise, I feel indignant, outraged, afraid. I’ve become excessively severe, demanding, irritable, ungracious, suspicious. Even something that before would have given me an occasion for one more quip and a good-natured laugh, now produces a heavy feeling in me. My logic has also changed in me: before I only despised money, now I harbor a spiteful feeling not for money but for the rich, as if they were to blame; before I hated violence and tyranny, but now I hate the people who use violence, as if they alone were to blame and not all of us, because we’re unable to educate each other. What does it mean? If my