Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,46

new thoughts and feelings proceed from a change of convictions, where could that change have come from? Has the world become worse and I better, or was I blind and indifferent before? And if this change has proceeded from a general decline of physical and mental powers—I’m sick and losing weight every day—then my situation is pathetic: it means that my new thoughts are abnormal, unhealthy, that I should be ashamed of them and consider them worthless …”

“Sickness has nothing to do with it,” Katya interrupts me. “It’s simply that your eyes have been opened, that’s all. You’ve seen something that for some reason you didn’t want to notice before. In my opinion, you must first of all break with your family and leave.”

“What you’re saying is absurd.”

“You don’t love them, so why this duplicity? And is that a family? Nonentities! They could die today, and tomorrow nobody would notice they were gone.”

Katya despises my wife and daughter as much as they hate her. In our day one can hardly talk of people’s right to despise each other. But if one takes Katya’s point of view and acknowledges that such a right exists, one can see that after all she has the same right to despise my wife and Liza as they have to hate her.

“Nonentities!” she repeats. “Did you have dinner today? How is it they didn’t forget to call you to the dining room? How is it they still remember your existence?”

“Katya,” I say sternly, “I ask you to be quiet.”

“And do you think I enjoy talking about them? I’d be glad not to know them at all. Listen to me, my dear: drop everything and leave. Go abroad. The sooner the better.”

“What nonsense! And the university?”

“The university, too. What is it to you? There’s no sense in it anyway. You’ve been lecturing for thirty years now, and where are your disciples? Have you produced many famous scientists? Count them up! And to multiply the number of doctors who exploit ignorance and make hundreds of thousands, there’s no need to be a good and talented man. You’re superfluous.”

“My God, how sharp you are!” I say, horrified. “How sharp you are! Be quiet, or I’ll leave! I don’t know how to reply to your sharpness!”

The maid comes in and invites us to have tea. At the samovar our conversation changes, thank God. Since I’ve already complained, I want to give free rein to my other old man’s weakness— reminiscence. I tell Katya about my past and, to my great astonishment, inform her of such details as I didn’t even suspect were still preserved in my memory. And she listens to me with tenderness, with pride, with bated breath. I especially like telling her how I once studied at the seminary15 and dreamed of going to university.

“I used to walk in our seminary garden …” I tell her. “The squeak of an accordion and a song from a far-off tavern would come on the wind, or a troika with bells would race past the seminary fence, and that was already quite enough for a sense of happiness suddenly to fill not only my breast, but even my stomach, legs, arms … I’d listen to the accordion or to the fading sound of the bells, and imagine myself a doctor and paint pictures—one better than the other. And so, as you see, my dreams have come true. I’ve received more than I dared dream of. For thirty years I’ve been a beloved professor, have had excellent colleagues, have enjoyed honorable renown. I’ve loved, married for passionate love, had children. In short, looking back, my whole life seems to me like a beautiful composition, executed with talent. Now it only remains for me not to ruin the finale. For that I must die like a human being. If death is indeed a danger, I must meet it as befits a teacher, a scientist, and the citizen of a Christian country: cheerfully and with a peaceful soul. But I’m ruining the finale. I’m drowning, I run to you asking for help, and you say to me: drown, that’s how it should be.”

But here the bell rings in the front hall. Katya and I recognize it and say:

“That must be Mikhail Fyodorovich.”

And, indeed, a moment later in comes my colleague, the philologist Mikhail Fyodorovich, a tall, well-built man of around fifty, clean-shaven, with thick gray hair and black eyebrows. He is a kind man and an excellent comrade. He comes from an old aristocratic