Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,75

cheese, caviar, mushrooms, vodka, and two carafes of wine.

“My sweet maître d’hôtel!” Olga Ivanovna would say, clasping her hands in delight. “You’re simply charming! Gentlemen, look at his forehead! Dymov, turn in profile. Look, gentlemen: the face of a Bengal tiger, and an expression as kind and sweet as a deer’s. Oh, my sweet!”

The guests ate and, looking at Dymov, thought: “A nice fellow, actually,” but they soon forgot him and went on talking about the theater, music, and painting.

The young spouses were happy and their life went swimmingly. However, the third week of their honeymoon passed not altogether happily, even sadly. Dymov caught erysipelas in the hospital, spent six days in bed, and had to shave his beautiful black hair. Olga Ivanovna sat with him and wept bitterly, but when he felt better, she put a white scarf around his cropped head and began painting him as a Bedouin. And they both felt merry. About three days after he recovered and began going to the hospital again, he suffered another mishap.

“I have no luck, mama!” he said over dinner. “Today I had to do four dissections, and I cut myself on two fingers at once. And I only noticed it when I got home.”

Olga Ivanovna became alarmed. He smiled and said it was nothing and that he often cut himself while doing dissections.

“I get carried away, mama, and don’t pay attention.”

Olga Ivanovna worriedly anticipated blood poisoning and prayed to God at night, but nothing bad happened. And again their peaceful, happy life flowed on without sorrows or alarms. The present was beautiful, and it would be replaced by the approaching spring, already smiling from afar and promising a thousand joys. There would be no end of happiness! In April, May, and June a dacha2 far from town, walks, sketching, fishing, nightingales, and then, from July right till fall, an artists’ trip to the Volga, and Olga Ivanovna would take part in that trip, too, as a permanent member of the société. She had already had two simple linen traveling outfits made, and had bought some paints, brushes, canvases, and a new palette to take along. Ryabovsky came to her almost every day, to see what progress she had made in painting. When she showed him her paintings, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, pressed his lips tightly, sniffed, and said:

“Well, now … This cloud you’ve made too loud—it’s not evening light. The foreground is somehow chewed up, and there’s something off here, you see … And your little cottage is choking on something and squealing pitifully … this corner could be a bit darker. But in general it’s not bad at all… My compliments.”

And the more incomprehensibly he spoke, the more easily Olga Ivanovna understood him.

III

On the day after Pentecost, Dymov bought some snacks and sweets after dinner and went to his wife at the dacha. He had not seen her for two weeks and missed her sorely. Sitting on the train and then looking for his dacha in the big woods, he felt hungry and tired all the while, and dreamed of having a leisurely supper with his wife and then dropping off to sleep. And it cheered him to look at his bundle, with its wrapped-up caviar, cheese, and white salmon. By the time he found his dacha and recognized it, the sun was already setting. The old maid said that the lady was not at home but would probably be back soon. The dacha was very unattractive to look at, with low ceilings pasted over with writing paper and cracks between the uneven floorboards, and it consisted of only three rooms. In one room stood a bed, in the second there were canvases, brushes, greasy paper, and men’s jackets and hats lying about on the chairs and windowsills, and in the third Dymov found three men he did not know. Two were dark-haired with little beards, and the third was clean-shaven and fat, apparently an actor. A samovar was boiling on the table.

“What can I do for you?” the actor asked in a bass voice, giving Dymov an unsociable look. “Is it Olga Ivanovna you want? Wait, she’ll come soon.”

Dymov sat down and began to wait. One of the dark-haired men, glancing at him sleepily and sluggishly, poured himself some tea and asked:

“Want some tea?”

Dymov wanted to drink and to eat, but he declined the tea so as not to spoil his appetite. Soon footsteps and familiar laughter were heard; the door banged, and