The Greatest Novellas & Short Stories of Anton Chekhov - Anton Chekhov

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      The doctor sits down to the little table, and rubbing his forehead, prescribes bromide of potassium for Lizotchka, then makes his bow, and promising to look in again in the evening, departs. Vassya does not go to the office, but sits all day at his wife’s feet.

      At midday the admirers of her talent arrive in a crowd. They are agitated and alarmed, they bring masses of flowers and French novels. Lizotchka, in a snow-white cap and a light dressing jacket, lies in bed with an enigmatic look, as though she did not believe in her own recovery. The admirers of her talent see her husband, but readily forgive his presence: they and he are united by one calamity at that bedside!

      At six o’clock in the evening Lizotchka falls asleep, and again sleeps till two o’clock in the morning. Vassya as before sits at her feet, struggles with drowsiness, changes her compress, plays at being a Jew, and in the morning after a second night of suffering, Liza is prinking before the looking-glass and putting on her hat.

      “Wherever are you going, my dear?” asks Vassya, with an imploring look at her.

      “What?” says Lizotchka in wonder, assuming a scared expression, “don’t you know that there is a rehearsal to-day at Marya Lvovna’s?”

      After escorting her there, Vassya having nothing to do to while away his boredom, takes his portfolio and goes to the office. His head aches so violently from his sleepless nights that his left eye shuts of itself and refuses to open….

      “What’s the matter with you, my good sir?” his chief asks him. “What is it?”

      Vassy a waves his hand and sits down.

      “Don’t ask me, your Excellency,” he says with a sigh. “What I have suffered in these two days, what I have suffered! Liza has been ill!”

      “Good heavens,” cried his chief in alarm. “Lizaveta Pavlovna, what is wrong with her?”

      Vassily Stepanovitch merely throws up his hands and raises his eyes to the ceiling, as though he would say: “It’s the will of Providence.”

      “Ah, my boy, I can sympathise with you with all my heart!” sighs his chief, rolling his eyes. “I’ve lost my wife, my dear, I understand. That is a loss, it is a loss! It’s awful, awful! I hope Lizaveta Pavlovna is better now! What doctor is attending her ?”

      “Von Schterk.”

      “Von Schterk! But you would have been better to have called in Magnus or Semandritsky. But how very pale your face is. You are ill yourself! This is awful!”

      “Yes, your Excellency, I haven’t slept. What I have suffered, what I have been through!”

      “And yet you came! Why you came I can’t understand? One can’t force oneself like that! One mustn’t do oneself harm like that. Go home and stay there till you are well again! Go home, I command you! Zeal is a very fine thing in a young official, but you mustn’t forget as the Romans used to say: ‘mens sana in corpore sano,’ that is, a healthy brain in a healthy body.”

      Vassya agrees, puts his papers back in his portfolio, and, taking leave of his chief, goes home to bed.

      THE FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER

       Table of Contents

      Translation By Constance Garnett

      A FIRST-CLASS passenger who had just dined at the station and drunk a little too much lay down on the velvet-covered seat, stretched himself out luxuriously, and sank into a doze. After a nap of no more than five minutes, he looked with oily eyes at his vis-à-vis, gave a smirk, and said:

      “My father of blessed memory used to like to have his heels tickled by peasant women after dinner. I am just like him, with this difference, that after dinner I always like my tongue and my brains gently stimulated. Sinful man as I am, I like empty talk on a full stomach. Will you allow me to have a chat with you?”

      “I shall be delighted,” answered the vis-à-vis.

      “After a good dinner the most trifling subject is sufficient to arouse devilishly great thoughts in my brain. For instance, we saw just now near the refreshment bar two young men, and you heard one congratulate the other on being celebrated. ‘I congratulate you,’ he said; ‘you are already a celebrity and are beginning to win fame.’ Evidently actors or journalists of microscopic dimensions. But they are not the point. The question that is occupying my mind at the moment, sir, is exactly what is to be understood by the word fame or celebrity. What do you think? Pushkin called fame a bright patch on a ragged garment; we all understand it as Pushkin does — that is, more or less subjectively — but no one has yet given a clear, logical definition of the word…. I would give a good deal for such a definition!”

      “Why do you feel such a need for it?”

      “You see, if we knew what fame is, the means of attaining it might also perhaps be known to us,” said the first-class passenger, after a moment’s thought. I must tell you, sir, that when I was younger I strove after celebrity with every fiber of my being. To be popular was my craze, so to speak. For the sake of it I studied, worked, sat up at night, neglected my meals. And I fancy, as far as I can judge without partiality, I had all the natural gifts for attaining it. To begin with, I am an engineer by profession. In the course of my life I have built in Russia some two dozen magnificent bridges, I have laid aqueducts for three towns; I have worked in Russia, in England, in Belgium…. Secondly, I am the author of several special treatises in my own line. And thirdly, my dear sir, I have from a boy had a weakness for chemistry. Studying that science in my leisure hours, I discovered methods of obtaining certain organic acids, so that you will find my name in all the foreign manuals of chemistry. I have always been in the service, I have risen to the grade of actual civil councilor, and I have an unblemished record. I will not fatigue your attention by enumerating my works and my merits, I will only say that I have done far more than some celebrities. And yet here I am in my old age, I am getting ready for my coffin, so to say, and I am as celebrated as that black dog yonder running on the embankment.”

      “How can you tell? Perhaps you are celebrated.”

      “H’m! Well, we will test it at once. Tell me, have you ever heard the name Krikunov?”

      The vis-à-vis raised his eyes to the ceiling, thought a minute, and laughed.

      “No, I haven’t heard it, …” he said.

      “That is my surname. You, a man of education, getting on in years, have never heard of me — a convincing proof! It is evident that in my efforts to gain fame I have not done the right thing at all: I did not know the right way to set to work, and, trying to catch fame by the tail, got on the wrong side of her.”

      “What is the right way to set to work?”

      “Well, the devil only knows! Talent, you say? Genius? Originality? Not a bit of it, sir!… People have lived and made a career side by side with me who were worthless, trivial, and even contemptible compared with me. They did not do one-tenth of the work I did, did not put themselves out, were not distinguished for their talents, and did not make an effort to be celebrated, but just look at them! Their names are continually in the newspapers and on men’s lips! If you are not tired of listening I will illustrate it by an example. Some years ago I built a bridge in the town of K. I must tell you that the dullness of that scurvy little town was terrible. If it had not been for women and cards I believe I should have gone out of my mind. Well, it’s an old story: I was so bored that I got into an affair with a singer. Everyone was enthusiastic about her, the devil only knows why; to my thinking she was — what shall I say? — an ordinary, commonplace creature, like lots of others. The hussy was empty-headed, ill-tempered, greedy, and what’s more, she was a fool.

      “She ate and drank a vast amount, slept till five o clock in the afternoon — and I

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