Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov

AT CHRISTMASTIME

I

What’ll I write?” asked Yegor, and he dipped the pen.

Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years now. After the wedding, her daughter Yefimia had left for Petersburg with her husband, had sent two letters, and then seemed to have dropped from sight: not a sound, not a breath. And whether the old woman was milking the cow at dawn, or lighting the stove, or dozing at night, she kept thinking of one thing: how was Yefimia, was she alive? She would have liked to write a letter, but the old man did not know how to write, and there was nobody to ask.

But now Christmastime had come, and Vasilisa could not help herself and went to Yegor, the tavernkeeper’s brother, who, once he came home from the army, just stayed around the tavern all the time and did nothing; they said he was good at writing letters, if you paid him properly. Vasilisa spoke with the cook in the tavern, then with the tavernkeeper, then with Yegor himself. They agreed on fifteen kopecks.

And now—this was in the tavern, in the kitchen, the day after the feast—Yegor was sitting at the table and holding the pen in his hand. Vasilisa stood before him, deep in thought, with an expression of care and grief on her face. Her old man, Pyotr, very thin, tall, with a tanned bald spot, had come with her; he stood and gazed fixedly ahead of him, like a blind man. Pork was being fried in a pan on the stove; it hissed and spat and even seemed to say “flu-flu-flu.” It was stuffy.

“What’ll I write?” Yegor asked again.

“Wait!” said Vasilisa, looking at him angrily and suspiciously. “Don’t rush me! You’re not writing for free, you’re getting money for it! Well, so write. To our gentle son-in-law, Andrei Khrisanfych, and our beloved only daughter, Yefimia Petrovna, we send with our love a low bow and our parental blessing forever inviolable.”

“Got it. Keep shooting.”

“And we also wish you a happy feast of the Nativity of Christ, we are alive and well and wish you the same from the Lord … the Heavenly King.”

Vasilisa pondered and exchanged glances with the old man.

“And wish you the same from the Lord… the Heavenly King …” she repeated and began to cry.

She could not say anything more. And before, when she used to lie thinking at night, it had seemed to her that even ten letters would not have held everything. Since her daughter had left with her husband much water had flowed under the bridge, the old people had lived like orphans and sighed deeply at night, as if they had buried their daughter. And so many things had happened in the village during that time, so many weddings, so many deaths. Such long winters! Such long nights!

“It’s hot!” said Yegor, unbuttoning his waistcoat. “Must be a hundred degrees. What else?” he asked.

The old people were silent.

“What does your son-in-law do?” asked Yegor.

“He used to be a soldier, my dear, you know that,” the old man answered in a weak voice. “He came home from the army the same time you did. He was a soldier, and so now he’s in Petersburg, in some water-curing institution. The doctor treats his patients with water. So he’s doorkeeper at the doctor’s.”

“It’s written here …” the old woman said, taking a letter out of her handkerchief. “We got it from Yefimia, God knows how long ago. Maybe they’re no longer in this world.”

Yegor thought a little and began writing quickly.

“In this present time,” he wrote, “since your fate has destinned you out for a Military Cureer, we advise You to open the Code of Disciplinery Measures and the Criminal Laws of the Department of War and You will perceive in the said Law the civilizaytion of the Ranks of the Department of War.”

He was writing and reading aloud what he had written, and Vasilisa reflected that they ought to write about the want of the past year, when they had not had grain enough to last even till Christmastime, and they had been forced to sell the cow. They ought to ask for some money, to write and say that the old man was often sick and probably would soon give up his soul to God … But how to put it into words? What to say first and what after?

“Pay atention,” Yegor went on writing, “to Volume 5 of the Military Decrees. Soldier is a commun noun, a Well-nown one. The Soldier is called the Farmost General and the leest Private …”

The old man moved his lips and said quietly:

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing to see the grandchildren.”

“What grandchildren?” asked the old woman, and she gave him an angry look. “Maybe there aren’t any!”

“No grandchildren? And maybe there are. Who knows!” “And thereby You can judge,” Yegor was rushing along, “who is the Forin enemy and who is the Inturnal one. Our Farmost Inturnal Enemy is: Bacchus.”

The pen scratched away, making flourishes that looked like fish hooks on the paper. Yegor hurried and re-read every line several times. He was sitting on a stool, his legs spread wide under the table, well-fed, stalwart, beefy-faced, ruddy-necked. This was vulgarity itself, crude, arrogant, invincible, proud of having been born and raised in a tavern, and Vasilisa understood very well that this was vulgarity, but she could not put it into words, and only glared angrily and suspiciously at Yegor. His voice, his incomprehensible words, the heat and stuffiness gave her a headache, confused her thoughts, and she did not say or think anything more, but only waited until he finished his scratching. But the old man looked on with complete trust. He trusted both in the old woman who had brought him there and in Yegor; and earlier, when he had mentioned the water-curing institution, his face had shown clearly that he trusted both in the institution and in the curative power of water.

When he finished writing, Yegor stood up and read out the whole letter from the beginning. The old man did not understand it, but he nodded his head trustfully.

“Nice job, smooth …” he said. “God bless you. Nice job …”

They put three five-kopeck pieces on the table and left the tavern; the old man looked straight ahead of him fixedly, like a blind man, and complete trust was written on his face, but Vasilisa shook her fist at the dog as they left the tavern, and said angrily:

“Ugh, you pest!”

The old woman did not sleep all night, troubled by thoughts, but she got up at dawn, said her prayers, and went to the station to mail the letter.

The station was seven miles away.

II

The water-curing clinic of Dr. B. O. Moselweiser was open on New Year’s Day, just as on ordinary days, only the doorkeeper Andrei Khrisanfych was wearing a uniform with new galloons, his boots shone somehow specially, and he wished everyone who came in a Happy New Year.

It was morning. Andrei Khrisanfych stood by the door and read a newspaper. At exactly ten o’clock a general came in, a familiar figure, one of the regular clients, and after him the postman. Andrei Khrisanfych helped the general out of his overcoat and said:

“Happy New Year, Your Excellency!”

“Thank you, my good man. And the same to you.”

And, going up the stairs, the general nodded towards a door and asked (he asked every day and then forgot each time):

“What’s in this room?”

“That is the massage room, Your Excellency!”

When the general’s steps died away, Andrei Khrisanfych looked through the mail and found a letter addressed to him. He opened it, read a few lines, then, while looking into his newspaper, went unhurriedly to his room, which was right there, downstairs, at the end of the corridor. His wife Yefimia was sitting on the bed nursing a baby; another child, the eldest, stood beside her, resting his curly head on her lap, and the third was asleep on the bed.

Going into his little room, Andrei handed the letter to his wife and said:

“Must be from the village.”

Then he went out, without taking his eyes off the newspaper, and stopped in the corridor not far from his door. He could hear Yefimia reading the first lines in a trembling voice. She read and could not go on; those lines were enough for her, she dissolved in tears and, embracing her eldest boy and kissing him, began to talk, and it was impossible to tell whether she was crying or laughing.

“It’s from grandma and grandpa …” she said. “From the village … Queen of Heaven, saints above. There’s snow there now, up to the roofs … the trees are all white. Children on tiny sleds … And dear, bald-headed grandpa on the stove … and the little yellow dog … My dear darlings!”

Andrei Khrisanfych, listening to that, remembered that his wife had given him letters three or four times, asking him to send them to the village, but some important business had prevented him: he had not sent the letters and they had gotten lost somewhere.

“There are little hares running in the field,” Yefimia went on chanting, bathed in tears, kissing her boy. “Grandpa is quiet, kind, grandma is kind, too, pitiful. It’s a soulful life in the village, a god-fearing life … And there’s a church there, the peasants sing in the choir. Queen of Heaven, our mother and helper, take us away from here!”

Andrei Khrisanfych went back to his little room to smoke until someone came, and Yefimia suddenly fell silent, quieted down, and wiped her eyes, and only her lips quivered. She was very afraid of him, oh, how afraid! She trembled, she was terrified by his step, his glance; she did not dare say a single word in his presence.

Andrei Khrisanfych lit a cigarette, but just then there came a ring from upstairs. He put the cigarette out and, making a very serious face, ran to his front door.

The general was coming down, pink and fresh after his bath.

“And what’s in this room?” he asked, pointing to a door.

Andrei Khrisanfych drew himself to attention and said loudly:

“Charcot showers,¹ Your Excellency!”

JANUARY 1900