  186 THE PETCHENYEG by Anton Chekhov IVAN ABRAMITCH ZHMUHIN,  a retired Cossack officer,  who had once served in the Caucasus,  but now lived on his own farm,  and who had once been young,  strong,
 and vigorous,  but now was old,  dried up,  and bent,  with shaggy eyebrows and a greenish- grey moustache,
 was returning from the town to his farm one hot summer's day.  In the town he had confessed and received absolution,  and had made his will at the notary's ( a fortnight before he had had a slight stroke)  and now all the while he was in the railway carriage he was haunted by melancholy,  serious thoughts of approaching death,
 of the vanity of vanities,  of the transitoriness of all things earthly.  At the station of Provalye -  there is such a one on the Donetz line -  a fair- haired,
 plump,  middle- aged gentleman with a shabby portfolio stepped into the carriage and sat down opposite.  They got into conversation.  " Yes,
 said Ivan Abramitch,  looking pensively out of window,  " it is never too late to marry.  I myself married when I was forty- eight;
 I was told it was late,  but it has turned out that it was not late or early,  but simply that it would have been better not to marry at all.  Everyone is soon tired of his wife,  but not everyone tells the truth,  because,
 you know,  people are ashamed of an unhappy home life and conceal it.  It's 'Manya this' and 'Manya that' with many a man by his wife's side,  but if he had his way he'd put that Manya in a sack and drop her in the water.  It's dull with one's wife,  it's mere foolishness.
 And it's no better with one's children,  I make bold to assure you.  I have two of them,  the rascals.  There's nowhere for them to be taught out here in the steppe;  I haven't the money to send them to school in Novo Tcherkask,
 and they live here like young wolves.  Next thing they will be murdering someone on the highroad.  The fair- haired gentleman listened attentively,  answered questions briefly in a low voice,  and was apparently a gentleman of gentle and modest disposition.
 He mentioned that he was a lawyer,  and that he was going to the village Dyuevka on business.  " Why,  merciful heavens,  that is six miles from me!
 said Zhmuhin in a tone of voice as though someone were disputing with him.  " But excuse me,  you won't find horses at the station now.  To my mind,  the very best thing you can do,
 you know,  is to come straight to me,  stay the night,  you know,  and in the morning drive over with my horses.  The lawyer thought a moment and accepted the invitation.
 When they reached the station the sun was already low over the steppe.  They said nothing all the way from the station to the farm:  the jolting prevented conversation.  The trap bounded up and down,  squeaked,  and seemed to be sobbing,
 and the lawyer,  who was sitting very uncomfortably,  stared before him,  miserably hoping to see the farm.  After they had driven five or six miles there came into view in the distance a low- pitched house and a yard enclosed by a fence made of dark,
 flat stones standing on end;  the roof was green,  the stucco was peeling off,  and the windows were little narrow slits like screwed- up eyes.  The farm stood in the full sunshine,
 and there was no sign either of water or trees anywhere round.  Among the neighbouring landowners and the peasants it was known as the Petchenyegs' farm.  Many years before,  a land surveyor,  who was passing through the neighbourhood and put up at the farm,  spent the whole night talking to Ivan Abramitch,
 was not favourably impressed,  and as he was driving away in the morning said to him grimly:  " You are a Petchenyeg,  my good sir!  *
 The Petchenyegs were a tribe of wild Mongolian nomads who made frequent inroads upon the Russians in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Translator's Note.  From this came the nickname,  the Petchenyegs' farm,  which stuck to the place even more when Zhmuhin's boys grew up and began to make raids on the orchards and kitchen- gardens.
 Ivan Abramitch was called " You Know,  as he usually talked a very great deal and frequently made use of that expression.  In the yard near a barn Zhmuhin's sons were standing,  one a young man of nineteen,  the other a younger lad,
 both barefoot and bareheaded.  Just at the moment when the trap drove into the yard the younger one flung high up a hen which,  cackling,  described an arc in the air;  the elder shot at it with a gun and the hen fell dead on the earth.  "
Those are my boys learning to shoot birds flying,  said Zhmuhin.  In the entry the travellers were met by a little thin woman with a pale face,  still young and beautiful;  from her dress she might have been taken for a servant.  "
And this,  allow me to introduce her,  said Zhmuhin,  " is the mother of my young cubs.  Come,
 Lyubov Osipovna,  he said,  addressing her,  " you must be spry,  mother,
 and get something for our guest.  Let us have supper.  Look sharp!  The house consisted of two parts:  in one was the parlour and beside it old Zhmuhin's bedroom,  both stuffy rooms with low ceilings and multitudes of flies and wasps,
 and in the other was the kitchen in which the cooking and washing was done and the labourers had their meals;  here geese and turkey- hens were sitting on their eggs under the benches,  and here were the beds of Lyubov Osipovna and her two sons.  The furniture in the parlour was unpainted and evidently roughly made by a carpenter;  guns,
 game- bags,  and whips were hanging on the walls,  and all this old rubbish was covered with the rust of years and looked grey with dust.  There was not one picture;  in the corner was a dingy board which had at one time been an ikon.
 A young Little Russian woman laid the table and handed ham,  then beetroot soup.  The visitor refused vodka and ate only bread and cucumbers.  " How about ham?  asked Zhmuhin.
 " Thank you,  I don't eat it,  answered the visitor,  " I don't eat meat at all.
 " Why is that?  " I am a vegetarian.  Killing animals is against my principles.  Zhmuhin thought a minute and then said slowly with a sigh:
 " Yes .  .  .  to be sure.  .
 .  .  I saw a man who did not eat meat in town,  too.  It's a new religion they've got now.  Well,
 it's good.  We can't go on always shooting and slaughtering,  you know;  we must give it up some day and leave even the beasts in peace.  It's a sin to kill,  it's a sin,
 there is no denying it.  Sometimes one kills a hare and wounds him in the leg,  and he cries like a child.  .  .  .
 So it must hurt him!  " Of course it hurts him;  animals suffer just like human beings.  " That's true,
 Zhmuhin assented.  " I understand that very well,  he went on,  musing,  "
only there is this one thing I don't understand:  suppose,  you know,  everyone gave up eating meat,  what would become of the domestic animals -  fowls and geese,
 for instance?  " Fowls and geese would live in freedom like wild birds.  " Now I understand.  To be sure,
 crows and jackdaws get on all right without us.  Yes.  .  .  .  Fowls and geese and hares and sheep,
 all will live in freedom,  rejoicing,  you know,  and praising God;  and they will not fear us,  peace and concord will come.
 Only there is one thing,  you know,  I can't understand,  Zhmuhin went on,  glancing at the ham.  "
How will it be with the pigs?  What is to be done with them?  " They will be like all the rest -  that is,  they will live in freedom.
 " Ah!  Yes.  But allow me to say,  if they were not slaughtered they would multiply,  you know,
 and then good- bye to the kitchen- gardens and the meadows.  Why,  a pig,  if you let it free and don't look after it,
 will ruin everything in a day.  A pig is a pig,  and it is not for nothing it is called a pig.  .  .  .
 They finished supper.  Zhmuhin got up from the table and for a long while walked up and down the room,  talking and talking.  .  .  .
 He was fond of talking of something important or serious and was fond of meditating,  and in his old age he had a longing to reach some haven,  to be reassured,  that he might not be so frightened of dying.  He had a longing for meekness,  spiritual calm,
 and confidence in himself,  such as this guest of theirs had,  who had satisfied his hunger on cucumbers and bread,  and believed that doing so made him more perfect;  he was sitting on a chest,  plump and healthy,
 keeping silent and patiently enduring his boredom,  and in the dusk when one glanced at him from the entry he looked like a big round stone which one could not move from its place.  If a man has something to lay hold of in life he is all right.  Zhmuhin went through the entry to the porch,  and then he could be heard sighing and saying reflectively to himself:  "
Yes.  .  .  .  To be sure.  .
 .  .  By now it was dark,  and here and there stars could be seen in the sky.  They had not yet lighted up indoors.  Someone came into the parlour as noiselessly as a shadow and stood still near the door.
 It was Lyubov Osipovna,  Zhmuhin's wife.  " Are you from the town?  she asked timidly,  not looking at her visitor.
 " Yes,  I live in the town.  " Perhaps you are something in the learned way,  sir;
 be so kind as to advise us.  We ought to send in a petition.  " To whom?  asked the visitor.  "
We have two sons,  kind gentleman,  and they ought to have been sent to school long ago,  but we never see anyone and have no one to advise us.  And I know nothing.  For if they are not taught they will have to serve in the army as common Cossacks.
 It's not right,  sir!  They can't read and write,  they are worse than peasants,  and Ivan Abramitch himself can't stand them and won't let them indoors.  But they are not to blame.
 The younger one,  at any rate,  ought to be sent to school,  it is such a pity!  she said slowly,  and there was a quiver in her voice;
 and it seemed incredible that a woman so small and so youthful could have grown- up children.  " Oh,  it's such a pity!  "
You don't know anything about it,  mother,  and it is not your affair,  said Zhmuhin,  appearing in the doorway.  "
Don't pester our guest with your wild talk.  Go away,  mother!  Lyubov Osipovna went out,  and in the entry repeated once more in a thin little voice:  "
Oh,  it's such a pity!  A bed was made up for the visitor on the sofa in the parlour,  and that it might not be dark for him they lighted the lamp before the ikon.  Zhmuhin went to bed in his own room.  And as he lay there he thought of his soul,
 of his age,  of his recent stroke which had so frightened him and made him think of death.  He was fond of philosophizing when he was in quietness by himself,  and then he fancied that he was a very earnest,  deep thinker,  and that nothing in this world interested him but serious questions.
 And now he kept thinking and he longed to pitch upon some one significant thought unlike others,  which would be a guide to him in life,  and he wanted to think out principles of some sort for himself so as to make his life as deep and earnest as he imagined that he felt himself to be.  It would be a good thing for an old man like him to abstain altogether from meat,  from superfluities of all sorts.  The time when men give up killing each other and animals would come sooner or later,
 it could not but be so,  and he imagined that time to himself and clearly pictured himself living in peace with all the animals,  and suddenly he thought again of the pigs,  and everything was in a tangle in his brain.  " It's a queer business,
 Lord have mercy upon us,  he muttered,  sighing heavily.  " Are you asleep?  he asked.
 " No.  Zhmuhin got out of bed and stopped in the doorway with nothing but his shirt on,  displaying to his guest his sinewy legs,  that looked as dry as sticks.  "
Nowadays,  you know,  he began,  " all sorts of telegraphs,  telephones,
 and marvels of all kinds,  in fact,  have come in,  but people are no better than they were.  They say that in our day,  thirty or forty years ago,
 men were coarse and cruel;  but isn't it just the same now?  We certainly did not stand on ceremony in our day.  I remember in the Caucasus when we were stationed by a little river with nothing to do for four whole months -  I was an under- officer at that time -
 something queer happened,  quite in the style of a novel.  Just on the banks of that river,  you know,  where our division was encamped,  a wretched prince whom we had killed not long before was buried.
 And at night,  you know,  the princess used to come to his grave and weep.  She would wail and wail,  and moan and moan,  and make us so depressed we couldn't sleep,
 and that's the fact.  We couldn't sleep one night,  we couldn't sleep a second;  well,  we got sick of it.  And from a common-
sense point of view you really can't go without your sleep for the devil knows what ( excuse the expression)  We took that princess and gave her a good thrashing,  and she gave up coming.  There's an instance for you.  Nowadays,
 of course,  there is not the same class of people,  and they are not given to thrashing and they live in cleaner style,  and there is more learning,  but,  you know,
 the soul is just the same:  there is no change.  Now,  look here,  there's a landowner living here among us;  he has mines,
 you know;  all sorts of tramps without passports who don't know where to go work for him.  On Saturdays he has to settle up with the workmen,  but he doesn't care to pay them,  you know,  he grudges the money.
 So he's got hold of a foreman who is a tramp too,  though he does wear a hat.  'Don't you pay them anything, ' he says,  'not a kopeck;  they'll beat you,
 and let them beat you, ' says he,  'but you put up with it,  and I'll pay you ten roubles every Saturday for it. ' So on the Saturday evening the workmen come to settle up in the usual way;  the foreman says to them:
 'Nothing! ' Well,  word for word,  as the master said,  they begin swearing and using their fists.  .
 .  .  They beat him and they kick him .  .  .  you know,
 they are a set of men brutalized by hunger -  they beat him till he is senseless,  and then they go each on his way.  The master gives orders for cold water to be poured on the foreman,  then flings ten roubles in his face.  And he takes it and is pleased too,
 for indeed he'd be ready to be hanged for three roubles,  let alone ten.  Yes .  .  .  and on Monday a new gang of workmen arrive;
 they work,  for they have nowhere to go.  .  .  .  On Saturday it is the same story over again.
 The visitor turned over on the other side with his face to the back of the sofa and muttered something.  " And here's another instance,  Zhmuhin went on.  " We had the Siberian plague here,
 you know -  the cattle die off like flies,  I can tell you -  and the veterinary surgeons came here,  and strict orders were given that the dead cattle were to be buried at a distance deep in the earth,  that lime was to be thrown over them,
 and so on,  you know,  on scientific principles.  My horse died too.  I buried it with every precaution,  and threw over three hundredweight of lime over it.
 And what do you think?  My fine fellows -  my precious sons,  I mean -  dug it up,  skinned it,
 and sold the hide for three roubles;  there's an instance for you.  So people have grown no better,  and however you feed a wolf he will always look towards the forest;  there it is.  It gives one something to think about,
 eh?  How do you look at it?  On one side a flash of lightning gleamed through a chink in the window- blinds.  There was the stifling feeling of a storm coming,  the gnats were biting,
 and Zhmuhin,  as he lay in his bedroom meditating,  sighed and groaned and said to himself:  " Yes,  to be sure -
 and there was no possibility of getting to sleep.  Somewhere far,  far away there was a growl of thunder.  " Are you asleep?  "
No,  answered the visitor.  Zhmuhin got up,  and thudding with his heels walked through the parlour and the entry to the kitchen to get a drink of water.  " The worst thing in the world,
 you know,  is stupidity,  he said a little later,  coming back with a dipper.  " My Lyubov Osipovna is on her knees saying her prayers.
 She prays every night,  you know,  and bows down to the ground,  first that her children may be sent to school;  she is afraid her boys will go into the army as simple Cossacks,  and that they will be whacked across their backs with sabres.
 But for teaching one must have money,  and where is one to get it?  You may break the floor beating your head against it,  but if you haven't got it you haven't.  And the other reason she prays is because,  you know,
 every woman imagines there is no one in the world as unhappy as she is.  I am a plain- spoken man,  and I don't want to conceal anything from you.  She comes of a poor family,  a village priest's daughter.
 I married her when she was seventeen,  and they accepted my offer chiefly because they hadn't enough to eat;  it was nothing but poverty and misery,  while I have anyway land,  you see -  a farm -
 and after all I am an officer;  it was a step up for her to marry me,  you know.  On the very first day when she was married she cried,  and she has been crying ever since,  all these twenty years;
 she has got a watery eye.  And she's always sitting and thinking,  and what do you suppose she is thinking about?  What can a woman think about?  Why,  nothing.
 I must own I don't consider a woman a human being.  The visitor got up abruptly and sat on the bed.  " Excuse me,  I feel stifled,  he said;
 " I will go outside.  Zhmuhin,  still talking about women,  drew the bolt in the entry and they both went out.  A full moon was floating in the sky just over the yard,
 and in the moonlight the house and barn looked whiter than by day;  and on the grass brilliant streaks of moonlight,  white too,  stretched between the black shadows.  Far away on the right could be seen the steppe,  above it the stars were softly glowing -
 and it was all mysterious,  infinitely far away,  as though one were gazing into a deep abyss;  while on the left heavy storm- clouds,  black as soot,
 were piling up one upon another above the steppe;  their edges were lighted up by the moon,  and it looked as though there were mountains there with white snow on their peaks,  dark forests,  the sea.  There was a flash of lightning,
 a faint rumble of thunder,  and it seemed as though a battle were being fought in the mountains.  Quite close to the house a little night- owl screeched monotonously:  " Asleep!
 asleep!  " What time is it now?  asked the visitor.  " Just after one.
 " How long it is still to dawn!  They went back to the house and lay down again.  It was time to sleep,  and one can usually sleep so splendidly before rain;  but the old man had a hankering after serious,
 weighty thoughts;  he wanted not simply to think but to meditate,  and he meditated how good it would be,  as death was near at hand,  for the sake of his soul to give up the idleness which so imperceptibly swallowed up day after day,  year after year,
 leaving no trace;  to think out for himself some great exploit -  for instance,  to walk on foot far,  far away,  or to give up meat like this young man.
 And again he pictured to himself the time when animals would not be killed,  pictured it clearly and distinctly as though he were living through that time himself;  but suddenly it was all in a tangle again in his head and all was muddled.  The thunderstorm had passed over,  but from the edges of the storm- clouds came rain softly pattering on the roof.
 Zhmuhin got up,  stretching and groaning with old age,  and looked into the parlour.  Noticing that his visitor was not asleep,  he said:  "
When we were in the Caucasus,  you know,  there was a colonel there who was a vegetarian,  too;  he didn't eat meat,  never went shooting,
 and would not let his servants catch fish.  Of course,  I understand that every animal ought to live in freedom and enjoy its life;  only I don't understand how a pig can go about where it likes without being looked after.  .  .
 .  The visitor got up and sat down.  His pale,  haggard face expressed weariness and vexation;  it was evident that he was exhausted,  and only his gentleness and the delicacy of his soul prevented him from expressing his vexation in words.
 " It's getting light,  he said mildly.  " Please have the horse brought round for me.  "
Why so?  Wait a little and the rain will be over.  " No,  I entreat you,  said the visitor in horror,
 with a supplicating voice;  " it is essential for me to go at once.  And he began hurriedly dressing.  By the time the horse was harnessed the sun was rising.  It had just left off raining,
 the clouds were racing swiftly by,  and the patches of blue were growing bigger and bigger in the sky.  The first rays of the sun were timidly reflected below in the big puddles.  The visitor walked through the entry with his portfolio to get into the trap,  and at that moment Zhmuhin's wife,  pale,
 and it seemed paler than the day before,  with tear- stained eyes,  looked at him intently without blinking,  with the naï ve expression of a little girl,
 and it was evident from her dejected face that she was envying him his freedom -  oh,  with what joy she would have gone away from there!  -  and she wanted to say something to him,  most likely to ask advice about her children.
 And what a pitiable figure she was!  This was not a wife,  not the head of a house,  not even a servant,  but more like a dependent,  a poor relation not wanted by anyone,
 a nonentity.  .  .  .  Her husband,  fussing about,
 talking unceasingly,  was seeing his visitor off,  continually running in front of him,  while she huddled up to the wall with a timid,  guilty air,  waiting for a convenient minute to speak.
 " Please come again another time,  the old man kept repeating incessantly;  " what we have we are glad to offer,  you know.
 The visitor hurriedly got into the trap,  evidently with relief,  as though he were afraid every minute that they would detain him.  The trap lurched about as it had the day before,  squeaked,  and furiously rattled the pail that was tied on at the back.
 He glanced round at Zhmuhin with a peculiar expression;  it looked as though he wanted to call him a Petchenyeg,  as the surveyor had once done,  or some such name,  but his gentleness got the upper hand.  He controlled himself and said nothing.
 But in the gateway he suddenly could not restrain himself;  he got up and shouted loudly and angrily:  " You have bored me to death.  And he disappeared through the gate.  Near the barn Zhmuhin's sons were standing;
 the elder held a gun,  while the younger had in his hands a grey cockerel with a bright red comb.  The younger flung up the cockerel with all his might;  the bird flew upwards higher than the house and turned over in the air like a pigeon.  The elder boy fired and the cockerel fell like a stone.  The old man,
 overcome with confusion,  not knowing how to explain the visitor's strange,  unexpected shout,  went slowly back into the house.  And sitting down at the table he spent a long while meditating on the intellectual tendencies of the day,  on the universal immorality,
 on the telegraph,  on the telephone,  on velocipedes,  on how unnecessary it all was;  little by little he regained his composure,  then slowly had a meal,
 drank five glasses of tea,  and lay down for a nap.  NOTES vanity of vanities:  Ecclesiastes 1: 2 trap:  tarantass,
 a type of carriage used in southern Russia Little Russian:  Ukrainian passports:  Russians had to have passports for travel within Russia;  it was a criminal offense not to have a domestic passport if you were traveling velocipedes:  early versions of the bicycle 187 AT HOME by Anton Chekhov I THE Don railway.  A quiet,
 cheerless station,  white and solitary in the steppe,  with its walls baking in the sun,  without a speck of shade,  and,  it seems,
 without a human being.  The train goes on after leaving one here;  the sound of it is scarcely audible and dies away at last.  Outside the station it is a desert,  and there are no horses but one's own.  One gets into the carriage -
 which is so pleasant after the train -  and is borne along the road through the steppe,  and by degrees there are unfolded before one views such as one does not see near Moscow -  immense,  endless,  fascinating in their monotony.
 The steppe,  the steppe,  and nothing more;  in the distance an ancient barrow or a windmill;  ox- waggons laden with coal trail by.
 .  .  .  Solitary birds fly low over the plain,  and a drowsy feeling comes with the monotonous beat of their wings.  It is hot.
 Another hour or so passes,  and still the steppe,  the steppe,  and still in the distance the barrow.  The driver tells you something,  some long unnecessary tale,
 pointing into the distance with his whip.  And tranquillity takes possession of the soul;  one is loth to think of the past.  .  .  .
 A carriage with three horses had been sent to fetch Vera Ivanovna Kardin.  The driver put in her luggage and set the harness to rights.  " Everything just as it always has been,  said Vera,  looking about her.
 " I was a little girl when I was here last,  ten years ago.  I remember old Boris came to fetch me then.  Is he still living,  I wonder?
 The driver made no reply,  but,  like a Little Russian,  looked at her angrily and clambered on to the box.  It was a twenty- mile drive from the station,
 and Vera,  too,  abandoned herself to the charm of the steppe,  forgot the past,  and thought only of the wide expanse,  of the freedom.
 Healthy,  clever,  beautiful,  and young -  she was only three- and-
twenty -  she had hitherto lacked nothing in her life but just this space and freedom.  The steppe,  the steppe.  .  .
 .  The horses trotted,  the sun rose higher and higher;  and it seemed to Vera that never in her childhood had the steppe been so rich,  so luxuriant in June;  the wild flowers were green,
 yellow,  lilac,  white,  and a fragrance rose from them and from the warmed earth;  and there were strange blue birds along the roadside.  .
 .  .  Vera had long got out of the habit of praying,  but now,  struggling with drowsiness,  she murmured:
 " Lord,  grant that I may be happy here.  And there was peace and sweetness in her soul,  and she felt as though she would have been glad to drive like that all her life,  looking at the steppe.
 Suddenly there was a deep ravine overgrown with oak saplings and alder- trees;  there was a moist feeling in the air -  there must have been a spring at the bottom.  On the near side,  on the very edge of the ravine,
 a covey of partridges rose noisily.  Vera remembered that in old days they used to go for evening walks to this ravine;  so it must be near home!  And now she could actually see the poplars,  the barn,  black smoke rising on one side -
 they were burning old straw.  And there was Auntie Dasha coming to meet her and waving her handkerchief;  grandfather was on the terrace.  Oh dear,  how happy she was!  "
My darling,  my darling!  cried her aunt,  shrieking as though she were in hysterics.  " Our real mistress has come!
 You must understand you are our mistress,  you are our queen!  Here everything is yours!  My darling,  my beauty,  I am not your aunt,
 but your willing slave!  Vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather;  her mother had long been dead;  her father,  an engineer,  had died three months before at Kazan,
 on his way from Siberia.  Her grandfather had a big grey beard.  He was stout,  red- faced,  and asthmatic,
 and walked leaning on a cane and sticking his stomach out.  Her aunt,  a lady of forty- two,  drawn in tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed with sleeves high on the shoulder,  evidently tried to look young and was still anxious to be charming;
 she walked with tiny steps with a wriggle of her spine.  " Will you love us?  she said,  embracing Vera,  "
You are not proud?  At her grandfather's wish there was a thanksgiving service,  then they spent a long while over dinner -  and Vera's new life began.  She was given the best room.  All the rugs in the house had been put in it,
 and a great many flowers;  and when at night she lay down in her snug,  wide,  very soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt that smelt of old clothes long stored away,  she laughed with pleasure.  Auntie Dasha came in for a minute to wish her good-
night.  " Here you are home again,  thank God,  she said,  sitting down on the bed.
 " As you see,  we get along very well and have everything we want.  There's only one thing:  your grandfather is in a poor way!  A terribly poor way!
 He is short of breath and he has begun to lose his memory.  And you remember how strong,  how vigorous,  he used to be!  There was no doing anything with him.  .
 .  .  In old days,  if the servants didn't please him or anything else went wrong,  he would jump up at once and shout:  'Twenty-
five strokes!  The birch! ' But now he has grown milder and you never hear him.  And besides,  times are changed,  my precious;
 one mayn't beat them nowadays.  Of course,  they oughtn't to be beaten,  but they need looking after.  " And are they beaten now,
 auntie?  asked Vera.  " The steward beats them sometimes,  but I never do,  bless their hearts!
 And your grandfather sometimes lifts his stick from old habit,  but he never beats them.  Auntie Dasha yawned and crossed herself over her mouth and her right ear.  " It's not dull here?  Vera inquired.
 " What shall I say?  There are no landowners living here now,  but there have been works built near,  darling,  and there are lots of engineers,
 doctors,  and mine managers.  Of course,  we have theatricals and concerts,  but we play cards more than anything.  They come to us,
 too.  Dr.  Neshtchapov from the works comes to see us -  such a handsome,  interesting man!  He fell in love with your photograph.
 I made up my mind:  he is Verotchka's destiny,  I thought.  He's young,  handsome,  he has means -
 a good match,  in fact.  And of course you're a match for any one.  You're of good family.  The place is mortgaged,  it's true,
 but it's in good order and not neglected;  there is my share in it,  but it will all come to you;  I am your willing slave.  And my brother,  your father,
 left you fifteen thousand roubles.  .  .  .  But I see you can't keep your eyes open.  Sleep,
 my child.  Next day Vera spent a long time walking round the house.  The garden,  which was old and unattractive,  lying inconveniently upon the slope,  had no paths,
 and was utterly neglected;  probably the care of it was regarded as an unnecessary item in the management.  There were numbers of grass- snakes.  Hoopoes flew about under the trees calling " Oo-
too- toot!  as though they were trying to remind her of something.  At the bottom of the hill there was a river overgrown with tall reeds,  and half a mile beyond the river was the village.  From the garden Vera went out into the fields;
 looking into the distance,  thinking of her new life in her own home,  she kept trying to grasp what was in store for her.  The space,  the lovely peace of the steppe,  told her that happiness was near at hand,
 and perhaps was here already;  thousands of people,  in fact,  would have said:  " What happiness to be young,
 healthy,  well- educated,  to be living on one's own estate!  And at the same time the endless plain,  all alike,
 without one living soul,  frightened her,  and at moments it was clear to her that its peaceful green vastness would swallow up her life and reduce it to nothingness.  She was very young,  elegant,  fond of life;
 she had finished her studies at an aristocratic boarding- school,  had learnt three languages,  had read a great deal,  had travelled with her father -  and could all this have been meant to lead to nothing but settling down in a remote country-
house in the steppe,  and wandering day after day from the garden into the fields and from the fields into the garden to while away the time,  and then sitting at home listening to her grandfather's breathing?  But what could she do?  Where could she go?  She could find no answer,
 and as she was returning home she doubted whether she would be happy here,  and thought that driving from the station was far more interesting than living here.  Dr.  Neshtchapov drove over from the works.  He was a doctor,  but three years previously he had taken a share in the works,
 and had become one of the partners;  and now he no longer looked upon medicine as his chief vocation,  though he still practised.  In appearance he was a pale,  dark man in a white waistcoat,  with a good figure;
 but to guess what there was in his heart and his brain was difficult.  He kissed Auntie Dasha's hand on greeting her,  and was continually leaping up to set a chair or give his seat to some one.  He was very silent and grave all the while,  and,  when he did speak,
 it was for some reason impossible to hear and understand his first sentence,  though he spoke correctly and not in a low voice.  " You play the piano?  he asked Vera,  and immediately leapt up,
 as she had dropped her handkerchief.  He stayed from midday to midnight without speaking,  and Vera found him very unattractive.  She thought that a white waistcoat in the country was bad form,  and his elaborate politeness,  his manners,
 and his pale,  serious face with dark eyebrows,  were mawkish;  and it seemed to her that he was perpetually silent,  probably because he was stupid.  When he had gone her aunt said enthusiastically:
 " Well?  Isn't he charming?  II Auntie Dasha looked after the estate.  Tightly laced,  with jingling bracelets on her wrists,
 she went into the kitchen,  the granary,  the cattle- yard,  tripping along with tiny steps,  wriggling her spine;
 and whenever she talked to the steward or to the peasants,  she used,  for some reason,  to put on a pince- nez.  Vera's grandfather always sat in the same place,
 playing patience or dozing.  He ate a very great deal at dinner and supper;  they gave him the dinner cooked to- day and what was left from yesterday,  and cold pie left from Sunday,  and salt meat from the servants' dinner,
 and he ate it all greedily.  And every dinner left on Vera such an impression,  that when she saw afterwards a flock of sheep driven by,  or flour being brought from the mill,  she thought,  "
Grandfather will eat that.  For the most part he was silent,  absorbed in eating or in patience;  but it sometimes happened at dinner that at the sight of Vera he would be touched and say tenderly:  " My only grandchild!
 Verotchka!  And tears would glisten in his eyes.  Or his face would turn suddenly crimson,  his neck would swell,  he would look with fury at the servants,  and ask,
 tapping with his stick:  " Why haven't you brought the horse- radish?  In winter he led a perfectly inactive existence;  in summer he sometimes drove out into the fields to look at the oats and the hay;
 and when he came back he would flourish his stick and declare that everything was neglected now that he was not there to look after it.  " Your grandfather is out of humour,  Auntie Dasha would whisper.  " But it's nothing now to what it used to be in the old days:
 'Twenty- five strokes!  The birch! ' "  Her aunt complained that every one had grown lazy,  that no one did anything,
 and that the estate yielded no profit.  Indeed,  there was no systematic farming;  they ploughed and sowed a little simply from habit,  and in reality did nothing and lived in idleness.  Meanwhile there was a running to and fro,
 reckoning and worrying all day long;  the bustle in the house began at five o'clock in the morning;  there were continual sounds of " Bring it,  " Fetch it,
 " Make haste,  and by the evening the servants were utterly exhausted.  Auntie Dasha changed her cooks and her housemaids every week;  sometimes she discharged them for immorality;  sometimes they went of their own accord,
 complaining that they were worked to death.  None of the village people would come to the house as servants;  Auntie Dasha had to hire them from a distance.  There was only one girl from the village living in the house,  Alyona,  and she stayed because her whole family -
 old people and children -  were living upon her wages.  This Alyona,  a pale,  rather stupid little thing,  spent the whole day turning out the rooms,
 waiting at table,  heating the stoves,  sewing,  washing;  but it always seemed as though she were only pottering about,  treading heavily with her boots,
 and were nothing but a hindrance in the house.  In her terror that she might be dismissed and sent home,  she often dropped and broke the crockery,  and they stopped the value of it out of her wages,  and then her mother and grandmother would come and bow down at Auntie Dasha's feet.  Once a week or sometimes oftener visitors would arrive.
 Her aunt would come to Vera and say:  " You should sit a little with the visitors,  or else they'll think that you are stuck up.  Vera would go in to the visitors and play vint with them for hours together,  or play the piano for the visitors to dance;
 her aunt,  in high spirits and breathless from dancing,  would come up and whisper to her:  " Be nice to Marya Nikiforovna.  On the sixth of December,
 St.  Nikolay's Day,  a large party of about thirty arrived all at once;  they played vint until late at night,  and many of them stayed the night.  In the morning they sat down to cards again,
 then they had dinner,  and when Vera went to her room after dinner to rest from conversation and tobacco smoke,  there were visitors there too,  and she almost wept in despair.  And when they began to get ready to go in the evening,  she was so pleased they were going at last,
 that she said:  " Do stay a little longer.  She felt exhausted by the visitors and constrained by their presence;  yet every day,  as soon as it began to grow dark,
 something drew her out of the house,  and she went out to pay visits either at the works or at some neighbours',  and then there were cards,  dancing,  forfeits,  suppers.
 .  .  . The young people in the works or in the mines sometimes sang Little Russian songs,  and sang them very well.  It made one sad to hear them sing.
 Or they all gathered together in one room and talked in the dusk of the mines,  of the treasures that had once been buried in the steppes,  of Saur's Grave.  .  .  .
 Later on,  as they talked,  a shout of " Help!  sometimes reached them.  It was a drunken man going home,
 or some one was being robbed by the pit near by.  Or the wind howled in the chimneys,  the shutters banged;  then,  soon afterwards,  they would hear the uneasy church bell,
 as the snow- storm began.  At all the evening parties,  picnics,  and dinners,  Auntie Dasha was invariably the most interesting woman and the doctor the most interesting man.
 There was very little reading either at the works or at the country- houses;  they played only marches and polkas;  and the young people always argued hotly about things they did not understand,  and the effect was crude.  The discussions were loud and heated,
 but,  strange to say,  Vera had nowhere else met people so indifferent and careless as these.  They seemed to have no fatherland,  no religion,  no public interests.
 When they talked of literature or debated some abstract question,  it could be seen from Dr.  Neshtchapov's face that the question had no interest for him whatever,  and that for long,  long years he had read nothing and cared to read nothing.  Serious and expressionless,
 like a badly painted portrait,  for ever in his white waistcoat,  he was silent and incomprehensible as before;  but the ladies,  young and old,  thought him interesting and were enthusiastic over his manners.
 They envied Vera,  who appeared to attract him very much.  And Vera always came away from the visits with a feeling of vexation,  vowing inwardly to remain at home;  but the day passed,  the evening came,
 and she hurried off to the works again,  and it was like that almost all the winter.  She ordered books and magazines,  and used to read them in her room.  And she read at night,  lying in bed.
 When the clock in the corridor struck two or three,  and her temples were beginning to ache from reading,  she sat up in bed and thought,  " What am I to do?  Where am I to go?
 Accursed,  importunate question,  to which there were a number of ready- made answers,  and in reality no answer at all.  Oh,
 how noble,  how holy,  how picturesque it must be to serve the people,  to alleviate their sufferings,  to enlighten them!  But she,
 Vera,  did not know the people.  And how could she go to them?  They were strange and uninteresting to her;  she could not endure the stuffy smell of the huts,  the pot-
house oaths,  the unwashed children,  the women's talk of illnesses.  To walk over the snow- drifts,  to feel cold,
 then to sit in a stifling hut,  to teach children she disliked -  no,  she would rather die!  And to teach the peasants' children while Auntie Dasha made money out of the pot- houses and fined the peasants -
 it was too great a farce!  What a lot of talk there was of schools,  of village libraries,  of universal education;  but if all these engineers,  these mine-
owners and ladies of her acquaintance,  had not been hypocrites,  and really had believed that enlightenment was necessary,  they would not have paid the schoolmasters fifteen roubles a month as they did now,  and would not have let them go hungry.  And the schools and the talk about ignorance -
 it was all only to stifle the voice of conscience because they were ashamed to own fifteen or thirty thousand acres and to be indifferent to the peasants' lot.  Here the ladies said about Dr.  Neshtchapov that he was a kind man and had built a school at the works.  Yes,  he had built a school out of the old bricks at the works for some eight hundred roubles,  and they sang the prayer for "
long life"  to him when the building was opened,  but there was no chance of his giving up his shares,  and it certainly never entered his head that the peasants were human beings like himself,  and that they,  too,
 needed university teaching,  and not merely lessons in these wretched schools.  And Vera felt full of anger against herself and every one else.  She took up a book again and tried to read it,  but soon afterwards sat down and thought again.  To become a doctor?
 But to do that one must pass an examination in Latin;  besides,  she had an invincible repugnance to corpses and disease.  It would be nice to become a mechanic,  a judge,  a commander of a steamer,
 a scientist;  to do something into which she could put all her powers,  physical and spiritual,  and to be tired out and sleep soundly at night;  to give up her life to something that would make her an interesting person,  able to attract interesting people,
 to love,  to have a real family of her own.  .  .  .  But what was she to do?
 How was she to begin?  One Sunday in Lent her aunt came into her room early in the morning to fetch her umbrella.  Vera was sitting up in bed clasping her head in her hands,  thinking.  " You ought to go to church,
 darling,  said her aunt,  " or people will think you are not a believer.  Vera made no answer.  "
I see you are dull,  poor child,  said Auntie Dasha,  sinking on her knees by the bedside;  she adored Vera.  "
Tell me the truth,  are you bored?  " Dreadfully.  " My beauty,
 my queen,  I am your willing slave,  I wish you nothing but good and happiness.  .  .  .
 Tell me,  why don't you want to marry Nestchapov?  What more do you want,  my child?  You must forgive me,  darling;
 you can't pick and choose like this,  we are not princes.  .  .  .  Time is passing,
 you are not seventeen.  .  .  .  And I don't understand it!  He loves you,
 idolises you!  " Oh,  mercy!  said Vera with vexation.  "
How can I tell?  He sits dumb and never says a word.  " He's shy,  darling.  .
 .  .  He's afraid you'll refuse him!  And when her aunt had gone away,  Vera remained standing in the middle of her room uncertain whether to dress or to go back to bed.  The bed was hateful;
 if one looked out of the window there were the bare trees,  the grey snow,  the hateful jackdaws,  the pigs that her grandfather would eat.  .  .
 .  " Yes,  after all,  perhaps I'd better get married!  she thought.
 III For two days Auntie Dasha went about with a tear- stained and heavily powdered face,  and at dinner she kept sighing and looking towards the ikon.  And it was impossible to make out what was the matter with her.  But at last she made up her mind,  went in to Vera,
 and said in a casual way:  " The fact is,  child,  we have to pay interest on the bank loan,  and the tenant hasn't paid his rent.
 Will you let me pay it out of the fifteen thousand your papa left you?  All day afterwards Auntie Dasha spent in making cherry jam in the garden.  Alyona,  with her cheeks flushed with the heat,  ran to and from the garden to the house and back again to the cellar.  When Auntie Dasha was making jam with a very serious face as though she were performing a religious rite,
 and her short sleeves displayed her strong,  little,  despotic hands and arms,  and when the servants ran about incessantly,  bustling about the jam which they would never taste,  there was always a feeling of martyrdom in the air.
 .  .  .  The garden smelt of hot cherries.  The sun had set,  the charcoal stove had been carried away,
 but the pleasant,  sweetish smell still lingered in the air.  Vera sat on a bench in the garden and watched a new labourer,  a young soldier,  not of the neighbourhood,  who was,
 by her express orders,  making new paths.  He was cutting the turf with a spade and heaping it up on a barrow.  " Where were you serving?  Vera asked him.
 " At Berdyansk.  " And where are you going now?  Home?  "
No,  answered the labourer.  " I have no home.  " But where were you born and brought up?
 " In the province of Oryol.  Till I went into the army I lived with my mother,  in my step- father's house;  my mother was the head of the house,
 and people looked up to her,  and while she lived I was cared for.  But while I was in the army I got a letter telling me my mother was dead.  .  .  .
 And now I don't seem to care to go home.  It's not my own father,  so it's not like my own home.  " Then your father is dead?  "
I don't know.  I am illegitimate.  At that moment Auntie Dasha appeared at the window and said:  " Il ne faut pas parler aux gens.  .
 .  .  Go into the kitchen,  my good man.  You can tell your story there,  she said to the soldier.
 And then came as yesterday and every day supper,  reading,  a sleepless night,  and endless thinking about the same thing.  At three o'clock the sun rose;  Alyona was already busy in the corridor,
 and Vera was not asleep yet and was trying to read.  She heard the creak of the barrow:  it was the new labourer at work in the garden.  .  .  .
 Vera sat at the open window with a book,  dozed,  and watched the soldier making the paths for her,  and that interested her.  The paths were as even and level as a leather strap,  and it was pleasant to imagine what they would be like when they were strewn with yellow sand.
 She could see her aunt come out of the house soon after five o'clock,  in a pink wrapper and curl- papers.  She stood on the steps for three minutes without speaking,  and then said to the soldier:  "
Take your passport and go in peace.  I can't have any one illegitimate in my house.  An oppressive,  angry feeling sank like a stone on Vera's heart.  She was indignant with her aunt,  she hated her;
 she was so sick of her aunt that her heart was full of misery and loathing.  But what was she to do?  To stop her mouth?  To be rude to her?  But what would be the use?  Suppose she struggled with her,
 got rid of her,  made her harmless,  prevented her grandfather from flourishing his stick -  what would be the use of it?  It would be like killing one mouse or one snake in the boundless steppe.  The vast expanse,
 the long winters,  the monotony and dreariness of life,  instil a sense of helplessness;  the position seems hopeless,  and one wants to do nothing -  everything is useless.
 Alyona came in,  and bowing low to Vera,  began carrying out the arm- chairs to beat the dust out of them.  " You have chosen a time to clean up,
 said Vera with annoyance.  " Go away.  Alyona was overwhelmed,  and in her terror could not understand what was wanted of her.  She began hurriedly tidying up the dressing-
table.  " Go out of the room,  I tell you,  Vera shouted,  turning cold;
 she had never had such an oppressive feeling before.  " Go away!  Alyona uttered a sort of moan,  like a bird,  and dropped Vera's gold watch on the carpet.
 " Go away!  Vera shrieked in a voice not her own,  leaping up and trembling all over.  " Send her away;
 she worries me to death!  she went on,  walking rapidly after Alyona down the passage,  stamping her feet.  " Go away!
 Birch her!  Beat her!  Then suddenly she came to herself,  and just as she was,  unwashed,  uncombed,
 in her dressing- gown and slippers,  she rushed out of the house.  She ran to the familiar ravine and hid herself there among the sloe- trees,  so that she might see no one and be seen by no one.
 Lying there motionless on the grass,  she did not weep,  she was not horror- stricken,  but gazing at the sky open- eyed,
 she reflected coldly and clearly that something had happened which she could never forget and for which she could never forgive herself all her life.  " No,  I can't go on like this,  she thought.  "
It's time to take myself in hand,  or there'll be no end to it.  .  .  .  I can't go on like this.
 .  .  .  At midday Dr.  Neshtchapov drove by the ravine on his way to the house.  She saw him and made up her mind that she would begin a new life,
 and that she would make herself begin it,  and this decision calmed her.  And following with her eyes the doctor's well- built figure,  she said,  as though trying to soften the crudity of her decision:
 " He's a nice man.  .  .  .  We shall get through life somehow.
 She returned home.  While she was dressing,  Auntie Dasha came into the room,  and said:  " Alyona upset you,
 darling;  I've sent her home to the village.  Her mother's given her a good beating and has come here,  crying.  " Auntie,
 said Vera quickly,  " I'm going to marry Dr.  Neshtchapov.  Only talk to him yourself .  .
 .  I can't.  And again she went out into the fields.  And wandering aimlessly about,  she made up her mind that when she was married she would look after the house,  doctor the peasants,
 teach in the school,  that she would do all the things that other women of her circle did.  And this perpetual dissatisfaction with herself and every one else,  this series of crude mistakes which stand up like a mountain before one whenever one looks back upon one's past,  she would accept as her real life to which she was fated,  and she would expect nothing better.
 .  .  .  Of course there was nothing better!  Beautiful nature,  dreams,
 music,  told one story,  but reality another.  Evidently truth and happiness existed somewhere outside real life.  .  .
 .  One must give up one's own life and merge oneself into this luxuriant steppe,  boundless and indifferent as eternity,  with its flowers,  its ancient barrows,  and its distant horizon,
 and then it would be well with one.  .  .  .  A month later Vera was living at the works.  NOTES yawned and crossed herself:
 Russian superstition,  to keep the Devil from entering the body vint:  a bridge- like card game Saur's Grave:  Saur is the hero of certain legends of Tartar origin;  the name is applied locally to several different burial mounds in the steppe 188 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS by Anton Chekhov AT half-
past eight they drove out of the town.  The highroad was dry,  a lovely April sun was shining warmly,  but the snow was still lying in the ditches and in the woods.  Winter,  dark,
 long,  and spiteful,  was hardly over;  spring had come all of a sudden.  But neither the warmth nor the languid transparent woods,  warmed by the breath of spring,
 nor the black flocks of birds flying over the huge puddles that were like lakes,  nor the marvelous fathomless sky,  into which it seemed one would have gone away so joyfully,  presented anything new or interesting to Marya Vassilyevna who was sitting in the cart.  For thirteen years she had been schoolmistress,  and there was no reckoning how many times during all those years she had been to the town for her salary;
 and whether it were spring as now,  or a rainy autumn evening,  or winter,  it was all the same to her,  and she always -  invariably -
 longed for one thing only,  to get to the end of her journey as quickly as could be.  She felt as though she had been living in that part of the country for ages and ages,  for a hundred years,  and it seemed to her that she knew every stone,  every tree on the road from the town to her school.
 Her past was here,  her present was here,  and she could imagine no other future than the school,  the road to the town and back again,  and again the school and again the road.  .
 .  .  She had got out of the habit of thinking of her past before she became a schoolmistress,  and had almost forgotten it.  She had once had a father and mother;  they had lived in Moscow in a big flat near the Red Gate,
 but of all that life there was left in her memory only something vague and fluid like a dream.  Her father had died when she was ten years old,  and her mother had died soon after.  .  .  .
 She had a brother,  an officer;  at first they used to write to each other,  then her brother had given up answering her letters,  he had got out of the way of writing.  Of her old belongings,
 all that was left was a photograph of her mother,  but it had grown dim from the dampness of the school,  and now nothing could be seen but the hair and the eyebrows.  When they had driven a couple of miles,  old Semyon,  who was driving,
 turned round and said:  " They have caught a government clerk in the town.  They have taken him away.  The story is that with some Germans he killed Alexeyev,  the Mayor,
 in Moscow.  " Who told you that?  " They were reading it in the paper,  in Ivan Ionov's tavern.
 And again they were silent for a long time.  Marya Vassilyevna thought of her school,  of the examination that was coming soon,  and of the girl and four boys she was sending up for it.  And just as she was thinking about the examination,  she was overtaken by a neighboring landowner called Hanov in a carriage with four horses,
 the very man who had been examiner in her school the year before.  When he came up to her he recognized her and bowed.  " Good- morning,  he said to her.
 " You are driving home,  I suppose.  This Hanov,  a man of forty with a listless expression and a face that showed signs of wear,  was beginning to look old,
 but was still handsome and admired by women.  He lived in his big homestead alone,  and was not in the service;  and people used to say of him that he did nothing at home but walk up and down the room whistling,  or play chess with his old footman.  People said,
 too,  that he drank heavily.  And indeed at the examination the year before the very papers he brought with him smelt of wine and scent.  He had been dressed all in new clothes on that occasion,  and Marya Vassilyevna thought him very attractive,  and all the while she sat beside him she had felt embarrassed.
 She was accustomed to see frigid and sensible examiners at the school,  while this one did not remember a single prayer,  or know what to ask questions about,  and was exceedingly courteous and delicate,  giving nothing but the highest marks.  "
I am going to visit Bakvist,  he went on,  addressing Marya Vassilyevna,  " but I am told he is not at home.  They turned off the highroad into a by-
road to the village,  Hanov leading the way and Semyon following.  The four horses moved at a walking pace,  with effort dragging the heavy carriage through the mud.  Semyon tacked from side to side,  keeping to the edge of the road,
 at one time through a snowdrift,  at another through a pool,  often jumping out of the cart and helping the horse.  Marya Vassilyevna was still thinking about the school,  wondering whether the arithmetic questions at the examination would be difficult or easy.  And she felt annoyed with the Zemstvo board at which she had found no one the day before.
 How unbusiness- like!  Here she had been asking them for the last two years to dismiss the watchman,  who did nothing,  was rude to her,  and hit the schoolboys;
 but no one paid any attention.  It was hard to find the president at the office,  and when one did find him he would say with tears in his eyes that he hadn't a moment to spare;  the inspector visited the school at most once in three years,  and knew nothing whatever about his work,  as he had been in the Excise Duties Department,
 and had received the post of school inspector through influence.  The School Council met very rarely,  and there was no knowing where it met;  the school guardian was an almost illiterate peasant,  the head of a tanning business,  unintelligent,
 rude,  and a great friend of the watchman's -  and goodness knows to whom she could appeal with complaints or inquiries .  .  .  .
 " He really is handsome,  she thought,  glancing at Hanov.  The road grew worse and worse.  .
 .  .  They drove into the wood.  Here there was no room to turn round,  the wheels sank deeply in,  water splashed and gurgled through them,
 and sharp twigs struck them in the face.  " What a road!  said Hanov,  and he laughed.  The schoolmistress looked at him and could not understand why this queer man lived here.
 What could his money,  his interesting appearance,  his refined bearing do for him here,  in this mud,  in this God- forsaken,
 dreary place?  He got no special advantages out of life,  and here,  like Semyon,  was driving at a jog- trot on an appalling road and enduring the same discomforts.
 Why live here if one could live in Petersburg or abroad?  And one would have thought it would be nothing for a rich man like him to make a good road instead of this bad one,  to avoid enduring this misery and seeing the despair on the faces of his coachman and Semyon;  but he only laughed,  and apparently did not mind,  and wanted no better life.
 He was kind,  soft,  naï ve,  and he did not understand this coarse life,  just as at the examination he did not know the prayers.
 He subscribed nothing to the schools but globes,  and genuinely regarded himself as a useful person and a prominent worker in the cause of popular education.  And what use were his globes here?  " Hold on,  Vassilyevna!
 said Semyon.  The cart lurched violently and was on the point of upsetting;  something heavy rolled on to Marya Vassilyevna's feet -  it was her parcel of purchases.  There was a steep ascent uphill through the clay;  here in the winding ditches rivulets were gurgling.
 The water seemed to have gnawed away the road;  and how could one get along here!  The horses breathed hard.  Hanov got out of his carriage and walked at the side of the road in his long overcoat.  He was hot.  "
What a road!  he said,  and laughed again.  " It would soon smash up one's carriage.  "
Nobody obliges you to drive about in such weather,  said Semyon surlily.  " You should stay at home.  " I am dull at home,
 grandfather.  I don't like staying at home.  Beside old Semyon he looked graceful and vigorous,  but yet in his walk there was something just perceptible which betrayed in him a being already touched by decay,  weak,  and on the road to ruin.
 And all at once there was a whiff of spirits in the wood.  Marya Vassilyevna was filled with dread and pity for this man going to his ruin for no visible cause or reason,  and it came into her mind that if she had been his wife or sister she would have devoted her whole life to saving him from ruin.  His wife!  Life was so ordered that here he was living in his great house alone,  and she was living in a God-
forsaken village alone,  and yet for some reason the mere thought that he and she might be close to one another and equals seemed impossible and absurd.  In reality,  life was arranged and human relations were complicated so utterly beyond all understanding that when one thought about it one felt uncanny and one's heart sank.  " And it is beyond all understanding,
 she thought,  " why God gives beauty,  this graciousness,  and sad,  sweet eyes to weak,
 unlucky,  useless people -  why they are so charming.  " Here we must turn off to the right,  said Hanov,
 getting into his carriage.  " Good- by!  I wish you all things good!  And again she thought of her pupils,
 of the examination,  of the watchman,  of the School Council;  and when the wind brought the sound of the retreating carriage these thoughts were mingled with others.  She longed to think of beautiful eyes,  of love,
 of the happiness which would never be.  .  .  .  His wife?  It was cold in the morning,
 there was no one to heat the stove,  the watchman disappeared;  the children came in as soon as it was light,  bringing in snow and mud and making a noise:  it was all so inconvenient,  so comfortless.
 Her abode consisted of one little room and the kitchen close by.  Her head ached every day after her work,  and after dinner she had heart- burn.  She had to collect money from the school- children for wood and for the watchman,
 and to give it to the school guardian,  and then to entreat him -  that overfed,  insolent peasant -  for God's sake to send her wood.  And at night she dreamed of examinations,
 peasants,  snowdrifts.  And this life was making her grow old and coarse,  making her ugly,  angular,  and awkward,
 as though she were made of lead.  She was always afraid,  and she would get up from her seat and not venture to sit down in the presence of a member of the Zemstvo or the school guardian.  And she used formal,  deferential expressions when she spoke of any one of them.  And no one thought her attractive,
 and life was passing drearily,  without affection,  without friendly sympathy,  without interesting acquaintances.  How awful it would have been in her position if she had fallen in love!  "
Hold on,  Vassilyevna!  Again a sharp ascent uphill.  .  .  .
 She had become a schoolmistress from necessity,  without feeling any vocation for it;  and she had never thought of a vocation,  of serving the cause of enlightenment;  and it always seemed to her that what was most important in her work was not the children,  nor enlightenment,
 but the examinations.  And what time had she for thinking of vocation,  of serving the cause of enlightenment?  Teachers,  badly paid doctors,  and their assistants,
 with their terribly hard work,  have not even the comfort of thinking that they are serving an idea or the people,  as their heads are always stuffed with thoughts of their daily bread,  of wood for the fire,  of bad roads,  of illnesses.
 It is a hard- working,  an uninteresting life,  and only silent,  patient cart- horses like Mary Vassilyevna could put up with it for long;
 the lively,  nervous,  impressionable people who talked about vocation and serving the idea were soon weary of it and gave up the work.  Semyon kept picking out the driest and shortest way,  first by a meadow,  then by the backs of the village huts;
 but in one place the peasants would not let them pass,  in another it was the priest's land and they could not cross it,  in another Ivan Ionov had bought a plot from the landowner and had dug a ditch round it.  They kept having to turn back.  They reached Nizhneye Gorodistche.  Near the tavern on the dung-
strewn earth,  where the snow was still lying,  there stood wagons that had brought great bottles of crude sulphuric acid.  There were a great many people in the tavern,  all drivers,  and there was a smell of vodka,
 tobacco,  and sheepskins.  There was a loud noise of conversation and the banging of the swing- door.  Through the wall,  without ceasing for a moment,
 came the sound of a concertina being played in the shop.  Marya Vassilyevna sat down and drank some tea,  while at the next table peasants were drinking vodka and beer,  perspiring from the tea they had just swallowed and the stifling fumes of the tavern.  " I say,
 Kuzma!  voices kept shouting in confusion.  " What there!  " The Lord bless us!
 " Ivan Dementyitch,  I can tell you that!  " Look out,  old man!
 A little pock- marked man with a black beard,  who was quite drunk,  was suddenly surprised by something and began using bad language.  " What are you swearing at,
 you there?  Semyon,  who was sitting some way off,  responded angrily.  " Don't you see the young lady?
 " The young lady!  someone mimicked in another corner.  " Swinish crow!  "
We meant nothing .  .  .  said the little man in confusion.  " I beg your pardon.
 We pay with our money and the young lady with hers.  Good- morning!  " Good- morning,
 answered the schoolmistress.  " And we thank you most feelingly.  Marya Vassilyevna drank her tea with satisfaction,  and she,  too,
 began turning red like the peasants,  and fell to thinking again about firewood,  about the watchman.  .  .  .
 " Stay,  old man,  she heard from the next table,  " it's the schoolmistress from Vyazovye.
 .  .  .  We know her;  she's a good young lady.  "
She's all right!  The swing- door was continually banging,  some coming in,  others going out.  Marya Vassilyevna sat on,
 thinking all the time of the same things,  while the concertina went on playing and playing.  The patches of sunshine had been on the floor,  then they passed to the counter,  to the wall,  and disappeared altogether;
 so by the sun it was past midday.  The peasants at the next table were getting ready to go.  The little man,  somewhat unsteadily,  went up to Marya Vassilyevna and held out his hand to her;  following his example,
 the others shook hands,  too,  at parting,  and went out one after another,  and the swing- door squeaked and slammed nine times.
 " Vassilyevna,  get ready,  Semyon called to her.  They set off.  And again they went at a walking pace.
 " A little while back they were building a school here in their Nizhneye Gorodistche,  said Semyon,  turning round.  " It was a wicked thing that was done!
 " Why,  what?  " They say the president put a thousand in his pocket,  and the school guardian another thousand in his,
 and the teacher five hundred.  " The whole school only cost a thousand.  It's wrong to slander people,  grandfather.  That's all nonsense.
 " I don't know,  .  .  .  I only tell you what folks say.
 But it was clear that Semyon did not believe the schoolmistress.  The peasants did not believe her.  They always thought she received too large a salary,  twenty- one roubles a month ( five would have been enough)
 and that of the money that she collected from the children for the firewood and the watchman the greater part she kept for herself.  The guardian thought the same as the peasants,  and he himself made a profit off the firewood and received payments from the peasants for being a guardian -  without the knowledge of the authorities.  The forest,  thank God!
 was behind them,  and now it would be flat,  open ground all the way to Vyazovye,  and there was not far to go now.  They had to cross the river and then the railway line,  and then Vyazovye was in sight.
 " Where are you driving?  Marya Vassilyevna asked Semyon.  " Take the road to the right to the bridge.  "
Why,  we can go this way as well.  It's not deep enough to matter.  " Mind you don't drown the horse.  "
What?  " Look,  Hanov is driving to the bridge,  said Marya Vassilyevna,  seeing the four horses far away to the right.
 " It is he,  I think.  " It is.  So he didn't find Bakvist at home.
 What a pig- headed fellow he is.  Lord have mercy upon us!  He's driven over there,  and what for?  It's fully two miles nearer this way.
 They reached the river.  In the summer it was a little stream easily crossed by wading.  It usually dried up in August,  but now,  after the spring floods,  it was a river forty feet in breadth,
 rapid,  muddy,  and cold;  on the bank and right up to the water there were fresh tracks of wheels,  so it had been crossed here.  "
Go on!  shouted Semyon angrily and anxiously,  tugging violently at the reins and jerking his elbows as a bird does its wings.  " Go on!  The horse went on into the water up to his belly and stopped,
 but at once went on again with an effort,  and Marya Vassilyevna was aware of a keen chilliness in her feet.  " Go on!  she,  too,
 shouted,  getting up.  " Go on!  They got out on the bank.  "
Nice mess it is,  Lord have mercy upon us!  muttered Semyon,  setting straight the harness.  " It's a perfect plague with this Zemstvo.
 .  .  .  Her shoes and goloshes were full of water,  the lower part of her dress and of her coat and one sleeve were wet and dripping:  the sugar and flour had got wet,
 and that was worst of all,  and Marya Vassilyevna could only clasp her hands In despair and say:  " Oh,  Semyon,  Semyon!
 How tiresome you are really!  .  .  .  The barrier was down at the railway crossing.  A train was coming out of the station.
 Marya Vassilyevna stood at the crossing waiting till it should pass,  and shivering all over with cold.  Vyazovye was in sight now,  and the school with the green roof,  and the church with its crosses flashing in the evening sun:  and the station windows flashed too,
 and a pink smoke rose from the engine .  .  .  and it seemed to her that everything was trembling with cold.  Here was the train;  the windows reflected the gleaming light like the crosses on the church:
 it made her eyes ache to look at them.  On the little platform between two first- class carriages a lady was standing,  and Marya Vassilyevna glanced at her as she passed.  Her mother!  What a resemblance!
 Her mother had had just such luxuriant hair,  just such a brow and bend of the head.  And with amazing distinctness,  for the first time in those thirteen years,  there rose before her mind a vivid picture of her mother,  her father,
 her brother,  their flat in Moscow,  the aquarium with little fish,  everything to the tiniest detail;  she heard the sound of the piano,  her father's voice;
 she felt as she had been then,  young,  good- looking,  well- dressed,
 in a bright warm room among her own people.  A feeling of joy and happiness suddenly came over her,  she pressed her hands to her temples in an ecstacy,  and called softly,  beseechingly:  "
Mother!  And she began crying,  she did not know why.  Just at that instant Hanov drove up with his team of four horses,  and seeing him she imagined happiness such as she had never had,  and smiled and nodded to him as an equal and a friend,
 and it seemed to her that her happiness,  her triumph,  was glowing in the sky and on all sides,  in the windows and on the trees.  Her father and mother had never died,  she had never been a schoolmistress,
 it was a long,  tedious,  strange dream,  and now she had awakened.  .  .
 .  " Vassilyevna,  get in!  And at once it all vanished.  The barrier was slowly raised.
 Marya Vassilyevna,  shivering and numb with cold,  got into the cart.  The carriage with the four horses crossed the railway line;  Semyon followed it.  The signalman took off his cap.
 " And here is Vyazovye.  Here we are.  NOTES title:  a correct translation is " In the Cart"
 the Red Gate:  triumphal arch erected in Moscow for the coronation of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in 1742 zemstvo:  a district council with locally elected members 
