by Anton Chekhov
About nine years ago, during haymaking time, I and Peter Sergeich, assistant magistrate, rode over to the station to fetch the letters, one summer night.
The weather was clear, but when returning we heard thunder and saw an angry black cloud speeding towards us.
On its dark background our house and the church looked white and the tall poplars seemed turned to silver. There was a scent of rain and new-mown hay in the air. My companion was gay, laughed and talked all sorts of nonsense. He said if on our way we could come across a medieval castle, a shelter from the storm, and where in the end we would be killed by lightning, he would rejoice.
Suddenly the first wave passed over the rye and oat fields, and a violent gust of wind raised a cloud of dust on the road. Peter Sergeich laughed and spurred his horse on.
“Great” he shouted. “This is ideal!”
Infected by his gaiety and by the thought that I would soon be wet to the skin, and might be killed by the lightning, I also began to laugh.
This whirlwind and the rapid riding against the storm took the breath away, making one feel like a bird; it agitated and tickled the breast. When we rode into our yard the wind had subsided, but large drops of rain rattled on the grass and the roofs. There was not a soul near the stables.
Peter Sergeich unbridled the horses and led them to the stables. While waiting for him to finish, I stood at the door and looked at the slanting rain. The luscious and exciting odor of the hay was more perceptible here than in the fields; the clouds and the rain made it dusk.
“What a peal!” Peter Sergeich said, coming up to me after a terribly prolonged peal of thunder, when it appeared as if the sky had been rent asunder. “Wasn’t that a peal?”
He stood beside me in the doorway, still breathing heavily from the rapid riding, and he looked at me. I noticed that he was admiring me.
“Natalia Vladimirovna,” he said, “I would give anything I possess if I could only remain thus and look at you for ever. You are beautiful today.”
He gazed at me enraptured, and with entreaty in his eyes; his face was pale, and on his beard and moustache raindrops glistened, and they, too seemed to look at me with love.
“I love you!” he said. “I love you and am happy when I see you. I know you cannot be my wife; I want nothing, I require nothing, but that you should know I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, do not pay any attention to me, only know that you are dear to me, and permit me to look at you.”
His enthusiasm was communicated to me. I looked at his inspired face; I heard his voice which was blended with the noise of the rain, and as if enchanted I was unable to move.
I wished to look at his brilliant eyes and listen to him without end.
“You are silent – excellent!” Peter Sergeich said. “Continue to be silent.”
I was happy. I laughed with pleasure and ran under the pelting rain into the house; he also laughed, and with a skip and a jump he ran after me.
Making a noise like two children we both rushed, wet and breathless, up the stairs into the room. My father and brother, who were unaccustomed to see me laughing and gay, looked at me with surprise, and also began to laugh.
The storm clouds passed away, the thunder became silent, but still the raindrops glistened in Peter Sergeich’s beard. The whole of that evening until supper he sang, whistled, played noisily with the dog, chased it round the rooms and just missed knocking the man-servant who was bringing in the samovar, off his legs. At supper he ate very much, talked very loud, and asserted that when you ate fresh cucumbers in the winter you had a taste of spring in the mouth.
When I went to bed I lit a candle, opened the window wide and gave myself up to the undefined feelings that possessed my breasts. I remembered that I was free, healthy, distinguished, rich, that I was loved, but chiefly that I was distinguished and rich – distinguished and rich – how nice that was, my God! . . . Then feeling the cold that was borne to me together with the dew from the garden, I cuddled up in bed and tried to understand if I loved or did not love Peter Sergeich . . . and not being able to understand anything I fell asleep.
In the morning when I saw a trembling spot of sunshine and the shadow of lime branches on my bed, all that happened the day before arose vividly in my mind. Life appeared to me rich, varied, full of attractions. I dressed quickly, singing and ran into the garden. . .
And what was afterwards? Afterwards – nothing. In the winter, when we were living in town, Peter Sergeich came to us seldom. The acquaintances of the country are only charming in the country and in the summer – in town, and in winter they lose half their attraction. When in town you offer them tea, they seem to be in other people’s coats, and stir their tea too long with their spoons. Sometimes in town Peter Sergeich also spoke of love, but how different it sounded when spoken in the village. In town we felt more strongly the wall that separated us! I was distinguished and rich; and he was poor, he was not even noble, only the son of a deacon, he was only an assistant magistrate; we both – I from youth, and he, God knows why – considered this wall very high and thick, and he, when he came to us in town, smiled affectedly and criticized higher society, or remained gloomily silent when anybody else was in the drawing room. There is never a wall that cannot be broken through; but the heroes of present-day fiction, as far as I know them, are too timid, too slow, too lazy and fearsome, and too apt to be satisfied with the thought that they are failures, and that their own life has duped them; instead of struggling, they only criticize and call the world mean, and forget that their own criticism gradually degenerates into meanness.
I was loved; happiness was near, and it appeared to be living shoulder to shoulder to me. I sang as I lived, not trying to understand myself, not knowing for what I waited, or what I wanted from life – and time sped on and on. People passed me with their love, bright days and warm nights flitted by; nightingales sang – there was the scent of hay – and all this so charming and wonderful in recollection passed quickly by me unvalued, as with everybody, leaving no trace and vanished like a mist. . . Where is it all?
My father died. I have grown old. All that pleased me, that caressed me, that gave me hope – the noise of the rain, the rolling thunder, the thoughts of happiness, the words of love – all this has become a mere recollection, and I see before me a flat, empty plain; there is not a single living soul on the plain, and there on the distant horizon it is dark and terrible. . .
There was a bell. Peter Sergeich had come to see me. When I see the country in the winter and remember how green it became for in summer, I whisper:
“Oh, my darlings!”
Long since, by my father’s influence, he had transferred to town. He has grown somewhat older, somewhat thinner. Long ago he ceased to talk to me of love, he no longer talked nonsense, he did not like his work; he had some sort of ailment, he was disappointed with something; he had given up expecting anything from life and he had no zest in existence. He sat down near the fire and looked silently into the flames. And I, not knowing what to say, asked:
“Well, what is it?”
“Nothing,” he replied.
Then there was silence again. The red glow of the fire skipped about his sad face.
I remembered the past, and suddenly my shoulders began shaking, and I burst into bitter tears. I became unbearably sorry for myself, and for this man, and I passionately longed for that which was passed, and for that which life now refused us. And now I no longer thought that I was distinguished and rich.
I sobbed aloud, pressing my temples and murmured:
“My God, My God, life is ruined…”
And he sat there in silence and did not say: “Do not cry.” He understood that it was necessary to cry, and that the time had come for that. I saw in his eyes that he was sorry for me, and I, too, was sorry for him, and I was vexed for the poor timid wretch who had been unable to arrange either my life or his own.
When I conducted him to the door it appeared to me that he was purposely very long in the ante-room putting on his fur coat. He kissed my hand a couple of times, and looked long into my tear-stained eyes. I think at that moment he remembered the thunder storm, the streams of rain, our laughter and my face as it was then. He wanted to say something to me, and he would have been glad to have said it; but he said nothing, he only shook his head and pressed my hand hard. God bless him!
When he had gone I returned into my boudoir and sat down again on the carpet in front of the fire. The red coals had changed into ashes and were going out. The frost knocked more fiercely at the windows, and the wind began singing a song about something in the chimney.
My maid came into the room, and thinking I had fallen asleep, called to me. . .