Fifty-Two Stories

“Fortunately or unfortunately, there’s nothing in our life that doesn’t end sooner or later. The time came for parting, because Luganovich had been appointed chairman in one of the western provinces. They had to sell the furniture, the horses, the dacha. When we went to the dacha and then, on the way back, turned to look for a last time at the garden, at the green roof, we all felt sad, and I understood that the time had come to say goodbye not only to the dacha. It was decided that at the end of August we would see Anna Alexeevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and a little later Luganovich would leave with the children for his western province.

“A big crowd of us saw Anna Alexeevna off. When she had already said goodbye to her husband and the children, and there was just a moment left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put on the rack one of her baskets, which she had almost forgotten; and I had to say goodbye. When our eyes met there in the compartment, our inner forces abandoned us both, I embraced her, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears poured from her eyes. Kissing her face, shoulders, hands, wet with tears—oh, how unhappy we both were!—I confessed my love to her, and with burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, petty, and deceptive was everything that had hindered our love. I realized that, when you love, your reasonings about that love must proceed from something higher, something of greater importance than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their ordinary sense, or else you shouldn’t reason at all.

“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and we parted—forever. The train was already moving. I went to the next compartment—it was empty—sat there until the first stop, and wept. Then I went on foot to my Sofyino…”

While Alekhin was telling his story, it stopped raining and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanych went to the balcony; there was a beautiful view from there to the garden and the millpond, which now glistened in the sun like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with kind, intelligent eyes, who had told them his story with such sincerity, in fact ran around here, on this huge estate, like a squirrel on a wheel, instead of occupying himself with studies or something else that would make his life more agreeable; and they thought of how grief-stricken the young lady’s face must have been, when he was saying goodbye to her and kissing her face and shoulders. They had both met her in town, and Burkin was even acquainted with her and found her beautiful.

1898

IONYCH

I

When newcomers to the provincial capital S. complained about the boredom and monotony of life, the local people, as if to justify themselves, said that, on the contrary, life in S. was very good, that there was a library, a theater, a club; there were balls; that, finally, there were intelligent, interesting, agreeable families, with whom one could strike up an acquaintance. And they would point to the Turkin family as the most cultivated and talented.

This family lived on the main street, next door to the governor, in their own house. Ivan Petrovich Turkin himself, a stout, handsome, dark-haired man with side-whiskers, organized amateur theatricals for charitable purposes, and himself played old generals and coughed very amusingly. He knew many anecdotes, charades, sayings, liked to joke and be witty, and always had such an expression that it was impossible to tell whether he was joking or being serious. His wife, Vera Iosifovna, a thin, nice-looking lady in a pince-nez, wrote long stories and novels, and willingly read them aloud to her guests. Their daughter, Ekaterina Ivanovna, a young girl, played the piano. In short, each member of the family had a certain talent. The Turkins received guests cordially and displayed their talents for them cheerfully, with heartfelt simplicity. Their big stone house was spacious and cool in the summer; half the windows looked out on the old, shady garden, where nightingales sang in springtime; when there were guests in the house, there was a chopping of knives in the kitchen, the smell of fried onions in the yard—and each time this presaged an abundant and delicious supper.

And Doctor Dmitri Ionych Startsev, when he had just been appointed zemstvo doctor¹ and settled in Dyalizh, six miles from S., was also told that, as a cultivated man, he must make the acquaintance of the Turkins. One winter day, in the street, he was introduced to Ivan Petrovich; they chatted about the weather, the theater, cholera, and an invitation ensued. In the spring, on a holiday—it was the Ascension²—after receiving his patients, Startsev went to town for a little diversion and incidentally to buy something or other. He went on foot, unhurriedly (he did not yet own horses), murmuring a song:

When I’d not yet drunk tears from the cup of life…³