A Happy Man

"A Happy Man" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores the complex nature of happiness and contentment. The narrative follows Ivan Ivanovich, a seemingly ordinary man who reflects on his life while feeling an overwhelming sense of joy that he struggles to understand. As he contemplates his experiences, Chekhov delves into themes of perspective, the fleeting nature of happiness, and the irony of self-awareness. Through Ivan's introspective journey, the story highlights how true happiness often resides in the simple, overlooked aspects of life. Chekhov's trademark subtlety and keen psychological insight make this tale both thought-provoking and deeply resonant.

								
THE passenger train is just starting from Bologoe, the junction on the
Petersburg-Moscow line. In a second-class smoking compartment five
passengers sit dozing, shrouded in the twilight of the carriage. They
had just had a meal, and now, snugly ensconced in their seats, they are
trying to go to sleep. Stillness.

The door opens and in there walks a tall, lanky figure straight as a
poker, with a ginger-coloured hat and a smart overcoat, wonderfully
suggestive of a journalist in Jules Verne or on the comic stage.

The figure stands still in the middle of the compartment for a long
while, breathing heavily, screwing up his eyes and peering at the seats.

"No, wrong again!" he mutters. "What the deuce! It's positively
revolting! No, the wrong one again!"

One of the passengers stares at the figure and utters a shout of joy:

"Ivan Alexyevitch! what brings you here? Is it you?"

The poker-like gentleman starts, stares blankly at the passenger, and
recognizing him claps his hands with delight.

"Ha! Pyotr Petrovitch," he says. "How many summers, how many winters! I
didn't know you were in this train."

"How are you getting on?"

"I am all right; the only thing is, my dear fellow, I've lost my
compartment and I simply can't find it. What an idiot I am! I ought to
be thrashed!"

The poker-like gentleman sways a little unsteadily and sniggers.

"Queer things do happen!" he continues. "I stepped out just after the
second bell to get a glass of brandy. I got it, of course. Well, I
thought, since it's a long way to the next station, it would be as well
to have a second glass. While I was thinking about it and drinking it
the third bell rang. . . . I ran like mad and jumped into the first
carriage. I am an idiot! I am the son of a hen!"

"But you seem in very good spirits," observes Pyotr Petrovitch. "Come
and sit down! There's room and a welcome."

"No, no. . . . I'm off to look for my carriage. Good-bye!"

"You'll fall between the carriages in the dark if you don't look out!
Sit down, and when we get to a station you'll find your own compartment.
Sit down!"

Ivan Alexyevitch heaves a sigh and irresolutely sits down facing Pyotr
Petrovitch. He is visibly excited, and fidgets as though he were sitting
on thorns.

"Where are you travelling to?" Pyotr Petrovitch enquires.

"I? Into space. There is such a turmoil in my head that I couldn't tell
where I am going myself. I go where fate takes me. Ha-ha! My dear
fellow, have you ever seen a happy fool? No? Well, then, take a look at
one. You behold the happiest of mortals! Yes! Don't you see something
from my face?"

"Well, one can see you're a bit . . . a tiny bit so-so."

"I dare say I look awfully stupid just now. Ach! it's a pity I haven't a
looking-glass, I should like to look at my counting-house. My dear
fellow, I feel I am turning into an idiot, honour bright. Ha-ha! Would
you believe it, I'm on my honeymoon. Am I not the son of a hen?"

"You? Do you mean to say you are married?"

"To-day, my dear boy. We came away straight after the wedding."

Congratulations and the usual questions follow. "Well, you are a
fellow!" laughs Pyotr Petrovitch. "That's why you are rigged out such a
dandy."

"Yes, indeed. . . . To complete the illusion, I've even sprinkled myself
with scent. I am over my ears in vanity! No care, no thought, nothing
but a sensation of something or other . . . deuce knows what to call it
. . . beatitude or something? I've never felt so grand in my life!"

Ivan Alexyevitch shuts his eyes and waggles his head.

"I'm revoltingly happy," he says. "Just think; in a minute I shall go to
my compartment. There on the seat near the window is sitting a being who
is, so to say, devoted to you with her whole being. A little blonde with
a little nose . . . little fingers. . . . My little darling! My angel!
My little poppet! Phylloxera of my soul! And her little foot! Good God!
A little foot not like our beetle-crushers, but something miniature,
fairylike, allegorical. I could pick it up and eat it, that little foot!
Oh, but you don't understand! You're a materialist, of course, you begin
analyzing at once, and one thing and another. You are cold-hearted
bachelors, that's what you are! When you get married you'll think of me.
'Where's Ivan Alexyevitch now?' you'll say. Yes; so in a minute I'm
going to my compartment. There she is waiting for me with impatience . .
. in joyful anticipation of my appearance. She'll have a smile to greet
me. I sit down beside her and take her chin with my two fingers."

Ivan Alexyevitch waggles his head and goes off into a chuckle of
delight.

"Then I lay my noddle on her shoulder and put my arm round her waist.
Around all is silence, you know . . . poetic twilight. I could embrace
the whole world at such a moment. Pyotr Petrovitch, allow me to embrace
you!"

"Delighted, I'm sure." The two friends embrace while the passengers
laugh in chorus. And the happy bridegroom continues:

"And to complete the idiocy, or, as the novelists say, to complete the
illusion, one goes to the refreshment-room and tosses off two or three
glasses. And then something happens in your head and your heart, finer
than you can read of in a fairy tale. I am a man of no importance, but I
feel as though I were limitless: I embrace the whole world!"

The passengers, looking at the tipsy and blissful bridegroom, are
infected by his cheerfulness and no longer feel sleepy. Instead of one
listener, Ivan Alexyevitch has now an audience of five. He wriggles and
splutters, gesticulates, and prattles on without ceasing. He laughs and
they all laugh.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, don't think so much! Damn all this analysis! If
you want a drink, drink, no need to philosophize as to whether it's bad
for you or not. . . . Damn all this philosophy and psychology!"

The guard walks through the compartment.

"My dear fellow," the bridegroom addresses him, "when you pass through
the carriage No. 209 look out for a lady in a grey hat with a white bird
and tell her I'm here!"

"Yes, sir. Only there isn't a No. 209 in this train; there's 219!"

"Well, 219, then! It's all the same. Tell that lady, then, that her
husband is all right!"

Ivan Alexyevitch suddenly clutches his head and groans:

"Husband. . . . Lady. . . . All in a minute! Husband. . . . Ha-ha! I am
a puppy that needs thrashing, and here I am a husband! Ach, idiot! But
think of her! . . . Yesterday she was a little girl, a midget . . . it s
simply incredible!"

"Nowadays it really seems strange to see a happy man," observes one of
the passengers; "one as soon expects to see a white elephant."

"Yes, and whose fault is it?" says Ivan Alexyevitch, stretching his long

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