A Nightmare

"A Nightmare" is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores themes of existential dread and the surreal nature of human experience. The narrative centers around a character who grapples with a haunting sense of foreboding that blurs the lines between reality and dreams. Through Chekhov's characteristic wit and keen psychological insight, the story delves into the inner turmoil of the protagonist, revealing the anxieties and fears that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. The tale serves as a poignant reflection on the nature of nightmares and the complexities of the human psyche.

								
Kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the Rural
Board, on returning from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo,
immediately sent a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest there,
Father Yakov Smirnov.

Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.

"Very glad to make your acquaintance," said Kunin, meeting him in the
entry. "I've been living and serving here for a year; it seems as though
we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very welcome! But . . .
how young you are!" Kunin added in surprise. "What is your age?"

"Twenty-eight, . . ." said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin's
outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.

Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
attentively.

"What an uncouth womanish face!" he thought.

There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov's
face: the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large grey-blue
eyes with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long reddish hair,
smooth and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his shoulders. The
hair on his upper lip was only just beginning to form into a real
masculine moustache, while his little beard belonged to that class of
good-for-nothing beards which among divinity students are for some
reason called "ticklers." It was scanty and extremely transparent; it
could not have been stroked or combed, it could only have been pinched.
. . . All these scanty decorations were put on unevenly in tufts, as
though Father Yakov, thinking to dress up as a priest and beginning to
gum on the beard, had been interrupted halfway through. He had on a
cassock, the colour of weak coffee with chicory in it, with big patches
on both elbows.

"A queer type," thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. "Comes to
the house for the first time and can't dress decently.

"Sit down, Father," he began more carelessly than cordially, as he moved
an easy-chair to the table. "Sit down, I beg you."

Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge of the
chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short figure, his
narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from the first moment
a most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter could never have
imagined that there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests in
Russia; and in Father Yakov's attitude, in the way he held his hands on
his knees and sat on the very edge of his chair, he saw a lack of
dignity and even a shade of servility.

"I have invited you on business, Father. . . ." Kunin began, sinking
back in his low chair. "It has fallen to my lot to perform the agreeable
duty of helping you in one of your useful undertakings. . . . On coming
back from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter from the Marshal of
Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I should take under my
supervision the church parish school which is being opened in Sinkino. I
shall be very glad to, Father, with all my heart. . . . More than that,
I accept the proposition with enthusiasm."

Kunin got up and walked about the study.

"Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware that
I have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged, and I
live exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So that you
cannot reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all that is in my
power. . . . And when are you thinking of opening the school Father?"

"When we have the money, . . ." answered Father Yakov.

"You have some funds at your disposal already?"

"Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that they
would pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that's only a
promise, you know! And for the first beginning we should need at least
two hundred roubles. . . ."

"M'yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now," said Kunin with a
sigh. "I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let us try
and think of some plan together."

Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched Father
Yakov's face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it. But the face
was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but constrained
shyness and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have supposed that
Kunin was talking of matters so abstruse that Father Yakov did not
understand and only listened from good manners, and was at the same time
afraid of being detected in his failure to understand.

"The fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident . . ." thought
Kunin. "He's rather shy and much too stupid."

Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman came
into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a cake-
basket full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking at once.

"Shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" Kunin went on, meditating
aloud. "To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but the
higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question of the
church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the funds. I
remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for the purpose.
Do you know nothing about it?"

Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer this
question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought a
moment, and as though recalling his question, he shook his head in the
negative. An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary prosaic
appetite overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and smacked his
lips over every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very last drop, he put
his glass on the table, then took his glass back again, looked at the
bottom of it, then put it back again. The expression of pleasure faded
from his face. . . . Then Kunin saw his visitor take a biscuit from the
cake-basket, nibble a little bit off it, then turn it over in his hand
and hurriedly stick it in his pocket.

"Well, that's not at all clerical!" thought Kunin, shrugging his
shoulders contemptuously. "What is it, priestly greed or childishness?"

After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the
entry, Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the
unpleasant feeling induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.

"What a strange wild creature!" he thought. "Dirty, untidy, coarse,
stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that's a priest, a
spiritual father! That's a teacher of the people! I can fancy the irony
there must be in the deacon's face when before every mass he booms out:
'Thy blessing, Reverend Father!' A fine reverend Father! A reverend
Father without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding biscuits in his
pocket like a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where were the bishop's
eyes when he ordained a man like that? What can he think of the people

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