At Home Page #2

"At Home I," a collection of stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, offers a poignant exploration of everyday life and human relationships. Chekhov's incisive observations and vivid characterizations delve into the complexities of domesticity, intimacy, and societal norms, often revealing the intricacies of human emotion and the poignancy of ordinary moments. Through a blend of humor and pathos, these stories capture the essence of life's simple yet profound experiences, showcasing Chekhov's mastery in portraying the depth of the human condition.

								

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;
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