Difficult People Page #3

"Difficult People" is a collection of short stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, a master of character-driven narratives. Through a series of vignettes, Chekhov explores the complexities of human relationships, highlighting the quirks, conflicts, and foibles that arise in everyday interactions. With his signature blend of humor and poignancy, Chekhov delves into the challenges of understanding and communicating with others, revealing the nuances of social dynamics. Each story invites readers to reflect on the nature of empathy, the struggle for connection, and the often messy reality of human behavior.

								


The father looked out of the window and did not speak. The student, as
though considering his words, rubbed his forehead and went on in great
excitement:

"Not a dinner or tea passes without your making an uproar. Your bread
sticks in our throat... nothing is more bitter, more humiliating, than
bread that sticks in one's throat.... Though you are my father, no one,
neither God nor nature, has given you the right to insult and humiliate
us so horribly, to vent your ill-humour on the weak. You have worn my
mother out and made a slave of her, my sister is hopelessly crushed,
while I..."

"It's not your business to teach me," said his father.

"Yes, it is my business! You can quarrel with me as much as you like,
but leave my mother in peace! I will not allow you to torment my
mother!" the student went on, with flashing eyes. "You are spoilt
because no one has yet dared to oppose you. They tremble and are mute
towards you, but now that is over! Coarse, ill-bred man! You are
coarse... do you understand? You are coarse, ill-humoured, unfeeling.
And the peasants can't endure you!"

The student had by now lost his thread, and was not so much speaking as
firing off detached words. Yevgraf Ivanovitch listened in silence, as
though stunned; but suddenly his neck turned crimson, the colour crept
up his face, and he made a movement.

"Hold your tongue!" he shouted.

"That's right!" the son persisted; "you don't like to hear the truth!
Excellent! Very good! begin shouting! Excellent!"

"Hold your tongue, I tell you!" roared Yevgraf Ivanovitch.

Fedosya Semyonovna appeared in the doorway, very pale, with an
astonished face; she tried to say something, but she could not, and
could only move her fingers.

"It's all your fault!" Shiryaev shouted at her. "You have brought him up
like this!"

"I don't want to go on living in this house!" shouted the student,
crying, and looking angrily at his mother. "I don't want to live with
you!"

Varvara uttered a shriek behind the screen and broke into loud sobs.
With a wave of his hand, Shiryaev ran out of the house.

The student went to his own room and quietly lay down. He lay till
midnight without moving or opening his eyes. He felt neither anger nor
shame, but a vague ache in his soul. He neither blamed his father nor
pitied his mother, nor was he tormented by stings of conscience; he
realized that every one in the house was feeling the same ache, and God
only knew which was most to blame, which was suffering most....

At midnight he woke the labourer, and told him to have the horse ready
at five o'clock in the morning for him to drive to the station; he
undressed and got into bed, but could not get to sleep. He heard how his
father, still awake, paced slowly from window to window, sighing, till
early morning. No one was asleep; they spoke rarely, and only in
whispers. Twice his mother came to him behind the screen. Always with
the same look of vacant wonder, she slowly made the cross over him,
shaking nervously.

At five o'clock in the morning he said good-bye to them all
affectionately, and even shed tears. As he passed his father's room, he
glanced in at the door. Yevgraf Ivanovitch, who had not taken off his
clothes or gone to bed, was standing by the window, drumming on the
panes.

"Good-bye; I am going," said his son.

"Good-bye... the money is on the round table..." his father answered,
without turning round.

A cold, hateful rain was falling as the labourer drove him to the
station. The sunflowers were drooping their heads still lower, and the
grass seemed darker than ever.
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