From the Diary of a Violent-tempered Man

"From the Diary of a Violent-tempered Man" is a poignant and introspective short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores the inner turmoil of its protagonist, a man grappling with his intense emotions and erratic behavior. Through diary entries, the reader gains insight into his struggles with anger, self-reflection, and the impacts of his temperament on relationships and societal interactions. Chekhov masterfully conveys the complexities of human nature, illustrating how one's inner conflicts can lead to isolation and the longing for understanding and change. The narrative serves as a powerful examination of the emotional landscape and the human condition.

								
I AM a serious person and my mind is of a philosophic bent. My vocation
is the study of finance. I am a student of financial law and I have
chosen as the subject of my dissertation--the Past and Future of the Dog
Licence. I need hardly point out that young ladies, songs, moonlight,
and all that sort of silliness are entirely out of my line.

Morning. Ten o'clock. My maman pours me out a cup of coffee. I drink it
and go out on the little balcony to set to work on my dissertation. I
take a clean sheet of paper, dip the pen into the ink, and write out the
title: "The Past and Future of the Dog Licence."

After thinking a little I write: "Historical Survey. We may deduce from
some allusions in Herodotus and Xenophon that the origin of the tax on
dogs goes back to . . . ."

But at that point I hear footsteps that strike me as highly suspicious.
I look down from the balcony and see below a young lady with a long face
and a long waist. Her name, I believe, is Nadenka or Varenka, it really
does not matter which. She is looking for something, pretends not to
have noticed me, and is humming to herself:

"Dost thou remember that song full of tenderness?"

I read through what I have written and want to continue, but the young
lady pretends to have just caught sight of me, and says in a mournful
voice:

"Good morning, Nikolay Andreitch. Only fancy what a misfortune I have
had! I went for a walk yesterday and lost the little ball off my
bracelet!"

I read through once more the opening of my dissertation, I trim up the
tail of the letter "g" and mean to go on, but the young lady persists.

"Nikolay Andreitch," she says, "won't you see me home? The Karelins have
such a huge dog that I simply daren't pass it alone."

There is no getting out of it. I lay down my pen and go down to her.
Nadenka (or Varenka) takes my arm and we set off in the direction of her
villa.

When the duty of walking arm-in-arm with a lady falls to my lot, for
some reason or other I always feel like a peg with a heavy cloak hanging
on it. Nadenka (or Varenka), between ourselves, of an ardent temperament
(her grandfather was an Armenian), has a peculiar art of throwing her
whole weight on one's arm and clinging to one's side like a leech. And
so we walk along.

As we pass the Karelins', I see a huge dog, who reminds me of the dog
licence. I think with despair of the work I have begun and sigh.

"What are you sighing for?" asks Nadenka (or Varenka), and heaves a sigh
herself.

Here I must digress for a moment to explain that Nadenka or Varenka (now
I come to think of it, I believe I have heard her called Mashenka)
imagines, I can't guess why, that I am in love with her, and therefore
thinks it her duty as a humane person always to look at me with
compassion and to soothe my wound with words.

"Listen," said she, stopping. "I know why you are sighing. You are in
love, yes; but I beg you for the sake of our friendship to believe that
the girl you love has the deepest respect for you. She cannot return
your love; but is it her fault that her heart has long been another's?"

Mashenka's nose begins to swell and turn red, her eyes fill with tears:
she evidently expects some answer from me, but, fortunately, at this
moment we arrive. Mashenka's mamma, a good-natured woman but full of
conventional ideas, is sitting on the terrace: glancing at her
daughter's agitated face, she looks intently at me and sighs, as though
saying to herself: "Ah, these young people! they don't even know how to
keep their secrets to themselves!"

On the terrace with her are several young ladies of various colours and
a retired officer who is staying in the villa next to ours. He was
wounded during the last war in the left temple and the right hip. This
unfortunate man is, like myself, proposing to devote the summer to
literary work. He is writing the "Memoirs of a Military Man." Like me,
he begins his honourable labours every morning, but before he has
written more than "I was born in . . ." some Varenka or Mashenka is sure
to appear under his balcony, and the wounded hero is borne off under
guard.

All the party sitting on the terrace are engaged in preparing some
miserable fruit for jam. I make my bows and am about to beat a retreat,
but the young ladies of various colours seize my hat with a squeal and
insist on my staying. I sit down. They give me a plate of fruit and a
hairpin. I begin taking the seeds out.

The young ladies of various colours talk about men: they say that So-
and-So is nice-looking, that So-and-So is handsome but not nice, that
somebody else is nice but ugly, and that a fourth would not have been
bad-looking if his nose were not like a thimble, and so on.

"And you, Monsieur Nicolas," says Varenka's mamma, turning to me, "are
not handsome, but you are attractive. . . . There is something about
your face. . . . In men, though, it's not beauty but intelligence that
matters," she adds, sighing.

The young ladies sigh, too, and drop their eyes . . . they agree that
the great thing in men is not beauty but intelligence. I steal a glance
sideways at a looking-glass to ascertain whether I really am attractive.
I see a shaggy head, a bushy beard, moustaches, eyebrows, hair on my
cheeks, hair up to my eyes, a perfect thicket with a solid nose sticking
up out of it like a watch-tower. Attractive! h'm!

"But it's by the qualities of your soul, after all, that you will make
your way, Nicolas," sighs Nadenka's mamma, as though affirming some
secret and original idea of her own.

And Nadenka is sympathetically distressed on my account, but the
conviction that a man passionately in love with her is sitting opposite
is obviously a source of the greatest enjoyment to her.

When they have done with men, the young ladies begin talking about love.
After a long conversation about love, one of the young ladies gets up
and goes away. Those that remain begin to pick her to pieces. Everyone
agrees that she is stupid, unbearable, ugly, and that one of her
shoulder-blades sticks out in a shocking way.

But at last, thank goodness! I see our maid. My maman has sent her to
call me in to dinner. Now I can make my escape from this uncongenial
company and go back to my work. I get up and make my bows.

Varenka's maman, Varenka herself, and the variegated young ladies
surround me, and declare that I cannot possibly go, because I promised
yesterday to dine with them and go to the woods to look for mushrooms. I
bow and sit down again. My soul is boiling with rage, and I feel that in
another moment I may not be able to answer for myself, that there may be
an explosion, but gentlemanly feeling and the fear of committing a
breach of good manners compels me to obey the ladies. And I obey them.

We sit down to dinner. The wounded officer, whose wound in the temple
has affected the muscles of the left cheek, eats as though he had a bit

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