Happiness

"Happiness" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores the themes of contentment and the human condition. The narrative follows the protagonist, a humble peasant who grapples with the elusive nature of happiness as he reflects on his life and the societal structures that influence it. Through Chekhov's characteristic use of irony and keen psychological insight, the story reveals the complexities of human emotions and the often-overlooked moments of joy found in everyday life. With its subtle yet profound observations, "Happiness" invites readers to contemplate what it truly means to be happy in a world filled with challenges and aspirations.

								
A FLOCK of sheep was spending the night on the broad steppe road that is
called the great highway. Two shepherds were guarding it. One, a
toothless old man of eighty, with a tremulous face, was lying on his
stomach at the very edge of the road, leaning his elbows on the dusty
leaves of a plantain; the other, a young fellow with thick black
eyebrows and no moustache, dressed in the coarse canvas of which cheap
sacks are made, was lying on his back, with his arms under his head,
looking upwards at the sky, where the stars were slumbering and the
Milky Way lay stretched exactly above his face.

The shepherds were not alone. A couple of yards from them in the dusk
that shrouded the road a horse made a patch of darkness, and, beside it,
leaning against the saddle, stood a man in high boots and a short full-
skirted jacket who looked like an overseer on some big estate. Judging
from his upright and motionless figure, from his manners, and his
behaviour to the shepherds and to his horse, he was a serious,
reasonable man who knew his own value; even in the darkness signs could
be detected in him of military carriage and of the majestically
condescending expression gained by frequent intercourse with the gentry
and their stewards.

The sheep were asleep. Against the grey background of the dawn, already
beginning to cover the eastern part of the sky, the silhouettes of sheep
that were not asleep could be seen here and there; they stood with
drooping heads, thinking. Their thoughts, tedious and oppressive, called
forth by images of nothing but the broad steppe and the sky, the days
and the nights, probably weighed upon them themselves, crushing them
into apathy; and, standing there as though rooted to the earth, they
noticed neither the presence of a stranger nor the uneasiness of the
dogs.

The drowsy, stagnant air was full of the monotonous noise inseparable
from a summer night on the steppes; the grasshoppers chirruped
incessantly; the quails called, and the young nightingales trilled
languidly half a mile away in a ravine where a stream flowed and willows
grew.

The overseer had halted to ask the shepherds for a light for his pipe.
He lighted it in silence and smoked the whole pipe; then, still without
uttering a word, stood with his elbow on the saddle, plunged in thought.
The young shepherd took no notice of him, he still lay gazing at the sky
while the old man slowly looked the overseer up and down and then asked:

"Why, aren't you Panteley from Makarov's estate?"

"That's myself," answered the overseer.

"To be sure, I see it is. I didn't know you--that is a sign you will be
rich. Where has God brought you from?"

"From the Kovylyevsky fields."

"That's a good way. Are you letting the land on the part-crop system?"

"Part of it. Some like that, and some we are letting on lease, and some
for raising melons and cucumbers. I have just come from the mill."

A big shaggy old sheep-dog of a dirty white colour with woolly tufts
about its nose and eyes walked three times quietly round the horse,
trying to seem unconcerned in the presence of strangers, then all at
once dashed suddenly from behind at the overseer with an angry aged
growl; the other dogs could not refrain from leaping up too.

"Lie down, you damned brute," cried the old man, raising himself on his
elbow; "blast you, you devil's creature."

When the dogs were quiet again, the old man resumed his former attitude
and said quietly:

"It was at Kovyli on Ascension Day that Yefim Zhmenya died. Don't speak
of it in the dark, it is a sin to mention such people. He was a wicked
old man. I dare say you have heard."

"No, I haven't."

"Yefim Zhmenya, the uncle of Styopka, the blacksmith. The whole district
round knew him. Aye, he was a cursed old man, he was! I knew him for
sixty years, ever since Tsar Alexander who beat the French was brought
from Taganrog to Moscow. We went together to meet the dead Tsar, and in
those days the great highway did not run to Bahmut, but from Esaulovka
to Gorodishtche, and where Kovyli is now, there were bustards'
nests--there was a bustard's nest at every step. Even then I had noticed
that Yefim had given his soul to damnation, and that the Evil One was in
him. I have observed that if any man of the peasant class is apt to be
silent, takes up with old women's jobs, and tries to live in solitude,
there is no good in it, and Yefim from his youth up was always one to
hold his tongue and look at you sideways, he always seemed to be sulky
and bristling like a cock before a hen. To go to church or to the tavern
or to lark in the street with the lads was not his fashion, he would
rather sit alone or be whispering with old women. When he was still
young he took jobs to look after the bees and the market gardens. Good
folks would come to his market garden sometimes and his melons were
whistling. One day he caught a pike, when folks were looking on, and it
laughed aloud, 'Ho-ho-ho-ho!'"

"It does happen," said Panteley.

The young shepherd turned on his side and, lifting his black eyebrows,
stared intently at the old man.

"Did you hear the melons whistling?" he asked.

"Hear them I didn't, the Lord spared me," sighed the old man, "but folks
told me so. It is no great wonder... the Evil One will begin whistling
in a stone if he wants to. Before the Day of Freedom a rock was humming
for three days and three nights in our parts. I heard it myself. The
pike laughed because Yefim caught a devil instead of a pike."

The old man remembered something. He got up quickly on to his knees and,
shrinking as though from the cold, nervously thrusting his hands into
his sleeves, he muttered in a rapid womanish gabble:

"Lord save us and have mercy upon us! I was walking along the river bank
one day to Novopavlovka. A storm was gathering, such a tempest it was,
preserve us Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven.... I was hurrying on as best I
could, I looked, and beside the path between the thorn bushes--the thorn
was in flower at the time--there was a white bullock coming along. I
wondered whose bullock it was, and what the devil had sent it there for.
It was coming along and swinging its tail and moo-oo-oo! but would you
believe it, friends, I overtake it, I come up close--and it's not a
bullock, but Yefim--holy, holy, holy! I make the sign of the cross while
he stares at me and mutters, showing the whites of his eyes; wasn't I
frightened! We came alongside, I was afraid to say a word to him--the
thunder was crashing, the sky was streaked with lightning, the willows
were bent right down to the water--all at once, my friends, God strike me
dead that I die impenitent, a hare ran across the path... it ran and
stopped, and said like a man: 'Good-evening, peasants.' Lie down, you
brute!" the old man cried to the shaggy dog, who was moving round the
horse again. "Plague take you!"

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