The Chorus Girl Page #15

"The Chorus Girl" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores themes of love, ambition, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative follows a young chorus girl who hopes for a better life and dreams of love, but finds herself confronting the harsh realities of her circumstances. Chekhov's insightful character portrayals and subtle social commentary reveal the emotional struggles and unfulfilled desires of the protagonist, ultimately offering a nuanced reflection on the fleeting nature of happiness and the often disillusioning pursuit of dreams.

								

Anyuta Blagovo in a side street near Great Dvoryansky Street. I was
going to work, and was carrying two long brushes and a pail of paint.
Recognizing me Anyuta flushed crimson.

"Please do not bow to me in the street," she said nervously, harshly,
and in a shaking voice, without offering me her hand, and tears suddenly
gleamed in her eyes. "If to your mind all this is necessary, so be it .
. . so be it, but I beg you not to meet me!"

I no longer lived in Great Dvoryansky Street, but in the suburb with my
old nurse Karpovna, a good-natured but gloomy old woman, who always
foreboded some harm, was afraid of all dreams, and even in the bees and
wasps that flew into her room saw omens of evil, and the fact that I had
become a workman, to her thinking, boded nothing good.

"Your life is ruined," she would say, mournfully shaking her head,
"ruined."

Her adopted son Prokofy, a huge, uncouth, red-headed fellow of thirty,
with bristling moustaches, a butcher by trade, lived in the little house
with her. When he met me in the passage he would make way for me in
respectful silence, and if he was drunk he would salute me with all five
fingers at once. He used to have supper in the evening, and through the
partition wall of boards I could hear him clear his throat and sigh as
he drank off glass after glass.

"Mamma," he would call in an undertone.

"Well," Karpovna, who was passionately devoted to her adopted son, would
respond: "What is it, sonny?"

"I can show you a testimony of my affection, mamma. All this earthly
life I will cherish you in your declining years in this vale of tears,
and when you die I will bury you at my expense; I have said it, and you
can believe it."

I got up every morning before sunrise, and went to bed early. We house
painters ate a great deal and slept soundly; the only thing amiss was
that my heart used to beat violently at night. I did not quarrel with my
mates. Violent abuse, desperate oaths, and wishes such as, "Blast your
eyes," or "Cholera take you," never ceased all day, but, nevertheless,
we lived on very friendly terms. The other fellows suspected me of being
some sort of religious sectary, and made good-natured jokes at my
expense, saying that even my own father had disowned me, and thereupon
would add that they rarely went into the temple of God themselves, and
that many of them had not been to confession for ten years. They
justified this laxity on their part by saying that a painter among men
was like a jackdaw among birds.

The men had a good opinion of me, and treated me with respect; it was
evident that my not drinking, not smoking, but leading a quiet, steady
life pleased them very much. It was only an unpleasant shock to them
that I took no hand in stealing oil and did not go with them to ask for
tips from people on whose property we were working. Stealing oil and
paints from those who employed them was a house painter's custom, and
was not regarded as theft, and it was remarkable that even so upright a
man as Radish would always carry away a little white lead and oil as he
went home from work. And even the most respectable old fellows, who
owned the houses in which they lived in the suburb, were not ashamed to
ask for a tip, and it made me feel vexed and ashamed to see the men go
in a body to congratulate some nonentity on the commencement or the
completion of the job, and thank him with degrading servility when they
had received a few coppers.

With people on whose work they were engaged they behaved like wily
courtiers, and almost every day I was reminded of Shakespeare's
Polonius.

"I fancy it is going to rain," the man whose house was being painted
would say, looking at the sky.

"It is, there is not a doubt it is," the painters would agree.

"I don't think it is a rain-cloud, though. Perhaps it won't rain after
all."

"No, it won't, your honour! I am sure it won't."

But their attitude to their patrons behind their backs was usually one
of irony, and when they saw, for instance, a gentleman sitting in the
verandah reading a newspaper, they would observe:

"He reads the paper, but I daresay he has nothing to eat."

I never went home to see my own people. When I came back from work I
often found waiting for me little notes, brief and anxious, in which my
sister wrote to me about my father; that he had been particularly
preoccupied at dinner and had eaten nothing, or that he had been giddy
and staggering, or that he had locked himself in his room and had not
come out for a long time. Such items of news troubled me; I could not
sleep, and at times even walked up and down Great Dvoryansky Street at
night by our house, looking in at the dark windows and trying to guess
whether everything was well at home. On Sundays my sister came to see
me, but came in secret, as though it were not to see me but our nurse.
And if she came in to see me she was very pale, with tear-stained eyes,
and she began crying at once.

"Our father will never live through this," she would say. "If anything
should happen to him-God grant it may not-your conscience will torment
you all your life. It's awful, Misail; for our mother's sake I beseech
you: reform your ways."

"My darling sister," I would say, "how can I reform my ways if I am
convinced that I am acting in accordance with my conscience? Do
understand!"

"I know you are acting on your conscience, but perhaps it could be done
differently, somehow, so as not to wound anybody."

"Ah, holy Saints!" the old woman sighed through the door. "Your life is
ruined! There will be trouble, my dears, there will be trouble!" VI

One Sunday Dr. Blagovo turned up unexpectedly. He was wearing a military
tunic over a silk shirt and high boots of patent leather.

"I have come to see you," he began, shaking my hand heartily like a
student. "I am hearing about you every day, and I have been meaning to
come and have a heart-to-heart talk, as they say. The boredom in the
town is awful, there is not a living soul, no one to say a word to. It's
hot, Holy Mother," he went on, taking off his tunic and sitting in his
silk shirt. "My dear fellow, let me talk to you."

I was dull myself, and had for a long time been craving for the society
of someone not a house painter. I was genuinely glad to see him.

"I'll begin by saying," he said, sitting down on my bed, "that I
sympathize with you from the bottom of my heart, and deeply respect the
life you are leading. They don't understand you here in the town, and,
indeed, there is no one to understand, seeing that, as you know, they
are all, with very few exceptions, regular Gogolesque pig faces here.
But I saw what you were at once that time at the picnic. You are a noble
soul, an honest, high-minded man! I respect you, and feel it a great
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