The Chorus Girl Page #18

"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.

								

apparently he forgot, or had not time. Anyway, we are acquainted all the
same, and if you would come and see me quite simply I should be
extremely indebted to you. I so long to have a talk. I am a simple
person," she added, holding out her hand to me, "and I hope that you
will feel no constraint with me. My father is not here, he is in
Petersburg."

She went off into the reading-room, rustling her skirts, while I went
home, and for a long time could not get to sleep.

That cheerless autumn some kind soul, evidently wishing to alleviate my
existence, sent me from time to time tea and lemons, or biscuits, or
roast game. Karpovna told me that they were always brought by a soldier,
and from whom they came she did not know; and the soldier used to
enquire whether I was well, and whether I dined every day, and whether I
had warm clothing. When the frosts began I was presented in the same way
in my absence with a soft knitted scarf brought by the soldier. There
was a faint elusive smell of scent about it, and I guessed who my good
fairy was. The scarf smelt of lilies-of-the-valley, the favourite scent
of Anyuta Blagovo.

Towards winter there was more work and it was more cheerful. Radish
recovered, and we worked together in the cemetery church, where we were
putting the ground-work on the ikon-stand before gilding. It was a
clean, quiet job, and, as our fellows used to say, profitable. One could
get through a lot of work in a day, and the time passed quickly,
imperceptibly. There was no swearing, no laughter, no loud talk. The
place itself compelled one to quietness and decent behaviour, and
disposed one to quiet, serious thoughts. Absorbed in our work we stood
or sat motionless like statues; there was a deathly silence in keeping
with the cemetery, so that if a tool fell, or a flame spluttered in the
lamp, the noise of such sounds rang out abrupt and resonant, and made us
look round. After a long silence we would hear a buzzing like the
swarming of bees: it was the requiem of a baby being chanted slowly in
subdued voices in the porch; or an artist, painting a dove with stars
round it on a cupola would begin softly whistling, and recollecting
himself with a start would at once relapse into silence; or Radish,
answering his thoughts, would say with a sigh: "Anything is possible!
Anything is possible!" or a slow disconsolate bell would begin ringing
over our heads, and the painters would observe that it must be for the
funeral of some wealthy person. . . .

My days I spent in this stillness in the twilight of the church, and in
the long evenings I played billiards or went to the theatre in the
gallery wearing the new trousers I had bought out of my own earnings.
Concerts and performances had already begun at the Azhogins'; Radish
used to paint the scenes alone now. He used to tell me the plot of the
plays and describe the tableaux vivants which he witnessed. I listened
to him with envy. I felt greatly drawn to the rehearsals, but I could
not bring myself to go to the Azhogins'.

A week before Christmas Dr. Blagovo arrived. And again we argued and
played billiards in the evenings. When he played he used to take off his
coat and unbutton his shirt over his chest, and for some reason tried
altogether to assume the air of a desperate rake. He did not drink much,
but made a great uproar about it, and had a special faculty for getting
through twenty roubles in an evening at such a poor cheap tavern as the
Volga.

My sister began coming to see me again; they both expressed surprise
every time on seeing each other, but from her joyful, guilty face it was
evident that these meetings were not accidental. One evening, when we
were playing billiards, the doctor said to me:

"I say, why don't you go and see Miss Dolzhikov? You don't know Mariya
Viktorovna; she is a clever creature, a charmer, a simple, good-natured
soul."

I described how her father had received me in the spring.

"Nonsense!" laughed the doctor, "the engineer's one thing and she's
another. Really, my dear fellow, you mustn't be nasty to her; go and see
her sometimes. For instance, let's go and see her tomorrow evening. What
do you say?"

He persuaded me. The next evening I put on my new serge trousers, and in
some agitation I set off to Miss Dolzhikov's. The footman did not seem
so haughty and terrible, nor the furniture so gorgeous, as on that
morning when I had come to ask a favour. Mariya Viktorovna was expecting
me, and she received me like an old acquaintance, shaking hands with me
in a friendly way. She was wearing a grey cloth dress with full sleeves,
and had her hair done in the style which we used to call "dogs' ears,"
when it came into fashion in the town a year before. The hair was combed
down over the ears, and this made Mariya Viktorovna's face look broader,
and she seemed to me this time very much like her father, whose face was
broad and red, with something in its expression like a sledge-driver.
She was handsome and elegant, but not youthful looking; she looked
thirty, though in reality she was not more than twenty-five.

"Dear Doctor, how grateful I am to you," she said, making me sit down.
"If it hadn't been for him you wouldn't have come to see me. I am bored
to death! My father has gone away and left me alone, and I don't know
what to do with myself in this town."

Then she began asking me where I was working now, how much I earned,
where I lived.

"Do you spend on yourself nothing but what you earn?" she asked.

"No."

"Happy man!" she sighed. "All the evil in life, it seems to me, comes
from idleness, boredom, and spiritual emptiness, and all this is
inevitable when one is accustomed to living at other people's expense.
Don't think I am showing off, I tell you truthfully: it is not
interesting or pleasant to be rich. 'Make to yourselves friends of the
mammon of unrighteousness' is said, because there is not and cannot be a
mammon that's righteous."

She looked round at the furniture with a grave, cold expression, as
though she wanted to count it over, and went on:

"Comfort and luxury have a magical power; little by little they draw
into their clutches even strong-willed people. At one time father and I
lived simply, not in a rich style, but now you see how! It is something
monstrous," she said, shrugging her shoulders; "we spend up to twenty
thousand a year! In the provinces!"

"One comes to look at comfort and luxury as the invariable privilege of
capital and education," I said, "and it seems to me that the comforts of
life may be combined with any sort of labour, even the hardest and
dirtiest. Your father is rich, and yet he says himself that it has been
his lot to be a mechanic and an oiler."

She smiled and shook her head doubtfully: "My father sometimes eats
bread dipped in kvass," she said. "It's a fancy, a whim!"
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