The Chorus Girl Page #3

"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.

								

should have been busy here over my statistics till October. I shall put
in my preface: 'I think it my duty to express my gratitude to the
President of the District Zemstvo of N--, Kuznetsov, for his kind co-
operation.' There is a brilliant future before statistics! My humble
respects to Vera Gavrilovna, and tell the doctors, both the lawyers and
your secretary, that I shall never forget their help! And now, old
fellow, let us embrace one another and kiss for the last time!"

Ognev, limp with emotion, kissed the old man once more and began going
down the steps. On the last step he looked round and asked: "Shall we
meet again some day?"

"God knows!" said the old man. "Most likely not!"

"Yes, that's true! Nothing will tempt you to Petersburg and I am never
likely to turn up in this district again. Well, good-bye!"

"You had better leave the books behind!" Kuznetsov called after him.
"You don't want to drag such a weight with you. I would send them by a
servant to-morrow!"

But Ognev was rapidly walking away from the house and was not listening.
His heart, warmed by the wine, was brimming over with good-humour,
friendliness, and sadness. He walked along thinking how frequently one
met with good people, and what a pity it was that nothing was left of
those meetings but memories. At times one catches a glimpse of cranes on
the horizon, and a faint gust of wind brings their plaintive, ecstatic
cry, and a minute later, however greedily one scans the blue distance,
one cannot see a speck nor catch a sound; and like that, people with
their faces and their words flit through our lives and are drowned in
the past, leaving nothing except faint traces in the memory. Having been
in the N-- District from the early spring, and having been almost every
day at the friendly Kuznetsovs', Ivan Alexeyitch had become as much at
home with the old man, his daughter, and the servants as though they
were his own people; he had grown familiar with the whole house to the
smallest detail, with the cosy verandah, the windings of the avenues,
the silhouettes of the trees over the kitchen and the bath-house; but as
soon as he was out of the gate all this would be changed to memory and
would lose its meaning as reality for ever, and in a year or two all
these dear images would grow as dim in his consciousness as stories he
had read or things he had imagined.

"Nothing in life is so precious as people!" Ognev thought in his
emotion, as he strode along the avenue to the gate. "Nothing!"

It was warm and still in the garden. There was a scent of the
mignonette, of the tobacco-plants, and of the heliotrope, which were not
yet over in the flower-beds. The spaces between the bushes and the tree-
trunks were filled with a fine soft mist soaked through and through with
moonlight, and, as Ognev long remembered, coils of mist that looked like
phantoms slowly but perceptibly followed one another across the avenue.
The moon stood high above the garden, and below it transparent patches
of mist were floating eastward. The whole world seemed to consist of
nothing but black silhouettes and wandering white shadows. Ognev, seeing
the mist on a moonlight August evening almost for the first time in his
life, imagined he was seeing, not nature, but a stage effect in which
unskilful workmen, trying to light up the garden with white Bengal fire,
hid behind the bushes and let off clouds of white smoke together with
the light.

When Ognev reached the garden gate a dark shadow moved away from the low
fence and came towards him.

"Vera Gavrilovna!" he said, delighted. "You here? And I have been
looking everywhere for you; wanted to say good-bye. . . . Good-bye; I am
going away!"

"So early? Why, it's only eleven o'clock."

"Yes, it's time I was off. I have a four-mile walk and then my packing.
I must be up early to-morrow."

Before Ognev stood Kuznetsov's daughter Vera, a girl of one-and-twenty,
as usual melancholy, carelessly dressed, and attractive. Girls who are
dreamy and spend whole days lying down, lazily reading whatever they
come across, who are bored and melancholy, are usually careless in their
dress. To those of them who have been endowed by nature with taste and
an instinct of beauty, the slight carelessness adds a special charm.
When Ognev later on remembered her, he could not picture pretty
Verotchka except in a full blouse which was crumpled in deep folds at
the belt and yet did not touch her waist; without her hair done up high
and a curl that had come loose from it on her forehead; without the
knitted red shawl with ball fringe at the edge which hung disconsolately
on Vera's shoulders in the evenings, like a flag on a windless day, and
in the daytime lay about, crushed up, in the hall near the men's hats or
on a box in the dining-room, where the old cat did not hesitate to sleep
on it. This shawl and the folds of her blouse suggested a feeling of
freedom and laziness, of good-nature and sitting at home. Perhaps
because Vera attracted Ognev he saw in every frill and button something
warm, naïve, cosy, something nice and poetical, just what is lacking in
cold, insincere women that have no instinct for beauty.

Verotchka had a good figure, a regular profile, and beautiful curly
hair. Ognev, who had seen few women in his life, thought her a beauty.

"I am going away," he said as he took leave of her at the gate. "Don't
remember evil against me! Thank you for everything!"

In the same singing divinity student's voice in which he had talked to
her father, with the same blinking and twitching of his shoulders, he
began thanking Vera for her hospitality, kindness, and friendliness.

"I've written about you in every letter to my mother," he said. "If
everyone were like you and your dad, what a jolly place the world would
be! You are such a splendid set of people! All such genuine, friendly
people with no nonsense about you."

"Where are you going to now?" asked Vera.

"I am going now to my mother's at Oryol; I shall be a fortnight with
her, and then back to Petersburg and work."

"And then?"

"And then? I shall work all the winter and in the spring go somewhere
into the provinces again to collect material. Well, be happy, live a
hundred years . . . don't remember evil against me. We shall not see
each other again."

Ognev stooped down and kissed Vera's hand. Then, in silent emotion, he
straightened his cape, shifted his bundle of books to a more comfortable
position, paused, and said:

"What a lot of mist!"

"Yes. Have you left anything behind?"

"No, I don't think so. . . ."

For some seconds Ognev stood in silence, then he moved clumsily towards
the gate and went out of the garden.

"Stay; I'll see you as far as our wood," said Vera, following him out.

They walked along the road. Now the trees did not obscure the view, and
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes