The Chorus Girl Page #6

"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.

								

nothing to deserve such . . . feeling . . . on your part. Besides, as an
honest man I ought to tell you that . . . happiness depends on equality-
that is, when both parties are . . . equally in love. . . ."

But he was immediately ashamed of his mutterings and ceased. He felt
that his face at that moment looked stupid, guilty, blank, that it was
strained and affected. . . . Vera must have been able to read the truth
on his countenance, for she suddenly became grave, turned pale, and bent
her head.

"You must forgive me," Ognev muttered, not able to endure the silence.
"I respect you so much that . . . it pains me. . . ."

Vera turned sharply and walked rapidly homewards. Ognev followed her.

"No, don't!" said Vera, with a wave of her hand. "Don't come; I can go
alone."

"Oh, yes . . . I must see you home anyway."

Whatever Ognev said, it all to the last word struck him as loathsome and
flat. The feeling of guilt grew greater at every step. He raged
inwardly, clenched his fists, and cursed his coldness and his stupidity
with women. Trying to stir his feelings, he looked at Verotchka's
beautiful figure, at her hair and the traces of her little feet on the
dusty road; he remembered her words and her tears, but all that only
touched his heart and did not quicken his pulse.

"Ach! one can't force oneself to love," he assured himself, and at the
same time he thought, "But shall I ever fall in love without? I am
nearly thirty! I have never met anyone better than Vera and I never
shall. . . . Oh, this premature old age! Old age at thirty!"

Vera walked on in front more and more rapidly, without looking back at
him or raising her head. It seemed to him that sorrow had made her
thinner and narrower in the shoulders.

"I can imagine what's going on in her heart now!" he thought, looking at
her back. "She must be ready to die with shame and mortification! My
God, there's so much life, poetry, and meaning in it that it would move
a stone, and I . . . I am stupid and absurd!"

At the gate Vera stole a glance at him, and, shrugging and wrapping her
shawl round her walked rapidly away down the avenue.

Ivan Alexeyitch was left alone. Going back to the copse, he walked
slowly, continually standing still and looking round at the gate with an
expression in his whole figure that suggested that he could not believe
his own memory. He looked for Vera's footprints on the road, and could
not believe that the girl who had so attracted him had just declared her
love, and that he had so clumsily and bluntly "refused" her. For the
first time in his life it was his lot to learn by experience how little
that a man does depends on his own will, and to suffer in his own person
the feelings of a decent kindly man who has against his will caused his
neighbour cruel, undeserved anguish.

His conscience tormented him, and when Vera disappeared he felt as
though he had lost something very precious, something very near and dear
which he could never find again. He felt that with Vera a part of his
youth had slipped away from him, and that the moments which he had
passed through so fruitlessly would never be repeated.

When he reached the bridge he stopped and sank into thought. He wanted
to discover the reason of his strange coldness. That it was due to
something within him and not outside himself was clear to him. He
frankly acknowledged to himself that it was not the intellectual
coldness of which clever people so often boast, not the coldness of a
conceited fool, but simply impotence of soul, incapacity for being moved
by beauty, premature old age brought on by education, his casual
existence, struggling for a livelihood, his homeless life in lodgings.
From the bridge he walked slowly, as it were reluctantly, into the wood.
Here, where in the dense black darkness glaring patches of moonlight
gleamed here and there, where he felt nothing except his thoughts, he
longed passionately to regain what he had lost.

And Ivan Alexeyitch remembers that he went back again. Urging himself on
with his memories, forcing himself to picture Vera, he strode rapidly
towards the garden. There was no mist by then along the road or in the
garden, and the bright moon looked down from the sky as though it had
just been washed; only the eastern sky was dark and misty. . . . Ognev
remembers his cautious steps, the dark windows, the heavy scent of
heliotrope and mignonette. His old friend Karo, wagging his tail
amicably, came up to him and sniffed his hand. This was the one living
creature who saw him walk two or three times round the house, stand near
Vera's dark window, and with a deep sigh and a wave of his hand walk out
of the garden.

An hour later he was in the town, and, worn out and exhausted, leaned
his body and hot face against the gatepost of the inn as he knocked at
the gate. Somewhere in the town a dog barked sleepily, and as though in
response to his knock, someone clanged the hour on an iron plate near
the church.

"You prowl about at night," grumbled his host, the Old Believer, opening
the door to him, in a long nightgown like a woman's. "You had better be
saying your prayers instead of prowling about."

When Ivan Alexeyitch reached his room he sank on the bed and gazed a
long, long time at the light. Then he tossed his head and began packing.
MY LIFE THE STORY OF A PROVINCIAL I

THE Superintendent said to me: "I only keep you out of regard for your
worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying long ago." I
replied to him: "You flatter me too much, your Excellency, in assuming
that I am capable of flying." And then I heard him say: "Take that
gentleman away; he gets upon my nerves."

Two days later I was dismissed. And in this way I have, during the years
I have been regarded as grown up, lost nine situations, to the great
mortification of my father, the architect of our town. I have served in
various departments, but all these nine jobs have been as alike as one
drop of water is to another: I had to sit, write, listen to rude or
stupid observations, and go on doing so till I was dismissed.

When I came in to my father he was sitting buried in a low arm-chair
with his eyes closed. His dry, emaciated face, with a shade of dark blue
where it was shaved (he looked like an old Catholic organist), expressed
meekness and resignation. Without responding to my greeting or opening
his eyes, he said:

"If my dear wife and your mother were living, your life would have been
a source of continual distress to her. I see the Divine Providence in
her premature death. I beg you, unhappy boy," he continued, opening his
eyes, "tell me: what am I to do with you?"

In the past when I was younger my friends and relations had known what
to do with me: some of them used to advise me to volunteer for the army,
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