The Grasshopper Page #4

"The Grasshopper" by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a poignant short story that explores themes of love, betrayal, and existential reflection. The narrative revolves around a woman named Masha, who grapples with her feelings of ennui and dissatisfaction in her marriage. As she interacts with a charming and carefree man, she begins to confront the complexities of her desires and the nature of her own happiness. Chekhov's nuanced character development and keen psychological insight create a rich tapestry of emotions, inviting readers to ponder the choices and regrets that shape human relationships.

								

afraid to look at him.

"I love you madly," he whispered, breathing on her cheek. "Say one word
to me and I will not go on living; I will give up art..." he muttered in
violent emotion. "Love me, love...."

"Don't talk like that," said Olga Ivanovna, covering her eyes. "It's
dreadful! How about Dymov?"

"What of Dymov? Why Dymov? What have I to do with Dymov? The Volga, the
moon, beauty, my love, ecstasy, and there is no such thing as Dymov....
Ah! I don't know... I don't care about the past; give me one moment, one
instant!"

Olga Ivanovna's heart began to throb. She tried to think about her
husband, but all her past, with her wedding, with Dymov, and with her
"At Homes," seemed to her petty, trivial, dingy, unnecessary, and far,
far away.... Yes, really, what of Dymov? Why Dymov? What had she to do
with Dymov? Had he any existence in nature, or was he only a dream?

"For him, a simple and ordinary man the happiness he has had already is
enough," she thought, covering her face with her hands. "Let them
condemn me, let them curse me, but in spite of them all I will go to my
ruin; I will go to my ruin!... One must experience everything in life.
My God! how terrible and how glorious!"

"Well? Well?" muttered the artist, embracing her, and greedily kissing
the hands with which she feebly tried to thrust him from her. "You love
me? Yes? Yes? Oh, what a night! marvellous night!"

"Yes, what a night!" she whispered, looking into his eyes, which were
bright with tears.

Then she looked round quickly, put her arms round him, and kissed him on
the lips.

"We are nearing Kineshmo!" said some one on the other side of the deck.

They heard heavy footsteps; it was a waiter from the refreshment-bar.

"Waiter," said Olga Ivanovna, laughing and crying with happiness, "bring
us some wine."

The artist, pale with emotion, sat on the seat, looking at Olga Ivanovna
with adoring, grateful eyes; then he closed his eyes, and said, smiling
languidly:

"I am tired."

And he leaned his head against the rail.

V

On the second of September the day was warm and still, but overcast. In
the early morning a light mist had hung over the Volga, and after nine
o'clock it had begun to spout with rain. And there seemed no hope of the
sky clearing. Over their morning tea Ryabovsky told Olga Ivanovna that
painting was the most ungrateful and boring art, that he was not an
artist, that none but fools thought that he had any talent, and all at
once, for no rhyme or reason, he snatched up a knife and with it scraped
over his very best sketch. After his tea he sat plunged in gloom at the
window and gazed at the Volga. And now the Volga was dingy, all of one
even colour without a gleam of light, cold-looking. Everything,
everything recalled the approach of dreary, gloomy autumn. And it seemed
as though nature had removed now from the Volga the sumptuous green
covers from the banks, the brilliant reflections of the sunbeams, the
transparent blue distance, and all its smart gala array, and had packed
it away in boxes till the coming spring, and the crows were flying above
the Volga and crying tauntingly, "Bare, bare!"

Ryabovsky heard their cawing, and thought he had already gone off and
lost his talent, that everything in this world was relative,
conditional, and stupid, and that he ought not to have taken up with
this woman.... In short, he was out of humour and depressed.

Olga Ivanovna sat behind the screen on the bed, and, passing her fingers
through her lovely flaxen hair, pictured herself first in the drawing-
room, then in the bedroom, then in her husband's study; her imagination
carried her to the theatre, to the dress-maker, to her distinguished
friends. Were they getting something up now? Did they think of her? The
season had begun by now, and it would be time to think about her "At
Homes." And Dymov? Dear Dymov! with what gentleness and childlike pathos
he kept begging her in his letters to make haste and come home! Every
month he sent her seventy-five roubles, and when she wrote him that she
had lent the artists a hundred roubles, he sent that hundred too. What a
kind, generous-hearted man! The travelling wearied Olga Ivanovna; she
was bored; and she longed to get away from the peasants, from the damp
smell of the river, and to cast off the feeling of physical
uncleanliness of which she was conscious all the time, living in the
peasants' huts and wandering from village to village. If Ryabovsky had
not given his word to the artists that he would stay with them till the
twentieth of September, they might have gone away that very day. And how
nice that would have been!

"My God!" moaned Ryabovsky. "Will the sun ever come out? I can't go on
with a sunny landscape without the sun...."

"But you have a sketch with a cloudy sky," said Olga Ivanovna, coming
from behind the screen. "Do you remember, in the right foreground forest
trees, on the left a herd of cows and geese? You might finish it now."

"Aie!" the artist scowled. "Finish it! Can you imagine I am such a fool
that I don't know what I want to do?"

"How you have changed to me!" sighed Olga Ivanovna.

"Well, a good thing too!"

Olga Ivanovna's face quivered; she moved away to the stove and began to
cry.

"Well, that's the last straw--crying! Give over! I have a thousand
reasons for tears, but I am not crying."

"A thousand reasons!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "The chief one is that you
are weary of me. Yes!" she said, and broke into sobs. "If one is to tell
the truth, you are ashamed of our love. You keep trying to prevent the
artists from noticing it, though it is impossible to conceal it, and
they have known all about it for ever so long."

"Olga, one thing I beg you," said the artist in an imploring voice,
laying his hand on his heart--"one thing; don't worry me! I want nothing
else from you!"

"But swear that you love me still!"

"This is agony!" the artist hissed through his teeth, and he jumped up.
"It will end by my throwing myself in the Volga or going out of my mind!
Let me alone!"

"Come, kill me, kill me!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "Kill me!"

She sobbed again, and went behind the screen. There was a swish of rain
on the straw thatch of the hut. Ryabovsky clutched his head and strode
up and down the hut; then with a resolute face, as though bent on
proving something to somebody, put on his cap, slung his gun over his
shoulder, and went out of the hut.

After he had gone, Olga Ivanovna lay a long time on the bed, crying. At
first she thought it would be a good thing to poison herself, so that
when Ryabovsky came back he would find her dead; then her imagination
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