The Wife Page #11

"The Wife" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that delves into the complexities of marriage and the nature of love. The narrative follows Masha, a woman who reflects on her relationship with her husband, Ivan, as tensions and emotional disconnect manifest in their lives. Chekhov masterfully captures the nuances of hope, despair, and the often-unspoken struggles within a partnership, inviting readers to ponder the true essence of companionship and the sacrifices made in its name. Through rich character development and subtle insights, "The Wife" explores themes of longing, identity, and the bittersweet nature of human connection.

								

peasantry, life itself had cast me out as a useless, incompetent, bad
man. I was a hindrance, a part of the people's calamity; I was
vanquished, cast out, and I was hurrying to the station to go away and
hide myself in Petersburg in a hotel in Bolshaya Morskaya.

An hour later we reached the station. The coachman and a porter with a
disc on his breast carried my trunks into the ladies' room. My coachman
Nikanor, wearing high felt boots and the skirt of his coat tucked up
through his belt, all wet with the snow and glad I was going away, gave
me a friendly smile and said:

"A fortunate journey, your Excellency. God give you luck."

Every one, by the way, calls me "your Excellency," though I am only a
collegiate councillor and a kammer-junker. The porter told me the train
had not yet left the next station; I had to wait. I went outside, and
with my head heavy from my sleepless night, and so exhausted I could
hardly move my legs, I walked aimlessly towards the pump. There was not
a soul anywhere near.

"Why am I going?" I kept asking myself. "What is there awaiting me
there? The acquaintances from whom I have come away, loneliness,
restaurant dinners, noise, the electric light, which makes my eyes ache.
Where am I going, and what am I going for? What am I going for?"

And it seemed somehow strange to go away without speaking to my wife. I
felt that I was leaving her in uncertainty. Going away, I ought to have
told that she was right, that I really was a bad man.

When I turned away from the pump, I saw in the doorway the station-
master, of whom I had twice made complaints to his superiors, turning up
the collar of his coat, shrinking from the wind and the snow. He came up
to me, and putting two fingers to the peak of his cap, told me with an
expression of helpless confusion, strained respectfulness, and hatred on
his face, that the train was twenty minutes late, and asked me would I
not like to wait in the warm?

"Thank you," I answered, "but I am probably not going. Send word to my
coachman to wait; I have not made up my mind."

I walked to and fro on the platform and thought, should I go away or
not? When the train came in I decided not to go. At home I had to expect
my wife's amazement and perhaps her mockery, the dismal upper storey and
my uneasiness; but, still, at my age that was easier and as it were more
homelike than travelling for two days and nights with strangers to
Petersburg, where I should be conscious every minute that my life was of
no use to any one or to anything, and that it was approaching its end.
No, better at home whatever awaited me there.... I went out of the
station. It was awkward by daylight to return home, where every one was
so glad at my going. I might spend the rest of the day till evening at
some neighbour's, but with whom? With some of them I was on strained
relations, others I did not know at all. I considered and thought of
Ivan Ivanitch.

"We are going to Bragino!" I said to the coachman, getting into the
sledge.

"It's a long way," sighed Nikanor; "it will be twenty miles, or maybe
twenty-five."

"Oh, please, my dear fellow," I said in a tone as though Nikanor had the
right to refuse. "Please let us go!"

Nikanor shook his head doubtfully and said slowly that we really ought
to have put in the shafts, not Circassian, but Peasant or Siskin; and
uncertainly, as though expecting I should change my mind, took the reins
in his gloves, stood up, thought a moment, and then raised his whip.

"A whole series of inconsistent actions..." I thought, screening my face
from the snow. "I must have gone out of my mind. Well, I don't care...."

In one place, on a very high and steep slope, Nikanor carefully held the
horses in to the middle of the descent, but in the middle the horses
suddenly bolted and dashed downhill at a fearful rate; he raised his
elbows and shouted in a wild, frantic voice such as I had never heard
from him before:

"Hey! Let's give the general a drive! If you come to grief he'll buy new
ones, my darlings! Hey! look out! We'll run you down!"

Only now, when the extraordinary pace we were going at took my breath
away, I noticed that he was very drunk. He must have been drinking at
the station. At the bottom of the descent there was the crash of ice; a
piece of dirty frozen snow thrown up from the road hit me a painful blow
in the face.

The runaway horses ran up the hill as rapidly as they had downhill, and
before I had time to shout to Nikanor my sledge was flying along on the
level in an old pine forest, and the tall pines were stretching out
their shaggy white paws to me from all directions.

"I have gone out of my mind, and the coachman's drunk," I thought.
"Good!"

I found Ivan Ivanitch at home. He laughed till he coughed, laid his head
on my breast, and said what he always did say on meeting me:

"You grow younger and younger. I don't know what dye you use for your
hair and your beard; you might give me some of it."

"I've come to return your call, Ivan Ivanitch," I said untruthfully.
"Don't be hard on me; I'm a townsman, conventional; I do keep count of
calls."

"I am delighted, my dear fellow. I am an old man; I like respect....
Yes."

From his voice and his blissfully smiling face, I could see that he was
greatly flattered by my visit. Two peasant women helped me off with my
coat in the entry, and a peasant in a red shirt hung it on a hook, and
when Ivan Ivanitch and I went into his little study, two barefooted
little girls were sitting on the floor looking at a picture-book; when
they saw us they jumped up and ran away, and a tall, thin old woman in
spectacles came in at once, bowed gravely to me, and picking up a pillow
from the sofa and a picture-book from the floor, went away. From the
adjoining rooms we heard incessant whispering and the patter of bare
feet.

"I am expecting the doctor to dinner," said Ivan Ivanitch. "He promised
to come from the relief centre. Yes. He dines with me every Wednesday,
God bless him." He craned towards me and kissed me on the neck. "You
have come, my dear fellow, so you are not vexed," he whispered,
sniffing. "Don't be vexed, my dear creature. Yes. Perhaps it is
annoying, but don't be cross. My only prayer to God before I die is to
live in peace and harmony with all in the true way. Yes."

"Forgive me, Ivan Ivanitch, I will put my feet on a chair," I said,
feeling that I was so exhausted I could not be myself; I sat further
back on the sofa and put up my feet on an arm-chair. My face was burning
from the snow and the wind, and I felt as though my whole body were
basking in the warmth and growing weaker from it.

"It's very nice here," I went on--"warm, soft, snug... and goose-feather
pens," I laughed, looking at the writing-table; "sand instead of
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