The Wife Page #12

"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.

								

blotting-paper."

"Eh? Yes... yes.... The writing-table and the mahogany cupboard here
were made for my father by a self-taught cabinet-maker--Glyeb Butyga, a
serf of General Zhukov's. Yes... a great artist in his own way."

Listlessly and in the tone of a man dropping asleep, he began telling me
about cabinet-maker Butyga. I listened. Then Ivan Ivanitch went into the
next room to show me a polisander wood chest of drawers remarkable for
its beauty and cheapness. He tapped the chest with his fingers, then
called my attention to a stove of patterned tiles, such as one never
sees now. He tapped the stove, too, with his fingers. There was an
atmosphere of good-natured simplicity and well-fed abundance about the
chest of drawers, the tiled stove, the low chairs, the pictures
embroidered in wool and silk on canvas in solid, ugly frames. When one
remembers that all those objects were standing in the same places and
precisely in the same order when I was a little child, and used to come
here to name-day parties with my mother, it is simply unbelievable that
they could ever cease to exist.

I thought what a fearful difference between Butyga and me! Butyga who
made things, above all, solidly and substantially, and seeing in that
his chief object, gave to length of life peculiar significance, had no
thought of death, and probably hardly believed in its possibility; I,
when I built my bridges of iron and stone which would last a thousand
years, could not keep from me the thought, "It's not for long....it's no
use." If in time Butyga's cupboard and my bridge should come under the
notice of some sensible historian of art, he would say: "These were two
men remarkable in their own way: Butyga loved his fellow-creatures and
would not admit the thought that they might die and be annihilated, and
so when he made his furniture he had the immortal man in his mind. The
engineer Asorin did not love life or his fellow-creatures; even in the
happy moments of creation, thoughts of death, of finiteness and
dissolution, were not alien to him, and we see how insignificant and
finite, how timid and poor, are these lines of his...."

"I only heat these rooms," muttered Ivan Ivanitch, showing me his rooms.
"Ever since my wife died and my son was killed in the war, I have kept
the best rooms shut up. Yes... see..."

He opened a door, and I saw a big room with four columns, an old piano,
and a heap of peas on the floor; it smelt cold and damp.

"The garden seats are in the next room..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch.
"There's no one to dance the mazurka now.... I've shut them up."

We heard a noise. It was Dr. Sobol arriving. While he was rubbing his
cold hands and stroking his wet beard, I had time to notice in the first
place that he had a very dull life, and so was pleased to see Ivan
Ivanitch and me; and, secondly, that he was a naive and simple-hearted
man. He looked at me as though I were very glad to see him and very much
interested in him.

"I have not slept for two nights," he said, looking at me naively and
stroking his beard. "One night with a confinement, and the next I stayed
at a peasant's with the bugs biting me all night. I am as sleepy as
Satan, do you know."

With an expression on his face as though it could not afford me anything
but pleasure, he took me by the arm and led me to the dining-room. His
naive eyes, his crumpled coat, his cheap tie and the smell of iodoform
made an unpleasant impression upon me; I felt as though I were in vulgar
company. When we sat down to table he filled my glass with vodka, and,
smiling helplessly, I drank it; he put a piece of ham on my plate and I
ate it submissively.

"Repetitia est mater studiorum," said Sobol, hastening to drink off
another wineglassful. "Would you believe it, the joy of seeing good
people has driven away my sleepiness? I have turned into a peasant, a
savage in the wilds; I've grown coarse, but I am still an educated man,
and I tell you in good earnest, it's tedious without company."

They served first for a cold course white sucking-pig with horse-radish
cream, then a rich and very hot cabbage soup with pork on it, with
boiled buckwheat, from which rose a column of steam. The doctor went on
talking, and I was soon convinced that he was a weak, unfortunate man,
disorderly in external life. Three glasses of vodka made him drunk; he
grew unnaturally lively, ate a great deal, kept clearing his throat and
smacking his lips, and already addressed me in Italian, "Eccellenza."
Looking naively at me as though he were convinced that I was very glad
to see and hear him, he informed me that he had long been separated from
his wife and gave her three-quarters of his salary; that she lived in
the town with his children, a boy and a girl, whom he adored; that he
loved another woman, a widow, well educated, with an estate in the
country, but was rarely able to see her, as he was busy with his work
from morning till night and had not a free moment.

"The whole day long, first at the hospital, then on my rounds," he told
us; "and I assure you, Eccellenza, I have not time to read a book, let
alone going to see the woman I love. I've read nothing for ten years!
For ten years, Eccellenza. As for the financial side of the question,
ask Ivan Ivanitch: I have often no money to buy tobacco."

"On the other hand, you have the moral satisfaction of your work," I
said.

"What?" he asked, and he winked. "No," he said, "better let us drink."

I listened to the doctor, and, after my invariable habit, tried to take
his measure by my usual classification--materialist, idealist, filthy
lucre, gregarious instincts, and so on; but no classification fitted him
even approximately; and strange to say, while I simply listened and
looked at him, he seemed perfectly clear to me as a person, but as soon
as I began trying to classify him he became an exceptionally complex,
intricate, and incomprehensible character in spite of all his candour
and simplicity. "Is that man," I asked myself, "capable of wasting other
people's money, abusing their confidence, being disposed to sponge on
them?" And now this question, which had once seemed to me grave and
important, struck me as crude, petty, and coarse.

Pie was served; then, I remember, with long intervals between, during
which we drank home-made liquors, they gave us a stew of pigeons, some
dish of giblets, roast sucking-pig, partridges, cauliflower, curd
dumplings, curd cheese and milk, jelly, and finally pancakes and jam. At
first I ate with great relish, especially the cabbage soup and the
buckwheat, but afterwards I munched and swallowed mechanically, smiling
helplessly and unconscious of the taste of anything. My face was burning
from the hot cabbage soup and the heat of the room. Ivan Ivanitch and
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