The Wife Page #2

"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.

								

brooding:

"What can you expect, Pasha? I told you how it would be before. You can
judge from our servants."

My wife, Natalya Gavrilovna, lived on the lower storey, all the rooms of
which she occupied. She slept, had her meals, and received her visitors
downstairs in her own rooms, and took not the slightest interest in how
I dined, or slept, or whom I saw. Our relations with one another were
simple and not strained, but cold, empty, and dreary as relations are
between people who have been so long estranged, that even living under
the same roof gives no semblance of nearness. There was no trace now of
the passionate and tormenting love--at one time sweet, at another bitter
as wormwood--which I had once felt for Natalya Gavrilovna. There was
nothing left, either, of the outbursts of the past--the loud
altercations, upbraidings, complaints, and gusts of hatred which had
usually ended in my wife's going abroad or to her own people, and in my
sending money in small but frequent instalments that I might sting her
pride oftener. (My proud and sensitive wife and her family live at my
expense, and much as she would have liked to do so, my wife could not
refuse my money: that afforded me satisfaction and was one comfort in my
sorrow.) Now when we chanced to meet in the corridor downstairs or in
the yard, I bowed, she smiled graciously. We spoke of the weather, said
that it seemed time to put in the double windows, and that some one with
bells on their harness had driven over the dam. And at such times I read
in her face: "I am faithful to you and am not disgracing your good name
which you think so much about; you are sensible and do not worry me; we
are quits."

I assured myself that my love had died long ago, that I was too much
absorbed in my work to think seriously of my relations with my wife.
But, alas! that was only what I imagined. When my wife talked aloud
downstairs I listened intently to her voice, though I could not
distinguish one word. When she played the piano downstairs I stood up
and listened. When her carriage or her saddlehorse was brought to the
door, I went to the window and waited to see her out of the house; then
I watched her get into her carriage or mount her horse and ride out of
the yard. I felt that there was something wrong with me, and was afraid
the expression of my eyes or my face might betray me. I looked after my
wife and then watched for her to come back that I might see again from
the window her face, her shoulders, her fur coat, her hat. I felt
dreary, sad, infinitely regretful, and felt inclined in her absence to
walk through her rooms, and longed that the problem that my wife and I
had not been able to solve because our characters were incompatible,
should solve itself in the natural way as soon as possible--that is, that
this beautiful woman of twenty-seven might make haste and grow old, and
that my head might be grey and bald.

One day at lunch my bailiff informed me that the Pestrovo peasants had
begun to pull the thatch off the roofs to feed their cattle. Marya
Gerasimovna looked at me in alarm and perplexity.

"What can I do?" I said to her. "One cannot fight single-handed, and I
have never experienced such loneliness as I do now. I would give a great
deal to find one man in the whole province on whom I could rely."

"Invite Ivan Ivanitch," said Marya Gerasimovna.

"To be sure!" I thought, delighted. "That is an idea! C'est raison," I
hummed, going to my study to write to Ivan Ivanitch. "C'est raison,
c'est raison."

II

Of all the mass of acquaintances who, in this house twenty-five to
thirty-five years ago, had eaten, drunk, masqueraded, fallen in love,
married, bored us with accounts of their splendid packs of hounds and
horses, the only one still living was Ivan Ivanitch Bragin. At one time
he had been very active, talkative, noisy, and given to falling in love,
and had been famous for his extreme views and for the peculiar charm of
his face, which fascinated men as well as women; now he was an old man,
had grown corpulent, and was living out his days with neither views nor
charm. He came the day after getting my letter, in the evening just as
the samovar was brought into the dining-room and little Marya
Gerasimovna had begun slicing the lemon.

"I am very glad to see you, my dear fellow," I said gaily, meeting him.
"Why, you are stouter than ever...."

"It isn't getting stout; it's swelling," he answered. "The bees must
have stung me."

With the familiarity of a man laughing at his own fatness, he put his
arms round my waist and laid on my breast his big soft head, with the
hair combed down on the forehead like a Little Russian's, and went off
into a thin, aged laugh.

"And you go on getting younger," he said through his laugh. "I wonder
what dye you use for your hair and beard; you might let me have some of
it." Sniffing and gasping, he embraced me and kissed me on the cheek.
"You might give me some of it," he repeated. "Why, you are not forty,
are you?"

"Alas, I am forty-six!" I said, laughing.

Ivan Ivanitch smelt of tallow candles and cooking, and that suited him.
His big, puffy, slow-moving body was swathed in a long frock-coat like a
coachman's full coat, with a high waist, and with hooks and eyes instead
of buttons, and it would have been strange if he had smelt of eau-de-
Cologne, for instance. In his long, unshaven, bluish double chin, which
looked like a thistle, his goggle eyes, his shortness of breath, and in
the whole of his clumsy, slovenly figure, in his voice, his laugh, and
his words, it was difficult to recognize the graceful, interesting
talker who used in old days to make the husbands of the district jealous
on account of their wives.

"I am in great need of your assistance, my friend," I said, when we were
sitting in the dining-room, drinking tea. "I want to organize relief for
the starving peasants, and I don't know how to set about it. So perhaps
you will be so kind as to advise me."

"Yes, yes, yes," said Ivan Ivanitch, sighing. "To be sure, to be sure,
to be sure...."

"I would not have worried you, my dear fellow, but really there is no
one here but you I can appeal to. You know what people are like about
here."

"To be sure, to be sure, to be sure.... Yes."

I thought that as we were going to have a serious, business consultation
in which any one might take part, regardless of their position or
personal relations, why should I not invite Natalya Gavrilovna.

"Tres faciunt collegium," I said gaily. "What if we were to ask Natalya
Gavrilovna? What do you think? Fenya," I said, turning to the maid, "ask
Natalya Gavrilovna to come upstairs to us, if possible at once. Tell her
it's a very important matter."
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