Too Early!

"Too Early!" is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores themes of love, social obligation, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative revolves around a young couple who are on the cusp of a romantic relationship but are confronted by the constraints of social expectations and personal hesitations. Chekhov masterfully captures the nuances of feeling and the bittersweet nature of timing, highlighting how misunderstandings and societal pressures can affect the course of love. The story is characterized by Chekhov's trademark wit and keen psychological insights, making it a poignant reflection on the human condition.

								
THE bells are ringing for service in the village of Shalmovo. The sun is
already kissing the earth on the horizon; it has turned crimson and will
soon disappear. In Semyon's pothouse, which has lately changed its name
and become a restaurant--a title quite out of keeping with the wretched
little hut with its thatch torn off its roof, and its couple of dingy
windows--two peasant sportsmen are sitting. One of them is called Filimon
Slyunka; he is an old man of sixty, formerly a house-serf, belonging to
the Counts Zavalin, by trade a carpenter. He has at one time been
employed in a nail factory, has been turned off for drunkenness and
idleness, and now lives upon his old wife, who begs for alms. He is thin
and weak, with a mangy-looking little beard, speaks with a hissing
sound, and after every word twitches the right side of his face and
jerkily shrugs his right shoulder. The other, Ignat Ryabov, a sturdy,
broad-shouldered peasant who never does anything and is everlastingly
silent, is sitting in the corner under a big string of bread rings. The
door, opening inwards, throws a thick shadow upon him, so that Slyunka
and Semyon the publican can see nothing but his patched knees, his long
fleshy nose, and a big tuft of hair which has escaped from the thick
uncombed tangle covering his head. Semyon, a sickly little man, with a
pale face and a long sinewy neck, stands behind his counter, looks
mournfully at the string of bread rings, and coughs meekly.

"You think it over now, if you have any sense," Slyunka says to him,
twitching his cheek. "You have the thing lying by unused and get no sort
of benefit from it. While we need it. A sportsman without a gun is like
a sacristan without a voice. You ought to understand that, but I see you
don't understand it, so you can have no real sense. . . . Hand it over!"

"You left the gun in pledge, you know!" says Semyon in a thin womanish
little voice, sighing deeply, and not taking his eyes off the string of
bread rings. "Hand over the rouble you borrowed, and then take your
gun."

"I haven't got a rouble. I swear to you, Semyon Mitritch, as God sees
me: you give me the gun and I will go to-day with Ignashka and bring it
you back again. I'll bring it back, strike me dead. May I have happiness
neither in this world nor the next, if I don't."

"Semyon Mitritch, do give it," Ignat Ryabov says in his bass, and his
voice betrays a passionate desire to get what he asks for.

"But what do you want the gun for?" sighs Semyon, sadly shaking his
head. "What sort of shooting is there now? It's still winter outside,
and no game at all but crows and jackdaws."

"Winter, indeed," says Slyunka, hooing the ash out of his pipe with his
finger, "it is early yet of course, but you never can tell with the
snipe. The snipe's a bird that wants watching. If you are unlucky, you
may sit waiting at home, and miss his flying over, and then you must
wait till autumn. . . . It is a business! The snipe is not a rook. . . .
Last year he was flying the week before Easter, while the year before we
had to wait till the week after Easter! Come, do us a favour, Semyon
Mitritch, give us the gun. Make us pray for you for ever. As ill-luck
would have it, Ignashka has pledged his gun for drink too. Ah, when you
drink you feel nothing, but now . . . ah, I wish I had never looked at
it, the cursed vodka! Truly it is the blood of Satan! Give it us, Semyon
Mitritch!"

"I won't give it you," says Semyon, clasping his yellow hands on his
breast as though he were going to pray. "You must act fairly,
Filimonushka. . . . A thing is not taken out of pawn just anyhow; you
must pay the money. . . . Besides, what do you want to kill birds for?
What's the use? It's Lent now--you are not going to eat them."

Slyunka exchanges glances with Ryabov in embarrassment, sighs, and says:
"We would only go stand-shooting."

"And what for? It's all foolishness. You are not the sort of man to
spend your time in foolishness. . . . Ignashka, to be sure, is a man of
no understanding, God has afflicted him, but you, thank the Lord, are an
old man. It's time to prepare for your end. Here, you ought to go to the
midnight service."

The allusion to his age visibly stings Slyunka. He clears his throat,
wrinkles up his forehead, and remains silent for a full minute.

"I say, Semyon Mitritch," he says hotly, getting up and twitching not
only in his right cheek but all over his face. "It's God's truth. . . .
May the Almighty strike me dead, after Easter I shall get something from
Stepan Kuzmitch for an axle, and I will pay you not one rouble but two!
May the Lord chastise me! Before the holy image, I tell you, only give
me the gun!"

"Gi-ive it," Ryabov says in his growling bass; they can hear him
breathing hard, and it seems that he would like to say a great deal, but
cannot find the words. "Gi-ive it."

"No, brothers, and don't ask," sighs Semyon, shaking his head
mournfully. "Don't lead me into sin. I won't give you the gun. It's not
the fashion for a thing to be taken out of pawn and no money paid.
Besides--why this indulgence? Go your way and God bless you!"

Slyunka rubs his perspiring face with his sleeve and begins hotly
swearing and entreating. He crosses himself, holds out his hands to the
ikon, calls his deceased father and mother to bear witness, but Semyon
sighs and meekly looks as before at the string of bread rings. In the
end Ignashka Ryabov, hitherto motionless, gets up impulsively and bows
down to the ground before the innkeeper, but even that has no effect on
him.

"May you choke with my gun, you devil," says Slyunka, with his face
twitching, and his shoulders, shrugging. "May you choke, you plague, you
scoundrelly soul."

Swearing and shaking his fists, he goes out of the tavern with Ryabov
and stands still in the middle of the road.

"He won't give it, the damned brute," he says, in a weeping voice,
looking into Ryabov's face with an injured air.

"He won't give it," booms Ryabov.

The windows of the furthest huts, the starling cote on the tavern, the
tops of the poplars, and the cross on the church are all gleaming with a
bright golden flame. Now they can see only half of the sun, which, as it
goes to its night's rest, is winking, shedding a crimson light, and
seems laughing gleefully. Slyunka and Ryabov can see the forest lying, a
dark blur, to the right of the sun, a mile and a half from the village,
and tiny clouds flitting over the clear sky, and they feel that the
evening will be fine and still.

"Now is just the time," says Slyunka, with his face twitching. "It would
be nice to stand for an hour or two. He won't give it us, the damned
brute. May he . . ."

"For stand-shooting, now is the very time . . ." Ryabov articulated, as

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