The Looking-glass
Anton Chekhov
NEW YEAR'S EVE. Nellie, the daughter of a landowner and general, a young and pretty
girl, dreaming day and night of being married, was sitting in her room, gazing with
exhausted, half-closed eyes into the looking-glass. She was pale, tense, and as motionless as
the looking-glass.
The non-existent but apparent vista of a long, narrow corridor with endless rows of candles,
the reflection of her face, her hands, of the frame -- all this was already clouded in mist and
merged into a boundless grey sea. The sea was undulating, gleaming and now and then
flaring crimson. . . .
Looking at Nellie's motionless eyes and parted lips, one could hardly say whether she was
asleep or awake, but nevertheless she was seeing. At first she saw only the smile and soft,
charming expression of someone's eyes, then against the shifting grey background there
gradually appeared the outlines of a head, a face, eyebrows, beard. It was he, the destined
one, the object of long dreams and hopes. The destined one was for Nellie everything, the
significance of life, personal happiness, career, fate. Outside him, as on the grey
background of the looking-glass, all was dark, empty, meaningless. And so it was not
strange that, seeing before her a handsome, gently smiling face, she was conscious of bliss,
of an unutterably sweet dream that could not be expressed in speech or on paper. Then she
heard his voice, saw herself living under the same roof with him, her life merged into his.
Months and years flew by against the grey background. And Nellie saw her future distinctly
in all its details.
Picture followed picture against the grey background. Now Nellie saw herself one winter
night knocking at the door of Stepan Lukitch, the district doctor. The old dog hoarsely and
lazily barked behind the gate. The doctor's windows were in darkness. All was silence.
"For God's sake, for God's sake!" whispered Nellie.
But at last the garden gate creaked and Nellie saw the doctor's cook.
"Is the doctor at home?"
"His honour's asleep," whispered the cook into her sleeve, as though afraid of waking her
master.
"He's only just got home from his fever patients, and gave orders he was not to be waked."
But Nellie scarcely heard the cook. Thrusting her aside, she rushed headlong into the
doctor's house. Running through some dark and stuffy rooms, upsetting two or three chairs,
she at last reached the doctor's bedroom. Stepan Lukitch was lying on his bed, dressed, but
without his coat, and with pouting lips was breathing into his open hand. A little night-light
glimmered faintly beside him. Without uttering a word Nellie sat down and began to cry.
She wept bitterly, shaking all over.