At Home

Anton Chekhov

I

THE Don railway. A quiet, cheerless station, white and solitary in the steppe, with its walls baking in

the sun, without a speck of shade, and, it seems, without a human being. The train goes on after leaving

one here; the sound of it is scarcely audible and dies away at last. Outside the station it is a desert, and

there are no horses but one's own. One gets into the carriage -- which is so pleasant after the train -- and

is borne along the road through the steppe, and by degrees there are unfolded before one views such as

one does not see near Moscow -- immense, endless, fascinating in their monotony. The steppe, the

steppe, and nothing more; in the distance an ancient barrow or a windmill; ox-waggons laden with coal

"Everything just as it always has been," said Vera, looking about her. "I was a little girl when I was here

last, ten years ago. I remember old Boris came to fetch me then. Is he still living, I wonder?"

The driver made no reply, but, like a Little Russian, looked at her angrily and clambered on to the box.

It was a twenty-mile drive from the station, and Vera, too, abandoned herself to the charm of the steppe,

forgot the past, and thought only of the wide expanse, of the freedom. Healthy, clever, beautiful, and

young -- she was only three-and-twenty -- she had hitherto lacked nothing in her life but just this space

and freedom.

The steppe, the steppe. . . . The horses trotted, the sun rose higher and higher; and it seemed to Vera

that never in her childhood had the steppe been so rich, so luxuriant in June; the wild flowers were

green, yellow, lilac, white, and a fragrance rose from them and from the warmed earth; and there were

feeling in the air -- there must have been a spring at the bottom. On the near side, on the very edge of

the ravine, a covey of partridges rose noisily. Vera remembered that in old days they used to go for

evening walks to this ravine; so it must be near home! And now she could actually see the poplars, the

Livros Grátis

coming to meet her and waving her handkerchief; grandfather was on the terrace. Oh dear, how happy

she was!

"My darling, my darling!" cried her aunt, shrieking as though she were in hysterics. "Our real mistress

has come! You must understand you are our mistress, you are our queen! Here everything is yours! My

darling, my beauty, I am not your aunt, but your willing slave!"

Vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather; her mother had long been dead; her father, an

engineer, had died three months before at Kazan, on his way from Siberia. Her grandfather had a big

grey beard. He was stout, red-faced, and asthmatic, and walked leaning on a cane and sticking his

stomach out. Her aunt, a lady of forty-two, drawn in tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed with

sleeves high on the shoulder, evidently tried to look young and was still anxious to be charming; she

Dasha came in for a minute to wish her good-night.

"Here you are home again, thank God," she said, sitting down on the bed. "As you see, we get along

very well and have everything we want. There's only one thing: your grandfather is in a poor way! A

terribly poor way! He is short of breath and he has begun to lose his memory. And you remember how

strong, how vigorous, he used to be! There was no doing anything with him. . . . In old days, if the

servants didn't please him or anything else went wrong, he would jump up at once and shout: 'Twenty-

five strokes! The birch!' But now he has grown milder and you never hear him. And besides, times are

changed, my precious; one mayn't beat them nowadays. Of course, they oughtn't to be beaten, but they

need looking after."

"And are they beaten now, auntie?" asked Vera.

concerts, but we play cards more than anything. They come to us, too. Dr. Neshtchapov from the works

comes to see us -- such a handsome, interesting man! He fell in love with your photograph. I made up

my mind: he is Verotchka's destiny, I thought. He's young, handsome, he has means -- a good match, in

fact. And of course you're a match for any one. You're of good family. The place is mortgaged, it's true,

but it's in good order and not neglected; there is my share in it, but it will all come to you; I am your

willing slave. And my brother, your father, left you fifteen thousand roubles. . . . But I see you can't

Next day Vera spent a long time walking round the house. The garden, which was old and unattractive,

lying inconveniently upon the slope, had no paths, and was utterly neglected; probably the care of it

was regarded as an unnecessary item in the management. There were numbers of grass-snakes.

Hoopoes flew about under the trees calling "Oo-too-toot!" as though they were trying to remind her of

something. At the bottom of the hill there was a river overgrown with tall reeds, and half a mile beyond

the river was the village. From the garden Vera went out into the fields; looking into the distance,

thinking of her new life in her own home, she kept trying to grasp what was in store for her. The space,

the lovely peace of the steppe, told her that happiness was near at hand, and perhaps was here already;

thousands of people, in fact, would have said: "What happiness to be young, healthy, well-educated, to

be living on one's own estate!" And at the same time the endless plain, all alike, without one living

soul, frightened her, and at moments it was clear to her that its peaceful green vastness would swallow

studies at an aristocratic boarding-school, had learnt three languages, had read a great deal, had

remote country-house in the steppe, and wandering day after day from the garden into the fields and

share in the works, and had become one of the partners; and now he no longer looked upon medicine as

his chief vocation, though he still practised. In appearance he was a pale, dark man in a white waistcoat,

with a good figure; but to guess what there was in his heart and his brain was difficult. He kissed

Auntie Dasha's hand on greeting her, and was continually leaping up to set a chair or give his seat to

some one. He was very silent and grave all the while, and, when he did speak, it was for some reason

impossible to hear and understand his first sentence, though he spoke correctly and not in a low voice.

"You play the piano?" he asked Vera, and immediately leapt up, as she had dropped her handkerchief.

He stayed from midday to midnight without speaking, and Vera found him very unattractive. She

whenever she talked to the steward or to the peasants, she used, for some reason, to put on a pince-nez.

Vera's grandfather always sat in the same place, playing patience or dozing. He ate a very great deal at

dinner and supper; they gave him the dinner cooked to-day and what was left from yesterday, and cold

pie left from Sunday, and salt meat from the servants' dinner, and he ate it all greedily. And every

dinner left on Vera such an impression, that when she saw afterwards a flock of sheep driven by, or

flour being brought from the mill, she thought, "Grandfather will eat that." For the most part he was

would be touched and say tenderly:

"My only grandchild! Verotchka!"

And tears would glisten in his eyes. Or his face would turn suddenly crimson, his neck would swell, he

would look with fury at the servants, and ask, tapping with his stick:

"Why haven't you brought the horse-radish?"

In winter he led a perfectly inactive existence; in summer he sometimes drove out into the fields to look

at the oats and the hay; and when he came back he would flourish his stick and declare that everything

was neglected now that he was not there to look after it.

"Your grandfather is out of humour," Auntie Dasha would whisper. "But it's nothing now to what it

were continual sounds of "Bring it," "Fetch it," "Make haste," and by the evening the servants were

discharged them for immorality; sometimes they went of their own accord, complaining that they were

worked to death. None of the village people would come to the house as servants; Auntie Dasha had to

hire them from a distance. There was only one girl from the village living in the house, Alyona, and she

stayed because her whole family -- old people and children -- were living upon her wages. This Alyona,

a pale, rather stupid little thing, spent the whole day turning out the rooms, waiting at table, heating the

stoves, sewing, washing; but it always seemed as though she were only pottering about, treading

heavily with her boots, and were nothing but a hindrance in the house. In her terror that she might be

dismissed and sent home, she often dropped and broke the crockery, and they stopped the value of it out

On the sixth of December, St. Nikolay's Day, a large party of about thirty arrived all at once; they

played vint until late at night, and many of them stayed the night. In the morning they sat down to cards

again, then they had dinner, and when Vera went to her room after dinner to rest from conversation and

tobacco smoke, there were visitors there too, and she almost wept in despair. And when they began to

get ready to go in the evening, she was so pleased they were going at last, that she said:

She felt exhausted by the visitors and constrained by their presence; yet every day, as soon as it began

to grow dark, something drew her out of the house, and she went out to pay visits either at the works or

at some neighbours', and then there were cards, dancing, forfeits, suppers. . . .The young people in the

works or in the mines sometimes sang Little Russian songs, and sang them very well. It made one sad

to hear them sing. Or they all gathered together in one room and talked in the dusk of the mines, of the

treasures that had once been buried in the steppes, of Saur's Grave. . . . Later on, as they talked, a shout

of "Help!" sometimes reached them. It was a drunken man going home, or some one was being robbed

by the pit near by. Or the wind howled in the chimneys, the shutters banged; then, soon afterwards, they

would hear the uneasy church bell, as the snow-storm began.

At all the evening parties, picnics, and dinners, Auntie Dasha was invariably the most interesting

the country-houses; they played only marches and polkas; and the young people always argued hotly

but, strange to say, Vera had nowhere else met people so indifferent and careless as these. They seemed

incomprehensible as before; but the ladies, young and old, thought him interesting and were

always came away from the visits with a feeling of vexation, vowing inwardly to remain at home; but

the day passed, the evening came, and she hurried off to the works again, and it was like that almost all

the winter.

She ordered books and magazines, and used to read them in her room. And she read at night, lying in

bed. When the clock in the corridor struck two or three, and her temples were beginning to ache from

reading, she sat up in bed and thought, "What am I to do? Where am I to go?" Accursed, importunate

question, to which there were a number of ready-made answers, and in reality no answer at all.

Oh, how noble, how holy, how picturesque it must be to serve the people, to alleviate their sufferings,

own fifteen or thirty thousand acres and to be indifferent to the peasants' lot. Here the ladies said about

Dr. Neshtchapov that he was a kind man and had built a school at the works. Yes, he had built a school

out of the old bricks at the works for some eight hundred roubles, and they sang the prayer for "long

life" to him when the building was opened, but there was no chance of his giving up his shares, and it

certainly never entered his head that the peasants were human beings like himself, and that they, too,

needed university teaching, and not merely lessons in these wretched schools.

And Vera felt full of anger against herself and every one else. She took up a book again and tried to

read it, but soon afterwards sat down and thought again. To become a doctor? But to do that one must

pass an examination in Latin; besides, she had an invincible repugnance to corpses and disease. It

would be nice to become a mechanic, a judge, a commander of a steamer, a scientist; to do something

into which she could put all her powers, physical and spiritual, and to be tired out and sleep soundly at

night; to give up her life to something that would make her an interesting person, able to attract

interesting people, to love, to have a real family of her own. . . . But what was she to do? How was she

to begin?

One Sunday in Lent her aunt came into her room early in the morning to fetch her umbrella. Vera was

sitting up in bed clasping her head in her hands, thinking.

me, why don't you want to marry Nestchapov? What more do you want, my child? You must forgive

me, darling; you can't pick and choose like this, we are not princes. . . . Time is passing, you are not

seventeen. . . . And I don't understand it! He loves you, idolises you!"

"Oh, mercy!" said Vera with vexation. "How can I tell? He sits dumb and never says a word."

"He's shy, darling. . . . He's afraid you'll refuse him!"

whether to dress or to go back to bed. The bed was hateful; if one looked out of the window there were

"The fact is, child, we have to pay interest on the bank loan, and the tenant hasn't paid his rent. Will you

let me pay it out of the fifteen thousand your papa left you?"

All day afterwards Auntie Dasha spent in making cherry jam in the garden. Alyona, with her cheeks

flushed with the heat, ran to and from the garden to the house and back again to the cellar.

religious rite, and her short sleeves displayed her strong, little, despotic hands and arms, and when the

servants ran about incessantly, bustling about the jam which they would never taste, there was always a

feeling of martyrdom in the air. . . .

The garden smelt of hot cherries. The sun had set, the charcoal stove had been carried away, but the

pleasant, sweetish smell still lingered in the air. Vera sat on a bench in the garden and watched a new

labourer, a young soldier, not of the neighbourhood, who was, by her express orders, making new

paths. He was cutting the turf with a spade and heaping it up on a barrow.

"Where were you serving?" Vera asked him.

"At Berdyansk."

"And where are you going now? Home?"

"No," answered the labourer. "I have no home."

my mother was the head of the house, and people looked up to her, and while she lived I was cared for.

care to go home. It's not my own father, so it's not like my own home."

"Then your father is dead?"

"I don't know. I am illegitimate."

At that moment Auntie Dasha appeared at the window and said:

she said to the soldier.

"Take your passport and go in peace. I can't have any one illegitimate in my house."

An oppressive, angry feeling sank like a stone on Vera's heart. She was indignant with her aunt, she

hated her; she was so sick of her aunt that her heart was full of misery and loathing. But what was she

to do? To stop her mouth? To be rude to her? But what would be the use? Suppose she struggled with

would be the use of it? It would be like killing one mouse or one snake in the boundless steppe. The

vast expanse, the long winters, the monotony and dreariness of life, instil a sense of helplessness; the

position seems hopeless, and one wants to do nothing -- everything is useless.

Alyona came in, and bowing low to Vera, began carrying out the arm-chairs to beat the dust out of

them.

"You have chosen a time to clean up," said Vera with annoyance. "Go away."

Alyona was overwhelmed, and in her terror could not understand what was wanted of her. She began

hurriedly tidying up the dressing-table.

feeling before. "Go away!"

Alyona uttered a sort of moan, like a bird, and dropped Vera's gold watch on the carpet.

unwashed, uncombed, in her dressing-gown and slippers, she rushed out of the house. She ran to the

no one. Lying there motionless on the grass, she did not weep, she was not horror-stricken, but gazing

at the sky open-eyed, she reflected coldly and clearly that something had happened which she could

never forget and for which she could never forgive herself all her life.

"No, I can't go on like this," she thought. "It's time to take myself in hand, or there'll be no end to it. . . .

I can't go on like this. . . ."

At midday Dr. Neshtchapov drove by the ravine on his way to the house. She saw him and made up her

calmed her. And following with her eyes the doctor's well-built figure, she said, as though trying to

can't."

And again she went out into the fields. And wandering aimlessly about, she made up her mind that

when she was married she would look after the house, doctor the peasants, teach in the school, that she

would do all the things that other women of her circle did. And this perpetual dissatisfaction with

herself and every one else, this series of crude mistakes which stand up like a mountain before one