Russian Silhouettes: More Stories of Russian Life

by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

“It is because I am all sunburned and dusty,” I thought. “And because I am still a boy.”

But later I gradually forgot my feelings, and abandoned myself to her beauty heart and soul. I no longer remembered the dust and tedium of the steppe, nor heard the buzzing of the flies; I did not taste the tea, and only felt that there, across the table, stood that lovely girl.

Her beauty had a strange effect upon me. I experienced neither desire, nor rapture, nor pleasure, but a sweet, oppressive sadness, as vague and undefinable as a dream. I was sorry for myself, and for my grandfather, and for the Armenian, and for the girl herself, and felt as if each one of us had lost something significant and essential to our lives, which we could never find again. Grandfather, too, grew sad and no longer talked of sheep and pasturage, but sat in silence, his eyes resting pensively on Masha.

When tea was over, grandfather lay down to take his nap, and I went out and sat on the little porch at the front door. Like all the other houses in Baktchi-Salak, this one stood in the blazing sun; neither trees nor eaves threw any shade about it. The great courtyard, all overgrown with dock and nettles, was full of life and gaiety in spite of the intense heat. Wheat was being threshed behind one of the low wattle fences that intersected it in various places, and twelve horses were trotting round and round a post that had been driven into the middle of the threshing-floor. A Little Russian in a long, sleeveless coat, and wide breeches, was walking beside the horses cracking his whip over them, and shouting as if to excite them, and at the same time to vaunt his mastery over them.

“Ah—ah—ah—you little devils! Ah—ah, the cholera take you! Are you not afraid of me?”

Not knowing why they were being forced to trot round in a circle, trampling wheat straw under their feet, the horses—bay, white and piebald—moved unwillingly and wearily, angrily switching their tails. The wind raised clouds of golden chaff under their hoofs, and blew it away across the fence. Women with rakes were swarming among the tall stacks of fresh straw, tip-carts were hurrying to and fro, and behind the stacks in an adjoining courtyard another dozen horses were trotting around a post, and another Little Russian was cracking his whip and making merry over them.

The steps on which I was sitting were fiery hot, the heat had drawn drops of resin from the slender porch railing and the window-sills, and swarms of ruddy little beetles were crowded together in the strips of shade under the blinds and steps. The sun’s rays were beating on my head, and breast, and back, but I was unconscious of them, and only felt that there, behind me, those bare feet were pattering about on the deal floor. Having cleared away the tea-things, Masha ran down the steps, a little gust sweeping me as she passed, and flew like a bird into a small, smoky building that was no doubt the kitchen, from which issued a smell of roasting mutton and the angry tones of an Armenian voice. She vanished into the dark doorway, and in her stead there appeared on the threshold an old, humpbacked Armenian crone, in green trousers. The old woman was in a rage, and was scolding some one. Masha soon came out on the threshold again, flushed with the heat of the kitchen, bearing a huge loaf of black bread on her shoulder. Bending gracefully under its weight, she ran across the court in the direction of the threshing-floor, leaped over the fence, and plunged into the clouds of golden chaff. The Little Russian driver lowered his whip, stopped his cries, and gazed after her for a moment; then, when the girl appeared again beside the horses, and jumped back over the fence, he followed her once more with his eyes, and cried to his horses in a tone of affliction:

“Ah—ah—the Evil One fly away with you!”

From then on I sat and listened to the unceasing fall of her bare feet, and watched her whisking about the courtyard, with her face so serious and intent. Now she would run up the steps, fanning me with a whirl of wind; now dart into the kitchen; now across the threshing-floor; now out through the front gate, and all so fast that I could barely turn my head quickly enough to follow her with my eyes.

And the oftener she flashed across my vision with her beauty, the more profound my sadness grew. I pitied myself, and her, and the Little Russian sadly following her with his eyes each time that she ran through the cloud of chaff and past the straw-stacks. Was I envious of her beauty? Did I regret that this girl was not and never could be mine, and that I must for ever remain a stranger to her? Did I dimly realise that her rare loveliness was a freak of nature, vain, perishable like everything else on earth? Or did my sadness spring from a feeling peculiar to every heart at the sight of perfect beauty? Who shall say?