An Artist’s Story

[adapted]

by
Anton Chekhov

I

It was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the areas of the province of T——, on the estate of a young landowner named Byelokurov. He used to wake up very early, wear a peasant shirt, drink beer in the evenings, and always complain to me that no one ever understood him. He lived in the small house in the garden, and I lived in the old main house, in a large room with columns. There was no furniture there except a wide sofa, where I slept, and a table where I played card games by myself. Even when the weather was calm, the old Amos stoves made a constant humming sound, and during thunderstorms the whole house shook and seemed to be breaking apart. It was a bit scary, especially at night, when all ten big windows suddenly lit up with flashes of lightning.

Stuck with a life of doing nothing, I truly did nothing at all. For hours, I would stare out the window at the sky, the birds, the tree-lined avenue. I read everything that came by mail and took long naps. Sometimes I left the house and wandered around until late in the evening.

One day, as I was walking home, I accidentally ended up in a place I didn’t know. The sun was already setting, and evening shadows lay across the blooming rye. Two rows of old, tall fir trees stood like thick walls, forming a dark, beautiful path. I easily climbed over the fence and walked down the path, slipping a bit on the fir needles that covered the ground two inches deep. It was quiet and dark, and only here and there the high treetops glowed with golden light that sparkled in the spiders’ webs. The air smelled strongly of tree sap—almost too strong to breathe.

Then I turned onto a long path lined with lime trees. Here, too, everything looked old and forgotten. Last year’s leaves rustled sadly under my feet, and shadows moved quietly between the trees. From the old orchard to the right came a faint, tired call of a golden oriole, who must have been very old too. But finally, the line of lime trees ended. I walked past an old, white, two-story house with a terrace, and suddenly saw a courtyard, a large pond with a small bathhouse, a group of green willows, and a village on the far bank, with a tall, narrow bell tower. On top of it, a cross shone in the light of the setting sun.

For a moment, I felt something peaceful and strangely familiar, as if I had seen that view sometime in my childhood.

At the white stone gates, which led from the yard to the fields—old-fashioned strong gates with lions on them—two girls were standing. One of them, the older girl, was slim, pale, and very beautiful. She had a thick pile of chestnut hair and a small, stubborn mouth. She looked serious and hardly noticed me. The other girl was much younger, only about seventeen or eighteen. She was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and big eyes. She looked at me with surprise as I walked by, said something in English, and became very embarrassed. It seemed to me that these two lovely faces were also somehow familiar to me. I walked home feeling as if I had just woken up from a wonderful dream.

One morning, not long after that, as Byelokurov and I were walking near the house, a carriage suddenly drove into the yard, brushing through the grass. Inside was one of the girls—the older one. She had come to ask for donations for some villagers whose cottages had burned down. She spoke very seriously and clearly, without looking at us. She explained how many houses in the village of Siyanovo had burned, how many men, women, and children were now without homes, and what the Relief Committee, which she was part of, planned to do first. She gave us the donation list to sign, then put it away and got ready to leave right away.

“You have completely forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch,” she said to Byelokurov as she shook his hand. “Do come visit, and if Monsieur N.,” (she said my name), “would like to meet some people who admire his work, mother and I would be glad to see him.”

I gave a small bow.

After she left, Pyotr Petrovitch started telling me about her. Her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, he said, and she came from a good family. The estate where she lived with her mother and sister, across the pond near the village, was called Shelkovka. Her father used to have a high position in Moscow and had died with the title of privy councillor. Even though the family had plenty of money, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate all year round and never left. Lidia worked as a teacher at the local Zemstvo school in her village and earned twenty-five roubles a month. She lived only on her own salary and was proud that she earned her own money.

“An interesting family,” said Byelokurov. “Let’s go visit them one day. They’ll be happy to see you.”

One afternoon, on a holiday, we thought of the Voltchaninovs and went to Shelkovka to see them. They—the mother and two daughters—were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who had once been beautiful but was now asthmatic, sad, confused, and weaker than she should have been for her age, tried to make conversation with me about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come to Shelkovka, she had quickly tried to remember two or three of my landscapes that she had seen at Moscow exhibitions, and now asked what I had meant to show in them.

Lidia, or Lida as they called her, talked more to Byelokurov than to me. Serious and without a smile, she asked him why he wasn’t on the Zemstvo council and why he had never gone to any of its meetings.

“That’s not right, Pyotr Petrovitch,” she said with disapproval. “That’s not right. It’s too bad.”

“That’s true, Lida—that’s true,” the mother agreed. “It’s not right.”

“Our whole district is controlled by Balagin,” Lida went on, speaking to me. “He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he’s given all the local government jobs to his nephews and sons-in-law; he does whatever he wants. Someone should stand up to him. The young men should join together and form a strong group—but just look at what the young men around here are like. It’s a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!”

The younger sister, Genya, stayed quiet while they talked about the Zemstvo. She didn’t join in serious talk. Her family didn’t see her as fully grown-up yet, and, like a child, she was still called by her nickname, Misuce, because that’s what she had called her English governess when she was small. She kept looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the photos in the album, she explained, “That’s uncle… that’s godfather,” moving her finger across the pictures. As she did, her shoulder touched mine like a child’s would, and I got a close look at her delicate, undeveloped chest, her thin shoulders, her braid, and her small body tightly pulled in by her sash.

We played croquet and lawn tennis, walked in the garden, drank tea, and then sat for a long time at supper. After the big, empty room with columns where I lived, I felt at home in this small, cozy house where there were no cheap prints on the walls and where the servants were spoken to politely. Everything felt young and pure, thanks to Lida and Misuce, and there was a sense of refinement in everything. At supper, Lida talked to Byelokurov again about the Zemstvo, about Balagin, and about school libraries. She was a strong and honest girl with real beliefs, and it was interesting to listen to her, even though she talked a lot and in a loud voice—maybe because she was used to speaking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who still had his old student habit of turning every talk into an argument, was boring, dull, long-winded, and clearly trying hard to seem smart and modern. While waving his hands around, he knocked over the sauce-boat with his sleeve, spilling a large puddle on the tablecloth, but no one except me seemed to notice.

It was dark and quiet as we walked home.

“Good manners aren’t shown by not spilling the sauce, but by not noticing when someone else does,” said Byelokurov with a sigh. “Yes, a fine, intelligent family! I’ve dropped out of all good society; it’s awful how I’ve fallen out of it! It’s all because of work, work, work!”

He talked about how hard you had to work if you wanted to be a good farmer. And I thought what a heavy, slow man he was! Whenever he talked about something serious, he said “Er-er” with a lot of effort, and he worked just like he talked—slowly, always late and behind. I didn’t believe much in his skill at business, especially since whenever I gave him letters to mail, he carried them around in his pocket for weeks.

“The hardest thing of all,” he muttered as he walked beside me—“the hardest thing of all is that, no matter how much you work, no one cares. No one understands!”

II

I started going to visit the Voltchaninovs. Usually I sat on the bottom step of the terrace. I was restless and unhappy with myself. I felt sorry thinking about how fast and dull my life was passing, and I wished I could tear out my heavy heart from my chest. While I sat there, I could hear talking on the terrace, the sound of dresses moving, and the pages of a book being turned.

I soon got used to the fact that during the day, Lida saw patients, gave out books, and often went into the village with a parasol and no hat. In the evening, she talked loudly about the Zemstvo and the schools. This slim, pretty, always serious girl, with her small, well-shaped mouth, always said sharply when serious topics came up:

“That doesn’t interest you.”

She didn’t like me. She didn’t like me because I was a landscape painter and didn’t show the hard life of peasants in my pictures. She thought I didn’t care about the things she believed in. I remember once when I was traveling near Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback. She was wearing a shirt and pants made of blue Chinese cloth. I asked if she would sell me her pipe. While we talked, she looked at my European face and hat with dislike, and quickly lost interest in me. She shouted to her horse and rode off. Lida looked at me the same way—as someone strange and not one of them. She never said anything rude, but I could feel her dislike. Sitting on the bottom step of the terrace, I would feel annoyed and say things like treating peasants when you weren’t a real doctor was tricking them, and that it was easy to be kind when you owned six thousand acres of land.

Her sister Misuce had no such concerns. She lived in complete laziness, just like me. When she got up in the morning, she would grab a book and sit reading in a big armchair on the terrace, her feet barely touching the ground. Or she would hide in the lime trees with her book, or walk out into the fields. She spent the whole day reading, reading with such hunger that it seemed to wear her out. You could tell how tired it made her from the dazed look in her eyes and the pale color of her face. When I came, she would blush a little, put down her book, and look at me with her big eyes, excited to tell me anything that had happened—like the chimney catching fire in the servants’ hall or someone catching a big fish in the pond. On normal days she wore a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We took walks together, picked cherries to make jam, or went out in the boat. When she reached up for cherries or rowed the boat, her thin, weak arms could be seen through her light sleeves. Sometimes I painted a sketch and she stood beside me, watching with delight.

One Sunday at the end of July I came to visit the Voltchaninovs around nine in the morning. I walked around the park, staying away from the house, looking for white mushrooms—there were many that summer—and marking the spots to come back later with Genya. A warm wind was blowing. I saw Genya and her mother coming home from church in light holiday clothes, Genya holding her hat against the wind. Later, I heard them having tea on the terrace.

For someone like me, lazy and always looking for a reason to excuse it, these summer holiday mornings in the country always had a special charm. When the green garden, still wet with dew, sparkles in the sun and seems full of joy, when the smell of mignonette and oleander fills the air near the house, when the young people come back from church and eat breakfast in the garden, all looking happy and well dressed—and when you know none of them will do anything all day—it makes you wish all of life could be like that. I felt that way now, and walked around the garden, ready to spend the whole day, the whole summer, just walking and doing nothing.

Genya came out with a basket. She had a look on her face like she knew she would find me in the garden, or somehow had a feeling I would be there. We picked mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question, she walked a little ahead so she could see my face.

“A miracle happened in the village yesterday,” she said. “The lame woman, Pelagea, has been sick all year. No doctors or medicine helped her, but yesterday an old woman came, whispered something to her, and her sickness went away.”

“That’s nothing special,” I said. “You shouldn’t look for miracles only among sick people and old women. Isn’t health a miracle? And life itself? Anything that we can’t understand is a miracle.”

“Aren’t you afraid of what you can’t understand?”

“No. I face things I don’t understand bravely. I’m not afraid of them. I am above them. A person should see himself as greater than lions, tigers, stars—greater than everything in nature, even things that seem like miracles or are hard to understand. If he doesn’t, then he’s not really a person, but a mouse that’s afraid of everything.”

Genya believed that, as an artist, I knew a lot, and could guess the answers to the things I didn’t know. She wanted me to show her the way into the world of the Eternal and the Beautiful—the higher world where she thought I truly belonged. She talked to me about God, about eternal life, and about miracles. And I, who could never believe that my thoughts and feelings would just disappear forever after death, answered: “Yes, people are immortal,” and, “Yes, eternal life waits for us.” And she listened, believed me, and didn’t ask for proof.

As we were walking home, she suddenly stopped and said:

“Our Lida is a remarkable person—isn’t she? I love her very much and would give my life for her without a second thought. But tell me”—Genya touched my sleeve with her finger—“tell me, why do you always argue with her? Why do you get irritated?”

“Because she is wrong.”

Genya shook her head, and tears came into her eyes.

“That’s so hard to understand!” she said.

At that moment, Lida had just come back from somewhere. Standing on the steps with a whip in her hand, her slim, beautiful figure glowing in the sunlight, she was giving some orders to one of the workers. She spoke loudly, then quickly met with two or three sick villagers. After that, looking busy and worried, she walked through the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, and then went upstairs. It took a long time for them to find her and call her to dinner, and she only came in after we had already finished our soup.

I remember every little detail from that day with great fondness, even though nothing special happened. After dinner, Genya lay in a big armchair reading, while I sat on the bottom step of the terrace. We didn’t speak. The whole sky was covered with clouds, and it started to drizzle with fine rain. It was hot, there was no wind, and it felt like the day would never end.

Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace looking sleepy and carrying a fan.

“Oh, Mother,” said Genya, kissing her hand, “it’s not good for you to nap during the day.”

They loved each other deeply. When one of them went into the garden, the other would stand on the terrace and call out, “Aa—oo, Genya!” or “Mother, where are you?” They always said their prayers together and shared the same beliefs. They understood each other completely, even without talking. They also saw people in the same way.

Ekaterina Pavlovna quickly got used to me and grew fond of me. If I didn’t visit for two or three days, she would send someone to ask if I was all right. She also looked at my sketches with excitement, and like Genya, she told me what was happening around the house and shared her personal stories with me.

She had deep respect for her older daughter. Lida didn’t like hugs or sweet words. She only talked about serious topics and lived a separate life. To her mother and sister, she was a special and mysterious person—like a ship’s admiral always locked in his cabin, unknown to the sailors.

“Our Lida is a remarkable person,” her mother would often say. “Isn’t she?”

Now too, while the light rain fell, we talked about Lida.

“She’s a remarkable girl,” her mother said, and then added in a quiet voice, like someone sharing a secret, looking around nervously: “You won’t find another like her easily. But do you know—I’m starting to worry a little. The school, the clinic, the books—it’s all very good, but why go to such extremes? She’s twenty-three, you know; it’s time she thinks seriously about herself. With all her books and her clinic, she might suddenly find that life has passed her by without her even noticing.... She needs to get married.”

Genya, pale from reading, with her hair messy, lifted her head and said quietly, almost to herself, while looking at her mother:

“Mother, everything is in God’s hands.”