Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904 -- Translations into English; Russia -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"My darling! what are we to do? It seems it was God's will. . . .
I am a scoundrel. . . . I sold you. I was seduced by that Herod's
money, plague take him, and what good have I had from the money?
Nothing but anxiety and display! No peace, no happiness, no position
. . . . One sits like a fat invalid at the same spot, and never a
step forwarder. . . . Have you heard that Andrushka Markuzin has
been made a head clerk? Andrushka, that fool! While I stagnate. . . .
Good heavens! I have lost you, I have lost my happiness. I am
a scoundrel, a blackguard, how do you think I shall feel at the
dread day of judgment?"
"Let us go away, Vanya," wailed Liza. "I am dull. . . . I am dying
of depression."
"We cannot, the money has been taken. . . ."
"Well, give it back again."
"I should be glad to, but . . . wait a minute. I have spent it all.
We must submit, my girl. God is chastising us. Me for my covetousness
and you for your frivolity. Well, let us be tortured. . . . It will
be the better for us in the next world."
And in an access of religious feeling, Bugrov turned up his eyes
to heaven.
"But I cannot go on living here; I am miserable."
"Well, there is no help for it. I'm miserable too. Do you suppose
I am happy without you? I am pining and wasting away! And my chest
has begun to be bad! . . . You are my lawful wife, flesh of my flesh
. . . one flesh. . . . You must live and bear it! While I . . .
will drive over . . . visit you."
And bending down to Liza, Bugrov whispered, loudly enough, however,
to be heard several yards away:
"I will come to you at night, Lizanka. . . . Don't worry. . . . I
am staying at Feodosia close by. . . . I will live here near you
till I have run through everything . . . and I soon shall be at my
last farthing! A-a-ah, what a life it is! Dreariness, ill . . . my
chest is bad, and my stomach is bad."
Bugrov ceased speaking, and then it was Liza's turn. . . . My God,
the cruelty of that woman! She began weeping, complaining, enumerating
all the defects of her lover and her own sufferings. Groholsky as
he listened to her, felt that he was a villain, a miscreant, a
murderer.
"He makes me miserable. . . ." Liza said in conclusion.
After kissing Liza at parting, and going out at the garden gate,
Bugrov came upon Groholsky, who was standing at the gate waiting
for him.
"Ivan Petrovitch," said Groholsky in the tone of a dying man, "I
have seen and heard it all. . . It's not honourable on your part,
but I do not blame you. . . . You love her too, but you must
understand that she is mine. Mine! I cannot live without her! How
is it you don't understand that? Granted that you love her, that
you are miserable. . . . Have I not paid you, in part at least, for
your sufferings? For God's sake, go away! For God's sake, go away!
Go away from here for ever, I implore you, or you will kill me. . . ."
"I have nowhere to go," Bugrov said thickly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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