The Bishop and Other StoriesChekhov, Anton Pavlovich
General
The Bishop and Other Stories
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904 -- Translations into English; Russia -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive
after a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country.
He saw exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the
low hills, the sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer;
and he could not see the windmill, which had been left far behind.
From behind the rocky hill from which the stream flowed rose another,
smoother and broader; a little hamlet of five or six homesteads
clung to it. No people, no trees, no shade were to be seen about
the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had expired in the burning
air and was dried up. To while away the time Yegorushka caught a
grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand to his ear,
and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its
instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of
yellow butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the
watercourse, and found himself again beside the chaise, without
noticing how he came there. His uncle and Father Christopher were
sound asleep; their sleep would be sure to last two or three hours
till the horses had rested. . . . How was he to get through that
long time, and where was he to get away from the heat? A hard
problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the trickle
that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then
went on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all
over his body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went
up to the chaise and began looking at the sleeping figures. His
uncle's face wore, as before, an expression of business-like reserve.
Fanatically devoted to his work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his
sleep and at church when they were singing, "Like the cherubim,"
thought about his business and could never forget it for a moment;
and now he was probably dreaming about bales of wool, waggons,
prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft, frivolous
and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of anything
which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his
day what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the
bustle and the contact with other people involved in every undertaking.
Thus, in the present expedition, he was not so much interested in
wool, in Varlamov, and in prices, as in the long journey, the
conversations on the way, the sleeping under a chaise, and the meals
at odd times. . . . And now, judging from his face, he must have
been dreaming of Bishop Christopher, of the Latin discussion, of
his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of things that Kuzmitchov
could not possibly dream of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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