A week ago Sherry got to speak in church. Her assigned topic was We Are Children of our Heavenly Father. She worries a lot about speaking in church but, as we all know, she does a great job. It was neat to have a sister missionary to translate for her...Sister Crane and her companion, Sister Johnson are wonderful It has been a while since we have had sisters in our district and it is a joy to work with them. Sister Johnson is brand new and wonderfully pure and enthusiastic. Sister Crane has been serving for a while - she has lived in Russia before and speaks Russian very well. She has studied Russian Literature and she and I share a love for Chekhov's story "Misery." She did a great job translating for mom.
Last Sunday our branch president, President Semonov, came up to me right before sacrament meeting and said he had a little problem. Actually, he said "маленький проблема" which means the same thing in Russian. His problem was that the concluding speaker for sacrament meeting hadn't shown up and he wondered if I could speak. Since I don't know enough to worry like Sherry does I got excited and said I'd love to. Getting asked to speak on the spur of the moment is what I daydream about. Crazy. I got to tell a few stories about how our prayers have been answered.
The best part for me was after sacrament meeting Sister Reshetnikov, who speaks a little English, came up to me and said that I speak very good English. I said "Thank you! I have been practicing all my life." She said she understood every word that I said. What she meant, of course, was that I enunciated and she could follow what I said. I can only think of one other time that I have felt so complimented.
What the heck - I'll tell you about that other time, too. I was High Priests Group Leader - which is a title that means I oversaw the old men at church - I mean, experienced leaders - and one Sunday a month we had a member of the group give a personal history. Before they did so I gave a short talk that the brethren could use as they visited people in the ward that month. One Sunday Brother Stanard, a Phd who taught at Humboldt State came up to me after the meeting and said that I could say more in two minutes than most people could say in twenty. For him to say that tome was the greatest compliment I have ever been paid about my teaching or speaking ability. It meant a lot to me.
MISERY
by Anton Chekhov
"To
whom shall I tell my grief?"
THE
twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the
street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on
roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledge-driver, is all
white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double as the
living body can be bent. If a regular snowdrift fell on him it seems as though
even then he would not think it necessary to shake it off. . . . His little
mare is white and motionless too. Her stillness, the angularity of her lines,
and the stick-like straightness of her legs make her look like a halfpenny
gingerbread horse. She is probably lost in thought. Anyone who has been torn
away from the plough, from the familiar gray landscapes, and cast into this
slough, full of monstrous lights, of unceasing uproar and hurrying people, is
bound to think.
It
is a long time since Iona and his nag have budged. They came out of
the yard before dinnertime and not a single fare yet. But
now the shades of evening are falling on the town. The pale light of the street
lamps changes to a vivid color, and the bustle of the street grows noisier.
"Sledge
to Vyborgskaya!" Iona hears. "Sledge!"
Iona
starts, and through his snow-plastered eyelashes sees an officer in a military
overcoat with a hood over his head.
"To
Vyborgskaya," repeats the officer. "Are you asleep? To
Vyborgskaya!"
In
token of assent Iona gives a tug at the reins which sends cakes of snow flying
from the horse's back and shoulders. The officer gets into the sledge. The
sledge-driver clicks to the horse, cranes his neck like a swan, rises in his
seat, and more from habit than necessity brandishes his whip. The mare cranes
her neck, too, crooks her stick-like legs, and hesitatingly sets off. . . .
"Where
are you shoving, you devil?" Iona immediately hears shouts from the dark
mass shifting to and fro before him. "Where the devil are you going? Keep
to the r-right!"
"You
don't know how to drive! Keep to the right," says the officer angrily.
A
coachman driving a carriage swears at him; a pedestrian crossing the road and
brushing the horse's nose with his shoulder looks at him angrily and shakes the
snow off his sleeve. Iona fidgets on the box as though he were sitting on
thorns, jerks his elbows, and turns his eyes about like one possessed as though
he did not know where he was or why he was there.
"What
rascals they all are!" says the officer jocosely. "They are simply
doing their best to run up against you or fall under the horse's feet. They
must be doing it on purpose."
Iona
looks as his fare and moves his lips. . . . Apparently he means to say
something, but nothing comes but a sniff.
"What?"
inquires the officer.
Iona
gives a wry smile, and straining his throat, brings out huskily: "My son .
. . er . . . my son died this week, sir."
"H'm!
What did he die of?"
Iona
turns his whole body round to his fare, and says:
"Who
can tell! It must have been from fever. . . . He lay three days in the hospital
and then he died. . . . God's will."
"Turn
round, you devil!" comes out of the darkness. "Have you gone cracked,
you old dog? Look where you are going!"
"Drive
on! drive on! . . ." says the officer. "We shan't get there till
to-morrow going on like this. Hurry up!"
The
sledge-driver cranes his neck again, rises in his seat, and with heavy grace
swings his whip. Several times he looks round at the officer, but the latter
keeps his eyes shut and is apparently disinclined to listen. Putting his fare
down at Vyborgskaya, Iona stops by a restaurant, and again sits huddled up on
the box. . . . Again the wet snow paints him and his horse white. One hour
passes, and then another. . . .
Three
young men, two tall and thin, one short and hunchbacked, come up, railing at
each other and loudly stamping on the pavement with their goloshes.
"Cabby,
to the Police Bridge!" the hunchback cries in a cracked voice.
"The three of us, . . . twenty kopecks!"
Iona
tugs at the reins and clicks to his horse. Twenty kopecks is not a fair price,
but he has no thoughts for that. Whether it is a rouble or whether it is five
kopecks does not matter to him now so long as he has a fare. . . . The three
young men, shoving each other and using bad language, go up to the sledge, and
all three try to sit down at once. The question remains to be settled: Which
are to sit down and which one is to stand? After a long altercation,
ill-temper, and abuse, they come to the conclusion that the hunchback must
stand because he is the shortest.
"Well,
drive on," says the hunchback in his cracked voice, settling himself and
breathing down Iona's neck. "Cut along! What a cap you've got, my friend!
You wouldn't find a worse one in all Petersburg. . . ."
"He-he!
. . . he-he! . . ." laughs Iona. "It's nothing to boast of!"
"Well,
then, nothing to boast of, drive on! Are you going to drive like this all the
way? Eh? Shall I give you one in the neck?"
"My
head aches," says one of the tall ones. "At the Dukmasovs' yesterday
Vaska and I drank four bottles of brandy between us."
"I
can't make out why you talk such stuff," says the other tall one angrily.
"You lie like a brute."
"Strike
me dead, it's the truth! . . ."
"It's
about as true as that a louse coughs."
"He-he!"
grins Iona. "Me-er-ry gentlemen!"
"Tfoo!
the devil take you!" cries the hunchback indignantly. "Will you get
on, you old plague, or won't you? Is that the way to drive? Give her one with
the whip. Hang it all, give it her well."
Iona
feels behind his back the jolting person and quivering voice of the hunchback.
He hears abuse addressed to him, he sees people, and the feeling of loneliness
begins little by little to be less heavy on his heart. The hunchback swears at
him, till he chokes over some elaborately whimsical string of epithets and is
overpowered by his cough. His tall companions begin talking of a certain Nadyezhda
Petrovna. Iona looks round at them. Waiting till there is a brief pause, he
looks round once more and says:
"This
week . . . er. . . my. . . er. . . son died!"
"We
shall all die, . . ." says the hunchback with a sigh, wiping his lips
after coughing. "Come, drive on! drive on! My friends, I simply cannot
stand crawling like this! When will he get us there?"
"Well,
you give him a little encouragement . . . one in the neck!"
"Do
you hear, you old plague? I'll make you smart. If one stands on ceremony with
fellows like you one may as well walk. Do you hear, you old dragon? Or
don't you care a hang what we say? "
And
Iona hears rather than feels a slap on the back of his neck.
"He-he!
. . . " he laughs. "Merry gentlemen . . . . God give you
health!"
"Cabman,
are you married?" asks one of the tall ones.
"I?
He he! Me-er-ry gentlemen. The only wife for me now is the damp earth. . . .
He-ho-ho!. . . .The grave that is! . . . Here my son's dead and I am alive. . .
. It's a strange thing, death has come in at the wrong door. . . . Instead of
coming for me it went for my son. . . ."
And
Iona turns round to tell them how his son died, but at that point the hunchback
gives a faint sigh and announces that, thank God! they have arrived at last.
After taking his twenty kopecks, Iona gazes for a long while after the
revelers, who disappear into a dark entry. Again he is alone and again there is
silence for him. . . . The misery which has been for a brief space eased comes
back again and tears his heart more cruelly than ever. With a look of anxiety
and suffering Iona's eyes stray restlessly among the crowds moving to and fro
on both sides of the street: can he not find among those thousands someone who
will listen to him? But the crowds flit by heedless of him and his misery. . .
. His misery is immense, beyond all bounds. If Iona's heart were to burst and
his misery to flow out, it would flood the whole world, it seems, but yet it is
not seen. It has found a hiding-place in such an insignificant shell that one
would not have found it with a candle by daylight. . . .
Iona
sees a house-porter with a parcel and makes up his mind to address him.
"What
time will it be, friend?" he asks.
"Going
on for ten. . . . Why have you stopped here? Drive on!"
Iona
drives a few paces away, bends himself double, and gives himself up to his
misery. He feels it is no good to appeal to people. But before five minutes
have passed he draws himself up, shakes his head as though he feels a sharp
pain, and tugs at the reins. . . . He can bear it no longer.
"Back
to the yard!" he thinks. "To the yard!"
And
his little mare, as though she knew his thoughts, falls to trotting. An hour
and a half later Iona is sitting by a big dirty stove. On the stove, on the
floor, and on the benches are people snoring. The air is full of
smells and stuffiness. Iona looks at the sleeping figures, scratches himself,
and regrets that he has come home so early. . . .
"I
have not earned enough to pay for the oats, even," he thinks. "That's
why I am so miserable. A man who knows how to do his work, . . . who has had
enough to eat, and whose horse has had enough to eat, is always at ease. . .
."
In
one of the corners a young cabman gets up, clears his throat sleepily, and
makes for the water-bucket.
"Want
a drink?" Iona asks him.
"Seems
so."
"May
it do you good. . . . But my son is dead, mate. . . . Do you hear? This week in
the hospital. . . . It's a queer business. . . ."
Iona
looks to see the effect produced by his words, but he sees nothing. The young
man has covered his head over and is already asleep. The old man sighs and
scratches himself. . . . Just as the young man had been thirsty for water, he
thirsts for speech. His son will soon have been dead a week, and he has not
really talked to anybody yet . . . . He wants to talk of it properly, with
deliberation. . . . He wants to tell how his son was taken ill, how he
suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. . . . He wants to describe
the funeral, and how he went to the hospital to get his son's clothes. He still
has his daughter Anisya in the country. . . . And he wants to talk about her
too. . . . Yes, he has plenty to talk about now. His listener ought to sigh and
exclaim and lament. . . . It would be even better to talk to women. Though they
are silly creatures, they blubber at the first word.
"Let's
go out and have a look at the mare," Iona thinks. "There is always
time for sleep. . . . You'll have sleep enough, no fear. . . ."
He
puts on his coat and goes into the stables where his mare is standing. He
thinks about oats, about hay, about the weather. . . . He cannot think about
his son when he is alone. . . . To talk about him with someone is possible, but
to think of him and picture him is insufferable anguish. . . .
"Are
you munching?" Iona asks his mare, seeing her shining eyes. "There,
munch away, munch away. . . . Since we have not earned enough for oats, we will
eat hay. . . . Yes, . . . I have grown too old to drive. . . . My son ought to
be driving, not I. . . . He was a real cabman. . . . He ought to have lived. .
. ."
Iona
is silent for a while, and then he goes on:
"That's
how it is, old girl. . . . Kuzma Ionitch is gone. . . . He said good-by to me.
. . . He went and died for no reason. . . . Now, suppose you had a little colt,
and you were own mother to that little colt. . . . And all at once that same
little colt went and died. . . . You'd be sorry, wouldn't you? . . ."
The
little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master's hands. Iona is
carried away and tells her all about it.
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