The Tales of Chekhov, vol 5 | Page 6

views nor charm. He came the day after getting my letter, in the
evening just as the samovar was brought into the dining-room and little
Marya Gerasimovna had begun slicing the lemon.
"I am very glad to see you, my dear fellow," I said gaily, meeting him.
"Why, you are stouter than ever. . . ."
"It isn't getting stout; it's swelling," he answered. "The bees must have
stung me."
With the familiarity of a man laughing at his own fatness, he put his
arms round my waist and laid on my breast his big soft head, with the
hair combed down on the forehead like a Little Russian's, and went off
into a thin, aged laugh.
"And you go on getting younger," he said through his laugh. "I wonder
what dye you use for your hair and beard; you might let me have some
of it." Sniffing and gasping, he embraced me and kissed me on the
cheek. "You might give me some of it," he repeated. "Why, you are not
forty, are you?"
"Alas, I am forty-six!" I said, laughing.
Ivan Ivanitch smelt of tallow candles and cooking, and that suited him.
His big, puffy, slow-moving body was swathed in a long frock-coat
like a coachman's full coat, with a high waist, and with hooks and eyes
instead of buttons, and it would have been strange if he had smelt of
eau-de-Cologne, for instance. In his long, unshaven, bluish double chin,
which looked like a thistle, his goggle eyes, his shortness of breath, and
in the whole of his clumsy, slovenly figure, in his voice, his laugh, and
his words, it was difficult to recognize the graceful, interesting talker
who used in old days to make the husbands of the district jealous on

account of their wives.
"I am in great need of your assistance, my friend," I said, when we
were sitting in the dining-room, drinking tea. "I want to organize relief
for the starving peasants, and I don't know how to set about it. So
perhaps you will be so kind as to advise me."
"Yes, yes, yes," said Ivan Ivanitch, sighing. "To be sure, to be sure, to
be sure. . . ."
"I would not have worried you, my dear fellow, but really there is no
one here but you I can appeal to. You know what people are like about
here."
"To be sure, to be sure, to be sure. . . . Yes."
I thought that as we were going to have a serious, business consultation
in which any one might take part, regardless of their position or
personal relations, why should I not invite Natalya Gavrilovna.
"Tres faciunt collegium," I said gaily. "What if we were to ask Natalya
Gavrilovna? What do you think? Fenya," I said, turning to the maid,
"ask Natalya Gavrilovna to come upstairs to us, if possible at once. Tell
her it's a very important matter."
A little later Natalya Gavrilovna came in. I got up to meet her and said:
"Excuse us for troubling you, Natalie. We are discussing a very
important matter, and we had the happy thought that we might take
advantage of your good advice, which you will not refuse to give us.
Please sit down."
Ivan Ivanitch kissed her hand while she kissed his forehead; then, when
we all sat down to the table, he, looking at her tearfully and blissfully,
craned forward to her and kissed her hand again. She was dressed in
black, her hair was carefully arranged, and she smelt of fresh scent. She
had evidently dressed to go out or was expecting somebody. Coming
into the dining-room, she held out her hand to me with simple
friendliness, and smiled to me as graciously as she did to Ivan Ivanitch
-- that pleased me; but as she talked she moved her fingers, often and
abruptly leaned back in her chair and talked rapidly, and this jerkiness
in her words and movements irritated me and reminded me of her
native town -- Odessa, where the society, men and women alike, had
wearied me by its bad taste.
"I want to do something for the famine-stricken peasants," I began, and
after a brief pause I went on: " Money, of course, is a great thing, but to

confine oneself to subscribing money, and with that to be satisfied,
would be evading the worst of the trouble. Help must take the form of
money, but the most important thing is a proper and sound organization.
Let us think it over, my friends, and do something."
Natalya Gavrilovna looked at me inquiringly and shrugged her
shoulders as though to say, "What do I know about it?"
"Yes, yes, famine . . ." muttered Ivan Ivanitch. "Certainly . . . yes."
"It's a serious position," I