The Tales of Chekhov, vol 9 | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by James Rusk

THE TALES OF CHEKHOV, VOLUME 9
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES
CONTENTS
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN MISERY
CHAMPAGNE AFTER THE THEATRE A LADY'S STORY IN
EXILE THE CATTLE-DEALERS SORROW ON OFFICIAL DUTY
THE FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER A TRAGIC ACTOR A
TRANSGRESSION SMALL FRY THE REQUIEM IN THE
COACH-HOUSE PANIC FEARS THE BET THE
HEAD-GARDENER'S STORY THE BEAUTIES THE SHOEMAKER
AND THE DEVIL

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS
AT half-past eight they drove out of the town.
The highroad was dry, a lovely April sun was shining warmly, but the
snow was still lying in the ditches and in the woods. Winter, dark, long,
and spiteful, was hardly over; spring had come all of a sudden. But
neither the warmth nor the languid transparent woods, warmed by the
breath of spring, nor the black flocks of birds flying over the huge
puddles that were like lakes, nor the marvelous fathomless sky, into
which it seemed one would have gone away so joyfully, presented
anything new or interesting to Marya Vassilyevna who was sitting in
the cart. For thirteen years she had been schoolmistress, and there was
no reckoning how many times during all those years she had been to
the town for her salary; and whether it were spring as now, or a rainy
autumn evening, or winter, it was all the same to her, and she always --
invariably -- longed for one thing only, to get to the end of her journey
as quickly as could be.
She felt as though she had been living in that part of the country for
ages and ages, for a hundred years, and it seemed to her that she knew
every stone, every tree on the road from the town to her school. Her
past was here, her present was here, and she could imagine no other
future than the school, the road to the town and back again, and again

the school and again the road. . . .
She had got out of the habit of thinking of her past before she became a
schoolmistress, and had almost forgotten it. She had once had a father
and mother; they had lived in Moscow in a big flat near the Red Gate,
but of all that life there was left in her memory only something vague
and fluid like a dream. Her father had died when she was ten years old,
and her mother had died soon after. . . . She had a brother, an officer; at
first they used to write to each other, then her brother had given up
answering her letters, he had got out of the way of writing. Of her old
belongings, all that was left was a photograph of her mother, but it had