"Checkov, Anton - The Wife And Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chekhov Anton)

A carriage with two lamps drove into the yard, then a big sledge
with three horses. My wife was evidently having a party.

Till midnight everything was quiet downstairs and I heard
nothing, but at midnight there was a sound of moving chairs and a
clatter of crockery. So there was supper. Then the chairs moved
again, and through the floor I heard a noise; they seemed to be
shouting hurrah. Marya Gerasimovna was already asleep and I was
quite alone in the whole upper storey; the portraits of my
forefathers, cruel, insignificant people, looked at me from the
walls of the drawing-room, and the reflection of my lamp in the
window winked unpleasantly. And with a feeling of jealousy and
envy for what was going on downstairs, I listened and thought: "I
am master here; if I like, I can in a moment turn out all that
fine crew." But I knew that all that was nonsense, that I could
not turn out any one, and the word "master" had no meaning. One
may think oneself master, married, rich, a kammer-junker, as much
as one likes, and at the same time not know what it means.

After supper some one downstairs began singing in a tenor voice.

"Why, nothing special has happened," I tried to persuade myself.
"Why am I so upset? I won't go downstairs tomorrow, that's all;
and that will be the end of our quarrel."

At a quarter past one I went to bed.

"Have the visitors downstairs gone?" I asked Alexey as he was
undressing me.

"Yes, sir, they've gone."

"And why were they shouting hurrah?"

"Alexey Dmitritch Mahonov subscribed for the famine fund a
thousand bushels of flour and a thousand roubles. And the old
lady -- I don't know her name -- promised to set up a soup
kitchen on her estate to feed a hundred and fifty people. Thank
God . . . Natalya Gavrilovna has been pleased to arrange that all
the gentry should assemble every Friday."

"To assemble here, downstairs?"

"Yes, sir. Before supper they read a list: since August up to
today Natalya Gavrilovna has collected eight thousand roubles,
besides corn. Thank God. . . . What I think is that if our
mistress does take trouble for the salvation of her soul, she
will soon collect a lot. There are plenty of rich people here."