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

waited to see her out of the house; then I watched her get into
her carriage or mount her horse and ride out of the yard. I felt
that there was something wrong with me, and was afraid the
expression of my eyes or my face might betray me. I looked after
my wife and then watched for her to come back that I might see
again from the window her face, her shoulders, her fur coat, her
hat. I felt dreary, sad, infinitely regretful, and felt inclined
in her absence to walk through her rooms, and longed that the
problem that my wife and I had not been able to solve because our
characters were incompatible, should solve itself in the natural
way as soon as possible -- that is, that this beautiful woman of
twenty-seven might make haste and grow old, and that my head
might be grey and bald.

One day at lunch my bailiff informed me that the Pestrovo
peasants had begun to pull the thatch off the roofs to feed their
cattle. Marya Gerasimovna looked at me in alarm and perplexity.

"What can I do?" I said to her. "One cannot fight single-handed,
and I have never experienced such loneliness as I do now. I would
give a great deal to find one man in the whole province on whom I
could rely."

"Invite Ivan Ivanitch," said Marya Gerasimovna.

"To be sure!" I thought, delighted. "That is an idea! _C'est
raison_," I hummed, going to my study to write to Ivan Ivanitch.
"_C'est raison, c'est raison_."

II

Of all the mass of acquaintances who, in this house twenty-five
to thirty-five years ago, had eaten, drunk, masqueraded, fallen
in love, married bored us with accounts of their splendid packs
of hounds and horses, the only one still living was Ivan Ivanitch
Bragin. At one time he had been very active, talkative, noisy,
and given to falling in love, and had been famous for his extreme
views and for the peculiar charm of his face, which fascinated
men as well as women; now he was an old man, had grown corpulent,
and was living out his days with neither 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."