Page 139 - Arrow Publications Pvt. Ltd.

After eating a summer soup, cold as ice, he lay on his back on the sand in the garden under

a tree… . His little boy and girl are crawling about near him, digging in the sand or catching
ladybirds in the grass. He dozes sweetly, thinking of nothing, and feeling all over that he
need not go to the office today, tomorrow or

the day after. Or, tired of lying still, he goes
to the field or to the forest or watches the
peasants catching fish with a net. When the

sun sets, he takes a towel, soap and goes for a
leisurely bath. After bathing, there is tea with
cream and milk rolls.

In the evening, a walk with the neighbours.

“Yes, it would be nice to buy an estate,” said
his wife also dreaming, and from her face it
was evident that she was enchanted by her
thoughts.

Ivan Dwitritch pictured to himself autumn

with its rains, its cold evenings, and its St. Martin’s summer. The St. Martin’s summer is
followed by cloudy, gloomy weather. It rains day and night. There is nowhere to walk; one
can’t go out for days together. It is dreary!

Ivan Dmitritch looked at his wife and said, “I should go abroad, you know, Masha”. “I should

certainly go abroad too,” his wife said. “But look at the number of the ticket!”
Ivan Dmitritch glanced quickly at the fourth page in the newspaper and read out:

“Series 9,499, number 46! Not 26!”

Hope disappeared at once, and it began immediately to seem to Ivan Dmitritch and his wife,

that their rooms were dark and small and low-pitched, that the supper they had been eating
was not good, but lying heavily on their stomachs, that the
evenings were long and wearisome… .

What the devil’s the meaning of it?” said Ivan Dmitritch,
beginning to be ill-humoured.

“Wherever one steps there are bits of paper, under one’s
feet, crumbs, husks. The rooms are never swept! One soul
simply forced to go out. Damnation take my soul entirely! I
shall go, and hang myself on the first aspen-tree!”

—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

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