Free Forty Stories by ANTON CHEKHOV Page B

blue-eyed girl, but we were not in love with her. She was dear and precious to us, and Green Scythe would have been unbearable without her. This charming creature stood out against a charming landscape—I am myself little enamored of landscapes without human figures in them. The whisper of the waves and the rustling of the leaves were pretty enough in themselves, but when Olya sang soprano to a piano accompaniment and our own basses and tenors, then the sea and the garden became an earthly Paradise. We loved the little princess, for it was impossible not to love her. We called her the daughter of our regiment. And Olya in turn loved us,gravitating towards us, her male companions, feeling in her natural element only when she was with us. Our little band consisted of house guests, summer visitors, and some of the neighbors. Among the house guests were Doctor Yakovkin, the journalist Mukhin from Odessa, Fiveysky the former physics instructor, now a professor, three students, the artist Chekhov, a Kharkov baron who practiced law, and myself. (I had been Olya’s tutor—I taught her to speak bad German and how to catch goldfinches.)
    Every May we descended upon Green Scythe, taking over all the spare rooms and wings of the medieval castle for the entire summer. Every March we received two letters inviting us to stay at the house—one letter was stern and pompous, full of reprimands: this one came from the Princess. The other one was very long and gay and full of madcap projects: this came from her daughter, who found time hanging heavy on her hands in our absence. So we would come and stay until September. Then there were the neighbors who joined us every day. Among them were the retired lieutenant of artillery Yegorov, a young man who had twice taken the entrance examination for the Military Academy and had twice failed, a personable and cultivated fellow; and then Korobov, the medical student, and his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna; also Aleutov, a landowner; also a considerable number of landowners, some active, some retired, some gay, some dull, some good-for-nothings, some dregs from the vat. All summer long, all day and all night, these people drank and ate and played and sang and set off fireworks and quips. Olya was passionately fond of them. She shouted happily and whirled around and made more noise than any of us. She was the heart and soul of the company.
    Every evening the Princess summoned us to her drawing room, and purple with anger, she would scold us for our “unconscionable behavior,” putting us to shame, as she declared that she had a splitting headache and it was all our fault. She loved to reprimand us. Her reprimands were utterly sincere, and shedeeply believed that they were delivered for our benefit. She was harder on Olya than on anyone else. It was the Princess’s belief that Olya was the most deserving of punishment. Olya was afraid of her mother. She idolized her, and would stand quite still, silent and blushing, while her mother lectured her. The Princess regarded Olya as a child. She even made her stand in a corner and go without lunch and dinner. Interceding for Olya would only have poured oil on the flames. If it had been possible, the Princess would have put us in the corner, too. She made us attend vespers, commanded us to read the Lives of the Martyrs, counted each article of our laundry, and interfered in all our affairs. We were always being sent to fetch and carry for her, and we were always losing her scissors, smelling salts, and thimbles.
    “Clumsy fool!” she would say. “You made me drop it when you came blundering along, and now you won’t even pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up this moment! God sent you to punish me! You are in the way!”
    Sometimes we would commit small crimes for fun. Inevitably we would be brought before the old lady for an interrogation.
    “So it is you who stepped on my flower bed?” the judge would say. “How dare you?…”
    “It was only an