IN the year in which my story begins I had a job at a little station on
one of our southwestern railways. Whether I had a gay or a dull life
at the station you can judge from the fact that for fifteen miles
round there was not one human habitation, not one woman, not one decent
tavern; and in those days I was young, strong, hot-headed, giddy, and
foolish. The only distraction I could possibly find was in the windows
of the passenger trains, and in the vile vodka which the Jews drugged
with thorn-apple. Sometimes there would be a glimpse of a woman’s
head at a carriage window, and one would stand like a statue without
breathing and stare at it until the train turned into an almost
invisible speck; or one would drink all one could of the loathsome vodka
till one was stupefied and did not feel the passing of the long hours
and days. Upon me, a native of the north, the steppe produced the
effect of a deserted Tatar cemetery. In the summer the steppe with its
solemn calm, the monotonous chur of the grasshoppers, the transparent
moonlight from which one could not hide, reduced me to listless
melancholy; and in the winter the irreproachable whiteness of the
steppe, its cold distance, long nights, and howling wolves oppressed me
like a heavy nightmare. There were several people living at the
station: my wife and I, a deaf and scrofulous telegraph clerk, and three
watchmen. My assistant, a young man who was in consumption, used to go
for treatment to the town, where he stayed for months at a time, leaving
his duties to me together with the right of pocketing his salary. I had
no children, no cake would have tempted visitors to come and see me, and
I could only visit other officials on the line, and that no oftener than
once a month.
I remember my wife and I saw the New Year in. We sat at table, chewed
lazily, and heard the deaf telegraph clerk monotonously tapping on his
apparatus in the next room. I had already drunk five glasses of
drugged vodka, and, propping my heavy head on my fist, thought of my
overpowering boredom from which there was no escape, while my wife sat
beside me and did not take her eyes off me. She looked at me as no
one can look but a woman who has nothing in this world but a handsome
husband. She loved me madly, slavishly, and not merely my good looks,
or my soul, but my sins, my ill-humor and boredom, and even my cruelty
when, in drunken fury, not knowing how to vent my ill-humor, I tormented
her with reproaches.
In spite of the boredom which was consuming me, we were preparing to see
the New Year in with exceptional festiveness, and were awaiting midnight
with some impatience. The fact is, we had in reserve two bottles of
champagne, the real thing, with the label of Veuve Clicquot; this
treasure I had won the previous autumn in a bet with the station-master
of D. when I was drinking with him at a christening. It sometimes
happens during a lesson in mathematics, when the very air is still with
boredom, a butterfly flutters into the class-room; the boys toss their
heads and begin watching its flight with interest, as though they saw
before them not a butterfly but something new and strange; in the same
way ordinary champagne, chancing to come into our dreary station,
roused us. We sat in silence looking alternately at the clock and at the
bottles.
When the hands pointed to five minutes to twelve I slowly began
uncorking a bottle. I don’t know whether I was affected by the vodka,
or whether the bottle was wet, but all I remember is that when the cork
flew up to the ceiling with a bang, my bottle slipped out of my hands
and fell on the floor. Not more than a glass of the wine was spilt, as I
managed to catch the bottle and put my thumb over the foaming neck.
“Well, may the New Year bring you happiness!” I said, filling two
glasses. “Drink!”
My wife took her glass and fixed her frightened eyes on me. Her face was
pale and wore a look of horror.
“Did you drop the bottle?” she asked.
“Yes. But what of that?”
“It’s unlucky,” she said, putting down her glass and turning paler
still. “It’s a bad omen. It means that some misfortune will happen to us
this year.”
“What a silly thing you are,” I sighed. “You are a clever woman, and yet
you talk as much nonsense as an old nurse. Drink.”
“God grant it is nonsense, but... something is sure to happen! You’ll
see.”
She did not even sip her glass, she moved away and sank into thought.
I uttered a few stale commonplaces about superstition, drank half a
bottle, paced up and down, and then went out of the room.
Outside there was the still frosty night in all its cold, inhospitable
beauty. The moon and two white fluffy clouds beside it hung just over
the station, motionless as though glued to the spot, and looked as
though waiting for something. A faint transparent light came from them
and touched the white earth softly, as though afraid of wounding
her modesty, and lighted up everything--the snowdrifts, the
embankment.... It was still.