The Bet and Other Stories
Copyright© 2024 by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Old Age
State-Councillor Usielkov, architect, arrived in his native town, where he had been summoned to restore the cemetery church. He was born in the town, he had grown up and been married there, and yet when he got out of the train he hardly recognised it. Everything was changed. For instance, eighteen years ago, when he left the town to settle in Petersburg, where the railway station is now boys used to hunt for marmots: now as you come into the High Street there is a four storied “Hotel Vienna,” with apartments, where there was of old an ugly grey fence. But not the fence or the houses, or anything had changed so much as the people. Questioning the hall-porter, Usielkov discovered that more than half of the people he remembered were dead or paupers or forgotten.
“Do you remember Usielkov?” he asked the porter. “Usielkov, the architect, who divorced his wife ... He had a house in Sviribev Street ... Surely you remember.”
“No, I don’t remember anyone of the name.”
“Why, it’s impossible not to remember. It was an exciting case. All the cabmen knew, even. Try to remember. His divorce was managed by the attorney, Shapkin, the swindler ... the notorious sharper, the man who was thrashed at the club...”
“You mean Ivan Nicolaich?”
“Yes ... Is he alive? dead?”
“Thank heaven, his honour’s alive. His honour’s a notary now, with an office. Well-to-do. Two houses in Kirpichny Street. Just lately married his daughter off.”
Usielkov strode from one corner of the room to another. An idea flashed into his mind. From boredom, he decided to see Shapkin. It was afternoon when he left the hotel and quietly walked to Kirpichny Street. He found Shapkin in his office and hardly recognised him. From the well-built, alert attorney with a quick, impudent, perpetually tipsy expression, Shapkin had become a modest, grey-haired, shrunken old man.
“You don’t recognise me ... You have forgotten...” Usielkov began. “I’m your old client, Usielkov.”
“Usielkov? Which Usielkov? Ah!” Remembrance came to Shapkin: he recognised him and was confused. Began exclamations, questions, recollections.
“Never expected ... never thought...” chuckled Shapkin. “What will you have? Would you like champagne? Perhaps you’d like oysters. My dear man, what a lot of money I got out of you in the old days—so much that I can’t think what I ought to stand you.”
“Please don’t trouble,” said Usielkov. “I haven’t time. I must go to the cemetery and examine the church. I have a commission.”
“Splendid. We’ll have something to eat and a drink and go together. I’ve got some splendid horses! I’ll take you there and introduce you to the churchwarden ... I’ll fix up everything ... But what’s the matter, my dearest man? You’re not avoiding me, not afraid? Please sit nearer. There’s nothing to be afraid of now ... Long ago, I really was pretty sharp, a bit of a rogue ... but now I’m quieter than water, humbler than grass. I’ve grown old; got a family. There are children ... Time to die!”
The friends had something to eat and drink, and went in a coach and pair to the cemetery.
“Yes, it was a good time,” Shapkin was reminiscent, sitting in the sledge. “I remember, but I simply can’t believe it. Do you remember how you divorced your wife? It’s almost twenty years ago, and you’ve probably forgotten everything, but I remember it as though I conducted the petition yesterday. My God, how rotten I was! Then I was a smart, casuistical devil, full of sharp practice and devilry ... and I used to run into some shady affairs, particularly when there was a good fee, as in your case, for instance. What was it you paid me then? Five—six hundred. Enough to upset anybody! By the time you left for Petersburg you’d left the whole affair completely in my hands. ‘Do what you like!’ And your former wife, Sophia Mikhailovna, though she did come from a merchant family, was proud and selfish. To bribe her to take the guilt on herself was difficult—extremely difficult. I used to come to her for a business talk, and when she saw me, she would say to her maid: ‘Masha, surely I told you I wasn’t at home to scoundrels.’ I tried one way, then another ... wrote letters to her, tried to meet her accidentally—no good. I had to work through a third person. For a long time I had trouble with her, and she only yielded when you agreed to give her ten thousand. She could not stand out against ten thousand. She succumbed ... She began to weep, spat in my face, but she yielded and took the guilt on herself.”
“If I remember it was fifteen, not ten thousand she took from me,” said Usielkov.