‘That’s enough, deacon! What sort of conquerors do you think Layevsky and I are? Conquerors look down like eagles from their heights, but he’s pathetic, timid, downtrodden and he bows like a Chinese dummy… I feel very sad.’
They heard footsteps behind them. Layevsky wanted to see von Koren off and was trying to catch them up. The batman stood on the quayside with the two suitcases and a little way off were four oarsmen.
‘It’s really blowing hard… brrrrr!’ Samoylenko said. ‘There must be a real gale out there. Oh dear! You’ve picked a fine time to leave, Nikolay!’
‘I’m not scared of seasickness.’
‘I don’t mean that. I only hope those idiots don’t have you in the water. You should have taken the agent’s boat. Where is the agent’s boat?’ he shouted to the oarsmen.
‘It’s gone, General.’
‘And the Customs boat?’
‘She’s gone too.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me?’ Samoylenko said furiously. ‘Blockheads!’
‘It doesn’t matter, don’t let it upset you,’ von Koren said. ‘Well, goodbye, God protect you.’
Samoylenko embraced von Koren and made the sign of the cross over him three times.
‘Now don’t forget us, Nikolay… write… we’ll expect you in the spring.’
‘Goodbye, deacon,’ von Koren said, shaking his hand. ‘Thanks for your company and all the excellent conversations. Think about the expedition.’
‘Yes, even to the very ends of the earth!’ the deacon laughed. ‘I didn’t say no, did I?’
Von Koren recognized Layevsky in the dark and silently offered him his hand. The oarsmen were already down below holding the boat which banged against the wooden piles, although the pier offered protection from the main swell. Von Koren went down the ladder, leapt into the boat and sat by the rudder.
‘Do write!’ Samoylenko shouted. ‘And look after yourself!’
‘No one knows the real truth,’ Layevsky thought, raising his collar and stuffing his hands into his sleeves.
The boat jauntily rounded the quay and went out into the open sea. It disappeared among the waves, then immediately rose up from a deep trough to the crest of a high wave, so that the men and even the oars were visible. For every eighteen feet the boat moved forward, she was thrown back twelve.
‘Write!’ Samoylenko shouted. ‘What the hell possessed you to travel in this weather!’
‘Yes, no one knows the real truth…’ Layevsky thought, dejectedly surveying the restless, dark sea.
‘The boat’s tossed back,’ he thought; ‘it makes two movements forward and one back, but the oarsmen don’t give up, they swing the oars tirelessly and have no fear of the high waves. The boat moves on and on, now it’s disappeared from view. In half an hour the rowers will be able to see the ship’s lights clearly and within an hour they’ll be alongside the ladder. Life is like that… As they search for truth people take two paces forward and one back. Suffering, mistakes and life’s tedium throw them back, but thirst for the truth and stubborn willpower drive them on and on. And who knows? Perhaps they’ll arrive at the real truth in the end.’
‘Goodbye!’ shouted Samoylenko.
‘No sight or sound of them now,’ the deacon said. ‘Safe journey!’
It began to drizzle.
PUBLISHING HISTORY AND NOTES
The Steppe
First published in the Northern Herald in 1888, ‘The Steppe’ marked a turning-point in Chekhov’s career and his debut in the ‘thick journals’, to which he attached great importance. Grigorovich27 had encouraged Chekhov to abandon ‘trivial, rushed stories’ (letter of 25 March 1886), and to do himself justice by writing longer, more substantial work. It was in this letter of encouragement that Grigorovich first expressed his very high hopes for Chekhov. At the time Chekhov wrote to Leontyev-Shcheglov,28 ‘The thought that I’m writing for a thick journal and that my trifle will be considered more seriously than is warranted prods my elbow like the devil a monk’ (1 January 1888). And to Grigorovich, ‘Whether it’s a success or not, at all events I know it’s my masterpiece. I can’t manage anything better’ (5 February 1888). And: ‘I know that in the next world Gogol will be angry with me. He’s Tsar of the Steppes in our literature. I’ve sneaked into his domain, with every good intention, but I’ve written a good deal of nonsense.’
Earlier, in 1887, Chekhov had written to Suvorin (10 February), ‘In order not to dry up I’m going south at the end of March, to the Don regions, Voronezh and other places where I’ll meet the spring and renew in my memory what has already begun to grow dim.’ What had already begun to grow dim were the memories of childhood trips to the steppe to visit his grandfather. These memories are reflected and find lyrical expression in ‘The Steppe’. After completing the story he writes, ‘While I was writing I felt there was a smell of summer and steppe around me…’ (letter to Pleshcheyev29 of 3 February 1888) and he stresses that writing the story gave him great joy.
1. Lady of Kazan: In 1579 a young girl allegedly discovered the Kazan Icon of the Virgin in the ground. The event was annually celebrated after 1595 on 8 July.
2. Lomonosov: M. V. Lomonosov (1711–65), scientist, poet, grammarian. Son of a fisherman, he ran away to Moscow at the age of seventeen and subsequently became one of Russia’s leading scientists and men of letters. Here he is being held up as a model for Yegorushka. Lomonosov is also mentioned as exemplar for the young Gorky in My Universities (1922; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979).
3. ‘Puer bone, quam appellaris?’… ‘Christophorus sum.’: ‘Good boy, what’s your name?’ ‘Christophor’.
4. ‘And the Cherubim’: Ezekiel 10:19.
5. Two-headed eagle: Emblem of Imperial Russia.
6. Molokans: Dissenting sect, possibly so-called from their habit of drinking milk on fast-days. A hard-working people, highly successful in business and farming.
7. Chernigov: Ukrainian town about seventy-five miles from Kiev, situated on the River Desna, a tributary of the Dnieper.
8. ancient barrows: These barrows or tumuli were left by the Scythians, an Indo-European people who lived to the north of the Black Sea, in the Lower Don and Dnieper regions, from approximately 8th to 3rd century BC.
9. Ilya Muromets or Solovey the Robber: Russian folk heroes.
10. bast shoes: Peasant shoes or sandals made from inner bark of lime tree.
11. Slavyanoserbsk: Large town near North Donets River founded by the Serbs in 1753. Originally named Podgornoye, it was relocated because of floods in 1817 and renamed.
12. Tim: Small town in Kursk province on River Tim, in Don river basin.
13. St Barbara: Died c. 235. Patron saint of artillerymen, gunners and miners. Martyred under Maximinus Thrax.
14. Lugansk: Town in the Ukraine, north of Taganrog.
15. Donets: River of south-central Russia, rising in the Kursk steppes and flowing into the Don.
16. tussore: A strong coarse light-brown silk made in India.
17. Vyazma: Large town about 150 miles west of Moscow, famous for its gingerbread.
18. Oryol: Large town 200 miles south of Moscow, on the River Oka’ founded as fortified town against the Crimean Tatars in 1564. Birthplace of Turgenev.