Download PDF
ads:
Boys
Anton Chekhov
"VOLODYA'S come!" someone shouted in the yard.
"Master Volodya's here!" bawled Natalya the cook, running into the dining-room. "Oh, my
goodness!"
The whole Korolyov family, who had been expecting their Volodya from hour to hour,
rushed to the windows. At the front door stood a wide sledge, with three white horses in a
cloud of steam. The sledge was empty, for Volodya was already in the hall, untying his
hood with red and chilly fingers. His school overcoat, his cap, his snowboots, and the hair
on his temples were all white with frost, and his whole figure from head to foot diffused
such a pleasant, fresh smell of the snow that the very sight of him made one want to shiver
and say "brrr!"
His mother and aunt ran to kiss and hug him. Natalya plumped down at his feet and began
pulling off his snowboots, his sisters shrieked with delight, the doors creaked and banged,
and Volodya's father, in his waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, ran out into the hall with scissors in
his hand, and cried out in alarm:
"We were expecting you all yesterday? Did you come all right? Had a good journey? Mercy
on us! you might let him say 'how do you do' to his father! I am his father after all!"
"Bow-wow!" barked the huge black dog, Milord, in a deep bass, tapping with his tail on the
walls and furniture.
For two minutes there was nothing but a general hubbub of joy. After the first outburst of
delight was over the Korolyovs noticed that there was, besides their Volodya, another small
person in the hall, wrapped up in scarves and shawls and white with frost. He was standing
perfectly still in a corner, in the shadow of a big fox-lined overcoat.
"Volodya darling, who is it?" asked his mother, in a whisper.
"Oh!" cried Volodya." This is -- let me introduce my friend Lentilov, a schoolfellow in the
second class. . . . I have brought him to stay with us."
"Delighted to hear it! You are very welcome," the father said cordially. "Excuse me, I've
been at work without my coat. . . . Please come in! Natalya, help Mr. Lentilov off with his
things. Mercy on us, do turn that dog out! He is unendurable!"
A few minutes later, Volodya and his friend Lentilov, somewhat dazed by their noisy
welcome, and still red from the outside cold, were sitting down to tea. The winter sun,
making its way through the snow and the frozen tracery on the window-panes, gleamed on
the samovar, and plunged its pure rays in the tea-basin. The room was warm, and the boys
felt as though the warmth and the frost were struggling together with a tingling sensation in
their bodies.
ads:
Livros Grátis
http://www.livrosgratis.com.br
Milhares de livros grátis para download.
"Well, Christmas will soon be here," the father said in a pleasant sing-song voice, rolling a
cigarette of dark reddish tobacco. "It doesn't seem long since the summer, when mamma
was crying at your going . . . and here you are back again. . . . Time flies, my boy. Before
you have time to cry out, old age is upon you. Mr. Lentilov, take some more, please help
yourself! We don't stand on ceremony!"
Volodya's three sisters, Katya, Sonya, and Masha (the eldest was eleven), sat at the table
and never took their eyes off the newcomer.
Lentilov was of the same height and age as Volodya, but not as round-faced and fair-
skinned. He was thin, dark, and freckled; his hair stood up like a brush, his eyes were small,
and his lips were thick. He was, in fact, distinctly ugly, and if he had not been wearing the
school uniform, he might have been taken for the son of a cook. He seemed morose, did not
speak, and never once smiled. The little girls, staring at him, immediately came to the
conclusion that he must be a very clever and learned person. He seemed to be thinking
about something all the time, and was so absorbed in his own thoughts, that, whenever he
was spoken to, he started, threw his head back, and asked to have the question repeated.
The little girls noticed that Volodya, who had always been so merry and talkative, also said
very little, did not smile at all, and hardly seemed to be glad to be home. All the time they
were at tea he only once addressed his sisters, and then he said something so strange. He
pointed to the samovar and said:
"In California they don't drink tea, but gin."
He, too, seemed absorbed in his own thoughts, and, to judge by the looks that passed
between him and his friend Lentilov, their thoughts were the same.
After tea, they all went into the nursery. The girls and their father took up the work that had
been interrupted by the arrival of the boys. They were making flowers and frills for the
Christmas tree out of paper of different colours. It was an attractive and noisy occupation.
Every fresh flower was greeted by the little girls with shrieks of delight, even of awe, as
though the flower had dropped straight from heaven; their father was in ecstasies too, and
every now and then he threw the scissors on the floor, in vexation at their bluntness. Their
mother kept running into the nursery with an anxious face, asking:
"Who has taken my scissors? Ivan Nikolaitch, have you taken my scissors again?"
"Mercy on us! I'm not even allowed a pair of scissors!" their father would respond in a
lachrymose voice, and, flinging himself back in his chair, he would pretend to be a deeply
injured man; but a minute later, he would be in ecstasies again.
On his former holidays Volodya, too, had taken part in the preparations for the Christmas
tree, or had been running in the yard to look at the snow mountain that the watchman and
the shepherd were building. But this time Volodya and Lentilov took no notice whatever of
the coloured paper, and did not once go into the stable. They sat in the window and began
whispering to one another; then they opened an atlas and looked carefully at a map.
ads:
First to Perm . . . " Lentilov said, in an undertone, "from there to Tiumen, then Tomsk . . .
then . . . then . . . Kamchatka. There the Samoyedes take one over Behring's Straits in
boats . . . . And then we are in America. . . . There are lots of furry animals there. . . ."
"And California?" asked Volodya.
"California is lower down. . . . We've only to get to America and California is not far
off. . . . And one can get a living by hunting and plunder."
All day long Lentilov avoided the little girls, and seemed to look at them with suspicion. In
the evening he happened to be left alone with them for five minutes or so. It was awkward
to be silent.
He cleared his throat morosely, rubbed his left hand against his right, looked sullenly at
Katya and asked:
"Have you read Mayne Reid?"
"No, I haven't. . . . I say, can you skate?"
Absorbed in his own reflections, Lentilov made no reply to this question; he simply puffed
out his cheeks, and gave a long sigh as though he were very hot. He looked up at Katya
once more and said:
"When a herd of bisons stampedes across the prairie the earth trembles, and the frightened
mustangs kick and neigh."
He smiled impressively and added:
"And the Indians attack the trains, too. But worst of all are the mosquitoes and the
termites."
"Why, what's that?"
"They're something like ants, but with wings. They bite fearfully. Do you know who I am?"
"Mr. Lentilov."
"No, I am Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw, Chief of the Ever Victorious."
Masha, the youngest, looked at him, then into the darkness out of window and said,
wondering:
"And we had lentils for supper yesterday."
Lentilov's incomprehensible utterances, and the way he was always whispering with
Volodya, and the way Volodya seemed now to be always thinking about something instead
of playing . . . all this was strange and mysterious. And the two elder girls, Katya and
Sonya, began to keep a sharp look-out on the boys. At night, when the boys had gone to
bed, the girls crept to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were saying. Ah, what
they discovered! The boys were planning to run away to America to dig for gold: they had
everything ready for the journey, a pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve
instead of matches, a compass, and four roubles in cash. They learned that the boys would
have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight tigers and savages on the
road: then they would get gold and ivory, slay their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and
finally marry beautiful maidens, and make a plantation.
The boys interrupted each other in their excitement. Throughout the conversation, Lentilov
called himself "Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw," and Volodya was "my pale-face brother!"
"Mind you don't tell mamma," said Katya, as they went back to bed. "Volodya will bring us
gold and ivory from America, but if you tell mamma he won't be allowed to go."
The day before Christmas Eve, Lentilov spent the whole day poring over the map of Asia
and making notes, while Volodya, with a languid and swollen face that looked as though it
had been stung by a bee, walked about the rooms and ate nothing. And once he stood still
before the holy image in the nursery, crossed himself, and said:
"Lord, forgive me a sinner; Lord, have pity on my poor unhappy mamma!"
In the evening he burst out crying. On saying good-night he gave his father a long hug, and
then hugged his mother and sisters. Katya and Sonya knew what was the matter, but little
Masha was puzzled, completely puzzled. Every time she looked at Lentilov she grew
thoughtful and said with a sigh:
"When Lent comes, nurse says we shall have to eat peas and lentils."
Early in the morning of Christmas Eve, Katya and Sonya slipped quietly out of bed, and
went to find out how the boys meant to run away to America. They crept to their door.
"Then you don't mean to go?" Lentilov was saying angrily. "Speak out: aren't you going?"
"Oh dear," Volodya wept softly. "How can I go? I feel so unhappy about mamma."
"My pale-face brother, I pray you, let us set off. You declared you were going, you egged
me on, and now the time comes, you funk it!"
"I . . . I . . . I'm not funking it, but I . . . I . . . I'm sorry for mamma."
"Say once and for all, are you going or are you not?"
"I am going, only . . . wait a little . . . I want to be at home a little."
"In that case I will go by myself," Lentilov declared. "I can get on without you. And you
wanted to hunt tigers and fight! Since that's how it is, give me back my cartridges!"
At this Volodya cried so bitterly that his sisters could not help crying too. Silence followed.
"So you are not coming?" Lentilov began again.
"I . . . I . . . I am coming!"
"WeIl, put on your things, then."
And Lentilov tried to cheer Volodya up by singing the praises of America, growling like a
tiger, pretending to be a steamer, scolding him, and promising to give him all the ivory and
lions' and tigers' skins.
And this thin, dark boy, with his freckles and his bristling shock of hair, impressed the little
girls as an extraordinary remarkable person. He was a hero, a determined character, who
knew no fear, and he growled so ferociously, that, standing at the door, they really might
imagine there was a tiger or lion inside. When the little girls went back to their room and
dressed, Katya's eyes were full of tears, and she said:
"Oh, I feel so frightened!"
Everything was as usual till two o'clock, when they sat down to dinner. Then it appeared
that the boys were not in the house. They sent to the servants' quarters, to the stables, to the
bailiff's cottage. They were not to be found. They sent into the village -- they were not there.
At tea, too, the boys were still absent, and by supper-time Volodya's mother was dreadfully
uneasy, and even shed tears.
Late in the evening they sent again to the village, they searched everywhere, and walked
along the river bank with lanterns. Heavens! what a fuss there was!
Next day the police officer came, and a paper of some sort was written out in the dining-
room. Their mother cried. . . .
All of a sudden a sledge stopped at the door, with three white horses in a cloud of steam.
"Volodya's come," someone shouted in the yard.
"Master Volodya's here!" bawled Natalya, running into the dining-room. And Milord
barked his deep bass, "bow-wow."
It seemed that the boys had been stopped in the Arcade, where they had gone from shop to
shop asking where they could get gunpowder.
Volodya burst into sobs as soon as he came into the hall, and flung himself on his mother's
neck. The little girls, trembling, wondered with terror what would happen next. They saw
their father take Volodya and Lentilov into his study, and there he talked to them a long
while.
"Is this a proper thing to do?" their father said to them. "I only pray they won't hear of it at
school, you would both be expelled. You ought to be ashamed, Mr. Lentilov, really. It's not
at all the thing to do! You began it, and I hope you will be punished by your parents. How
could you? Where did you spend the night?"
"At the station," Lentilov answered proudly.
Then Volodya went to bed, and had a compress, steeped in vinegar, on his forehead.
A telegram was sent off, and next day a lady, Lentilov's mother, made her appearance and
bore off her son.
Lentilov looked morose and haughty to the end, and he did not utter a single word at taking
leave of the little girls. But he took Katya's book and wrote in it as a souvenir:
"Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw, Chief of the Ever Victorious."
Livros Grátis
( http://www.livrosgratis.com.br )
Milhares de Livros para Download:
Baixar livros de Administração
Baixar livros de Agronomia
Baixar livros de Arquitetura
Baixar livros de Artes
Baixar livros de Astronomia
Baixar livros de Biologia Geral
Baixar livros de Ciência da Computação
Baixar livros de Ciência da Informação
Baixar livros de Ciência Política
Baixar livros de Ciências da Saúde
Baixar livros de Comunicação
Baixar livros do Conselho Nacional de Educação - CNE
Baixar livros de Defesa civil
Baixar livros de Direito
Baixar livros de Direitos humanos
Baixar livros de Economia
Baixar livros de Economia Doméstica
Baixar livros de Educação
Baixar livros de Educação - Trânsito
Baixar livros de Educação Física
Baixar livros de Engenharia Aeroespacial
Baixar livros de Farmácia
Baixar livros de Filosofia
Baixar livros de Física
Baixar livros de Geociências
Baixar livros de Geografia
Baixar livros de História
Baixar livros de Línguas
Baixar livros de Literatura
Baixar livros de Literatura de Cordel
Baixar livros de Literatura Infantil
Baixar livros de Matemática
Baixar livros de Medicina
Baixar livros de Medicina Veterinária
Baixar livros de Meio Ambiente
Baixar livros de Meteorologia
Baixar Monografias e TCC
Baixar livros Multidisciplinar
Baixar livros de Música
Baixar livros de Psicologia
Baixar livros de Química
Baixar livros de Saúde Coletiva
Baixar livros de Serviço Social
Baixar livros de Sociologia
Baixar livros de Teologia
Baixar livros de Trabalho
Baixar livros de Turismo