The Duel and Other Stories. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

her.

      “There are so many conventional ideas in the world,” Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went on, “and life is not so easy as it seems.”

      Marya Konstantinovna, who had been a governess in aristocratic families and who was an authority on social matters, said:

      “Oh yes! Would you believe me, my dear, at the Garatynskys’ I was expected to dress for lunch as well as for dinner, so that, like an actress, I received a special allowance for my wardrobe in addition to my salary.”

      She stood between Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Katya as though to screen her daughter from the water that washed the former.

      Through the open doors looking out to the sea they could see some one swimming a hundred paces from their bathing-place.

      “Mother, it’s our Kostya,” said Katya.

      “Ach, ach!” Marya Konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. “Ach, Kostya!” she shouted, “Come back! Kostya, come back!”

      Kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother and sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and hurried back, and from his strained and serious face it could be seen that he could not trust his own strength.

      “The trouble one has with these boys, my dear!” said Marya Konstantinovna, growing calmer. “Before you can turn round, he will break his neck. Ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same time how difficult, to be a mother! One’s afraid of everything.”

      Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the open sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back. She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered that she must live, live. … A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. …

      After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.

      “I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don’t get thin,” said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances. “I’ve always been plump, and now I believe I’m plumper than ever.”

      “That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. … But you’ve wetted your hat, my dear.”

      “It doesn’t matter; it will dry.”

      Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking on the sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered to her that she was a pretty, common, miserable, worthless woman. …