A Nightmare by Anton Chekhov

This story describes Kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the Rural Board, on returning from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo,immediately sent a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest there, Father Yakov Smirnov. Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.

"Very glad to make your acquaintance," said Kunin, meeting him in the entry. 

"How young you are!" Kunin added in surprise. 

faintly pressing Kunin's outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson. Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more attentively. 

"What an uncouth womanish face!" he thought. His long reddish hair, smooth and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his shoulders. 

He had on a cassock, the colour of weak coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows. "A queer type," thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. " 

"Comes to the house for the first time and can't dress decently.

"Sit down, Father," he began more carelessly than cordially, as he moved an easy-chair to the table. 

Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge of the chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short figure, his narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from the first moment a most unpleasant impression on Kunin.

"I have invited you on business, Father.  

"It has fallen to my lot to perform the agreeable duty of helping you in one of your useful undertakings. 

I shall be very glad to, Father, with all my heart. So that you cannot reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all that is in my power. " answered Father Yakov. 

"You have some funds at your disposal already?"

"I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. "Kunin began planning aloud. "

"The fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident ." thought Kunin. 

He took his glass and began drinking at once. "Shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" Kunin went on, meditating aloud. "

"To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo,but the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question of the church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the funds. 

I remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for the purpose. 

"Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer this question at once. " 

The expression of pleasure faded from his face.

"What a strange wild creature!" he thought. 

 "Dirty, untidy, coarse, stupid, and probably he drinks. I should have had the school opened long ago. A little later he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing. he thought. 

The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to settle the question of the school, and while he was there to make acquaintance with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite of the awful state of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The rooks floated with dignity over the fields. A rook would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before standing firmly on its feet.The ikon over the door looked like a dark smudged blur. But its poverty touched and softened Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes, he went into the church and stood by the door. 

The service had only just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a bow, was reading the Hours in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov, who conducted the service without a deacon, was walking about the church, burning incense. The church was not full. 

There was not one spot on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not begrimed and defaced by time. There were many windows, but the general effect of colour was grey, and so it was twilight in the church.

 “Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well,?”  thought Kunin. 

“Just as in St. Peter's in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one is touched by the lowliness and simplicity”. 

But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov went up to the altar and began mass. The old sacristan, evidently deaf and ailing, did not hear the prayers very distinctly, and this very often led to slight misunderstandings. The old man had a sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. The complete lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small boy who seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible over the railing of the choir. 

Kunin stayed a little while, listened and went out for a smoke. He was disappointed, and looked at the grey church almost with dislike. “They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people”. Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt a great temptation to get out into the open air again. 

Waiting till the end of the mass, he went to Father Yakov's. The priest's house did not differ outwardly from the peasants' huts, but the thatch lay more smoothly on the roof and there were little white curtains in the windows. This semblance had been painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin meant at first to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he sat down on the stool. 

“This is the first time you have been to our church?” asked Father Yakov, hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail. Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall. There was a sound of whispering. A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with an effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa. 

“They will heat the samovar directly,” he said, without looking at his visitor. 

“My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet ! “ Kunin thought with horror. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the partition wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose. he said. 

I read an interesting thing yesterday. the Volsky Zemstvo have decided to give their schools to the clergy, that's typical. Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor,began to give expression to his reflections. “You will agree that a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest”. 

Yasha, come here ! a woman's voice called from behind the partition. Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began. Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea. 

”I have simply wasted the morning,” he thought wrathfully on the way home. He cares no more about the school than I about last year's snow. 

“If the Marshal knew what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to talk about a school. We ought first to try and get a decent priest, and then think about the school”. 

By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about his rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely and wrote a letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a blessing for the school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his opinion of the priest at Sinkino. 

After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed with the consciousness that he had done a good deed. On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that Father Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed the servant to say he was not at home. «He liked my biscuits, it seems,» he thought. 

Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only his skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Kunin determined not to talk about the school -- not to cast pearls. “I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch.

Has whole figure was expressive of extreme embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination upon his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea. He struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and strove to overcome his timidity. 

“Why is he dumb?” Kunin thought wrathfully. I haven't time to be bothered with him.

“He felt moved to repulsion”

“ Excuse me, Father, I have to go out” he said. 

In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin felt suddenly sorry for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty. 

“Please come another time, Father “ he said

and before we part I want to ask you a favour. 

“I was somehow inspired to write two sermons the other day. I will give them to you to look at I

“will take them ,Pavel Mihailovitch, he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and distinctly. 

“What can I do for you? ‘’

“I have heard that you .Could you not give the post to me?

Why, are you giving up the Church? said Kunin in amazement.

 No, no Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning pale and trembling all over. 

“You see, I could do the work between whiles,so as to increase my income”.

I would take ten, whispered Father Yakov, looking about him.

“ I am ashamed to look people in the face. I call the God of truth to witness”.

Father Yakov took breath and went on

“On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but . He has everything found there, except that I have to provide pens and paper”. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living, and I was to pay ten roubles a month.

“ What Father Avraamy? “

Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was deprived of the living on account of . There is no one to keep him. Father Yakov started up from his seat and,looking frantically at the floor, strode up and down the room. 

“My God, my God ! he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them again. 

“Calm yourself, Father “ said Kunin. 

“I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch, Father”  Yakov went on.

“ I know if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help.

I am ashamed of my vestments, of being hungry. At home she used to play the piano. Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands. it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. Such things that people would not believe them if they saw them in the newspaper. muttered Father Yakov as though he were drunk.

“Forgive me, all this . Only I do blame myself, and always shall blame myself “.

I went up close and could not believe my eyes. When she saw that I was near her and noticed her poverty, she turned red all over. During Mass, you know, when I look out from the altar and see my congregation, Avraamy starving, and my wife, and think of the doctor's wife -- how blue her hands were from the cold water -- would you believe it, I forget myself and stand senseless like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me.

 What am I doing? Father Yakov pulled himself up suddenly. 

“You want to go out. Forgive me, I meant nothing “.

“ I don't see his horse “ thought Kunin. Father Yakov took off his hat and slowly blessed Andrey, then blessed the boy and stroked his head. 

Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his hand was moist.Luckily, Father Yakov, in his haste, had forgotten to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to them, tore them into pieces, and with loathing thrust them under the table and I did not know!» he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. 

On some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor's wife. I will ask them to perform a special service here, and will get up an illness for the doctor. 

Oh, how useful those wasted rouble, three-rouble, ten-rouble notes would have been now!

“ Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month ! “  thought Kunin. 

“ For a rouble the priest's wife could get herself a chemise, and the doctor's wife could hire a washerwoman “.

Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent to the bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air. This remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner self and before the unseen truth.