A Joke

A story by Anton Chekhov
Translated from the Russian by Najati Sidqi

Nadia took my arm on that bitter winter day, the snowflakes heaped on the down of her upper lip and on the locks of hair coiled at her temples. We were standing at the top of a lofty mountain clothed in snow, its face become like a great mirror into which the eye of the sun gazed; beside us stood a small sled covered with a piece of wool dyed red.

I said to the girl imploringly: Let us slide down, Nadia Petrovna, if only once. I assure you we shall come to no harm and shall reach the foot in safety.

She hesitated to grant my plea. The distance stretching from her shoes to the foot of the mountain seemed to her fathomless, without bottom; when she cast a glance from on high downward she felt her soul freeze within her body, and it seemed to her that if she granted my request and sat beside me in the sled she was bound for madness or certain destruction.

I said: Nadia... come along... I beg you to sit in the sled; there is no cause for all this fear. Don't you understand that this hesitation of yours can be explained only as faintheartedness and cowardice?

After some hesitation the girl relented, the marks of one risking her life drawn upon her face, and she sat beside me in the sled, pale of color, trembling with fright. I put my arm around her, and we plunged into the deep abyss.

The sled shot off with us like the flight of an arrow. The torn air slapped our faces, roared and whistled in our ears, all but wrenching our heads from our shoulders in the violence of its rage and fury... Its pressure was so fierce that it denied us breath, so that it seemed to us as if a demon had seized hold of us and was dragging us down to the depths of hell. The things around us merged one into another in a single long straight line racing the wind in its blowing. Only moments passed before we felt that death stood within a bow's length of us, or nearer. And when we were halfway down I said to the girl in a low voice: I love you, Nadia!

The sled began little by little to slacken in its rush; the roar and whistle of the wind grew fainter; our natural breathing came back to us; and at last we reached the foot of the mountain. Nadia was pale of color and slow of breath, more like the dead than the living, so I took her arm and helped her to rise.

She said to me, staring into my face with wide eyes filled with terror: It is impossible that I should ever slide again; no one in the world could force me to ride that sled. I very nearly perished.

A little while later she came back to herself and looked at me questioningly: Was it you who uttered those three words, or did I only fancy I heard them amid the wind and its whistling?

I stood beside her, smoking, examining my glove; then I took her arm and we went strolling near the mountain. The riddle troubled her not a little. Had she understood the truth of those words or not... yes or no? Yes or no?

This question touched her self-respect, her honor, her life and her happiness; it was a very important question, indeed the most important question in life!

And Nadia kept eyeing me deliberately, turning upon me a sad, piercing look, expecting me to say something.

Ah, that bright face — how lovely it was! I could see her struggling with herself; she had something she longed to utter, she wanted to ask about something that troubled her mind, but she could not find the words needed to express what stirred within her. It was a dreadful perplexity, crossed by a wave of gladness and delight.

Then she said, without looking at my face: Do you know? I said: What? She said: Let us slide once more.

We climbed the high wooden stairway built upon the mountain, and I seated Nadia — her color drained, her limbs trembling — upon the sled once more. And we plunged into the deep abyss as before; the wind roared and whistled, and just when the sled was at its swiftest rush and its loudest din, I addressed Nadia in a low voice: I love you, Nadia.

When we reached the foot, the girl cast a glance at the mountain we had slid down, then stared long into my face and listened to my voice — which was calm, cool, unconcerned — while she was wholly sunk in an intense perplexity, not grasping what had happened. And who had uttered those words? Her companion, or an illusion?

This obscurity distressed the poor girl and drove her past the bounds of her patience. I would talk to her while she sat still, troubled, absent, the tears almost starting from her eyes.

Then she said, her face flushing: I do delight in this sliding!.. Come, let us slide a third time!

When we sat down for the third time the girl's face went white, as it had the time before; her breath caught, and her limbs shook with the violence of her dread. And as we rushed downward she began scrutinizing my face and my lips; so I made haste, drew my handkerchief from my pocket, put it to my mouth, and coughed,

and no sooner were we halfway down the mountain than I said to her from behind the handkerchief, in a low voice: I love you, Nadia!..

The girl kept silence and sank into deep thought, and that sweet phrase remained a riddle of riddles, troubling her and occupying her mind. When the time came to go back home, Nadia walked beside me with slow steps, deliberately lagging in her walk, cherishing the hope that I would let her hear those words; and I glimpsed her agitated and pained, trying to persuade herself that it was not the wind that had been whispering the talk of love in her ears.

The next day I received a note from her that said: "If you have made up your mind to go sliding today, call at our house and we shall go together. — N."

From that time on I accompanied her daily to the sliding mountain, and every time we slid I would repeat in her ears, in a low voice, those familiar words: I love you, Nadia!..

The girl soon grew accustomed to hearing this phrase as one grows accustomed to drinking wine or to injections of morphine, and she could no longer bear life without it... True, the plunge into the abyss still struck panic and terror into her heart as it had before... yet those sweet words that had so long caressed her hearing lent her panic and her fright a delicious tinge of magic and allure.

In vain did the girl try to discover the source of that voice which courted her; her suspicion fell upon me and upon the wind... Which of us would be the first to confess his love to her?.. It made no difference to her which came first, since she cared less about the cup she drank from than about remaining drunk with the intoxication of love.

Once I went alone to the sliding mountain and mingled with the crowd of sliders, and I saw Nadia drawing near the summit, looking all about her for me... She seemed frightened, her face white and pale, trembling with alarm as though she were being led to the scaffold; but she walked toward the sled with steady, slow steps, having made up her mind to test for herself whether she could hear those sweet words without my being there!.. I could see her sitting in the sled, confused, her mouth agape with dread; she hid her eyes with her palms and bade the world farewell forever... and she was off.

I do not know whether the girl heard what she longed to hear, but I saw her step out of the sled weary and drained of strength, and her face betrayed her uncertainty as to whether anything had reached her ears during her descent of the mountain, for terror, it seems, had robbed her of the power of hearing, of understanding, of telling one sound from another.

Then came the month of March, and spring arrived, and the sun came out in pride and coquetry; our snowy mountain began to blacken and lose its gleam and luster; then the snow melted altogether and we stopped sliding. So poor Nadia was deprived of hearing that sweet phrase, for the winds had departed... and I was making ready to travel to Petersburg... for a long time... perhaps forever.

Two days before my departure, one evening, I sat in my garden, which was separated from Nadia's house by some high wooden palings. The weather was cold, the frost still lurked beneath the dung, and the trees looked dead despite the fragrance of spring wafting from them, while the rooks filled the air with clamor and din on their way to their nests. I drew near the fence and looked through one of its gaps, and I saw Nadia come out onto the balcony of her house, sad and downcast, casting an absent glance at the sky while the spring breeze blew upon her pale, dejected face, reminding her of those winds that used to blow upon the snowy mountain, carrying with them those sweet words; and her face darkened, and the tears ran down her cheeks; then she stretched out her arms as if asking the breeze to bring back to her ears what she had grown used to hearing while sliding... And when the breeze blew strong I seized the chance and said in a low voice: I love you, Nadia!..

Good Lord, what has come over the girl?.. She is crying out, glad and merry, smiling, joyous and happy, stretching out her arms once more to welcome the breeze.

And I left the garden to pack my bags.

All this happened long ago. As for now,

Nadia is married; they married her off — or she married — the steward of a noble family's estates, and she has borne him three children... And no doubt the memory of the days of her youth and of the sliding... and of the phrase it used to carry to her, stirring her feelings, is among the dearest of her memories — indeed the happiest of them and the deepest in its trace upon her soul, memories that will never be effaced from her mind so long as she remains alive.

And now, having entered upon old age, you find me asking myself: Why did I utter those words?.. And what was it that moved me to repeat that joke?..

* This story was published in (Selections from Russian Stories), translated by Mr. Najati Sidqi and published by Dar Beirut.