Misery / Toska by Anton Chekhov (Translation)

Chekhov’s story, Misery (Toska in Russian), is one of my favourites. It has a certain mystical resonance, in spite of its earthy subject matter. I first tried to translate it two years ago, but never got further than the first paragraph. This time I have managed to get to the end. It has previously been translated under the title “Heartache” (by Payne) and “Misery” (by Garnett). After the conclusion I will write a few final comments.

Misery

To whom shall I tell my sorrow?

The day is ending. Large wet snow lazily flutters around the recently-lit streetlamps and lies in a thin layer upon roofs, the backs of horses, on hats and shoulders. The coachman Iona Potapov is completely white… white as a ghost. He has curled himself up as tightly as any living being can and sits where he is without moving a muscle. Even if an entire snowdrift fell upon him… even then he would not think to shake the snow from himself… His little horse is also white and motionless. With the way that she doesn’t move, with the blockiness of her body and her legs straight as sticks, she looks more like a toy horse than any real one. It seems she is lost in thought. If you had been torn from your plough and the usual dull pictures of life and thrust here, into this confusion of monstrous fires, the endless crack of the whip and people constantly running past… if this happened to you, it would be strange not to be left with something to think about.

Iona and his horse have been in their spot for a long time now. They left home before lunch, and so far nobody has had need of them. And now an evening gloom is descending on the whole city. The pale light of the streetlamps becomes brighter and more intense, and the hustle and bustle of the street grows louder.

“Driver, take us to Vyborgskaya” Iona hears. “Driver!”

Iona shudders and sees through eyelashes sticky with snow an officer in a hooded overcoat.

“To Vyborgskaya,” repeats the officer. “Wake up man! Take me to Vyborgskaya!”

To show his agreement Iona gives a tug on the reins. Powdery snow falls from his shoulders and from the horse’s back… The officer sits in the sledge. His driver smacks his lips, extends his neck like a swan, sits up straight and gives his horse a whip, more from habit than any real need. His little horse also extends her neck, bends her stick-legs, and uncertainly moves off from their spot…

“What are you doing, idiot!” As soon as they got going Iona hears shouting from some dark mass, moving forward and back nearby. “Where the devil are you going? Stay in your lane!”

“Can’t you drive? Stick to the right!” The officer complains.

The dark mass attacking him was a coachman with a private carriage. A pedestrian crossing the road has bumped into Iona’s horse and now glares at him and shakes the snow from his sleeve. Iona shifts about uneasily, as if he is sitting on needles, sticks his elbows out to the side and lets his eyes wander, as though not in his right mind. It’s as if he doesn’t understand where he is or what he’s doing.

“What a bunch of scoundrels they all are!” says the witty officer. “Either they try to bump into you or they just throw themselves under your horse. They have it all worked out.”

Iona looks at his passenger and his lips quiver. He seems to want to say something, but he only croaks.

“What?” Asks the officer.

Ion bends his mouth into a smile, tenses his throat and croaks:

“My son, sir, he… my son passed away this week.”

“Hm!… and what did he die of?”

Iona twists his whole torso round to his passenger and says: “Who knows? Probably from fever… Three days he lay in the hospital and then he died… It was God’s will.”

“Out of the way, damn you!” Sounds ring out in the darkness. “You dog, what’s wrong with you? Use your eyes!”

“Come on, come on…” Says the passenger. “Otherwise we won’t make it till tomorrow. Give her another go with the whip!”

The coachman once more extends his neck, straightens himself out and with a certain solid gracefulness waves his whip. Later he looks at his passenger a few times, but the other has already closed his eyes and no longer seems in the mood to listen. Once he has let him out at Vyborgskaya, Iona stops outside an inn, curls into himself again and waits without stirring… Wet snow once more paints him and his horse white. An hour passes, then another…

Along the pavement, loudly clacking their galoshes and teasing each other, come three young men. Two of them are tall and thin; the third is short and stooped.

“Driver, take us to Politseiskii Bridge!” Shouts the hunchback with a rasping voice. “Twenty copecks for the three of us.”

Iona pulls on his reins and smacks his lips. Twenty copecks isn’t fair, but what does he care? What’s the difference between a rouble and ten? For him it’s all the same, so long as he has a passenger… The young people, swearing and shoving at each other, approach the sledge and all three of them immediately climb into the space for seating. Now they start to argue about who will sit and who will have to stand? After a long argument, much capriciousness and reproaches, they decide that the hunchback, as the smallest, is the one who ought to stand.

“Well, let’s get going!” Rasps the hunchback, settling himself just behind Iona and breathing on the back of his neck. “Chop chop! That’s quite a hat, mate! I don’t think you could find a more wretched piece of work anywhere in all Petersburg…”

“Hehe… hehe…” Laughs Iona. “Yes, it is a strange one…”

“Well, whatever it is, come on and get us moving. Are we going to go this slow the whole journey? Come on, or I’ll give you something to help speed you up.”

“My head is killing me…” Says one of the taller men. “When I was at the Dukmasovs’ house yesterday Vasya and I managed four bottles of cognac between us.”

“I just don’t understand why you always lie about this stuff.” Says the other taller man. “You lie like a dog.”

“God be my witness, it’s true…”

“It’s just as true as saying a flea can cough.”

“Hehe!” Says Iona with a smirk. “What good-natured gentlemen you are!”

“Tfu, what do you know?…” says the hunchback indignantly. “Are you going or not, you old thing? Is this really how you drive? Give her a whip! What the hell. Come on!”

Behind his back Iona feels the hunchback turn and the rumbling of his voice. He hears the swearing, sees the people, and little-by-little he starts to feel the loneliness retreat from his heart. The hunchback keeps complaining in the most elaborate manner until at last a fit off coughing comes over him. The two taller men start to talk about some or other Nadezhda Petrovna. Iona looks round to them. He waits for a short pause, then he turns round again and murmurs: “This week my, my son… he passed away!”

“We all die.” Says the hunchback, drying his lips after the last of the coughing has finished. “Well, come on, get to it! God, I’m afraid I really can’t go on like this! When on earth are we going to get there?”

“Why don’t you give him a whack to get him going? Just a small one!”

“Old man, do you hear us? You don’t want me to give you a whack in the neck, do you? No point just waiting around with you, better to leave and do the rest on foot. Do you hear us, you snake? Or do you not give a damn about what we have to say?”

And Iona hears the sound of the blow more than he feels it.

“Hehe…” he laughs. “What cheerful gentlemen… may God grant you health!”

“Eh, driver, are you married?” Asks a tall one.

“Me, sir? Hehe, cheery gentlemen! Nowadays the only wife I have is the earth beneath our feet. Hoho… The grave, I mean!… My son is dead, and yet I live… What a strange thing to happen… Death must have mixed us up. Instead of coming for me, he went for my boy…”

And Iona turns to tell them the story of his son, but just at that moment the hunchback sighs with relief and announces that they – thank God! – have arrived. Iona gets his twenty kopecks, and for a long time he looks after the walkers, and watches as they disappear into a dark entranceway. Once more he is alone, once more he has only silence for company… The great miserythat he had managed to keep down returns and makes his chest fit to burst with its strength. Iona’s eyes run over the crowds scurrying down both sides of the street anxiously, like the eyes of a martyr. Is there not one person among the many thousands who would hear him out? But the crowds run on, caring neither for him nor his misery… His misery is enormous, it flows without limits. If Iona’s chest split open and all his misery spilled out there would be nowhere on earth that wouldn’t be overwhelmed by it. And yet nobody can see it. Somehow it has managed to fit inside such a worthless little shell that even in broad daylight you wouldn’t be able to make it out…

Iona sees a doorman with a paper bag and decides to talk with him.

“What time would you say it is, my good man?” He asks.

“Ten… what are you doing still here? Get a move on!”

Iona drives a few feet away, bends over, and surrenders to his misery…It already seems like nobody wants to speak with him. But in less than five minutes he straightens up, shakes his head, as if he had felt a stinging pain, and pulls on the reins… He can’t take it any longer.

“Let’s go back.” He thinks. “Let’s go back to the yard!”

And his horse, understanding his thought perfectly, begins to trot the way. Half an hour later, and Iona is already sitting by the big and dirty stove. On the stove, on the floor, on the benches, people are snoring. The air was heavy and stuffy…  Iona looks on the sleepers, scratches himself and thinks that it was a mistake to go back so early.

“And I didn’t get enough done to afford any oats…” he thinks. “That’s true misery for you… A man who knows his work… who has eaten well and fed his horse… such a man will be at ease forevermore…”

In one of the corners a young coachman pushes himself up, yawns sleepily, then reaches for a bucket of water.

“After a drink?” Iona asks.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it!”

“Well, here’s to your health, then. Now, as for me, my son has died… have you heard? Just this week in the hospital… what a story!”

Iona watches to see what effect his words have. But the younger coachman has already covered his head and gone back to sleep. The old man sighs and scratches himself… Just like the young man wanted to drink, he himself wants to talk. Soon it will be a whole seek since his son died, and in all that time he hasn’t spoken with anybody about it… He needs to speak about it seriously, with purpose… He needs to say everything: about how his son got ill, and how he suffered, what he said before he died, and how he died… He needs to describe how the funeral went and his trip to the hospital to pick up the dead man’s clothes. His daughter Anisa is still alive, back in his home village… He needs to say something about her too… The only way to speak about all this would take time. His listener should sigh, and gasp, and wail… It would be best of all to talk with the women. They may be stupid, but they always listen attentively and cry at the right moments.

“Let’s go and check on the horse.” Thinks Iona. “You’ll always have a chance to get some sleep later… Probably you’ll sleep enough to get your fill…”

He gets dressed and goes into the stables where his horse is. He thinks about oats and hay and the weather… Alone, he doesn’t dare think of his son… He could speak with someone about him, but to think about him or even just imagine his face was unbearably painful for him without company…

“Having a nibble?” Iona asks his horse, seeing her shining eyes. “Well, keep at it… If we didn’t earn enough for oats, I suppose there’s always hay for the two of us… Yes… I’m already too old for driving… It’s my son who should be driving, not me… He was a real coachman – you could tell… if only he had lived…”

Iona stands in silence for a while before continuing: “That’s the way it is, old girl. Kuzma Ionich is no more… He should have lived a long life, but he was taken before his time… How can I explain it? Let’s say you have a foal, and you’re its mother… and let’s say this foal is supposed to have a long life… wouldn’t you be sorry?

The horse continues to nibble. She listens and breathes onto the hands of her owner…

And Iona gives himself over to his misery and tells her the whole story.

Closing Remarks

Who has not felt the particular loneliness of trying to speak only to find that nobody is willing to listen? Not all of us have lost a child, and I certainly haven’t, but still that feeling that the world has turned its back against us is one that I feel from time to time. And in those moments of misery, the path back to joy can be so strange that we’d never have considered it otherwise. Talking to a horse may be just the thing we need.

It’s worth noting that the Russian title, Toska, is one of those words which are regularly touted as untranslatable. Nabokov, indeed, rhapsodises about it. And it’s true that the word is in a way untranslatable, because not all of its meanings correspond to one specific English word. There’s often a hint of wistful boredom about it, of being stuck at home and not quite knowing what to do. But that’s certainly not the case here, where the sense of melancholy is overwhelmed by the pain of loss. I felt my title was adequate. So, it seems, did Constance Garnett.

I enjoyed translating this. If it has any major problems, do let me know in the comments. Although I’d be more interested to here if the story resonates with you, so why not comment about that too?