The Darling and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhov

OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in the air.Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden looking at the sky. Again! he observed despairingly. Its going to rain again! Rain every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! Its ruin! Fearful losses every day. He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: There! thats the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. Its enough to make one cry. One works and does ones utmost, one wears oneself out, getting no sleep at night, and racks ones brain what to do for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, ones public is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose thats what they want! They dont understand anything of that sort. They want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of May, and its kept it up all May and June. Its simply awful! The public doesnt come, but Ive to pay the rent just the same, and pay the artists. The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say with an hysterical laugh: Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha! And next day the same thing. Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, naive smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything pleasant, men thought, Yes, not half bad, and smiled too, while lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, You darling!