Champagne (Chekhov)
Short summary
A remote railway station in southwestern Russia, late 19th century. A young man worked at a small station where he suffered from overwhelming boredom and melancholy. The only distractions were glimpses of women through train windows and drinking drugged vodka.
On New Year's Eve, he and his wife prepared to celebrate with two bottles of champagne. When opening the first bottle, he accidentally dropped it, spilling some wine. His wife considered this a bad omen, predicting misfortune in the coming year.
That night, his wife's aunt Natalya Petrovna unexpectedly arrived by train. She was beautiful and flirtatious, claiming to have fled her tyrannical husband.
The narrator was immediately attracted to her. They drank more champagne, and he began an affair with her.
I remember a fearful, frantic whirlwind which sent me flying round like a feather. It lasted a long while, and swept from the face of the earth my wife and my aunt herself and my strength.
The affair ruined his life. Years later, he found himself wandering dark streets, reflecting on how his wife's omen had indeed come true.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Life at the isolated railway station
The narrator worked at a small station on a southwestern railway line, where he lived with his wife in complete isolation. The station was located in a desolate area with no human habitation, no women, and no decent taverns for fifteen miles around.
His only distractions were glimpses of women in passing train windows and drinking vile vodka drugged with thorn-apple. The steppe environment oppressed him, inducing melancholy in summer and nightmare-like feelings in winter. The station was staffed by the narrator, his wife, a deaf telegraph clerk, and three watchmen. His consumptive assistant was frequently absent for treatment, leaving the narrator to handle his duties.
New Years celebration and the bad omen
The narrator and his wife prepared to celebrate New Year's Eve with two bottles of genuine Veuve Clicquot champagne, which he had won in a bet with the stationmaster of D. As midnight approached, the narrator began uncorking a bottle, but it slipped from his hands and fell to the floor, though he managed to save most of the wine.
"It's unlucky," she said, putting down her glass and turning paler still. "It's a bad omen. It means that some misfortune will happen to us this year."
The narrator dismissed his wife's superstition, but she refused to drink and became pensive. After drinking half a bottle himself, he went outside into the frosty night.
Reflections on a meaningless existence
Walking along the railway embankment, the narrator contemplated the moonlit landscape and his own miserable existence. He reflected that his life was already so wretched that it was difficult to imagine anything worse happening. He considered his wasted youth, his lack of education despite his noble birth, and his unfulfilling job at the small station.
"My youth is thrown away for nothing, like a useless cigarette end," I went on musing. "My parents died when I was a little child; I was expelled from the high school, I was born of a noble family, but I have received neither education nor breeding..."
He even considered the possibility of losing his wife, admitting to himself that he did not love her. He had married her when he was young, and now she had grown older and filled with conventional ideas. He lamented that his youth, manhood, courage, and capacity for feeling were all being wasted in the steppe.
As a train rushed past, the narrator indulged in self-pity, finding a strange satisfaction in his misery. He questioned what worse fate could befall him, believing he had already endured everything possible.
Arrival of the mysterious visitor
Upon returning to the station, the narrator found his wife in good spirits. She informed him that they had an unexpected visitor - her aunt Natalya Petrovna, who had arrived by train. She explained that Natalya had run away from her tyrannical husband and would stay with them for only three days.
When the narrator met Natalya, he immediately recognized her as a woman of easy virtue from her smile, scent, and the way she glanced and fluttered her eyelashes. The supper resumed with more champagne, and the narrator found himself intoxicated both by the wine and by the presence of this beautiful woman.
Passionate affair and its aftermath
I was drunk both with the wine and with the presence of a woman. Do you remember the song?
"Eyes black as pitch, eyes full of passion,
Eyes burning bright and beautiful,
How I love you, How I fear you!"
The narrator described what followed as a fearful, frantic whirlwind that swept him up like a feather. This passionate affair lasted a long time and ultimately destroyed everything in his life - his wife, Natalya herself, and his own strength.
She loved me madly, slavishly, and not merely my good looks, or my soul, but my sins, my ill-humor and boredom, and even my cruelty when, in drunken fury, not knowing how to vent my ill-humor, I tormented her with reproaches.
The story concluded with the narrator finding himself cast from the little station in the steppe to a dark street, wondering what further evil could possibly happen to him. The bad omen his wife had feared on New Year's Eve had indeed come to pass, bringing ruin to their lives through this passionate but destructive affair.