Passage from a Chekhov Short Story

Blog formatting won't allow traditional paragraphs, at least not in this case. I like that my grandfather was alive when this story first was published. Melville was still alive. So was Whitman. Crane, as well. Synge. What a world my grandfather was born into... Varvara and Sophia are sisters-in-law. Mashenka is an unlucky woman in a story they've been told by a traveler. Overall, this is a devastating story, but this moment, even though the women are considering killing their father-in-law, Dyudya, and Sophia's husband, Alyoshka, the hunchback, is one of hope, of a dark and bitter hopefulness, as perhaps only Chekhov could find. I find the scene easy to visualize, and that a simple statement like "It's time to sleep" resonates with meanings. I like that Chekhov doesn't describe the sky when Sophia gazes at it "steadily" (in this translation by Robert Payne).

From "The Peasant Women" 

From somewhere behind the church came the mournful song of three voices: two tenors and one bass. And again it was impossible to distinguish the words.

"They're nightbirds all right," Varvara said, laughing.

And she began to whisper about her nightly escapades with the priest's son, and what he said to her, and what his friends were like, and how she carried on with the officials and merchants who came to the house. The mournful songs awoke in Sophia a longing for life and freedom, and she began to laugh. For her, it was all sinful and terrible and sweet to hear about, and she envied Varvara and was sorry that she too had not been a sinner when she was young and beautiful.

From the church cemetery came the twelve strokes of the watchman's rattle, announcing midnight.

"It's time to sleep," Sophia said, getting up. "Dyudya will catch us if we don't!"

They both went quietly into the courtyard.

"I went away and never heard what happened to Masenka afterwards, " Varvara said, making her bed beneath the window.

"He said she died in prison. She poisoned her husband."

Varvara lay beside Sophia, deep in thought, and then she said softly, "I could kill Alyoshka and never regret it."

"God help you, you are talking nonsense!"

When Sophia was dropping asleep, Varvara pressed close to her and whispered in her ear: "Let's kill Dyudya and Alysoshka!"

Sophia shuddered and said nothing, but her eyes were open wide and for a long time she gazed steadily at the sky.

"People might find out," she murmured.

"No, they would never find out. Dyudya is old, and it's time for him to die, and they say they'd say Alyoshka had croaked from drinking!"

"It's terrible.... God would strike us dead...."

"I don't care."

Neither of them slept; they went on thinking in silence.

"It's cold," Sophia said, and she was beginning to shiver all over. "It will soon be light. Are you sleeping?"

"No...Don't listen to me, my dear," Varvara whispered. "I get so mad with those damned swine, and sometimes I don't know what I am saying. Go to sleep -- the dawn will be coming up soon.... Are you asleep?"

                                                                                    -Anton Chekhov, 1891