It is a seductively hot day. There isn't a single cloud to be spotted in the sky. The sun-bleached grass looks depressed, dreary. Perhaps there will be rain soon, but it seems as though it will never be green again. The forest is still, quiet, perfectly motionless. It's as if the trees are bearing silent witness.
A tall, thin man of about forty to fifty years of age in a plaid red shirt, army green camouflage pants, and knee-high boots nonchalantly saunters into the clearing and down the trail. To one side, there are the green trees of the forest, and to the other side, stretching all the way to the horizon, is a golden ocean of ripe wheat. He is sunburnt and sweaty. A blue baseball cap sits on his blondish-gray head as if it were a crown. A large leather bag hangs over his shoulder, a dead goose residing within it. The hunter carries a double-barreled shotgun. He squints his eyes at his old, thin dog as it sniffs the ground and bushes. It is so quiet...every living thing is taking refuge in the shade, away from the heat of the midday sun.
The hunter suddenly hears a woman's soft voice calling his name.
Startled and perturbed, he turns around. In front of him, as if having suddenly materialized from the air around him, is a pale, red-haired woman, about thirtyish. She holds a scythe with a long, polished wooden handle that glistens in the sun. She smiles, almost bashfully.
"Well hello, Penelope," replies the hunter, slowly putting down his rifle. "What are you doing here?"
"The women from town are working out here, so I'm here with them. I'm the hired help now."
"Hmph," the hunter quietly grunts. He turns away from her and slowly continues on down the trail. Penelope follows him. They wander on for a few minutes or so.
"I haven't seen you for such a long time," she finally says, breaking their mutual silence as she gazes tenderly at his back, admiring the slow, graceful movements of his shoulders. "You stopped by the cottage for some water on Easter Sunday, and we haven't seen you since. Of course you were drunk. God only knows how you even managed to walk. You cursed me, smacked me, and left. I've been waiting for you to come back ever since. I've been looking and looking and looking out for you, but I suppose you couldn't be bothered to come back just once."
"What would I do with myself at your place?"
"There's nothing for you to do there, obviously, just, anyway...there's the household...things that need...that need...looking after. You're the man of the house, after all. Why, just look at you, you've shot a goose! Here, why don't you sit down and take a rest?" Penelope laughs like a smitten schoolgirl as she looks up at the hunter's face, with her own face radiating pure joy.
"Sit down? Sure, why not?" asks the hunter indifferently. He sits down on a stump between two saplings. The old dog slowly lays down beside him and lowers his chin to the ground, his sad-looking eyes fixed on Penelope. "Why are you standing?" the hunter asks Penelope. "You should sit, too."
Penelope sits some distance away in a patch of grass. She is almost ashamed of her happiness in this moment, covering her smile with her hand.
"If only you'd come once, just once, just one little time," Penelope says wistfully.
"What would be the point?" The hunter heaves a sigh and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "There's no reason to screw around with you for a couple of hours, get you all hot and bothered. And a little piece of my soul dies with every passing hour I spend in that godforsaken town, you know that. I'm spoiled rotten. I like a nice firm mattress to sleep on, a cup of freshly brewed, piping hot coffee, and nice, quiet conversation. I want to have all the good things of life, and that town is drowning in poverty and filth and meth-heads. There's no way I could live there another day. If they passed a law that said I had to live with you, I'd blow up the whole town or kill myself. It's just the way I am, can't help it."
"Where do you live now?" Penelope asks.
"At the Ivins place. They let me live in their coachhouse, I furnish fresh game for their dinner table. Mr. and Mrs. Ivins are big on keeping their food as local as possible."
"That doesn't seem very dignified, Mr. Good-Things-of-Life. Trudging around the woods, killing animals for another man's table. That's what most men do for fun, but here you are doing it for your living."
"You don't understand," says the hunter, gazing thoughtfully at the sky above them for a moment. Then he looks at her, right into her eyes. "You couldn't ever possibly understand who I am, what kind of a man I am. To you, I'm a crazy, lost soul, but everyone else knows that I'm the best damn shot in at least three or four counties. Even the rich fancy people like the Ivinses know that. There's even been a story published about me in a sportsmen's magazine. Nobody can ever even hope to match me toe-to-toe when it comes to hunting. And if I don't want to have anything to do with your towny ways, it isn't because I think I'm better than everyone else. It's just that I've never known anything else but guns and dogs since the day I was born. Take the gun out of my hands, and I suppose I'll just grab a fishing pole and do nothing but fish for the rest of my life. Take away the fishing pole, and I'll just start hunting with my bare hands. Of course, I traded horses for awhile. I went around to all the county fairs whenever I had some spare change in my pocket. You've seen it yourself, when any of these farm boys fall in with horse traders or hunters, it's good riddance to the tractor and combine. Once a restless man's soul gets the taste of freedom, there's no way he can ever forget it. It's like when a rich kid goes off to the city to become an actor, or some other kind of artist, he doesn't want to try his hand at anything else. He doesn't want to try and run some company, or become some kind of muckity-muck in politics--"
He notices a small, lonely tear trailing down Penelope's cheek.
"You just don't understand."
"I understand," she quietly answers.
"Then why are you crying?"
"I'm not crying," says Penelope as she turns away so that the hunter can't see her tears. "I'm not. It's just...it's just that...you could spend at least one day with me, one little, frickin' day. It's been twelve years since we got married, and...and...I don't think there's been a single day of love between the two of us, not one."
"Love," mumbles the hunter as he lifts the cap off his head and scratches his scalp. "That's impossible. We're husband and wife in name, but that's about it. You think I'm some rootless, aimless wild man, and I find you a simple woman who doesn't understand anything. We're a fine couple, aren't we? I'm Mr. Footloose-and-Fancy-Free and you're...you're a, uh...you're a...farm laboring...peasant woman of some kind. I fancy myself a master of the hunt, and you feel nothing for me but pity."
"We got
married...
in a church. Before God and man and
everybody!" sobs Penelope.
"Not so fast, Penelope. You've left out a few details, haven't you? Go give Judge Platt a big hug and a kiss and thank him for this situation. He'd always been jealous that I was a lot better shot than he could ever hope to be, and so he took me out and got me drunk. And one thing led to another, and it turned into a thirty-day bender, of course, as can sometimes happen. A man lost in the bottle can be talked into all sorts of things. He can be talked into converting to a religion he's never heard of before, or getting married, even. And so out of the sheer spite of his envy, he married me, the best shot in five counties, to you, a...a, uh...a, um, cow girl, or...whatever it is that you are. You could plainly see that I was falling down drunk, so why the hell did you go through with marrying me? You're not a slave, you could've said no! Of course, a farm girl is awful lucky to snag a great hunter for a husband, but you should've thought a little bit more about what you were getting yourself into. Well, anyway...go ahead and suffer and cry. It's all just a big joke to the judge, but go on and sob your face off. Go beat yourself in the head with a hammer if it makes you feel any better."
A moment of stone silence passes, as if a quiet angel is flying by.
The hunter and his dog suddenly notice three or four ducks flying overhead. The hunter's eyes follow them as they trail off into the distance, slowly shrinking into a cluster of little specks over the horizon.
"How are you making ends meet these days?" asks the hunter as he turns back to Penelope.
"Between the field work and a little babysitting here and there, I manage to get by," she answers.
"Well...good," replies the hunter.
Another quiet angel passes. The faint sounds of women singing from off in the distance can be heard now, even in this oppressive heat.
"They say you built a new cottage for Alicia," says Penelope. The hunter is quiet. "I guess that would mean--"
"I suppose that's just the way it goes for you, eh? You've got yourself a new cross to bear now. Anyway, I think we've said all that we can say to each other. Time for me to get back on the trail." The hunter stands, stretches a little, and slings his rifle over his shoulder. "Always got to remember to stay on the trail. Just have to remind myself from time to time."
"When are you coming back to town?" she asks quietly.
"Doesn't matter. I'd never walk into that town sober, and it's no good for you when I'm drunk. I'm an awful drunk. I get so angry."
"Good-bye."
The hunter slaps his ball cap back onto his head and whistles to his dog, who lazily rises on all fours. They go on their way. Penelope stays right where she is and gazes at his back as he walks on down the trail. She admires the movement of his shoulder blades as he lazily saunters off. She feels the sadness fill her eyes and tenderly caresses her arms as her eyes stroke the long, lanky figure of her husband. For a moment it seems as though he feels her gaze on his back; he stops and looks back at her. He says nothing, but judging from the look on his face, it seems to Penelope as though he wants to say something. She meekly walks up to him, her eyes begging for him to finally say whatever it is he has to say.
"This is for you," he says, handing her a wad of bills, which she takes into her hand almost robotically. He quickly turns away and resumes his walk down the trail, the dog at his heel.
"Good-bye, husband!" she calls out.
He and his dog continue to walk down the long and winding path. She remains standing where she is, perfectly motionless like a marble statue, and closely studies his every step. Soon, the redness of his shirt seems to merge seamlessly with his camo pants, and then not long after that he can barely be seen, the old dog virtually indistinguishable from his boots. Only the blue of his cap can be seen now. Then he suddenly makes a sharp turn in a distant clearing and fades from her view.
"Good-bye," she whispers. She hoists herself up on her tiptoes in a last ditch effort to at least see the blueness of his cap one last time.
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Richard Pevear's and Larissa Volokhonsky's translation of Anton Chekhov's short story "The Huntsman," originally published in 1885, served as the guide and template for this newly updated version that I offer here. Their translation appears in Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov,
copyright 2000 by Pevear and Volokhonsky.
