To this the narrator says… nothing! He doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t argue with her about her exaggeration of the danger. He doesn’t tell her that he knows from experience that she’ll likely want to try it again.
In a little while, she comes back to herself and is already questioningly looking me in the eyes: had I said those four words or had she only heard them in the din of the whirlwind? I stand beside her, I smoke and carefully examine my glove.
How infuriating he is. He won’t confess, he won’t disabuse her. He can pretend he didn’t say what he said or maybe he wants her to decide what she should do about that declaration. The joke for now is that the burden is on Nadenka:
She takes me by my arm, and we wander by the hill for a long while. The riddle is obviously not giving her peace. Had the words been said or not? Yes, or no? Yes, or no? This is a question of self-love, honor, life, happiness; the question is very important, the most important in the world. Nadenka impatiently, sadly, with a pronounced expression, peeks at my face, answers randomly, waits, whether I will speak.
The only passage that seems better in the original 1886 version of the story is this [the underlined phrases are identical between the versions]:
This is a question of self-love, honor… you cannot joke about this!! Nadenka continually looks me in the face, answers inattentively, impatiently presses her lips… Her face flickers with happiness, now twitches under a rueful cloud… Soon I notice a struggle in her, a wobbly feminine spirit… She stops, she apparently wants to say something, ask about something, but is completely unable to gather the strength… 28
Back to the final version:
Oh, what play on this sweet face, what play!29 I see her wrestling with herself, she needs to say something, ask about something, but she can’t find the words, she’s awkward, terrified, the joy confuses her….
“Joy”? What joy? Where has that come from? The terror has receded and exposes the undisguised thrill. We have seen this in children, their apprehension becoming appreciation. But Nadenka is a young lady.
“You know what?” she says, not looking at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Let’s go one more time… let’s ride.”
Every time I read this story now I cannot help thinking that Chekhov was playing another kind of joke on us. The humor magazines of his time were full of sexual innuendos in their illustrations and skits. I will suggest now that the narrator has introduced the hesitant Nadenka not to sledding but to lovemaking. Chekhov continually made fun of the romantic fiction that abounded; he knew that 19th century authors and readers weren’t always conscious of the sexual connotations of naïvely presented activities. He, however, was quite conscious. The ice has been broken:
We go up the staircase on the hill. I seat the pale, shaking Nadenka in the sled, and again we fly into the terrifying abyss, again the wind roars and the runners buzz, and again, at the sled’s fastest and noisiest rush, I say in an undertone:
“I love you, Nadenka!”
The narrator is taking a risk in his teasing. It is the spice he’s adding to his own experience, and he knows there is attraction he is creating in her through his indistinct but “most important” declaration.
When the sled stops, Nadenka takes a sharp glance at the hill down which we have only just sledded, then looks a long time in my face, listens to my voice, cool and passionless, and everything, everything, even her muff and hood, everything in her bearing—expresses the most extreme confusion. And on her face is written:
“What’s all this? Who pronounced those words? Did he, or was I only hearing things?”
This unknown bothers her, draws out her impatience. The poor girl doesn’t answer my questions, frowns, is ready to cry.
She is overwhelmed, she is unsure of the ground on which she stands with him, her partner.
“Shouldn’t we go home?” I ask.
“But I… I like this sledding,” she says, blushing. “Couldn’t we go down one more time?”
Not that I want to argue, but to the readers skeptical about the sexual connotations, I will only ask: Why does she blush? It’s just sledding. But maybe you argue, impatient with me, an old man, that she’s timid because she hasn’t confirmed to herself that he said, “I love you.” And I will answer that I don’t understand why her timidity would make her blush. Trying to confirm his words is not embarrassing. Admitting that she wants more of whatever you prefer to call that activity, however, is very familiar to some of us and can cause blushing.
She likes this sledding, but meanwhile, seated in the sled as the other times, she is pale, and sighing with fear, shakes.
We go down the third time, and I see how she looks at me in the face, observes my lips. But I place the handkerchief to my lips, cough, and, when we reach the middle of the hill, I successfully utter:
“I love you, Nadya!”
And the riddle remains a riddle! Nadenka goes silent, thinks about something….
Here we pause in one of Chekhov’s own ellipsis-pauses. The puzzle, the trick, the story’s explicit joke, is about the declaration, not about the thrill of this new exhausting and satisfying physical activity. The narrator’s cruelty is what makes her unhappy. The sexual or physically exciting activity, though fearful, attracts her. The words of love would, it seems, deplete some of her shame in desiring more of the activity.
I lead her home from the skating rink, she tries to go quietly, begins slowing her feet and keeps waiting for whether I will say those words to her. And I see how her soul suffers as she makes an effort on herself in order not to say:
“It can’t be that the wind said those things! And I don’t want that the wind said it!”
Chekhov was never accused of cruelty, except perhaps this coming fall by Efros herself. As an adult he pitied and sympathized with all creatures, great and small. But his narrator, as Chekhov saw later and thus modified the story, is indeed cruel—for this “little joke.”
The morning of the next day I receive a note: “If you go sledding today, come for me. N.” And after that I begin going to the skating rink every day, and each time, flying down on the sled, I recite in an undertone these very words:
“I love you, Nadya!”
Soon Nadenka is accustomed to this phrase, like to wine or morphine. She cannot live without it. Truly, flying down the hill was terrifying before, but now already the fears and danger give a special enchantment to the words of love, words that as before set up a riddle and tortured her soul. She suspects the same two: the wind and me…. Whichever of the two confesses the love to her, she doesn’t know, but to her it is all, apparently, one and the same; from whichever vessel she drinks—it is all the same from which to get drunk.
She wants the activity, and she wants the words. She gets them both. But she is like the scientist Chekhov himself was, and she has to keep testing to discover the source of “the words of love.”
An unaccounted amount of time passes after the “every day.” Chekhov begins the next paragraph:
For some reason at midday I make my way alone to the rink; mixing in with the crowd, I see Nadenka, searching with her eyes for me as she goes up to the hill…. Then she slowly ascends the steps…. It’s terrifying to go alone, oh, how terrifying! She is as pale as snow, she shakes, she goes as if to an execution, but she goes, goes without looking around, decisively. She, apparently, decided finally to test it out: Will those splendid, sweet words be heard when I’m not there? I see when she, pale, with her mouth open from terror, sits in the sled, closes her eyes and, bidding the earth goodbye forever, moving off…. “Zhhhh!”… the runners buzz. Whether or not Nadenka hears the words. I don’t know…. I only see how she gets up out of the sled incapacitated, weak. And it’s apparent by her face that she herself doesn’t know whether she heard something or not. Her fears while she was sledding down drove off her ability to hear, distinguish sounds, to understand….