{"id":393,"date":"2016-10-26T20:54:57","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T20:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/ivytech-engl206-master\/?post_type=chapter&p=393"},"modified":"2020-01-28T22:28:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T22:28:23","slug":"peasant-wives-by-anton-chekhov","status":"web-only","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-eng-102-college-writing-ii\/chapter\/peasant-wives-by-anton-chekhov\/","title":{"raw":"Anton Chekhov, \"Peasant Wives,\" 1891","rendered":"Anton Chekhov, “Peasant Wives,” 1891"},"content":{"raw":"IN the village of Reybuzh, just facing the church, stands a two-storeyed house with a stone foundation and an iron roof. In the lower storey the owner himself, Filip Ivanov Kashin, nicknamed Dyudya, lives with his family, and on the upper floor, where it is apt to be very hot in summer and very cold in winter, they put up government officials, merchants, or landowners, who chance to be travelling that way. Dyudya rents some bits of land, keeps a tavern on the highroad, does a trade in tar, honey, cattle, and jackdaws, and has already something like eight thousand roubles put by in the bank in the town.\r\n\r\nHis elder son, Fyodor, is head engineer in the factory, and, as the peasants say of him, he has risen so high in the world that he is quite out of reach now. Fyodor\u2019s wife, Sofya, a plain, ailing woman, lives at home at her father-in-law\u2019s. She is for ever crying, and every Sunday she goes over to the hospital for medicine. Dyudya\u2019s second son, the hunchback Alyoshka, is living at home at his father\u2019s. He has only lately been married to Varvara, whom they singled out for him from a poor family. She is a handsome young woman, smart and buxom. When officials or merchants put up at the house, they always insist on having Varvara to bring in the samovar and make their beds.\r\n\r\nOne June evening when the sun was setting and the air was full of the smell of hay, of steaming dung-heaps and new milk, a plain-looking cart drove into Dyudya\u2019s yard with three people in it: a man of about thirty in a canvas suit, beside him a little boy of seven or eight in a long black coat with big bone buttons, and on the driver\u2019s seat a young fellow in a red shirt.\r\n\r\nThe young fellow took out the horses and led them out into the street to walk them up and down a bit, while the traveller washed, said a prayer, turning towards the church, then spread a rug near the cart and sat down with the boy to supper. He ate without haste, sedately, and Dyudya, who had seen a good many travellers in his time, knew him from his manners for a businesslike man, serious and aware of his own value.\r\n\r\nDyudya was sitting on the step in his waistcoat without a cap on, waiting for the visitor to speak first. He was used to hearing all kinds of stories from the travellers in the evening, and he liked listening to them before going to bed. His old wife, Afanasyevna, and his daughter-in-law Sofya, were milking in the cowshed. The other daughter-in-law, Varvara, was sitting at the open window of the upper storey, eating sunflower seeds.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe little chap will be your son, I\u2019m thinking?\u201d Dyudya asked the traveller.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo; adopted. An orphan. I took him for my soul\u2019s salvation.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey got into conversation. The stranger seemed to be a man fond of talking and ready of speech, and Dyudya learned from him that he was from the town, was of the tradesman class, and had a house of his own, that his name was Matvey Savitch, that he was on his way now to look at some gardens that he was renting from some German colonists, and that the boy\u2019s name was Kuzka. The evening was hot and close, no one felt inclined for sleep. When it was getting dark and pale stars began to twinkle here and there in the sky, Matvey Savitch began to tell how he had come by Kuzka. Afanasyevna and Sofya stood a little way off, listening. Kuzka had gone to the gate.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a complicated story, old man,\u201d began Matvey Savitch, \u201cand if I were to tell you all just as it happened, it would take all night and more. Ten years ago in a little house in our street, next door to me, where now there\u2019s a tallow and oil factory, there was living an old widow, Marfa Semyonovna Kapluntsev, and she had two sons: one was a guard on the railway, but the other, Vasya, who was just my own age, lived at home with his mother. Old Kapluntsev had kept five pair of horses and sent carriers all over the town; his widow had not given up the business, but managed the carriers as well as her husband had done, so that some days they would bring in as much as five roubles from their rounds.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe young fellow, too, made a trifle on his own account. He used to breed fancy pigeons and sell them to fanciers; at times he would stand for hours on the roof, waving a broom in the air and whistling; his pigeons were right up in the clouds, but it wasn\u2019t enough for him, and he\u2019d want them to go higher yet. Siskins and starlings, too, he used to catch, and he made cages for sale. All trifles, but, mind you, he\u2019d pick up some ten roubles a month over such trifles. Well, as time went on, the old lady lost the use of her legs and took to her bed. In consequence of which event the house was left without a woman to look after it, and that\u2019s for all the world like a man without an eye. The old lady bestirred herself and made up her mind to marry Vasya. They called in a matchmaker at once, the women got to talking of one thing and another, and Vasya went off to have a look at the girls. He picked out Mashenka, a widow\u2019s daughter. They made up their minds without loss of time and in a week it was all settled. The girl was a little slip of a thing, seventeen, but fair-skinned and pretty-looking, and like a lady in all her ways; and a decent dowry with her, five hundred roubles, a cow, a bed.... Well, the old lady\u2014it seemed as though she had known it was coming\u2014three days after the wedding, departed to the Heavenly Jerusalem where is neither sickness nor sighing. The young people gave her a good funeral and began their life together. For just six months they got on splendidly, and then all of a sudden another misfortune. It never rains but it pours: Vasya was summoned to the recruiting office to draw lots for the service. He was taken, poor chap, for a soldier, and not even granted exemption. They shaved his head and packed him off to Poland. It was God\u2019s will; there was nothing to be done. When he said good-bye to his wife in the yard, he bore it all right; but as he glanced up at the hay-loft and his pigeons for the last time, he burst out crying. It was pitiful to see him.\r\n\r\n\u201cAt first Mashenka got her mother to stay with her, that she mightn\u2019t be dull all alone; she stayed till the baby\u2014this very Kuzka here\u2014was born, and then she went off to Oboyan to another married daughter\u2019s and left Mashenka alone with the baby. There were five peasants\u2014the carriers\u2014a drunken saucy lot; horses, too, and dray-carts to see to, and then the fence would be broken or the soot afire in the chimney\u2014jobs beyond a woman, and through our being neighbours, she got into the way of turning to me for every little thing.... Well, I\u2019d go over, set things to rights, and give advice.... Naturally, not without going indoors, drinking a cup of tea and having a little chat with her. I was a young fellow, intellectual, and fond of talking on all sorts of subjects; she, too, was well-bred and educated. She was always neatly dressed, and in summer she walked out with a sunshade. Sometimes I would begin upon religion or politics with her, and she was flattered and would entertain me with tea and jam.... In a word, not to make a long story of it, I must tell you, old man, a year had not passed before the Evil One, the enemy of all mankind, confounded me. I began to notice that any day I didn\u2019t go to see her, I seemed out of sorts and dull. And I\u2019d be continually making up something that I must see her about: \u2018It\u2019s high time,\u2019 I\u2019d say to myself, \u2018to put the double windows in for the winter,\u2019 and the whole day I\u2019d idle away over at her place putting in the windows and take good care to leave a couple of them over for the next day too.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018I ought to count over Vasya\u2019s pigeons, to see none of them have strayed,\u2019 and so on. I used always to be talking to her across the fence, and in the end I made a little gate in the fence so as not to have to go so far round. From womankind comes much evil into the world and every kind of abomination. Not we sinners only; even the saints themselves have been led astray by them. Mashenka did not try to keep me at a distance. Instead of thinking of her husband and being on her guard, she fell in love with me. I began to notice that she was dull without me, and was always walking to and fro by the fence looking into my yard through the cracks.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy brains were going round in my head in a sort of frenzy. On Thursday in Holy Week I was going early in the morning\u2014it was scarcely light\u2014to market. I passed close by her gate, and the Evil One was by me\u2014at my elbow. I looked\u2014she had a gate with open trellis work at the top\u2014and there she was, up already, standing in the middle of the yard, feeding the ducks. I could not restrain myself, and I called her name. She came up and looked at me through the trellis.... Her little face was white, her eyes soft and sleepy-looking.... I liked her looks immensely, and I began paying her compliments, as though we were not at the gate, but just as one does on namedays, while she blushed, and laughed, and kept looking straight into my eyes without winking.... I lost all sense and began to declare my love to her.... She opened the gate, and from that morning we began to live as man and wife....\u201d\r\n\r\nThe hunchback Alyoshka came into the yard from the street and ran out of breath into the house, not looking at any one. A minute later he ran out of the house with a concertina. Jingling some coppers in his pocket, and cracking sunflower seeds as he ran, he went out at the gate.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd who\u2019s that, pray?\u201d asked Matvey Savitch.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy son Alexey,\u201d answered Dyudya. \u201cHe\u2019s off on a spree, the rascal. God has afflicted him with a hump, so we are not very hard on him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd he\u2019s always drinking with the other fellows, always drinking,\u201d sighed Afanasyevna. \u201cBefore Carnival we married him, thinking he\u2019d be steadier, but there! he\u2019s worse than ever.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s been no use. Simply keeping another man\u2019s daughter for nothing,\u201d said Dyudya.\r\n\r\nSomewhere behind the church they began to sing a glorious, mournful song. The words they could not catch and only the voices could be heard\u2014two tenors and a bass. All were listening; there was complete stillness in the yard.... Two voices suddenly broke off with a loud roar of laughter, but the third, a tenor, still sang on, and took so high a note that every one instinctively looked upwards, as though the voice had soared to heaven itself.\r\n\r\nVarvara came out of the house, and screening her eyes with her hand, as though from the sun, she looked towards the church.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s the priest\u2019s sons with the schoolmaster,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nAgain all the three voices began to sing together. Matvey Savitch sighed and went on:\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, that\u2019s how it was, old man. Two years later we got a letter from Vasya from Warsaw. He wrote that he was being sent home sick. He was ill. By that time I had put all that foolishness out of my head, and I had a fine match picked out all ready for me, only I didn\u2019t know how to break it off with my sweetheart. Every day I\u2019d make up my mind to have it out with Mashenka, but I didn\u2019t know how to approach her so as not to have a woman\u2019s screeching about my ears. The letter freed my hands. I read it through with Mashenka; she turned white as a sheet, while I said to her: \u2018Thank God; now,\u2019 says I, \u2018you\u2019ll be a married woman again.\u2019 But says she: \u2018I\u2019m not going to live with him.\u2019 \u2018Why, isn\u2019t he your husband?\u2019 said I. \u2018Is it an easy thing?... I never loved him and I married him not of my own free will. My mother made me.\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t try to get out of it, silly,\u2019 said I, \u2018but tell me this: were you married to him in church or not?\u2019 \u2018I was married,\u2019 she said, \u2018but it\u2019s you that I love, and I will stay with you to the day of my death. Folks may jeer. I don\u2019t care....\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re a Christian woman,\u2019 said I, \u2018and have read the Scriptures; what is written there?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cOnce married, with her husband she must live,\u201d said Dyudya.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Man and wife are one flesh. We have sinned,\u2019 I said, \u2018you and I, and it is enough; we must repent and fear God. We must confess it all to Vasya,\u2019 said I; \u2018he\u2019s a quiet fellow and soft\u2014he won\u2019t kill you. And indeed,\u2019 said I, \u2018better to suffer torments in this world at the hands of your lawful master than to gnash your teeth at the dread Seat of Judgment.\u2019 The wench wouldn\u2019t listen; she stuck to her silly, \u2018It\u2019s you I love!\u2019 and nothing more could I get out of her.\r\n\r\n\u201cVasya came back on the Saturday before Trinity, early in the morning. From my fence I could see everything; he ran into the house, and came back a minute later with Kuzka in his arms, and he was laughing and crying all at once; he was kissing Kuzka and looking up at the hay-loft, and hadn\u2019t the heart to put the child down, and yet he was longing to go to his pigeons. He was always a soft sort of chap\u2014sentimental. That day passed off very well, all quiet and proper. They had begun ringing the church bells for the evening service, when the thought struck me: \u2018To-morrow\u2019s Trinity Sunday; how is it they are not decking the gates and the fence with green? Something\u2019s wrong,\u2019 I thought. I went over to them. I peeped in, and there he was, sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, his eyes staring like a drunken man\u2019s, the tears streaming down his cheeks and his hands shaking; he was pulling cracknels, necklaces, gingerbread nuts, and all sorts of little presents out of his bundle and flinging them on the floor. Kuzka\u2014he was three years old\u2014was crawling on the floor, munching the gingerbreads, while Mashenka stood by the stove, white and shivering all over, muttering: \u2018I\u2019m not your wife; I can\u2019t live with you,\u2019 and all sorts of foolishness. I bowed down at Vasya\u2019s feet, and said: \u2018We have sinned against you, Vassily Maximitch; forgive us, for Christ\u2019s sake!\u2019 Then I got up and spoke to Mashenka: \u2018You, Marya Semyonovna, ought now to wash Vassily Maximitch\u2019s feet and drink the water. Do you be an obedient wife to him, and pray to God for me, that He in His mercy may forgive my transgression.\u2019 It came to me like an inspiration from an angel of Heaven; I gave her solemn counsel and spoke with such feeling that my own tears flowed too. And so two days later Vasya comes to me: \u2018Matyusha,\u2019 says he, \u2018I forgive you and my wife; God have mercy on you! She was a soldier\u2019s wife, a young thing all alone; it was hard for her to be on her guard. She\u2019s not the first, nor will she be the last. Only,\u2019 he says, \u2018I beg you to behave as though there had never been anything between you, and to make no sign, while I,\u2019 says he, \u2018will do my best to please her in every way, so that she may come to love me again.\u2019 He gave me his hand on it, drank a cup of tea, and went away more cheerful.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Well,\u2019 thought I, \u2018thank God!\u2019 and I did feel glad that everything had gone off so well. But no sooner had Vasya gone out of the yard, when in came Mashenka. Ah! What I had to suffer! She hung on my neck, weeping and praying: \u2018For God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t cast me off; I can\u2019t live without you!\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe vile hussy!\u201d sighed Dyudya.\r\n\r\n\u201cI swore at her, stamped my foot, and dragging her into the passage, I fastened the door with the hook. \u2018Go to your husband,\u2019 I cried. \u2018Don\u2019t shame me before folks. Fear God!\u2019 And every day there was a scene of that sort.\r\n\r\n\u201cOne morning I was standing in my yard near the stable cleaning a bridle. All at once I saw her running through the little gate into my yard, with bare feet, in her petticoat, and straight towards me; she clutched at the bridle, getting all smeared with the pitch, and shaking and weeping, she cried: \u2018I can\u2019t stand him; I loathe him; I can\u2019t bear it! If you don\u2019t love me, better kill me!\u2019 I was angry, and I struck her twice with the bridle, but at that instant Vasya ran in at the gate, and in a despairing voice he shouted: \u2018Don\u2019t beat her! Don\u2019t beat her!\u2019 But he ran up himself, and waving his arms, as though he were mad, he let fly with his fists at her with all his might, then flung her on the ground and kicked her. I tried to defend her, but he snatched up the reins and thrashed her with them, and all the while, like a colt\u2019s whinny, he went: \u2018He\u2014he\u2014he!\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019d take the reins and let you feel them,\u201d muttered Varvara, moving away; \u201cmurdering our sister, the damned brutes!...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHold your tongue, you jade!\u201d Dyudya shouted at her.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018He\u2014he\u2014he!\u2019\u201d Matvey Savitch went on. \u201cA carrier ran out of his yard; I called to my workman, and the three of us got Mashenka away from him and carried her home in our arms. The disgrace of it! The same day I went over in the evening to see how things were. She was lying in bed, all wrapped up in bandages, nothing but her eyes and nose to be seen; she was looking at the ceiling. I said: \u2018Good-evening, Marya Semyonovna!\u2019 She did not speak. And Vasya was sitting in the next room, his head in his hands, crying and saying: \u2018Brute that I am! I\u2019ve ruined my life! O God, let me die!\u2019 I sat for half an hour by Mashenka and gave her a good talking-to. I tried to frighten her a bit. \u2018The righteous,\u2019 said I, \u2018after this life go to Paradise, but you will go to a Gehenna of fire, like all adulteresses. Don\u2019t strive against your husband, go and lay yourself at his feet.\u2019 But never a word from her; she didn\u2019t so much as blink an eyelid, for all the world as though I were talking to a post. The next day Vasya fell ill with something like cholera, and in the evening I heard that he was dead. Well, so they buried him, and Mashenka did not go to the funeral; she didn\u2019t care to show her shameless face and her bruises. And soon there began to be talk all over the district that Vasya had not died a natural death, that Mashenka had made away with him. It got to the ears of the police; they had Vasya dug up and cut open, and in his stomach they found arsenic. It was clear he had been poisoned; the police came and took Mashenka away, and with her the innocent Kuzka. They were put in prison.... The woman had gone too far\u2014God punished her.... Eight months later they tried her. She sat, I remember, on a low stool, with a little white kerchief on her head, wearing a grey gown, and she was so thin, so pale, so sharp-eyed it made one sad to look at her. Behind her stood a soldier with a gun. She would not confess her guilt. Some in the court said she had poisoned her husband and others declared he had poisoned himself for grief. I was one of the witnesses. When they questioned me, I told the whole truth according to my oath. \u2018Hers,\u2019 said I, \u2018is the guilt. It\u2019s no good to conceal it; she did not love her husband, and she had a will of her own....\u2019 The trial began in the morning and towards night they passed this sentence: to send her to hard labour in Siberia for thirteen years. After that sentence Mashenka remained three months longer in prison. I went to see her, and from Christian charity I took her a little tea and sugar. But as soon as she set eyes on me she began to shake all over, wringing her hands and muttering: \u2018Go away! go away!\u2019 And Kuzka she clasped to her as though she were afraid I would take him away. \u2018See,\u2019 said I, \u2018what you have come to! Ah, Masha, Masha! you would not listen to me when I gave you good advice, and now you must repent it. You are yourself to blame,\u2019 said I; \u2018blame yourself!\u2019 I was giving her good counsel, but she: \u2018Go away, go away!\u2019 huddling herself and Kuzka against the wall, and trembling all over.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen they were taking her away to the chief town of our province, I walked by the escort as far as the station and slipped a rouble into her bundle for my soul\u2019s salvation. But she did not get as far as Siberia.... She fell sick of fever and died in prison.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLive like a dog and you must die a dog\u2019s death,\u201d said Dyudya.\r\n\r\n\u201cKuzka was sent back home.... I thought it over and took him to bring up. After all\u2014though a convict\u2019s child\u2014still he was a living soul, a Christian.... I was sorry for him. I shall make him my clerk, and if I have no children of my own, I\u2019ll make a merchant of him. Wherever I go now, I take him with me; let him learn his work.\u201d\r\n\r\nAll the while Matvey Savitch had been telling his story, Kuzka had sat on a little stone near the gate. His head propped in both hands, he gazed at the sky, and in the distance he looked in the dark like a stump of wood.\r\n\r\n\u201cKuzka, come to bed,\u201d Matvey Savitch bawled to him.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, it\u2019s time,\u201d said Dyudya, getting up; he yawned loudly and added:\r\n\r\n\u201cFolks will go their own way, and that\u2019s what comes of it.\u201d\r\n\r\nOver the yard the moon was floating now in the heavens; she was moving one way, while the clouds beneath moved the other way; the clouds were disappearing into the darkness, but still the moon could be seen high above the yard.\r\n\r\nMatvey Savitch said a prayer, facing the church, and saying good-night, he lay down on the ground near his cart. Kuzka, too, said a prayer, lay down in the cart, and covered himself with his little overcoat; he made himself a little hole in the hay so as to be more comfortable, and curled up so that his elbows looked like knees. From the yard Dyudya could be seen lighting a candle in his room below, putting on his spectacles and standing in the corner with a book. He was a long while reading and crossing himself.\r\n\r\nThe travellers fell asleep. Afanasyevna and Sofya came up to the cart and began looking at Kuzka.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe little orphan\u2019s asleep,\u201d said the old woman. \u201cHe\u2019s thin and frail, nothing but bones. No mother and no one to care for him properly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy Grishutka must be two years older,\u201d said Sofya. \u201cUp at the factory he lives like a slave without his mother. The foreman beats him, I dare say. When I looked at this poor mite just now, I thought of my own Grishutka, and my heart went cold within me.\u201d\r\n\r\nA minute passed in silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cDoesn\u2019t remember his mother, I suppose,\u201d said the old woman.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow could he remember?\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd big tears began dropping from Sofya\u2019s eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe\u2019s curled himself up like a cat,\u201d she said, sobbing and laughing with tenderness and sorrow.... \u201cPoor motherless mite!\u201d\r\n\r\nKuzka started and opened his eyes. He saw before him an ugly, wrinkled, tear-stained face, and beside it another, aged and toothless, with a sharp chin and hooked nose, and high above them the infinite sky with the flying clouds and the moon. He cried out in fright, and Sofya, too, uttered a cry; both were answered by the echo, and a faint stir passed over the stifling air; a watchman tapped somewhere near, a dog barked. Matvey Savitch muttered something in his sleep and turned over on the other side.\r\n\r\nLate at night when Dyudya and the old woman and the neighbouring watchman were all asleep, Sofya went out to the gate and sat down on the bench. She felt stifled and her head ached from weeping. The street was a wide and long one; it stretched for nearly two miles to the right and as far to the left, and the end of it was out of sight. The moon was now not over the yard, but behind the church. One side of the street was flooded with moonlight, while the other side lay in black shadow. The long shadows of the poplars and the starling-cotes stretched right across the street, while the church cast a broad shadow, black and terrible that enfolded Dyudya\u2019s gates and half his house. The street was still and deserted. From time to time the strains of music floated faintly from the end of the street\u2014Alyoshka, most likely, playing his concertina.\r\n\r\nSomeone moved in the shadow near the church enclosure, and Sofya could not make out whether it were a man or a cow, or perhaps merely a big bird rustling in the trees. But then a figure stepped out of the shadow, halted, and said something in a man\u2019s voice, then vanished down the turning by the church. A little later, not three yards from the gate, another figure came into sight; it walked straight from the church to the gate and stopped short, seeing Sofya on the bench.\r\n\r\n\u201cVarvara, is that you?\u201d said Sofya.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd if it were?\u201d\r\n\r\nIt was Varvara. She stood still a minute, then came up to the bench and sat down.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere have you been?\u201d asked Sofya.\r\n\r\nVarvara made no answer.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019d better mind you don\u2019t get into trouble with such goings-on, my girl,\u201d said Sofya. \u201cDid you hear how Mashenka was kicked and lashed with the reins? You\u2019d better look out, or they\u2019ll treat you the same.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, let them!\u201d\r\n\r\nVarvara laughed into her kerchief and whispered:\r\n\r\n\u201cI have just been with the priest\u2019s son.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNonsense!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a sin!\u201d whispered Sofya.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, let it be.... What do I care? If it\u2019s a sin, then it is a sin, but better be struck dead by thunder than live like this. I\u2019m young and strong, and I\u2019ve a filthy crooked hunchback for a husband, worse than Dyudya himself, curse him! When I was a girl, I hadn\u2019t bread to eat, or a shoe to my foot, and to get away from that wretchedness I was tempted by Alyoshka\u2019s money, and got caught like a fish in a net, and I\u2019d rather have a viper for my bedfellow than that scurvy Alyoshka. And what\u2019s your life? It makes me sick to look at it. Your Fyodor sent you packing from the factory and he\u2019s taken up with another woman. They have robbed you of your boy and made a slave of him. You work like a horse, and never hear a kind word. I\u2019d rather pine all my days an old maid, I\u2019d rather get half a rouble from the priest\u2019s son, I\u2019d rather beg my bread, or throw myself into the well...\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a sin!\u201d whispered Sofya again.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, let it be.\u201d\r\n\r\nSomewhere behind the church the same three voices, two tenors and a bass, began singing again a mournful song. And again the words could not be distinguished.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey are not early to bed,\u201d Varvara said, laughing.\r\n\r\nAnd she began telling in a whisper of her midnight walks with the priest\u2019s son, and of the stories he had told her, and of his comrades, and of the fun she had with the travellers who stayed in the house. The mournful song stirred a longing for life and freedom. Sofya began to laugh; she thought it sinful and terrible and sweet to hear about, and she felt envious and sorry that she, too, had not been a sinner when she was young and pretty.\r\n\r\nIn the churchyard they heard twelve strokes beaten on the watchman\u2019s board.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s time we were asleep,\u201d said Sofya, getting up, \u201cor, maybe, we shall catch it from Dyudya.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey both went softly into the yard.\r\n\r\n\u201cI went away without hearing what he was telling about Mashenka,\u201d said Varvara, making herself a bed under the window.\r\n\r\n\u201cShe died in prison, he said. She poisoned her husband.\u201d\r\n\r\nVarvara lay down beside Sofya a while, and said softly:\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019d make away with my Alyoshka and never regret it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou talk nonsense; God forgive you.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen Sofya was just dropping asleep, Varvara, coming close, whispered in her ear:\r\n\r\n\u201cLet us get rid of Dyudya and Alyoshka!\u201d\r\n\r\nSofya started and said nothing. Then she opened her eyes and gazed a long while steadily at the sky.\r\n\r\n\u201cPeople would find out,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, they wouldn\u2019t. Dyudya\u2019s an old man, it\u2019s time he did die; and they\u2019d say Alyoshka died of drink.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m afraid... God would chastise us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, let Him....\u201d\r\n\r\nBoth lay awake thinking in silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s cold,\u201d said Sofya, beginning to shiver all over. \u201cIt will soon be morning.... Are you asleep?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo.... Don\u2019t you mind what I say, dear,\u201d whispered Varvara; \u201cI get so mad with the damned brutes, I don\u2019t know what I do say. Go to sleep, or it will be daylight directly.... Go to sleep.\u201d\r\n\r\nBoth were quiet and soon they fell asleep.\r\n\r\nEarlier than all woke the old woman. She waked up Sofya and they went together into the cowshed to milk the cows. The hunchback Alyoshka came in hopelessly drunk without his concertina; his breast and knees had been in the dust and straw\u2014he must have fallen down in the road. Staggering, he went into the cowshed, and without undressing he rolled into a sledge and began to snore at once. When first the crosses on the church and then the windows were flashing in the light of the rising sun, and shadows stretched across the yard over the dewy grass from the trees and the top of the well, Matvey Savitch jumped up and began hurrying about:\r\n\r\n\u201cKuzka! get up!\u201d he shouted. \u201cIt\u2019s time to put in the horses! Look sharp!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe bustle of morning was beginning. A young Jewess in a brown gown with flounces led a horse into the yard to drink. The pulley of the well creaked plaintively, the bucket knocked as it went down....\r\n\r\nKuzka, sleepy, tired, covered with dew, sat up in the cart, lazily putting on his little overcoat, and listening to the drip of the water from the bucket into the well as he shivered with the cold.\r\n\r\n\u201cAuntie!\u201d shouted Matvey Savitch to Sofya, \u201ctell my lad to hurry up and to harness the horses!\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd Dyudya at the same instant shouted from the window:\r\n\r\n\u201cSofya, take a farthing from the Jewess for the horse\u2019s drink! They\u2019re always in here, the mangy creatures!\u201d\r\n\r\nIn the street sheep were running up and down, baaing; the peasant women were shouting at the shepherd, while he played his pipes, cracked his whip, or answered them in a thick sleepy bass. Three sheep strayed into the yard, and not finding the gate again, pushed at the fence.\r\n\r\nVarvara was waked by the noise, and bundling her bedding up in her arms, she went into the house.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou might at least drive the sheep out!\u201d the old woman bawled after her, \u201cmy lady!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI dare say! As if I were going to slave for you Herods!\u201d muttered Varvara, going into the house.\r\n\r\nDyudya came out of the house with his accounts in his hands, sat down on the step, and began reckoning how much the traveller owed him for the night\u2019s lodging, oats, and watering his horses.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou charge pretty heavily for the oats, my good man,\u201d said Matvey Savitch.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf it\u2019s too much, don\u2019t take them. There\u2019s no compulsion, merchant.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen the travellers were ready to start, they were detained for a minute. Kuzka had lost his cap.\r\n\r\n\u201cLittle swine, where did you put it?\u201d Matvey Savitch roared angrily. \u201cWhere is it?\u201d\r\n\r\nKuzka\u2019s face was working with terror; he ran up and down near the cart, and not finding it there, ran to the gate and then to the shed. The old woman and Sofya helped him look.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll pull your ears off!\u201d yelled Matvey Savitch. \u201cDirty brat!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe cap was found at the bottom of the cart.\r\n\r\nKuzka brushed the hay off it with his sleeve, put it on, and timidly he crawled into the cart, still with an expression of terror on his face as though he were afraid of a blow from behind.\r\n\r\nMatvey Savitch crossed himself. The driver gave a tug at the reins and the cart rolled out of the yard.\r\n\r\n \r\n
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov<\/b> (29 January 1860\u00a0\u2013 15 July 1904)\u00a0was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.\u00a0Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre.\u00a0Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: \u201cMedicine is my lawful wife,\u201d he once said, \u201cand literature is my mistress.\u201d<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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<\/div>\r\n<\/section>","rendered":"

IN the village of Reybuzh, just facing the church, stands a two-storeyed house with a stone foundation and an iron roof. In the lower storey the owner himself, Filip Ivanov Kashin, nicknamed Dyudya, lives with his family, and on the upper floor, where it is apt to be very hot in summer and very cold in winter, they put up government officials, merchants, or landowners, who chance to be travelling that way. Dyudya rents some bits of land, keeps a tavern on the highroad, does a trade in tar, honey, cattle, and jackdaws, and has already something like eight thousand roubles put by in the bank in the town.<\/p>\n

His elder son, Fyodor, is head engineer in the factory, and, as the peasants say of him, he has risen so high in the world that he is quite out of reach now. Fyodor\u2019s wife, Sofya, a plain, ailing woman, lives at home at her father-in-law\u2019s. She is for ever crying, and every Sunday she goes over to the hospital for medicine. Dyudya\u2019s second son, the hunchback Alyoshka, is living at home at his father\u2019s. He has only lately been married to Varvara, whom they singled out for him from a poor family. She is a handsome young woman, smart and buxom. When officials or merchants put up at the house, they always insist on having Varvara to bring in the samovar and make their beds.<\/p>\n

One June evening when the sun was setting and the air was full of the smell of hay, of steaming dung-heaps and new milk, a plain-looking cart drove into Dyudya\u2019s yard with three people in it: a man of about thirty in a canvas suit, beside him a little boy of seven or eight in a long black coat with big bone buttons, and on the driver\u2019s seat a young fellow in a red shirt.<\/p>\n

The young fellow took out the horses and led them out into the street to walk them up and down a bit, while the traveller washed, said a prayer, turning towards the church, then spread a rug near the cart and sat down with the boy to supper. He ate without haste, sedately, and Dyudya, who had seen a good many travellers in his time, knew him from his manners for a businesslike man, serious and aware of his own value.<\/p>\n

Dyudya was sitting on the step in his waistcoat without a cap on, waiting for the visitor to speak first. He was used to hearing all kinds of stories from the travellers in the evening, and he liked listening to them before going to bed. His old wife, Afanasyevna, and his daughter-in-law Sofya, were milking in the cowshed. The other daughter-in-law, Varvara, was sitting at the open window of the upper storey, eating sunflower seeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe little chap will be your son, I\u2019m thinking?\u201d Dyudya asked the traveller.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo; adopted. An orphan. I took him for my soul\u2019s salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n

They got into conversation. The stranger seemed to be a man fond of talking and ready of speech, and Dyudya learned from him that he was from the town, was of the tradesman class, and had a house of his own, that his name was Matvey Savitch, that he was on his way now to look at some gardens that he was renting from some German colonists, and that the boy\u2019s name was Kuzka. The evening was hot and close, no one felt inclined for sleep. When it was getting dark and pale stars began to twinkle here and there in the sky, Matvey Savitch began to tell how he had come by Kuzka. Afanasyevna and Sofya stood a little way off, listening. Kuzka had gone to the gate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a complicated story, old man,\u201d began Matvey Savitch, \u201cand if I were to tell you all just as it happened, it would take all night and more. Ten years ago in a little house in our street, next door to me, where now there\u2019s a tallow and oil factory, there was living an old widow, Marfa Semyonovna Kapluntsev, and she had two sons: one was a guard on the railway, but the other, Vasya, who was just my own age, lived at home with his mother. Old Kapluntsev had kept five pair of horses and sent carriers all over the town; his widow had not given up the business, but managed the carriers as well as her husband had done, so that some days they would bring in as much as five roubles from their rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young fellow, too, made a trifle on his own account. He used to breed fancy pigeons and sell them to fanciers; at times he would stand for hours on the roof, waving a broom in the air and whistling; his pigeons were right up in the clouds, but it wasn\u2019t enough for him, and he\u2019d want them to go higher yet. Siskins and starlings, too, he used to catch, and he made cages for sale. All trifles, but, mind you, he\u2019d pick up some ten roubles a month over such trifles. Well, as time went on, the old lady lost the use of her legs and took to her bed. In consequence of which event the house was left without a woman to look after it, and that\u2019s for all the world like a man without an eye. The old lady bestirred herself and made up her mind to marry Vasya. They called in a matchmaker at once, the women got to talking of one thing and another, and Vasya went off to have a look at the girls. He picked out Mashenka, a widow\u2019s daughter. They made up their minds without loss of time and in a week it was all settled. The girl was a little slip of a thing, seventeen, but fair-skinned and pretty-looking, and like a lady in all her ways; and a decent dowry with her, five hundred roubles, a cow, a bed…. Well, the old lady\u2014it seemed as though she had known it was coming\u2014three days after the wedding, departed to the Heavenly Jerusalem where is neither sickness nor sighing. The young people gave her a good funeral and began their life together. For just six months they got on splendidly, and then all of a sudden another misfortune. It never rains but it pours: Vasya was summoned to the recruiting office to draw lots for the service. He was taken, poor chap, for a soldier, and not even granted exemption. They shaved his head and packed him off to Poland. It was God\u2019s will; there was nothing to be done. When he said good-bye to his wife in the yard, he bore it all right; but as he glanced up at the hay-loft and his pigeons for the last time, he burst out crying. It was pitiful to see him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first Mashenka got her mother to stay with her, that she mightn\u2019t be dull all alone; she stayed till the baby\u2014this very Kuzka here\u2014was born, and then she went off to Oboyan to another married daughter\u2019s and left Mashenka alone with the baby. There were five peasants\u2014the carriers\u2014a drunken saucy lot; horses, too, and dray-carts to see to, and then the fence would be broken or the soot afire in the chimney\u2014jobs beyond a woman, and through our being neighbours, she got into the way of turning to me for every little thing…. Well, I\u2019d go over, set things to rights, and give advice…. Naturally, not without going indoors, drinking a cup of tea and having a little chat with her. I was a young fellow, intellectual, and fond of talking on all sorts of subjects; she, too, was well-bred and educated. She was always neatly dressed, and in summer she walked out with a sunshade. Sometimes I would begin upon religion or politics with her, and she was flattered and would entertain me with tea and jam…. In a word, not to make a long story of it, I must tell you, old man, a year had not passed before the Evil One, the enemy of all mankind, confounded me. I began to notice that any day I didn\u2019t go to see her, I seemed out of sorts and dull. And I\u2019d be continually making up something that I must see her about: \u2018It\u2019s high time,\u2019 I\u2019d say to myself, \u2018to put the double windows in for the winter,\u2019 and the whole day I\u2019d idle away over at her place putting in the windows and take good care to leave a couple of them over for the next day too.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I ought to count over Vasya\u2019s pigeons, to see none of them have strayed,\u2019 and so on. I used always to be talking to her across the fence, and in the end I made a little gate in the fence so as not to have to go so far round. From womankind comes much evil into the world and every kind of abomination. Not we sinners only; even the saints themselves have been led astray by them. Mashenka did not try to keep me at a distance. Instead of thinking of her husband and being on her guard, she fell in love with me. I began to notice that she was dull without me, and was always walking to and fro by the fence looking into my yard through the cracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brains were going round in my head in a sort of frenzy. On Thursday in Holy Week I was going early in the morning\u2014it was scarcely light\u2014to market. I passed close by her gate, and the Evil One was by me\u2014at my elbow. I looked\u2014she had a gate with open trellis work at the top\u2014and there she was, up already, standing in the middle of the yard, feeding the ducks. I could not restrain myself, and I called her name. She came up and looked at me through the trellis…. Her little face was white, her eyes soft and sleepy-looking…. I liked her looks immensely, and I began paying her compliments, as though we were not at the gate, but just as one does on namedays, while she blushed, and laughed, and kept looking straight into my eyes without winking…. I lost all sense and began to declare my love to her…. She opened the gate, and from that morning we began to live as man and wife….\u201d<\/p>\n

The hunchback Alyoshka came into the yard from the street and ran out of breath into the house, not looking at any one. A minute later he ran out of the house with a concertina. Jingling some coppers in his pocket, and cracking sunflower seeds as he ran, he went out at the gate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd who\u2019s that, pray?\u201d asked Matvey Savitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son Alexey,\u201d answered Dyudya. \u201cHe\u2019s off on a spree, the rascal. God has afflicted him with a hump, so we are not very hard on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019s always drinking with the other fellows, always drinking,\u201d sighed Afanasyevna. \u201cBefore Carnival we married him, thinking he\u2019d be steadier, but there! he\u2019s worse than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been no use. Simply keeping another man\u2019s daughter for nothing,\u201d said Dyudya.<\/p>\n

Somewhere behind the church they began to sing a glorious, mournful song. The words they could not catch and only the voices could be heard\u2014two tenors and a bass. All were listening; there was complete stillness in the yard…. Two voices suddenly broke off with a loud roar of laughter, but the third, a tenor, still sang on, and took so high a note that every one instinctively looked upwards, as though the voice had soared to heaven itself.<\/p>\n

Varvara came out of the house, and screening her eyes with her hand, as though from the sun, she looked towards the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the priest\u2019s sons with the schoolmaster,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Again all the three voices began to sing together. Matvey Savitch sighed and went on:<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s how it was, old man. Two years later we got a letter from Vasya from Warsaw. He wrote that he was being sent home sick. He was ill. By that time I had put all that foolishness out of my head, and I had a fine match picked out all ready for me, only I didn\u2019t know how to break it off with my sweetheart. Every day I\u2019d make up my mind to have it out with Mashenka, but I didn\u2019t know how to approach her so as not to have a woman\u2019s screeching about my ears. The letter freed my hands. I read it through with Mashenka; she turned white as a sheet, while I said to her: \u2018Thank God; now,\u2019 says I, \u2018you\u2019ll be a married woman again.\u2019 But says she: \u2018I\u2019m not going to live with him.\u2019 \u2018Why, isn\u2019t he your husband?\u2019 said I. \u2018Is it an easy thing?… I never loved him and I married him not of my own free will. My mother made me.\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t try to get out of it, silly,\u2019 said I, \u2018but tell me this: were you married to him in church or not?\u2019 \u2018I was married,\u2019 she said, \u2018but it\u2019s you that I love, and I will stay with you to the day of my death. Folks may jeer. I don\u2019t care….\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re a Christian woman,\u2019 said I, \u2018and have read the Scriptures; what is written there?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce married, with her husband she must live,\u201d said Dyudya.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Man and wife are one flesh. We have sinned,\u2019 I said, \u2018you and I, and it is enough; we must repent and fear God. We must confess it all to Vasya,\u2019 said I; \u2018he\u2019s a quiet fellow and soft\u2014he won\u2019t kill you. And indeed,\u2019 said I, \u2018better to suffer torments in this world at the hands of your lawful master than to gnash your teeth at the dread Seat of Judgment.\u2019 The wench wouldn\u2019t listen; she stuck to her silly, \u2018It\u2019s you I love!\u2019 and nothing more could I get out of her.<\/p>\n

\u201cVasya came back on the Saturday before Trinity, early in the morning. From my fence I could see everything; he ran into the house, and came back a minute later with Kuzka in his arms, and he was laughing and crying all at once; he was kissing Kuzka and looking up at the hay-loft, and hadn\u2019t the heart to put the child down, and yet he was longing to go to his pigeons. He was always a soft sort of chap\u2014sentimental. That day passed off very well, all quiet and proper. They had begun ringing the church bells for the evening service, when the thought struck me: \u2018To-morrow\u2019s Trinity Sunday; how is it they are not decking the gates and the fence with green? Something\u2019s wrong,\u2019 I thought. I went over to them. I peeped in, and there he was, sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, his eyes staring like a drunken man\u2019s, the tears streaming down his cheeks and his hands shaking; he was pulling cracknels, necklaces, gingerbread nuts, and all sorts of little presents out of his bundle and flinging them on the floor. Kuzka\u2014he was three years old\u2014was crawling on the floor, munching the gingerbreads, while Mashenka stood by the stove, white and shivering all over, muttering: \u2018I\u2019m not your wife; I can\u2019t live with you,\u2019 and all sorts of foolishness. I bowed down at Vasya\u2019s feet, and said: \u2018We have sinned against you, Vassily Maximitch; forgive us, for Christ\u2019s sake!\u2019 Then I got up and spoke to Mashenka: \u2018You, Marya Semyonovna, ought now to wash Vassily Maximitch\u2019s feet and drink the water. Do you be an obedient wife to him, and pray to God for me, that He in His mercy may forgive my transgression.\u2019 It came to me like an inspiration from an angel of Heaven; I gave her solemn counsel and spoke with such feeling that my own tears flowed too. And so two days later Vasya comes to me: \u2018Matyusha,\u2019 says he, \u2018I forgive you and my wife; God have mercy on you! She was a soldier\u2019s wife, a young thing all alone; it was hard for her to be on her guard. She\u2019s not the first, nor will she be the last. Only,\u2019 he says, \u2018I beg you to behave as though there had never been anything between you, and to make no sign, while I,\u2019 says he, \u2018will do my best to please her in every way, so that she may come to love me again.\u2019 He gave me his hand on it, drank a cup of tea, and went away more cheerful.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Well,\u2019 thought I, \u2018thank God!\u2019 and I did feel glad that everything had gone off so well. But no sooner had Vasya gone out of the yard, when in came Mashenka. Ah! What I had to suffer! She hung on my neck, weeping and praying: \u2018For God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t cast me off; I can\u2019t live without you!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vile hussy!\u201d sighed Dyudya.<\/p>\n

\u201cI swore at her, stamped my foot, and dragging her into the passage, I fastened the door with the hook. \u2018Go to your husband,\u2019 I cried. \u2018Don\u2019t shame me before folks. Fear God!\u2019 And every day there was a scene of that sort.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne morning I was standing in my yard near the stable cleaning a bridle. All at once I saw her running through the little gate into my yard, with bare feet, in her petticoat, and straight towards me; she clutched at the bridle, getting all smeared with the pitch, and shaking and weeping, she cried: \u2018I can\u2019t stand him; I loathe him; I can\u2019t bear it! If you don\u2019t love me, better kill me!\u2019 I was angry, and I struck her twice with the bridle, but at that instant Vasya ran in at the gate, and in a despairing voice he shouted: \u2018Don\u2019t beat her! Don\u2019t beat her!\u2019 But he ran up himself, and waving his arms, as though he were mad, he let fly with his fists at her with all his might, then flung her on the ground and kicked her. I tried to defend her, but he snatched up the reins and thrashed her with them, and all the while, like a colt\u2019s whinny, he went: \u2018He\u2014he\u2014he!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d take the reins and let you feel them,\u201d muttered Varvara, moving away; \u201cmurdering our sister, the damned brutes!…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHold your tongue, you jade!\u201d Dyudya shouted at her.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018He\u2014he\u2014he!\u2019\u201d Matvey Savitch went on. \u201cA carrier ran out of his yard; I called to my workman, and the three of us got Mashenka away from him and carried her home in our arms. The disgrace of it! The same day I went over in the evening to see how things were. She was lying in bed, all wrapped up in bandages, nothing but her eyes and nose to be seen; she was looking at the ceiling. I said: \u2018Good-evening, Marya Semyonovna!\u2019 She did not speak. And Vasya was sitting in the next room, his head in his hands, crying and saying: \u2018Brute that I am! I\u2019ve ruined my life! O God, let me die!\u2019 I sat for half an hour by Mashenka and gave her a good talking-to. I tried to frighten her a bit. \u2018The righteous,\u2019 said I, \u2018after this life go to Paradise, but you will go to a Gehenna of fire, like all adulteresses. Don\u2019t strive against your husband, go and lay yourself at his feet.\u2019 But never a word from her; she didn\u2019t so much as blink an eyelid, for all the world as though I were talking to a post. The next day Vasya fell ill with something like cholera, and in the evening I heard that he was dead. Well, so they buried him, and Mashenka did not go to the funeral; she didn\u2019t care to show her shameless face and her bruises. And soon there began to be talk all over the district that Vasya had not died a natural death, that Mashenka had made away with him. It got to the ears of the police; they had Vasya dug up and cut open, and in his stomach they found arsenic. It was clear he had been poisoned; the police came and took Mashenka away, and with her the innocent Kuzka. They were put in prison…. The woman had gone too far\u2014God punished her…. Eight months later they tried her. She sat, I remember, on a low stool, with a little white kerchief on her head, wearing a grey gown, and she was so thin, so pale, so sharp-eyed it made one sad to look at her. Behind her stood a soldier with a gun. She would not confess her guilt. Some in the court said she had poisoned her husband and others declared he had poisoned himself for grief. I was one of the witnesses. When they questioned me, I told the whole truth according to my oath. \u2018Hers,\u2019 said I, \u2018is the guilt. It\u2019s no good to conceal it; she did not love her husband, and she had a will of her own….\u2019 The trial began in the morning and towards night they passed this sentence: to send her to hard labour in Siberia for thirteen years. After that sentence Mashenka remained three months longer in prison. I went to see her, and from Christian charity I took her a little tea and sugar. But as soon as she set eyes on me she began to shake all over, wringing her hands and muttering: \u2018Go away! go away!\u2019 And Kuzka she clasped to her as though she were afraid I would take him away. \u2018See,\u2019 said I, \u2018what you have come to! Ah, Masha, Masha! you would not listen to me when I gave you good advice, and now you must repent it. You are yourself to blame,\u2019 said I; \u2018blame yourself!\u2019 I was giving her good counsel, but she: \u2018Go away, go away!\u2019 huddling herself and Kuzka against the wall, and trembling all over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were taking her away to the chief town of our province, I walked by the escort as far as the station and slipped a rouble into her bundle for my soul\u2019s salvation. But she did not get as far as Siberia…. She fell sick of fever and died in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLive like a dog and you must die a dog\u2019s death,\u201d said Dyudya.<\/p>\n

\u201cKuzka was sent back home…. I thought it over and took him to bring up. After all\u2014though a convict\u2019s child\u2014still he was a living soul, a Christian…. I was sorry for him. I shall make him my clerk, and if I have no children of my own, I\u2019ll make a merchant of him. Wherever I go now, I take him with me; let him learn his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the while Matvey Savitch had been telling his story, Kuzka had sat on a little stone near the gate. His head propped in both hands, he gazed at the sky, and in the distance he looked in the dark like a stump of wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cKuzka, come to bed,\u201d Matvey Savitch bawled to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s time,\u201d said Dyudya, getting up; he yawned loudly and added:<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks will go their own way, and that\u2019s what comes of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the yard the moon was floating now in the heavens; she was moving one way, while the clouds beneath moved the other way; the clouds were disappearing into the darkness, but still the moon could be seen high above the yard.<\/p>\n

Matvey Savitch said a prayer, facing the church, and saying good-night, he lay down on the ground near his cart. Kuzka, too, said a prayer, lay down in the cart, and covered himself with his little overcoat; he made himself a little hole in the hay so as to be more comfortable, and curled up so that his elbows looked like knees. From the yard Dyudya could be seen lighting a candle in his room below, putting on his spectacles and standing in the corner with a book. He was a long while reading and crossing himself.<\/p>\n

The travellers fell asleep. Afanasyevna and Sofya came up to the cart and began looking at Kuzka.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe little orphan\u2019s asleep,\u201d said the old woman. \u201cHe\u2019s thin and frail, nothing but bones. No mother and no one to care for him properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Grishutka must be two years older,\u201d said Sofya. \u201cUp at the factory he lives like a slave without his mother. The foreman beats him, I dare say. When I looked at this poor mite just now, I thought of my own Grishutka, and my heart went cold within me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A minute passed in silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t remember his mother, I suppose,\u201d said the old woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could he remember?\u201d<\/p>\n

And big tears began dropping from Sofya\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s curled himself up like a cat,\u201d she said, sobbing and laughing with tenderness and sorrow…. \u201cPoor motherless mite!\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuzka started and opened his eyes. He saw before him an ugly, wrinkled, tear-stained face, and beside it another, aged and toothless, with a sharp chin and hooked nose, and high above them the infinite sky with the flying clouds and the moon. He cried out in fright, and Sofya, too, uttered a cry; both were answered by the echo, and a faint stir passed over the stifling air; a watchman tapped somewhere near, a dog barked. Matvey Savitch muttered something in his sleep and turned over on the other side.<\/p>\n

Late at night when Dyudya and the old woman and the neighbouring watchman were all asleep, Sofya went out to the gate and sat down on the bench. She felt stifled and her head ached from weeping. The street was a wide and long one; it stretched for nearly two miles to the right and as far to the left, and the end of it was out of sight. The moon was now not over the yard, but behind the church. One side of the street was flooded with moonlight, while the other side lay in black shadow. The long shadows of the poplars and the starling-cotes stretched right across the street, while the church cast a broad shadow, black and terrible that enfolded Dyudya\u2019s gates and half his house. The street was still and deserted. From time to time the strains of music floated faintly from the end of the street\u2014Alyoshka, most likely, playing his concertina.<\/p>\n

Someone moved in the shadow near the church enclosure, and Sofya could not make out whether it were a man or a cow, or perhaps merely a big bird rustling in the trees. But then a figure stepped out of the shadow, halted, and said something in a man\u2019s voice, then vanished down the turning by the church. A little later, not three yards from the gate, another figure came into sight; it walked straight from the church to the gate and stopped short, seeing Sofya on the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cVarvara, is that you?\u201d said Sofya.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if it were?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Varvara. She stood still a minute, then came up to the bench and sat down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have you been?\u201d asked Sofya.<\/p>\n

Varvara made no answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d better mind you don\u2019t get into trouble with such goings-on, my girl,\u201d said Sofya. \u201cDid you hear how Mashenka was kicked and lashed with the reins? You\u2019d better look out, or they\u2019ll treat you the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, let them!\u201d<\/p>\n

Varvara laughed into her kerchief and whispered:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have just been with the priest\u2019s son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNonsense!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sin!\u201d whispered Sofya.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, let it be…. What do I care? If it\u2019s a sin, then it is a sin, but better be struck dead by thunder than live like this. I\u2019m young and strong, and I\u2019ve a filthy crooked hunchback for a husband, worse than Dyudya himself, curse him! When I was a girl, I hadn\u2019t bread to eat, or a shoe to my foot, and to get away from that wretchedness I was tempted by Alyoshka\u2019s money, and got caught like a fish in a net, and I\u2019d rather have a viper for my bedfellow than that scurvy Alyoshka. And what\u2019s your life? It makes me sick to look at it. Your Fyodor sent you packing from the factory and he\u2019s taken up with another woman. They have robbed you of your boy and made a slave of him. You work like a horse, and never hear a kind word. I\u2019d rather pine all my days an old maid, I\u2019d rather get half a rouble from the priest\u2019s son, I\u2019d rather beg my bread, or throw myself into the well…<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sin!\u201d whispered Sofya again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, let it be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhere behind the church the same three voices, two tenors and a bass, began singing again a mournful song. And again the words could not be distinguished.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not early to bed,\u201d Varvara said, laughing.<\/p>\n

And she began telling in a whisper of her midnight walks with the priest\u2019s son, and of the stories he had told her, and of his comrades, and of the fun she had with the travellers who stayed in the house. The mournful song stirred a longing for life and freedom. Sofya began to laugh; she thought it sinful and terrible and sweet to hear about, and she felt envious and sorry that she, too, had not been a sinner when she was young and pretty.<\/p>\n

In the churchyard they heard twelve strokes beaten on the watchman\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time we were asleep,\u201d said Sofya, getting up, \u201cor, maybe, we shall catch it from Dyudya.\u201d<\/p>\n

They both went softly into the yard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went away without hearing what he was telling about Mashenka,\u201d said Varvara, making herself a bed under the window.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe died in prison, he said. She poisoned her husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

Varvara lay down beside Sofya a while, and said softly:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d make away with my Alyoshka and never regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou talk nonsense; God forgive you.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sofya was just dropping asleep, Varvara, coming close, whispered in her ear:<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us get rid of Dyudya and Alyoshka!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sofya started and said nothing. Then she opened her eyes and gazed a long while steadily at the sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would find out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, they wouldn\u2019t. Dyudya\u2019s an old man, it\u2019s time he did die; and they\u2019d say Alyoshka died of drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid… God would chastise us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, let Him….\u201d<\/p>\n

Both lay awake thinking in silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cold,\u201d said Sofya, beginning to shiver all over. \u201cIt will soon be morning…. Are you asleep?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo…. Don\u2019t you mind what I say, dear,\u201d whispered Varvara; \u201cI get so mad with the damned brutes, I don\u2019t know what I do say. Go to sleep, or it will be daylight directly…. Go to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both were quiet and soon they fell asleep.<\/p>\n

Earlier than all woke the old woman. She waked up Sofya and they went together into the cowshed to milk the cows. The hunchback Alyoshka came in hopelessly drunk without his concertina; his breast and knees had been in the dust and straw\u2014he must have fallen down in the road. Staggering, he went into the cowshed, and without undressing he rolled into a sledge and began to snore at once. When first the crosses on the church and then the windows were flashing in the light of the rising sun, and shadows stretched across the yard over the dewy grass from the trees and the top of the well, Matvey Savitch jumped up and began hurrying about:<\/p>\n

\u201cKuzka! get up!\u201d he shouted. \u201cIt\u2019s time to put in the horses! Look sharp!\u201d<\/p>\n

The bustle of morning was beginning. A young Jewess in a brown gown with flounces led a horse into the yard to drink. The pulley of the well creaked plaintively, the bucket knocked as it went down….<\/p>\n

Kuzka, sleepy, tired, covered with dew, sat up in the cart, lazily putting on his little overcoat, and listening to the drip of the water from the bucket into the well as he shivered with the cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cAuntie!\u201d shouted Matvey Savitch to Sofya, \u201ctell my lad to hurry up and to harness the horses!\u201d<\/p>\n

And Dyudya at the same instant shouted from the window:<\/p>\n

\u201cSofya, take a farthing from the Jewess for the horse\u2019s drink! They\u2019re always in here, the mangy creatures!\u201d<\/p>\n

In the street sheep were running up and down, baaing; the peasant women were shouting at the shepherd, while he played his pipes, cracked his whip, or answered them in a thick sleepy bass. Three sheep strayed into the yard, and not finding the gate again, pushed at the fence.<\/p>\n

Varvara was waked by the noise, and bundling her bedding up in her arms, she went into the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might at least drive the sheep out!\u201d the old woman bawled after her, \u201cmy lady!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI dare say! As if I were going to slave for you Herods!\u201d muttered Varvara, going into the house.<\/p>\n

Dyudya came out of the house with his accounts in his hands, sat down on the step, and began reckoning how much the traveller owed him for the night\u2019s lodging, oats, and watering his horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou charge pretty heavily for the oats, my good man,\u201d said Matvey Savitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s too much, don\u2019t take them. There\u2019s no compulsion, merchant.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the travellers were ready to start, they were detained for a minute. Kuzka had lost his cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle swine, where did you put it?\u201d Matvey Savitch roared angrily. \u201cWhere is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuzka\u2019s face was working with terror; he ran up and down near the cart, and not finding it there, ran to the gate and then to the shed. The old woman and Sofya helped him look.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll pull your ears off!\u201d yelled Matvey Savitch. \u201cDirty brat!\u201d<\/p>\n

The cap was found at the bottom of the cart.<\/p>\n

Kuzka brushed the hay off it with his sleeve, put it on, and timidly he crawled into the cart, still with an expression of terror on his face as though he were afraid of a blow from behind.<\/p>\n

Matvey Savitch crossed himself. The driver gave a tug at the reins and the cart rolled out of the yard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov<\/b> (29 January 1860\u00a0\u2013 15 July 1904)\u00a0was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.\u00a0Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre.\u00a0Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: \u201cMedicine is my lawful wife,\u201d he once said, \u201cand literature is my mistress.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div>