Short Stories by Chekhov
take the oath, all the other priests are shy, but I am quite at home
with the judges, the prosecutors, and the lawyers. I talk
intellectually, drink a cup of tea with them, laugh, ask them what I
don't know, . . . and they like it. So that's how it is, my boy.
Learning is light and ignorance is darkness. Study! It's hard, of
course; nowadays study is expensive. . . . Your mother is a widow; she
lives on her pension, but there, of course . . ."
Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and went on
in a whisper:
"Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won't desert you. He has no children of
his own, and he will help you. Don't be uneasy."
He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
"Only mind, Yegory, don't forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother, and
Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father to you.
If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient and scornful
with people because they are not so clever as you, then woe, woe to
you!"
Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
"Woe to you! Woe to you!"
Father Christopher's tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say,
warming to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime but
the door opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning
hurriedly, sat down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his tea.
"Well, I have settled all our business," he said. "We might have gone
home to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must arrange for
him. My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend of hers, lives
somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as a boarder."
He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
"'Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a house of
her own.' We must go at once and try to find her. It's a nuisance!"
Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
"It's a nuisance," muttered his uncle. "You are sticking to me like a
burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding and I
have nothing but worry with you both. . . ."
When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not there.
They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In a far-off
dark corner of the yard stood the chaise.
"Good-bye, chaise!" thought Yegorushka.
At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then they
had to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a policeman for
Little Lower Street.
"I say," said the policeman, with a grin, "it's a long way off, out that
way towards the town grazing ground."
They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such a
weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets, then
along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides and no
pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were neither planks
nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had brought them to
Little Lower Street they were both red in the face, and taking off their
hats, wiped away the perspiration.
"Tell me, please," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting on
a little bench by a gate, "where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
"There is no one called Toskunov here," said the old man, after
pondering a moment. "Perhaps it's Timoshenko you want."
"No, Toskunov. . . ."
"Excuse me, there's no one called Toskunov. . . ."
Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
"You needn't look," the old man called after them. "I tell you there
isn't, and there isn't."
"Listen, auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who was
sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds, "where is
Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
"Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried. "Lord! it
is eight years since she married her daughter and gave up the house to
her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there now."
And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing like
that, you fools?"
"And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.
"Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise. "She
moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her house to
her son-in-law! Upon my word!"
She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to
exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
"Where does she live now?"
The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to
point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
"Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little red
house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down that
little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ."
Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the
left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right. On
both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big
gaps in it. The first part of the fence was tilting forwards and
threatened to fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards
towards the yard. The gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still
undecided which would suit it best --to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan
Ivanitch opened the little gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a
big yard overgrown with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the
gate stood a little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout
woman with her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in
the middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting
in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit:
"Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"
Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers, he ran
to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a
tenor bark).
"Whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her
eyes from the sun.
"Good-morning!" Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with
his stick. "Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live here?"
"Yes! But what do you want with her?"
"Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?"
"Well, yes, I am!"
"Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga Ivanovna
Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And I, perhaps
you remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You are one of us from
N. . . . You were born among us and married there. . . ."
A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as
though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all
over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron
and tears spurted from her eyes.
"Olga Ivanovna!" she screamed, breathless with excitement. "My own
darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My pretty
little angel. . . ."
She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down
completely.
"Heavens!" she said, wringing her hands, "Olga's little boy! How
delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But why
are you standing in the yard? Come indoors."
Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards
the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
"The room has not been done yet," she said, ushering the visitors into a
stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers.
"Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters anyway! My
little angel! My little beauty! I did not know that Olitchka had a boy
like that!"
When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan Ivanitch
asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another room; there
was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a starling in it,
and there were as many ikons and flowers as in the drawing-room. Near
the machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and chubby cheeks
like Tit's, and a clean cotton dress. She stared at Yegorushka without
blinking, and apparently felt very awkward. Yegorushka looked at her
and after a pause asked:
"What's your name?"
The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry, and
answered softly:
"Atka. . . ."
This meant Katka.
"He will live with you," Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the drawing-
room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles a month for
his keep. He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . ."
"I really don't know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!" Nastasya Petrovna
sighed tearfully. "Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a
dreadful thing to take another person's child! He may fall ill or
something. . . ."
When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch was
standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.
"Well, let him stay with you now, then," he said. "Good-bye! You stay,
Yegor!" he said, addressing his nephew. "Don't be troublesome; mind you
obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again to-morrow."
And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called him a
little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing for dinner.
Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her, answering her
endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.
In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head on
his hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing and
crying, she talked of his mother's young days, her own marriage, her
children. . . . A cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was a faint
humming from the burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna talked in a low
voice, and was continually dropping her thimble in her excitement; and
Katka her granddaughter, crawled under the table after it and each time
sat a long while under the table, probably examining Yegorushka's feet;
and Yegorushka listened, half dozing and looking at the old woman's
face, her wart with hairs on it, and the stains of tears, and he felt
sad, very sad. He was put to sleep on a chest and told that if he were
hungry in the night he must go out into the little passage and take some
chicken, put there under a plate in the window.
Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say good-bye.
Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about to set the
samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry, waved his hands
and said:
"We have no time for tea! We are just setting off."
Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute. Nastasya
Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon with tear-
stained eyes.
"Well," began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, "so you will stay. . . ."
All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his face; he
flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:
"Mind you work hard. . . . Don't forget your mother, and obey Nastasya
Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I'll stand by
you."
He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a ten-
kopeck piece, gave it to Yegorushka.
Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . Study,"
he said. "Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your prayers. Here
is a ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . ."
Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in his
heart that he would never see the old man again.
"I have applied at the high school already," said Ivan Ivanitch in a