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    Peasants: Short Story
    Peasants: Short Story
    Peasants: Short Story
    Ebook52 pages1 hour

    Peasants: Short Story

    By Anton Chekhov

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    About this ebook

    When Nikolay Tchikildyeev falls ill, he decides to return home to the countryside with his wife, Olga, and daughter, Sasha. However, when they arrive, his family’s hut is not the idyllic country retreat he remembered from his childhood, and many of the local peasants are brutish and unwelcoming. But while Nikolay’s health deteriorates, Olga and Sasha become determined to greet their new life with positivity.

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 21, 2015
    ISBN9781443447997
    Peasants: Short Story
    Author

    Anton Chekhov

    Anton Chekhov is one of Russia’s most highly regarded dramatists and short-story writers. Most famous for his plays The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, and Three Sisters, he also penned a remarkable number of short pieces, and his work has enjoyed considerable success both in Russia and beyond. Acclaimed by twentieth-century writers such as Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Samuel Beckett, Chekhov’s writing continues to have a profound influence on writers of all nationalities.

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      Book preview

      Peasants - Anton Chekhov

      chekov_peasants_resized.jpg

      Peasants

      Short Story

      Anton Chekhov

      HarperPerennialClassicsLogo.jpg

      CONTENTS

      Peasants

      About the Author

      About the Series

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      Peasants

      I

      Nikolay Tchikildyeev, a waiter in the Moscow hotel, Slavyansky Bazaar, was taken ill. His legs went numb and his gait was affected, so that on one occasion, as he was going along the corridor, he tumbled and fell down with a tray full of ham and peas. He had to leave his job. All his own savings and his wife’s were spent on doctors and medicines; they had nothing left to live upon. He felt dull with no work to do, and he made up his mind he must go home to the village. It is better to be ill at home, and living there is cheaper; and it is a true saying that the walls of home are a help.

      He reached Zhukovo towards evening. In his memories of childhood he had pictured his home as bright, snug, comfortable. Now, going into the hut, he was positively frightened; it was so dark, so crowded, so unclean. His wife Olga and his daughter Sasha, who had come with him, kept looking in bewilderment at the big untidy stove, which filled up almost half the hut and was black with soot and flies. What lots of flies! The stove was on one side, the beams lay slanting on the walls, and it looked as though the hut were just going to fall to pieces. In the corner, facing the door, under the holy images, bottle labels and newspaper cuttings were stuck on the walls instead of pictures. The poverty, the poverty! Of the grown-up people there were none at home; all were at work at the harvest. On the stove was sitting a white-headed girl of eight, unwashed and apathetic; she did not even glance at them as they came in. On the floor a white cat was rubbing itself against the oven fork.

      Puss, puss! Sasha called to her. Puss!

      She can’t hear, said the little girl; she has gone deaf.

      How is that?

      Oh, she was beaten.

      Nikolay and Olga realized from the first glance what life was like here, but said nothing to one another; in silence they put down their bundles, and went out into the village street. Their hut was the third from the end, and seemed the very poorest and oldest-looking; the second was not much better; but the last one had an iron roof, and curtains in the windows. That hut stood apart, not enclosed; it was a tavern. The huts were in a single row, and the whole of the little village—quiet and dreamy, with willows, elders, and mountain-ash trees peeping out from the yards—had an attractive look.

      Beyond the peasants homesteads there was a slope down to the river, so steep and precipitous that huge stones jutted out bare here and there through the clay. Down the slope, among the stones and holes dug by the potters, ran winding paths; bits of broken pottery, some brown, some red, lay piled up in heaps, and below there stretched a broad, level, bright green meadow, from which the hay had been already carried, and in which the peasants’ cattle were wandering. The river, three-quarters of a mile from the village, ran twisting and turning, with beautiful leafy banks; beyond it was again a broad meadow, a herd of cattle, long strings of white geese; then, just as on the near side, a steep ascent uphill, and on the top of the hill a hamlet, and a church with five domes, and at a little distance the manor house.

      It’s lovely here in your parts! said Olga, crossing herself at the sight of the church. What space, oh Lord!

      Just at that moment the bell began ringing for service (it was Saturday evening). Two little girls, down below, who were dragging up a pail of water, looked

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