This is an ugly story about ugly people doing ugly things. But it is presented, at the outset at least, as a lively little remembrance of the narrator’s father, a decent and good man, “a man above ordinary,” but a man with a weakness for drink.
The father, a poor farmer working on rented land, has been selected (a poor choice indeed) by his fellow villagers to transport half-a-years’ rent, 500 rubles, to the landowner. He brings along his daughter, Anyutka, to keep an eye on him.
An opening like that leads one to expect a certain sort of story, no? I’m thinking of the lovely stories in William Saroyan’s “My Name Is Aram,” a gentle world where children sometimes were enlisted to keep an eye on dreamy adults. In those stories, the worst that might happen was that the rice pot would burn, or a mule would be traded for too little money.
This is Chekhov, though, and, maybe more importantly, this is not California’s Central Valley, but deep-rural Russia of the 19th century. If Chekhov is to be believed, it was a fairly savage place.
How savage? Well, this story would make a great Quentin Tarantino movie.
The father, predictably, stops for a drop at a tavern and after a few drinks he boasts about all the money he is carrying. Resuming his trip he realizes that he (and his daughter – don’t forget that she is along for the ride) is being followed. He gives the money to Anyutka and tells her to hide in the brambles.
Here’s where the story turns into an absolute horror: Not only do the thieves beat up the father, they torture him – all within sight of poor little Anyutka, who is hiding right there in the bushes. Having watched her father get tortured to death, she runs like mad, trying to get home, but of course she gets lost. She winds up at a forester’s hut, where she tells her horrible tale… and the woodsman and his wife determine to kill her and keep the money.
But Anyutka, clever girl, has overheard their nefarious plan, and comes up with a plan of her own: In the middle of the night, she costumes the woodsman’s daughter in the sheepskin that she, Anyutka, had been sleeping under, and sneaks off. And yes, because no detail is spared in this tale, the woodsman and his wife unknowingly murder their daughter, thinking she is Anyutka.
Ugh. All of this is related essentially as an idle memory. “Back in the day,” you can imagine the avuncular narrator saying, whilst puffing on a pipe, “my father and my sister had an odd adventure.”
“Oh, tell me more,” you might say politely, certain that you’ll be hearing a gentle nostalgic remembrance of the good old days.
And then comes the bloodbath.
(Note: I was going to make another dry complaint about the regular inclusion of anti-semitic crap in Chekhov’s stories, but I’ll let it go this time. Just know that this story is marred by it as well.)
READ THIS? READ THAT!
Chekhov did not shy away from writing about violence. An infant is murdered in “In the Ravine.” Two drunken peasants (a father and son, no less) beat each other over the head with tree branches in “The New Villa.” There are murders in “The Head Gardener’s Story,” “In the Court,” and, of course, “The Murder.” And there are quite a few suicides: In “Volodya” and “In the Coach House,” and “On Official Duty.”
One story that is quite bloody and yet off-kilter (like this one) is “A Story Without an End.” It too has a queasy lack of center–it’s explicit and violent and not really sure of what tone to settle on.
A Chekhov Circus 