A brief farce about a man who manages to give himself the heebie-jeebies after attending a seance.
Dmitri Osipovitch Vaxin returns home from a party that included horror stories, mind-reading and an attempt to speak with the dead. Alone in his bedroom while his wife attends “an all-night service,” he becomes so spooked that he wakes the governess, Rosalia Karlovna, if only to have someone else awake. But Rosalia, “a stout, red-cheeked person,” assumes that Dmitri is up to no good with her, and warns that she’ll tell his wife if he doesn’t leave her alone.
I have to admit I was more intrigued by the phrase “all-night service” than by the story itself. These midnight vigils were (and still are) part of standard Eastern Orthodox practice, beginning on Saturday night and running, yes, all night long. In some strict parishes, communion might not be served on Sunday morning to those who did not attend the full vigil. Yow!
I did like the characterization of the virtuous German governess Rosalia, with her buttery accent and her thick waist and her proud defiance of the master of the house: “I am an honest maiden!”
As for the rest, a typical Chekhov shorty, decently done, an entertainment for its day and age if not terribly exciting for a modern day reader.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
The relationship between employer and servant, as expressed in this story, is among the more benign to be found in Chekhov. In many other stories, the master of the house is truly a master, having his way with servants as if serfdom had never been abolished–see stories as varied as “In a Strange Land,” “Sleepy,” or “A Transgression.” That last suggestion at least gives the lousy master of the house his comeuppance.
A Chekhov Circus 