Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

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

    Peasants: Short Story

    By Anton Chekhov

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    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.

    HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

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

    Anton Chekhov

    Anton Chekhov was born in 1860 in Southern Russia and moved to Moscow to study medicine. Whilst at university he sold short stories and sketches to magazines to raise money to support his family. His success and acclaim grew as both a writer of fiction and of plays whilst he continued to practice medicine. Ill health forced him to move from his country estate near Moscow to Yalta where he wrote some of his most famous work, and it was there that he married actress Olga Knipper. He died from tuberculosis in 1904.

    Read more from Anton Chekhov

    Related to Peasants

    Related ebooks

    Short Stories For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Clarence Page: The Age-old Trick Of ‘Passing’: Fiction Writer The Latest To Be Disgraced By Lies About Heritage

      Mar 20, 2023

      I have never known a man who faked his own death, but I have known a man who faked his own life, then sadly failed to live long enough for us to talk about it. I’m talking about the late Hache Carrillo, a rising, award-winning literary talent whose r

      3 min read

    • Article

      The New Scream Queens

      Oct 13, 2017

      The New Scream Queens
      8 min read

    • Article

      Learning to Swim

      Mar 23, 2021

      Learning to Swim
      17 min read

    • Article

      Free as Aira

      Sep 1, 2017

      Free as Aira
      5 min read

    • Article

      To Prague, With Love

      Oct 4, 2020

      To Prague, With Love
      9 min read

    • Article

      Unshuttered

      Feb 15, 2023

      Unshuttered
      10 min read

    • Article

      Russian Roulette

      Feb 1, 2021

      As a longterm fan of Dostoevsky (and yes, unusually for a 19th century literary novelist, he does have a kind of fan club, many of whom are adolescents high on the thrill of first encountering his freewheeling combo of philosophical pondering and jaz

      2 min read

    • Article

      Re-Covered: The Mischief

      Dec 2, 2019

      Re-Covered: The Mischief
      8 min read

    • Article

      Paradise Denied

      Mar 1, 2020

      Paradise Denied
      2 min read

    • Article

      Exhaustively Researched, Often Brilliant Biography Of Sylvia Plath

      Nov 7, 2020

      ALMOST six decades after her death, Sylvia Plath stands as the most consequential poet of her generation. As a feminine voice, she dominates the 20th century. At the time of Plath’s death at age 30, critic A Alvarez wrote: “The loss to literature is

      13 min read

    • Article

      Journey of Mann

      Oct 10, 2021

      Journey of Mann
      2 min read

    • Article

      Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists

      Apr 1, 2020

      The 35 books on this year's fiction and poetry longlists represent 20 different countries and feature authors writing in 18 languages. The post Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Zoë Ruiz

      Dec 9, 2017

      I’m currently reading Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s essay collection Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, which was chosen by Maggie Nelson as the winner of the 1913 Open Prose Contest. I’ve been an admirer of Sloan’s essays since her first collection, The Fluenc

      2 min read

    • Article

      Jil Sander

      Mar 10, 2017

      Jil Sander
      1 min read

    • Article

      A Dusty Road

      Nov 26, 2021

      A Dusty Road
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Peasants

    4/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      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

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1