The Lady with the Dog and Other StoriesChekhov, Anton Pavlovich
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The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904 -- Translations into English; Russia -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Not one. Pyotr Nikanoritch died a year and a half ago, and left us
alone. And so there are the three of us. In the summer we live here, and
in winter we live in Moscow, in Polianka. I have been living with them
for eleven years--as one of the family."
At supper they served sterlet, chicken rissoles, and stewed fruit; the
wines were expensive French wines.
"Please don't stand on ceremony, doctor," said Christina Dmitryevna,
eating and wiping her mouth with her fist, and it was evident she found
her life here exceedingly pleasant. "Please have some more."
After supper the doctor was shown to his room, where a bed had been made
up for him, but he did not feel sleepy. The room was stuffy and it smelt
of paint; he put on his coat and went out.
It was cool in the open air; there was already a glimmer of dawn, and
all the five blocks of buildings, with their tall chimneys, barracks,
and warehouses, were distinctly outlined against the damp air. As it was
a holiday, they were not working, and the windows were dark, and in only
one of the buildings was there a furnace burning; two windows were
crimson, and fire mixed with smoke came from time to time from the
chimney. Far away beyond the yard the frogs were croaking and the
nightingales singing.
Looking at the factory buildings and the barracks, where the workpeople
were asleep, he thought again what he always thought when he saw a
factory. They may have performances for the workpeople, magic lanterns,
factory doctors, and improvements of all sorts, but, all the same, the
workpeople he had met that day on his way from the station did not look
in any way different from those he had known long ago in his childhood,
before there were factory performances and improvements. As a doctor
accustomed to judging correctly of chronic complaints, the radical cause
of which was incomprehensible and incurable, he looked upon factories as
something baffling, the cause of which also was obscure and not
removable, and all the improvements in the life of the factory hands he
looked upon not as superfluous, but as comparable with the treatment of
incurable illnesses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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