The Oxford University Press of London has recently launched The Oxford Chekhov, edited and translated by Ronald Hingley. To judge by the two volumes issued so far and dated respectively 1964 and 1965, this bids fair to be a model edition of a classic. It is based on the twenty- volume edition of Chekhov's works and letters, as well as notebook anJ diary (Moscow, 1944-51 ), which is the definitive edition of his works in the original.
See page 632 for bibliography of works about Chekhov.
STORIES
Vanka
been apprenticed to Alyahin the sboemaker these three months, did not go to bed on Christmas Eve. After his master and mistress and the journeymen had gone to midnight Mass, he got an inkpot and a pen- holder with a rusty nib out of the master's cupboard and having spread out a crumpled sheet of paper, began writing. Before he formed the first letter he looked fear- fully at the doors and windows several times, shot a glance at the dark icon, at either side of which stretched shelves filled with lasts, and heaved a broken sigh. He was kneeling before a bench on which his paper lay.
"Dear Granddaddy, Konstantin Makarych," he wrote. "And I am writing you a letter. I wish you a merry Christmas and everything good from the Lord God. I have neither father nor mother, you alone are left me."
ANKA ZHUKOV, a nine-year-old boy, who had
Vanka shifted his glance to the dark window on which flickered the reflection of his candle and vividly pictured his grandfather to himself. Employed as a watchman by the Zhivaryovs, he was a short, thin, but extraordinarily lively and nimble old man of about sixty-five whose face was always crinkled with laughter and who had a toper's eyes. By day he slept in th.. servants' kitchen or cracked jokes with the cook; at night, wrapped in an ample sheepskin coat, he made the rounds of the estate, shaking his clapper. The oldbitch, Brownie, and the dog called Wriggles, who had a black coat aad a long body like a weasel's, followed him with hanging heads. This Wriggles was extraor- dinarily deferential and demonstrative, looked with equally friendly eyes both at his masters and at stran- gers, but did not enjoy a good reputation. His deference and meekness concealed the most Jesuitical spite. No one knew better than he how to creep up behind you and suddenly snap at your leg, how to slip into the icehouse, or how to steal a hen from a peasant. More than once his hind legs had been all but broken, twice he had been hanged, every week he was whipped till he was half dead, but he always managed to revive.
At the moment Grandfather was sure to be standing at the gates, screwing up his eyes at the bright-red win- dows of the church, stamping his felt boots, and crack- ing jokes with the servants. His clapper was tied to his belt. He was clapping his hands, shrugging with the cold, and, with a senile titter, pinching now the house- maid, now the cook.
"Shall we have a pinch of snuff?" he was saying, offering the women his snuffbox.
They each took a pinch and sneezed. Grandfather, indescribably delighted, went off into merry peals of laughter and shouted:
"Peel it off, it has frozen onl"
The dogs too are given a pinch of snuff. Bro^me sneezes, wags her head, and walks away offended. Wrig- gles is too polite to sneeze and only wags his tail. And the weather is glorious. The air is still, clear, and fresh. The night is dark, but one can see the whole village with its white roofs and smoke streaming out of the c^mneys, the trees silvery with hoarfrost, the snow- drifts. The entire sky is studded with gaily twinkling stars and the Milky Way is as distinctly visible as
though it had been washed and rubbed with snow for
the holiday. . . .
Vanka sighed, dipped his pen into the ink and went on writing:
"And yesterday I got it hot. The master pulled me out into the courtyard by the hair and gave me a hiding with a knee-strap because I was rocking the baby in its cradle and happened to fall asleep. And last week the mistress ordered me to clean a herring and I began with the tail, and she took the herring and jabbed me in the mug with it. The helpers make fun of me, send me to the pothouse for vodka and tell me to steal pickles for them from the master, and the master hits me with anything that comes handy. And there is noth- ing to eat. In the morning they give me bread, for din- ner porridge, and in the evening bread again. As for tea or cabbage soup, the master and mistress bolt it all themselves. And they tell me to sleep in the entry, and when the baby cries I don't sleep at all, but rock the cradle. Dear Granddaddy, for God's sake have pity on me, take me away from here, take me home to the vil- lage, it's more than I can bear. I bow down at your feet and I will pray to God for you forever, take me away from here or I'll die."
Vanka puckered his mouth, rubbed his eyes with his black fist, and gave a sob.
"I will grind your snuff for you,'' he continued, "I will pray to God for you, and if anything happens, you may thrash me all you like. And if you think there's no situation for me, I will beg the manager for Christ's sake to let me clean boots, or I will take Fedka's place as a shepherd boy. Dear Granddaddy, it's more than I can bear, it will simply be the death of me. I thought of running away to the village, but I have no boots and I am afraid of the frost. And in return for this when I grow big, I will feed you and won't let anybody do you any harm, and when you die I will pray for the repose of your soul, just as for my Mom's.
"Moscow is a big city. The houses are all the kind the gentry live in, and there are lots of horses, but no sheep, and the dogs are not fierce. The boys here don't go caroling, carrying the star at Christmas, and they don't let anyone sing in the choir, and once in a shop window I saw fishing-hooks for sale all fitted up with a line, for every kind of fish, very fine ones, there was even one hook that will hold a forty-pound sheatfish. And I saw shops where there are all sorts of guns, like the master's at home, so maybe each one of them is a hundred ru- bles. And in butchers' shops there are woodcocks and partridge and hares, but where they shoot them the clerks won't tell.
"Dear Granddaddy, when they have a Christmas tree with presents at the master's, do get a gilt walnut and put it away in the little green chest. Ask the young lady, Olga Ignatyevna, for it, say it's for Vanka."
Vanka heaved a broken sigh and again stared at the window. He recalled that it was his grandfather who always went to the forest to get the Christmas tree for the master's family and that he would take his grandson with him. It was a jolly time! Grandfather grunted, the frost crackled, and, not to be outdone, Vanka too made a cheerful noise in his throat. Before chopping down the Christmas tree, Grandfather would smoke a pipe, slowly take a pinch of snuff, and poke fun at Vanka who looked chilled to the bone. The young firs draped in hoarfrost stood still, waiting to see which of them was to die. Suddenly, coming out of nowhere, a hare would dart across the snowdrifts like an arrow. Grandfather could not keep from shouting: "Hold ^rn, hold him, hold ^rn! Ah, the bob-tailed devil!"
When he had cut down the fir tree, Grandfather would drag it to the master's house, and there they would set to work decorating it. The young lady, Olga Ignatyevna, Vanka's favorite, was the busiest of all. When Vanka's mother, Pelageya, was alive and a cham- bermaid in the master's house, the young lady used to give him goodies, and, having nothing with which to occupy herself, taught him to read and write, to count up to a hundred, and even to dance the quadrille. When Pelageya died, Vanka had been relegated to the serv- ants' kitchen to stay with his grandfather, and from the kitchen to the shoemaker's.