The Tales of Chekhov, vol 5 | Page 3

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(Prepared by James Rusk [email protected] Italics are indicated by
underscores.)

THE TALES OF CHEKHOV
VOLUME 5
THE WIFE AND OTHER STORIES
BY
ANTON TCHEKHOV
Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT

CONTENTS
The Wife Difficult People The Grasshopper A Dreary Story The Privy
Councillor The Man in Case Gooseberries About Love The Lottery
Ticket

THE WIFE
I
I RECEIVED the following letter:
"DEAR SIR, PAVEL ANDREITCH!
"Not far from you -- that is to say, in the village of Pestrovo -- very
distressing incidents are taking place, concerning which I feel it my
duty to write to you. All the peasants of that village sold their cottages
and all their belongings, and set off for the province of Tomsk, but did
not succeed in getting there, and have come back. Here, of course, they
have nothing now; everything belongs to other people. They have
settled three or four families in a hut, so that there are no less than
fifteen persons of both sexes in each hut, not counting the young
children; and the long and the short of it is, there is nothing to eat.
There is famine and there is a terrible pestilence of hunger, or spotted,

typhus; literally every one is stricken. The doctor's assistant says one
goes into a cottage and what does one see? Every one is sick, every one
delirious, some laughing, others frantic; the huts are filthy; there is no
one to fetch them water, no one to give them a drink, and nothing to eat
but frozen potatoes. What can Sobol (our Zemstvo doctor) and his lady
assistant do when more than medicine the peasants need bread which
they have not? The District Zemstvo refuses to assist them, on the
ground that their names have been taken off the register of this district,
and that they are now reckoned as inhabitants of Tomsk; and, besides,
the Zemstvo has no money.
"Laying these facts before you, and knowing your humanity, I beg you
not to refuse immediate help.
"Your well-wisher."
Obviously the letter was written by the doctor with the animal name*
or his lady assistant. Zemstvo doctors and their assistants go on for
years growing more and more convinced every day that they can do
nothing, and yet continue to receive their salaries from people who are
living upon frozen potatoes, and consider they have a right to judge
whether I am humane or not.
*Sobol in Russian means "sable-marten."- TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
Worried by the anonymous letter and by the fact that peasants came
every morning to the servants' kitchen and went down on their knees
there, and that twenty sacks of rye had been stolen at night out of the
barn, the wall having first been broken in, and by the general
depression which was fostered