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    A Country Cottage and Short Stories
    A Country Cottage and Short Stories
    A Country Cottage and Short Stories
    Ebook70 pages1 hour

    A Country Cottage and Short Stories

    By Anton Chekhov

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    About this ebook

    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Chekhov practised as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."
    This collection of ten of his best short stories include:
    A Bad Business
    A Blunder
    A Chamelion
    A Classical Student
    A Country Cottage
    A Daughter Of Albion
    A Day In The Country
    A Dead Body
    A Defenseless Creature
    A Doctor's Visit
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOtbebookpublishing
    Release dateDec 27, 2015
    ISBN9783956762284
    A Country Cottage and Short Stories
    Author

    Anton Chekhov

    Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog, in southern Russia, and in his youth paid for his own education and supported his entire family by writing short, satirical sketches of Russian life. Though he eventually became a physician and once considered medicine his principal career, he continued to gain popularity and praise as a writer for various Russian newspapers, eventually authoring more literary work and ultimately his most well-known plays, including Ivanov, The Seagull, and Uncle Vanya. He died of tuberculosis in 1904, and is regarded as one of the best short story writers in history, influencing such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, and Raymond Carver.

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      Book preview

      A Country Cottage and Short Stories - Anton Chekhov

      A Bad Business

      WHO goes there?"

      No answer. The watchman sees nothing, but through the roar of the wind and the trees distinctly hears someone walking along the avenue ahead of him. A March night, cloudy and foggy, envelopes the earth, and it seems to the watchman that the earth, the sky, and he himself with his thoughts are all merged together into something vast and impenetrably black. He can only grope his way.

      Who goes there? the watchman repeats, and he begins to fancy that he hears whispering and smothered laughter. Who's there?

      It's I, friend . . . answers an old man's voice.

      But who are you?

      I . . . a traveller.

      What sort of traveller? the watchman cries angrily, trying to disguise his terror by shouting. What the devil do you want here? You go prowling about the graveyard at night, you ruffian!

      You don't say it's a graveyard here?

      Why, what else? Of course it's the graveyard! Don't you see it is?

      O-o-oh . . . Queen of Heaven! there is a sound of an old man sighing. I see nothing, my good soul, nothing. Oh the darkness, the darkness! You can't see your hand before your face, it is dark, friend. O-o-oh. . .

      But who are you?

      I am a pilgrim, friend, a wandering man.

      The devils, the nightbirds. . . . Nice sort of pilgrims! They are drunkards . . . mutters the watchman, reassured by the tone and sighs of the stranger. One's tempted to sin by you. They drink the day away and prowl about at night. But I fancy I heard you were not alone; it sounded like two or three of you.

      I am alone, friend, alone. Quite alone. O-o-oh our sins. . . .

      The watchman stumbles up against the man and stops.

      How did you get here? he asks.

      I have lost my way, good man. I was walking to the Mitrievsky Mill and I lost my way.

      Whew! Is this the road to Mitrievsky Mill? You sheepshead! For the Mitrievsky Mill you must keep much more to the left, straight out of the town along the high road. You have been drinking and have gone a couple of miles out of your way. You must have had a drop in the town.

      I did, friend . . . Truly I did; I won't hide my sins. But how am I to go now?

      Go straight on and on along this avenue till you can go no farther, and then turn at once to the left and go till you have crossed the whole graveyard right to the gate. There will be a gate there. . . . Open it and go with God's blessing. Mind you don't fall into the ditch. And when you are out of the graveyard you go all the way by the fields till you come out on the main road.

      God give you health, friend. May the Queen of Heaven save you and have mercy on you. You might take me along, good man! Be merciful! Lead me to the gate.

      As though I had the time to waste! Go by yourself!

      Be merciful! I'll pray for you. I can't see anything; one can't see one's hand before one's face, friend. . . . It's so dark, so dark! Show me the way, sir!

      As though I had the time to take you about; if I were to play the nurse to everyone I should never have done.

      For Christ's sake, take me! I can't see, and I am afraid to go alone through the graveyard. It's terrifying, friend, it's terrifying; I am afraid, good man.

      There's no getting rid of you, sighs the watchman. All right then, come along.

      The watchman and the traveller go on together. They walk shoulder to shoulder in silence. A damp, cutting wind blows straight into their faces and the unseen trees murmuring and rustling scatter big drops upon them. . . . The path is almost entirely covered with puddles.

      There is one thing passes my understanding, says the watchman after a prolonged silence -- how you got here. The gate's locked. Did you climb over the wall? If you did climb over the wall, that's the last thing you would expect of an old man.

      I don't know, friend, I don't know. I can't say myself how I got here. It's a visitation. A chastisement of the Lord. Truly a visitation, the evil one confounded me. So you are a watchman here, friend?

      Yes.

      The only one for the whole graveyard?

      There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute. Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers:

      There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the other's asleep. He and I take turns about.

      Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! It howls like a wild beast! O-o-oh.

      And where do you come from?

      From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I go from one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me and have mercy upon me, O Lord.

      The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops down behind the traveller's back and lights several matches. The

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