14 - Vanka, Anton Chekhov.

14 - Vanka, Anton Chekhov.  
In this collection of Russian stories, editor and compiler Thomas Seltzer selects from a range of the best examples of 19th and early 20th century Russian literature. As a survey of famous authors at the height of the powers, as well as some writers who have been unjustly neglected, this anthology is indispensable.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter fourteen of Best Russian Short Stories. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Best Russian Short Stories edited and compiled by Thomas seltzer

(00:24):
Vanka by Anton Tchehov. Nine year old Vanka Zukov, who
had been apprenticed to the shoemaker Aliakin for three months,
did not go to bed the night before Christmas. He
waited until the master and mistress and the assistants had
gone out to an early church service to procure from

(00:48):
his employer's cupboard a small vial of ink and a
penholder with a rusty nib. Then, spreading a crumpled sheet
of paper in front of him, he began to write, before, however,
deciding to make the first letter, he looked furtively at
the door and at the window, glanced several times at
the somber kon on either side of which stretched shelves

(01:11):
full of lasts, and heaved a heart rending sigh. The
sheet of paper was spread on a bench, and he
himself was on his knees in front of it. Dear
grandfather Konstantine Mackerrich. He wrote, I am writing you a letter.
I hope you a happy Christmas and all God's holy best.

(01:33):
I have no mama or Papa. You are all I have.
Vanka took a look towards the window in which shone
the reflection of his candle, and vividly pictured to himself
his grandfather, Konstantin Mackerrich, who was night watchman at Monsieur's Zyvaev.

(01:53):
He was a small, lean, usually lively and active old
man of sixty five, always smile, siling and blear eyed.
All day he slept in the servant's kitchen or trifled
with the cooks. At night. Enveloped in his ample sheepskin coat,
he strayed round the domain, tapping with his cudgel behind him,

(02:15):
each hanging its head walked the old bitch, Constanka and
the dog viewn so names because of his black coat
and long body, and his resemblance to a loach. Fiune
was an unusually civil and friendly dog to be trusted,
looking as kindly at a stranger as at his master.

(02:36):
But he was not to be trusted. Beneath his deference
and humbleness was hid the most inquisitorial maliciousness. No one
knew better than he how to sneak up and take
a bite at a leg, or slip into the larder,
or steal a musolk's chicken. More than once, they had
nearly broken his hind legs twice, he had been hung up.

(02:58):
Every week he was nearly to death, but he always recovered.
At this moment, for certain, Vanka's grandfather must be standing
at the gate, blinking his eyes at the bright red
windows of the village church, stamping his feet in their
high felt boots, and jesting with the people in the yard.

(03:19):
His cudgel will be hanging from his belt. He will
be hugging himself with cold, giving a little dry old
man's cough, and at times pinching a servant girl or
a cook. Won't we take some snuff, he asks, holding
out his snuff box to the women. The women take
a pinch of snuff and sneeze. The old man goes

(03:43):
into indescribable ecstasies, breaks into loud laughter, and cries off
with it. It will freeze to your nose. He gives
a snuff to the dogs too. Kashtanka sneezes, twitches her
nose and walks away offended, vieun deferentially refuses to sniff
and wags his tail. It is in glorious weather, not

(04:07):
a breath of wind, clear and frosty. It is a
dark night, but the whole village with its white roofs
and streaks of smoke from the chimneys, the trees silvered
with hoar frost, and the snow drifts. You can see
it all. The sky scintillates with bright twinkling stars, and

(04:27):
the milky way stands out so clearly, and it looks
as if it had been polished and rubbed over with
snow for the holidays. Vanka sighs, dips his pen in
the ink, and continues to write. Last night I got
a thrashing. My master dragged me by my hair into
the yard and belabored me with a shoemaker's stirrup, because

(04:51):
while I was rocking his brat in the cradle, I
unfortunately fell asleep. And during the week, my mistress told
me to clean a herring and begin by its tail.
So she took the herring and struck its snout into
my face. The assistants tease me, send me to the
tavern for vodka. Make me steal the master's cucumbers, and

(05:13):
the master beats me with whatever is handy food. There
is none in the morning's bread, at dinner gruel, and
in the evening bread again as for tea or sour
cabbage soup. The Master and the mistress themselves guzzle that.
They make me sleep in the vestibule, and when their

(05:35):
brat cries, I don't sleep at all, but have to
rock the cradle. Dear Grandpapa, for Heaven's sake, take me
away from here home to our village. I can't bear
this any more. I bow to the ground to you
and will pray to God forever and ever. Take me

(05:57):
from here, or I shall die. The corners of Vanka's
mouth went down. He rubbed his eyes with his dirty
fist and sobbed. I'll grate your tobacco for you, he continued.
I'll pray to God for you, and if there is
anything wrong, then flog me like the great goat. And

(06:18):
if you really think I shan't find work, then I'll
ask the manager. For Christ's sake, let me clean the boots,
or I'll go instead of fedya as underherdsmen. Dear Grandpapa,
I can't bear this any more, it'll kill me. I
wanted to run away to our village, but I have
no boots, and there was afraid of the frost. And

(06:41):
when I grow up, I'll look after you, and no
one shall harm you. And when you die, I'll pray
for the repose of your soul, just like I do
for Mamma Pelagieya. As for Moscow, it is a large town.
There are all gentlemen's houses, lots of them, lots of horses,

(07:02):
no sheep, and dogs are not vicious. The children don't
come round at Christmas with a star. No one is
allowed to sing in the choir. And once I saw
in the shop window hooks on a line with fishing rods,
all for sale, and for every kind of fish, awfully convenient.
And there was one hook which would catch a sheet

(07:24):
fish weighing a pound. And there are shops with guns
like the masters, and I am sure they must cost
a hundred roubles each. And in the meat chops there
are woodcocks, partridges and hares. But who shot them or
where they come from? The shoppin won't say, dear Grandpapa.
And when the masters give a Christmas tree, take a

(07:46):
golden walnut and hide it in my green box. Ask
the young lady Olga Ignatyevna for it. Say it's for Vanka.
Vanka sighed convulsively and again stared at the window. He
remembered that his grandfather always went to the forest for
the Christmas tree and took his grandson with him. What

(08:07):
happy times. The frost crackled, his grandfather crackled, and as
they both did, Vanka did the same. Then, before cutting
down the Christmas tree, his grandfather smoked his pipe, took
a long pinch of snuff, and made fun of poor
frozen little Vanka. The young fir trees, wrapped in hoar frost,

(08:29):
stood motionless, waiting for which of them would die. Suddenly,
a hare, springing from somewhere would dart over the snow drift.
His grandfather could not help, shouting, catch it, catch it,
catch it, ah, short tailed devil. When the tree was down,
his grandfather dragged it to the master's house, and there

(08:52):
they set about decorating it. The young lady Olga Ignatyevna,
Vanka's great friend, busied most about it. When little Vanka's mother,
Pelagueya was still alive and was servant woman in the house.
Olga Ignatyevna used to stuff him with sugar candy, and,

(09:12):
having nothing to do, taught him to read, write, count
up to one hundred, and even to dance the quadrille.
When Pelagueya died, they placed the orphan Vanka in the
kitchen with his grandfather, and from the kitchen he was
sent to Moscow to Aliyakin, the shoemaker. Come quick, dear Grandpapa,

(09:35):
continued Vanka, I beseech you, for Christ's sake, take me
from here. Have pity on a poor orphan. For here
they beat me and I am frightfully hungry and so
sad that I can't tell you. I cry all the time.
The other day the master hit me on the head
with a last I fell to the ground and only

(09:57):
just returned to life. My life is a misfortune, worse
than any dogs. I send greetings to Aliona, to one
eyed Tegor and the coachman, and don't let anyone have
my mouth. Organ. I remain your grandson, ivan Zukov, Dear Grandpapa,

(10:18):
do come. Vanka folded his sheet of paper in four
and put it into an envelope purchased the night before
for a Kopek. He thought a little, dipped the pen
into the ink and wrote the address the village to
my grandfather. He then scratched his head, thought again and

(10:39):
added Konstantin Makherich. Pleased with not having been interfered with
in his writing, he put on his cap, and without
putting on his sheepskin coat, ran out in his shirt
sleeves into the street. The shopman at the Polsterers, from
whom he had inquired the night before, had told him

(11:01):
that letters were to be put into post boxes, and
from there they were conveyed over the whole earth in
mail troikas by drunken post boys, and to the sound
of bells. Vanka ran to the first post box and
slipped his precious letter into the slit. An hour afterwards,

(11:22):
lulled by hope, he was sleeping soundly. In his dreams.
He saw a stove. By the stove, his grandfather sitting
with his legs dangling down, barefooted and reading a letter
to the cooks, and Viun walking round the stove, wagged
his tail end of Vanka by Anton Tchehov, recording by

(11:50):
Alan Davis Drake