Who wrote a letter to the village grandfather. Anton Chekhov

Vanka

“Dear grandfather, Konstantin Makarych! – he wrote. - And I’m writing you a letter. I wish you a Merry Christmas and wish you everything from the Lord God. I have neither father nor mother, you are the only one left for me.”

Vanka turned his eyes to the dark window, in which the reflection of his candle flickered, and vividly imagined his grandfather Konstantin Makarych, serving as a night watchman for the Zhivarevs. He is a small, skinny, but unusually nimble and active old man of about sixty-five, with an ever-laughing face and drunken eyes. During the day he sleeps in the people's kitchen or jokes with the cooks, but at night, wrapped in a spacious sheepskin coat, he walks around the estate and knocks on his mallet. Behind him, with their heads down, walk the old Kashtanka and the male Vyun, so nicknamed for his black color and body, long as that of a weasel. This Loach is unusually respectful and affectionate, looks equally tenderly at both his own and strangers, but does not use credit. Beneath his reverence and humility lies the most Jesuitical malice. No one knows better than him how to sneak up on time and grab someone’s leg, climb into a glacier, or steal a man’s chicken. He had his hind legs beaten off more than once, he was hanged twice, every week he was flogged until he was half to death, but he always came back to life.

Vanka Zhukov, a nine-year-old boy who was apprenticed to the shoemaker Alyakhin three months ago, did not go to bed on the night before Christmas. Having waited until the masters and apprentices had left for matins, he took out a bottle of ink and a pen with a rusty feather from the master's cupboard and, laying out a crumpled sheet of paper in front of him, began to write. Before writing the first letter, he timidly looked back at the doors and windows several times, glanced sideways at the dark image, on both sides of which were shelves with stocks, and sighed shakily. The paper lay on the bench, and he himself was kneeling in front of the bench.
“Dear grandfather, Konstantin Makarych! – he wrote. - And I’m writing you a letter. I wish you a Merry Christmas and wish you everything from God. I have neither father nor mother, you are the only one left for me.”
Vanka turned his eyes to the dark window, in which the reflection of his candle flickered, and vividly imagined his grandfather Konstantin Makarych, serving as a night watchman for the Zhivarevs. This is a small, skinny, but unusually nimble and active old man of about 65 years old, with an ever-laughing face and drunken eyes. During the day he sleeps in the people's kitchen or jokes with the cooks, but at night, wrapped in a spacious sheepskin coat, he walks around the estate and knocks on his mallet. Behind him, with their heads down, walk the old Kashtanka and the male Vyun, so nicknamed for his black color and body, long as that of a weasel. This Loach is unusually respectful and affectionate, looks equally tenderly at both his own and strangers, but does not use credit. Beneath his reverence and humility lies the most Jesuitical malice. No one knows better than him how to sneak up on time and grab someone’s leg, climb into a glacier, or steal a man’s chicken. He had his hind legs beaten off more than once, he was hanged twice, every week he was flogged until he was half to death, but he always came back to life.
Now, probably, the grandfather is standing at the gate, squinting his eyes at the bright red windows of the village church and, stamping his felt boots, joking with the servants. His beater is tied to his belt. He throws up his hands, shrugs from the cold and, giggling like an old man, pinches first the maid and then the cook.
- Is there some tobacco for us to smell? - he says, presenting his snuffbox to the women.
Women sniff and sneeze. The grandfather comes into indescribable delight, bursts into cheerful laughter and shouts:
- Rip it off, it's frozen!
They also let dogs sniff tobacco. Kashtanka sneezes, twists her muzzle and, offended, steps aside. The loach, out of respect, does not sneeze and twirls its tail. And the weather is great. The air is quiet, transparent and fresh. The night is dark, but you can see the whole village with its white roofs and streams of smoke coming from the chimneys, trees covered with frost, snowdrifts. The entire sky is strewn with cheerfully blinking stars, and the Milky Way appears as clearly as if it had been washed and covered with snow before the holiday...
Vanka sighed, wet his pen and continued to write:
“And yesterday I had a beating. The owner dragged me by my hair into the yard and combed me with a spandher because I was rocking their baby in the cradle and accidentally fell asleep. And this week the hostess told me to clean the herring, and I started with the tail, and she took the herring and started poking me in the mug with her muzzle. The apprentices make fun of me, send me to the tavern for vodka and order me to steal cucumbers from the owners, and the owner hits me with whatever he can find. And there is no food. In the morning they give you bread, at lunchtime porridge and in the evening also bread, and for tea or cabbage soup, the owners themselves crack it. And they tell me to sleep in the hallway, and when their baby cries, I don’t sleep at all, but rock the cradle. Dear grandfather, do God’s mercy, take me home from here, to the village, there is no way for me... I bow at your feet and I will forever pray to God, take me away from here, otherwise I will die...”
Vanka twisted his mouth, rubbed his eyes with his black fist and sobbed.
“I’ll grind your tobacco for you,” he continued, “and pray to God, and if anything happens, whip me like Sidorov’s goat. And if you think I don’t have a position, then for Christ’s sake I’ll ask the clerk to clean his boots, or instead of Fedka I’ll go as a shepherd. Dear grandfather, there is no possibility, just death. I wanted to run to the village on foot, but I didn’t have boots, I was afraid of the frost. And when I grow up big, I will feed you for this very reason and will not give offense to anyone, but if you die, I will begin to pray for the repose of your soul, just like for your mother Pelageya.
And Moscow is a big city. The houses are all master's houses and there are a lot of horses, but there are no sheep and the dogs are not evil. The guys here don’t go with the star and they don’t let anyone into the choir to sing, and I saw in one shop on the window hooks they sell straight with fishing line and for all kinds of fish, they’re very expensive, there’s even one hook that can hold a pound of catfish. And I saw some shops where there were all sorts of guns in the master’s style, so that probably a hundred rubles each... And in the butcher shops there are black grouse, and hazel grouse, and hares, and in which place they are shot, the inmates don’t tell about it.
Dear grandfather, when the gentlemen have a Christmas tree with gifts, take me a gilded nut and hide it in a green chest. Ask the young lady Olga Ignatievna, say, for Vanka.”
Vanka sighed convulsively and again stared at the window. He remembered that his grandfather always went into the forest to get a Christmas tree for the masters and took his grandson with him. It was a fun time! And the grandfather quacked, and the frost quacked, and looking at them, Vanka quacked. It used to be that before cutting down the tree, the grandfather would smoke a pipe, take a long sniff of tobacco, and laugh at the chilled Vanyushka... Young trees, shrouded in frost, stand motionless and wait, which one should die? Out of nowhere, a hare flies through the snowdrifts like an arrow... Grandfather can’t help but shout:
- Hold it, hold it... hold it! Oh, the short devil!
The grandfather dragged the cut down Christmas tree to the manor’s house, and there they began to clean it up... The girl who bothered the most was Olga Ignatievna, Vanka’s favorite. When Vanka’s mother Pelageya was still alive and served as a maid for the gentlemen, Olga Ignatievna fed Vanka with candy and, having nothing else to do, taught him to read, write, count to one hundred and even dance a square dance. When Pelageya died, the orphan Vanka was sent to the people’s kitchen to his grandfather, and from the kitchen to Moscow to the shoemaker Alyakhin...
“Come, dear grandfather,” Vanka continued, “I pray to Christ God, take me from here. Have pity on me, an unfortunate orphan, because everyone beats me and I want to eat my passion, but I’m so bored that it’s impossible to say, I keep crying. And the other day the owner hit him on the head with a block, so that he fell and barely came to his senses. Wasting my life is worse than any dog... And I also bow to Alena, crooked Yegorka and the coachman, but don’t give my harmony to anyone. I’m staying with your grandson Ivan Zhukov, dear grandfather, come.”
Vanka folded the scribbled sheet of paper into four and put it in an envelope he had bought the day before for a penny... After thinking a little, he wet his pen and wrote the address:
To grandfather's village.
Then he scratched himself, thought and added: “To Konstantin Makarych.” Satisfied that he was not prevented from writing, he put on his hat and, without throwing on his fur coat, ran out into the street in his shirt...
The clerks from the butcher's shop, whom he had questioned the day before, told him that letters were dropped into mailboxes, and from the boxes they were carried throughout the land on postal troikas with drunken drivers and ringing bells. Vanka ran to the first mailbox and put the precious letter into the slot...
Lulled by sweet hopes, an hour later he was fast asleep... He dreamed of the stove. The grandfather sits on the stove, his bare feet dangling, and reads a letter to the cooks... Loach walks near the stove and twirls his tail...

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

“Dear grandfather, Konstantin Makarych! - he wrote. - And I’m writing you a letter. I wish you a Merry Christmas and wish you everything from God. I have neither father nor mother, you are the only one left for me.”

Vanka turned his eyes to the dark window, in which the reflection of his candle flickered, and vividly imagined his grandfather Konstantin Makarych, serving as a night watchman for the Zhivarevs. This is a small, skinny, but unusually nimble and active old man of about 65 years old, with an ever-laughing face and drunken eyes. During the day he sleeps in the people's kitchen or jokes with the cooks, but at night, wrapped in a spacious sheepskin coat, he walks around the estate and knocks on his mallet. Behind him, with their heads down, walk the old Kashtanka and the male Vyun, so nicknamed for his black color and body, long as that of a weasel. This Loach is unusually respectful and affectionate, looks equally tenderly at both his own and strangers, but does not use credit. Beneath his reverence and humility lies the most Jesuitical malice. No one knows better than him how to sneak up on time and grab someone’s leg, climb into a glacier, or steal a man’s chicken. He had his hind legs beaten off more than once, he was hanged twice, every week he was flogged until he was half to death, but he always came back to life.

Is there some tobacco we should smell? - he says, presenting his snuffbox to the women.

Women sniff and sneeze. The grandfather comes into indescribable delight, bursts into cheerful laughter and shouts:

Rip it off, it's frozen!

They also let dogs sniff tobacco. Kashtanka sneezes, twists her muzzle and, offended, steps aside. The loach, out of respect, does not sneeze and twirls its tail. And the weather is great. The air is quiet, transparent and fresh. The night is dark, but you can see the whole village with its white roofs and streams of smoke coming from the chimneys, trees covered with frost, snowdrifts. The entire sky is strewn with cheerfully blinking stars, and the Milky Way appears as clearly as if it had been washed and covered with snow before the holiday...

Vanka sighed, wet his pen and continued to write:

“And yesterday I had a beating. The owner dragged me by my hair into the yard and combed me with a spandher because I was rocking their baby in the cradle and accidentally fell asleep. And this week the hostess told me to clean the herring, and I started with the tail, and she took the herring and started poking me in the mug with her muzzle. The apprentices make fun of me, send me to the tavern for vodka and order me to steal cucumbers from the owners, and the owner hits me with whatever he can find. And there is no food. In the morning they give you bread, at lunchtime porridge and in the evening also bread, and for tea or cabbage soup, the owners themselves crack it. And they tell me to sleep in the hallway, and when their baby cries, I don’t sleep at all, but rock the cradle. Dear grandfather, do God’s mercy, take me home from here, to the village, there is no way for me... I bow at your feet and I will forever pray to God, take me away from here, otherwise I will die...”

Vanka twisted his mouth, rubbed his eyes with his black fist and sobbed.

“I’ll rub your tobacco for you,” he continued, “I’ll pray to God, and if anything happens, whip me like Sidorov’s goat. And if you think I don’t have a position, then for Christ’s sake I’ll ask the clerk to clean his boots, or instead of Fedka I’ll go as a shepherd. Dear grandfather, there is no possibility, just death. I wanted to run to the village on foot, but I didn’t have boots, I was afraid of the frost. And when I grow up big, I will feed you for this very reason and will not give offense to anyone, but if you die, I will begin to pray for the repose of your soul, just like for your mother Pelageya.

And Moscow is a big city. The houses are all master's houses and there are a lot of horses, but there are no sheep and the dogs are not evil. The guys here don’t go with the star and they don’t let anyone into the choir to sing, and I saw in one shop on the window hooks they sell straight with fishing line and for all kinds of fish, they’re very expensive, there’s even one hook that can hold a pound of catfish. And I saw some shops where there were all sorts of guns in the master’s style, so that probably a hundred rubles each... And in the butcher shops there are black grouse, and hazel grouse, and hares, and in which place they are shot, the inmates don’t tell about it.

Dear grandfather, when the gentlemen have a Christmas tree with gifts, take me a gilded nut and hide it in a green chest. Ask the young lady Olga Ignatievna, say, for Vanka.”

Vanka sighed convulsively and again stared at the window. He remembered that his grandfather always went into the forest to get a Christmas tree for the masters and took his grandson with him. It was a fun time! And the grandfather quacked, and the frost quacked, and looking at them, Vanka quacked. It used to be that before cutting down the tree, the grandfather would smoke a pipe, take a long sniff of tobacco, and laugh at the chilled Vanyushka... Young trees, shrouded in frost, stand motionless and wait, which one should die? Out of nowhere, a hare flies through the snowdrifts like an arrow... Grandfather can’t help but shout:

Hold it, hold it... hold it! Oh, the short devil!

The grandfather dragged the cut down Christmas tree to the manor’s house, and there they began to clean it up... The girl who bothered the most was Olga Ignatievna, Vanka’s favorite. When Vanka’s mother Pelageya was still alive and served as a maid for the gentlemen, Olga Ignatievna fed Vanka with candy and, having nothing else to do, taught him to read, write, count to one hundred and even dance a square dance. When Pelageya died, the orphan Vanka was sent to the people’s kitchen to his grandfather, and from the kitchen to Moscow to the shoemaker Alyakhin...

“Come, dear grandfather,” Vanka continued, “I pray to Christ God, take me from here. Have pity on me, an unfortunate orphan, because everyone beats me and I want to eat my passion, but I’m so bored that it’s impossible to say, I keep crying. And the other day the owner hit him on the head with a block, so that he fell and barely came to his senses. Wasting my life is worse than any dog... And I also bow to Alena, crooked Yegorka and the coachman, but don’t give my harmony to anyone. I’m staying with your grandson Ivan Zhukov, dear grandfather, come.”

Bogdanov Ivan Petrovich. Newbie. 1893

Illustration by T.V. Shishmareva.

Vanka turned his eyes to the dark window, in which the reflection of his candle flickered, and vividly imagined his grandfather Konstantin Makarych, serving as a night watchman for the Zhivarevs. This is a small, skinny, but unusually nimble and active old man of about 65 years old, with an ever-laughing face and drunken eyes. During the day he sleeps in the people's kitchen or jokes with the cooks, but at night, wrapped in a spacious sheepskin coat, he walks around the estate and knocks on his mallet. Behind him, with their heads down, walk the old Kashtanka and the male Vyun, so nicknamed for his black color and body, long as that of a weasel. This Loach is unusually respectful and affectionate, looks equally tenderly at both his own and strangers, but does not use credit. Beneath his reverence and humility lies the most Jesuitical malice. No one knows better than him how to sneak up on time and grab someone’s leg, climb into a glacier, or steal a man’s chicken. He had his hind legs beaten off more than once, he was hanged twice, every week he was flogged until he was half to death, but he always came back to life.

Unknown artist. Dutch workshop of the 19th century.

Now, probably, the grandfather is standing at the gate, squinting his eyes at the bright red windows of the village church and, stamping his felt boots, joking with the servants. His beater is tied to his belt. He throws up his hands, shrugs from the cold and, giggling like an old man, pinches first the maid and then the cook.
- Is there some tobacco for us to smell? - he says, presenting his snuffbox to the women.
Women sniff and sneeze. The grandfather comes into indescribable delight, bursts into cheerful laughter and shouts:
- Rip it off, it's frozen!
They also let dogs sniff tobacco. Kashtanka sneezes, twists her muzzle and, offended, steps aside. The loach, out of respect, does not sneeze and twirls its tail. And the weather is great. The air is quiet, transparent and fresh. The night is dark, but you can see the whole village with its white roofs and streams of smoke coming from the chimneys, trees covered with frost, snowdrifts. The entire sky is strewn with cheerfully blinking stars, and the Milky Way appears as clearly as if it had been washed and covered with snow before the holiday...

Bashilov Yakov Stepanovich. In the shoemaker's workshop.

Vanka sighed, wet his pen and continued to write: “Yesterday I had a beating. The owner dragged me by my hair into the yard and combed me with a spandher because I was rocking their baby in the cradle and accidentally fell asleep. And this week the hostess told me to clean the herring, and I started with the tail, and she took the herring and started poking me in the mug with her muzzle. The apprentices make fun of me, send me to the tavern for vodka and order me to steal cucumbers from the owners, and the owner hits me with whatever he can find. And there is no food. In the morning they give you bread, at lunchtime porridge and in the evening also bread, and for tea or cabbage soup, the owners themselves crack it. And they tell me to sleep in the hallway, and when their baby cries, I don’t sleep at all, but rock the cradle. Dear grandfather, do God’s mercy, take me home from here, to the village, there is no way for me... I bow at your feet and I will forever pray to God, take me away from here, otherwise I will die...”

Max Liebermann. Schusterwerkstatt. 1881

Vanka twisted his mouth, rubbed his eyes with his black fist and sobbed. “I’ll rub your tobacco for you,” he continued, “I’ll pray to God, and if anything happens, whip me like Sidorov’s goat. And if you think I don’t have a position, then for Christ’s sake I’ll ask the clerk to clean his boots, or instead of Fedka I’ll go as a shepherd. Dear grandfather, there is no possibility, just death. I wanted to run to the village on foot, but I didn’t have boots, I was afraid of the frost. And when I grow up big, I will feed you for this very reason and will not give offense to anyone, but if you die, I will begin to pray for the repose of your soul, just like for your mother Pelageya.

Venetsianov Alexey Gavrilovich. Peasant boy putting on bast shoes. 1820s.

Vatutin Mikhail Emelyanovich. Educator. 1892

Dear grandfather, when the gentlemen have a Christmas tree with gifts, take me a gilded nut and hide it in a green chest. Ask the young lady Olga Ignatievna, say, for Vanka.”
Vanka sighed convulsively and again stared at the window. He remembered that his grandfather always went into the forest to get a Christmas tree for the masters and took his grandson with him. It was a fun time! And the grandfather quacked, and the frost quacked, and looking at them, Vanka quacked. It used to be that before cutting down the tree, the grandfather would smoke a pipe, sniff tobacco for a long time, and laugh at the chilled Vanyushka... Young trees, shrouded in frost, stand motionless and wait, which one should die? Out of nowhere, a hare flies through the snowdrifts like an arrow... Grandfather can’t help but shout:
- Hold it, hold it... hold it! Oh, the short devil!

S. S. Boym. 1954

The grandfather dragged the cut down tree to the manor's house, and there they began to clean it up... The girl who bothered the most was Olga Ignatievna, Vanka's favorite. When Vanka’s mother Pelageya was still alive and served as a maid for the gentlemen, Olga Ignatievna fed Vanka with candy and, having nothing else to do, taught him to read, write, count to one hundred and even dance a square dance. When Pelageya died, the orphan Vanka was sent to the people’s kitchen to his grandfather, and from the kitchen to Moscow to the shoemaker Alyakhin...

N.P. Chekhov. Peasant boy (Vanka Zhukov).

Elizaveta Boehm.

Then he scratched himself, thought and added: “To Konstantin Makarych.” Satisfied that he was not prevented from writing, he put on his hat and, without throwing on his fur coat, ran out into the street in his shirt... The butcher's shopkeepers, whom he had questioned the day before, told him that letters were being dropped into mailboxes, but from the boxes they are transported throughout the land on postal troikas with drunken drivers and ringing bells. Vanka ran to the first mailbox and put the precious letter into the slot... Lulled by sweet hopes, an hour later he was fast asleep... He dreamed of the stove. The grandfather sits on the stove, his bare feet dangling, and reads a letter to the cooks... Loach walks near the stove and twirls his tail...

Vanka turned his eyes to the dark window, in which the reflection of his candle flickered, and vividly imagined his grandfather Konstantin Makarych, serving as a night watchman for the Zhivarevs. This is a small, skinny, but unusually nimble and active old man of about 65 years old, with an ever-laughing face and drunken eyes. During the day he sleeps in the people's kitchen or jokes with the cooks, but at night, wrapped in a spacious sheepskin coat, he walks around the estate and knocks on his mallet. Behind him, with their heads down, walk the old Kashtanka and the male Vyun, so nicknamed for his black color and body, long as that of a weasel. This Loach is unusually respectful and affectionate, looks equally tenderly at both his own and strangers, but does not use credit. Beneath his reverence and humility lies the most Jesuitical malice. No one knows better than him how to sneak up on time and grab someone’s leg, climb into a glacier, or steal a man’s chicken. He had his hind legs beaten off more than once, he was hanged twice, every week he was flogged until he was half to death, but he always came back to life.

Is there some tobacco we should smell? - he says, presenting his snuffbox to the women.

Women sniff and sneeze. The grandfather comes into indescribable delight, bursts into cheerful laughter and shouts:

Rip it off, it's frozen!

Vanka sighed, put down his pen and continued to write:

Vanka twisted his mouth, rubbed his eyes with his black fist and sobbed.

Dear grandfather, when the gentlemen have a Christmas tree with gifts, take me a gilded nut and hide it in a green chest. Ask the young lady Olga Ignatievna, say, for Vanka.”

Hold it, hold it... hold it! Oh, the short devil!

Vanka folded the scribbled sheet of paper into four and put it in an envelope he had bought the day before for a penny... After thinking a little, he wet his pen and wrote the address:

To grandfather's village.

The clerks from the butcher's shop, whom he had questioned the day before, told him that letters were dropped into mailboxes, and from the boxes they were carried throughout the land on postal troikas with drunken drivers and ringing bells. Vanka ran to the first mailbox and put the precious letter into the slot...

Lulled by sweet hopes, an hour later he was fast asleep... He dreamed of the stove. The grandfather sits on the stove, his bare feet dangling, and reads a letter to the cooks... Loach walks near the stove and twirls his tail...