Chekhov Short Story Thread

[Janine]

Yes, I won't be doing this story, so it is a good time to sneak it in. hahaha Have fun discussing it. I hope to be back after next month. I probably will be buying a new computer and hopefully it will be much faster and more efficient. That is one plus with my old one currently not functioning. I am here at my library currently. I hate the time restrictions though - they close up shop at 9 and the time is flying right by. This is my time to just get started on the computer, right DM?

[Dark Muse]

Hehehe yes that is true, we are both quite the nightbirds

[Quark]

In my book it acutally appears as:

Bayu, bayushki, bayu!
Nurse will sing a song to you

The untranslated version doesn't give the same sense that the translated lines do, but it I like it anyway. "Bayu, bayushki, bayu!" is extremely repetitive, and I think it's supposed to be. Varka chants it over and over again, and using an extremely repetitive words like those makes the reader realize how tiresome this must be.

Also crikets are musical creatures of thier night. I dot know about others, but I always find listening to them to be quite soothing.

Do you think they were meant to be soothing here? I'm not sure. The crickets told me two things. That it must be night, and that it must be quiet if they can hear that noise. This makes it setting sort of eerie. A quiet room with shifting shadows and a lurid glow is very eerie.

I think it sort of helps with that sort of surreal affect of her dreams bleeding into reality.

I think you're right. There doesn't seem to be any particular importance to the lamp other than it's weird light that it casts.

I am here at my library currently. I hate the time restrictions though - they close up shop at 9 and the time is flying right by. This is my time to just get started on the computer, right DM?

Oh, when will we get twenty-four hour libraries? If we can get around-the-clock drive-throughs, why not public libraries? At least your's stays open to nine, Janine. That's later than most.

[Dark Muse]

The untranslated version doesn't give the same sense that the translated lines do, but it I like it anyway. "Bayu, bayushki, bayu!" is extremely repetitive, and I think it's supposed to be. Varka chants it over and over again, and using an extremely repetitive words like those makes the reader realize how tiresome this must be.

Yes I thought the way it appeared in my book gave it an intresting effect with the repitition of sound, and the constant lolling the baby to sleep while trying to stay awake herself. Also in the way things begin to blend together.

Paritcuarly lader in the story, where she starts to mar her dreams with reality, and at one point it said her father said

bu bu bu

I felt that sort of reflected the sounds of the song.

Do you think they were meant to be soothing here? I'm not sure. The crickets told me two things. That it must be night, and that it must be quiet if they can hear that noise. This makes it setting sort of eerie. A quiet room with shifting shadows and a lurid glow is very eerie.

I do not think I would say they are soothing here, but I think they fit into with the whole lullaby idea, and all the sounds blending together, that are said to be soothing to all but her, who is oppressed by them.

[Quark]

Yes I thought the way it appeared in my book gave it an intresting effect with the repitition of sound, and the constant lolling the baby to sleep while trying to stay awake herself. Also in the way things begin to blend together.

Paritcuarly lader in the story, where she starts to mar her dreams with reality, and at one point it said her father said

bu bu bu

I felt that sort of reflected the sounds of the song.

That's interesting. Is it "bu bu bu" in your book? Online it's "boo boo boo" which is similar, but the "bu" version really does link it back to the song. The sounds blend together in the way you're talking about, and I think that is meant to relate to the theme of blurred lines in the greater story. Also, I think the lullaby is meant to provide some structure to the story. Varka utters those same words at a roughly even interval, and it marks advancements in the plot.

I do not think I would say they are soothing here, but I think they fit into with the whole lullaby idea, and all the sounds blending together, that are said to be soothing to all but her, who is oppressed by them.

Yeah, I had thought about that. A chirping sound, though, is sort of grating. Does that fit with a lullaby?

Looking at the next part of the quote I posted, I find the physical descriptions of Varka and the baby.

The baby's crying. For a long while he has been hoarse and exhausted with crying; but he still goes on screaming, and there is no knowing when he will stop. And Varka is sleepy. Her eyes are glued together, her head droops, her neck aches. She cannot move her eyelids or her lips, and she feels as though her face is dried and wooden, as though her head has become as small as the head of a pin.

The two of them make quite a contrast. The baby is screaming and implacable while the babysitter bears her pain in silence. Varka's attitude of acquiescence under suffering has both a dramatic and a social motive. Chekhov is both building pity for the girl (which is important for the tragic effect) and describing the lower-class attitude toward work and servitude. Varka's numbness to sensation and mute response to pain are common qualities attributed to the working class in the nineteenth century. Whether that's an accurate portrayal of working-class people is debatable, but it appears that Chekhov is trying to make a social statement in his story here.

[Dark Muse]

That's interesting. Is it "bu bu bu" in your book? Online it's "boo boo boo" which is similar, but the "bu" version really does link it back to the song. The sounds blend together in the way you're talking about, and I think that is meant to relate to the theme of blurred lines in the greater story. Also, I think the lullaby is meant to provide some structure to the story. Varka utters those same words at a roughly even interval, and it marks advancements in the plot.

Yes, in my translation it is "bu"

That is a good point that the lullaby is used to advance the plot in the story.

Yeah, I had thought about that. A chirping sound, though, is sort of grating. Does that fit with a lullaby?

I suppose that could depend upon ones perspective, I think that it could fit in with a lullaby.

Looking at the next part of the quote I posted, I find the physical descriptions of Varka and the baby.

The two of them make quite a contrast. The baby is screaming and implacable while the babysitter bears her pain in silence. Varka's attitude of acquiescence under suffering has both a dramatic and a social motive. Chekhov is both building pity for the girl (which is important for the tragic effect) and describing the lower-class attitude toward work and servitude. Varka's numbness to sensation and mute response to pain are common qualities attributed to the working class in the nineteenth century. Whether that's an accurate portrayal of working-class people is debatable, but it appears that Chekhov is trying to make a social statement in his story here.

Yes I think that her posistion and her portryal as being lower class, and a rather poorly treated and over worked girl of the lower class, are elements that build up sympathy for her. I could see where this story could be a statment about class and the conditions of the poor and working class.

[Quark]

Yes I think that her posistion and her portryal as being lower class, and a rather poorly treated and over worked girl of the lower class, are elements that build up sympathy for her. I could see where this story could be a statment about class and the conditions of the poor and working class.

And I think class is the reason why Chekhov includes the part with Varka's father. It doesn't seem to serve any other function in the story, but it links Varka's and her father's attitudes toward suffering. Both are numb to the pain they feel. The only similarity in their two situations is that both belong to the same class and are servants of the same family. By including the father, I think Chekhov is trying to make it clear that Varka's unfortunate life is tied to her class. Varka doesn't realize this, though, and she blames the baby. Her delirium, once again, makes her mistake one thing for another.

[Dark Muse]

I did not look at it that way, but yes I could see where that would link her to suffering, as well as the ideas that one could not escape thier class, and what they were born into.

[Quark]

I did not look at it that way, but yes I could see where that would link her to suffering, as well as the ideas that one could not escape thier class, and what they were born into.

Yeah, and that's the tragedy. Varka mistakes the baby for the cause of her problems when it's really her bosses who overwork her.

Oh, and I looked back at the cricket part.

A cricket is churring in the stove. Through the door in the next room the master and the apprentice Afanasy are snoring. . . . The cradle creaks plaintively, Varka murmurs -- and it all blends into that soothing music of the night to which it is so sweet to listen

Okay, it is supposed to be soothing.

[Dark Muse]

Yes, though in a way I think the baby is a sort of symbolic represenation of her problems, and perhaps of the division of the classess.

As the child is putting a constant demand upon her, without giving in consideration or thought to how it makes her feel, and nothing she seems to do is good enough, it just constantly wants more, and is never satisfied. I think this is reflective of the way the middle and upper classess treated the poor and working class in general. They did not consider the needs of others only their own wants.

[Quark]

Yes, though in a way I think the baby is a sort of symbolic represenation of her problems, and perhaps of the division of the classess.

I think so. At the very least, the baby represents the burden that her bosses place on her. The baby is her main duty, and it's her job which keeps her up. We see her at work on other tasks, but the baby is certainly the most onerous. Varka, however, doesn't seem to care about any of them. She's most concerned with staying awake and avoiding abuse.

Before I post another section of text let me comment on this last paragraph:

The lamp flickers. The patch of green and the shadows are set in motion, forcing themselves on Varka's fixed, half-open eyes, and in her half slumbering brain are fashioned into misty visions. She sees dark clouds chasing one another over the sky, and screaming like the baby. But then the wind blows, the clouds are gone, and Varka sees a broad high road covered with liquid mud; along the high road stretch files of wagons, while people with wallets on their backs are trudging along and shadows flit backwards and forwards; on both sides she can see forests through the cold harsh mist. All at once the people with their wallets and their shadows fall on the ground in the liquid mud. "What is that for?" Varka asks. "To sleep, to sleep!" they answer her. And they fall sound asleep, and sleep sweetly, while crows and magpies sit on the telegraph wires, scream like the baby, and try to wake them.

Here, there are two things going on. One, Varka starts making those mistaken associations which will only get worse. She mistakes the shadows for clouds and the baby's voice for the sound of birds. Varka hasn't completely lost it yet, so she still realizes the difference between this and a dream. But, this seemingly innocuous drifting off will eventually lead to something more serious. The other thing I notice about her dream is that it's an acting out of the desire she's resisting. It beckons her to sleep. Varka doesn't feel like she can give up her burden and fall asleep, but the people in her dream do exactly that.

[Dark Muse]

Yes I noticed that, how in her first dream, the one thing she could not do was being acheived by those of whom she began to dream of. To me it almost felt as if she was being taunted in a why.

In which the voice repeats to her "To sleep, "to sleep" the one thing she cannot do, but so desperately wants.

I was currious about the "liquid mud" and just what it meant. Or is it intended only to be the blurring of dream and reality.

[Quark]

Yes I noticed that, how in her first dream, the one thing she could not do was being acheived by those of whom she began to dream of. To me it almost felt as if she was being taunted in a why.

Varka definitely feels like she's being taunted. She can't fall asleep, and everything in the room is conspiring to make her sleepy. Tempted, though, might be a better word than taunted.

I was currious about the "liquid mud" and just what it meant. Or is it intended only to be the blurring of dream and reality.

I'm thrown by that, too. Both "liquid mud" and "cold harsh mist" have a somewhat ambiguous meaning. Why is she seeing so much moisture? It could be because of the texture of the wall and the way the light is falling on it. Yet, for some reason, Chekhov really fixates on this--which makes me think that it has a larger importance.

[Dark Muse]

Yes, I felt that way too, that it must have some greater meaning. I will have to read the story over again, maybe tomorrow.

[Quark]

Before I go to bed, I should post another section so we have something to talk about tomorrow.

Her dead father, Yefim Stepanov, is tossing from side to side on the floor. She does not see him, but she hears him moaning and rolling on the floor from pain. "His guts have burst," as he says; the pain is so violent that he cannot utter a single word, and can only draw in his breath and clack his teeth like the rattling of a drum:

"Boo--boo--boo--boo. . . ."

Her mother, Pelageya, has run to the master's house to say that Yefim is dying. She has been gone a long time, and ought to be back. Varka lies awake on the stove, and hears her father's "boo--boo--boo." And then she hears someone has driven up to the hut. It is a young doctor from the town, who has been sent from the big house where he is staying on a visit. The doctor comes into the hut; he cannot be seen in the darkness, but he can be heard coughing and rattling the door.

"Light a candle," he says.

"Boo--boo--boo," answers Yefim.

Pelageya rushes to the stove and begins looking for the broken pot with the matches. A minute passes in silence. The doctor, feeling in his pocket, lights a match.

"In a minute, sir, in a minute," says Pelageya. She rushes out of the hut, and soon afterwards comes back with a bit of candle.

Yefim's cheeks are rosy and his eyes are shining, and there is a peculiar keenness in his glance, as though he were seeing right through the hut and the doctor.

"Come, what is it? What are you thinking about?" says the doctor, bending down to him. "Aha! have you had this long?"

"What? Dying, your honour, my hour has come. . . . I am not to stay among the living."

"Don't talk nonsense! We will cure you!"

"That's as you please, your honour, we humbly thank you, only we understand. . . . Since death has come, there it is."

The doctor spends a quarter of an hour over Yefim, then he gets up and says:

"I can do nothing. You must go into the hospital, there they will operate on you. Go at once . . . You must go! It's rather late, they will all be asleep in the hospital, but that doesn't matter, I will give you a note. Do you hear?"

"Kind sir, but what can he go in?" says Pelageya. "We have no horse."

"Never mind. I'll ask your master, he'll let you have a horse."

The doctor goes away, the candle goes out, and again there is the sound of "boo--boo--boo." Half an hour later someone drives up to the hut. A cart has been sent to take Yefim to the hospital. He gets ready and goes. . . .