A Woman's Kingdom

"A Woman's Kingdom" is a novella by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores the complexities of women's roles and relationships in Russian society at the turn of the 20th century. The story centers on a young woman who navigates her desires for love, autonomy, and societal acceptance. Through her experiences, Chekhov delves into themes of gender, self-identity, and the constraints placed upon women, painting a poignant picture of the struggle for personal freedom and fulfillment within a patriarchal context. With his characteristic sensitivity and keen observation of human nature, Chekhov offers a nuanced portrayal of a woman's inner life and the societal expectations that shape it.

								
Christmas Eve

HERE was a thick roll of notes. It came from the bailiff at the forest
villa; he wrote that he was sending fifteen hundred roubles, which he
had been awarded as damages, having won an appeal. Anna Akimovna
disliked and feared such words as "awarded damages" and "won the suit."
She knew that it was impossible to do without the law, but for some
reason, whenever Nazaritch, the manager of the factory, or the bailiff
of her villa in the country, both of whom frequently went to law, used
to win lawsuits of some sort for her benefit, she always felt uneasy
and, as it were, ashamed. On this occasion, too, she felt uneasy and
awkward, and wanted to put that fifteen hundred roubles further away
that it might be out of her sight.

She thought with vexation that other girls of her age--she was in her
twenty-sixth year--were now busy looking after their households, were
weary and would sleep sound, and would wake up tomorrow morning in
holiday mood; many of them had long been married and had children. Only
she, for some reason, was compelled to sit like an old woman over these
letters, to make notes upon them, to write answers, then to do nothing
the whole evening till midnight, but wait till she was sleepy; and
tomorrow they would all day long be coming with Christmas greetings and
asking for favours; and the day after tomorrow there would certainly be
some scandal at the factory--some one would be beaten or would die of
drinking too much vodka, and she would be fretted by pangs of
conscience; and after the holidays Nazaritch would turn off some twenty
of the workpeople for absence from work, and all of the twenty would
hang about at the front door, without their caps on, and she would be
ashamed to go out to them, and they would be driven away like dogs. And
all her acquaintances would say behind her back, and write to her in
anonymous letters, that she was a millionaire and exploiter --that she
was devouring other men's lives and sucking the blood of the workers.

Here there lay a heap of letters read through and laid aside already.
They were all begging letters. They were from people who were hungry,
drunken, dragged down by large families, sick, degraded, despised . . .
. Anna Akimovna had already noted on each letter, three roubles to be
paid to one, five to another; these letters would go the same day to the
office, and next the distribution of assistance would take place, or, as
the clerks used to say, the beasts would be fed.

They would distribute also in small sums four hundred and seventy
roubles--the interest on a sum bequeathed by the late Akim Ivanovitch for
the relief of the poor and needy. There would be a hideous crush. From
the gates to the doors of the office there would stretch a long file of
strange people with brutal faces, in rags, numb with cold, hungry and
already drunk, in husky voices calling down blessings upon Anna
Akimovna, their benefactress, and her parents: those at the back would
press upon those in front, and those in front would abuse them with bad
language. The clerk would get tired of the noise, the swearing, and the
sing-song whining and blessing; would fly out and give some one a box on
the ear to the delight of all. And her own people, the factory hands,
who received nothing at Christmas but their wages, and had already spent
every farthing of it, would stand in the middle of the yard, looking on
and laughing--some enviously, others ironically.

"Merchants, and still more their wives, are fonder of beggars than they
are of their own workpeople," thought Anna Akimovna. "It's always so."

Her eye fell upon the roll of money. It would be nice to distribute that
hateful, useless money among the workpeople tomorrow, but it did not do
to give the workpeople anything for nothing, or they would demand it
again next time. And what would be the good of fifteen hundred roubles
when there were eighteen hundred workmen in the factory besides their
wives and children? Or she might, perhaps, pick out one of the writers
of those begging letters-- some luckless man who had long ago lost all
hope of anything better, and give him the fifteen hundred. The money
would come upon the poor creature like a thunder-clap, and perhaps for
the first time in his life he would feel happy. This idea struck Anna
Akimovna as original and amusing, and it fascinated her. She took one
letter at random out of the pile and read it. Some petty official called
Tchalikov had long been out of a situation, was ill, and living in
Gushtchin's Buildings; his wife was in consumption, and he had five
little girls. Anna Akimovna knew well the four-storeyed house,
Gushtchin's Buildings, in which Tchalikov lived. Oh, it was a horrid,
foul, unhealthy house!

"Well, I will give it to that Tchalikov," she decided. "I won't send it;
I had better take it myself to prevent unnecessary talk. Yes," she
reflected, as she put the fifteen hundred roubles in her pocket, "and
I'll have a look at them, and perhaps I can do something for the little
girls."

She felt light-hearted; she rang the bell and ordered the horses to be
brought round.

When she got into the sledge it was past six o'clock in the evening. The
windows in all the blocks of buildings were brightly lighted up, and
that made the huge courtyard seem very dark: at the gates, and at the
far end of the yard near the warehouses and the workpeople's barracks,
electric lamps were gleaming.

Anna Akimovna disliked and feared those huge dark buildings, warehouses,
and barracks where the workmen lived. She had only once been in the main
building since her father's death. The high ceilings with iron girders;
the multitude of huge, rapidly turning wheels, connecting straps and
levers; the shrill hissing; the clank of steel; the rattle of the
trolleys; the harsh puffing of steam; the faces--pale, crimson, or black
with coal-dust; the shirts soaked with sweat; the gleam of steel, of
copper, and of fire; the smell of oil and coal; and the draught, at
times very hot and at times very cold--gave her an impression of hell. It
seemed to her as though the wheels, the levers, and the hot hissing
cylinders were trying to tear themselves away from their fastenings to
crush the men, while the men, not hearing one another, ran about with
anxious faces, and busied themselves about the machines, trying to stop
their terrible movement. They showed Anna Akimovna something and
respectfully explained it to her. She remembered how in the forge a
piece of red-hot iron was pulled out of the furnace; and how an old man
with a strap round his head, and another, a young man in a blue shirt
with a chain on his breast, and an angry face, probably one of the
foremen, struck the piece of iron with hammers; and how the golden
sparks had been scattered in all directions; and how, a little
afterwards, they had dragged out a huge piece of sheet-iron with a
clang. The old man had stood erect and smiled, while the young man had

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