Anyuta

"Anyuta" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores the themes of love, longing, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative revolves around Anyuta, a young woman living in a provincial setting, who is caught in a web of unrequited love and societal expectations. As she navigates her feelings for a man who seems indifferent to her affections, Chekhov delves into the emotional turmoil and inner struggles faced by his characters. The story reflects Chekhov's signature style, characterized by keen observations of human behavior and a subtle critique of social norms. Through Anyuta's experiences, the author evokes empathy and contemplation about the nature of love and the sacrifices it often demands.

								
IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan
Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and fro,
zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his forehead
perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart.

In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the girl who
shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of five-and-twenty, very
pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent back she was busy
embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's shirt. She was
working against time. . . . The clock in the passage struck two
drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights for the
morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, clothes, a
big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which cigarette ends were
swimming, and the litter on the floor--all seemed as though purposely
jumbled together in one confusion. . . .

"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated.
"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the fourth or
fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . behind to the
spina scapulæ. . ."

Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise what he
had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he began feeling
his upper ribs through his waistcoat.

"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must
familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled over
them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body . . . . I
say, Anyuta, let me pick them out."

Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened
herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began counting
her ribs.

"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade
. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third .
. . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you
wriggling?"

"Your fingers are cold!"

"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must be the
third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look such a skinny
thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's the second . . .
that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and one can't see it
clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my crayon?"

Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel
lines corresponding with the ribs.

"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound
you. Stand up!"

Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, and
was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how Anyuta's
lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta shivered, and was
afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off drawing and sounding
her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam.

"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit like
that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn up a little
more."

And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself.
Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she had
been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. She
said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and
thinking. . . .

In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room to
another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they had all
finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, of course,
like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One of them was
living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an artist, and the
fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov was the sixth. . . .
Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go out into the world. There
was a fine future before him, no doubt, and Klotchkov probably would
become a great man, but the present was anything but bright; Klotchkov
had no tobacco and no tea, and there were only four lumps of sugar left.
She must make haste and finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who
had ordered it, and with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy
tea and tobacco.

"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door.

Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, the
artist, walked in.

"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, and
glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung over his
brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a couple of
hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get on without a
model."

"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta."

"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly.

"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any sort
of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?"

Anyuta began dressing.

"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov.

"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to keep
painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one with blue
legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my stockings stain
them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky fellow! You have
patience."

"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding."

"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's awful
the way you live!"

"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles a
month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that."

"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of disgust;
"but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man is in duty
bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what it's like here!
The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's porridge in the
plates. . . Tfoo!"

"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had no
time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while."

When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the sofa
and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped asleep, and
waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists and sank into
gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words that an educated man
was in duty bound to have taste, and his surroundings actually struck
him now as loathsome and revolting. He saw, as it were in his mind's
eye, his own future, when he would see his patients in his consulting-
room, drink tea in a large dining-room in the company of his wife, a
real lady. And now that slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were
swimming looked incredibly disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his
imagination--a plain, slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his
mind to part with her at once, at all costs.

When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he got up

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