Children

"Children" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores the themes of innocence, nostalgia, and the complexities of human relationships. Set in a rural environment, the narrative unfolds through the eyes of a father who reflects on his interactions with his children and the fleeting nature of childhood. Chekhov skillfully captures the beauty and simplicity of youth while also addressing the deeper emotional undercurrents that arise from parental love, societal expectations, and the unrelenting passage of time. Through its subtle prose and vivid imagery, "Children" invites readers to contemplate the bittersweet essence of growing up and the enduring bond between parents and their offspring.

								
PAPA and mamma and Aunt Nadya are not at home. They have gone to a
christening party at the house of that old officer who rides on a little
grey horse. While waiting for them to come home, Grisha, Anya, Alyosha,
Sonya, and the cook's son, Andrey, are sitting at the table in the
dining-room, playing at loto. To tell the truth, it is bedtime, but how
can one go to sleep without hearing from mamma what the baby was like at
the christening, and what they had for supper? The table, lighted by a
hanging lamp, is dotted with numbers, nutshells, scraps of paper, and
little bits of glass. Two cards lie in front of each player, and a heap
of bits of glass for covering the numbers. In the middle of the table is
a white saucer with five kopecks in it. Beside the saucer, a half-eaten
apple, a pair of scissors, and a plate on which they have been told to
put their nutshells. The children are playing for money. The stake is a
kopeck. The rule is: if anyone cheats, he is turned out at once. There
is no one in the dining-room but the players, and nurse, Agafya
Ivanovna, is in the kitchen, showing the cook how to cut a pattern,
while their elder brother, Vasya, a schoolboy in the fifth class, is
lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, feeling bored.

They are playing with zest. The greatest excitement is expressed on the
face of Grisha. He is a small boy of nine, with a head cropped so that
the bare skin shows through, chubby cheeks, and thick lips like a
negro's. He is already in the preparatory class, and so is regarded as
grown up, and the cleverest. He is playing entirely for the sake of the
money. If there had been no kopecks in the saucer, he would have been
asleep long ago. His brown eyes stray uneasily and jealously over the
other players' cards. The fear that he may not win, envy, and the
financial combinations of which his cropped head is full, will not let
him sit still and concentrate his mind. He fidgets as though he were
sitting on thorns. When he wins, he snatches up the money greedily, and
instantly puts it in his pocket. His sister, Anya, a girl of eight, with
a sharp chin and clever shining eyes, is also afraid that someone else
may win. She flushes and turns pale, and watches the players keenly. The
kopecks do not interest her. Success in the game is for her a question
of vanity. The other sister, Sonya, a child of six with a curly head,
and a complexion such as is seen only in very healthy children,
expensive dolls, and the faces on bonbon boxes, is playing loto for the
process of the game itself. There is bliss all over her face. Whoever
wins, she laughs and claps her hands. Alyosha, a chubby, spherical
little figure, gasps, breathes hard through his nose, and stares open-
eyed at the cards. He is moved neither by covetousness nor vanity. So
long as he is not driven out of the room, or sent to bed, he is
thankful. He looks phlegmatic, but at heart he is rather a little beast.
He is not there so much for the sake of the loto, as for the sake of the
misunderstandings which are inevitable in the game. He is greatly
delighted if one hits another, or calls him names. He ought to have run
off somewhere long ago, but he won't leave the table for a minute, for
fear they should steal his counters or his kopecks. As he can only count
the units and numbers which end in nought, Anya covers his numbers for
him. The fifth player, the cook's son, Andrey, a dark-skinned and sickly
looking boy in a cotton shirt, with a copper cross on his breast, stands
motionless, looking dreamily at the numbers. He takes no interest in
winning, or in the success of the others, because he is entirely
engrossed by the arithmetic of the game, and its far from complex
theory; "How many numbers there are in the world," he is thinking, "and
how is it they don't get mixed up?"

They all shout out the numbers in turn, except Sonya and Alyosha. To
vary the monotony, they have invented in the course of time a number of
synonyms and comic nicknames. Seven, for instance, is called the
"ovenrake," eleven the "sticks," seventy-seven "Semyon Semyonitch,"
ninety "grandfather," and so on. The game is going merrily.

"Thirty-two," cries Grisha, drawing the little yellow cylinders out of
his father's cap. "Seventeen! Ovenrake! Twenty-eight! Lay them straight.
. . ."

Anya sees that Andrey has let twenty-eight slip. At any other time she
would have pointed it out to him, but now when her vanity lies in the
saucer with the kopecks, she is triumphant.

"Twenty-three!" Grisha goes on, "Semyon Semyonitch! Nine!"

"A beetle, a beetle," cries Sonya, pointing to a beetle running across
the table. "Aie!"

"Don't kill it," says Alyosha, in his deep bass, "perhaps it's got
children . . . ."

Sonya follows the black beetle with her eyes and wonders about its
children: what tiny little beetles they must be!

"Forty-three! One!" Grisha goes on, unhappy at the thought that Anya has
already made two fours. "Six!"

"Game! I have got the game!" cries Sonya, rolling her eyes coquettishly
and giggling.

The players' countenances lengthen.

"Must make sure!" says Grisha, looking with hatred at Sonya.

Exercising his rights as a big boy, and the cleverest, Grisha takes upon
himself to decide. What he wants, that they do. Sonya's reckoning is
slowly and carefully verified, and to the great regret of her fellow
players, it appears that she has not cheated. Another game is begun.

"I did see something yesterday!" says Anya, as though to herself.
"Filipp Filippitch turned his eyelids inside out somehow and his eyes
looked red and dreadful, like an evil spirit's."

"I saw it too," says Grisha. "Eight! And a boy at our school can move
his ears. Twenty-seven!"

Andrey looks up at Grisha, meditates, and says:

"I can move my ears too. . . ."

"Well then, move them."

Andrey moves his eyes, his lips, and his fingers, and fancies that his
ears are moving too. Everyone laughs.

"He is a horrid man, that Filipp Filippitch," sighs Sonya. "He came into
our nursery yesterday, and I had nothing on but my chemise . . . And I
felt so improper!"

"Game!" Grisha cries suddenly, snatching the money from the saucer.
"I've got the game! You can look and see if you like."

The cook's son looks up and turns pale.

"Then I can't go on playing any more," he whispers.

"Why not?"

"Because . . . because I have got no more money."

"You can't play without money," says Grisha.

Andrey ransacks his pockets once more to make sure. Finding nothing in
them but crumbs and a bitten pencil, he drops the corners of his mouth
and begins blinking miserably. He is on the point of crying. . . .

"I'll put it down for you!" says Sonya, unable to endure his look of

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