Expensive Lessons

"Expensive Lessons" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores themes of social class, morality, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative revolves around a wealthy man who, after a series of personal misadventures, comes to understand the true cost of his privilege. Chekhov's signature style combines subtle humor with deep psychological insight, ultimately revealing the emotional and ethical lessons learned through life's hardships. This tale invites readers to reflect on the value of compassion and the often unseen consequences of one's actions.

								
FOR a cultivated man to be ignorant of foreign languages is a great
inconvenience. Vorotov became acutely conscious of it when, after taking
his degree, he began upon a piece of research work.

"It's awful," he said, breathing hard (although he was only twenty-six
he was fat, heavy, and suffered from shortness of breath).

"It's awful! Without languages I'm like a bird without wings. I might
just as well give up the work."

And he made up his mind at all costs to overcome his innate laziness,
and to learn French and German; and began to look out for a teacher.

One winter noon, as Vorotov was sitting in his study at work, the
servant told him that a young lady was inquiring for him.

"Ask her in," said Vorotov.

And a young lady elaborately dressed in the last fashion walked in. She
introduced herself as a teacher of French, Alice Osipovna Enqu?e, and
told Vorotov that she had been sent to him by one of his friends.

"Delighted! Please sit down," said Vorotov, breathing hard and putting
his hand over the collar of his nightshirt (to breathe more freely he
always wore a nightshirt at work instead of a stiff linen one with
collar). "It was Pyotr Sergeitch sent you? Yes, yes . . . I asked him
about it. Delighted!"

As he talked to Mdlle. Enqu?e he looked at her shyly and with
curiosity. She was a genuine Frenchwoman, very elegant and still quite
young. Judging from her pale, languid face, her short curly hair, and
her unnaturally slim waist, she might have been eighteen; but looking at
her broad, well-developed shoulders, the elegant lines of her back and
her severe eyes, Vorotov thought that she was not less than three-and-
twenty and might be twenty-five; but then again he began to think she
was not more than eighteen. Her face looked as cold and business-like as
the face of a person who has come to speak about money. She did not once
smile or frown, and only once a look of perplexity flitted over her face
when she learnt that she was not required to teach children, but a stout
grown-up man.

"So, Alice Osipovna," said Vorotov, "we'll have a lesson every evening
from seven to eight. As regards your terms--a rouble a lesson--I've
nothing to say against that. By all means let it be a rouble. . . ."

And he asked her if she would not have some tea or coffee, whether it
was a fine day, and with a good-natured smile, stroking the baize of the
table, he inquired in a friendly voice who she was, where she had
studied, and what she lived on.

With a cold, business-like expression, Alice Osipovna answered that she
had completed her studies at a private school and had the diploma of a
private teacher, that her father had died lately of scarlet fever, that
her mother was alive and made artificial flowers; that she, Mdlle.
Enqu?e, taught in a private school till dinnertime, and after dinner
was busy till evening giving lessons in different good families.

She went away leaving behind her the faint fragrance of a woman's
clothes. For a long time afterwards Vorotov could not settle to work,
but, sitting at the table stroking its green baize surface, he
meditated.

"It's very pleasant to see a girl working to earn her own living," he
thought. "On the other hand, it's very unpleasant to think that poverty
should not spare such elegant and pretty girls as Alice Osipovna, and
that she, too, should have to struggle for existence. It's a sad thing!"

Having never seen virtuous Frenchwomen before, he reflected also that
this elegantly dressed young lady with her well-developed shoulders and
exaggeratedly small waist in all probability followed another calling as
well as giving French lessons.

The next evening when the clock pointed to five minutes to seven, Mdlle.
Enqu?e appeared, rosy from the frost. She opened Margot, which she had
brought with her, and without introduction began:

"French grammar has twenty-six letters. The first letter is called A,
the second B . . ."

"Excuse me," Vorotov interrupted, smiling. "I must warn you,
mademoiselle, that you must change your method a little in my case. You
see, I know Russian, Greek, and Latin well. . . . I've studied
comparative philology, and I think we might omit Margot and pass
straight to reading some author."

And he explained to the French girl how grown-up people learn languages.

"A friend of mine," he said, "wanting to learn modern languages, laid
before him the French, German, and Latin gospels, and read them side by
side, carefully analysing each word, and would you believe it, he
attained his object in less than a year. Let us do the same. We'll take
some author and read him."

The French girl looked at him in perplexity. Evidently the suggestion
seemed to her very naïve and ridiculous. If this strange proposal had
been made to her by a child, she would certainly have been angry and
have scolded it, but as he was a grown-up man and very stout and she
could not scold him, she only shrugged her shoulders hardly perceptibly
and said:

"As you please."

Vorotov rummaged in his bookcase and picked out a dog's-eared French
book.

"Will this do?"

"It's all the same," she said.

"In that case let us begin, and good luck to it! Let's begin with the
title . . . 'Mémoires.'"

"Reminiscences," Mdlle. Enqu?e translated.

With a good-natured smile, breathing hard, he spent a quarter of an hour
over the word "Mémoires," and as much over the word de, and this
wearied the young lady. She answered his questions languidly, grew
confused, and evidently did not understand her pupil well, and did not
attempt to understand him. Vorotov asked her questions, and at the same
time kept looking at her fair hair and thinking:

"Her hair isn't naturally curly; she curls it. It's a strange thing! She
works from morning to night, and yet she has time to curl her hair."

At eight o'clock precisely she got up, and saying coldly and dryly, "Au
revoir, monsieur," walked out of the study, leaving behind her the same
tender, delicate, disturbing fragrance. For a long time again her pupil
did nothing; he sat at the table meditating.

During the days that followed he became convinced that his teacher was a
charming, conscientious, and precise young lady, but that she was very
badly educated, and incapable of teaching grown-up people, and he made
up his mind not to waste his time, to get rid of her, and to engage
another teacher. When she came the seventh time he took out of his
pocket an envelope with seven roubles in it, and holding it in his hand,
became very confused and began:

"Excuse me, Alice Osipovna, but I ought to tell you . . . I'm under
painful necessity . . ."

Seeing the envelope, the French girl guessed what was meant, and for the
first time during their lessons her face quivered and her cold,
business-like expression vanished. She coloured a little, and dropping

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