In the Ravine

"In the Ravine" is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores themes of human relationships, societal norms, and moral dilemmas. The narrative revolves around the life of a man named Kuzma, who owns a small estate with a dilapidated house situated in a ravine. Through the interactions between Kuzma and his neighbors, Chekhov delves into the complexities of human behavior, highlighting issues such as poverty, ambition, and the often harsh realities of life. The story provides a poignant commentary on the contrasts between appearances and underlying truths, showcasing Chekhov's masterful use of subtle irony and psychological depth.

								
THE village of Ukleevo lay in a ravine so that only the belfry and the
chimneys of the printed cottons factories could be seen from the high
road and the railway-station. When visitors asked what village this was,
they were told:

"That's the village where the deacon ate all the caviare at the
funeral."

It had happened at the dinner at the funeral of Kostukov that the old
deacon saw among the savouries some large-grained caviare and began
eating it greedily; people nudged him, tugged at his arm, but he seemed
petrified with enjoyment: felt nothing, and only went on eating. He ate
up all the caviare, and there were four pounds in the jar. And years had
passed since then, the deacon had long been dead, but the caviare was
still remembered. Whether life was so poor here or people had not been
clever enough to notice anything but that unimportant incident that had
occurred ten years before, anyway the people had nothing else to tell
about the village Ukleevo.

The village was never free from fever, and there was boggy mud there
even in the summer, especially under the fences over which hung old
willow-trees that gave deep shade. Here there was always a smell from
the factory refuse and the acetic acid which was used in the finishing
of the cotton print.

The three cotton factories and the tanyard were not in the village
itself, but a little way off. They were small factories, and not more
than four hundred workmen were employed in all of them. The tanyard
often made the water in the little river stink; the refuse contaminated
the meadows, the peasants' cattle suffered from Siberian plague, and
orders were given that the factory should be closed. It was considered
to be closed, but went on working in secret with the connivance of the
local police officer and the district doctor, who was paid ten roubles a
month by the owner. In the whole village there were only two decent
houses built of brick with iron roofs; one of them was the local court,
in the other, a two-storied house just opposite the church, there lived
a shopkeeper from Epifan called Grigory Petrovitch Tsybukin.

Grigory kept a grocer's shop, but that was only for appearance' sake: in
reality he sold vodka, cattle, hides, grain, and pigs; he traded in
anything that came to hand, and when, for instance, magpies were wanted
abroad for ladies' hats, he made some thirty kopecks on every pair of
birds; he bought timber for felling, lent money at interest, and
altogether was a sharp old man, full of resources.

He had two sons. The elder, Anisim, was in the police in the detective
department and was rarely at home. The younger, Stepan, had gone in for
trade and helped his father: but no great help was expected from him as
he was weak in health and deaf; his wife Aksinya, a handsome woman with
a good figure, who wore a hat and carried a parasol on holidays, got up
early and went to bed late, and ran about all day long, picking up her
skirts and jingling her keys, going from the granary to the cellar and
from there to the shop, and old Tsybukin looked at her good-humouredly
while his eyes glowed, and at such moments he regretted she had not been
married to his elder son instead of to the younger one, who was deaf,
and who evidently knew very little about female beauty.

The old man had always an inclination for family life, and he loved his
family more than anything on earth, especially his elder son, the
detective, and his daughter-in-law. Aksinya had no sooner married the
deaf son than she began to display an extraordinary gift for business,
and knew who could be allowed to run up a bill and who could not: she
kept the keys and would not trust them even to her husband; she kept the
accounts by means of the reckoning beads, looked at the horses' teeth
like a peasant, and was always laughing or shouting; and whatever she
did or said the old man was simply delighted and muttered:

"Well done, daughter-in-law! You are a smart wench!"

He was a widower, but a year after his son's marriage he could not
resist getting married himself. A girl was found for him, living twenty
miles from Ukleevo, called Varvara Nikolaevna, no longer quite young,
but good-looking, comely, and belonging to a decent family. As soon as
she was installed into the upper-storey room everything in the house
seemed to brighten up as though new glass had been put into all the
windows. The lamps gleamed before the ikons, the tables were covered
with snow-white cloths, flowers with red buds made their appearance in
the windows and in the front garden, and at dinner, instead of eating
from a single bowl, each person had a separate plate set for him.
Varvara Nikolaevna had a pleasant, friendly smile, and it seemed as
though the whole house were smiling, too. Beggars and pilgrims, male and
female, began to come into the yard, a thing which had never happened in
the past; the plaintive sing-song voices of the Ukleevo peasant women
and the apologetic coughs of weak, seedy-looking men, who had been
dismissed from the factory for drunkenness were heard under the windows.
Varvara helped them with money, with bread, with old clothes, and
afterwards, when she felt more at home, began taking things out of the
shop. One day the deaf man saw her take four ounces of tea and that
disturbed him.

"Here, mother's taken four ounces of tea," he informed his father
afterwards; "where is that to be entered?"

The old man made no reply but stood still and thought a moment, moving
his eyebrows, and then went upstairs to his wife.

"Varvarushka, if you want anything out of the shop," he said
affectionately, "take it, my dear. Take it and welcome; don't hesitate."

And the next day the deaf man, running across the yard, called to her:

"If there is anything you want, mother, take it."

There was something new, something gay and light-hearted in her giving
of alms, just as there was in the lamps before the ikons and in the red
flowers. When at Carnival or at the church festival, which lasted for
three days, they sold the peasants tainted salt meat, smelling so strong
it was hard to stand near the tub of it, and took scythes, caps, and
their wives' kerchiefs in pledge from the drunken men; when the factory
hands stupefied with bad vodka lay rolling in the mud, and sin seemed to
hover thick like a fog in the air, then it was a relief to think that up
there in the house there was a gentle, neatly dressed woman who had
nothing to do with salt meat or vodka; her charity had in those
burdensome, murky days the effect of a safety valve in a machine.

The days in Tsybukin's house were spent in business cares. Before the
sun had risen in the morning Aksinya was panting and puffing as she
washed in the outer room, and the samovar was boiling in the kitchen
with a hum that boded no good. Old Grigory Petrovitch, dressed in a long
black coat, cotton breeches and shiny top boots, looking a dapper little
figure, walked about the rooms, tapping with his little heels like the

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