The Teacher of Literature Page #2

"The Teacher of Literature I" is a collection of short stories and essays by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, showcasing his keen insights into human nature and society. The work reflects Chekhov's signature style, characterized by subtle humor, deep empathy, and a focus on the complexities of everyday life. The stories often explore themes of education, personal struggles, and the social dynamics of Russian life in the late 19th century, inviting readers to consider the broader implications of literature and the human experience. Chekhov's nuanced characters and vivid settings create a rich tapestry that highlights both the beauty and the challenges of existence.

								

pleased him: the house, the garden, and the evening tea, and the
wickerwork chairs, and the old nurse, and even the word "loutishness,"
which the old man was fond of using. The only thing he did not like was
the number of cats and dogs and the Egyptian pigeons, who moaned
disconsolately in a big cage in the verandah. There were so many house-
dogs and yard-dogs that he had only learnt to recognize two of them in
the course of his acquaintance with the Shelestovs: Mushka and Som.
Mushka was a little mangy dog with a shaggy face, spiteful and spoiled.
She hated Nikitin: when she saw him she put her head on one side, showed
her teeth, and began: "Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga . . . rrr . . . !" Then she
would get under his chair, and when he would try to drive her away she
would go off into piercing yaps, and the family would say: "Don't be
frightened. She doesn't bite. She is a good dog."

Som was a tall black dog with long legs and a tail as hard as a stick.
At dinner and tea he usually moved about under the table, and thumped on
people's boots and on the legs of the table with his tail. He was a
good-natured, stupid dog, but Nikitin could not endure him because he
had the habit of putting his head on people's knees at dinner and
messing their trousers with saliva. Nikitin had more than once tried to
hit him on his head with a knife-handle, to flip him on the nose, had
abused him, had complained of him, but nothing saved his trousers.

After their ride the tea, jam, rusks, and butter seemed very nice. They
all drank their first glass in silence and with great relish; over the
second they began an argument. It was always Varya who started the
arguments at tea; she was good-looking, handsomer than Masha, and was
considered the cleverest and most cultured person in the house, and she
behaved with dignity and severity, as an eldest daughter should who has
taken the place of her dead mother in the house. As the mistress of the
house, she felt herself entitled to wear a dressing-gown in the presence
of her guests, and to call the officers by their surnames; she looked on
Masha as a little girl, and talked to her as though she were a
schoolmistress. She used to speak of herself as an old maid--so she was
certain she would marry.

Every conversation, even about the weather, she invariably turned into
an argument. She had a passion for catching at words, pouncing on
contradictions, quibbling over phrases. You would begin talking to her,
and she would stare at you and suddenly interrupt: "Excuse me, excuse
me, Petrov, the other day you said the very opposite!"

Or she would smile ironically and say: "I notice, though, you begin to
advocate the principles of the secret police. I congratulate you."

If you jested or made a pun, you would hear her voice at once: "That's
stale," "That's pointless." If an officer ventured on a joke, she would
make a contemptuous grimace and say, "An army joke!"

And she rolled the r so impressively that Mushka invariably answered
from under a chair, "Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga . . . !"

On this occasion at tea the argument began with Nikitin's mentioning the
school examinations.

"Excuse me, Sergey Vassilitch," Varya interrupted him. "You say it's
difficult for the boys. And whose fault is that, let me ask you? For
instance, you set the boys in the eighth class an essay on 'Pushkin as a
Psychologist.' To begin with, you shouldn't set such a difficult
subject; and, secondly, Pushkin was not a psychologist. Shtchedrin now,
or Dostoevsky let us say, is a different matter, but Pushkin is a great
poet and nothing more."

"Shtchedrin is one thing, and Pushkin is another," Nikitin answered
sulkily.

"I know you don't think much of Shtchedrin at the high school, but
that's not the point. Tell me, in what sense is Pushkin a psychologist?"

"Why, do you mean to say he was not a psychologist? If you like, I'll
give you examples."

And Nikitin recited several passages from "Onyegin" and then from "Boris
Godunov."

"I see no psychology in that." Varya sighed. "The psychologist is the
man who describes the recesses of the human soul, and that's fine poetry
and nothing more."

"I know the sort of psychology you want," said Nikitin, offended. "You
want some one to saw my finger with a blunt saw while I howl at the top
of my voice--that's what you mean by psychology."

"That's poor! But still you haven't shown me in what sense Pushkin is a
psychologist?"

When Nikitin had to argue against anything that seemed to him narrow,
conventional, or something of that kind, he usually leaped up from his
seat, clutched at his head with both hands, and began with a moan,
running from one end of the room to another. And it was the same now: he
jumped up, clutched his head in his hands, and with a moan walked round
the table, then he sat down a little way off.

The officers took his part. Captain Polyansky began assuring Varya that
Pushkin really was a psychologist, and to prove it quoted two lines from
Lermontov; Lieutenant Gernet said that if Pushkin had not been a
psychologist they would not have erected a monument to him in Moscow.

"That's loutishness!" was heard from the other end of the table. "I said
as much to the governor: 'It's loutishness, your Excellency,' I said."

"I won't argue any more," cried Nikitin. "It's unending. . . . Enough!
Ach, get away, you nasty dog!" he cried to Som, who laid his head and
paw on his knee.

"Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga!" came from under the table.

"Admit that you are wrong!" cried Varya. "Own up!"

But some young ladies came in, and the argument dropped of itself. They
all went into the drawing-room. Varya sat down at the piano and began
playing dances. They danced first a waltz, then a polka, then a
quadrille with a grand chain which Captain Polyansky led through all the
rooms, then a waltz again.

During the dancing the old men sat in the drawing-room, smoking and
looking at the young people. Among them was Shebaldin, the director of
the municipal bank, who was famed for his love of literature and
dramatic art. He had founded the local Musical and Dramatic Society, and
took part in the performances himself, confining himself, for some
reason, to playing comic footmen or to reading in a sing-song voice "The
Woman who was a Sinner." His nickname in the town was "the Mummy," as he
was tall, very lean and scraggy, and always had a solemn air and a
fixed, lustreless eye. He was so devoted to the dramatic art that he
even shaved his moustache and beard, and this made him still more like a
mummy.

After the grand chain, he shuffled up to Nikitin sideways, coughed, and
said:

"I had the pleasure of being present during the argument at tea. I fully
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