The Pechenege
The Petschenege ( Russian Печенег , Petscheneg ) is a short story by Russian writer Anton Chekhov , in the Nov. 2, 1897 at the Moscow daily newspaper Russkiye Vedomosti published. Ivan Bunin counted the story among the author's best from 1897.
On the day of the offense, a middle-aged lawyer was stuck at the Prowalje station of the Donets railway due to a lack of travel opportunities. Because he cannot reach his destination, the village of Djujewka, until the following day, he inevitably accepts the invitation to spend the night on the lonely homestead of the former Cossack officer Ivan Abramych Shmuchin in the steppe. The elderly Shmuchin, called the Pechenege by the locals , is returning from the city from the notary - also by train. He had his will drawn up because, after a minor stroke, it was apparently a matter of dying. Before that, says the aged man, there is still something great to be done. But what?
During the trip to the homestead on a rattling horse-drawn cart and also during the overnight stay at the estate , Shmuchin goes from hundredth to thousandth. As a cautious and polite guest, the lawyer, a vegetarian, patiently listens to the sermon for hours: years ago in the Caucasus , Shmuchin's squad had killed an opposing prince. His widow had disturbed the Cossacks' sleep with her lament for the dead. That is why the princess had been beaten so badly by the soldiers that she stayed away from the dead from then on. Today, Shmuchin continues his monologue, which lasts for hours, one no longer beats. He changes the subject and tells about a coal mine owner from the area. He had found an overseer to whom he paid ten rubles a week for the following favor: The overseer let the migrant workers toil in the pit for a week and when it came to paying at the weekend, there was no wage. The mine owner wanted to keep his money. For this, the supervisor had to endure the beatings of the cheated weekly wage earners. The latter moved on without wages. The next week the unemployed arrived.
Shmuchin's two boys, whom he has with his wife Lyubov Osipovna, are what he calls his dog sons. One is nineteen years old, the other is still adolescent. The anthrax had carried the horse away. Shmuchin had buried the animal in a deep pit covered with lime. The sons dug up the carcass, skinned it, and sold the skin.
Shmuchin was convinced that twenty years ago his wife Lyubov had been so proud because, as a 17-year-old impoverished daughter of the Pope, she was married to an officer and landowner. Now the woman wants to send her sons to school in Novocherkassk , but she lacks the necessary money. So the woman weeps and weeps as she has wept for twenty years. Shmuchin closes his tirade on the subject of women with: "A woman is, frankly, not a person for me."
The next morning the lawyer asks for a horse and cart. When he leaves the homestead in the direction of Djujewka, he forgets his twelve hours of meek reserve and shouts to the Shmuchin who stayed behind: "You disgust me!"
German-language editions
Used edition
- The Pechenege. German by Gerhard Dick . P. 278–289 in Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: The lady with the dog . Master tales. 612 pages. Rütten & Loening , Berlin 1967 (1st edition)
Web links
- The text
- Wikisource: Печенег (Чехов) (Russian)
- online at Lib.ru (Russian)
- online in FEB (Russian)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 556 (Russian)
- Reference to first appearance in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)