The Steppe

The Steppe by Anton Chekhov (1902)

The Steppe follows nine-year-old Yegorushka's journey across the southern Russian steppe with his uncle, the wool merchant Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, and the elderly priest Father Christopher Sireysky, who are traveling to sell wool and to deposit the boy at school in town. They set out from N—— in a rattling old chaise, driven by the coachman Deniska, and Yegorushka, weeping at leaving his mother, watches the familiar streets, prison, cemetery where his father and grandmother are buried, and brickyards give way to the vast, monotonous steppe. The travelers cross the shimmering plain past shepherds guarding Varlamov's sheep, mowers cutting wheat, and a solitary poplar, stopping to rest by a stream where Father Christopher reminisces about his youthful scholarship and Kuzmitchov worries about overtaking the elusive landowner Varlamov before a rival buyer, Gusevitch. At a Jewish-run posting-inn, the innkeeper Moisey Moisevitch fusses over them while his brother Solomon, contemptuous of money and of Varlamov alike, unsettles the guests with his bitter tirades. There the beautiful Countess Dranitsky briefly appears looking for Varlamov, kisses the sleepy Yegorushka, and departs, leaving the boy fascinated by her. That night Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher send Yegorushka ahead with a train of wool-wagons driven by peasants, while they detour to find Varlamov. Yegorushka now travels among wagoners: gentle old Panteley, who tells lurid tales of robbers and murdered merchants at their campfires; the brutal, restless Dymov, who mocks and torments others out of sheer boredom; the sharp-eyed Vassya, who sees wildlife invisible to others; the hoarse ex-choir-singer Emelyan, mourning his lost voice; and others. The boy bathes with them in a river, eats fish stew, visits a village church and shop, and witnesses Dymov's cruelty, including the senseless killing of a grass snake and taunting of Emelyan, which provokes Yegorushka's hatred. They pass the roadside crosses marking the site of a merchant father and son's murder by mowers, prompting more of Panteley's dark stories. A joyous young peasant, Konstantin, newly married and rapturously in love, shares his happiness with the group, deepening everyone's private melancholy, including Yegorushka's own vague longing, colored by thoughts of the Countess. Varlamov himself finally appears in person—an unglamorous, brisk, authoritative old man on a modest horse—briefly reviewing papers with his agents before riding off. A violent overnight thunderstorm terrifies Yegorushka as the wagons take shelter in a village; drenched and chilled, he falls ill with fever, plagued by delirious visions of the journey's people. The next day, weakened and feverish, he is reunited with his uncle and Father Christopher at an inn in the town by a river, where the wool sale to a merchant named Tcherepahin has succeeded. Father Christopher nurses him with rubbing oil and vinegar and prayers, and Yegorushka recovers by morning, comforted by caviar and his godfather's gentle moralizing about diligent study and honoring his mother and uncle. Ivan Ivanitch then takes Yegorushka to lodge with Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, an old acquaintance of his mother's, after a long search through the town's streets. She welcomes the boy warmly, feeding and housing him. The next morning Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher come to say goodbye, each giving him a ten-kopeck coin, urging him to study hard, and departing for home. Watching them disappear around a corner, Yegorushka feels that everything familiar has vanished from his life, and he sits down on a bench, weeping as he faces the unknown new life about to begin for him.

By Anton Chekhov · First published 1902 · Genre: Literary Fiction, Short Story, Realism · 8 chapters · 45,830 words

First lines

Early one morning in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those antediluvian chaises without springs in which no one travels in Russia nowadays, except merchant's clerks, dealers and the less well-to-do among priests, drove out of N -- -- , the principal town of the province of Z -- -- , and rumbled noisily along the posting-track. It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging on behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one could judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.

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Russian Literature · Short Story Collection · Realism · Satire · Social Commentary · Peasantry · Rural Life · Poverty · Illness · Mortality · Fate · Morality

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