The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories

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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories

THE COOK'S WEDDING

SLEEPY

CHILDREN

THE RUNAWAY

GRISHA

OYSTERS

HOME

A CLASSICAL STUDENT

VANKA

AN INCIDENT

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY

BOYS

SHROVE TUESDAY

THE OLD HOUSE

IN PASSION WEEK

WHITEBROW

KASHTANKA

A CHAMELEON

THE DEPENDENTS

WHO WAS TO BLAME?

THE BIRD MARKET

AN ADVENTURE

THE FISH

ART

THE SWEDISH MATCH

Отрывок из книги

GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman's full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on which they chopped the meat and sliced the onions. He was balancing a saucer on the five fingers of his right hand and drinking tea out of it, and crunching sugar so loudly that it sent a shiver down Grisha's back. Aksinya Stepanovna, the old nurse, was sitting on the dirty stool facing him, and she, too, was drinking tea. Her face was grave, though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph. Pelageya, the cook, was busy at the stove, and was apparently trying to hide her face. And on her face Grisha saw a regular illumination: it was burning and shifting through every shade of colour, beginning with a crimson purple and ending with a deathly white. She was continually catching hold of knives, forks, bits of wood, and rags with trembling hands, moving, grumbling to herself, making a clatter, but in reality doing nothing. She did not once glance at the table at which they were drinking tea, and to the questions put to her by the nurse she gave jerky, sullen answers without turning her face.

"Help yourself, Danilo Semyonitch," the nurse urged him hospitably. "Why do you keep on with tea and nothing but tea? You should have a drop of vodka!"

.....

"Well.. I fancy it is time," said the non-commissioned officer, after a prolonged silence.

Pelageya's face worked all over and she began blubbering..

.....