A Living Chattel

By Anton Chekhov

A Living Chattel by Anton Chekhov is about a love triangle between a husband and an unhappy wife who is in love with someone else. You will enjoy reading this titillating and highly scandalous tale. Excerpt: "Well, yes, what are we to do? Come, decide, wise little head . . . I love you, and a man in love is not fond of sharing. He is more than an egoist. It is too much for me to go share with your husband. I mentally tear him to pieces, when I remember that he loves you too. In the second place, you love me. . ."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Apr 10, 2021
• ISBN: 4064066317058

Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian doctor, short-story writer, and playwright. Born in the port city of Taganrog, Chekhov was the third child of Pavel, a grocer and devout Christian, and Yevgeniya, a natural storyteller. His father, a violent and arrogant man, abused his wife and children and would serve as the inspiration for many of the writer’s most tyrannical and hypocritical characters. Chekhov studied at the Greek School in Taganrog, where he learned Ancient Greek. In 1876, his father’s debts forced the family to relocate to Moscow, where they lived in poverty while Anton remained in Taganrog to settle their finances and finish his studies. During this time, he worked odd jobs while reading extensively and composing his first written works. He joined his family in Moscow in 1879, pursuing a medical degree while writing short stories for entertainment and to support his parents and siblings. In 1876, after finishing his degree and contracting tuberculosis, he began writing for St. Petersburg’s Novoye Vremya, a popular paper which helped him to launch his literary career and gain financial independence. A friend and colleague of Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, and Ivan Bunin, Chekhov is remembered today for his skillful observations of everyday Russian life, his deeply psychological character studies, and his mastery of language and the rhythms of conversation.

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Anton Chekhov

A Living Chattel

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066317058

Table of Contents

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Titlepage

Text

I

Table of Contents

GROHOLSKY embraced Liza, kept kissing one after another all her little fingers with their bitten pink nails, and laid her on the couch covered with cheap velvet. Liza crossed one foot over the other, clasped her hands behind her head, and lay down.

Groholsky sat down in a chair beside her and bent over. He was entirely absorbed in contemplation of her.

How pretty she seemed to him, lighted up by the rays of the setting sun!

There was a complete view from the window of the setting sun, golden, lightly flecked with purple.

The whole drawing-room, including Liza, was bathed by it with brilliant light that did not hurt the eyes, and for a little while covered with gold.

Groholsky was lost in admiration. Liza was so incredibly beautiful. It is true her little kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn up nose was fresh, and even piquant, his

scanty hair was black as soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole. . . . However my taste has nothing to do with it. Groholsky who was spoilt by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times in his life, saw her as a beauty. He loved her, and blind love finds ideal beauty everywhere.

I say, he said, looking straight into her eyes, I have come to talk to you, my precious. Love cannot bear anything vague or indefinite. . . . Indefinite relations, you know, I told you yesterday, Liza . . . we will try to-day to settle the question we raised yesterday. Come, let us decide together. . . .

What are we to do?

Liza gave a yawn and scowling, drew her right arm from under her head.

What are we to do? she repeated hardly audibly after Groholsky.

Well, yes, what are we to do? Come, decide, wise little head . . . I love you, and a man in love is not fond of sharing. He is more than an egoist. It is too much for me to go shares with your husband. I mentally tear him to pieces, when I remember that he loves you too. In the second place you love me. . . . Perfect freedom is an essential condition for love. . . . And are you free? Are you not tortured by the thought that that man towers for ever over your soul? A man whom you do not love, whom very likely and quite naturally, you hate. . . . That's the second thing. . . . And thirdly. . . . What is the third thing? Oh yes. . . . We are deceiving him and that . . . is dishonourable. Truth before everything, Liza. Let us have done with lying!

Well, then, what are we to do?

You can guess. . . . I think it necessary, obligatory, to inform him of our relations and to leave him, to begin to live in freedom. Both must be done as quickly as possible. . . . This very evening, for instance. . . . It's time to make an end of it. Surely you must be sick of loving like a thief?

Tell! tell Vanya?

Why, yes!

That's impossible! I told you yesterday, Michel, that it is impossible.

Why?

He will be upset. He'll make a row, do all sorts of unpleasant things. . . . Don't you know what he is like? God forbid! There's no need to tell him. What an idea!

Groholsky passed his hand over his brow, and heaved a sigh.

Yes, he said, he will be more than upset. I am robbing him of his happiness. Does he love you?

He does love me. Very much.

"There's another complication! One does not know where to begin. To conceal it from him is base, telling him would kill him. . . . Goodness knows what's one to do. Well,