{"product_id":"the-complete-short-novels-isbn-9781400032921","title":"The Complete Short Novels","description":"\u003cp\u003eAnton Chekhov, widely hailed as the supreme master of the short story, also wrote five works long enough to be called short novels–here brought together in one volume for the first time, in a masterly new translation by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Steppe\u003c\/i\u003e—the most lyrical of the five—is an account of a nine-year-old boy’s frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia. \u003ci\u003eThe Duel \u003c\/i\u003esets two decadent figures—a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility—on a collision course that ends in a series of surprising reversals. In \u003ci\u003eThe Story of an Unknown Man\u003c\/i\u003e, a political radical spying on an important official by serving as valet to his son gradually discovers that his own terminal illness has changed his long-held priorities in startling ways. \u003ci\u003eThree Years\u003c\/i\u003e recounts a complex series of ironies in the personal life of a rich but passive Moscow merchant. In \u003ci\u003eMy Life\u003c\/i\u003e, a man renounces wealth and social position for a life of manual labor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe resulting conflict between the moral simplicity of his ideals and the complex realities of human nature culminates in a brief apocalyptic vision that is unique in Chekhov’s work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eThe Steppe\u003cbr\u003eThe Duel\u003cbr\u003eThe Story of an Unknown Man\u003cbr\u003eThree Years\u003cbr\u003eMy Life\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNotes\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003ePraise for previous translations by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The  reinventors of the classic Russian novel for our times.” \u003ci\u003e—PEN\/BoMC Translation Prize  Citation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Their translations have become the standard English-language texts.” \u003ci\u003e—Newsday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Brothers Karamazov:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“One finally gets the musical whole of Dostoevksy’s original.” \u003ci\u003e—The New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAnna Karenina:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e “\u003c\/i\u003eThe most scrupulous, illuminating  and compelling version yet.” \u003ci\u003e—The  Oregonian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAnton Chekhov was the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays and is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama.THE STEPPE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Story of a Journey\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On an early July morning a battered, springless britzka--one of those  antediluvian britzkas now driven in Russia only by merchants' agents,  herdsmen, and poor priests--rolled out of the district town of N., in  Z----province, and went thundering down the post road. It rattled and  shrieked at the slightest movement, glumly seconded by the bucket tied to  its rear--and from these sounds alone, and the pitiful leather tatters  hanging from its shabby body, one could tell how decrepit it was and ready  for the scrap heap.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the britzka sat two residents of N.: the merchant Ivan Ivanych Kuzmichov,  clean-shaven, in spectacles and a straw hat, looking more like an official  than a merchant; and the other, Father Khristofor Siriysky, rector of the  church of St. Nicholas in N., a small, long-haired old man in a gray canvas  caftan, a broad-brimmed top hat, and a colorfully embroidered belt. The  first was thinking intently about something and kept tossing his head to  drive away drowsiness; on his face a habitual, businesslike dryness  struggled with the good cheer of a man who has just bid farewell to his  family and had a stiff drink; the second gazed at God's world with moist,  astonished little eyes and smiled so broadly that his smile even seemed to  reach his hat brim; his face was red and had a chilled look. Both of them,  Father Khristofor as well as Kuzmichov, were on their way now to sell wool.  Taking leave of their households, they had just had a filling snack of  doughnuts with sour cream and, despite the early hour, had drunk a little .  . . They were both in excellent spirits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Besides the two men just described and the coachman Deniska, who tirelessly  whipped up the pair of frisky bay horses, there was one more passenger in  the britzka--a boy of about nine whose face was dark with tan and stained  with tears. This was Egorushka, Kuzmichov's nephew. With his uncle's  permission and Father Khristofor's blessing, he was going somewhere to  enroll in school. His mama, Olga Ivanovna, widow of a collegiate secretary1  and Kuzmichov's sister, who liked educated people and wellborn society, had  entreated her brother, who was going to sell wool, to take Egorushka with  him and enroll him in school; and now the boy, not knowing where or why he  was going, was sitting on the box beside Deniska, holding on to his elbow so  as not to fall off, and bobbing up and down like a kettle on the stove. The  quick pace made his red shirt balloon on his back, and his new coachman's  hat with a peacock feather kept slipping down on his neck. He felt himself  an unhappy person in the highest degree and wanted to cry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When the britzka drove past the prison, Egorushka looked at the sentries  quietly pacing by the high white wall, at the small barred windows, at the  cross gleaming on the roof, and remembered how, a week ago, on the day of  the Kazan Mother of God,2 he had gone with his mama to the prison church for  the feast; and earlier still, for Easter, he had gone to the prison with the  cook Liudmila and Deniska and brought kulichi,3 eggs, pies, and roasted  beef; the prisoners had thanked them and crossed themselves, and one of them  had given Egorushka some tin shirt studs of his own making.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The boy peered at the familiar places, and the hateful britzka raced past  and left it all behind. After the prison flashed the black, sooty smithies,  after them the cozy green cemetery surrounded by a stone wall; the white  crosses and tombstones hiding among the green of the cherry trees and  showing like white blotches from a distance, peeped merrily from behind the  wall. Egorushka remembered that when the cherry trees were in bloom, these  white spots blended with the blossoms into a white sea; and when the  cherries were ripe, the white tombstones and crosses were strewn with  blood-red spots. Behind the wall, under the cherries, Egorushka's father and  his grandmother Zinaida Danilovna slept day and night. When the grandmother  died, they laid her in a long, narrow coffin and covered her eyes, which  refused to close, with two five-kopeck pieces. Before her death she had been  alive and had brought soft poppy-seed bagels from the market, but now she  sleeps and sleeps . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And beyond the cemetery the brickworks smoked. Thick black smoke came in big  puffs from under the long, thatched roofs flattened to the ground, and  lazily rose upwards. The sky above the brickworks and cemetery was swarthy,  and big shadows from the puffs of smoke crept over the fields and across the  road. In the smoke near the roofs moved people and horses covered with red  dust . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Beyond the brickworks the town ended and the fields began. Egorushka turned  to look at the town for the last time, pressed his face against Deniska's  elbow, and wept bitterly . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"So you're not done crying, crybaby!\" said Kuzmichov. \"Mama's boy, sniveling  again! If you don't want to go, stay then. Nobody's forcing you!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Never mind, never mind, Egor old boy, never mind . . .\" Father Khristofor  murmured quickly. \"Never mind, old boy . . . Call upon God . . . It's  nothing bad you're going to, but something good. Learning is light, as they  say, and ignorance is darkness . . . It's truly so.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You want to turn back?\" asked Kuzmichov.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Ye . . . yes . . .\" answered Egorushka with a sob.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"And you should. Anyhow, there's no point in going, it's a long way for  nothing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Never mind, never mind, old boy . . .\" Father Khristofor went on. \"Call  upon God . . . Lomonosov traveled the same way with fishermen, yet from him  came a man for all Europe. Intelligence, received with faith, yields fruit  that is pleasing to God. How does the prayer go? 'For the glory of the  Creator, for the comfort of our parents, for the benefit of the Church and  the fatherland' . . . That's it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Benefits vary . . .\" said Kuzmichov, lighting up a cheap cigar. \"There are  some that study for twenty years and nothing comes of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It happens.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Some benefit from learning, but some just have their brains addled. My  sister's a woman of no understanding, tries to have it all in a wellborn  way, and wants to turn Egorka into a scholar, and she doesn't understand  that with my affairs I could make Egorka happy forever. I explain this to  you because, if everybody becomes scholars and gentlemen, there'll be nobody  to trade or sow grain. We'll all starve to death.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"But if everybody trades and sows grain, then nobody will comprehend  learning.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And, thinking that they had both said something convincing and weighty,  Kuzmichov and Father Khristofor put on serious faces and coughed  simultaneously. Deniska, who was listening to their conversation and  understood nothing, tossed his head and, rising a little, whipped up the two  bays. Silence ensued.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Meanwhile, before the eyes of the travelers there now spread a wide, endless  plain cut across by a chain of hills. Crowding and peeking from behind each  other, these hills merge into an elevation that stretches to the right from  the road all the way to the horizon and disappears in the purple distance;  you go on and on and there is no way to tell where it begins and where it  ends . . . The sun has already peeped out from behind the town and quietly,  without fuss, set about its work. At first, far ahead, where the sky meets  the earth, near the barrows and a windmill that, from afar, looks like a  little man waving his arms, a broad, bright yellow strip crept over the  ground; a moment later the same sort of strip lit up somewhat closer, crept  to the right, and enveloped the hills; something warm touched Egorushka's  back, a strip of light, sneaking up from behind, darted across the britzka  and the horses, raced to meet the other strips, and suddenly the whole wide  steppe shook off the half-shade of morning, smiled, and sparkled with dew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mowed rye, tall weeds, milkwort, wild hemp--all of it brown from the heat,  reddish and half dead, now washed by the dew and caressed by the sun--were  reviving to flower again. Martins skimmed over the road with merry cries,  gophers called to each other in the grass, somewhere far to the left peewits  wept. A covey of partridges, frightened by the britzka, fluttered up and,  with its soft \"trrr,\" flew off towards the hills. Grasshoppers, crickets,  capricorn beetles, mole crickets struck up their monotonous chirring music  in the grass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air congealed, and the  deceived steppe assumed its dismal July look. The grass wilted, life stood  still. The sunburnt hills, brown-green, purple in the distance, with their  peaceful, shadowy tones, the plain with its distant mistiness, and above  them the overturned sky, which, in the steppe, where there are no forests or  high mountains, seems terribly deep and transparent, now looked endless,  transfixed with anguish . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How stifling and dismal! The britzka runs on, but Egorushka sees one and the  same thing--the sky, the plain, the hills . . . The music in the grass has  grown still. The martins have flown away, there are no partridges to be  seen. Rooks flit over the faded grass, having nothing else to do; they all  look the same and make the steppe still more monotonous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A kite flies just above the ground, smoothly flapping its wings, and  suddenly stops in the air, as if pondering life's boredom, then shakes its  wings and sweeps away across the steppe like an arrow, and there is no  telling why it flies and what it wants. And in the distance the windmill  beats its wings . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For the sake of diversity, a white skull or a boulder flashes among the  weeds; a gray stone idol or a parched willow with a blue roller on its  topmost branch rises up for a moment, a gopher scampers across the road,  and--again weeds, hills, rooks run past your eyes . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then, thank God, a cart laden with sheaves comes the opposite way. On the  very top lies a peasant girl. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat, she raises her  head and looks at the passersby. Deniska gapes at her, the bays stretch  their muzzles out to the sheaves, the britzka, shrieking, kisses the cart,  and prickly ears of wheat brush like a besom over Father Khristofor's top  hat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Running people down, eh, pudgy!\" shouts Deniska. \"See, her mug's all  swollen like a bee stung it!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The girl smiles sleepily, moves her lips, and lies down again . . . But now  a solitary poplar appears on a hill; who planted it and why it is here--God  only knows. It is hard to tear your eyes from its slender figure and green  garments. Is the handsome fellow happy? Heat in summer, frost and blizzards  in winter, terrible autumn nights when you see only darkness and hear  nothing but the wayward, furiously howling wind, and above all--you are  alone, alone your whole life . . . Beyond the poplar, fields of wheat  stretch in a bright yellow carpet from the top of the hill right down to the  road. On the hill the grain has already been cut and gathered into stacks,  but below they are still mowing . . . Six mowers stand in a row and swing  their scythes, and the scythes flash merrily and in rhythm, all together  making a sound like \"vzzhi, vzzhi!\" By the movements of the women binding  the sheaves, by the faces of the mowers, by the gleaming of the scythes, you  can see that the heat is burning and stifling. A black dog, its tongue  hanging out, comes running from the mowers to meet the britzka, probably  intending to bark, but stops halfway and gazes indifferently at Deniska, who  threatens it with his whip: it is too hot to bark! One woman straightens up  and, pressing both hands to her weary back, follows Egorushka's red shirt  with her eyes. The red color may have pleased her, or she may have been  remembering her own children, but she stands for a long time motionless and  looks after him . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But now the wheat, too, has flashed by. Again the scorched plain, the  sunburnt hills, the torrid sky stretch out, again a kite skims over the  ground. The windmill beats its wings in the distance, as before, and still  looks like a little man waving his arms. You get sick of looking at it, and  it seems you will never reach it, that it is running away from the britzka.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Father Khristofor and Kuzmichov were silent. Deniska kept whipping up the  bays and making little cries, and Egorushka no longer wept but gazed  indifferently on all sides. The heat and the boredom of the steppe wearied  him. It seemed to him that he had already been riding and bobbing about for  a long time, that the sun had already been baking his back for a long time.  They had not yet gone ten miles, but he was already thinking: \"Time for a  rest!\" The good cheer gradually left his uncle's face, and only the  businesslike dryness remained, and to a gaunt, clean-shaven face, especially  when it is in spectacles, when its nose and temples are covered with dust,  this dryness lends an implacable, inquisitorial expression. Father  Khristofor, however, went on gazing in astonishment at God's world and  smiled. He was silently thinking of something good and cheerful, and a  kindly, good-natured smile congealed on his face. It seemed that the good,  cheerful thought also congealed in his brain from the heat . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What do you say, Deniska, will we catch up with the wagon train today?\"  asked Kuzmichov.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Deniska glanced at the sky, rose a little, whipped up the horses, and only  then replied:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"By nightfall, God willing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The barking of dogs was heard. Some six huge steppe sheepdogs suddenly  rushed at the britzka, as if leaping from ambush, with a fierce, howling  barking. Extraordinarily vicious, with shaggy, spiderlike muzzles, their  eyes red with malice, they all surrounded the britzka and, shoving each  other jealously, set up a hoarse growling. Their hatred was passionate, and  they seemed ready to tear to pieces the horses, and the britzka, and the  people . . . Deniska, who liked teasing and whipping, was glad of the  opportunity and, giving his face an expression of malicious glee, bent over  and lashed one of the sheepdogs with his whip. The dogs growled still more,  the horses bolted; and Egorushka, barely clinging to the box, looked at the  dogs' eyes and teeth and understood that if he were to fall off, he would  instantly be torn to pieces, but he felt no fear and looked on with the same  malicious glee as Deniska, regretting that he had no whip in his hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The britzka overtook a flock of sheep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Stop!\" cried Kuzmichov. \"Hold up! Whoa . . .\"Five short masterpieces, in a new English version by the award-wining translators of Anna Karenina","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302105010405,"sku":"NP9781400032921","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400032921.jpg?v=1767738799","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-complete-short-novels-isbn-9781400032921","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}