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The Head Of The Family
Anton Chekhov
IT is, as a rule, after losing heavily at cards or after a drinking-bout when an attack of
dyspepsia is setting in that Stepan Stepanitch Zhilin wakes up in an exceptionally gloomy
frame of mind. He looks sour, rumpled, and dishevelled; there is an expression of
displeasure on his grey face, as though he were offended or disgusted by something. He
dresses slowly, sips his Vichy water deliberately, and begins walking about the rooms.
"I should like to know what b-b-beast comes in here and does not shut the door!" he
grumbles angrily, wrapping his dressing-gown about him and spitting loudly. "Take away
that paper! Why is it lying about here? We keep twenty servants, and the place is more
untidy than a pot-house. Who was that ringing? Who the devil is that?"
"That's Anfissa, the midwife who brought our Fedya into the world," answers his wife.
"Always hanging about . . . these cadging toadies!"
"There's no making you out, Stepan Stepanitch. You asked her yourself, and now you
scold."
"I am not scolding; I am speaking. You might find something to do, my dear, instead of
sitting with your hands in your lap trying to pick a quarrel. Upon my word, women are
beyond my comprehension! Beyond my comprehension! How can they waste whole days
doing nothing? A man works like an ox, like a b-beast, while his wife, the partner of his
life, sits like a pretty doll, sits and does nothing but watch for an opportunity to quarrel with
her husband by way of diversion. It's time to drop these schoolgirlish ways, my dear. You
are not a schoolgirl, not a young lady; you are a wife and mother! You turn away? Aha! It's
not agreeable to listen to the bitter truth!
"It's strange that you only speak the bitter truth when your liver is out of order."
"That's right; get up a scene."
"Have you been out late? Or playing cards?"
"What if I have? Is that anybody's business? Am I obliged to give an account of my doings
to any one? It's my own money I lose, I suppose? What I spend as well as what is spent in
this house belongs to me -- me. Do you hear? To me!"
And so on, all in the same style. But at no other time is Stepan Stepanitch so reasonable,
virtuous, stern or just as at dinner, when all his household are sitting about him. It usually
begins with the soup. After swallowing the first spoonful Zhilin suddenly frowns and puts
down his spoon.
"Damn it all!" he mutters; "I shall have to dine at a restaurant, I suppose."
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"What's wrong?" asks his wife anxiously. "Isn't the soup good?"
"One must have the taste of a pig to eat hogwash like that! There's too much salt in it; it
smells of dirty rags . . . more like bugs than onions. . . . It's simply revolting, Anfissa
Ivanovna," he says, addressing the midwife. "Every day I give no end of money for
housekeeping. . . . I deny myself everything, and this is what they provide for my dinner! I
suppose they want me to give up the office and go into the kitchen to do the cooking
myself."
"The soup is very good to-day," the governess ventures timidly.
"Oh, you think so?" says Zhilin, looking at her angrily from under his eyelids. "Every one to
his taste, of course. It must be confessed our tastes are very different, Varvara Vassilyevna.
You, for instance, are satisfied with the behaviour of this boy" (Zhilin with a tragic gesture
points to his son Fedya); "you are delighted with him, while I . . . I am disgusted. Yes!"
Fedya, a boy of seven with a pale, sickly face, leaves off eating and drops his eyes. His face
grows paler still.
"Yes, you are delighted, and I am disgusted. Which of us is right, I cannot say, but I venture
to think as his father, I know my own son better than you do. Look how he is sitting! Is that
the way decently brought up children sit? Sit properly."
Fedya tilts his chin up, cranes his neck, and fancies that he is holding himself better. Tears
come into his eyes.
"Eat your dinner! Hold your spoon properly! You wait. I'll show you, you horrid boy! Don't
dare to whimper! Look straight at me!"
Fedya tries to look straight at him, but his face is quivering and his eyes fill with tears.
"A-ah! . . . you cry? You are naughty and then you cry? Go and stand in the corner, you
beast!"
"But . . . let him have his dinner first," his wife intervenes.
"No dinner for him! Such bla . . . such rascals don't deserve dinner!"
Fedya, wincing and quivering all over, creeps down from his chair and goes into the corner.
"You won't get off with that!" his parent persists. "If nobody else cares to look after your
bringing up, so be it; I must begin. . . . I won't let you be naughty and cry at dinner, my lad!
Idiot! You must do your duty! Do you understand? Do your duty! Your father works and
you must work, too! No one must eat the bread of idleness! You must be a man! A m-man!"
"For God's sake, leave off," says his wife in French. "Don't nag at us before outsiders, at
least. . . . The old woman is all ears; and now, thanks to her, all the town will hear of it."
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I am not afraid of outsiders," answers Zhilin in Russian. "Anfissa Ivanovna sees that I am
speaking the truth. Why, do you think I ought to be pleased with the boy? Do you know
what he costs me? Do you know, you nasty boy, what you cost me? Or do you imagine that
I coin money, that I get it for nothing? Don't howl! Hold your tongue! Do you hear what I
say? Do you want me to whip you, you young ruffian?"
Fedya wails aloud and begins to sob.
"This is insufferable," says his mother, getting up from the table and flinging down her
dinner-napkin. "You never let us have dinner in peace! Your bread sticks in my throat."
And putting her handkerchief to her eyes, she walks out of the dining-room.
"Now she is offended," grumbles Zhilin, with a forced smile. "She's been spoilt. . . . That's
how it is, Anfissa Ivanovna; no one likes to hear the truth nowadays. . . . It's all my fault, it
seems."
Several minutes of silence follow. Zhilin looks round at the plates, and noticing that no one
has yet touched their soup, heaves a deep sigh, and stares at the flushed and uneasy face of
the governess.
"Why don't you eat, Varvara Vassilyevna?" he asks. "Offended, I suppose? I see. . . . You
don't like to be told the truth. You must forgive me, it's my nature; I can't be a hypocrite. . . .
I always blurt out the plain truth" (a sigh). "But I notice that my presence is unwelcome. No
one can eat or talk while I am here. . . . Well, you should have told me, and I would have
gone away. . . . I will go."
Zhilin gets up and walks with dignity to the door. As he passes the weeping Fedya he stops.
"After all that has passed here, you are free," he says to Fedya, throwing back his head with
dignity. "I won't meddle in your bringing up again. I wash my hands of it! I humbly
apologise that as a father, from a sincere desire for your welfare, I have disturbed you and
your mentors. At the same time, once for all I disclaim all responsibility for your future. . . .
"
Fedya wails and sobs more loudly than ever. Zhilin turns with dignity to the door and
departs to his bedroom.
When he wakes from his after-dinner nap he begins to feel the stings of conscience. He is
ashamed to face his wife, his son, Anfissa Ivanovna, and even feels very wretched when he
recalls the scene at dinner, but his amour-propre is too much for him; he has not the
manliness to be frank, and he goes on sulking and grumbling.
Waking up next morning, he feels in excellent spirits, and whistles gaily as he washes.
Going into the dining-room to breakfast, he finds there Fedya, who, at the sight of his
father, gets up and looks at him helplessly.
"Well, young man?" Zhilin greets him good-humouredly, sitting down to the table. "What
have you got to tell me, young man? Are you all right? Well, come, chubby; give your
father a kiss."
With a pale, grave face Fedya goes up to his father and touches his cheek with his quivering
lips, then walks away and sits down in his place without a word.
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