Chekhov's 1897 work the farmer one Nikolai Chikildeyev, a waiter at the Moscow hotel "Slav Emporium", fell ill.His lower limbs were numb and he had trouble walking, so that one day he stumbled in the aisle and fell with the tray of ham and roasted peas.He had to resign from his post.He went to seek medical treatment, and spent all his and his wife's savings. It was already difficult to make ends meet, and it was boring to have nothing to do, so he decided that it would be better to go back to his hometown in the country.Not only is it more convenient to recuperate at home, but the cost of living will also be much less.No wonder the saying goes: "It's good to be at home for a thousand days, but it's hard to go out for a while".

They returned to their hometown Zhukovo village in the evening.In his childhood memory, his home was always so bright, comfortable and convenient, but now, when he stepped into the house, he was shocked: the wooden house was dark, crowded and dirty.His wife Olga and daughter Sasha, who came back with him, stared in amazement at the stove: it was so large that it took up almost half the room and was black with soot and flies.How many flies!The stove was askew, the logs on the walls were tilted, and it looked like the cabin would collapse at any moment.In the front corner, where the icon stood, there were bottle labels and newspaper clippings plastered next to them—these would be pictures.Poor, poor!The adults are not at home and have gone to harvest the crops.Sitting on the stove was a six or eight-year-old girl with fair hair, unwashed, and a cold expression.She didn't even glance at whoever came in.A white cat was rubbing its back on the fork under the stove.

"Mimi, Mimi" Sasha called it, "Mimi!" "Our cat can't hear," said the little girl. "It's deaf." "how could be?" "Just deaf. Beaten." Nikolay and Olga knew at a glance what life was like here, but neither of them told the other.They put down the package silently, and walked into the street in silence.Their house was the third in the village, and it seemed to be the poorest and most dilapidated.The second house was not much better, but the one at the end had a tin roof and curtains on the windows.This lonely house has no walls, it is a small restaurant.All the farmhouses are lined up in a row, and the whole small village is peaceful and quiet. The willows, elderberries and pepper trees in the yards of each house stick out of the wall, and the scenery is really beautiful.

Behind the farmhouse, a steep dirt slope led down to the river, and here and there there were large rocks peeking out of the clay.Between these stones and the pits the potters had dug, there were winding paths where heaps of pottery fragments, brown and red, remained.Below the hillside is a vast and flat green pasture.The meadows have been mowed, and only the farm animals are wandering now.The river was a mile or so away from the village, and its waters meandered among beautiful, tree-lined banks.On the other side of the river is another large pasture with livestock and white geese in rows.Past the meadow, like this side of the river, a steep slope climbs up the hill.On top of the hill was a village and a five-domed church, and a little further on were landowners' estates.

"What a place you have!" said Olga, crossing herself against the church. "How wide it is, Lord!" At this moment the church bells sounded, calling the people to all-night prayers (it was the eve of Sunday).Two little girls down the slope were carrying a bucket of water. They turned their heads to look at the church and listened to the bell. "At this moment, the 'Slavic Market' is just open for dinner..." Nicholas said in a daze. Nicholas and Olga sat on the edge of the steep slope, watching how the sun went down, and how the golden and purple glow of the evening was reflected in the river, in the windows of the church, and in the air in the fields.The air was soft, quiet, and indescribably pure, as never before in Moscow.As the sun went down, flocks of cattle and sheep came back to the village screaming and clattering, and geese flew across the river from the opposite bank.Then the surroundings fell silent, the soft light disappeared, and the dim twilight soon descended.

At this time, Nicholas' father and mother came home. The two old people were about the same height, thin, hunchbacked, and lost their teeth.The two women, daughters-in-law Maria and Fiocla, who worked daytime at the landowner's house on the other side of the river, also came home at this time.Maria is the wife of her older brother Kyriak and has six children.Fiokla is the wife of her younger brother, Janice, who is now serving in the army outside.Nikolay went into the cabin and saw a large family, all these bodies, big and small, wriggling on the high planks, in the cradles, in all the corners, and saw how the old men and women put the black Soaking the bread in the water, he ate it hungrily. At that moment, he thought, it was wrong for him, a sick man, without money, and dragging his family behind, to come back to his hometown, wrong!

①In the rural wooden house, it is installed between the stove and the side wall. It is as high as one person and very wide. "Where's brother Kyriak?" he asked after greetings. "He's a watchman in a merchant's house," answered the father, "keeping the woods. He's a good farmer, but he drinks a lot." "People who don't earn money!" complained the old woman. "Our men are miserable. They never bring home anything, but take it out of the house. Kiryak is drunk, and the old man knows it without hiding it." Way to the tavern. Made the Madonna angry."

The samovar was lit because of the arrival of the guests.There was a fishy smell in the tea.The gray candies are the leftovers from chewing; there are many cockroaches crawling around on the bread and dishes.This kind of tea is hard to drink, and the conversation is also unpleasant-talking and talking, it is either poor or sick.But they hadn't finished their cup of tea when suddenly loud, drawn-out, drunken shouts came from the yard. "Ma-Mar-ya!" "It seems that Kiriak is back," said the old man, "and it will come to anyone who is mentioned." Everyone fell silent.After a while, the shout sounded again, rough and protracted, as if it came from the ground:

"Ma-Mar-ya!" The eldest daughter-in-law, Maria, leaned against the stove with a pale face.The frightened look on this broad-shouldered, stocky, ugly woman was a little strange to watch.Her daughter, the little girl sitting on the hearth, who had always looked indifferent, burst into tears. "Why are you crying, you bastard?" Fiokla yelled at her. She was a beautiful woman with a strong body and broad shoulders. "Don't be afraid, he won't kill you!" Nikolay learned from the old man's mouth that Maria was afraid to live with Kiriak in the woods, because whenever he came back drunk, he would make trouble with her and beat her mercilessly.

"Ma-Mar-ya!" the cry came to the door. "For Christ's sake, help me, dear ones," Maria said with difficulty, panting as if she had been thrown into icy water, "help me, dear ones..." All the children in the room began to cry, and Sasha watched them cry too.There was a drunken cough, and then a tall, black-bearded farmer entered the room.He wore a winter hat so his face couldn't be seen in the dim light--but it looked scary.He is Kyriak.He walked up to his wife, swung his arm, and punched her in the face with his fist.She didn't make a sound, was beaten unconscious, and collapsed on the ground, bleeding from her nose immediately.

"Disgraceful, shameful," muttered the old man, and climbed onto the stove, "in front of guests! What a crime!" The old woman sat silently, hunched over, thinking.Fiocla was rocking the cradle... Evidently Kiriak felt very proud of his ability to frighten people, and he grabbed Maria by the hand, dragged her to the door, and roared like a wild animal in order to appear more fierce.But at this moment, he suddenly saw that there were guests present, so he stopped. "Ah, I'm back..." he said, letting go of his wife, "Brothers and their families..." He prayed to the icon for a while, swayed, opened his red, drunken eyes, and went on, "My brother has returned to his hometown with his family... So, he came from Moscow. Needless to say, Moscow was a city designated as the capital of the country in ancient times, and it is the mother of all cities... I'm sorry..." He sat down on the bench by the samovar and drank his tea.Everyone was silent, only he drank loudly from a small teacup.He drank ten glasses in a row, then collapsed on the bench, and immediately began to snore. Everybody get ready for bed.Nicholas was lying on the hearth with his father because of his illness.Sasha slept on the floor, and Olga and her two sisters-in-law went to sleep in the shed. "Oh, come on, dear," she said, lying down on the hay next to Maria, "tears can't take away the pain! Just bear it. The holy book says, "If someone hits you on the right cheek, even the left cheek The face is also turned to be hit by him. '①Oh, forget it, my dear! " ①See Chapter 5, Section 38 of the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible. Afterwards she talked about Moscow in a low voice, about her own life, how she worked as a maid in a furnished apartment. "The houses in Moscow are big, built of stone," she said. "There are many churches, there are forty parish churches, my dear. The owners of the houses are all gentlemen, decent and polite." Maria said that she had never been to the county seat, not to mention Moscow.She couldn't read, couldn't pray, and didn't even know "Our Father who is in heaven."She and Ofikra, who was sitting there listening, were both mentally retarded and didn't understand anything.Neither of them liked their husbands.Maria was afraid of Kiriak, and whenever he stayed with her she trembled with fright.As long as she got close to him, the strong smell of alcohol and cigarettes on his body would always give her a headache.As for Fiokla, whenever someone asks her, is it troubled by her husband's absence? She always replies angrily: "Went to his!" They chatted for a while, then fell silent... It's getting colder.A rooster crowed loudly near the shed, making it impossible to sleep.When the light blue morning light passed through every crack, Fiokla got up quietly and went out, and then she could hear the clatter of her bare feet, and she went somewhere.