The Head Of The Family by Anton Chekov

It is, as a rule, after dropping heavily at playing cards or after a drinking-bout when an assault of dyspepsia is placing in that Stepan Stepanitch Zhilin wakes up in an fairly gloomy body of mind. He appears sour, rumpled, and dishevelled; there is an expression of displeasure on his gray face, as even though he were offended or disgusted by means of something. He dresses slowly, sips his Vichy water deliberately, and begins strolling about the rooms.

"I need to like to know what b-b-beast comes in right here and does no longer shut the door!" he grumbles angrily, wrapping his dressing-gown about him and spitting loudly. "Take away that paper! Why is it mendacity about here? We hold twenty servants, and the region is extra untidy than a pot-house. Who was that ringing? Who the devil is that?"

"That's Anfissa, the midwife who delivered our Fedya into the world," answers his wife.

"Always placing about ... these cadging toadies!"

"There's no making you out, Stepan Stepanitch. You asked her yourself, and now you scold."

"I am now not scolding; I am speaking. You would possibly discover something to do, my dear, as a substitute of sitting with your palms in your lap trying to pick a quarrel. Upon my word, female are beyond my comprehension! Beyond my comprehension! How can they waste total days doing nothing? A man works like an ox, like a b-beast, whilst his wife, the associate of his life, sits like a rather doll, sits and does nothing but watch for an chance to quarrel with her husband by way of way of diversion. It's time to drop these schoolgirlish ways, my dear. You are no longer a schoolgirl, not a younger lady; you are a wife and mother! You flip away? Aha! It's not agreeable to pay attention to the bitter truth!"

"It's extraordinary that you solely communicate 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 supply an account of my doings to any one? It's my very own money I lose, I suppose? What I spend as nicely 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 different time is Stepan Stepanitch so reasonable, virtuous, stern or simply as at dinner, when all his family are sitting about him. It normally starts offevolved with the soup. After swallowing the first spoonful Zhilin all at once frowns and places down his spoon.

"Damn it all!" he mutters; "I shall have to dine at a restaurant, I suppose."

"What's wrong?" asks his spouse anxiously. "Isn't the soup good?"

"One have to have the taste of a pig to eat hogwash like that! There's too a whole lot salt in it; it smells of soiled rags ... extra like bugs than onions.... It's genuinely revolting, Anfissa Ivanovna," he says, addressing the midwife. "Every day I supply no end of cash for housekeeping.... I deny myself everything, and this is what they grant for my dinner! I suppose they prefer me to supply up the workplace and go into the kitchen to do the cooking myself."

"The soup is very accurate to-day," the governess ventures timidly.

"Oh, you think so?" says Zhilin, looking at her angrily from underneath his eyelids. "Every one to his taste, of course. It should be confessed our tastes are very different, Varvara Vassilyevna. You, for instance, are comfy 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 consuming and drops his eyes. His face grows paler still.

"Yes, you are delighted, and I am disgusted. Which of us is right, I can't say, however I mission to suppose as his father, I understand my own son better than you do. Look how he is sitting! Is that the way decently delivered up young people sit? Sit properly."

Fedya tilts his chin up, cranes his neck, and fancies that he is retaining 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 seem to be straight at him, however 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 do not deserve dinner!"

Fedya, wincing and quivering all over, creeps down from his chair and goes into the corner.

"You may not get off with that!" his father or mother persists. "If no person else cares to seem to be after your bringing up, so be it; I have to begin.... I might not let you be naughty and cry at dinner, my lad! Idiot! You should do your duty! Do you understand? Do your duty! Your father works and you should work, too! No one should devour the bread of idleness! You should be a man! A m-man!"

"For God's sake, leave off," says his spouse in French. "Don't nag at us earlier than outsiders, at least.... The ancient woman is all ears; and now, thanks to her, all the town will hear of it."

"I am not afraid of outsiders," answers Zhilin in Russian. "Anfissa Ivanovna sees that I am speaking the truth. Why, do you suppose I ought to be pleased with the boy? Do you comprehend what he costs me? Do you know, you nasty boy, what you price 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 prefer me to whip you, you younger ruffian?"

Fedya wails aloud and starts offevolved to sob.

"This is insufferable," says his mother, getting up from the table and flinging down her dinner-napkin. "You in no way 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 compelled smile. "She's been spoilt.... That's how it is, Anfissa Ivanovna; no one likes to hear the reality 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 but 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 informed the truth. You have to forgive me, it's my nature; I can't be a hypocrite.... I always blurt out the simple truth" (a sigh). "But I observe that my presence is unwelcome. No one can devour or talk while I am here.... Well, you must have informed me, and I would have long gone away.... I will go."

Zhilin receives up and walks with dignity to the door. As he passes the weeping Fedya he stops.

"After all that has exceeded here, you are free," he says to Fedya, throwing returned his head with dignity. "I may not meddle in your bringing up again. I wash my arms 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 equal time, once for all I disclaim all accountability for your future...."

Fedya wails and sobs greater loudly than ever. Zhilin turns with dignity to the door and departs to his bedroom.

When he wakes from his after-dinner nap he starts to feel the stings of conscience. He is ashamed to face his wife, his son, Anfissa Ivanovna, and even feels very wretched when he recollects the scene at dinner, but his amour-propre is too plenty for him; he has no longer the manliness to be frank, and he goes on sulking and grumbling.

Waking up subsequent morning, he feels in awesome 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, receives up and appears at him helplessly.

"Well, young man?" Zhilin greets him good-humouredly, sitting down to the table. "What have you received to tell me, young man? Are you all right? Well, come, chubby; provide 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 location besides a word.