The Murder (Chekhov)
Short summary
Rural Russia, late 19th century. Matvey Terehov lived with his cousin Yakov Ivanitch in a tavern at Progonnaya Station. The cousins had different religious views, causing constant tension.
Matvey had once been a religious fanatic who created his own prayer room and fell into "fornication." After being confronted by a landlord, he abandoned his extreme practices and now criticized Yakov for his rigid religious observances.
Yakov grew increasingly irritated by Matvey's constant criticism of his religious practices. Matvey's presence disrupted Yakov's prayer routine, and Yakov began having doubts about his own faith. When Matvey asked for his share of their common property, Yakov refused.
One evening during Lent, tensions escalated when Matvey ate oil, forbidden during the fast. Enraged, Yakov smashed Matvey's bowl. In the ensuing struggle, Yakov's sister Aglaia struck Matvey on the head with a bottle, killing him. The waiter Sergey witnessed the murder, and Yakov bribed him to keep silent.
He knew it all now and understood where God was, and how He was to be served, and the only thing he could not understand was why this simple faith which other men receive from God for nothing had cost him such a price.
Yakov and Aglaia were arrested and sentenced to penal servitude. Years later, as a convict in Sakhalin, Yakov stood on the shore looking toward his distant homeland, having found what he believed was the true faith, but still suffering for it.
Detailed summary by chapters
Chapter titles are editorial.
Chapter 1. Matveys religious devotion and family tensions
The evening service was being celebrated at Progonnaya Station. Matvey Terehov sang with great enthusiasm, stretching his neck as though wanting to soar upwards. He performed with delight, waving his arms like a conductor when singing "Archangel Voices." After the service ended, Matvey stayed at the refreshment bar rather than going home to his cousin's tavern.
At the bar, Matvey told the waiter about his past in the tile factory choir and complained about his current living situation with his cousin Yakov Ivanitch. He described his cousin's household as joyless, with constant uproar, scolding, and uncleanliness. Matvey explained that his cousin was a haughty, surly, and abusive man who tormented his relations and workmen.
Matvey criticized Yakov for his religious practices, explaining that Yakov read Mass himself while his sister acted as sacristan. The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, was called away to serve tea in the waiting room, where he was harshly scolded by the stationmaster. Upon returning, Sergey lamented his fall from prosperity, having once served counts and princes at a first-class station.
Chapter 2. Matveys religious past and transformation
The next day, Matvey was again at the refreshment bar, telling his life story to the waiter and Zhukov the policeman. He described his early religious devotion, reading the epistle in church at twelve and going on pilgrimages with his mother. At the factory, he sang tenor in the choir and lived chastely, neither drinking vodka nor smoking tobacco.
Matvey then recounted how he became increasingly extreme in his religious practices. He took vows to fast every Monday, avoided meat, and didn't consume oil during Lent. He would get up at night to pray, drag heavy stones, walk barefoot in snow, and even wore chains. However, he began to doubt the priests who confessed him, questioning their authority when they themselves ate meat and smoked tobacco.
The wily spirit did not slumber; it got worse as it went on. I gave up singing in the choir and I did not go to church at all; since my notion was that I was a righteous man and that the church did not suit me owing to its imperfections.
Matvey described how he created his own prayer room, following the rules of Mount Athos but striving to be even more devout than monks. His reputation as a holy man spread, and women began visiting him, claiming he had healing powers and even seeing a halo around his head. In his religious frenzy, he and his followers would dance and run wildly, eventually leading him into sin.
His salvation came when his landlord, Osip Varlamitch, confronted him. This stern, God-fearing man told Matvey that his extreme practices were not holiness but pride and backsliding from God. Osip advised him to live like an ordinary man, eating, drinking, dressing, and praying like everyone else.
All that is above the ordinary is of the devil. Your chains are of the devil; your fasting is of the devil; your prayer room is of the devil. It is all pride. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased God I should fall ill.
Chapter 3. The taverns history and Yakovs growing unease
The tavern where Yakov and Matvey lived had a long history. It was built during the time of Alexander I by a widow named Avdotya Terehov who settled there with her son. The dark courtyard and locked gates created an uneasy feeling in travelers, who often avoided staying there due to the unfriendly owners and high prices.
When the railway was built, the posting-inn transformed into a restaurant. The Terehov family had always been known for their piety, earning them the nickname "the Godlies." Each generation had developed its own peculiar faith. Avdotya was an Old Believer, while her son and grandsons attended the Orthodox church. Yakov Ivanitch, though orthodox, had stopped going to church after his wife's death and prayed at home instead.
Man cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be expressed from year to year and from day to day in a certain order, so that every morning and every evening a man might turn to God with exactly those words.
Yakov strictly followed the rules of the church in his daily life, not for blessings but for the sake of order. When Matvey arrived unexpectedly and settled in the tavern, he disrupted this order by refusing to pray with them, eating at wrong times, and constantly urging Yakov to repent. This interference troubled Yakov deeply, making it difficult for him to pray as before.
Chapter 4. Religious conflict and Yakovs mounting distress
On the Monday before Good Friday, tensions escalated when Matvey overheard Dashutka telling Aglaia that he had said there was no need to fast. Aglaia began scolding Matvey, bringing up his past relationship with a factory woman whom she called his "Darling." She berated him for giving this woman nine hundred roubles that could have gone to Dashutka or to orphans.
Yakov's religious service was interrupted when the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came to see Matvey. The waiter asked to borrow five hundred roubles to buy a Tatar's business. Matvey insisted he had no money, while the policeman tried to convince him that lending at two percent monthly interest would be beneficial.
Later, Matvey requested a horse to go to Vedenyapino, leading to an argument with Yakov about who had the right to use the horses. Matvey claimed the property was in common, while Yakov insisted he needed the horses for work, not pleasure. Matvey then asked for a small share to support him in his illness, but Yakov remained silent, unwilling to divide the family property.
Yakov's mental state deteriorated as he traveled to Shuteykino to collect a debt. On the journey, he reflected on his life as a merchant, feeling troubled by memories of selling a stolen horse and of a drunkard who had died of vodka in his tavern. He recalled the biblical saying about it being hard for a rich man to enter heaven. These thoughts weighed on him, making him feel as though devils were sitting on his head and shoulders.
Chapter 5. The fatal confrontation
That evening, Yakov began the service in the prayer room with Aglaia. He was uncomfortable praying when strangers were in the house, and his concentration was broken by Matvey's interactions with the visitors. After they left, Yakov continued the service but was disturbed when Matvey opened the door and again urged him to repent, calling him a backslider from God whose prayers were not acceptable.
Yakov's anger boiled over. He seized Matvey by the shoulders and dragged him away from the table. In the struggle, Matvey accidentally tore Yakov's shirt collar. Aglaia, thinking Matvey was attacking her brother, struck him on the head with a bottle of Lenten oil.
Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the table, while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered, began muttering, 'What is it? What's the matter?'
Matvey's face became calm and indifferent after the blow. Yakov, breathing heavily and feeling a strange pleasure at the sound the bottle made striking Matvey's head, motioned Aglaia toward the iron. Only when blood began trickling through his hands and he heard Dashutka wailing did Yakov realize what had happened.
Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove with the yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down, uttering at each bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible to Yakov as the potato in the blood.
The most terrifying aspect for Yakov was the presence of Sergey Nikanoritch, who had witnessed the murder from the doorway. When the waiter turned and fled, Yakov followed him outside.
Chapter 6. Covering up the crime
As Yakov followed Sergey Nikanoritch, he considered how to conceal the murder. He thought about the bloodstains around their property from a recently killed pig, which might help disguise their crime. However, the prospect of being arrested and publicly humiliated was unbearable to him.
To conceal the murder would be agonizing, but for the policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically, to come from the station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov's and Aglaia's hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse.
Yakov caught up with the terrified waiter and offered him money to stay silent. Initially, he promised a thousand roubles, then fifteen hundred. After some hesitation, Sergey Nikanoritch agreed to take the money. Yakov returned home to retrieve the cash from a box under his bed, finding four hundred and twenty roubles plus thirty-five in silver.
He gave the money to Sergey, who promised not to tell anyone about what he had witnessed. Yakov then decided to take Matvey's body to the forest of Limarovo and leave it on the road, planning to claim that Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino and never returned. He enlisted Dashutka's help to carry the body out.
After disposing of the body, Yakov and Dashutka returned home and went to bed without saying their prayers or lighting the icon lamp. All three household members lay awake all night, hearing what seemed like footsteps in the empty storey overhead.
Two days later, a police inspector and examining magistrate searched the tavern. Yakov testified that Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to confess and must have been killed by sawyers working on the railway line. However, the magistrate questioned how Matvey's cap had been found at home if he had gone to Vedenyapino, and why there was no blood on the road despite his head being smashed in.
Chapter 7. Judgment and punishment
What Yakov had feared came to pass. The police arrived, the district officer smoked in the prayer room, and Aglaia was rude to the authorities. When they were led out to the yard, peasants gathered at the gates, calling them "the Godlies" and seeming pleased at their downfall.
And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the district police officer smoked in the prayer room and Aglaia fell upon him with abuse... and afterwards when Yakov and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the peasants crowded at the gates.
During the investigation, the policeman suggested that Yakov and Aglaia had killed Matvey to avoid sharing their property with him. Dashutka testified that her uncle and aunt quarreled daily over money and that Matvey was rich, having given his "Darling" nine hundred roubles. Dashutka was initially left alone in the tavern but was later arrested when a signalman reported seeing her with Yakov on the night of the murder.
Sergey Nikanoritch was also implicated when suspicious money was found in his snowboots. Despite his claims that he had earned the money himself, witnesses testified that he had been in financial difficulty and had frequently borrowed from Matvey.
He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood nothing; and his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to him darkness and folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and she still went on abusing the dead man.
Eleven months later, the trial took place. Yakov appeared much older and thinner, speaking in a low voice like a sick man. He had lost his faith entirely. Aglaia remained defiant, continuing to blame Matvey for their troubles. All four defendants were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov was sentenced to twenty years of penal servitude, Aglaia to thirteen and a half, Sergey Nikanoritch to ten, and Dashutka to six.
Years later, Yakov, now known as "the Brush" among convicts due to his long beard, was serving his sentence in Sahalin. One night, he was part of a gang loading coal onto a foreign steamer. Standing on the shore in the darkness, he gazed across the sea toward his distant homeland. Through the mist, he seemed to see his native province, the darkness and heartlessness of the people he had left behind. His eyes filled with tears as he longed to return home to share his new faith and live without suffering, even if just for one day.
His eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached with yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back home to tell them there of his new faith.