The Wife (Chekhov)
Short summary
Russian countryside, late 19th century. Pavel Andreitch received an anonymous letter about starving peasants in the nearby village of Pestrovo. Troubled by this and by peasants begging at his kitchen, he decided to organize relief efforts.
Pavel invited his old acquaintance Ivan Ivanitch to help, then asked his estranged wife to join their discussion. She had been organizing her own relief efforts downstairs, where she lived separately from Pavel.
Their meeting quickly devolved into an argument. Natalya accused Pavel of interfering only to satisfy his vanity. Later, Pavel demanded to take over her relief work, insisting she lacked experience. When he took her papers to review, she broke down in tears.
The next day, Pavel decided to leave for Petersburg but changed his mind at the station. He visited Ivan Ivanitch instead, who advised him to be different because people found him difficult. Pavel then returned home, feeling drawn to reconcile with his wife.
Finding Natalya, Pavel confessed his feelings in a moment of vulnerability:
"I tell you, I have no one near to me but you. I have never for one minute ceased to miss you, and only obstinate vanity prevented me from owning it. The past, when we lived as husband and wife, cannot be brought back..."
Natalya, moved by his sincerity, burst into tears and left the room. Pavel returned to his work upstairs, feeling at peace. Though his wife continued her relief efforts and their property diminished, he no longer worried about the starving peasants or his own loneliness.
Detailed summary by chapters
Chapter titles are editorial.
Chapter 1. The anonymous letter and troubled conscience
Pavel Andreitch received an anonymous letter describing the desperate situation of peasants in the nearby village of Pestrovo. The letter explained that the villagers had sold their cottages to move to Tomsk province but failed to reach their destination and returned with nothing. Now they were living in overcrowded conditions, suffering from hunger and typhus. The writer appealed to Pavel's humanity and asked for immediate help.
Pavel was troubled by the letter, by peasants coming to his kitchen begging, and by the theft of twenty sacks of rye from his barn. He found it difficult to concentrate on his work writing a History of Railways. Looking out his window at the distant village of Pestrovo, he felt a sense of uneasiness that hindered his productivity.
Pavel decided to donate five thousand roubles to help the starving peasants, but this decision only increased his anxiety as he worried about how to distribute the money effectively. He distrusted local officials and institutions, considering them corrupt and self-serving. The idea of organizing a committee at his house was quickly rejected as he imagined the provincial company would bring noise and waste time.
I had a feeling very much like that which I had on the North Sea during a storm when everyone thought that our ship, which had no freight nor ballast, would overturn.
At lunch, his bailiff informed Pavel that the Pestrovo peasants had begun pulling thatch off their roofs to feed their cattle. Feeling alone in his desire to help, Pavel decided to invite his old acquaintance Ivan Ivanitch for advice.
Chapter 2. A dinner with Ivan Ivanitch and a failed consultation
Ivan Ivanitch arrived the next evening. Once a charming and active man, he was now corpulent and slow-moving. After exchanging pleasantries, they sat down for tea in the dining room. Pavel explained his desire to organize relief for the starving peasants and asked for Ivan's advice.
Thinking they might benefit from another perspective, Pavel asked for his wife to join them. Natalya Gavrilovna came upstairs, dressed in black with carefully arranged hair. Though they lived in the same house, Pavel and his wife had been estranged for years, occupying separate floors and leading separate lives.
The discussion about famine relief quickly deteriorated. Ivan Ivanitch rambled drowsily about how one couldn't fight against the elements and told stories about past famines. When Pavel suggested opening a subscription list and distributing corn only to those genuinely in need, Ivan responded with more irrelevant anecdotes about peasants stealing from landowners.
Pavel mentioned that twenty sacks of his rye had been stolen and that he had telegraphed the authorities. This comment provoked Natalya, who accused him of using human suffering merely to vent his hateful temperament. Pavel responded with a sarcastic remark about her "angelic character" being expressed like an "Odessa market-woman."
My wife looked at me as though it cost her a great effort to hold her tongue. Her sudden outburst, and then her inappropriate eloquence on the subject of my desire to help the starving peasants, were, to say the least, out of place.
The atmosphere became tense. Natalya soon excused herself and left. Ivan Ivanitch continued drinking tea and telling rambling stories until he too departed. As Pavel saw him out, Ivan offered no useful advice but instead suggested that Pavel shouldn't worry himself about the peasants. Before leaving, Ivan told Pavel that people found him difficult and that he should try to be different.
Chapter 3. The confrontation about leaving
After Ivan Ivanitch left, Pavel felt drawn to confront his wife about her behavior. He walked about his rooms, rehearsing what he would say to her. Their married life had been marked by explosive outbursts followed by reconciliation, but in recent years they had lived almost entirely separate lives despite residing in the same house.
Pavel went downstairs and found his wife in the drawing room with Ivan Ivanitch, who had not yet left. Pavel invented a pretext about needing the president of the Zemstvo's name. After Ivan finally departed, Pavel remained, creating an uncomfortable situation. Natalya clearly did not want to be alone with him and was relieved when Dr. Sobol arrived.
Pavel observed the doctor with a mixture of distaste and curiosity. Sobol spoke loudly, drank vodka, and complained about his exhausting work schedule. Pavel felt out of place in his wife's rooms, sensing her vigilant hostility toward him.
I felt as though I were in vulgar company. When we sat down to table he filled my glass with vodka, and, smiling helplessly, I drank it; he put a piece of ham on my plate and I ate it submissively.
When Pavel tried to join the conversation, Natalya asked to speak with him privately. In the next room, she demanded that he go upstairs to his own rooms immediately. Pavel refused, saying he would stay while she could leave if she wished. They returned to the drawing room where more visitors had arrived. Pavel then left for his own quarters, feeling both angry and confused.
Chapter 4. Taking over the relief committee papers
The next morning, Pavel learned from his servant Alexey that his wife had organized a committee for famine relief. Wealthy landowners had gathered at their house the previous evening, with one man donating a thousand bushels of flour and a thousand roubles. Pavel was troubled by this news, feeling excluded from activities happening in his own home.
After lunch, Pavel decided to visit his wife to discuss the famine relief efforts. He found her in her study, standing protectively over papers on her desk. Pavel announced that he had not gone away as planned and wanted to participate in her relief work. Natalya refused his help, saying no one had asked for it.
Pavel insisted that he needed to supervise the relief efforts to ensure they were properly managed. He argued that as an inexperienced woman, Natalya might make mistakes that could damage both the relief efforts and her reputation. Despite her protests, he demanded to see her subscription lists and accounts.
The money deficit and other losses I could, no doubt, make good, but who could restore you your good name? When through lack of proper supervision... there is a rumour that you, and consequently I, have made two hundred thousand over the famine fund...
Reluctantly, Natalya showed him her papers, which included exercise books, subscription lists, and a map of the district. Pavel criticized the lack of proper accounting and organization. He announced he would take all the documents to his study to review them properly. Natalya, with tears in her eyes, began emptying her drawer of papers, dramatically telling him to take everything.
"Take everything!" she said in a husky voice. When she had thrown out the papers she walked away from me, and putting both hands to her head, she flung herself on the couch. I picked up the money, put it back in the drawer, and locked it up.
Chapter 5. Examining the relief fund and growing realization
In his study, Pavel examined his wife's papers with a sense of satisfaction that the relief work was now in his hands. He found the records disorganized - the exercise books were not bound, pages were not numbered, and entries were in different handwritings. There was no record of the monetary value of donations in kind, and expenditures lacked proper documentation.
Despite working for four hours on the papers, Pavel felt increasingly uneasy rather than satisfied. He was exhausted by the task but couldn't identify the source of his discomfort. From below, he could hear his wife sobbing. His servant Alexey kept coming to check on the candles and gave him strange looks.
Pavel decided he must leave the next day to escape these "agreeable impressions." As he gathered the papers and headed downstairs, he heard a voice in his head calling him a reptile despite his protestations that he was not acting from vanity. He remembered a line from a childhood poem: "How pleasant it is to be good!"
When Pavel returned to his wife's room, she was still lying on the couch crying. He placed the papers on the table and announced that everything was in order and that he would be leaving the next day. She continued crying. Pavel went into the dark drawing room and sat there, reflecting on their quarrel and feeling guilty that the starving peasants had become a point of contention between them.
I had never known my wife, so I had never known how to talk to her or what to talk about. Her appearance I knew very well and appreciated it as it deserved, but her spiritual, moral world, her mind, her outlook on life...
Pavel realized that his uneasiness stemmed not from concern for the peasants but from his own character flaws. When his wife's crying stopped, he approached her. She sat up on the couch, staring fixedly at the fire. Pavel told her he was leaving in the morning and asked her to explain what wrongs he had done her.
Chapter 6. The abandoned journey and enlightening conversations
Natalya delivered a scathing assessment of Pavel's character. She accused him of being an egoist who hated everyone - those with faith for being ignorant, those without faith for lacking ideals, the old for being conservative, and the young for free-thinking. She said he claimed to care about peasants but actually hated them, suspecting each of being a thief. His obsession with legal rights had led him to complain about the stolen rye to all authorities and to deny her a passport.
You have a straightforward way of looking at things, and so you hate the whole world. You hate those who have faith, because faith is an expression of ignorance and lack of culture, and at the same time you hate those who have no faith.
She continued that despite his knowledge of law, honesty, and respect for marriage, he had never done one kind action. Everyone hated him, and in seven years of marriage, they had only lived together for seven months. She had grown shrewish and mistrustful fighting with him, and now her best years were wasted.
Pavel was moved by his wife's words. He walked around the room to conceal his emotion and then asked her, as a special favor, to help him do something for the starving peasants. Natalya gave him her subscription list, and Pavel wrote "Anonymous, 5,000" on it. They both felt ashamed of this gesture.
Pavel tried to recover by expressing approval of her work and offering advice about being cautious with her assistants. This only irritated Natalya further, who accused him of using words like "ideas" and "principles" to insult others. She called him a "Scythian" - well-bred but coarse in character - who saw no one and read nothing but engineering books.
The next morning, Pavel went to the station in heavy, wet snow. As they passed through Pestrovo, he observed that the village appeared ordinary - no distressed faces or cries for help, just children playing and peasants going about their business. This made him question why he was so troubled.
At the station, Pavel learned the train was twenty minutes late. While waiting, he reconsidered his decision to leave. He decided not to go to Petersburg after all, feeling it would be easier to face his wife's mockery than to travel for days among strangers, conscious that his life was useless. Not wanting to return home immediately, he instructed his coachman Nikanor to take him to Ivan Ivanitch's house.
The journey was perilous as Nikanor, who was drunk, drove recklessly down steep hills. At Ivan Ivanitch's house, Pavel found Dr. Sobol also visiting. The doctor spoke enthusiastically about his work despite its difficulties. Pavel tried to classify the doctor according to his usual categories but found him unexpectedly complex and genuine.
Chapter 7. Humility and a new understanding
After a heavy meal and much drinking, Pavel and Sobol rested in the lounge room. Pavel dreamed of his wife and the peasants who had stolen his rye. When he awoke later, he found Ivan Ivanitch still sitting motionless in his study. Pavel asked why it was difficult to get along with him, and Ivan replied that while he was fond of Pavel, he could not respect him.
"It's impossible to respect you, my dear fellow. You look like a real man... You use lofty language, and you are clever, and you are high up in the service beyond all reach, but haven't real soul, my dear boy... there's no strength in it."
Upon returning home, Pavel went directly to his wife. He told her he had not gone away but had instead experienced a transformation. He no longer wanted to leave and begged her not to drive him away. Moved by his sincerity, Natalya burst into tears and ran into the next room.
Pavel returned to his work on the History of Railways. He now felt no uneasiness about the starving peasants. His wife continued her relief efforts, often looking anxiously through his rooms for more items to give away. Pavel smiled at her efforts, unconcerned that they might soon be poor themselves.
Just as the flying bullets do not hinder soldiers from talking of their own affairs, eating and cleaning their boots, so the starving peasants do not hinder me from sleeping quietly and looking after my personal affairs.