Uprooted (Chekhov)
Short summary
Russia, late 19th century. The narrator was returning from evening service at the Svyatogorsky Monastery, which was crowded with over ten thousand pilgrims for religious festivals. Due to overcrowding, a monk asked him to share his small room with another visitor.
His roommate introduced himself as Alexandr Ivanitch, a recent convert from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity. Throughout the night, Alexandr shared his life story: born to poor Jewish parents, he ran away seeking education, wandered through numerous towns, studied with students in Harkov, and eventually entered a mining school, where he suffered a serious accident.
Now he was training to become a village schoolmaster. The next day, as the narrator prepared to leave, Alexandr accompanied him, reluctant to be alone. The narrator gave him a pair of boots, which delighted Alexandr and prompted him to change his plans to leave sooner.
I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and Hatsepetovka, and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding along it, with his doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude....
As they parted ways, the narrator watched Alexandr disappear, realizing that this restless wanderer would likely never find the settled life he claimed to seek.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Arrival at the Svyatogorsky Monastery
The narrator was returning from evening service at the Svyatogorsky Monastery when the clock struck twelve. The monastery courtyard was filled with carts, coaches, horses, and oxen, creating a chaotic scene in the dim light. People bustled about while lay brothers moved through the crowds, attending to the needs of thousands of pilgrims who had gathered for religious festivals.
Looking at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that in this living hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone was looking for something and would not find it...
More than ten thousand pilgrims had come to the Holy Mountains for the festivals, filling every available space. The lay brothers worked tirelessly, finding sleeping places, providing food and drink, and answering endless questions despite their exhaustion. They maintained their kindness and hospitality while serving in the church and attending to the needs of all visitors.
Watching them during the course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine when these black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
Meeting Alexandr Ivanitch
When the narrator returned to his assigned hostel, the monk in charge of sleeping quarters was standing at the doorway with a group of people. Due to overcrowding, the monk asked if the narrator would allow a young man to share his room. The narrator agreed, and his new companion followed him to the room.
Upon entering, they noticed a morbid picture on the doorpost titled "A Meditation on Death," depicting a monk gazing at a skeleton in a coffin. The young man commented on anatomical inaccuracies in the skeleton and mentioned his visits to anatomy theaters in Harkov. The narrator observed his companion closely: he was about twenty-two, with a round face and dark childlike eyes, dressed in cheap grey clothes.
I was unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond impostors with whom every conventual establishment where they give food and lodging is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students...
After some awkward silence, the young man offered to share his sausage with the narrator. As they ate, they began discussing the lengthy services at the monastery. The young man mentioned he had been there for three weeks and was exhausted from attending all the services. He revealed that while most visitors were asked to leave after a short stay, the monks made an exception for him because he was a recent convert to Orthodox Christianity.
The life story of a wandering convert
Alexandr Ivanitch revealed that he was a baptized Jew, formerly named Isaac, from the Mogilev province. He had come to the Holy Mountains from Novotcherkassk where he had recently converted to Orthodox Christianity. The narrator finally understood the distinctive features of his companion's face - his thick lips, the way he twitched the right corner of his mouth, and the oily brilliance of his eyes.
"I am a Jew baptized.... Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy." Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand from his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right corner of his mouth...
Alexandr began telling his life story in a grandiose tone. He described his childhood in a poor Jewish family where education was discouraged in favor of religious tradition. His parents wanted him to become a trader and study only the Talmud, but he yearned for broader knowledge. Inspired by conversations with officers and gentlemen who stayed at his father's inn, he begged to be sent to school.
"From early childhood I cherished a love for learning," he began in a tone which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of some great man of the past.
Frustrated by his parents' refusal to educate him, Alexandr ran away to Smolensk where he worked for a cousin who made tins. He planned to work by day and study at night, but was caught without a passport and sent home. His parents punished him and handed him over to his grandfather, a fanatical old Jew, for reformation.
"What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk... I thought I could work by day and study at night and on Saturdays. And so I did, but the police found out I had no passport and sent me back by stages to my father...."
Alexandr continued his tale of wandering through numerous towns until he reached Poltava at age sixteen. There, a Jewish student gave him a letter to the Harkov students, who helped prepare him for technical school. He spoke admiringly of these students, particularly mentioning Grumaher, who wrote articles for the Harkov Gazette and was preparing to be a professor.
Eventually, Alexandr enrolled in a school of mines, hoping to become a mining foreman. During his practical training, he suffered a terrible accident when a chain broke, causing him to fall down a mine shaft. The injury left him with chronic health problems that made a mining career impossible. He had since qualified as a village schoolmaster and was hoping for a position at a church parish school in Novotcherkassk.
Religious conversion and uncertain motives
As the evening progressed, Alexandr removed his overcoat and prepared for bed in his shirt with an embroidered Russian collar. He began discussing religion, explaining that until recently he had been an atheist. During his hospital stay after the mining accident, he had reflected on religion and concluded that Christianity was the only possible religion for a thinking man.
He argued that Judaism had outlived its usefulness and was preserved only by racial peculiarities, claiming that all young Jews were now atheists. When the narrator tried to understand the reasons for Alexandr's conversion, the young man merely repeated that "The New Testament is the natural continuation of the Old" without providing deeper insight into his conviction.
The narrator found it difficult to determine whether Alexandr had truly converted from religious conviction. His shabby clothes, dependence on the monastery's charity, and uncertain future didn't suggest material motives. The narrator concluded that Alexandr might have been driven by the same restless spirit that had propelled him from town to town - what Alexandr himself called "the craving for enlightenment."
Alexandr mentioned that while he was converting in Novotcherkassk, his mother had been searching for him in Rostov, sensing his intention to change religion. He noted that it had been six years since he visited the Mogilev province and speculated that his sister must be married by now.
A night of psychological disturbance
Before going to bed, the narrator went to the corridor for water. Upon returning, he found Alexandr standing in the middle of the room with a frightened expression. His face was pale and sweaty as he muttered about his terrible nervous state, calling it "acute psychological disturbance." He continued reasoning about Judaism and Christianity, seemingly trying to justify his conversion to himself.
As dawn approached, Alexandr prayed before the icons, raising his right eyebrow in his characteristic manner. He lay down on his sofa without undressing and spoke of the procession that would take place the next day, when boats would travel from the Monastery to the Hermitage after early mass.
He dreamed aloud of a village school as of the Promised Land; like the majority of people, he had a prejudice against a wandering life, and regarded it as something exceptional, abnormal and accidental, like an illness...
The narrator reflected on how Alexandr seemed to be apologizing for his unsettled existence, yearning for the stability of ordinary life. As the narrator fell asleep, he imagined how all the homeless wanderers like Alexandr might rejoice if they could be convinced that their nomadic lives needed no justification.
Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms of the hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims some hundreds of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the morning...
Morning departure and final reflections
When the narrator woke up, Alexandr was gone. Learning that the procession to the Hermitage had already departed, the narrator followed the path along the steep bank of the Donets River. He eventually joined the returning procession, securing a place in one of the boats carrying pilgrims back to the Monastery.
During the return journey, the narrator spotted Alexandr among the crowd, standing at the front with his mouth open in pleasure and his right eyebrow raised, gazing at the procession. His face was beaming with satisfaction, seemingly content with himself, his new religion, and his surroundings.
Later, when they met in their room, Alexandr attempted an intellectual conversation about psychology, claiming he needed it for teaching. The narrator noted how readily Alexandr agreed with all his points, suggesting his grasp of intellectual subjects was not very firm.
Before the narrator's departure, they walked together around the Monastery. Alexandr shared his plans to walk to Slavyansk and then take various railway lines to reach Hatsepetovka. During their walk, he tore his shoe, and the narrator offered him a pair of fashionable boots. Delighted with the gift, Alexandr decided to accelerate his departure plans.
When the narrator was preparing to leave, a lay brother with an ironical face came to clean the room. Alexandr appeared embarrassed, uncertain whether he should stay or go elsewhere, seemingly ashamed of living at the Monastery's expense. He accompanied the narrator to his carriage, reluctant to part. As they reached level ground, Alexandr jumped out, smiled mournfully, and vanished forever from the narrator's life.
The impressions of the Holy Mountains quickly became memories as the narrator moved on to new landscapes - the level plain, the distant horizon, and a windmill standing motionless in the holiday stillness.