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    Small Fry by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

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    Nevyrazimov is a petty clerk who is working on Easter night while others celebrate. He feels depressed being stuck in his dreary office while hearing church bells and carriage noises from the festivities outside. He thinks about how he wants a better life with more comforts and status, like the people he sees passing by. As he struggles to finish a congratulatory letter to his superior, he grows angrier at his hopeless situation and lack of opportunities for advancement. He considers stealing or writing a secret report to get ahead, but knows he lacks the skills or education to pull it off. In frustration, he kills a cockroach that was bothering him.

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    Small Fry by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

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    api-19787590
    14 views4 pages
    Nevyrazimov is a petty clerk who is working on Easter night while others celebrate. He feels depressed being stuck in his dreary office while hearing church bells and carriage noises from the festivities outside. He thinks about how he wants a better life with more comforts and status, like the people he sees passing by. As he struggles to finish a congratulatory letter to his superior, he grows angrier at his hopeless situation and lack of opportunities for advancement. He considers stealing or writing a secret report to get ahead, but knows he lacks the skills or education to pull it off. In frustration, he kills a cockroach that was bothering him.

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    Nevyrazimov is a petty clerk who is working on Easter night while others celebrate. He feels depressed being stuck in his dreary office while hearing church bells and carriage noises from the festivities outside. He thinks about how he wants a better life with more comforts and status, like the people he sees passing by. As he struggles to finish a congratulatory letter to his superior, he grows angrier at his hopeless situation and lack of opportunities for advancement. He considers stealing or writing a secret report to get ahead, but knows he lacks the skills or education to pull it off. In frustration, he kills a cockroach that was bothering him.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as pdf or txt
    14 views4 pages

    Small Fry by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

    Uploaded by

    api-19787590
    Nevyrazimov is a petty clerk who is working on Easter night while others celebrate. He feels depressed being stuck in his dreary office while hearing church bells and carriage noises from the festivities outside. He thinks about how he wants a better life with more comforts and status, like the people he sees passing by. As he struggles to finish a congratulatory letter to his superior, he grows angrier at his hopeless situation and lack of opportunities for advancement. He considers stealing or writing a secret report to get ahead, but knows he lacks the skills or education to pull it off. In frustration, he kills a cockroach that was bothering him.

    Copyright:

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    Compiled by ShortStoryClassics

    Small Fry

    By

    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

    "HONORED Sir, Father and Benefactor!" a petty clerk called Nevyrazimov was
    writing a rough copy of an Easter congratulatory letter. "I trust that you may
    spend this Holy Day even as many more to come, in good health and prosperity.
    And to your family also I . . ."

    The lamp, in which the kerosene was getting low, was smoking and smelling. A
    stray cockroach was running about the table in alarm near Nevyrazimov's writing
    hand. Two rooms away from the office Paramon the porter was for the third time
    cleaning his best boots, and with such energy that the sound of the blacking-
    brush and of his expectorations was audible in all the rooms.

    "What else can I write to him, the rascal?" Nevyrazimov wondered, raising his
    eyes to the smutty ceiling.

    On the ceiling he saw a dark circle -- the shadow of the lamp-shade. Below it was
    the dusty cornice, and lower still the wall, which had once been painted a bluish
    muddy color. And the office seemed to him such a place of desolation that he felt
    sorry, not only for himself, but even for the cockroach.

    "When I am off duty I shall go away, but he'll be on duty here all his cockroach-
    life," he thought, stretching. "I am bored! Shall I clean my boots?"

    And stretching once more, Nevyrazimov slouched lazily to the porter's room.
    Paramon had finished cleaning his boots. Crossing himself with one hand and
    holding the brush in the other, he was standing at the open window-pane,
    listening.

    "They're ringing," he whispered to Nevyrazimov, looking at him with eyes intent


    and wide open. "Already!"

    Nevyrazimov put his ear to the open pane and listened. The Easter chimes floated
    into the room with a whiff of fresh spring air. The booming of the bells mingled
    with the rumble of carriages, and above the chaos of sounds rose the brisk tenor
    tones of the nearest church and a loud shrill laugh.
    "What a lot of people!" sighed Nevyrazimov, looking down into the street, where
    shadows of men flitted one after another by the illumination lamps. "They're all
    hurrying to the midnight service. . . . Our fellows have had a drink by now, you
    may be sure, and are strolling about the town. What a lot of laughter, what a lot of
    talk! I'm the only unlucky one, to have to sit here on such a day: And I have to do
    it every year!"

    "Well, nobody forces you to take the job. It's not your turn to be on duty today,
    but Zastupov hired you to take his place. When other folks are enjoying
    themselves you hire yourself out. It's greediness!"

    "Devil a bit of it! Not much to be greedy over -- two roubles is all he gives me; a
    necktie as an extra. . . . It's poverty, not greediness. And it would be jolly, now,
    you know, to be going with a party to the service, and then to break the fast. . . .
    To drink and to have a bit of supper and tumble off to sleep. . . . One sits down to
    the table, there's an Easter cake and the samovar hissing, and some charming
    little thing beside you. . . . You drink a glass and chuck her under the chin, and it's
    first-rate. . . . You feel you're somebody. . . . Ech h-h! . . . I've made a mess of
    things! Look at that hussy driving by in her carriage, while I have to sit here and
    brood."

    "We each have our lot in life, Ivan Danilitch. Please God, you'll be promoted and
    drive about in your carriage one day."

    "I? No, brother, not likely. I shan't get beyond a 'titular,' not if I try till I burst. I'm
    not an educated man."

    "Our General has no education either, but . . ."

    "Well, but the General stole a hundred thousand before he got his position. And
    he's got very different manners and deportment from me, brother. With my
    manners and deportment one can't get far! And such a scoundrelly surname,
    Nevyrazimov! It's a hopeless position, in fact. One may go on as one is, or one
    may hang oneself . . ."

    He moved away from the window and walked wearily about the rooms. The din of
    the bells grew louder and louder. . . . There was no need to stand by the window
    to hear it. And the better he could hear the bells and the louder the roar of the
    carriages, the darker seemed the muddy walls and the smutty cornice and the
    more the lamp smoked.

    "Shall I hook it and leave the office?" thought Nevyrazimov.

    But such a flight promised nothing worth having. . . . After coming out of the
    office and wandering about the town, Nevyrazimov would have gone home to his
    lodging, and in his lodging it was even grayer and more depressing than in the
    office. . . . Even supposing he were to spend that day pleasantly and with comfort,
    what had he beyond? Nothing but the same gray walls, the same stop-gap duty
    and complimentary letters. . . .
    Nevyrazimov stood still in the middle of the office and sank into thought. The
    yearning for a new, better life gnawed at his heart with an intolerable ache. He
    had a passionate longing to find himself suddenly in the street, to mingle with the
    living crowd, to take part in the solemn festivity for the sake of which all those
    bells were clashing and those carriages were rumbling. He longed for what he had
    known in childhood -- the family circle, the festive faces of his own people, the
    white cloth, light, warmth . . . ! He thought of the carriage in which the lady had
    just driven by, the overcoat in which the head clerk was so smart, the gold chain
    that adorned the secretary's chest. . . . He thought of a warm bed, of the Stanislav
    order, of new boots, of a uniform without holes in the elbows. . . . He thought of
    all those things because he had none of them.

    "Shall I steal?" he thought. "Even if stealing is an easy matter, hiding is what's


    difficult. Men run away to America, they say, with what they've stolen, but the
    devil knows where that blessed America is. One must have education even to
    steal, it seems."

    The bells died down. He heard only a distant noise of carriages and Paramon's
    cough, while his depression and anger grew more and more intense and
    unbearable. The clock in the office struck half-past twelve.

    "Shall I write a secret report? Proshkin did, and he rose rapidly."

    Nevyrazimov sat down at his table and pondered. The lamp in which the kerosene
    had quite run dry was smoking violently and threatening to go out. The stray
    cockroach was still running about the table and had found no resting-place.

    "One can always send in a secret report, but how is one to make it up? I should
    want to make all sorts of innuendoes and insinuations, like Proshkin, and I can't
    do it. If I made up anything I should be the first to get into trouble for it. I'm an
    ass, damn my soul!"

    And Nevyrazimov, racking his brain for a means of escape from his hopeless
    position, stared at the rough copy he had written. The letter was written to a man
    whom he feared and hated with his whole soul, and from whom he had for the
    last ten years been trying to wring a post worth eighteen roubles a month, instead
    of the one he had at sixteen roubles.

    "Ah, I'll teach you to run here, you devil!" He viciously slapped the palm of his
    hand on the cockroach, who had the misfortune to catch his eye. "Nasty thing!"

    The cockroach fell on its back and wriggled its legs in despair. Nevyrazimov took
    it by one leg and threw it into the lamp. The lamp flared up and spluttered.

    And Nevyrazimov felt better.

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    Compiled by ShortStoryClassics

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