{"id":27233,"date":"2026-03-29T12:17:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=27233"},"modified":"2026-03-29T12:17:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:17:04","slug":"anton-chekhov-sleepy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/anton-chekhov-sleepy\/27233\/","title":{"rendered":"Anton Chekhov: Sleepy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis:<\/strong> \u201cSleepy\u201d (\u0421\u043f\u0430\u0442\u044c \u0445\u043e\u0447\u0435\u0442\u0441\u044f) is a short story by Anton Chekhov published in 1888 in the Peterburgskaya Gazeta<\/em>. It tells the story of Varka, a young girl who works as a maid and is tasked with caring for a child who cries incessantly at night. One night, when she is utterly exhausted, as she struggles to fight off the overwhelming drowsiness, Varka experiences a series of visions and memories that intertwine with her reality, reflecting her deep fatigue and her desire to sleep. After two sleepless nights, Varka is at the end of her strength, and her body desperately begs her to do something to find peace and rest.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Anton<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sleepy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anton Chekhov
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NIGHT. Varka, the little nurse, a girl of thirteen, is rocking the cradle in which the baby is lying, and humming hardly audibly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHush-a-bye, my baby wee,
While I sing a song for thee.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little green lamp is burning before the ikon; there is a string stretched from one end of the room to the other, on which baby-clothes and a pair of big black trousers are hanging. There is a big patch of green on the ceiling from the ikon lamp, and the baby-clothes and the trousers throw long shadows on the stove, on the cradle, and on Varka…. When the lamp begins to flicker, the green patch and the shadows come to life, and are set in motion, as though by the wind. It is stuffy. There is a smell of cabbage soup, and of the inside of a boot-shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The baby\u2019s crying. For a long while he has been hoarse and exhausted with crying; but he still goes on screaming, and there is no knowing when he will stop. And Varka is sleepy. Her eyes are glued together, her head droops, her neck aches. She cannot move her eyelids or her lips, and she feels as though her face is dried and wooden, as though her head has become as small as the head of a pin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHush-a-bye, my baby wee,\u201d she hums, \u201cwhile I cook the groats for thee…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A cricket is churring in the stove. Through the door in the next room the master and the apprentice Afanasy are snoring…. The cradle creaks plaintively, Varka murmurs \u2014 and it all blends into that soothing music of the night to which it is so sweet to listen, when one is lying in bed. Now that music is merely irritating and oppressive, because it goads her to sleep, and she must not sleep; if Varka \u2014 God forbid! \u2014 should fall asleep, her master and mistress would beat her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lamp flickers. The patch of green and the shadows are set in motion, forcing themselves on Varka\u2019s fixed, half-open eyes, and in her half slumbering brain are fashioned into misty visions. She sees dark clouds chasing one another over the sky, and screaming like the baby. But then the wind blows, the clouds are gone, and Varka sees a broad high road covered with liquid mud; along the high road stretch files of wagons, while people with wallets on their backs are trudging along and shadows flit backwards and forwards; on both sides she can see forests through the cold harsh mist. All at once the people with their wallets and their shadows fall on the ground in the liquid mud. \u201cWhat is that for?\u201d Varka asks. \u201cTo sleep, to sleep!\u201d they answer her. And they fall sound asleep, and sleep sweetly, while crows and magpies sit on the telegraph wires, scream like the baby, and try to wake them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHush-a-bye, my baby wee, and I will sing a song to thee,\u201d murmurs Varka, and now she sees herself in a dark stuffy hut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her dead father, Yefim Stepanov, is tossing from side to side on the floor. She does not see him, but she hears him moaning and rolling on the floor from pain. \u201cHis guts have burst,\u201d as he says; the pain is so violent that he cannot utter a single word, and can only draw in his breath and clack his teeth like the rattling of a drum:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoo \u2014 boo \u2014 boo \u2014 boo…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her mother, Pelageya, has run to the master\u2019s house to say that Yefim is dying. She has been gone a long time, and ought to be back. Varka lies awake on the stove, and hears her father\u2019s \u201cboo \u2014 boo \u2014 boo.\u201d And then she hears someone has driven up to the hut. It is a young doctor from the town, who has been sent from the big house where he is staying on a visit. The doctor comes into the hut; he cannot be seen in the darkness, but he can be heard coughing and rattling the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLight a candle,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoo \u2014 boo \u2014 boo,\u201d answers Yefim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pelageya rushes to the stove and begins looking for the broken pot with the matches. A minute passes in silence. The doctor, feeling in his pocket, lights a match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a minute, sir, in a minute,\u201d says Pelageya. She rushes out of the hut, and soon afterwards comes back with a bit of candle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yefim\u2019s cheeks are rosy and his eyes are shining, and there is a peculiar keenness in his glance, as though he were seeing right through the hut and the doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCome, what is it? What are you thinking about?\u201d says the doctor, bending down to him. \u201cAha! have you had this long?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat? Dying, your honour, my hour has come…. I am not to stay among the living.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t talk nonsense! We will cure you!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s as you please, your honour, we humbly thank you, only we understand…. Since death has come, there it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doctor spends a quarter of an hour over Yefim, then he gets up and says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can do nothing. You must go into the hospital, there they will operate on you. Go at once… You must go! It\u2019s rather late, they will all be asleep in the hospital, but that doesn\u2019t matter, I will give you a note. Do you hear?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKind sir, but what can he go in?\u201d says Pelageya. \u201cWe have no horse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever mind. I\u2019ll ask your master, he\u2019ll let you have a horse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doctor goes away, the candle goes out, and again there is the sound of \u201cboo \u2014 boo \u2014 boo.\u201d Half an hour later someone drives up to the hut. A cart has been sent to take Yefim to the hospital. He gets ready and goes….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now it is a clear bright morning. Pelageya is not at home; she has gone to the hospital to find what is being done to Yefim. Somewhere there is a baby crying, and Varka hears someone singing with her own voice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHush-a-bye, my baby wee, I will sing a song to thee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pelageya comes back; she crosses herself and whispers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey put him to rights in the night, but towards morning he gave up his soul to God…. The Kingdom of Heaven be his and peace everlasting…. They say he was taken too late…. He ought to have gone sooner…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varka goes out into the road and cries there, but all at once someone hits her on the back of her head so hard that her forehead knocks against a birch tree. She raises her eyes, and sees facing her, her master, the shoemaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you about, you scabby slut?\u201d he says. \u201cThe child is crying, and you are asleep!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gives her a sharp slap behind the ear, and she shakes her head, rocks the cradle, and murmurs her song. The green patch and the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes move up and down, nod to her, and soon take possession of her brain again. Again she sees the high road covered with liquid mud. The people with wallets on their backs and the shadows have lain down and are fast asleep. Looking at them, Varka has a passionate longing for sleep; she would lie down with enjoyment, but her mother Pelageya is walking beside her, hurrying her on. They are hastening together to the town to find situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive alms, for Christ\u2019s sake!\u201d her mother begs of the people they meet. \u201cShow us the Divine Mercy, kind-hearted gentlefolk!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive the baby here!\u201d a familiar voice answers. \u201cGive the baby here!\u201d the same voice repeats, this time harshly and angrily. \u201cAre you asleep, you wretched girl?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varka jumps up, and looking round grasps what is the matter: there is no high road, no Pelageya, no people meeting them, there is only her mistress, who has come to feed the baby, and is standing in the middle of the room. While the stout, broad-shouldered woman nurses the child and soothes it, Varka stands looking at her and waiting till she has done. And outside the windows the air is already turning blue, the shadows and the green patch on the ceiling are visibly growing pale, it will soon be morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTake him,\u201d says her mistress, buttoning up her chemise over her bosom; \u201che is crying. He must be bewitched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varka takes the baby, puts him in the cradle and begins rocking it again. The green patch and the shadows gradually disappear, and now there is nothing to force itself on her eyes and cloud her brain. But she is as sleepy as before, fearfully sleepy! Varka lays her head on the edge of the cradle, and rocks her whole body to overcome her sleepiness, but yet her eyes are glued together, and her head is heavy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, heat the stove!\u201d she hears the master\u2019s voice through the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it is time to get up and set to work. Varka leaves the cradle, and runs to the shed for firewood. She is glad. When one moves and runs about, one is not so sleepy as when one is sitting down. She brings the wood, heats the stove, and feels that her wooden face is getting supple again, and that her thoughts are growing clearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, set the samovar!\u201d shouts her mistress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varka splits a piece of wood, but has scarcely time to light the splinters and put them in the samovar, when she hears a fresh order:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, clean the master\u2019s goloshes!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She sits down on the floor, cleans the goloshes, and thinks how nice it would be to put her head into a big deep golosh, and have a little nap in it…. And all at once the golosh grows, swells, fills up the whole room. Varka drops the brush, but at once shakes her head, opens her eyes wide, and tries to look at things so that they may not grow big and move before her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, wash the steps outside; I am ashamed for the customers to see them!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varka washes the steps, sweeps and dusts the rooms, then heats another stove and runs to the shop. There is a great deal of work: she hasn\u2019t one minute free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But nothing is so hard as standing in the same place at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. Her head droops over the table, the potatoes dance before her eyes, the knife tumbles out of her hand while her fat, angry mistress is moving about near her with her sleeves tucked up, talking so loud that it makes a ringing in Varka\u2019s ears. It is agonising, too, to wait at dinner, to wash, to sew, there are minutes when she longs to flop on to the floor regardless of everything, and to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day passes. Seeing the windows getting dark, Varka presses her temples that feel as though they were made of wood, and smiles, though she does not know why. The dusk of evening caresses her eyes that will hardly keep open, and promises her sound sleep soon. In the evening visitors come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, set the samovar!\u201d shouts her mistress. The samovar is a little one, and before the visitors have drunk all the tea they want, she has to heat it five times. After tea Varka stands for a whole hour on the same spot, looking at the visitors, and waiting for orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, run and buy three bottles of beer!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She starts off, and tries to run as quickly as she can, to drive away sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, fetch some vodka! Varka, where\u2019s the corkscrew? Varka, clean a herring!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, at last, the visitors have gone; the lights are put out, the master and mistress go to bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVarka, rock the baby!\u201d she hears the last order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cricket churrs in the stove; the green patch on the ceiling and the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes force themselves on Varka\u2019s half-opened eyes again, wink at her and cloud her mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHush-a-bye, my baby wee,\u201d she murmurs, \u201cand I will sing a song to thee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the baby screams, and is worn out with screaming. Again Varka sees the muddy high road, the people with wallets, her mother Pelageya, her father Yefim. She understands everything, she recognises everyone, but through her half sleep she cannot understand the force which binds her, hand and foot, weighs upon her, and prevents her from living. She looks round, searches for that force that she may escape from it, but she cannot find it. At last, tired to death, she does her very utmost, strains her eyes, looks up at the flickering green patch, and listening to the screaming, finds the foe who will not let her live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That foe is the baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She laughs. It seems strange to her that she has failed to grasp such a simple thing before. The green patch, the shadows, and the cricket seem to laugh and wonder too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hallucination takes possession of Varka. She gets up from her stool, and with a broad smile on her face and wide unblinking eyes, she walks up and down the room. She feels pleased and tickled at the thought that she will be rid directly of the baby that binds her hand and foot…. Kill the baby and then sleep, sleep, sleep….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laughing and winking and shaking her fingers at the green patch, Varka steals up to the cradle and bends over the baby. When she has strangled him, she quickly lies down on the floor, laughs with delight that she can sleep, and in a minute is sleeping as sound as the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSleepy\u201d (\u0421\u043f\u0430\u0442\u044c \u0445\u043e\u0447\u0435\u0442\u0441\u044f) is a short story by Anton Chekhov published in 1888 in the Peterburgskaya Gazeta. It tells the story of Varka, a young girl who works as a maid and is tasked with caring for a child who cries incessantly at night. One night, when she is utterly exhausted, as she struggles to fight off the overwhelming drowsiness, Varka experiences a series of visions and memories that intertwine with her reality, reflecting her deep fatigue and her desire to sleep. After two sleepless nights, Varka is at the end of her strength, and her body desperately begs her to do something to find peace and rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[564,630,585],"class_list":["post-27233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-anton-chekhov","tag-realism","tag-russia","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":564,"label":"Anton Chekhov"},{"value":630,"label":"Realism"},{"value":585,"label":"Russia"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Anton-Chejov-El-enemigo2.webp",1024,1024,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":420,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":420,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":564,"name":"Anton Chekhov","slug":"anton-chekhov","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":564,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":630,"name":"Realism","slug":"realism","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":630,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":52,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":585,"name":"Russia","slug":"russia","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":585,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":5,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27234,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27233\/revisions\/27234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}