A Problem

Anton Chekhov

THE strictest measures were taken that the Uskovs' family secret might not leak out and

become generally known. Half of the servants were sent off to the theatre or the circus; the

other half were sitting in the kitchen and not allowed to leave it. Orders were given that no

one was to be admitted. The wife of the Colonel, her sister, and the governess, though they

had been initiated into the secret, kept up a pretence of knowing nothing; they sat in the

dining-room and did not show themselves in the drawing-room or the hall.

Sasha Uskov, the young man of twenty-five who was the cause of all the commotion, had

arrived some time before, and by the advice of kind-hearted Ivan Markovitch, his uncle,

mother, were deciding the question whether they should pay the money and save the family

honour, or wash their hands of it and leave the case to go for trial.

To outsiders who have no personal interest in the matter such questions seem simple; for

those who are so unfortunate as to have to decide them in earnest they are extremely

difficult. The uncles had been talking for a long time, but the problem seemed no nearer

decision.

"My friends!" said the uncle who was a colonel, and there was a note of exhaustion and

bitterness in his voice. "Who says that family honour is a mere convention? I don't say that

at all. I am only warning you against a false view; I am pointing out the possibility of an

unpardonable mistake. How can you fail to see it? I am not speaking Chinese; I am

not saving the family honour; it's civic cowardice! Take the army, for instance. . . . The

honour of the army is more precious to us than any other honour, yet we don't screen our

guilty members, but condemn them. And does the honour of the army suffer in

consequence? Quite the opposite!"

The other paternal uncle, an official in the Treasury, a taciturn, dull-witted, and rheumatic

man, sat silent, or spoke only of the fact that the Uskovs' name would get into the

newspapers if the case went for trial. His opinion was that the case ought to be hushed up

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from the first and not become public property; but, apart from publicity in the newspapers,

he advanced no other argument in support of this opinion.

The maternal uncle, kind-hearted Ivan Markovitch, spoke smoothly, softly, and with a

tremor in his voice. He began with saying that youth has its rights and its peculiar

temptations. Which of us has not been young, and who has not been led astray? To say

nothing of ordinary mortals, even great men have not escaped errors and mistakes in their

youth. Take, for instance, the biography of great writers. Did not every one of them gamble,

and the sympathy of all compassionate souls. He ought, of course, to be punished, but he

was punished as it was by his conscience and the agonies he was enduring now while

awaiting the sentence of his relations. The comparison with the army made by the Colonel

was delightful, and did credit to his lofty intelligence; his appeal to their feeling of public

duty spoke for the chivalry of his soul, but they must not forget that in each individual the

citizen is closely linked with the Christian. . . .

"Shall we be false to civic duty," Ivan Markovitch exclaimed passionately, "if instead of

punishing an erring boy we hold out to him a helping hand?"

Ivan Markovitch talked further of family honour. He had not the honour to belong to the

Uskov family himself, but he knew their distinguished family went back to the thirteenth

immoral act founded upon ill-will. But is the will of man free? Philosophy has not yet given

a positive answer to that question. Different views were held by the learned. The latest

school of Lombroso, for instance, denies the freedom of the will, and considers every crime

as the product of the purely anatomical peculiarities of the individual.

"Ivan Markovitch," said the Colonel, in a voice of entreaty, "we are talking seriously about

an important matter, and you bring in Lombroso, you clever fellow. Think a little, what are

you saying all this for? Can you imagine that all your thunderings and rhetoric will furnish

an answer to the question?"

Sasha Uskov sat at the door and listened. He felt neither terror, shame, nor depression, but

only weariness and inward emptiness. It seemed to him that it made absolutely no

"If Siberia, then let it be Siberia, damn it all!"

had not a farthing in his pocket; his family had become detestable to him; he would have to

part from his friends and his women sooner or later, as they had begun to be too

contemptuous of his sponging on them. The future looked black.

Sasha was indifferent, and was only disturbed by one circumstance; the other side of the

"Criminal" is a dreadful word -- that is what murderers, thieves, robbers are; in fact, wicked

and morally hopeless people. And Sasha was very far from being all that. . . . It was true he

owed a great deal and did not pay his debts. But debt is not a crime, and it is unusual for a

man not to be in debt. The Colonel and Ivan Markovitch were both in debt. . . .

"What have I done wrong besides?" Sasha wondered.

He had discounted a forged note. But all the young men he knew did the same. Handrikov

and Von Burst always forged IOU's from their parents or friends when their allowances

redeemed them before they became due. Sasha had done the same, but had not redeemed

the IOU because he had not got the money which Handrikov had promised to lend him. He

"No, it doesn't mean that I am a criminal . . ." thought Sasha. "And it's not in my character

to bring myself to commit a crime. I am soft, emotional. . . . When I have the money I help

the poor. . . ."

Sasha was musing after this fashion while they went on talking the other side of the door.

"But, my friends, this is endless," the Colonel declared, getting excited. "Suppose we were

to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life,

squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can

you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no faith

whatever in his reforming!"

"Come along," he said, taking Sasha by the hand. "Come and speak frankly from your heart.

Without pride, my dear boy, humbly and from your heart."

Sasha went into the study. The official of the Treasury was sitting down; the Colonel was

standing before the table with one hand in his pocket and one knee on a chair. It was smoky

and stifling in the study. Sasha did not look at the official or the Colonel; he felt suddenly

ashamed and uncomfortable. He looked uneasily at Ivan Markovitch and muttered:

Sasha could say no more. He went out of the study and sat down again on the chair near the

door.

He would have been glad to go away altogether at once, but he was choking with hatred and

he awfully wanted to remain, to tear the Colonel to pieces, to say something rude to him.

He sat trying to think of something violent and effective to say to his hated uncle, and at

that moment a woman's figure, shrouded in the twilight, appeared at the drawing-room

door. It was the Colonel's wife. She beckoned Sasha to her, and, wringing her hands, said,

weeping:

"Alexandre, I know you don't like me, but . . . listen to me; listen, I beg you. . . . But, my

dear, how can this have happened? Why, it's awful, awful! For goodness' sake, beg them,

tears nor the quiver of their voices.

An hour later he heard that the Colonel was getting the best of it; the uncles were finally

inclining to let the case go for trial.

"The matter's settled," said the Colonel, sighing. "Enough."

After this decision all the uncles, even the emphatic Colonel, became noticeably depressed.

A silence followed.

"Merciful Heavens!" sighed Ivan Markovitch. "My poor sister!"

The sound of a muffled sob was heard. Ivan Markovitch was weeping and muttering

something which it was impossible to catch through the door. The Colonel got up and

But then the clock in the drawing-room struck two. The family council was over. To avoid

seeing the person who had moved him to such wrath, the Colonel went from the study, not

into the hall, but into the vestibule. . . . Ivan Markovitch came out into the hall. . . . He was

agitated and rubbing his hands joyfully. His tear-stained eyes looked good-humoured and

A minute later Ivan Markovitch and Sasha in their great-coats and caps were going down

the stairs. The uncle was muttering something edifying. Sasha did not listen, but felt as

though some uneasy weight were gradually slipping off his shoulders. They had forgiven

him; he was free! A gust of joy sprang up within him and sent a sweet chill to his heart. He

longed to breathe, to move swiftly, to live! Glancing at the street lamps and the black sky,

he remembered that Von Burst was celebrating his name-day that evening at the "Bear," and

again a rush of joy flooded his soul. . . .

"I am going!" he decided.

But then he remembered he had not a farthing, that the companions he was going to would

despise him at once for his empty pockets. He must get hold of some money, come what

"Give it to me," said Sasha, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other and beginning to

pant. "Uncle, I entreat you, give me a hundred roubles."

His face worked; he trembled, and seemed on the point of attacking his uncle. . . .

"Won't you?" he kept asking, seeing that his uncle was still amazed and did not understand.

"Listen. If you don't, I'll give myself up tomorrow! I won't let you pay the IOU! I'll present

another false note tomorrow!"

Petrified, muttering something incoherent in his horror, Ivan Markovitch took a hundred-

rouble note out of his pocket-book and gave it to Sasha. The young man took it and walked

rapidly away from him. . . .

bottles, the women, and his friends, the thought flashed through his mind:

"Now I see that I am a criminal; yes, I am a criminal."

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